I use one of the many BDSM social sites to find events and keep track of my far flung friends. I also use it to talk to new people in my local area. We were all new to the lifestyle once, and I enjoy reaching out to answer questions or reassurance.

The thing I hear the most is that a lot of women, and men, are afraid to come out because, while they are interested in the lifestyle, are dying to find out more and want desperately to leave the security of their computer screens and join the party, they are afraid to because they do not have the typical body they see on the BDSM porn sites.

I always laugh at that one. Nobody I know has the body seen on the kinky porn sites. I do not understand why it is that perfectly reasonable women and men who are well aware that the bodies they see in vanilla porn are not the bodies that they will see in their own sex lives–at least not normally–honestly believe that all kinky people must be built like porn stars.

I always rush to reassure people that that is not true. I tell them to look at the profiles of people that I know well, and that I know post very raw and real pictures of themselves, so that they can see that there is a lot of diversity in body types within the kinky community.

But mostly I encourage them to shut off the computer and come out. There are many ways to meet people in real time. There are munches (meetings at restaurants that serve the dual purpose of meeting the kinky folks and being vetted by them all at once), conferences and public dungeons that host all sorts of different events, often several times a month.

I hear a lot of questions when I say that. I hear, “But what will I wear, and what will I do, and mostly, but what if people think I am too big, skinny, tall, short, old, bald?” (Yes someone asked me that one once, too.)

My answer is always the same. Come out and meet us. And often they do. I have seen people walk into a dungeon with fear on their faces, their shoulders hunched over protectively, and their vulnerability out and on display. They are afraid that they will not fit in, until they look around and see the incredible array of bodies on display. Then everything changes.

It is amazing to watch a person look around themselves for the first time. It is an incredible thing to see them realize that they are not alone in being outside what the media portrays as beautiful, and to see them realize that it matters not at all. On the other side of that, as someone who once walked into a munch convinced nobody would think me pretty and walked out with compliments still buzzing in my ears, I can tell you it is both awesome and affirming to know that you fit somewhere, that there is no such thing as a person who has no niche.

BDSM is perhaps the most forgiving of all lifestyles. No, I will not say that no prejudices exist, that there are not people who are seeking their ideal of physical perfection and so on, but those people are the exception rather than the norm. I have been hurt by a man who first hit on me and then called me every name in the book from old, flapjacks for tits (yes, really) to trailer park trash, because I said no to his advances for many reasons, not the least of which is that I am a lesbian and proud of it, and did not think he could change that fact, although he insisted that he could. I am happy to say he was yanked out of the play space we were in and has never been allowed back in.

I am 42 years old and a size 13. I have been a size 22, and a size 5. I am happy where I am at. I am at peace in my body. I have a sexy little belly, thick thighs, muscular calves, and big tits that do not stand up like a historical romance heroine’s unless they are in a push-up bra or a corset. I have cellulite on the back of my thighs and ass. I am hardly the ideal beauty as set forth by the media, but I will strip naked in a play space in a flat second and feel not one ounce of shame.

I have scars and wrinkles. I have stretch marks and tattoos. My body tells a story. I have no idea, nor do I care what it might say to you. What it says to me is that I am at home in it. I live here within this envelope of flesh and bone and I love my home.

The most beautiful woman I know is in her late sixties. She looks forty, but that is hardly the reason why I find her so gorgeous. She is proud of every inch of her skin; she has such pride of ownership that it shines out of her very pores. In the dungeons there are many women and men her age, many bodies whose skin reminds me of lovely pleated silk, many whose hair has grayed, and yet there they are, walking proudly through the other bodies, and belonging.

In the lifestyle, we are perhaps more equipped to handle differences because of our sexual desires and impulses. I have often pondered if our willingness to simply not see anything wrong or bad in things like weight, or age, or the bodies of those who are in transition, is due to our being so different from, well, most of the world in what we want and need and find acceptable.

To people who consider marks pretty, and scars a badge of courage and beauty perhaps we simply do not care that people have blemishes and faults; it is the skin itself that is the canvas. Or maybe it is the fact that while my ass may be too big for me to buy jeans at many of the stores in NYC, in the dungeons that is not looked upon as a bad thing. In fact, my fat ass is a good thing, more canvas and cushion, you see.

It could be because so much of what we do is done mentally and emotionally. The terms headspace or sub and topspace get tossed about a lot, and anyone can look them up online, but until you have been there, until you have been taken completely out of your own skin and reduced to nothing more than nerves and need, you simply will not understand it. Our outer bodies have little to do with that side of it. When you get caught in your headspace, you literally forget that you have flesh. That feeling of weightlessness, of flying, is what we play for. Power is what we are interested in, not the false trappings of it. Beauty is not power, playing for the football team is not power, money and so on…not power. To us, power is the ability to control or to surrender control. BDSM is empowering for many people who cannot find acceptance in other places.

As a plus sized woman I went to many of the vanilla nightclubs and was ignored if not outright shunned. I lost one hundred pounds and everyone said hello, which taught me a hard lesson. In my community nobody spoke to me that had not spoken to me before unless it was simply because we had never met before that moment. My weight loss was not an issue or factor in who wanted to talk to me.

Could that be because while we do look at each other, our concept of what is hot and not is based more on imagery less understandable than just a nice pair of tits or a cute ass? In a dungeon, a man wearing a dress and kissing his Femdom’s feet is hot, but nobody is likely to give a porn star bodied woman a second glance, unless she is doing some really hot scene. In other words, it is the activity we find sexy, and the body is secondary to that at times.

I suppose it could be any of those reasons, it could be none of them. I imagine some would say that BDSM calls out to people who are already operating outside the norm by virtue of their bodies, but to tell the truth there are many people who have great bodies, by anyone’s standards, who happen to like rough sex, so that is likely not true, in and of itself, either.

I have wondered if it is due to our love of high theatre. We give ourselves ‘scene’ names, and dress up is not a game, it is an accepted way to exist. Steam punks hobnob with vampires, and leather is at home next to fishnets, and so on. We rarely look at things as being outrageous or over the top, even if they are.

What I know to be true is this: Body image in BDSM is rarely an issue. Most of us like our bodies, and those of us who don’t, find ways to change it. That might be through weight loss or scarification, tattoos or whatever else there is on offer these days. But most of us do like our bodies and do not want to change them. We are usually more focused on more important things, like what time the vending room will open because we lost our favorite flogger or cane or need a scalpel set.

Is there a perfect body for BDSM? Hell yes. Yours. Bring it on in here….