What In The World Is BDSM?
Fair warning: When you conduct your own search, most likely, there will be pictures. If you’re not ready for what you’re about to see, it will be fifty shades of DISTURBING.
For the record, BDSM stands for:
- Bondage
- Dominating
- Sadism
- Masochism
I’ll let you do your own search for the full explanation.
This isn’t BDSM 101. I’m not going to explain it to you.
Second warning: When you conduct your own search, most likely, there will be pictures.
This stuff is light years BEYOND Fifty Shades of Gray.
It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s FOR SURE.
Once again, I couldn’t care less what two consenting adults do behind closed doors. Truly.
Regardless, I “matched,” yet again, with a man on an online dating app, and we were texting – we hadn’t even made it to the phone call part of the vetting process.
Let me say it one more time for the OLD, DEAF GEEZERS WITH THEIR MIRACLE EAR GIZMOS TURNED DOWN:
Online dating is a hallucinogenic fishbowl of certifiable crazy!
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, maybe my previous statement no longer holds true.
Damn, I hope so.
Maybe – just maybe – there are so many people now confined to their homes, that there are better odds of meeting the love of your life online.
That’s my positive spin for the day.
So this complete-stranger-of-a-man and I are texting. It’s later in the evening … oh, about 9:00PM.
And all of a sudden, I receive a texted picture of a teddy bear in leather bondage with studs throughout, and the teddy bear has ball gag in its mouth.
My hand to God, I swear this is the truth.
After staring at my phone for a second or two, I receive another text asking me, “So, what do you think?”
I wondered if this man is joking, because he types well and seems intelligent.
I send back the response of, “That teddy bear can’t come to the phone right now. He’s all tied up.”
The response that came back was, “LOL. Yeah. You’re into this, aren’t you?”
That response made me wonder what my profile said or what I’d previously texted that would give this guy the impression that I’m “into” this.
“I can’t say that I am,” I reply.
The random man on the other end of the phone launches into his justification of why he’s “into” BDSM, and how it strengthens the trust and bond (pun intended) between two, consenting adults.
While the barrage of texts are appearing on my phone’s screen, so are dozens of pictures of various types of bondage with ropes, leather, leashes and whips – each more disturbing than the others.
I begin to type my response of, “I’m blocking you now. Please don’t ever approach me if you see me in person in town,” when I receive the most disturbing text of them all:
“I’ve done a reverse search of your phone number, and I have your home address.”
What the…WHAT???
All of the blood drained out of my face.
I went numb as I read it.
I sat there, in my bed, with my two little dogs softly snoring beside me, and pondered what to text back – IF I should text back.
Each second that clicked by seemed like a lifetime, as a ton of scenarios of this weirdo showing up at my front door – or worse, breaking in and showing up inside my home – raced through my mind.
I was genuinely frightened.
How naïve I’d been! I was giving these complete strangers my personal cell phone number, thinking that I’d just block them if I no longer wanted to hear from them.
It had never occurred to me that I was giving away so much personal information – and my personal safety – by simply exchanging phone numbers.
Wondering how many other random strangers had searched my home address, Facebook page, etc., my response was direct and concise:
“Please do not contact me ever again, either online, on the phone or in person. If you come to my home uninvited, you had better be bulletproof.”
I blocked the number and probably didn’t sleep well for a month.
This little shocker of an interlude also cured me of considering online dating as “entertainment.”
In fact, it scared me so much that I cancelled my subscription and deleted my profile from the online dating site, and stayed away from online dating for a couple of months.
You never know who you’re interacting with.
PLEASE BE CAREFUL.
Tip #1: Never give anyone you meet online your personal information (Full name, address, phone number, etc.).
Tip #2: Call or text, if you feel comfortable, but block your number first.
Tip #3: Always report the scary freaks to the dating site. You’re not the only one this person has done a reverse search on. Get them banned from the online dating site. You may be saving another person from harm or worse.
Be smarter than I was.
Listen to your gut.
More soon,
-A