On Domination, Impact and the Awakening of Cruelty

I think all human beings carry a sadistic side somewhere within them.

Not necessarily evil.

Not necessarily dangerous.

But present.

You can sometimes see fragments of it already in childhood. In strange games. In curiosity around power. In the fascination with controlling things smaller or weaker than oneself. Children pull wings from insects, create elaborate punishments for toys, invent hierarchies instinctively before morality fully settles into the body.

Most women, however, are taught very early to disconnect from this side of themselves.

To soften.

To care.

To soothe.

To absorb violence rather than express it.

So when sadism appears inside a woman it can feel shocking even to herself.

I discovered mine unexpectedly one night at KitKatClub in Berlin.

There was a man there. Older, but still beautiful in a tired elegant way. Not the kind of man I thought I wanted that evening. I had arrived hungry for the opposite — someone dominant enough to overpower me completely. Someone dangerous enough to undo me.

But this man awakened something else instead.

He approached me softly.

Bought me drinks.

Stayed close without demanding anything.

And then, while I sat at the bar watching the room searching for potential men, he quietly asked if he could massage my feet.

I remember looking down at him there beneath me and suddenly feeling something strange moving inside myself. He looked beautiful there. Patient. Devoted. Almost contained.

Like I possessed him for a moment.

Not romantically.

Possession in another sense.

As if he had willingly placed himself inside my atmosphere.

He carried a whip with him. Not one of the softer theatrical ones. Something heavier. More severe. He eventually asked if I would use it on him.

I initially refused. I told him I did not feel like performing. Did not feel like trying to carefully calculate another person’s reactions or desires all night.

And then he said something important:

“You do not have to do it correctly. Just do what you want.”

That sentence changed everything.

Because suddenly the encounter stopped being service and became permission.

I remember hearing myself say:

“Then I will do it hard.”

”Then I will hurt you.”

And I surprised myself when I said it.

Not because I wanted to “play dominant” in some aesthetic sense. But because something genuinely cruel and intoxicating had already started awakening in me through his surrender.

His willingness.

His obedience.

His desire to endure for me.

And what shocked me most was not his masochism.

It was my own pleasure.

He had answered ”yes”

The feeling of power became almost chemical. Like intoxication. To realize another person had voluntarily handed over control so completely. That I could reward or punish. Approve or deny. That another body was emotionally orienting itself around my will.

I suddenly understood why domination can feel addictive for some people.

Not because of violence itself.

But because power alters perception.

The dominant person stops feeling merely human for a moment. They become larger than themselves. Archetypal almost. Judge. Goddess. Owner. Destroyer. Caretaker. All at once.

And I think this is why domination and impact play can become so psychologically overwhelming. It is not merely pain people seek. It is transformation. Ritualized power. The suspension of ordinary social equality.

To become object.

Pet.

Tool.

Worshipper.

Punished thing.

Or the opposite.

To become the one who decides.

The one before whom another person kneels willingly.

People looked at us shocked that night.

Some fascinated.

Some laughing nervously.

Some almost horrified.

And I understood them.

Because something had crossed over from performance into sincerity.

I hurt him.

He wanted it.

He enjoyed it.

And I was intoxicated by it.

Not only sexually. Something deeper and stranger than that. The feeling of power moving directly through another human body. The realization that another person could willingly place themselves beneath your will so completely.

He was trembling with desire.

Hard.

Breathing heavily.

His body marked by the night.

And I remember becoming aware of my own body too. The wetness between my legs. The adrenaline moving through me almost violently. My own excitement frightening me slightly because of how real it was.

His back carried traces of everything that had happened between us. The whip. My nails. The pressure from my heels after he begged me to walk across him.

And still he looked at me almost gratefully.

That perhaps disturbed me most of all.

I think people imagine sadism as hatred sometimes. But what I encountered that night was something more complicated. A dark collaboration. A mutual descent into instinct. He desired surrender with complete sincerity, and in response something ancient and cruel awakened inside me.

Not cruelty born from anger.

Cruelty born from permission.

The permission to stop softening myself constantly.

To stop moderating force.

To stop protecting.

And for a few hours inside the red darkness of Berlin, surrounded by strangers staring at us with fascination and discomfort, I understood something uncomfortable about human beings:

Power itself can become erotic.

I think many women are frightened of this side within themselves because female cruelty is culturally treated as more taboo than male cruelty. A dominant man is expected. A sadistic woman unsettles people more deeply because she disrupts what femininity is supposed to look like.

But perhaps this side has always existed quietly underneath softness.

Waiting for permission.

Waiting for surrender.

Waiting for someone to awaken it.