Desire and Longing, Part Two: Playing With Wanting

Our attraction to BDSM is often because we can play with our “wanting” in ways that are not always culturally acceptable. We bring erotic charge to our exploration of more hidden desires and longings. Deliberately playing with what we want, and how we respond to each other’s wanting, gives us more possibilities for creating an experience together. When somebody is able to disclose an unusual or subversive desire to their partner and share in the enjoyment of it, that can create profound intimacy and connection.

Where Wanting Tightens

The first thing we’ll discuss is fixation. When participants become fixated on an outcome, experiencing it exactly as they have pictured can become more important than noticing how it actually feels. They may be waiting for an exact line or an exact inflection, constantly judging whether the scene is meeting those expectations. That constant judgment takes attention away from their own experience and from responding to the other person. There is less room for what another human’s creativity could bring to the scene. In my sessions, I’ve rarely seen somebody leave happy when they are striving to have every detail met exactly.

The Heat of the Chase

We can chase desires and play with fixation consciously, too. Begging to be touched is one example. Here the fixation is an intense focus on what we want, with room to respond to each other as we pursue it. There is interplay and a shared enjoyment in the pursuit. The submissive is not constantly judging whether they’re getting their fantasy met. They’re experiencing the sensations of their fixation, paying attention to how I respond and what that creates for them. The playful exchange becomes the tension.

The Dominant Wants Too

A Dominant can also become fixated on being served a certain way or eliciting particular responses from their submissive. That pursuit can be enjoyable when they’re engaged in the game, noticing how the submissive responds and building the scene around those responses. But when a particular outcome or sequence becomes too important, they can stop allowing the submissive’s responses to shape what they choose next.

Holding the Want

Suppressing a desire is not the same as choosing not to act on it. Choosing not to act on a desire doesn’t mean we have to stop wanting it. In BDSM, that wanting may be exactly what we’re enjoying. We can hold back and still feel the urge, express it to our partner, and notice how it changes as we play. Trying to push the wanting out of awareness is a different process. Research on thought suppression has found that thoughts can return more frequently after we try to suppress them. Other research found that trained suppression of feared thoughts reduced their vividness and distress.[2][3] Neither study tells us what denial does in a BDSM scene. The distinction that matters here is that we can choose what we do while still allowing ourselves to feel what we want.

That same distinction can show up when somebody who really wants to take control of a scene consciously agrees to follow their partner’s lead. They may want to direct the pace or choose what happens next, but hold that urge back while experiencing what it’s like to want to be in charge and not have that option. They’re not pushing their desire out of awareness, but focusing on what that strong desire feels like while not pursuing it or being allowed to pursue it.

The Pleasure in Resistance

So why might we want to experience this struggle? Often in BDSM, people find the struggle enjoyable. Some slight masochistic leaning, possibly? A partner might feel that their authority is more real if they know the other person is struggling not to take control. It makes the yielding more meaningful. Those who are seeking praise and recognition might find that this dynamic creates a scenario where they can be noticed for their efforts. And some fully enjoy stewing in their desire without letting their desires control them.

Giving Desire More

We can also deliberately feed desire. Ritual gives us a way to focus on what we want: preparing the space, presenting a collar, kneeling in reverence. The preparation itself can amplify our wanting, giving us another psychological lever in our BDSM toolkit. Worship scenes allow the Dominant to revel in their own desires. Receiving their partner’s undivided and deliberate attention can feed their desire to be admired, served, and obeyed.

These physical and symbolic cues can invite someone to imagine the dynamic between us. Kavanagh, Andrade, and May describe how sensory imagery and mentally elaborating on what we want can intensify desire.[4] Their research concerns craving and appetitive desire rather than BDSM specifically. But it gives us a way to think about how imagination feeds the wanting we’re playing with.

When Fantasy Meets the Body

To experience it is to find out what the desire actually feels like once it leaves fantasy and enters the body. And sometimes we finally experience something we’ve wanted for a long time and find that it doesn’t feel the way we expected. Berridge and Robinson’s work distinguishes wanting from liking: the strength of our desire doesn’t necessarily tell us how much pleasure we’ll get from satisfying it.[1] Sometimes our fixations on a fantasy are tied to something in our past. When we reflect afterward on what we experienced, we may realize that it’s no longer meaningful to us or that what actually brings us pleasure is something completely different. One disappointing scene doesn’t settle that, though. Who we played with and the circumstances of that particular scene may also have shaped how it felt.

What the Body Knows

Feeling desire in our bodies and noticing our sensations during a scene gives us something to reflect on afterward. We can follow the thread of what we find erotic and hot and meaningful by paying attention to what we actually felt. What we discover may be different from what we expected when we were imagining the scene.

Following the Thread

That discovery can expand our creativity and give us permission to explore further and more deeply. Sometimes we realize we’re happy with exactly what we’re exploring and look for ways to amplify it. Sometimes we recognize we’re finished with it and look for something else to explore. And sometimes we think we’re attracted to a certain activity but realize it was the feeling that activity gave us. We can find that feeling through many other activities.

By consciously leaning into our longing, desire, and our relationship with wanting, we can have embodied experiences that create more intimacy and connection in our BDSM, both with our partners and with ourselves. Sometimes getting exactly what we want is the pleasure we came for. There is so much to enjoy in how we want, how we let that wanting show, and what we create with someone who wants to play with us there.

Sources

[1] Berridge, K. C., & Robinson, T. E. (2016). “Liking, Wanting, and the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction.” American Psychologist, 71(8), 670–679.

[2] Wang, D. A., Hagger, M. S., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2020). “Ironic Effects of Thought Suppression: A Meta-Analysis.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(3).

[3] Mamat, Z., & Anderson, M. C. (2023). “Improving Mental Health by Training the Suppression of Unwanted Thoughts.” Science Advances, 9(38), eadh5292.

[4] Kavanagh, D. J., Andrade, J., & May, J. (2005). “Imaginary Relish and Exquisite Torture: The Elaborated Intrusion Theory of Desire.” Psychological Review, 112(2), 446–467.

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