and hard to predict, and there aren't any good medical resources on the matter. Maybe the pain points to something unusual about my constitution. Maybe there's a reason it's harder for me to have orgasms than the "average" woman. But the vaginal pain itself is not overwhelming, on the rare occasions that it crops up. And the vaginal pain is not even close to the most central issue of my sexuality -- or the biggest influence on my orgasmic ability. ok Il. S&M I identify my sexuality as BDSM -- a.k.a. kink, leather, fetish, S&M, or B&D. BDSM is a 6-for-4 acronym that encompasses a host of related activities, including bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism. And yeah, I'm really into it: my desires are heavy and overwhelming; I dream of agony, of terrified screams for mercy. I've gone so far as to describe BDSM as my sexual orientation. Before someone goes leaping to conclusions, there is a definite difference between "good pain" and "bad pain.” The occasional pain I feel within my vagina is not good pain; it's not even interesting. It's just annoying. It's not sexy or enjoyable at all. Some of us in the BDSM community have felt lifelong tendencies towards BDSM. We have conversations ending with thrilled exclamations: "You mean, you tied up your Barbie dolls as a child too?!" But BDSM is widely misunderstood and negatively stereotyped, and thus, many of us also went through periods of rejection. We've internalized so much anti-BDSM stigma from society that, at times, we freak out. We deny or erase our BDSM desires. That's what happened to me when I was in middle school. As my sexuality made itself more and more evident, my anxiety peaked. I'd been producing secret sadomasochistic art and stories without labeling what I was doing, but I stopped. I blockaded my thoughts of violent power-play. I closed it all away as thoroughly as I could. I still felt sexual desire -- I mean, I was entering my teens, so of course I did. Sometimes I felt so much