Newspapers and websites love to report on sensational stories.

There's a reason true crime is so popular a genre.

We love to hear stories about human nature that shock and terrify us. 

I love true crime too, but as a kinky person with a fondness for S&M (also referred to as BDSM), sometimes listening to the stories can be hard.

So often, true crime reporters like to fixate on details about a subject's sex life like that made more likely to snap.

Other times they'll blame the victim, implying that say, that being people who are into S&M is what led to their death.

This perpetuates the false idea that all kinky people are deviant monsters or weirdo freaks who deserve to be shunned.

It's no wonder so many people keep their sexual preferences under wraps. 

The truth is this: 

No matter what the media says or does, how you like to have sex, what you like to do in the bedroom, and who you do it with does not make you a person less deserving of a place on planet earth.

We all like different things when it comes to sex. 

Look around the room where you are seated now. 

The people around you look different, but they're all human. 

Sure, different skin colors, different eye colors, different ways of being.

But they are all people and as such, worthy of at the very least respect. 

Everyone likes different stuff when it comes to having sex.

For some people, missionary sex is the only way they can have an orgasm.

Other people need to dress up like babies. 

Some people enjoy being pooped on.

The key to world peace is not "yucking someone else's yum," as they say.

You like giving or receiving pain in a consensual setting. 

That's a part of who you are, and it's not my right or anyone else's to comment on that. 

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The chemistry behind receiving and giving pain makes sense.

There is scientific evidence to suggest that people who engage in S&M relationships can feel like entering an altered state of consciousness.

Your friends might resort to booze or drugs for their high, but people who are into S&M good sex is all it takes. 

That's pretty exceptional.

Even more exceptional? People in S&M relationships are less likely to be depressed.

Your body's chemistry supports your lifestyle choices, so why shouldn't you?

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S&M relationships require intimacy and openness. 

One of the major hurdles couples in romantic relationships experience is building intimacy.

Learning to trust each other, to be open with each other, that's not something that happens overnight. 

For some couples, it never happens at all.

But in order for S&M relationships to work, serious intimacy and openness is key. 

It comes with the territory, putting you leaps and bounds ahead of other couples. 

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Your kink doesn't make you weird or strange.

It makes you a sexually confident, sexually healthy adult who know what they want. 

Human beings are, by our very nature, sexual beings. 

You have found a way of nurturing your sexual side that works for you AND for your partner.

That's not something to be ashamed of, that's something to be DAMN proud of, if you ask me!