People having sex in Second Life is nothing new... or surprising. Put enough people together in one place, virtually or physically, and they'll figure out how to have sex. I wouldn't be surprised if people have cybered using Morse Code.

Despite how jaded I've become to cybersex, I was fascinated by a recent column by Destiny Welles about BDSM in Second Life for The Register.

Destiny, a self-described bi-sexual, describes how an in-game encounter with another woman helped her to achieve an epiphany about bondage and discipline, domination and submission and sadism and masochism.

She could have asked me to read about BDSM and submission; she could have talked to me about it, explained it at length; and that could have gone on for months without my ever getting it. But instead, she made me experience what she experiences as a sub. And thus I understood it immediately and knew instinctively how to bring it about for her.

She did this to me because she's in love with me, and there's nothing more beautiful to a sub than to have the woman she truly loves become her Mistress. I began to dominate her during sex, and this brought us closer than we had ever been, a development that I didn't think was even possible, so close and so intimate had we become already.

After about a week of this, I sensed that she needed to go further. As her lover - and a damned conscientious one at that, I don't mind saying - I naturally want to do everything that gives her pleasure and happiness. And I grasped instinctively that I would have to collar her to give her all that she wants and needs and deserves.

And so I took her. Today she wears my collar with pride, with joy, and with utter devotion. The collar is scripted and allows me to control her avatar completely, which she loves to experience. But I've got to be clear: I did this for her, as a lover whose only desire is to give her pleasure. I did this to serve her, this wonderful lover whose orgasms I enjoy more than my own. Thus I didn't make her my slave; rather, she made me her Missy. I am, literally, an accidental Mistress.

The sub makes the Dom/me, it's clear to me now. The sub is not weak; indeed, the personal strength required to submit fully is extraordinary, and commands the utmost respect. Domination is service, and submission is liberation. That sounds Orwellian, and it might well be. A current of Fascism runs through BDSM, concealed beneath layers of Medieval veneer. I will return to this in a future column; but for now, I accept what is apparent, if not rational, in this relationship: the Dom/me has the control, but the sub has the power. I feel it, I experience it, and whether it makes sense or it doesn't, I believe it.

It's an intriguing, and of course quite erotic, read. Brian Crecente

BDSM Blossoms in Second Life [The Register]