I’m A Grandmother Now. I’m Finally Ready To Talk About My Double Life In BDSM And Polyamory.

Today, at 69 years old, I’m a grandmother, and I thoroughly enjoy that role. I read library books for story time at my grandkids’ school, I sew Halloween costumes for them, and I roast marshmallows for s’mores on our camping trips together. But Grandma had another chapter of her life that only a select few know about.

In my 30s and 40s, I experimented with BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadomasochism). I also dabbled in the world of polyamory (loving more than one person at a time). While these lifestyle choices are becoming more socially acceptable, particularly among Gen Z, in my day it wasn’t something you volunteered at the PTA meeting.

Being a part of the BDSM and polyamorous culture was (and for the most part, still is) taboo and could be a career-ender, especially in academia, where I worked. Back then, the only people who knew about my kink explorations were my sexual partners and my girlfriend Ingrid, who was sexually adventurous. To this day, I’ve only shared this with a few trusted friends, and certainly not any family members.

During the late 1970s through the early 2000s, I was a single mother raising two daughters, working as a full-time educator in Los Angeles. I had been through the wringer with two failed marriages and a string of abusive relationships, leaving me feeling quite alone.

My first introduction to the world of polyamory came when I stumbled upon an ad for the “Loving More Conference” in Berkeley in the classified section of the LA Weekly. It piqued my curiosity, and I began attending workshops on polyamory.

At one such workshop, we gathered in a large conference room to learn how to drop our barriers, inhibitions and preconceptions. Participants were invited to disrobe to the degree they were comfortable. Soft, new-age music played in the background, and the lighting was low. All 150 of us formed two concentric circles facing each other, one circle rotating clockwise and the other rotating counter-clockwise. At given intervals of time, we stopped for a few moments to gaze into each others’ eyes before moving on to the next person. There’s something profoundly moving about silently gazing into a stranger’s eyes, something that transcends sexuality and asserts our humanity.

At one of the annual conferences, after a workshop concluded, about 12 of us were fired up and ready to put theory into practice, so we went up to a large loft-type room. We were all naked by that point, and at first, a few committed couples started becoming intimate and having sex. As we watched, the rest of us couldn’t contain ourselves, so we partnered up in various combinations.

Over the next three to four hours, people would migrate from one person or grouping to another. Part of the appeal of this approach to sex was that it taught us to be free from the typical feelings of abandonment, jealousy, betrayal and heartache. To my complete and utter surprise, I experienced firsthand the feeling of “compersion” — being blissfully aware that one’s partner is experiencing sexual joy with another.

Once I started dabbling in this world, I had plenty of lovers of all persuasions and genders. In any given month, I’d see three to four different men and/or women, with full transparency among all my partners. It was a liberating experience to know that we were all being completely honest about what and who we were doing. It filled a void I had experienced with having just one male partner. It also gave me more independence — for the first time I wasn’t beholden to one person for all my sexual and social needs.

My primary sources for meeting partners were swing parties, the annual Loving More Conference, the Bi-Net group, which held regular parties and other events for bisexuals, and occasionally by running a personal ad.

Soon I was introduced to a second subculture through a couple I met at a swingers party — the world of domination and submission. We began having “sessions” at my house while my daughter was away. Over the next few months, I became intimately familiar with the tools of the trade — floggers and slappers, vaginal plugs of various size and girth, anal beads and a hanging sling.

BDSM provided a release from the confines of my straight-laced day job, allowing me to dip my toes into the world of consensual power exchange. I had experienced my share of violence I hadn’t agreed to with husbands and boyfriends, and this was nothing like that. Everything was negotiated ahead of time and consensual.

Once I asked a steady boyfriend to accompany me to a meeting of a BDSM club held in a large warehouse-like facility. We went from room to room and watched live demonstrations of whatever kinky predilections people were engaged in. At the beginning, this was an ideal venue for me to give expression to my exhibitionist tendencies. I combined that desire with what I had discovered turned me on — a sexual partner testing my limits of trust and pain.

At the party, I soon decided I wanted to create “a scene.” The scene that I came up with was to be strung up from a T-bar (a huge wooden structure in the main room). I had requested to be hung by my ankles, upside down spread eagle, high enough so that my hands didn’t touch the ground. I donned special fur-lined ankle cuffs with rings to be attached to a mechanism to raise me carefully.

My boyfriend, in the role of a dominant, took a cat o’nine tails and flogged me on the backside. A crowd gathered in an arc around our scene quite quickly. Once I was done, I felt a sense of exhilaration at withstanding the flogging. I was also happy I had drawn a sizable crowd.

Reconciling the two halves of my life was not always easy. I was a single parent, but I was also a woman in her sexual prime, with adult needs. I was leading a double life, as a mom and a school administrator on one hand, while I role-played as a sex slave on the weekends. Since I worked hard all week telling others what to do, and I had no partner to support me in any way, I found it exhilarating to relinquish control, pretending someone else was taking the reins. At the time, it made me feel secure.

Looking back, it is kind of amazing that I was able to go back and forth between my day job and my wild exploits in polyamory and BDSM. Once, after a particularly punishing flogging, I was distracted at work the next day by the after effects. Sitting at my desk wearing a skirt, I had to switch back and forth which side of my butt I sat on because of the stinging sensation. I reveled in this secret knowledge of what I had engaged in the night before.

Never once during my time in the BDSM world did I wish to be more open. It was my business and nobody else’s. Still, shame was not really a part of my experience. I was proud that I had fully immersed myself in that world, something that few are bold enough to do.

After being a submissive for six months, I began to acquire a taste to explore my dominant side. I’d had enough of being the passive partner, so I switched and decided to be the one in charge. In this new role, I would call the shots, whatever I determined them to be. I had met Ingrid — a 6 foot, 2 inches tall buxom blonde who fit the image of the dominatrix to a T — through my boyfriend at the time, and she and I had become fast friends. I appealed to her to teach me about the dominant role, and she was willing to show me the ropes. She set about procuring men online who craved domineering women for their punishment and pleasure.

But first, they had to do something for us, so we devised an exchange of services. Anything we didn’t want to be bothered with, like carting 10 boxes of heavy items up into the attic, or other menial or manual chores around the house, would be their tribute to us. When their task was done, Ingrid and I alternated between flogging them on their backsides with a cat o’nine tails, after which they could worship our feet in boots or high heels. Afterward, we’d allow them to quickly pleasure themselves before summarily dismissing them.

This dominatrix role suited me well for a period of time. There can be something restorative about taking the upper hand and reversing the societal power imbalance between men and women. Finally, I was being listened to. I was in control; I was setting the rules; I was being obeyed and given the respect that had so often eluded me in my relationships. I stood taller and felt stronger and centered in my body.

As a single parent, I had to find a way to balance my life, so that I could take a deep breath and get back to the sometimes trying job of raising kids. Yes, there were definitely times that I think my children may have been aware that Mommy was a little different than their friends’ moms. But I was an adult person with my own needs.

Eventually, when I was in my late 40s, I downsized to a one-bedroom apartment in the South Bay for family reasons. Without the sprawling two-story house in Los Angeles where I’d hosted some wild parties, my adventures in polyamory slowed down. Looking back, I felt somewhat adrift. The BDSM world is about testing limits, and eventually, I realized I had reached mine. I disengaged myself from both communities.

My daughters have turned out to be exceptional adults, both with successful careers, homes they own and long-term marriages. My grandchildren are vibrant, smart, talented kids with lots of friends and activities. The world is so different from the one my daughters and I grew up in that I don’t think my grandkids would even be that surprised or shocked to find out about my former activities.

Today, it’s much easier to explore sexuality and desires, connecting with like-minded people through apps and kink-focused websites. Being poly is in vogue now, which amazes me, because in my day, no one outside our circles even knew about it. The nuclear family is not for everyone, nor should it have to be, and more cooperative, eco-friendly living is most likely in the future.

With the passing years, I started to entertain the idea of writing my memoir. It was through the process of writing about my story in all its florid detail that I discovered the meaning these experiences held for me. A trusted therapist commented that it was very brave of me to explore that side of myself, and this gave me permission to bring to light all that had been buried for decades. I walked out of that session thinking to myself, I am an adventurous and strong woman.

My life took the turns it did for a reason, and I don’t regret anything. I look back on my younger, sexually adventurous days with a sense of nostalgia and pride, seeing that the unconventional choices I made helped build the strong, tolerant and compassionate woman that I am today.

Xandria Allman is a grandmother of 3 who is writing under a pseudonym and is working on a memoir of her unconventional and jaw-dropping adventures. You can follow her on Instagram.

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