She stands facing a glass wall. Her legs are splayed with nothing more than her high-heeled shoes to cover the blushing pink skin of her nude form. Her arms are above her head in standard “Y” position. Her nipples harden as her partner approaches her from behind, with a stack of cold, shiny power encapsulated in his closed fist.

Ten dimes.

He stands close to her, his body heat morphing into her own. He reaches up and slowly inserts a dime under the very tip of each delicate finger as it presses against the wall in front of them. He instructs her to hold them there by any means necessary. Goosebumps creep across her skin, in anticipation, as he blindfolds her. He takes a step back, and her head swims with desire. Time stands still, and those 10 tiny dimes keep pulsing, as lust drips down her flesh, consuming her entire being. He takes a step forward, a smile playing across his lips. She inhales sharply as he begins.

Can you guess what happens next?

This is a fantasy that has been plaguing my brain for an entire month. I’ve done all I can to shake it, just short of fulfilling it, and yet I dream about it every single night. While the partner’s face varies each time, and the patterns of lick-suck-bite-spank-finger-fuck change a bit each time, the overall light-BDSM theme stays the same.

For those of you lovelies who don’t know what “BDSM” stands for, it is “bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism.” The practice can take many forms depending on who is “playing.” Just like “vanilla” sex (sex without any of these other titillating aspects added to it), the actions and outcomes vary quite a lot.

Naturally, I expressed the frustration towards this recurring dream to a number of friends, which brought me a few mixed reactions. I came to the realization that not everyone wants to be teased the way that I do. Not everyone grew up in a household that had to ban spanking, because a defiant 6-year-old daughter would say, “That didn’t hurt. Do it again!”

I was destined to be this way.

With such a fantasy suddenly feeling so natural, I also started telling men who I thought would be good candidates to play the game with me. Two of them told me they prefer to be submissive as well, and one of them got angry and told me that he “doesn’t do BDSM.” When asked if he had ever tried, he told me it was only for “freaks.”

Well, fuck you, too, then! Really, I don’t think you should judge people’s sexualities like that. You can’t truly enjoy something that you deconstruct and label so harshly. It’s 2014, and sex does not need to be vanilla anymore.

In some recent media, we have seen a more open look at this very type of sexuality, which had been swept under the rug for years before. We see a recurring theme of powerful men in business suits asking to be ball-gagged by dominatrix women. While it is uncomfortable for some to stomach, others feel liberated by the possibility of releasing all of his or her power to another. While the question of morality often comes to mind when many people think of BDSM, most of these people are by no means channeling their inner Patrick Bateman. Also, some just do it because they have a high pain threshold and want to see how far they can push their body. There are as many reasons for people to practice BDSM as there are people in this world.

Because half of my brain is in my crotch, I attribute most of these desires to the way I function in real life. Unlike the main character in “Fifty Shades of Gray,” who seems like a bland piece of sad, white bread, I am a very strong example of a Type A personality.

In real life, I am a go-getter with a slight tendency to take over projects if I feel as though others cannot finish it to my satisfaction, which is often. I am constantly in control, which is why I prefer to be the submissive one in relationships and in terms of my sexuality. In work and school, I wear the pants. In the bedroom, I want my partner to be the one to rip them off of me, while pulling my hair and biting my neck. I do not think that I am alone in this need. I think many people who are in power want sex to be some sort of release.

Girls like me sometimes want to be pulled off of our pedestals by a partner who is willing to play rough with us. If that has to be done with nipple clamps and blindfolds, so be it. While BDSM has different levels, the ultimate goal for its participants stays the same. To quote En Vogue’s 1992 hit, “Free your mind and the rest will follow.”

Anneliese Hucal studies public relations and prelaw. She can be reached at sself@unr.edu.