My understanding of S&M has been something that has eluded me since I discovered its existence.

A most prominent Vancouver poet once demonstrated how she improved her earnings by banging her black pump hard on a table of the Railway Club where we had our customary Thursday lunches. It seems that businessmen paid her good money for her to walk on their backs with said pumps. I could not imagine finding pleasure in being exposed to such excruciating pain.

My friend M, a lovely Italian, liked to play tough by wearing some of the trappings of S&M. But she might have been doing this at a time when punks ruled and had adopted some of them. 

Voluptuous as M was she could not hide a soft touch, a feminine touch, a sympathetic touch that made her such a good friend to chat with over coffee on Commercial Drive.