Do Dominants struggle with something they’ve done or desire to do to their slave?

We’ve been taught as a society that “hurting” others is bad; and yet, here we are wanting—at times needing—to “hurt” someone we love or find attractive. We are aroused and find pleasure and release in “hurting” another and hearing them scream or cry.  Note I said “hurt” not “injure”. Major difference!  This distinction sets the line between abuse (domestic violence) and D/s.

I sometimes jokingly share with others in the community during lectures and workshops that for me, D/s “quiets the voices”. It makes life make sense and gives me peace.

When I first found the community, it felt like I finally found where I belonged yet it still frightened me to have someone say my desires were acceptable after years–decades–of feeling like I wasn’t normal and there was something wrong with me. Kind of like finding the Promised Land and being terrified to walk through the threshold.  Now some 15 years later, I’m much more comfortable with it all but I still have bouts where I struggle with my desires and what society says is acceptable. Sometimes I even struggle with what I was raised to believe in my culture—as a Latina—where machismo and men being in charge was the only acceptable way of living.

Should we address religion and the misogyny there and how that wars with a Dominant woman’s psyche?  Or a submissive man’s?