‘I like submissive sex but Fifty Shades is not about fun: it’s about abuse’

After many false starts, and leather-laden attempts to further the cause by Madonna, Rihanna and Lady Gaga, it seems that bondage and discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM) has finally become mainstream. And while it's great that people are having fun exploring their sexuality, the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey has cemented so many preconceptions about both submissive women and their dominants frustrates me hugely.

At this point I must admit to a vested interest: I am a submissive. When you put it that way it sounds terribly big and significant, not least because if everything you know about BDSM comes from EL James's trilogy then you're probably assuming I spend most of my life connected by a digital umbilical cord to my dominant, only a helicopter ride away from fulfilling his every sexual whim.

But being submissive is only one facet of the person I am – and not even the most important. I'm a 33-year-old girlfriend, daughter, sister, friend, journalist, Scrabble fiend, caffeine addict and dozens of other things besides. And, despite what you might have read to the contrary, my sexual urges don't overshadow every other aspect of my personality and life. I'm also, and this might be a tougher sell in some quarters, a feminist.

So why do I submit? The first thing to say is that I'm not broken. I grew up in a nice middle-class home in the home counties. There's no deep-seated trauma in my past or anything missing in my formative years that has exacerbated my love of being degraded. I have no daddy issues, there was no angst in my home life and my childhood was – happily for me, but probably not that excitingly for anyone else – a loving one. I don't use drugs or drink to excess and have no medical issues, psychological or physical, that more ill-informed people might point to as an explanation for my urges. I just enjoy it, OK?

To address some of the other pesky stereotypes: I am neither a doormat nor a simpleton. I don't roll my eyes or gnaw on my lip or yearn to spend my day in the kitchen while someone hunts and gathers for me and I keep the home fires burning, which is just as well as I'm not that great a cook apart from a baking obsession (yes, complete with cliched love for The Great British Bake Off's Paul Hollywood – it's something about his eyes).

Looking back, my submissive tendencies started young, although I wouldn't have called them that then because at that point I barely knew what sex was. I was drawn to the myths of Robin Hood. Maid Marian was boring most of the time, tending the campfire and looking pensively into the middle distance, but I was fascinated by her in peril, as a prisoner, captured, tied up or in chains. I didn't know why, but those stories made my heart race. It's hard to explain my interest in BDSM any more intellectually than that – I know that I find erotic many things that other people would balk at, but there's no reason I can come up with for why I find them hot, in the same way I can't tell you why I like geeky looking types in glasses, or find Damian Lewis attractive. It's just part of my makeup.

My first sexual experiences were pretty vanilla. My early exploration developed into more intense encounters – although undoubtedly to some folk who indulge in these kind of things I'll still be considered a bit of a lightweight (there's always judging and someone who does it "better"). But as I dated I began to realise I thrived on the challenge of submitting to someone else.

It might seem strange if you're not that way inclined, but I enjoy the catharsis of the pain – which, trust me, feels very different in an erotic situation as otherwise I'm the sort of woman who can't cope with a leg wax because it hurts too much. I find being challenged and humiliated hot. Without being big headed, in my day-to-day life I can pretty much handle whatever the universe throws at me, so being on the back foot (although not passive, another misconception of what being submissive means) and reacting often brings about an adrenaline high in its own right. Like sky diving but with more nakedness and no plummeting to the ground.

I understand that some schools of feminist thought are going to have problems with submission as a concept. One of my big frustrations with the success of Fifty Shades of Grey is that there is so much of the main relationship that plays into the misconception that a sexual relationship based around BDSM is, at its core, an abusive one. As such, feminists, quite rightly, have a massive problem with it. But while I'd agree with their summation of that (admittedly fictional) relationship, it's as different to my relationship with my partner as night is to day.

For a start he's not a po-faced micro-manager – actually I do most of the organisation of our lives day to day. We live together happily and are partners in every aspect, bicker about doing the washing, look after each other when we're ill, work hard, and sometimes are too exhausted for any sex at all. But when the mood strikes us, he takes total control, inflicting pain, pleasure, or often a mixture of both. It's exhilarating, fun, and admittedly often intense, but has brought about a level of communication between us that I think is one of the core strengths of our relationship. After all, if you can talk to someone about all the taboo things that excite you, then nothing is out of bounds.

Despite what I like to do in bed I consider myself a feminist and find it very depressing that because of my informed sexual choices there are women who'd want to wave "down with this sort of thing" placards in my direction. Don't get me wrong, I understand that what I enjoy is – in a different context – potentially another woman's worst nightmare. It's not something everyone might indulge in, but should I wish to, within safe, sane and consensual circumstances and in privacy with my trusted partner, I'm very uncomfortable with anyone telling me I can't or I shouldn't.

The sexual aspect of my relationship is completely separate from other aspects of it – I am in control of my finances, my reproductive health, my career, my social life and all the other things that feminism has fought for. I genuinely believe it's the fundamental misunderstanding of what BDSM is that contributes a lot to feminists' opposition to dominant/submissive relationships – and this misunderstanding is perpetuated in epic fashion across EL James's trilogy.

For me, the book is as much a fetishisation of capitalism as it is a discourse on BDSM. Christian Grey may be a stalkerish sort with epic amounts of emotional baggage, but the accoutrements of wealth he offers – designer labels, helicopters and expensive gifts – are deemed enough that our virginal heroine should stick with him, endure his peccadilloes and keep trying to change him. It's very much focused on ending up married and settled and financially secure – Mills & Boon with butt plugs.

So far so anodyne, but ultimately harmless. Except that a lot of what happens in the main relationship of Fifty Shades of Grey is domestic abuse, both physical and emotional, and for people whose entire understanding of BDSM now comes from jiggle balls and rooms of pain this is a dangerous misconception to foster. It comes back to the nature of consent, the fact that I am enjoying rather than enduring what we're doing and that fundamentally the power remains with me. I decide who to submit to, how much control to give them and what my limits are. And if I use my safe word then it stops immediately. Also, it's about context. Feeling challenged, even feeling demeaned within this sexual context is different to domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse is fundamentally indefensible and suggesting BDSM somehow endorses or encourages sexual violence is not only wrong but – after a week when George Galloway et al have tried to underplay rape in disgusting fashion – a frustrating red herring that needs clarification. Women do not make men rapists or physical abusers, and this subtextual blame culture (also encompassed by US congressman Todd Akin and his pronouncements about "legitimate rape") is much more damaging to women than anything I get up to in bed.

BDSM might be mainstream now, but it has a new PR problem. I blame Christian Grey.

The Diary of a Submissive, by Sophie Morgan, is published by Penguin on 30 August, £7.99