It's about 4 am here now as I write this.
I first knew I was dominant when I was a teenager, but I didn't have the word for it or understanding or what it meant. Over the years my understanding has changed from horror that I was "bad" to understanding my nature, how to control it, and the girls who enjoyed giving up control over themselves to me. That sign of trust that I will do anything to them and they'll stay, and their trust that I'll control their pleasure and give them release through punishment while keeping them safe and guiding them through the way.
But it started with a picture in a book of a woman being whipped at a post, naked, her full breasts on display and nipples erect in arousal. The description on the pages wasn't a Dom/sub affair, just a bunch of non consensual enslavement of women with the male centric fiction of "women secretly love rape if you do it right" stuff.
After years, I finally found it while searching once again for what my barely teenage eyes had read. The book is "Mauraders of Gor" and there on a fan's web page was the picture. Not exactly as I remember, but I had most of the details right in my mind's eye.
Man. All these years and I finally found it. It's a relief to finally scratch that itch of curiosity that's plagued me all these years.