being dominant for me has always just been part of my life, whether it comes to sports, taking lead in school on group projects, wanting to be in charge and leading projects at work etc. i started experimenting with bondage (primarily restraints) and the domination side of things from a pretty early age (late teens). the domination in bed just primarily came from the primal urge that i get while turned on, it's a night and day difference in my mentality, how i think, how i react to things, if it (that particular feeling/urge) gets bad enough, even my vision slightly changes in how i perceive various shades of color. i've been referred to as a beast, animalistic, primal etc. in how i am in the bedroom. scents drive me crazy, i love smelling hair, skin, bodily fluids, etc. but it's just every sense that gets involved, not just smell. i like to see how my actions change their skin, goose bumps, change in color (flushed or pinkish/red based on change of blood flow), hearing how their breathing rate changes, the deepness or shallowness of their breathing, even feeling their pulse in certain areas of their body can and generally are huge turn-ons and knowing that what i'm doing to them is causing it is part of that mental dominance on my end that i enjoy.
i didn't get into the sadism/masochism part until a little later (early 20's) which really turned out to be my thing. i started really getting into the lifestyle at that point and it was 100x better than i ever could have thought. i spent 3 years in my early to mid-20's as a submissive to 4 different mistresses to learn and experience both sides of the lifestyle, if you can think of it other than pegging, i've had it done to me or have had to do it to my mistresses. over the course of that time i learned what it really takes to be a good dom/master and what i can realistically expect of my subs/slaves and i also learned that being submissive just isn't my thing. i would gladly go through it again if i started fresh just because of how much i learned from those women. following those years as a sub was a kept man for a couple years, but thankfully the women all preferred me to be dominant so i really got to stretch my legs so to speak to try new things with them and really gain experience being a proper dom/master (situation and
partner dependent).
rough sex, or really rough sex i've always fantasized or dreamed about, but it wasn't until i got into the lifestyle that i started having dreams related to it. you're totally right in saying that you don't know what you like or don't like until you actually try it. i've been told numerous times from young partners (women in their late teens or early 20's) that they hated the fact that i taught them or let them learn that they actually liked to be slapped and choked because they thought future partners would think they were weird as fuck, but it turned out to be such a huge turn on for them, they didn't want to go without it later in life.