informational

18
Jan
2024

Analysis: Why Emotional S/m?

I like information. I like gathering it and I like looking for patterns. I do these things for personal enjoyment, to better plan my writings and classes, and to share something that maybe others find of value. I have done this before with Defining CNC and Defining Edge Play. Now, I’ve changed from a what to a why.

Both in order to answer a question a friend asked and to help refine my Negotiation and Communication for Emotional S/m class, I recently asked for responses to “Why do you like emotional sadomasochism?” I received roughly 40 responses, some in the form of comments or writings and some in DM by those who wanted to remain anonymous, and have now identified a few trends.

For the purposes of this writing, ESM refers to emotional sadomasochism. I did not define “emotional S/m” for the respondents, but readers may wish to keep in mind that this is a vast and varied kind of play that could encompass a number of different things. All that being said…

Here are the major themes I found in the answers to “why emotional S/m?”

It makes us feel seen.

The most common phrase in the answers by far (over half included some variation) was along the lines of “emotional S/m makes me feel seen.” I’ll break this further into two terms I saw fairly frequently: authenticity and intimacy. There’s a large overlap in the venn diagram of how these factors were described, so the lines may blur a bit in the discussion below. I think this quote from @mairy helps to illustrate both well:

“It reassures me that my partner sees all my grotesqueries but is attracted to me anyways.”

Authenticity

As in mairy’s quote above and written in some form by a sizable number of others, many who play with emotional S/m prefer to be brought to real “undesirable” emotions or to have actual insecurities come up in play, often feeling that it in some way peels back the layers of the everyday public-facing self to reveal a self that is more “real,” “authentic,” or “complete.” In playing in a way that focuses on these self-perceived negative traits—in mairy’s description, “grotesqueries”—their play partners see them in a way others never do.

Intimacy

Intimacy, named by over a third of all answers total, further breaks down into two more categories of its own.

The first is represented by that second half of mairy’s quote: intimacy can be the closeness that comes from knowing one party still accepts, likes, is attracted to, or otherwise wants to be around the other after the authentic self has been revealed. This goes for the bottom-to-top direction too: Tops feel intimacy both in the honor of the bottoms showing them their true selves and in their cruel sides being accepted and desired.

The second way intimacy was discussed was phrased more or less as a prerequisite, or else, a quality of which good ESM scenes are a proof: the idea that creating an effective emotional response may necessitate a deep, intimate knowledge or understanding of the other party. It may simply be a requirement for ESM to happen, and/or good ESM can be the evidence of this deep knowledge that makes non-ESM connections feel more possible:

“Someone who knows how to emotionally hurt also makes me feel seen, and feeling seen makes me feel safe and makes me feel cared about/loved. If someone knows how to hurt me in precisely the ways they want, they’re demonstrating that they are unlikely to hurt me accidentally in ways that they don’t want.” – @ACatNamedSam

It helps us explore ourselves.

This is a big category, as I’m including many different items from the coding in it. There were a fair number of topics that came up a non-zero amount yet not often enough to be their own major category. These subtopics, bolded where they appear below, seem to me to fit under a larger theme: engaging in emotional S/m allows for a deep exploration of the self.

This is a fairly wide umbrella. For one grouping under it, ESM is a way to experience feelings they likely wouldn’t otherwise and to explore the full range of the human experience (put a pin in this). This overlapped with “feeling seen” in some cases, with discussions of having the full range of ones’ emotions brought out by a partner therein validating that all those emotions are acceptable and safe to show.

Another group spoke of ESM as a way to—as @Venerant put it—calibrate their emotional scales. By engaging in darker emotions in play, they are able to better evaluate emotions they experience elsewhere in life. This may happen in a number of different ways:

“Sometimes the relief comes from my negative perceptions being affirmed and the resulting pain, and sometimes the relief comes from recognizing the absurdity of my perceptions having heard them from someone else, and thus letting them go.” – @InquisitiveElle

“Human brains don’t judge by how objectively good things are–they judge how good they are *relative to other times.* I appreciate all of my life more if I get thrown down into a hole and feel how far I have to climb/be pulled back up, and doing this in the controlled setting of emotional sadism is healthier than getting into actual life trouble just for the sake of contrast.” -@SuspendDIsbelief

This calibration also can be related to the matter of overcoming: getting through a trying ESM experience helps some bottoms trust that they can also get through trying daily life experiences. An anonymous top likewise spoke of how being the architect of ESM scenes provided this feeling, saying “When I am also the demon, I know my own don’t stand a chance.”

@sweetblackangel also brought up the language of personal demons, stating that ESM offers “a way to drag my demons out into the light and actually work with them instead of suppress them. Turns out, they are a lot less scary after play.” Working with negative emotions once they’ve been brought to the surface was an element worth naming for a number of respondents, in terms like “shadow work,” “processing,” and so forth.

In these ways and others—while ESM is not therapy—engaging in ESM can be therapeutic. That is, many find it somehow soothing, informative, or otherwise helpful to fostering mental health. ESM was referred to as “a controlled setting” in which they could feel negative feelings that they might be drawn to or even benefit from in some way, experience release/catharsis, and become less likely to self-sabotage in relationship with others.

“I don’t trust [times in my life when things are good] […] and I end up having urges to sabotage good things just to prove to myself that I’m still in reality and that I still can recover if things go wrong. If I’m in a place where ESM play is on the table, I can more effectively resist that urge, essentially by telling myself that I don’t need to do that work and can trust the sadist to do it for me next time we’re together.” – @Chayla

And though this decidedly is not the case for all, for some, the draw to ESM is one some players reference as stemming in some way from past traumas, intentionally and/or innately. This is another venn diagram overlap area: a few brought this up in terms of feeling that trauma is “fully seen” by a partner, as well as with a final subcategory here.

Though it is worth saying that not all think of their societally-engrained emotional beliefs as a kind of trauma, a number of respondents mentioned the way ESM allows feelings that sociopolitical, cultural, or familial norms did/do not. (Ouch! What was that? Oh, that’s that pin I stuck in earlier, right around how ESM gives some the experiences of emotions they don’t otherwise get to feel.) Bottoms assigned male at birth pointed to the vulnerability they can feel in ESM as something they don’t feel allowed in daily life, and tops assigned female at birth spoke about the freedom to be “powerful,” “cold-hearted,” “selfish,” and other similar words.

“The reason that I only top for distress and not pleasure (even though they can achieve similar ends) is probably influenced by my violent allergic reaction to society telling me that partnered happiness is found through being pleasing to my (male) partners. At this point in my life, the idea of “pleasing” is revolting.” -@owlfinch

“I am invited to explore emotions that I have been taught are wrong. Things around gender, sexuality, power. I am on some level accepted and affirmed as a whole person with flaws and instabilities and trivial obsessions – and this makes me feel powerful, alive, loved. Though I am very emotionally sadistic, I ultimately find many scenes sadomasochistic because I allow the bottom/sub to view parts of me i have been taught are problems. I mean this both in a general Western Culture way, but also in the Sex Culture way.” – @GetsCarriedAway

“Hurting for someone gives me space to feel feelings I wasn’t allowed to feel when I was younger. I’ve been managing and carefully controlling my emotions my entire life, and it’s incredibly difficult for me to put those guards down. Emotional sadism is someone forcibly tearing those walls down and then putting the negative emotions inside. And that’s safe. If I’m sad because someone wanted me to be, then that isn’t a failure to manage my emotions.” – @ACatNamedSam

It’s hot.

When I first asked this question elsewhere, a very lovely kinky brain scientist told me that it’s fairly simple why people are attracted to this: arousal, plain and simple. Now, while arousal is not a 1:1 connection to “that’s hot,” this meaning of arousal was acknowledged directly by at least a third of participants. There were also several “I don’t know why I like it; I just do” type answers that I didn’t include in this count, but that I suspect meant the same thing, and perhaps responding to the question at all even implies this answer (but perhaps not, so I did do a formal count).

What’s hot about ESM for respondents came from fantasies, from narrative, or from above-listed reasons (such as intimacy) and others being turn-ons themselves. A small but not insignificant number of respondents also mentioned engaging in ESM because the people they like are into it.

Tops were slightly more forthcoming with “it’s just hot” answers. Almost all of them mentioned power. Notably, two switches said that emotional sadism is rooted in sexuality for them, while emotional masochism is not.

Finally, some stated that ESM is something they can engage in even with bodily limitations from illness, disability, or daily life requirements: it is at least to some extent a more practical approach to our sadomasochism.

In all the answers, those three themes were the most all-encompassing. However, there is one last thing that did come up enough that I think it’s worth sharing:

“I deserve it.”

This was, truth be told, only said a few times. All the same, it’s the complication of this statement which makes it the perfect one to end on: although it is true that some who play with ESM have self-conceptions that align with the play, there’s also something here that I always try to highlight in my classes: *you deserve to seek out consensual experiences that are as fucked up as you desire them to be.* Some participants said this outright about themselves, and I am saying it outright here: Those who enjoy ESM deserve to have it with the consenting partners of their dreams.

And so do you, if you’re nodding along with any of this. I hope that you get the chance.

Housekeeping/Interesting things.

Please note that ESM is also edge play for many of us. I suggest you do not engage in it without thorough consideration. I [have a list of questions bottoms could look at here](https://fetlife.com/users/3055227/posts/5489251),

I did not include comments to the writings others posted in response to me if they did not also comment to me directly—no one’s answers were included in the analysis if they were not given specifically to me for that reason. If you’re interested in these writings (which are wonderful!) and the other responses, you can read the “raw data” on Fetlife here. Should you want to join in on the conversation in the comments of my writings, you can find the original Fetlife post of this one here.

The majority of the responses were from bottoms, though not all. Many were from switches. Somewhat surprisingly to me, nearly all of the complete tops who responded chose to do so anonymously. I just found this interesting and wanted to share. Responses quoted are no better or worse than those not quoted. They were just the right quotes for what I was trying to say

Want to be included in future research? I do post about things like this on Fet, but my substack is the best way to ensure you get the questions when I send them out.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

The Kool Aid Man-Sized Hole: pre-planning for unintentional consent violations

An amazing group of edge-players I’m in recently was having a conversation about those of us who like play that’s more… well, as @zel put it, “less hip-checking the edge and more Kool Aid man.” There is a subset of people out there who want play that doesn’t just bring us to our boundaries but sometimes leaps over them. This may include bottoms deciding to forego our safewords and/or negotiation, tops intentionally pushing further at signs of distress, picking at emotional scabs, gaslighting, or any number of things that could, sometimes, lead to going too far. (Note: if you do not believe that this sort of play should be done, even if both parties personally want and seek it out, this note won’t be relevant to you.)

In my CNC Negotiation and Communication class, I refer to this possibility as an unintentional consent violation. In relationships or scenes that purposefully play this way, it’s possible for consent to be violated in a way that isn’t with intent. Both parties play understanding it’s a possibility and fully want to be playing that way still—and yet navigating how to move forward and rebuild after a consent trauma of this nature can be very difficult, particularly if you know you do want to continue playing like that in the future.

I believe unintentional consent violations are a when, not an if, with no-safeword arrangements like the one I’m in and rather likely with other similar CNC structures, and there is *nothing* that will guarantee anyone involved will be okay when this happens. I tend to think that this sort of play should never be engaged in without that being understood by all parties. The best chances of this turning out well may rely on a sort of communication that becomes more difficult after-the-fact, so it can be best to prepare for it in advance.

Below are a few considerations I have when talking to folks about how to navigate this. Please note that this is my process, that everything I say always has a “this may not necessarily apply” asterisk on it, and that those quoted should not be considered as having endorsed anything beyond the inclusion of their quotes.

Behold, a list with confusing and somewhat arbitrary numbering.

Step 1: Figure out systems.

Systems, in this case, refers to anything set up in advance for you to lean on in a time of crisis. I put this as step #1, but in many ways, it’s step all-encompassing. Everything I am suggesting you discuss is setting up a system, a big one: “This is what we will do when an unintentional consent violation occurs.”

This is the part where I address that you can’t always know how you’ll react to something going wrong in this manner—one that may be with someone who you actively ignored the protests of because that’s what they deeply desire in their play and/or sexuality, one who you are hurt crossed a line all while knowing they couldn’t have possibly known the line was there. Cognitive dissonance of that variety *does* change the “typical” trauma responses that rarely have a “typical” in the first place. In fact, you likely *won’t* get it all right. But with systems, there is something to lean on as it gets figured out so that you aren’t having the “What the fuck do we do and when??? What if our needs conflict?” conversation when you really need to be having the “Are you still eating and sleeping?” conversation.

  • On the more specific level of systems, this could look like:
  • Knowing one partner’s trauma response is going to involve a much lower energy for a while and deciding that if an unintentional consent violation happens, the other partner takes on their household tasks
  • Knowing taking medications on time can get lost in the shuffle and ensuring the other partner has the correct information to check in during the days following to remind or confirm.
  • Knowing that someone needs to withdraw emotionally to feel safe at the same time that the other will need other support and establishing—you got it—a support *system.* In discussing playing this way at all, @arrogantslut mentioned “wrapping in the support system of existing partnerships. Telling them I am doing it and asking them if they will be able to catch and hold me if things fall apart.” This is valuable for any sort of play. It is especially valuable in cases where there is a mismatch of needs.

The more specific you can be about systems, the better. Saying you have a support system is one thing. Knowing exactly the people in your sphere who understand and support this sort of play—because it isn’t everyone in kink—may be another. Another still to have people who’ve preemptively agreed that, in such a situation, they’ll ensure those eating/medicating/existing in your world things are happening.

Step 2: Figure out timelines.

In the aftermath of an unintentional consent violation, you may have different aftercare needs than otherwise. Tops may want to know this happened as soon as the scene is over so that they can process where things were misread with the memories still fresh. Bottoms may need extra time to process without physical touch. All of this may even have caveats, such as what sort of violation occurred. In addition to immediate needs, think about debrief conversations, amount of time systems should be in place, and amount of time you might wait before considering trying something similar again.

Step 3: Figure out what you will do next with your play.

This might be an automatic “this sort of play is off the table for x amount of time” or “we move back from exclusive negotiation with no-safeword play to exclusive negotiation with-safeword” or “we take a step out of 24/7.” It can also be “we don’t play again” or “we don’t change play at all; we just go forward with new knowledge.” This one is important to discuss in advance (especially for those engaging in deeply emotional S/m) because in the trauma-recovery state, some may have a “fawn” reaction where they’re likely to acquiesce to their top’s desires, or a “flight” reaction where they back all the way off in a way that makes their bottom feel they’re no longer interested, and so on and so forth. Knowing what direction you’re headed before you start, even if it does change, means that there’s no questioning from either party on if the other is able to both be self-aware and compassionate to the other’s needs in that moment (which you may not be!)

In terms of both this and the prior step, you may wish to set an amount of time to wait before determining to end a partnership. Of course, if someone wishes to walk away, they walk away—but some may want a reminder that they agreed to wait however long before making drastic decisions.

But that all brings me to…

Step 0.5: Figure out that you can indeed do all this with the person you’re considering engaging in this kind of play with.

Not everyone is the right partner for the variety of CNC which may lead to unintentional consent violations, even if they’re the perfect partner for other things. In fact, some may not want to do this with a life-partner because of the possibility of these occurring. You might do this through reflection on your own, and/or you might do it through negotiation conversations. There are questions with concrete answers here, but some may somewhat require believing the other party saying they will be able to do something or you making a judgment. @Pepper_Pots suggests asking (or at least considering how the other might answer) specific questions like “what is the max time/energy you can spend fixing this? Also, do you like/trust me enough to do that sort of work with?” You might also ask if they’ve had other incidents in the past, how those were handled, and what did and didn’t work about that. Of course, this is all irrelevant if you don’t know what qualifies someone as this person for you, so…

Step 0: Figure out *what* your who-can-I-do-this-with requires.

This probably will take a lot of reflection, maybe over time. It could include more abstract factors, such as

  • the ability to own up to mistakes
  • the ability to communicate and listen in the ways you operate best
  • willingness to see the process through with as much honesty and openness as possible, even if that’s saying “I’m no longer finding it easy to be honest and open”

But don’t ignore the more practical aspects either: for this kind of play, do you need…

  • someone who is able to unquestionably able to prioritize you if you need, and therefore unable to do this with someone who has a different primary partner in a hierarchical poly structure?
  • someone who is willing to drive you and stay with you with medical professionals in case of emergency, even if that potentially means discussing the reality of maybe doing things that can’t legally be consented to in your area?
  • someone with certain preexisting medical skills?

Again, go specific with all of this, particularly the abstracts. “I need someone I can trust to go through these things with me” is worthwhile, but there’s more to it. @zel, for example, takes it a step further by breaking down what trust means for her:

when i say trust in this context, i mean that i need to trust:

* your ability to consistently do what you say you will do, and communicate constructively when that becomes difficult or prohibitive.
* your ability to proactively and intelligently participate in risk assessment, mitigating, and care planning.
* maybe most importantly, your ability to own your mistakes and receive honest and compassionately-given feedback with grace and curiosity rather than defensiveness, and to meaningfully learn from those situations for the future.

this last “why” is maybe the most important: consistency for me doesn’t mean making few mistakes or causing no harm; it means consistently working together to handle mistakes and repair from harm. if you can’t emotionally handle hearing that you fucked up or hurt me (given my trust in your intent and my disinterest in casting blame), handling mistakes and repairing from harm becomes very likely to create more things to recover from.

@Darren_Campbell says,

I think it’s also important here to understand what we are talking about when we say “trust”. Am I trusting your truthfulness and ability to make promises you intend to keep? Am I trusting your ability to keep to the word of your agreements, or to the spirit of your agreements (these are 2 VASTLY different things in my experience). Am I trusting in your ability to assess how you feel during and after what we are negotiating? Am I trusting in your ability to adapt and communicate after the fact should expectations not be met? Am I trusting in your ability to read me really well? Am I trusting your own self knowledge? Am I trusting your intent or am I trusting your abilities or am I trusting a combination of both? To me, as I get older, I’m really valuing people who know themselves as best they can and then say “I don’t know” a lot. If I can trust your ethics and your ability to own your mistakes, we can build something cool.

One final step, a step ∞ for anyone still here:


Realize that doing this is still playing with fire — and for all us edge-players’ nice words about risk awareness and safety protocols and mitigation, those risks are real and can be devastating. Physically. Emotionally. To your relationships. Be upfront about these possibilities using your imagination and your self-awareness. Communicate best you can. I really loved these two examples of what that might look like, which come from @suspenddisbelief:

“If you do this, I might feel angry at you for a long time afterwards. Not in a hot way, in a really unsexy resentful way. I might devalue your intelligence in my head as a defense mechanism. Is that okay with you? Why is that okay with you?”

“If you speak to me this way, I might have behavioral spirals that you can’t fix with the number of words you used to set it off. I might require intensive outpatient treatment. Past partners actually came to this treatment with me even though they weren’t the ones who set me off. How does that sound to you? I’m not able to quantify the risk. It’s low, but possible.”

When we were talking about this sort of process, @Chayla said, “I think for me, maybe the way I conceptualize the thing that you’re pointing to is doing what feels necessary to build a foundation where forgiveness is available afterward. This is generally building some level of trust in the other person’s good faith and their intentions, and one of the ways that can happen is conversations about what’s for real badbad.”

The thing that stands out for me is how many of us who play Kool Aid Man style have had things go badbad in various ways. Permanent scars that change how we move through the world. Relationships that end. Trauma responses that bring us back to nightmares we thought we had dealt with and cause major problems in our lives. And yet, these are stories I know specifically from those who play in that space—present tense. There are of course an unknowable number who have had things go badbad and never return, to this kind of play or even to kink at all. But it is doable to have it happen and not regret it. I’d argue many of us play accepting that it one day will, not letting it stop us. We deserve to: to follow our desires. To feel intimacy in the ways that we specifically do. To be fulfilled alongside others drinking the same Kool Aid we are.

Join the conversation on this post in the comments on Fetlife!

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

My considerations for play re hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS)

Necessary Disclaimers

  • This is not written to be about anybody else’s possible experience with Ehlers-Danlos or their play, only my own. I do not cover all our play or all my symptoms, nor do I attempt to reckon with the relative intensity of either.
  • This is also not a user’s guide meant to help others play with me—I remain monogamous and this won’t be changing. So why write it? Because though my experience may not echo yours, though you may have more or less or different limitations than I do, my hope is that other people who have EDS or are playing with people who do are inspired to think or talk about something they haven’t. To this end, I’ve added a few quotes from others who shared their considerations with me as I typed this up and invite others with EDS to share in comments.
  • I also am writing this because I want you to know that if you have this diagnosis (or any other disability), you don’t have to feel your life is over or that you can’t do the things you used to love. You may have to modify many, you may not be able to do all of them, and this isn’t to say that anger, depression, and grief as a response isn’t valid—simply that adaptation and fulfillment remain possible.
  • Though I do some explaining where relevant, I’m not really going to get into what EDS is in great detail—I assume if you’re here you already know or at least are able to Google it—besides to say that there are 13 types, and all have differences. I am speaking from the lens of type III, hEDS. While still classified as rare, this is the most common subtype and what all those I quoted who identified their type named as well. I *will* link you to this, the Beighton score, which will tell you if you are hypermobile. (Hypermobility is not strictly the same as flexibility.) Many are hypermobile to some degree; you can be benignly hypermobile, pain-free, and never experience harm as a result of it. You can also have HSD, hypermobility spectrum disorder, where you do have musculoskeletal involvement and joint/pain damage without the collagen also affecting other bodily systems as in hEDS. Some people with HSD experience more disability than some people with hEDS—both are on spectrums.

Joint Hypermobility Considerations in Play

Rope

It is my aim to be non-prescriptive with the majority of writing, but here is where I will be for a second: it is extremely important that rope bottoms and tops know what hypermobility is and have a sense of how to identify and approach it. I have a theory that—for several reasons—hypermobile people are more drawn to disciplines where hypermobility can be used. Therefore, there is a higher proportion of hypermobile rope bottoms than some would expect. Unfortunately, though hypermobility does not always translate to hyper flexibility, it is commonly exploited when it does.

This was something that was made use of with me often in suspension. I did not feel active pain at the time and did not know it was a problem. I even encouraged it, so I don’t blame my rope top, though I now believe new rope tops do need education on this: in suspension, the influence of gravity + time = passive stretching, and where most people’s bodies would say, “I can no longer sustain this; this is incredibly painful. Take me out now!”, hypermobile ones will not until it’s far too late. They will not offer the same resistance “normal” bodies do that signals they can’t bend further. I would keep deepening into a stretch in a way that could be fine if I were doing it healthily, but I was not. This will eventually dislocate joints. And while I never had any full dislocations that resulted from suspensions, joint damage is also cumulative. I genuinely believe that I would not be disabled in the way I am now if I did not suspend frequently for the first 3 years of my adult life. I still would be eventually, most likely, but I think I sped that process up.

What this means for rope bottoms in general is that you are safest engaging your muscles the entire time you are suspended in flexy positions, and you should seek out rope tops that know this and will encourage this and will not tie you at your usual limit, knowing a position will likely deepen. Disciplines like circus and pole—ones that train you to achieve these positions in the air and using your strength instead of with the influencing factors of relaxation, pushing into the floor, and other elements you might see in yin yoga (as one example)—will help. I believe ShibariStudy has videos with mobility exercises for hypermobile bottoms and I have a post on healthy stretching relevant for everyone but particularly hypermobile bodies, here.

What this means for me is that I do not do rope suspension anymore.
[ADDITION, OCTOBER ’24: You can now hear more about this journey on episode 184 of RopePodcast, available on iTunes, on Spotify, or on SoundCloud! 🎉]

@LovelyDarkness says:

I strongly recommend working on building strength to actively control any hypermobility or extreme ranges of motion you go into. People often gravitate towards bendy poses in rope and the bottom may be sitting in the position completely or somewhat passively. This could be unknowingly putting strain on their already lax tendons and ligaments making them more susceptible to injury. Also, that strength will also benefit your joint stability in any vanilla activities you do. Also, keeping my partner up to date of what joints are currently being problematic and which muscles are strained.

Other kinds of bondage:

I am a twister and a puller. This makes anything where I have a joint strapped into place but the rest of my body can move a problem. Things like Saran Wrap mummification-style bondage? Great! I can’t pull any of my limbs in crazy ways like that at all, and that’s both good for me and bad for me (in the way I like.) Otherwise, I must be careful. If I’m being whipped on a cross at a party, you might see me holding on to attached cuff points–but I will rarely be strapped into them, because I will twist and pull away more than I should and that might lead to a shoulder dislocation. We have a four-point bed bondage system that we play with sometimes which has less risk to me because the gravity influence isn’t there, but my Owner has absolutely has had to remind me to flail less when in it.

@-Gingerr- says:

I like more of a primal type fight for dominance during actual sex as I tend to separate sex & kink. I can’t be in bondage, partial dislocations are common for me and I need to be able to manipulate my joints back into place if they move in a way they shouldn’t. Bondage wouldn’t allow me that freedom, but being physically held down, I can ‘yellow’ fix my joint quickly and get right back to it! Not being able to fix it quickly would cause me pain longer term.

More joint considerations in general:

  • Being choked out is one of my favorite activities. My Owner of course always guides me to the ground if we do this and I’m upright, but has to especially watch how I land because my knees will basically bend wherever they decide to. Recently I came to on the kitchen floor and just as soon as I was conscious enough, He pointed out to me that He had been unable to fully keep me from partially W-sitting so that I could correct it ASAP.
  • It used to be that when I kissed his boots, He would sometimes put weight on one of my hands with the other foot. It was always gently, but as I’m starting to have more wrist involvement lately and this is my biggest personal risk concern, I don’t know if this will be something that can safely part of our play going forward. We’ll just have to see.
  • As a sort of opposite point, needles are one of the types of play I engage more frequently in because they *don’t* involve joint hypermobility considerations. On a day I can’t be swatted around or thrown into a wall, I can still lie still and be a pincushion without needing much mobility at all.

@SweetWhisky says:

While [hypermobility] means I can be folded up and thoroughly fucked, it also means that if I safeword due to needing released from a tie, hold, or position, I need to be released immediately. While my body can do a great many things, if it decides it is done every second increases the pain and inflammation response.

@SassyShrugs says:

As a rule, I have to be careful with rope bondage and rough scenarios as it is easy to cause my shoulder or a knee to pop out and damage me. My right arm can’t handle being bound back/at certain angles and I cannot lay on my right side for any period of time. I have to be very cautious about what ties I allow done that will impact my chest/shoulders. I also cannot run (dislocate) and am hesitant about anything that might impact my knees.

Skin Considerations in Play

  • I scar easily and unpredictably; though we used to play often with scalpels (basically my favorite thing) and I have lasting scars from this, my largest is actually from a single-tail whip.
  • I also heal slowly. To go back to needles, needle sticks that might not cause giant dime-sized bruises on others may anyway on me. They often last 3-4 weeks, sometimes more. I bruise not as often everywhere with impact because my butt has gone gothmetal, but when I do, it’s often dark and large and near always heals slowly.
  • While my skin doesn’t break as easily as some in other varieties of EDS, I definitely have had swings from various impact tools split skin when we didn’t expect them to.
  • I see doctors much more frequently than others and sometimes at very little notice. This is something we must think about in combination with the above. I establish kink on every first doctor’s appointment and do not see them again if there’s any discomfort. Yes, I have been turned away from doctors for it.

@808KD says:

I’m also immunosupressed due to inflammatory arthritis. So my skin is fragile and I’m WAY more likely to get infections. But I also love implements like curry combs. So I have a rule that I don’t allow broken skin where I can’t see it. […] Before play I clean all implements very carefully, and I shower with Hibiclens after play.

Sex

Positions:

  • Most of my joint issues right now are in my upper body. I don’t have a lot of hip involvement currently, though they clunk a fair amount. Many with EDS use sex swings to reduce hip dislocation by stabilizing plane of motion. We do use props such as stacked pillows to support me, which frankly we did for pleasure long before I started learning about all this.
  • SweetWhisky mentions being foldable and fuckable and… yeah. My legs can be thrown back behind my head pretty much at a moment’s notice. This feels amazing and is one of my favorite ways to get fucked, and I know how to engage the appropriate muscles due to contortion lessons, but this falters with *ahem* less focus and it’s possible it does damage.
  • The best sex position for me at the moment is being fucked on my side in a kind of a fetal position with my hips elevated on a pillow, with Him kneeling upright next to me. This really allows us to minimize my movements and if I’m having a bad shoulder day, I can decide which side I am on accordingly. Since it keeps my hips together too, it will probably be a great position for us long into the future. It also gives easy access to my tits. (That’s not EDS-related. It’s just fun.)
  • The other most frequent with us is doggie style. When I’m in more pain, I actually do this putting a lot of weight on my knees/shins and face in addition to chest and sort of putting my hands on either shoulder in a coffin type position. Again, this minimizes movement. There are days when I can’t find a good position for my neck doing this but am still horny, which brings me to…
  • I can kick off sex with blowjobs on my knees for a short while and sometimes can give them with Him lying down and myself on both hands and knees, doing a more push-up type motion than anything else—but for the most part, I end up making too much movement for my unstable neck and shoulders to do either for long. But by far the easiest of any kind of sex for me is—yes, I’m serious—lying down and having my face fucked. On a memory foam contoured pillow, my head doesn’t move much at all doing this, and Him straddling my chest and arms keeps them in place. And I have no gag reflex at all anymore in this position and think it’s hot AF. So yes, yes, it’s true. In my most out-of-commision-but-still-sexy state, my best way of getting sexual connection is having my mouth turned into a passive hole. Lucky me, I’m a broken little thing in other ways and can get off to this the way my Owner does it. YMMV.

@808KD says:

Jaws suck to put back into place. So I prefer to use an open mouth gag for throat fucking. It keeps jaw fatigue to a minimum and I won’t get overzealous and open too wide and dislocate my jaw.

Pelvic organs:

Something worth mentioning is that—by some estimates—more than 50% of all those with a uterus will experience pelvic organ prolapse at some point in their life. Most of this will occur at the very least after childbirth, and often not until menopause. There’s a population likely to have them much younger even when not having ever given birth and if you guessed that’s people with EDS, you’re right! This is actually what led me to my official diagnosis.

I have a kind of prolapse called a cystocele. It’s not visible from the outside and my Owner has said that it’s not something that He can pick up on. It was noticeable enough to me to get it diagnosed, but since that happened, I either stopped feeling it or just got acclimated to it enough that I don’t notice. It won’t get better. I can only try to prevent it getting worse. The use of overlarge toys was never an interest of mine or part of our play, and it probably won’t become one in the future for this reason.

At the appointment where I learned about my cystocele and the EDS connection, I was told that to avoid rectal prolapse, I should not have anal again. This was very sad for me as I was able to come from it, but that’s just how it be sometimes. I’ve had other EDS people say their doctors saw no problem with it, so consult your own professionals. (Update 2024: recently, we’ve had some progress in my disappointment in this in that it turns out hypnosis is very effective on me! I will not be taking further questions at this time. *hides immediately*)

@-Gingerr- says:

EDS & childbirth gives a higher chance for a prolapse (note for education here, there are 4 stages of prolapse and only 2 involve organs outside the body, the other 2 are just a slightly lower placement than ‘normal’ inside the body). My cervix will always sit lower in my pelvis now than it should and no amount of kegels will improve it further than the progress I’ve already made. Part of this is psychological, I like to be filled when I have an orgasm, preventing my cervix from moving further down as my muscles squeeze during an orgasm. If im not filled I worry my cervix will move further down again and cause long term discomfort. Secondly because its always a bit lower, some sexual positions will always hit my cervix no matter the size of dick I’m being penetrated by. I enjoy a little bit of masochism but there’s only so much of a cervix beating I can take so some positions are for minimal time, or not at all.

Birth control

  • If and when childbirth is a thing for me, there are a number of potential complications. Luckily, I have the best possible OBGYN for this. Still, because it’s very very important this not be a thing for me til I’m ready, birth control became even more of a priority for me than ever before.
  • I was always super sensitive to birth controls and paid hundreds of dollars a month at one time to keep from having to take a kind that turned me into a demon (ACA is not a match for a particularly predatory patent.) My very EDS-knowledgeable OBGYN puts all her patients in this category on the lowest estrogen pill possible. Though YMMV, it is my doctor’s belief that none of her patients with EDS should ever be on a progesterone-only pill (minipill) or use the shot and that we be very careful with the implant or IUDs as we may have a heightened tendency to have them move out of place. I am inclined to take her advice.
  • At the time I met her—right after I became aware of my pelvic organ prolapse—I was a few weeks post-taking the morning-after pill. I never want to take that again in my life; it was a nightmare for me, and therefore, my daily pill is even more important and something that would need to be thought about for any multi-day scene. Plan B works by using enough progesterone to make your body think you are already pregnant, therefore preventing a pregnancy from taking. It is possible that the complications I experienced then were a direct result of the hormones already telling my lax body to relax more.

Heart, Vasovagal, and Dysautonomia Response

POTS is not necessarily always part of EDS, but it’s highly comorbid. Being upside-down could cause me to pass out or have some other response in this realm; since suspension is no longer a thing for me, this isn’t such a big category for me these days. However, hydration is a big way I manage these symptoms and is something I prioritize every day and especially on play days and throughout play.

@SweetWhisky says:

My tachycardia is easily triggered, though being horizontal means I almost never pass out. What does happen easily for me is constant adrenal surges and tachycardia. This paves the way for subspace to be a rather easily achieved goal with me. However, this also means that intense sex almost always means recovery to a level like I’ve been having panic attacks. It means intense exhaustion can be a very real thing. I’m also a squirter to a serious level, which can leave me heavily dehydrated. Coupled with the tachycardia and adrenal surges, this can be hell on my body.

@LovelyDarkness adds:

extreme reactions to temp. If its too cold I loose circulation and get a Raynaud’s attack, if its too hot, my extremities swell and I get dizzy. So I need my play environment to be a safe temp. for me. Additionally, with my autonomic system out of wack, it can impact things like being able to orgasm. So, being aware and communicating that is just my body and not a reflection on my enjoyment of sex or my partner’s sex skills.

@sadie writes in-depth about experiences to this end on Fetlife here.

The All-Encompassing “Other”

There are a few other factors I have to think about when it comes to EDS and kink. Big ones right now are

  • I have some issues with bladder proprioception (I can’t always tell when I really have to pee, leaving me sitting for an hour or more at a time waiting for it to happen sure that it will any second) and sometimes GERD. I have a comorbid Chiari Malformation which causes migraines. Managing these is a consideration of mine on planned play days especially, to be sure.
  • MCAS is another common comorbidity. Since we don’t know what I’ll have an allergic reaction to, I now have epi-pens in my bedroom and my car. At any party we go to in the future, one will come in a playbag.
  • Disability makes me more dependent on my Owner’s support, both emotional and financial, and this can affect how people come to the table in terms of consent. We communicate extremely well but I try to self-audit frequently as to how this fact pertains to our communication, especially in light of the sometimes very intense emotional S/m we engage in. (I also fetishize it for that. Hey, we all have our thing(s).)
  • The biggest effects on my play are the more general, cumulative ones where the associated pain and fatigue has lessened both how often I can play and how often I can be surprised by it. Though this may have happened organically over time anyway, having fewer days I can play as physically as I’d like absolutely have been aided by us developing major interests in emotional play, as well as other sorts of play like needles. But this can be a cause of depression and even breakdowns for me. I want Him to throw me into walls at random and that’s just not the life I can live anymore. I want Him to not care I’m in severe pain and fuck me anyway. Sometimes He will—to a point. Mostly, He won’t. His risk profile for me is higher than my risk profile for myself. In exchange, I tell Him about all the little changes I may experience, good or bad, so He can make these decisions. That’s why our no-safeword TPE works.
  • My Owner also learns about all this and its potential solutions for me alongside me (largely by patiently listening to me read things aloud and ramble), theorizes with me about connections, and attends any relevant appointments He can. This is so important to our being able to play safely.

This all kind of sounds like a lot put like this. It isn’t, in practice. Each element kind of gets added and figured out as you go and you change things and they just become integrated into your life.

I am grateful for this life. It also isn’t the one I wanted. I am grateful for my person. He is the one I always want. I feel like a burden often. He does His best to talk me out of it. Not everyone has someone like this and I know this and value it deeply. I thought I’d have more to say in this paragraph and I don’t. Simply: it just be like that sometimes. We keep going anyway.

I’ve added quotes from people throughout as I could, and invite anyone else to add their info as relevant below if you’d like. If you want to write a full note about this or already have one, let me know and I’ll add the link to the list below. I’ll also add to this as things change over my life. Finally, if you have some other health condition or limitation and want to write a note about how you use it to manage play, please send me a link. One day, time and resources allowing, I intend to make lists for the Risk Evaluation Database allowing people to search by health consideration in addition to by kind of play.

Links from others:
Nath wrote about their experience with their EDS as a top here.

You can find the original Fetlife version of this post, which has some additional thoughts and responses from others in the comments, by clicking here.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

How do you make sure CNC isn’t too “real”? A conversation.

I asked the other day for people’s burning CNC-related questions in preparation for teaching my CNC class. I got a lot of good and intriguing topics in response, but there was one I was immediately struck by:

How do you make sure it’s not too ‘real’? Like fun in the moment and [not] totally traumatic afterwards?

Soon after, I got to discussing some of this with my long-time Fet friend, @-chickenlittle-. -chickenlittle- is a very wise, very thoughtful human who also engages in CNC in a way similar to how I do, and they agreed to let me publish some of our chat. You’ll find their thoughts in bold, and mine… well, not.

The idea of “going too far.” For me, there really isn’t. In my submission, he decides how far we go. If there is active harm I can tell him, but it’s built into my submission that he decides how much I take.

That’s my take too. And that “I tell Him” is very important… People think no safeword might mean not speaking up. It means speaking up even more. It just means I can’t count on the decision being mine.

One thing I do want to say in response to that question is that some people do want CNC to be NOT fun. That’s a valid choice. Defining terms is really important, because some people use CNC to mean totally roleplay and some of us use it to mean I want to fear for my life and be made to do things I hate for real; some of us use it to mean no safeword at all and some of us use it to mean only the safeword will stop things, etc. etc. Tops get a say in that too, of course. If a top isn’t okay with the idea of someone *actually* suffering at their hands, they should play with bottoms who also desire scenes that always have that undercurrent of “fun.”

I’d say suffering is a *heavy* part of why I enjoy CNC. To put this in an easy way, there is so much suffering around us. Pain, injustice, etc. Having some sort of consensual suffering… it feels like an escape from that world.

I find some people have a hard time understanding that, or have been shamed into thinking it isn’t okay to want. It’s inherently not real because of the consent part. It’s not necessarily the goal to be “fun” outside of that.

Sometimes when people grow up in unsafe situations they develop responses to situations. I deeply feel this is part of why I enjoy suffering. It creates my fawn response and to be honest, it is so much easier to be happy and grateful for my life. Suffering keeps me here. It keeps me present. When we haven’t played in a while I get… Distant. I find it hard to connect with anyone, even my human. When we engage in consensual suffering it connects me to my body better than anything I’ve experienced. I don’t regret it when the response has faded, nor do I experience negative side effects. I think this is in large part to the trust I have for my Owner, as well as my consent to the situation.

Honestly, while I don’t consider my draw toward suffering to be a trauma response exactly, this does nail down a lot of it. Things like drowning force my body to fight to live, no matter what my emotions are telling me, and that’s a powerful symbol for me.

What do you think keeps a scene for you in that fawn response zone and not into the “okay, I’m having an actual trauma response”?

Doing this with my partner, we do it out of love. If I do fall into trauma response and am needing help, we immediately do that. I’m safe. In a similar situation, rape play gave me power back because I could have some control over the scene, CNC gives me power back because it’s founded in love. If [my abuser] harmed me, that was it. If my Love harms me, everything is paused until we are both okay again. It’s not about Him getting His way. It’s about me continually following his authority. To be honest, I hate doing the dishes more than I have ever hated what he was doing to me.

So looking at the original question… is it even about the scene construction and the events that happen for you? Is the difference the everything-outside-of-the-scene… As in the way we make sure it’s “fun,” whatever that means, and not too real, has to do with the relationship itself, discussions you have had, and knowledge you’ve consented (whether or not we really call that negotiation at this stage)?

I’d say those things are the most important. That makes all the difference for me internally.

Yeah, me too. Especially when we are dealing with those things not meant to be “fun.” It’s also helpful when things go sideways… and I strongly believe that if you do play with blanket consent at all, that’s a when, not an if. For me, I really emphasize knowing how you’re going to handle that.

I am very vocal when I’m afraid of harm. Even though I trust him implicitly there are still things he can do without intent. Any time he gets near my knees or does a bad position on my shoulder, it flies out of my mouth. I’m highly protective of myself by reflex now, sometimes too much.

That’s my method too. And not always during the scene. I don’t go nonverbal frequently, but it happens. You can still communicate. I have done it once by going as still as possible. But before, after, randomly throughout the week… things have to be said. Whenever they occur to me. Particularly because we don’t pre-plan all our scenes, I have to just announce when I’m having trigger-y days, when I’m overly tired, when I’m having bad pain days. It may be what

I personally couldn’t ask for a better Owner, and I’m glad he takes my constant chatter as communication and not some annoying bullshit.

Lol. Yep. We are the same on a lot of this. What I’m wondering now is your thoughts on how trauma and trouble is avoided when people do want to do pick-up CNC or CNC with near-strangers, which is also a valid thing. I try to talk about partner selection, risk profile considerations, in-moment communication and such in class, but so much of communication for something like this does occur over time it becomes even more difficult.

This is a very hard question. It also depends on what kind of CNC. There’s literally infinite ways to do CNC. If it were *me*, I would figure out what play I want and why, do a personal risk assessment, consider if I’m willing to accept the ramifications of permanent damage and how likely that is (possibly impossible to answer), what support I have if shit hits the fan, what I would do if they forced something I didn’t actually consent to and if that’s a risk I’m willing to take… The biggest questions are this: Am I prepared to deal with the possible consequences? Do I need this to be a stranger because of the thrill or because I don’t have a partner and really really want this scene? Am I okay with that? The issue is thinking “Oooh this sounds fun!” instead of “this sounds fun, and the possible ramifications are X, Y, Z. Can I deal with that?” It takes a lot of hard self-honesty. Not many are capable of that.

This was just a bit of our conversation, which was honestly fantastic. I learn from my friends here, new and old, all the time. That’s part of what I love about teaching on Zoom—people’s contributions in chat add to the conversation even more in a way that can’t be done in-person. If you want to take my Negotiating and Communicating for CNC class, keep an eye on my newsletter or Fetlife profile for the next time it’s scheduled… and if there aren’t any listed, ask your favorite event hosts to shoot me a message about collaborating! Or we can have these conversations in my inbox anytime—truly. Please feel free to reach out and say hi.

-chickenlittle- is also open to your messages for those with questions about CNC, which I recommend because they’re just generally a really great human. Many many thanks again to @-chickenlittle- for allowing me the honor of your words.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

You should reevaluate your risk profile.

There was a time when I would have come into something with this title with my hackles up. I’d be prepared to bite back: no, my being young, my being new do *not* mean that I don’t know what I’m doing. I should get to do edge play if that’s what I want. I can evaluate risks just fine. And if that’s you, the first thing I want to say is: you’re right. I agree. This writing isn’t going to tell you you can’t. This isn’t even a writing geared toward the inexperienced, anyway. This is a writing geared toward everyone

because we all should reevaluate our risk profiles.

no matter where in our journeys we are; no matter how long we’ve been with and intend to be with the same partners. The things we are willing to sacrifice for what kink gives us–which is what I use to define risk profile, but your own definition probably works here too–just don’t stay the same. This all needs to be looked at and talked about, frequently.

It isn’t a one-time assessment; it’s a process–because being a human being is a process. We learn. We become more aware of ourselves and our bodies. We interrogate our desires, needs, and priorities in life. And those desires, needs, and priorities change. Constantly. Dynamically. Often in surprising ways.

As I recently started to think about an upcoming Risk Profile Workshop I was teaching and topics people here on Fet said they wanted to hear about, I put out a status asking how people’s risk profiles have changed over time. I have had some great conversations since. This writing is an attempt to sum up those responses—something which this answer, by @MadQueerBitch, does quite nicely (and much more briefly than myself, lol):

Much more detail.
More body parts that are fragile.
More time constraints.
More emotional availability.
More hard skills.
Far more soft skills.
More “No, none for me, thanks”
More self-protection.
More ease in stating boundaries.
More self-strength in my “vetting”.

Here are the things I saw come up over and over again.

Our risk profiles change in how we evaluate and discuss what fits into them.

People spoke of their risks becoming less about “this is what I like and this is what is a limit” and more about skills. Do tops have the proper training? Have bottoms taken classes or done enough research to identify warning signs? Have tops and bottoms talked together about elements of risk mitigation? More access to classes, experts, and resources is a big part of this. So is figuring out we can’t really take anything for granted—be that knowledge, willingness, or capability. Itai said, “I left behind Guess Culture for Ask Culture,” which I thought was a particularly wonderful phrase.

Our risk profiles change in response to changing bodies, desires, abilities, and needs.

What our bodies can and can’t handle is in flux all the time for so many reasons: age, ability, hormones, what prescriptions we are on, the amount of sleep we are able to get. What is safe for our bodies one year may not be the next. Play that didn’t used to cause scarring may one day start to. New disability happens. Injuries. Changing needs for changing careers and family structures. Wear and tear on our bodies simply from kink itself. It’s worth noting that changing bodies, as @Friskybunny pointed out to me, can subtract risks and make us able to do more, as well as less—bodies that have a risk of becoming pregnant that causes more caution at one point in life, for example, one day will not.

Minds change too, both in their health and in what interests us. I’ll speak to my own experience here: there was a time when appearance or intelligence-based degradation were things I was wholly unwilling to touch. Now they’re among my favorites. I can’t say what changed—was it comfort with my partner? A new fetish I picked up reading someone’s writing? More confidence in myself? I’m not sure, exactly. Maybe it was just time: learning our reactions and experimenting makes a difference, and it makes our awareness of our needs and abilities more nuanced. As the very smart and experienced-with-this-sort-of-thing @_Pavlov_ says:

I’m WAY more emotionally healthy than I was years ago, and can do MUCH cooler and higher-skill-needed emotional kinds of play now. That being said, I’m much less willing to risk fucking around with play that can easily result in unintended feelings of attachment.

Our risk profiles change in response to experiencing and knowing more in kink.

Sometimes learning and experiencing more means that we have to rule out play we once loved in order to keep our ability to do the things we most prioritize safe. This can come with learning about a risk we didn’t previously know could happen (may I direct you to the Risk Evaluation Database?), gaining understanding of the skills required to execute a certain sort of play properly and realizing the people we know who actually have those skills are more limited than we thought, and the things we observe in our communities. To that end, @off2infinity added an interesting point about how his time in the scene has changed *who* fits into his risk profile:

I feel safer with newbies and people who don’t have a leadership position within the community, whereas before, I leaned towards more experienced tops. It’s difficult to speak out against someone who is perceived as an authority figure or leader.

But knowing and experiencing more can also lead to doing more. Being exposed to new and different kinks (and ways of making our current kinks happen) can open up opportunities. This might mean that we can make things happen with less risk and no sacrifice to the amazingness of play–increasing both tops’ and bottoms’ comfort, frequency they’re willing to engage in certain things, and so forth. @MadQueerBitch’s growing kink experiences have led to figuring out that “the results/feelings desired can be duplicated in lower risk actions, most of the time.”

Hand-in-hand with this is the fact that…

Our risk profiles change in response to experiencing and knowing more of ourselves.

When I talk about my approach to risk management, I occasionally get asked about renegotiating mid-scene—something which is generally spoken of in “the community” as being a no-no, but that I am not personally unilaterally opposed to. Consenting to this, sleep play, playing around under the influence of or even with substances, are all things that I think can end up removed from someone’s risk profile over time. That’s the key to me with all of this: time. Time enough to know how you respond to various sorts of things, how they affect your decision-making, how you feel about it (immediately, days, months) after.

And with time comes experiences: the things we pick up along the way. @venerant spoke about her risk profile expanding to allow more play through experimenting a little bit at a time:

So many years of incremental risks and practice in recovering from experiences has given me more confidence that I am capable of weathering things that go badly. It has made me more open to things I once would have viewed as dangerous.

Specifically when it comes to emotional play, she said,

I’ve been able to let myself have more small risky experiences so that I can witness myself in crisis (or at least, facing down strong emotional experiences that I’m unprepared to handle) and practice managing myself.

Other personal knowledge/experience items mentioned that can change our willingness to take risks included having new outlooks on who is/isn’t in our support networks, figuring out we can heal from things we didn’t think we could (and vice versa), learning new coping methods and ways to stay grounded or take care of ourselves/our partners after intensities, and an increasing awareness of our relationship needs.

When @_Pavlov_ (who, again, is really incredible (and also writes about topics that go along with this one) ) suggested this topic to me, she said:

We don’t wake up in exactly the same place inside ourselves everyday. We don’t stay the same person our whole lives. We change, our bodies change, our emotional landscape changes, our lives change us. Trying to apply yesterday’s or last year’s or last decade’s self-made-rules can go really wrong.

It’s a process. It’s in flux. It’s a constant re-evaluation.

What’s important to note is that this change isn’t just one direction or another. What play we decide we can do both expands and contracts. As @twisted_hugs put it:

I feel like I am less willing to take risks now than before, but only because I didn’t realize how risky things were when I was doing them before. Now I’m more willing to do things I thought were very risky before, but only because I have more education on ways to mitigate the risk pretty well.

But one things for certain: things *do* change.

So if you’re reading this right now, take a moment to ask yourself how yours has changed lately and, if relevant, communicate these answers to your partner(s). What do you feel more confident about your feelings on? What new life priorities affect your kink world? What new kinks have you become aware of and interested in? What does your body do now that it didn’t when you last asked these questions?

Join the conversation in the comments on the Fetlife version of this post here.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

Scene Practicalities from the Bottom: a case study

This is a sort of “case study” of what it looked like to be me and prepare to play, eight years in to a 24/7 TPE. I’m wrote it because I’d never seen the practicalities written about before, and maybe at some point I could have found it useful. Maybe you will now. Maybe not.

This is what it looks like for me. This isn’t the only way or the right way, just my way. 

CAVEATS/FACTORS:

  • Nope, we do not always plan our play at this point, nor do I always get a heads up of or say in what we do.
  • At the same time, we both have busy lives at this point, and I am disabled—I have a disorder called Ehlers-Danlos where my joints dislocate very often and I get related chronic pain, along with other systemic issues—meaning planning at all means I can do some of what I discuss here and the chance of playing going well increases. We are also both recovering from COVID right now and have less energy than usual.
  • Yes, this is a bit clinical. This isn’t sexy; it’s meant to be practical. A girl alludes to going to the bathroom. You’ve been warned.
  • No, I don’t think about things this in-depth as I’m doing them. I am totally on autopilot for these things *at this point* but that doesn’t mean I am not doing things on purpose–so I took a step back and analyzed for this.

THE WEEKEND BEFORE:

I want to play, but it doesn’t end up happening. There are two prongs to why, one much more important than the other:

  • The less important: we don’t start our nightly hangin’ out until after midnight each night…
  • The more important: …and that’s because I never mentioned wanting to play. Maybe if I had, we would have planned for things differently. Hard to know.

THURSDAY (one day before):

We plan for something vanilla on Saturday, and I mention maybe some time next week while we are both off, we can play. He says He’d Love to do that, even to do it earlier than next week. I didn’t expect this but am absolutely down, especially knowing I have a fairly “light” day tomorrow. I make sure to get a full night’s sleep.

FRIDAY (day of):

  • I finish the little bit of work I have at home and make the phone call that determines I don’t, in fact, have to drive today. Driving and physical movement of certain kinds are some of my biggest bad-pain risk factors, so this is mostly good. That said, I’m fairly pain-free today, so…
  • I decide to take my dog to the park. The amount the driving increases my pain will likely be fairly small, and this will also tire her out enough so she’s not saddened by a lack of attention tonight and the pup’s needs are taken care of.
  • When I return home, Owner is napping. I join Him. I don’t actually sleep, but the rest is good and lying on my back won’t increase bad-pain possibilities.
  • We get up. He says casually as we get dressed, “By the way, what kind of pain are you in the mood for tonight? I could go for whips, kicking and punching, wooden paddle–anything really, but those are what stand out.” Those all sound great to me (there’s little that wouldn’t) and I say so, but point out we’ve never been able to do whips at home because of ceiling height issues. I also realize that I don’t have PT again for a few weeks, which sometimes changes where I can be marked, and say so in case it’s relevant. He says it probably won’t be. (LATER UPDATE: it was, so I’m glad I said it.)
  • I pick up the room we play in a bit and also put on my back brace. I communicate to Him if He sees me in any of my pain-relief type wearables, it’s more preventative than anything else. He says He would have assumed as such since I haven’t mentioned having a bad pain day, but thanks me for telling Him anyway.

(This is important relationship-building improvement on both our ends from earlier this year. There was a stretch when I really wished we had been playing more and was really quiet and in my head about it; when we finally discussed it, we realized that He had thought that wearing heat = bad pain days. It does, but it doesn’t *always*, so I asked Him to just ask me. He said at that point that He’d try but would probably still assume it was bad unless told otherwise. What happened here shows that we both listened to each other’s feedback and fixed this. It’s awesome that I both was clear about this, and that He was already trusting I’d speak up if a change needed to happen.)

  • I start cooking. I’m making Moroccan Beef Stew for a few reasons. It’s the right nutrition for how we play; I am able to play hardest when I’ve had red meat first. (This is something I learned over time; I had been vegetarian for a decade when we met and was for the first year or two of our relationship.) It’s also a favorite thing I love to eat and know I can cook with my eyes closed, so low chance for disaster. Most importantly, however, it’s a stew, so it simmers for two hours. This means that if the repetitive motions involved in cooking increase my pain, I have time to recover and check in with my body. They don’t, really, but…
  • I do have a small wine bottle fiasco. This is one of those small aggravating things that could be a mood-ruiner but I consciously do not let it be.
  • Simultaneously: I make Liquid IV (an electrolyte hydration drink) and end up downing it way faster than usual, meaning I make more Liquid IV.
  • Simultaneously: I do a quick service thing by checking my fridge to see if we have the beer He likes to have when we play, just so I know in advance. We do. I may or may not have run out to get some if we didn’t. (LATER UPDATE: He did end up grabbing it while we played… BUT there was a short delay as He couldn’t find where I’d put the bottle-opener, so I’ll leave that out next time too.)
  • Before finishing in the kitchen, I put some dishes away. This doesn’t need to be done tonight, but if it’s going to be, better it be now for aforementioned why-I’m-cooking-early reasons. In some ways, this is pre-aftercare-prep for me. I know I may not want to tomorrow because of drop, so–now it is. (LATER UPDATE: there’s no way I would have wanted to do this the next day.)
  • I go to the bathroom. My disorder has some related gastrointestinal and pelvic organ symptom possibilities that I don’t deal with all the time, but I do some. My body tells me I’m going to want to do this again after dinner to be sure. I also take a Pepto.
  • I do a bit of range-of-motion work. I believe that any motion made in a scene should not be the first time that motion is made that day, and if we are going to be doing any kind of rough body play, there may be less predictability to my movements, so I want to bring myself through range-of-motion for pretty much my entire body. Doing this slowly also allows me to check in with myself about any problem spots. I pull something almost immediately, but it isn’t a muscle that’s going to impact what we’re doing *unless* we go into cunt kicking. This didn’t seem particularly likely, so I’ll bring it up then if needed.
  • I write the starts of this writing in the down-time, which is a relatively low-energy/effort activity unlikely to stress me out.

THE SCENE:

We end up doing all three of the kinds of play He brought up earlier, since I had no objections. The whip *is* throwable in the space, turns out, but is a bit under-conditioned so we do have to stop that before long because of some related issues in how precisely He can aim in how it’s throwing. However, because of what I said about PT, we are able to do whips on my back for a bit (less can go wrong with an aim issue than if we were doing it on my front). All-in-all, we play pretty hard for about an hour, until He begins to overheat from wailing on me, lol. There wasn’t much to be done about this: our air conditioning doesn’t work right now, and our landlord is slacking on this as it’s December and most people don’t need air conditioning. Womp womp.

AFTERCARE:

General: Degrading fucking. An episode of Brooklyn 99. He says I should eat something, and I choose three chocolate chip cookies. More degrading fucking–I’m quite tired by this time so He gives me an out before we start, which I do not take. Reader, I regret nothing.

Emotional: The scene went into my I-literally-don’t-feel-pain zone quickly. I had a little bit of post-scene “oh shit, i feel bad because You’re a sadist” that I brought up post-fucking#1. He reassured me that whether or not *I* always want my brain to switch over into that zone, it’s His favorite, because it means He gets to really go all out on me. I’m glad I brought this up immediately because He effectively got rid of that negative reflection before it could spiral.

Physical: I probably should have sat on some ice to decrease swelling, but because of the way I process pain (not as pain) I need to be really conscious about this because my body won’t automatically cue me to do it. I did clean off abrasions.

THE DAY AFTER:

The one problem with not needing to drive yesterday means I do today, and it’s to something that stresses me out and that I’d really usually rather not do on a potential drop day. I drop worse two days after a scene than the next day, but still prefer to be with Owner all of the next day just in case. This timing was not ideal. But if I’d waited for the timing to be ideal, we never would play again.

The day is mostly pretty good. I had planned for low-effort cooking, which was smart. By the evening, I recognize my going into some of my droppier habits of retreating in times of stress, but didn’t/don’t feel the need at the moment to consciously not do that. I didn’t remind Him of the vanilla thing we’d planned to do in the evening, and it didn’t end up happening. This wasn’t on me, but I also knew that He would likely not be thinking of it since two-activity weekends aren’t common here. But I also didn’t care all that much, so it was fine.

THE NEXT NEXT DAY:

So my “i drop worse two days after a scene” is proving true. I had initially planned to get my COVID booster shot today and decided yesterday to put that off, and I’m glad for it. I’m kind of achey, more to do with the rain than anything else. Owner and I will both get our boosters tomorrow. While I went on our dog walk yesterday, I may not today, depending on how my legs feel—we’ll see. It might be a good idea for me to go either way; I’ll test range-of-motion first. I’m moody but am dealing with it by painting my nails, finishing this writing, and hanging out with my plants.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

When it comes to emotional S&M, safewords don’t really work.


I don’t believe there’s any kind of emotional s&m that isn’t edge-play — because I don’t believe there’s such a thing as emotional s&m for which you can depend on a safeword.

I’ll be clearer, as some of you know how I play: I don’t mean “safeword” when I say “safeword.” I mean “no way that a bottom communicates they want everything to stop can be relied on to work.” I mean “this applies even for those of us who don’t use safewords;” I mean “there is no communication that is adequate;” I mean “this is a thing to be considered before you even start.” Because when we talk about communicating stops to play, we talk about removing what is causing harm. And the second play happens in the head and involves fucking with one’s sense of self, or values, or security, we are no longer talking about what can be so simply stopped.

Say that you need to get out of rope immediately, and the rope can be cut.
Say that you need to get the forty needles out of you, and sure—it can’t be done in an instant, but the process can begin.
Say that you need to stop being degraded or humiliated, and the scene itself, the words being spoken, the whatever is happening can immediately come to an end.

But can the play?

Well, maybe. If you’re especially good at compartmentalizing or if play has only touched on the imaginary and everyone is aware of that, if it’s only been roleplay the whole time and nobody has any doubts to this. But for those of us who play dark enough to touch upon the real, emotional play is planting a seed and burying it deep. And suddenly, it’s there, germinating.

Stop escalating, sure. That you can do. But what happens at the important work presentation next week that requires your confidence? What happens if there’s a rift soon after with your play partner? Will things stay compartmentalized then, or will you wonder if maybe what was said was really true? Will it affect your behavior? How you eat? How you speak? How you move through the world?

When play happens mostly in a bottom’s head, are they able to safeword out of their own ruminations?

All this doesn’t even address that speaking up about when a scene needs to change or end is difficult for many bottoms under the most un-emotional circumstances, making some feel like they’ll be less worthy, less valuable, no matter how entirely not-the-case this is. If a bottom is being degraded effectively and is believing, at least in that moment, that they are dumb, worthless, annoying, any of the above… it may very well make them less likely to speak up the larger that the problem becomes.

So what’s the solution?

In many ways, this is all individual… like anything else.

But start with making sure everyone knows all this. Let there be no doubt as to the possible risks. Discuss and consider. A lot. Lab out just how certain words feel to the bottom. Share videos and stories and ask what the other party thinks of them. Talk about curiosities and concerns. Ask a lot of questions.

What I can tell you is that for me, hard limits I once had around this kind of play have turned into the most rewarding kind of fucked-upedness that I crave more than anything else.

But when they were still limits for me, they needed to be. Because there’s no tool quite as powerful as the imagination. And once that’s started, you can’t just put it back in the box.

Which I suppose, for many of us, is the reason we do it at all.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

Ten Ways to Research Risk in Kink

1) Classes

The move online has made kink education more accessible, more frequent, and higher quality—you’re no longer limited to the resources in your local area, and therefore more able to hear from experts. It’s wild how many topics you can find if you look for them! If you aren’t sure where to find classes relevant to you and don’t know what specifically you want to search for, start clicking on any that show up in your feed and go to the event host’s profile and check “events organizing”—more than likely, you’ll find a list of other upcoming classes soon! Start following these venues and you’ll build up a good list before long. In particular, @WickedGrounds, @TES-NYC, and @PragmaticKink have been hosting a bunch, and that barely scratches the surface.

2) Fetlife groups

The “groups” feature can be overwhelming and you’ll need to use your best judgment on who’s a valid source, but there’s an amazing wealth of resources available with knowledgeable people you can ask questions to. Some Fetlife groups that I think are particularly educational include Heavy Sadomasochism Technical and Rope Incident Reports. As shameless of a plug as this is, I also run the Risk Evaluation Database (RED) as a Fetlife group (though it now is also in non-group form right on this website) to make it easier for people to research risks.

3) Webinars and Podcasts

Similar to classes, these options you can access on your own time. Kink.com/KinkAcademy is one popular option, as is Shibari Study. I’m truthfully not up-to-date on the kink podcast scene, but I’d love you to recommend your favorite in the comments of the Fetlife version of this post!

4) Learning-by-doing/labbing

Working alongside knowledgeable friends or partners in non-charged, controlled contexts (read: not scenes) can be a great way to explore how something should feel, what your own personal danger signs might be, and the things you want to be sure your partner is aware of. Many are familiar with this sort of learning in the form of Rope Bite and other rope labbing, but you can lab out anything at all in kink—and both tops and bottoms will know more about what they’re doing for trying.

5) Conventions

Keeping your own health limits in mind, conventions are an excellent place to find a combination of all of this. You’ll be able to attend classes, try things out alongside others, and have discussions with strangers who can share their experiences with you.

6) Non-kink professionals, &
7) Vanilla scholarly research

Kink is, inherently, a limited playing field. Searching for valid, reliable, academic research on a particular kink’s risks may not be as possible as searching for something adjacent. You may not have local kink educators in the hands-on skill you want to know more about the risks of, but you may have someone else who’d know even more. I’ve personally found you can learn a lot that’s relevant to kink from tattoo artists and SCUBA and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, in particular. And of course, your friends in the medical field (thank them extra). One friend notes this method:

If it’s mental, and not physical, I will look for actual medical journals on the subject. (ie: trigger play. We started with trauma theory, and worked backwards to “risk of inadvertent exposure” to “risk of nonconsensual intentional exposure” to “retraumatization by partner”.)

8) Speak to those who have bottomed for it

Though participating in a kink is no guarantee of having expertise of it, someone who has bottomed for something may have a good grasp of what did and did not feel risky to them, what they saw as possible danger areas, and what they’d want tops who are doing that thing to know. Both parties certainly assume some amount of risk in any kink context, but as the typical “receiver” of more kink actions than not, bottoms hold specialized knowledge here that can be a good complement to the research you’ve done.

9) Post on kinky social media and ask!

I’ve garnered amazing amounts of info simply by posting statuses that ask for the risks of an activity, or any other question for that matter! People are generally happy to share what they know, and it often introduces you to other people on Fet who saw your status or writing in their feed because of a commenter they know, widening your general knowledge base. And finally…

10) Connecting with and being open to good people

Best said by my friend @sinsational, “Creating an environment where I felt I could ask someone to teach me about something I was curious to do or see.” Project an openness and curiosity, and people will be more likely to share their knowledge with you for free. Share what you know when you can, and you’ll create a safer environment for everyone. Create a community where you can discuss openly if anyone knows anyone with your particular disability who has tried that particular kink, or where you can ask other tops if they’ve ever done x thing and how they prevent y happening to their bottom. It’s cheesy, but it’s true—you get what you put in. When it comes to learning about safety, a community can be everything.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time: how do you say that you want to not want it?

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

No, really. Don’t.

It’s not that I don’t like being fucked or beaten. I like both more than I probably should. But tell me it’s going to happen, and I still may let life get in the way. Tired or moody, and I’ll ask to put it off a night or two. After all, even the lazy or depressed nights with my Owner are good nights, better than any I could ever imagine. Promises of good things I will let happen if I can. Having things I like done to me is… well, something I like done to me—but I may not dream about it for more than a few weeks, usually won’t text my best friend to tell her all about it (with exceptions).

But set the toys out I hate the most. Grab me when I really don’t want it. Strike or speak to me in a way that actually makes me angry—and it’s all I’ll come thinking about for months.

That’s all putting it lightly. Yes, I think about the time I curled up crying and wouldn’t touch Him as He uncaringly scrolled through His phone. Yes, I think about the blood on the hotel sheets, the challenge I was set up to fail, the question I was never asked before my speech was taken away. Yes, I think about nearly vomiting from pain in the old office chair and the things He did to make me retch more. Yes. Yes. Darker.

There’s a reason that when I’m not quite wet enough and His cock is hurting me, He simply mentions that very fact. I’m usually soaking and pliable in seconds. But I have to really have not been wanting it. It doesn’t work if I’m playing a role.

That’s the inherent problem in the way I do CNC: how do you say you want something without ruining it by wanting it? Not overall, that’s not what I mean—it’s more than possible to discuss this in long-term negotiations and still have days where you don’t want it enough for this to work. But in the short-term, when it’s what I want soon, *soon*. What are the options?

How I ask to not want it is the same reason we can do this at all: my unstoppable need to announce everything I’m feeling. My training to try to tell the truth.

I let my fantasies about the moments I have been most afraid of Him happen out loud, tell Him how momentous and ominous the strikes to the box that my head was in felt. I find opportunities to state my aversions out loud: electricity is the reason I couldn’t do this event. Being made to eat disgusting things is what might really make me quit. I describe my horrid nightmares and shudder openly at tortures in films. I send or say the kinds of words described in this universally applicable guide that’s actually about no-safeword tickling which should be required reading for anyone who plays like us, and then I trust I’ve let Him see enough of me to make it possible:

I’m not looking for a “yes, it’s ok to tickle me if I cry.” I’m looking for “hell yes, I want to be sobbing and I want you to keep going. Please don’t stop. If anything, go harder. Wreck me.” -@wren_

And because I also announce all the days I need my sleep, or when my joints are fighting the weather, or if I’m running errands or seeing my mother, my Owner knows both how to use my honesty and when not to.

I knew I wanted to write this, didn’t know if it should be poetic or a guide. But for me, there’s nothing more poetic than being known well enough to be made to suffer. So why shouldn’t it be both? Besides, I can’t really write a guide—because the answer is, “I don’t entirely know.” I’ve just found a few ways to dance this dance. I know what I do to try.

I voice the fantasies. I react fully. I show it all and say it all. When He says, “Are you too tired to be fucked?” I smile, and then I mean it when I say “yes.” I show Him pictures of things that make me cringe. I shop for the toys I’d rather run from. I tell Him what I can’t stop thinking about.

I put up writings like this one.

Posted by vahavta
18
Jan
2024

Why Younger Kinksters Don’t Attend Your Venue

My brother quit his job last week after five years at the same company. He loves what he does—he’s in human health services, and the families are great—but he’s been pretty mistreated. His really reasonable complaints have been brushed off, and he was often berated for things not his responsibility. He stayed as long as he could stand it, but when he started to look for somewhere else to work a month ago, he found out his skills are incredibly in demand. He got three job offers, all at least double his current salary—and so he quit.

I often hear my and younger generations criticized for… well, for a lot. But a big one is a “lack of loyalty”. I’ve seen it said we have “no sense of what it means to have a career with a business” and that we’re just willing to pick up and job-hop whenever. I don’t think that’s untrue. But the thing is, it isn’t about a lack of loyalty at all. It’s about wanting to be valued and treated well.

When my brother sent in his notice, the company announced the closure of that branch the next day. Turns out, he was the only reason they were sticking around in that area. Which begs the question, I think: why weren’t they better to him? Why would he stick around? Of course his complaints not being addressed would eventually cause him to leave. And this company decided they’d rather cut services and jobs for a bunch of people than just listen to him. They just… let it die. And let his subordinates blame him, of course.

I see the same thing happening in kink. I’ve been around seven years now, and it seems like any time a venue shuts down due to low attendance, there’s an outcry about how the younger generations caused this. They just don’t care about their community space. They just don’t want to give back and build something good the way people used to. They need to show up for everyone. It’s their fault, and other finger-wagging.

And I think every time… but we do. We do care about community, very much. We do want to give back. We’ve tried to build something good. We’ve been cut down at every turn.

So why would we be loyal? Why would we keep trying with those venues who say it’s a “community space” but don’t value us as community members? Why wouldn’t we go to the places that will instead?

Methodology and disclaimers

Over the last few days, I’ve reached out here, on Twitter, and on Instagram to get personal accounts from those in the Millennial and Gen-Z age ranges on why they no longer go to venues they see as primarily an older crowd. I got over forty answers to this, from people who span a range of genders, ages, and kink roles. This isn’t about one specific place—the responses came from coast-to-coast in the US, as well as a few from Canada and overseas—but they in many ways echoed each other. The reasons we stop showing up? They’re the same reasons. The ways we’ve felt mistreated? They’re identifiable. And none of it is about a lack of willingness to give back.

I’ve compiled the most common themes in these stories below—many overlap—and will mention a few of the important other one-off answers at the end. Anything in quotes is directly from an answer, though bolding may be mine. As this is a note that is sort of arranged as a letter informing older venues of why they’re really lacking in youth attendance, I may use “you” to refer to those spaces, and “we” to refer to people in my age group.

When I posted this, I also got a few unsolicited messages from self-identified Boomer friends (no, no Gen X-ers, actually) who felt they knew the answer to my question and wanted to give their input. They told me how my generation is entitled—“no offense”—and about the trends they’ve seen. But I’m an open-minded little ethnographer so where relevant, I’ve included these answers as well.

I initially expected this writing to be about public venues dying in favor of private home parties, but that isn’t what ended up happening. To this end, “the owner” and “management” should be seen as interchangeable with “host,” “party-thrower,” or whatever version of that fits best.

Finally, though I don’t mention it every time, many of my conversations included an acknowledgment that these issues can happen anywhere, including majority-younger spaces. However, people seemed to agree that they’re much more likely to occur at the older ones.


We don’t feel like our safety will be protected.

“If I avoid an event, it is […] because the event has utterly failed to create a space that feels safe (by failing to exclude toxic or violent individuals)”

Over 85% of the answers I received included some semblance of the above theme. Their failing venues, people told me, were places with “a rep as a rapey space where newbies get preyed on”, where consent wasn’t really valued by the main crowd and violations weren’t handled by the management. 1 in 4 of these answers also included that they felt (or had first-hand experience that) they would personally be attacked and shunned if they were hurt and spoke about it. “No drama” policies were mentioned often.

Sometimes, there were explicit issues with the attendees’ ideas surrounding consent:

“An older Kinkster, apparently a community leader, lectured the crowd about how they didn’t believe in long term abuse or domestic violence. If you stay, you’re consenting and the result is a D/s dynamic, negotiated by your continued presence. Absolutely no one argued.”

The bigger issue, however, was there being no established protocol for reporting consent violations. Since there was nothing in place to follow if a friend of the management violated consent, there was no trust any action would be taken at all.

“The community leader assured us that we could tell them if we were sexually assaulted, but that no one had ever complained of a sexual assault before, because they were so safe. It wasn’t until after I was sexually assaulted that I realized how uncomfortable it would be to be the first drama causer ever who complained about a sexual assault.”

“When I asked what would be done if my assaulter RSVPed, I was told that the venue was large enough that *I* could avoid *them*, and that the owner would use “gut feeling” to deal with any issues arising.”

“Somebody was raped in a private room and the management said that unless there was a witness, they couldn’t do anything. Of course they could do something! It’s their place!”

“No sexual assault policy had been mentioned, so I reluctantly headed towards the community leader, trying to decide whether to tell them about a sexual assault I had experienced a few minutes before, wondering if they’d believe me. When I saw they were too busy having sex to be bothered, and I knew of no one else available to get feedback like this, I gave up and just left.”

The responses also recognized that this is a difficult thing to navigate and that it isn’t necessarily even an age specific problem. “I get that the volunteer community leaders aren’t at fault for this problem,” someone said about an event they used to attend. “I feel for them.” But, multiple people told me, the idea of a “community protected” venue left a bad taste in their mouths. “It doesn’t make me feel safe or valued, in hindsight, being a human shield against strangers’ stalkers multiple times.”

Additionally, people told me they don’t feel their futures are safe when around these venues, with five accounts of people believing they were being photographed while in a dungeon. One person told me “a community leader tried to pressure us into putting face pictures onto our profile, insisting our bosses wouldn’t care if they found them”, and someone else spoke of the owner of a venue alluding to [the younger person’s] sex life when running into them at their restaurant job.

Perhaps this is universal. This same issue is actually something one Boomer told me is an issue with us:

“Kink still isn’t acceptable in most custody cases, divorce cases, work related cases, and some family cases. But the prevalence of people who don’t appreciate that fact has risen. […] The newbies who were more tasters than kinky started making it party central or a casual trial place. […] I really started to get scared when they brought in a much more casual attitude toward discretion.”

Ironically, I discovered while writing this that a majority-older venue local to me has been cavalier with the face photos of many, though I believe this to be primarily a technology/security knowledge issue and not a malicious one (though carrying no less risk).

We experience a blatant disregard for boundaries, negotiation, and our own agency and knowledge.

What did come out as an age specific problem was a blatant disregard for the agency of a young person (most often someone femme-of-center) when it came to their bodies and their kinks at all.

“I don’t want to be in a space where people just come and put their hands on you” or some semblance of that statement was in almost ¾ of my Millenial + Gen-Z answers.

Some of the stories I found absolutely horrifying, though not unexpected:

“My partner shared [a] possible kink. The community leader proceeded to yell out to a random person who shared this possible kink with my partner and told them loudly what they had in common (something extremely vulnerable for my partner to admit aloud). While my partner was occupied with the resulting more intimate than intended conversation with a complete stranger, the event leader asked me if they could try something with me. Before I could answer, they were behind me running sharp nail points over my back. They told me this was a mind fuck because I didn’t know if it was a knife. […] They pulled out a furry thing and asked me to hold out my hand. I wasn’t informed about what could be under a furry thing then. I was still very new to this. Something soft seemed harmless enough. Sensation play, right? I didn’t want to piss this person off who knew where I worked now. I was surprised to feel needles pricking my skin. I wondered who else’s blood I might have just exposed myself to. Did the needles break my skin? No blood, just red marks, but I still felt very uncomfortable and creeped out. Did I need an STI test? I wasn’t sure.”

The people who told me these stories did believe this had to do with a perception from older people of why young people are in the scene in the first place, as well as a perceived “innate knowledge of what [we] want by the older-and-wiser Boomer crowd.” Though not always in terms of consent and boundary violations, the older-and-wiser assumption came up in over half of the answers I received.

“When I first joined, many looked at me, spoke […] as if I’m not here for anything other than reckless fucking. […] A lot of men at my first event held me in a way that I was absolutely uncomfortable with at the age of 18.”

“It seemed as if they believed age automatically equaled wisdom, and therefore I was devoid of any, but my mentor spoke of his mentor groping whatever rope bottom came his way as if it was some hilarious thing.”

“I stopped going to the Power Exchange group stuff because it was 100% cis-het male dom run and they kept mansplaining our kink to us, talking down to the femme organizers, and telling us we would “pick a side because switchiness wasn’t real.””

“It was really hard for me to go to events at specific venues because the majority of people who go have an unspoken air of contempt for me, and it makes me feel out of place. I feel awkward, like a little child. I get it, I’m inexperienced, and I’m young. But I believe we all were this age once, right? […] I got, and still get the “you’re too young to know this” thing.”

A Boomer respondent let me know that they think the younger crowd has “an unrealistic idea that they can just come and not participate” and that they are “too sensitive about permission for everything in a sexual space.” They did not respond when I asked for more information on this statement. They and another Boomer both mentioned they believe the youth have a paranoia over something that’s not an issue.

The “old guard” community is worrisome to us.

A Boomer said: “VERY few younger folks are interested in that lifestyle. That lifestyle is all about service/honor/and commitment. Something that younger generation hasn’t developed an appreciation for yet.”

Millenial and Gen-Zers said:

“When someone tells me they’re “old guard”, I know immediately that they’re about to treat me like meat.

[Assaulters don’t get banned, and] “some of why they might still be allowed to go could be the association with the “old guard” mentality”

“The old guard is incredibly rude to any dynamic that doesn’t look like male/female M/s.”

“I don’t need to call anyone by a title whether they “earned” it or not. That is an expectation in Old Guard mentality that needs to be gone away with. There should be no expectation of hierarchy within kink as a whole.”

“Old guard kinksters are people who I know will never protect me.”

Our scenes get interrupted.

“There’s no universe where I’m going drive an hour and pay money only for a microcelebrity with a following of 10ish to interrupt my scenes needlessly.”

A number of stories pointed to experiences of basic scene etiquette being ignored both by attendees and by venue management. Though not in every case—the above answerer is male—these most often came from female and femme tops.

“I was mistreated, disrespected, and patronized as a young femme top. [..] It got so bad I literally couldn’t do a scene without being interrupted and “corrected” by DMs/random strangers. That’s really why I stopped going. It was super upsetting to my bottoms.”

“A male rigger my height and weight could have his scene entirely left alone, but people would literally step into mine and put their hands on my rope and even my bottom to lift them. They said I was “too tiny” and that I needed the help.”

“As a female topping another female, my play was not taken seriously. Men would gather and shout out suggestions of where I should hit my bottom next, or ask if they could have a turn. Or they’d tell me after what I should do next time. This included DMs. […] It was as if we were giggling sorority girls, not people having a serious power exchange. I never saw this happen with a male top.”

We only exist to be other people’s fetishes.

“There are perfectly nontoxic (usually older) attendees who have a real talent for making either me or my partner feel like a piece of meat by virtue of existing in their presence. That might be nice, if only they could hold off for long enough to say hi, and negotiate something that targeted that more deliberately.”

In addition to the stories in the last section—which I think in many ways aligns with this—I got both direct and subtler accounts of younger people being fetishized. In addition to the personal experience accounts below, there were a handful of stories of youth being used as an advertising factor, where potential attendees are told in visible online spaces that management will find them a “cute young toy”, or the presence of college-aged kinksters was discussed in event descriptions.

Indirect ways people saw themselves as fetishized at majority-older events included:

  • ”Private and vetted” [meant] any girl got a link no questions asked but dudes needed references.”
  • “They welcomed 2 girls together, but 2 guys would never be seen”
  • “If the runner who was also the event photographer didn’t want to fuck you they would never take your photo at the event”
  • “It seemed to be expected that since we were ‘unattached’ bottoms, we would play with their doms.”

Fetishizing things younger kinksters told me were said to their face include:

  • “I’ve never been with an Asian before.”
  • “Girls your age like to experiment, but it’s just because they haven’t experienced what an older man can do.”
  • “It’s good to see bodies like yours here. Your tits are where they should be!”

While I haven’t had this conversation, I think that many of the older kinksters doing this may genuinely think they’re complimenting us. It seems to be part of the perceived over-sensitivity culture. The issue is that when you turn us into advertising, we get the message that you prioritize your own generation’s opportunity to play with young bodies over the young folks’ autonomy.

One of my Boomer responses “the youth of today are more “me oriented” Whats [sic] in this for me?” (He did acknowledge that this was once said about his generation.) Ironically, a common thing keeping us away is that we feel these older generations put themselves and their sexual desires above ours.

We are told we aren’t driven to be a part of the community, but when we are in community, we are not treated like a part of it—we are treated like something for it.

Our identities themselves aren’t respected.

I expected a number of responses would have to do with a lack of willingness from older generations to accept nonbinary pronouns or some expressions of sexuality, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the number mentioning casual (or aggressive) use of the f-slur (and not in a spirit of reclamation). Being made to feel unwelcome as a minority in gender, sexuality, race, and ability were all brought up multiple times.

It doesn’t seem from the answers I got that we necessarily expect immediate total understanding and acceptance, but we do want leaders who will do the work required to figure it out.

“I was there to learn, but was constantly held directly responsible for educating about my identities and/or my partner’s identities. […] I’m here for a break, selfish as that may be.”

When we do try and make things better, we’re met with terrible responses.

And this brings be back to the issue at the beginning. We’re trying. We try to bring up problems, and often suggest solutions. We are then turned away, laughed at, or ignored. “If we complain, we’re snowflakes obsessed with identity politics” was a common theme. I firmly believe that the number one thing that majority-older spaces can do to get younger people in is to show they’re willing to change with their communities. People mentioned how often their local older leaders make fools of themselves when presented with new ideas:

“They give me a laundry list of excuses why they can’t/don’t/won’t. […] Which tells me that frankly, they don’t want to, and they genuinely don’t care. If they did they would take the criticism graciously and implement the solutions. They want to put on airs as if they do and advertise as if they do, but the bottom line fact of the matter is that: they don’t.”

This is where I expect to get the most backlash, because I know how this will be responded to: we don’t agree with their politics (of wanting to be accepted). We don’t agree with their idea of what being violated is. We don’t agree with language changing. Why should we have to? Why do we have to respond nicely and take these suggestions we don’t agree with?

And the answer is, you don’t. But I think it’s telling that companies like Starbucks and Coca-Cola are now featuring indicators of their acceptance of NB identities and the like in their advertising. Don’t get me wrong—it is advertising. But it is an important sign that some of the biggest companies out there have decided that the money of the people who appreciate these things is worth more than the money of those who are against it. If the money and attendance of young people is important to your space, this is important to consider.

Other answers

The main categories I gave certainly weren’t the only answers, but none of what I heard was “I don’t want to give back to the community.” Some told me of ways they felt the community didn’t really exist at all (something which I think connects back to the fetishization topic):

“When we started to pull away from the BDSM community, we lost our friends, too. We found out how little we meant to friends that we thought cared for us. Turns out, they only cared about the fact that we were pleasant to talk to at BDSM events.”

Others told me that they want community, but not the one the majority-older spaces offers.

“The first thing that happened was that groups started valuing play time over discussions. Even if there were discussions, many wanted to just get the discussion part over with so they could start playing. I enjoyed the discussions most of all, but the demand for play parties outnumbered those of us who just wanted to talk about BDSM.”

Several people brought up how the majority-older venues tend to be too expensive for them, and acknowledged this may not be something that they can control—though simple economics does mean that if they took steps to solve some of the above problems and more younger folks came to their events, these prices could go down and this problem could be solved.

And finally, I do want to mention I got one answer who said that while they didn’t relate to older generations, they also found Millennial-led spaces to be overly political and unwelcoming to any kind of political moderate, and therefore didn’t attend much at all.

Conclusions

“I just can’t find enough reasons to participate. Maybe if the cost wasn’t so high, or I was guaranteed to get something out of it, or the people were genuine, or the leaders cared about more the community than themselves, I would come back.”

Something that is true about younger people—in jobs and in kink—is that we have learned to take care of ourselves. Something else is that a lot of us are very busy. Or we live far. Or we’re ill. Or we have too much student debt and a limited social budget. And that isn’t the fault of older people.

But what it means—at least for me–is you can’t give me any opportunity to say no. I can play at home without getting interrupted, so why would I go to a venue where I know the interruption is likely to happen? I have my own community that supports me and my kinky pursuits, who knows me and loves me, so why would I go somewhere that only sees me as eye candy?

And people learn from experience, and repeated experiences do turn into (informed) biases. And that’s where you come in, older venues who are looking to increase your younger attendance.

Here are our experiences. You own your own spaces, and you have a right to do whatever you want with them, to make the changes and the rules and the culture you’re happiest with. So are you going to do it in a way that makes us want to attend? Or would you prefer to just let it die?

I offer my utmost gratitude to all who participated in this. Should you want to join in on the conversation in the comments of my writings, you can find the original Fetlife post of this one here.

If you wish to be a part of future “research,” be sure to subscribe to my substack. I do also post calls for responses on Fetlife several times before I finalize my posts.

Posted by vahavta