Day 11: What are your views on the ethics of kink?
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused.
~Annie Lennox and David Stewart~
The ethics of kink. Well, suffice it to say that I’m a pretty open minded person regarding what people do to each other, particularly behind closed doors. I do consider the following points important:
Kink is about Consent. The most important aspect of BDSM is that it’s all consensual. It may be consensual non-consent, which gets tricky, but the underlying factor is that we want this.
I think this is particularly hard for beginners. It’s really fucking hard to admit, for the first time, that you want to do kinky shit. For me, this hesitation caused extremely stupid situations to occur. Risk-taking led me down a few paths that, looking back, were incredibly unsafe.
So, ethics of consent? It’s really really really important to be able to admit what you want to your partner. For beginners, it’s also really important, especially (though not exclusively) for the dominant half, to not coerce activity that might make the play uncomfortable.
That said, I admit to having the following exchange with a dominant before play:
Dom: I’m going to piss on you.
Sadey: I don’t want to be pissed on. It’s a limit.
Dom: Not up for discussion.
*long pause*
Sadey: Fine.
Was that coercion? Nah. I’ve been the ‘victim’ of coercion, and trust me, it’s much more annoying. The exchange above was negotiation. It happened before a scene. We weren’t in D/s roles. We were two people figuring things out. Which leads me to…
Kink is about Honesty. In order to be honest with our partners, we must be honest with ourselves.
When I finally admitted to myself that I wanted to be tied up and smacked around, I was much more willing to admit what I wanted to my potential partners. For creepy guy, this worked. He was open minded enough to bring kink into the bedroom.
Kinky people will not get what they want automatically. Sure, in some instances, a dominant might recognize submissive behavior in a sub, and introduce BDSM and powerplay. But realistically, it’s up to all of us to come out and say what we like. Sexual partners are not mind-readers. Is it hard to admit what we want? Maybe, at first. But it gets easier.
Along with basic honesty about what we want, we gotta be sincere about what we don’t want. This requires great thought. I’m debating and reorganizing my thoughts on this, being post-Nate. What do I want from future partners? What don’t I want?
I’ve been talking with a few dominants. Hearing what they want is helping me reorganize my thoughts. The thing is, I used to be a submissive that would look at what a Dom wants and think, “How can I make myself want that?” Now, if I’m not into something, I kinda think, “Eh. Fuck that.” So how sub am I, really?
Anyway. Point being, honesty rules.
Kink is about Realistic Expectations.
I recently read The Reluctant Dom. It’s an excellent read. It will make you cry. But the premise of that book, and of the overly talked about Fifty Shades, AND the popular movie Secretary, is that people use BDSM to solve their bruised, damaged pasts.
Kink can help us emotionally, but I believe it is often perceived as an alternative to therapy. So where is the line drawn?
In the interest of honesty, I struggle with this one. Pain, in particular, helps me deal with unhappy emotions. But our past demons? I think we gotta solve those on our own, or with the help of a therapist/family/friends. Or, even, with the help of a partner. But not necessarily in the context of kink.
This is tricky, and there is no firm rule. BDSM play is bound to bring up emotions. I think it comes down to expectations. What do we expect from our partners? Is the dominant willing to work through issues with a submissive? Vise versa?
Consider a submissive who wants to work through some emotional issues in a scene. Yet, s/he’s afraid to admit that to the Dom. That’s not being honest, and is frankly putting the Dom into a position that s/he may not consent to.
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I’d love to hear thoughts on this. It’s an interesting topic.
xoxo
Sadey
Want more from the 30 Days? I skipped Day 12 for now, but here’s Day 13.
This has just been my personal experience but yes I completely see BDSM as therapy for the soul. Maybe once we are past some of the major healing that needs to happen, then we can enjoy more than just the cathartic aspects of it, but my husband is a soldier with PTSD. BDSM has literally saved his life and our marriage. For me it a tool. We made the commitment to work on us and ourselves, but if it were not for BDSM I don’t think we would be where we are at today.
Out of curiosity, was your husband kinky before PTSD? And were you kinky before using it as a tool to save your marriage?
Oh yes. I have always been kinky. I have written up my own “How did you know you were kinky” post but don’t really feel comfortable posting it on my blog. Just too much in there for the people who know me IRL to see. In short I have been kinky since birth, I just was not aware of it. With redeployment always lingering over our heads I made a deal with the universe that I would put away my wild ways in exchange for my husband coming back alive from combat. I was desperate because of my inability to exert any control over where he was at. All I could do was pray and make a promise to be ‘good’. I did not realize that kinky is my sexuality and that there is nothing bad about it. I will post it on my blog with a password and if you want to read it you can. I will email you the password. Was my husband kinky? Definitely had his streaks of sadism. The last visit I had with him in Washington before he was deployed we went out with a bunch of his friends to a bowling ally. He got very drunk (he is not normally a heavy drinker) and started being very dominating over me in front of his friends. He made me get in this shelf that holds all the bowling balls and stay there for a while. We went to a sex shop after wards and he very loudly announced to the entire store that he wanted to fuck me with this over sized novelty penis. Back at the hotel I was showering and he ripped open the shower curtain and slapped me across the face before pulling me out of there and fucking me. Is all of that stuff ok? Not really. He was so drunk and flying by the seat of his pants. Was I bothered by any of it? No, not really. I just rolled with it.
Interesting. It’s cool to see how different people develop and get into this stuff.
Thanks for sharing, Missy!
I have read that every personal relationship that people enter into is a form of therapy and working thru issues you haven’t yet resolved, I think maybe it is more obvious with kink. I have feelings of insecurity which are soothed by being with a dominant man who loves me. Does that mean I still have issues with my father? Probably. The feeling still exist even now that I am older and understand that Dad has his own kinks which caused the distance between us – he’s gay or at least bi with a strong leaning towards men – which he never admitted till some time after Mom died.
Oh, no! I just realized that I have recreated my Mothers marriage! My husband doesn’t want to have sex with me either.
Honesty is important in any relationship. Bdsm or vanilla. I’m reading this on the fly. Gotta come back and read your series.
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“The thing is, I used to be a submissive that would look at what a Dom wants and think, “How can I make myself want that?” Now, if I’m not into something, I kinda think, “Eh. Fuck that.””
YES. I used to be that way too, and only after kind of coming into my own this year have I realized that it’s not being honest with myself to try to shape my desires based on what other people want.
I think that you have a point about her leaving if she isn;t geittng what she needs from their relationship. On the other hand, isn’t that part of submission accepting their wants and needs before our own?The Knight and I are about more than kinky sex. If I were to be brutally honest I would tell you that the kinky stuff is less than 5% of who we are. The dynamic is there on a day to day basis, but the freaky kinky is not.Sometimes, even for our Dominants, it’s not about sex. It’s about knowing that they lead and we follow, that we are there for them as they are for us.So, I wish the girl well and I hope that things work out the way they are meant to.
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