The Ultimate Guide to Kink

by Tristan Taormino

  Taboo role play is heavy stuff, for sure. So why go there? Why dabble in behavior that tips on the edge of consent? There are as many reasons as there are people who choose to walk these dark paths. Some people are simply sexually curious—dark fantasies arouse their inquisitiveness, so they go for it. Others have demons they wish to exorcise, fears that are rooted in a very real situation that they seek to recast and over which they seek to gain control. This type of role play is a means by which they might access that past. Still others are specifically aroused by the forbidden nature of it. The edgier and riskier the game, the more desirable it is to play.

  Many publicly eschew edge play, as it is called, and make an effort to demystify kink by downplaying the risks and the danger.

  I have spoken to thousands of people in the kink/leather/BDSM community, and thousands who are not involved with this subculture, about their private sexual fantasies. What I find striking is that among those who are not actively leading a lifestyle that openly embraces kink, there is less stratification and judgment about the content of forbidden fantasies.

  Perverts often have a great deal invested, egowise, in codifying and justifying their kinks and fetishes. Many publicly eschew edge play, as it is called, and make an effort to demystify kink by downplaying the risks and the danger. Nonkink-identified people tend to have a “kinky is kinky” approach, which paradoxically gives them an initial advantage in processing taboo desires. When I came out to my nonkinky friends as submissive and confided that I was struggling with having fantasies that included scenes mirroring historical abuses, their reaction was generally “Okay, well that’s pretty kinky!” Whereas revealing the same desires within BDSM communities earned me widespread ostracism, questioning of my “blackness,” insinuations that I was mentally ill, threats against me and any potential partners “caught doing that fucked-up shit,” and all manner of ridicule. Not all kinks are created equal.

  One doesn’t have to look far to find kinky people playing out the fantasy of the innocent schoolgirl/schoolboy over the knee of a stern disciplinarian. But darken the sexuality of it, add the sheen of sexual exploitation, coercion, or force, and the level of discomfort spikes. Reconciling something as horrific as the sexual abuse of children with the fantasy of playing that scene is a razor-edge dance. Many of our fantasies are rooted in real nightmares, fueled by the energy of real demons. But does this mean we ought to cut ourselves off from them, and in so doing, alienate ourselves from a base but valid aspect of our psyche? Does it mean we wish to actually abuse the innocent in a nonconsensual way? Does having a rape fantasy mean you desire to be beaten and sexually assaulted by a violent predator?

  Most likely, the answer is no. But it is a human thing to desire to explore that destruction, that entropy, and there are safer ways to explore it. Just as we might watch a slasher flick to get that adrenaline rush of terror, we can put ourselves, for a little while, into a situation that feels very risky, that mimics that sickening rush of fear, so as to embrace the shadow of that horror.

  SELF-EXPLORATION

  To those who would explore these dark places, I first advise some really honest soul-searching. Where does this desire come from? Do you have a past hurt you would like to explore? Is it simply something that turns you on? Are you willing to deal with the possible aftermath: potential “buyer’s remorse” after engaging in this play when you look back and second-guess your motives, and your partners’?

  If you do have a past trauma, know that this play is not therapy. It may have a cathartic benefit, but it absolutely is neither a means to obtain mental health nor a substitute for frank discussions with a professional. I encourage survivors of abuse to explore their past with a kink-aware therapist or counselor prior to delving into this world. And I redouble that recommendation if you are contemplating engaging in edge play. A person who was raped at knifepoint and thinks that having someone they trust recreate the trauma will help them “get over it” is taking a risk—and putting their partner and their relationship at risk as well. Sure, it might all be peachy-keen and hugs and smiles afterward. But it might be profoundly triggering instead, and prove difficult for the surrogate perpetrator to recover from if the victim experiences difficulty in the scene’s aftermath.

  Everyone is at risk here. The risks to the bottom, the victim in this scenario, seem obvious. The potential for flashbacks or new traumas looms. But what about the aggressor, the perp? Are you sure, in the cold light of day, you won’t look at the friend who did bad things to you and have flashbacks to the gravity of the scenario you brought to life? What happens if this doubt creates cracks in the foundation of your trust with them? If you are the wicked abuser, are you prepared to handle the feelings that might come up for you when you realize that you’ve unleashed a demon that deliberately pushed another human to the brink and possibly beyond? There is also the risk of transference. If a survivor of abuse replays the abuse in a role-playing scenario, there is a chance that unresolved issues may attach to the partner who has stepped into the role of the abuser, even if it is in the context of a consensual scene.

  Knowing why all involved parties are up for this most dangerous game will help build the absolutely necessary trust and get everyone on the same page. Frank disclosure of personal histories, from all sides, is of vital importance. And self-care, including discussing your concerns and history with a health-care professional familiar with the practices of consensual BDSM, kink, and leathersex, is an essential step in processing those past traumas.

  Each of us has our own darkness. What might seem a deeply disturbing scenario to one might be an average Thursday night for another. There are, however, some categories of dark role play that are generally regarded as edge play. These include, but aren’t limited to, scenes of rape, domestic violence, hate crimes, and incest. The common thread in these scenarios is an effort by the aggressor to dehumanize, disempower, and control the victim for their own gratification. This is the taproot to the dark energy that can fuel these scenes. Power, forcefully taken, can be an intoxicant for the aggressor. And being stripped of one’s power in a consensual role-play scene can also be titillating for the one being overpowered. A loss of control gives you permission to simply be in that moment, carried not by your own impulses and volition, but subject to the whims of the one who has coldly decided to make you fodder for their selfish desires. As troubling as these impulses may seem, when channeled through the stream of consensual play, they can be an outlet for impulses that deserve healthy release.

  Rape and domestic abuse are never acceptable. There is no excuse, no defense, for emotional, physical, and psychological violence against another person. Then how does one justify these desires? It is simple to talk about consent, but there are those who assert that no one can ever consent to abuse. There is legal support for this position, as even consensual BDSM and kink behaviors are prosecutable offenses in most jurisdictions. So how can I say yes to saying “No!” but not meaning it? Am I not just mirroring the abuses around me by perpetrating these abuses in a fantasy that merely propagates a system designed to oppress and strip me of my humanity?

  If my stated desires as an adult look like an abusive or dehumanizing interaction, and my partners and I make an informed decision to engage in it, it’s all good, baby. Seriously. Acting out personal or historically wicked situations and/or abuses is my right. My sexual fulfillment is only as politicized as I permit it to be. I give no quarter to the juggernaut of political correctness when it aims for my libido, leaving behind a grease stain of shame and guilt.

  I’m a black woman living in the USA. While there are people who experience a greater degree of socioeconomic and racial disadvantage, or who have more oppression pressure points to hit, there aren’t many. So when I say I have struggled in the darkness of my own desires, trust that these were not easy to digest and overcome. My ancestors, my predecessors who fought for the rights of women and the rights of people of color were fighting for freedom, and I plan to respect th
eir memory by exercising that freedom.

  After struggling with the desire to be submissive and a feminist, wrestling with my secret cravings for rough, violent sexual encounters, denying my masochistic streak, vilifying my desire to be “owned” in the context of a consensual BDSM master/slave relationship as the descendant of African slaves in the colonies, I finally began to find peace when I realized I was not doing myself any favors by denying these desires. I need to live authentically. If there are things about my desires that shame me, and I succumb to that shame, I am not being true to myself. Rather than bury them, I have given myself permission to explore them, and I have found ways to plumb the depths of these desires with people who understand them and are willing to walk that dark path with me.

  As I’ve mentioned previously, doing your homework is critical to mitigating risks in taboo role play. I say mitigating because nothing is 100 percent guaranteed. There is risk. That is part of the frisson of danger: we are walking that tightrope. There are many things to keep in mind when plotting these scenarios (for detailed information, I suggest reading my previous chapter, Stop, Drop, and Role! Erotic Role Playing) but the mind-set of the aggressor is key. In the case of a rape fantasy, for example, the motivation and the goal of the rapist needs to be absolutely clear.

  I spoke to a fellow kink/BDSM educator about the preparatory work and personal exploration necessary to negotiate rape fantasies. Barak, in addition to having many years of experience as a health-care professional, has also worked as a nurse in a psychiatric crisis center. He and his wife, Sheba, founded Adventures in Sexuality (AIS), a group in the Midwest that focuses on education, outreach, and safety within the BDSM, kink, pansexual, and polyamorous communities. Since they conduct presentations centered around play that is edgy and pushes the edges of consent, and he has specific experience being the aggressor in scenes that play with themes of rape and consensual nonconsent, I asked Barak about the mind-set needed to successfully navigate these turbulent waters. This is his reply: It is tricky to approach playing with a rape fantasy, and the approach will vary depending on if it is a coercive “rough sex” scenario or a full-on consensual nonconsent scene. In the former, the eventual goal is mutual satisfaction. An example might be an overpoweringly coercive “date rape” fantasy where the “victim” is eventually, forcibly “seduced” to an erotic reaction and a sexualization of the power shift, even if it is not initially consensual. There can be a rather more playful approach to these scenes, without an overwhelmingly violent element.

  This becomes a different scene if the total stripping of power is the goal. Goals have to be clear in terms of the activity and the consequences. Rape is almost never about sex. It is about power and control.

  In the consensual nonconsent scenario, the participants agree to push past boundaries, regardless of the pleasure of the victim. There is a specific disregard for the other person’s satisfaction. In that case, the mind-set has to include objectification. Removing power and control, removing part of what makes them sentient, makes them an object upon which you feed. Dehumanizing them, reducing them to “food.” Food for power, food for lust. As the one taking that power in that way, you can’t have concern for your victim’s feelings. What is sought after are emotional reactions.

  You feed off of what they give you, and you bend them to your will to provide for more food. If fear is flagging, you up the ante to invoke greater fear. If they aren’t reacting in a way that is satisfactory, you shift that energy until you are able to feed on the reaction. Until you are satisfied. Whatever that takes.

  AFTERCARE

  Most players who engage in fantasy role play are aware of the importance of aftercare. Aftercare looks very different depending on the play, the players, and what they need in that moment. Of vital importance is never, ever forgetting that the victim is not the only one who needs aftercare—the perpetrator (e.g., the rapist) needs it as well. In some cases, aftercare for the aggressor might be even more critical. Sound crazy? Not at all. Think about the effort it takes to possess someone you care about, strip them of their humanity and power, use them in ways that might not feel consensual—and then it’s over and you’re left hanging, needing closure, rapprochement, reassurance that the monster you unleashed isn’t indicative of who you really are.

  I asked Barak how it was, from the rapist’s perspective, to return from the state of consensual nonconsent back to a place of trust: The situation might not be clearly consensual until the aftercare phase. In the case of a consensually nonconsensual scene, the action often is explicitly brutal and the aftercare might not be present, or even possible, until the refractory period, when there has been some recovery.

  Aftercare must not come too soon after the scene is done. That can impact the arc of the scene, and compromise the emotional journey. Conversely, you can’t wait too long: if these emotions are left unresolved, the erosion of trust can take root in that vacuum. And it is vitally important for those taking on the roles of perpetrator and victim. It is critical for the victim in the scene to reassure the abuser that they do still feel that connection and trust, because guilt and shame can damage the emotional stability of the person who has just committed these acts that, without consent, would be terrible abuses.

  With this in mind, always remember: negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve known your scene partner for decades and you are an old hand in the dungeon. Take the time to foresee and discuss the possibility of negative fallout. Have a Plan B and a Plan C. Play with people you trust, who know and understand what you are up to, and with whom you have discussed your intentions. It can be helpful to line up an “aftercare buddy.” An aftercare buddy can be a friend or partner specifically not involved in the scene who is prepared to provide interim connection for the participants until they are ready to reconnect and check in. With the help of the buddy, the partners will be able to process whatever might have been unearthed during this journey to the dark side of fantasy.

  PLAYING WITH HATE

  While there can be an overtly sexual aspect to a rape play scene, there are other dark role plays that may not be explicitly sexual but carry their own unique risks. These are scenes that deal with hate crimes, play that involves the degradation or exploitation of a participant based on their perceived membership in a social group, usually defined by race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status, or political affiliation.

  That’s a broad, almost limitless palette from which to draw ammunition for some fucked-up scenarios, no? I understand that you may think, Hey, there’s nothing out there for me to subject myself to that might fit into a scary, dark scene. I call shenanigans. Are you a wealthy heterosexual white man? Then you might find yourself in a bad way if you fell into the clutches of a female supremacist bent on vengeance, full of disgust and scorn for your worthless, useless excuse for genitals and your grotesque white male privilege. Again, it is all about expanding your definition of what is risky, what is edgy, and personalizing the depersonalization.

  In a group discussion about taboo play once, an individual who self-identified as transgendered hesitantly revealed a fantasy they’d had of coordinating a scene that would enact a “fag bashing.” This person wanted to experience an eroticized version of being mocked, abused, assaulted, and sexually violated because of their perceived gender. This was an especially nuanced exploration for them, they explained, as their affect is often fluid and they embrace a mercurial approach to gender and how they define it. Their hesitation was understandable: they were revealing this highly taboo fantasy in a room full of strangers. While I strive to create a space that is safe for people to share this dark matter, you can never know how other people will react to such revelations. As we expanded the discussion to include this type of play, we talked about risks and how one might approach broaching this topic with a potential play partner. I looked around the room and saw several attendees evincing gleams
of recognition and nodding their heads vigorously. I addressed the room: “Hey, anyone else here think this sounds hot, dirty, shocking, fucked up, edgy, awesome?” At least a dozen hands shot up, to the surprised delight of the person who had so shyly revealed themselves. “I suggest you start taking numbers, I think you have some planning to do!” I said. We laughed, and dove in further.

  I have a friend who uses a wheelchair who shocked the hell out of a roomful of jaded perverts by enacting the victim in a scene where he was kicked out of his chair, dragged around, degraded, and humiliated with all manner of shocking epithets and completely inappropriate language. Yeah, that is pretty fucked up. But the point is, he wanted that experience in order to feel that he is a survivor. From the ashes of such debasement he can rise and feel even stronger and more empowered than before. Once you’ve had the snot beaten out of you and been called a “crippled faggot gimp” and survived, it can be very empowering to take back the power of those words over you.

  Revealing your dark fantasies is risky, yes. But if you do not, you all but zero out your chances of realizing your desires. I struggled for years with memories of a cacophony of conflicts after I discovered my curiosity about pushing the boundaries of sexual consent. As I embarked on a quest to explore my demons, I had to scrape off layer upon layer of guilt and shame before I was clear enough to free my own mind. For me, daring to stare into the face of racism, classism, and sexism and discover why they tripped my erotic triggers was the key to finding a profound level of personal authenticity.

  Let’s be honest: the majority of us struggle, at some point, with self-esteem. It can be crippling to have our fears reinforced by hate. Suppose you were in a scenario where a partner is belittling you for being Mexican, or queer, Irish Catholic, or Muslim, or short, or fat, a redhead, a Jew, a man, a woman, intersex—for being different just because you are you. But what if you realized that these words didn’t have the power over you that you thought they did? What if you were able to weather this abuse, this ugliness, and walk away unscathed? Or stronger? What if you were able to look upon your abuser thereafter with compassion instead of rage?