Sexual behavior is learned. You learned what you know about enjoying sex now from somewhere, so of course you can learn more and different ways to express and enjoy sexuality. This is true for vanilla and kinky people alike. We strongly recommend that we all see ourselves as young or old dogs with an infinite capacity for learning new tricks. Increasing your repertoire has the advantage that you don’t have to give up enjoying what you already like: it is always easier to add new behaviors than to deny your deepest desires.
What about morality? We have all been taught that there is a morality to sex, that certain sex acts are right, others wrong, that many forms of sexual pleasure constitute sins against God, society, your partner or yourself. Many established religions preach that only a very limited range of sexual expression is acceptable from a spiritual point of view: that celibacy, or as little sex as possible, is somehow holier or more pleasing ot God. Some religions teach that sex is original sin and the source of all evil. Because European-American culture is pervaded by its relgious origins, as a culture we tend to believe that sexual exploration and spiritual development are somehow opposed to each other, that more of one necessarily means less of the other.
Your authors believe that the morality of sexual behavior between consenting adults has nothing to do with how outrageously we express our sexuality, or with how many people. Our morality resides in how we treat those people, whether we treat the people around us with respect and honesty, or whether we use other people for our pleasure or aggrandizement with no regard for their feelings or any harm that might come to them.
Furthermore, our personal experience shows us that many kinky people are very active in churches and spiritual practice, and that sexual exploration frequently leads to increased interest in spiritual connection. We believe that an enlightened sexuality can be a high expression of the human spirit. One whole branch of yoga study, called tantra, is among other things an exploration of how to attain spiritual growth and insight through personal intimacy and sexual practice.
Exploration of an expanded sexuality requires a very high regard for ethics. Since there aren’t really any standardized rules to follow, we must always have respect and consideration for every person who may be affected by our actions. Meeting this goal requires a very high standard of consent (which we will discuss further in Chapter Six). Many of us, maybe you too, grew up in a culture where if someone didn’t say an outright “no” to sex, they were assumed to have consented. Kinky sexuality sets the standard for consent a bit higher - it isn’t enough not to say “no,” everybody involved emust say an affirmative “yes” to whatever sexual pleasures are being proposed. To do so, of course, they must have a clear understanding of their own and their partner’s desires and limits, which involves a very high level of self-awareness.
From our own experience, we can state that we have seen a level of ethics within the kink communities that is at least as high as we’ve seen outside them. But we don’t expect you to rely on our experiences in thinking about the morality of kink. Instead, it may be easier to start with a simpler way to satisfy yourself about the morality of any sexuality you may observe or hear about: is anybody being harmed? Is everyone involved treated with respect and with regard for their well-being?
We believe that sexual ethics mandate consent, which we define as “an active collaboration for the pleasure and well-being of everyone concerned.” So even if your kinky person is doing things that you may have been taught are wrong, we hope you can open your heart to see that this fundamental ethical tenet is being met, even if the way it’s being met may look very strange to you right now.
5
What Do Kinky People Actually Do?
In this part of the book, we’re going to talk a bit about the kinds of behaviors that actually get labeled “kinky” in our culture. As you read it, we’d like you to give yourself permission to have some uncomfortable feelings. You may think that the activities we’re describing are gross, or scary, or silly, or shocking. It’s fine to have such feelings - recognize them, acknowledge them, accept that not everybody shares them, and move onward for now.
We don’t want you to beat yourself up because the behaviors we’re describing don’t turn you on. Some of them don’t turn us on either. We’ve never yet met anybody who enjoys every single possible alternative sexual behavior - some people like many of them, some like a few, some like only one, and some none. Whatever your own consensual sexual turn-ons may be, they’re fine with us, and we want them to be fine with you too.
The first thing to understand is that kinky behavior is nowhere near as scary as it looks. The whole point is to feel scary and be safe, like on a roller coaster or in a horror movie - to get the thrill without much actual danger. So kinky people may wear intimidating costumes, or jingle with piercings that make you cringe, or build playrooms in their basements modeled on the dungeons of the Inquisition: all this is theater, setting the atmosphere for thrills and chills.
As you try to understand a kinky behavior, it can be tempting to compare it with an experience of your own that evokes fear or discomfort. If your husband likes to be spanked, for example, you may mentally be comparing that with your own experience of being spanked as a child, with all the sense of punishment and shame and outrage that goes with a nonconsensual spanking. We’ve tried both, and assure you that these are very different experiences - apples and oranges. Safety, comfort, and deliberate sensuality make a kinky spanking a lot more fun... but if a nonconsensual childhood spanking is all you know about spanking, it’s no wonder you may have trouble understanding what could be such a turn-on in that!
No two people experience the same stimulus exactly the same; we’re all wired differently. It’s quite true that a stimulus experienced consensually and in a negotiated way feels entirely different from the same stimulus experienced in an atmosphere of emotional stress and/or nonconsent. Please remember that you really can’t know what an unusual sexual behavior might feel like unless you’ve tried it yourself - and even then, there’s no guarantee that what you feel is the same as what someone else might feel.
One friend of ours remembers: “I was often spanked hard with a belt when I was a child, so I was very hesitant to try any kind of spanking or whipping play. But the first time I did allow myself to be whipped, it was with a belt, and I was amazed. It felt nothing like what I had remembered from my childhood. It wasn’t scary at all (well, at least not once we got started), and it didn’t feel ‘painful,’ at least not in the usual sense of the word. It felt warm, and entrancing, and very, very sexy.
The joy of immobility. Many kinkyfolk like giving or receiving a sensation of enforced helplessness using various kinds of bondage. This is probably one of the commonest kinks - some pollsters estimate that over a fourth of adult Americans have at least experimented with bondage ― and also one of the easiest for many people to accept. If popular culture is any indication, it must also be a turn-on to an awful lot of people ― no spy thriller or Western is complete without a portrayal of the curvaceous heroine struggling nobly against her bonds. One of our good kinky friends remembers his first sexual stirrings taking place in the early fifties, upon viewing a picture of Dale Evans tied up within the pages of his Roy Rogers comic book.
Bondage is a turn-on for a number of reasons. When someone is in bondage, there’s no question about which partner is the active party and which is the recipient ― the bondage clarifies the roles and relieves the anxiety of wondering “is it okay to just lie here or should I be doing something?” Bondage increases helplessness ― a very sexy sensation for people who are turned on to consensually giving up or taking power.
Bondage involves technical skill: if you have tried playing tie-up, you have probably discovered that it takes a lot of forethought to avoid uncomfortable stretches in the shoulders and thighs, and to prevent unwanted tingling or numbness. Bondage equipment is usually designed to look scary ― black leather and all that ― while being utterly and completely c
omfortable. Wrist and ankle cuffs are padded or lined with fur to prevent chafing, and are wide enough to distribute stress so the wearer can safely yank on them to his heart’s content. This exemplifies the essential paradox of S/M: looks real scary, feels real comfy.
The physical constraint of the bondage enables the receptive party to build orgasm-boosting muscle tension by yanking against the ropes or cuffs. Restraint also gives the bound person the freedom to thrash all she wants without knocking her partner off the bed.
Some people also enjoy bondage which is purely decorative, bondage which forces the body into challenging positions, or bondage which boosts sensation in sensitive parts of the body like breasts or genitals. For many of us, rope in and of itself is very sexy stuff.
Corsets and other forms of body constriction slow down the wearer’s breathing, alter the way he moves, and reshape the body - an experience which many kinky people find entrancing and extremely erotic (as do their partners, who get to look at the results).
Some types of bondage also alter the senses. Many kinkyfolk enjoy having their attention turned inward through the use of a blindfold, which eliminates many distractions and enhances physical sensation by increasing focus. You can get an idea of how this feels by closing your eyes and running your fingers lightly over the inside of your forearm: touch feels much more intense in the dark. Similarly, earplugs can reduce hearing, and gags can change our relationship to the world around us by slowing down our breathing and reducing our ability to communicate. All these tools offer us the chance to experience the world differently, to create a special sexual space unlike any other, and to become pleasantly dependent on a loved and trusted partner.
Kink with and without pain. It may surprise you to learn that a lot of kinky behaviors that sound scary and painful, such as whipping or flogging, may not involve any pain at all.
If you hear about a whip, you may picture something Simon Legree-ish - long and snaky and likely to tear flesh with a single stroke. But the whip your kinky friend is saving up to buy is far more likely to be many strips of soft, sensual suede or leather, bound into a beautifully braided handle, and designed to fall upon skin with a sexy caress ranging from the gentlest stroking to a deep thump that feels more like massage than torture. Such whips, called “floggers,” are used at the beginning of many scenes to warm up the skin to a glowing pink and get both players into the rhythm of the play. These sensations can be sensual, sexual and utterly delightful in and of themselves, and many players never get into anything you would describe as painful.
It may also surprise you to learn that a large percentage of those who try sensual whips find themselves desiring something stronger, more intense: floggers made of heavier, harsher leather or rubber, or the blazing sting of the cane.
A lot of the toys we use in our play are available in a wide spectrum of sensations. Some players collect a variety of clamps or clips, such as wooden clothespins, to pinch up a bit of skin ― depending on the stiffness of the spring, the sensation varies from mild pressure like a lover’s gentle pinch to very intense biting sensations. Candle wax, which is spilled onto the skin in droplets or streams, may be the temperature of the water from your shower head, or hot enough to pinken the skin it touches.
People who like the more intense range of sensation - we sometimes call ourselves “pain sluts” or “pain pigs,” which is not an insult in our world - often surprise ourselves during play with our ability to enjoy sensations that would seem horribly painful at another time. The protected space of S/M play, the turn-on of enacting our best fantasies, and the skill of our partners in warming us up and entrancing us, can induce an altered state of consciousness in which we perceive intense sensations as magical arousal.
But if painplay isn’t your fantasy, it can be hard to understand how anyone could seek out some of these more challenging sensations, much less get turned on by them. It may help to remember some of the sensations you may have enjoyed during “conventional” sex: scratching, biting, hickeys, hair-pulling and the like. Many people find that when they are sexually aroused, such sensations take on new attributes ― they’re still painful, but it’s a different kind of pain, not unpleasant but simply intense and arousing. Or consider some of the physical extremes to which you may have enjoyed pushing your body in pursuit of a sport or other goal, and how happy and blissed-out and relaxed you felt afterwards. People who enjoy strong physical sensations often report both the arousal and the relaxation as part of their pleasure.
Pain in S/M doesn’t mean whopping someone with a two-by-four. The pain we play with is very specially selected, controlled, and timed. Expert players learn to recognize the body’s different responses to “thud” or “sting.” A skilled player has astonishing intuition about when jolts of sensation should be applied one at a time, allowing the body to process the feeling fully before the next stroke, and when they should fall like rain, carrying the bottom on a river of sensation that moves too fast to resist.
Pain players become adept at “surfing” the pain, and reaching the various physical and mental states to which play can bring us. Pain might serve to increase the focus of a scene, to enact a punishment, or to make the feeling of powerlessness more real - but many players come to enjoy pain for pain’s sake. Enthusiastic pain fans do a lot of safe, sane and consensual sharing of ways to get plenty of that “just right” pain to fly with.
Cross-dressing. Wearing the clothing of the opposite sex as an erotic turn-on is called cross-dressing. For example, many men enjoy putting on women’s clothing and allowing the female side of themselves to come to the surface; likewise, many women prefer to present themselves - perhaps occasionally for fun, or perhaps most or all of the time as an ongoing expression of identity - with male clothing and demeanor. People may cross-dress in private, as part of a masturbation ritual. Or they may make dates with partners during which they dress and play the part of the opposite gender as the role-play in a sexual, sometimes BDSM, scene.
Some cross-dress because they find a special eroticism in the clothes, or in switching gender roles, or sometimes simply because the aspect of themselves that comes to the surface in such attire feels more natural and comfortable to them than their day-to-day selves. People who cross-dress may be gay or straight or bisexual, and may or may not be involved in other forms of kinky play.
Transgendered people cross-dress because they actually feel themselves to be of a gender other than simply male or female as evidenced by their genitals. Those who live full-time in their chosen gender are called transsexual. They may go on to seek out hormone therapy and/or surgery so that their bodies match their spirits. Others may find their true selves somewhere between the genders, and employ a variety of strategies, in dress and behavior, to express themselves to others. We have listed some resources for transgendered people and their families in the Resource Guide.
Fetishes. Almost everybody has had the experience of having their sexual reaction heightened by an inanimate object. Not you? think again: ever been turned on by your lady friend’s sudden appearance in a garter belt and heels, or your gentleman friend’s tight t-shirt or pungent pipe smoke or scuffed cowboy boots?
Some people’s reactions to objects are so unusual or strong that they get labeled “fetishes.” What is or isn’t considered a fetish is largely a matter of what culture you’re brought up in - being turned on to large breasts is so commonplace in the U.S. that nobody thinks of it as a fetish, but an attraction to tiny delicate feet, which would be nothing unusual in China, would probably be considered kinky here. (And vice versa.)
Some common fetishes include clothing items like shoes, lingerie and diapers, materials like leather, latex and silk, body fluids like sweat, urine, breast milk and blood, and body parts like hair, feet, buttocks, breasts and genitals.
We occasionally encounter someone who is so centered on her fetish that she can’t get off without it, although this is fairly rare. We suspect that if she lived in a culture where she could
get her needs met easily and without shame, so that her fetish didn’t grow into an object of guilt-fueled obsession, this desire would become simply part of a broader range of sexual response. For most kinkyfolk, however, fetishes are the icing on the cake, something that boosts their sexual response but doesn’t substitute for it.
Things that look kinky ― are they? Many a parent, sibling or friend has worried themselves to a frazzle fearing that young Johnny is getting “weird” ― i.e., he’s into kinky sex ― because he’s gotten a tattoo or a body piercing.
Well, he may be; some kinkyfolk enjoy changing the appearance of their bodies with tattoos, piercings, and scars from cuttings or brandings, and some kinky pain practices leave behind marks which their owners wear with pride. But many people who do not identify as kinky nonetheless enjoy body modifications. The modification may be a statement of community or pride, designed to help like-minded individuals recognize its owner as a kindred spirit. Or it may be given as part of a ritual, part of a vision quest, to celebrate an important life transition or to reclaim the body after a bad experience: after all, the only person allowed to modify a body is its owner, right? (Dossie was once part of a circle of women chanting “No more rape! No more rape!” as the woman in the center had her labia pierced; the piercee had set up this ritual to reclaim her body and get closure on a traumatic experience from her past.) Or the individual involved may simply enjoy turning her body into a work of art, bright with color and flashing metal. Don’t forget that the brief flash of pain from the piercing, or the longer but less intense burn of the tattoo, is over quickly, often followed by a tidal wave of endorphins: the pain is brief, the euphoria will probably last till tomorrow.
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