Opening up your relationship. Perhaps you can live with the idea of your partner exploring kink, but you’re just not very interested in doing so yourself. You can still maintain your relationship, if you choose, by coming to terms with your partner taking care of her kinky needs somewhere else.
So where is “somewhere else?” Many committed partners have outside lovers, and this is particularly common among those of us who have uncommon sexual tastes. Kinky people are pretty used to the idea that the person who wants to do exactly what we want to do in sex may be a very different person from the partner with whom we want to share a home, three children and a mortgage. So it makes good sense that many couples have agreed to accept “play partners” into the ecology of their relationship. Others find that it suits their sense of limits better if the kinky partner plays only at play parties, or only with professional dominants.
This does bring up the equally difficult, but not insurmountable, issue of nonmonogamy. Whether your partner will play with a lover, sexual friends or a professional, you will have to work through any jealousy or insecurity you may feel.
We can’t tell you in complete detail here about how to negotiate some sexual openness in your relationship (if you’re interested, our book “The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities” will give you much more information), but let us warn you about some of the traps.
We often hear of folks who tell their spouses or partners, “Go ahead and play with other people if you have to, but I don’t want to hear about it.” In our experience, this is rarely a good idea. Most people find it easier to get comfortable when they know about what is going on, can ask questions, maybe even meet these outside partners.
When a couple tries to deal in secrecy there are too many blanks. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we have a natural human tendency to fill in the blanks. When there is something we don’t know that is important to us, we don’t tolerate not knowing very well, so we tend to imagine what might be in the blank space. And what we most commonly imagine in this kind of blank space is our worst fear. Remember the last time your partner was late and didn’t call? Did you call the Highway Patrol, imagining a terrible accident? Most of us have. We fill in the blank with our worst fear.
So if you want to know what it is that you are most afraid of, make a deal to keep secrets from each other. It is almost a certainty that you will torture yourself with your own worst fears. You are, for instance, very likely to convince yourself that this mysterious person in your partner’s life is younger, thinner, smarter, sexier... you can fill in your own fear of your own inadequacy. We doubt if this will make you happy.
When we know the truth about what is going on, we get the information we need to reassure ourselves about our own importance in the scheme of things. We know of initially horrified partners who now think nothing of buying their spouse a session with a professional dominant for a birthday present, or throwing a birthday party for their lover’s lover.
Some people think you can differentiate between sex and kink, and negotiate an agreement that it’s okay to do kink outside the relationship, but not sex. This may look reasonable from the outset, but how do you define sex? Does it mean having an orgasm? Genital contact? Arousal? We already know the answer - there is no precise definition of what constitutes sex, and any line you might try to draw will turn out to have so much gray area that it will be more of a fog than a line. Truth is, kink is a form of intimacy, and arousal and fulfillment can take many forms. You can’t make a rule that will protect you from feeling jealous or insecure.
But you can make agreements about certain forms of sexual or kinky behavior: some couples choose, for example, to keep penetrative intercourse as something they do only with one another; others make agreements about what kinds of behaviors are and are not okay outside their relationship. Most have some understanding about how they will protect themselves - and, by extension, their partners - from disease. The key to making such agreements work is to be very, very clear about the actual meanings of the words you use, and to remain flexible so your agreements can change as your needs and comfort levels evolve.
Professional dominants provide, for many people, a relationship-neutral place for a kinky person to live out their fantasies with no threat to their non-kinky beloved. And when both of you are free from pressure about those kinky desires, the sex you do share may be most wondrously hot and steamy and satisfying.
Time is your best friend. You don’t have to decide any of this today - you can explore the issue. There is no rush, and if you have a love relationship that is precious to you and you don’t want to lose it, the best thing you can do is start moving very slowly.
We advocate getting all the info you can - read some more books. Consider joining a support group and attending a workshop: if you bravely go to places where you can meet some people and hear them talk about what they like to do, you will be under absolutely no obligation to participate. Keep that clear with yourself and your partner. It can really help to observe a variety of people who enjoy kink, and maybe even get a chance to talk to some of them. This is an opportunity for you to reality-test both your thoughts and your feelings.
Trying it yourself. What if your partner is revealing this to you because she wants you to participate? You get to think about this one for a long time. If you feel pressure to become an outrageous fantasy kinky creature right this moment, check first to see who’s pressuring you - is it your partner or is it yourself?
If it’s your partner, insist on having the time to think about all this. You are not going to succeed in building an expanded sex life by grudgingly giving in to bullying or emotional blackmail. If the pressure comes from you, get some support, slow down, and give yourself the time to deal with all this carefully.
There is an axiom in sex therapy that covers any situation where a person might feel pressure to perform sexually in a way that doesn’t fit for them. The axiom tells us that if you are not allowed to say no, then you can never really say yes. If you should make the brave decision to try an alternative sexual behavior with your partner, remember that you both have a line-item veto, and that the best way to proceed is one step at a time.
If you decide to try it yourself you deserve understanding and support, for agreeing to take some risks, and for the wonderful trust you are giving your partner. You should have the opportunity to learn at your own pace and never be pushed to go further than you feel comfortable with. There is no hierarchy of hip where the kinkier you are, the better you are. What’s important is the pleasure and the sexual expansion you are enjoying right now. Take the time to savor the pleasures of today before you leap on to what you would like to be doing tomorrow.
A good way to get started would be to turn back to Chapter 6, and try the Yes/No/Maybe exercise we described there with your partner. This can be a good jumping-off point to help you discover some activities that sound safe and rewarding to both of you.
Sex therapists declare that you can’t tell if you like something if you just try it once. Chances are, the first time you attempt any new sexual activity, kinky or non-kinky, you will be so distracted by embarrassment and performance anxiety that you will be doing well to simply have gotten through your agenda. At the very least, you will most likely learn that a blindfold or a little bondage won’t kill you, so be proud of yourself for being willing to try. To really find out if you like a particular form of sexual play takes at least three tries.
Role-playing - pretending to be nurse nasty or the wicked count or the poor little victim - is one of the most common items in our fantasies, but it is often the most difficult to learn how to do. Your authors still feel quite proud of ourselves when we pull off a scene that includes playing parts with a lot of verbal interplay. It is an acquired ability to talk and stay aroused at the same time. Instead, each of you can run the fantasy in your mind - you could actually have a wonderful time and each be running a different movie in your head. People do it all the time in non-kinky s
ex, so you probably already have that skill down.
The easiest place to start is with one new physical sensation, like a blindfold or a light spanking, or one new adventure, like a small exploration of cross-dressing. You learned a little bit about these activities earlier in this book, and you can get other books from the Resource Guide that will help you with technique and finesse.
With any stimulation, it works best to start very gently and then build up so slowly that the recipient will eager for you to go further faster. This works a lot better than whopping somebody across the behind as hard as you can before they are turned on. Going slowly gives you both time to get warmed up and turned on, and lets you explore each new experience as it happens without feeling driven to move on to the next step right away. If you slow down to a ritual, almost trance-like pace, you will be moving slow enough to make no mistakes, and your partner will probably love it.
Similarly, if you are on the receiving end of the stimulus, make a deal with your partner beforehand to move forward very slowly, so you have plenty of time to feel safe with a particular stimulation, and to decide how much of it you want.
Beginner’s mind. Allow yourself to be a beginner. Buddhists instruct advanced meditation practitioners to constantly return to “beginner’s mind” in order to see things freshly and clearly, without preconceptions. Your explorations as a beginner are wonderful and exciting and truly a great adventure - so enjoy them. It is a terrible waste to fail to notice the pleasure you are sharing today because you are preoccupied planning for greater pleasures tomorrow.
Try playing with a new toy or activity for a while and then finishing with the kind of sex you already know you both love. Do this a lot, and your relationship will thrive even if it takes years, as it has for most of us, to get to where you are comfortable doing the scenes that lie in the far reaches of your fantasies. You can get comfortable: we know, we have, and you are under no obligation whatsoever to do the scariest stuff you can think of. Why would you want to? Stick with what feels safe today, and see what changes tomorrow.
What if you try it and you don’t like it? Three easy tries, and you still don’t like it? Well, you are no worse off than you were before, and now you have a lot more knowledge about what kinky sex is about. We have a myth in our culture that all sex which is less than perfectly and exquisitely transcendent is a total flop. This is not true. If you attempt any new sexual endeavor and it’s barely okay or not really that great, that is all that will happen. You will not die of mortification, nor will the planet open up and swallow you whole. If you try something that doesn’t work, you and your partner can have a rueful laugh about it, take care of each other for now, and decide what you want to do about all that later. One third-rate sexual encounter will not traumatize you for life.
What if you try it and you do like it? Welcome to a very crowded closet.
11
Conclusion: Kink Unburied
So now we have shared with you everything we can think of that might help you deal with the reality of having a kinky person close to you in your life. We have talked about health and sickness, safety and sanity, and hopefully given you a positive and realistic picture of your kinky friend’s world. We have offered suggestions for family members, helping professionals, and partners of kinky people on dealing with the presence of a kinky person in your life, and we sincerely hope that some of them are useful to you.
As we talk about various aspects of kinkiness in the world, we are acutely aware that we are unburying a whole bunch of wild ideas, dark fantasies, baroque behaviors, and intense sexual sensation that our culture normally keeps hidden in the belief that just knowing - not advocating, not participating, not fantasizing, just knowing - about these practices will somehow harm or pollute you. As if you couldn’t make an informed decision about your own sex life. As if this knowledge could send you spiraling down a path of depravity you never chose or intended. As if just talking about forbidden sexuality had some magical consequences beyond that talking.
Obviously, we don’t believe any of this. You probably don’t either. We suspect that you have read this book, with perhaps some trepidation, but in perfect safety, and that, having read it, you have not suddenly become somebody you weren’t before. This is important to remember as you face the daunting challenge of continuing connection and communication with your kinky person - this is about words. Words and ideas. Thinking about it can’t hurt you. And nothing about this means that you ought to change who you are. You are just fine right now.
As we see it, you, the nonkinky person in your kinky person’s life, have some choices. You can choose to rebury all this information, with the sad understanding that this act will distance you from your friend or family member. Or you can choose to open a dialogue with your friend, ask questions about his reality, find ways to get safe with honesty between you. Or you can decide never to speak to your kinky person again, to slam the door of your affection in her face.
Obviously, we hope that you will choose to open a dialogue, to open your heart, and to find a way to empathize with your friend or loved one. We believe you will both be enriched by your connection, and that any differences between you, far from creating an impossible chasm, might become the subject of lively discourse and the sharing of heartfelt feelings that brings you closer. Your differences, you know, are an important contribution that you bring to this relationship - you enrich your friend’s life when you share what is unique to you. We hope you find the way to love each other without necessarily agreeing about everything, without conditions.
Unconditional love is not some unattainable ideal, suitable only for saints and bodhisattvas. Unconditional love happens all the time, in often funky ways: it is a real force already present in our everyday lives. We do not cease to love our children when they misbehave. We do not need to cease to love them when they grow up and make life decisions that weren’t part of our plan. We love them while we have reservations, even when we disapprove. We grown-ups can afford to treat each other with that same generosity of spirit, simply by being mindful of how acutely we love each other, even when times are hard.
Unconditional love is not difficult; most often it is a simple truth. It means I love you even when I disagree. I love you when I think you’re being a jerk. I love you when I’m being a jerk. I don’t need to agree with or approve of every single thing about you to love you, and you don’t need to be perfect to be loved. It is a finer love that recognizes our human frailties and continues to love. And the love we share with our families and lovers is not based on some objective evaluation of an individual’s worthiness. Real love is based on our feelings of emotional connectedness, and that connection doesn’t go away unless you cut if off.
Knowing that, perhaps you can find the courage to love your kinky friend even when you are shocked or frightened by her or his sexual choices. We have said this before, but it bears reiterating now: we feel quite sure that your kinky person cares about you. Otherwise, why would they take the risk of facing your disapproval or disgust by coming out to you? We kinky folk do not share our precious pleasures with most people. Most of us do not choose to spend our lives in fruitless argument with people we don’t care about.
Somewhere in that mutual caring, we hope you find the where-withal to hang in there with your friend until a growing understanding emerges, and you can continue to care about your friend with serenity.
Once again, we want to acknowledge that you, our readers, are the people who care enough to want to learn about their dear friend’s lifestyle, and we congratulate you for making the effort to understand. And we hope we have been able to offer some help in your journey.
Thank you.
Glossary
(Words printed in italics are separately defined in the Glossary.)
Abuse: How do kinkyfolk distinguish between kink and abuse? The most important difference is that the kinks we discuss in this book are all consensual. Kinkyfolk negotiate what they’re going to do ahead of
time; abusers don’t. Another important difference is that playing with our kinks is something we do to enhance our own, and our partners’, well-being; abusers don’t care about their victims’ well-being. Truth to tell, kink doesn’t feel like abuse either.
Age Play: Play in which one or more people act the role of someone younger - or older - than they really are. Age players can be dependent infants, stubborn toddlers, explorative schoolchildren, mouthy teenagers or whatever other role interests them. Both bottoms and tops can play with age change.
Archetype: Here we get a little Jungian. In Jungian theory, an archetype is a universal symbol which carries tremendous power, and appears in many forms throughout human culture. Examples of archetypes in the classical sense might be “nurturing mother,” “trickster,” “benevolent deity,” and so on. A lot of kinky play explores these archetypes, often in modern form - the whip-wielding leather-clad spike-heeled dominatrix (“bitch goddess”) is a good example. In trying to understand your kinky person better, it might help to think about what archetypes she is exploring.
BDSM: This is a fairly recent coinage that seems to have been formed on the Internet. It squishes together three older terms - B&D (bondage & discipline), D/S (dominance & submission), and S/M (sadomasochism).
Bestiality: Also sometimes called zoophilia. Some people enjoy sexual interactions with animals. It has been pointed out to us that, unless they are tied down or abused, animals are quite able to express nonconsent: they can bite, scratch, growl or just run away. On the other hand, some people believe that the animals in question are being exploited even if they are not being hurt. We have not been able to interview a representative sample of beasts to get their point of view. Informed consent is a tricky issue here.
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