A(n erotic) poem from the oppressor inside me

I really hate the writing advice "write what you know". I sincerely do. It stops so many people from exploring their thoughts about stuff they aren't experts in. Now I'm not saying that writing about stuff you don't know and haven't researched is going to be publishable, but it will teach you some pretty important stuff.

It will reveal all of the assumptions and bits of knowledge you already do have (but might not know that you know). Chances are that thing you're interested in learning/writing about is something
you probably have at least a few facts and assumptions about. And it's probably a good thing for any writer is to get to take stock of the knowledge base they already have (regardless of how skewed).

For instance last week I was prompted to "write a celebration of the opposite sex". I have no idea when "opposite sex" even is to me as a person who identifies as both bisexual and genderqueer. I experience a bristle of discomfort whenever I'm asked to distinguish between (two) sexes/genders.

My gender and sexual identities are in many ways inherently against that sort of defining. But some parts of are still attached to those separations. Even though they aren't the parts of me I choose to express most of the time they still exist inside of me.

So I chose to explore what I knew the least about, how my masculinity relates to the supposedly opposite feminine folks. This is what came out when I gave that space to speak:


I don't want to be just one more guy writing creepy sonnets about Women

So it's a good thing I'm awful
at sonnets, because the slow-quick,
then whiplash that any small impact
dances through breast to nipple
makes my iambs incredibly tense.

As my heart double-dactyls I
imagine our chests pressed together
the way her nipples might drag
all their implications across my storyline,
until their hard milklessness tattoos
hunger through rib to lung to liver.
The lust in me she pricked
drops sudden into hip sockets
and opens the honest horror of its being:

I love women because overwhelm is what they're used to.
I love being cast as the stimuli that she will react to.
I get off on her ceding to my protagonism,

The sashay of her ponytail's enough to
set off my engine. Her eyelids
flick faster than any lip could
transmute the notion "come and get me.
I am aching to be got."She yields
and I develop my character all over her.

The lines I wrote are both earnest and satirical. I do enjoy embodying the sort of masculinity that requires femininity to be ancillary. But I also at the very same time I recognize how very damaging, fucked up, and prevalent this dynamic is. I see how it ruins lives.

As erotic as I find these assumptions they are false. "Real women have curves" the same way real women are all reactive, submissive, and only interested in cuddling after sex. In the way that one person's experiences doesn't fit into/reflect all the stereotypes associated with their cultural group.

As damaging and confining as these roles are to people of all genders, I still enjoy them. In the same way that I cannot consciously stop my self from having a panic attack, I cannot consciously or instantly change my own desires. And I refuse to apologize for my thoughts and fantasies.

Now this whole "heart wants what is wants" bit is absolutely not an excuse/free pass to behave in ways that hurt or dehumanize others. We all experience complex and often baffling desires and we all decide how to actualize or not actualize them. I have decided to try not to dehumanize others, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in playing out dehumanizing roles with other consenting adults.

Acknowledging that contradiction is scary. And often takes some time (and some uninhibiting substances). While writing the above poem my body and pen resisted (there's another 3 stanzas I wrote before and during drafting it that critiqued/resisted the voice I was writing from).

We like to see ourselves as Good Guys always fighting the good fight with all our thoughts and desires. But none of us really is. In this sense the revolution starts with honest self-reflection; with realizing and recognizing one's own monstrous and dehumanizing impulses.

If we let go of needing ourselves to be Good we can stop denying our problematic impulses and desires. What's revealed in this process are the deeply ingrained biases and assumptions that live in our minds.

For me, seeing this disturbing information has shown me which parts of myself I choose to share universally and which impulses I chose to be more careful about expressing/exploring. Reading the words of my more vulgar impulses is important to me on several levels.

It lets me know that my desires are participating in and benefiting from the male gaze.  It also lets me know that I am not above the tantalizing effects of a power imbalance I'm on the luckier side of. It reminds me that parts of me enjoy and pine after being the oppressor.

No. Consent isn't sexy.

This morning on my twitter feed this question showed up:

After writing two different replies I noticed that perhaps I have more thoughts and feels about this question than can be contained in 140 or even 280 characters.

First off the answer is simple. No. Consent isn't sexy.

There is a huge campaign surrounding the notion that it is and I think it is bull. Or at least too narrowly framed.

There are many non-sexy contexts in which we use the tool of consent.

Consent can be decidedly unsexy when in order to travel by plane we must consent to have our bodies and out belongings searched.

But consent outside sexy contexts doesn't have to be unsavory. On the adorable but certainly non sexy end we have a parent saying yes and allowing their 7 year old son to crawl onto their back for the piggy back ride he's been begging for.

In the questionable middle ground there're many kinds of legal and medical consent that have absolutely nothing to do with sex at all and are unlikely to inspire the arousal of most.

Don't get me wrong consent is extremely useful in sexy contexts. It helps prevent harm. It helps us get clear on our sexual wants and boundaries.

It helps make sex (and other interactions) easier and more doable for those who are interested in doing it with others regularly. On a societal level consent makes sex a more sustainable way of interacting and reduces the physical, mental, and emotional harm we do to each other.

But the consent itself is not sexy in and of itself. In the same way that our bodies and body parts aren't always sexy because we don't always consider them to be. When I'm not aroused or thinking about things/people in a sexy context having my body or parts of it objectified or identified as others as "sexy" can leave me feeling violated/dehumanized.

The claim that "consent is sexy" falls apart especially in the case of asexual folks. Consent, and even consent surrounding intimacy totally exists for asexual people. It's just not sexy. Which is TOTALLY FINE. In the same way that not all sex attracts all people, not all communications of consent are universally sexy.

Consent itself is not what we find sexy. The unique ways that individual people give consent can be vey sexy but that's the delivery not message not consent itself. What we find sexy is their words/behavior. In this sense the delivery of consent can be extremely sexy, however this sexiness is completely subjective.

For instance I once asked a woman I didn't know very well but was attracted to (we'd both been drinking at a party) if I could top her sometime. She smiled, turned around and bent over to signal her consent. Had we been in another context I would've probably found this very sexy, but because I didn't know her very well and we were in a room with other partygoers, I felt a little intimidated, anxious, and even felt pressure to "act more toppy" in that moment. Any "sexy" I'd been feeling in that moment was swallowed up by my social anxiety. This person was consenting to something I asked for (and we did get to play later) but the way she communicated her consent intimidated me and was not sexy to me in that moment.

Fortunately, more often than not, we're going to find the ways that people we're attracted to communicate their consent to sexual activity with us to be sexy. This doesn't mean that the consent is sexy. It means that you find the way that person communicates sexy. Which is actually much more intimate than seeing consent as the sexy stuff. This way of thinking gives me the freedom to give compliments like “I love the way you do consent.” and “The way you say yes is really fucking sexy.”

Now I'm not going to yell at or angrily correct someone saying "consent is sexy". In fact when I hear people using this phrase I'm able to identify them as potential allies in my community. People who say this care about consent and building less harmful and more sustainable sexual practices. And these are people I want to connect and collaborate with.

That said my politics place focus more on consent more than they do on sex. As a consent-positive advocate for less harmful human interactions I'm annoyed when the tools of consent are limited to the context of sexuality. The phrase "consent is sexy" at worst enforces this limitation. At best it does not do what the necessary work of broadening awareness about and use of consent in all human interactions (not just the sexy ones).

I need consent to be normal because sex is normal

Every time I see a project like this the cockles of my heart open like a bird's voice to the sunrise.

I am thrilled overjoyed and dancing in solidarity to these messages. They are important educational messages that can and I am sure do stamp out rape culture and prevent rapes and assaults.

But in my mind it is not enough. I by no means am calling for the people doing this important work to stop, or to say that their work is insufficient to it's intended purpose. It is appropriately designed clearly worded and will probably be politically effective. What I AM saying is that the intended purpose of consent education need to be bigger and go beyond just sex.

I've written in the past about consent-positivity and even provided some models for respecting other's (potential) boundaries. But sometimes I feel like I am the only one.

I am so deeply passionate about pushing conversations about consent beyond just the sex for two basic reasons.

The first is strategic, if we teach and model respectful consent in nonsexual everyday interactions there there will already be a a common groundwork of practice and intelligence that can be easily applied to sexual interactions.

The second is conceptual: I think about sex as an everyday interaction. And not just because I masturbate/have partnered sex pretty much daily. The (im)moral and highly sensationalized lessons our culture teaches about sexual interactions are bunk. Much of the sex-positive movement has done a fabulous job of identifying this exactly what I mean:

Sex is normal*. Part of it being normal is that not everyone is into it and everyone is into it differently. Sex is normal in the way that pop music is normal. There're many variations and many ways to enjoy pop music/sex, most people are specific in their tastes and not everyone likes what you like and some people don't like pop music/sex at all.

I am sick of culture treating sex as if it's some sort of voodoo magic. As if it were so vastly different from other social phenomena**. Yes in many cases it is a highly vulnerable activity, but humans are very well suited to being vulnerable with one another. Not in all cases but in many, sex is a normal way for humans beings to be vulnerable with each other (certainly not the only or the 'right' way for everyone or every relationship!).

Simply put I want the conversations and political passion surrounding consent to be expanded to nonsexual contexts because sex is as normal as any other interaction between humans and I need consent to become the normal context for normal interactions.

*while "normal" has often been used to denote moral approval/acceptance rest assured dear readers I am NOT using "normal" in this way. As an exceptional deviant in many ways "normal" has never felt like a good word in my mouth. I am using "normal" in a sociological sense to denote trends in human behavior.

**I recognize the history and current relationships between sex and violence. Sex being tied to violence, unfortunately does not make it abnormal though the frequency with which sex is related to violence is disgustingly abnormal. Because sex is often vulnerable and we live in a world where exploitation is an unfortunate reality, it is harrowing but not all that surprising that sexual violence is so often used to exploit that vulnerability.

A Shift in Focus: Why I've Chosen to Say "Consent-Positive" Rather Than "Sex-Positive"

This decision's been building for a long time. It's by no means final, absolute, or certain, only that it makes space for my own uncertainty (and hopefully the uncertainty and hesitation of others but more on that later). Like many things concerning love and relationships and sex, this decision and the conversations I've had surrounding it have resisted simplicity and can only be expressed in the messy progression that follows.

I'll start with my own experience. In the past when using the term “sex-positive” I, like many of my women friends, have had listeners assume that by saying I'm sex-positive I'm saying I’ll be into whatever kind of sex they’re into. And also that I am willing to do that kind of sex with them soon or immediately. "Sex-positive" is optimistically coded as consent, potential consent or some indication of how/what I will consent to. I can’t say I've had a full frontal "Hey! but I thought you were sex-positive" when I've refused such sexual advances but I have been coerced and "c'mon”d. On two separate occasions, other “sex-positive” (male) party goers suggested that because of my nudity at past events and my self-professed sex-positivity I should disrobe and “continue the tradition”. I first started to say “consent-positive” in an attempt to duck the possibility of the creepy interactions "sex-positive" had elicited.

It's not just self defense, but it was because of this and other like experiences that I slowly began to realize more reasons for this shift. I began to notice that whenever I talked about being kinky, poly, and/or sex-positive what I ended up talking about was consent. As much as I do enjoy talking about sex it felt much safer personally and more transgressive politically to talk about how powerful an experience I've found it to build language and rituals that ensure that my consent, and the consent of those I am sharing space with is consistently receiving attention. (Note I don't say that consent itself be constant or even consistent).

One of the main reasons I continue wanting to wrench focus onto consent rather than the sex is that when sex is the rhetorical focus of a conversation or the goal of a movement consent starts to look like a means (getting to yes) to an end (sex). Some of you may recognize this progression model as it is commonly identified in feminist circles as a way in which men are taught to and often do relate to women and women's sexualities. It's the same logic that tells folks that the ideal romantic evening involves a man romancing (the consent out of) the woman and him fucking her until he (or they both) comes. In this narrative sex is the happy ending and consent is the means. I want consent to be both the means and the end! I want consent without sex to be viewed as it's own happy ending.

I (optimistically) don't think sex-positive activists intentionally engage in or encourage a view of consent as a means to sex, but making sex the first and most visibly important part of our politics often activates this taught progression in the minds of those who hear sex-positive messages.

The shift in focus I am seeking is from sex to communication as a whole. This shift is not meant to slight or shame sex or even say that sex in an unimportant form of communication. I want to get clear on the fact that consent can and often is about more than just about sex. Making this shift in focus means that when we talk about consent as a whole what we're talking about is the practice of making our communications less violent towards the wants and bodies of other human beings. We don't have to just be talking about sex when we talk about consent.

Contrary to popular belief, consent exists to be more than just “sexy” (and yes, it can be very sexy). It exists so that we as humans can reduce the harm we do to one another in our interactions.
To me consent is more important and further reaching than sex, but wildly less visible and less trendy (more on this later). I have heard too many sex-positive activists talk about sex either without mentioning consent directly or merely tacking it on as a simplified footnote.

At the behest of her commenters popular sex-positive video blogger Laci Green recently made a video about anal play. Now to be clear I am overjoyed that people are getting more accurate and useful information on engaging more safely/comfortably in the kinds of sex/play they are interested in. But after watching her video on anal play I got the nagging feeling that something was lacking.
Before I could identify exactly why when radicalfeministquotes.tumblr.com beat me to it:

This is one of the big problems with sex-positivity. Laci Green says she received an “alarming amount of messages about people being pressured into anal sex”. I think we all know that by “people”, she means women (or at least people with male partners). Her solution is to make a video giving advice on how to have anal sex. How does that help those women? Her advice to commenters: “Just don’t do it if you don’t want to”. No shit, Laci, I’m sure that idea had already occurred to those women. It’s easy to tell women to just not do things they’re not comfortable with, but that doesn’t do anything about the GUYS PRESSURING THEM TO DO THOSE THINGS. They’re still in the same boat they were before, trying to figure out what to do with a guy who wants to fuck her butt in a world that says women will die alone if they don’t let guys fuck their butts. There’s not a moment in this video where she is reprimanding these guys or telling em’ to knock it off, because OMG THAT MIGHT HURT THEIR FEELINGS AND MAKE THEM FEEL ASHAMED OF THEIR SEXUAL DESIRES."

By keeping the conversation focused solely on sex and how to do it Laci dodges an important distinction. While having desires is totally valid, the ways we express them should not come from a place of expectation that those desires be met. For me the missing piece in Laci's video is her telling folks that want anal play that sometimes you can't always get what you want, nor should you expect to or continue asking after being served explicit refusal(s).

Refusing to give consent should never be framed as negative or any less exciting or valid a choice than choosing to give consent for sex acts. And while I’ll admit to rarely experiencing outright exclusion (entitled vibes notwithstanding) at refusing sex in a sex-positive community there is a disproportionate amount of praise for those who consent to participate and support sex/play in sex-positive communities. Saying “yes” is framed as empowering and to give one’s consent is “sexy”. Which can and often does imply that a “no” or hesitation is a problem or “less cool/liberated”. Hesitation and refusal are totally valid expressions of uncertainty and deserve respect. The framing of "consent is sexy" can, in some applications, invalidate this vital uncertainty.

This pressure and implied coolness/liberation of "yes" is similar to a popular consumer culture's advertising strategy in which the consumer is presented the “empowering” choice between an array of products. The choice to purchase one (the best) of these products is framed as so powerful that the option to choose no product is implicitly framed as less powerful or even erased all together.

Many sex-positive folks I've met are well versed in active consent practices which is awesome, but what is often forgotten is that this specialized education in consent is not a uniform privilege that not everyone has access to. In some ways the BDSM community provides an example of this privilege. It has lots of explicit tools and language for focusing on consent (not that this makes BDSM spaces inherently consent-positive spaces). The problem is that some kinky and sex-positive folks sometimes forget that not everyone they will interact with will have as well studied or uniform understanding of consent as they do. For example, saying “you can say 'no' at any time” is vastly different from actually negotiating trust with a partner to ensure that they will say "no" when/if they feel the need/want to.

For me even, after learning, writing, and studying about it, consent feels intuitive, hard to translate, and hard to talk about. But talking about consent is a must. Especially in poor communities, communities of color, non-english speaking contexts, and other marginalized communities, whose models for consent are often invalidated or overwritten altogether by priviledged sex-positive educators and activists. So yes, sex-positive activists and BDSMers have a lot of tools for consent but these tools aren’t useful or applicable for every context.

But worse than these decontextualized potentially erasing approaches to consent, the “racier” parts of sex-positivity and BDSM are now gaining pop culture currency with the distinct absence of consensual tools and practices. Important nuances are often left out in favor of what's blindly edgy and controversial. You need only to glance at 50 Shades of Grey and it's popularity for an example of important nuances being left out. The sex and powerplay of BSDM are becoming trendy but the consent parts, not so much.

Ad culture is right. "Sex sells". But when ad culture (and many people) say "sex" what usually comes to mind is the kind of sex had by heterosexual, white (or nonwhite and exotified), young, able-bodied, gender conforming, conventionally attractive people (with the assistance of the right products). Because of this prevalent and incomplete understanding of sex, the parts of the sex-positive movement that have caught on the strongest are those which feature these kinds of sex. Whether sex-positivists intend support it or not this specific and inaccurate cultural definition of sex (which leaves out both consent & the sexual experiences of so many) is what gets applied to sex positivity by the wider media. As with all things scooped up by the mainstream it's losing it's nuance. Unfortunately losing that nuance includes losing importantly intersectional conversations about sexual diversity and consent.

Recognizing and building sustainable consent and sex practices is especially crucial in sex-positivity's intersection with sexual violence. In the Ethical Slut, Dossie Eaton and Janet Hardy famously say that “sex is nice and pleasure is good for you”. This is true for many but incomplete and perhaps dangerously so. Swathes of broader culture and the medical & legal communities consider rape and other traumatic and/or nonconsensual sexual acts to be sex. This is especially true of rapes and assaults that go unreported and unrecognized. One of my worst fears around casually saying saying “I'm sex-positive” is that those survivors of unidentified/unreported rapes/assaults will hear me and get the impression that I am trying to encourage them to view their traumatic experiences positively. Or that I am implicitly endorsing the actions of rapists/assaulters. I do not ever want to suggest, even implicitly, that I feel any sort of positivity about rape or sexual assault.

I do honestly believe consent is the foundation for good sex, but also to a less harmful way of interacting with other people. Consent education can start as soon as kids start to realize that their bodies are in fact separate from the bodies of others. Imagine how much easier it would be to confront the harassment and assaults of bullying if youths understood how to articulate their boundaries. This reasoning is the least formulated of all because it requires a radical shift in how we relate to children and how we relate to each other. And quite honestly I believe it’s more radical than many of the co-opted and often limiting goals of sex-positive revolution.

I'm not saying the fight for sexual liberation is over (far from it!), but I am saying sex-positivity, like any kind of effective activism, needs to brach out and realize how it connects and intersects with other radical movements and ideals. I see consent-positivity as a start to that. If sex-positivity is all about bring joy and sustainable, harm-reducing practices into the sexual interactions, then consent-positivity is about bring joy and sustainable, harm-reducing practices into all interaction humans share with one another. Let's work together.

Branding & Activism

Part 2: The "Sex" in "Sex Positive"

Mini intro for those of you who missed P.1:

In activist communities there are movements towards re-defining certain terms, then using those terms loaded with new meaning to talk to a public that has not been educated, consulted or even invited to accept these new definitions. This practice of re-definition mimics the use of language in academic communities. In this sense it is (unintentionally) exclusive. It creates communities of activists privileged with newer enlightened definitions and excludes those that aren't "in the know". The use of community-specific language can be alienating or confusing to a person who is using more traditional definitions. Ineffective and inconsiderate branding harms both the movement itself and those who're invited into an activist community under the banner of poorly branded terms.

I feel pangs of annoyance and resistance to certain branding efforts; for products whose names do not receive recognition in my neural net, campaigns that try so hard to seem natural that they lose their authenticity.  When I see Bing, with their sad product placement and blatant failure to complete with Google, I feel a familiar annoyance and resistance. It's the same awful feeling I get I when see the words "sex positivity" used in a way that demands displays of "pride" (aka performative sexuality) or excludes people based on their appearance or their preferred intensity of sexual expression. I can't stand under the banner of a "sex positive" movement because of the way it has ineptly tried and failed to force a re-branding of "sex".

I believe the sex positive moment is doing some damn fine work. Most sex-positive folks I know will tell you right off the bat that "sex" had a broad definition (this is good!). But In the past when I've dropped "I'm sex positive" in conversation, I always tended to find myself talking about how sex positivity is actually more about consent than about sex (these days I'm using consent-positive). Despite my efforts to the contrary, the people I've spoken with outside of the sex-positive community hear the words "sex-positive" and by and large still think I mean "I like penis in vagina action" or "I like to have sex". 

This is a fundamental yet unacknowledged semantic misunderstanding. Refusing to acknowledge it and make space for this misunderstanding is not only inconsiderate, it implies that whatever understanding a person does come to about "sex" is the one true "sex positive" principle. This is how you get men expressing sentiments like "I'm totally a sex-positive feminist! I love having sex with women!" Refusing to acknowledge the likelihood of misunderstanding stops those we're attempting to educate from taking accountability for their own understandings.

There are consequences to assuming the sex positive definitions of sex & consent are simple easily accepted or free from the effect of mainstreams assumptions about "sex". Folks who don't openly express their affinity for sex or certain types of sex often have their voices invalidated and excluded from visibility. Oppressive stereotypical roles can creep into sex positive spaces. The status quo is often disguised as radical. In the case of sex positive the branding has gotten away from it's original campaign and is being used to justify unquestioned objectification. Under the brand of "sex positive" those who express dislike, or refuse to comply are ridiculed and ostracized. Sexual availability and expressions of desire become compulsory.

An Open Letter to Anti-Porn and Anti-Kink Feminists/Activists

I attended a take back the night event last night at SCCC hoping for a re-imagining of how to make streets safer for everyone. How to make them freer of violence both physical and otherwise. I was nervous coming in. I have lingering issues with institutions of higher learning (as a first gen college attendee & someone who has been asked to leave a college program). I got lost in the building that had told me in authoritative white letters at the entrance that said "only students beyond this point". I had the harrowing feeling I used to have in college. I felt afraid someone would point me out as a nonbelonger and that I would be 86ed.

Eventually I stopped being lost & found the room. Inside there were two friends who both gave me much needed hugs. This helped immensely. The room itself felt both jovial and anxious. There were folks wearing stickers that said "If you can't imagine a world without porn.... then you're fucked" (as if fucked is the worst thing you can be).

I was heartened by the first few announcements which included a welcome and a support person from the counseling office letting folks know that they were available if anyone became distressed or got triggered. The use of the word "trigger" gave me good feelings

The first speaker to come up and begin talking in earnest about the night’s intents and activities began to talk about pornography as an incarnation of misogyny and violence against women. In an effort to construct an argument she listed several types of penetration as well as money shots as evidence of exploitation. She also told the story of another Take Back the Night event
where dissenting bystanders were brought to a local porn shop which had a prominent display of “torture porn”. She spoke with what I interpreted as disgust about the bruises and other evidence of pain play that was on display.That was the moment I felt most acutely that I should leave.

I began to feel that the writing I had brought to share (which was specifically about generating consent culture between everyone) where not appropriate for this event. I would not have felt comfortable or supported sharing my stories about being assaulted by women. In that moment I felt as if the space was specifically focused to discuss herterosexual male-to-female violence. I felt my preferences and wants being erased & pathologized. I felt encouraged to censor myself rather than extend compassionate/considerate consentful communication about needs/wants and boundaries. I felt very clearly that I was being asked to impose on myself an oppressive restriction over my own wants/preferences. Because well...

I like simulated exploitation. I like bruises. These are (some of) my preferences. They are not disgusting (as some find them to be). The denial of my wants/preferences is what is.

Porn does not directly cause cultural misogyny &/or violence against women. The vast majority of what comes out if the industry certainly subscribes to and profits greatly from the cultures of violence and misogyny but it didn't invent it nor doesn't hold the whole of these destructive forces in its realm. Messages about violence and misogyny and anti-consent start way before a kid sees their first porno.

Channelling rage against porn (and kink) in this way is not useful. It will have little/no effect on a hugely successful industry, but even more than that: it stomps all over the agency of any woman or otherwise non-privileged person (folks of color and trans folks) participating in sex work or kink. I could not stand for/with the way the speaker erased the agency of (female) sex-workers (film stars) and kinky folks and even pathologized them exclusively as victims. This is why I chose to leave the room. Women, hell, people in general, don’t need to be saved from their sexual choices and preferences.

I understand the caring impetus behind wanting to divest violence from sex. It has been a point of dissonance I am still struggling to resolve. But I want to do more than just critique what happened last night. I want to at least offer an explanation and entry point for folks who are unfamiliar with kink and sex- & sexworker-positive culture.

I'd like to propose a new language for fucking. Let’s talk about engaging in sexual activity in terms of "lead" and "follow" (you can substitute the words “give” & “receive/take”). I hope that by using this language I can draw a parallel between the experiences of folks who prefer vanilla/nonkinky sex and those who enjoy to kinky sex.

A feature common to kinky sex is the (often vilified) use of the roles of dom/sub
or top/bottom. A good way for folks who prefer vanilla sex to conceptualize these roles would be for them to think first about their own sexual activities or fantasies. In those scenarios who leads and who follows?

Even in the least kinky of intimate activities shared between more than one person someone leads & someone else consents to follow. To say that this lead/follow power dynamic is inherently misogynist or sexist (even if they aftermath such as bruises cuts and scars are disturbing to you personally) denies the person in the role of follower any ability to consent. It can also pigeonhole them as powerless victims. It also denies the incredible care, energy, and responsibility it takes to lead/top/dom another person through an intensely vulnerable experience.

The position of follow can and often is rife with power and agency. The role of lead, however extreme it may look, can and often is full of awareness and a beautiful sense of collaboration and athletic-style encouragement. When a person takes on a role of less/more power within the boundaries of sex/play it does not mean they are tied to that role of power in any other way. Healthy BSDM requires an high level of awareness surrounding power dynamics, it does not always but certainly can actually contribute to better and more regular practices of consent.

Part of the fun of sex is the process of working with our words and bodies to navigate the tension between whether you/your partner(s) will follow their/your lead. Often in a kinky context an important facet of the play/sex is that folks are pushing the limits of how far they can go in the roles of lead and follow.Think of this as them being serious athletes seeking to push their limits


Yes there is a risk and sometimes a simulation of risk but it is not uncommon at all for humans to engage in situations of risk or simulated risk to push themselves to new level or even just for the rush of it (rollar coasters come to mind). There have even been studies that demonstrate sexual and romantic arousal to be more likely in situations of heightened danger or risk.

Like endurance-based athleticism, kink is not for everyone for reasons both physiological related to personal and preference.


Regardless of how far a person wants/doesn’t want to push/be pushed in their sex there will always be a tension between the position of lead and follow-- between the objectifier and the objectified, between Dom & sub or top and bottom. The decision of how to approach that tensions in a way that would be most pleasurable and least damaging is a decision best left to the individual and those with whom they share their sex lives. To mandate a level of “safe” or “nonviolent” sex without leaving space for that variances of sexual tension would sanitize and sedate so many sex lives. We can’t get rid of objectification and the lead/follow roles it involves (without drugs/surgery). It’s the support structure of sex itself. Sex is the agreement to enter into the lead or follow position of drawn out, intimate objectification. You either lead with your objectification or follow in being objectified by the leader. This process of objectification is not dirty. It is what human animals do.