Last week my blog was four months old. And I am stunned to realise that I’ve learnt more about my kink in four months of blogging than in a year of intensive reading before that.

Unfortunately, that means that I’ve said things on this blog that I no longer believe. It’s time for me to correct myself.

Here’s what this blog has done to my head.

1. My Virgin/Whore Dom Complex
2. Shame Guilt Violation
3. Fiction Reality Is a Better Outlet
4. I Can’t [Cough]

1. My Virgin/Whore Dom Complex

I think I used to have a virgin/whore complex about doms. Seriously.

I knew there were some evil predators out there. But my sadists were tortured saints who protected me from themselves and beat themselves up about it. I remain in abject awe of the strength needed for this struggle, and I didn’t know a single dom who wouldn’t try to keep me safer than I could myself.

And now I have had online interactions which leave me shaken, because it has become clear that those kinksters – man and woman, dom and sub – simply do not care about being ethical. Which means they aren’t, because it’s not something you can do without trying.

You’ve met the type. They talk a really good game. They sound cool and sincere, and they make you think your convictions are naive and hypocritical. At the same time.

Once I would have said they were not nice, but not necessarily unethical. But now I’m starting to think that nice and ethical have a lot to do with each other. Not nice is a warning sign of worse.

Hmm. I don’t think I’m over my virgin/whore complex yet. The lines have just shifted.

2. Shame Guilt Violation

I used to take it for granted that I would hate myself afterwards. Logically, of course, I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong, at least by my own standards – but the shame would come crashing down every time. So much shame that I was surprised how hard it was to explain where it came from.

It was only after reading about self-injury by abuse survivors that something clicked. Very, very slowly, I began to entertain the possibility that this shame had nothing to do with guilt, and everything to do with violation.

And I think I could not have understood this until I had experienced kink that didn’t feel like violation. Quite the opposite. I am so grateful to the wonderful people who gave me those experiences. You know who you are.

3. Fiction Reality Is a Better Outlet

I used to think that reading fiction was a safe outlet for my kink. No axe murderers, no breaking my heart, no making a fool of myself. No risk, right?

Wrong. It turns out that my most unhealthy kink experiences have all happened on the page, in someone else’s imagination.

It’s ironic. Kinksters often say that too much fiction is bad for you. But they also say it’s because you acquire ridiculous expectations of your partners in real life. And that has not really been my problem.

For me, the divide between fiction and real life is this. When you play with real-life kinksters, you are getting an experience filtered through their conscience, such as it is.

But in fiction? That’s where people let the id come out. Uncensored, unreasoned lusts and monsters. A surprising number of brilliant kink writers have not made peace with their kink. They don’t even believe that’s possible. They would never do it in real life.

So instead they send their creations to play with our minds.

I think some readers are strong enough to take that. Not me. Thank God for kink writers who are friends with their conscience. We need more of them.

Though more real-life kinksters wouldn’t hurt, either.

4. I Can’t [Cough]

I used to think I would never play in public or outside a relationship. I literally didn’t think it would work on me.

Learning otherwise has been [cough] fun.

What Just Happened?

So that’s what I’ve learnt in four months of blogging. For comparison, here’s what I learnt in a year of reading before that:

1. Consent alone is not enough.
2. Scary things do happen in our community.
3. Male subs have it tough.
4. My fantasies are very much about my real life.

If you’re keeping score, it’s four against four. But blogging wins hands down. It taught me way more about putting my kink into practice.

How on earth did that happen? How could I have learnt more from writing than from reading? Surely ideas have to come from somewhere?

But maybe reading about the ideas was not enough. Blogging has forced me to interact. And then I had to make sense of the new experiences before writing them down. I couldn’t just forget them as is my wont. Those conversations with myself were critical.

I think perhaps learning only occurs when ideas collide. And the blogging community has been a heck of a bumper car ride.

I hope it was good for you too?