Mountains out of Many, Many Kinky Molehills

I was talking with Daphne earlier today about her reaction to being subject to mild submission earlier in the week. She was fooling around and being told what to do while doing it... And as far as I can tell, she enjoyed it way more than she was prepared for. I think she'll get over that surprise pretty quickly; she's okay with the idea of enjoying it in general, I suspect. The conversation ebbed, and a little while later she just sortof blurted out "I still don't think I'm a sub though.." I responded "Oh?" in my own typical immensely helpful and encouraging fashion; and her clarification was "I'm not a masochist."

This was, probably unsurprisingly to those of you who know me, the point at which I facepalmed.

We discussed it afterwards, and I did my best to clarify the situation for her... At least as far as my not-so-humble opinion goes. In Daphne's defense - and very much relevant to Ash's point she made when I talked with her about it later on - to Daphne's experience, it really is true; submission and masochism had essentially been introduced to her as a single thing. She knows a number of people involved in the lifestyle to various extents, and as far as I can tell every one of them - myself included is into either both or neither. She actually has a lot more interest in submission than she had realized, but her own dislike of and aversion to masochism has ruled it out in her own head. Especially when one's new to this type of thing that can be misleading - it's far too easy to equate the limited sample of people you're exposed to at first as rules, and not as simply examples.  She needs to make the jump to learn that correlation isn't causation.

The biggest thing to remember here is that "kink" at large and even "BDSM" as a smaller pool are hugely varied and wide areas to discuss, with dozens if not hundreds of sub-genres. There's the standard bondage, including some fun and interesting ones like Shibari and mummification; power exchange/Dom-sub relationships or play; sadomasochism; restriction play such as orgasm control; role-playing, age-play, furries, rape fantasies, and all their various related fields; fetishes, including panty-hose fetishists and foot fetishists and whatever else you may conceive of; bathroom play/golden showers/scat play; humiliation; public play and exhibitionism; pet play of all types, including pony play or people who just really like butt plugs with tails attached... And that's just scratching the surface. Gang-bangs? Latex & Leather? Service play? Depending on who you talk to, things as straight-forwards and normal (cough) as threesomes and polyamoury and asexuality fall under "kink" rather than "alternate lifestyles". The possibilities are endless. The thing is, though, no matter how easy it is for people not involved - and even people who do fall under the umbrella - to lump all Kinksters together into some huge monolithic "Kinksters Of The World Organization^tm", many or most of these kinks are totally unrelated. They may overlap frequently and they may have quite a strong correlation, but it's totally unsafe to assume that one kink causes another... Or that two different kinks are the same thing.

So Daphne, from her own experience, just assumed up front that submission and masochism were essentially inseparable, which I couldn't really disagree with more... And yet Ash's comment was that I was the first dominant she'd ever met who was actually also a sadist. The funny thing is, in this regard kink - especially when you're first exposed to it - is remarkably like science; circumstances sometimes make it hard to realize the assumptions you're making even as you're making them. I'm far more conscious of it than I used to be but I still am working through my own assumptions on a regular basis.

The Kinkster community is definitely one of the more accepting communities out there when it comes to differences in taste - after all, the biggest defining characteristic of anyone who self-identifies as "Kinky" is their own differences from the norm. The simplest and most common assumption, of course, is just assuming that everyone feels the same as you... Which is also should be the easiest to have proved false were it not for humans' endless potential for seeing what they want rather than what is really there. The second-most-common assumption is the mistake that Daphne made - that your own first- and second-hand experience is actually a definitive experience... That your boundaries are the only boundaries. This one I find far more understandable, and this is the one I struggle against most frequently.

So here's my advice for the day: expand your boundaries, and understand that you're a tiny dot in the middle of the hundred-dimensional Venn diagram of kink as a whole. Be brave; do a google search. Go to a munch. Visit collarme.com and look at their options for "interests". Dick around (literally or figuratively, your choice) on Fetlife for an hour, going through groups and profiles from your area. Go to your local kink-friendly bookstore (if you're that lucky!) and explore their selection. Go to your local adult toy store and explore their selection. Take the time to realize how many other interests there are out there. And above all else, hunt down your assumptions and examine every one of them as closely as you can. Your assumption may not have been wrong... But until you understand what it is and why, it'll always be a blind spot.