Authors: Dossie Easton,Catherine A. Liszt
B003B0W1QC EBOK (4 page)
Sexual concerns, sexual dysfunction and sex addiction all do really exist, and bring great distress to those who experience them. Sex addiction is characterized by compulsively engaging in sex that has negative consequences, or by using sex for the wrong reasons: to shore up flagging self-esteem, or soothe anxiety, or as a sort of fast-food substitute for genuine emotional connection with another person. Treatment is available for sexual problems through sex therapy or twelve-step support groups. However, it’s important to understand that sex addiction or other problems can manifest themselves in any form of sexual expression, from the missionary position onwards. Addiction has nothing whatever to do with the form of sex, kinky or otherwise, that the individual prefers.
Why are some people kinky?
Nobody knows. Why are you the way you are? There are no statistics that connect S/M or kinkiness to a personal history of child abuse or molestation, or any other traumatic experiences. Kinky people are found in all walks of life, in as much variation as there are people.
Nobody knows. Why are you the way you are? There are no statistics that connect S/M or kinkiness to a personal history of child abuse or molestation, or any other traumatic experiences. Kinky people are found in all walks of life, in as much variation as there are people.
Parents often worry about this question, wondering “what did I do wrong?” If your child is kinky, you probably did nothing wrong. Maybe you even did something right: we consider the capacity for sexual exploration to be a symptom of a healthy attitude.
Can kinky people be cured?
Why would anyone want to? If people are happy with their lives, then presumably they don’t want to change. It is, however, difficult to live in a society that does not accept the way you express your love and your sexiness. We have known people who have been forced to choose between their kinkiness and their marriages, or their children, or their families of origin, and we feel deep compassion for such a dilemma.
Why would anyone want to? If people are happy with their lives, then presumably they don’t want to change. It is, however, difficult to live in a society that does not accept the way you express your love and your sexiness. We have known people who have been forced to choose between their kinkiness and their marriages, or their children, or their families of origin, and we feel deep compassion for such a dilemma.
Most of the kinky folk we know feel that their sex lives are so important, so valuable to them that it would be a tragedy to have to give up their most intimate and profound sexual experiences to satisfy a society that hates them. This book is our attempt to change society, to generate more tolerance so fewer of us will be forced to make such impossible choices.
Once you start can you ever stop
? Again, why would anyone want to? A common fear about kinky practices is that once you start realizing your fantasies in your sexual relationships you can never go back, and you will never be satisfied with the sex you used to enjoy. Actually, most kinky people do enjoy nonkinky or “vanilla” sex. The term “vanilla sex” was coined by a leatherman to describe the pleasure he took in standard sex, because we all know that vanilla is one of the very best flavors. This term was never intended as an insult to non-perverts.
? Again, why would anyone want to? A common fear about kinky practices is that once you start realizing your fantasies in your sexual relationships you can never go back, and you will never be satisfied with the sex you used to enjoy. Actually, most kinky people do enjoy nonkinky or “vanilla” sex. The term “vanilla sex” was coined by a leatherman to describe the pleasure he took in standard sex, because we all know that vanilla is one of the very best flavors. This term was never intended as an insult to non-perverts.
There is a myth that kinky people can only get off on a strictly limited form of sex that specifically and in every detail matches their one particular fantasy. In fact, most kinky people develop a large and varied repertoire of sexual delights. It stands to reason that if you tell your special fantasy to another in the hopes of acting it out together, that other person will share her particular fantasy, which will probably be different, so now you are playing two fantasies, and maybe you hear about another fantasy that you both think would be neat to try... and so over time the sexual explorer learns a whole lot of sensations to explore, roles to try on and fantasies to play out.
There are kinky individuals, usually inexperienced, who believe that the only thing that will work for them is to find one particular person who wants to do this one particular fantasy down to the last detail. Such people have a hard time finding partners, and would-be partners may resent their single-mindedness and unwillingness to explore their partners’ desires. Such “fixation” is readily fixed by trying out a variety of sexual pleasures and discovering that lots of sex acts are delightful and pleasurable and satisfying, and that bits and pieces of whatever made the original fantasy so wonderful can be integrated into many different activities.
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.
. 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.
? 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.
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.
Other books
Howzat! by Brett Lee
Savage Chains: Shattered (#3) (Men in Chains) by Caris Roane
The Final Play by Rhonda Laurel
Prelude to Terror by Helen Macinnes
Surviving Day By Day (Book 1): So it Begins by Allensworth, Audra
Queen Bitch of the Callowwood Pack (Siren Publishing Classic) by Siobhan Muir
Blue Moon by Luanne Rice
(Rainshadow, #2) Deception Cove by Castle, Jayne
Marriage With Benefits by Kat Cantrell