Consent Models

One of the things you'll hear discussed over and over again in the Kink community is Consent. Everything we do revolves around the concept of Consent, and you'll rarely encounter any kind of Kink Education that doesn't have at least a quick mention of Consent, Respect, and Negotiation, which are all very inter-related concepts. 

One of the ways we talk about Consent is to present various Consent Models to give a structure to how we discuss the concept. There are a lot of different models in use, and they all really come down to saying the same thing - "be sure that everyone involved in your kinkplay understands what's included and the risks they are taking, and agrees to participate without any coercion."

A Kinky History Lesson

It's hard to celebrate where you are, if you don't know where you've been. The Leather/Kink/BDSM community has a very rich history. It's a mixed bag of gay leather, transwomen, kinky het folk, and BDSM enthusiasts, all supporting each other. War, motorcycle clubs, Stonewall, our government, and popular media have all left their mark. A lot of our history was lost to AIDS. And that history is being made right now, today, as well.

Teaching a Class Is My Favorite Way to Top

One of my top kinks is teaching. "Now wait, that's not really play!" someone says. But isn't it? Teaching can certainly be a scene all on its own.

As part of a scene in a playspace, I love teaching a new top how to do something that'll I'll enjoy as their bottom, but I also appreciate the chance just to impart knowledge to someone that values it, even if we never do that thing together. I love watching the brain-bulbs light up when something connects.

So how much more, then, when I have a room full of people to teach? Whether I'm teaching one of my Community Essentials classes, or just providing a demonstration to a small group at the dungeon, it's absolutely a scene for me.

Labels

Labels that we give ourselves are important. Not as a restriction, but as a starting point, as a description of who someone is right now. A warning - I'm going to use the term 'weird' all through this writing, and I mean it in a positive way - different from the norm, interested in or involved in things that aren't completely middle-of-the-road mainstream. I'm weird... I'm very weird, in a lot of ways.

My profile here says, "I am kinky and poly and queer and multiple. I'm also a mom, a daughter, a wife, and a friend. I'm a writer, a geek, a Trekkie, a gamer." My Discord profile says that I'm a "kinky multiple poly queer author educator actor." My FetLife profile says, "we are openly kinky, poly, multiple, geeky, gender-fluid, primal, androsexual, recipro-romantic... just generally queer," and a more detailed writing lists that we are a multiple personality, genderqueer, geeky, polyamorous, androsexual, and openly kinky, multiple, poly and queer.

Kink Belongs at Pride - But Consensually

Someone asked me recently - knowing what my answer would be, of course, "Does kink belong at Pride? And followed it up with, "To what extent? With what limits?" So of course I decided to write about it. I'm using the term Queer a lot in this one, and in this case I'm using it as an umbrella term to cover folks who are gay, lesbian, trans, bi, pan, poly, kinky, of all different sexualities, of various gender identities... all the colors of all the rainbows. All the people who are part of Pride.

Consent Openers

- "Can I kiss you?"

- "Do you want me to hold you against the wall?"

- "I'd like to touch your boobs."

- "Can we talk about spanking?"

- "Please do that again."

Play Guides

One of the things I've talked about with other kinky folk lately is 'Play Guides'. Many of us have a writing up on FetLife describing how we play. It's a resource for potential play partners to check out and get a feel for whether they want to talk to you about play. But even better, it's a tool for you, the writer, to examine your play desires. The process of writing things out means a lot of self-examination and definition of what you want out of play as well as what you offer. Because knowing how you play and what motivates you will lead to better play - for you and your partners.

Finding Your Limits

When I teach my basics classes, especially Dungeon Essentials, we'll talk about limits, and I'll go around the room asking attendees to volunteer their Soft and Hard Limits. There are two answers I always hope to get..

"I don't have any limits."

That's when I offer to grab the giant bolt cutters and ask which toe they'd like to have removed; suddenly, they have limits. 'No Limits' is a very appealing idea for someone who is new, often with the intention of meaning, 'I trust you to be reasonable.' But you can't put the whole burden on your play partner, especially since you don't know what my version of 'reasonable' might be. You need to have an idea of what you do and don't want to do. But that often leads to the other favorite answer...

An Imbalance of Power

One of the most pleasant definitions of D/s I've ever heard is "a mutually agreed-upon imbalance of power and authority". So that's my favorite starting point talking about D/s. It's two (possibly more) people who have agreed-upon a relationship where the authority, or power, is unequal. In ways they agree they are unequal. Because any two people are going to come to different agreements, each D/s relationship is going to look different. So yes, 'figure it out for yourselves' is the general rule.