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I got into a little sex-scenes-in-literature debate with Liza Libes last week at Republic of Letters, and – honestly? Had a fun time.
Liza was a good sport, and while we have wildly different opinions on the subject, I enjoy intellectual sparring almost as much as I enjoy good sex writing. And, good sex.
But the comments section on both pieces (mine, hers) made me want to write a follow-up piece on kink. See, I represented the pro side of sex in literature, when it makes sense for the characters and story. I did however venture out of a purely craft argument into my own version of a moral argument, which is that literature can normalize kink and sexual self-awareness.
Now…I’ll be honest (I can’t be anything else): my piece would have been stronger had I stuck to craft only. But, bygones: like sands through the hourglass, so are the opinions of Internet writers, and because I’ve been so busy IRL I relished the comment convo. It pulled me back into the marketplace of Substack ideas, which I hope lasts as long as possible. It’s a rich environment right now, not too big or too small, a party where you can pull away to the couch with a new friend and say “so you’re ALSO into autofiction?” and they say “YES” and soon four-five autofiction nerds are on the couch with you trading numbers and next thing you know you’ve got a group chat titled 📚🔥Auto Sluts🫦📚 and a summer reading list. Fucking great.
But I digress: here’s what some of the commenters said about my normalizing-kink-and-sexual-self-awareness point. I’m excerpting these comments to keep this essay readable, but their whole, contextual comments and thoughts can be found here on Liza’s piece:
One last note on "normalizing kink." Let me say first that people may do what they please as long as they go into it with their eyes open and it is their free choice. However, I think that normalizing kink is not the way to go. Let it be divergent, and let there be "normal." The real goal should not be to normalize kink but to stop valorizing normal.
I think if you "normalize kink," you really destroy it. If your view of sex is that everyone needs to walk around with a list of kinks in their head ("sexual self-awareness"), and sex is verbally exchanging kinks with your partner and carrying them out, well, that sounds pretty algorithmic to me.
Sorry, I entirely agree that the harmful, misogynistic and degrading portrayals of sex in books, films and TV is harmful. If you and your man want sadistic acts in your sexual encounters that’s fine, beatings, extreme use of implements in the sexual organs, binding and humiliating behaviours, that’s ok if it’s in private. When you begin normalising these behaviours and listing them as a genuine mainstream part of everyday sexual encounters it is not good.
These comments inspired this very essay, and you know…they’ve got range.
But they also made me want to dive deeper here into the sexual self-awareness aspect of my argument, and how that informs your kink.
To me, that’s infinitely more important than acts or props. To me, that’s where kink begins. To me, this is how we stop disappearing when we have sex, even though you don’t have to be stereotypically “kinky” to be sexually present.
Because kink is also a state of mind. So I think it’s worth venturing into the deep end–the emotional side, the EQ side–because acts glide on the surface. The real stuff is underneath.
The Textbook Definition of Kink
…is vague, because it requires a collective agreement of convention. And sexual conventions are always shifting.
So when someone says, “kink is anything outside of conventional sex,” it requires you–the subject–to conjure an image of that very thing. The definition isn’t wrong, but it’s also highly subjective. Sixty years ago, oral sex probably wasn’t conventional. Thirty years ago, being queer and out wasn’t conventional. Ten years ago, “yes Daddy” wasn’t conventional. All of these things might be peak-normal to you now, or, still a little exotic. My point is: transgressive sex feels private, but it gets its frisson from gently breaking public agreements. We are culture, culture is us: no way to escape the matrix.
Still. I worked at a sex podcast for four years, enough to know what people usually mean when they call themselves vanilla. I do not say that in a patronizing way: some of my personally hottest sex has been vanilla, with a little finger-sucking thrown in because I like it. (More on this later.) But vanilla (/conventional) sex is usually shorthand for a specific, hetero sex script, which goes:
Foreplay
Oral
Penetration
The last step is where resentment can build, because it’s often penetration until he–the cis male partner–comes. The script is still a little patriarchal, which should surprise no one.
Tangent incoming: orgasms aren’t the point of sex. But people with clitorises enjoy orgasms just as much as people with penises. And speaking of convention, sex toys in bed are still considered—I think—a little edgy (kinky?) for the general public. Which is a shame, since clitoral nerve endings are tucked deep inside the body: a toy’s vibrations simply reach in further to stimulate them. No knock on a partner’s penis, tongue, or fingers, people with a clitoris just need that subterranean depth. Not always (we’re all different), but often. Sex toys: forever teammates, never competition. Also: this is why it’s healthy to question sexual convention.
Truth? I think the conventional/vanilla/hetero sex script remains useful, because we all need a place to start. But it’s also easy to disappear inside of. To check out, to sub in an imitation you, while the real you goes elsewhere. Fantasy? Resigned patience? Masturbating, but with another person’s body? Sounds dark, I know. But when the commenter above said “The real goal should not be to normalize kink but to stop valorizing normal,” this is what I thought about.
Normal sex can flatten your complexity, if you let it. You don’t have to. But this is why I think kink can be better understood as sexual self-awareness, rather than a set of freaky sex acts. You don’t have to engage in the extreme use of implements in the sexual organs (my last time was a cervical exam at my OB-GYN’s), unless you’re into that. You don’t have to suck fingers, unless you’re into that.
The keyword is “you.” “That” comes later.
Kink is Play, Kink is the Subconscious
I was talking to my friend Kelly about this over the weekend. Kelly, like me, is a former performer in a sex positive storytelling show here in Austin, and we were driving away from the most delicious, rainbow-filled sunset—incidentally at the birthday party of the woman who co-founded the show.
I was telling Kelly about my debate with Liza, and about how I wanted to write about kink, but felt a little nervous. I’m not a kink expert.
“I think if someone tells you they’re a kink expert, run in the opposite direction,” Kelly said. “Because it’s play, and like, how weird would it be to call yourself an expert on play?”
Kelly knows what’s up. Self-professed kink expertise is cause for suspicion. Anyone can look up shibari knots on the Internet, but not everyone is good at trust-building. Or reading the room. Or being introspective.
Or—and I feel like this is the most important ingredient of kink—having enough conscious self-acceptance that your subconscious begins to emerge in tiny flashes. Nearly imperceptible, you might have to squint. At what?
Fears. The ones tucked inside your deep shadow, animal self. Or: emotional hot spots. Things that feel shockingly good, but also things that feel too weird to talk about in public. Why do you think “good girl” is so Internet meme-y right now? Yes, it’s in pop culture, but also yes, a huge swath of us want to be praised like we’re children. And like, how the fuck do you talk about that at brunch? Church? “When he says good girl, you’re so slutty for me in just the right voice, it reminds me of getting a gold star for my painting of the Alamo in second grade?” How many of us can make that conscious leap?
We can’t. But our subconscious can send up flares. It can toss memory and emotion into a shaker and serve it smooth, a balanced cocktail. But it’s a thousand times easier to taste your subconscious in a state of play. And play is hard for most adults.
It can also feel uncomfortable to talk about child-like anything when we talk about sex—sure. But the most emotionally mature people I know intuitively understand that even if you’re 43, your younger selves are still in there. I am 43, but I’m also 5, missing my parents at kindergarten. I’m also 12, wondering if I’m pretty. I’m also 18, amazed a teacher is taking my mind seriously, maybe for the first time. I’m a kaleidoscope, as are you, because the subconscious composts memory. It never really disposes of it.
Kink is Presence, Kink is Going There
Speaking of things that are hard for adults (including me): kink is the ability to tune into someone. Feel for their insides.
Most of us walk around with devices designed to shatter our attention spans—it’s more countercultural to not have a smartphone than it is to be kinky. Which is why attention, when you really feel it, or at least when I really feel it, feels as satisfying as sex itself.
I’ve told a handful of people in my life that conversation and sex exist on the same attentional spectrum for me, separated only by degrees. This is where vanilla sex can get you into trouble, because it’s so easy to loan out your body while your soul floats elsewhere. Same with talking, but the other person isn’t really listening. So fucking annoying, right?
I live for the click. For the nodding and mirroring, the eye contact, the felt sense of getting it…all that stuff. I like to lock in HARD, to match frequencies in the conversation or the sex. I realize this is getting rather woo, but hear me out, and let’s take the opposite. Do you too clock it when someone looks at you like a cardboard cut-out? Isn’t it the actual worst? To not get the click, to get the absent nodding instead…? Repulsive. Worse than bad EQ, it feels dehumanizing. It feels like: why am I even here? Here’s the cardboard cut-out, you two have fun.
Let me make this more literal. I say “kink is presence” because when you go off-script, sexually-speaking, you have to pay attention. And it’s vulnerable to go off-script. You’re doing improv. This is why trust is the foundation of kink, and why kinky people talk about safety / consent / negotiation so much, because without trust, you can get well and truly hurt. Physically of course, but also emotionally.
Like, imagine if someone spanked you, but you weren’t totally prepared for it. Your body would seize up. Now, imagine if you whispered something a little unusual in their ear, a little edgy, “I worship your pussy” or something, and your partner…snickered. Laughed. Your heart would seize up. And how deflating that would feel, how disappointing, that they couldn’t go there with you.
I had dinner with my friend Micah last night that tied these thoughts up in a bow. Because ultimately, the ability to go there with each other IS the submerged iceberg of it all.
Kink is Alchemical, Kink is Who You Really Are
“I’m not trying to shed my trauma, I want to become friends with it,” Micah said, turning his hands into friends while he said it. I asked him to riff on kink, and he explained how we all have darkness. The goal isn’t elimination, but integration.
“Trauma, darkness, the shit you don’t want to face because you were taught not to, that is what kink can help you with,” Micah said. “Your darkness is just YOU and that’s ok.”
“Kink is a portal to self-acceptance!” I said, really feeling where he was going with all this. “It’s like the further you move from external sex scripts, the more you get to your internals, where all your real stuff lives.” Loud high-fives.
I wish you could have been in this bar while Micah and I were in this state of conversational ecstasy, because it wasn’t just high-minded sex nerd shit—Micah told me a couple of amazing stories of what this actually looks like in practice.
“I get jealous, yeah? I’ll never get rid of it. But one time I was with my partner at a play party, and her other partner was also there, and at a certain point I saw them cuddled up on the couch. And I walked over to them, and was like, guys I am feeling so much jealousy right now. Seeing you two like this is bringing up all this negative shit in me. So I was wondering if I could just…lay down beside y’all?”
They said yes. So he did.
“And the jealousy fucking washed through me yo,” he said. “People think jealousy is a bad emotion, it’s not! You can be FRIENDS” (hand-friend-shape) “with your jealousy, and use it for kink. It’s really just about being honest and not denying any part of you. You can work with whatever you have in there and turn it into connection. With other people and also with yourself.”
“Kink is alchemical!” I said. More high-fives, I’m sure the neighboring table thought we were insane.
Of all the friends I talked to for this essay, Micah had the most overtly positive attitude toward negativity itself, and how that can fuel kink for healing. Probably because Micah doesn’t live with regret.
“I mean I’m trans, right? And even I voted Republican once. We all do fucked up things! Like make mistakes and move on homie,” said Micah. “I’ve had jealousy come into my kinky sex, hate come into my kinky sex, and we just transform it together. Kink is less about sex than it is about honesty.”
Micah walked me to my car, we took selfies, hugged in that tight, loved-up way. I came home and told Ross, my husband, all about the conversation. I suck his fingers often during sex, and I’m not even sure why. I did not do this when we first met, 20 years ago. There was so much about bodies that still freaked me out back then. We’ve both changed a lot over the past two decades, and sure, you could point to obvious signs of our evolving kink dynamic: the finger thing, the restraints we sometimes play with, an extra full-length mirror we occasionally drag in. But really, all that stuff is just an outcome of us learning to become more honest with each other. More self-accepting.
And I think that commenter is right, in a way, that walking around with a list of kinks in your head could get algorithmic. Nothing more than tags on a Feeld profile. But I still think there’s beauty in doing one’s own sexual self-exploration, which often, inevitably leads you to slightly kinky lands.
To the people and communities that can extend a gentle hand and say, “hey! You in there? Who are you really? Can I get to know you? Here are my fingers. Want to suck them?”
As a matter of fact, I do.
Kink
Two wives over 27 years. I'm 23 years into the second, and we're still going strong.
I never really thought of it as “kink.” To me, it was always about adventure—sexual adventure—with my partner. Over time, that evolved to include others. If that's kink, then it's kink by way of shared experience, more bodies, more connection.
But not the kind with whips, chains, restraints, or pain. That’s never been our scene.
Toys? Maybe those count.
For us, it's been about joyful orgasms, wild exploration, and sometimes, delicious exhaustion.
Ecstasy? Absolutely.
That kind of kink.
Beautifully written my friend. I call myself a professional lurker. I often read, but almost never comment. Whenever I’m notified of your writing, I make it a point to revel in your words. In my 49th year of life I’m finally myself more than ever. Leaning into the freedom, embracing the darkness of kink and making friends with my “goody drawer” has been one of the most liberating things in my life. Thank you for this essay, it spoke to my tortured heart.🖤