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.
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.🖤
Tyrahhhh!! A) THRILLED to see you here B) tortured hearts are my favorite kind and C) I am so happy to hear your goody drawer is opening up to you — and that you are opening up to it! 🩷
Tolly, what a soul filling and vulnerable piece. My sibling is trans, I lived in Austin for a while, my husband of ten+ years and I also occasionally pull out the restraints and the full length mirror, all the toys and the sex blanket. I’ve never been happier in marriage than in the last five years, after our second baby was born and I shed my shame and asked for more. Kink is freedom to explore, embrace the weird, lean into darkness to find the light. I still sometimes get all wound up in “am I doing this right or wrong,” but mostly I feel vulnerable and open and able to express myself through admitting that my brain and body can indeed go anywhere I/we please. What a joy to embrace kink, which to me is just a world without judgement of our inner most desire. Thank you for this! I can’t wait to share this with my sibling and husband. ❤️
Lean into darkness to find the light 😭 Yes Erin! You get it! And I’m so glad this piece spoke to you. “A world without judgment of our innermost desire” - girl I could just quote YOU all day
Great article! There's something deeply liberating about kinking, whatever it represents to you. In our case, it's ringing the exhibionist bells in our CNM ladder.
Oh those two get all the gold stars, #1 trophy stickers and embossed blue ribbons. Perfect subjects for this stuff. Thanks for shouting them out, Desiree :))
Yes!!! I’m sending this to soooooo many people. I’ve had a hard time describing why I’ve been using certain terms (you know how I feel about labels- it’s all fluid!) and this explains why I’ve been thinking of myself as “kinky.”
Thank you for pointing out the way we need to “normalize” or “mainstream” kink and what it means inside our brains and bodies, not just on a screen for an audience.
Keep up the great conversations and letting us in on them, too! 💜
HELLO FRIEND! I'm so glad you loved this one!! And *yes* -- I feel deeply kinky at heart, but it can be hard to explain why when that word doesn't necessarily connote whips for you or whatever. For me, I feel like it's 100% about trust, and the manifestations of that can look however on the outside...but the more trust there is, the weirder we can get. Big fan of weird sex:)
I wish I could say it was some kind of a mystical plumbing of the depths of the subconscious or alchemy. (Fun fact, alchemists, at least when they got into the mystical end of it, talked all the time about merging male and female essences--of sulphur and mercury!--so there was a sexual component to it. Of course given the time period they were assuming heterosexuality.)
But, and here is the irony that probably means something in some weird yin-yang sense, while it may be a voyage into the EQ side, it's actually pretty popular on the SQ side of the human ledger as well. I'm sure you've heard about all the kinky programmers and engineers by now. As it turns out lots of nerd women like getting tied up.
In my case it was more about finding someone who wanted to do what you wanted to do, and then paying them back with as many O's as possible. As well as finding a framework where you could actually talk about what you wanted (and have them talk about what they wanted) instead of having to guess all the time from body language and facial expressions and get in trouble for getting it wrong. There's a reason it's so popular with all the spectrumy types. (I've had two girlfriends build bookcases in my room.)
Framework? Payment? Mechanical and transactional? Algorithmic? Paint by numbers? Sure, I'll accept that. But at least I did my metaphorical business honestly, and the left brain is human too. Our deep plots sometimes serve us well, when our indiscretions do pall.
Anonymous Dude! Hello! Your comment echoed in my brain so much I very earnestly thought I had written you back...that we had in fact dialogued about it. Now I see it's been a month and that I definitely made that up.
Kinky programmers -- yes! I've always known the Venn diagram overlap is large between self-identifying kinky people and self-identifying nerdy people. A mutual love of specificity and problem-solving, and (in a way I can a bit relate to) a social outsider status that can be alienating early in life...but very fucking rewarding later on.
"In my case it was more about finding someone who wanted to do what you wanted to do, and then paying them back with as many O's as possible." --on behalf of women everywhere: thank you
"As well as finding a framework where you could actually talk about what you wanted (and have them talk about what they wanted) instead of having to guess all the time from body language and facial expressions and get in trouble for getting it wrong." --I think this starts with trying to heal sexual shame and keep healing sexual shame until you *can* talk frankly about what you like, what you're curious about, and ask your partner the same things. It took me a long time to be able to talk about sex stuff with partners without using funny, jokey voices for example. We're just trained so, so early that to talk openly about sex is creepy, or critical, or cause for suspicion.
"Framework? Payment? Mechanical and transactional? Algorithmic? Paint by numbers? Sure, I'll accept that. But at least I did my metaphorical business honestly, and the left brain is human too." -- Your description of your encounters might be one of the most sexually mature things I've ever read. Thank you for sharing!
I don't know; I see it more as reciprocity for anyone willing to lower their standards enough to mess around with me. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Or, you know, somewhere else.
One of the weirdnesses of life is I got very similar complexes from feminism women get from conservative religions--desire is evil, not desiring the opposite sex is good, being attracted to someone or talking to them in a flirtatious way is degrading to them, etc. I think the USA is just kind of puritanical and it winds up affecting the left and right.
As I should have been clearer I was speaking in the past tense; I more or less quit doing the kink stuff because I think it's getting riskier (though I've always been risk-averse). But I thought the way we wound up in the same place from different ends was kind of amusing.
Good luck with your blog. You're an excellent writer.
I like how you are revisiting/continuing this discussion. I was struck by Liza's comments on the sex scene in the Mary Gaitskill story, 'Secretary.' I did a little probing because I felt as though the quote might be out of context. The scene struck me as less kink and more assault. Your contrast partner seemed to be bending things a bit too much. Learning that Gaitskill took the story idea from a newspaper piece and discovering that the young woman was underage brought the implicit power dynamic fully to life. While I'm already inclined to feel that kink isn't porn, I'm strongly supportive of using necessary details in a sex scene to tell a story about boundaries and and assault, kinky or not.
These details lent strength to my intuition that Liza took the gaitskill scene out of context. I'm opposed to that tactic. It's too easy to come back later and say "Sorry, my bad." By then the damage is done. It would have also been good of Liza to note that the movie version of the story, which used the same name, did lean more into the kink of the characters, and that those characters were not the ones in the original story.
I've learned from your discussion here and prior. There are so many aspects to sex in writing. It's easy to draw bold sloppy lines and claim porn. I wish that more critics/commenters would be as honest as you were.
Hey, thank you Ken! Appreciate your investment in our ROL debate. I mean, I too was surprised by Liza's comments, given that the sex (assault, as you rightly call it) in the short story of "Secretary" serves a very specific purpose and the *point* is to unsettle you...
Anyway, I'm glad you're here. Sex is nuanced and that's the whole reason I started Submit Here, to keep the vibes intimate and (hopefully) thoughtful. Being human doesn't require black and white thinking: eating doesn't equal gluttony. Harm doesn't equal gore. And sex doesn't equal porn. The more tolerance we have for complexity the more interesting stories we can tell and experience, imho. :-)
Tolly! I've been waiting for the write moment to devour this piece because I know it would fill me. Brava, friend! To see this come together is a thrill. I love you and your words so much!
Yes! Of course, I want to extol so much more. And I recalled another thing. I was on the app texting with a potential date and when I asked if she was kinky, she wrote, "I'm not because I really like to present during sex." I was stunned. I am the MOST present during kinky sex. I didn't take the time to explain. Rather kindly exited our exchange.
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.
Yes! Yessss Keith. Sexual self-awareness. You and your wife embody this essay.
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.🖤
Tyrahhhh!! A) THRILLED to see you here B) tortured hearts are my favorite kind and C) I am so happy to hear your goody drawer is opening up to you — and that you are opening up to it! 🩷
Tolly, what a soul filling and vulnerable piece. My sibling is trans, I lived in Austin for a while, my husband of ten+ years and I also occasionally pull out the restraints and the full length mirror, all the toys and the sex blanket. I’ve never been happier in marriage than in the last five years, after our second baby was born and I shed my shame and asked for more. Kink is freedom to explore, embrace the weird, lean into darkness to find the light. I still sometimes get all wound up in “am I doing this right or wrong,” but mostly I feel vulnerable and open and able to express myself through admitting that my brain and body can indeed go anywhere I/we please. What a joy to embrace kink, which to me is just a world without judgement of our inner most desire. Thank you for this! I can’t wait to share this with my sibling and husband. ❤️
Lean into darkness to find the light 😭 Yes Erin! You get it! And I’m so glad this piece spoke to you. “A world without judgment of our innermost desire” - girl I could just quote YOU all day
Great article! There's something deeply liberating about kinking, whatever it represents to you. In our case, it's ringing the exhibionist bells in our CNM ladder.
Yesss! “Whatever it represents to you” = THAT’S IT
Kink = play + presence. I like that. Good enough for me. https://open.spotify.com/track/2kIDECuRDbagrRqLOY3Mnm?si=kC7mgTgLQqamg0fvd-fBqQ
A) perfect song and B) yas! That really is the equation in my eyes Matt!
Kelly and Micah get all the gold stars! Great friends to get input in that sweet unraveling.
Oh those two get all the gold stars, #1 trophy stickers and embossed blue ribbons. Perfect subjects for this stuff. Thanks for shouting them out, Desiree :))
“Kink is less about sex than it is about honesty.” That’s so perfect!
And I love kink spaces with a “No Phones/No Photos” policy. It’s magical to be present with others without the distraction of technology.
That's it Amber! Presence = #1 thing you need to be kinky. (Or in my opinion, a baseline good lover.)
Yes!!! I’m sending this to soooooo many people. I’ve had a hard time describing why I’ve been using certain terms (you know how I feel about labels- it’s all fluid!) and this explains why I’ve been thinking of myself as “kinky.”
Thank you for pointing out the way we need to “normalize” or “mainstream” kink and what it means inside our brains and bodies, not just on a screen for an audience.
Keep up the great conversations and letting us in on them, too! 💜
HELLO FRIEND! I'm so glad you loved this one!! And *yes* -- I feel deeply kinky at heart, but it can be hard to explain why when that word doesn't necessarily connote whips for you or whatever. For me, I feel like it's 100% about trust, and the manifestations of that can look however on the outside...but the more trust there is, the weirder we can get. Big fan of weird sex:)
Well done.
I wish I could write as well as this.
I wish I could say it was some kind of a mystical plumbing of the depths of the subconscious or alchemy. (Fun fact, alchemists, at least when they got into the mystical end of it, talked all the time about merging male and female essences--of sulphur and mercury!--so there was a sexual component to it. Of course given the time period they were assuming heterosexuality.)
But, and here is the irony that probably means something in some weird yin-yang sense, while it may be a voyage into the EQ side, it's actually pretty popular on the SQ side of the human ledger as well. I'm sure you've heard about all the kinky programmers and engineers by now. As it turns out lots of nerd women like getting tied up.
In my case it was more about finding someone who wanted to do what you wanted to do, and then paying them back with as many O's as possible. As well as finding a framework where you could actually talk about what you wanted (and have them talk about what they wanted) instead of having to guess all the time from body language and facial expressions and get in trouble for getting it wrong. There's a reason it's so popular with all the spectrumy types. (I've had two girlfriends build bookcases in my room.)
Framework? Payment? Mechanical and transactional? Algorithmic? Paint by numbers? Sure, I'll accept that. But at least I did my metaphorical business honestly, and the left brain is human too. Our deep plots sometimes serve us well, when our indiscretions do pall.
Anonymous Dude! Hello! Your comment echoed in my brain so much I very earnestly thought I had written you back...that we had in fact dialogued about it. Now I see it's been a month and that I definitely made that up.
Kinky programmers -- yes! I've always known the Venn diagram overlap is large between self-identifying kinky people and self-identifying nerdy people. A mutual love of specificity and problem-solving, and (in a way I can a bit relate to) a social outsider status that can be alienating early in life...but very fucking rewarding later on.
"In my case it was more about finding someone who wanted to do what you wanted to do, and then paying them back with as many O's as possible." --on behalf of women everywhere: thank you
"As well as finding a framework where you could actually talk about what you wanted (and have them talk about what they wanted) instead of having to guess all the time from body language and facial expressions and get in trouble for getting it wrong." --I think this starts with trying to heal sexual shame and keep healing sexual shame until you *can* talk frankly about what you like, what you're curious about, and ask your partner the same things. It took me a long time to be able to talk about sex stuff with partners without using funny, jokey voices for example. We're just trained so, so early that to talk openly about sex is creepy, or critical, or cause for suspicion.
"Framework? Payment? Mechanical and transactional? Algorithmic? Paint by numbers? Sure, I'll accept that. But at least I did my metaphorical business honestly, and the left brain is human too." -- Your description of your encounters might be one of the most sexually mature things I've ever read. Thank you for sharing!
That was quite sweet. Thank you.
I don't know; I see it more as reciprocity for anyone willing to lower their standards enough to mess around with me. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Or, you know, somewhere else.
One of the weirdnesses of life is I got very similar complexes from feminism women get from conservative religions--desire is evil, not desiring the opposite sex is good, being attracted to someone or talking to them in a flirtatious way is degrading to them, etc. I think the USA is just kind of puritanical and it winds up affecting the left and right.
As I should have been clearer I was speaking in the past tense; I more or less quit doing the kink stuff because I think it's getting riskier (though I've always been risk-averse). But I thought the way we wound up in the same place from different ends was kind of amusing.
Good luck with your blog. You're an excellent writer.
I like how you are revisiting/continuing this discussion. I was struck by Liza's comments on the sex scene in the Mary Gaitskill story, 'Secretary.' I did a little probing because I felt as though the quote might be out of context. The scene struck me as less kink and more assault. Your contrast partner seemed to be bending things a bit too much. Learning that Gaitskill took the story idea from a newspaper piece and discovering that the young woman was underage brought the implicit power dynamic fully to life. While I'm already inclined to feel that kink isn't porn, I'm strongly supportive of using necessary details in a sex scene to tell a story about boundaries and and assault, kinky or not.
These details lent strength to my intuition that Liza took the gaitskill scene out of context. I'm opposed to that tactic. It's too easy to come back later and say "Sorry, my bad." By then the damage is done. It would have also been good of Liza to note that the movie version of the story, which used the same name, did lean more into the kink of the characters, and that those characters were not the ones in the original story.
I've learned from your discussion here and prior. There are so many aspects to sex in writing. It's easy to draw bold sloppy lines and claim porn. I wish that more critics/commenters would be as honest as you were.
Hey, thank you Ken! Appreciate your investment in our ROL debate. I mean, I too was surprised by Liza's comments, given that the sex (assault, as you rightly call it) in the short story of "Secretary" serves a very specific purpose and the *point* is to unsettle you...
Anyway, I'm glad you're here. Sex is nuanced and that's the whole reason I started Submit Here, to keep the vibes intimate and (hopefully) thoughtful. Being human doesn't require black and white thinking: eating doesn't equal gluttony. Harm doesn't equal gore. And sex doesn't equal porn. The more tolerance we have for complexity the more interesting stories we can tell and experience, imho. :-)
Love it! Give us more girl!! 😍
Thank you Yamuna!!!! Great to see you here!
Great article!
Thank you Bill!!
I like your focus on Attention.
Reminds me of "Attention mist be paid," the famous line from Death of a Salesman. The traveling salesman is a sex fantasy meme, is it not?
Hey David! Pleasure seeing you here friend. For real? I want a t-shirt that says “Attention must be paid”
Thank you for sharing Cindy 🤍🤍
Tolly! I've been waiting for the write moment to devour this piece because I know it would fill me. Brava, friend! To see this come together is a thrill. I love you and your words so much!
YAY!!! Thank YOU Miranda! I feel echoes of our sanctuary convo in here <3 <3 (and all of our convos)
Yes! Of course, I want to extol so much more. And I recalled another thing. I was on the app texting with a potential date and when I asked if she was kinky, she wrote, "I'm not because I really like to present during sex." I was stunned. I am the MOST present during kinky sex. I didn't take the time to explain. Rather kindly exited our exchange.
YOOOO. Maybe send her this essay?;) I'm being facetious but that's why we need some clarity y'all. We're out here trying to restore kink's good name!!
I will have this essay at the ready for the next time as there is sure to be a next time.