kink

A Femme Lady in a Bulldog Chest Harness

Kate Sloan

It’s funny how your fashion choices can sometimes reflect an identity you haven’t even realized is yours yet. Take, for example, the pal of mine who delighted in dressing “like a lesbian” before she even knew she was queer, or my genderfluid beau who rocked Oxfords and bowties while still squarely identifying as a girl, or even my rock-star little brother who picked up a punk flair before ever picking up a drumstick. I feel this way about kinky aesthetics: they bounced around my brain long before I realized I was kinky, and maybe that means those kinks were there all along.

See, when it comes to kink, I was a relatively late bloomer. I believed I was vanilla many years into my sexual career – perhaps due to inexperience and a lack of self-knowledge, or perhaps because I was dating people who just didn’t bring my power-exchange proclivities to the surface. I was 23 by the time I seriously tried on the “submissive” label – and even then, it was tentative, theoretical. Black leather crept into my aesthetic before it progressed into my fantasies. I wore a collar and harness boots for how they looked and not how they could be used to fuck or submit. I blended leather-scented cologne with my femmier perfumes to add a kinky kick to my sillage.

I hadn’t given much thought to this history until last summer, when a vanilla-leaning femme friend asked me, in hushed tones, whether I thought it was “appropriative of kink culture” for her to wear a collar purely decoratively. I think in her case, borrowing from BDSM fashion was a subtle nod to that subculture – while when I did it, it was a cry to be noticed and welcomed by a community to which I somehow already knew I belonged. (A dominant boyfriend of mine once bemoaned this mismatch: “Now that places like Forever 21 are selling collars, I never know who to flirt with anymore!”)

Once I’d thoroughly explored my interests in collars and cuffs, I started to feel that familiar femme longing toward leather chest harnesses. These are traditionally associated with gay male culture and specifically with puppy play: a handler can attach a leash to his pup’s harness and tug him around. Do some Googling on bulldog-style harnesses and you’ll see plenty of references to how “masculine” they are, because of how they highlight a broad, brawny chest. I own a feminine-as-hell chest harness, too, but somehow I kept returning with aching curiosity to the classic look of a black leather bulldog harness. So I asked Spectrum Boutique to send me the one they carry, and tried it on with timid titillation.

It’s clear that this type of harness is not designed for people with boobs. It presses down on the tops of mine in a vaguely restrictive manner, and doesn’t even push them together for bonus cleavage. It yearns to stretch across flat expanses, but instead, I make it traverse my cushy curves. The effect is distinctly gender-weird when I clasp it over my girly dresses or thin crop tops.

But much of kink is about tiptoeing (or leaping, or pirouetting) into territory you daren’t explore in your everyday life. Within the confines of kink, I can be a little girl, a kitten, a Victorian housewife seeking treatment for her hysteria. Gender lines can be blurred and pushed; see, for example, the QueerPorn scene where cis women Tina Horn and Dylan Ryan call each other “Sir” and “boy” and flagrantly exercise their “vibrant gender imaginations.” See, too, the scene I did with my Sir last month where I painted his mouth with orange lipstick, called him my good pretty boy, and slid my pink glittery cock into his ass. Messing with gender through kink isn’t always imbued with humiliation, in the manner of the businessman forced to wear silk panties that belie his brash confidence; sometimes that gender-defiance is just exploration, experimentation, play. It can be another tool in your toolbox, like a paddle or a butt plug or – yes – a chest harness.

Whether I’m wearing this harness in or out of the bedroom, I feel like I’m flagging as the sex-weirdo I am – someone willing to try edgy acts, subvert norms, fight for the freedom to fuck howsoever I please. Visible markers of sexual identity, like this chest harness or the bi pride sticker on my notebook or the collar around my neck, help me stick out in a world that wants me silent and submissive (in the not-so-fun way). These sartorial signals are often extra important to people whose sexualities are systemically erased: queer femmes, for example, or bisexual folks, or disabled folks, among many other groups. Older queers sometimes mock younger ones for plastering themselves in rainbow flags, just as some seasoned kinksters scoff at “dilettantes” who load up on leather after watching their first Fifty Shades flick – but we shouldn’t tamp out these tentative explorations just because they seem surface-level. Sometimes these loud costumes are the lost shouts of a hidden identity, blooming into view.

 

Thanks to Spectrum Boutique for sending me the lovely Bruiser bulldog harness to try out! It’s available in three different sizes, to fit chests ranging from 36″ to 48″. Check out Spectrum’s wide selection of BDSM wearables if you’re craving more of the “kinky aesthetic” in your life!

10 Things I’ve Learned From 10 Years of Sex

Kate Sloan

Ten years ago today, I made my sexual debut with a rainbow-haired girl in a sweltering attic bedroom. I prefer this phrasing – “made my sexual debut” – over the more traditional “lost my virginity,” because, as many wise people have pointed out before me, virginity is a construct that serves only to bolster the patriarchy, alienate queer folks and other sexual “deviants,” and disconnect us from our own bodily autonomy. It shouldn’t be the huge deal our culture makes it into – and yet, I also acknowledge that it was a huge deal for me. I felt different the next day, like things had shifted. They had. And they’ve continued to.

Here are 10 big lessons I’ve learned in 10 years of having sex…

Sex with men isn’t necessarily terrifying. The thought of sex with dudes gave me terrible anxiety for years before I tried it. Granted, this was partly because I was further toward the gay end of the sexuality spectrum at that point, but it was also a fear of the unknown. I had bought into media myths about how men are unreasonably horny cads who “only want one thing.” Yeah, there are men like that, but most of the ones I’ve dated and/or fucked have been comparatively lovely. I’m much more inclined now to view men as individual, variable humans than as part of an unsettling monolithic group – and my sex life is better as a result.

All genitals are basically similar. Speaking of “We’re not that different, you and I…” – it was revelatory for me to learn, from sex ed books and general experimentation, that the analogous tissues in vulvas and penises have way more similarities than mainstream media would have you believe. This anatomical knowledge helps me map, in broad strokes, my own bodily self-knowledge onto other people’s bodies, even if they look quite different from mine. It’s much easier to navigate other people’s genitals when I’m mostly thinking about how each feature relates to my own, and how each part likes to be touched.

Sex isn’t love, and love isn’t sex. It’s almost embarrassing to have had to learn something that seems like it should be so obvious. Mainstream media mocks women (and anyone, really, but mostly women) who confuse sex for love, so it took me a while to even realize I was making this mistake, because I considered myself above it. But there have been multiple times in my sexual career when sexual compatibility (or even just one really good fuck) has equipped me with rose-tinted glasses, rounding up decent sex into star-crossed romance. An ex-boyfriend from 2017 told me when he was breaking up with me that “aside from our sex life and our intellectual connection, we don’t really have anything in common,” and it took me many months to understand what he was trying to say: that good sex and good repartée weren’t enough to build a relationship on. My current relationship is fulfilling both sexually and romantically, and I feel I’ve gotten better at recognizing that type of connection when it’s there – and recognizing when it isn’t there.

“Why” is just as important as “what.” I’ve learned this lesson particularly with regards to kink, though it really applies to all forms of sex. You can’t really know someone’s sexuality just by knowing which activities they like to do; you have to know why they like to do them. For example, some people enjoy being spanked because they like feeling punished or humiliated; I, on the other hand, like it because I like feeling focused on, and I enjoy the meditative and cathartic elements of consensual pain. If you know what acts someone likes, you can give them a satisfying experience on the physical level – but to satisfy them more deeply, more electrically, you need to know why they like what they like. Likewise: you’re unlikely to find deep satisfaction for yourself through kink and sex unless you know specifically what motivates you to pursue these things.

Giving pleasure can be delicious. I was a very bottomy bottom when I first started having sex: my first-ever friendship-with-benefits was basically a year and a half of her going down on me, because that’s what we both were into. We had fun, but those experiences left me with a skewed understanding of sexuality. I wasn’t sure how to get pleasure out of giving pleasure, because I had never really done it. It took years of further experimentation with other people – and, eventually, discovering bliss through blowjobs – for me to realize all I’d been missing out on. Now I’m much more egalitarian in my approach to sex, and being a servicey good girl is key to my kinks.

“Romantic sex” is whatever you say it is. The traditional concept of “making love” is all about slowness, gentleness, meaningful eye contact, and whispered I-love-yous. It never appealed to me much, because – spoiler alert – I’m kinky as fuck, and like rough sex. It took me many years to figure out that kinky sex can be romantic too. I’ve rarely felt as loved or in love as I do when a partner’s just consensually pushed me to my masochistic limits, or spent 40 slow minutes working me up to take his fist little by little. If you expand your idea of what constitutes “romance” in sex, you expand your capacity to feel love, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Communication is crucial. I was very lucky that my first sexual partner was a sex nerd like me. We liked to stay up late on MSN Messenger, deconstructing our latest sex session in excruciating detail and planning what we wanted to try the next time. That relationship set the tone for all my sexcapades going forward: I not only enjoyed sexual communication, but actively craved it and needed it to feel fully comfortable and satisfied by sex. Whether we’re negotiating a session before it happens, discussing adjustments mid-bang, or debriefing after the fact, I always appreciate the opportunity to talk about sex with the people I’m fucking. Far from “killing the moment” or “ruining the magic” as popular discourse would have us believe, it makes everything so much smoother and hotter.

Kink transcends the bedroom. Earlier this year, I had a deliciously kink-nerdy conversation with my boyfriend in a fancy cocktail bar. We were discussing whether our D/s dynamic is technically 24/7 or not – and we came to the conclusion that it is, because even though we’re not “in role” all the time, he is always, on some higher level, the boss of me. I have the freedom to say no to anything at any time, but I have consensually given him my power, and we’re both always aware of that as we move through our lives together and apart. “I used to hear about 24/7 D/s relationships on shows like Sex is Fun and think, ‘That’s not for me; that’s not what I want,'” I told my boyfriend incredulously. “I thought that too!” he said. “And yet, here we are.” I’ve learned that submission is more satisfying for me when it extends outside of sex. I want to please someone so much more in a sexual scenario if pleasing them is also part of our connection more generally, our relationship, my daily life. This is part of the reason one-night stands don’t really appeal to me anymore!

Sex amplifies emotions. For me, anyway. I know not everyone is wired this way, and some people even get offended when you imply sex is connected to feelings. I personally have never really been able to separate sex from my emotions, and I no longer really want to try. Kink can stir up catharsis; bad sex can ruin an otherwise harmonious relationship; good sex can make me think I like someone more than I actually do. This isn’t to say I necessarily fall in love with everyone who fucks me well – I’ve been banging my current FWB for over a year, for example, and the most I ever feel toward him is a profound but platonic fondness – but the link between my sexuality and my feelings is important for me to keep in mind when I’m deciding which sexual experiences to pursue. It’s part of why I eschew sex on the first date now, and it’s why I tend to avoid kink with new partners on emotionally precarious days. Self-awareness is so helpful!

There is always more to learn about sex. I’ve been a professional sex writer for over six years and I still constantly discover new kinks, new subcultures, new sexual acts, new relationship styles, and new sexual communication tricks. This is largely what drew me to my career path: the sense that sexuality is infinite, and infinitely interesting. I don’t think I’ll ever stop growing and changing as a sexual person. Unlike the Buddhists, who believe desire is a torturous trap, I believe to want things is to be uplifted, inspired, and propelled forward. I hope I keep developing new desires for the rest of my life.

What did you learn in your first decade of having sex?

Do You Want It Too?

Kate Sloan

“Being drunk is making me want to call you Daddy,” I hammer out with clumsy thumbs.

Before I can even get anxious about what I’ve said, Sir types back: “Try it.” So I do.

With the right kind of consent-conscious kink nerd, a new D/s relationship is always an exercise in trust and communication. Always a gamble that catapults my heart into my throat. Here’s what I want. Do you want it too? And then, as time goes on: Are you sure?

Three days after we met, I told this beautiful boy, “I wouldn’t say that my feelings about you are quite ‘Daddy dom‘-esque, but I am very into that nurturing, caring type of dominance, and I do feel that way about you.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel like a ‘Daddy,’ per se,” he replied. “But I do know what you mean.”

We laugh about this interaction now. He is such a Daddy. He likes showing me around his city, holding my hand when we cross the street, carrying things for me. He likes ordering for me at restaurants like I’m not even there (“She’ll have the cacio e pepe“) and letting me taste his grown-up musky cocktails (“Want a sip, little one?”). He makes me feel instantly small with just a word, a glance.

“I just came real hard thinking about you sitting on my face and asking me if Daddy was gonna come from that,” he recounts in a text. “Also, you’re gonna take your iron pills when you get home, right, baby?”

I laugh into my coffee cup in a diner when I read these over, and say to my best friend across the table: “He just sent me a filthy sext and then told me to take my meds. I can’t believe he didn’t know he’s a Daddy dom.”

I have been in too many relationships with people who gave me what I wanted only because they knew I wanted it. This selflessness is lovely, in theory, but over time, it breeds resentment. They grow to resent that I really do want “that kink stuff” all the time, and not just occasionally – and I grow to resent the asynchronicity of our feelings, the way I’m sliding deeper into a dynamic they don’t even really see.

Once, on my way to go see a boyfriend, I subtweeted him. I didn’t entirely realize I was doing it; the thoughts condensed in my brain like rainclouds and I spilled them onto Twitter almost compulsively. “Gosh, there’s such a difference between someone who bites/beats/bruises you ’cause you want them to and someone who does it ’cause they want to,” I mused. “It’s nice to bang someone who’ll beat me up when I ask, but I miss the raw ragged viscerality of a real sadist destroying me.”

It wasn’t a nice thing to do. I know that now, and I regret it. I especially regret it when I remember how he looked up from his phone when I walked through his front door, and met my eyes with a furrowed brow. “Baby, you know I like hurting you, right?” he asked with no preamble. “I like it because you like it so much.”

But therein lay the problem. I wanted him to want it too. I wanted him to lose himself in desire a little when he hit me, his heart stuttering, cheeks flushing. I wanted to feel him get hard through his jeans while I squealed and squirmed in his lap. I wanted a wolfish glint in his eye as he held me down and made me take what he needed to give me.

I guess that’s why we didn’t last. Some people want to make you happy, but the wanting is not always enough.

“You should maybe, uh, tell me what to wear and how to do my hair and makeup for our date,” I mumble over the phone to my Sir. Meek and muffled, because I know how this usually goes. Usually I float this idea and a partner either reacts like it’s totally absurd, or gives me the world’s least satisfying answer: “Wear whatever makes you feel beautiful!”

They always think they’re trying to be nice. And they are being nice, in a way. But they’re also withholding from me the thing that I want. Which is, in a different way, not nice at all, really.

“Hmm,” Sir says thoughtfully, his honeyed tenor tone vibrating against my face from 500 miles away. “Tell me what you like about that.”

No one has ever actually asked me this before, about this particular thing. It’s a conversation I always want to have, about every kink, both mine and my partners’: Why do you like that? The answers are always illuminating. It’s like walking behind Niagara Falls. You knew the exterior was dazzling; now you know its beauty from the inside, too.

I pause and think it through, choose my words carefully, one by one. “I like assignments with clear parameters,” I elucidate at length, “because I like knowing exactly how to make someone happy and being able to do it exactly right.”

“Got it,” he replies. I’ve heard him say this many times. It still makes me swoon every time. Got it. He’s got me. “So, if I was to tell you to wear all black clothing, red lipstick, and your hair styled so I can pull on it, would those parameters be clear enough?”

My temperature rises and a sharp huff of air pushes past my lips, like I’ve been punched in the gut. He gets it, and I love that he gets it. I know my explanation is what helped him get it, but moreover, I love that he asked for an explanation instead of just dismissing my vulnerable request out of hand. I love that he took this seriously because he could see it was serious to me.

Power exchange is a collaborative mosaic of trust and vulnerability. It’s stepping out onto a rickety bridge together, promising to keep each other safe if something goes awry. Here’s what I want. Do you want it too?

I do it for him, too. I try to. Past partners have told me, when I coyly begged them to dominate me, that they worried they’d go too far – or, worse, that I would laugh in their face when they issued a command. “Oh, that? I’m not going to do that. Why would you even want that?!” So I do my best to affirm dominants’ orders. I treat these directives with the care they deserve. They may be barked or growled, but they are vulnerable nonetheless – because I could always, always say no.

Sir unbuttons his shirt and tells me to hang it up in the closet. A bratty voice inside me pipes up to wonder why the fuck I would do that when he’s right here beside me on the bed, warm and touchable and getting undressed. But I know why. He wants to see me do it. He wants to see what I will do for him. So I get up, smooth the shirt onto a hanger, and slide it into the closet, blushing from the way he looks at me. It’s a hunger and a satisfaction: he asked for what he wanted, and I wanted it too.

These moments are small, just snapshots that tell no particular story individually, but woven together, they are a heart-stopping collage. They are trust and vulnerability writ large. Writ very large indeed.

One Monday morning in New York City, I hand Sir two dresses from my suitcase. “Which one, Sir?” I query, and he chooses the red one. I put it on.

I dig through my toiletries bag for fragrances, and hand him three sample vials. He holds each to his handsome nose and selects the Tom Ford. I put it on.

“Do you like making decisions for me?” I ask, playfully, like I already know the answer – but I don’t, not really. I know what the evidence suggests, and I know what I hope the answer is, but it will be a while before I know it for certain, in the pit of my gut and the base of my brain.

“So much,” he groans in response, and I blush as crimson as the dress he chose for me.

How to Flag as Kinky

Kate Sloan
Adorable impact play pin and spanking patch by Kinktionary!

Since realizing I was well-and-truly kinky a few years ago, one of the foremost problems I’ve faced is: how do I find other kinksters to play with?

True, kinky folks are everywhere. They’re on the internet. They’re in sex clubs and dungeons. They’re at regular-ass cafés and bookstores and bars. They’re lurking around every corner (oooh, spooky!). But it’s not usually appropriate to straight-up ask a stranger, “Hey, are you kinky?” or, more specifically, “Hey, are you into [this particular kink I’m into], and if so, would you like to play?”

This difficulty exists whether you’re out in vanilla-land or at a kink-focused event or playspace. Kinky locales sometimes have flagging systems in place, but not always. And even if they do, you might still want a little fun flair to set yourself apart and express your delightful perviness to the world.

With that in mind, here are a few ways you can “flag as kinky,” whether you’re headed to a coffee shop, a conference, or a cock-and-ball-torture class. (Hey, I don’t know your life.)

The hanky code

Dating back to the mid-20th century, the handkerchief code originated in gay male spaces, but is understood and employed by many different types of queers to this day. It’s a subtle way to show your true colors, so to speak, and looks fly as hell even if no one knows what you’re flagging. (But if you’re around culturally savvy queer folks, it’s likely at least some of them will.)

Here’s the deal with the hanky code: different colors correspond to different specific sex acts, from the relatively tame (light blue for cocksucking) to the more extreme (yellow for piss play). You wear the hanky on your right side if you’re a bottom/receiver for that particular act (traditionally in the back pocket of your pants, but feel free to mix things up as needed), or on the left side if you’re a top/giver. If you’re into multiple things (and most of us are), you can flag for multiple things. Fun!

The basic building blocks of the hanky code allow for plenty of creativity, so you can typically slot it into whatever kind of vibe you want your outfit to achieve. I’ve sometimes worn a light blue bandana tied around my left wrist (“I like sucking cock”), a flower hair clip fashioned from a light pink bandana on the right side of my head (“I like getting fucked with dildos”), or a red bandana tied around my head Rosie the Riveter-style with the knot placed to the right side (“I want to be fisted”). Some femmey types even incorporate hanky colors into their nail art. There’s so much fun to be had with the hanky code!

Pins and patches

Use your discretion with this one – like, for example, maybe don’t wear that “Fist Me, Daddy” pin to your family reunion – but clip-on and iron-on pieces of flair can communicate a lot!

I have, for instance, a little nametag that says “Princess” which I would like to wear to a kinky event sometime. It doesn’t spell out my kinks in detail, but it gives onlookers a clue as to what I might be into, and it can open up a conversation. (“Are you a dommy Princess, or a subby princess?”)

I’m also in love with the pins and patches from Kinktionary, an art project centered around hedonism, sex, and body-positivity. Their spanking patch and impact play pin swiftly communicate an interest in hittin’ or bein’ hit. I’m also into the playful, not-so-subtle subtlety of their “lick” pin, rope bondage patch, and biting patch. These designs are artistic and beautiful enough that you could rock them in polite company (within reason), but they could also easily open up a dialogue with a potential play partner at a kinky event. Swoon!

(Don’t even get me started on the “Sir” patch. I would have A Whole Lot of Feelings if I saw a domly-looking masc person with this sewed to the sleeve of their leather jacket.)

Kink accessories as fashion accessories

Here’s another trick in the “subtle, yet not subtle at all” camp: wear your kinky apparel as if it was just regular apparel.

Obviously, this won’t work with everything. You probably don’t wanna sport your leather chaps to church (unless your church is really fucking cool), and please don’t make a TSA agent pry your bondage cuffs off you, silly goose. But some kinky items are inconspicuous enough that they might go unnoticed in vanilla environments.

A leather waist-cinching belt with bondage-ready D-rings looks glorious over a cocktail dress, for example. Skinny bondage cuffs can look super cute as bracelets, particularly if they’re specifically designed to be wearable as such. Nipple clamps make brilliant cardigan clips. Even a well-shined pair of leather boots can communicate a certain kinky je ne sais quoi to the kind of person who would notice such things.

 

How do you like “flag as kinky”?

 

This post was graciously sponsored by the folks at Kinktionary, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own. Read up on their stunning art project, and then peruse their pins and patches!

The Departed Dominant & the Jilted Submissive

Kate Sloan

My collar is too tight. I keep tugging at it, loosening it, shifting it against my sweat-slick throat. It doesn’t feel quite right, because my submission doesn’t feel quite right. It’s been five weeks since my dominant dumped me and my submissiveness still doesn’t feel quite right. I’m simultaneously sympathetic to my own cause and furious I’m not over this shit already.

“This is the first time I’ve worn a collar since my breakup,” I tell my best friend, realizing only as I say it out loud that it’s true.

“How are you doing with that?” Bex says, their brow furrowing because they understand the gravity of what I have just said, in a way a vanilla friend might not.

“I’m doing okay,” I respond. Still tugging on the collar even as I try to let it lie.

Whenever someone breaks my heart, I become outraged I let them touch so many things in my life I cared about. Like a bad apple in a barrel, cruel lovers ruin whatever they come into contact with. I can’t watch Steven Universe or listen to DVSN anymore; I can’t order from that one Thai place we used to frequent; I can’t even enjoy media featuring characters who share his first name. It’s all painful and I’m furious it’s painful.

But what hurts even worse is the places he touched that are buried deeper in me, more central to my heart than my entertainment preferences: my sexuality, my sensuality, my submissiveness. I let him own me while he was my dominant; it’s unfair he still gets to own part of me now that he’s gone. I want those parts of me back, but that’s like trying to make dirt-trampled slush back into clean white snow.

I miss my bruises. I miss my bite marks, scratches, and hickeys. For the first several days after the breakup, I think this thought at least once an hour and cry every time.

Holding my ghost-white forearm out in front of me while sitting on my friend’s bed, I splutter, “There’s a bite mark here. You can barely see it. Soon it will be gone, and I’ll have none left.” My friend is listening but I might as well be monologuing to myself; I’m so absorbed in my own internal drama these days.

Later, I tell Bex the same thing via text. I’m repetitive when I’m heartbroken. “You’ll get more,” Bex suggests.

“I don’t want more from anyone else.” It feels true when I type it. It feels like it will always be true.

“You will one day,” Bex replies. “Or not. And that’s okay too.”

My heart folds in on itself then, crumpled and dissolute. What if they’re right? What if this prophesied nightmare comes true and I never find my way back to my submission? What if I left my kink in that man’s hands and he still has it and he’ll never give it back?

I bend over in front of a mirror and stare at my ass, dappled with bruises from a scene with a one-off hookup last week. I stare and stare at the wine-dark marks and feel blindingly angry that these meaningless splotches still linger while that bite mark, that one last precious vestige, is nearly gone.

Relationship psychology fascinates me, and so do sex toys, and one intersection between the two is the intriguing question: who keeps the sex toys the two of you shared when you break up?

My toys are mostly mine, purchased with my own dollars or acquired with my professional clout. But them being technically mine and mine alone does not stop them soaking up meaning from past relationships. There’s the metal hanger rail I can’t bring myself to use with anyone but the man who pried it out of a hotel closet for me; the silicone dick extender I got to fulfill a specific partner’s fantasy and likely won’t use again; and now, the multitude of kink implements that remind me only of the dom who debuted them on me.

How long will it be until my favorite paddles no longer feel like his? How long until I can use my shiny new wand vibe without thinking of how he, at my request, tied me down and held it against me until I squirmed and screamed? Will I ever be able to repurpose the wooden dowel he bought for me at a hardware store, sawed and sanded down to size, and used to smack stripes onto my skin?

A week after the breakup, he drops by to return the nipple clamps I forgot at his house. I’m filled with bitter rage – Yeah! He SHOULD give those back to me! I bought them with my own money, dammit! – while also knowing it might be a long, long time before I want to use them again. I hold the clinking clamps in my sweaty palm and tear up, thinking: You damn fool. Crying over nipple clamps.

I move into his neighborhood – not on purpose, just a cruel coincidence – and develop a crippling fear of running into him. I won’t leave my building without first slipping on a low-key disguise: sunglasses, headphones, modern shields against creeping invaders. I add extra blocks to my walks so I won’t have to take streets I know he frequents.

What am I so afraid of? He did this, he fucked this up; I don’t have to be ashamed. But I’m scared that if I see him, he’ll still feel like my Daddy. Or worse, I’m scared that he won’t.

I pass by his house and (insanely) want to knock on the door. My phone beeps a text tone and (insanely) I wonder if it’s him, wanting me back; wonder if I should text to ask. A distant ex sends me a long-overdue apology out of the blue, and (insanely) I consider seeing him again. I don’t do any of it, and (insanely) I very, very much want to.

I try to make everyone into my dom, because I feel unmoored without one. I say self-effacing shit until friends have to command me to shape up; I pretend my to-do list is a written decree from a bossy babe; I spend more time around my parents because there is no one else now to make me feel small and cared for. When texting with casual beaux and Tinder randos, my once-flirty banter tricks like “Is that an order?” and “Make me!” become, instead, thinly-veiled desperate pleas.

But just as a tree falling in the forest is inaudible if there’s no one there to hear it, a bratty submissive is just an aimless failure if there’s no one there to rein her in. When I make silly decisions, like skipping meals, forgetting my iron supplement, and putting off my work until late at night, no one scolds me or spanks me or throws me a stern look. No one tells me to straighten up and fly right. I am neither punished nor rewarded for anything I do. I must be a Goddamn Adult and supply my own motivation. I can barely remember how.

In navigating this sudden crisis, I am reminded of the existentialist philosophy classes I took in high school and university. When existentialists came to the ultimate conclusion that there is no God, no watchful deity, no inherent meaning or purpose to life, at first they felt deeply anxious and upset. It was like being cast out of an airplane with no parachute, reeling, not even certain where the ground lay. But soon, they came to realize: one can make meaning out of one’s own life. One can select a purpose, a direction, a vision for oneself, instead of waiting for some distant God or Divine Right Order to do it. What was terrifying at first becomes empowering as you sit with it and think it through.

I have to make my own meaning. I have to be my own dom. I know this. And one day I will figure out how to do it.

 

This post was sponsored by the amazingly generous folks at SheVibe. As always, all writing and opinions are my own. Check out their selection of restraints, spanking implements, fetish wear, and other kink products!