And it's a way to get the negotiation, communication, legitimacy to say no, mutual attentiveness and carefulness that I need in any sexual/non-sexual such encounter, but is harder for me to insist on in "regular" sex.
I never thought about it exactly that way, but it's very true, and I think it's one of the appeals of BDSM. It gives permission and a formalized space to do what you really ought to be doing anyway--talking about what you want and need.
It's such a stereotype, and I'm not sure the cliches are right about me. I need my experiences to stay belonging to me, and not be co-opted for either side of the pro/anti sex wars.
Yes! I totally understand that. It's so easy for your life experiences to sound like they belong in one particular box. And then people try to shove you in there, and act all confused when you don't fit.
I wondered whether perhaps I was asexual after all, but from what I've read on AVEN, it's not about wanting or not wanting to have actual sex, but about being o not being sexually attracted to anyone. And I am definitely attracted to people, I just don't seem to want to have sex with them.
I feel like labels with precise definitions can be unhelpful sometimes, because they're never going to capture the variety of lived experience, and then if you don't fit into them it can become just another way that you're 'wrong'. Maybe at this particular point in your life you fall under the sort of catch-all category of gray-A? But in a week or a year that might not be who you are at all.
no subject
I never thought about it exactly that way, but it's very true, and I think it's one of the appeals of BDSM. It gives permission and a formalized space to do what you really ought to be doing anyway--talking about what you want and need.
It's such a stereotype, and I'm not sure the cliches are right about me. I need my experiences to stay belonging to me, and not be co-opted for either side of the pro/anti sex wars.
Yes! I totally understand that. It's so easy for your life experiences to sound like they belong in one particular box. And then people try to shove you in there, and act all confused when you don't fit.
I wondered whether perhaps I was asexual after all, but from what I've read on AVEN, it's not about wanting or not wanting to have actual sex, but about being o not being sexually attracted to anyone. And I am definitely attracted to people, I just don't seem to want to have sex with them.
I feel like labels with precise definitions can be unhelpful sometimes, because they're never going to capture the variety of lived experience, and then if you don't fit into them it can become just another way that you're 'wrong'. Maybe at this particular point in your life you fall under the sort of catch-all category of gray-A? But in a week or a year that might not be who you are at all.