I am asexual, and I love kink. Been meaning to write about this for some time but I never could bring myself to overcome thinking I do not belong with either scene.
To some this may be a walking contradiction as kink is commonly referred to as unconventional sexual activities. I hate that.
I still feel like an imposter in using both labels and figure I need to get this out here so you can tell me off for doing it wrong, or maybe someone sympathizes.
So about my sexuality.
I call myself asexual, but always bite my tongue when I do. It's a long story, mostly about my disturbing childhood:
Ever since I first felt the urge to get off, I was appalled by it. Thinking "Stop it, body. I want to do cool stuff and not be bothered by sex." I was deriving pleasure from intellectual activities - discovering, making, experimenting - all that gives me pleasure and satisfaction to this very day very similar to how my kink works - but more on that later.
So my classmates were all staring to court each other, and I felt the urge to do the same. Partly because of my body, partly out of peer pressure. I was disgusted! These are fellow beings, complex beings, not objects for pleasure. I could not stand the thought of reducing them to carnal pleasure, but I could not stop desiring to do so, let alone mixing and exchanging highly infectious substances, ewww!
What's worse? In my upbringing I was made to believe that being assigned male at birth, it was my duty to do just that. Thinking back, remembering all the sick things young me was lead to believe and had to overcome brings tears to my eyes.
Enter masturbation, our lord and savior! That kept the urge at bay then and it does so now.
Masturbation to me is a required maintenance activity, and this is what I figured out eventually:
I do have an urge to orgasm every now and then and if I do not, I enter some altered state marked with irritability and even more impulsive behavior. This is more than just being horny, and I do not even have to be horny to feel the altered effects. And what is more? While I am that altered, I enjoy being hell-bent on doing the nastiest, most insane things. I would easily jump at a chance to fuck around with total strangers and wear STIs as a badge of honor, asking for more.
Wish I knew all that back in the day, because I tried to accommodate my altered-me by trying sex. I was careful to do it in my baseline state so things would not get out of hand, too much.
So while I was chipping away at my parental-induced twisted self-image I started trying different practices. "opposite" sex, "same" sex, one-on-one, group activities, what have you.
I enjoy the physical pleasure of sex. I can orgasm by it and that gives me satisfaction. I enjoy it no more than masturbation, and while not being subdued by my altered or horny state I feel shame for having done that. Not just immediately after - I'd rather not have done any of that. Even though my partners enjoyed themselves too (perhaps more than me), I feel like a criminal for degrading them to this primal urge and subjected them and myself to unnecessary risk of infection. If anyone I had engaged in sex with ever reads this: I am sorry!
And now here I am. Confused. The only way it makes sense to me is that horny-me and altered-me are an abnormal state and true me is asexual. For sure I would not cry if I never got horny or altered again and never have sex with anyone ever again. But I could have sex with anyone because I learned how to set my repulsion aside for science even though I do not get more pleasure from it than just masturbation.
And that is how I call myself asexual.
What about kink then?
For me it all started with bondage and pain. I never considered either to be sexual, heck I ran around with small pliers ready to pluck hair at any time since I learned fairly early that pain feels amazing! (The right amount of it anyway, which happens to be plucking hair). At the time I also started meditation, and martial arts a while later. I became more and more aware of how my body works physically and how my mind ticks (some parts of it anyway). Had a group of friends with which I engaged in lots of play - mostly sensory and pain related as those were the ones I was most open about, bondage took way longer to overcome my reluctance. It is with them that I discovered what I would call "asymmetrical play" (BDSM). They were also staring to have sex with each other which I facilitated, but did not partake in actual penetration. It was an amazing time. I eventually discovered shibari as a more stand-alone practice, munches, play parties, and the community as a whole. I always preferred to do things more privately with select people so I have not been active community-wise.
And then there was this one person.
It happens every now and then that I find people interested in rope. I carry some on my backpack at all times, I make passing remarks when I see some, I hint towards there being more to it than boats and scouts. Sometimes people come forth with interest and I love to show them the ropes - figuratively and literally. This one was intrigued enough that we eventually met in private for some rope sessions. When I asked them where they want this to go they said "Oh I would quite like to cum". This took me by surprise.
I have put some BDSM elements into my sexual experiments, but never the other way around. It simply did not occur to me that when I tenderize someone with a flogger, that would lead to orgasm - or arousal for that matter. I have watched BDSM porn of course, but my mindset was "okay they are having sex, and they adopt some BDSM elements into it because sex is boring otherwise".
At the moment I was intrigued, and obliged. I dusted off my old sexual experiment science brain and started my very first shibari-with-sex scene. It opened my eyes to how naive I was before, and now I see this everywhere. People do kinky stuff to get aroused, to get off - but why? Or why don't I? Am I doing this wrong? These thoughts buzzed around my head for some time - still having them today. It led me to explore why sex and kink are so different to me, why there is a difference of having sex with kink in it and kinky play with sex in it.
Putting it together
I do not know how it is for you, but this is how I experience kink:
I feel superiority from enduring humiliation, pride in resisting degradation, pleasure from pain, satisfaction from bondage. Same on top, partly from sympathy, partly from control itself. All these sensations are like a warm, pulsating shiver passing through and over my body, they wash away discomfort, let me forget my woes and dissociate into trance. I get a warm feeling in my chest, my belly. My head feels light and everything seems to be just correct.
I have synesthesia, too when I say I have an appetite for a particular practice, I mean it.
Now when I get sexual pleasure, it feels different. I get a tingly feeling in my genitalia, a dull, compressing feeling in my belly and I feel pressure, the need to clench. I semi-consciously clench my face in a particular way which looks disturbing if my partner doesn't know about it. When I focus on it really hard I can make the clenching go away and instead channel whatever has me do it into something similar to, but not as strong as what I feel from kink. When I orgasm it sends the same wavy, pulsating sensation through my body, but curiously enough it moves in the opposite direction.
I learned how to intensify both through meditation - orgasms last longer and more intensely if I "hold on" to them with my mind, and I intensify my play sessions by letting go.
So you see, I can distinguish kinky play sensations from sexual sensations and to me, all kink is non-sexual.
To some this may be a walking contradiction as kink is commonly referred to as unconventional sexual activities. I hate that.
I still feel like an imposter in using both labels and figure I need to get this out here so you can tell me off for doing it wrong, or maybe someone sympathizes.
So about my sexuality.
I call myself asexual, but always bite my tongue when I do. It's a long story, mostly about my disturbing childhood:
Ever since I first felt the urge to get off, I was appalled by it. Thinking "Stop it, body. I want to do cool stuff and not be bothered by sex." I was deriving pleasure from intellectual activities - discovering, making, experimenting - all that gives me pleasure and satisfaction to this very day very similar to how my kink works - but more on that later.
So my classmates were all staring to court each other, and I felt the urge to do the same. Partly because of my body, partly out of peer pressure. I was disgusted! These are fellow beings, complex beings, not objects for pleasure. I could not stand the thought of reducing them to carnal pleasure, but I could not stop desiring to do so, let alone mixing and exchanging highly infectious substances, ewww!
What's worse? In my upbringing I was made to believe that being assigned male at birth, it was my duty to do just that. Thinking back, remembering all the sick things young me was lead to believe and had to overcome brings tears to my eyes.
Enter masturbation, our lord and savior! That kept the urge at bay then and it does so now.
Masturbation to me is a required maintenance activity, and this is what I figured out eventually:
I do have an urge to orgasm every now and then and if I do not, I enter some altered state marked with irritability and even more impulsive behavior. This is more than just being horny, and I do not even have to be horny to feel the altered effects. And what is more? While I am that altered, I enjoy being hell-bent on doing the nastiest, most insane things. I would easily jump at a chance to fuck around with total strangers and wear STIs as a badge of honor, asking for more.
Wish I knew all that back in the day, because I tried to accommodate my altered-me by trying sex. I was careful to do it in my baseline state so things would not get out of hand, too much.
So while I was chipping away at my parental-induced twisted self-image I started trying different practices. "opposite" sex, "same" sex, one-on-one, group activities, what have you.
I enjoy the physical pleasure of sex. I can orgasm by it and that gives me satisfaction. I enjoy it no more than masturbation, and while not being subdued by my altered or horny state I feel shame for having done that. Not just immediately after - I'd rather not have done any of that. Even though my partners enjoyed themselves too (perhaps more than me), I feel like a criminal for degrading them to this primal urge and subjected them and myself to unnecessary risk of infection. If anyone I had engaged in sex with ever reads this: I am sorry!
And now here I am. Confused. The only way it makes sense to me is that horny-me and altered-me are an abnormal state and true me is asexual. For sure I would not cry if I never got horny or altered again and never have sex with anyone ever again. But I could have sex with anyone because I learned how to set my repulsion aside for science even though I do not get more pleasure from it than just masturbation.
And that is how I call myself asexual.
What about kink then?
For me it all started with bondage and pain. I never considered either to be sexual, heck I ran around with small pliers ready to pluck hair at any time since I learned fairly early that pain feels amazing! (The right amount of it anyway, which happens to be plucking hair). At the time I also started meditation, and martial arts a while later. I became more and more aware of how my body works physically and how my mind ticks (some parts of it anyway). Had a group of friends with which I engaged in lots of play - mostly sensory and pain related as those were the ones I was most open about, bondage took way longer to overcome my reluctance. It is with them that I discovered what I would call "asymmetrical play" (BDSM). They were also staring to have sex with each other which I facilitated, but did not partake in actual penetration. It was an amazing time. I eventually discovered shibari as a more stand-alone practice, munches, play parties, and the community as a whole. I always preferred to do things more privately with select people so I have not been active community-wise.
And then there was this one person.
It happens every now and then that I find people interested in rope. I carry some on my backpack at all times, I make passing remarks when I see some, I hint towards there being more to it than boats and scouts. Sometimes people come forth with interest and I love to show them the ropes - figuratively and literally. This one was intrigued enough that we eventually met in private for some rope sessions. When I asked them where they want this to go they said "Oh I would quite like to cum". This took me by surprise.
I have put some BDSM elements into my sexual experiments, but never the other way around. It simply did not occur to me that when I tenderize someone with a flogger, that would lead to orgasm - or arousal for that matter. I have watched BDSM porn of course, but my mindset was "okay they are having sex, and they adopt some BDSM elements into it because sex is boring otherwise".
At the moment I was intrigued, and obliged. I dusted off my old sexual experiment science brain and started my very first shibari-with-sex scene. It opened my eyes to how naive I was before, and now I see this everywhere. People do kinky stuff to get aroused, to get off - but why? Or why don't I? Am I doing this wrong? These thoughts buzzed around my head for some time - still having them today. It led me to explore why sex and kink are so different to me, why there is a difference of having sex with kink in it and kinky play with sex in it.
Putting it together
I do not know how it is for you, but this is how I experience kink:
I feel superiority from enduring humiliation, pride in resisting degradation, pleasure from pain, satisfaction from bondage. Same on top, partly from sympathy, partly from control itself. All these sensations are like a warm, pulsating shiver passing through and over my body, they wash away discomfort, let me forget my woes and dissociate into trance. I get a warm feeling in my chest, my belly. My head feels light and everything seems to be just correct.
I have synesthesia, too when I say I have an appetite for a particular practice, I mean it.
Now when I get sexual pleasure, it feels different. I get a tingly feeling in my genitalia, a dull, compressing feeling in my belly and I feel pressure, the need to clench. I semi-consciously clench my face in a particular way which looks disturbing if my partner doesn't know about it. When I focus on it really hard I can make the clenching go away and instead channel whatever has me do it into something similar to, but not as strong as what I feel from kink. When I orgasm it sends the same wavy, pulsating sensation through my body, but curiously enough it moves in the opposite direction.
I learned how to intensify both through meditation - orgasms last longer and more intensely if I "hold on" to them with my mind, and I intensify my play sessions by letting go.
So you see, I can distinguish kinky play sensations from sexual sensations and to me, all kink is non-sexual.
