It has been on my mind lately. My sexuality and how little I share about it with the people I interact with the most. I seem open and free with my sexuality, my body and my kinkiness. But it really is just here on my blog. Showing my face in my erotic pictures might make the impression that I’m not worried about being found out. It is related to that I have nothing to lose though. I won’t lose my job, or any of my friends, nor do I care about my family’s respect for me. It doesn’t mean that I just openly share my kinkiness in all spaces.

And why is that? Sure, there is the problem of appropriate circumstances. I can’t talk to the mother sitting next to me in a doctor’s waiting room about how great it was that my Master used me last night. Nor is it appropriate to mention my erotic photography during a job interview. I get that. I wouldn’t yell it from the roof tops. But there are moments when I could bring it up, or even go into detail, but I just don’t want to.

Shame?

Is it because I am ashamed? Because I am worried people will call me a pervert in a derogatory manner? I don’t think so. I can take pride in not being vanilla and in being seen like someone who doesn’t follow society’s expectations of normal. I don’t have an issue being called slut, whore or bitch in the right circumstances either. Being called a pervert would not bother me. It would make me grin.

It is about bringing up my kinkiness, my sex positivity and my D/s tendencies as part of who I am. I have often had the problem with being “too intriguing”. I bring up my mental health, and suddenly people find me fascinating, I bring up my background and I am exotic, I bring up that I am goth and I am a rebel. Sometimes, I just want to fit in. So I don’t talk about myself. Because almost every aspect of me is different from how the majority of people experience life. I don’t share much about my day to day life either, not even with those I interact with almost daily. Because I don’t want it to be seen as an invitation.

An Invitation

When you bring up an unusual topic, people see it as an invitation to discuss it. And sometimes that is fun. But most of the time it isn’t because they don’t necessarily care about your experiences or even go into depth. The questions that people ask are often leading, as in they want to reinforce their own beliefs about the topic, especially if it is controversial. Or they see it as an invitation to share, to tell me about their own lives, troubles or fantasies.

I have this problem a lot when I bring up my mental health. I sometimes feel safe enough to share, not even to get support, but just to get heard. And a few minutes later I am either needing to educate and explain mental illness, trauma and treatment, or I am supporting someone who is sharing their most terrible traumas with me. I don’t want any of that. Sometimes I want to be able to be me, without me becoming a teacher or a counselor. Sharing something about myself might eventually lead to those discussions, and I am open to that. But it is almost always the initial reaction. Stating “I have mental illness”, should, in my opinion lead to: “Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Thank you so much for trusting me enough to share that with me. If you ever want to talk, I am here for you.” That has never happened to me.

So I am wary of sharing about my sexuality, my relationship and such, not because I am scared to be judged, but because I don’t want it to become an invitation. If I say “I am in a D/s relationship and sex is an important part of that”, I’d like the reply to be “Oh you pervert, haha. That is cool. Thanks for sharing, no judgment here!” . How hard can that be, especially when the pool of people that I engage with is generally leftist, open-minded and feminist? I want the reaction to be similarly enthusiastic to as if I mentioned my favourite colour.

“My favourite colour is purple!”

“Oh, that is cool! Purple is awesome indeed!”

“I am in a D/s and sex is important to me.”

“Oh, that is cool! Sex can be awesome indeed!”

How hard can that be? I wouldn’t even be miffed if someone was rude about it, I’d handle that and talk about sex-positivity and that sex education is important to make sure sex is enjoyable and consensual for all. My issue is that every time I bring it up, people either ask super private questions to reinforce their ideas about it or they want to tell me all about their fantasies. And I don’t want that. I don’t want to in detail describe to you in a Facebook chat how my Master does or does not tie me down. Nor do I want to hear about what you’d want to try out. And you know, I had both things happen.

Being reduced to it

I have a friend who I told about being in a D/s relationship and now every time we start a conversation, they begin it with asking if my Master has whipped me hard lately, or if I have been a good girl. I know that they had dabbled with some BDSM in the past, so I really felt like it was okay to mention it to them. It is part of who I am, and it felt safe. But now the first they think about when talking to me is to hear about my D/s. I don’t want it to be the one thing that defines me in their eyes. I want to talk about other things too. Just as much as I don’t want to talk about purple all the time. I don’t stop them from doing it, because I am sort of grateful to have a friend, from real life, who is open-minded and doesn’t judge me for it. But still, it makes me a tad uncomfortable, just not uncomfortable enough to put up strong boundaries around it.

And then there is this other friend. And they get sleazy and think I am the best sounding board for sharing past kinky encounters and current fantasies with. We talk about other things too, but in the end it always gets back to it. And they often begin with bringing up again that I am a sexblogger, and kinky, so I can surely relate and they like that I don’t judge. I definitely am a safe person to share those things with, but I don’t want to be reduced to it. And I’m not always up to it either. Just because I am in a D/s, like kinky sex, and run a sexblog, doesn’t mean that the only thing on my mind, at all times, is sex. My reality is very far from that.

Spaces

It is about the space I am in. If I chat with my sexblogging buddies, I always am in the mindspace that sex or kinky stuff might come up. It is what our connection is built around, and I am ready for it. When I reply to comments, when I got to my blog, I know that it is often going to be about kink, sex, and D/s. My brain is tuned in for it. But when I talk to people from real life, from different spaces, from university buddies to fellow goths, it is not what our relationship is primarily built on. I am not prepared, might not be in the right mind-space, and don’t want to be reduced to it.

When there are a lot of things about you that stick out from the norm, you just need to be more mindful about what you share with people because you get reduced to it. You might also just end up creating a space with someone you didn’t want to be in. I don’t want to be someone’s counselor, nor someone’s dumping space for kinky fantasies. So while I feel no shame about being a sex-positive kinky pervert because I deviate from society’s idea of normalcy, I don’t want to be reduced to it. I need to constantly either hide that part from others or be prepared for oversharing or inappropriate probing. I will not lose a friend, nor a job. But who I am might change in someone’s eyes, and that can be really frustrating.

P.S. I am aware of the derogatory meaning of the term “pervert” and how it is often used to judge people for their fetishes, sexuality and kinks. In this text, I am using it in a positive manner to describe myself.