Am I Playing Enough?

Comparing how much sex and play we’re having against how much other people are having is a surefire recipe for erotic discontent.

Despite at present being relatively confident in my sexuality and erotic identity, there are times I ask myself if I’m playing enough. For someone as embedded within radical sexuality and kink culture as I am, you’d think I play a lot, but the truth is it varies considerably.

My audience here is mostly sexuality and relationship adventurers, people that push the edges of norms to suit their needs and desires. When you’re part of a highly sexualized community, sometimes the nagging thought of “am I playing enough?” creeps into our thinking.

For those not entrenched in kink culture, the words sex and play are often equated even though there can be nuanced differences between the two. For this post I’m equating them for ease of discussion.

I’ve had conversations with kinksters over the years during which they bemoan lack of enough play, enough sex, enough erotic intimate interaction. I’ve succumbed to this thought pattern myself, especially in recent years. Am I playing enough?

Apart from kinksters, I hear this question asked or asked by implication by people from all walks of life. It’s not confined to the kinky.

My current perspective on this topic is embodied in the question I pose to anyone who tells me they aren’t playing enough. I ask them if they’re happy and content with their level of play or are they comparing themselves to others.

Back in the day, I don’t recall this conversation occurring much at all. People seemed to be happy with whatever amount of play they got so long as it met their internal metric for what’s enough. Now, however, I fear that we too often compare ourselves to others and their amount of play, or, just as likely, the amount of play we “perceive” them to be having.

Take just one example, the mainstream social media platform that for now, unless Elon Musk kills it off entirely which would not be surprising, hosts the most overt sexual content, Twitter. Scroll through Twitter and you’re likely to see a lot of the people with whom you’re linked posting about their sexual and play escapades. It’s inevitable that some of us begin to compare how much we’re playing, how we’re playing, with whom we’re playing, and where we’re playing against the trend of the constant spewing forth of imagery from our friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

Remember that many of those images and scenarios are highly curated to gain an audience. Many of the people posting those photos and videos make their full- or part-time living luring in a wider audience to consume their content for which they’re likely to charge you money. Personally, I love that revenue from adult entertainment has moved more into the performer’s hands rather than the studio producers. But the constant barrage of such content can make one feel like everyone is having way more sex and play than you are.

Kinksters see a steady barrage of posts from other kinksters dressed in massively expensive fetish garb and start to compare their own wardrobe against it. The constant upping of fetish garb options and the images that document them start to make some wonder if their own external kink presentation matches up. In some kinky circles gear is now essentially equated with kink and I’m not entirely sure that’s been a healthy development.

Now consider that most of the sexuality content we see is from younger people. That’s to be expected although I admit that being 69 years of age I’m grateful there’s a solid trend for older people to be viewed erotically within certain niche segments of society. Still, for someone in their 60s or 70s to be comparing their sexuality against someone in their 20s or 30s is folly. Yet, we do it all the time.

I recently read “Millennials prioritize sex more than Gen Z does, survey says” and thought to myself while reading it that even though I’m a sexuality research data junkie, touting generational differences in how much sex we have and what kinds of sex we have is an interesting intellectual exercise but entirely not useful to inform our own sexuality. Let the researchers use that type of data for their projects, many of which serve to help educate psychotherapeutic and medical professionals to deliver more culturally competent care to the kinky and sexually active. But using such data as a yardstick by which to judge your own sexuality might not be such a great idea.

Somewhat related to age but not always directly is our physical condition. Are we dealing with certain health conditions that make sex and play more challenging? Older people likely deal with more of this, but health and physical challenges can influence someone’s sexuality at any age. The person who is 25 in peak physical condition and health is naturally going to have an easier time having lots of sex and play than a person 65 dealing with a body that’s less cooperative.

Next consider there’s a lot of sexual braggadocio that takes place. I’m connected to a number of people who post about their sexual exploits nonstop. Even on social media platforms that don’t allow for overt erotic content, some posters still figure out how to tell their audience they’re having sex and a lot of it. Some of this is likely an unconscious ploy for validation, but it can impact their network because the less secure will start to compare their own level of sex to what they see others having. Plus, remember, lots of people dramatically exaggerate how much play they’re getting.

Note that I’m not suggesting people post less or pull back on what content or how much they post. I would never suggest that because I’m not of the mind that when something is problematic for some that we must squelch how others handle it. Besides, everyone posts for different reasons. My friend who makes his entire living selling subscriptions to his adult video content library has a completely different reason for posting lots of sexual content than someone just doing it for fun or validation. And if we get truly honest, we’ve all posted something somewhere to elicit validation in some form. It’s part of the human condition.

Among kinksters, there are increasingly the kink play stars that have emerged. The kink scene has always had people who demonstrated a technical level of skill that was admired and elevated, but now that skill gets displayed nonstop in a flurry of photos and videos posted on various platforms and some of those viewing it begin to play the comparison game in their head.

There are a bunch of quotes that speak to this that get attributed to various people, the most referenced I’ve seen being “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Regardless of who actually said it, this is apt guidance for our sexualities. Compare your own sexuality to others and it’s quite likely that the joy in your own sexuality will be lost or diminished.

Much like people shouldn’t compare their bodies to the airbrushed and manipulated images on magazine covers and in advertisements, none of us should be comparing our sexualities to that of other people.

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