Resisting Default Thinking
Sometimes it’s best to not make certain assumptions when entering into a relationship or sexual connection.
Every so often something strikes me like a lightning bolt that should have been painfully obvious prior. That happened a while back when I realized that as I was navigating within the leather, kink, or BDSM communities, I was consistently assuming a default ideal relationship style founded upon some sort of dominant and submissive dynamic.
Once I realized this, I also realized that assumption was not always helpful.
It’s true that a lot of relationship and play dynamics within those communities do employ power dynamics. For some, the power dynamics are the core foundation of who they are and what they do. I even wrote a definition of BDSM in my book, Learning The Ropes: A Basic Guide to Safe and Fun BDSM Lovemaking (paid link), that evoked power exchange as a foundational element of BDSM.
What makes one erotic encounter BDSM and another not? The answer is generally power. The component that seems to be part of most BDSM play isn’t any particular kind of physical activity, but rather the fact that there is an exchange of power between the partners. Of course, definitions are tricky and the presence of power isn’t always a required defining factor for BDSM. But it’s a pretty good one for the purposes of this book.
Sometimes this definition still holds up, but often it does not. I regret placing so much emphasis on power exchange as a definitional component of BDSM because I think that mindset has trickled into the overall set of sexuality communities in ways that aren’t always beneficial.
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that many of my past and current relationships employ power exchange of some sort, from rather rigid to incredibly free flowing. That’s been the case for me since I first set foot into a gay leather bar in 1973. My initial exposure was to some quite stark power exchanges and that imprinted strongly on me and solidified the lens through which I viewed the leather scene.
That rigid mindset worked for me well for a long time, or so I thought. But the more I pondered the prevalence of my default assumption of power dynamics being an idealized state and erotic practice, the more I saw that default assumption as clouding my thinking.
A real-life example might help. (I obtained permission from my boyfriend before writing this – consent is sexy.)
A few years ago, I began to have an intimate relationship with someone who had been just a friend for many years prior. Sparks flew when we first got physical. A new unexpected polyamorous situation emerged. We had conversations about how to proceed.
Both of us have extensive experience in the kink and BDSM scene. We have witnessed and played with power dynamic exchanges along the entire spectrum of possibilities. So, we had lots of good information to base our conversation on when the topic of what sort of relationship we really want was on the table.
The result of those conversations was that my boyfriend and I specifically and intentionally chose the word “boyfriend” to refer to each other because we wanted the flexibility built into our relationship to allow us to function with dominant/submissive dynamics during play if we wanted to, or not, and certainly not 24/7 day-to-day.
Plus, both of us being switches we decided boyfriend status was a more comfortable baseline for us because it gave us yet more freedom within the relationship to interact and play in as many ways as we liked.
I had never consciously had that discussion with someone I’m in a relationship with before. Prior there had always been an assumption that power dynamics were part of the deal. I met someone I was interested in and I always assumed we’d adopt some sort of power dynamic between us.
I no longer do that. Because I try to live by my own advice, I try to nowadays approach all relationships and sexual connections with a clean slate as I wrote about in “Clean Slate Sex.”
Was my experiment always successful? No. Repeatedly, as mentioned, my rigid default settings would sometimes rear their heads and interject into the interaction. I really don’t think all our default settings are reprogrammable (I think some might be though). I’m not sure chucking everything cemented in our brains erotically is possible or even a good idea.
What I do believe though is that if more of us approached sex with a more open mind, a “cleaner” slate, we’d be happier and have better sex. At the same time, I theorize it can improve our overall sexual social networks because we establish more deep relationships, even if they are primarily casual play partners, than we would if we did not seek out the person before the fantasies.
One of the clean slate ways of thinking I try to employ when meeting someone is to resist the ubiquitous assumption in certain sexual communities that an ongoing power dynamic must eventually emerge. Sure, it might. But I think it does us and the entire kink scene a disservice to proliferate those default assumptions as inextricably linked to the types of relationship or play we want to enjoy.
Often, we extol the kink scene as a place where everyone can be their true and authentic erotic self. That’s largely true, but sometimes we try to place ourselves and others into neatly labeled boxes and sometimes those boxes are labeled “must live and play with power dynamics” and that’s not always useful or applicable to everyone’s needs or situation.
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