Accidental Accommodations - On Being Neurodivergent in the Queer Kink Community
I've been stuck on something for a while without being able to articulate it. Finally something has clicked, and I understand what's been so shrouded in mystery to me.
The general cultural script around dating and relationships goes something like this: casual is the entry level, committed is the graduation. You work your way up. Low stakes first, high stakes later, once you're "ready".
I've been trying to apply this to myself and it hasn't been working. I've also, unknowingly, brought this script with me into the BDSM and kink scene.
The committed, deeply involved version of things has always felt more imaginable to me than the casual, lighthearted version.
I've been operating on the assumption that casual for most other people means less involvement and therefore less cost and that's how it's "supposed to be".
But it's dawned on me that for me it means less involvement but more cognitive load. Every new person is a new set of unspoken rules to figure out. Every ambiguous, unspoken signal is expensive for me to process and decode.
And rejection hurts the same whether I'm emotionally invested or not, because RSD¹ doesn't care if you're counting apples or oranges.
Committed, on the other hand, means one person, deeply known, with negotiated structure and predictable patterns. That's not necessarily easier for me, but it is cheaper.
(I'm starting to wonder if it's never really been about easy vs. difficult, but expensive vs. cheap in terms of cognitive load?)
In any case, I wasn't failing at "the easy thing". I was trying to run the most expensive version of social contact on a system, mine, that's primed for something else entirely.
What's clicking now is that the BDSM community, and in particular the part of it that identifies as queer, has built a whole set of communication norms that happen to map almost perfectly with what I need:
● Check-ins and renegotiations
● Aftercare as a given, not a favor
● Direct language treated as a virtue, not a flaw
All the things that are hardest for me in vanilla social contexts; the subtexts, the guessing, the implicit scripts, are the exact things this community has long since built protocols against.
And the piece that's making me a little weepy right now (in the best way, from relief!) is this: I'm not the only one. I can't be: these structures exist because other people need them too. They are built by people who knew they needed it.
Belonging by inference, I guess.
I've been bracing for a version of playing and dating built for a nervous system I simply don't have.
What's in front of me is still equal parts exhilarating and terrifying; it still involves the possibility of rejection and real emotional exposure. But the cost of it is so much lower.
And I'm not a weirdo alien for needing that. (Or if I am, I'm at least not the only one. 😎)
¹ Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is extreme, sudden emotional pain caused by the perception of being rejected, criticized, or failing to meet high standards. Common in ADHD, this intense, often debilitating reaction feels like a physical "gut punch" or overwhelming rage/sadness that is disproportionate to the event. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24099-rejection
