Why I Call Myself Domsexual
I think about how I would explain BDSM and kink to someone who doesn't understand it a lot. I don't even necessarily want to have this conversation with someone, I just find BDSM and human behavior fascinating and love to educate people on topics I'm knowledgeable in.
And what I find interesting about that hypothetical scenario is that it is one of the most stupidly simple things to explain in all of kink: because kinksters, like everyone else, can just choose their own way to do things.
When I was a young boy I described the colors that I saw in my head when music was being played to a good friend. How I had favorite songs because of what colors and shapes they made me see. How guitars were shinier than pianos. How percussion made everything distort. And they twisted their finger next to their head like a wind up toy. To them, I was crazy. I learned to shut up about it.
But as a teenager I came across the term for it: synesthesia. I was elated. Synesthesia was why Pink Floyd's Echoes was pine green and aged silver. Synesthesia was why I sought out ambience in my music to watch the instruments play with each other. I was excited, I told all of my friends, took the synesthesia battery test, and felt incredibly validated when my testing came back as a diagnosis. I wasn't going crazy, I knew this was a thing. I found other synesthetes and even co-wrote articles on it with them. I was elated and relieved.
I didn't have that explanation for my darker impulses.
I have always been a gentle giant of a person, tall with a wide frame. Disarmingly charming I like to say. Because I know I'm intimidating to encounter on the street at night, concealed in my hoodie. So I cross over to the other side of the street for everyone. I hold doors. I wave you across the crosswalk. I kneel down and help you gather your things you dropped. I check on strangers in the supermarket. I say 'I'm sorry to interrupt, I couldn't help but overhear you and I think that's very brave, you got this.' I've helped push two stalled cars off the road this year alone. I've never dropped someone off without seeing the door close behind them. I care and I care deeply about everyone, everywhere, all the time.
So when I was young and began to develop these urges that felt monstrous, felt divorced from the very core of my being, I withdrew. I didn't have the language or knowledge to understand what this was. It scared me. Imaginings of people suffering and serving others haunted me because I knew what drew me to those thoughts was who was inflicting it on them in my fantasies: it was me. I remembered back to when I was a boy and remembered to shut up about it. I thought I was crazy.
But I'm not crazy. I protect people, that's who I am. Even if it's from myself. I would never let myself willingly commit abuse, pain, or violence. So I withdrew even more. Withdrew and isolated further and further from sex and dating and found a home in the asexual and aromantic community. And I genuinely enjoyed my time with them and learned so many healthy things from how that community sees the world. Every heteroromantic person should be educated on amatonormativity, in my humble opinion, and how it's exploited to shape culture, prey on the emotion of love, and force people into certain ways of thinking.
But I was still miserable. Something was clawing at my guts to express itself. It got darker, more vile, turned inwards and more self-destructive. Friends dwindled. Family appeared more concerned. Sleep was a suggestion, not a schedule. I turned to writing to understand the world around me. I got pretty fucking good at it if I may humbly brag.
I was so deep in despair and in the closet about being kinky that when I discovered BDSM in the form of erotica I spent literal days trying to figure out if it was an elaborate joke or if it was literary copium designed for deranged people like me. Maybe it was an FBI honeypot to catch predators. These were all thoughts I legitimately considered instead of taking the erotica at face value for what it was: desires other people had. Desires like mine. The world kept spinning and I kept spinning.
And I just wonder now, what do I tell that lonely boy I was to help him understand that it was okay to accept who he was? How do I tell him that it was like the synesthesia, you just need to find your words and your people? How do I talk to him openly without judgement, without pressure, just compassion? How do I do so without being a creep? How do I tell him that it will be okay, he gets his head out of his ass and figures it out in the end?
I'm knowledgeable enough now to know that the reason I think about how I would explain BDSM and kink to someone who doesn't understand it is not for some hypothetical person I may meet. It is because I was that person. I know who that person is and I want to protect them. Protect them from themselves because they don't have the words to do so yet. Protect them from the stigma of others who haven't learned about it and judge them. Protect the vanillas from worrying themselves sick thinking that kink is abuse.
Kinky people aren't crazy, violent, or abusive. The posts I write on here aren't a joke, they're not the lunatic ramblings of a predator, and I don't work at the FBI. At times my posts may be embellished but they are never dishonest and never intended to harm. To anyone who is anxious about their kinky impulses: I want you to know I and others here are proud of who you are, we care about you, and you can choose your own way to do things. Believe me, I know it's not always easy to choose that, but it still is what to do. Just be safe, do your research, learn how to vet your sources and your people, and most importantly, take your time.
Welcome to the transgressive.
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