an apothiaroace nerd who has a lot of thoughts on intimacy and power. can more properly be considered kink-adjacent. my alternate terminology exists so no one can exclude me. do not try to push me to enjoy things I don't enjoy, it's rude
This is a blog about eroticism outside of sex, outside of romance, and outside of authoritarianism. Some of this might be considered to fall under the category of kink, but please do not call any of my activities BDSM. I've begun using the word "meanders" to describe a category of intimacy adjacent to kink that centers my specific needs while avoiding the sexual, authoritarian, and violent aspects of kink which are not compatible with the way I express and experience love.
Whether my preference to avoid those elements of kink is personal or ideological is not your business. Questioning that preference makes me think you don't value consent.
I originally intended for this to be a blog about things that make me feel good, absent any theoryposting or venting, and for the most part I've stuck to that intention. But when you're building a new paradigm of intimacy, some theoryposting is inevitable. I can't promise I'll keep it to a minimum, and I can't promise you won't be offended by me rubbing my filthy love-and-kindness-obsessed tenderqueer puriteen hands all over the concept of kink. C'est la vie, I guess.
Under the cut: content you can expect here, interaction boundaries, recommended reading.
What You'll See Here
I've broken my list of meanders into two categories: narrative interests, which are mostly genre fiction tropes about power and intimacy that I explore primarily through fiction, and non-narrative interests, which I explore in my interactions with the people I love.
Most of them, though, fall into one or more of the following broad categories:
Kindness from something that could squash me like a bug, or the inherent eroticism of being shown mercy
Allowing oneself to be changed by an encounter with something vast and beautiful
I want you inside me BUT NOT LIKE THAT
Mutually consented-to power structures as an accommodation for social/relational anxiety
Psychological play oriented towards collective healing outside of the medical establishment
Structured spaces in which my or another's personhood can be unavoidably acknowledged, centered, and experienced
Narrative interests:
Longtime friends of mine will note my interest in what TV Tropes calls Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
Mind/body sharing. Please listen to Give Me Away it is one of the things that inspired me to make this blog.
Telepathy more generally.
If you guessed from that list that I'm a koshlyta enjoyer you guessed correctly I love them so so much.
Subverting authoritarian dynamics towards a more caring form of partnership. I have an entire DS9 fanfic series about the Founders and the Vorta going through this process.
Eldritch beings. But I'm more of a Nyarlathotep type than a Cthulhu type — it's not about tentacles (though if it is for you that's valid and I love you) but about the way that proximity to such a being can warp and expand the mind. I Have Once More Seen The Glory shit, you know.
Religious elements, but I rolequeer and paganize the fuck out of it. Less "Catholic priest jorks it to your confession behind the screen" and more whatever is going on between those guys in The Hands of the Emperor.
Non-narrative interests
Mutual assisted gentle reparenting, WITHOUT anything that could be construed as ageplay. I know it's shocking that my partner and I incorporate elements of gentle parenting into our relationship while not pretending to be anything other than two unrelated adults, but I swear it's possible.
Energy work and magic. As I kind of alluded to with the religious elements thing up there, my spirituality is inherent to how I experience intimacy, and I love the intimacy of doing witchcraft with or to someone.
Related to the above point, trip guiding. Entheogens (mostly weed as it's what I have the most access to) are an important part of my and my partner's spiritual practice and you really need to trust that someone will be responsible and keep you completely safe if you're going to let them guide you through an entheogenic experience. If you want to consider this a kind of nonsexual intox play I won't stop you but I don't particularly share that opinion as the point is to not manipulate someone, even within a shared fiction. (I had an abusive roommate in 2024 who very much did use this manipulatively so I will probably not be trusting anyone with this except my partner for the foreseeable future.)
Being cared for. Especially when I've burnt myself out trying to do too much, as is often the case. I occasionally need someone to sit me down and make me let them take care of me. How many dark edgy 2dom4u motherfuckers will I make angry if I call this CNC caretaking?
Service as a skill, or maybe as a motivator to improve certain skills. I just know I get better at things faster when I'm doing them out of love and loyalty to someone I know cares for me.
Following from above, Montessori style feedback. Once you experience the joys of detailed, specific encouraging feedback focused on continuous improvement, you'll never go back to conventional praise and punishment again.
Interaction Boundaries
Do Not Interact: ageplay, raceplay, incest, or "breaking"/orientation/detrans play blogs
Can interact, but please don't follow without permission: sex-centric kink blogs
Can interact and follow, but I probably won't follow or interact back: nonsexual kink blogs that focus overly on pain, discipline, or obedience
Please do interact: nonsexual kink blogs that like soft kind things. I am begging you there ain't enough of us in the world
I do not consent to strangers initiating any kind of play with me and will probably not initiate it with anyone else.
Policy on minor interactions: This might get me some shit, but I honestly do not care if some sixteen year old reads my blog. I was curious at sixteen too. The difference is that there weren't people talking about what I'm talking about back then, and the ideas I encountered instead led me to get groomed into a relationship I wasn't ready for (and which would have been abusive regardless.) That being said, don't try to talk to me. I'm not comfortable taking on the responsibility of helping you navigate your relationship to all of this. If I can safely give you one piece of advice it's to not put any of the ideas you read about here into practice until you're at least 18 or ideally at least 25. I know everyone tells you you aren't ready for anything, and I know it feels insulting, but take it from someone who has been hurt in ways I'm still recovering from by engaging in conventional kink before I was ready — you aren't ready. Meandering isn't inherently safer than conventional kink just because it's safer for me.
Also I do wanna find some non-sexual kink blogs. <3 And it's no offense to the sexual kink blogs I do follow. (I love my moots.) but - as someone who's not always sexual, and as someone who struggles with chronic pain. (I have chronic pelvic pain, and stuff) it can sometimes be hard cause I feel disconnected to a lot of kink creators. ( which isn't anyone's fault btw!)
I do think this is one of the reasons why I've been trying to look for more shibari blogs too, because shibari is also viewed as an art style.
if only the world wasn't ending,,, guuaahh, i want them to be friends so bad, and for them to be so happy to be friends with eachother, i need to be put down
i wanna see more characters with crazy genders and ten sets of pronouns. i want more characters that are several minorities at once no matter if it makes sense or not. i want a genuine miku binder wearing character and a genuine solo poly hijabi, and i want them to be friends. i want characters named Bug and Kai and Fridge and Sock and Microwave. i want nonhuman characters in human fields, and human characters in love with nonhumans. i wanna see characters with several disabilities simply existing. i want characters with clashing interests and fashion styles and hyper-specific jobs. i wanna see characters in polycules, triads, qprs, several at once with different characters. i want characters who are systems with 500+ alters. i want plural characters who are open about it. i want characters who fursuit and wear therian gear and do quads. i want characters who are otherkin. i wanna see a pack of wolf therians and a group of warrior cats feline therians who hang out at the same park. i want a group of characters where everyone has a different shade of skin and different hair color and different fave flavor of monster energy. i wanna see characters that reflect real life !!!!!!!!!!!! i want to see more characters !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then they say if you're a bad boy daddy will punish you. But what's the punishment? More gay sex! You can't escape it. This whole damn place is in the pocket of Big Sex
The word "meander" was chosen very intentionally. It invokes:
A diversion from the straight and narrow path, in a similar way to how the word "kink" does.
Journey over destination. Meandering is a "scenic route" approach to intimacy.
Fading in and out. Meandering is not "always on" (like a TPE) or completely separate from everyday life (like BDSM sceneplay) — it's something that can be slipped into on a gradient, and slipped out of in the same way.
It's fuzzy and inherently resists imposed structure on purpose. It's meant to open up possibilities.
This is a very sex-centric article, which is a weakness of first wave rolequeer theory in general, but it's worth dissecting to explore how it could apply to meandering.
There's also a third discussion that I feel goes alongside the first wave rolequeer discussion of erotically experiencing resistance and liberation, and that is the idea of using leader/follower roles to unify two+ minds and bodies in a way that goes deeper than sex, bringing two+ wills into alignment in a way that causes any concept of dominance and submission to become completely irrelevant and supplants them with total cooperation. That's the goal of meandery power exchange — the nonsexual, but erotic, experience of Working Together.
BDSM power exchange eroticizes pushing down. Rolequeer eroticizes pushing back. Meandering eroticizes reaching a point where no one needs to push anymore.
I swear if I see that post that's like "kink is LARP that makes you cum" one more time, especially from someone I know for a fact I've heard talk about how asexuals are sooooo welcome in kink communities, I'm going to turn all the water bottles I'm supposed to be handing out at the orgy into Molotov cocktails and I will not be judicious about where I throw them.
I have said this a thousand times. I dislike genital arousal. I dislike orgasm. Both of those things make me feel like my body is being weaponized against me. My kink-adjacent interests will never include either of those things. I know that not every experience of asexuality is like this, but mine definitely is, and if your definition of kink necessarily includes genital arousal and orgasm and then you turn around and try to tell me I'm 1000% welcome in kink as an asexual, I'm going to point to your definition of kink and say that no, I'm not.
My alternate terminology exists so no one can ever rewrite the rules to exclude me again. I'm tired of advocating for my right to participate in spaces that don't want me.
imagine reverse bimbofication art in the style of the bimbofication brainwashing posts. YOU ARE SO FUCKING SMART, USE YOUR GENIUS MIND, YOU ARE EVERYTHING. YOU CAN MASTER ANY FUCKING SUBJECT IN THE WORLD *flashing hypno spirals interupted by photos of prominent women scientists and graphs from quantum mechanics papers*
I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture.
All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line?
The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy?
Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess.
I want the fat left it.
I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence.
Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."
I think I'm incapable of writing anything low stakes or cozy. I tried for the first five seconds of CAD being a thing but then I started putting politics and plot in there and the nature of CAD is that I can't really extricate those things from the stuff I know a good percentage of my readers will probably be here for. Whatever, go my thronglets
Meandering Along @meanderposting - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
