Welcome to Dispatches, where I share my horny experiences and adventures! Feel free to let me know what you think, what your own experiences are, and let’s get the conversation flowing.

Three and a half hours had passed in a blink. I stumbled out of the BDSM dungeon into the cool of night. Dazed, floating, giddy. I was excited. Not sexually, but for the future.

When I mention to friends that I had been to a kink party—often with a tinge of pride and glee—they whisper conspiratorially back, “W-were people naked? Was there actual naughty things going on?” I’d puff up my chest, basking in the glow of the adultier-than-thou spotlight. “Yeah, some people were even having sex. Can you imagine?”

I am a kid showing off a gleaming pokemon card, only to throw it to the side the second I get home. Sex is not what drew me to the dungeon—instead it was the wispy promise of being wanted: Perhaps if I go to a place where people are openly kinky, someone will be loose enough to want me.

I wrangled with the word loose: replaced it with kinder words like dumb and sympathetic; deleted its paragraph entirely; undo’d and troubled over its history. On one hand, loose is a misogynistic term that holds women to the desires and expectations of men. On the other hand, it was exactly that history that made me feel heavy and dirty using it—a bludgeoning sort of literary weight. In effect, loose lets me project my lack of self-worth on the other person: You must be loose, why else would you actually want someone like me?

But what I saw in the dungeon yanked me out of my whirling mind. It wasn’t the whipping or latex or threesomes that set my skin alight. It was the human reactions—the proofs of wanting. Witness the half breaths turned gasps as glowing knives scraped skin. Hear the involuntary squeals as slithering whips dance forward to kiss flesh. Feel the quivering legs and engulfing hugs as partners melted into each other in aftercare. I had never been privy to such a human cocktail of emotions. Like a gulp of cool water in the dead of night, it flowed through my body, washing away my anxiety; my need to be wanted; my self.

---

“So, do you want to vacuum or help out with yard work?” The board president of the BDSM dungeon asked me as volunteers prepared for the night ahead. A few minutes later, I was intimate with the dungeon’s carpet floor. Who knows what my lungs had to filter that day.

The more I got involved and learned about The Scene—another term for BDSM and the community—the more my perception of fantasies and power dynamics shifted. My suspicions were confirmed during the intro to kink class: a two hour powerpoint presentation where we learned the basics of being decent human beings, given by a bratty little and her dom. It turns out BDSM is more an exercise in communication than.. cumming (which isn’t even the focus most of the time!)

Back when I was less knowledgeable, I’d conjure images of sadist tops with little hesitance to draw blood or inflict pain; of hyper-masculine doms getting their way no matter what; of latex and hedonism and sloven sexual abandon. While BDSM can be that way, there’s an undercurrent of trust not seen from the outside: the importance—and mutual agreement—that each person has their say in what happens. You can be that dominant who gets their way 24/7 if it’s agreed upon. You can piss and/or shit on your partner if it’s agreed upon. You can mark, brand, and draw blood—surprise, if it’s agreed upon. In fact, I realized that it was more problematic to not voice what I wanted. I remember one time my ex drove me back home—we had broken up a few days ago—when I began to flirt with her. She turned to me, eyes piercing through the man-child who wanted attention without working for it, “What exactly do you want right now?”

Ouch. The truth reveals itself.

In the dungeon, I saw relationships rooted in negotiation, respect, and boundaries. As BDSM practitioners Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy put succinctly in the New Topping Book: “[BDSM] combines the child’s urge for make-believe with the adult’s ability to take responsibility and the adult’s privilege of sexual reward… a very high achievement of the human body, mind and spirit.” Interestingly, I can’t think of any other way to learn the skill of communication and responsibility in daily life (at least, without having lived through the mistakes first.) Although BDSM can be rather intimidating—I never imagined I could, let alone want to, inflict pain on another person—the sexual communication you learn participating in the scene is priceless.

---

A sort of peace settled in me after that night: what the other person wanted mattered as much as what I wanted. I became comfortable in the knowledge that not everyone was right for me.

Paradoxically, that gave myself permission to want what I want. There was a joy in that, turning inwards and appreciating what was there, instead of chasing the supposed golden grail of being wanted. After all, what use was being wanted if it wasn’t for the whole of me?

It’s a rather scary idea, especially with the possibility of rejection when we lay our kinks and interests out; It feels safer to hold back, to appear normal. But whenever I feel that familiar pang—the urge to hide away and present something else—I remind myself of the lightness I felt in the dungeon seeing all exposed.

Literally, emotionally, relationally.