Hi Yana,
Middle-aged straight guy here. I’m in a committed, monogamous relationship with a partner who I love very much. We have a great and satisfying physical sex life though naturally there are dry spells, particularly during the winter-time. I love my partner very much and she is who I want exclusively with no reservations.
I’m kinky and my partner engages in kink activity with me in the bedroom. But, I also love talking about sexuality and kink with people. I like people in the kink community and have developed some good friendships over the years. I don’t want to play or have sex with others — I just want to interact with them because I’m lonely. I feel at home and can be myself in the kink community and my sexuality and kink interests may be the one thing I’ve never felt shame and/or low self esteem about.
My partner is adamant that the kink community is only about hooking up for sex. She refuses to believe that relationships in the community can be non-physical. She’s convinced that if I get involved in the community, I will end up cheating on her. There’s nothing further from the truth.
Recently, I’ve been reasserting my desire to be in the community because I’m terribly lonely for friendship. She says that I should be friends with my coworkers. Many times she gets very angry with me over all of this and when my reassurances fail (as they always do), I tend to get angry back and turn the anger inward feeling ashamed, dirty, isolated, and emotionally self-destructive.
Your thoughts?
Lonely Kinkster
Dear Lonely,
Kink in general (an umbrella term for things like BDSM, fetishes, and the increasingly popular rope bondage and suspension world) often gets tied (harty har) directly to sex. This makes sense because for many people, it is. However, for maybe just as many people, it isn’t.
BDSM in particular is famously flexible in the “Is this sexual?” department and very intentional in the boundaries department, making BDSM activities fun and accessible to a wide range of relationship dynamics and contexts.
For example, in attending non-sexual, rope education classes such as those hosted by the Western Mass Rope Collective [find out more via westernmassrope@gmail.com], you will find clothed people working on the complex skillsets it takes to tie someone safely in rope complete with lectures, demos, and troubleshooting. In these contexts, friends may tie friends, partners may tie with each other, or strangers may partner up to practice simple knots. This is a classroom, afterall — there’s not much sexual about it.
Do people go home and use these new skills in their sexual lives? Sure, some definitely do! But do all? Nope! Some people use rope skills for sport (that stuff’s hard!), art, or to achieve playful, non-sexual sensations (not too unlike using a weighted blanket or a float tank).
In your relationship with your wife, it seems like kink is, in fact, always sexual. As you’ve said, she only participates in kink in the bedroom. So, to her, platonic kink is something she’s never experienced personally.
Is she willing to attend something like a rope class or non-sexual kink munch? This may help her see that sometimes kinky folks just get together and eat nachos, y’all!
An overlapping issue here seems to be about trust and boundaries. Rather than invalidate your wife’s (accurate) observation that kink is something that turns you on sexually, acknowledge that though kink is part of your sexuality it is not always sexual to you.
Instead of attempting to water down kink to try to convince her to be okay with your community involvement, reinforce your commitment to the boundaries of your relationship — that you’re sexually monogamous, honor your fidelity to each other, and that the kink you share between the two of you is different and more meaningful than the kink present at platonic kinky-friendly events.
Finally, if someone’s partner wanted to isolate them from their non-kinky friends and community, that might raise some red flags in the category of relationship health. Don’t forget that just because your community is a non-traditional one, doesn’t mean that they aren’t a valuable and essential part of your wellbeing.
Yana Tallon-Hicks is a relationship therapist, sex educator, and writer living in the Pioneer Valley. You can find her work and her professional contact information on her website, yanatallonhicks.com.
