Mandatory Skills
There are very few things that everyone in kink agrees on. I can really only think of a few and two of those are Communication and Honesty.
- Communication: is key for someone just entering the lifestyle and it can be difficult. Many people enter the kink world lacking the communication skills they need to be “successful” in kink. They’re afraid to be judged. They’re afraid to be rejected. And communication challenges are different for different people.
- Many people don’t know how to open themselves up and communicate their wants and needs. There’s a saying in kink that if you can’t talk about it, you shouldn’t be doing it. So the first thing you should be learning to do is to open up.
- While learning to open yourself up you should also be learning how to receive communication from other people in a healthy way. If you are a defensive person, taking in communication can be difficult. If your partner says, “I like when the ropes are tight.” You may hear that as “You don’t tie these ropes tight enough.” and then you can get defensive. Speaking your truth is only half the equation of healthy communication, listening with an open mind is equally as important.
- Receive the information that is given to you. I had a lot of communication problems in my vanilla marriage. One would be that when I would tell him something, whether it was sex or just life things, he would try to figure out what I “really meant by that”. And I didn’t really mean anything except what I was actually saying. One thing my boi values most about our FLR is that I way what I mean, I mean what I say, an he never has to wonder.
- Many people improve their communication skills by working with a therapist. There are also books and classes on communication. None of these things need to be especially kink friendly, communication is communication. Whether it’s in the kink world or the vanilla world, but it is important.
- Honesty: Some of the things we do can be critically dangerous. One must be honest about many things.
- You must be honest if you do not have experience, skills or knowledge at a certain activity. Do not pretend to be a knife play master if you have never really done knives before. Do not pretend that you have been doing rope for years when you have been doing it for months. Be honest with your experiences and your abilities so the other person can make an informed decision. The same goes if you are a bottom. Be honest if you have never done a certain activity before or if you may have triggers; even triggers you may not know about. The top needs to know these things.
- Kink is not just chains and whips. It can be sex things, too. And when one does sex things one’s health and life can be in someone else’s hands. Honesty and transparency are vital when discussing getting sexual. Many, many adults have herpes or HPV. There is no shame in it, but there IS shame in not divulging your status to potential partners and letting them decide if they want to take on that risk. Of course, this means being vulnerable, being open, being honest, taking a chance of rejection, taking a chance of judgment, and that’s scary. But that’s being an adult. It is your responsibility to be open and honest so the other person can make an informed decision.
- Being honest about my level of experience has helped me in many ways. When I first met my submissive. I had never been in a power dynamic relationship and so I didn’t really know how to do one or have one. Many of the books I had read told me to fake it. They said that if I acted unsure or indecisive, it would take my sub out of it and my sub wouldn’t enjoy it. But what about my enjoyment? What about my head space? How can I enjoy anything when I’m freaking out in my head that I don’t know what I’m doing? So after a few false starts, I decided just to be open and honest with my partner and tell him I wasn’t sure what I was doing. This admission only brought us closer together and has allowed us to learn and grow together. Now, whenever I’m not sure what I’m doing, I talk it over with him and then I decide how to move forward based on the information I gathered from him and other sources. This makes being his dominant much easier. I don’t feel like I’m alone on this journey. I am still the dominant. I’m still in charge. I still make the decisions. But getting his input on things makes me feel more confident in the final decisions that I make.
Communication and honesty are 2 tenets of the Kinky lifestyle that all ethical kinksters can agree on.