I was recently asked the following question:  “How has kink helped you in your day to day life?”  It’s a question I get asked often by people who know me and some who don’t.  Although its most often phrased as: “Why the hell would you do that?” and quickly followed with the  business card of some really highly recommended physiologist being pressed urgently into my hand.

 

The answer is  involved and goes beyond the obvious of getting to play dress up in latex and leather and killer shoes…although that is a decidedly hot bonus.

 

Kink made an appearance at a very fucked up time in my life. I was just ending a long term relationship that was draining to all parties involved and I had gone from being sexually dead to freakishly alive. I was running wild and doing alot of unsafe things. Kink forced me to stop, listen to my body, get in touch with my body and made me realize that I was searching for very specifiic things:

~validation of my beauty,worth and goodness

~absolution from guilt through punishment

~awareness of my own body

~love and intimacy

 

I found all these things in kink along with some other stuff

 

Being able to withstand focus through extremely painful stimulation has taught me the power of my own mind. My body is screaming stop but my mind is very clearly screaming back “Take another, you can not be broken, will not be broken.” Suddenly the aggravations of the mundane day to day became speedbumps instead of huge mountains.

 

The ability to turn pain to pleasure reminds me that the things in life that are hard to deal with have a lesson that goes with them bear any beating life dishes out will make me stronger in the end.

 

I am a huge control freak… life has turned me into that. With kink I am forced to believe that my partner will protect me, listen to me, push me past my comfort level but not past my sanity. Its softened me enough to let the right one in while hardening me enough to tell the wrong one to go directly to hell.

 

Being submissive has also shown me that I AM IN CONTROL. It is the submissive that says when the scene is or isn’t over for the most part. It is the submissive that the Dominate is trying to please. It is the submissive that notices, listens, learns, gets under the skin.

 

My submission has shown me my worth and it is the accumulation of everything I am… everything that has brought me to this point in my life. I’m not just a girl bowing down to some Top. I am an intelligent, self possessed, self sufficient woman of color, an entrepreneur, artist and ego maniacal magnificent misfit. And if the Dom can’t appreciate all that then he/she doesn’t get to play.

 

As a Domme I learned how to give creative loving and intimate service to another person. I learned to listen for the unspoken words, to read sounds, faces, bodies and minds. How to be soft and tender and thoughtful and how important is it to give positive reinforcement to people. How much power I can have over another and how much I should respect that power and the person who gave it to me.

 

The ability to give and receive power in close union with another person as either a submissive or a Domme taught me confidence.  When some trusts you with their physical, emotional and mental safety it is a big responsibility.  If you can handle that you start to figure that you can handle alot of other things.  When you trust someone with your physical, emotional and mental safety you can’t allow yourself to get stuck in what you look like as you go about your multitude of demanded tasks.  You have to focus on getting the job done and withstanding  to the best of your ability… not omg I look so fat and ugly right now.

 

Kink taught me just how damn pretty I am…if you’ve ever been privileged to see the face of submission you would  how beautiful it is.  It is a beauty composed of love, trust and mutual respect and it is gorgeous regardless of age, weight, features, and blah blah blah.  It is deeper than the skin and beyond the bone.

 

I learned BOUNDARIES. I learned how to say no to myself and others when it is something that is not right for me.

 

The person that I am today was not here two years ago. My relationship broke me and kink was a big part of what rebuilt me. In a crazy fucked up way it was my salvation. It held up a mirror for me to see myself and reshape myself in the image that I chose.

 

I didn’t do it alone… I couldn’t do it alone.  I had an amazing loving partner walk me through the rabbit hole.

That was two years ago but it feels like a life time.

Two years ago I entered a dungeon for the first time

Two years ago I was bound to a mahogany cross of cool polished wood  and  painfully, pleasurably initiated into the surprisingly not so mysterious not so dark world of bondage discipline sadism and masochism

 

I died on that cross

and he brought me back to life

and for that

and for the woman he encourage me to be

I am eternally thankful and grateful.