❓ Inquiring Minds Want To Know - Discussion Thread

[cascadiabound]

I prefer to not be touched when it’s been intense play - my senses are in overdrive. I tend to want to laugh. Talk. I’ve been known to turn on funny videos. Is that aftercare?

I don’t need anything. I like the extra connection of laughing together. But I also don’t think I’ve ever been vulnerable in any real way, so maybe if I ever get there, I’ll care more about specific things? I don’t know. It sounds cold, I know. I don’t know if it’s bad or good, as no one has ever complained that I am not vulnerable enough. I often feel like an abnormal bottom with these questions!

I’m curious about a Too needing aftercare and what that looks like.

Aftercare is whatever works for *you*
Extra touch, no touch, talking, no talking, crying, laughing, eating snacks, movies of whatever floats your boat, playing cards against humanity... you name it...

you are not abnormal. Just pay attention to what feels best to you and do that.

 

[PrettyLilPussy19]

#63

#63

Couples Therapy via BDSM

Have you ever used kink to work out relationship or personal issues? How did it work out? Would you recommend this for some areas?

 

[littlebirdjoy]

I'm going to go back to this one, because it is really pertinent to my life right now.
#61 (submitted)

Someone raised the difference between things which are hot as fantasies, because they're taboo, but which wouldn't be in reality, for the same reason. How do you ride that boundary in your sex life? Can you share the fantasy with a partner? Do you have fantasies that you keep as only fantasies?

Can you share the fantasy with a partner?
This is exactly where I am in my relationship right now. We have been together quite some time now (time flies), and we have gotten to the point where the mechanics of the relationship are pretty well hammered out. Now we are dealing with the vulnerabilities that TRULY open us up, both of us. There were some we got out of the bag in the very early days, just to judge basic compatibility... but some remained quite hidden until recently. We both needed to be sure of the other before opening that bag of worms. He more than I.
It has taken him some WORK to get me to open up, and the only way I'm capable is writing out scenarios. I'm categorically opposed to the word "fantasy". I won't write about something I wouldn't actually do. I have tremendous sensory recall, so if I'm writing it... I'm feeling it. So writing something I wouldn't do is ... just not possible.
On his side he is getting much better about trusting me enough to open up about things he fantasizes about that he has never shared with *anyone* prior to myself. I'm really honored by that.

Do you have fantasies that you keep as only fantasies?
For me, nope. Reason given above. He, however, has hinted at exactly that. I don't know what those ARE yet... as everything I've heard I'd be down for. Some will take a huge HUGE measure of love and an even bigger measure of trust coupled with possibly a trip into serious subspace to get through... but they are things I'd like to get comfortable doing at some point, because I understand WHY they are such turn ons for him. None of them are specifically and explicitly for that reason alone. He always says he isnt a child. He isnt selfish like that. He makes sure to explain the psychological appeal behind them, and how it affects him on an attachment level. <that is something I can always appreciate.

For the things that he would rather leave in fantasy world... he has told me that the way to "play" with them is to hint at them. Instead of actually asking some random hot girl if she'd like to come home and play with us (neither of us likes the idea of sharing *I know we are poly, but we are committed poly*) so rather that, point out the hot girl and make a comment quietly that I wish I could ask her etc.

How do we draw the line?
No idea... that is his job, not mine. He tends to gauge my reactions slowly and in multiple ways. He is very very observant as far as my body language and expression. His #1 thing is that whatever we do can't be for his sake alone. It can't be "willing" it has to be "wanting". < I respect the hell out of that too.

#62

Aftercare

We all know no matter what side of the slash you're on you need aftercare but what do you do when you don't get the nb aftercare you need? Do you need it after any 'scene' or just a certain kind of play? Does not getting it when you need it change the way you recall the play?

I actually just copied over a very pertinent answer to this today in my Lessons Learned thread. https://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=91721336&postcount=13 It does include some very good resources at the bottom.

Indie hit the nail on the head for me. It is actually completely accurate that it is the more committed the relationship the more I need aftercare. If it is a one off thing (never) but if it is new... yeah.. I'm not doing anything that will open me up so much that I need it.
As soon as I type that I think of a rather important situation when I did... and yeah... I hit drop HARD that time. ... but he wormed under my defenses! He knew exactly where the buttons to push were, and knew exactly what to do with them. That's why I'm still his. But it was precisely because it was so deep, so vulnerable that the aftercare was needed. I needed to know I was still safe.

#63

Couples Therapy via BDSM

Have you ever used kink to work out relationship or personal issues? How did it work out? Would you recommend this for some areas?
Mhmm absolutely! It is the foundation of our relationship. One of the things we agree on is that we would never work out.
One specific occasion comes to mind. He is really good at handling it when I get upset about something. We both try to keep in mind that we have never had a true argument. Anything we have ever disagreed about has been a misunderstanding or miscommunication in one way or another. However, there was one day that I had been using the words "you don't understand" too often. He had me sit down and not move. Sit right where I was until I could tell him what I was doing wrong. It would take as long or as short a time as it took, but I was not to move. It only took about 20 minutes for me to wrap my head around, internalize, and then come back and explain that those words carried a lot of subtext that was damaging. If he had not addressed it in this manner, I don't think I'd have really grasped it as quickly. If he had not addressed it at all, it could have really done us damage over the long term. There is literally nothing that does more damage to him than feeling like I don't trust him.
So yes, we use D/s in our relationship as therapy.

Now for physical BDSM do we use it for personal problems. Yes.
I'm not going to go into a ton of details... but he used D/s in many tangible ways to teach me to cope with my anxiety, to help me deal with emotional turmoil, and even to rid both of us of workplace stress. I mentioned elsewhere that I wear a small bell on my anklet which serves to alert me when I'm too much in my own head. I also learned where the expression "uptight" comes from and learned that certain body parts can tell you a hellofa lot about your emotional state! EEP! Then there are times that we are both so stressed that no words need or should be spoken. Just... make the world go away. Yep. We use BDSM to solve personal problems all the time.

 

[littlebirdjoy]

There are so many times that I'm stressed, overwhelmed and lost that I think it would be great to hand over the reigns to someone else. To have someone else that cares enough about my wellbeing to make decisions or give me instructions when I feel I'm incapable, or don't care enough to, do it on my own. Someone to hold me accountable. And sexually.... to have the stress fucked out of me. For someone to hold me down and make me come until I'm in tears. I honestly can't come anymore, even when I try, so that last part... please, yes, please. I feel like I'm broken.

Holds you tight. You aren't broken sweety. We get broken and cracked, stepped on and stepped over... but all can be mended. It hurts right now, but it will get better. In the meanwhile, you know you have all the hugs from me and an ear if and whenever you want to talk about anything or nothing at all.
**hugs**

 

[PrettyLilPussy19]

There are so many times that I'm stressed, overwhelmed and lost that I think it would be great to hand over the reigns to someone else. To have someone else that cares enough about my wellbeing to make decisions or give me instructions when I feel I'm incapable, or don't care enough to, do it on my own. Someone to hold me accountable. And sexually.... to have the stress fucked out of me. For someone to hold me down and make me come until I'm in tears. I honestly can't come anymore, even when I try, so that last part... please, yes, please. I feel like I'm broken.

You're not broken. Your heart is too fucking big. Sometimes I wish I could be as vulnerable.

 

[Wild_Honey_66]

Your tender heart is a gift! You make the world a sweeter place.

Learning to manage your sensitivity - knowing when to apply it, and when to keep it safely tucked away - is a fiddly business. The sooner you become adept at seeing red flags and shooing your heart out of the line of fire, the more of your softness you will be able to retain. (You don't want to become a dried-up old apricot like me. )

Be picky about who you share your deepest self with. Be really picky. Make them earn that shit. Your heart is too valuable to hand it over without putting them through the Spanish Inquisition first.

 

[KimGordon67]

Sorry, this is totally off-topic, but it seemed the safest thread to ask in. I've been AWOL for a while, and Fara seems to have disappeared during that time. Can someone message me just to let me know she's OK? Thanks.

 

[littlebirdjoy]

Your tender heart is a gift! You make the world a sweeter place.

Learning to manage your sensitivity - knowing when to apply it, and when to keep it safely tucked away - is a fiddly business. The sooner you become adept at seeing red flags and shooing your heart out of the line of fire, the more of your softness you will be able to retain. (You don't want to become a dried-up old apricot like me. )

Be picky about who you share your deepest self with. Be really picky. Make them earn that shit. Your heart is too valuable to hand it over without putting them through the Spanish Inquisition first.

This is incredibly good and accurate advice. Now if only it were an easy skill to learn
Happy New Year

 

[Mei5ter]

I prefer to not be touched when it’s been intense play - my senses are in overdrive. I tend to want to laugh. Talk. I’ve been known to turn on funny videos. Is that aftercare?

I don’t need anything. I like the extra connection of laughing together. But I also don’t think I’ve ever been vulnerable in any real way, so maybe if I ever get there, I’ll care more about specific things? I don’t know. It sounds cold, I know. I don’t know if it’s bad or good, as no one has ever complained that I am not vulnerable enough. I often feel like an abnormal bottom with these questions!

I’m curious about a Too needing aftercare and what that looks like.

One aspect of BDSM which interests me greatly is how some pyls find it cathartic while others seem to use it as an anaesthetic.

And yes, returning to daily routine after a session can be complex for PYLs.

 

[AveryElle]

Thanks for decoding my typo!

 

[Mei5ter]

Thanks for decoding my typo!

Always a pleasure to decide your hypo, Overy.

 

[PrettyLilPussy19]

#64

#64

Negative Reinforcement

Can you pinpoint anything negative that your bdsm dynamic reinforces in you?
Have you seen it have a negative impact on someone else?
How do you think it's best avoided?

 

[littlebirdjoy]

#64

Negative Reinforcement

Can you pinpoint anything negative that your bdsm dynamic reinforces in you?
Have you seen it have a negative impact on someone else?
How do you think it's best avoided?

WOW, what a great question!

My first instinct is to say that in a healthy dynamic it has not had negative impacts but in an unhealthy one boy howdy has it!

I've always had anxiety to a degree, and when my Person is playing with my emotions in negative ways it can really send me into a tailspin. I thought my anxiety had just gotten THAT bad. I was acting out at work, people just couldn't believe how unhappy I had become and I'm usually the most happy bouncy person around. I was distancing myself from my child, which was completely unfair, but I didnt want to snap at her. I was pulling away from family and friends because I couldn't emotionally communicate what was going on with me. I couldn't be honest with myself or anyone else how I was feeling, because to do so would have meant that I had to admit he was poison to me. I also felt to a degree that this was letting someone else important down. He still doesn't understand how much that factored in... every time I asked "do you want me to close the door" I was really asking "may I please close this door?"
It was only a few weeks ago that I stopped, looked at my life one day, and realized I hadnt had a panic attack or woken up crying in several months. That i no longer lived with the knot in my chest of constant dread... that that knot was gone. I stopped and really looked at it, then messaged my Person to thank them. To tell them that it was gone. To confirm and acknowledge that I never want to feel that way again, and that no matter what, I will never ever go back to that place of fear in my life.

So, yes, I'm an emotional massochist. Playing with someone who doesnt understand how to handle that ethically or skillfully can lead me to very dark scary anxious places that are not sexy at all. I know that one of the keys for managing it with me is to see if my feelings matter to my partner. I can't play with a true emotional Sadist.. not the kind who likes to break and crush you into dust, or revel in seeing you cry. No. If I'm crying and my partner doesn't care that right there is a deal breaker for me, because it will lead me to bad places for myself personally, professionally, and for my family.

 

[PrettyLilPussy19]

#64

Negative Reinforcement

Can you pinpoint anything negative that your bdsm dynamic reinforces in you?
Have you seen it have a negative impact on someone else?
How do you think it's best avoided?

I honestly cant think of anything negatively reinforced in my current relationship dynamic. If anything, negative things are drug into the light and addressed pretty immediately. But in past relationships I can see things in retrospect. I know in early days, I felt like I had to dumb myself down to meet the ideal of a wide eyed naive submissive. (Not that I wasnt naive about BDSM but in other things). I remember feeling very grateful for anyone's time or attention and that definitely reinforced an "unworthiness" hang up that I have.

I've seen others lean into this in a sometimes worrying way. Doing something, anything, because you want to and it turns you on. Cool, consent, I get it. But doing something because you don't think you deserve any better or because you hate yourself? No.

I think studying the intention behind our actions is important and useful.

 

[AveryElle]

Always a pleasure to decide your hypo, Overy.

Please, it’s Madame Overy

 

[littlebirdjoy]

I honestly cant think of anything negatively reinforced in my current relationship dynamic. If anything, negative things are drug into the light and addressed pretty immediately. But in past relationships I can see things in retrospect. I know in early days, I felt like I had to dumb myself down to meet the ideal of a wide eyed naive submissive. (Not that I wasnt naive about BDSM but in other things). I remember feeling very grateful for anyone's time or attention and that definitely reinforced an "unworthiness" hang up that I have.

I've seen others lean into this in a sometimes worrying way. Doing something, anything, because you want to and it turns you on. Cool, consent, I get it. But doing something because you don't think you deserve any better or because you hate yourself? No.

I think studying the intention behind our actions is important and useful.

absolutely. Well said.

 

[Mei5ter]

#64

Negative Reinforcement

Can you pinpoint anything negative that your bdsm dynamic reinforces in you?
Have you seen it have a negative impact on someone else?
How do you think it's best avoided?

Interesting question. I was going to say yes, based on this experience, but looking back I'm not so sure.

When I was at university, the brightest and most hard working girl on our course was a good friend, and we had quite a few other friends in common. Very sadly, she sometimes used to self harm, often using a cup she had broken for the purpose. She wasn't someone who would try to hide what she was doing, and in any case she had a (completely lovely) boyfriend who would have noticed any marks very quickly. It was almost as if, having had the release from the act itself, she actively wanted to be stopped, but that may just be my interpretation of it from the time. But we tried to be aware of signs that she might be about to self-harm and to support her as best we could - and, if we couldn't prevent her, to attend to the marks as soon as possible afterwards.

When you have shared something as personal as this with someone, it's easy to talk about other things too, and one evening we discovered that she liked masochistic sex too. Specifically, she had a taste for being dressed up, tied up, and whipped, and this was something she found hard to reconcile with being the strong, independent, ferociously bright and capable young woman she was. As did her boyfriend, who reluctantly tried to satisfy her in this, but to whom inflicting pain on a girl he cared for did not come easily or naturally - which is hardly a character flaw, after all. So, apparently with her boyfriend's knowledge, she would have this done by a male friend - a quiet, geeky science undergraduate who never otherwise had a girlfriend for the time I knew him. To the best of our knowledge, there was no sexual contact between the two of them and her underwear remained on throughout. But he was evidently able to satisfy her need to be restrained and hurt.

At the time, those of us who knew about all this thought her craving for pain and release was an extension of her self-harming and self-esteem issues. Looking back, it seems likely there were elements of degradation and humiliation in how she constructed the scenes, and I can see her boyfriend would have struggled with this too. Thus my recollection is of this as being something negative and destructive, which fed her other problems rather than resolving them. It was certainly different from my experiences of S&M at that stage, because she was being tied up and spanked by someone who wasn't a partner and for whom she didn't seem to feel any sexual attraction or desire.

But, looking back, I'm not sure this was right. I don't know whether self-inflicted pain fulfils the same emotional role as pain inflicted by another. I'm kind of hoping not, because I think helping her receive counselling for her self-harm, and ensuring she went and supporting her as best we could, was clearly the right thing to do. Whereas if a woman wants to dress up, be tied to the bed and whipped...to me that's just a sexual kink and one I enjoy indulging without feeling embarrassed about doing so.

 

[Wild_Honey_66]

I've came here a couple times to answer this question and haven't been able to do so yet, but I just gotta say...those AVs, guys.

Please don't stop being so sickening cute.

I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to figure out why PLP answered the same question twice.

 

[PrettyLilPussy19]

I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to figure out why PLP answered the same question twice.

Lol we are just trying to keep yall on your toes!

 

[Karabare]

I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to figure out why PLP answered the same question twice.

Oh FFS, me too! But now I’m reading Mei5ters response in a British accent, in my head.

 

[Wild_Honey_66]

Lol we are just trying to keep yall on your toes!

It worked!

Oh FFS, me too! But now I’m reading Mei5ters response in a British accent, in my head.

What's bad is that I'd already noticed their clever AVs yesterday! But I'd only been awake for fifteen minutes this morning, so I'm cutting myself some slack.

 

[PrettyLilPussy19]

#65

#65

Easy question.

Are your orgasms different/better during kinky sex v. non-kinky sex?

 

[AveryElle]

#65

Easy question.

Are your orgasms different/better during kinky sex v. non-kinky sex?

I think there's more a difference between ones with more teasing and build than the ones associated with, "let's just bang this out while we have a moment of privacy" moreso than more kinky vs. more vanilla sex. sex with the time and space to draw things out doesn't have to necessarily be kinky, and kinky sex can be fast and quick. If any of that makes any sense!

 

[littlebirdjoy]

#65

Easy question.

Are your orgasms different/better during kinky sex v. non-kinky sex?

eh hem... :blush: wellllllllll .... a point of contention... is there a difference between cumming and orgasm. personally I say "yes" ... fun tmi fact, prior to a year and a half ago I'd only ever "cum" once in my life. I'm still new to this ballgame :blush:

So... is cumming different... I can say that I've never actually cum from vanilla sex. never. not that I've had a heck ton, I haven't. Even that once, he was holding my hands down next to my head and that had a rather measurable impact on me.

For Orgasm... again... I've never done outside of kinky sex, and I've actually only done once. i kinda lost my shit about it too. One of my funnier moments. i was so freaking proud of myself that I was rather pointing to um "it" and commenting that I kinda didnt know it could actually DO that... *dies* hahaha. I am glad that I had a great group of friends at that point that I could flail to and they didnt bat an eyelash at me flipping out about it ^__^.
So did the kink factor play a role in that? well the kink factor got me to the point of cumming, but finding a fucking awesome angle I'd never found before did the rest. :blush: Would the angle by itself have done it? ihavenoidea!

and this concludes WAY TMI! I'm going to hide under a pillow now.

 

[Dreamliner]

#65

Easy question.

Are your orgasms different/better during kinky sex v. non-kinky sex?

The biggest orgasms you have are in your mind. Your brain is your largest sex organ.