i’m pretty sure i’m going to a huge brat. It’s the day of my first ever Proper Kinky Hookup and i’m hovering nervously in my hallway wearing something black and shiny that i know he’ll like. i know for sure i’m going to like the rough, degrading sex. i don’t know yet how much i’ll like the impact play or the restraints but the thought of them is definitely exciting. But i’m very confident that i’m not a passive, obedient sub. No, no. i’m fiercely independent, assertive to the point it’s sometimes taken as hostility, and my feelings about authority are about as negative as it gets. Make me, i think, and smile. i’m gonna be a handful.
The buzzer rings, he enters. i’ve known him for years but never seen this look on his face. Danger, intensity, and a new kind of desire.
“Kneel.”
And my knees hit the ground before i know they’ve folded.
So – not a brat. Just one of many lessons i’ve learned in kink from trial and error. So i can tell you how i started in kink, i can spout my opinions about how people should get started in kink, but most of what you learn you’re gonna learn just like that, on your knees wondering what the fuck just happened and why it’s turning you into a hazy, floaty mess of a human.
That wasn’t the first time, not really. Just the first i really did with intention. Figuring out kinky desires doesn’t happen overnight and is often more clear in hindsight. There’s things i get now – dark, violent fantasies i had long before any awareness of sexuality, a teenage house party where i drunkenly invited my friends to beat me with a riding crop – and they did because it was all just funny, right? Wild shit you do to say you’ve done it. How fucked up were we last night? While i admire the bruises and feel something awaken.
i dated someone actually kinky for a few weeks when i was 16 and he was 17. He seemed so much older and more experienced but now i’m 35 and christ, we were just two stupid kids. We did everything wrong, and my first experiences of subspace scared the hell out of me. The vulnerability of it, how susceptible i was to suggestion, was something i repressed hard. i got married at age twenty and in the seven years that followed we sometimes tried to “spice things up” – a drizzle of hot wax here, some fluffy handcuffs there, but we never found our thing and it fizzled out.
But i figured it out eventually, invited a friend round to do some nasty things to me, and four years later i am where i am now. i understand more about what i like and more importantly about what i need. i will always be learning and likely – to some extent – always changing. But i’m definitely not a newbie anymore. Getting from there to here was sometimes messy, and often is messy. Some of that is the inherent mess of self discovery, growth, and learning that none of us get to avoid in life. Some of it is avoidable though – unnecessary risks, bad communication, and negative influences getting in the way of getting what we’re looking for.
Being new means being vulnerable. You don’t need to be young or lacking in life experience to be vulnerable – though a lot of people new to kink are also those things which increases risk even more. Kink communities, play, and relationships are generally going to feel a thousand miles removed from anything you have experienced before, and not knowing what’s normal in this world puts you at a disadvantage.
A big risk right away is predators. You’ll hear people say a lot that kink is all about consent – and it certainly should be. You’ll even hear some people say kinky people are better at consent. i don’t entirely agree or disagree there – i think there’s a culture of more detailed, explicit, specific consent in most kink communities. Kink tends to run on “opt in” consent (everything is a “no” unless it’s specifically a “yes”), where in my experience in the vanilla world there is more reliance on implied or “opt-out” consent (where once you consent to sex, the standard menu is kind of implied to all be available unless you specifically say no to certain acts). That’s not necessarily a bad consent model, and works better for some people – but it leaves more room for miscommunication which is riskier in kink and that has led to the difference in culture. So, coming into a kink community and having that immediate exposure to people talking in detail about consent and actively, vocally supporting high quality specific consent can give the impression that this is a utopia where no one ever crosses boundaries and no predators could possibly survive. This is probably the most dangerous misconception you can have.
The reality is that predators adapt to mimic the language and culture of their environment. Kinky predators will often be more educated on consent and know how to say all the right things and – when playing in public or with someone they’re grooming as an ally – even do all the right things until they switch on their victims. They can be harder to spot. Kink communities often rely on anonymity and very rigid compartmentalisation to protect their members from being outed and facing discrimination – it’s not hard to imagine that in a community where it’s normal to go by a nickname, never introduce people to your friends or family from outside the community, and never disclose where you work or live, it can be very easy for people to hide a criminal record or a bad reputation. And a community often centred around finding people to play with, sharing intimate photos, and socialising in little to no clothing, is an attractive hunting ground.
Newbies often assume that event organisers, educators and other community leaders are experts at identifying and banning predators. And most do their best – but in almost every case they are unpaid, part time, and have no professional training. They’re not the police, courts, therapists, or social workers – and even if they were no one gets it right 100% of the time. Best case scenario, some predators slip through the cracks and get away with it. Worst case scenario, the predators are community leaders, or friends with them, and use that as a shield. When you’re new it’s natural to be most trusting of the people you see as authority figures, and it takes time and experience to start to know what kink-specific red flags look like and to find out about the reputations certain people and events have.
i don’t have an easy answer for how to avoid being targeted by a predator. Fuck me, imagine if i did, wouldn’t that be nice? You can vet people – both by asking them questions, and asking others about them, you can listen to your gut instincts, you can take practical precautions – things like meeting in a public place first, potentially playing in public if that feels like a comfortable choice, and arranging safety calls with a friend if meeting in private. All good stuff. None of it guaranteed. Being aware that it’s a risk is half the battle though, it’s scary how often i see new people just assume everyone is a safe person because they’re kinky and friendly.
Part of why newbies are often targeted by predators is something called frenzy – and even if you manage to dodge predators frenzy is a risk all on its own. One of my spicier takes is i don’t think indulging in frenzy is necessarily bad – but being self aware of it is essential to manage risk.
Sometimes it’s called sub frenzy, but Doms absolutely get it too – frenzy is the consequence of new found freedom in exploring kink, exposure to lots of new ideas and things to try and people to try them with. It’s the excitement, passion, burst of energy and overwhelming urge to do everything at once and have it all right now. If you find yourself planning four scenes in a day, or deciding to go for 500 needles on your first time trying sharps, or wanting to play with someone within thirty seconds of meeting them – you might be in frenzy.
And i loved frenzy. Still do, when it hits – it’s largely a newbie thing but when getting into a new kink or starting out with a new partner it can flare up again. i experienced it most recently when me and Mx got into bimbofication. A kink i’d only ever been mildly curious about became all i could think about overnight. W/we spent a small fortune on it, i put in several hours a day on transforming my appearance, and i was absolutely fucking feral levels of horny about it 24/7. W/we’re still having an amazing time with it but i’ve calmed down enough that i can enjoy the rest of my life too! Frenzy is kind of like the honeymoon period of a relationship – or new relationship energy as the kids are calling it now. Channelling that energy into positive experiences and riding the high can be awesome, but it can also make your judgement very questionable.
Frenzy is what led me to have a threesome that involved two full bottles of gin and breath play. Potentially fatal stupidity. Frenzy led me to play so frequently in the early days i sometimes struggled to walk, to take bruises on top of bruises and so many burns my body struggled to heal them. Frenzy hasn’t led me to overlook red flags for predatory behaviour because i have severe hyper-vigilance and was a sex worker for seven years so my gut instinct is loud as hell – but it can. It does. Frenzy gets people hurt. It’s not a stretch to say frenzy has probably got people killed.
Frenzy probably can’t be prevented – acting on it can. Or, if like me you want to ride the high, acting on it can be managed. Making a decision based not on the first (frenzied) thought but on the second, more considered one. Letting decisions sit and brew for a while before acting. And making certain things non-negotiable – however wild and extreme you want to get vetting, discussing risk and safety precautions, and negotiating thoroughly are not optional.
Too much too soon can lead to real practical risks as well as the obvious burnout and potential to scare yourself off. Some kinks need specialist knowledge. Poor technique and ignorance of risks can lead to injuries or death. Breath play is one that most people know is dangerous – a lot of people are less aware of, for example, rope, which is often done in very calm, beautiful, sensory ways that can trick you into thinking it’s completely safe. Absent the yelling and struggling of some more obviously violent kinks i can see how people miss the risks. But almost everything has some level of risk, and sometimes those risks aren’t obvious or only really present themselves in unusual circumstances. Understanding risk is an ongoing piece of learning you should always stay curious about – as well as regularly thinking about your risk profile. Risk profile is your personal level of comfort with taking risks, and that can change over time even without new information. i no longer do breath play with casual partners, for example, even though i have roughly the same knowledge of its risks as i did when i used to. i thought it over and decided that was more risk than i felt comfortable with, so my boundaries changed.
It’s obvious once you think about it that knowledge of risk, how to reduce it, and self awareness of what a good risk profile feels like for you all require experience. You can’t just get all that overnight. So in the early days of kinking i recommend starting with the basics and, if possible, playing with thoroughly vetted and experienced people. You’re still responsible for your own learning but it’s a hell of a lot easier and safer if at least one person present really knows their shit. A lot of new submissive-types assume they don’t need to know much, and i would encourage anyone to avoid that mistake. You can get away with it to an extent – your ignorance isn’t going to lead you to injuring anyone else if your role in the scene is just to lie there and take it! But without your own knowledge you won’t know if someone is doing something wrong until something goes wrong. You may take risks you don’t understand and face consequences you didn’t expect. You could pick up scars you didn’t want, have marks in places you can’t hide, and have to deal with fallout you didn’t plan for. Knowledge is power, and however much power exchange you’re after that’s one power you should hold on to.
Remember the person from the start of this post? i know, i’ve talked a lot since then. “Kneel.” – that one. A couple of months in they started beating me directly across the kidneys with a three foot leather flogger. There’s some debate about how dangerous that is, but a knowledgeable kinkster knows it’s a controversial move at best and would tend to avoid it, especially with a newbie, especially with a newbie who already has a damaged kidney. That same partner also introduced me to rape play. i fucking love rape play, so the outcome was a good one, but the way they did it was mid-scene while i was bondage taped to a table suddenly announced “I’m going to rape you.” That could have been catastrophically traumatic for us both. That person wasn’t a predator – they were just less experienced than they thought and overreached their skill level through delusional self confidence, with potentially serious consequences. Ignorance and poor technique can be just as dangerous as bad intentions.
So how do you manage that? Learn, learn, learn. If you’re not in a monogamous relationship then playing with multiple people will help. Read everything you can get your hands on, watch videos, watch people play at events, ask questions at every opportunity. Ask people you play with where and how they learned to do what they’re doing to you. If something doesn’t feel right – if the vibes are off or something hurts in a way that feels like a risk or if you’re just not confident you know the risks of what you’re doing – then hit pause and learn more before continuing. Ask opinions of others about how you’re playing and balance those opinions against each other because kinky people love to disagree with each other and what i say is unacceptably dangerous someone else might strongly believe can be done safely. There’s no gold standard for this shit – we’re all enthusiastic amateurs learning through trial and error, but by speaking to others you get the benefits of decades of trial and error across international communities and don’t have to make all those old mistakes for yourself. If you don’t love to learn you will never get the full depth of your potential experience in kink – because you don’t just learn about the risks, you learn about the joy. The wild experimental pleasures and the niche delights and the strange, hidden paths others have already mapped for you to walk if you so choose. Learning more about my starter pack of kinks didn’t just help protect me from others’ mistakes, it exposed me to ideas i’d never known existed to even fantasise about, opened the door for me to try new experiences, and ultimately led me to the beautiful array of perversions that make up the texture of my intimacy today.
There’s a lot of talk in kink communities about public vs private play and honestly, there’s a whole other blog post on that which i’ll have to write some time* so i’ll keep this point brief: public play (as in, at kink events, not in the middle of a public park please do not do that) is often safer than playing in private (in your or someone else’s house) but that doesn’t mean it’s the one “right” way to play or that you have to do it. When i was new i was bombarded with unsolicited advice and at times outright judgement about my preference to play privately. Public play can feel terrifyingly vulnerable, you often have little control over who is watching or their reactions, and there are cost barriers, distance barriers, and my old enemies of dress codes and restrictive rules on play styles. i love public play, but it’s not for every scene and it’s not for every person and i wasn’t ready when i was new. If you choose to play in private there are risks to assess to manage and the same applies in public, the risks are just different and you may need to vet the event as much or even more than the person that you play with.
i will say though – in a very “do as i say not as i do” moment – that meeting kinky people to play with through dating apps is not ideal. The standard advice for newbies of meeting play partners through a kink community is solid. It gives you a better chance to see how they interact with others too, hear about their reputation, and there is more chance of them being held accountable in some way if they harm you. They have something to lose – their place in that community – that an anonymous stranger on an app does not. That said not every kinky person feels a need to be part of a community and that is not, in itself, a red flag. It can be if it’s part of a pattern of refusing to learn or is their way of hiding bad behaviour but sometimes people just don’t know it’s out there or aren’t very social. my partner had twenty years of kink experience before i took Them to Their first munch, after finding Them on Tinder of all places. Sometimes it works, but much more vigilance is needed.
Did i follow all of this advice when i was new? No i did not. i did meet almost everyone i ever played with through an app. i learned and researched, but often only after making a mistake. i developed my understanding of risk a good three steps behind risks i took. i fell – more than once – into the trap of trusting that an experienced Dominant would automatically know more than me and not asking enough questions or advocating for myself. And i survived it, thank fuck. i don’t know that i would change anything about my journey in hindsight because it’s part of what makes me who i am, but i wouldn’t recommend such a chaotic crash into kink either.
However you approach your early days in kink, cautiously or chaotically, as a single person or with an established partner, publicly or privately, the most important thing i can suggest is that you don’t need to do it alone. Find your kink community – whether that’s four munches a month or a small circle of trusted weirdos. Read stuff like this – and not just this, i’m one person and i’m not you, find everything you can shared by people who’ve done this before and take what feels useful to you and always question the rest. With connections, shared knowledge, and positive influences this can be one of the most powerful and transformative journeys that you ever take. i never knew four years ago, in that hallway falling to me knees, where i would end up. i never knew how much more there was, how many unmet needs i’d buried, how hard i’d fall in love again and again and again. How much i could grow, how much i could break, how much i could feel. How much more i could love myself, the places i would go and the things i would see and the people i would let peer into the ugliest and most perfect pieces of my soul. i just knelt, took my first order, and the rest flooded in like the tide. i found my way.
*Turns out i already did write that one – Exposed
kirizal talks kink 