Not in a space alien way (although that finger on E.T. is suspicious), but in a kink-way.
Do you ever find yourself people-watching and wonder “hey, I wonder if they do fun kinky stuff?”
I find myself wondering this a lot more than I probably should. For us, we’ve had inklings about being a bit more on the fringes all along, but never embraced and really explored “this whole thing.*” So I look around and see these people who seem vanilla and sigh. Honestly, there are times when I’d love to stand up on a table and just yell,
“Wake up people! There is so much to experience and do and so much you can bring into your sensual life!”
But then reality hits. I fully realize I’d be carted off and put in a small white room with a nicely fitting jacket. Although… the bondage aspects of that are…
I’m curious if others do this too. Looking around, wondering. Charmer and I have talked about it, and you have to assume that others don’t see us as outwardly kinky. Sure, the signs are there if you know what you’re looking for (the FLR items, my day collar, other things) and you may be able to pick up on conversational items, but I don’t walk around with a neon sign pointing at us that suggests that we like these things.
It’s sad, really. I mean, there is so much to explore and so many things to experience. There’s community around the relative anonymity of it all. There is communication and experimentation. There are shared experiences. (There are one-sided experiences too). There are the facets of learning things about yourself.
Things like learning you can experience more than you think you can. That you like, or don’t like pain and it’s associated highs and lows. That you like or don’t like chastity, orgasm control, denial, games in general.
People are so wound up in their “omigosh I read 50 shades” hush-hush talk about “how kinky it is.” I wonder as I look around how many have gone further. I hope a lot have, but I doubt it.
Perhaps worse, I wonder how many even realize there IS a further? I hope we get past this thing of it not being normal. I know there are so many other posts about that, and that’s not what this is. This is a hope that we get to a point where we can talk about all of the different areas – help people choose their next area of interest. Help people understand how many things there are to explore. Shouldn’t this be included in sex-ed next to the abstinence and condoms?
I don’t necessarily need to be able to look around and identify people’s kinks, but it would be cool if we didn’t have to even refer to them as that. What if it was just “what they like,” not kinks.
I get all fired up about this stuff because it’s become so clear that it’s a good thing. It’s a positive in our lives and those of so many people we have come to know online. The communication it brings, the new play time and closeness and just plain adult fun.
I hope more people can find and embrace “this whole thing” and find what floats their own boats. It may be quite unexpected and may be much more abundant than they anticipated.
*I’m not sure really what to call it – just calling it “kinky” doesn’t seem to do it justice. Maybe we’ll start just calling it TWT or something.
Snake, I think we all go through a phase when we wonder why the rest of the world hasn’t figured out how much fun we are having. I’ve been kinky over 30 years and for most of them I was involved with a leather organization where kink was very much out in the open. A frequent topic of conversation at meetings was “Why doesn’t everyone like (fill in the blank)?”
Studies have shown that a vast majority of men and women have bondage and other kinky fantasies. Almost all will never experience the stuff in real life. I do think that lots of couples try tying each other up and spanking at some time or another. A friend of mine who sells paddles and floggers told me that at least 75% of his business comes from “swinger” groups. These groups have no overt BDSM activities, but they do love those fur-lined cuffs and leather paddles.
I think that most people, if they try anything kinky at all, find it an interesting seasoning to spice up their sex lives. The activities don’t meet any deep inner hunger. Some of us have that hunger and when we discover kink, we feel like explorers discovering the fountain of youth. But it’s only the fountain of youth for us, not most others.
The other important thing to me is that discussion of sexual preferences, whether which sex(es) we like to engage with or what we do with our partners, is not part of normal conversation. So we don’t really have a good excuse to explore these things, even with our closest friends.
I will bet, however, that in more nightstands than you might think, there are fur-lined cuffs and leather paddles. 🙂
I’m just going to toss this out there:
I like pizza. I prefer thin crust pizza with sauce, cheese, and maybe some sausage. My friends that like pineapple and ham on their pizza are just freaking weird. And the ones that think buffalo chicken wings and blue cheese belong on a pizza should just stay the hell away form my pie.That’s not the kind of pizza we had in my neighborhood, end of story.
Because we have the… capacity to enjoy certain variety with out sexuality, we tend to perceive it as a good thing, something extra, something that we think that everybody would (if not should) enjoy. We’re even a bit annoyed that we have to keep this stuff hidden away. But just like the above analogy, we’re all entitled to enjoy what we enjoy – both for the physical aspects and the socially conditioned ones.
Yes, I’d prefer if the general public didn’t look at kink and turn up their collective noses. It would be nice if people didn’t make the middle-school jokes over “50 Shades” (even though I don’t care for it). But the muggles are entitled to think about sexuality according to their own physical sensations and social conditioning. Yes, it’s a loss, but it’s *their* loss.
As far as my own friends are concerned, we’re all in out 50s and 60s, and I’m convinced that most of them have long stopped having sex. I’m also pretty sure that they all think that I’m kinky, and that they feel sorry for my wife.
I think when we discover something that works for us there is a natural urge to shout about it and to wish that everyone could see/understand/share in how amazing it is.
I’m sure this is true of a lot of people who discover poly relationships, or open relationships, or swinging, or tantric sex, or celibacy, or God, or or… well, you get the idea.
Thing is, we think we’ve discovered something special, but if you’re not wired that way (see above: none of those things are at all appealing to me), it’s NOT special (or fun or desirable) and those people aren’t missing out on jack.
Taken past the point of celebrating what works for a person, it can lead to a condescending ‘aw the sad vanillas’ attitude that really rubs me up the wrong way.
Ferns
Agree. And I would never want to come across as judging others for their own lifestyle choices.
As I was taking the picture that was requested (demanded?) from Charmer today I found myself wondering… First, “what the heck am I doing!?” and second “do other people do this??” – and that started the whole thought-ball rolling…
a) Geez, I wonder how many other people have these second lives,
b) I wish people had more awareness of options, ideas and such, and
c) I think it’s all quite fascinating what people come up with, what they enjoy and how it affects them.
The whole post started with my thinking out loud and doing virtual people watching…. “I wonder if they do things?” – not in a voyeur way, but just a “holy cow, there’s a whole new side to people” way.
I’m in my early 20s, and my slave is in his early 30s. Most of my friends are around the same age as us. Like my friends, I’m very open about my sex life if asked (only exception being in a professional environment), so a lot of the people I know is aware of the kinky stuff we’re into.
What I’ve found from being so open is:
1. No one ever seems to judge us negatively. Not even a hint of weirdness. The comments have always ranged from: “That’s pretty cool, but it wouldn’t be for me.” to “Woah! So you get to have sex with anyone you want?! How did you do that???”. This might be a generational thing, but it seems to me that people really don’t care about what you do behind closed doors, as long as it doesn’t affect them.
2. I’ve never met someone else who’s into anything remotely kinky, outside of specific events geared towards those activities. A lot of my girl friends are the ones who wear the trousers in their relationships, but when it comes to sex, they’re either completely neutral or slightly submissive. Most have tried tying up or maybe spanking at least once, but it hasn’t become ‘a thing’ for them and the most they’d normally do would be suitable to appear in women’s magazines. I don’t have any information on the sex life of people that aren’t my friends or acquaintances, so I can’t speak for others.
I’ve concluded that most people are just not very interested in doing new things, which is very unfortunate because some of Mr Kitty’s friends (early to late 30s) are at various stages of divorce, partly due to dead bedrooms. I’ve sometimes wondered if the wives (who, if Mr Kitty’s friends are to be believed, are the ones not interested in sex) would be willing to try kinkier stuff to try and revive their sex lives. But somehow I doubt it.