What You Really Really Want (30 page)

This is a tough one, largely because it's hard to talk about our bodies' being separate from ourselves. Because they're not really, are they? Anything that happens to our bodies happens to us, and it's a scientific fact that how we're feeling emotionally can affect our physical health. We're pretty connected to our bodies, and yet sometimes our bodies can feel pretty alien. And that's confusing, to say the least.

The most extreme example of this is how some people's bodies respond to sexual violence. Both men and women can, if being sexually assaulted, show signs of arousal. In most women, that means that your vagina may lubricate, your nipples may harden—some people even have an orgasm.

Does their physical response mean they're consenting to sex? Of course not. There are many theories about why this happens, a popular one being that the body is protecting itself, as a lubricated vagina is less likely to tear or otherwise be physically hurt when something is inserted into it. Whatever the reason, your body may feel turned on when the rest of you doesn't. That doesn't mean you're consenting to anything, much less enthusiastic about it. Real enthusiastic consent happens only when your body and mind are in agreement.

This body-self disconnect can happen in reverse, too. Have you ever liked—even adored—someone so much but weren't attracted to them, despite how much you wished you would be? Or do you ever find yourself physically attracted to someone you would never want to trust with your emotional safety? That's your body being out of sync in a different way. There's nothing wrong with you if this happens, but it is important to avoid trying to convince yourself that you're attracted to someone just because you think they're terrific otherwise, or because you'd like to avoid hurting their feelings by rejecting them.

Sometimes your body will just go one way when the rest of you goes another. That can be kind of confusing, but it's perfectly normal. Because while your body is a part of who you are, it's not all of you. You get to decide what to do if this split
occurs: have a hot fling with someone you want no ongoing emotional relationship with? Invest in a friendship and hope attraction follows? Walk on by, because you want all or nothing? They're all valid decisions.

On the other hand, if you find that you regularly part ways with your body—say, you hardly ever find yourself physically attracted to someone you actually like as a person, and vice versa—that may be a sign that something larger is amiss, especially if it bothers you. It might signify an attraction to people who treat you badly, which can be a sign that, deep down, that's how you believe you should be treated, or that's how you're used to being treated, so it feels comfortable. It can also be a sign that you're afraid of being close to someone in a romantic relationship—that physical intimacy combined with emotional intimacy is too intense for you. If that's the case, you may have some generalized fears to work through from previous emotional injuries. Therapy or counseling can be very useful for addressing these issues, if you have access to it.

You've probably heard the word “kinky” before. You may or may not know the term “BDSM.” Depending on whom you ask, it stands for some variation of the terms “bondage,” “discipline,” “domination,” “submission,” “sadism,” and “masochism.”

If you feel confused or ashamed because you get turned on by things (or even just the fantasies of things) that you “shouldn't” be turned on by, the first thing I can tell you is that you're far from alone. You'd be surprised how many people have “nontraditional” desires. These include wanting to do any of the following: have power over someone, surrender power, be tied up (bondage) or do the tying, have sex in public places (like a dressing room or a train), receive or administer pain (consensually, of course!), verbally degrade your partner or be degraded . . . the list goes on, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you feel like a freak because you want something “weird,” you are not alone. There are many people out there who want the same thing.

One of the most challenging parts of being kinky is that our desires may not match up with our ideals. For example, like most women, you believe that we should be treated with respect by our lovers. And yet you may also, in the privacy of your sexual space, want your lover to do some things that may seem very disrespectful. Like call you a dirty little slut, for example. Or tie you to the bed. Or spank you. Or maybe you want to do these things to others.

Renee, thirty-one, encountered this tension when she met a man who liked to take the reins:

The conflict between philosophy and desire can feel charged—and perhaps more so if you're a survivor of sexual violence and your fantasies run violent. If this tension is troubling you, it may be time for a reframe. Try thinking of sex as a playspace for adults. Time to explore worlds that aren't real, and perhaps help us process the world around us. Remember when you were a kid on the playground and you'd create entire imaginary worlds and assign each other roles to play? When I was growing up, sometimes we'd take on roles from TV and movies, or make up wild imaginary worlds, or act out variations on themes from the real world, like playing “house” or “office.” Ultimately, we were stepping out of our own reality to
see the world from a different perspective—to simultaneously expand and escape our world by breaking its rules.

Sex can be like that, and kinky sex especially—a place to experiment with power, sensation, characters, and experiences that aren't possible in the rest of your life. Maybe you find it hard to relinquish control most of the time, and sex play affords you the chance to experience helplessness. Or the opposite could be true—it could give you the chance to finally be as in control of everything as you always wished you could be.

Additionally, some survivors of violence find it cathartic to play out “scenes” similar to how they were violated, but in a safe space, with someone they trust, and with the option of calling a stop to the action at any time. That option is not a negligible detail here—psychologically, exploring an old dynamic safely and with new power can be pretty healing. Even if you've never been sexually violated, your sex life can be a safe space to explore what can be dangerous or terrifying in real life.

Of course, the key word in that last sentence is “safe.” When you're playing with power and/or pain, it's crucial to be able to tell whom you can trust. Responsible kinksters—just like all responsible lovers—are the ones who are interested in your desires, patient with your questions, invested in your safety, and respectful of your boundaries. These folks often rely on a simple motto to guide them: All of their activities should be “safe, sane, and consensual.” By now, you're probably on your way to developing your own definitions of these words, and tools with which to ensure you and your partners are abiding by them, which is great. To those definitions and tools I'll add one more that's kink-specific: the safeword.

The basic idea of a safeword is this: It's a word you or your partner can use to withdraw consent if you've negotiated a scene in which “no” no longer means no. (People sometimes do this in order to play with the dynamics of helplessness and control.) If you're playing this way, it's important to have another word—a word unlikely to come up accidentally—that will let the partner in control know that the partner who's submitting wants to stop. You can use a random, easy-to-remember word that you agree on in advance (like “tofu” or “bubbles” or whatever you like), or you can use the green/yellow/red model, where if you're fully enthusiastic about what's happening and your partner checks in, you say “green”; if you're starting to reach your limit but don't want the action to stop yet, you can let your partner know by saying “yellow”; and if you want to stop you say “red.”

And safewords are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what kinksters have developed to help encourage folks to engage in direct sexual communication. Says Heidi,

In other words: Whether or not your own desires run kinky, there are many ways we can learn from the BDSM community about how best to get what we really really want.

Of course, sometimes a fantasy is just that: a flight of the imagination. It can be hard to tell which of your fantasies you want to make real and which are better left as masturbation fodder.
There's no great way to tell without trying. But you don't have to jump in with both feet, either. If you want to explore bringing a fantasy into your sex life, try talking about it with your partner while you're being sexual. See how you feel—does imagining it together make the experience hotter, or does it make you freeze up or back off? If it gets your blood flowing, try a next, interim step. For example, if you fantasize about tying someone up, see how it feels just to hold them down or loop a scarf loosely around their wrists—something you can back away from quickly if it winds up feeling bad. (Ensure your partner's enthusiastic consent before trying this, of course!) If it feels good and you're both still into it, you can go on upping the ante until you're playing out your fantasy, or until you or a partner hits a comfort threshold.