The Quivering Strawberry

One thing that has been haunting me, as a submissive, was when someone tried to use their past hurtful experiences to guilt me for leaving them. The whole situation baffled me because I tried to be as transparent as possible, from the beginning. I was also a very new sub when I first connected with them, I met them on my very first day on the Cage. I was aware that I was not suitable for a long-term dynamic because I didn't know what I was doing and I was still figuring out what I wanted, I knew I would make mistakes. I was clear that I was not looking for anything long-term because I wasn't even planning on staying on this platform for more than a month but when I decided to stay, I was very confused for a while.

I did feel guilty because I felt like I was abrupt with the ending and that maybe I was not communicating properly. I spoke about the situation with friends that I made on this platform and I tried to apologize to the person multiple times. I haven't spoken to them in months but it still weighed heavy on my heart. I didn't mean to hurt someone and that is why I was honest from the beginning. 

I am now feeling pissed off because I realize how manipulative it was. Being faced with a similar situation recently, I realized that would never place the burden of my trauma on another person to influence their actions or guilt them for any reason. I almost did though, I recently almost made my trauma someone else's burden but I immediately came to my senses. We have to admit that forcing someone to do something that they don't want to a recipe for disaster.

In my previous dynamic, I had a disagreement with my Dom about something that was extremely triggering to me. It felt like the feather on the camel's back because I was having a bad week. As I found myself begging for him to validate my emotions in a way that made me feel safe. I realized that it was futile. Communication is something that I emphasized on multiple occasions and I also spoke about past traumatic experiences to help them understand why it was important to me. When I realized that it didn't matter, I had a moment where I asked myself why was I not good enough to be heard and cared for in a way that I deserved. Then I came to a moment of clarity that you cannot force someone to care about you. 

This is such big progress for me because a past version of me would remain in love with potential and would guilt herself into staying while ignoring her own needs (a selfish self-sacrifice). A past version of me would have let resentment build and let it create a lot of hatred in the relationship, which would be more painful for both of us. It doesn't feel good. That I let go and made peace with the situation is probably why I could move on quickly without any intense emotions. Heck, past me would have been damaging her heart further with a real heartache (I get real chest pains when I am heartbroken).

I think there is a difference between leaning on someone for support and being manipulative. I had extensive conversations in my previous dynamic about how clear communication is extremely important to me and I thought I was heard. When I found myself beginning to beg to be heard and seen, I realized that it was not about the situation anymore but something deeper. I realized that if I had the slightest bit of self-respect, I wouldn't force someone to want me.

Those feelings that come from unmet needs, like the feeling of rejection, being unlovable, and being abandoned, are inevitable in situations like this but I have been constantly reminding myself that my self-worth is not dependent on things or people external to me. Those things or people may enhance my life when I do have them and I will grieve when I lose them, however, overstaying where I am not supposed to is not worth it.  

I once said that communication doesn't work when you don't have the same values as the person that you're trying to connect to. My only frame of reference for this was my best friend but I had been yearning to experience the feeling with a Dom. However, I have always been scared of forcing a man to act outside of their conditioned way of communicating. I am extremely sensitive and when I don't have the same communication style as a person or they don't want to talk to me, I experience physical discomfort when forcing a conversation. 

I am finally experiencing what healthy communication is in my current dynamic. It feels so natural, I don't have to overcompensate in any way and I don't have the feeling of impending doom. I am getting everything that I used to beg others for, every little thing that I want, and the best part is that I didn't have to ask my current Dom to speak to me or treat me in a specific way, we are just similar people. Neither did I have to trauma dump to get this. 

It's very difficult to communicate with someone who wants things their way or the highway or someone who just can't be honest with themselves. I used to think that I was asking too much, that I was a volatile and horrible person until I got the communication that I have always wanted. It's the most mature experience that I have ever had. I am the calm and understanding woman that I've always known I am because I am treated like a person. I don't feel like I have to force understanding, there is no unnecessary defensive behavior when I express discomfort, and my feelings are acknowledged.

He treats me with kindness and respect, he shows how much he wants me but he doesn't suffocate me. He cares about my mind and my worldview. However, though we are both into esoterics/spirituality/witchcraft, we disagree on schools of thought (that has been our biggest argument but we made up). The best part is that he is transparent but shares just enough for me to feel like I am getting to know him and that I am part of his life. He still maintains anonymity though (that is important). I don't have to wonder about anything and he is always fully present and engaged in the conversation when we chat. But, he still puts me in my place when I don't follow instructions, lol. 

Begging someone to stay with you out of pity is an indication of a deeper issue and a person needs to introspect. I hope anyone who finds themselves in this situation will realize that they deserve better. It's a recipe for a super toxic situation to force someone to do something that they don't want. My understanding of the basis of submission within BDSM is enthusiastic consent, that the sub needs to want to and feel safe enough to give their power away. Right?

There's so much more that I want to say but I am holding myself back. I am questioning how those two situations would translate into real-life (offline) situations and the potential for real harm in one way or another. 

One of the biggest struggles that I have been experiencing within kink is that my first introduction to kink was porn. Porn primarily shows one body type, especially when you are looking for niche content like BDSM. Though I do not believe that media solely influences our mindset, I do believe that it does contribute to insecurities. In the past few months, I developed the worst body image issues that I had ever experienced in my life and I grew up with a mother who hated my body and was very vocal about it.

I had already felt insecure to an extent. From internet conversations on the "ideal woman" to everyday conversations with women around me on how much they hate their bodies (even when they are the standard), it takes a toll on one's mental health. Regardless, I have always managed to be able to maintain healthy beliefs on women's bodies. Seeing bodies that I relate to is important but it is not my only concern. Seeing and celebrating ALL types of bodies is extremely important to me.

I was not doing or experiencing either. Besides consuming media with bodies that do not look like mine, I also was not seeing other body types, and that really altered what I thought was attractive. At the very least, on the days of my lowest self-esteem, I should be able to look at other women and think "OMW she's so gorgeous" but I struggling to do that.

One of the things that I wish I didn't have to stop doing was playing the Sims because, in the Sims, I could create a world where all body types are sexually desired. I knew I had a problem when I downloaded the Sims again and I didn't blink an eye that my current world has only one body type. I also knew that I had a problem when I was looking at a body type that I often find attractive on Tiktok and I did not appreciate the body type like I usually do. That is scary. I am now working on healthier ideas of women's bodies.

Outside of erotic media, merely seeing the type of women who are engaged in or interested in kink through profiles on this platform was quite healing for me. Then I started following a kink educator on Tiktok, Kat Blaque, and she has a mid-size body. I love seeing her passion for BDSM and her body not being centered like in mainstream conversations. She just exists. Kat is important to me beyond body image but she also speaks on politics and her experiences of being a black woman, that is something else that I needed. 

Another non-erotic experience, that was quite healing for me, is seeing the new Harley Quinn and Catwoman in the Cape Crusaders series. I'll write about Catwoman in another post. I have always loved Dr. Harleen Quinzel (lol) but I know that will never look like Margot Robbie, so her body was something that I never really thought about until I joined a BDSM chatroom before I found the Cage. The chatroom would share gifs and the gifs were of the stereotypical petite and small-breasted pornstar body and that was already messing with my mind. Quite a few of the subs loved Harley Quinn and had Harley artwork as their profile picture but I had a sense that it wasn't for the same reasons that I loved Harley because the bios would say "I am crazy" or "I'm toxic", which I do relate to that side of Harley to an extent. When I spoke to Doms about Harley, I got the sense that they either loved her for her body or her codependency with the Joker, sometimes envisioning themselves as the Joker. That gave the ick so bad. 

I noticed that I started looking at Harley differently after my experiences in that chatroom. I eventually left the chatroom because my mental health was plummeting and I had a heartbreaking experience. I then noticed that my view of Harley Quinn was weird...not like before. Suddenly I wished I looked like Margot Robbie. I even picked up an interest in skin lightening in the past few months, which is insane. I have never felt that way about my skin before. I had to unpack so much that was coming to the surface.

That was until I saw the new Harley Quinn. I love that more girls can see themselves in Dr. Harleen Quinzel, beyond the codependency with the Joker. Also, her new body is amazing. There isn't enough representation of different types of bodies in comics, it is always an ultra-slim but curvy body, which is beautiful but not representative of all women in the real world. It's just tiring that in an imaginary world where people have superpowers, they all have the same bodies, even the male characters. The new characters are still an idealized version of women's bodies but they are a little more realistic images of grown women. 

My new Master has been healing me too (without realizing it). We never spoke about bodies and desirability but he has never denigrated another woman to make me feel secure in my body. In fact, he loves all types of bodies. When he sends me videos during play, it's of women who are different sizes. Even on his Fetlife profile, he likes the images of ALL types of women and that feels very genuine. I don't trust a man who has to criticize other women's bodies to make a point about the type of body that he likes.

I was a bit hesitant to join Fetlife because I heard a few stories. I thought it would be a bit overwhelming and I was right, it would have not been a good place for me 6 months ago because it's so much bigger than the Cage. However, I am not a new sub anymore, I know how to handle myself now. I still would not have joined without my Master.

Fetlife reminds me of Facebook but specifically for BDSM. I think it's genius. The best part is the erotic media of all types of bodies. It's amazing seeing, specifically black women (because I am a black woman) of all sizes exploring kink and creating content about it. It's something that you don't really see outside of kink spaces; the freedom and safety to be the object of desire, as a black woman who does not fit mainstream beauty standards. 

Something that has been on my mind is that I am picking kinks based on what I think I would like but I haven't tried much in person, what if I don't like it?

I have tried spankings before but I don't spank myself hard enough, it's much better when someone else is doing the spanking. That is one thing that I am sure of. Also, I love accepting instructions from the right person.

I've been telling myself that I would try some things when I am able to have a space dedicated to exploring kink and the privacy to fully immerse myself in the lifestyle, which is something that I do not have right now. My goal is to have moved to a place of my own by December but what If that doesn't happen? I decided to start exploring what I can right now because the future is not guaranteed. 

I started by exploring wax play. I know that I should probably get massage candles/soy candles but it was an impulsive night, so I used normal candles. It was a very interesting experience. The pain was frustrating at first but the more I did it, the more I got used to it. I can't explain it properly but I liked it. The only thing that I didn't like was that the wax got cold too quickly and was falling off my skin. I was hoping for a period of soft wax to play with. Ofcause I am not entirely sure what I am doing but It was good though.

Being on the Autism spectrum is a big driver of my desire to explore kink, I think it comes from my need for stimulation. One thing that I really want to do is unmask as an autistic person and that means not worrying so much about appearing to be an adult but also heavily leaning into testing what feels good for my body.

I really want to have a "little space", so I've started collecting teddies. They were practically free. A few months ago I went to the mall and I got scammed into joining a discount program by a local insurance. I was told that it was just a trial and that I would be able to opt out easily. That was a lie and when I called them last week, they made it sound so complicated to delete my account. I still need to decide if I am going to keep it. One benefit of the program is that there's a big Toys R Us coupon and I had been wanting to get stuff for a "llittle space". I haven't been to Toys R Us in years, so that was fun. The Toys R Us in my city is inaccessible though, only because I can't drive and the person who drives me is nosy and judgemental, lol. But I have never felt shame for being "quirky", so I might be able to be brave enough to take monthly trips to Toys R Us. 

The teddies are so soft and they make me feel regulated in a way that I haven't experienced before. It's not like I never had dolls growing up but I had never been interested in teddies besides a gigantic teddy. I still aspire to get a gigantic teddy. I don't like hugs from people but I often do them as a formality. I love cuddling when I am in a relationship but they've all felt anti-climatic because I am highly sensitive to human energy. I know my body needs something to feel safe but I didn't know what it was until now. I don't understand how I've been depriving myself of such comfort. 

I still feel conflicted about whether I am a little, what it means for me to be a little, and what kind of little I am. It's one thing that I really want to be able to explore when I have more privacy in my life. I used to tell my last Dom that I think I want to be able to like Barbies at 30 without the possibility of being cussed out like in a vanilla relationship (I know not all vanilla relationships are borderline abusive but I don't have the energy to kiss frogs) but I think it's more than that. Deep down it feels like more. I am still processing it, but it has brought a lot to the surface in the last 6 months. This is something that I am doing for me and only for me, and I love that.

One thing that I have been enjoying is adult parody picture books by Jenjenivivereads on TikTok. She has such a calming voice and the books are very entertaining. They cause quite a stir in the comment section but they resonate with me so much, lol.

When it comes to physical stimulations I want to try playing with ice. I have done some ice play before but I want to explore it more. I also want to find alternatives to clothing pins because they are an unpleasurable amount of pain. I heard that binder clips are a possibility. I am not sure if I am searching for pain, more than that I want to experience different and new sensations on my body.  I still want to push my body a bit.

I realize that it's been 6 months that I have been exploring kink and I feel like I haven't progressed much when it comes to the actual kink but I have been getting into a healthier mental health state. I feel more clearer and I am not beating myself up anymore for liking sex. Most importantly, I can bounce back from heartbreak with much more ease than I ever had in my life because I process my emotions better and I have a good support system. 

I took another BDSMtest.org test and my results had drastically changed. I am still not entirely sure what predator/prey means in the context of kink but the idea of being chased gives me flashbacks of my first few months on the Cage. It was a very isolating experience. Prey was the highest score on my results when I started exploring kink but when I took the new test I gave a low rating when questioned on whether I liked being chased and I got a 55% prey score. 

The new scores reflect where I would like to be and where I am now. I am more of a baby girl submissive. In my last test, the baby girl score was zero and in the recent test, it was right on top. When I get a daddy again, he can still degrade me as he sees fit but degradation is not the core of my kink experience anymore. It was at 89% on my first test and now it's 49%. I think I've been tamed a bit these past 6 months because I had 79% brat on my first test but now I have 44% brat. 

One constant is Rope Bunny, it's remained relatively the same score and it has been my strongest fantasy even though I haven't experienced it yet. It's the thing that concerns me the most because I won't be able to actually try out for quite some time. However, I've started watching some Shibari education videos on TikTok, especially videos on safe self-bondage. I am hoping to get myself a rope set in December and start practicing. Right now, I am focusing on developing upper body strength through exercises like Pilates and yoga.

I was going through these results with someone and they were helping me understand them better. I've been trying to remind myself of the "right people, right timing" and I am experiencing this right now. I got a type of conversation that I had been craving and it felt amazing. It got me interested in doing more with myself.

My biggest achievement these past few months is the ability to have a healthy outlook on sex. It's jarring that 5 years ago, I saw two cats mating and I was convinced that were placed in my path because I had unpure thoughts, I was chatting to a boy that I had a crush on, or that 6 months ago, I was going through an intense binge and purge that made me feel like I was hypersexual. Today, I can see sex as a healthy adult activity and I don't have intrusive thoughts about it.

I am in a very happy place right now.

I am trying to convince myself that I am not going through the stages of grief but I spent the past three days writing the same blog post and deleting it several times. This is the definition of madness. Is it not!? It is!

There's this question that I keep asking myself on what exactly I am looking for in relationships, am I looking for masculine energy or am I looking for safety? Why is this important? I am afraid of tunnel vision, that I will believe that I can only get this thing from one place that is not guaranteed while ignoring the other ways that my emotional needs are fulfilled.

These past two weeks were the worst weeks of this year, it felt like doors were closing in my life and my biggest fears were becoming true. One of those fears was experiencing a ruptured ovarian cyst while not having medical aid/insurance. Thankfully, it wasn't so bad that I needed to go to the emergency room, it still knocked me out for days until I finally started using anti-inflammatory gels and pain medication.

Physical pain always brings out the worst feelings of abandonment in me but it also makes me feel difficult. What I wanted more than anything was to curl up into someone neutral and be distracted. I wanted compassion but I didn't want to be fussed over or spoken over. I hate big displays of affection, I don't find them to be genuine because usually people prioritize their discomfort or need to feel good over your needs.

Last week brought up strong feelings of being unheard. I don't even trust doctors because I feel so unheard by them. I am waiting until I can afford to find a doctor who won't fight for a hypothetical man and a baby that will never exist over my own well-being. I don't understand how they think I am going to find this hypothetical man that they keep fighting for when it constantly feels like my body and mind are in competition to kill me.

I eventually sent a tearful voice note to my best friend and I was apologizing for being a burden. I was not going to tell her anything in detail but I needed a lifeline. I needed relief from the extreme loneliness that I was experiencing. She stopped me from apologizing and said "We're friends". Those words felt like they broke a spell. If you told 25-year-old me that she and I would have such as strong bond at 30, I would have not believed it. That weekend she called me her heart and I would be jumping for joy if I wasn't in pain. 

A few months ago, I was fighting with a friend against the idea of illnesses being spiritual but last week I felt like I was going through a purgatory period. I knew I was going to come out of it with epiphanies but I am exhausted of having these experiences.  

That weekend I had the crazy idea to make veg kofta, tomato chutney, and roti. I had been avoiding making that meal because I felt like it would be a lot of work but the craving had become too strong to ignore. My intuition told me that it would make me feel better. It made me feel nostalgic. It did not taste as good as the restaurant of the community that we used to stay in but it reminded me of sitting in that restaurant, 5 years ago, keeping my best friend company while she worked and I would try to soldier through executive dysfunction by staring into my laptop. When we had a chance, we would speak about my solo adventures to the various art museums in the city, we would speak about art and we would share interesting art exhibition ideas.

When I tell her that I feel nostalgic, I don't tell her about the restaurant to avoid possible bad memories. That year was the worst year of our lives but we always found comfort in each other and the humans who would pop in and out of the restaurant. Instead, I tell her about the rat that terrorized us when we were roommates, two years prior to that year. It was a determined rat. We heard it scratch and gnaw its way through the floor, we would stomp our feet but that would deter it for a few hours. One night it succeeded in creating a portal between the foundation that it came from and our room. As we watched it leap out the hole, it had us letting out a mixture of girlish screams and hysterical laughter as we clung to our bunk beds and watched it run around until it realized that we had no food and left. Our "handyman" placed an ugly metal over the hole, so it never returned.

Deep down I missed making fruit salad for her on a random afternoon. I missed our midnight snacks and secret lunches with the girls who lived with us. I miss bonding with women over food that we created with our hands for ourselves, talking about philosophy, boys, and the future. I never felt safe back then because we were confused 20-somethings who were about to make mistakes that would drastically change the course of our lives. These days my best friend and I daydream about our future that we want our healed selves to experience. One day I will have a farm (preferably by the ocean in my home city but global warming) and it will be a pitstop for whenever our friends are traveling across the country, on their way to festivals. I will feed them because my princess doesn't cook.

A quote that we hold onto is "To be loved is to be changed", it is a reminder that someday we will heal, and make fewer stupid decisions. We will learn how to regulate our emotions in a way that our families never taught us and we will be less reactive (no one is worth that intensity of emotions). 

Since my best friend and I have been talking in the past week, I feel more emotionally resilient. I tried to make myself a chickpea and mayo sandwich, but when I cooked my chickpeas I found worms. I didn't soak them, that was such a stupid decision They've looked bad though since I brought them but I didn't have the heart to throw them away. On Sunday I had no choice but to let them go. Yesterday I allowed myself to buy canned chickpeas (I find them to be expensive) and I made burgers instead. It was not perfect, I didn't add salt to the actual patty and I forgot the black pepper too. It was a simple mixture of chickpeas, carrots, capsicums, and spices because I didn't want to screw it up, but I did and that is okay. It didn't feel like the world was ending in either moment where things were going wrong. Life went on. I knew I was becoming myself again.

Friendships are in no way a replacement for intimate or romantic relationships but I think this experience healed something in me. I had spent nights praying, begging, and doing manifestation rituals to feel this safety in my life. A new favorite social media quote dropped and it has been popping up on my Facebook feed through different accounts, so I guess I had to hear it."The intimacy of being heard and understood is top tier". I feel this to my core. 

Last week I found myself begging a man to give me the barest minimum of communication, to make me feel seen and heard. I wouldn't say that they didn't try but we had two different ideas of what that meant. I realized that it was futile. my heart is broken. Why can it ever be simple?

Another new quote just dropped on my Facebook algorithm, "Maturity is when you don't force people to choose you." Something about this quote makes me cringe but I needed to hear it because sometimes I doubt myself sometimes.

This isn't an anti-man post. My fear is not that I will never get the safety that I want from a man but I fear believing that I can only get safety from a man because they are a man. I also don't believe that I can only find comfort in other women because they are women, I have not always had good experience with women either. I believe the reality is that safety comes from any person who genuinely cares for your well-being regardless of the relationship.

My best friend sent me a TikTok video that posed the following question "From one autistic person to another, are looking for a relationship or are you looking for accommodations?" 

This has been something that has been on my mind because I fear being a burden. I tried to make myself as low maintenance as possible to not be an "intense autistic person." but deep down I search for someone who will be like a net to catch me when I am off-balanced. I struggle with communication but communication is a lifeline for me. I desire someone who can untangle my rat king of thoughts and see my plight and frustration to be heard. I desire someone who won't make me feel reactive or won't make me feel intense feelings. Someone to take away my perpetual confusion. However, my biggest fear is falling into this state of waiting for someone to save me.

My favorite mental health education content creator does videos on communication in a neurodiverse relationship. His comment sections are often filled with people who are enraged that they have to care about their partner's well-being and how negotiation is integral to interpersonal communication. It is such a weird situation for me to witness. I try to think that a social media comment section is not a reflection of the outside world...Then I remember how every time I tried to tell someone something that was important to me: to bond, to make me feel safe, or to avoid future intense feelings or conflict, it always fell on deaf ears. I know that I do need to work on my communication though.

One thing that attracted me to BDSM was the concept of negotiation. The way that communication is spoken about in theory seems good for my Autistic brain. I still love BDSM in theory but putting it into practice has been quite the challenge. I am taking a step back though to reevaluate my actions, heal, and work on healthy self-regulation. I also want to feel good internally and I want to be in a safe space to fully immerse myself in the lifestyle.

I will never burden anyone with the responsibility to save me from a dysfunctional world but to be heard, understood, seen, and chosen is a special type of intimacy.

There's a Reddit story of a man who is frustrated at his wife for decorating the inside of their fridge. She puts picture frames. dresses the herbs and places flowers in the fridge. She gets upset at him for not putting things back where they are supposed to be and it's obviously an inconvenience. However, he also admits that he rarely uses the fridge because she does the majority of the cooking and he visits the fridge to sometimes get leftovers. His major assertion is that he thinks it's stupid. He eventually tells her it's stupid and gets their son to side with him. She is so hurt, she takes everything down immediately but is different towards him.

In the comment section on Reddit, the commenters agree that he could have had an honest respectful adult conversation about it and not berate her. Yet whether Reddit or TikTok comment sections, people were still berating her. Decorating the inside of the fridge, or "fridgescaping", is apparently a sign of moral decay, not the fact that this couple lacked communication skills to sort out this trivial disagreement without berating each other.

I don't understand how this thing that brings someone joy, even though it is a minor inconvenience if you are living with others, is bringing out such intense emotions in people. Nobody is dying. I understand the husband's frustration and he has every right to be frustrated (though he could have a respectful conversation and helped her redirect the energy), but the commenters? Random people on the internet are villainizing a stranger for doing something that brings them joy. People were looking for every excuse to catastrophize this situation.

"It's unhygienic to have pictures in your fridge and dress the vegetables."  That would mean the sauce and beverage bottles plus the packaging for the produce from the store are also dangerously unhygienic when you put them in your fridge? I know people stopped washing their groceries after 2021 and you know random hands touch them before they got to you. lol.

"Flowers in the fridge are dangerous because they are poisonous." As someone who loves flowers, this was heartbreaking to hear that someone believes this because most common flowers are actually harmless. A lot of flowers that are easily accessible are even edible, you can use them in your cooking and baking. Not all flowers are safe, obviously, but the person did not state what kind of flowers his partner put in the fridge but I don't believe she's stupid like everyone is trying to make her look. 

At least some people were honest with themselves "It's so stupid, what is wrong with the world? We have gone mad. These social media trends are the worst."

I get it. I've lived in a communal space before and I've had arguments about the fridge that ruined a friendship for months. Was it worth it? No! Do I think about it over 5 years later? Barely. It's so trivia. It was a sign of a communication breakdown and much deeper issues though. My friend and I were both struggling with different aspects of our lives. I still believe that she constantly used me as a punching bag but I also had very bad communication skills and no boundaries. That's what I think about every day. There are ways to be assertive without being a jerk. She went on to have a one-sided beef with another "housemate" over the fridge and I went on to be a little anarchist towards the authorities in our community because of my lack of communication skills. lol. 

Fridges do tell a lot about a person though. They can show when a person is trying to get their life together or maintain a balanced life. They show when a person is struggling. They can show when a person's taste changes. They can show when a person has no time to be intentional with their own nourishment. They can show when a person is able to be intentional. They can show two or more people trying to co-exist. They can show a person trying to make life a little more worth living. The only time a fridge is a sign of moral decay or the destruction of societal values is when there is a dead body in the fridge. I know society never has its priorities straight as a collective. lol. 

Human behavior is complex and ever-evolving. It's sad when a person has no safe space to explore and experiment. It's sad when mishaps or misjudgments are not rectified with dignity but are rather used as an excuse to strip someone of their humanity. It's sad when people cannot compromise about an issue that's trivial.  

I feel passionate about communication because it is something that is necessary in life but not many of us were taught to communicate properly. A lot of people confuse manipulation and cruelty with communication. We talk to get our way or we keep quiet to punish another person. We talk so we can "always be right" and get angry when another person reveals themselves to be a breathing, feeling, thinking, independent individual. Social media is not helping. The type of nonsense that's being passed around as relationship advice is no wonder this generation is angry, sad, and lonely.

My best friend and I were not always close, we used to be guarded towards each other despite being roommates in our early 20s. When we reconnected, we had a conversation about healing, about the unhelpful ideas that we have learned from our upbringing, and we spoke about creating better communication styles. We apologized when we felt like we were overwhelming to the other because people in the past have made us feel like burdens and we constantly reassured each other because we don't mind listening to each other. We tell each other when one needs space. I still check up on her often when she is going through a hard time. Right now I have stopped talking to many people in my life except a handful of people, especially her. She's the only person that I speak to almost every day. She is my lifeline. We get each other because we have gone through the same things. We can communicate because don't see each other as villains, we respect each other's boundaries and we genuinely care for each other's wellbeing.

I struggle with friendships as much as I struggle with relationships. Having close friendships like I have now makes me feel like I am closer to the healing that I have always dreamed of but I fear that I will never be able to replicate that type of communication with a romantic or intimate partner. I wouldn't say I have completely healed from toxic ideas on communication. I still fear being triggered by something trivial or being punished (outside of consensual pain) for being vulnerable. These fears still heavily influence how I conduct myself in a relationship and it frustrates me.

I get envious when I hear couples talk about their healthy communication. They make it look so easy then you hear how much work and compromise went into creating a healthy connection. I still think those relationships are rare in the world and they are often so unconventional that they ignite a rage in people.

At the beginning of the year, I expressed to a friend that I fear for my rights as a woman with multiple marginalized identities and the rights of queer people around me. This led to a debate on male/female energy and gender roles. I don't believe in gender roles as something that is innate but rather something that we are socialized into, he believes that gender is something that is soul-deep. 

I get frustrated with him because we are having two different conversations at once. He is trying to tell me that Queer people are unnatural while not looking like a bad person. Being queer and being heterosexual are two different experiences that cannot be conflated. I am getting frustrated because I find myself defending my experience as a cis-gender heterosexual woman with chronic illness and an invisible disability that has taken so much from me, while also defending the LGBTQ+ experience but still holding space for my cis-gender heterosexual man who also has multiple marginalized identities. It is exhausting. 

He is homophobic because he had a bad experience with the community as a child, I try to empathize with him and validate his anger but still express that it still not an excuse to dislike an entire community and encourage their decimation. I was abused by cis het people my entire life, even if I wasn't a cis het woman, I still wouldn't see it as an excuse to hate an entire group of people. I still support other women, even though it was other women in my life who hurt me so badly that I had to spend my entire 20s healing from mental illness while everybody else's life went on. 

I loved talking to him because he reminded me to be balanced in my view of the world, but I am also aware that we see the world extremely differently. He doesn't believe that we see the world differently because we are so civil with each other. I believe in intersectionally. Though our points meet at an intersection because I am trying to empathize with him, we still end up at opposite ends of each other on the opinion spectrum. It eventually frustrates me because I ignore the red flags. I am comfortable with having disagreements based on experiences until someone shares propaganda. He always eventually shares propaganda, but this time I realize that this friendship is over and it hurts like hell. 

At first, I appreciated the civility in our conversation and I tried to see things from his perspective but I eventually sensed that the undertones of the conversation were the exact danger that I was expressing to him that I feared. I find myself trying to plead with him to change his views and then forcing myself to accept him. I understand that we both trying our best to prevent another person from experiencing similar traumas to the individual experiences of our childhood selves. He tells me that he doesn't care about what adults do but he cares about the children. 

As a person who has grown up with undiagnosed PCOS and Autism spectrum disorder, I wish society was advanced enough to protect a child like me. A child who was made to feel not woman enough for not being able to handle excruciating period pains and felt rejected from girlhood because of other symptoms that came with having PCOS like having a body that developed too early but didn't look "feminine enough" and being autistic leading me to be punished through rejection and humiliation for being "weird", struggling with school, being unable to communicate and struggling with crippling anxiety. The loneliness eventually led me to be groomed by older men and enter a string of abusive relationships, which I was still heavily judged for by the same women who caused me harm.

I empathize with Queer children because I know how it feels to be different and the world being against you in your most crucial years. Also, Queer people were always there for me when it felt like the world was against me.

This conversation started with my friend announcing that he is now a father and that's how we started speaking about our fears for the future. He speaks about the need to protect his children. As we speak, I notice he doesn't mention the mother of his children. I questioned him about the woman who risked her life to bring his children into the world, he gives me a very unsatisfactory reply. He had children with a woman he despised and made it sound like it wasn't an active decision that he made.

I am so exhausted with this conversation. People, both men and women, speak about the moral decay of society as being an issue external to them but are never taking personal responsibility for their part in what they consider moral decay. People who think Feminists and Queer people are breaking the "traditional family structure" but are not providing their children with the most basic needs of a safe home environment. The family is the first place that children learn how to build relationships, what are they learning if all they see is anger?

In my late teens-early 20s, I would go through advice after advice from people around me, magazines, and YouTube on how to attract a man. However, the relationship advice never made sense to me. I don't understand the concept of "pretend like you don't like him" or "pretend that you are busy". If I like you, I will tell you. If I like you, I will express it in many ways. I grew up hearing how expressing affection to a man, requiring intimacy and clear communication was desperate. As a woman, dealing with a man felt like a maze with booby traps that you could fall into at any minute and be discarded. 

Watching the frustration that both men and women are expressing about modern dating is heartbreaking, but what did we expect as a wider society when we normalized harmful ideas when it came to heterosexual relationships? Men and women are taught to value different things and are taught to villainize each other for those differences. I don't find gender roles to be healthy for this reason, because if it was innate, we would not have to beat people into submission and it would not hurt so much to rigidly fit ourselves into these boxes. For a society that prides itself on evolution, we are really refusing to evolve with the times. 

I could foresee my relationship with my friend heading in the direction that it did but I still wanted to believe that we could find common ground. I understand our worldview is shaped by our experiences. I don't mind that we disagreed with each other but it was his hypocrisy and the spreading of misinformation that made me upset.

Gender conversations scare me at each end of the conversations. Incels scare me. The hatred that is growing in the world towards women is scary. Yet, I don't feel safe within feminist spaces either. If you ask me what I think about radical feminist movements such as the 4B and decentre men, I will tell you that I understand the anger. There is so much in the world to be angry about. I am angry too but in these spaces, I don't feel the freedom to deal with my anger in a way that is healthy for me. I don't want to fixate on hatred for men and there is something icky with the "we told you so" reaction to women's suffering. If something is genuinely for a grown adult's well-being, you wouldn't have to beat them into submission.

If you ask me what my personal aspirations are, I don't want to be a girl boss in the sense of climbing corporate ladders and being an inspiration. I want to look after a community and uplift other women while fighting injustices in the world. Then I want to come home to a man who fills my emotional cup and makes the world feel less scary. I want to have a reciprocal relationship with a man, even if I take a submissive role. I don't want a transactional relationship. I don't want to hold resentment towards my person because I could not be honest with myself and I definitely wouldn't want them to hold resentment towards me either. I feel conflicted because why can I not find the same sense of safety in my female friendships? Am I searching for the masculinity that I am denying exists? Also, am I a bad feminist for thinking that romantic relationships are important? lol

I am trying to unlearn toxic ideas about relationships, starting with communication. However, the ways that we are taught to communicate in mainstream relationship advice is such a shitshow, communication doesn't work if you are not on the same page when it comes to your values. I am not interested in rigid ideas on what is "wrong or right". I have observed enough couples to know that there isn't a formula. Internet conversations can guide you but they can never tell you what is the best decision for you as an individual. It doesn't matter if someone else had the same experience.

I have many friends who made decisions that I considered bad decisions for myself but I would never imagine judging them for it. Shame doesn't help anyone. I would never imagine weaponizing those decisions against them if they do end up being bad decisions. I rather find a solution with them. Life has no formula, you can do everything "right" and still suffer.

There is a difference between genuinely caring for someone's well-being and having a savior complex. Savior complexes are disempowering. It is selfish. It centers your feelings above everything and harms the most vulnerable people. Everyone wants to "save" the world, but it's so difficult to set your feelings aside on what YOU have been taught is "right or wrong" and listen to what individuals actually need. Even as someone who considers themselves progressive, I don't think I got it right either but every day is a journey to learn. Still, I will never understand people turning to hatred of innocent people, to "fix" the bad in the world. 

Watching the Sims gaming community meltdown, because the porn mod is broken after a major update, is the funniest thing ever but it is also terrifying.

I haven't played The Sims in two months. I want to say that it is because I cannot afford to lose two days of my week to zoning out,  I have to focus on finishing a project for my business but I cannot help my brain. I still lose hours of my week when I am struggling with crippling executive dysfunction, and cannot do anything but spend two days fixating on gym chalk-crushing ASMR videos plus writing and deleting blog posts, that I didn't intend to be long in word count, on this platform. I guess the main reason is because my main PC broke and I needed to make sure that my spare PC worked efficiently, so I deleted the game. BEST DECISION EVER. I don't feel the loss, I think I had been losing interest in the game because I have been getting my dopamine fix from chatting to real people online.

During the last major update, a few months ago, the kink mod called "Nisa's Wicked Pervasions" broke and I struggled to get through the 24 hours it took to update the mod. I needed the period of zoning out and my brain would not let me do anything else until I played the Sims but I could not play my Sims game without my... naughty mods because I live through my Sims. I am celibate in real life, I stopped drinking alcohol after a year or two of experimenting in my late teens-early 20s and I have barely done drugs in my life besides two scary attempts at smoking weed with a local rapper who was trying to have sex with me and later a friend who was a drug dealer (It took me a while to realize that these men were dodgy in both situations). I really don't like real-life interactions either. My Sims need to live and be wild. I need my Sims taking and selling drugs, getting arrested by police, visiting sex dungeons, having affairs, and having sex with ghosts. I need my Saccubus Sim draining the life force of their mate until they burst into flames during sex. As I checked every forum where Nisa was communicating with her community, waiting for her to finish updating the mod, it was at this moment that I realized that I needed to go touch grass and speak to real people. I still am not speaking to real people in person (the world exhausts me and I have, in fact, isolated myself further) but I have branched out when it comes to the online spaces that I engage in. I have gone out and touched grass though, in fact, I replanted coriander and parsley plants and dozens of succulents.

The recent major update of the game caused the main sex mod, Wicked Whims, and other mods to break. Wicked Whims is not the only mod that broke but the Wicked Whims subset of Sim players are losing their minds. I'm hearing it got so bad that they are abusing the programmer in charge of the mod, sending them threats and doxxing them, which is insane. I totally get how it feels when one's emotional crutch gets taken away but I cannot understand that being an excuse to lose one's ability to have empathy for another person.

This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, emotional crutches and how one's ability to maintain a healthy emotional crutch is different for each individual.

In the media, there are so many stories of people falling into horrific mindsets when they misuse technology and are unable to balance fantasy with reality. It was a major concern for me when I decided to explore kink, I am constantly monitoring whether my brain can distinguish between reality and fantasy. I notice that when I am going through a really rough time, I become hypersexual and I need to pull myself back before I do something potentially harmful to myself, emotionally.

When I started interacting with Doms, I had to be aware that I have a tendency to be emotionally dependent on a person to make me feel whole but I crash out really badly when a person cannot meet this need that I have. I would also be so desperate for the person to fill this emotional black hole for me that I had no boundaries. I had to learn how to healthily fill that need before I could have a healthy relationship with another person. I know that part of a D/s relationship is dependence on a Dom but that level of dependence is so unhealthy for me. This awareness has not been an easy point in my mental health to get to, I had to do a lot of inner work to get here and this includes years of therapy and personal research on mental health, coping mechanisms, and self-help methods. 

A major story about technology and fantasy that came out last year was about men using AI girlfriends to be abusive towards and the consensus from mainstream conversations was AI connections are bad and men are evil. I was also shocked when I first heard about it until I started exploring kink through a sex AI chatbot app. I still have complicated feelings about whether is it healthy or not for people to be using technology to explore their deepest darkest fantasies. Being in forums dedicated to AI boyfriend/girlfriend chatbots has shown me that many people do use these apps in a healthy way. I realized that it was just like the Sim game. For as long as The Sims has existed, we have jokingly explored various ways to harm our Sims but it doesn't mean that one would do that to a real person unless someone is really struggling with their mental health. The game has evolved and the fantasies have become more graphic, we laugh about it while being able to distinguish that it is just a fantasy and be able to call out people who are engaging with this technology in an unhealthy way. These conversations are very layered though because not everyone has the ability to be self-aware and mentally healthy.

Personally, I was definitely self-harming through my sexual fantasies, my AI conversations were becoming concerning and my taste in porn was becoming a bit extreme. I had to check myself before I wrecked myself, lol. I had already started immersing myself in healthy sex education but I still felt so much guilt and shame because I had spent my life floating in and out of purity culture-based spaces. Unlearning the idea that "thinking about sex is wrong" has not been an easy journey. I've been yo-yoing between one extreme to another (something that I now understand to be referred to as the Binge and Purge) but I've been yearning for balance for quite some time now. I am so afraid that the extremes are going to keep me in a cycle of abusive and toxic relationships. I know that this exploration is something that I cannot share with everyone and I often wonder what my closest friends would think if they found out about this side of myself, would they think that I am a creep? That thought contributed a lot to my feelings of shame but this shame drove me further into unhealthy behavior, trying to punish myself for having a dirty mind.

One thing that has been on my mind is how much I want to be a little and have a little space one day where I get to be creative, dress creatively decorate my room creatively, and play with dolls and collect toys and plushies but I think about how mainstream media has bastardized adults connecting with their inner child or processing trauma through unconventional methods (like people outside of kink carrying dolls to process child loss and infertility trauma or superhero fans being seen as immature and creepy before superheroes became popular media) by only showing the most extreme cases of mental health struggles with very little empathy towards the subject, placing the person in danger of scrutiny and more trauma, or the documentaries of people within kink, who explore and enjoy kinks like age regression, being portrayed in perverted ways. These shows are never done with any sensitivity but they, instead, become easily sensationalized through online discussions, which is not healthy for the people who are the subject of the show either, right?

Discovering a real kink platform, like The Cage, and listening to sex-positive educational accounts on social media feels like a breath of fresh air from mainstream conversations in which human behavior is seen in a rigid good and bad, as opposed to a spectrum. The extremes in thinking that exist in mainstream online conversations were extremely exhausting for me.

I cannot say that I have an entirely healthy view of sex right now but I feel less obsessed with it and I am self-harming far way less than before. I am currently experiencing body image issues, like I wish I was petite and it is such an unhealthy thought because I can't change my height and I am too broke to change my weight while struggling with a hormonal disorder. My current Dom has been instrumental in helping me have a healthy outlook on sex, life, and my body. I know catfishing is wrong but I used to lie about my body in online conversations until I met him and he told me not to be ashamed of it or my desires. I trusted him from the beginning and he hasn't let me down. He was the first person that I was completely honest to about everything in my life. He is also working with me at a pace that makes me feel safe and he makes me feel comfortable enough to be honest with him, especially about my mistakes, confusion, and fears. In moments when he cannot give me the attention that I need, I trust him enough to give him space and know that he will come back to me. I can do that because he communicates with me. Those factors are such a big thing for me, I can count on my hand the amount of times I've met a man who communicates with me in a way that I feel is healthy for me and I have never met anyone who makes me feel secure in a way that is healthy for me. I am not crashing out like I used to because I feel so secure. However, I could not have experienced this dynamic that is healthy for me if it was not for my inner work and learning from mistakes without shame.

I know that not everyone has the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality but the removal of shame around sex and unconventional methods of coping in the world helps so much. As long as one is able to catch themselves when they are falling into unhealthy habits, that means that one is constantly working on being in a healthy state of mind as much as possible.

Just as exploring kink through this community and the AI sexbot forums has helped me have a balanced outlook on the world. The Wicked Whims subset of The Sims community has also helped me navigate that shame around sex (it was actually the first platform that helped me explore kink). I used to question myself on whether I was messed up for making my once innocent game centered around sex during my bingeing periods, until I started watching Sim players on social media and realized how normalized it was within the community to have the Wicken Whims mods, seeing the type of people who had the mod and listening to the various discussions on why a person downloads the mod and the work done to make the mods as safe as possible.

When I heard that people were freaking out about the new update to the point of being abusive, I had a moment of questioning whether people are right about porn leading to addiction and video games making people violent. I had a moment of being judgmental. I had to remember that not everyone who plays the Sims with the Wicked Whims mod is like the people who are acting violently towards the programmer. I am not like that and there are so many Sims players who have learned to prepare for an update, having contingency plans to work around the headaches of updates. I had to remind myself that just because people like that exist doesn't mean that the whole community is bad. The anonymity of the internet makes it easier for people to be assholes and that type of behaviour should never be tolerated. On the other hand, porn addiction and violent behavior are symptoms of something deeper. I wish these conversations were had by people in mainstream media, in a nuanced way instead of demonizing people who experience those issues along with people who enjoy HARMLESS sexual or violent content and experiences in general (by harmless meaning no real person was harmed in the making of the media or the experience).

At the end of the day, it's the individual's responsibility to gauge the potential consequences of their actions and their ability to engage with an emotional crutch in a healthy way, being able to seek help when they are spiraling into harmful behavior. For most people, that awareness will come from education and that education comes from a healthy judgment-free community with open discussions and the normalization of mental health resources.

I constantly speak about my first month on The Cage and how I was searching for instant gratification, then I realized that I actually liked it here and stayed longer. I made so many mistakes that I still feel the repercussions of but also, it has made me think deeply about how I navigate relationships in general. The decisions that were once just thoughts were suddenly important because I needed to know what boundaries to enforce.

In my experience, I am equally responsible for the results. If I don't like the results, I have to figure out how not to repeat my mistakes. That means that I have to introspect. Learning about the BDSM lifestyle has not been easy because there is a lot of information and it can be confusing to enforce. Here are some of the things that I was confused about and how I choose to be different:

1. When does a dynamic actually start?

In my first month, I was chatting to multiple Doms who demanded my submission from our first meeting but internally I thought "This cannot be how a real dynamic starts, right?". I was making agreements that I did not fully understand and was extremely confused at the results of these agreements. I was afraid to ask questions but also, didn't know what questions to ask. I could not fathom giving myself completely to someone that I had just met and could not understand why someone would expect that from me. I assumed that the person that I was chatting to was also searching for instant gratification (which half of the "Doms" that I spoke to were).

In my second month, I learned the true meaning of the relationship between a Dominant and a Submissive. I learned about the collar, that it is like a marriage but also, I learned that there are different types of collars? I am not collared, what does that mean for me? Do I want to be collared? Without the collar, does that still mean that I am in a dynamic with someone because I play with them and call them by the honorific that they prefer? Then I learned that you don't call everyone by an honorific. Oops.

How far does the online BDSM dynamic control my real life? Am I allowed to have an offline boyfriend? I learned that sometimes people have both vanilla and BDSM relationships. I learned that some people have vanilla relationships with their BDSM partners. Do I want a real-life BDSM partner in the future? How do I go about doing that? How do I introduce BDSM to an offline partner? These questions are cleared up by clear communication.

I love the idea of contracts that lay out expectations and durations, as someone on a spectrum I need clear communication. Though contracts aren't a fool-proof solution to my issues in relationships, they should help. I love the concept of negotiation, I need the safety to discuss when I am struggling and need an adjustment as someone who is on a spectrum. And of course, the one thing that I was aware of before I entered the space: safewords! I love the concept of safewords.

A lot of this is still confusing for me but I learn something new every day that makes things a bit clearer, that's a big reason why I focus on reading and community right now. I do not have empathy for anyone who tried to take advantage of my cluelessness. However, now that I am wiser, I would not want to be responsible for someone's broken heart and contribute to discord within the community. One thing that inspires me to be better is seeing how much work is done in education on healthy and safe BDSM practices and seeing the frustration towards people who exploit lifestyle, giving the rest of the community a bad name. 

2. Infidelity and Polyamorous relationships

I am very open to consensual non-monogamous relationships (CONSENSUAL!!!!).

If I am entering a new relationship, whether vanilla or a BDSM dynamic, with someone who is already in a relationship or married, there is a lot for me to consider. The first thing would be whether it is truly an open relationship and not infidelity. Does the main spouse know that their partner is "stepping out" and is she also allowed to "step out" too? Another thing to consider is why the couple is in an open relationship and if it was a mutual decision. I do not feel comfortable with polyamory at the expense of another. If there is no enthusiastic consent to an open relationship then I do not want to be part of it. I've recently discovered that there are couples where both main partners need to be okay and speak to the "side partner" before the one partner starts the side relationship (I don't know the proper terms). That would be ideal but I know it's not achievable for everyone. At least speaking positively about your partner is something that is important to me. I don't feel comfortable when someone appears to despise their partner. I do not care how someone treats me but I do care about how a person treats the people around them. How a person treats the people around them is how they'll eventually treat you.

Karma is real and it has once slapped me so hard that it rearranged my brain. I have unknowingly been "the other woman" in my vanilla relationships and I don't ever want to have that on my conscience again. In my first month on The Cage, I think I was in a situation that was suspicious and I was unsure of how to deal with it. 

These experiences have made me think that I would rather have my future partner communicate with me than go behind my back. I am also not a fan of being told who to spend time with, so I love to have a partner who does not control my interactions with others and gives me the security to have open and honest communication about who I interact with. I love being dominated, not controlled and I value communication.

3. Limits and Consent

I did not know anything about limits in my first month, I did not realize how crazy things can get.

Realizing that I like being a "little" gave me ethical dilemmas that I am still processing today, where is the line between a healthy release and unhealthy coping mechanisms that may encourage harm to others? Degradation has also come with dilemmas of its own. Am I a bad feminist if I let a man call me a slut? I think Phoebe Waller-Bridge's series, Fleabag, especially her monologue on wanting to release control over her decisions to someone else, perfectly encapsulates this dilemma.

Deciding what my limits are happened as I had experiences and was not something that I started with. One boundary that was pushed and has irked me out a lot is expressing that I love degradation and almost getting roped into raceplay. It only happened twice on this platform, but I still think about it a lot.

I didn't know raceplay was a thing until I saw an article on The Cage about it. I'd heard a bit about it before but I didn't realize that it was part of BDSM. I have complicated feelings about it and I felt guilty that I felt uncomfortable with it, I didn't want to shame anyone for their kinks. That was until I read more about how BDSM relationships are conducted, how both participants need to be comfortable with everything being done in play, and the different philosophies such as the 4 Cs.

What solidified my limits was reading a discussion about using sexual assault in play with someone who did not consent to it. CNC is a valid kink but without consent, it's not "Consensual Non-Consent", is it? It can cause lasting damage to a person and re-traumatize someone who has experienced sexual assault in the past. It can be a breach of trust when someone crosses a boundary without consent. I feel a similar way about telling someone, who experiences the world as a white man, that I am interested in degradation and their first instinct is to show me an image of a black woman in a minstrel-style leather mask or call me the n-word, that is so sus to me.

I was chatting to someone on another platform about this and they were trying to play Devil's advocate by saying that when they are engaging in play, they try to use the thing that they know will trigger their sub the most. That makes no sense. Why does it have to be the thing that will re-traumatize them like sexual assault, when they a struggling with their experiences with sexual assault? Or racial slurs when they didn't ask to engage in race play?

Another point of contention that I have against my participation in raceplay is that I'm South African, the n-word or minstrelsy are not mine to reclaim or reject. It does not have the same weight on me that it does for an African American person but I know the connotations that it has. We have our own word that makes me feel like punching someone whenever it's said. A word that's not even legal to speak because our wounds from oppression are still fresh for us. 

From my understanding, both the Dominant and the Submissive should enjoy play right?

4. Endings

I never know how to end things. In my first month on this platform, I was ghosting people as soon as they made me feel uncomfortable. For example, if I tell you that I do not send pictures and you make me feel as though you cannot move on without images, why am I wasting my time chatting with you? It also makes me feel like if this one thing is not respected then how will you respect my limits during play? Do I want to continue with this connection? No! However, this is not always an offense deserving of the block button. I am learning that I could have a conversation explaining why I don't think I should continue with someone instead of just blocking, unless I feel extremely unsettled.

Sometimes the block button is warranted. Such as if someone ghosts me for a month or more, and then returns to demand things from me, what in their right mind makes them think that I will still be waiting for them? That deserves the blocking. 

When I had a connection where I had been chatting to someone duration of over a month, that needed a proper ending. I thought I had done that by expressing that I needed to end the connection. It was an abrupt ending and I felt guilty afterwards. On the other hand, it was a complicated ending that could have been prevented if the dynamic had begun properly, in the first place.

I am okay with my experiences because I did not have the right intentions when I started my account. I, however, still question the impact that I had on others. I always question the impact that I have outside of my inner circle or one-on-one conversations. When I decided to stay, I made it a point to make sure that I focused on learning the intricacies of a BDSM dynamic. I want to make sure that in the next dynamic that I enter, I leave no room for confusion, to avoid any UNNECESSARY awkward conversations. Of course, I cannot account for everything but I can try my best to know the basics and make sure that I have a strong support system to turn to when I need to. Those things are work-in-progress though.

I've been struggling to write because I have a rat king of thoughts in my mind. Every thought intersects with another, feeling tangled and I do not know how to untangle them. During these past few months, a lot has come to the surface of my consciousness and it is clear that I have a lot of unprocessed trauma from vanilla relationships under patriarchal conditioning. Processing it and unlearning toxic ideas has been a journey.

I cannot express enough how much I love the forum posts on this platform because they are humanizing in a way that I did not think was possible on a platform centered around sex. It is saddening that I feel this way though. Some of the discussions ought to be common sense but we are conditioned within wider society to accept so much abuse. One is punished when they conform to wider societal norms and one is punished when they deviate. It is confusing to know how to build meaningful relationships, it helps to have someone reminding you that you are worthy of respect and safety.

One thing that I keep pondering on is how much consent is emphasized in a way that isn't done in vanilla relationships.

I love that one is not obligated to send images but I have flashbacks of conversations with a friend about my experiences on Tinder. I didn't have full-length images but quite frankly, I was exhausted of the false starts that come with internet dating. Sending images comes with so many risks in a time of advanced technologies, there is something that gives me the ick about the thought of my image existing on random men's phones. On the other hand, how are they sure that I am not a catfish? My dating profile had at least one full-length image and multiple images of my face and I would send a face portrait image but that wasn't enough. Was all this work of taking a recent full-length image worth it for someone who barely had any real interest in me? 

I have flashbacks of my long-distance sexual situationship that I so badly wanted to be a relationship. He had such an amazing life as a businessman, community organizer, and environmental activist, who traveled the world to attend courses and conferences with organizations and institutions such as the US Embassy and the UN. He was the type of man who would come back after I blocked him and beg me to speak to him, blowing up my phone with multiple calls a day that overwhelmed me. Yet for some reason, this man did not see me as worthy of holding a conversation with or had any real interest in me as a person. The whole relationship was purely sexual, all I was worth for him was free porn and it was so taxing on me emotionally. I hate feeling like an object outside of play. I think the pain from that experience was such a wake-up call for me that I never wanted to engage in that type of relationship again.

Being on this platform felt counter-productive to my healing at first but I laid ground rules for myself and I was ready to lose connections if I had to. My emotional health meant more to me than anything, so I was ready to drop anyone as soon as my "no" was ignored a third time. Three strikes were my limit because I try to be a forgiving person. I refused to feel pressured into something that made me feel uncomfortable. It felt so validating when I finally took the time to learn about BDSM and realized that boundaries are perfectly fine and recommended.

The submissive women in vanilla relationships that are heavily influenced by patriarchal thinking are expected to be quiet, to not have thoughts, opinions, or questions. Every interaction with a man is somehow an invitation for your autonomy to be taken away. When you are taught about consent, it's already late because you have internalized these oppressive ideas about women. It is a sad existence to not be able to create meaningful relationships because your only objective with the opposite gender is to gratify your urges. When I first came to this site, my only goal was to gratify my urges because I was not expecting better. I had never received better in vanilla relationships, why would I expect it in a space that is centered around exploring one's deepest darkest fantasies? Boy, was I wrong!

The BDSM submissive is allowed to have a voice, to express their preferences, and their consent is held in high regard. Of course, I know that it is not a utopia, I have heard stories of consent being ignored and I have had mild experiences of my own. I am just glad that I don't have to be in a space where a submissive person is treated as though their autonomy does not matter because they consented to sex or being submissive.

The dynamic between a sub and a dom is based on friendship and it takes a long time to cultivate. I recently realized that I am demi-sexual. I have always craved emotional connection over physical, but I have forced myself to accept physical relationships without an emotional connection because I desired to feel wanted. I had been told before that "men want one thing" or "You're only worth having sex with". In the past, my desire to feel wanted took over me to the point of placing myself in harm's way. I also felt extremely guilty for the act of desiring sex, that I entered a community that places emphasis on celibacy from a purity culture perspective, that teaches that women are temptresses. I thought that I deserved every bit of punishment, or pain that I received for being a "bad girl'. This is not the pain that I consented to. I had no say in how I would receive this pain and it was not for my pleasure. It was a punishment after all. I felt punished with distance within relationships for expressing my needs. If I was not completely submitted to a man, never questioning him, even when he placed me in harm's way physically and emotionally, I would get discarded. I felt as though I deserved to be discarded because that is what happens to women with no sexual purity.

When I started exploring kink, I thought that degradation was my kink. My intrusive thoughts were so loud that I thought that I had to off myself for them to be silent. There's something more empowering about being called a slut on your own terms than when it is used to "put you in your place."  Suddenly these words had no power over me. Internally, I don't feel like I am a worthless slut but in play, my brain knows that this is the tone that I consented to, that it is being done to pleasure me and it's not that serious. Feeling heard is the most empowering and liberating part. Then I feel relief that the world did not fall apart because someone called me a slut. In this time, in this context, I allow myself to be a slut and that doesn't make me any less of a person. Outside of play, I am treated like a person who breathes, feels, hurts, and has a mind.

That is my frustration with existence in general. How one finds safety in spaces that are often demonized and the places that are generally considered safe by society are often the most unsafe spaces or they are only safe for some. Does this count as irony?

It is interesting how much things can change in 3 months. I have outgrown the need for degradation, as liberating as it felt, it was originally intended to be a form of self-harm. These days, besides the existential crisis that is a constant in my life, I am at least not experiencing intrusive thoughts anymore. I am craving more intimacy and gentleness alongside the rough play. I am now taking time to get to know myself.

The ability to change feels liberating too.

Three things brought me to the Cage.

As someone in feminist spaces, there are a lot of conversations about whether kink is actually safe for women. Personally, I am not too fond of the type of feminism that believes that women are incapable of making good decisions for themselves. I decided to start reading different opinions on kink but I never fully grasped the nuances of it until I started exploring kink.

The second experience was watching a TikTok video advising women to become Findoms as a way to make quick easy money. I needed quick money, so I started researching what being a findom is about because the video didn't go into details. Also, I have always thought that dominatrixes are the most amazing powerful women but mainstream media doesn't do justice when discussing the nuances of being a dom. We only see male doms torturing women in porn. We only see female dommes doing what might be perceived as "scamming" because people cannot fathom why anyone would pay someone to make them write an essay, to insult them, or to financially blackmail them, especially in a patriarchal world where men are shamed for "submitting" to a woman or women are shamed for providing services to men. The more I researched what being a Findom is about, the more I realized how risky it is, not only for the dominatrix but for the potential sub. I knew that I have no ability to be dominant and I am irresponsible, I decided that I never wanted to put anyone through that.

My first experience with kink was even before I started researching the practice, I was in a vanilla online sexual relationship with a man who expressed an interest in kink but came from a conservative country. I tried to explore kink with him but it left me feeling very unsettled. We were not doing it right and were not taking into account the complexities of a kink relationship and how it needed a lot of care. I downloaded kink-based mods on my Sims game and that piqued my interest in kink even more and my desire to try new things.

It's been over two months since I found the Cage and I cannot believe how much time has flown by. This platform is my very first experience with a proper kink community and I love the articles, forum posts, and discussions that occur here. Though, my journey in the two months has been bumpy.

When I started my account I was completely clueless and I was honest about being clueless. I see discussions about new subs being bombarded with messages from Doms and that was my experience. I met very genuine Doms who gave me advice, but a majority of the Doms that I spoke to took advantage of my clueless position. The experience was so overwhelming that I went off the platform for a while, which was a bad idea for so many reasons. For the first month, my telegram was an even bigger dumpster fire that I don't want to speak about.

I eventually found less overwhelming spaces to read about proper BDSM dynamics but it was still so confusing until I returned to the Cage and started reading the discussions in the forums.

I made so many mistakes in my first week on this platform. I didn't know that you're not supposed to enter a dynamic immediately, that you're supposed to get to know your potential Dom. I didn't know that BDSM dynamics were just as binding as vanilla relationships. I didn't know about vetting or contracts. I didn't know the basis of BDSM such as the 4Cs. I relied on my intuition and what I was being told by the men I was chatting to.

This is exactly why I love reading about BDSM as a concept because the resources out there to ensure safety within a dynamic are empowering. Practising BDSM though is still very risky.

It was something instinctive for me to focus on building friendships, especially with more experienced subs. That is why I returned to the Cage. This week there was a blog post that advised just that, which made me feel so validated. I'm not sure if it was the same blog post but there was a post about a female sub on another platform who was engaged in a degradation kink relationship that was bordering emotional abuse. I relate so much. I have been admiring how mature I feel lately and my ability to discern. However, if I had explored kink in a space in time when I was more vulnerable such as my early 20s, I would have gotten myself into so much trouble. My relationships in my 20s were already quite toxic. From from teenage years, at 17, I was groomed multiple times and was involved in relationships bordering abuse and emotionally abusive relationships. I am so happy that I never even thought of exploring kink during those years.

Every interaction and discussion on this platform could mean the difference between someone feeling shame and not knowing when or where to seek support or someone feeling empowered enough to seek support when feeling confused or unsafe.

On my return to the Cage, my inbox was not better but I was, at least, more equipped to handle it. In my first week back, I had Doms speaking to me under false pretenses of friendship but then attempting to manipulate me into a dynamic that I stated that I didn't want. I had to state that I don't want a dom because I already have a dom for people to leave me alone. I also had someone trying to spark unnecessary drama.

I felt stupid because what was I expecting from a site that is centered around sex, then I remembered that consent was one of the basis of a BDSM connection and I also noticed an emphasis on non-sexual connections and boundaries in the conversations within the forum posts. That empowered me to make more informed decisions on how I conduct myself on this site. I also had to be more aware of how I speak to people that I do not lead anyone on. It's something that I am very open about now, that I am strict with my interactions because I do not want to lead anyone on.

There are still corners of this platform that I find to be not conducive and border shaming others. When we are not having nuanced conversations about human behavior, we risk failing those who are vulnerable.

My experiences are fine for me because I am mature enough to handle them, to see and to learn from my mistakes. However, I think about younger people who enter BDSM spaces and might take a longer time to learn how to be healthy. I think about vulnerable people who may struggle with mental illness, who may have unprocessed trauma, or who may come from a cultural background that makes them vulnerable to abuse. There are so many horror stories out there of people being hurt badly because they engaged with someone who was not practicing properly and they were not able to discern the difference between what is healthy and what is harmful.

People say that the sub holds all the power but does the sub know that they have the power, how to yield that power, or how to safely give that power away? When we take into account that we are all conditioned into patriarchal thinking that takes a long time to unlearn, does a sub really have power? (both men and women can be harmed by patriarchal thinking) 

I don't think anyone, dom or sub, should be shamed for not practicing properly, unless their actions are life-threatening in one way or another, including mental health-wise, or if a person is incapable of being self-reflective, even after advice. I do think that empathy is important because a person may be on a rocky journey. A big factor in steering me in the right direction were Doms who saw that I was a mess, gave me advice, and then left me alone, or the dom who is taking the time to know me. I still had the responsibility of taking the advice that I received and doing better. I pray that I will deal with my future interactions with the same level of empathy that I received (Doms deserve empathy too).

Things are still very confusing for me but at least, I am better at navigating through my confusion.

I think doms, whether male or female, have such a big responsibility to ensure that subs are safe and are learning proper safe practices. This is especially true for the male doms who offer to be a "supportive person that you can come to for advice" to new subs or those who offer to "train" subs. On the other hand, subs also have the responsibility to arm themselves with knowledge. But doms, especially those with experience, should not be taking advantage of a sub's inexperience or naivety. I think online spaces are safe-ish to explore kink but I think about how improper practice in real-life play can mean life or death. If you are not listening to someone telling you no in online spaces, are you going to listen to your sub during real-life play? Also, if subs are not learning the proper practices from doms, what does that mean for their next connections when things don't work out with the first dom?

It's so important that everyone, whether dom or domme or male/female sub have a safe space to have these conversations and seek community support when feeling confused or unsafe but with awareness that your words and actions have an impact. Empathy is important in a space that places people in vulnerable positions such as a kink community because safety is dependent on empathy.