Friendship within the Lifestyle

Friendship within the Lifestyle

RoughlyRefined • Mar 12, 2025

Do Friendships within the Lifestyle enrich or threaten your dynamic?

K y i v • Mar 13, 2025

I feel it can be either or. It depends on trust, strength of the parties, but mostly trust that if one partner feels threatened the other partner will protect.

Nahtee E • Mar 13, 2025

Much like with vanilla partnerships, it is still essential to have an identity outside of a dynamic in my opinion. Therefore, friendships should always be encouraged as they are an enrichment to our lives.

MisterAshmodai​(dom male) • Mar 13, 2025

I have always found friendships within the lifestyle to be enriching for all involved. Much like in the vanilla lifestyle, there is the capacity for toxic relationships that hurt the group dynamic and needs be addressed, but also as within the vanilla lifestyle, it is healthy to develop varied and functional connections with other people.

There is a prevalent theme within the kink lifestyle that the concepts of dominance and submission may, ofttimes erroneously, demand limiting certain kinds of friendships in order to fully flesh out their functionality (I.e. an owned sub should not befriend (or in extreme cases, even talk to) other Doms than their own, or vice-versa), but these scenarios are never based on organically healthy expectations, and indicate deeper self-esteem issues that should really be addressed.

NarahPrimal​(sub female) • Mar 13, 2025

I think if they are lifestyle friends and they respect your dynamic if in one and don't try to interfere, and respect your choices and kinks.
I belive friendships are always important to have around you as long as they are healthy

TwinkleEyes​{n/a} • Mar 13, 2025

I agree with many things others have said here. Lifestyle friends respect the building of a new dynamic. Statistics show that if we want a new relationship to last long term then we must give up (aka spending so much of our free time with) a friend or 2 in the beginning in order to build a solid foundation and long-term relationship.

I believe it really is up to the individuals involved in the friendship just like the individuals involved in a dynamic. It can be a negative or positive thing.

I have had situations where kinky friends get jealous and make up things about someone I am interested in. Or have fits because I am choosing to build a dynamic with someone, spending less time with them. Even going as far as trying to dominate me D typing someone. 🙄

I’ve also had a situation where many kinky friends warned me about a bad egg. I ignored them and hid my developing friendship with a kinkster. I was wrong, choosing not to trust them. My safety was jeopardized. It affected some of those friendships in a negative way and it strengthened others.

Most of all, I have several friends who I have had kinky experiences with and dynamics with. I can count on them when I am in a time of need. Or a good laugh. I can also count on them to respect my personal space when I am developing a dynamic with someone. As I respect and love them the same.

As others have said it is old school to show respect to your D type by not having relationships with past partners. That can be born out of jealousy or old school rules concerning respect/safety.

In situations like this it’s good to have open, honest, transparent communication. Starting with yourself about what denotes friendship. Keeping boundaries set for friends who interfere in your dynamic, negatively. And how deep and/or long does one want their dynamic to go. AKA time, effort, respect terms and agreements (including friendships with others).

Trust as said above is a key component along with transparent communication. Both are vitally important when building a dynamic with someone.

Miki​(masochist female) • Mar 14, 2025

All relationships, BDSM or not, can have "just friends" on the outside, provided the relationship / dynamic is on solid footing with good communication and neither one is insecure about it in any way. The green-eyed monster has a habit of popping up in the damnedest places.

Grizzledoldman​(dom male) • Mar 14, 2025

I am going to apologize up front here. I allow myself to get wrapped around the axles with this type of question because I get hung up on definitions.

Relationships, Dynamics, Partnerships, Friends, Friendships, Acquaintences, Vanilla, Kinky. Keeping in mind my maybe odd way of thinking and with all due respect to those whose world is more complex:

I have Friends and Acquaintances. I am in relationships with all of them. My relationships with Acquaintances are very transactional. These are people that I don't invite into my life in any meaningful way and who also don't invite me into their lives in any meaningful way. We may work together on a specific goal or activity that need quick minds, fast work, but does not require anything more than that.

I cannot be a friend to someone and not also be in a Relationship (of some kind) with them. My Friends are a WIDE range of people, people that have invited me into their minds, their hearts, or occasionally into their bodies, or some combination of the 3. I have friends with whom I have enjoyed physical pleasures and desires. I have friends who know my heart but have no knowledge of my body. I have friends who know how I think, but not the depths of why I think the way I do. Just because someone has shared their thoughts and emotions about something with me does not mean we are sharing our bodies. Just because someone has shared their heart with me does not mean we are in a dynamic/partnership/whatevership so there is no need for jealousy.

To answer at the question at hand though. Outline what your relationship with your friend will be. Be honest with yourself and your friend about what that is.

I cannot share the physical, withough also sharing the mental and emotional. But I can share the mental and emotional without sharing the physical.

See here....rambling. But remember that we are all trancendant beings. FAR more than the sum of our parts. Meet acquaintances and chat. Meet Friends and connect.


PS I really am not as uneducated as my poor spelling, bad grammar, and fractured writing structure might suggest.