The Quietly Coercive Nature of "Vanilla" Sex

Sex is a buffet of endless, diverse options - and none of them are required.

I’ve gotten a few really great, conversation-provoking questions about sex & kink in my anonymous Tumblr ask box recently, so I’m taking a moment here to organize all my responses together.

And since I get so many questions about sex, BDSM, cruising, and kink these days, and find discussing these topics so intrinsically rewarding, I’ve decided to make a new feature on my newsletter dedicated to them. I’ve also added navigation links at the very top of the newsletter for other recurring features you’ve probably seen if you’ve been around here for a while, like Autistic Advice and the Research Roundup.

Where you can find the Sex Anarchy feature on the home page.

For now, I’m going to be calling this new feature Sex Anarchy — because I want to advance a lawless, unbound view of sex, freed from oppressive forces such as transphobia, patriarchy, white supremacy, and ableism — but also because I want to free up our notions of what sex and pleasure even are.

Sex can encompass everything from rubbing one’s genitals against a stuffed animal, to writing giantess erotica, to roleplaying a kidnapping scenario with a partner, to watching two other people have sex, to licking someone else’s feet, but you don’t often hear people acknowledge its full breadth. Unconventional forms of sexual expression are so under-discussed that people with unusual kinks and highly specific squicks rarely believe they are “allowed” to just be who they are and pursue what makes them feel good. I spoke with Alayna Joy about this on her excellent podcast Sleeping Around recently:

Even within queer circles, you still routinely see people using incredibly narrow and heteronormative definitions of sex that hinge upon penetration, and assume that orgasms are (or should be) the end goal for all people. Asexual perspectives are still largely ignored by most sex writers, even though we make up a significant portion of the kinky and sexually-active neurodivergent communities, and are constantly contributing novel ways for people to enjoy sex. Very little consideration is given to people for whom sex does not involve physical contact, for whom sexual attraction does not involve human bodies whatsoever, and those with extremely dark, intense, or controversial kinks.

Furthermore, we’re living through a mass resurgence of sex negativity and moral Puritanism that casts everything from masturbating about a friend, to wearing a diaper, to crawling on the floor pretending to be a flirty little kitty cat an irredeemable act of perversion, and people are policing their own imaginations and lashing out at fellow sexual minorities because of it.

The Asexual Fetishist

As an asexual, sexually promiscuous twink with a lifelong fetish for hypnosis, I find that people like me are written out of queer sexual conventions or portrayed as dangerous thought-criminals in just about equal measure — and I see how both practices hurt anybody who finds pleasure in unexpected ways. That’s frankly quite a lot of us, because the standard sexual expectations are bunk!

I think we all need to be liberated from systemic oppression if we’re going to be able to enjoy sex freely and fully, but I also think we also must liberate sex itself from old cultural assumptions and binary expectations. I’m inspired in this work by the terrible abstinence-only sexual education I endured as a teen, the limitations of past generations of queer sex advice columnists like Dan Savage, the amazing writing on asexual erotics by

Ana Valens

, and the numerous friends and partners I have made in the hypnosis, pet play, cruising, and furry communities who have expanded my imagination of what’s possible.

I hope you’ll enjoy this feature, and consider submitting a Sex Lib question either via the comments of this post or using my anonymous Tumblr ask box. My hope is for this feature to become a regular, short-form series delivered more frequently than my usual big essay dumps.

(I also hope to write short, punchy Autistic Advice columns more frequently. I love penning ponderous, citation-dense long reads that run about 5,000 words apiece, but gosh do those suckers tire me out. Quick advice columns about sex & Autism, however, are things I can bang out all day, and enjoy doing so.)

So let’s get into it!

Our first question comes from an anonymous writer who has worked hard to overcome sexual trauma and forge a fulfilling and empowering sex life for themselves — but their interests run a little bit “vanilla,” and they are sick to death of having their supposed sexual boringness disparaged by other queer people.

Anonymous asked:

The word “vanilla” comes up a lot in your writing and it’s always with negative connotations.

I fully accept that my own reactions to it are my responsibility alone and no one is making me feel a certain way. But I do wonder if there are ways to have conversations around sexuality that don’t elevate one kind of sex over another in a demeaning way that make vanilla sex almost a running joke.

As someone with pretty severe sexual trauma history for me even having enjoyable vanilla sex is pushing boundaries. To actually be able to initiate, seek out and enjoy sex of any kind has been challenging.

The increased use and acceptance of vanilla as a derogatory term is unfortunate I think as it invalidates the experiences of many sexual assault survivors and makes it feel like sex is only valid if it’s kinky.

In saying that having lots of friends in the kink/fetish scene I know they’ve fought really hard to not have their sexual preferences demonized. So I do understand. I just wish my preferences weren’t always made out to be boring and dull, and thereby made me boring and dull.

This seems especially prevalent in queer spaces.

Thank you so much for your question, Anon, and for being frank with me about how my comments about “vanilla”-identified people and the notion of obligatory vanilla sex have stuck with you.

I want to start out by just saying that I do not consider people who enjoy penetration, digital stimulation, oral sex, and maybe anal — the sex acts most commonly labeled “vanilla,” though it depends on who you ask — within not-explicitly-kinky scenarios to be boring or lesser than me.

When I complain about vanilla sex, it is nearly always within the context of me complaining about potential partners assuming I am interested in sex acts they mistakenly assume that everybody likes, and the not-so-kinky people lurking within kinky spaces who mistakenly believe that if a person is down to pretend to be a slutty pixie being swallowed by a sentient Venus flytrap, they must also find it enjoyable to get their pussy eaten or to suck on a cock.

You might not believe it from where you’re sitting, Anon, but as a person with super-specific fetishes and a lack of interest in any sex that does not involve those fetishes, I am cajoled, questioned, prodded at, and pushed by other people to engage in the kinds of sex they consider “default” and “boring,” but which I consider traumatic all the fucking time. It turns out that if you like especially wild or taboo sex, people assume that you just love sex, and all kinds of it, and that they are entitled to do with your body just about anything they want.

There’s a saying that gets passed around in kinky spaces sometimes: some people are into kink for the kink, and some people are into kink for the improv. I would add a third category: some people are “into” kink for the sex, and believe that joining kinky communities will make a massive stable of easy and unscrupulous partners available to them.

After many years spent chasing my fantasies and negotiating my boundaries, I have finally learned some of the red flags that signal a person might not actually care to create a mutually enjoyable, unique sexual encounter and instead only wants to use the language and aesthetics of kink as a bit of disposable set dressing before they get right ahead to the sex they actually want. And the term that most effectively distinguishes this category of opportunistic kinksters from their truly down-and-dirty perverts that I seek is vanilla. If I tell a devoted kinkster or fetishist that I am not down for any vanilla sex whatsoever, they immediately understand; when I utter those same words to someone who’s mainly looking for sex, little equations start floating above their head they’re unable to solve.

It has been damn hard for me to arrive at my current state of assertiveness. I felt that I was an impossibly picky, ungenerous lover for ever turning down sex acts that made me wretch for a very long time. And I am so happy that today I can entertain kinky sexual partners only and feel free to turn down the sex that society regards as so neutral, harmless, and obligatory it has been labeled “vanilla.”

I think one of the biggest problems in how people conceive of diverse sexualities is by attempting to place all sex acts upon a single hierarchy from "extremely kinky" to "tame." Under this framework, activities like PIV and oral are viewed as neutral precursors to the racier and more extreme forms of sex that a person must "work themselves up" to -- and this obscures that those supposedly neutral sexual activities can be both incredibly exciting & fulfilling to some, and downright disturbing or traumatizing to others.

I will hereafter be referring to this belief system as the Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase Model — and I believe that queer people, straight people, kinky people, hard-core fetishists, trauma survivors, and the supposedly “vanilla” alike are all shortchanged by it.

A chart of a staircase depicting supposedly “vanilla” sex acts like making our and PIV sex on the bottom, with increasingly “racier” activities like roleplay, blindfolds, Dominance/submission, and taboo kinks more toward the top.

The Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase presupposes that all sexually active people have the exact same hierarchy of preferences: for example, that sexual encounters involving bondage are always more extreme that sex where bodies can move freely. But for a person whose body desperately craves pressure and stabilization, that just isn’t true — we may feel unmoored and downright uncomfortable during bondage-free sex, and relax only when we are bound.

Similarly, the Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase cannot fathom that there are cis women who prefer anal to vaginal sex, cis men who loathe blowjobs, pleasure tops who take no interest in their own sexual gratification whatsoever, and millions of other people who only select a handful of very specific sex acts from the great buffet that is life, leaving behind all the rest no matter how “tame” they might seem.

According to the Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase Model, boundaries can only be drawn hierarchically: you can only say no thanks forever to sexual acts that are more “extreme” and higher up on the staircase than the ones you’ve already engaged in. This means that kinky people often feel coerced into sexual acts that do absolutely nothing for them, and non-kinky people are expected to like anything and everything that their social group considers to be ‘standard’ sex.

For straight people living in the middle of the twentieth century, oral and anal sex were unspeakably outré; today, among younger straights, they’re very mainstream sex acts, so much so that it’s considered normal to dump a partner for lacking interest in them. Dan Savage himself declared many years ago that “oral sex comes standard and any model without it should be returned immediately to the lot.” You can probably imagine, Anon, how much this entitled, literally objectifying viewpoint torments both kinky people who are disinterested in oral and sexual assault survivors who are learning to navigate their own bodily boundaries alike.

A brown leg with visible hair tied up in orange rope. Image by Warm Orange on Unsplash.

I am harmed by Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase Model of sex and have written about it on this blog quite a lot.

Like you, Anon, and like probably all sexual assault survivors, I am harmed by the presumption that activities like PIV, fingering, and oral are neutral sexual acts that are lower on the intensity spectrum than things like being slapped or choked. I find receiving oral to be far more intense, triggering, dysphoric, and disturbing than anything in the rape play/primal play/dubious consent/intoxication/hypnosis realm that I tend to enjoy -- because I like and want those things, and I do not want oral.

My problem with oral isn't that it's "boring" or “basic” or unsexy. It's that it’s often fucking traumatic for me.

I also find completely un-kinky sex in general to be profoundly alienating and triggering in most instances. If the sex I’m having does not include some kind of clear power dynamic to ground myself within, I dissociate from my body, become completely sexually unresponsive, and typically leave the encounter wanting to rage or fall into tears.

The cultural idea that soft, slow, penis-in-vagina sex and oral are things every sexually active being must love has contributed to many sexual partners pushing those sexual acts on me — and to me doubting myself for hating them, and lying still trying to draw some enjoyment from a thing that makes me miserable.

I need language to articulate that the sex acts that most people view as the default are in fact alienating and disturbing to me as a sexual assault survivor. In fact, the most common form of sexual assault I have experienced has been people forcing non-kinky sex on me that they assumed I had to be game for, since I liked the stuff on the more "intense" side of their imagined staircase. The most recent instance involved a man pressing my thighs open on the couch and swirling his tongue around in a circle against my vagina — he claimed to be “thanking” me for my writing during this act I’d explicitly told him previously that I did not enjoy.

The cishet, nonkinky world has already created terminology for the views around sex that create these abuses, and that's "vanilla." And so I set "no vanilla" as a limit, to broadcast that I want absolutely nothing to do with anyone who holds that worldview.

The reality is that the kinky and non-kinky worlds are quite porous, and the outréness of any sex act is subjective, and impossible to define. There are a great many people who consider anal sex to be so standard as to be almost obligatory, for example — it’s hard out there being a gay male side. And there’s a great many self-identified kinksters on the Fetish apps whose most risqué interest is something like underwear or cum. I personally don’t get how orgasming is a kink, but I do not have to — I shouldn’t make any assumptions about what people like simply because we share a space and are looking for some kind of sexual encounter. Everybody should get to decide what is on the menu for them and what’s off, with no presumptions made of them.

And I suspect, Anon, that as a sexual assault survivor who’s had to fight to reclaim your bodily agency and enjoyment of sex, you’ve dealt with your fair share of partners forcing assumptions about what you must enjoy onto you, too.

I say “no vanilla” on my cruising app profiles and during sexual negotiations because I’m trying to scare off anyone who believes in the Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase Model, and make it clear to them that the activities they believe anybody must enjoy are in fact not neutral and do need to be discussed just like any other.

An open, red-lipped mouth with the tongue sticking out; fingers with black nail polish spread what appears to be vanilla icing on the tongue. Photo by Joey Nicotra on Unsplash.

Every single time I set “no vanilla” as a limit, I am inviting other parties into a discussion about what sex even is, and challenging them to state their preferences explicitly rather than following society’s dominant flow from making out to touching genitals to sticking one inside another. Some people are not prepared to actually do this, and it spares me a lot of mistreatment to quickly scare them away.

I don't think expressing my boundaries is me derogating people who do not share my kinks. I don't think I'm hurting anyone by rejecting the dominant viewpoint of society that organizes sex acts along this hierarchy. And for what it's worth, I will reiterate, I don't think people are boring for liking non-kinky sex.

I think that we all benefit from unpacking our assumptions surrounding what sex is or can be, and for many sexual assault survivors it is immensely healing to take all pre-written societal expectations surrounding sex off the table.

I commend you for making so much progress in your own sexual healing, Anon, and I know just how many years that can take and how difficult it can be. You’ve probably had to correct sexual partners for moving too quickly or touching you in the wrong ways numerous times, and had sharp pricks of anxiety every time you asserted yourself. You’ve had to carefully explain yourself and the pace at which you move sexually, in all likelihood, and turned yourself away from sexual prospects who didn’t respect you. Claiming your pleasure after having been abused feels downright transgressive, and if you’re enjoying anything other than married heterosexual missionary with the goal of producing children, your pleasure quite literally is transgressive, and you have every right to revel in your sexual freedom.

It's not inherently kinky to reimagine what sexual pleasure might look like, I suppose, but anyone who is doing that kind of deep reflective and interpersonal work is already taking steps to liberate themselves from the cishet power structures that gave us the notion of obligatory "vanilla" sex, the impossibility of “marital rape,” and the organization of that stupid damn staircase.

I think, Anon, that instead of feeling like you need to defend the term “vanilla,” you might be better served by simply defending your own right to define your sexuality in whatever ways you choose.

People who are having weird hypnosis fantasy sex are not, as a rule, sneering at you for enjoying what you enjoy. We want you to be free and at ease in your body. What we're sneering at is the idea we OWE sexual partners specific activities and sexual responses, and that we are broken for needing something more elaborate or unusual in our sexual lives.

"Vanilla" sexual values and assumptions are the enemy of all sexual assault survivors, because they are so coercive as to never be discussed. You don't have to be interested in any remotely freaky shit in order to benefit from us all collectively destroying the notion that certain forms of sex are the default that we owe to people. We ALL benefit from being able to reject the sex acts we do not like as loudly and proudly as we want. We have all got to start speaking frankly about these things in our sexual negotiations, and ripping the planks off the Vanilla-to-Kinky Staircase, so that we might build the sexual lives that we actually want.

Two scoops of chocolate ice cream on a cone. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

Our next question comes from Tumblr user hideous-little-structure, who is dealing with a boundary-pushing friend who can’t seem to understand the lines they draw between their kinky and everyday lives.

hideous-little-structure asked:

Kink/autism question, I have a close friend who often comes to the same kink events/markets/play parties as me and my polycule. I have a very subby/degradee dynamic with my polycule and this friend has picked up on that and has started adding her own interjections, calling me a little bug, holding my leash, and referring to herself as the "queer-platonic cousin of your leather family".

I've asked my friend if she'd be interested in any play and she's said no, and while I'm fairly attracted to her she doesn't seem to be attracted to me. I have no qualms with this, I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea.

That being said, I enjoy degradation and submission with my polycule because I know they're all attracted to me and love me dearly, and they do it because it's fun for all of us. When my friend does those same things, it kinda stings because I know she's also not attracted to me, and it just feels insulting.

We also do a lot of work together at school and she makes references to my kink dynamics in situations that aren't super comfortable for me (I'd prefer to keep my school life and kink life VERY separate). Sometimes when we're at our local sex club together she'll come into the room and start having a conversation with me about school while my wife is literally inside of me.

Do you have any advice on how I can communicate to her that I really enjoy her friendship and I'm glad to have a kinky buddy and talk about our respective relationships, but I don't like how she's injecting herself into my dynamic?

I'm certain that she's not trying to be mean-spirited, but the fact that it's coming from a friend and not a partner makes the teasing feel a bit icky to me. She's had a rough year and I don't want to alienate her, and we're both not very good at social cues. I usually laugh it off but it's starting to wear on me.

Thanks for writing in!

I can kind of understand how your friend got her wires crossed here -- she probably thinks that by saying degrading things to you, she is being playful and affectionate in a way she has seen you like. She might even think she is doing you a kindness by giving you some of the dynamic you enjoy, despite not being sexually interested in you enough to want to take it further.

It’s an unfortunate yet all-too-common response when an attraction between friends is unrequited: the unattracted party acts as if offering their friend crumbs of affection is better than nothing — though in actuality it lands just about as well as a pity-fuck would, that is, by making the attracted party feel put-off and pandered to and even a bit used. On top of that, your friend seems to be relishing that your kink for degradation gives them the excuse to be a little bit mean and undermining. I’m a little-shit-subtype Autistic who enjoys being a bit sarcastic and mean to express intimacy, so I do get it, but what your friend is doing hurts your feelings and skeeves you out, and that’s out of line.

Between that, the random attempts to initiate school-talk while you're getting fucked, and not being discrete about your kink life around non-kinky people, there is a clear over-arching problem with your friend: she doesn't see your kink life as a precious, carefully guarded part of you that should be handled gently, and only by people that treasure it.

For your friend, it seems that kink, friendship, school, and day-to-day life can all slosh up against one another, without firmly defined boundaries, and the presence of one in the place of another is not a problem. That can be fine for her, and it is for some people! But it's not how you feel. And it’s really not acceptable for her to treat your submissive side as if it were a publicly available resource she can dip her toes into whenever she feels like it, without any commitment or negotiation. You are a little bug only through your relationships to specific people — you don’t exist for everybody to squash.

I believe you that your friend doesn’t intend to make you uncomfortable. But they do need to learn to respect how other people manage their kinky dynamics, and figure out how to calm their urge to blurt out insults and grade comparisons while you’re getting railed. Really the only way to fix this is with communication.

I think the best way to start is to explain to your friend how you feel about your kink life, and why you draw boundaries around it. Something like,

"My kinky side is very precious and private to me, and it's only something I want to share with my partners.

I love that you are supportive and understanding of my kinks as a kinky person yourself, and that we can bond over kink as friends. [ONLY SAY THIS IF IT'S TRUE.]

But when you use degrading terms for me, or start talking about my kinks when we're in vanilla spaces, you're taking my sexual life outside of that private realm and into a public one where I don't want it to be. I also find it jarring when we're at the dungeon together and you suddenly start trying to talk to me about school or vanilla-life things. I go there to try and escape that regular-life headspace.

I keep these worlds separate and I hope you can help me in drawing that line. I'm okay with [talking about kink when we are at the sex club together/sharing kinky spaces together] but I don't express that side of myself in public or at school, and I don’t want to be degraded by people who aren't my partners."

Your friend will probably be embarrassed to learn she's been making you uncomfortable all this time, so she might act awkwardly about it at first. Just give her some space to process that on her own -- it's not your job to make her feel better about the fact that she made you feel bad. Just continue to be friendly and extend her a little grace to be anxious, while maintaining boundaries.

If your friend crosses a boundary again, remind her of your limits in the moment. You can say things like:

"I don't want to be called lil bug by non-partners, okay?"

"This isn't a subject for right now."

"I don't want to talk about that here."

If she continues crossing boundaries after repeated reminders and clarifications, then you will have to think about what steps you'll take to maintain the boundary yourself.

This could include anything from no longer speaking to her at the dungeon, walking away from unwanted conversations, not inviting her to gatherings with your polycule where a lot of open degradation occurs, asking a dungeon attendant to prevent her from approaching you during a scene, and making remarks that turn the attention back on her when she embarrasses you in front of strangers. You can also tell her directly that she is frustrating you:

“We don’t talk about that subject here, remember?”

“I don’t understand why you’re still doing this when I’ve requested that you stop.”

“This conversation is over if you keep calling me [kink scene name.]”

That your friend has had a rough year is immaterial on the question of whether you get to have the boundaries that you have. You are not doing anything to harm her or the relationship by articulating what you need, and giving her the tools to be there for you . If she chooses to ignore your boundaries once you've stated them explicitly, it will be her who is introducing needless tension into the relationship.

I am, however, cautiously optimistic. It sounds like she’s newer to her own kink life and that a frank discussion of these topics will make her a more skillful, adaptable kink-buddy and scene partner overall, and that will benefit all her relationships in the future.

Two women touching foreheads intimately; one is holding the other’s face in her hands. Photo by Ave Calvar on Unsplash.

Our last question comes from a trans girl who has recently experienced the delicious release of being lovingly Dominated for the first time in her life, which has set her mind reeling:

Anonymous asked:

Recently, a girl I was hanging out w (we're both trans girls) indicated that she wanted to dominate me in the way I've wanted my whole life but I've never received (mostly not-physical, sweet, predominantly psychological, soft, playing with the power dynamics, etc.).

Since then I've been feeling some relief but also intense desperation, like I've been starving all my life and I've only just realized, and now the hunger pangs are eating into me.

I was just wondering if this resonates with how you understand kink and where this desperation could be coming from. I'm autistic, so I was wondering if it's desperation for the need to unmask? Or if it's about the shame of having kinky desires, and the relief that comes from getting affirmed that those things are ok?

Is it really about a need for care, which I have received very little of my whole life? Or if I'm overthinking it— could I just have a deep gnawing hunger for submission in and of itself, where submission is, for me, as important as breathing?

Of course, I know you can't explain my own emotions, but any insight you have into the tangled web of desire, desperation, hunger, kink, care, relief, autism, trans shit, and isolation would be v v v appreciated. ty dr demon prince :)

Hi Anon. I’m so happy that you’ve had such a profoundly touching kinky experience recently.

I think what you might be responding so strongly to is the opportunity to express a side of yourself that normally has zero outlet. We can call those sides of ourselves headspaces, or alters, or just hidden sides, and the act of engaging with them escapism, or spirituality, or simply playing a role.

Certainly, enjoying such altered states has to do a lot with letting go and unmasking for many of us kinky Autistic folks. I know that when I get to be submissive, I am momentarily freed from the obligation to screw my face into an attentive smile, and no longer have to carry myself with “mature,” abled mannerisms and a practiced, attentive concern for everyone else. I can be weak, and adore my Dom without concern for whether I am being “too much” or neglecting what everyone else is feeling, and cease monitoring my own behavior so that they can tell me exactly what to do. It’s intoxicating to let go of all the processes that are usually overlaid atop my consciousness like that.

It’s quite common for Autistic people to find relief from kinky roles. But the more universal human explanation for why this stuff feels so good is that who we are is largely socially created, and it is impossible for us to be a more vulnerable version of ourself without that self being welcomed, catered to, and played with by another person -- the right person, in the right dynamic.

Kink can be so beautiful because it allows sides of ourselves that rarely find expression to interplay with others' also hidden or hard-to-activate sides. With one partner of mine, I get to be a slobbering obedient dog for their nurturing, yet controlling mommy. For them it's a gender euphoric experience of caretaking and pampering that doesn't line up with their day-to-day identity and presentation; for me it's an escape from mental burdens and an opportunity to be whimpering and wild where I’m normally so quiet and restrained.

Yet it's also deeper. By playing at a long-lasting pet-owner relationship, I get to activate layers of trust and dependence with this partner that it would normally take years for me to reach. I do not open up to people easily — but the dog version of me can pretend to have been devoted to its “Mommy” its whole life. I can be completely waylaid with emotion and need and become briefly dependent upon them and let them have full control over my body, without having to lose any of my freedom or worry in the long-term about whether they can handle it. It’s play, and it’s pretend, but it also feels utterly real.

The intimacy that we find together runs deeper, and yet is far less risky, than doing something like moving in with a partner I’d only been seeing for a couple of months and becoming completely devoted to them — which is how I might have satisfied my submissive side and intense emotional urges in the past. Kinky play allows me to experience the endorphin rush of being beaten, the trauma bond of being soothed afterward, and the rapture of worshipping at an all-powerful lover’s feet, all without losing my stable, regular life where I retain control.

That's just a personal and recent example. But I often feel that within kinky, headspacey social contexts, a different side of me is free to express itself, and my ego doesn't have to mediate or hold the reins.

I feel the same thing at furry conventions like Midwest Furfest, though it's not always sexual. When I’m in my fursuit, I can just be a friendly, silly, huggy deer, and meet other people for their playful animal and cartoony energy too. Because we are all just being silly animals, I can relate to people without walls or pretense — or dreary chit-chat about work and politics. We can just dance, get stoned, cuddle, eat snacks, play videogames, compliment one another's outfits, and live in the present right before us. All the over-intellectualization that normally separates me from others is just gone, and some more primordial feeling of animal comraderie is there.

I miss that feeling of ease and friendliness DESPERATELY once Furfest ends. I get a little despondent when I lack a Dominant partner who allows me to open up and be all mushy and sensitive, too. When relationships like these go away, it feels as if some essential part of myself has been TAKEN from me. Because my self doesn't just dwell within me. It is relational. I can't just enjoy it alone at home. It has to operate within a living social dynamic.

It may be something like that for you, Anon. It sounds like through play with this lovingly Dominant trans girl, you are able to experience a tenderness that hasn’t been offered to you much before. Being able to relax and simply receive care is unfortunately quite a rare experience for most trans women. There is a heavy social pressure for most trans femmes to anticipate the emotional needs of others and minimize their own. I imagine that it might have felt especially cathartic getting to lay your softer, needier, hungrier side bare to another trans girl, who might understand just how difficult getting to that place is for you. I hope that you continue listening to these good feelings, and getting to experience these sensations more.

It's a kind of love, finding your spaces, your people, and the contexts in which some sacred, hidden part of you is set free. It's a love of yourself, and of the moment with another -- a love of being alive, which is often so sorely needed for those of us whose regular lives can be unfulfilling or painful.

It’s not exclusively an Autistic thing, or a neurodivergent thing, to crave such a joyous release. And it’s not solely a sexual thing either. In a capitalistic, colonialist society, I think most of us have sides that are rarely given fertile soil in which to grow. But our self-concepts are inherently ecological, and when we’re planted within the right environment, we can thrive.

We need to diversify our “mental ecosystem” for our own wellbeing

May you continue finding the relationships that bring such vibrant growth and happiness to you! And may you continue learning more about yourself and what brings you truly alive in your relationships to others. That’s what sexual exploration is ultimately all about.

If you have a question you’d like to see me answer in the newsletter, you can leave it in the comments, message my Substack inbox, or send it to my anonymous Tumblr ask box. And if you enjoyed this article you might like the following pieces, which are now organized under the Sexual Liberation feature on my Substack page: