Thank you, always. It is a cathartic read as someone who likes things on both the "vanilla" and kink menus, but have had potential and past partners who did not want to communicate or got very weird about boundaries. More than specific sexual acts, I have wanted partners who are honest and respect boundaries. I don't regret scaring off people who were attracted to me but didn't want communication. But I also feel grief about how many people want to autopilot sex along certain sexual scripts. No communicating/negotiating. When I'm the only one willing to communicate my boundaries and desires, I can't relax, as I feel like either I'm going to get coerced or I'm going to violate someone without knowing I did. Both scenarios hurt. I don't want to be perceived by people who want autopilot, guess-culture sexual encounters.
I could comment on so many things but in general, all three inquiry responses have touched me. I always feel less alone when you write and like I can be a better friend to myself and people like myself. ✨❤️
Thank you for these thoughts! As someone who's just starting to consider their sex life differently, based on what I enjoy or not and not on what I'm supposed to like, it nurrishes my own reflective process to read your takes on these topics.
I've always hated the "recipes" of sex, and it explains why I mostly lost interest in any sexual relationships I had after a while, once it becomes a routine. This text will definitely help me go one step further with my own process.
Thank you thank you thank you for writing this! I had no idea people were even allowed to pick and choose what sex acts they want and are okay with. I'm late diagnosed autistic (at 37, I'm now 40) and also recently realised I'm trans nonbinary and I've always had real problems with sex. I'm only recently realising it's to do with a fucked up cocktail of masking, sensory overload and dysphoria. I struggle with so-called vanilla sex but my fantasies involve stuff like submission and bondage. I thought I was just messed up, I didn't realise having squicks about 'vanilla' sex was even allowed! Thank you for making me realise this was okay, you've given me so much to think about. I've recently started working with a kink-positive therapist so I'm kind of excited to discuss this with them and start deconstructing my ideas of sex!
It is all allowed! and you're not alone. until I started playing with a bondage top who has "no sex, no vanilla" as his limits, I hadn't realized I was allowed to take or leave any part of sexuality for myself, too. but you really can't, and there are people out there who are just as happy to pick and choose from the buffet alongside you, and put together something that'll satisfy you both.
Devon, I'm a ball of tears after reading this. This vocalized and gave labels to so many fears and anxieties that I hold as an autistic trans woman who is figuring herself out later in life, and provided a framing and worldview that is*actually* useful to me as opposed to most kink and sex related advice out there. Thank you for writing this, you really have given me some tools to heal decades of trauma around sex.
“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”
Fantastic, thought-provoking piece. Thank you ❤️
I love conversations about kinks and the psychology behind it. I especially enjoy the neurodivergent, trauma-informed, discussion about it 🙌 can’t wait to read more.
I've come back to this article multiple times since it was first published & I'm totally floored by the way it's given me the language I've lacked for so long to talk about my own needs and experiences. Especially the seemingly "neutral, harmless, and *obligatory*" nature of "vanilla" sex. Vanilla activities leave me feeling empty, and like you described, alienated from my own body. Thank you ❤️
To be very vulnerable. I engage in some kinks that some consider extreme, (consensually and safely, duh). And I do so more comfortably and often than I do “vanilla” sex. And I have had a lot of people bristle at the idea that to me being a PIV recipient is often traumatic and extreme whereas being an FF top especially a gentle communicative one is one of the most affirming and service oriented and chill activities I ever do.
If we go so abstract to where sex can basically encompass anything, the word loses its meaning. I wouldn’t call anything non-physical sex. It can be sex-like, sex-adjacent, but by definition it is not sex.
But you do not have to participate in any activities you don’t want to, no matter how standard they are for other people.
It is natural for people to expect others to enjoy acts like oral, PIV, etc. because the vast majority do. It’s what our biology is, that trauma can deeply interfere with.
I struggle with similar things that you do. I find oral extremely traumatic though I have tried hard to like it. I’ve had to unpeel the reasons why, the trauma that it stems from. It is not oral itself that is bad, it is what has happened to me that my body cannot deprogram without a lot of slow and intentional and safe practice with a partner that I can always say “no” and “stop” to without feeling like an inconvenience.
Trauma makes it hard to connect with the body and gives us kinks and fetishes to compensate and recreate our experiences in safe ways that we can control (not always, but that’s a big part of it for a lot of people) but it doesn’t always mean that this is the best thing for our bodies or mental health. I am trying to connect with my body deeper so that I can experience touch for the sake of touch, without needing that.
I find power dynamics etc. to force me out of my head where I can usually dissociate due to trauma, and makes it so this is the only way I am able to enjoy sex. But this is maladaptive - the root of my sexual dysfunction is my dissociation and the bandaid for fun is kink, which masks it. I personally want to rebuild that connection with myself that trauma has stolen from me.
I don’t think kink is wrong and I don’t think it’s something you can or should train yourself out of. But I do think it might be something to look into if oral feels excruciating and torturous
I am not at all telling you what to do. I completely respect you, your body, your autonomy. You don’t need to participate in anything you don’t want to. This is just my perspective as someone who is also trying to navigate my way into how to be more content and comfortable in my own body.
U know what nvm I think I’m being a little black and white from my own experiences. I don’t consider this stuff often so thanks for making me think more deeply about my views on sex and kink. I hope not to offend
The assumption that vanilla sex is somehow neutral while kink is performative misses how deeply cultural scripts shape even our most "natural" expressions. What we call vanilla carries the invisible weight of patriarchal history, compulsory monogamy, and capitalist time structures. I'm curious how you see this playing out in queer relationships where the baseline assumptions are already disrupted. Does vanilla even mean the same thing when the heteronormative frame dissolves?
I’ve always said I love kink because there’s a different sense of consent, vanilla and traditional relationship are often very coercive and not the most consensual
So I know this is a provocative topic because most of the time we have conversations about feminism, especially in this country, there’s an assumption that this is a progressive movement for equality. And one of the things that’s bothered me so much since coming to your great island of the UK is that we claim we want to decolonize, but we’re not really interested in the substance of decolonization. So what we do is we constantly replace politics for actual academic knowledge and scholarship and we pretend that does the work for us. So today in 30 minutes, I’m going to take you through 200 years of feminist theoretical reflections on racialized males specifically, but race in general, to show you that the movement was initially intended and well recognized by the people of its time as an extension of patriarchy, as an extension of colonialism and a kind of a logic of white supremacy. So let’s start off with the suffragettes view of black men in the 19th century. Now in the 19th century, the dominant form of understanding race was in a discipline called ethnology.
[01:03 - 02:05]
The modern day equivalent is that toxic phenology we call “pornocracy or women in the modern times.”
Thank you, always. It is a cathartic read as someone who likes things on both the "vanilla" and kink menus, but have had potential and past partners who did not want to communicate or got very weird about boundaries. More than specific sexual acts, I have wanted partners who are honest and respect boundaries. I don't regret scaring off people who were attracted to me but didn't want communication. But I also feel grief about how many people want to autopilot sex along certain sexual scripts. No communicating/negotiating. When I'm the only one willing to communicate my boundaries and desires, I can't relax, as I feel like either I'm going to get coerced or I'm going to violate someone without knowing I did. Both scenarios hurt. I don't want to be perceived by people who want autopilot, guess-culture sexual encounters.
I could comment on so many things but in general, all three inquiry responses have touched me. I always feel less alone when you write and like I can be a better friend to myself and people like myself. ✨❤️
Thank you for these thoughts! As someone who's just starting to consider their sex life differently, based on what I enjoy or not and not on what I'm supposed to like, it nurrishes my own reflective process to read your takes on these topics.
I've always hated the "recipes" of sex, and it explains why I mostly lost interest in any sexual relationships I had after a while, once it becomes a routine. This text will definitely help me go one step further with my own process.
Thank you thank you thank you for writing this! I had no idea people were even allowed to pick and choose what sex acts they want and are okay with. I'm late diagnosed autistic (at 37, I'm now 40) and also recently realised I'm trans nonbinary and I've always had real problems with sex. I'm only recently realising it's to do with a fucked up cocktail of masking, sensory overload and dysphoria. I struggle with so-called vanilla sex but my fantasies involve stuff like submission and bondage. I thought I was just messed up, I didn't realise having squicks about 'vanilla' sex was even allowed! Thank you for making me realise this was okay, you've given me so much to think about. I've recently started working with a kink-positive therapist so I'm kind of excited to discuss this with them and start deconstructing my ideas of sex!
It is all allowed! and you're not alone. until I started playing with a bondage top who has "no sex, no vanilla" as his limits, I hadn't realized I was allowed to take or leave any part of sexuality for myself, too. but you really can't, and there are people out there who are just as happy to pick and choose from the buffet alongside you, and put together something that'll satisfy you both.
but you really can, I mean. voice to text typos
Devon, I'm a ball of tears after reading this. This vocalized and gave labels to so many fears and anxieties that I hold as an autistic trans woman who is figuring herself out later in life, and provided a framing and worldview that is*actually* useful to me as opposed to most kink and sex related advice out there. Thank you for writing this, you really have given me some tools to heal decades of trauma around sex.
“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”
Fantastic, thought-provoking piece. Thank you ❤️
I love conversations about kinks and the psychology behind it. I especially enjoy the neurodivergent, trauma-informed, discussion about it 🙌 can’t wait to read more.
I've come back to this article multiple times since it was first published & I'm totally floored by the way it's given me the language I've lacked for so long to talk about my own needs and experiences. Especially the seemingly "neutral, harmless, and *obligatory*" nature of "vanilla" sex. Vanilla activities leave me feeling empty, and like you described, alienated from my own body. Thank you ❤️
To be very vulnerable. I engage in some kinks that some consider extreme, (consensually and safely, duh). And I do so more comfortably and often than I do “vanilla” sex. And I have had a lot of people bristle at the idea that to me being a PIV recipient is often traumatic and extreme whereas being an FF top especially a gentle communicative one is one of the most affirming and service oriented and chill activities I ever do.
If we go so abstract to where sex can basically encompass anything, the word loses its meaning. I wouldn’t call anything non-physical sex. It can be sex-like, sex-adjacent, but by definition it is not sex.
But you do not have to participate in any activities you don’t want to, no matter how standard they are for other people.
It is natural for people to expect others to enjoy acts like oral, PIV, etc. because the vast majority do. It’s what our biology is, that trauma can deeply interfere with.
I struggle with similar things that you do. I find oral extremely traumatic though I have tried hard to like it. I’ve had to unpeel the reasons why, the trauma that it stems from. It is not oral itself that is bad, it is what has happened to me that my body cannot deprogram without a lot of slow and intentional and safe practice with a partner that I can always say “no” and “stop” to without feeling like an inconvenience.
Trauma makes it hard to connect with the body and gives us kinks and fetishes to compensate and recreate our experiences in safe ways that we can control (not always, but that’s a big part of it for a lot of people) but it doesn’t always mean that this is the best thing for our bodies or mental health. I am trying to connect with my body deeper so that I can experience touch for the sake of touch, without needing that.
I find power dynamics etc. to force me out of my head where I can usually dissociate due to trauma, and makes it so this is the only way I am able to enjoy sex. But this is maladaptive - the root of my sexual dysfunction is my dissociation and the bandaid for fun is kink, which masks it. I personally want to rebuild that connection with myself that trauma has stolen from me.
I don’t think kink is wrong and I don’t think it’s something you can or should train yourself out of. But I do think it might be something to look into if oral feels excruciating and torturous
I am not at all telling you what to do. I completely respect you, your body, your autonomy. You don’t need to participate in anything you don’t want to. This is just my perspective as someone who is also trying to navigate my way into how to be more content and comfortable in my own body.
U know what nvm I think I’m being a little black and white from my own experiences. I don’t consider this stuff often so thanks for making me think more deeply about my views on sex and kink. I hope not to offend
Iim The conspiracy of incels of Nikolai Malatesta
The assumption that vanilla sex is somehow neutral while kink is performative misses how deeply cultural scripts shape even our most "natural" expressions. What we call vanilla carries the invisible weight of patriarchal history, compulsory monogamy, and capitalist time structures. I'm curious how you see this playing out in queer relationships where the baseline assumptions are already disrupted. Does vanilla even mean the same thing when the heteronormative frame dissolves?
The misconceptions about the topic are huge with a vaste amount of people even rejecting sex toys, or allowing the sexual partner one.
I wrote an article titled "How Unusual Are Unusual Sexual Fantasies?" which reviews the scientific literature on the subject. As a bonus, it contains a reanalysis of data from Aella's Big Kink survey. You might find it interesting: https://thehumanconditionrevisited.substack.com/p/how-unusual-are-unusual-fantasies.
I was today years old when I learnt that sex doesn't have to be linear and it's a whole other beautiful world
Thank you for this piece 🤍
I've learnt something today
I’ve definitely learnt a thing or two here, appreciate your frankness and depth in this piece
I’ve always said I love kink because there’s a different sense of consent, vanilla and traditional relationship are often very coercive and not the most consensual
We need to be post civ
I’m the avatar
It’s that psychology that messed up pseudo scientific…… Phrenology??? It’s feminazi brain science
We need to be post civ
I assume the real feminism comes at halftime
So I know this is a provocative topic because most of the time we have conversations about feminism, especially in this country, there’s an assumption that this is a progressive movement for equality. And one of the things that’s bothered me so much since coming to your great island of the UK is that we claim we want to decolonize, but we’re not really interested in the substance of decolonization. So what we do is we constantly replace politics for actual academic knowledge and scholarship and we pretend that does the work for us. So today in 30 minutes, I’m going to take you through 200 years of feminist theoretical reflections on racialized males specifically, but race in general, to show you that the movement was initially intended and well recognized by the people of its time as an extension of patriarchy, as an extension of colonialism and a kind of a logic of white supremacy. So let’s start off with the suffragettes view of black men in the 19th century. Now in the 19th century, the dominant form of understanding race was in a discipline called ethnology.
[01:03 - 02:05]
The modern day equivalent is that toxic phenology we call “pornocracy or women in the modern times.”
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡rip bozo 🦞🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
@midwesternmarx @lindseymackereth_official @zoe4insurrection @drdevonprice @instituteofartandideas
I’m thomaszas learn Norse code they are doing yakubian folklore
Let’s end war end gender, and stop trickle down feminism