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Sex and Kink

July 19th, 2010

Dweaver999 talks about the correlation between sex and kink.

A question that I’ve seen come up on blogs and forums before is just what is the relationship, if any, between sex and kink.  This question is of particular interest to me for reasons I’ll try to make clear.  To help show what I mean, I need to explain my personal history with kink, or BDSM.

The first time I encountered BDSM was in a true crime magazine.  I was 13 and delivering newspapers.  My route took me by the local newsstand and they had these magazines with scantily clad women on the front and blaring headlines about kidnappings, rapes and other crimes against women.  I found them fascinating, but you could hardly call it sexually arousing for me.

However, I shortly thereafter, had my first masturbation experience.  Needless to say, I masturbated a lot after that, though, there weren’t any fantasies involved.  At that age, a boy needs nothing, mentally to become aroused and reach orgasm.  It just took some stroking of the old cock, and wham, I was cumming. 

At this point in my life, you could definitely say that kink and sex weren’t linked for me.  As repressive as my house was, sexually, it’s not surprising that I didn’t gain access to porn until I was in college.  Oh, I knew it existed, all right.  The newsstands sold Playboy and Penthouse; and back then, they could sell them over the counter.  Unfortunately for me, my days of reading magazines off the rack had ended.  It seems newsstands want to sell their magazines, not let me read them for free.  Downright unreasonable.

It was in college that I discovered what would become for me my main fix of erotic stimulus, Penthouse Letters.  Now, I’d jacked off to pictures a few times, but even then, mere naked bodies didn’t do much for me.  But, those stories, those wonderfully descriptive stories of sex in all it’s myriad forms; those turned me on like nothing else.  But, more than anything else, the stories of bondage and spankings were the bomb.

I’d never have to finish one of those BDSM letters to go all the way and reach a climax.  My only problem then, was they were few and far between.  Kink hadn’t even thought of becoming mainstreamed yet.  I’d buy three or four issues of Penthouse to find one BDSM letter.  When I managed to work up the courage to walk into my first adult bookstore in the early 80s, I was astounded to discover…the adult pocket book.  Entire stories that read like those wonderful letters.  Even better, you knew from the cover just what kind of story you were getting.

By the time the porn paperback had gone the way of the dodo, I’d found letters magazines of various types and an increased presence of my main desire, the BDSM story.  I first found people who actually lived in the lifestyle on one of the old Prodigy boards (a story in and of itself).  It was then that I discovered two things.  First, those letters in those magazines may well have been true.  And for some people, BDSM wasn’t about sex.

That was a shock to me.  I mean, BDSM stories had been (and still are) my main source of erotic turn on.  I couldn’t, back then, get my head wrapped around the idea that for some people, domination and submission was about something other than sex.  My life went in some strange directions around then, and for a while, I was actively avoiding the lifestyle (again, a full story in its own right).  Fast forward to 2007.

A few years earlier, I discovered a web site called, Literotica.  I was ecstatic.  Until then, my primary source for porn was stumbling over a site with an occasional story (I was a putz at searching back then).  But, there was something lacking in what I was finding, for the most part; quality.  Let’s face it, most of the erotica out there is trash, utter junk.  I just knew, with my background in role-playing games, that I could do so much better.  I started writing simply to give myself better written stroke stories.  What I discovered was that I couldn’t do it.  I had to write a good story, first.  That’s what was actually missing and what I wanted; a good story that made me care about the sex that took place.

Now, what am I trying to get at?  Just this: even when I was writing my own stories, I was convinced that BDSM and sex went hand in hand.  I wrote and read stories to get off (and give others something to get off on).  The first hints that something different was going on came from comments to my stories.  Yeah, lots of people write and told me how hot they were; but there were always a few who didn’t say anything about the sex scenes, but talked about the lifestyle I was portraying.  I’d touched something inside them that wanted the submission or domination itself.  These people would talk about some of the scenes that didn’t directly involve sex as if they weren’t sexual scenes at all (they were for me—reading about a heavy whipping that drives a sub to her safe word always gets me hot).

The big eye opener for me, however, was my first sexual and BDSM experience.  Yes, I’d been writing erotica, BDSM erotica for a couple of years as a, as I put it s few times, a vanilla virgin.  My first experience came when I met my original editor for the first time over a weekend; and her Master told me I could do anything with her I wished, but she wouldn’t initiate anything.  What was the eye opening part of that experience?  Kink, specifically, spanking her with a belt, didn’t arouse me.

And, in fact, acting out kink has yet to arouse me.  Now, I have been aroused with, and cum with, a woman; but it wasn’t the kink that did it.  If it was anything, it was knowing I was giving her pleasure in some way.  I’ve even discovered my own masochistic side.  I loved being on the receiving end of a good flogging, caning, whatever; but it doesn’t arouse me in the slightest.  I just enjoy it for what it is.  Yet, reading about kink still does arouse me tremendously.

So, I’m left with a question that may well have no single answer.  Just what is the relationship between kink and sex?  It’s there for me, most definitely.  But it’s not that nice, linear, connection I expected.  It’s sexy and arousing at a distance, if you will.  Reading about it (and to a lesser extent, seeing videos) is a turn on.  Participating, whether on the top or bottom of the lash, not so much.  Now, my experience is somewhat limited, so maybe it’s a matter of degree.  I know I’ve never experienced the levels of intensity I write and read about, from either side of the whip.  Do I just need a more intense experience?  I’ve also only experienced kinky play in venues that discouraged open sexual activity.  Is that what’s missing?  I don’t know.  I do know the connection between the two, kink and sex, is there, but in an odd way that I didn’t expect.

So I’ll keep exploring my own sexuality.  There are some other peculiarities in my sexual experience that may have nothing to do with the connection between kink and sex.  I’m not going to worry about it.  I know I can enjoy kink without sex; in fact, I can enjoy sex without an orgasm (there was not one for me that first weekend I mentioned—again, a story in and of itself).  I’ve never tried sex without kink.  But I do wonder just what that relationship is for others.  How many people in the lifestyle routinely experience their kink without any sex involved?  What makes them (and me) different from those who only experience kink and sex together?

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  1. April 20th, 2011 at 17:24 | #1

    You know, it may simply be about focus. When I’m topping, I find that I’m not, usually, physically aroused, even though I would tell you those things turn me on (and they do). I think that’s because when I’m topping I’m really very focused on my partner. I’ve got them in this incredibly vulnerable position, and I’m responsible for their emotional and physical well-being. I don’t always feel like I’m in touch with my own body when I do this — I feel like I’m in touch with *theirs.* The more technically challenging the actual topping is the more this is true (and it’s also true for things that might not be technically challenging but I know are challenging, physically or emotionally, for my partner).

    I suspect that in order for me to get aroused or have an orgasm I need to focus on/be more in touch with my own body. I suspect it would be very easy for me to get aroused watching video of me doing the very same things that, when I was doing them, didn’t provoke physical arousal. If all I have to do is sit and watch (or read) I can focus more on my own arousal.

    Now that I think about it, some of the scenes that were hottest to me, in the moment, were ones where the topping wasn’t very technical or involved little or no risk to my partner; stuff I’d done a lot and felt confident about.

    You know what that means? Practice!!

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