It’s disappointing to see the amount of kink-shaming that happens out in the wild. From sitcoms to the news, it seems that it’s pretty normal to bully someone if you disagree with their sexual desires. I’ve read horror stories about people blackmailing, losing their job, mistreating and isolating each other because of a kink a person has.
At first, I got upset at the normalization of this hate, but then I thought, what makes this kink-shaming happen? I concluded that many people seem to think that sexual desires and morals are linked. Which for many, they are not.
I’d argue and say that sexual desires usually go directly against personal morals because that’s what makes them hot. Steamy sex resides within the taboo, and it’s a place a lot of people think about but are too afraid to go to.
I get it, kinks can be scary. One day you’re like everyone else and the next day you slip up and call your partner Daddy during sex and…you like it (And yes, I just made it personal). Now what?
If you grew up surrounded by years of kink shame the first thing you probably do is shove that desire as far down as you can and lock it away. Nope, I’m not exploring that one you think to yourself.
But as the age-old saying goes, what we resist persists, and the urge to indulge in the kink begins to ferment.
In the deep depths of the mind, repression can create symptoms that will begin to affect your sex life. It will expose itself through erectile dysfunction and lack of sexual satisfaction. It may even bully you until you finally give in, only allowing you to perform at peak performance when it gets what it wants.
You become a slave to the kink, allowing shame to hold your sexual satisfaction hostage.
And the shamers say it’s a lot easier to hide it. No, it’s easier on society for you to hide it. Things are a lot less scary when people conform to their current standards of ‘normal’. It’s easier on you to confront it, face it head-on, and learn what it has to offer you. Yes, it will be challenging, but it will also be freeing.
Society commonly functions in a way where if you are slightly different in a way others don’t understand they think it’s a reason to boycott you. It’s toxic, unaccepting, and causes a lot more problems than it fixes.
On a base level, I understand, some kinks can be triggering (they’re different from the norm) and when something triggers the brain it feels the need to defend, and sometimes that defending is kink shaming.
When we don’t offer empathy for each other’s kinks we tend to jump to the worst-case scenarios, and those worst cases are usually what cause the shaming. For instance, the Caregiver Little, Petplay, and Consensual Non-Consent kink communities all receive hate based on these types of worst-case scenario jumps.
These case jumps include things like CGL sexualizes real children, Pet players want to have sex with real animals, and CNC players are rapists. Yet, none of that is true. These communities are built around consenting adults fulfilling each other’s desires. As far as I’m concerned if no one is consenting it’s a crime, not a kink.
I can’t speak for everyone but I can speak for myself when I say if your kink can be acted upon and fulfilled by consenting individuals, then go for it!
Allowing shame to control you causes more harm than good. It dilutes your personal character down to nothing more than a shell, and it gives power to shame by allowing it to shape the world around us.
Genuine shame fuels no one, it has adverse effects on the victim such as depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety. It makes our world an unempathetic place and a more depressing one.
Overcoming shame and shaming can be difficult in a society that depends on it to control the actions of others, but not impossible. As humans, we will feel shame and we will shame from time to time. We are not perfect.
I don’t expect you to be and I hope you don’t expect it of yourself either. I just ask as a whole that we put our best foot forward and make an active effort to spread love and acceptance to those around us who are different, especially in a kinky light.
