Ask Bex #1

Y’all I am so excited. SO excited. I put out a call for questions on Twitter a few weeks back and was AMAZED by how many fantastic responses people sent in! I’m going to try to make this a semi regular thing, because I frankly adore giving advice, mostly because I always think people should do what I say. To kick things off I figured I’d pick two fantastic kink questions people sent in.

Hi Bex! My question for you is: How to find common ground or communicate with people who don’t understand the value/excitement in the more psychological aspects of sexual activity (Ex: flirting, power dynamics)? You are fantastic!

– @Sex_Ed_Ontario

Hi @Sex_Ed_Ontario!

I feel particularly attached to this question, and spend a lot of time thinking about exactly this, because most of my kinks are primarily psychological. I think it’s easy to not really think about why something turns you on, because the important part of it is that it does, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean you always have the language to explain it. I’d say the first thing that’s important to do is to spend some time exploring what it is about these kinks that specifically get your motor going.

Is it the inherent cleverness? Is it the game? Is it feeling powerless, or being taken care of, or being in charge? Kate McCombs talks a lot about linguistic precision and I think that will really come in handy here. Get thee to a thesaurus and find the perfect word for that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach for when someone grabs you by the hair and tells you to get on your knees. Journal. Read what other people write about your kinks. For example, check out the process I went through to explain why a puppy play dynamic works best for my brand of submission. Find similar writing on your kinks or even join a community (online or local) and talk to other kinksters, the goal here is to expand your vocabulary.

Then explore other media that really captures your kink and share it with your partners.1 Fill an erotica anthology with post it notes and leave it on their pillow, start a private tumblr blog that you share only with your boo and fill it with sexy gifs, email porn links to each other. Finally, whip out that precise language you developed and explain what it is about that story about the blowjob in the back of a bar that really gets you going.

At best, your partner might have a new understanding for your kinks and find they even share them! If not, you’ve now given them the tools to play into them, in the way that feels best for you, and they can focus on finding the joy in the pleasures it gives you.

Good luck!

So my partner and I have been adding a light sub/dom element to our sex life and since we’re just starting out I’ve been checking in constantly. So much so she’s let me know it’s kinda killing the mood. I’m naturally an anxious person–diagnosed, medicated, and barely managed anxiety–and it’s kind of killing this experiment before it really gets a chance to start. Understanding that everybody & every body is different, for a couple just starting out, what would you recommend as a decent smacking her ass to checking it’s still okay to smack her ass ratio?

– Doubting Domas

Doubting Domas

Here’s the thing, I don’t think the question you’re asking is the one you really need an answer to, because there’s no happy medium here. I know that anxiety, I’ve lived that life, and if I were to tell you that you could only ask for reassurances on every sixth slap, you’re going to spend slaps 1-5 worrying until you can check in.

Instead, what you need to do is learn to check in with your partner in ways that don’t “kill the mood” for her. If you’re in a dominant role, work it into your dirty talk. Things like “I’m going to slap your ass, and I need you to tell me how hard it was after each one, on a scale of one to ten” give you consistent feedback while still making it clear who is in charge. Plus you get to yell things like “I can’t hear you, what was that? *smack*” or say taunting things like “that was a seven?!? Oh you’re going to have to be tougher than that if you’re gonna take what I have planned.”

You can also play other games that have consent built in, for example “I need you to be a good girl and stay perfectly still while I torture your nipples, as soon as you move, I stop” means that your partner can, at any time, “accidentally” squeal and squirm out of the way and that particular activity stops. Get creative and find ways to work consent into your play in a way that is reassuring to you while still playing into the illusion of the power dynamic.

Spank on, my friend!

Have a question you’d like me to answer? Email me at BexTalksSex (at) gmail with “Advice” in the subject line and I’ll answer it in a future column!

1. Assuming you’ve talked to them about your kink before, this is not an ideal first introduction to something new. [↩]