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If you are fully (and safely) attuned to your kinky side, chances are that you’re sceptical about sharing all about it with others. For starters, the fear of judgement is all-pervasive, not just in India. And if your kink is anywhere even remotely close to the world of BDSM, the many cliches tethered to it certainly don’t help.
BDSM is an umbrella term that broadly covers a range of sexual and sensual activities around submission and control. It is commonly understood as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism).
According to Seema Anand, a Kamasutra expert, a better part of popular knowledge about BDSM comes from badly written stories and badly done porn. As far as India is concerned, she says that the lack of fetish clubs certainly doesn’t help.
“And then a lot of bloggers and content creators online have also started giving their two cents, without any professional expertise,” she says. “This is the reason why many people think BDSM is all about tying your partner up.”
If you’re looking to safely and consensually explore the world of BDSM, here are 5 points to consider.
What to keep in mind before exploring BDSM:
Nurture your love. Before you even start, you have to sit with your arms facing each other. Run your hand around your partner’s hair. Any BDSM activity must start with gentle hugging.
You could also be blindfolded, because the anticipation of the act needs to be slowly built up. All your senses must be awake and freely experiment with pace. You don’t have to be compulsorily aggressive just because it’s BDSM.
Initially, graze just the tip of your fingers on your partner’s body — the idea being that less the touch, teasingly, more the sensitivity for the partner.
And then you can spank, but immediately follow it with a rub, followed by a kiss. The idea here is to show that you are consensually hitting your partner as a mark of love because you are gently rubbing and kissing them too.
Consent must be present throughout the act. That is the hallmark of any healthy relationship and it is all the more true when it comes to BDSM. Don’t do things that make you uncomfortable even if they turn on your partner.
Some people have this misconception that groping is allowed in BDSM because consent doesn’t really matter in such cases. This is an incorrect and dangerous thing to believe.
The idea of giving pain can be frightening, so it’s really important that there is a healthy understanding between you and your partner about each other’s needs.
Create your own boundaries well before the act and communicate them clearly. So, you can have boundaries such as having only one spank in a minute. It’s not just about safe words. Demarcate your space — sometimes you might just want to do it on the couch. That’s also one way of taking control even if you might be the submissive.
For many, getting tied up can be hard, depending on certain traumatic experiences they have had in their childhood or even past relationships.
BDSM is all about taking control because you are consciously taking your own decisions. So if you’re traumatised with the idea of someone else tying you up, but still enjoy it, you may tie yourself up too — that might actually make you feel more empowered and in control.
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