Assumptions of kink

[serene]

Recently, in a locked post that I've since been denied access to via delisting (what do you guys call "defriending" now that the access list isn't called "friends"?), a friend posted some kink-culture-related humor, aimed at kinky folks. It wasn't especially complimentary toward vanilla folks, and I got my back up at this. I disliked being mocked, even indirectly, and when I objected, I was delisted.

In the interim, another friend made the good point that I was at least partly speaking from a place of privilege in space that the original friend may have thought was made up entirely of kinky folk. If the original friend is reading, I offer my apology for not clearing that up or asking to be filtered off the post. But I've been thinking a lot about what would make someone assume that a post aimed at BDSMers is something that I would be the proper audience for.



That last part is what I want to talk about. Too often for my taste, the kinky folk in my friend circles assume they're talking to kinky people, or to people who want to discuss kinky subjects at length. Now, I'm not mad at my friends or anything, nor am I requesting that people shut up about their stuff; I know how to skip a post, and how to ask people to change the subject. So please don't take this as an effort to silence anyone. Not at all.

It's just I want to say that being bi and poly doesn't make me kinky, and I wish no one would assume it does. Even the friend who had the good point about privilege said that it was somewhat reasonable for people to think of me as kinky. I disagree. Not because I'd be ashamed of being kinky if I were -- just it misrepresents me, and it could set up situations where people think they're talking to someone who does certain things or enjoys certain things or is certain things, and I'm just not.

I like kinky people, and in general, they form a large chunk of my group of friends; I'm just not a kinky person myself. With one partner-specific exception, I'm not into anything remotely related to BDSM, bondage, roleplay, pain play, knife play, age play, simulated rape, humiliation, fetishes, or anything else that I would consider to be kinks. I own some sex toys, but rarely use them. I am, with one partner-specific exception, unlikely to do anything in bed that requires a trip to the hardware store.

So yeah, it's possible to be bi and poly and be vanilla. The number and gender of my partners has nothing to do with my level of kinkiness. If straight people aren't automatically kinky, then neither are bi people. Likewise monogamous people. It's orthagonal.

Discuss if you like, but mainly, I just wanted to say that.

Comments

[wordweaverlynn]

To clarify: I didn't mean that being bi and poly made it likely you'd be interested in BDSM. I meant that, by my definitions, being bi and poly make you not-vanilla. Different definition of the word, not an assumption of kinkiness.

I do agree that plenty of BDSMers assume that anyone who knows about our kink and is friends with us anyway will be willing to tolerate, if not enjoy, lengthy discussions of such. I've been guilty of this one.

I'll cross-post this for general clarification.

[trixtah]

Fair enough. My access list for kink-related stuff and other sexual matter is "sex-pos", and obviously I don't distinguish between the two for post-locking purposes (possibly because the kink stuff is only a portion of my sexuality, and I'm probably more likely to be TMI about the vanilla stuff).

So I do tend to assume poly and bi people are what I'd consider to be "sex positive" in that they won't get outraged at a bit of TMI about "unusual" practices (non-het, non-monogamous, etc etc). Having said that, if you were included on a specifically kinky-people-only access list because you're poly and bi, um, assumptions, yeah.

[jae]

It sounds like Serene is saying that she got outraged not by anyone else's practices, but by feeling like her own sexuality was being mocked.

I wasn't there, of course, so I can only go by what she said here. But that's what she said here.

-J

[trixtah]

Yes, I know. I wasn't at all trying to imply that Serene was offended in any way (other than by the assumptions made by the other people and their mocking).

But I was saying that I don't differentiate between the posts I make with kink or sex-sex, so perhaps that's how she was included in the silly post. But if it was the kind of assumption that bi/poly = kinky, that's pretty stupid of them.

[jae]

Ooh, yeah, I know this one. I mean, it's been a VERY long time, but I used to often be the only non-kinky person in the room, and mocking-the-vanilla was a fun exciting pastime. And I didn't like the assumption either.

-J

[maize]

[Disclosure: I'm also bi, poly and vanilla.]

I wonder if this is a case of the phenomenon of, "If we agree about X, we must also agree about Y or Z," thinking I have always thought of as a side effect with both fortunate and unfortunate elements of the whole "these people are my tribe," thinking. I found this happens a lot not only with individuals but, for example, when politicians become popular. The example that pops into mind most strongly was the talk I saw around my friends list leading up to Obama's election about how he was going to push through true equal marriage, whereas he'd never talked about that in his platform at all and had at most expressed a tentative support for same-sex civil unions. It seemed that because he was "one of us" to many people, it was assumed that *all* of his politics aligned with theirs. I've run into this also when hanging around friends, though. The thing where it trips people in my local social circle up the most is in assuming that everyone in our circle is probably atheist or agnostic and at least anti-organized-religion, which sometimes leads to people saying anti-organized-religion things in a "everyone here obviously agrees," way and needing to be reminded that that's not true.

[wild_irises]

First, it makes me feel good just to read "bi, poly, and vanilla." To steal from lcohen, I identify as "cinnamon" rather than "vanilla," but not as kinky. I haven't had the experience of feeling mocked by the kinky, but I have for sure had the experience of watching a group of kinky folks get more and more explicit in my living room until they'd driven everyone else out of the conversation.

I think some kinky people in my greater circle often assume what I would call "situational rank." They don't have privilege in the big world, but they have a lot of privilege in this particular smaller world, and sometimes some of them abuse it.

[firecat]

I'm into some of the things you mention in your "kinky" list, but I also find it annoying when people assume that everyone in a conversation wants to discuss kinky subjects at length.

As for mockery, I think it should be kept in the bedroom. :-)

That is, I think most of the time mockery works best when it's shared with only a few close friends whom you know well enough to know they won't be offended either on their own behalf or on behalf of other people.

I do like engaging in mockery every now and then, but I'm fairly often offended by mockery even if I don't share the trait being mocked.