“Honey, it’s called a switch”, he answered as soon as I finished my lamentation about feeling lost while being wrapped into his bed sheets. My raised eyebrow, however, made him quickly correct himself. „Of course, it is much more complex.”, he finished.
Pleased with his own rescue manoeuvre I moved on; the thoughts stayed. For weeks… There are those moments as a (baby) kinkster when the initial euphoria turns into utter frustration. All the new impressions, ideas, wishes and fantasies don’t want to stop, but you must start somewhere. But how?
I think in most cases it starts with two people and the activity that they want to do. At least I got started like that and that was also the point where the questioning began: Top, bottom, verse, sub, dominant, switch and brat. If there’s one thing I can’t do, it’s stand up confidently, pick a label and shout „switch, I choose you!“. I tried anyway and what came out was more of a „gotta catch ‚em all“. I’ve been stuck ever since, which is annoying at best and emotionally triggering at worst. Especially when everyone in my local scene seems to have figured out their stuff long before I even thought about getting into a relationship at all. Yet being afraid is “rationally” bullshit, but for my brain unfortunately a common mode of operation. So let’s deconstruct my whole identity-tohuwabohu…
First of all, what are labels and what are they for? Usually, labels are words that describe concepts or ideas that lived or resembled by people. Sometimes labels also describe the now purple mass that has been sitting in your fridge for months and no one dares to touch the jar, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.
Since labels are often very short, they should help shorten lengthy explanations about a certain topic. At the same time, labels are inherently subjective and therefore very flexible in their interpretation. There is no (natural) law that determines what label one has to pick. Which is exactly my problem, because I really don’t want to find myself in situations again in which my self-image of my own identity does not match with the external image of others. It goes hand in hand with a lot of fear shame and evil ghosts from the past… Bad news for me, expectations, or assumptions of others: I cannot prevent them. What I can prevent is feeling inferior when confusion within a conversation arises. Now what?
Well, I learned several ways to deal with problems. One of the worst is just sitting it out, even though problems will solve themselves sometimes there is no guarantee for that. A better one is getting information, information always helps me… reading, listening, and talking to others would be great examples.
The best option is just to start trying things out. There is no right and wrong to subjectivity and self-awareness. Especially if oneself starts with making the own (sexual) fantasies real and trying to transfer them into practice. An intermediate step I took before that was to sit down and make a list. I didn’t know exactly where I belonged, but I knew very well where I definitely didn’t belong.
It’s just a snapshot, I’m simply not a big sadist or a high protocol dom. In addition, I don’t have the desire to live in a 24/7 dynamic or becoming a slave or little one. The list got longer over the weeks and even though I still don’t know what I want, at least I don’t want to catch all the labels anymore. Try not being upset by people, who love to play label police. I know that queers love to debate about labels and, if it is possible, to deny a person their own identity, based on their own worldview. I am certain that kinky people have a similar problem although I have never met them, and I hope I will never do.
Two more things before I close this. Memo to myself and everyone else: as I said, there will always be people who either question your views with good intentions and people who simply want to play label police. I know it from queer and roleplaying circles, and I’m sure there are some in the kink community too. Don’t try to listen to them, they’re annoying, but mostly they’re just all barks no bites.
Another and the last one. Embrace your weirdness… Artists or musicians get to create new personas for their new albums or performance art, why should kinky people be denied this privilege? Please be the little brother that is just a pain in the ass of his own big brother. Be the big bad wolf that owns a human, be the service top or the top from the bottom, be a bratty alien that doesn’t know anything about human behavior and let it be the reason for you bending the rules of the kinky scene you are in and my favorite be the carnivorous plant that loves to keep track of their prey.