Having been active in “the scene” for a good five years, I’ve had the pleasure of making plenty of kinky friends. I daresay that, at present, I have a more or less equal number of kinky and vanilla friends. Of these, a good proportion are in serious relationships, whether married or long term, and I’ve come to notice a trend. Now, I may be biased but it appears to me that the kinky couples I know are generally happier than their vanilla counterparts. Clearly, this is an assumption on my part and I may be right or I may be wrong. Whatever the case, it got me thinking about the things that kinky couples do. These practices that kinky couples have are actually great for relationship building! Let’s take a look…
1. Kinky couples negotiate.
When playing with someone for the first time, it’s common practice for individuals to negotiate their boundaries. Because there are just so many fetishes and kinks under the umbrella of BDSM, it is important for kinky individuals to be upfront about what they’re interested in, what they like, what they dislike, and what they absolutely do not want to do. Negotiation does not end after the first time. Kinky couples often continue negotiating years into the relationship. After all, it isn’t uncommon for one’s likes and dislikes to change or intensify with time.
2. Kinky couples communicate extensively.
Apart from being in the habit of negotiating their likes and dislikes, most kinky couples maintain open channels of communication. Within a scene, for instance, despite the intensity of the play, the submissive always has a means to communicate how well he/she is coping. While some couples utilise a safeword, others may use the traffic light system of green, amber and red. Whatever their choice, it is expected of the dominants to check in frequently with their submissives to find out they are doing.
After the scene, the same practice holds true. Dominants will check in with their submissives and provide aftercare. Depending on how intense the scene was, aftercare may last from a few minutes to many hours. Dominants worth any salt rarely shirk their responsibilities to ensure their submissives are well-recovered from the scene.
3. Kinky couples aren’t afraid to try new things.
When I received the submissive checklist from my first dominant partner, I was amazed at the plethora of kinks listed. I have to admit to only knowing what a fifth of them meant. At that time, Google had not yet been created and I had to make do with guessing at the titles. Certain things sounded absolutely terrifying to me, like needle play, but then, there were some that I wasn’t quite sure if I was into, like humiliation. Going by the fact that I’m now a huge humiliation afficionado, I guess it’s safe to conclude that I was not afraid to try new things.
This experimental nature isn’t exclusive to me. Most kinky couples I’ve met have tried lots of things. It’s almost as if they’re afraid that they’ll lose out if they neglect to try something on the list. Through trial and error, they often learn new things about themselves and each other.
4. Kinky couples aren’t afraid to look to others for support.
While this does not apply to ALL kinky couples, those that I know and hold dear are actively involved in the BDSM community. Yes, there is a BDSM community and you’ll likely find an active one no matter which part of the world you live. Well… unless you live in Antarctica, then you may have to make do with the penguins.
Us kinky couples make it a habit to get together once a month thereabouts, or more, to talk and swap notes on what we’ve been getting up to kinkwise. For example, it’s nice to hear what orgasm denial has been doing for a certain couple, and how another couple’s foray into puppy play has been. Kinky folk are generally just dying to share their bedroom secrets with their friends. And if one couple is facing some sort of kink-related problem (or sometimes even more personal problems), there’s bound to be someone they can ask, often in the form of a BDSM mentor.
5. Kinky folk appreciate their partners very much.
In a D/s relationship, dominants and submissives often put in extensive amounts of time and energy to negotiate, communicate and work out some form of structure that works for them. Contracts and protocol are not uncommon among kinky couples. In fact, many dominants train their submissives to serve them in very specific ways, and many submissives spend much effort learning these ways.
Discipline is one of the mainstays in a D/s relationship, and this often manifests in correction, punishment and positive strokes. The immense amount of attention paid to developing each other (for it’s always a two-way street) leads to very appreciative and fulfilled individuals.
While I am sure that these habits ring true for many vanilla couples, I like to celebrate the fact that I’m kinky and that these aren’t a good-to-have, but a given in my relationship!
SLAP! 