RoseKink87

I have begun the outline of my second chapter, which I am writing first, and this article came to my attention. What is significant to note is that it was published in 2014 and because studies take time to publish it was written just before kinky behaviour was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). I will further explore this event in a future post. The DSM is a book which is used to diagnoses mental health disorders. That means that this article provides a historical reference for therapists attitudes at the time when kink was about to transition out of a being considered a disorder. The article was written by a team of 4 (Kelsey, Stiles, Spiller, & Diekhoff) and is based on a survey comprised of 766 American therapists. The researchers discuss how the inclusion of paraphilic disorders in the DSM likely negatively influences therapists attitudes towards BDSM practices. Additionally, the now disproven myth that those that engage in BDSM are more likely to have tr...

I've been feeling eager to commit to this project and last night I sleepily sat in front of my computer pulling up articles and watching the cursor blink before I realized that I was going to have to miss a day and not post. Fridays are my mental health day so it was fitting for it to fall on such a day. I was reminded of an article that my professor recently sent my class on self-care and vulnerability. I have heard the argument that self-care is for those who can afford it, while I empathize with this statement and am frustrated with how self-care has been commodified, I also believe that most everyone has the opportunity to make choices for their own benefit at times. In the article titled Self-Care and Authenticity , Gracy Obuchowicz reminds us that the act of vulnerability is a form of self-care. For me, this blog is an expression of vulnerability and helps balance out the hours of listening I do each week. I'm a natural listener and while I enjoy it, I stop enjoying if I...

 In lieu of joining a local polyamory discord last night, in addition to anticipating meeting Richard Sprott tomorrow, I thought I would highlight Vilkin and Sprott's article entitled Consensual Non-Monogamy Among Kink-Identified Adults: Characteristics, Relationship Experiences, and Unique Motivations for Polyamory and Open Relationships . I mentioned in a previous post that some folks consider polyamory, or more modernly called ethical non-monogamy (ENM), as existing under the umbrella of the term kink depending on how you personally define the term. This article separates the terms and discusses how they intersect. The authors use 2 different surveys to collect data on kinky ENM individuals. In the first survey, which included 690 individuals, the researchers found that ENM individuals were likely to have committed partnerships in their life that they previously had sex with but where that was no longer a part of their relationship. About half of these kinky ENM folks were exper...

Today will be 2 weeks since I started the blog! Yeeeee! I can't believe it, it feels like yesterday. Do you ever feel so passionate about a project that you don't need to try to engage? This is what it feels like for me. I started this blog because I was intimidated to begin my capstone project which I need to write for the completion of my masters in counselling. This is my 3rd blog and because of my familiarity of writing in this format I thought I'd use it as a tool to trick my brain into beginning the capstone. I feel very clever about my strategy and loving of myself that I know how to get things done even when it's hard. What you have read thus far may or may not be included in the final draft. I continue to encourage comments, though I have not received any thus yet. Feel free to be the first! This week I am organizing my thoughts to better begin a draft that I may submit to some of the 'higher ups' that will evaluate my work, so today I will discuss them...

I was called back to the last reading that I posted about entitled Sexual Outsiders: Understanding BDSM Sexualities and Communities  (2012). Near the end of the introduction, the authors share the concept of therapeutic refugees which they credit to Dossie Easton. Dossie is a psychotherapist and author and you can find out more about her here:  http://www.dossieeaston.com/  If you're already have some familiarity with the kink landscape you might recognize her from The Ethical Slut or The New Topping or The New Bottoming Book .  A therapeutic refugee is someone who has experienced therapy where there was an attempt to 'cure' them for something that is part of them and is not necessarily harmful instead of supporting individuals to thrive in a world where they aren't accepted for who they are. This is especially prevalent in the kink community, as we live in a generally sex negative culture.  In the beginning of my foray into sexuality research, I came across an ...

I just found a juicy book written by the aforementioned Richard Sprott and coauthored by David Ortmann (2015). The concept of celebrity really changes as I become a huge nerd about BDSM and today these types of people are the superstars of my world. In the introduction, the authors remind us of the difference between the terms erotic and sexual.  This reminds me of an excellent essay written by Audre Lorde entitled Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWmq9gw4Rq0  "We are taught to separate that erotic demand from most vital areas of our lives, other than sex." She describes the erotic as the "assertion of the life force of all women." Lorde reminds us of the polarity of our identities. We can be catholic and kinky, femme bike mechanic counsellors, injection drug users and PhDs.  I was introduced to this essay through a course taught by Dawn Serra entitled Power in Pleasure: Reconnecting with you Hunger, Desire & Joy  w...

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It's intimidating considering whether or not to label myself as 'kinky'. I feel like: 'have I experienced enough?', 'do I really know what I'm talking about?', basically...am I an imposter? Most people can relate to this feeling. When we join a new community, try something new, start a new job. We wonder if we really belong or if it was an accident that we ended up here. I can only imagine that being kinky is potentially the same way for some individuals. Some people definitely figure it out early on, but others exist in circumstances where this part of their personality is just not relevant to their current environment. Or there is a eureka moment and the clues become more obvious after the fact.  One thing I do know is that I really like being bossy . It's particularly satisfying to tell a man what to do. When I tell my partner M what to do and he listens, I am in heaven. When he doesn't listen, then I am irritated as fuck. Having this system a...

I came across this title in the reference section of one of the aforementioned academic papers I shared. Reference lists are great resources for more information, though when it come to academia there are limits as to what is acceptable to site under particular circumstances. A variety of rules exist, a culture, around how things are written partially so we can absorb as much information as quickly as possible. I kinkily relish in breaking these very rules in my blog! Like using contractions isn't allowed so every time I do recognize that I experience pleasure from it ;) In the introduction of this book, which is a second edition released in 2016, Harrington shares that sacred kink practices are ancient and more pervasive than we might realize. The author discovered themes in Shamanism, Christian monasticism, Hinduism, Buddhism and others! So interesting! The full title of the work is, Sacred Kink: The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond .  Harrington offers a variety of definitions...

Part of the kinky process for me, and it appear prevalent in academic literature, is to explore the endless ways in which folks find ways to connect that are outside of our cultural norms. Many academic articles include case studies that highlight excerpts from interviews allowing voices to share their personal and often unique ideas of how they engage kinkily. It is through witnessing others experience that I derive inspiration for what is possible in my own life. This is part of why I wanted to start the blog, because even though it's vulnerable to share, it's an important part of normalizing desires and situations that don't fit into our cultural constructs. One particular researcher that stands has stood out to me in my perusal of academic journals is Richard Sprott. I mentioned him in an earlier post as he is organizing the consultation group that I will be joining later this month. Sprott lives on the West Coast and is heavily involved in current kink research. I'...

The author of this research article entitled,  A Journey in Kink  (Domingue, 2019), reminds us that it was only 2013 when kinky behaviour was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) which is used by clinicians to diagnose mental health disorders. All of this language is controversial to me, as I tend to lean more towards the school of thinking that "disorders" are often reasonable responses to past trauma. For the purpose of context this date is an important signpost. Our friend Cal, the author, used EMDR and Hakomi methodologies which are both somatically oriented therapies, to work with an individual which eventually allowed the client freedom to enter into a collared relationship. Somatic therapies are ones that use the awareness of the body to process unresolved experiences. It's an interesting article and if you have access to academic literature you can find it in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology . I'm not personally trained in these modalit...

When I started approaching my capstone project (which is like a mini-version of a thesis where no experiment is conducted) I knew that I wanted to do it on something kinky. One of the first articles I came across was from the journal Sexualities  and entitled BDSM as therapy? Danielle Lindemann (2011) from Columbia University interviews 66 female pro-dommes with the intention of exploring the implications of erotic labor as a form of sex therapy. What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below. One of the most interesting arguments that the author (2011) presents as a reverse discourse  which is reference to Foucault. Broken down it's the concept that if we consider D/s relationships as therapeutic, then as a result we are in fact participating in turning it into a disease of a kind. Another example is considering sex toys as 'therapeutic devices'. That we need these tools in order to resolve our problems, thus associating the practice of using sex toys as a remedy. W...

 I have a feeling that there is some way to channel my experience of avoidance into kink. There is a book by Carolyn Elliot that I read and discussed with some friends not long ago that really moved me. Here's a link to her website: http://carolyngraceelliott.com/philosophy and another to a meditation based on her work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKeYyh_ig8 So her philosophy is based on the idea that we recreate certain types of suffering for ourselves over and over again because we get something out of the experience, part of us secretly enjoys it for some reason. If we could take inventory of what we are getting out of it and start creating this type of experience more intentionally then it shifts. In my initial post, A Fresh Page ( https://rosekink87.blogspot.com/2022/01/entry-1-fresh-page.html ), I described experimenting with sadism and impact play with my friend and partner MS. Part of my draw towards experiencing this with him was a result of me feeling quite irritated...

What does the word kink actually mean? It is my personal interpretation that kink is sort of an umbrella term that encompasses alternative sexualities. But this is the point, when you try to define something in order to understand it then you simplify it and lose something in the process. Because I currently have a partner that I don't have sex with and I would consider our relationship kinky. We talk about sex often, but not with each other. We interact with our bodies, but there is no sexual energy to it. Some people consider polyamory, or ethical non-monogamy (ENM), to be kinky. Some ENM folks would not identify with the term 'kinky'. The academic literature has recently been trying to define kink in order to study it and become more inclusive. There's a lot of effort to educate cousellors in order to better serve this population.  Inevitably there are inexhaustable ways in which we are biased, even against ourselves. I recently asked a partner if his intention was t...

 Recently, I've started contacting practicing kink therapists in the New York City area for short chats (between 20 and 30 minutes). Part of the experience is feeling a little star-struck that these people are doing the job that I'd like to do. Part of it is the fear that I'll do or say something catastrophic because that is the fear of joining a new community and being the new person. There's a fear for me that if I really want something then the possibility of me doing something to get in my own way is somehow looming. Regardless, I've scheduled these interviews anyway and challenged this part of me. An excellent result is that I'm beginning to become familiar with various resources. One that I've come across recently is: www.tashra.org This organization is working towards kink social justice and advocating for the community through research and the distribution of information. Through their Facebook page I found a consultation group they opened up for kin...

 Just over 4 months ago I moved to New York City from Victoria, BC, Canada. I unburdened my basement suite where I had spend the entirety of Covid living alone and suppressing my social needs and the feelings that resulted from scarcity. Having just returned from visiting my childhood home in Hawai'i, NYC now dominates as feeling 'most homey' in my nervous system currently. Nothing like a first return from a trip away to solidify your relationship with place. So here I am, in NYC, the place where people go to fulfill their dreams. Hah! It is  pretty incredible. I have made so many friends and there is no shortage of things that I want to involve myself in. I'm grateful for my self-care practices to hold me accountable to my health so that I can navigate such opportunity with ease. There is much abundance in my life after a plethora of scarcity. I feel enthusiastic and spiritually connected. I feel like I'm supposed to be here, in the house that I'm living in and...