My Trauma Is Your Kink

Thrive 2024 Keynote

Good whatever the fuck appropriate time of day it is where you are!

I wanted to start by thanking Master Devyn Stone for establishing this conference and for the honor and privilege of asking me to speak with you today. As a fellow proponent of destigmatizing mental health issues in the broader BDSM community, I relished the opportunity to give this keynote address. I was also terrified. Like many of you, I have what my therapist politely reminds me is a “not insignificant trauma history”. And so, there were a number of ways I could use this time. I spun on different topics around and around in my head and what I kept coming back to was this one.

Content warning: I’m going to be talking about the not sunshine and rainbows parts of my BDSM journey as a person on the right side of slash. I will be touching on issues of underage sex, general BDSM, physical trauma, and substance abuse. But also, joy, growth and healing. Spoiler alert: I make it! So here we go!

I kneel, face pressed to the floor silently sobbing as tears stream down my face, pooling onto the tile floor. Blood and snot, tears and drool form a murky pond drowning my cheeks and drenching my hair that has long since stopped being the pretty high ponytail that I started the evening with.

My hair is the only thing allowed to be out of place. Every muscle in my body is relaxed despite the welts and bruises painting virtually every surface of my skin. Years of conditioning allow me to stay silent (other than a “Thank you Master” or to recite the stroke count) during even the most extreme beating. Not a single flinch, not a single attempt to move out of the way. Nothing is allowed to show other than my obedience and acquiescence. Only utter and unquestioning devotion is allowed.

That night, I attended to his guests, effortlessly gliding through the room at the perfect moment to refill a drink, clear a glass, light a cigarette. An invisible wraith who seems omniscient to the needs of over 50 people all at the same time. Anticipatory service on steroids (well cocaine but it was the 80s so I don’t think that counts).

After the party comes the de facto SM and sex part of the evening but it is a rare guest that can hurt me more than Master. Even rarer are the ones who are allowed to. Tonight is an “easy” night. Nothing was broken or even sprained. I pull myself together on the ride home and practice slowing my brain down (valium helps) so that I can sneak back into my house and hope to get a few hours of sleep before I have to be functional enough to catch the bus in the morning.

I am not yet 15. And my Trauma is your kink.

This mythos of the perfectly obedient slave is a well-worn trope in our community, and yet few of us on either side of the slash consider the cost and root causes for someone willing to turn over their entire life to the whims of another. I am in NO way painting M/S, TPE, OP or any other authority transfer dynamics as inherently dangerous or unhealthy. Quite the contrary. I think well negotiated; well-structured dynamics are some of the most beautiful relationships I have ever seen. I have also seen and been part of some of the unhealthiest relationships imaginable because I/ we didn’t know how to say no, how to use our voices to advocate for our basic needs, or how to gain the self awareness to acknowledge how our trauma both healed and unhealed, plays a pivotal role in all our relationships.

As a 50 year old AFAB person who is also first generation American, I was socialized to always be polite, to always listen to adults, to always worry about what other people thought of me. Whether that took the form of perfectly innocently hugging a friend of my grandmother’s I didn’t want to or worrying about getting blood on my church clothes rather than the fact I had skinned my knee, I was told over and over that my needs and wants came second to outside appearances.

While both my parents struggled with alcoholism, I knew I was loved. I also knew I couldn’t rely on them to be the providers of emotional stability a kid needed. I learned to judge their moods before I could read and I could tell by the sound of how much noise the ice made as their drinks got low, just how long I had before they passed out and I could run off to do my own thing. Over time my own thing turned to drugs and alcohol and the aforementioned M/s dynamic.

What happens to a child who doesn’t have a fight or flight option? We learn to freeze and fawn. Our C-PTSD grants us superpowers where we can learn to read the slightest gesture as an emotion and our hyper vigilance allows us to notice the smallest of details. It also makes us amazing S-types.

To my fellow S-types most of the rest of this speech is for us. These are words I wish I could have heard many years ago and it’s still advice I still need to hear even after 30 years in this community.

Ask Why. Ask why all the time. Ask yourself. Why do you feel like you are an S-type? Ask why you want to subvert your will for another person. Ask why you want this label vs that label. 

Ask your Dtype why they want you to be their S-type. Ask them specifically why they want you! Ask your Dtype before they are your Dtype. They want you to be naked all the time- why? They want you to turn over your finances-why? They want you to petition them instead of vice versa-why? They won’t renegotiate - why?

Ask yourself why you feel like you can’t say yellow. Or red. Ask why you don’t feel comfortable telling your D-Type your preferences (even if you have negotiated your right to NOT have them taken into account). Ask why you say sorry all the fucking time. Ask why you are stressed more than you are happy. Ask why you feel alone even when you are in a relationship.

And once you come out of the existential crisis you might have (well I did. Just saying), Start asking your community why.

Why do they insist on a lower case S for us? Why are there only/maybe a handful of PE/AT focused groups that are led by us? Why are most classes taught by and from the perspective of folks on the left side of the slash. Why are S-types who are outspoken, strong etc told that they aren’t “s” enough. Why is it that when we start to stand in our own light, people try to make us go back where we aren’t visible. 

Because part of our trauma is your kink. So I am urging us to stand up for ourselves. To allow ourselves to heal as we make our kink choices. To give ourselves grace to say no as often as we want and need to. 

For the non S-types I need you to listen now. You need to do better by us. You need to hear our no. You need to stop asking us to do shit blindly, without thinking about what it costs us. I am not saying you can’t ask us. I am not even saying we shouldn’t do it. I am saying YOU need to think before you ask. I need you to step aside and let us talk. There is strength and power that this community has utterly disregarded because we stand behind or kneel in front of another.

But I also need all of us to recognize that some of that strength and some of those most prized skills have come at a really high cost. And since it has already been paid, I need ALL of us to not add tax onto it.  

I know that this speech is probably preaching to the choir. You have all decided to attend an event focusing on the intersectionality of kink and mental health/neurodivergence. I’m going to take an educated guess that some (most?) of us have had some trauma getting to today. I am asking you to think about how your personal trauma affects how you interact in an imbalance power dynamic. I don’t care if it’s your boss at work, your mom or your partner. Well I do care because I try not to be a shitty human these days. But I especially care when it comes to how we have historically overlooked or intentionally intertwined trauma responses into what behavior we expect from S-Types. It’s 2024 and I am tired of being expected to continue to engage in trauma responses to please anyone, even if they hold my collar. I might be too old to ever have the chance again, but for each and every S-Type out there who struggles with these issues, I wanted you to hear that you aren’t alone. Start embracing the “I am healing so you are no longer my type” philosophy. And if you ever need someone to have your back just tell them to Fuck Off because Mara said so.

Thank you for listening. And I hope you get to spend the weekend immersed in kinship and learning new perspectives that leads to even more questions. 

This isn't an easy path but when we get it right, it's one of the most rewarding things we get to do. It's taken me years of healing and work to get to where I am. And I still struggle. Here's to healing and growth and lot's of whys for all of us. Go out there and Thrive!!! Thank you.