A few weeks ago I read the odd story of a lady who wholeheartedly hated coffee for the first few years in the BDSM scene. She said it was because: “I need my caffeine hit like everyone else, but I had been told that true dominants take their cups without sugar or milk,” she laughed at herself. Which sounds utterly bizarre, at least until you put yourself in her (probably stiletto) shoes.
As a total newcomer to the world of erotic domination and submission games, she was shocked—just like countless others before her—to learn of the existence of a whole culture, with its jargon, habits, huge books of rules about how to best practice hundreds of frankly improbable games, special clubs, and parties. She saw how information was the difference between a great experience and a possibly health-threatening one, so she tried ingesting as much as she could. To her, the non-existent coffee “rule” was just one among countless other apparently strange rituals, and she accepted it matter-of-factly because “that’s the way it’s done.”
This is, of course, a rather extreme example, but the universe of alternative sexualities is rife with nonsensical yet very serious-sounding tenets. True polyamorists are not jealous. True submissives must obey any order. True swingers do not discriminate against people for their looks. True furries spend at least three hours a day in their full-body animal suit. The list could go on forever. The implication, however, is just one. If you don’t behave according to this arbitrary set of rules, you are just a poser, not worth anything much in the scene, and will maybe be the subject of sarcastic jokes by the True Players™.
Some rules make actual sense if you think about it. For example, kinksters don’t drink or do drugs before playing, because awareness and the ability to consent are keystones for a safe experience when you are dealing with extreme emotions and sensations. Other rules had a reason to be in the past, but they have become useless today. Think of the flagging rituals of gay WWII veterans, who needed a semi-secret way of signaling their preferences in a society that could jail or fire them, until homosexuality was decriminalized and was no longer classified as a mental illness.
Still, most of the time, you might hear or read the phrase “You are not a true kinkster if you don’t [X],” it’s just poppycock. Why should you go exploring new pleasures just by blindly following the steps of someone else, after all? The one general principle is simply to learn what must be avoided for legal, health, or safety reasons, then do whatever else you like—and if you stop enjoying it, by all means, try other games until you are happy again. Or just relax, quit, whatever: you have the right to live your life, including your sexual one, however you please.
So, why is the TrueKink myth so common? Sometimes it’s just due to the lack of critical thinking. “It has always been done like that” can be a stronger shackle than any bondage device you can find in a dominatrix’s dungeon. More often than not, however, people who try to impose their rules and views on you are simply attempting to maintain their own teetering authority. Be it in goodwill or maliciously, they are trying to protect the “traditions” they represent, hindering the rise of different points of view.
And then there are manipulators and predators. Like in the coffee example, the confusion and excitement of ill-informed newbies—coupled with a tendency to take porn as a tutorial instead of fiction—makes them easy prey for various types of unsavory characters. Think of your garden-variety narcissist, but also of gurus, of sex workers specializing in borderline fantasies, of blackmailers, and so on. They are definitely a minority, mind you, yet they do exist even in the fabulous world of kink.
Here is a handy checklist you may use when faced with a “True Kink” statement.
- Does this dogma make me happy?
- Who is this coming from? Would they earn something if I followed that rule?
- Seriously: who is this person? Who gave them the title to decide?
- Is there any independent source I can check to confirm the validity of this rule?
- Would doing things differently harm anyone?
These five questions should easily clarify whether you are being lied to or not. In any case, you didn’t get into kink just to follow someone’s else arbitrary rules. Also, you should not attempt to be a True Anything but a True Yourself. And guess what? The best expert in that field is simply you.
Ayzad is a kink educator living in Milan, Italy, and working online as a coach to help people worldwide solve their kink-related issues and reclaim their happiness. His bilingual free website https://ayzad.com features hundreds of articles about unusual sex, podcasts, and books, including the best-selling BDSM – A Guide for Explorers of Extreme Eroticism and I Love BDSM – Beginners Guide to Erotic Bondage, Domination and Submission Games.