Discussion of BDSM aftercare and abuse dynamics

* Each partner giving each other explicit permission for "things to not be okay” afterwards * Having someone on hand that each partner can talk to afterwards -- not necessarily the same person for everyone involved. This person could be an observer, or might know everyone involved in the scene, or might be relatively separate from it all such as a kink- aware therapist, but the really important thing is that this person can give emotional support in every imaginable scenario. Thanks, Mollena, for the workshop and the thoughts. I've never made such a contingency plan myself, but I definitely think it's worth considering for people who are planning a heavy scene. This can be found on the Internet at: S&M: [theory] Aftercare or Brainwashing? ! wrote this in 2012. te OK ok Aftercare or Brainwashing? Yes, it's another article about abuse and S&M, but I'm going to cover a lot more than that. I'll talk about intimacy and bodily reactions and how these things build a relationship -- whether consensual or abusive. And I'll talk about how to deal with them, too. Last year, I received an email from a woman who wanted to talk about sexual desire that exists alongside real abuse. She has been abused, but she is sexually aroused by S&M, and she struggles with boundaries a lot. She wrote to me: Here's what destroys you: that some of us are designed to shut down and feel terror and horror and arousal and shame all at the same time, to crumple before horrible people, to feel aroused even as they genuinely destroy you. This is not in any one's best interest. It's not hot, it's not awesome. And yet it's there. The worst pain for some of us, that makes you want to scream and not exist and makes you want to scream to the heavens that you want to die and escape being in your own body is not that you are afraid he will come back. It's that you are aroused by the possibility that he will. And other than destroying your very self, you can't stop it. It is the HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018656