A couple of weeks ago I watched and listened to two different workshops: one about healing from sexual trauma and the other about kinky politics. I'd love to share what I learned from both, but I think each of them deserve their own post so I'll start with...
This workshop was held by Penda N'diaye from Pro Hoe and they had a discussion with Sonalee Rashatwar and Ev'yan Whitney. I follow Sonalee's workshops constantly and try my best to listen and watch the ones they do because I just learn SOO much from them. I had not heard about Ev'yan, but they also had so many amazing things to say during the talk.
Kinky Politics was a workshop about exactly that - KINKS! And what that means for them and others. The first meaning I had to kink was how outside the box you can get with sex and pushing the norms we were used to. While that could be part of the meaning, they did bring something new to that definition for me. They discussed how "kinky" can literally be anything outside of societal norms and anything that goes against white supremacy. For queer, trans, non-binary, disabled, poly, folks of color, when they allow themselves to enjoy pleasure the way they want and to find things that make them feel good, that's kinky. White supremacy and capitalism wants people to solely focus on the heteronormative track: date a person of the opposite gender, get married, and have kids. So, when we break out of that, we are breaking norms that have been forced upon us. Now THAT'S kinky!
Ev'yan also brought up compulsory sexuality as well (which I believe they mentioned was from a book they were reading) and how some of us feel pressured to be super kinky or super queer, etc or else we're neither. Basically, we feel as if we do not try all these acrobatic positions or some form of BDSM, then we are not kinky. Or we feel as if we are not queer enough, or poly enough, etc. It all comes from shame, which is what this capitalistic and white supremacist society wants us to feel. So when we do not allow that shame to dictate how we go about our relationships and sexual experiences, then we are pushing those norms and being hella kinky!
That's the fun part about sexuality and exploring what sexuality means for us - we can literally label ourselves (or not) however we want AND also define those labels we feel comfortable with on our own terms. This is also a form of sexual liberation! We are exploring what kind of sex we want with no shame and we are looking into different forms of relationships (sexual or not). We are living our lives on our own terms, and that's not only kinky, but it's radical, it's liberating, and freeing.
There are so many ways to explore our kinkiness, whether that be having sex (or not), watching porn (or not), reading about sexuality, transforming our ways of thinking, etc. Sonalee mentioned how we can transform the way we see sex when we dive deeper into the porn you actually want to watch, porn that is queer, that involves disabled folks, involves softness, has trans folks in it, or fantasies that we have been thinking about. By finding the ways we want to be sexual, we are liberating ourselves and allowing ourselves (and this is how Sonalee put it) to kill the cop in our head, kill the judgmental parent in our head, kill the racist in our heads.
We have so much unlearning to do that it feels overwhelming and feels constant - and it will be. We have been taught so many toxic and racist ideas throughout our lives that it will take just as much time to unlearn those ideas as it took when you were taught them. I think that unlearning will be a forever process, just like self-love, and that's okay! Figuring out what you want out of relationships is also trial and error and that's okay! Watching and listening to workshops like this brings so much freedom and love into my life and that's what this workshop did for me. They also mentioned how giving yourself small pleasures daily is so vital for us. Whether that be giving ourselves a hug, reminding ourselves to breath, or making out with someone you like. Pleasure can come from so many places and we need to allow ourselves to give ourselves that pleasure.
SO..I'm kinky! and I think I've always known this, but felt ashamed and embarrassed to feel it, but IT'S TRUE! And I'm proud of myself for allowing me to call myself kinky and want to thank the speakers at the workshop - it was so transformative for me. I hope that this post brought you some light or a smile or a distraction, whatever you needed. Thanks for reading :-)
