Dealing with guilt

[Doctor Pervert]

Do you feel guilty about your love of kink, maybe you feel embarrassed about it, does it feel wrong, like you shouldn't be doing it or even thinking about it?
This is a topic I've been meaning to look at for quite some time, and a few recent chats with people have brought it back to my attention so now's the time to jump in and tackle it!

It's something I've heard from a number of different people over many years, both newbies and long term kinksters are afflicted by this. Which brings me to the first thing I want discuss and that's the almost universal belief among the guilt stricken that doing what you do, liking what you like is weird and very uncommon.
You're not weird and you're most certainly not alone.

There's an old saying that if it's been thought of, there's porn for it. Yep, you didn't invent your kink and there is already a whole community of like minded folks doing what you do, loving what you love. Ordinary, everyday people that work in the supermarket or bank or in construction or, well, everywhere. And this is one of the most liberating things about the internet, you can connect with those like minded folk really easily and anonymously via forums like this. However what you miss out on is really meeting those people and getting to know them as a whole person. Contrast this to the wonderful institution of the munch, a simple meeting for kinky people in their everyday guise. The commonality of kink is starkly on display, at a munch we're all just regular folk chatting about our shared interests, like a craft group or a car club, or, oh ok, well not quite like that but you get what I mean.

This is something I find tricky to work around online, quite often people are using the anonymity as a shield to protect them from revealing their "dirty secret" and so are loath to share any information about the real them. This has a very valid basis and the safety aspects alone make it sensible to be really cautious with what you share with people you meet in groups like this.

A lot of the guilt can be blamed on societal views on kink and this is especially true in regions where fundamentalist religions hold sway, after all there are still places on earth where homosexuality is a capital crime. But this righteous morality that has insinuated itself, to varying degrees in general society is mostly a huge farce. Saying one thing and doing another has so often been revealed for what it is when champions of this false morality are caught out dabbling in what they condemn.

So how does this help you not feel so guilty about loving your chosen kink? Unfortunately it doesn't. The human brain is a weird and wonderful thing, it can understand the logic of the arguments against feeling guilty, yet still make you feel guilty. And this is simply because emotion doesn't respond to logical argument. However all is not lost because what it does respond to is seeing those arguments demonstrated. The more immersed you become in the kink world, the more "normal" it seems but for this to work you need to see the entirety, not just the closeted, segregated side of others and their kink.
You need to become aware of just how widespread and pervasive it is, that far from being weird and unusual your kink is loved and practiced by many. And that these practitioners are not six fingered, cloven hoofed beasts but ordinary folk, just as ordinary and average as you in fact.
Never judge a book by its cover is very apt.

In many respects just being here and, hopefully joining in, you have already crossed the first barrier. And although it may be really hard, try to interact with others here, not only for their shared interest in kink but also to learn a little more about who they are, what they do. Try to discover just how ordinary and common your kink is, it's not abnormal, it's not weird, it's simply what you like.

Don't try to find a reason why, there isn't one.

After all, why do you like chocolate, or ice cream, or fried chicken or popping bubble wrap or swimming or watching the sun set? Because it's what you like.

 

[Doctor Pervert]

Now on to my ramblings (and rantings) about why you shouldn't put too much faith in what psychology has to say on this topic. First and foremost psychology actually started a lot of the labeling of paraphylia's as deviant behavior, that's right they called us deviants. And in some places and cases they still do!

Thankfully most of this has stopped now and there are in fact kink aware psychologists who can be helpful working out some of the problems you might be feeling. What I object to most though is a lot of the foundation studies into bdsm and kink by psychologists that are still used clinically today are deeply flawed.

This is because behavioral studies are notoriously difficult. I'm a biologist and have spent a good portion of my life studying small mammals. Part of those studies require investigating their behavior which is fine from an observational perspective however trying to design an experimental framework to determine why this behavior occurs is fraught. At best you can usually determine a broad outline of possibilities but attempting to put certainty on why A does B is just not possible.

And that's because mammals have brains that allow for evolving behavior, they learn. Learning is a fantastic thing, and it never stops. So an experiment that produces a result on a individual or group will very likely produce a different result the next time you try it. If you try that experiment on a different individual or group the results will also differ. This is because not only are all individuals different, the same individual is different next week, or even tomorrow because they are always learning.

Now at this point some of you (any psychologists here? must be!) are saying but the way around that is to statistically average out your results over a large enough sample group. Yes, this is exactly what I do in my studies and this produces trends, it does not produce a definitive result. I can never say with 100% certainty that if individual A does B it is because of C, the best I can do is say if individual A does B it is likely because of C, that's a fuzzy result. Compare that to other types of experiments I perform such as diet vs weight gain, environment vs breeding success and so on where I can definitively say A will do better eating B rather than C, or A will always produce more offspring in environment B.

The fuzzy science I described is how a lot of the psychological research into bdsm and kink behaviors has been done. When I've looked at some this foundational research and actually read the papers it's pretty staggering to see the tiny sample sizes, lack of follow up studies and poor repeatability of experiments involved.
There are in fact some relied upon studies that involved a handful, and in some cases just one individual! Part of this is because the ethics of some of this type of study are dubious and older research that would not be permitted today is the only source of data they have.

Ok, so enough of me shitting on psychology, what has this got to do with guilt and how to resolve it? First and foremost, as I said before, don't try to find the why, there is no why to the question of liking certain kinks, you just do.
Second, don't put too much reliance on anything you may read relating to the psychology of bdsm and kink because regardless of the source they really don't know why either.
Third, mammals learn, all the time. What will help you most is learning more about what you like, look for others in your niche group and reach out to them. In this way you learn more about them as well more about your kink and the more you learn the more you change. The more you know the more normalized it will seem and the less isolating and guilt inducing it will become.

Now I need to stress again that these are simply my ranting and rambling thoughts on this subject, however I have been in the bdsm and kink world a long time so it's also based on my many years of observation and experience.

What you like isn't a failing, it's not something you're doing wrong, it's just you being you. And there are lots, and lots of other doing just the same. So be kind to yourself, give yourself a break and try to start enjoying your kink guilt free.

Please feel free to add to this discussion with any comments or experiences you may have. You can also contact me via dm if you'd like to do it privately.

 

[DiscoveryofSelf]

I know this is an older thread.
I'm going to state a few things first off. I've been around kink longer than I should have.
My kinks and fantasies are polar opposites.

It hasn't been until this past year where I've really started looking into my mental health overall instead of just covering symptoms with alcohol, porn and sex.

Through working on my mental health and in talking with others I personally know and know their stories I've noticed that past can heavily effect kinks/fetishes.
An example of this which has actually caused some guilt for me in how I reacted. Was being left alone for part of a scene I broke free and left without any explanation. At that time I didn't have any.

For those that have experienced trauma (known or suppressed) and developed kinks or limits as a copping mechanism could and do occasionally experience guilt from it.

 

[Thygh]

Do you feel guilty about your love of kink, maybe you feel embarrassed about it, does it feel wrong, like you shouldn't be doing it or even thinking about it?
This is a topic I've been meaning to look at for quite some time, and a few recent chats with people have brought it back to my attention so now's the time to jump in and tackle it!

It's something I've heard from a number of different people over many years, both newbies and long term kinksters are afflicted by this. Which brings me to the first thing I want discuss and that's the almost universal belief among the guilt stricken that doing what you do, liking what you like is weird and very uncommon.
You're not weird and you're most certainly not alone.

There's an old saying that if it's been thought of, there's porn for it. Yep, you didn't invent your kink and there is already a whole community of like minded folks doing what you do, loving what you love. Ordinary, everyday people that work in the supermarket or bank or in construction or, well, everywhere. And this is one of the most liberating things about the internet, you can connect with those like minded folk really easily and anonymously via forums like this. However what you miss out on is really meeting those people and getting to know them as a whole person. Contrast this to the wonderful institution of the munch, a simple meeting for kinky people in their everyday guise. The commonality of kink is starkly on display, at a munch we're all just regular folk chatting about our shared interests, like a craft group or a car club, or, oh ok, well not quite like that but you get what I mean.

This is something I find tricky to work around online, quite often people are using the anonymity as a shield to protect them from revealing their "dirty secret" and so are loath to share any information about the real them. This has a very valid basis and the safety aspects alone make it sensible to be really cautious with what you share with people you meet in groups like this.

A lot of the guilt can be blamed on societal views on kink and this is especially true in regions where fundamentalist religions hold sway, after all there are still places on earth where homosexuality is a capital crime. But this righteous morality that has insinuated itself, to varying degrees in general society is mostly a huge farce. Saying one thing and doing another has so often been revealed for what it is when champions of this false morality are caught out dabbling in what they condemn.

So how does this help you not feel so guilty about loving your chosen kink? Unfortunately it doesn't. The human brain is a weird and wonderful thing, it can understand the logic of the arguments against feeling guilty, yet still make you feel guilty. And this is simply because emotion doesn't respond to logical argument. However all is not lost because what it does respond to is seeing those arguments demonstrated. The more immersed you become in the kink world, the more "normal" it seems but for this to work you need to see the entirety, not just the closeted, segregated side of others and their kink.
You need to become aware of just how widespread and pervasive it is, that far from being weird and unusual your kink is loved and practiced by many. And that these practitioners are not six fingered, cloven hoofed beasts but ordinary folk, just as ordinary and average as you in fact.
Never judge a book by its cover is very apt.

In many respects just being here and, hopefully joining in, you have already crossed the first barrier. And although it may be really hard, try to interact with others here, not only for their shared interest in kink but also to learn a little more about who they are, what they do. Try to discover just how ordinary and common your kink is, it's not abnormal, it's not weird, it's simply what you like.

Don't try to find a reason why, there isn't one.

After all, why do you like chocolate, or ice cream, or fried chicken or popping bubble wrap or swimming or watching the sun set? Because it's what you like.

Good article. Thank you.