I Once Met a Belt I Didn't Like

Belts are my favourite kink toy for I am Spanish Red Butt, mother to a repurposed wooden spoon, sister to a box of glitter, and I will have my bratty ways in this life or the next. I’ve never met a piece of leather I didn’t love… except one. I was getting to know a new play partner at the time, and rope was his favourite kink toy. I wasn’t into rope. I’d never tried it, but I didn’t like it anyway. Still, visiting B without experiencing his rope is like visiting The Kruger Park without seeing an elephant. We had a few scenes, and they were glorious.

But then he took out the belt.

And the wax.

All my brain-gasms fell asleep at that precise moment. Belts with B were like Kruger National Park trips without elephants. All his sizzling passion vanished, and I felt it hard. Rope, on the other hand, became one of my favourite toys. Yes, B felt his jute. He felt it a lot.

This is the trouble with kink partnerships. You can arrive with a list of your favourite things and find they just don’t produce any brain-gasms with your new play partner.

B is an intensely cerebral person. If his kink doesn’t engage his brain, I don’t think it feels like kink to him at all. That’s why he loves rope so much. He’s turned it into a Swiss Army Knife, and if you watch him tie, you quickly learn that it’s really just an upgrade of the garden variety mindfuck. He might love it for its mindfulness and beauty, but he’s an evil imp, and he loves rope because it can be evil, too.

To him, Kinbaku was a Swiss army knife, but belts were butter knives. Who wants one of those when you have a multi-purpose tool? Not B. He’d tell you he doesn’t need any toys at all, but I’m betting belts are a bit too blunt for his liking. This is an educated guess. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Some people only play with those who share their kinks, but you never know what will happen when you play with a new partner. Sometimes your favourite kinks disappear in the ether. When you mix with a new person, you never know what chemical reaction might happen, so you’ve got to try new things.

Like rope.

And sometimes, you learn to love them.

A podcast host once called me too much work because I approach new relationships with a clean kink slate. I want to discover what every new engagement will bring me. I try not to bring too many kinks along while I’m discovering new people. I think the best of kink is the magical space that hangs between you and I. This is how my demisexuality expresses itself, and I never want to play any other way.

Your standard Zulu greeting translates as, “I see you.” The response is, “I am here.”

That’s BDSM to me. I see you. I am here. That’s so much better than a dim-sum menu of required toys.