You Belong

Jay is like every other person at this play party: Trussed up in gorgeous kink gear with an entire suitcase full of toys. It’s your first play party, and everyone’s been here longer than you have. You know this by their bare breasts and wardrobe full of corsets. You don’t even own one corset, let alone a suitcase of toys.

Mary’s willingness to put her body on display is almost as impressive as her electroplay collection. You’re not like that. You’re not like any of these people. Take Mark. He wears fishnets to all these events. He’s gay but still plays with more naked women than you’ve ever seen. If you’ve ever felt you don’t belong, it’s probably Mark who did you in. The last time you tied up a woman was never. You’ve seen less kink than a ruler. Not that kind of ruler, silly. The straight kind.

Yup. You tied up an ex with her own stockings once, but you sure as shit don’t have a pair of fishnet stockings. Jackie’s just walking around butt-naked. She can wield a cane like a motherfucker without even breaking the thing. You don’t own a cane, although you picked up a stick on a hike once. It snapped the first time you used it.

Apparently there’s an entire skill set around this that you’ve never heard about. You’re just an uneducated wannabe in jeans, and you’re wondering why you even came. Not that kind of “came,” silly. The showing up kind. You haven’t come for a month. You’re not shagging five people a night like all these other people. You don’t even meet the minimum standards to qualify as kinky.

The trouble is if you actually look at the people around you, you’ll see that most of us are exactly like you: Apologetically single, dressed in jeans, with far less BDSM experience than Jay over there. Take me. I’ve been in the scene for almost eight years. I still don’t own a corset. Hell, I don’t even own a flogger. I mainly just show up at kink parties to talk in the corner.

I used to feel inferior to Jay… and Mark…. And Jackie, but now I know I’m just different. Better yet, I finally know that it’s okay to be different. Mark thinks so. So does Jackie. They don’t care if stilettos make me fall over. They mainly just want to talk to me about Succession. If you really look at the people around you, you’ll notice they’re not like Jay either. We might have our kinky rockstars, but the majority of us feel too awkward to shed our clothes.

Most of us are just regular people who don’t own corsets. We’re not as noticeable as Jacki and Mark, but we’re here behaving a lot like you. This is the entire everloving point of the kink scene: To give people the right to be themselves. Wear those jeans with pride. Tell everyone you’ve never been flogged. Hell, tell them BDSM terrifies you. You’ll soon find out how perfectly you belong.