The BDSM community has been the leading pioneer in building sexual intelligence in adults. Thanks to the rise of BDSM education and the legendary teachers and activists who made “Safe, Sane, Consensual” (SSC) the first model of sexual consent, BDSM remains an active source of safe sex and safe BDSM education.
Without Education, It Isn’t Really BDSM
Kinksters were negotiating and carefully organizing their choices to ensure that all partners were as safe as possible, long before #MeToo made “consent” a household word. The mainstream discovered the concepts of sexual consent and safe words sometime around 2017. The BDSM community has been deliberately practicing both since the 1970s.
We taught guidelines on safe bondage and how to wield toys without causing genuine harm. People were encouraged to attend as many classes as they could. They practiced their skills and learned to stop quickly in an emergency. From anxiety attacks to a suddenly tight rope, students learned how to turn problems around with solid solutions.
With the advent of BDSM support groups in the 1970s, we created all-new dialogues about kink. For one, we required acceptance of SSC (Safe, Sane, and Consensual), the first consent model, as our ethos. In the decades since, we’ve had a flood of ideas and techniques to maximize consent. People created contracts, prepared compatibility lists, spent hours online in BDSM-oriented groups, and full days of classes, demos, and symposiums became the norm at BDSM groups and national conferences.
We Did a Radical Thing: We Educated Adults on Sex
From this vantage, I see it as a unique and radical educational initiative. Sex education was still in its infancy, and mainly still focused on the semen and the egg, not the people who produced them.
Meanwhile, in the tiny BDSM Community of the early 1980s, we didn’t talk about reproductive sex. Our mission was to help people like us understand that it was okay to be kinky. We explained that they could live out their kinks in satisfying ways without causing real harm to themselves or anyone else. Sometimes we even showed them how.
Knowing safe/sane ways to enact fantasies was the ultimate permission-giver for many previously frightened kinksters. They could live out fantasies that left them joyful and ecstatic, not rattled or injured. By developing safety protocols, risks dropped dramatically.
Do accidents happen? Yes, of course they do. Still, you can attend an event with 1k kinky people, and there will be more twisted ankles in the crowd than injuries from kinky play.
Sexual Safety Is Misunderstood
People who assume they are sexually safe often end up as victims. They trust too easily, they don’t ask the right questions, and they feel insecure about what they want, enough so they’ll toe the line. Straight sex education could prevent adult trauma, just as BDSM education has prevented it in our world!
Think of Harvey Weinstein, once lauded as a movie genius. Sexually, he was a moron. Marilyn Manson. Same. Armie Hammer. Ditto. Bill Cosby. Of course. Danny Masterson. Rapist creep. And these are just a teeny handful of the Entertainment world’s remorseless sex offenders.
The Kink community is not free of predators. No community is free of them, including your local church. But we work hard to embrace BDSM’s ethical philosophy and live it out through our actions and relationships.
The Role of Intelligence in Kink
Sexual intelligence is the ability to think critically about your own sexuality and to have compassion for your partner’s sexuality. It means respecting a partner’s limits and trying to give them positive experiences, while also knowing what you want and how to get it, again, without causing harm.
It sounds simple, right? Like setting up a few rules for a game. But there is more to it than knowing how to use rope.
How Sexual Intelligence Helps Subs
To be a truly consenting partner, you will need to rely on your intelligence. Here are 3 situations where subs can stray into dangerous territory without Sexual Intelligence:
- You meet a new dom from a dating app. Will you vet them carefully or play right away?
- If someone tells you that you’re “not a real sub”. Do you (a) try harder to please them and become the sub they think you should be or (b) walk away, knowing they are trying to manipulate you?
- A dominant says something that really insults or humiliates you (not in a good way). Should you talk to them about it or swallow it down so the play keeps going?
The Better Way
In all three cases, the sub with the greatest sexual intelligence will place their OWN INTERESTS first. It is not until after you have made a firm, sometimes contractual (verbal or written), agreement that you are their sub (something they must agree to too!) that you give them all the power.
It’s important to take your time when getting to know new dominants before jumping into any activities together. While lighter play or demonstrations might seem low-key, it’s always a good idea to connect with the person, especially if they’re new to you or your trusted friends. The days of casual, riskier encounters are behind us, and that’s a great step forward! This goes for all kinds of relationships—whether you’re into vanilla, kinky, or somewhere in between.
3 Quick Answers
- Please do NOT go home with a stranger and let them tie you up. That is a high-risk behavior. Always get to know the person FIRST, before they put you in a helpless situation.
- Anyone who says that you aren’t a “real sub” is probably trying to manipulate you. They don’t care about your best interests, only their own.
- If they can’t accept responsibility for hurting your feelings, don’t you accept responsibility for promising to continue playing with them. Their ego will always take first place over your needs.
The Joy Is in the Journey
When I talk to Kink Elders, we always concur on one point: BDSM taught us about humanity itself. We LEARNED to be kinder, gentler around the edges, even as we became lighter and happier inside because our own deepest needs were being fulfilled.
We learned SO MUCH about sex and the endless variety of sexual responses! In our explorations and experiments, we brought our best ideas to the table to protect and defend our own interests. Most people stumble through their sex lives hoping for the best. Kinksters plan, negotiate, communicate, and debrief. We’ve been doing that for 50 years.
Close the Gap and Grow Your Intelligence
Mainstream sex education teaches biology. It doesn’t teach self-knowledge, desire, communication, or boundaries. It doesn’t teach you how to think about sex as an adult.
That gap is exactly what How to Become a Sex Genius addresses. The 8-point Sexual Intelligence framework distills the hard-won wisdom of the Kink Community into a practical guide for everyone, kinky or not, who wants to think smarter about sex, communicate honestly, and build relationships based on genuine mutual respect.
You don’t have to be kinky to be a sex genius. You just have to be willing to learn.
How to Become a Sex Genius is available now at the Pleasure Literacy Emporium: gloriabrame.com/shop/
Photo credit: kinkinthecure@pixabay
