There’s often a juicy story behind how people become sexologists. That story usually includes an insight into adult sex. Whether it’s the time you accidentally saw people have sex or something else, that event followed into adulthood. In my case, it was all the above plus more. Still, my curiosity about sex went into overdrive when I walked into an orgy in progress at a friend’s house in my late (legal) teens. Parents at work, young adults at play – you can imagine.
Somehow, I was neither shocked nor traumatized by the awkward puddle of nudes. I was intrigued but too inhibited to join in. By then, I’d read so many French novels and ZAP comix that there were few corners of intimacy I hadn’t at least heard about. Or so it seemed. Queerness, gayness, trans, and kink were still taboo. In fact, I wasn’t sure what kink was. I started having kinky sex in my head when I was a child – most of it based on the bodice-ripping, back-whipping, pirate movie reruns I watched on our old B&W TV.
So, an accidental orgy, then a Danish porn involving a horse, and a guy who wanted pain to his balls with his pleasure. It all went into the big basket of “strange” that had started years earlier, when my junior high boyfriend stuck his tongue in my mouth. I felt scarred by his germy slimy unannounced intrusion into my face! The orgy was nothing compared to that first shocking experience of adult intimacy.
Three Ways Sexual Intelligence Changed My Life
Sexual Intelligence isn’t just about knowing what you like in bed. It’s about understanding yourself and making good choices FOR yourself. This includes communicating well and establishing good (for you) boundaries.
Ideally, these skills should be the first thing that newbies learn. Naturally, of course, most of us find out about kink from porn and erotica. There we see perfected fantasies, people who sail through extreme scenes as if nothing major happened. In other words, psychologically, emotionally and ethically UNAWARE BDSM.
1. I Learned About Consent – But Too Slowly
The first time a partner suggested kink, I said “sure!” But I had no idea what I was consenting to emotionally.
I was 21. My fiancé read erotica in Variations II (a Penthouse spinoff) and asked me to dominate him. I agreed, and pulled out my cheap high heels, a garter belt, and black fishnet stockings. He handed me his leather belt, and I gave him three, maybe four timid strokes, until he yelled out, “Harder!”
“Sorry, not feeling well,” I muttered suddenly, fleeing to the bathroom.
WHAT HAD I JUST DONE? I was a monster! Yet when I sat to pee, my panties were soaking wet. I had no language for the chaotic flood of emotions, no framework to understand why my body said yes while my brain screamed no.
Community Was a Game-Changer
It took me seven or eight more years to admit I was kinky. It wasn’t until I logged onto an “S&M” board ca. 1985 that I found the language of consent. Instant growth experience, triggering waves of understanding and growing my intelligence.
Consent wasn’t just about saying yes to acts. It was about understanding what you were saying yes to – and having the self-knowledge and communication skills to navigate what came after.
2. A Good Dom Protects Partners
My first few years in the scene were filled with “newbie dom” mistakes, and a few hurt partners who were more emotionally fragile than I understood. For me, the sadism was all “wheeee!” – pure joy, pure play. I didn’t realize I was hurting people’s feelings until the damage was done.
They could have used safewords. They could have said no. But like me, they didn’t know what they were getting into – even though they had pursued me and begged me to treat them exactly the way I did. Aterwards, they regretted it, and I was not even there to hear about that until days, months, even years later.
If Your Scenes Suck, Use Your Intelligence
It took two bad experiences for me to realize I had to change my approach. A new sub who begs for something may not understand the real feel of a whip or a cane. A sub who says “yes, more” may silently be trying to please the dom by taking more than they can handle. Then there are subs who won’t use their safewords, often out of pride or stubborness, but sometimes because they’re too far into headspace.
Hurting someone’s feelings isn’t sexy. Not showing compassion and patience tells me you’re not ready to be a dom yet. Just as I wasn’t ready in my first couple of years. Great with a whip, impatient with people. What’s a little sad is that, naturally, I drew people who were looking exactly for cold femdoms. But I am and always have been romantic too. I wanted a masochist of my own to LOVE.
Consent Evolves — Intelligently
The kink community’s consent frameworks evolved for exactly this reason – from SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) to RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink) to FRIES (Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, Specific). Each iteration tried to capture what ‘yes’ actually requires. But frameworks only work if both people understand them. Now I realize that neither party could really give informed consent because we were so unprepared!
Lesson learned. As a dominant, it was my responsibility to protect their best interests. Even from themselves. Maybe especially from themselves.
3. The Importance of Aftercare
Aftercare wasn’t in the Penthouse spinoffs. It wasn’t in the classic kink novels, the Scene rags, or the adult movies. Nobody told me that after intense scenes, bodies and brains needed special tenderness. I came to realize it slowly, through empathy for subs, afterthoughts post-scene, and watching others take it to levels I hadn’t (yet).
I learned aftercare the same way I learned everything else: I felt in my heart that being gentle at moments, and praising subs along the way, improved the scene for everyone involved. I analyze everything of course. I’d ask subs to tell me their best moments and whether there were any let-downs. Finally, it came from Community: the “aftercare” concept started trending (we didn’t have a word for it just yet), and in a few years, people were embracing it as a must-do, much like all the other skills and sexual wisdom founded in Community dialogues and philosophies.
The Trend That Filled the Gap
I had decades of sexual enlightenments behind me. But the Aftercare trend gave me all new concepts to consider, and a new way of completing what felt like the most organic and human interaction possible.
It starts with intentionality in consent; it soars to active involvement, which can lead to ecstasy and radical joy; and it ends with intimate reminders of how meaningful it felt, and an outpouring of tenderness for your wonderful amazing partner who endured, persisted, and had screaming orgasms.
A Life of Experience
Sexual Intelligence has been the key to my career as a sex therapist, sex historian, sexologist, dominatrix, and all-around nice lady. My natural intuition and smarts took me a long way but not nearly half as much as being part of the kink/queer Communities have enlightened me.
It made me a better human that I when I started the journey, that’s for sure. And that’s exactly what Sexual Intelligence is supposed to do.
