by: Eliza Sea
Recently, SHA welcomed Midori, “the Supernova of Kink” (as called by Dan Savage) who kept us all captivated with her wealth of knowledge, experience, storytelling, and the confronting connection between BDSM and childhood power dynamics.
Midori, SHA conference, April 2021
I loved Midori’s candor of this connection between our childhood power dynamics and our adult desires of pleasure and, part of me wonders if I’m edging closer to a societal line between sex and sex education that people are going to get real uncomfortable with. But, there are a lot of people out there that do not want to consider the intersection between childhood innocence and childhood power dynamics especially if we tell them it has the potential to look kinky when we’re adults. If we could acknowledge this – that power dynamics exist throughout our lives, in a multitude of expressions – and by teaching about these dynamics we could be educating youth about themselves, consent, and how to have happy and healthy sex lives!
After Midori’s conference, I headed back to work on Monday morning and went out at school recess to see what I could observe on the playground in terms of power dynamics expressed through play – role-play character games with defined power roles; specific group games where the goal is to beat everyone and become the King; chasing games of hiding and seek and always, regardless of the type of play, rules of engagement, ethical dilemmas, power struggles, and reward and punishment. Sociodramatic play is where children act out imaginary situations and stories, become different characters, and pretend they are in different locations and times (Victoria State Government-Education, 2021) and examining these dynamics as an adult can provide insight into unpacking resistance and find ways to create more play in the adult life. (Psychology Today, 2020.)
Again and again, Midori reminded us that BDSM is fundamentally about play and that play is a necessary component of being a mammal. As humans, engaging in cultural and societal norms are what’s encouraged and there’s the unspoken-ness that we are expected to grow out of this desire for play and replace it with what – the weight of responsibility and an absence of fun? And how quickly we (I) forget this when life has us running around chasing after things we’ve always been told we needed and adulthood and that doesn’t want us to prioritize our own pleasure – I am reminded again of how decolonizing our sex is a continual process of learning and unlearning throughout our lives.
How did you play in your childhood?
And then ask yourself,
Did I stop?
If yes, why?
Thinking back on my own childhood I can draw some parallels between sexual desire, my own value systems, and my upbringing – nature is magical and wild / let’s fuck there; group games, team activities, no one best friend/mono vs poly desires?; dress up, the thrill of hiding and being found, the pleasure in pain and getting hurt (I’ve always worn my intense bruises with pleasure and pride!), falling into and pulling apart patriarchal expectations through gender play (“I want to be Daddy”; “I don’t want to play with barbies!”) … the list is actually endless once you start to unpack it. It’s been interesting to think back and dissect the iterations of my emerging young sexual self and now, seeing my sexuality in a whole new light with great possibilities and hopeful expectations, lots of apprehensions, but with the foundational knowing (thank you Midori!) that my desire for adult play is an innate aspect of who I am and has always been vibrant in my life. Maybe all I needed was a gentle nudge to be less restricted by the confines of adulthood and that perhaps, it is only more of a struggle now because as adults, we are socialized to get serious, to be more responsible, to shift our priorities away from fun and pleasure and toward money and success (you know, those patriarchal, heteronormative ideas of what success is.) Always the process of unpacking – unraveling – decolonizing.
In our understanding of evolutionary biology, we know that the use of tools in mammals was and still is a cornerstone for advancement, skill, and possibility. “Tool using is a Homosapien privilege!” Midori cried out, “We are a play-seeking species.” And when you take the word, ‘privilege’, and apply it to BDSM, it opens up this whole new world of permission to play, innate humanness, and the desire to connect through more primitive and self-honoring / self-affirming needs and desires.
Play is a necessary component of mammalian beings – dolphins and primates being excellent examples of this – and then sadly, visualize what happens to animals, particularly mammals, when they are caged up, separated from their community and the wild, or when they are confined and limited. They fail to thrive, they experience depression (Do Animals Get Depressed?), they are lethargic, withdrawn, and at times aggressive. (Midori, 2021.) We are social beings seeking pleasure, freedom, power, and belonging and there’s so much out there pushing us, urging us, demanding us to confine, “fit in,” or behave.
We must embody the knowing that it is an act of resilience and resistance to taking back our sexual power and desires and, as Midori says, “kink is an extension of humanness.”
Works Cited
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Animal Depression
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/121004-animals-depression-health-science
Sociodramatic Play
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/moral-landscapes/202012/how-play-adult