Every now and then, in any relationship, we’ll encounter behaviours that aren’t very good for us.
And this is true for kinky relationships as well. This post discusses some of the behaviours we can encounter, and how we can positively address those behaviours so we can keep living our healthy kinky lives in a good way.
People are people. We’re lovely. We’re generous. We’re sexy and kinky and oh so naughty. We do amazing things every day.
We’re also lazy, tired, often sad and stressed out, and sometimes we’re just plain thoughtless. And sometimes we’re thoughtless and inconsiderate of our partners, and sometimes we do things that aren’t very good for our partners.
Generally speaking, this is unintentional. But it still happens. We might be tired, stressed out, or having a thoughtless moment, and we might say or do something that really hurts our partner’s feelings, or makes their life unnecessarily difficult.
And this happens in kinky relationships too. Our partners might have a thoughtless moment, or an inconsiderate moment, and do something that doesn’t sit so well with us.
Sometimes those things are simply slightly annoying, e.g.
- Taking up more than their share of the bed
- Having a habit of leaving the toys all piled up in the corner when you’re itching for them to be cleaned immediately
- Doing mischievous things like sticking their tongue in your ear while you’re playing and you find that a bit gross
- Not brushing their teeth or showering before a scene
- Misplacing the toys
- Making an inappropriate joke at an inappropriate time.
Other times those things are a bit more concerning.
This might be something like:
- Pushing a limit we didn’t want pushed.
- Initiating a bratty behaviour or a conflict because they don’t feel like they’re getting enough attention.
- Blaming our partners for our feelings
- Not discussing a new activity before trying it (e.g. slapping, choking, etc).
- Acting “superior” over the other person on the basis of education, gender, kink role, etc, when that hasn’t been negotiated as a consensual part of the dynamic
- Using a really hostile tone with the other person when they’re trying to be supportive
- Sulking, tantruming, getting angry, or getting visibly upset when we say no or don’t drop what we’re doing for them on demand.
- Putting us down in some way when they’re in a bad mood.
- Generally being really rude or disrespectful
- Doing things to us in a scene that we’ve said was not okay or asked them not to do.
Even in the best relationships, people are sometimes rude or disrespectful to each other.
Usually it’s totally unintentional – and when they realize they’ve done it, they apologize, and you can see them working hard not to do it again.
But sometimes they don’t realize it at all, and think it’s perfectly okay or normal behaviour. Often this is because our parents are absolutely crap models for relationships, and so we imitate their behaviour without thinking about it, because we think “hey, that’s what people do in relationships, right?”
So when we realize that our partners have done something rude, or disrespectful, or otherwise have shown a behaviour which is harming us, we need to do something about it.
Boundaries And Communicating Boundaries
A boundary is an understanding of what is and isn’t appropriate as a way for people to interact with each other.
It’s an expressed preference – e.g. “hey, I know you like being mischievous and playful, but it’s really irritating when you stick your tongue in my ear as I’m settling into my play space. Can you please not do that? Kissing my neck is quite nice though, if you want a way to interact with me just then.”
Often, our partners don’t realize when we find something really annoying, or exactly HOW annoying we find it, so it’s important for us to communicate that to them, or they’re not going to stop. They’re not mind readers.
If we let it keep going, our negative feelings will build up, and the likelihood is that we’re eventually going to explode, and they won’t see it coming.
When we explode, we tend to do harmful things ourselves, like yelling or using hurtful words. So it’s good to communicate those preferences early before we get really fired up about it.
How We Know What Boundaries To Set
A boundary is not an attempt to control the other person, e.g. saying “one of my boundaries is that my partner isn’t allowed to talk to their ex”.
Boundaries are specifically about us; what we’ll do in response when people do things to us that we’ve communicated to them are not okay.
Examples:
- “I’m not going to be around people who show a pattern of verbal hostility towards me.”
- Or, “I’m not going to play with someone who won’t discuss and negotiate scenes beforehand.”
We can begin identifying boundaries by paying attention to how we feel with regards to how people are behaving towards us. Whether we feel good or bad around those people, and whether their behaviours are helpful or unhelpful.
It is important to take responsibility for our feelings; we’re responsible for our feelings, not them, but we can also identify actions and words that are really unhelpful for us in managing our feelings and then ask the other person not to use those words or do those things towards us.
Another good way to identify boundaries is to learn about what behaviors are harmful generally, e.g. through reading about verbal and emotional abuse, and then applying that knowledge to the kink world.
Many verbally or emotionally abusive behaviors are often dressed up by abusers as “kink culture” or “kink behavior”, but unless you’ve thought about it, negotiated it, and consented to it, then it’s not a kink behavior. It’s abuse.
Two great books on this are the Verbally Abusive Relationship, and the Emotionally Abusive Relationship.
After getting educated, we can then make the decision to not allow those things to happen to us, and practice spotting and discussing those behaviors.
Communicating Our Boundaries
A boundary can be discussed at any time. Often they’re discussed when people first enter into a relationship, but it’s important to keep discussing them as the relationship continues as well.
When first entering into a relationship, and getting to know each other, sometimes we can point out things that historically have not worked for us.
“In my last relationship my partner yelled, and that’s a big trigger for me now. When we argue, it’s important for me that nobody yells. I can’t be around people who yell.”
We need to communicate when our partners do things that are great “That was awesome, I really liked X!”
And also when our partners do things that are a bit hurtful “When you slapped me then, I was not prepared, and it was a huge shock. Next time, can we discuss slapping before the scene? I’d like a bit more time to prepare.”
Another one might be “Hey, I really enjoy bratting scenes, but it’s important to me that bratting stuff and deliberately acting out only happens in a negotiated scene. The other day you said some really rude things, and I think you were trying to brat, but that was a really bad time for me, and I couldn’t shake the irritated feeling for the rest of the day. Basically, I felt really crap. Can we keep the rudeness to clearly negotiated scenes please?”
Boundary Scripts:
I think it’s important to start communication about a boundary in a positive but assertive way. (I’ve done it in a less positive way in the past, and that hurt my partner’s feelings unnecessarily, so I adapted my approach.)
In an ideal situation, we start with something positive, then describe the event or action and how that’s affected us and our feelings, and finish with a request about changing the behaviour.
Often our situations are not ideal; and we may feel really anxious about making boundaries. That’s understandable! It’s a matter of practice 🙂
Positive Start: “I really enjoy our play/conversations/spending time with you, and want to keep doing it, but there’s something I’d like to change”.
Then we describe the action or event that caused us to create a boundary, and our feelings after that action or event.
Action Description: “The other day when you did (whatever action), I felt really (irritated/shocked/hurt/upset/dismissed/invalidated – whatever the feeling was). It made it harder to enjoy our play.”
It’s helpful to make a request following this description, often discussing alternatives to the behaviour in question. Simply saying “Please don’t do this” is a great start – an A+ boundary talk helps the other person come up with a more useful alternative behaviour.
New Request: “I want to keep playing with you, but that sort of behaviour doesn’t work for me. Can you/we do this other thing instead?” Or, “Can we make a plan for what you could do instead?”
A good response from our partners is to think about what was said, to apologize, and to try very hard not to do it again, and to practice employing the new behavior.
It IS fairly common for people to feel defensive initially, and say they didn’t mean to hurt our feelings.
A not so good response is when they spend time justifying their actions and trying to tell you that you’re being too sensitive and you should just accept what they’re doing to you.
If the behavior continues after it’s been discussed, that’s really not a good sign, and it is appropriate to be a bit angry if that occurs.
“Hey, I asked you not to do that, and you’ve done it again. I’m feeling a bit unsafe about playing with you now.”
Consequences For Boundary Violations
The simplest and most effective way to deal with boundary violations is to point them out, and then to step back from that person for a bit.
We’ve discussed the boundary; we’ve pointed out what we’re not going to tolerate; and if that boundary has been broken, then that indicates that now it’s time to re-evaluate our safety with this person.
If they’ve kept doing it, then maybe they feel a bit entitled to do what they want, and to run roughshod over our expressed preferences. That’s really disrespectful towards us and tends to lead to abusive behavior.
If they’ve kept doing it, and say it’s because of XYZ excuses or reasons; well, regardless of the excuses or reasons, those behaviors are harmful to us, and our boundaries are not being respected.
We need to evaluate whether they’re making a clear and successful effort to change their behavior.
- If they don’t appear to be trying, we spend less time with them. This shows that we mean what we say, and there are consequences to their behavior. It also keeps us safe.
- If they appear to be trying, and it still happens from time to time, then there’s still a consequence. As a simple example, we may inform them that they did the not okay thing again, and we’re leaving the room or going elsewhere for a while.
- If they appear to be trying, and appear to be being successful – the behavior is occurring much less often, or not at all, and when it does, they apologize and try harder; okay, great. This person is listening to us and working hard to change their behavior. We may still need to leave the room or go elsewhere when they do it, but we can have some confidence that this process is working.
- If they appear to be trying but are still not successful, and we’re taking damage… then regardless of the fact that they’re trying, for our own safety, it’s important to keep our distance until they show some signs of consistent success.
They may be well intentioned, but still not a safe person for us to be around.
Unhealthy Vs Healthy Outcomes:
Unhealthy Outcomes:
In an unhealthy relationship you might get lip service; they agree not to try and do it again, and then they end up doing it anyway, usually after a brief period of “good behavior”. Verbally, they agree, but their actions indicate otherwise. They may then minimize or excuse the action, but it still keeps taking place. There’s a pattern. And you keep taking damage.
Another unhealthy outcome is they may get angry, accusatory, or play the victim when you try to make that boundary.
It’s not them, it’s you. If you would only stop doing X, then they wouldn’t do Y. How dare you try to ask them to change their behavior, you hypocrite, when you do all these other things that fuck them off… don’t you understand that you’re hurting their feelings by saying this to them? Don’t you understand that because this is a kinky relationship, you’re supposed to be all about serving their needs, not having boundaries or needs of your own?
Basically, instead of listening, respecting your feelings, and trying to make a constructive outcome, they fume and turn it into a giant drama. They try to make you doubt yourself or put you off making another boundary. They get angry or burst into tears and try to make you feel bad.
If this sort of thing occurs, I highly recommend starting to think about exiting the relationship.
Self preservation and maintaining your emotional health are key to living a good life, and you can’t do that if someone you’re close to is walking all over your boundaries. That really impacts on your emotional health and self esteem, and is extremely harmful over the long run.
Ending a relationship ALWAYS sucks, but the alternative is worse.
The alternative is that eventually the relationship will end anyway – but in the meantime, you’ve spent a great deal more time being damaged and living a low quality, unsafe life, where your needs and wants were not respected, and where you’ll likely be abused. That’s awful. That leads to long term traumatic side effects.
Healthy Outcome:
Typically speaking, what normally happens in healthy relationships is that we point out a boundary; the person might be a bit surprised, and a bit defensive, and then they’ll feel bad that they hurt your feelings or did something that is impacting negatively on you. They’ll apologize and mean it.
Once they’ve taken their time to think about it, they modify their behaviour and agree to try not to do it again.
The behaviour doesn’t happen nearly as often – maybe the occasional slip up, but it’s always accompanied by an apology, and eventually it disappears altogether. Because hey, they give many fucks about you, and they want you both to be happy.
Hooray! Life goes on, the relationship continues, and we get to keep enjoying spending time with that person. Other issues and conflicts will come up, but usually not that one.
Ongoing Practice
Setting and maintaining boundaries is an ongoing practice, and it’s one everyone needs to practice!
Boundaries do have to be maintained. Often when things are good, we don’t watch our boundaries as carefully, or we make excuses for our partners… and unfortunately that means sometimes we and they fall into bad habits, which can have a detrimental effect on the relationship and on ourselves.
It’s a big thing for me to practice, too. I love celebrating the positive things in relationships, and the great things that happen, and telling a partner how much I enjoyed the time we’ve spent together, but for myself, I have a tendency to let harmful behaviors go for a bit too long, which isn’t great for me or for the relationship.
This is something that it’s my responsibility to improve; my partner isn’t going to be able to abide by my boundaries and respect them if I don’t communicate and maintain them properly.
So one of my goals for the upcoming 2022 is to keep talking with people about the great things about them and about our relationships, but also to positively and assertively communicate my boundaries early on, well before the time where a behavior starts to become a serious problem.
And thus, I’ll be happier, communicate better, feel more respected and valued, be a better partner, and have a healthier relationship.
And I hope you do too.
