Women, Kinks and Consent

Many people believe men are the only gender who should be into sexual kinks. This belief system is rooted in misogynistic ideologies about women and sex. I am guilty of thinking this way. But kinks are a brain thing (where all sex starts) and gender plays no part in who loves a kink. The problem is women’s gender prevents society from seeing them as free sexual beings. Sex is constricted for them, along with their needs and desires. Anything outside of the box society has created for them means judgment, titles, and hiding parts of themselves.

There is a lot more acceptance now of sexual kinks no one would even talk about thirty, forty, or fifty years ago. But in that time, acceptance has come more for men than for women. For instance, women in FMF poly relationships are weak, women who love being submissive are being controlled and women who are dommes want to hurt men. No one thinks negatively about these roles when you flip them for men (except for the submissive, sometimes). Men are allowed to talk about their kinks and explore their kinks. And most men are not judged for what they are into.

I believe this judgment of what women find pleasurable comes from two things. The first is the lessons taught to us about sex and women for centuries. Society and religion have ingrained in many of us that women are supposed to be pure, sex is not for women, and any woman who likes anything beyond missionary and having sex for babies is a fucking whore. These ideas may seem antiquated, but there are thousands of people who still believe these to be true. If someone believes in these ideas, they could never be open to the idea that a woman would like to be choked while she orgasms.

The second is sexual trauma. Some people who have experienced sexual trauma will always see certain kinks as violent and/or harmful instead of pleasurable for women. To them, a woman who wants her face pushed into the bed and pounded from behind like their partner is breaking new ground, is being abused. They don’t seem to understand that everyone is not the same. In the same way, we don’t all dress the same, like the same foods, or like the same music, we do not all like the same things sexually.

This judgment of female pleasure, leads a lot of women to stay quiet about their kinks, especially if the kinks are not “mainstream”. A woman who is into humiliation or a woman who is into pain is less likely to tell anyone about her desires. Not only do they have to deal with people who will give them the “you are being abused” speech, they also have to deal with people who think something tragic must have happened to them if they want to feel pain during sex. People who think like this allow their upbringing or trauma to cloud their understanding that some people like pain with their pleasure. People who think like this also do not understand the concept of consent.

I didn’t realize how many people don’t understand consent until I started reading BDSM stories. There were so many people who would read a kinky story and get freaked out about how the woman was being treated. I didn’t understand what the issue was at first, until I realized they didn’t understand consent. Consent is not just asking someone if you can kiss them. Consent is, can I touch you this way? What kind of sex do you like? How far can we go? What are your limits? Consent is not something you ask once. It is something that is discussed and revisited as necessary. And consent in kink is almost always mandatory.

I came to realize the people getting upset do not understand that in most kink-related encounters, a woman grants consent before the encounter occurs. They are seeing the aftermath of that consent. I also know some of this stems from our conditioning that consent is implied. Most of us never learned how to ask or how to give consent because society teaches us body language implies consent. Include the belief that there is only one way to have sex and all of this becomes abnormal behavior. But, when you add the true concept of consent to your consciousness, you are less likely to assume a woman who wants her ass spanked until it turns colors is being abused, a freak or that she didn’t ask for it.

I see more women willing to discuss and explore their kinkier sides. But I wish there were more. We need to talk about our kinks. When we talk about them, we begin the process of removing the mystery and allowing acceptance of what women find pleasurable. Women should not have to hide what they want or feel. And I’m not saying women should tell the entire world what they like. I just mean they should be free to talk to their friends about what they like without feeling judged. The only time anyone should intervene in someone else’s kink is if the person is a child or the person did not consent to the kink. Consent is the key and unless someone knows there was no consent, there should be no judgment. Whatever freaky, kinky, dirty, nasty stuff women want to do, they should do, if they consented.