This post is basically a transcript of a speech I give to newbies to the D/s scene all the time IRL. I figured it might be useful not only to people curious about kink IRL but also to smut writers here on the smut writing website.
For the purposes of this post, I am sending specific physical acts out of the room. Right now they don't matter, because you can meet an emotional need through any number of physical acts. So when I say that there are many ways to dom and many ways to sub, I am not referring to many kinds of physical acts. I mean that there are many emotional needs that doms and subs bring to scenes, and those can change the scene more than the choice of physical acts that will occur in that scene.
I say this to newbies to the scene because they tend to have a narrow view of the motivations and needs that bring people to D/s, biased by both the newbie's own preferences and the depictions of D/s they've seen in media. The same is true of people who write kink fic. Kink fic is very biased to a narrow subset of the wide range of emotional needs that people might bring to this kind of play.
It's really important to understand this in D/s IRL because a mismatch or miscommunication about these needs can lead to a bad scene. For example, let's take the approaches of sub-as-beloved-pet and sub-as-object. If a dom treats a sub as a beloved pet when what they really want is to be treated like an object, then a sub who went into a scene needing to be ignored, or at the very least the illusion of being ignored and disregarded, is suddenly in the spotlight of a lot of intense attention and affection. Again, I will note that both of these scenes could potentially involve the same physical acts, just approached differently. Let's say it's a service submission scene where the sub is naked and cleaning the room for the dom. Sub-as-beloved-pet would get frequent praise and lots of patiently repeated instructions, while sub-as-object would get one detailed instruction at the beginning and no reinforcement except a punishment if they get part of the instruction wrong.
I'm going to go through a bunch of different styles of dom and sub, with the emotional needs that underlie them. This list is not exhaustive. I'm sure there's more I haven't thought of or encountered, so feel free to reblog with additions. It may also be a bit dom-biased because I'm a dom, but I think that might be for the best, because the emotional needs of doms are generally less understood than those of subs.
Various consensual kinks discussed below. Kinkshamers in the notes will be blocked with extreme prejudice.
Dom-as-control: This may seem obvious or even trivial, but it shouldn't be dismissed: many doms are motivated by an emotional need to have some part of their life where they have total control over what is going to happen. Something that I love about this style of domination is that I always know exactly what will happen next (except if there's some emergency, safeword, or other issue to address.) There are no wild cards in a controlled D/s scene except for those I explicitly allow (like if I ask a sub to choose which whip I'll beat them with.) This is also a reason why I personally have a very hard time switching; I have difficulty with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen next. It should be noted that this style of domination is fairly incompatible with the bratty style of submission, as the brat is constantly throwing wild cards into the scene.
Sub-as-blankspace: The other side of this coin is the sub who needs to not have to think anymore. They've spent all day deciding what to wear and what to eat and which toothpaste to buy and they just want to stop. This is a very common motivator. This sub needs specific and clear commands from a dom, without too many steps, or else needs to have a well-established protocol of kneeling and service that they can do by pure muscle memory. This sub does not want the dom to offer them a choice of whips they can be beaten with, because that forces them out of the blissful blankspace of not needing to choose.
Dom- or sub-as-service: The same emotional need can sometimes motivate domination or submission! Many people dom or sub out of a desire to please their partner. It's about taking on a defined role that you know will meet your partner's needs. It feels good to be needed, after all. This motivation for D/s is generally the best understood by the public, especially as a motivation for doms. It's generally more socially acceptable to want to control and torment people if you're doing it selflessly in order to please them. A big part of my motivation for making this speech to people, and for writing this post, is to point out that this is far from the only style of domination, and pleasing their subs is far from the only emotional need that doms might have.
Dom-as-whumper: I'm using this terminology because of the website I'm on. I'm not into whumpfic, but I recognize in people who have a visceral need to see their blorbos whimpering and bleeding the same need I have to tear apart a cute kitten with my bare hands, or to crush a sub beneath my booted foot. It's the cuteness aggression approach to domination: sometimes your sub is so cute your hands itch with the urge to destroy them. This is where domination and sadism bleed into each other; this style of domination does not work well for the sub who wants to submit without being hurt or humiliated.
Sub-as-object: Subs who like to be treated as furniture, robots, or objects are often motivated by a need to enjoy a sexual or kink situation while being free of attention and scrutiny. Obviously, some baseline level of attention is needed for BDSM safety; the dom needs to be able to notice if the sub is injured or upset. But beyond that baseline, it can feel very freeing for a sub to be turned on, blissed out in subspace, crying, drooling, whatever, without anyone closely watching or listening to them, so long as they fulfill whatever their purpose as an object is.
Sub- or dom-as-flex: Both doms and subs can be motivated by a need to feel competent. I definitely feel awesomely powerful and competent when I do a style of domination that requires specialized skill, such as hypnosis. Submission can also provide a feeling of competence: look how long I was able to stay kneeling on the hard floor! Look how perfectly I cleaned the room, exactly as Mistress told me to do it!
Dom-as-troll (or mad scientist): The sibling to this kind of dom is the writer who thinks "wouldn't it be fucked up if....?" and then writes a freaky nasty little horror story about it. A great thing about D/s is that you can have a thought like "wouldn't it be fucked up if I tied up my sub and then ate their favorite snack right in front of them?" and then you can just do it (provided you know your sub likes to be tied up and tormented.) Then you can find out how your sub would react to your terrible ideas and laugh evilly at the results. The emotional need being served here is the goblin part of your brain that wants to break things just to see how they shatter. All you need to do is find someone who wants to be broken.
Sub-as-brat: Brats are often discussed as a single type of sub, but in my experience, there are two rather different emotional needs that drive brats. Some people are brats because they need the assurance that they can act out all they want, and it won't derail the action; the dom is strong or skilled enough to subdue them no matter what nasty tricks their goblin brain gets up to. Other people are brats out of a need to live in a predictable and fair moral universe. Those brats want a very clear system of rules and punishments for those rules. Then they test the rules, and they get meted out exactly the punishment they were promised. Within the world of this scene, the world is fair, and the same misbehavior will always face the same consequences, something that rarely happens in the real world. These types of brats are rather different, because the first kind of brat doesn't care as much if the consequences of their misbehavior are inconsistent, while the second kind cares a lot.
Sub-as-beloved-pet: Or beloved child, if they're an ageplayer. I find that subs that like to be a beloved puppy are driven by an emotional need to be loved, treasured, and supported unconditionally, even if they make mistakes, even if they behave messily or clumsily, even if they look silly, because that's how a good pet owner should treat a pet. There might be discipline involved, but the discipline is very supportive and patient.
Dom-as-nurturer: Some doms are motivated by a need to be in a nurturing role that their non-D/s life may not allow them to fulfill. For example, a man who wants to express affection and tenderness to his partner but has a hard time doing so because of the way he was raised may be able to unlock that ability if his partner plays a sweet puppy and he's playing the puppy's doting owner. Basically, the D/s scene creates a little world and a set of roles in which it's expected and normal for the dom to be nurturing, even if that's not true for the dom outside of that scene.
Dom-as-enfant-terrible: The other side of the coin is a dom who needs to be in a role where they can be unreasonable, demanding, and selfish, a role that their non-D/s life may not allow them to fulfill. For example, a mother who spends all day thinking about her family's needs may relish the opportunity to center her own desires without worrying if she's being "too much." She can be impatient and fussy and demand the sub do things over and over until she's satisfied, all of which she can't do when she's working as a teacher or other caring role.
Dom-as-artist: I think this is a hugely under-appreciated motivator for doms. Many have a need to be creative and imaginative that they fulfill through domination. I've been to workshops and demos at kink conventions where I've been awed by another dom's fiendish creativity. I once watched a hypno dom with a sub who got off on being afraid, and he hypnotized her and crafted an extremely elaborate horror scene in the room, filling it with menacing shadows and phantasms. This is where I'm contractually obligated to link A Dom DM because this is where domination overlaps a lot with game running and game design.
Sub-as-aesthetic-object: The flip side of this coin is that many subs enjoy being an aesthetic object or canvas for a dom's art. Very often these are subs chasing a need to feel beautiful, or at least enjoyable to look at. Subs who want to be aesthetic objects may enjoy wearing special outfits during scenes, or being posed in sexy or appealing positions. Subs in this kind of scene may enjoy letting go of worrying about whether they look good to the dom, because the dom is shaping them to their own preferred aesthetic, whether that's via poses, makeup, shibari, or something else.
Sub-as-sexual-creature: A lot of subs enjoy being called sluts, offered up for free use, or otherwise being hypersexualized. Why is that? Well, our society has a lot of shame and repression around sex, and it can feel much easier to relax and enjoy sex if it's couched in the fantasy that you have no choice because you've been reduced to a purely sexual creature. The sub has an emotional need to give up responsibility for choosing to have sex and be sexual, because that responsibility is a heavy weight to carry.
Dom- or sub-as-taboo-breaker: This is a huge motivator for both doms and subs. We all live in a society, and sometimes we feel a need to break the rules of that society. Both domination and submission provide opportunities to do so. It's taboo to piss yourself as an adult, but a watersports scene creates a space where it is acceptable or even desirable for a sub to break that taboo. As a dom, I personally get a huge taboo-breaking thrill from slapping a sub across the face. There's something about the sheer disrespect of it, and the memory of being scolded for doing it as a child, that fills me with impish glee.
Dom-as-hunter/sub-as-prey: For the hunter to catch the prey, there must first be a chase, or at the very least an ambush. This need not be a literal chase (we sent physical acts out of the room, remember?) but it is a dynamic to hunter/prey-flavored BDSM: the hunter has to earn it. This fulfills an emotional need for both dom and sub: a dom who struggles with feelings of unworthiness can feel like they've earned their partner's submission, and a sub can feel that the dom cares enough to put in the effort to catch them. Hunter/prey also allows dom and sub to explore some pretty dark emotions within the safety of consensual kink, such as fear, obsession, and consumption.
Dom-as-shadow: I mean shadow here in the sense of shadow work. Many doms take inspiration from people who bullied them in school (and many subs enjoy re-enacting scenes of childhood bullying in a safe and consensual context.) There is a real emotional need served by claiming the power of those bullies for yourself. Those childhood cruelties can be utterly transformed by the change of context. For example, the catty whispers and sneers of straight girls who bullied me for being queer comes out very different when I perform those same catty sneers as a genderfucky adult.
Sub-as-lesser-being: While some subs like to be beloved pets, and others like to be disregarded objects, some like to be pond scum. There can be a real freedom that comes from occupying a role of being disgusting and horrible. Nothing good or useful can be expected of you, and nothing you do will ever earn praise, and so you're free from worrying about or pursuing any of those things. Sub-as-lesser-being is also a space to explore difficult emotions like shame and humiliation in a safe context.
-How much is about being desired. Sub fantasies about somebody who desires you so much they break taboos. Dom fantasies about somebody so desperate to impress they'll go to extremes.
-A lot of fantasies seem to center around letting go of the guilt of wanting things. The sub's wants don't matter. It's only what the Dom wants! (And the Dom happens to be playing out wanting the sub's greatest fantasy in a situation where the sub not only doesn't have to ask, but can actively resist).
I think one of the big things with fanfic is how much sub fantaies center around getting what you want without having to ask for it, while, in the real world, your Dom is going to have their own specific wants that may not match your own secret desires, and you will have to actually communicate those desires to get a scene where you resist them.
Personally I add onto that, sub fantasies about someone who desires you so much they don't mind that you've broken taboos. Someone who wants or loves you so much they don't mind that you're gross. This is touched on in the OP but I think it's worth putting explicitly.
From @imrix: An addon: The motivations of the first kind of brat can come from at least a couple different places, in my experience. It can be about feeling like the dom can handle anything, as you note, but it can also be about an environment where you can safely defy authority, somewhere you can say 'no' while knowing that the person in charge will still love you afterwards.
From @betty-amorous: What about sub-as-failure — Subs who feel great pressure to be successful in their day to day life, who maybe overwork themselves or are hard on themselves for perceived failures, who crave scenarios where success is impossible and failure is guaranteed. These subs find a lot of comfort in the idea that you can fail totally and utterly and still be desired, and I think these would pair well with dom-as-enfant-terrible
From me: the natural other side of the coin of dom-as-service is sub-as-pillow-princex. Like dom-as-enfant-terrible, it's about making a space where you are not too much. (I suspect a dom could find a niche here as well that DOESN'T fit better into one of the other categories, but I won't presume to speak for them.) As a sub, you can ask for what you need without keeping half your attention on whether you're approaching an unspoken boundary--because the boundaries have already been explicitly laid out. When the thing you need is something more complicated, then you start being the natural complement to many of the other dom types: artist, troll, sadist.
And here's why that one is relevant to writers: if you have a pairing and you're asking yourself what the sub's motivation is, you might be going, "I don't know, she just gets off on X. She just likes Y." And you might find yourself unsatisfied with that because you want to write it as a full d/s dynamic, with actual submission going on. (If there isn't a dynamic, if it's just the act of X or Y, then what you have is just a top and a bottom. But that's a different essay.) Maybe you want to write subspace, or it just feels unbalanced, or you just want to know why the sub isn't just bouncing up after a scene going "that was great! See ya later!" Pillowing is a very natural way to add that submissive element underneath the act. He's here because he just likes being whipped, yes--but he's in subspace because he's given up the need to manage the consequences, social and otherwise. It's very like sub-as-blankspace that way, except without getting all the way to not thinking, and not inherently about decision making.
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Kink scene rescheduled because halfway through me explaining the scenario my dom asked a clarifying question that uncovered a howling logical inconsistency and we ended up spending the next three hours workshopping the worldbuilding.
no but we absolutely would. do you KNOW how many of us do RPGs. people who like to make up stories just make up stories wherever. impossible to tell whether OP or anyone reblogging this w/out tags thinks it's a tonal inconsistency joke or gentle ribbing of the 100% real people doing this.
Then they say if you're a bad boy daddy will punish you. But what's the punishment? More gay sex! You can't escape it. This whole damn place is in the pocket of Big Sex
in an ao3 full of sex scenes written like everyone’s taken a night school course on fucking shibari and then written up the experience for a linkedin post the bad bdsm etiquette tag appears to me like a verdant oasis in the unforgiving desert
When someone is being submissive? Giving up some control? You respect that. They are trusting you, relying on you. Don’t fucking betray that trust. Educate yourself, be respectful and keep them safe.
When someone is dominating you, remember! Their comfort level is just as important as yours. They are relying on you to communicate your needs and problems. Don’t suffer something in silence because you want to make things easy or better.
PEOPLE ARE NOT KINK DISPENSERS. People are. People. With lives and feelings and emotions. Give your partners respect, because they are giving themselves to you.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
by hmc73
How is this not on here yet? This is Thee Fic to read about kink. It says in the notes that it's not instructional, but like. This is the fic that taught me about FetLife. This is the fic that taught me about how calling yellow can actually strengthen your dom's confidence in you, because they know that you'll advocate for yourself.
Jiang Cheng joins the kink world and starts a relationship with Nie Mingjue, who introduces him to kink and helps him to deal with his family bullshit without getting turned off by his permanent state of sass. This fic has everything. Clubs with rules. Garden-variety subdrop (as opposed to the stuff that's worth a story climax). Rope bites. Tops with limits to keep themselves safe. FetLife, as mentioned. Kink exploration. Play outside a monogamous relationship. The pitfalls of walking around with bruises. I adore this fic. Despite its length I've read it several times. I accidentally skim-read through like 90,000 words of it just now because I wanted to remind myself what to tag in this post and then I had to reread my favorite parts.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The World Security Council makes a rule meaning Coulson needs to be collared to keep acting as the Avengers' liaison. He and Clint Barton realize in the process of finding a way out of it that they've been in love with each other forever, and they negotiate a contract and a real relationship.
Contract negotiation that's held up since I first read it like a decade ago.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
A 24/7 D/S contract, followed by a fic about getting overwhelmed. Heads up that what actually happens in the overwhelm is kind of unclear, "drop" might not be getting used in the usual sense. I'm not putting it in the subdrop tag because I'm not convinced that's what it is, but the subdrop feels are definitely there. It's omegaverse, but this doesn't honestly have a whole lot to do with the D/S of it all. No actual safeword use, but the contract covers a more intense set of safewords than is usual, which may be of interest.
The rest of the series involves Prapai learning more about, and being incorporated into, Phayurain's dynamic.
So there's gossip about some version of kinktober over on twitter adding a bunch of nonsensical rules this year, and I am fascinated. Studying this like a bug.
and a bunch of highlights from those/other updates (in case of deletion) along with the prompts that often contradict the rules 🙊🙈
i enjoy the term "creator/consumer roleplay" which they've defined to mean "the author and people reading the fic":
your monster fucking MUST include the monster verbally consenting.
we're not banning any specific dynamics except the ones we think are evil bad wrongthink
right we're definitely not trying to get people to write/draw only content we approve of. except that you can be banned if you've engaged with content we don't approve of.
"protect creators and content-consumers" uh huh...
getting my face scanned to participate in a kinktober event
and of course, the 10/10 no notes kicker:
truly hope everyone's enjoying caitvi kinktober brought to you by mastercard™
1. a category i affectionately call "who wrote these rules visa or mastercard?" (a tweet that i do not have a screenshot of but please chime in if you can credit op!)
2. unironically being pro-nazi (the full essay has been deleted but apparently included fr citations) (as an educator i would kms if any of my students ever misunderstood this badly)
3. I never thought the leopards antis would eat MY face turn on ME
* i BELIEVE the response was from a DIFFERENT mod than the one called out in the first post
if you want to do an event that's specifically about "exploring a sexual relationship in ways that celebrate safe and consensual kink practices," I think that's fair--that could go hand in hand with wanting more content about, like, the real life community and how practicing BDSM isn't the excuse for violence and rape that the trads say it is.
I also think that if you're going to do that:
you should not call it kinktober
you should not cite the fucking nazis
you should focus on the community aspect, education, and things you want to see rather than a list of Don'ts
you should focus on destigmatizing the practice instead of declaring certain kinks immoral
you should probably not make it a single ship, that's too specific
but y'know if you're already at the point where you're citing fucking nazis you are already not doing the thing and are never going to get there.
the more I think about it the more I want it, actually? Event for fics that focus on accurate portrayals of real-life BDSM with emphasis on aspects that are underrepresented and destigmatization of the practice as a whole. It could be a bingo rather than a time-based event?
Rules: tag accurately, 18+ participants only (to save our legal asses), real-life community members encouraged to both participate and serve as alpha/beta readers for non-irl-practicing authors
We could have posts going into more detail about the prompts for those less familiar with the concepts and a discord server for people to talk through their ideas
It could be multi-fandom, any fandom that an irl-practicing beta has signed up for...
Bluesky post by "Not the Alethia you're looking for" @ silveralethia.puppygirls.online. Pronouns kit/kits, she/her.
The post reads:
"i stg every kink can be subtextually boiled down to:
- i am powerful / in control
- i am seen as desirable
- i am safe and can now be vulnerable
- i can explore taboo in a safe + controlled environment
once you realize that you realize that no kink can hurt you"
do your research and learn how to minimize risks kids! and never trust that that top knows what they're doing without something to back up their claim!
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Can we talk about this thing where people plaster disclaimers all over age regression fic?
AGE REGRESSION NOT AGE PLAY TAGGED SO PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE CAN FIND IT
ABSOLUTELY NO SEXUALIZATION
SFW THAT MEANS NO KINKY STUFF
All tags I have seen in the last 24 hours. I don't even read sexual age play fic as a general rule, age regression just happens to have a lot of tag overlap with stuff I do read and so I get this stuff shoved in my face constantly and I'm irked.
@ the people posting these tags: You think you are better than us (the kink community). You are not better than us.
I don't mean this like "you're just as filthy a degenerate as the rest of us haha" I mean "we are not filthy degenerates either" (and to everyone going 'speak for yourself' plz consider doing some research on the word degenerate and maybe not associating yourself with nazi shit even as a joke), I mean "you have a concept of kink that is oversimplified to the point of incorrectness," I mean "you are behaving like the queer community lashing out at bisexuals or asexuals or whoever the fuck is next on the list."
Kink is not inherently about sex, kink has included non-sexual kink from the very beginning, this argument has been HAD ALREADY long before your time. Kink is about taboo. Generally speaking, nonsexual stuff is taboo because it's associated with sex, and the community provides space for those people by having events that run the gamut from 'hang out in public and eat snacks' to 'gangbang' and by having a culture of extremely clear verbal or otherwise predefined consent (like gestures you agree on) to make sure nothing tips over a line someone didn't want it to. Kink has so many asexuals who want to get tied up or flogged but don't want to have sex about it.
Doesn't that sound like a place where you could do your age regression without it being sexualized?
Do you think it's different because you actually enter a younger headspace, and you think we're just playing fetish games? Pro tip, 'it's an altered headspace' is a terrible argument for why something isn't kink. You think age play is inherently sexual? I guarantee you that we have littles who just want to hang out and color. "I do this for comfort" so do we. "I need this to be mentally healthy" so do we. Not all of us, obviously, but far more than you seem to think. And I don't mean age play specifically, I mean all of it.
You have ostracized yourself from a community that would have welcomed you, made a safe space for you, has made safe spaces for those of you who are doing the exact same shit but aren't afraid of us. You are already doing kink and you are spitting in the face of people who weren't even doing anything to you by plastering this shit all over. I promise you that we can tell it's nonsexual by the G or T rating you've put on it.
Learn that your disgust reaction does not dictate morality, learn the word squick (it was ours first) and go to a fucking littles munch.
(and YES many of us DO like our kink sexual, some of us ARE playing fetish games, someone smart on here once said people who like sex tend to like their interests in both sexual and non-sexual contexts, I am not trying to argue that sexual kink is a minority, I am telling you no one would have made you be part of it.)
"average Virginian into interrogation kink” factoid actualy just statistical error. average virginian fantasizes interrogation 0 times per year. CIA, who lives in Langley & thinks about interrogation over 10,000 times each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
I spent like two years in the Virginia community. I know folks into waterboarding and dentist play. I know littles and rope freaks (positive) and furries. I have never met a single person (who admitted to being) into interrogation.
feel like georgia and louisiana deserve some raised eyebrows tho.
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all superheroes with secret identities are to an extent about being closeted and secreting part of your identity, which is gay, but like. batman is specifically about his identity in the closet where he dresses up in leather and engages in violent acts with groups of other men
every time joker puts a gun in his mouth. squirts his face with water. every time the riddler collars him. every time bane grips him by the throat, or croc pins him down, or penguin blows cigar smoke in his face, or ra's al ghul touches his jaw and talks about his potential
yes, obviously, he fucks women - he's public about that. bruce wayne, in fact, is very explicitly a womaniser in many adaptations. in the best of them, he's vapid and kind of a himbo, and women are charmed by his hapless appearances and unending niceness
and the thing is like. yes, bruce wayne is that kind. he is caring, he is compassionate - he notices the vulnerable and he wants to help; he listens to people, he remembers details, he's thoughtful.
and also he craves to hurt, and be hurt. he craves the strain in his body.
he aches for the scent of blood and sweat and oil and gunpowder; he wants to feel the bruises heal, wants to feel the itchiness of the healing cuts. he wants to be whipped. he wants to be beaten. he wants his knuckles to hurt from throwing so many punches.
it's not about justice. he beats up goons and tosses them in jail, and they go to jail, and then they come back and keep being goons. he puts the villains in an asylum that tortures them, and he visits the special cases. it doesn't help: that's not the point.
batman's obsession with joker is absolutely about joker's attraction to him and batman's attraction to joker but like. it's also about the fact that joker sees what he is - that he gets off on it. joker pushes him to the max bc he thinks it's funny to force him to admit it.
and the thing about arkham knight, or any other plotline where bruce becomes so obsessed with the joker that he hallucinates or imagines him is that like.
there are 3 people on earth who actually find the joker funny. one of them is the joker. SOMETIMES, another is harley
but the other one is batman. people who don't understand the batjokes dynamic (and crucially don't Get this as a crucial element of batman) don't understand that. batman finds the joker funny. and he feels so so fucking guilty for it. /but he keeps going back/.
batman's little fucking quips are the same as the joker's, he just puts on a deeper, grizzly voice. batman makes puns. batman makes lateral connections for the sake of terrible humour. he's deadpan and autistic and dry as dust, but he makes bad, bad jokes CONSTANTLY.
AND THIS IS WHY HE LAUGHS at joker like. that's what it is.
because this man's just. buried his identity four or five fucking personas deep. all his laughter is fake. most of his smiles are fake. humour is about the unexpected, and joker catches batman by surprise
it's not about joker being Good bc he isn't. the fact that joker is fucking irredeemable and cannot and will not be "fixed" is what makes him the same as batman. they both make choices to never be fixed. they don't want to be. they choose to be fucking clowns instead
I have no opinions about any ships in Batman but I would like to point out that being closeted about kink is very much like being closeted about queerness (or rather: like being closeted about queerness several decades ago, which is worse) and being attracted to women need have no effect on the initial argument about "where he dresses up in leather and engages in violent acts with groups of other men". Even without the bisexuality angle.
and also he craves to hurt, and be hurt. he craves the strain in his body.
he aches for the scent of blood and sweat and oil and gunpowder; he wants to feel the bruises heal, wants to feel the itchiness of the healing cuts. he wants to be whipped. he wants to be beaten. he wants his knuckles to hurt from throwing so many punches.
you can want this with men because it's easier to find one you don't feel like you'll seriously injure, you can want this with men because it doesn't make you remember your mother telling you if you ever hit a woman she'd disown you, and it can have nothing whatsoever to do with whether you want to fuck them.
and it's still being closeted. the metaphor still works.
