This is totally random and I canât fully express what Iâm trying to say but: âitâs okay to not want to do kinky stuff in the bedroomâ is an important message, but itâs missing something and Iâm not sure what.
I mean, for one thing, itâs okay not to want to do anything in the bedroom, and we DO talk about consent, but thereâs still this...assumption that a certain set of acts are the Basic Package that constitutes Normal sex, and that all the âweirdâ stuff is in steps up from there or something, and that being an allosexual individual means you get the Basic Package.
So we donât often tell people that itâs okay not to want to do oral or to have penetrative sex. In particular, no one encourages people to evaluate whether itâs okay to âexpectâ that of their partners in the same way they do with âkinkyâ stuff.
So like, I keep seeing people criticizing the fact that âkinkyâ stuff is becoming Expected and Normal, but as an autistic person whose sensory experiences are very different from whatâs âexpected,â itâs like...nothing in particular should be Expected and Normal? âThey might not be into that/enjoy thatâ is just as true of the most âbasic, vanillaâ sexual acts you can think of as the most out-there weird crap you can think of? Thereâs no single specific act that every single sexually active person should be presumed to enjoy?
Something I noticed from Pervocracyâs old Cosmopolitan reviews (and a few advice column things) is that people would ask âhelp, my partner asked me to do X in bed, what do I do?â And a lot of times the answer was that you should be a good sport and give it a try, unless the thing was judged to be obviously unreasonable and then of course it was wrong of your partner to bring it up and the column writer gets to be judgmental about this gross kink thing that no one would want to do.
Itâs this weird âeverything not mandatory is forbiddenâ thing where youâre supposed to do what your partner wants and itâs selfish to refuse, unless you can make the case that the thing they want is bad and gross and in that case they should be shamed for wanting it.
In a situation where you arenât able to set boundaries, you resent other people for having desires. In a situation where you can only set boundaries around kinds of sex considered bad enough, then you end up making the case that the thing your partner wants is bad and gross and shameful and make them feel bad for bringing it up.
So when people are like âbeing kinky is ok! Itâs not shameful and gross!â it gets taken like weâre trying to add additional items to the unspoken list of stuff thatâs compulsory if your partner wants it. But the framework of compulsory ânormalâ sex is already fucked up! It needs to always be ok to say ânot my thingâ whether itâs ânormalâ sex that everyone else likes or something weird that grosses you out.
