I always thought kinks, fetishes, or new sexual interests were something concretely formed early in life. Exposed to fetish at an young age (on accident by my own discovery, being that I was curious child who read a lot), I sorted out on my own that the dominant/submissive roles were simply something that one had from sexual awakening. This thinking was, I thought, confirmed, when I hit puberty and realized my interest was much less in the boys my own age and much more in their fathers. After all, the fathers seemed very well in control, some of them were teachers who easily handled a classroom of adults without fear. These things (and the submissive side they brought out) appealed to me and, with my fascination for hands, I thought I had my kinks well sorted.
Then, one day, my boyfriend expressed his interest in me wearing a strap on.
Well, that sounded good. Hot, even. The more I thought about it, even the dangerous thrill I got from thinking about him sucking my ‘cock’, I quickly and easily tucked it away into my list of interests.
He brought up the idea of me dominating him, albeit perhaps more subtly than one would think. I was game, though a little nervous.
Then, we got into a discussion about me wearing his boxers and how sexy he found it. He laughed, asking if I’d feel the same way about him wearing some of my underwear. I started to laugh too, amused at the image, until I thought about it a little more. He has great legs, and how good would he look with my underwear pooled around his ankles while I suck him off? Well, that one got tucked away into the proverbial filing cabinet too.
Much to my surprise the kinks and interests have continued to pile up. We talk through them as best we can, working the delicate lines of trust and control, gender and play, exploring our fantasies and having a blast while doing so.
I wonder, sometimes, how we’re going to discuss kinks with our children (when the come, and when they’re old enough to have that level of a sexual talk). Until then, I think the best thing is to keep talking and keep having fun. Practice make perfect, and practice, I’ve found, makes more kinks.
A few years ago a special present came for me. It was something that we had all been talking about for a while, and I knew it was coming.
The big day came. And I opened the present and smiled and giggled and pulled it out of the box. My very own swing. For the bedroom.
“What’s that, Ama?”
“A swing that hangs from the ceiling. Adults generally use it during sex.”
“Ugh, did you really have to say that?”
“You asked.” The kids looked at it – and me – and rolled their eyes. It got put away for a while. The eye-bolt had to be put in the bedroom ceiling, which meant T had to take a trip into the attic (a trip he would take several more times when we moved).
The day finally came. The eye-bolt was installed. I sat in it (while clothed) to test it out. I swung back and forth. I spun around. It held my weight, which was a good thing. And then we noticed the children peeking around the doorway. It was quite comical really, with them pushing each other out of the way to be able to see in the room. We invited them in to see what all the fuss was about.
A couple of the kids came, saw, and left. The youngest, at the time, found it an awesome thing and wanted to go for a swing. We let him. Good times. Now, when the kids see the swing up, it’s not even worth a comment. They know their parents are kinky and have just accepted it.
There are many reasons why we chose to allow the children to see the swing. We didn’t want it to be a scary thing. We didn’t want their questions about it to go unanswered – or unasked. By letting them see the swing and what it looks like, we gave them yet one more piece of information to store for later. Yet one more piece of educational information that they will leave the house with.
If the subjects aren’t taboo – if their questions are able to be asked and answered honestly – if their thoughts and opinions are responded to in a respectful way – then they will have more confidence in themselves and their beliefs. And they will have a stronger foundation for a healthy sex life as they get older.
–Submitted by Monkey of They Belong to Us
Oftentimes as children grow up, they say “I’ll never do that to my kids!” or “My kids will never have to clean the bathroom!” or something along those lines. Generally it’s being said under their breath after the parent has brought down some incredibly unfair judgment call. You remember those times, right? Yeah, I do too. Except my times came after I turned 16 and figured out all of those things that my parents weren’t telling me.
They didn’t tell me what my body parts were called. They didn’t tell me why I bled every month. They didn’t tell me why my body was hurting as I was growing up. And they didn’t talk to me about sex – since I wouldn’t be doing that until I was married anyway, then there was no need. They didn’t even let me do the generic sex-ed class in public school, because they didn’t want the school teaching me something that wasn’t right. And it definitely wasn’t ok to talk about the fact that I thought both boys and girls were cute. People like that went to hell and god didn’t approve.
I’m not doing that to my kids.
We celebrate every time a daughter starts her menses – with a new outfit or two and a special dinner out. (Two down, one to go.) We talk about body parts and their correct names and nick names – and which ones we actually use and why. We talk about abstinence and sex – the good, the bad and the ugly. We talk about things we see on tv, and how it relates to real life. We talk about kink and what makes people do it, and how as long as it’s consensual, it’s ok. We talk about the different types of families that they might come in contact with. We talk about their own feelings and attractions, and make it clear that we are ok with it as long as it’s healthy. And we talk about what unhealthy feelings and attractions look like.
And we talk about so much more.
I am doing differently for my kids than what was done for me. I want them to leave my home armed with knowledge about the real world. I want them to be 18 and know why the girls bleed every month, and the consequences of unprotected sex, and what being a virgin means. I want them to know how to protect themselves if necessary, and to know what inappropriate touch looks like. I want them to know that no means no, every single time. I want them to respect themselves enough to do things when they want to and mean it, not just because someone is trying to convince them to.
You can ask the 17 and 15yos. They will tell you that they appreciate the knowledge, and it has come in handy already. The others are not at a place where it matters yet. But it will.
–Submitted by Monkey from They Belong To Us
When I was little, oh, about five or six years old, I used to love it when my Mom would fold laundry because she would let me play with the empty laundry baskets. I would turn the baskets upside down and curl up underneath them, trapping myself in a cage of plastic. I would imagine I was a captive locked away in a prison or an animal in a cage and that I was in imminent danger. It always excited and trilled me in a way that I didn’t quite understand or know how to explain.
It wouldn’t be until my early twenties and many more such experiences that I finally linked the word “kinky” with those feelings and desires.
I’ll always have a certain sweet fondness for a pile of freshly folded laundry and an empty basket.
–Submitted by A.
“Dad are you wearing mom’s jeans?” the 10yr old son asks.
“No, they’re my jeans.” They are low rise stretchy denim with flared legs and I hike them up a bit to make sure my pink panties aren’t peeking out the top.
“I’ve seen him wear those before,” says the 17yr old. “They’re girl jeans. Don’t you think those are girl jeans?” He asks the new girlfriend. “First painted toe nails now girl jeans, mom is turning you into a woman.”
“And don’t forget he even had painted finger nails that matched his toes for a while last summer,” says the younger kid, pulling off a sock to show the new girlfriend that they’re not making it up. “If mom told you to wear a dress and a purple wig you would do it wouldn’t you?”
The new girlfriend is clearly rattled by the conversation and my pretty pink toenails. ♀ saves the day by announcing that dinner is ready.
I wonder if this is the best approach with the kids; letting them see a little bit at a time. It is possible that either of them could walk in on me and me see fully dressed en femme and that wouldn’t be so good. I could sit them down and tell them straight out that I’m a cross-dressing sissy and explain what that means. Though that could be difficult since ♀ are still exploring that ourselves.
Also, the younger kid is only with us part time. Would his mother haul my frilly ass back to court for deviant behavior?
When we picked him up from school on Halloween, ♀ told him she wanted me to go to the school dressed as a woman (for a costume), but that we’d ran out of time. She asked if he would have been embarrassed. He laughed and said no, he thought it would have been hilarious.
I don’t think either kid would be very surprised. ♀ & I have been painting each others toenails for years, they’ve seen some unusual clothing choices, they know I brush and braid mom’s hair every night. And neither of them expect me to be a ‘normal’ dad, what ever the hell that means.
If it was my dad and I was their age…hmmm…. I think I would probably accept it, but I think I would prefer not to know about it. The thought of my dad in a dress with fake boobies and a wig is not an image I want to dwell on.
–Submitted by Sweat Shop Sissy
My parents never told me anything. Learning about sex in the late 70s-early 80s was like taking an independent study course with a couple of professors who couldn’t be bothered to keep office hours.
I was a first-born, serious girl. I had spent my preschool years playing outdoors with my older male cousins. Sometimes our games were sexually charged: as a result, I knew what boy parts looked like and that they didn’t have to sit down on the toilet. I knew I liked being tied up as we re-enacted various Bugs Bunny cartoons, but I couldn’t say why. I had seen a medical textbook of my father’s when I was very young; the image of a cross-section of a woman’s abdomen with an upside-down baby inside was burned into my memory. I had seen big women like this and was able to conclude that babies come from inside women. But how did they get there? A man giving a woman “a special kind of hug,” as my mother explained it, seemed insanely vague.
When I was 11, Mom gave me a pamphlet called “Growing Up and Liking It,” which featured a dated photograph of a smiling blond teenage girl in a blue dress on the cover. The pamphlet described menstruation and really seemed to push Modess (“rhymes with oh yes!”) sanitary napkins. Included in the pamphlet was an insert about bras. This was lavishly illustrated with drawings of fabulous, impossibly-stacked women wearing various bullet bras and did little more than cause me to become fascinated with fabulous, impossibly-stacked women wearing various bullet bras. The menstruation information, however, was old news. They had already shown us The Film at school. And that, apparently, was all we needed to know about sex. Except they were skipping what seemed to be the most interesting part!
Being self-reliant, I set out to learn about sex via the only tools I had available to me: books. I knew the act was called sex, so I consulted Webster’s Student Dictionary, but looking up “sex” was a big disappointment to say the least.
I turned to fiction for help. Judy Blume seemed to know what was going on, and I pored over Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret (useful, but not about sex), Then Again, Maybe I Won’t (inscrutable at the time because it was a boy’s story, but I knew I was on to something), and Deenie, which described what I later understood to be the miracle of masturbation. Deenie talked about getting in the bathtub, rubbing herself somewhere–I don’t think she ever said exactly where–with a washcloth, and getting a “really nice feeling.” So, of course, I tried rubbing my body in various places such as my stomach and arms with a washcloth, but I never experienced a sensation beyond “washcloth feeling.” Eventually it occurred to me to try Down There, but I didn’t know what to do or how long to do it, giving up after possibly ten seconds. “It must be something weird that only Deenie does,” I concluded. I mean, the girl had problems.
Strangely, I didn’t connect this Deenie thing with what I sometimes did in bed to fall asleep. I would close my eyes and imagine some elaborate scenario in which I was tied to a chair, tree, or pole. Bad guys would be lurking around in a threatening kind of way, about to do something to me, whatever that might be. Some heroic man, usually faceless but probably also Christopher Reeve-ish (I had a crush on Superman), would rescue me. As I thought about this, my hand casually migrated south, not doing much beyond just being there, providing warmth. I never came close to having an orgasm and had never even heard of the word at the time.
Things continued like this until I entered high school. At age 14, I was in a hospital waiting room as my little sister was being born. Bored out of my mind, I started reading the hospital’s offerings from cover to cover. I came across a Redbook with an excerpt from a popular romance novel reprinted on pulpy, peach-colored paper. The story’s heroine described an encounter with her lover and said something about “how good it felt to have him inside me.” This concept was a complete revelation to me: the man has to be inside the woman! It all makes sense to me now!
–Submitted by K.
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