Lol I have no experience with anything sex/kink related. I grew up really sheltered and I’ve never had a partner or tried anything at all. Do you have any advice in where I should start? I’m completely clueless on everything but your kinks sound really interesting. Like I want to edge myself but I don’t even know how to make myself cum-

ouuhh one sheltered kid to another I feel this hard 😭

so I would definitely start with making yourself cum!....unless the idea of not even doing that is hotter to you. I had a series of asks on here that was basically about what if I'd never even learned how and was convinced that my edges were orgasms...or something...it was super hot lol.

if you decide you want the good shit so you know what you're denying yourself, spend a lot of time w your body and enjoy it! if your home environment drove home ideas of sexuality as shameful, like mine did, unlearning that will be a must. again, unless that's. hot to you. tbh getting off on feeling guilty came long before my unlearning of the shame bc I was such a humiliation slut lmaooo.

if you decide not to cum before you learn to edge, a) you are so much hotter than me holy fuck and b) with the added challenge that it'll be hard to know if ur doing it right. my advice would be that if your core muscles start tightening/fluttering, and your heart rate picks up, you're at or near the edge. you can choose to stop there, or you can push it.

more advice on how to edge/how to find a way that works for you is under the #advice tag.

general kink safety is below the cut. it's a little overkill but I have a passion for this 💕

at the very end of the general safety advice, there's a bunch of tips for finding out more about what kinds of kinks are out there and how to find out what you like! it's just all a bit long so I spoilered it!

when it comes to kink in general...allow me to warn you. ppl like us, who come from sheltered home environments, are often the most vulnerable to abuse in sexual situations because we don't really know what we're "allowed." ESP in kink situations, where a power dynamic is an easy way for an abuser to excuse their actions or coerce consent. I've been a victim of this before. it is VITAL to your safety and mental health to learn to set firm boundaries in kink, in sex, and in relationships if you're looking for partners. for every play partner I've had since I even opened this blog, for every one who's on the level and communicative and ethical, there have been 5 attempts to coerce control or blatantly cross boundaries. I'm not even exaggerating the ratio. for every partner I play online with, there are at least 5 more I have blocked.

it's really hard if you're a sub to learn these things. but you have to be bossy and vocal and on guard before you give your submission to people. hear this: NOBODY "deserves" your submission. your submission is a motherfucking privilege, babe.

to get started on these important boundary setting skills, here are some recommended search terms:

"bdsm red flags" - mine include trying to petname/rolename me in the first interaction, issuing commands before an agreement is reached, and bragging about "convincing" unwilling subs to do certain things. and yes, they really do that, and it really is often.

"bdsm contract examples" - while contracts may seem unsexy, and they're certainly not a must, they are a good way to summarize what a conversation between two consenting partners about goals and boundaries should look like.

"how to spot abusive doms" and "how to spot abusive subs."

"how to know if I'm being coerced" and "how to know if I'm being gaslit."

"RACK vs. SSC." these are two frameworks for gauging ethics and safety in kink.

I don't want to scare you. this is a good community once you learn to filter out the bad folks, but it is very important to protect yourself. say it with me: YOU decide your sexual boundaries, not the other party. ever. even if they're your dom.

finally, some fun stuff for beginning kinksters:

the kink test - there are a few comprehensive bdsm "personality" tests. will help you gauge if you're more a sub, dom, or switch, or if that changes based on the general theme of your kinks.

browsing kink lists on FetLife - fet does require you to make a profile with some bssic info, but afaik you can choose your visibility settings. it's been awhile since I've been on there, but you can learn about a lot of kinks you didn't know existed!

finally, just browsing on here lmfao. it can be hard to navigate, since the tags for a lot of adult content are censored pretty heavily, but here's what I do: if you come across a kinky post you like, click into it's notes and then click on any blog that's reblogged it or that seems to have a username related to it. usually that person will have similar content on their blog! if you need a starting point, my side blog @basement-angel has posts similar to what I post here, many of which i found with the notes trick. an ask I answered recently has my list of recommended reading if you like this blog, under #advice!

sorry if I overwhelmed you with info haha! autist here, kink is one of my special interests and keeping subs safe in the hellhole of dominant abuse is my passion.

please, don't let this scare you. once you learn to filter out what doesn't work, the connections you make in this game are so, so fulfilling - or not! maybe you realize through experimentation that kink, or even partnered sexual interaction in general, isn't for you, but that's so fucking valuable. learning Abt your own sexuality is such an amazing journey, and I'm excited and proud of you that you get to start :)

Hi, I hope this doesn't come off in the wrong way but I have trauma due to my actual step-brother SA me when I was 7 but nobody takes it seriously or comforts me about it because it was child on child (He was around 13.)

So I don't mean to trauma dump that but do you think the big brother kink could help me recover or atleast comfort some of my trauma? Once again sorry if this comes off weird! Love your posts btw 🧡

-🃏 anon

I'm sorry that happened to you. ngl usually I don't answer asks about heavy personal stuff like this, but since it came with a super relevant and interesting question, I'm gonna answer it. I definitely think it's very important to address the fact that so long as you're engaging in kinks in a healthy way, it can absolutely be therapeutic and help you through trauma!

In general, kink is a very good form of exposure therapy. Especially for things you know you'll encounter in life and want to be able to react to in ways that aren't disgust, panic, or upset. I personally have a lot of trauma around mixing drugs and sex, but I managed to find a way to slowly get into intoxplay and I can now be around people doing drugs or talking about drugs without spiralling! Including enjoying smut content involving drugs, which is something that used to be a heavy trigger for me. It was super helpful for me to sexualise it because it recontextualized my own relationship and associations with drugs (and mixing drugs with sex).

And I know other people who have come to terms with their trauma and taken back their ability to remain calm when confronted with it by engaging with it within the safety of kink. Including incest-related trauma. In general, part of the reason why people with trauma are often drawn to or helped by sexualising that trauma is because it allows you to engage with these things from a position of power (that power being your ability to revoke your consent/safeword at any time). It's a way to rewrite your brain's association with the event into one where you're in control. You're in control of when you get assault, when you get hurt, when you get abused. You know that it will stop the moment you want it to, and that you will be cared for and loved afterwards. It's a safe way to relive your trauma, but with a new sense of control over the situation!

And even if interacting with those kinks doesn't turn you on, sometimes just seeing that other people enjoy it without being bad people can help too. Generally, I support people seeking out the weirdest and most disturbing sexual content they can handle and gently pushing that boundary until they get used to the idea that even the most hardcore kinky people are just people, and can be very nice and chill! It's a good way to kill the weird evangelical anti-sex cop in your head tbh

That being said, kink and sex can also be forms of self harm, if you do them wrong. If it's something that triggers you and leaves you feeling disgusted with yourself afterwards, but you keep doing it in an attempt to feel that disgust and triggering, then you're engaging in a form of self harm. You need to be doing it with the intention of healing and with an understanding of your own limits and how far you can safely push them

Anyway, long story short... yeah. I think if things make you uncomfortable or trigger you, kink can be a good way to work through it! Especially finding a welcoming and safe kink community where you feel your limits will be respected and you'll be able to work through things at your own pace

It won't be the right way to work through it for everyone, but if you think it would be for you then it's always worth a try!

Someone told me about the cognitive bias form called “curse of knowledge” the other day and I’m obsessed w/ thinking about it.

The basic premise is that it is “when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.” Or in other words, once you learn something, you can’t at all remember what it was like to not have that knowledge or context anymore. It creates gulfs between people who have different knowledge bases who are communicating.

This has come up for me in life SO MUCH around topics of abuse, boundaries, consent, and relationship dynamics. (All types of relationships, not just romantic.) I’ve read about and studied and dissected these things to death so it’s second nature for me to talk about it. Then, I will think that a friend and I have the same values of what’s abusive or acceptable.......but then later I learn that what they meant is totallyyyyy different than me.

Or when I bump into people who truly think that thin = healthy or who don’t understand what being trans is at even the most basic level. I’m like “Jesus this asshole is hopeless” and I no longer remember what it was like back when I very FIRST learned these concepts.

It’s one thing if someone is willfully ignorant or a proud bigot. But if someone is TRULY learning something new, they need the super super basics patiently available to them so they can get the knowledge you have...and then THAT could become a bridge between you.

This “curse” feels important for me to just bear in mind before I write people off. And to just not assume that someone else and I are talking about the same thing. Maybe it’s a case where they have knowledge I don’t.

Could you maybe write something with an s/o that is super hands on? Like, if they wanna see Moreau's cool teeth or Heisenberg's scars they'll really get all up in their business, grab their faces and take a look? They're not mean, just curious and handsy

PS, this Anon sent an update for all 4 Lords plus The Duke!!!! So first time duke imagine add on, let's get handsy!

Alcina Dimitrescu

Please keep your hands out of her mouth, Darling.

Alcina is... barely tolerant of this behavior, but also a little amused. You are fascinated by her canines, despite the fact that they aren't particularly sharp or pointed like you keep assuming they are. You have this image of "vampires" I your head, and while Alcina is close to certain stereotypes, she doesn't meet all of them-- specifically the sharp teeth. You cannot seem to get over it, no matter how hard you try.

She will occasionally indulge this little habit of yours, but it's mostly because she loves you. Keep your hands clean and your nails clipped, or else she'll flick your fingers away.

Still, as much as she loves you, Alcina does have her limits when being poked and prodded.

She will only let you do it in private. Alcina won't let you stick your fingers in her mouth in public-- it's not appropriate or befitting of her station.

If you're too enthusiastic, she will playfully nibble on your fingers as a warning, and lick up the small bead of blood that comes from the cut. Is that vampiric enough for you? After all, you taste divine, Darling.

If you're so fixated on the fact that her teeth aren't as long as they are "supposed to be", well, Alcina is happy to show you the error of your ways💕💕

She will definitely use your fixation as an opening excuse for intimacy. I hope you're ready for it...

Donna Beneviento

Not okay with it.

Donna's veil isn't just for mourning-- she's also cripplingly self conscious of the scar on her face, and the Cadou mutation did not help her self esteem at all.

If you try to run your hands over her mutation, especially without warning her first? Donna will just shut down. Normally Donna and Angie will both chat and spend time with you, but after this Donna will completely back away from the relationship, and let Angie take over for her completely.

Angie is her safety net, after all. And you've just crossed a boundary she was not ready for, or even aware that you wanted to cross.

You have to explain that you mean no harm, but even then it's not a great scenario. Donna regresses almost completely if you don't warn her beforehand. You're back to communicating through Angie until you give her a genuine, meaningful apology.

You really need to push the idea that 1) you love her unconditionally and the scar will not affect that, and 2) you were only interested in touching it because you love her so much and you want to be familiar with every part of her.

Essentially: Always, always ask for consent with Donna before you go poking around. She can be alright with it in specific circumstances, but never assume, and never engage unless you have explicit permission. She needs to psych herself up beforehand.

(Still, if you ask and then press a kiss to the writhing mass that she hates so much, she will absolutely cry. There's something about that gesture that really gets across how much you adore her. It's... reassuring. Safe. It makes Donna feel adored, unconditionally. You love her to pieces, and this a gesture that reaffirms that.)

Salvatore Moreau

You... want to mess around inside his mouth? That's a little--WAIT HOLD ON NOT YET!!!

You have to warn him first, for your safety.

Moreau's mouth is full of acid, and as much as you want to get all up in there to check out his neat chompers, you have to warn him first so he can make sure you can examine him safely.

He's proud of his mutation, to a certain extent. The fact that you love him not only despite it, but because of it? It strokes his ego a little bit.

Still, he wants you to be safe. No sticking your hands in there without warning! Moreau would never forgive himself if he hurt you, so do give him a heads up if you want to take a dive in his mouth.

If he's feeling brave, he might actually use this as an excuse for intimacy like Alcina. He might wrap his tongue around your fingers or pull you in for a kiss if he wants too. You've got this focused expression on your face, and it's entirely centered on him... Salvatore couldn't resist even if he wanted to 💗

If you choose to mess around with the growths on his back, it's a little less romantic. They are very painful some days, and unless you are giving him a massage he will say no. It's not because he doesn't trust you! But Moreau needs to manage the pain, and depending on how bad the pain is on that specific day, that means you can't touch his back. Just remember to ask beforehand, and you're golden 💛

Karl Heisenberg

Hell YES

Heisenberg isn't self conscious about his body at all, to be honest. Sure he has scars, and while not All of them have good memories associated with them, he has a surprisingly healthy mindset about them. The scars are there because he's alive. He survived everything life threw at him, and he's still going strong.

While he won't tell you all the stories behind his scars, he will share the more palatable experiences. Some are from dumb mistakes he's made while doing metalwork, and he's more than happy to tell you the less painful stories when you have your hands all over him.

Because, yes, that is the best part about this whole thing. You cannot keep your hands off of him, and it is EXCELLENT. Karl loves it. He's a pretty handsy guy himself (to the point where you're starting to suspect he's a little touch starved), so he does not mind that you return the favor.

You trace his scars with this focused expression that's just so entirely absorbed, so fascinated, Karl gets hit with this weird mix of fondness for you and pride in himself. Seeing you so absorbed in him and his body makes him really want to do the same with you. He wants to return the favor.

The light touches you give his torso are so delicate... It makes him feel important and valuable to you.

Honestly, it's almost intoxicating. Heisenberg will absolutely trail off in the middle of a sentence if you run a hand across his chest. The feel of your hands on his body is so, so good. He likes physical contact with you, but if you specifically trace his scars? All bets are off.

9 times out of 10 he just can't hold back and pulls you in for a make out session. The last 1 out of 10 has a tendency to... escalate😈

The Duke

More than happy to indulge your impulses.

You being handsy is something that the Duke actually really enjoys. He likes to keep you nearby, and when you seem so obsessed with running your hands all over him it's much easier to keep you close and safe💖

You're the most focused on his hands and fingers because...uh...whoo... something about him with all those rings just really does it for you???

It's really nice to weave your fingers in between his, giving little kisses to the inside of his wrist or the tips of his fingers, and the Duke is always happy to oblige.

It's very charming, watching you coddle his hands like they're something precious. He feels a little overwhelmed by the reverence in each gesture, so he does his best to repay the favor.

The Duke will definitely smooch the tips of your fingers to reciprocate any affection you give him, and the kisses will continue up your arms, past your shoulder, and climb up to your mouth. It's a half silly, half romantic, but 100% genuine.

He loves you, and it's always entertaining to watch you squirm in anticipation as his kisses slowly approach your eager lips. The waiting is half the fun💕

Why would you write smut of a character who you headcanon as ace?

So, I'm ace. And there's obviously an ace spectrum just like there is any gender/sexuality. And I HC Yelena as not having a sex drive for 364 days of the year. But one day out of the year, the need just hits her. She identifies as ace but there's one day where she needs one orgasm (just one, she can't have more than one because it's too much and she's really sensitive afterward).

So, for this fic, it's one of those "oh, right now?" moments. She and Kate have talked extensively by this point about what to do when something like this does happen, so it's not like the ace character is in any danger of their needs/wants being pushed aside. If Yelena wanted to stop at any point during sex, Kate would automatically stop. And I focused more on the emotions Yelena's feeling rather than just the physical aspect.

So I wanted to respect the fact that she's ace but there are some ace people that might have the urge to have sex. Rarely, sometimes, or not at all.

I write an ace character how I would want to have sex if I had the drive or ever got the urge to have sex. To have someone who listens to me and will respect my boundaries. If that all makes sense in any way to explain why I write a character I HC as ace having sex.

Yelena, in my HC, is sex-repulsed by men (because of the Red Room missions and just the Red Room in general) and the only person she's be attracted to physically is Kate.

I am also writing a fic where the first time Yelena has sex that's not for a Red Room mission is with Kate and that's going to be focusing on both emotional and physical. This is also before Yelena realizes that asexuality exists and that word fits her identity. And, again, very tender and a lot of communication between Kate and Yelena. Because that's super important.

The reason the first time smut fic (that I've been working on for months and is about 28 pages on GoogleDocs as of writing this response) is so long is because Kate is constantly stopping to ask for verbal consent. This is also the first time Yelena's felt the urge to have sex because she wants to, not because she's being forced to or to make a target easier to kill. So she's trying to come at it with the same mindset she would during a mission, but Kate's slowing her down and making her think and check in with her own brain and body to make sure this is something she wants.

Kate: You will tell me exactly what you want me to do.

Yelena: I don't care. My pleasure doesn't matter.

Kate: *literally stops in the middle of touching Yelena to read her the importance of consent*

I think there are just so many layers to being ace. And everyone's idea is different. I genuinely thought for a while that I could only be with an ace person because I don't want to stop my partner from achieving pleasure. But then the idea of my system that I would be fine with working on with a partner is like Yelena and Kate's.

Their system is, essentially, when Kate's feeling like she needs an orgasm or whatever, she goes into the bedroom for their little container of vibrators or whatever and closes the door. If Yelena wants to, she can join with her fingers or the vibrator or just be there for cuddles and kisses while Kate gets herself off. Or she does whatever she wants outside the bedroom and will come in when Kate calls her for cuddles and making sure Kate washes up and cleans up and changes the sheets if it's needed.

So there's an acknowledgment of Kate's sexual needs and Yelena's asexuality and aversion to sex.

There ya go, anon. The reason why I write smut with ace!Yelena and will continue to write smut with ace!Yelena. And anyone who comes onto my blog to complain or whine that Yelena is "canonically arcoace".... I feel bad that you're so narrow-minded that you can't accept that not everyone accepts your headcanon as the only headcanon that can exist.

Phoenix Mountain Kiss and Consent/Boundaries in MDZS

The following opinion, expressed in the recent mdzs controversial opinion thread on twitter, is actually one I’ve meant to address for a while:

Even if most of fans loves the 'stolen kiss scene' in the Phoenix Mountain in the novel, that was a sexual harassment.

People in the fandom, especially those who were introduced first to the novel through cql, have a tendency to criticize the Phoenix Mountain kiss scene, saying it was non-consensual. My problem is not that they are wrong. The kiss is (or starts as, at the very least) non-consensual. My problem with this criticism is that people point this out as if it were a mistake. As if mxtx had meant to write a romantic kiss and had instead fumbled it all up and made it not consensual by virtue of not being woke, not being a good enough writer, or being too influenced by bl tropes. And that readers are too unsuspecting or not educated enough to realize the wrong mxtx committed. 

Here’s my hot take: The kiss is non-consensual because it was written to be non-consensual. mxtx is not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The reason why we, as readers, can infer that, is because the non-consensual aspects of the kiss are important to the events of the plot, some of themes explored in the book, lwj and wwx’s relationship after wwx’s return, and lwj’s character arc. mxtx uses this moment and its aftermaths, amongst others, to make a point about consent and communication in relationships--one of the central themes of the novel. Shocking, I know. Arguing that consent and communication are a main theme in mdsz: now that's a controversial opinion.

Now, I won’t argue mxtx always manages to develop this theme with utmost finesse. You can critique and disagree with her treatment of the theme throughout the novel (taking into consideration, as well, how it’s not just explored through lwj and wwx’s relationship). That being said, isolating events in the novel like the Phoenix kiss scene to mark them as Good or Bad without considering the context in which they happen and are explored within the novel is just bad literary analysis :/. 

Let’s first consider this simple statement: the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not accidental--mxtx knew it was non-consensual when she wrote it, and she wasn’t trying to hide that fact. 

By the time we reach the Phoenix Mountain competition, lwj has accepted his feelings for wwx, and that these feelings will not be returned. After all, in the xuanwu cave, wwx took great pains to ‘reassure’ him that he is super-straight-and-totally-would-never-flirt-with-him. Yet, wwx continues to ‘flirt’ with him--tossing a flower at him just before the competition--which we can gather is a source of, um, great torment for him. 

We are not privy to lwj’s thought process leading to the stolen kiss. What we know for certain, however, is how he reacts to and perceives his own actions after the fact.  Through wwx’s unreliable narration, we can still understand that lwj immediately regrets his actions and feels uncontrollable anger towards himself and his lack of self-restraint. While wwx has more complicated and contradictory feelings bout the kiss, lwj clearly sees his actions as wrong and disrespectful. He is scared of what he has been capable of doing unto another person--pushing wwx away the moment he sees him after the kiss. 

The person spun around. It was Lan Wangji after all. However, right now, his eyes were bloodshot, his expression almost frightening. Wei Wuxian was startled, “Wow, so scary.”

Lan Wangji’s voice was harsh, “Go!”

Wei Wuxian, “I just came here and you want me to go. Do you really hate me that much?”

Lan Wangji, “Stay away from me!” [chapter 69]

As readers, we are told that the Phoenix Mountain kiss, nor its implications, is not something to consider lightly. The fact that lwj’s reaction after the kiss is written in, and that it is so intense for someone usually so reserved, or the fact that we learn that more than a decade later he is still ashamed of himself and describe himself as having done something wrong (or, very wrong 很不对 ), all prove that the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not an accident and is not downplayed as something to expect from someone in love with another person. 

蓝忘机闷声道：“我，那时，自知不对。很不对。” [chapter 111]

I can already hear some people ask: even if it was not an accident, why chose to include a non-consensual kiss between the two romantic leads? if not because it is a bl trope/weird kink, why did mxtx chose to put this in her novel? what do we gain by including dubious consent or non-consensual interactions in our fiction?

The long-short answer is: because the act of crossing boundaries is a very productive story-telling device for any piece of media focusing on any type of interpersonal relationships. Crossing boundaries--willfully or unintentionally--is a source of conflict, internal and/or relational, which can drive the plot forward, shape character development and relationships, as well as be useful for certain thematic discussions. 

Current discourses regarding consent in English-speaking, mostly-western spheres of the web tend to be very polarized, painting people who cross boundaries as bad. The solution presented (i.e. how to not be a bad person) tends to be an invitation for everyone, within any relationship, to constantly negotiate consent verbally and honestly: to constantly disclose boundaries, to constantly ask for permission, etc. While I do not dismiss the value of these suggestions, it is an ideal representative of certain socio-temporally specific cultural expectations of what communication is, how communication should happen, and how relationships should be like, etc.. Human relationships are messy, people are flawed and hurt each other, and we have complex internal lives (for instance, someone might not realize their wants or limits until they are faced with them). Instead of having media show us only a specific type of idealized relationships where boundaries are never crossed, ever, they allow us to explore the implications of boundaries within interpersonal relationships. Or, sometimes, media and fiction just aim to represent or are influenced by this very real part of human relationships, and use it as a way to create conflict within the narrative and relationships (sometimes in a interesting manner, sometimes in a very gross manner).

In mdsz, the Phoenix mountain non-consensual kiss is a two-fold source of conflict:  internal (lwj) and relational. While wwx remains unaware until he and lwj are together of the identity of the person who kissed him, the implications of the kiss ends up shaping their relationship both before and after wwx’s rebirth. 

A source of (unknown) conflict between lwj and wwx after he is summoned back from the dead is the fact that lwj believes wwx is aware of his feelings. But this conflict is further compounded by the fact that lwj has once forced his feelings unto wwx, and is utterly afraid that he would dare to ever do it again. That is why, every time wwx initiates physical contact, or flirts very deliberately with lwj, lwj never goes further than what wwx has initiated. Sometimes, he even de-escalates their proximity or level of intimacy (usually by asking wwx to “ 别乱动”  or, famously during Drunk#2, by literally knocking himself out) --out of fear that he, again, would lack self-control and do something wrong to the man he loved.  He never presumes he has the permission to push their relationship further than what wwx is offering. Without that added source of conflict, would it have been reasonable to expect lwj and wwx to have realized their mutual feelings earlier, even with the issue of lwj not being aware wwx does not know of his feelings?

“In the beginning, the reason for behaving in such a manner was to let Lan Wangji be disgusted with him and kick him out of the Cloud Recesses, and they would never have to meet again, going their separate ways. Lan Wangji couldn’t possibly tell what his real intentions were. Yet, [..] even when faced with Wei Wuxian’s various actions, tricks, and pranks, Lan Wangji never once lost his temper, reciprocating with restraint and courtesy.” [chapter 99]

That is all true, of course, until Drunk 3. Here again, the ghost of the stolen kiss plays a part in accentuating the conflict. Without it, would lwj have jumped to conclusions as quickly? And, plot-wise, the shared perception of wwx and lwj that they have taken advantage of the other is a source of conflict that does multiple things--it gives wwx an incentive to go look at the temple at night to distract himself from his guilt and sadness, instead of going the next day with lwj (at which point jgy would have had perhaps already left) and it keeps wwx in the dark about lwj’s feelings until lxc reveals to him the events of the past he has forgotten. Here again, issues of consent are clearly taken into consideration as a source of conflict, shaping both characters’ motivations and the events of the plot.

Finally, the theme of consent/boundaries is an important aspect of lwj’s internal struggle, particularly in relation to his father’s choices. The kiss is part of his journey. 

It is not coincidental that the Lan motto is “Be Honorable”/”Self-restraint,” and that lwj is presented as the model Lan disciple. This element is part of the context that gives narrative and thematic meaning to the non-consensual kiss. When lwj forces a kiss on a blindfolded wwx, lwj goes against the values he holds dear and the teachings that were imparted unto him--prime internal conflict. 

But what is also interesting, to me in any case, is how consent is the thing that ultimately differentiates lwj’s choices from his father’s. 

How willing was Lan-furen to be saved by Qingheng-jun? to be taken to live in seclusion in the Cloud Recesses? to be married to him? to have children with him? The novel never tells us clearly. However, the novel gives us an idea of how lqr, lxc and lwj perceive their parents’ relationship. For lwj, we are given an insight into his perception indirectly during the following conversation between him and lxc.

[Lan Xichen] spoke, “Wangji, is there something on your mind? Why have you been so tense?”

Of course, in most people’s eyes, the ‘tenseness’ probably looked no different than Lan Wangji’s other expressions.

Lan Wangji’s brows sunk low as he shook his head. A few moments later, he replied in a low voice, “Brother, I want to take someone back to the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan Xichen was surprised. “Take someone back to the Cloud Recesses?”

Lan Wangji nodded, his expression pensive. After a pause, he continued, “Take them back… and hide them somewhere.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes immediately widened.

[…]

“Hide them somewhere?”

Lan Wangji frowned softly. “But they are not willing.” [chapter 72]

Indirectly, we come to understand that lwj draws parallels with his father situation: they both want to protect someone by taking them to the Cloud Recesses, but these persons are unwilling. The unsaid question here is, would I choose to do as our father did? 

The non-consensual kiss is part of lwj��s journey, through which he comes to understand that, despite his strict upbringing and disciplined lifestyle that was supposed to keep him from becoming like his father, he is capable of being his father (or at least who he thinks his father is). He learns that he can understand what sort of passionate feelings could bring someone to do something that goes against not only the wishes of his clan members, but the very wishes of the person they love, for the sake of keeping them safe or for the sake of having them by their sides. And at the end of that internal journey, lwj chooses not be like his father--to put wwx’s decisions and wants and needs first. After buyetian, lwj offers his protection and confesses his feelings--and wwx rejects him. lwj respects wwx’s choice, while still going against his clan to protect him. He brings wwx back to Mass Grave Hill knowing full well that wwx would not survive long the wrath of the four great sects seeking revenge against him, and goes home to receive his punishment.

Overall, what I tried to say in many many words, is that the Phoenix Mountain kiss is not non-consensual by accident. It is not because mxtx is an awful person or is not educated enough, or because she thinks dubious consent is romantic. The fact that it is non-consensual is addressed within the narrative, fuels internal and external conflicts, and is as well woven into the plot structure and the themes of the novel. The kiss is not an outlier element, added to titillate a readership--it exists as an integral part of the novel.

I’m not saying it’s not okay to decide that you do not want to engage with any content that includes non-consensual interactions or dubious consent because that triggers or irks you regardless of the way it is handled. It is totally valid to not personally enjoy or have criticisms about choices mxtx made in exploring these themes, in presenting the internal and relational conflicts around consent/boundaries, or even in the way she decided to write the scenes that figure dubious consent. However, it is not really helpful to divorce an event from its context within a piece of media in order to brand it as either Problematic or Unproblematic, Good or Bad.

Note: Much more could be said about the theme of consent/boundaries in mdzs; this is not exhaustive in the least. 

Note2: Much more could be said, in relation to the question and theme of consent, about: the cultural limitations of Westerners to engage fully with a text written for a chinese audience; the limits of fan translators to fully understand  the nuances and themes of a novel and to communicate them in a different language; about the place dubious consent and non-consensual interactions has had in the romance/erotica genre for a long time, and no, not only because Misogyny or Homophobia. 

"If you wouldn’t date someone then you are not attracted to them." You have a post that says this. But... Suppose there's a guy who would fuck other dudes but not date them. Are you saying he's not actually attracted to men because he won't date them? So he's straight? Because a straight man doesn't want to fuck other dudes. Ever.

I’ve answered something like this before but I can’t find the exact ask unfortunately. And no I am not saying that a man who fucks men but doesn’t date them is straight. He’s obviously gay or bi.

Usually when I talk about attraction as wanting to date someone I normally add on "or have sex with them." But sometimes I leave that out cuz it just doesn't make sense to type it out for what I am talking about specifically or I forget to cuz I make those posts at 1am and schedule them to post later. 

If you want to have sex with a specific person that is attraction. The reason why it's attraction should feel pretty obvious. I'm assuming this is because of the other ask you commented on about how it's not healthy to have sex with someone your not attracted to.

Let's say two consenting adults have sex. Afterwards one says "thanks for scratching that itch. You seem cool. But I'm not actually attracted to you." <- you would feel pretty used. Them not wanting to date you is different from them not being attracted to you. Even if you both consented to a one night stand, you still want it to be with someone who finds you attracted rather then seeing you more as a thing to scratch an itch. If you consented to a one night stand and they said “I don’t want to date you” then you’d probably be like “cool, neither do I.” But if they straight up said they aren’t even attracted to you it’d feel pretty shitty not to mention unhealthy for both parties. Even one night stands that don’t have any sort of close connection should involve someone you actually find attractive. Doesn’t need to be some super deep important attraction. Just simply wanting to have sex with someone is attraction.

This ask here has links that talk about the other side of that coin which is people who get coerced into having sex by their partners who want it when they personally don't. And addressing the very prevalent and popular idea within the ace community of "you can have sex with someone you're not sexually attracted to* that is used to get people to agree to doing shit that isn't healthy. You shouldn’t have sex with someone you aren’t into. Simple as that. 

I usually use the "wouldn't date" part to talk about people who wouldn’t have sex either. I’m talking about the-- normally afab-- people I’ve met irl and online that say things like “I’m panromantic heterosexual because I connect with womenhood and like girls but I could never actually date or have sex with a women.” It just feels like you're doing it to be woke ya know? I find it a lot in the ace community and it's really frustrating. It's part of why the SAM can get so frustrating. It changes how attraction works and it makes a separation where there really isn't one. Whether you want sex or just want to date or want both are all preferences, boundaries, and personal shit that don’t change your sexuality at all. And to a certain extend, sexuality is more about functionality than personal feelings. It describes how you relate to others when it comes to attraction. If you’d never date or have sex with a women there is no actual reason to say you like woman even if it makes you feel more comfortable to say you do.

It's good to know your preferences. It's good to know "I want sex but not to date," "I want to date but no sex," "I don't want sex right now but maybe later," "I don't want to date until we can be friends for a while and we'll see what happens," etc etc. These are all great to know. But they aren't new sexualities.

A man who fucks other men is just gay. A man who dates other men is also just gay. There isn't a reason to separate their sexualities from another. They're both just gay. There isn't any functional reason to make them different. It's just confusing and further dividing. Not to mention, it's based off of a thing that can change.

Say you only want to have sex with men. That is something that can change. As you get older your libido might die down and you might want an different kinds connection. Ie. Dating. Suddenly now you want to date men too! Has your sexuality changed??? No of course not. Cuz sexuality doesn't change. With the SAM it would change. Which feeds into the idea that sexuality itself can be changed. You're still just into men tho. You just have different priorities. The fact that you're attracted to men doesn't change. And that’s where a big issue of the SAM and microlabels in general come into play.

I didn’t intend for my other posts to come off as “if you won’t date [x] then you aren’t your sexuality.” Again, I write these usually at 1am and I don’t proof read cuz this is Tumblr and I don’t take it super seriously. It’s not an essay or a reliable resource. It’s just a random person talking. But thanks for asking for clarification and not just assuming I’m dumb or actually think a guy who fucks guy’s is straight lol. Cuz that was definitely not the direction I meant any of my words to go. I hope the above makes sense. thanks again.

This is the demiromantic anon that asked for love advice. I appreciated the meme (I think that's what that was? I'm an 80 year old in a teenage body) but I kind of need advice. He's a close friend - we've been friends for almost 3 years now and I have no idea how he feels and I don't want to wreck our good friendship. Please send help (and more memes, I really liked the one you posted with your message, it made me laugh)

Of course!

Before I say anything else though, a good friendship should be able to survive people catching romantic feelings. Despite what the alloromantics will tell you, friendship and romantic attraction can coexist! People can still be friends even if they have different types of feelings for each other, as long as there's consent and communication about it. (I'll talk more about this towards the end).

Anywho, I wanted this to be somewhat thorough which means it got... rather long. So I'll put the rest under a read more:

I’d suggest doing a few things:

1. Work out what you want

This is a very important first step! We often say attraction ≠ action with regards to orientation (like asexual doesn’t mean celibate, etc) but it goes the other way too. You have a crush on your friend, but it’s completely up to you whether you want to act upon it or not. You can enjoy the feeling of liking someone romantically, but not want to be in a relationship. Or you may decide that you do really want to go out with him. Have a good think about what you actually want to do with these feelings before you initiate any conversations.

Along the same lines, think about your more specific wants and boundaries. Like, do you want to hold hands, or kiss, or call him your boyfriend, etc? But also, what are you not comfortable doing (especially if you end up dating) – for example, I think parts of my romance aversion tend to stick around for a while even after I catch feelings for someone, so I’d want to communicate that to the person (e.g. “I don’t feel comfortable kissing just yet, but hugging and holding hands are okay” or whatever).

2. Work out how he feels

To be honest this is the hardest one to offer advice on because it is so dependent on the people involved. But uhh here are some ideas:

For some people, the best option is to just be frank about it. Like: “Hey, I like you romantically and I’d be interested in [insert stuff from part 1 here] with you.” (Probably not those words exactly haha they’re a bit dispassionate). Maybe also mention that you value your friendship just as much, and that he shouldn’t feel bad if he’s not interested in doing those things. If you feel confident enough and think your friendship is pretty solid - so he wouldn’t freak out if he doesn’t like you back - then this is a good option.

However, it sounds from your ask like that road might be a bit intimidating. Which is totally understandable! In which case, you might want to do some sleuthing first :P

Has he had a crush on anyone while you’ve known him? If so, how did he act around them, how did he talk about them, etc – and is he doing anything like that with you?

Recruit a mutual friend to do some reconnaissance (I’m making this sound way more dramatic than it is haha). If you have someone you trust to do this, then this is probably the least personally risky option? Maybe?

Some people suggest starting to do flirty/romantic things like lingering touches or whatever but I’ll admit that rings my Consent alarm bells, and I feel like it could lead to miscommunication. Up to you though.

NOTE! In my opinion, asking them “Do you have a crush?” Or “Who do you have a crush on?” is probably the least likely to yield usable results. Especially with teenagers. It’s bloody intimidating to confess to your crush if they ask you outright without establishing that they like you first. (Again, why option 1 can be good if you feel confident enough. He’s more likely to admit he reciprocates if you take the first step.)

3. Go about getting what you both want

(if you don't want to change your current friendship/relationship)

If you're happy just chilling in your romantic feelings and not doing anything about them, you can probably either

Continue as you have been

Explain the situation to him. This could help if you want to make sure he understands why you might be behaving differently towards him.

(if he likes you back and you want to change your current relationship with him)

If you go with sleuthing, once you’ve worked out if he likes you I still strongly recommend telling him how you feel (see: 2.1). Communicate communicate communicate. You won’t get want you want if you don’t communicate. Dropping hints is just so rarely successful and can cause a whole lot of miscommunication, so I know it’s scary but if you think he likes you back you’re better of having an open, honest conversation about it.

Then after that, you can go about explaining the stuff you thought about in part 1! If being aspec has taught you anything, hopefully it’s that no two relationships are the same – so talk about what you both want so everyone is consenting and happy! Listen to him as well, and encourage him to think about his wants and boundaries. Maybe even give him a few days to think about them before continuing the conversation.

4. What to do if he doesn’t like you back

You can’t control other people’s feelings. This is so important. Of course, you can be sad if he doesn’t like you back, but remember that it’s not his fault, (it’s also not your fault for catching feelings,) and make sure he knows you are okay with him not returning your feelings! He’ll probably feel bad, so again reiterate that you don’t value a romantic relationship with him any more than your friendship.

Then you should both try to be sensitive to boundaries (probably talk about them if you can):

You might need some time away from him. That’s okay and understandable, but tell him that’s why and that it’s not because you don’t want to be friends anymore.

He might want some space from you. It can be uncomfortable for people to know someone has an unreciprocated crush on them. Maybe he’ll need some time to get used to it. But if he doesn’t bring it up, make sure you check.

Where do you go from here?

(Super important!!) Like I said earlier, people can have different feelings about each other and still get on well! You can like him romantically and he can like you platonically and you can still be good friends! So:

You shouldn’t have to “get over him” (unless you want to). A crush is about your feelings, not expectations from him. But make sure to ask him how comfortable he is with that knowledge - and explain the point before this if you need to.

On the one hand, he might be more comfortable if you stick to strictly platonic things. Make sure you respect that.

On the other hand, maybe he’s actually okay with some aspects from part 1. Maybe he’d like to hug you more, or is okay holding your hand (platonically?), but doesn’t want to kiss you or be your boyfriend. People can do things together that have different meanings to each of them, as long as there’s consent and communication.

Final note: Please please don't take this as an instruction manual - these are just my own thoughts, and what works for some people won't always work for others. So use my answer more as something to start from - something to form your own ideas from. Use pieces that you think will work, and discard others. You know yourself and your friend much better than I do :)

Best of luck dear Anon, I hope you and your friend figure stuff out <3

And as a send-off, here's a relevant old meme of mine for you :)

(There are also plenty more memes in my memes tag (link in the description at the top of my blog) if you haven’t already seen them lol)

mcu ethics bad

The thing is that, while I was angry at Tony during Age of Ultron, particularly when he rode over Bruce’s compunctions about building a giant combat super-robot and pressured him into the project like a very very bad friend who happened to also be wrong...

...and when he equipped Hulkbuster armor and fought the Hulk in the middle of a city rather than attempting de-escalation or attempting to haul the Hulk out into the giant adjacent desert....

(And my suspension of disbelief snapped like a frayed cable when he brought down a skyscraper that had had no time to be evacuated on a street full of fleeing people and the only reason we were given to believe he hadn’t just cold-bloodedly created massive civilian casualties was that he told his AI to find the impossible magic angle where doing this wouldn’t kill anyone...)

While I was angry with him then, and unspeakably relieved that he recognized his own damage and retired at the end, haha psych, I was revolted by him during Civil War.

It’s supposed to make us sympathize with a character more, spending so much time with them, getting into their heads, being shown their emotional drives and reactions to things, and we spent so much time with Tony during that film, understanding his point of view. And...I did understand him. He’s not complicated. I even sympathized with his emotional state.

But in the context of his actions, throughout the film, I gazed into that understanding the way I did into Kylo Ren’s face in the seconds after he first unmasked. I see you, I know you, everything you are is written here, and the lines of your shame and self-revulsion are so thick upon you, and you should be ashamed but your self-destruction does not expiate or justify one jot of the harm you do.

Because everything Tony did in Civil War came from a place of selfishness. He was selfish all throughout that movie down to his very spine.

And selfishness isn’t itself necessarily bad--you need a little, to get through life, you have the right to your own portion of it. Your boundaries and your needs. But the type of selfishness that is forcing other people pay dearly for your emotional comfort and sense of control: no.

That is tyranny. That is not acceptable.

And you know how I know he was being selfish? Because his motive for pushing the Sokovia Accords was his personal guilt for the destruction of Sokovia.

But the Accords didn’t address that at all! They were tangential to the issue! None of the terms of the Accords would have saved Sokovia--in fact, the existence of them could easily have prevented the evacuation and harm-reduction the Avengers managed there, without saving a single soul.

The Ultron crisis was something Tony did, not as Iron Man but as Tony Stark, with Bruce Banner’s help, and which Wanda as criminal fugitive later helped exacerbate, and which all the other Avengers were involved in only to mitigate harm.

Legislation, or...treaties, idk, the UN isn’t actually empowered to pass laws so who knows what this thing was...aimed at preventing another Sokovia would mandate constant ethical oversight of billionaire science man’s mad science. At the very least! He never has to run things by ethics boards because he’s self-funded, at the very least let’s invent a mechanism to make up for that.

That would address the actual Sokovia issue, both in terms of risks and in terms of Tony’s personal guilt feelings.

But no one suggests that! It’s not even on the table! Because no one, certainly not any government, can tell Tony Stark what to do unless he lets them, that’s been a clear matter of record since Iron Man 2.

And because no one writing this legal instrument of whatever description was actually motivated by wanting to avoid another Sokovia, or even another ‘Wanda tries to neutralize a suicide bomber but merely gives him a different, smaller victim pool’ incident.

They didn’t care! They blatantly didn’t care! The entire thing was a ghoulish use of the dead to gain enough political leverage over the Avengers to put a leash on them!

(Which might not be a bad thing in principle, everything needs its checks, but when the last quasi-governmental organization you worked for turned out to be Nazis who were only prevented from staging a mass slaughter of undesireables by the skin of your teeth, I think you’re well within your rights to be very choosy about who you agree to obey, and to be firmly against pledging your honor to follow people whose first move was dishonest coercive tactics.

Actually you’re well within your rights to demand to negotiate the terms of even a much less sweeping contract, even without the Nazis. The whole approach to this thing stank to high heaven.

The fact that it was written by the UN like a treaty, expected to be signed by private individuals like a contract, and then enforced like a law except not because 1) laws are for everyone 2) if you break a law you get a trial not extrajudicial incarceration and 3) being pressured to consent to a restriction and then punished for refusing consent is hypocritical circular logic and in fact police corruption at its finest, all continues to show it was a bullshit nonsense franken-document.)

The whole movie is people ghoulishly using the dead to manipulate Tony into making bad decisions in response to his emotional pain. That’s. The plot of the film.

Then Zemo staged T’Chaka’s assassination and framed Bucky for it to raise the tension, ramp up the pressure, and prevent any sitting-down and talking reasonably through this, which might have allowed for the recognition of how extremely bullshit the entire concept was.

Tony was being used. Tony was a tool of bad people for most of that movie, and while Zemo banked on using his wrath for it, the politicos were leaning on his guilt.

And there’s honestly little I hold in deeper scorn than going out and hurting other people to assuage your own guilt and treating this as having the moral high ground. No. You don’t have the moral high ground on account of your guilt motivation. You have it if the actions you took were just, or at least could reasonably be assumed to have been so at the time.

And Tony fucking knew they weren’t. He didn’t even last to the end of the movie before recognizing that he’d been manipulated and fucked up, and doubling back.

That he then walked into a different manipulation, turned on a dime, and had to be stopped from doing a murder doesn’t unwrite that.

And it drives me nuts that people will say Tony was acting out of principle while Steve was acting out of personal attachment. Because sure, the Bucky thing was important, was the reason he was walking forward against all opposition instead of standing still to argue, but it wasn’t the reason Steve said no, while...

Tony wasn’t acting out of principle. Tony isn’t...very good at having principles. That’s not even a criticism or condemnation, it’s just how he functions. Since Iron Man he’s been substituting good intentions and emotional investment, which has worked out to varying degrees. It works best for huge, difficult, very straightforward decisions like ‘ride the nuke through the portal and save my hometown.’ It works less well for nuanced situations.

Tony was, as usual, acting out of emotion. And some awful shitheads who’d figured out where his levers were had calculated how to jiggle his emotion switches in the right places to make him do exactly what they wanted.

And you can tell he wasn’t acting out of principle because, for example, someone who was trying to get the superhero community under outside control for the sake of harm mitigation...

...well, firstly wouldn’t have chosen to stage a massive battle? But it’s possible someone in the UN specifically told him to do that, and in theory they at the very least signed off on it, presumably for its PR value of making Captain America look deranged and violent since it’s a deranged decision from every other angle, so yay, he can pass that responsibility up the chain and not have to angst about it, as promised.

But I was going to say would not have approached a minor who (this timeline takes pains to show us) had no prior experience of battle or even, somehow, serious violent crime, to recruit him to go be a government child soldier on another continent, without his guardian’s knowledge or consent. There were overtones of blackmail in Tony’s approach, before it turned out Peter was such a big fan he didn’t need that. What the fuck frankly.

That is not the action of someone who wants to start doing things by the letter, scaling the violence down, keeping within the law and putting the power of decisionmaking in other people’s hands because he’s realized he can’t trust his own.

And frankly even if he did act like that I wouldn’t necessarily support his choices, in particular his snap decision to behave coercively toward other Avengers with vastly less social power and security than he has.

And that’s the other thing! Everything about ‘Tony + Accords BFFs’ rings so hollow because he has never thought rules applied to him, and he knows perfectly well the entire time he’s fighting to force this surrender of agency down other people’s throats that he is going to be practically immune.

This man was technically a terrorist, proabably the most prolific single terrorist in world history until his rogue android exceeded his body count, but he was immune to prosecution because he was in tight with the United States military-industrial complex and basically untouchable due to his status within capitalism, and pursuing their international goals anyway. In the time between Iron Man and Iron Man II he was basically a one-man upgrade of the US drone program, and so good at it that the crest of blood he carved through the Middle East allowed him to announce he had ‘privatized world peace.’

(You are never going to get a world peace worth anything on the basis of a giant flying gun, okay.)

He went to war as a private individual, against non-state actors who were not directly threatening him, which is very much defined as ‘mass murder’ in all domestic and international law, and the US army in response sued him for control of his weapon. And lost! Lost.

No one attempted to press charges. No one. Because Tony Stark is above all that. And he knows it.

And like. I’m willing to accept the mass murder under the heading of ‘superheroing’ within the terms of this setting! Even if, after his vengeance rampage on his specific kidnappers, this violence was kept strictly off-screen for a reason. I did that! I bent that far! Genre convention!

But this history is kind of vitally important to any analysis of what he thought he was doing, and what he actually was doing, when he decided to become the iron gauntlet of the Sokovia Accords.

The currently active member of the Avengers who needed muzzling most was very manifestly Iron Man, and he knew even as he jammed the muzzle on all his comrades to make himself feel better that it would affect him the least, even if he didn’t finally retire for real this time. You don’t force Tony Stark. Not if you want anything out of it but blown up. You persuade him.

And once you have...oh, look at what he can do.

Heya folks!! I am kinda sorta back but school has started up and it’s kicking my ass lol so as you can tell things are going a little slow.

So how we doing? How we feeling? What’s new? How are the kids? Hope you’re all doing well it’s been a while since we’ve all just talked.

Question for today! Whats something about the UT community that bothers you?? Leave whatever it is in the comments or with an rb. I’ll be answering this question myself since ngl this is a bit of an excuse to just rant about something here. 

I’m gonna leave a cut down here people I’m gonna be chatting a bit about Underlust and that au does contain some heavily sexual themes and themes of assault so if you’re sensitive to that please don’t continue past this point. Stay safe <3

The thing that I personally don’t like is not any real type of issue but idk it still kinda bothers me.

I don’t like how everybody waters down Underlust to just a horny au lmao.

It’s so much!!!! more than!!!! monsters being horny!!!! there’s a story!!!!! please!!!! read it!!!!! 

God like UL Sans was such a comfort character for me he literally just makes me feel so much better about myself and what I’ve gone through. The more sexual topics obviously don’t resonate (I am a whole child ew <3) but he was a huge comfort character from when I was questioning my sexuality. He really helped with the stigma I had to deal with when I came out as bi where bisexual people are “greedy.” Just seeing him walking around proud as hell of his sexuality and his openness etc etc made me feel so much better and dear god if anybody remembers that one comic where sans received a bunch of slurs and handled them amazingly??? that was art. that really helped with a lot of things.

And dear god don’t get me started on when I suddenly figured out I was bi and poly. Fucking hell I’ve never been called greedy that much in my life. UL Sans was a literal anchor I can’t thank the creator of the au enough. And the themes in Underlust relating to assault have really helped out a lot of people who are victims themselves and they can find themselves in Mettaton and I think that’s super important. Not to mention that there was a whole comic I saw once about consent!!! and how important that is!!! and establishing boundaries with people!!! and standing up for yourself and what makes you comfy!! as someone who struggles with saying no fucking hell did this au help.

Hi yes I’m awful at explaining things I hope this was well worded enough

tldr; no underlust isn’t just a horny au you are looking for undertail underlust is actually a damn good au who doesn’t deserve such a simple label

and for the love of dear god when someone kins a UL character don’t make fun of them. please don’t make fun of them what the literal fuck. i’ve seen that so much why are some of you like this? ? ?  

thank you for reading this through uwu now it’s your turn!! what abt the ut community makes you super upset?

this is long but i want to say it, just as a boundary thing. mochi, you don't have to post this, but you can if it rings true and you'd like to.

anon.. i don't mean to be mean, but if you want to flirt with someone, especially someone who owns a blog, and you have no identifiers, like an anon tag or a tone indicator that you're being flirty, joking, and bratty, or anything like that, and it's out of the blue, their first response is probably going to be confusion or to be upset/bothered in some way

especially if it's meant to be a bratty thing, it needs to be established. blog owners are people with boundaries as well, and mochi didn't mean to make you sad by "not putting you in your place," and i'm sure you didn't mean to make them uncomfortable, but the fact is they're probably more uncomfortable than you are sad

blog owners are not chat bots or sex workers. we just write smut and share our thoughts, and happen to have an audience - which we do love, we're very grateful, don't get me wrong. however, any flirting, playful or serious, needs to have some kind of communication there.

i don't know about mochi, but i really wouldn't like opening my inbox to see something that reads like i'm going to be forced into submission by someone i have no rapport with.

i honestly don't really want my anons to flirt with me at all, and if they do, i want it to be the playful "you look so hot omg love u bae" stuff that i can clearly read as a joke, and i would prefer getting that from mutuals, and returning anons only.

mochi is more open to anons flirting with them from their posts, but it doesn't mean you can send them any thoughts you have and expect them to read your mind, or be on board with it.

^ thank you

i was going to say i'm neurodivergent so it's hard for me to express things like this so i appreciate you basically saying everything i was thinking but couldn't really express

but on the subject of neurodiversity, i really don't pick up on social cues. like if a friend is flirting with me or being sarcastic. i really have problems picking that up, especially over text. you can't expect me to know what you want.

i'm a dom and i've said it before and i've made it obvious that i'm neurodivergent as well, but you also have to have consent from a dom as well? i don't know where people begin to think that because we like to dominate our partners in the bedroom that we don't need to give our consent when subs or partners or anything for that matter are coming onto us. it's still just as important.

and honey is right, i actually did go to a friend and tell them to look at my recent anons and see what happened because i was starting to feel guilty, but honestly after a little thinking, there's nothing for me to feel guilty about? especially for the fact that i have (tw starting here so you can skip this if you're triggered easily) sexual trauma because i didn't consent to something and was ignored and treated like it didn't matter. (tw over, you're safe to continue)

i'm more open to flirting with anons because it doesn't really make me super super uncomfortable but that doesn't mean you can just bust in, especially as an untagged anon or someone who i don't know (i can recognize different writings, like with minmin, if they didn't tag themselves as minmin i could still probably tell who it was, and with [redacted]) and expect me to be on board. it's kinda hurtful that you just did that and then tried to guilt trip me and make me feel bad for being confused.

(this could’ve been) a villain’s origin story part III

Tony lied.

Which is to say, he didn’t lie because lying would imply that he knows for a fact that what he’s said isn’t true. Which he doesn’t. Just because Tony has Opinions™ on supes doesn’t mean he’s got friends -- or even half-way stable contacts really -- among them.

[You have to understand, supes do not tolerate outsiders any better than unenhanced people tolerate supes. And tolerate is already one of the highest possible achievements. To say that relations between the enhanced and unenhanced segments of society are strained would be a gross understatement.

And who can blame them? Either of them?]

[How dare they?]

So Tony honestly has no clue why supes avoid professional medical attention like criminals on the run no matter their alignment or security labeling. He can guess though. Oh boy can he guess.

[After all, there is no such thing as a naturally enhanced human.]

Long, bleak hallways, empty of life.

Acceptable failure [read: mortality] rates.

‘For the Greater Good.’

[What does it take to make a human? What does it take to improve the design?]

What do you do with a weapon you can’t neutralise once the war is over? 

Tony probably isn’t the first unenhanced to offer his services to the supe community. Certainly isn’t the first activist to fight for their rights, to criticize the status quo, to reach out and offer.

Maybe some of those other people meant well. Maybe some didn’t. Maybe some where accepted, maybe they weren’t. It doesn’t matter. Tony Stark has never been the type to sit and wait for others to find him. He’s never been the type to stop, simply because his efforts aren’t wanted. He’d never have gotten anywhere in life if he did.

So Tony stumbles upon the bloodied, motionless figure of the Winter Soldier -- clearly recognizable by the goggles and the metal arm, even with the blood everywhere and the ruined costume. And he drags him to his store, a small garage that may or may not have five more levels underneath it than any official plans would show. Really, the design would do any supervillain proud.

And Tony is nervousworriedexcited about his first, not-yet-conscious customer, but he isn’t stupid.

[Which is to say JARVIS politely reminds him.]

He doesn’t drag the Winter Soldier into the med section. Because the med section is for Tony’s own accidents that occur more often than the long-suffering JARVIS would like, the old spoilsport, but it’s also bright neon lights and surgically clean surfaces and disinfectant heavy in the air.

The workshop -- messy, messy, messy, oil smoke and fire-extinguishing foam everywhere -- it is.

There Tony sets about ridding the Winter Soldier of his ruined clothes -- hello, abs -- though the goggles stay firmly on once JARVIS’ scan confirms that there’s no serious damage on the guy’s face because Tony can politely respect a secret identity, okay, that’s a boundary if he ever heard one and he can totally respect that, no matter how curious it makes him, shut up JARVIS.

The supe’s wounds aren’t actually that bad, which brings Tony to the slightly uncomfortable realization that most of the blood on the guy isn’t his own. Yuck. Although that makes his job easier -- Tony might have plenty experience with first aid, but he’s really not that kind of doctor -- so Tony puts the matter out of his mind.

After having taken care of the wounds -- the deeper cuts are already knitting themselves together, so Tony doesn’t bother stitching those, just plasters his collection of Teletubby band-aids all over them and calls it a job well-done -- and covering the guy with a blanket -- though JARVIS reminds him to also leave sweatpants and a shirt within easy reach, just in case this guy isn’t running on the super-hot side of the temperature scale [there’s no question about his rating on the hot-ness scale, 10s all the way] or is shy or something, not that Tony really grasps the concept of shyness -- Tony focuses on the important thing.

Namely the metal arm.

Which is the coolest thing Tony has ever seen and his fingers are already twitching to reach out and make it better.

Now, Tony isn’t good with boundaries. He really, really isn’t, just ask JARVIS. 

[Asking Tony will get you nothing, safe perhaps for an incomprehensive stare and a “Of course I’m not stalking you, I was just curious and look, I got you a new TV and a better internet connection because that thing was a travesty and your landlord should be fired, now there’s an idea, hang on for a sec--” because he honestly doesn’t get it. People are so confusing and needlessly complicated sometimes.]

But even Tony gets that working on some guy’s arm while he’s unconscious and injured might be taking things a step too far. If only because JARVIS made him read all those articles on medical consent and patient confidentiality. Though that was, admittedly, for a very different reason.

[Tony doesn’t wonder whether the Winter Soldier lost his arm in an accident or whether it was decided that a literal inbuilt firearm would be more convenient. He doesn’t wonder whether anyone even asked the guy-- Nope, totally not going there.

He already knows the answer anyway.]

There’s no harm in taking a look at JARVIS’ scans while he makes himself a hot chocolate and waits for the guy to wake up though. The thought of a hot chocolate makes Tony wonder if his customer would appreciate one... if he has the grip precision to hold a cup with his metal hand without breaking it... if the sensors can be fine-tuned... if there could be heating pads inserted in his palm to warm a cup via hand... or burn an enemy... or--

Somehow that hot chocolate never does get made.

Instead, half an hour later, when JARVIS flashes code RED for the first time since Tony implemented his new and improved warning system, Tony is neck-deep in the design of a portable heating system strong enough to melt through an average safe door.

It’s more surprise than fear at seeing code RED in action that has Tony ducking, narrowly avoiding a metal wrench to the head, and grabbing the first two things he can get his hands on to defend himself.

Which ends up being an eraser and a open pack of marshmallows that were supposed to go into his never made hot chocolate. Wonderful.

Tony hesitantly stares up at the Winter Soldier in all his half-naked, very much armed glory -- where the fuck did he hide that knife?!? -- carefully edging away to put a table between himself and the possibly confused supe. JARVIS doesn’t say a word, but Tony doesn’t have to glance at the flashing screen to know his overprotective AI wants him to enact Protocol SKYNET For The Win. Which-- Tony never would meet any interesting people if he let JARVIS bully him into activating his idea of appropriate protection every time he encountered a tiny set-back.

So.

“Want some marshmallows?”

*

This ‘verse is not getting out of control, whatever gave you that idea?

how do our favourite ajf couples handle The Talk? and also, how do they start talking about lgbtq+ things? we love communication and education in this house ✨ - 💙

alRIGHT we are going OFF under the cut about good parenting (and also aaron’s the best dad on the planet change my mind)

this is litcherally almost 1.5k words because not only are we inclusive and educational in this house, we are comprehensive and honest with our kids!

they start with consent and boundaries really early. its always “can you ask you sister if its okay to use her tablet” or “honey you're standing a little close to me and i need some space right now. can you step back?” or “i don't really want to do that right now, can we do something else?”

its easier to understand boundaries with the addition of isaac in their home environment. he needs and has very clear boundaries for his siblings and his parents, so its very clear cut from the get-go what is and isn’t okay without permission. mom and aaron are good about knocking on doors and waiting for their kids to invite them into their space, and they’re awesome about privacy and open conversations.

auntie emily has a girlfriend or two and spencer has a boyfriend, a non-binary partner, and a girlfriend over the course of the kids’ lives, which is a really neat segue into the lgbtq+ conversation. very simple - 

“when you’re older, you might start feeling things for people, or you might not. there are different words for people who are attracted to different people, and those are called sexualities. for example, your aunt emily is a lesbian because she likes girls, and your uncle spencer has dated people of different genders, so he’s called bisexual.  

“there are also different words for people who don’t really fit in to the ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ category. some people are a lot of one or the other, some people are a little bit of both, and others aren’t any at all. 

“it’s really important to use these words respectfully, and only use them for someone if you have heard someone use them for themselves. this is a really private thing for most people, so we have to be respectful of people’s boundaries when we talk about the feelings we have for other people.

“if you ever want to talk to mom or me about feelings you’re having, we will be here for you to love you and accept you no matter what.”

(these kids are either gen z or whatever the fuck comes after them, so they’ll probably all be a little queer in one way or another, or at least explored a bit, lets be real)

they are very age-appropriate, as well. so there’s a conversation about how our bodies change when the kids are about nine or ten, and they have a lot of books for the kids to read in private, so they’re not so put on the spot. 

mom and aaron do their best to tag team, but there are some things that are better to hear from your dad than your mom and vice versa. 

this is also around the time the kids get the conversation about what is and isn't appropriate touching, peer pressure, and social norms (”sometimes, people will say that they’ve done something that you hadn’t thought of before or aren’t ready to do, and it might feel like everyone else has done it, too. however, you are you and you are not them. you are the only person who gets to tell you what to do, and never feel like you have to do anything for any reason.”)

jack, of course, is first, and is having these first conversations with aaron right around the time isaac is born.

when he gets further into middle school, he and aaron go for a walk and talk more specifically about consent and new feelings that might come up. idk about yall, but i knew way more than i should have in middle school and the internet has only gotten worse since then, so i’m sure jack has a vague idea of the mechanics. jack and mom also talk about values, like respect and compassion and empathy, and how those values link together with those feelings. 

when they're older (late middle school, early high school), they get the conversation about stds and safety and risks and that stuff. (that’s another easy conversation with real-life examples because isaac, while very wanted, was somewhat unexpected, and so was their cousin henry.) everyone is really clear about all the ways to engage in these activities that won’t get anyone hurt, pregnant, infected, or all of the above. (all of course, with the understanding that “this is for your knowledge, not for you to just know how to go off and sow your wild oats. you’ll have plenty of time for that later, i promise.”)

the segue for isaac’s first on-topic talk comes due to a question about how jack has a different mom than the rest of them. there was a comment at school that made isaac feel a little weird (”well jack’s not your real brother. he doesn't count because he's your half-brother” - that kind of thing) so he asked mom and dad about it. he already knew that jack has a different mom, but he doesn't really know what that means. 

aaron’s like “well, jack is made of different stuff because he didn’t come out of mom.”

“what kind of different stuff?”

(and of course mom thinks its hilarious and later says “you walked right into that one, honey.”)

so because isaac is isaac and loves to learn, aaron goes and grabs one of the books he got for jack, and he and mom walk through all the “stuff” that makes up a person and how it gets there. they’re a little more detailed with him than the other kids, because he really likes to know the science and mechanics of it (”dad, people are kind of like machines!” “yeah, bud, a little bit!”)

hes fascinated, of course, and he’s the easiest of the five. he also does really well with more abstract ideas of consent and boundaries as well. 

when it’s the girls’ turn, they not only get the mechanics conversation (for both sex and owning a uterus) but the safety conversation. because consent was so drilled into all of them, the boys are like “aight got it, don’t be an asshole and always ask about everything all the time. cool.” but the girls are dealing with some different stuff on multiple fronts. 

mom tells them about periods before they get them, so they’re not thinking they’re dying when their first period arrives. they actually help their friends a lot when they freak out, which is super sweet. 

aaron reiterates this one to every kid, every time: 

“there will be times where people, usually men, do not listen to you and do not respect your boundaries. i am giving you my permission to do whatever you have to do to get out of that situation. you can lie to that person, you can trick that person, and you can hurt that person if that’s the only way to get out of that situation. you can always call us and it doesn’t matter what time it is. we will never ever be mad at you. we love you unconditionally and we just want you to be safe.” 

“sex, for some people, is about fun and getting some exercise in, or just another way to spend time with people. that’s okay, but just make sure you’re taking care of yourself and being safe. for other people, its a physical way to express your love to someone you really care about.” 

(“oh, so that’s why there’s so many of us.” “soph don’t be rude.” “it’s true isnt it?”)

so its less of like The Talk and more of Yeah, We Can Talk About This Anytime, because mom and aaron do their best to normalize talking about this stuff so the kids won’t be embarrassed to come to them with stuff in the future. 

jack usually goes to mom with more...specific questions. caro ends up going to dad more often than not, and soph and elliot split the parents pretty evenly. isaac usually goes to mom, too. 

aaron’s favorite Jack Asks About Sex moment (relayed to him that night, in bed with mom) is as follows:

mom and jack are out on a walk, and jack’s like, 15ish. he just looks at her and is like “mom. hey, uh. what’s a blowjob?”

she tries not to laugh and succeeds, for the most part. in the spirit of honesty, and with the understanding of “you aren’t to do this until you are comfortable and ready and nobody else can tell you when that is,” she kind of loosely outlines oral sex and how to conduct it safely and responsibly. 

“is it like...good? fun? like ugh, god, how do i put this...do you and dad...do people...nevermind.”

with a laugh - “jack. you really don’t want me to answer that. i will scar you for life if you push.” 

“ugh. yikes. alright.” 

aaron thought it was HYSTERICAL. 

at the end of the day, they just want their kids to feel safe and loved. all five of them know that they were built and made with love, and know (within reason) that their parents love and enjoy each other. 

whew. thanks for coming to my ted talk, and you can thank my parents for some of these gems lmao

I read your tags under the last post and you did that as a teen? Thats messed up

hi anon! i don't know what's the tone of your question, whether you think it's messed up i was doing it and now i'm protecting minors from repeating the same bad experiences and mistakes or whether me being talked/convinced into writing and consuming written erotica was messed up. i'll clarify some things and put them under the read more to avoid triggering anybody.

tw: underage sexual activities, grooming, manipulation.

i've mentioned it a few times, but long before i wrote fanfictions, i was roleplaying. by roleplaying, i mean creating characters or writing as characters, basically writing fanfiction but with someone or multiple writing partners at a time. i was 11 or 12 when i started on a french platform and interacted with god knows who. i was around 13-14 when i started roleplaying on facebook and on tumblr. it was not super uncommon for minors and teenagers to do this, especially on facebook. we were a bunch of lonely antisocial teenagers living high school drama both in real life and online. there was massive amounts of lies, manipulation, bullying and so on. but to many, including me, it was the only way to make "friends", some were genuine friendships others were absolutely terrible. i first wrote smut in a roleplay on facebook with someone who was finishing college (my education system is different from america, college means high school and university and even pre-university programs and i could only assume it was the same for her). we wrote our stuff, she was very rude about my typos and my limited vocabulary but i did not question too much out of it, i just thought she was smarter (again because i assumed she was the same age as me). eventually, we got into writing smut. i was aware of the "fading to black" technique, which is what you do when you skip from a scene that gets heated to what happens after the action and in my reply, i faded to black. she asked me to rewrite it, she wanted to do the sex scene because it was "important for character development", it wasn't, she just needed something to satisfy whatever the fuck she needed to satisfy. now i can look back and understand that, but back then i had no idea. so we wrote that scene. the entire time i felt extremely uncomfortable and i kept apologizing and delaying my reply until she completely disappeared on me and blocked my account, seemingly because i wasn't fun to write with anymore.

another facebook experience occured a year or two later. i was 15, i've had some rough encounters with other rpers who held a big place in my personal life too so i was very vulnerable. i came across this girl who never told me anything regarding her age and her personal life, while constantly asking me questions about mine. we wrote this couple, she constantly forced me into writing smut. i'd suggest new date ideas, new plot twists, new settings, anything just to avoid writing sex scenes for the 5th time in the same day. she told me "you'll like it, you'll get better at it when you practice, i'll tell you how it works, it's gonna make you feel good too". so i kept writing with her, i had no other friend at that time so i thought that if i did what she demanded me to do to, she'd stick around and like me. we wrote sex scene after sex scene, we added pregnancy plots, a forced pregnancy even, i was incredibly uncomfortable. i made a different account, i tried to escape her but i couldn't. she had around 5 or 6 accounts where she would go around and find young partners to write with. she had a friend who did the same. there was nowhere to go. i eventually ghosted the previous account we wrote on together and focused on my new character. she was gaining a bit of traction, i met someone there too. we became friends instantly. i was 16 when this new person and i decided to talk more "out of character". we got to know each other, we became best friends and we still are today. we were writing so many different plots and relationships, but they were always respectful of the boundaries we both set. when i turned 18, she finally brought up this previous person who manipulated me into writing smut. she said she had met her, years before me. she was, too, talked into writing sex when she was around my age. we both found out this other person was a 35 years-old woman, a creep, who hunted down our roleplay community to write smut with us, teens and kids. she made us believe it was okay, that she'd "teach us the way". she'd gaslight you and manipulate you into getting what she wanted. there were stories going around that were even crazier than mine. i was manipulated into writing sex with someone twice my age when i was still a teenager. for the longest time, i avoided writing smut, even in roleplays. it took me years to work the courage to write smut again, to develop sex headcanons for my characters in roleplays. i wrote smut with my best friend, whom i trust with my whole life, once or twice and she always insisted we stopped if i were uncomfortable until we just stopped altogether and focused on headcanons and other fluffy ideas rather than fully fleshed out written erotica.

i was reading smut, i was consuming porn, i was on tumblr this whole time and that was before the grand purge of adult material. it was different, in a way, because i was choosing to consume such things. but still. i was like 14 and seeing dicks and pussies out in the wild on tumblr. i had no interest in relationships, in dating, in sex even and i was seeing all of this. i was learning that if you wanted others to desire you, you had to be like the girls on porn videos, you had to do all kinds of crazy things and let (mostly) men take advantage of you because that's hot.

all of that just to say...

IT FUCKS YOU UP. it just fucks you up. it makes you think you're not normal, it makes you think you're weak, you're immature, you're just not cool enough. it makes you think you owe sexual favours to other people. it makes you think your sexual desires are just something people can play with so they can get what they want. i've come a long way. i've learned about my own sexuality a lot. i'm still very insecure in real life, but this blog has allowed me to explore my own desires and fantasies in a safe way, following my own boundaries. it might not seem like much to you. but it was a lot to me. i was hiding this from everybody, my only escape from real life was becoming as toxic as real life itself. the lines were blurred between online and reality. i became scared of people. i thought they were all like the other girls who were full on adults taking advantage of KIDS to write sex. they didn't care if it sucked, they got off from it.

being a blog that is 18+ is not just for aesthetic. it's not just to be cool and act like we're more mature. IT'S A SAFETY FOR BOTH US, AND YOU. we want to avoid that minors fall into traps and rabbit holes. we want to avoid minors from constructing their sexualities around what is clearly fake. FAN FICTION IS FICTION but it can impact your real life, especially when you're young and unexperienced.

i am a firm believer that 18/21 and other ages of consent are NOT magic numbers. you don't suddenly become "mature" at the second you turn 18. they are just minimum age requirements that can allow both you and us some sort of safety. you can be 15 and sexually experienced. you can be a 35 years-old virgin and more sexually experienced than your average person. but that doesn't mean you can't respect other people's boundaries and lurk on their blog while being a minor. you are exposing yourself to things you shouldn't be exposed to at your age.

PROTECT YOURSELF. PROTECT OTHERS. RESPECT EVERYBODY'S BOUNDARIES.

What do we mean when we say “sex positivity?”

With Smutember around the corner, and because this is SADLY nothing sex ed talks about consistently around the globe, I want to take a bit of time to about sex positivity if you’ll allow me. Specifically, what we mean when we use the term, and what it doesn’t. Does sex positivity mean you have to like having sex? (Spoiler, it doesn’t). Does sex positivity mean it’s wrong to not be open about doing certain practices? (Nope, it doesn’t either.) Does sex positivity mean I have to either love or hate porn, or erotic literature? (No, again.)

Since I’ll talk about this for a little longer, AND you because get to decide if you want this topic on your dash*, read ahead after the cut.  (*and, while we’re at that, with smutember coming: all posts on this blog will be tagged with the hashtag #smutember2020 henceforth. If you don’t want to see this content, please feel free to block the hashtag.)

Forthose who don’t want a long post, here is the TL;DR:

Sex positivity is defined in many, many different ways, but ultimately spans attitudes regarding how we perceive sex and sexual conduct both for ourselves and others. It sees sex as a healthy expression of ourselves in which all consensual expressions of it are valid. In which shaming each other for sex or sex practices or shaming each other for the lack of experiencing sexual desire and having healthy sexual boundaries is not sex-positive. Sex positivity is about embracing all expressions of sex and sexuality (as long as they are between consenting people) as something positive that embraces open communication about personal limits and desires, and encourages exploration. Consent here is the most important prerequisite requirement: That all people involved are of an age and state of mind and consciousness where they are able to willingly consent, as well as have the perceived power to willingly consent to participate in the action. 

So, to preface this shortly, this isn’t actually a term that is super easy to define. Which is why scholars (among them feminist, psychologist, social studies and sexual medicine scholars and many others) have not yet agreed on a universal definition. In fact, there are papers solely focusing on comparing definitions to find their common ground. It is, thus, definitely not something that goes without saying.

Before I can speak about what sex positivity is, we have to talk about the most important ingredient, though: Consent.

What is (and isn’t) consent?

Consent is the explicit agreement to participating in any action, and here, specificially, sex. It can be verbal and non-verbal, but it means everyone involved really wants to do all sexual actions that are being done, no exceptions. It means no one is being coerced against their will, no one’s concerns are being ignored, their desires and boundaries are known and being listened to and respected. It means no one is doing something they had no chance to reflect upon if they want it or not, and no one is doing something they don’t want out of obligation or a sense of duty. It means no one is having sexual contact with someone who isn’t able to consent in any form: be it because they can’t consent because of their age, or limited consciousness, or because of perceived verbal or nonverbal threats and/or consequences. The latter, in its most base terms, means (non-exhaustively) that people below the (culturally differing) ages of consent - meaning children and young teenagers - cannot consent, that people who are intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, asleep, in a state of trauma or shock, in a dissociated state of mind or any similar states cannot consent, and that people who feel they have no power to say no cannot conset - i.e. someone who fears consequences to their physical, social or psychological well-being (or those of others) if they say no, which can range from, say, an employee feeling like they can’t decline an employer’s physical advances that they don’t want without negative consequences in any form in their work-environment, or a person in a romantic relationship fearing a break-up if they don’t “deliver” sex even if they don’t want it, or a person who feels they have to “deliver” sex they don’t want in order to prove their personal worth or love or affection or to avoid ridicule. These are of course non-exhaustive. A person who says yes even though they don’t want to because they feel they can’t say no, as well as a person who is too young and/or unable to say no, isn’t consenting. 

And because this is so important, here, have that brilliant Tea of Consent by Emmeline May, quoted and photographed off my copy of “More Orgasms Please: Why Female Pleasure Matters” by the Hotbed Collective.

What Sex Positivity Is

Most of us are very intuitive about what sex positivity is, but the fewest of us have ever discussed it at length in any way or form, and thus the edges are very often hazy!

First and foremost, sex positivity is a set of attitudes that forms personal beliefs regarding sexuality, how we perceive collectively shared sexual norms, and how we view sexual autonomy and sexual expression both in ourselves and others. So what does that all entail, and how does that look?

A basic view of this is: sex is good! Sex is, as long as it’s consensual, something healthy, and a valid and enjoyable way to express intimacy, affection, love and desire. It’s not just a means to an end (satisfaction, babies, etc.) and it should not be shrouded in shame or pain or discomfort, and instead be communicated about openly and respectfully. This is of course, in direct answer to sex-negativity: The belief that sex is bad, shameful, sinful, and having it makes you just as sinful.

Here is one of many scientific definitions for the term:   “[Sex positivity is] the belief that all consensual expressions of sexuality are valid.” (p.289) 

That means if you’re, say, really into having sex while wearing stockings (actually something that comes up very often when you ask people of their fantasies in surveys!) or maybe wanting to be tied up for it (also a VERY frequent fantasy) and do it ONLY with people who are into it, too, and not against their will, then it’s a healthy expression of your desire and no one (no parents, no society, no church or institution or anyone) is entitled to shame or sanction you for it.

As Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist and sex researcher says, society (including its medical and psychological history and authorities, sadly!) has had a very narrow and restrictive view of what is “ok” to be desirable when it comes to sex in the past and sadly sometimes still the present, and that “they’ve pretty much told us that we shoudn’t do anything other than put penises in vaginas and even that, ideally, should only take place within the confines of a heterosexual, monogamous marriage).” (p.vi) Bringing with it the dogma of immorality and crime, among else. 

Sex positivity aims to be the antithesis of this. It means all forms of consensual sexual expression are valid. Not one form is better than another. If you live and love monogamously or heteronormatively, it isn’t better or worse than living in any other form. From polyamory to kinks, or having any kind of consensual fetish that don’t hurt anyone else or their free sexual expression when sharing them with others, all of them are valid, none of them are better or worse than any other individual choice. It means celebrating and validating all forms of sexual expression (or lack thereof!) as well as all forms consensual practices, while having any form of sexual identity and any placement on the wide spectrum that is gender identity. 

What Sex Positivity Isn’t

Because sometimes it is easier to thoroughly understand something by outlining what it DOESN’T include, this is more imporant than many might think. And because I’m obviously not the first person to think about this, there is this really great article by Everyday Feminism about what sex positivity isn’t that is written in a very clear and straight-forward way, that I’ll urge everyone to check out, but I’ll also outline some select few of the (more numerous) basics they’ve described here:

🚫 Sex positivity means liking sex

No. Just because someone really, really enjoys sex, that does not mean at all they are sex-positive by default. Sex positivity isn’t synonym with being overly enthusiastic about having sex or surrounding yourself with it. It can! But that’s not at all the point in the slightest. Someone who really likes sex can still be disrespecful about someone else’s sexual expression, or feel entitled to someone else’s sexual acts or interest in sexuality, or that they can judge someone’s sexual identity or form of expression. Sex positivity is about respecting others in all their forms of sexual expression, even if those forms don’t represent your own. Likewise, someone who does not themselves like or enjoy sex can still be respectful of other’s expression of it in any form and with any other person or persons, and see sexuality as a healthy form of self-expression even when it is their choice to not engage in it for any span of time or reasons.

🚫 Sex positivity means everyone should have and like sex because it’s healthy

No. There are uncountably many reasons why someone might be repulsed by sex or simply not interested it. All of them are valid. None of them are to be shamed. Sexual trauma, sexual exploitation, a lack of feeling sexually empowered, pain during sexual intercourse, lack of desire, internalized shame that prevents sex from being enjoyable, the feeling of being in an environment where your sexuality is coerced or objectified and not feeling comfortable with it, being touch-repulsed or simply feeling no inkling of “lust”. All of this is valid. Sex positiy means respecting boundaries in consentual sex. It does not mean you have to have sex if it is unpleasant for you for any number of reasons. Of course, if you want sex and are suffering under any number of reasons that make you not enjoy it even though you would intrinsincally WANT to enjoy it (Anything from pain to sexual trauma to shame), then there are professionals out there qualified to help and counsel you. But they, too, are not entitled to dictate sexual action for you. Only you decide if you want to have sex or not. No one else. You are the master of your sexual expression in any form and are entitled to decide how, when and if you (and only you) want it, and no one else. That is an expression of sex positivity.

🚫 Sex positivity means being open to all forms of sex

No. Being sex positive means you respect the healthy expression of your own and someone else’s sexuality, and this includes their boundaries. You can believe that sex is healthy and enjoyable and should not be shamed in the least, and still not like anal. It does mean however that you still respect someone and their sexual expression when they do like the shit out of anal (pun intended lol, thank you very much.) This person is not entitled for YOU to like anal or to get it from you if you don’t enjoy it, and you are not entitled for them to not desire it. And this of course goes for any sexual practice. Judging and shaming someone for enjoying giving blowjobs is not sex-positive, just like it isn’t sex-positive to expect someone to inherently WANT to give blowjobs. Sexual boundaries are very healthy, and an important form of self-reflection and the root of true informed consent. Knowing what you like and don’t like and that these things will most likely differ from others in their unique expression is an important path to a most healthy sexual expression.

🚫 Sex positivity means always being ready, available, and interested in sex, with anyone.

No. Sexual expectations wear heavily on people from any gender or sexual identity. Many queer or nonbinary people suffer, among else, under sexualisation and being made the stuff of fetishes or being ascribed heavily sexualized attributions. Many men, among else, suffer under normative stereotypes, myths and sexual scripts that say they always want sex and are unmanly when they don’t feel desire 24/7, that they’re always up for sex and never not in the mood. Likewise, the 70s brought women and their sexual freedom into a position heavily reinforced by porn scripts in which they are expected as ‘sexually freed’ beings to be sexually available, ready, interested, and orgasmic at all times, and if you are not, you are a prude, and if you do it too much, you are a slut. These are all (non-exhaustive) forms of sexual shaming and dictated sexual expectations. If you are generally enthusiastic about sex and enjoying it, you are allowed to have phases where you feel less desire. And whether you are someone with a generally smaller libido that sometimes spikes, or you’re someone who has never felt any sexual desire at all, or someone who wants sex a lot, you are sex positive when you respect other’s free expression of it, and this includes the frequency in which they want it or with whom they have it. You get to pick what sex you have and with whom or how many you have it, no one else. Anyone who tells you otherwise under the mantle of ‘sex positivity’ is, as everyday feminism so eloquently put, employing “sexual coercion cloaked in faux-progressive language. If someone is calling you a prude or sex-negative for not having sex with them, they’re violating your consent and their opinion of you is invalid. And just because you want to create a world in which everyone is empowered to make the sexual choices they want doesn’t mean that you personally have to be interested in casual sex.”

🚫 Sex positivity means sex is healthy, so that means I am entitled to sex.

No. It means you are entitled to WANT to have it, but not to have it. In sex as in every other need involving other people (from receiving oral, to boardgames, to conversations, to a hug or affection): Just because you are entitled to want something or even very validly need something, that does not mean someone else is obligated to give it to you. Just because someone needs comfort and company, you are not obligated to give it. Just because someone wants and needs attention, it is not your job to give it. Just because someone wants sex and feels they need it, even if they are your partner, you are not obligated to give it. This can be frustrating, of course. But NO: Just because you want sex, you are not entitled to have it. Ever. From anyone. No one owes you sex, not even if you’re married to them. Everyone has their own sexual agency, and everyone needs to respect it. In fact, feeling entitled to sex lies at the base of sexual aggressive behavior of all kind, and the idea that your own desire for sexual activity rates higher in priority than the individual needs of the person you’re coercing it from. It’s at the root of rape culture, and something we must all internalize to overcome it: Despite you wanting something and it being healthy to have it or to get this something, no one owes it to us or is obligated to give it to us.

🚫 Sex positivity means you have no problems with sex.

No. The term positivity of course often brings overtly positive connotations with it: something easy and happy. Of course, sex positivity doesn’t require you to have an easy or happy relationship with sex and sexuality. Sex can be traumatising, uncomfortable, regrettable, awkward, unpleasant, confusing, or plain boring and uninteresting to you. Even if it isn’t traumatising or painful, it can still be hell of a lot frustrating navigating it and your own desires. Body image issues or and religious restrictions that can be important to you or not, never having orgasmed but really really wanting to, the feelings of not ever having encountered sex that’s truly fun for you, all of these and many, many more are the giant maze that can arise when navigating sexuality in our lives. None of these means you aren’t sex positive. It’s here for survivors of sexual violence and aggression and those who want to reclaim their sexual agency, sexual empowerment and self-expression, just as it is here for asexuals, demisexuals, aromantics, or anyone else. It’s the belief that we have a right to a healthy sexuality without being shamed, violated, sanctioned or discriminated for it, and that we have a right to our boundaries as well as our fantasies. 

So, I’m guessing most of you knew this intuitively all along. I’m preaching to the choir. However, seeing it written down often helps us in expressing ourselves, and in the way we confidently navigate our own sexual empowerment.

And, with smutember on the horizon again, when we once again try to incorporate sex positivity in our writing, too, it might serve as a good reminder that we help along the normalisation of sex positivity whenever we portray it in media in general, and fiction specifically! I hope one day we will take all this fully for granted, and everyone around us, too!

any tips for your first time, just saw that ask where you said you’re not comfortable writing virgin sex and honestly as a virgin thank you,,,,I feel like I vibe much more with established sexual relationships cause I can see way more what I like and I don’t like - love your writing!

To be super honest with you, the reason I don’t like writing virgin sex is because it then gets hyped up as this beautiful romantic thing where your first time is supposed to be the most wonderful and magical moment and angels like sing and heaven opens up -- and for the most part people wind up very disappointed. 

Sex in general is messy, you know? It’s messy for established relationships who know what they’re doing and how to pleasure each other properly, so you can imagine that for a first time (even a non-virginal approach to sex for the first time with someone new!) where you aren’t acquainted to one another’s bodies, you aren’t comfortable and familiar with how to touch one another best, it’s just going to be a lot of sweat and aggravation until you really get into the swing of things. It can be uncomfortable at first (even though it shouldn’t actually hurt!! some discomfort is because of the whole ‘not really knowing what pace/angle’ thing, if you’re in real pain then something is Wrong and you need to stop. 

Also it doesn’t last as long as you want it to, which can also be disappointing. Marathon sex and sex that lasts for hours where you’re just coming all over yourself is something that honestly you have to work up to. The first couple times are going to be quick and annoying while you try and figure out the best combination of lubricant/rhythm/position/pace for you. But again, that all kind of comes back to the point that you need time to learn what your body likes, you need time and patience to figure out how to move together. 

One of the things that makes me Incredibly Uncomfortable about virgin sex in fanfic, is that for some reason it’s always the man trying to teach the woman about her body, it’s the man showing her all the ways she can feel -- as opposed to just, talking and asking about what she likes. 

The biggest tip that I have is to communicate. I cannot stress how important communication is. Not just during sex!!! Communicate your wants and desires before hand, talk about the things you’re willing to try and the things you aren’t. Make your boundaries clear, and don’t allow yourself to be pressured into doing something you don’t want to do, just because they’re more experienced than you and think they know better. 

And don’t let them skimp out on the foreplay either! You need to be relaxed, you should feel safe and comfortable and at ease! Whatever that means for you, whether it’s kissing, touching, massage or attention given to erogenous zones, flirtatious banter, whatever. You deserve to be treated with respect, both before, during, and after sex. Not just for your first time, but every time. And that comes along with communication and making sure that your wishes and desires are known and understood. 

I say all of this because I had a really awful first time. It was probably worse than most, but I want to make sure that my dear women, men and nonbinary friends out there know that it’s forever important to put your safety and your comfort above someone else’s pleasure. A lot of people prey on innocent sweet virgins because they want to take advantage, or pressure or guilt or push you into doing something you’re not comfortable with -- and that’s bullshit. You have the right to revoke consent at any time, you have the right to say no to anything at any time You have the right to make your sex life whatever you want it to be -- but you have to communicate that to your partner(s).