but are those associations flawed?

are people limiting their interaction with non-lewd things because they think they are?
are they associating all the mental baggage society has about sexual things with them wrongly?

nintendo has this thing where a lot of stuff they put in their games would be treated like porn if it was drawn by a fan; where things are only "not sexual" if it's in popular media

this combined with how kinks manifest in non-lewd ways all the time for fans makes me wonder…

consent is always king, so nobody should subject others to sexual things they don't EXPLICITLY want to be involved in

but it also does make me wonder what it means for kink-positivity as a whole; do kinks deserve acceptance as a thing that people don't need to hide as much?

where anyone who has a kink doesn't need to quash their non-lewd existence as if parts of it were "deviant sex things" when they actually are just plain 'ol interests on overdrive

would this be bad somehow..?

i feel like the ambiguity stems from the fact that anything that has the possibility of ever being sexual is assumed to basically *always* be sexual

like, it took ages for furries to not be assumed to be %100 "a sex thing"

and well, no shade to sex stuff, but i think the distinction is important when considering the tangible policies that people who like certain things are restricted by because of this

maybe i'm missing something?

if you see a thing that seems bad to miss, definitely gimme a heads up

it's an important topic to me because i live my kinks 100% of the time because it adds a tiny bit of ambient happiness to every moment i'm alive–but i also want to be respectful with how i do it–so i'll always keep myself hidden

but like, does someone like me deserve acceptance in how i live? or am i fair game for all repercussions if discovered because i chose this optional thing myself?

kink-positivity affects my happiness very directly

but what exactly ARE kinks? and do they even slightly deserve the compassion i wish others had for them?

i don't want to equate this to any marginalized group because that seems extremely disrespectful, but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't at least a little jealous of efforts to protect them, and wish that my own predicaments had some level of support too

but i'm worried that feeling isn't justifiable

@thingywott On a more personal note, I relate a tonne to your thread here, and verymuch feel that you are deserving of acceptance, and our social climate is often cruel in this

I'm in an overlap of minorities, and this stuff & the hate I've gotten for it has messed me up just as much;- I don't think you're off the mark on this stuff & the social stigma attached to it doing tangible damage. There's various reasons for it being a bad idea to make the specific comparison in most discussions, but that doesn't mean your feelings are invalid.

I've met a lot of people who feel similarly intense shame/repression/anxiety from the stigmatization and fear of discovery with abdl stuff. It's a real thing, and I think your feelings are valid, and wanting to be safe and accepted is valid.

@rufflebat thank you. that means a lot to me

i guess i am be a bit self-exclusionary, aren't i?

i know that if i saw someone else with my opinion, i would probably tell them that they deserve happiness too--but i think i have a double-standard for myself because i don't want to step on the toes of anyone who has actual "real" problems that i can't begin to understand because of my relative privilege

it feels like i'm trying to show respect by lowering the value of my problems, but i guess it also hurts others in my position because i'm basically saying that their problems aren't worth it either by extension, huh?

i mean, i'm actually demi, and possibly pan (i haven't experienced enough sexual attraction to be sure) but i also kind of convince myself that because i pass as "likely cishet", that i have no real perspective on the problems of other groups, so the fact that my kink actually affects my happiness more than my entire sexuality identity does is just a "wrong thing i'm feeling" that's lowkey problematic to other aces

this means that even discussing my own feelings feels problematic, because something seems to be a bigger deal to me personally, which feels like an extremely disrespectful comparison, or i'm downplaying the problems of people who are in my position

@thingywott I think the specific model of consent which considers "openly displaying/expressing [something that overlaps with your sexuality] without prior agreement from all potential observers is always a violation of consent" can only hold water if contextual cultural norms are held instead as as universal truths (or if dozens of everyday activities, social rituals & displays of affection become sexual violation, which isn't something I've heard argued).

There are dozens of heteronormative 'vanilla' expressions of [thing that I like a lot that overlaps with my sexuality on some level] woven into our society already. But these are never scrutinized under that model of consent in the same way as activities labelled as kink are. This is because they're normalized, invisible behaviours, rather than any other innate shared trait that 'kink' actions lack.

I think kink-positivity is always going to be at odds with the idea that non-normative behaviours and activities should be subject to rules that normalized ones are exempt from.

This isn't to say that everyone should do everything in public without consideration! But that any discussion of the topic from a viewpoint of consent cannot juggle conflicting ethical standards based on social normativity.

(I am tired, but I hope that makes a degree of sense!)

@rufflebat yeah, this does make sense, especially considering how sexuality is distinct from sex

like, hugging an SO, or even having one to begin with are a part of sexuality--but they aren't sex itself, and there's a real hetronormative status quo about what sexuality is "acceptable" in public

but i feel like these discussions are about sexuality as a whole instead of specifically "sex acts" which i feel many people think kinks specifically are

actually, this is part of why i was trying to differentiate kinks from sex itself--especially since, for me, they aren't related at all

they only ever become related by *my* own combinative efforts, when i very specifically link my kinks to lewd ideas intentionally because it seems like it would be fun--but that's not what i'm thinking most of the time i'm living this way

and that's why i wanted to talk about consent specifically; because sexuality is visible by default, but sex *acts* should always require consent--which means when people consider kinks lewd things, I would never want to overstep the bounds of consent without explicit permission