Remember the post about 50 Shades that went around, discussing how it wasn’t real BDSM because there wasn’t “aftercare”?
My question is, if your sex with your partner requires you to stay and calm them down and reassure them after you’re done, what the fuck are you doing to them in first place? That sounds fucking horrible. If you have to make sure someone is mentally okay after you have sex with them, you’re doing something wrong.
If this is referring to the post I saw…there was a segment under the “Aftercare” section that talked about helping their partner cope with the TRAUMA (they actually used this word) of participating in a “scene.”
IF YOU ARE TRAUMATIZING YOUR PARTNER DURING SEX. YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING TERRIBLY WRONG.
Don’t talk about shit until you know what the fuck you’re talking about. You’re about to learn some shit that’s going to blow your minds (though I doubt it’s going to do anything, considering the use of sneer quotes).
Cuddling after sex? Aftercare.
Pillow talk? Aftercare.
That whole basking-in-the-afterglow-and-coming-down-from-your-high thing? Motherfucking aftercare.
When people in BDSM talk about “trauma,” it’s not trauma like giving them PTSD or whatever shit (and that is wrong), or even injuring them (although some people enjoy piercings, cutting, or scarring).
When you’re playing, it’s very intense. It’s this deep exchange of trust that’s hard to describe. As the dom, you trust your sub to know their limits. As the sub, you trust your dom to respect those limits and keep you safe. There’s adrenaline, there’s endorphins – a really intense scene is like running. That’s the “trauma.”
And of course, after you go for a run, you need to do things like sit down and drink Gatorade and stretch. That’s just basic stuff you need to stay healthy. And the same thing applies to aftercare.
When Christian Grey leaves Anastasia alone after spanking her, he violates several rules you’re supposed to keep as a dom (actually, he violates basically every rule from the get-go, both as a person and a dom, but we’ll just look at this particular scene).
This is the first time Ana has ever been spanked, and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel about it (and is surprised about being turned on, which scares her). Instead of going through it with her, he just drops her by herself and lets her cry alone in her room. You shouldn’t do that after any sex, let alone BDSM. Do you just walk out of the room after having sex with someone for the first time and let them process that on their own? I’d certainly hope not.
Further, she’s just been hit. It fucking hurts. Yeah, it might be a pleasant sort of pain for someone who is legitimately a masochist, but 1) it’s not a sexy spanking, so it is in fact about pain and not pleasure, 2) he has no idea if she’s a masochist or not (because he’s a horrible person), and 3) you still cuddle afterwards regardless of what you just did or how much both parties enjoyed it, because that’s just being a decent human being.
So when a kinky person is upset at 50 Shades, it’s because it’s demonstrating exactly the line that Christian crosses from being a dom to being an abusive asshole. He doesn’t trust her at all (and he belittles her legitimate attempts to negotiate boundaries), he violates her trust in him, and he doesn’t take care of her. That’s what he’s doing wrong (on top of every other action he takes in the book).
Aftercare is something that most people have after sex, they don’t just call it aftercare. Sure, not all relationships are intimate enough that cuddling or whatever is viable, and it’s not something you necessarily need all the time, but it’s not like it’s a super special thing that only kinky people have because we’re all horrible abusers who need special methods to keep our partners from having a breakdown. It’s just being cuddly and supportive, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
MsAether: asspiringdictionary: bemusedlybespectacled: gynocraticgrrl:…
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