@jul

😹 "The Shrek Take" 🧅 "_Its got layers_" I'm glad you liked it. It came out of my sleep deprived brain and I chose to strikethough but leave it in because I was tickled.

Is there always affection in non-sexual kink? That's a really good question.

> Affection: a gentle feeling of fondness or liking.

You're right that I am full of affection for my play partners, friends, peeps, etc. I do regulate my expression of it based on communicated boundaries and preferences.

I imagine there's probably some degree of affection for other people engaged in kinky play, but I do want to be careful to not project my perception onto others. People play for different reasons and I imagine they like it at some level, but their play may not necessarily require interpersonal affection. At least not to whatever threshold we use for calling someone or something affectionate.

So, I would say that in my kink scenes there tends to be some degree of affection because of who I am as a person. This is true even for scenes that involve sort of "harsher" play involving sadism or degradation. At a minimum the aftercare will definitely involve affection.

I want to say this is true more generally, but I don't want to generalize too much. People are diverse and I might be missing some aspects that I simply don't have as much experience with.

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I'd consider care to require a little bit of affection in any case, wouldn't you?
My understanding is also that aftercare is part and parcel of kink and cannot be bypassed.
Wouldn't that mean that kink (at least for a successful and ethical scene) require affectionate people, to a varying degree?
(That might start to be a bit semantics for its own sake at this point )

@jul
I don't know if I would necessarily equate care and affection. It's possible to care for and about someone/something without having fondness for them. Surgeons do this all the time, for instance.

Aftercare is important in my opinion. It's a fundamental aspect of a dynamic. What this consists of and what the needs are is hashed out during negotiations. There are instances where it can be bypassed once all parties agree to it.

A common scenario is with service tops. I volunteered as a service top for a recent pride themed rope jam. Lots of people new to rope, wanting to experience being tied but not having a rope top to do so. It's like leaving a bunch of puppies and kittens out in the rain, how can I not volunteer?

Anyway, part of the negotiation sheet set by the coordinator noted that aftercare would not be a guarantee, or more specifically, a service top would not be under compulsion to offer aftercare. This could be overridden at the tops discretion during negotiations.

There are a lot of factors at work here, and this is actually a sensible thing. The caveat is that you want responsible scene tops whose judgement is very trustworthy.

I want to start with a breakdown of aftercare, what it is, why it's important, etc. I think that should be my next post.

Instead, I'll start backwards. Most responsible play spaces use RACK or PRICK frameworks.

R.A.C.K = Risk Aware Consensual Kink
P.R.I.C.K = Personal Responsibility, Informed, Consensual Kink

A quick note: the different frameworks choose to emphasize different sets of things but this doesn't mean they exclude other concepts.

Much of kink play involves some level of risk. It's a vulnerable space emotionally and physically. RACK requires all parties to understand the risks involved and consent to accepting those risks as well as everything else that is going into a scene. There's a personal responsibility element to this that is implied but made more explicit in PRICK.

With rope, there are risks of marks, bruises, blood flow issues, nerve compression, emotional stuff, trauma responses, etc. Different scenes will have different amounts of risk involved and all parties should understand the specifics during negotiations. And tailor the scene to the specific risk tolerance involved. Like if rope marks on arms are not acceptable, then you don't tie the arms, etc.

Now, here's how an event like this one goes from my perspective:

It's noisy, lots of people, many inexperienced aspiring rope bottoms that are eager to get rope on them. I have my mask on making it difficult to speak clearly some of the time. I have earplugs in because I have sensitive hearballs. In many ways this is like pickup play except faster because I'm already designated as someone that can be approached instead of someone working up the nerve to do so, which means more people. I have to explain risks, understand their risk tolerance, preferences, boundaries, etc and make it seamless with the tying experience, while simultaneously evaluating their micro reactions, sensory responses, and keeping an eye on anyone I've tied up so far that wanted to keep rope on them while they wander around.

I have a shortlist for these situations, and I will only use minimal risk ties with people I haven't worked with before. Like what I should call them, pronouns, anywhere rope can't go, what is okay to touch and not, any medications that can affect blood flow, nerve response, or balance, etc. I'll usually start with figuring out where they want rope to be and what level of restrictiveness they're looking for, and get more specific as needed. One of my ties was a fisherman's harness, she wanted arms in front, functional touch, and no known issues with rope marks or medical issues that would impact the scene. During the tie, while making conversation, I get to sneak in questions to gauge certain risks. Like if someone does a lot of stuff associated with carpal tunnel risk, I'll adjust the tie so that the band that goes around the inner elbow takes a detour to the waist strap to keep pressure off the nerve. I also dynamically check for preferences by just doing frequent but specific check-ins especially for people I haven't worked with much.

I also make the ties easy to escape in this sort of environment in case someone needs to get rope off fast or they panic, etc. This specific person wanted a challenge escaping. She didn't tell me until after, else I could have used one of the escape experience ties I've been workshopping.

She had a good experience, no sinking into feelings, barely any rope bite, and she had a partner along with that would help with reintegrating based on what I picked up about their dynamic. In this instance I didn't evaluate a specific need for aftercare but I do like to check in with people anyway. She didn't express any aftercare needs, but new rope bottoms seldom know what they might need. Usually I'll also do a check in a few days after but I didn't have any way to do that in this case either.

I'm using this example to illustrate a case where it makes sense to not have specific aftercare.

Now, if I was doing a more involved tie, or someone got rope burn, or maybe skin breakage, or they seemed to have some emotions come up during the tie, that I detected, I would be doing aftercare to some degree. Sometimes things like bruises (both physical and emotional) don't show up for a couple of days, so I have a routine of checking in after a few days as a follow up. The one person this was relevant for was able to quickly find me on FetLife and re-affirmed they didn't have any unmet aftercare needs.

One can argue that just the fact I was checking in was aftercare and that is true, but aftercare is a two-way thing. It's not just for the scene bottoms. That whole spiel of mine is probably more suited for a follow up explanation of aftercare.

I think my point was that aftercare can be bypassed under certain circumstances like an event with service tops that are balancing logistics around tying up a lot of new people in a span of time.

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@jul
You get me monologuing!
And please, use "hearballs", people have started using it more around me and it makes me giddy for no discernible reason

Being or feeling like a "job" can be a good analogy for some people. I don't know that it's fully transferrable though. I suppose it is what amount of affection fits within professional boundaries, and that is job specific. I digress, you're right that it changes the context.

I have some difficult memories while I was helping with eldercare but it still holds true that it's a different set of feelings compared to when you're doing it for a job.

I understand where you're coming from with events feeling like a job. That descriptor will hold for a lot of people. For me, the fact that it's work doesn't especially reduce things. I might feel different if I was doing pro work.

It's also possible to have deep affection and still maintain an impersonal scene. One of my routine negotiation questions is "How do you want to feel during the scene". This can be anything. Some people want to feel like a trophy, some want to feel helpless, someone may want to feel powerful, etc. I have scene bottom(s) that like to feel "a bit disregarded", so the impersonal affect is baked into the scene, even though I have a lot of affection for them.

Having affection and limiting its expression is different than having little affection and little expression. I typically won't work with people in that second category, but I might if it was a professional thing. I hope that makes sense, I know I'm probably a bit scattered.

Also, to avoid accidentally messaging how events are, the pride rope event was a different setting than something like one of the private play parties I also attend. Event like vibe, and occasionally involves pickup play, but I'm often working with a base set of people I already know and some potential new ones. And aftercare is part of it as well, but again it's different per person. And some get enough attention during the tie that they don't feel the emotional let down that can happen after an intimate scene. For context, sometimes I'll have a "collection" of tied up people in a cuddle puddle while I either work on someone else while keeping an eye on them or doing a different type of combo scene. Often it's sensory additions. Most people don't want to feel discarded after a scene even if being discarded is their kink. That goes for tops too, just to re-emphasize that aftercare is not one-way.

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@liese
That is a great question! I'm not one to gatekeep labels, but I would certainly classify it as being in the kink space as a form of sensory play.

It's something I've considered folding into my 1-1 scenes. Events are too noisy for it usually.

@Dangerous_beans
I'm glad that you have a set of people that are already able to think of kink without imparting sexual context to it by default. My experience has been quite different though.

I find that breaking down the components helps people understand the boundaries of the concepts. Sure, sex can also be intimate, sensual, and erotic, but intimacy, sensuality and eroticism is considered sexual by default in allonormative society and it's kind of a struggle to clarify these concepts for people who have never thought about them in non-sexual contexts.

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