No Need to Explain

I really debated on whether or not to post this, because I fear it will come out much more like a rant than anything else, but I just feel it has to be said. I've been reading a rash of BDSM novels recently (and one last night that prompted this) that all tend to try and explain a character's need for BDSM play. I think it's a very fine line these authors are walking and more than a few of them are putting toes (or whole fucking feet) on the wrong side of that line in my opinion.

Let me be very clear here in that there are as many different sexualities as there are people. Everyone has a certain set of emotional needs that can be met through sex (or the lack of, in the case of those who identify as asexual) and that's why we register certain things as more arousing than others. So, that being said there are all kinds of things that could make these emotional needs present themselves.

It's possible for a person to work through a traumatic event with kinky sex. It's possible that neglect from one's family could make them interested in kinky sex. It's possible that anxiety or other psychological disorders can make one enjoy kink. It's possible that previous relationships have driven a person to seek a different type of relationship dynamic.

All of those things are possible, but they're not necessary.

Sometimes people are just born with those needs. Oftentimes it's just part of their personality. I myself enjoy submission and was never the victim of a crime, never neglected by my parents, was involved in a healthy loving relationship when I started exploring kink. There was no "trigger" for these desires popping up for me. In fact, they'd always been there, they didn't "pop up," I just finally got to a point where I felt comfortable exploring them. And that's how it happens for a lot of people in the Scene.

I think authors who feel like there has to be a reason, that "normal" people don't have kinky sex, that their characters have to be flawed in some way to enjoy BDSM are doing themselves, their characters and the Scene a huge disservice.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes having an identifiable "explanation" for these desires works for a character. I've done it myself in some of my books. But there's an art to that. To simply portray a desire for BDSM play as a simple cause and effect scenario almost runs into the realm of kink-shaming in a way. It creates this perception that people who manage to go through life without having any of these "triggering" events in their life don't practice BDSM, so therefore only fucked-up, traumatized, unstable people do, so it's something to be ashamed of, or at the very least something to be hidden away.

To me it all comes down to satisfying needs. Does the sex your characters have satisfy their emotional needs and do the scenes you write reflect the satisfaction of those needs and the search for that satisfaction? If so, then I don't think it matters where those needs originated. But if not, if you don't portray the desire for BDSM play (except in the cases of experimentation or curiosity) as a deep emotional need it's almost like saying it's a choice. Similar to those people who think sexual orientation is a choice and not something innate. BDSM can be a choice, it can be just a bit of fun, just a bit of experimentation, but for most of us in the Scene, it's not. It's a need. A need that sex and kink and the relationship with our partners satisfies in a way that nothing else can. I'd just like to see it portrayed as such in more fiction