Recognizing the Animal in the Human: An Exploration of Kink, Safety, and Aliveness
Lately I’ve been thinking about human attraction and its different layers. Not just romantic, not just sexual. Biological too, and spiritual. It feels like all those layers are necessary and I don’t want to reduce kink to just something gratuitous. Specifically I have been thinking about the dychotomy of structure and instinct. When something alive and authentic breaks through the societal structure of roles, politeness and control. Roles and pretence is how most people live. At work and even at home, there might not be any space for the authentic self, to just be who you are. In society, we are teachers, students, therapists, clients, strangers at an art gallery, commuters on a train… Always these roles. Always expectations. They are safe and predictable but they also trap the real us. Underneath, we are alive, buried under. Sometimes something flashes through. A moment of desire, humor, play, curiosity, instinct, emotional reaction. Those moments are windows to the person underneath....
