Episode 5: Kink Dictionary

I am staring at the tiny screen of my phone, lying in a house I have never lived in before.

The home I'd lived in for thirteen years is gone. So is my marriage. And somehow, at forty years old, I find myself texting my friend Caela.

"What does D/s mean?"

A few minutes later another text follows.

"Okay... and what about SSC?"

For anyone wondering, D/s stands for Dominant/submissive and SSC stands for Safe, Sane, and Consensual.

Already, I am in over my head.

Where did my life go?

More importantly...

What exactly is my life now?

Am I ready for this?

Absolutely not.

But if I was going to start dating again, apparently the fastest way to find people was online.

The last time I was single, online dating basically meant eHarmony. Which I had never even been a part of just heard of.

Simple times.

Feeld, however, was a different universe.

I downloaded the app and immediately felt like I'd accidentally enrolled in a university course without buying the textbook. Every profile contained acronyms. Everyone seemed fluent.

I knew absolutely nothing.

I felt like I'd walked into a conversation everyone else had been having for years.

One minute I was learning what D/s meant. The next, someone was asking if I was a Switch.

A Switch?

Was I a Switch?

I didn't even know what the options were.

Then I stumbled across another acronym.

FLR.

Female-Led Relationship.

Now that sounded interesting.

Not because I was secretly plotting world domination.

It was simply surprising.

The idea that I could be in charge had never really occurred to me.

Then there was Switch someone who enjoys both dominant and submissive roles.

Interesting.

I filed that one away for future investigation.

At this point I was basically building my own kink glossary one confused text to Caela at a time.

The learning curve was steep.

Painfully steep.

One day a man messaged me.

"Send me a picture of your vagina."

Excuse me?

Like I just had those lying around? A neatly organized folder perhaps?

Tax documents.

Vacation photos.

Genitals.

He seemed genuinely shocked that I neither possessed nor intended to provide such a photograph.

I quickly learned that I was apparently the anomaly. Most people seemed to have entire galleries of nudes available at a moment's notice.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to understand the difference between a Dom and a Top.

Then I met the man who lived in the church.

My first meaningful connection on the app.

Later, my first hookup after my divorce.

But before any of that, he became one of my earliest teachers.

One day I mentioned that someone had given me a hickey on my breast.

He looked at me and said something that stopped me cold.

"No one should ever leave marks on your body without your consent."

Simple.

Matter-of-fact.

Obvious, apparently.

And yet no one had ever said it to me before.

He taught me about aftercare the emotional and physical care that happens after intimacy or a BDSM scene. Checking in. Providing comfort. Making sure everyone feels safe, grounded, and supported once the excitement has passed.

He even told me that if I ever found myself without aftercare after an experience, I could call him.

Not because he wanted anything.

Because he believed people deserved care.

Imagine that.

A man whose first instinct wasn't sex.

It was care.

He also taught me what a munch was a non-sexual social gathering where kinky people meet in public to talk, connect, and build community.

I'd imagined something between a secret society and an underground sex club.

Turns out it was mostly people eating appetizers and discussing boundaries.

Honestly?

That might be even kinkier.

The more I learned, the more fascinated I became.

Not by the sex.

By the communication.

Everything was discussed beforehand but not in the traditional dating sense.

Nobody was asking about favorite movies.

Nobody was pretending to enjoy hiking.

People were startlingly direct.

This is what I want.

This is what I don't want.

This is what I'm curious about.

This is what is off limits.

No decoding.

No mixed signals.

Just honesty.

Nobody was pretending they wanted a relationship when they wanted casual sex.

Nobody was pretending they wanted casual sex when they desperately wanted connection.

The guessing game I'd spent years playing had simply disappeared.

And I kind of loved it.

Eventually, I developed my own process.

If someone approached me with a kink or dynamic I'd never heard of, I didn't immediately say yes or no.

First, I checked in with myself.

Was I curious?

Interested?

Intrigued?

If the answer was yes, I started researching not the mechanics, but the psychology.

What was the appeal?

What need was being met?

What was happening beneath the surface?

(Hello, Mommy Kink. We'll absolutely be discussing you another day.)

If I was still curious afterward, the conversation continued.

If not, it didn't.

Simple.

Looking back now, it's funny to think that I entered this world without even knowing what BDSM stood for.

Thank God for Caela, who became my personal kink dictionary.

And thank God for the man who lived in the church.

Between the two of them, they taught me the vocabulary in real time.

As I wandered deeper into waters I knew nothing about, my profile evolved alongside me.

At first, it was mostly guesses.

Then, slowly, experience started filling in the blanks.

CNC Consensual Non-Consent?

Not for me.

Aftercare required.

Non-negotiable.

No disappearing immediately afterward.

No treating intimacy like a transaction.

For a brief moment I was convinced I was ENM Ethically Non-Monogamous.

Then I wasn't.

Turns out some discoveries are about finding what fits.

Others are about discovering what absolutely doesn't.

Every conversation, every date, every awkward acronym, every surprising connection they all became data points.

Clues.

Evidence.

None of it was really about who I wanted to sleep with.

It was about who I was becoming.

Looking back, I don't think I was ever looking for a partner.

I was looking for myself.

And apparently, she had a lot more to say than I had given her credit for.

She showed up in unexpected places in hotel rooms, on beaches, in churches.

And eventually, in the form of a nervous man with impossibly blue eyes who asked me a question no one had ever asked before.

"Would you be willing to dominate me?"

At the time, I thought he was asking about himself.

I would later realize he was asking me to discover something about myself.