Kinky sex (part 1)

People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons. There is an old saying that applies to sex. It goes like this: Different strokes for different folks. What this means is that you shouldn’t criticize others who choose to have sex in a way that is different than the way you choose to have sex. There are exceptions to this however such as rape, child molestation, excessive violence and dangerous sex techniques where you risk your life.

Kinky sexual practices go beyond what are considered conventional sexual practices as a means of heightening the intimacy between sexual partners.

Conventional sexual activity can be classified in a number of ways. It can refer to acts which involve one person, such as masturbation, or to two people, such as sexual intercourse, oral sex, sodomy or mutual masturbation. If there are more than two participants in the sex act, it may be referred to as group sex. Autoerotic sexual activity can involve use of dildos, vibrators, anal beads, and other sex toys, though these devices can also be used with a partner. There is nothing that is really unusual about these kinds of sexual practices. Most people experiment with a range of sexual activities during their lives, although they tend to engage in only a few of these regularly such as what one could call conventional sex techniques.

However, a great many people choose to involve themselves with what can be best described as kinky sex techniques. There are two main risks that arise from kinky sexual activity. These are physical injury, and psychological injuries.

Bondage and sado/masochistic techniques come under the heading of kinky sex even though thousands upon thousands of people indulge in this kind of sex. The reason why I have classed this kind of sex as being kinky is because it involves pain and humiliation which places this kind of sexual relationship between sex partners as being kinky even though most who indulge in it think of it as being normal.

Bondage is the use of restraints for the sexual pleasure of the parties involved. It may be used in its own right, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage, or as part of sexual activity where one partner ties up another partner by his feet or hands. It can also include having a leather mask placed over the face of one partners and it also involves the use of a whip.

Some people regard bondage to be erotically stimulating or sexually arousing. Bondage features in some sexual fantasy scenarios. Studies of men's fantasies have shown that the fantasy of being bound during intercourse is second in frequency only to the basic fantasy of sex with a voluptuous nude woman. I might add that both men and women find it sexually titillating to fantasize being raped by a member of the opposite sex which will explain why some people like having sex with two or more people of the opposite sex.

Bondage has a sexual appeal to people of both sexes and all sexual orientations, in either a dominant (top) or submissive (bottom) role.

There are also some common fantasy settings in which bondage may be a component. These include:

Rape, ravishment and/or abduction: The top fictitiously seizes or abducts the consenting bottom and has complete control to do what he/she pleases.

Dominance/submission: A training session occurs in which rewards for obedience and punishment for defiance are given. Humiliation is usually involved.

Predicament bondage: The bottom is given a choice between two tortures. For example, caning on the rear or flogging on the chest. If the bottom cannot stand one any longer, the top will start the other. This can also be done mechanically, like having a bottom squat and rigging a crotch rope to tighten if they attempt to stand up.

A substantial minority of homosexuals (between 22% and 37%) indulge in painful or violent sex (e.g., bondage and discipline (B/D), where the partner is physically restrained and mildly tortured, or sadomasochism [S/M], where partners are tortured or hurt during sex). Even in the 1940s, psychiatrist David Abrahamsen noted, “It is well known that homosexual inclinations may be accompanied by sadistic or masochistic tendencies. These perversions play a great part in many sexual offenses and in many cases of murder.” In a national survey of random samples of homosexuals and heterosexuals, 32% of those males who called themselves homosexual or bisexual versus 5% of heterosexual males reported having engaged in sadomasochism; 17% of lesbians versus 4% of heterosexual women also admitted to S/M. Likewise, gays and lesbians were about four times more apt to engage in bondage than were heterosexuals.

Many people regard bondage as safe when conducted between sober, trusted partners who are fully aware of the risks involved and the precautions necessary to ensure safety. Partners who are in committed relationships may have a greater basis for trusting each other. Performing acts in a supervised location, such as in a home-made dungeon or with a group of trusted friends may also increase safety. In Westernized nations, this kind of sex is not illegal.

Sexologist, Kinsey noted in his books published in 1948 and 1953 that as many as half of Americans participated in sexual activities that could be considered mildly masochistic or sadistic (such as biting or spanking). More recently, Donnelly and Straus reported in 1994 that 61% of the college students in their sample had been sexually aroused while imagining or participating in these same activities. Media images of being dominated or dominating a partner during sexual activity are common, and are regularly seen in movies, television, music videos, and magazine advertisements. Bondage and discipline clubs exist in almost every major city, and even the Internet contains areas for those who enjoy sado-masochistic activities.

Donnelly and Straus in 1994 found that men are more aroused by masochistic sexual fantasies and behaviors than are women. They reported that men were significantly more likely to be excited by both fantasies and activities of being restrained and being spanked than were women. Their results add support to research showing that men are more active in most sexual behaviors and fantasies than are women.

There was a survey conducted in 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia in which those polled were asked the following question; “Have you ever masturbated about kinky sex?” 88% of the females and 87% of the males answered in the affirmative.

Generally, discussions and writings about sex refer exclusively to heterosexuality, which is considered normal and natural. The commonly held view of heterosexuality is that men are always wanting and seeking sex with females and that males are dominant, while females are submissive. Men initiate sexual encounters, and women accept or decline male invitations for sex. When you watch movies, isn’t these the prominent themes when men and women in the movies are interacting?

The reality that men are sexually abused by women is not widely accepted. Some people view it as an impossible act. They believe that a male can’t be sexually assaulted by a female. They are wrong if that’s what they believe. Others view it as sexually titillating. The existence of female perpetrators and male victims confronts many of our most firmly held beliefs about women, men, sexuality, power, and sexual assault. It challenges our very notions about what sex is.

The myth that men can’t be victimized particularly by women is firmly entrenched in many cultures. Many men who dare acknowledge that they were sexually abused by women are cruelly laughed at and humiliated. Most do not dare say a word about it for fear of feeling any more ashamed than they already feel.

Many years ago in England, there was a woman in a small English village who would wait for men to walk along a path in the forest at night and then attack them and sexually abuse them. Word got around the village that this was happening to some of the men. As a result of that information being bandied about in the village, many of the men in the village went out of their way to walk on that path so that they too could be ravaged by that woman. One man however called the police and she was subsequently arrested. The informer was soundly beaten by many of the men when they found out who he was.

In Toronto, Ontario, two women who drove a van near a university, would grab men and drag them into their van and sexually abuse them.

In central Sweden in 2009, a gang of tattooed women sexually molested a 50-year-old man who had been previously riding by on his bicycle. As the man was lying defenceless on the ground, the five young women proceeded to pull off his trousers and underwear and molest him sexually before they ran from the scene.

The police in Zimbabwe in 2011 charged three women in connection with a spate of sexual attacks on male hitchhikers over the past two years. They were arrested in Gweru, a town a few hours south of the capital city of Harare. The women, who were identified as two sisters, Sophie Nhokwara, 26, and Netsai Nhokwara, 24, and a third woman, Rosemary Chakwizira, 24, were arrested and charged with 17 counts of aggravated indecent assault—one count for each man who identified the women as his attackers.

Men can be victims of sexual attack regardless of their sexual orientation. And while the attacker is more often male, men can be and are sexually assaulted by women.

If a female initiates sexual contact with a male, this is viewed as a rare and exciting opportunity that no man should let pass by as he should be grateful. Given these commonly held beliefs, many people see nothing wrong with a woman pursuing a man sexually.

Sadly however, many men who were sexually abused by women are locked in silence, shame, and self-loathing. Society tells them that not only was their experience not abuse, but that they should have enjoyed it, and if they didn’t there must be something terribly wrong with them.

Although many men fantasize being sexually abused by women, not all men want to be sexually abused by women. Many men who were sexually abused by women feel deeply ashamed of themselves, their sexuality, and their gender. Sadly and mistakenly, they believe that there must be something profoundly wrong with them that they were abused in this way. Some men defend against feeling this way by being in a constant state of anger or rage. Many male survivors cope with the abuse by drinking, using drugs, living recklessly, avoiding intimate relationships, numbing their feelings, dissociating, and becoming depressed, anxious or angry.

Reports of sexual violence by men against men emerge from numerous conflicts, ranging in time from Ancient Persia and the Crusades to this century. Sexual violence is committed against men more frequently than is often thought. It is perpetrated at home, in the community and in prison by men and by women during conflict and in time of peace.

Sexual violence against men has been documented as taking place in many armed conflicts. The numbers vary: in some conflicts the sexual violence seems sporadic and ad hoc, in others, it is clearly more systematic. The following is no way intended to be an exhaustive list. Sexual violence against men has been chronicled as taking place in conflicts in the more distant past, for example in Ancient Persia, and the Crusades, as well as by the Ancient Greek, Chinese, Amalekite, Egyptian and Norse armies. It has occurred in the conflicts in El Salvador Chile, Guatemala, and Argentina. It has been perpetrated in the conflicts in Greece, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Turkey, and the former Yugoslavia. It has been a feature of the conflicts in Sri Lanka, Iraq-Kuwait, Coalition-Iraq, and the Sino-Japanese war. It has been present in the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Men sexually abusing other men are kinky.
When women sexually abuse men who don’t wish to be sexually abused by women, the abusers are indulging in kinky sex. I say this because as most social scientists and criminologists know, rape and other forms of sexually abuse is really all about power over the victim that turns on the rapist or abuser. That is what turns the sex act into a form of kinky sex.

Men who were sexually abused by women rarely see their reality reflected in articles, books, services, and web sites that are created for sexual abuse survivors. The fact that it is not widely acknowledged or accepted that boys as well as girls are sexually abused, and women as well as men sexually abuse children is damaging to men who were abused by women.

Many male survivors who have been sexually abused by either men or women live in isolation, fear, shame, anger, and silence precisely because they know the taboos in our culture about talking about this form of abuse. We as a society should recognize the fact that men are abused and women abuse men without diminishing the reality of male perpetrated violence and female victimization. Understanding this form of abuse contributes to our knowledge about abuse in all its forms.

Three symptom groups constitute the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder syndrome. They are; re-experiencing the trauma in intrusive memories, nightmares, or flashbacks; numbing of affect and avoidance of thoughts, acts, and situations that symbolize the trauma; and symptoms of excess arousal, such as sleep disturbance and an exaggerated startle response. The diagnosis requires the persistence of symptoms for at least one month and a clinically significant distress or impairment.

As I see it, any form of sexual activity is OK providing that neither party is physically or psychologically harmed and the sexual activity is consensual and legitimate.