Mail & Guardian
by Kagure Mugo
When people think of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism (BDSM), they either have visions of 50 Shades of Grey or scenes from Criminal Minds. This is caused by the mass misunderstanding of what kink as a sexual practice is, with few being privy to the intricate nature that goes into the practice of BDSM.
Now, being a small-town girl, I had always been warned about the wildness of the big city. Moving to the City of Gold really did unleash some strange things in me. One of the many magical things I discovered was the beautiful and sensual world of kink that existed online and offline and consisted of mainly queer brown womxn.
I had also thought BDSM was “some mess for freaky white folk” and could not understand why a queer black woman would enter a realm of that nature. How did one get into role-play scenarios that involved words such as “submissive” and “dominant” and “bondage” without flashbacks to scenes straight out of 12 Years a Slave? After colonisation, apartheid, the rise and rise of misogynoir, homophobic rape and the God-Blessed-Patriarchy, was it not way too soon to be subbing while “black, queer and a woman?”
I was soon to learn that it was my own misconceptions (and belief in my ridiculously low pain threshold) that held me back from a wealth of sexual wisdom. I also learnt about candle play, knife play and stuff involving all those down with the delicious framework of queer women driving each other to orgasm. I also quickly learnt that at the core of kink are four main principles: consent, openness, trust and safe words.
The kink world is one filled with safe words, sexual contracts and conscious conversations about wants, limits and desires. I once saw a contract that could rival an application for a loan at a bank, but you knew by the time anyone finished filling out that sucker there would be no ifs, ands or buts about what anyone wanted in bed that night. …