Sex With Emily - Best Of: You're Kinkier Than You Think

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

When you think of BDSM and kink, I’m sure leather and whips come to mind. But what if I told you that there’s much more to kink than that? Today, I’m here to sprinkle some spice and shed light on the art of BDSM and kink. First up, we'll define key terms and provide a comprehensive understanding of BDSM because let's face it, who really knows what "BDSM" stands for anyway? Then, we'll explore the psychology behind power dynamics and the core desires behind kinky practices. And last but certainly not least, we'll serve up some tantalizing tips for bringing a bit of kink into your bedroom – whether you're flying solo or have a partner in crime. So, buckle up (or should I say, buckle down?), because we're about to embark on a journey into the wild and wonderful world of kink! In this episode, you’ll learn: What BDSM and Kink are really about  The psychology behind dom/sub dynamics How to fearlessly bring kink into the bedroom Show Notes: What NOT to Say to Your Partner When Talking About Sex How to Squirt (For Real) Yes No Maybe List & Other Guides LELO Tiani Duo We-Vibe Melt 5 BDSM Games To Spice Up Your Sex Life Tonight SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you’ll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Sex With Emily: Home Let’s get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok  Let’s text: Sign Up Here Want me to slide into your inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com.

Sex with Emily is looking for a new senior podcast producer. We are sorry to say goodbye to Erica, but she is leaving to pursue her music career, and I know she's going to have much success. We are looking for a senior producer right now that can start and help us with content production. You have technical expertise. You know how to manage a team. You can collaborate and you have experience working in production with audio or podcasting and video.

And you're also familiar with the content because you're listening to the show. Send your cover letter and resume to jobs at sexwithemily.com. We'd love to have you join our growing team and we have a good time over here. Thank you. So on the subject of pain, but there's a biochemical reason for BDSM desires and as scientists say and I can tell you, there is a neurological constitution of the brain's

pain and reward systems. Meaning that a little pain might enhance pleasure because our brain releases the same biochemicals during pain and sex. They're very closely linked. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. So when you hear the words BDSM and kink, what comes to mind? Leather, whips, well the truth is,

all of us are a little kinky. You may just not have realized it yet. That's why today's episode, where I helped demystify this world and give you fun, safe options for exploring. Dungeons, optional. First, we're defining our terms and getting grasp on kink and BDSM,

including what the hell BDSM actually means. Then we're taking a look at our core desires to help you identify yours and then talk about the psychology of power and play. Finally, I'm going to give you some entry-level ways to bring kink to the bedroom, whether you're coupled or single and answering all your kinky sex questions. Please rate, review, sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. It helps us so much. I so appreciate it. My new articles, how to deal with a low sex drive and what you can do to boost it, and what not to say to your partner when talking about sex are up on SexWithEmily.com. Check out my YouTube channel for more sex tips and advice. And also check out my TikTok. It's Sex with Emily. Follow me there and you'll get all the good stuff. If you want to ask me questions, leave me your questions or message me at sexwithemli.com

slash ask Emily or call my hotline 559talksex or 559-825-5739. Always include your name, your age, where you live and how you listen to the show. And I'm totally cool if you change your name and want to remain anonymous. Alright everyone, enjoy this episode! Before you start trying to lift weights with your penis, let me introduce you to the gym for your penis. Bathmate. It's the world's top selling penis pump, and it's about to become your right hand man. I can hear you now. A penis pump? What?

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Then I'm going to talk about the psychological underpinnings of BDSM and Kink, especially how they inform power. It's all about power exchange. And finally, I'm gonna give you some entry-level ways to start exploring, whether you're single or partnered. So the first thing is, what is BDSM and Kink? Unconventional sex has been around since the dawn of time because the definition of conventional sex itself

is always changing. So if you look up kink sex in the dictionary, it would say something like anything that's not conventional sex. So take a moment, go ahead, close your eyes, picture. When you think of conventional sex, what do you think of? You got it? So for many people, what I would think of is, oh, it's kind of what we see in the movies or, you know, couple makes out, they fall into the bed, they have, you know, an orgasm, there's

missionary position, orgasms together and they roll over and fall asleep. And it's like very kind of basic sex. Maybe there's some doggie style thrown in there. And usually it's a heterosexual couple. If we go back into what you might have seen, it's just not a lot of variety. Now any sexual behavior that is not this picture is technically kinky. So maybe you're a little kinkier than you think. I love doing this exercise with people because even if you're new to this world, you're probably kinkier than you realize. So let's talk now about BDSM. The literal definition of BDSM is bondage and discipline,

domination and submission, and sadism and masochism. But colloquially, when people refer to BDSM, what they're typically talking about is defined power roles where someone is dominant and someone else is submissive. It can involve bondage, it can involve masochism or pain, but at its core, BDSM is a consensual power imbalance where someone is in control and someone else has relinquish control. Okay, so now you get kink and BDSM is working concepts, right?

Power exchange, someone's in control, someone's not in control, and also conventional sex is pretty limited. What I want to talk to you about now is the psychology of arousal and why each of us have a core desire or feeling we want to experience during sex. Okay, so what is a core desire? So several years ago, I did somatic therapy training with sex educator Celeste and Danielle

who you might have heard on the show before and we talked about core desires and we're gonna put the link to their episode in the show notes. So they have a book on this topic which I've bought for so many people. I think it's a fabulous book. I bought it for friends, going through things in their relationship and it's called Coming Together. It's designed to help you understand why you have sex, you know, aside from an orgasm, aside from pleasure. And the truth is everyone has particular feelings they're chasing during sex, whether it's a feeling of being adored,

a feeling of being in control, or even feelings that might surprise you like being humiliated. But where do these core desires come from? Well, their erotic needs shaped by your lived experience and primarily from when you are a child. It's a common understanding in the field of sexuality that our erotic desires are a direct attempt to soothe early childhood wounds.

Everything from a lack of getting certain needs met, like attention or respect. But I want you to remember this, we all have wounds from childhood. And I wish we could think of a better term for that because I think a lot of people react to this and say, well, no, I had a perfect childhood. My parents did everything. I had all of everything I needed. It was perfect. I have no problems

with childhood. And I just want to explain to you that it's just we're all conditioned by our family of origin. Our parents raised us or, you know, our siblings were around or whoever raised us. And that's all we saw in our formative years as our brain was being shaped. And so, since no one's perfect, you might have learned behaviors, patterns, and in this case, there might have been some erotic desires that got linked up to something that happened in childhood. So I don't want you to check out going, oh, this sounds like Freudian psychotherapy stop.

When I'm telling you this, until you understand your core desire, it's gonna limit your sexual satisfaction. Think of it this way, you'll always be wanting something you can't quite have. There's like a sexual thirst, you can't quite quench, and I want to quench this for you. So this is why, you know, taking the time to discover it can be so rewarding and Kink and BDSM offer us real pathways to get acquainted with this deeper side of ourselves and really connect to our sexuality and our eroticism.

So here's some examples of core desires. So if you fantasize about sex in public places, your core desire might be around being so desirable that your partner would have sex with you anywhere. Costs would mean that your core desires feeling naughty, like you're getting away with something. What if you get caught? If you fantasize about your partner surprising you by taking out to a five course meal at your favorite fancy restaurant, well, you might have a core desire around being cared for. As they took all that trouble to plant it, it made you feel really seen and really loved and cared for. It could also mean your partner

taking you out to a meal and caring for for you that you have a core desire around being known. You know, your partner just knew they knew it was your favorite restaurant and how much it would delight you to go there. Okay, if you have a fantasy about finishing on someone's face, common fantasy, you might have a core desire to feel fully accepted, right? Like this person will let me do anything and they'll take my semen on their face, you know? So that's what that's about.

It could also signal core desire on being messy or dirty. Another core desire. Or you might also have a core desire around possessiveness. Like this person is yours and you can do anything to them. At this point, tell me, are some of these core desires resonating with you? Or maybe you're thinking, these don't resonate at all and you're like concerned. Why would anyone want to feel possessive? I don't understand.

Well, if you're feeling the second way, I encourage you to soften around these core desires. Hear me out. Spend all judgment if possible. The point of BDSM and Kink is they provide us a palette to express all of our feelings in a safe context, not just the socially acceptable ones, which I would link to our idea of conventional sex. For a lot of people, BDSM and Kink can be really healing in this way and really therapeutic, especially if we were made to feel that our feelings are wrong or bad, which is really common that we just weren't understood growing up or someone said, you're not okay to feel

sad or it's not okay to feel possessive and all these things, but they don't go away, right? They're festering. That's what we're going to get them out now and see if we can link them to your desire arousal and erotic roadmap. So I'm gonna give you some entry-level ideas just to start exploring, dip your toe into this world. But first, let's talk a bit about power, pain, and play

as they're gonna help inform your kink or your BDSM style. So let's talk a little about the psychology of BDSM and kink. Okay, when you hear the word Kink or BDSM, perhaps 50 Shades of Grey comes to mind. Because that was the first best-selling book that came out in a long time that just resonated with so many people.

And that's fine. But it might wrongly give you the impression that it's all about spanking paddles and dungeons and a lot of pain. And definitely those things are part of BDSM. But truly, the core of BDSM is defined power roles, which you might have seen in 50 Shades of Grey, but the power roles are gonna be played out

in different ways. So on the subject of pain, this is also something like, why would you want pain? It looks very painful to be spanked or to be whipped. But there's a biochemical reason for BDSM desires, and as scientists say, and I can tell you, there is a neurological constitution of the brain's pain and reward systems, meaning that a little pain might enhance pleasure because our brain releases the same biochemicals during pain and sex. They're very closely linked. So sometimes a little bit of pain actually gives us pleasure.

And that's why this works for so many. It might work for you. We don't know. So we know that there's an intrigue around pain since it's so closely linked to pleasure sensor in our brain, right? We got that. But what about the power piece? Because you might be thinking, why would I ever want to be in a sexual situation where I'm powerless? That sounds awful. And I've heard a lot of people say that, like, I can't be blindfolded because then I'm powerless. I never want to be tied up because what if, you know, I'm powerless and I have to leave the room. Now, that's not something that comes to me personally. But I hear it from many. So that would probably go back to something that happened earlier in childhood where you did feel

powerless, but hear me out. The key word here is play. So think back to when you were a kid and you were playing games with someone and someone else was in charge. Maybe you were playing house and you were the dad and your friend was the child or maybe you were playing school and someone else was the teacher and you were the student or you were the teacher and they were the students. So you played in all the different roles. Well, BDSM, think of it this way, just picking up on the same idea, what we're imagining situations in which someone has authority and power and then someone else has to follow

the rules. So that's it. I mean, I like to think of this as play and get game during sex, sexy game. And I just wanna say, note here, this is not abuse because abuse and toxic relationships, that's non-consensual power exchange where the person being abused has no power to change the nature of the relationship

or leave the relationship. So BDSM is based on control that's consensually gifted and negotiated. We'll get into safe words and all that, but this is something that is consensual and discussed and planned. And finally, benefits. You might be thinking, why, why do people do this? There have been quite a few studies revealing mental health and relationship benefits to BDSM. You know, it allows us to go so much deeper in our imagination with our partners and actually play together and play is healing and couples that play together stay together. There's been a lot of studies on that as well. Couples who make time for fun and for date night and for things outside of the duties in the home, raising the kids and everything else, and they prioritize play and fun, they do well. The other thing that it can do is

it improves trust and communication because you're using safe words. You've a clear delineation between play and the day-to-day relationship. So couples are required to be clear communicators and then increase trust between one another because you are trusting your partner in a situation whether you're a dominant or submissive and I have found couples who do practice kinkier play become excellent communicators because they have to and that also spills over into other areas of their life because listen you can negotiate this you can decide who's going to make dinner on Tuesday night it's the same skill set. It's just learning how to communicate and be vulnerable and be honest. Also studies have showed there's less stress

when you're playing BDSM or Kink. And here's why. A lot of time we're having sex and we feel anxious, we feel insecure, we feel worried, you know, we're worried what's gonna happen, how am I performing, judging ourselves, we're judging our partners, We control all of that. But when you get into like a BDSM, submissive, dominant relationship, there's lower levels

of the stress hormone cortisol after they participate in bondage, because I just think that when you know what you're doing and there's a plan, there's less worry. So it also reduces anxiety. There's a separate study, and this was from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Austin, Texas. They revealed that SNM changes the brain's blood flow, sometimes contributing to an altered state of consciousness akin to a runner's high or yoga. All right, so those are some of the benefits, but listen, I just think one of the main benefits is that BDSM helps us play with power in a safe way. And listen, the truth is, every relationship has power dynamics.

Think about it, be it boss employee, parent child, even between partners. There's always a little bit of power play, yes, you're equals, but maybe in one case, your partner leads and you follow, and then you lead and they follow. In every successful relationship, there is this kind of exchange. So BDSM, just simply think of it this way. It makes power a choice. And when we choose it, then we play with control, so the dominant person is controlling and surrendering and the submissive person is surrendering.

All right. So now you get why it might be fun for people to play with BDSM and power roles and possibly pain, but now that you've heard all of this, are you thinking like, wow, what types of BDSM or King might you be into? Well, listen, fantasies, perfect way to start. Just mind the contents of your fantasy life and you can start to pick up on themes. You can journal about them. You can just start thinking like, what is a common theme for me?

So in your fantasies, are there any elements of restraint? Are you being tied down? Are you ever in a powerless position where you can't move your arms or your legs or maybe someone's blindfold you? How about humiliation? Is someone doing something to you while you're largely passive? Well, if any of those resonated, those are all characteristics of a submissive stance in BDSM. Okay, let's look at the opposite. In your fantasies, are you wielding the power,

telling someone what to do, you know, get on your knees or stop talking or go down on me? You know, do you enjoy watching people squirm a little bit in your fantasies? Are you wishing commands? Are you in charge? Are you in a teaching role? Are you punishing people? Well, if so, those are characteristics of a dominant stand in BDSM.

Not to worry, if you don't have any fantasies, I'll get to that shortly. I'm gonna explain to you how you probably do have fantasies, but you're just not aware of them. So there are many, many flavors of kink and BDSM, but for now, just think of these two poles, Dom and Sub, as a very helpful place to begin as you start your journey. So where to start? How do you actually start playing with a partner? Okay, so up till now I covered your core desires and why those are important to understand the benefits.

And one more benefit, I just explained the health benefits, but this can bring couples closer together and enhance intimacy in ways that other sex just doesn't do. We also talked about the psychology, driving BDSM and kink experiences. So what to do? How do you start?

Okay, well, of course an easy place to start is with my yes, no, maybe list, which is one of the reasons I created it. You can find that on my website, sexwithemly.com, slash guides. That helps if you're coupled. And it has all these ideas for sexual behaviors, kinky and non-sexual behaviors. And just, I love the yes, no, maybe list because it's a nice, non-threatening way to start the dialogue with a partner. It'll have things like being tied up, anal sex, spanking, nipple play. You got it. There's about 80 things on the list. I also have an article titled, Five Easy Steps to Start Exploring Kink with a Partner,

that will walk you through some ideas. Okay, but how do you actually initiate this conversation? Because I think I picture you listening to this right now and you're like, okay, great, my partner will never do this. You could also listen to the show together. Side note, a lot of couples listen to this show together or separately. You know, like, I'm listening to the way to work today where you listen to it and they come and talk about it. But to initiate the conversation, I get it. It can be awkward. It can be uncomfortable. So I would definitely do my three T's, timing, tone and turf. Find a good time, find a great location. It's outside the bedroom, and your tone is light and curious. Now, if you've never talked about your sex life and you've been listening

to this show, you know that I feel this conversation isn't a one-time conversation. It's just like, hey, I realize we haven't talked a lot about our sex life and fantasies, and I think we can agree, we always want to be great lovers to each other. I'd love to know. I'd love to share some fantasies I have with you and see where it leads. Would you be open to that? Now, hopefully, as you start talking, you'll come across areas where you compliment each other. You know, maybe one of you is interested in being tied down and the other person wants to do the tying.

I think just explaining what it looks like to you and why you'd be interested in it would be a great place to start. Now you also might not be sure about the roles. You might want to take this more general, like, hey, I just think fantasies would be really fun for us. I listened to this BDSM show. Not sure. What do you think? Let's see if it's our jam. So if you're not sure about roles, like who's dumb, who's submissive, you could always devote one of your next sex sessions to like test driving some kinky ideas and saying, well, let's try it out. Easy way to start is a blindfold. You can use anything as a blindfold.

You can use a sock, you can use a handkerchief, a scarf. Why blindfolds are so great? When you take away one sense, like sight, it heightens all of your other senses. So you really start to feel everything more all over your body and it's exciting because you don't know what's coming next. Love some temperature play.

That's incorporating ice cubes, or body safe candles, wax into foreplay, sensual massage, or oral. I just love playing with hot and cold with any sexual situation. It's a really fun thing to do and it's kind of a surprise, especially if you have a blindfold on and then you bring in the ice and the hot

and your partner doesn't know what's happening next. Then you could experiment with a tiny bit of pain. You know, maybe some nibbles, some spanks, some bites. You don't need props for this. You could use your hand. And the main idea here is just pick something to experiment with, make it intentional. Think like, would you be open to spanking?

And then you spank your partner. Talk to each other about it. Agree that you're going to try one of these things. Okay, so to review, you're going to talk about your fantasies together. You're going to get some ideas. If you'd like to start small, just try one of these things. Okay, so to review, you're gonna talk about your fantasies together, you're gonna get some ideas. If you'd like to start small, just pick one of these, like a blindfold. Or you could go bigger and do a whole activity and designate who's dom or sub, you get to decide.

And let me just say a note here for singles. So far this shows large ebbingeer towards couples, giving you ideas how to incorporate BDSM and kink into your sex life, but you could totally try these things out if you're a single person. So here's a few ideas to get started. You can watch some ethical porn,

get a sense of like the flavor of kink you might like. I get it if you might not know. And when you go to these sites, you can enter some search terms like kink or bondage or BDSM. It's gonna give you tons of videos. So you can see, am I down with this? That's another great thing to do with your partner. You can say, I listen, I don't know, I listen to the show,

I think it's kind of hot. Not sure how it would go down. Let's watch some great porn together. You could also try out a kink-friendly app. And on these apps, people are specifically coming for this purpose. You can find a partner, you can say what you're into, you can say you're exploring, and it's a great resource if you want to find some people to play with, especially if you're

single. But couples use it as well if they're looking for a third or they're looking for play partners. So then on these apps, you can do a profile and you just link like what are you into? It could be kink, it could be blindfolds, it could be restraints, it could be threesomes. So those are some ways to play no matter where you're at, no matter whether you're in a relationship or not. These two routes are a solid way for you to start info gathering. Just as you familiar yourself with the big beautiful world of kink and BDSM. Don't go anywhere afterward for our sponsors.

I'll be answering an email from Skyler about how to start safely practicing BDSM. This is from George 39 in Illinois. Hey Dr. Emily, my wife and I have been married for almost 11 years. We have four kids, but prior to kids we had what I would consider a pretty vanilla sex life. Not bad, but nothing overly exciting. Same couple sex positions, same build-up, minimal foreplay, occasional use of toys. Basically enough to keep satisfied and stay happy. But with kids and life, our sex life is severely diminished. It's common. We'll go weeks or months without sexual activity of any kind. In the last year or so, I've started reading articles, listening to podcasts, watching videos, all things sex and relationships.

One thing that slapped us in the face is we suck at communicating and talking about sex. When it comes to fantasies, it's a possible way to break up the slow times and keep the connection going. I'm not sure what to do. I have plenty of fantasies, nothing crazy. But the times I've tried to bring fantasies up, my wife is adamant that she is none.

Making it super awkward for me. Please help me with guidance. How do we get passes? Is it possible for someone to have zero fantasies? I want her to enjoy sex more than I do. I love giving oral, using toys, giving massages. So how do I unlock these hidden things she has that could enhance her experience, but also allow me to share fantasies without feeling guilty? Oh, George, I'm so glad you asked this question because it's really, really common that I hear from Volvo owners more than penis owners that they just don't have fantasies.

And I wanna give you some information here about that. First, sex researcher and friend of the show, he's been a guest on the show, Justin Lehmiller, wrote a great book about fantasies called Tell Me What You Want. And he interviewed 4,000 people about their fantasies called, tell me what you want. And he interviewed 4000 people about their fantasies. And what he found is once he defined fantasies, 97% of people reported having sexual fantasies. And only 2 to 3% have no fantasies. So who are these people? Well, somebody have something

known as aphantasia, which involves an inability to voluntarily conjure up mental images. In other words, they literally can't have fantasies about sex or fantasies about anything else for that matter. They just can't. But what's more common than that, like that you have some inability to fantasize, is that, and Justin shares this in his book, that people have sexual thoughts they don't count as fantasies because I think when we think of fantasies, it's got to be some elaborate kinky thing. And it's got to be something that you've never done before. And it has to have some, you know, really extreme element to it. But, but fantasies can just be, I really love when my partner comes home and makes out with me and we make out and they bring me flowers and you can

be sweet. It can be romantic. It could be also rough and holistic. You know, it could be something that you've done before, something that you want to do, something that you've seen. And so another way to think about it is to ask, like, what do you think about when you masturbate? And you can ask her that. Now, I'm not sure that she masturbates.

If anyone listening doesn't have fantasies, like really think about it. You just might have to do a little bit more mining into your sexual history. Now, George, what I would say to you is another thing to ask your wife is to say, what are the most memorable times you've had sex? What are the three most memorable times? Because at least that's going to tell you something. What was happening before those times? Did you guys have a babysitter that night?

Was it before kids? Has there been a time during kids where you on vacation? Was there a surprise element? I find a lot of people have memorable sex when there's a surprise. They didn't know the sex was going to happen. So even if it's just one thing she can tell you, you'll start to build from there. Think of it like our sexual DNA. That's where all of our fantasies live and our prior experiences.

So I would start there and perhaps listen to this episode together because having a fantasy life is an important part of having a healthy sex life. All right, George? I just remember this is an ongoing conversation and you have four kids. There's a lot going on. But I think if you use words around it and say, I just think it's really important for us to continue to connect, intimately, work on our sex life, it's an important part of our relationship. And here's why, and you're going to feel better. I mean, help, listen to the show together. Like I said, that can help. So let me know how it goes, George, and I'm sending you lots of good thoughts and love. This is from Sarah. She's 24. Hey, Dr. Emily, I love your show and thank you for all your free resources. This is from Sarah, she's 24.

Hey, Dr. Emily, I love your show and thank you for all your free resources. This question is actually about your yes, no maybe list. How do I get my partner to do it with me? I suggested to him a couple of times and he sort of brushed it off. I wanted to do it because I think it's a great way for him to learn what I'm into.

I'm very kinky and not sure I can keep going in such a vanilla relationship. Thanks for your help, You're the best. So much like George's question, this is very common. There's one partner that's like working on the sex life and wants things to change. And then there's one who's like, we're fine. Our sex life. Let's just not rock the boat.

And so what I think is important here is to let him know why you think the yes, no maybe list would be good for your sex life. Paint a picture for him on what it might look like to engage in some play together, why it's important to you. Explain your core feelings, your desires, how hot it gets you to think about these fantasies happening, and maybe he can start to share his own. And also I want to say this, that oftentimes the reason why our partners don't want to talk about it is because it's intimidating.

It's a great unknown. All of a sudden you're saying, like, I want to do this list and be kinky. And all they think is, who knows, maybe some extreme porn he saw and that was super, like, kinky and it wasn't hot for him. People have all these ideas about what it is, so they automatically say no. Right? And so I think if you can really walk him through, maybe show him some porn or give him some details about it, he might be more willing to check out the list.

Because, again, our partners tend to feel inadequate when we have sex conversations with them. They're not enough. He's not good at sex. You're going to leave them for some kinky thing. So I think just the more words you can put around it, rather than just saying, let's do the esto, maybe why won't you,? You gotta explain why it's going to be great for not only for you Sarah, but also for your relationship with him. Okay, thanks for your question.

This is from Skyler29 in Boston. Hi Dr. Emily, I've only had sex twice in my life with two different people and both were unsatisfying. Over the years I've discovered erotica and romance samples and came to the conclusion that I'm bisexual and would be interested in BDSM. I don't know the safest way to get into it. What do you recommend I do first? Love that you came to these conclusions about your sex life. That's awesome, Skyler.

So I think even if you're not in a relationship, well, first let me say this. It is helpful in BDSM relationships to be with someone you trust, to be with someone you have a connection with, someone you feel safe and comfortable with. However, there's a lot of places to play right now. And you could find some meetup groups. There's one also called FETLIFE, F-E-T-L-I-F-E. And I'm sure in Boston there's some groups of people where you could maybe take some classes, some spanking classes or some shabari classes

about being tied up. And you could start to kind of get into the community and see if you connect with anyone, meet anyone or just learn some new skills to see if it's something that you're really interested in. I think it's great you've already kind of decided this through Erotica or watching porn, but I would start to play with it now

and see if you actually really like it. If you're on dating apps or you're meeting someone, you can also play BDSM games. We also have a great article on our site, five BDSM games to spice up your sex life tonight. So check that out. We also have a BDSM article, a beginner's guide to kink at sexwithelmy.com.

All right, Skyler, I'm gonna send you on your way now and have some fun. Be safe. That's it for today's episode. See you on Tuesday! Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Sex with Emily.

Oh, I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at SexWithEmily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating, or relationships, call my hotline, 559 Talk Sex. That's 559-825-5739. Or go to SexWithEmily.com slash AskEmily. Was it good for you? Email me. Feedback at SexWithEmily.com.