Sex With Emily - You’re Kinkier Than You Think, Part 1

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

When you hear the words “BDSM” and “kink,” what comes to mind? Leather? Whips? The truth is, all of us are a little kinky – you may just not have realized it yet. That’s why today’s episode is part 1 of a two-part BDSM and kink education series, where I help demystify this world and give you fun, safe options for exploring. Dungeons optional. First, we’re defining our terms and getting a grasp on kink and BDSM – including, what the hell “BDSM” actually means. Next, we’re taking a look at core desires to help you identify yours, and talking about the psychology of power and play. Finally, I’m giving you some entry-level ways to bring kink to the bedroom, whether you’re coupled or single…and, answering all of your kinky questions. Show Notes:6 Kink Styles (& How to Explore Them)Ask Emily: Kink and BDSM IdeasComing Together w/ Celeste and DanielleThe Yes No Maybe List 5 Easy Steps to Start ExploringThe Communication Guide Kink & Casual w/ Justin Lehmiller5 BDSM Games to Spice Up Your Sex Life TonightBDSM: A Beginner’s Guide to KinkYou’re Kinkier Than You Think, Part 2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So on the subject of pain, but there's a biochemical reason for BDSM desires, and 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? Lather, whips. Well the truth is

all of us are a little kinky. You may just not have realized yet. That's why today's episode is part one of a two-part BDSM and Kink education series where I helped you mystify 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 you 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. Intentions with Emily for each episode join me in sending in tension, do it now.

Think about what do you want to get out of this episode, what do you want to remember? What do you want to take home with you? Maybe you're already home. What do you want to use in the bedroom? What my intention is to open up the world of BDSM and Kink so you can find new ways to play with your desire, sexuality, and fantasies. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to this show. It helps us so much. I so appreciate it. My new article Ask Emily, Kink and BbDSM ideas is up at sexwithemily.com. Check out my YouTube channel for more sex tips and advice. And also check out my TikTok. I'm about to forget that.

It's sex with Emily when we posting very soon. Just 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 sexwithemily.com. Slash Ask Emily or call my hotline 559 talk sex 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, I want to explain what it is. You know, define it for you. Break it down. 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 going to 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.

they fall into the bed, they have, you know, an orgasm, there's missionary position, orgasms together and they roll over in fall asleep, but it's like very kind of basic sex. Maybe there's some doggy's down thrown in there. Now, any sexual behavior that is not what I just described 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 masacism or pain, but at its core, BDSM is a consensual power imbalance where someone is in control and someone else has relinquished 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 a rousal 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 a 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, side 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 it, might surprise you like being humiliated. But where are these cortisires come from? While the 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 our siblings were around or whoever raised us. And that's all we saw in our formative years. 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. They 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 stuff. But I'm telling you this, until you understand your core desire, it's going to limit your sexual satisfaction. Think of it this way, you'll always be wanting something you can't quite have. There's like a core desire, it's going to 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.

I want to quench this for you. So this is why, you know, taking the time to discover it can be so rewarding and King and BDSM offers 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. Cost would mean that your core desires feeling naughty, like you're getting away with something, but 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 plan it, it made you feel really seen and really loved and cared for. It could also mean your partner taking you out to meal and caring for you that you have mean your part are taking you out to meal and caring for you that you have a core desire on being known. You know, your part are just new. They can do it with

your favorite restaurant and how much it would let 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 cortisol on being messy or dirty. Another cortisol or you might also have a cortisol 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, ah, these don't resonate at all.

And you're like concerned, like, why would anyone want to feel possessive? I don't understand. Well, you're feeling the second way I encourage you to soften around these core desires, hear me out, spend all judgment 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've made to feel that our feelings are wrong or bad, which is really common that we just weren't understood going up or someone said you that okay to feel sad or that 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 road map. So I'm going to give you some entry level ideas just to start exploring dip your toe into 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 gray 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 BDSM is defined power rolls, which you might have seen in 50 shades of gray, but the power rolls are going to be played out in different ways. So in 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 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 blind-folded 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 keyword here is play. So think back to when you were 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 or you were the student so you play in all the different roles. Well BDSM, think about this way, just picking up on the same idea, well 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 game during sex, sexy game. And I just wanna say no 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 can 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 have 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 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 to 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 going to happen? How am I performing? Judging ourselves, we're judging our partners, we control all of that. But when you get into a BDSM, a 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 as your equals, but maybe you in one case your partner leads and you follow, and maybe you 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. Alright, 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? Will 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, so those are characteristics of a dominant stand in BDSM. And 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 a fantasies, but you're just not aware of them. So there are many, many flavors of kink in BDSM, and we'll talk more about this in part two of this series. But for now, just think of these two polls, 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 less, which is one of the reasons I created it. You can find that on my website, sexwithemily.com slash guides, that helps if you're coupled.

And it has all these ideas for sexual behaviors, kinky and non-sensual 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 King with a Partner that'll 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 gonna listen 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 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 listen to this BDS on the show. Not sure. What do you think? Let's see if it's our jam. So if you're not sure about roles yet, like who's dumb, who's submissive, you could always devote one of your next sections to like test driving some kinky ideas and saying, Well, let's try start out. Easy way to start is a blindfold. You can use anything as a blindfold. You can use a sock. You can use a hink or chiff of scarf. Blind 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 candlesticks into four play, central massage or oral. I just love playing with hot and cold with any sexual situation. It's 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. 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 spaking and then you spank your partner. Talk to each other about it.

Grea 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 pick one of these, like a blindfold. Or you could go bigger and do a whole activity and designate who's dumb or sub. You get to decide. And let me just say note here for singles. So far, this shows large e-bingere towards couples. Giving you ideas, having corporate BDSM and kink into your sex life. Let me just say note here for singles. So far this shows large e-bingier towards couples.

Giving you ideas, having corporate 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 the Mythical Porn, get a sense of the flavor of kink you might like. I get it if you might not know. Bolesa is a great option. It's sexwithm.com slash Bolesa, B-E-L-L-E-S-A. And when you go to the site, you can enter some search terms,

like kink or bondage or BDSM. It's gonna give you tons of videos, so you can see. And my dad would just, that's not the great thing to do with your partner. You can say, 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, like field, F-E-E-E, Fe, LD, or Hashtag Open. 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 like 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. So we'll go into more depth in part two of our BDSM and Kink series and I'll give you more ideas and things like voyeurism, exhibitionism, humiliation. But for now, these two routes are a solid way for you to start info gathering. Just as you familiar yourself with the big beautiful world of King and BDSM. Don't go anywhere afterward for our sponsors, I'll be answering an email from Skyler about how to start safely practicing EDSM. 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, occasionally 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, I'll see you in a podcast, 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. But the times I've tried to bring fantasies up my wife is adamant that she is none. Make it super awkward for me. Please, have 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 in the show Justin Lay Miller wrote a great book about fantasies called Tell Me What You Want. And he interviewed 4,000 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, some might have something known as affantasia, 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, that you have some inability to fantasize, is that in Justin Chiris' 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 kind of something that you've never done before and it has to have some, you know, really extreme element to it. 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 can be also rough and realistic, you know, it can 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? You can ask for that. Now, I'm not sure that she masturbates. If anyone listened to that fantasy, he's 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, one of the most memorable times you've had sex, one of 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? You know, has there been a time during kids? Where are 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 gonna 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 with 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 question is actually about your guest, 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 from to learn what I'm into.

I'm very kinky and not try to keep going instead of a nila relationship. Thanks for your help, and not try to 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 working on the sex life and wants things to change. And then there's one who's like, we're fine.

We're 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. Paying to picture for him, or what it might look like, to engage in some play together, why it's important to you, explain your core feelings, your desires, how hard 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 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 welcome through maybe show them some porn or give them 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 going to 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 got to explain why it's going to be great for not only for you Sarah, but also for your relationship with it. Okay? Thanks for your question. This is from Skylar 29 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 apples. It 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, Skylar. 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've a connection with, someone you feel safe and comfort with. However, there's a lot of places to play right now. Like I mentioned earlier, there's the field app and there's the hashtag open app and you could find some meet-up groups like there's one also called FET life, FET, 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 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 decided to do a radical 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 sexwithm.com. All right, Skylar, I'm going to send you on your way now and have some fun. Be safe. That's it for today's episode. See you on Friday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review where ever 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 relationship, call my hotline 559 Talk Sex. That's 559 825 5739. Go to sexwithemily.com slash Ask Emily. Special thanks to ACAST for powering the Sex with Emily podcast. Was it good for you? Email me feedback at sexwithemily.com Was it good for you? Email me feedback at sexwithmleaf.com