A healthy helping of kink

At 28, Arwa Dhorajiwala has had several relationships that consisted of, amongst other things ‘decent vanilla sex’ and one — her most recent — where there was “kink involved, stuff I never knew I’d be okay doing”. The exposure gave the media professional a real picture of the oft-ostracised world of kink. What she recalls of the otherwise fulfilling experience is the ‘lack of empathetic information’ on the topic.

Arwa’s queries may have found response in a workshop recently conducted in the city. Enter The Kinky Collective, a group that “hopes to address myths about kink — the primary myth being that it supports violence and oppression”.

Fresh conversations

Myth-busting is just one part of an important dialogue initiated by the workshop arranged in collaboration with psychological helpline iCALL, which offers telephonic counselling on a range of issues including sexuality. Pompi Banerjee, from the Kinky Collective, views this as an opportunity to start a conversation, “amongst kinksters who, without any external support, come to view their own desires as abnormal or shameful; and amongst individuals who are not from the community, but wish to understand it better”. While the workshop was the first of its kind, the accessible but intimate group have frequent relevant gatherings.

Knowing kink

Kink, essentially a large set of sexual practices including different fetishes and the erratically pop-culturised BDSM, is hard to define. The Oxford dictionary simplifies kink as “a person’s unusual sexual preference”. It is due to this ‘unusual’ factor, that sexual expressions that aren’t procreative, hetero-normative and mainstream — anything from rough sex/oral sex to cross dressing, flogging or the more debated edge-plays — is socially misconstrued as debasing.

This makes life difficult and isolated for those naturally inclined towards kink(s) in their sexual expression. Those forced into marriage worry about sexual compatibility, leading dual or adulterous lives. Those isolated find themselves trapped by secrecy and self-hate.

It doesn’t help that psychologists and psychiatrists have historically classified kink as a mental illness. Looking at kink outside the pre-set disregard, one realises that it is, to a large extent, subjective. To echo Banerjee, “For some straight couples, doggy-style is kinky, for others, not. A gay friend had once shared how, for him, the missionary position is kinkier. Even love bites or spanking could be kinky.”

All about agency

The sacred tenet of the kink community is consent. “Conscious kink” is when two consenting adults — considered equal in value and dignity — agree to what they are doing together. The power to agree with or refuse something remains equally valid for both partners at any given point of time, irrespective of gender and sexual roles.

But how does one ensure that these power checks and balances are not violated during sex? “Due to stigmatisation, practitioners are automatically doubly cautious of their and their partner’s limits. Most go out of their way to ensure that their partner is at ease, even reserving a stipulated time to discuss if they are (still) on the same page,” Banerjee reasons. These open talks can be at the end of each session, every month, or once every six months. Other risk-breakers like ‘safe words’, ‘hard and soft limits’ are equally respected within the community.

Mental misdiagnosis

The stigma surrounding kink is a great vandaliser when it comes to mental wellness of individuals thus inclined. “Imagine your friends, family or your doctor telling you that you are a freak, because you are different in some way,” Banerjee challenges, citing depression, anxiety, shame, a sense of isolation —largely, a depleted sense of self as the outcome. Her observations are not without evidence. Paras Sharma, programme coordinator at iCALL, reveals that two of the five primary issues cited by callers include sexuality and mental health, the overlap accounting for 17 per cent of their total calls. Ask him why iCALL feels the need to train its counsellors in kink-sensitivity, and he says, “We’re offering people a safe, inclusive space. Why should the kink community be ignored?”.

Out with the archaic

Does the classification of kink as a mental malady hurt the prospect of an accepting ecosystem? Sharma agrees, pointing out that while campaigning in the West led the latest edition of the American Psychological Association’s diagnostic manual to discount kink from the purview of mental illnesses, it’s a scratch on the surface. “Acceptance shouldn’t end at theoretical normalisation. The idea is for every individual to realise that should they want to experience kink, they are free to — without the mental strain of prejudices,” Sharma offers.

DOMINATE YOUR PREJUDICES

Connect: kinkycollective.com, @thekinkygroup / iCALL: 022-25521111 (Monday to Saturday, 8 am to 10 pm), email: icall@tiss.edu