|X|C|BDSM|

A quick guide:

Perfectly Acceptable:
Dating only the people you happen to be attracted to

Not Wrong, but Probably a Sign of Conscious or Unconscious Bias and Prejudice that is Worth Examining for Yourself:
Quietly filtering out whole demographics of people, in advance, from your dating pool and telling yourself it’s just a “preference”. (E.g. Trans people, black people, low IQ, ETC)

Bigoted and Problematic:
Loudly advertising those “preferences” in order to prevent one of the untouchables from mistakenly interacting with you under the misguided assumption that their “type” is worthy of a conversation or consideration.

This “Rough Take” post has been published without review, editing, or revision. Rough Take posts are designed to communicate thoughts and ideas that haven’t been fully developed in order to spark discussion and responses which may fuel later, more refined articles. 

What is Hedonism

Hedonism is an ethical theory that pleasure (we’ll define what we mean by pleasure in a minute) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.

In the more casual usage, hedonism means indulging in the senses. People use it to describe those who are unashamed of their love of food and music and sex and aroma and everything else that feels good.

And hedonism gets a bad rap.

The primary objection relates to the first, more formal definition. Of course there are other sources of meaning and other worthy pursuits in life besides just feeling good as often as possible. Living in the moment, achieving meaningful accomplishments, mastery of skills, preservation of knowledge. Any number of things can be a source of meaning and fulfillment. So that criticism is valid. (Google Robert Nozick’s experience machine thought-experiment for more on that)

But lets never mind the formal definition and focus on the other, most common use of the word. When we leave the formal definition behind, we no longer have to defend the position that pleasure is the only or at least the most important goal in life.

Instead, the modern hedonist says that we should strive first and foremost for pleasure, as did their predecessors, but with an additional emphasis on personal freedom and equality.

And for the average person ascribing to hedonism, this could result any any one of a variety of lifestyles. But I want to talk about the path that might lead one to kink and BDSM. And I want to talk about the derision that hedonistic kinksters face in a BDSM/Leather community that so often (and so ironically) emphasizes formality and rigidity and conformity. Read the rest of this entry »

In a poly group, a person posted asking [paraphrased] “if I’m the primary, shouldn’t I have the right to sex without a condom instead of other people.”

A discussion ensued debating whether the primary is entitled to that specific right or what the specific wording of their negotiated rule was, etc.

My response was:

First of all, if your main concern is sexual health, then you should use condoms with everyone, including your primary. If you are willing to do something less than that, then you’ve decided you happiness is more important that sexual health and that’s the standard you’ve established.

Second, y’all talk about “primary” like it’s a real thing with defined “rights”.

It isn’t.

It’s something a bunch of people made up so that they were allowed to go have outside sex but still keep control over their partner. So they didn’t have to deal with the obvious insecurity and lack of trust in their relationship.

Because if your relationship is solid, you trust each other, and you respect each other, then you don’t need primary rights, rules, or restrictions.

If you find yourself asking questions about what you are entitled to as a primary, it’s a great sign that their are much deeper problems with your relationship that you should probably resolve before bleeding your problems onto innocent and unsuspecting outside partners.

You have a right to say “if you have unprotected sex with others, then you may not have unprotected sex with me”.

You have a right to say, “having unprotected sex with you is important to me, so please don’t compromise that.”

You do not have the right to tell them how they are allowed to have sex with others just because you met them first.

If they agree to a “rule”, they have the right to revoke their agreement or renegotiate it whenever they want.

If they break it without telling you, that’s a problem, especially if it’s something that could compromise your safety. But I didn’t see anything in this discussion that implied that’s what happened.

Instead, it sounds like someone decided to reassert their control over their own body and the OP is upset because they think they own that part of him now.

But they don’t.

So they should either accept that and talk to them like an autonomous adult to find way forward that will make both of you happy or leave and find someone so insecure that they will do anything to appease you, even if it means sacrificing their own happiness or the right to control their own body.

But the TLDR is that there is no such thing as primary rights. It’s not a real thing.

So the basic answer to the original post is just a simple “NO”.