Surrounding Myself with Kinksters Made Me Finally Accept My Kinks

As John Donne said, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."

While that applies to your favorite hobbies like knitting, video games, or raising an army of potted succulents, it also applies to your kinks too. As I found out, being surrounded by people who find your idea of hot sex to be "disgusting" doesn't make you feel particularly warm and fuzzy - and gets in the way of accepting your own sexual interests.

However, when I found myself surrounded by people who accepted and loved my interests (whether yours happens to be at an in-person community or in an online kink community like The Cage), I found it much, much easier to love those things about myself. I didn't feel like such a "freak" anymore; I felt like I just had unique interests - a viewpoint that I share to this day.

And hey - sex should be unique to every person!

Read: The World-Changing Kink Community

Finding My Kink Community

I found the kink community early in life - and to this day, I'm thankful that I did. Having kinks and "non-standard" sexual interests can feel awfully alienating.

Prior to finding the kink community, most conversations about "sex" focused around people wanting to get "pounded" by men they found hot. I was a lot more interested in making my love interests kneel and beg for the privilege of even getting to touch me. After enough incidents like that, I just started to feel like the odd-one-out - constantly. I, honestly, regularly felt like something was "wrong" with me - and started to excuse myself out of conversations when attraction and sexuality became the discussion topic.

It wasn't until I started getting involved in my local kink community that I really started to feel like my odd interests were "okay".

Don't get me wrong: my first few BDSM meetings were absolutely terrifying. I had no idea what to expect, and when I did get there, I felt extremely out-of-place. Everyone else seemed to know one another, and I was this weirdo who was much younger and had zero experience. I honestly think I went home after those first couple of events and cried. After feeling like the BDSM community might hold the answer to what I needed, it was rough to feel so much like an outlier - even at the one place I was "supposed" to fit in.

I kept at it, though. After a few meetings, I started learning people's names - and people started engaging me in conversation. I started learning the relationships - and I could figure out the various personalities of some of the people involved.

At some point, I remember remarking how much better my comfort level had gotten there over time, and one of the board members apologized for the rough start. He noted that kink tends to be a "private" endeavor where most people want to avoid being outed, so most groups may not warm up to you until you've shown dedication through attending a few meetings.

He noted that they get a lot of people who attend one meeting, assume it's a giant orgy, have zero interest in the actual community, and are never see again. While it didn't make my rough start any less rough, it at least gave me context - and I understand where the group was coming from.

In the end, getting involved in my kink community was all worth its weight in gold. When this new group of people started to have conversations about the types of dynamics I had been fantasizing about, it felt freeing. Instead of feeling like I was the weirdo who didn't match anyone else, I was surrounded by people who thought in the same way I did!

Instead of light conversations about what celebrity I found hottest, there were discussions about power exchange relationships, how to do kinky activities, and discussions about different kinks. It wasn't just acceptance; it was a giant how-to guide.

They didn't just accept me; they wanted me to actively do the thing I'd thought was "weird" and "freaky"!

To this day, a group of kinksters is still my happy place. I will still find myself in the happiest, buzzed-up energy when I'm at kink events. With my introverted nature, I generally bow out of most of the generic, small talk that happens, but once deep conversation starts happening, I'm the most animated introvert you've ever seen. (And yes, small talk definitely still happens at kink events!)

Read: Everything You Need to Know About Attending Your First BDSM Munch

I Found My Partners There Too

The more I think about my introduction to the community, the more I realize how vital its existence was in finding partners.

Before my current partner, I dated someone for five years - and we met at an in-person BDSM class. During subsequent classes, we ended up chatting a bit, and those casual chats turned into a mutual interest that sparked a relationship. We ended up splitting up because of future family planning differences, but he's still one of my best friends to this day.

After him, I ended up enjoying quite a few casual dates from that same kink community. I'd find someone, we'd hit it off, and we'd date for awhile. None of those partnerships lasted, but I learned a whole lot about myself during that period, and I can confidently say that it's made me a better kinkster and partner to have experienced it.

Plus, I met one of my current partners in an online kink community just like The Cage. He said he initially felt comfortable chatting with me because I had an active, filled-out profile, and those initial chats have now led to a committed, 7-year-long relationship.