- You are listening to loving BDSM podcast.
Kayla Lord's here with the one, the only,
the There's no way in hell you're fully
caffeinated, John Brownstone.
No, we had way too late of a night. Yeah.
We are too old for this shit.
- Yeah, we - Are. And if I'm too old at my age
and you're 18 years older, you are
way too old for this shit.
- Damn straight. I know. - Your poor eyes,
your bags have bags.
Yeah. Yeah. Same. Looks like our bags are going on vacation.
. They're moving. That's what it is. So many bags.
. That is not what we're here to talk about. Nope.
But we will in another recording later complain
about it. Don't worry. .
- . - What we're doing this week is answering a
question from a kister who wants to know how to deal
with family and friends who don't like
the fact that they're kinky.
Uh, that's something we, we have a little
experience with. Mm-Hmm.
- . Mm-Hmm. - . Welcome
to the Loving BDSM podcast.
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Okay. So the question is, how do you handle family members
and or friends who disagree
with your kink lifestyle slash posts that you make online
and decide to block or cut off contact because of it?
To me, it feels hurtful
that some people cannot be open-minded
to others' preferences and likes.
Even if it doesn't align with them personally, I feel
as if I shouldn't have to water myself
or my content down to please them.
- Ah, good. - You shouldn't,
you should not water yourself down to please other people
who don't have to pay your bills, uh,
and true, quite frankly, if you're not dependent on them
for survival, you don't have to water yourself down. No.
- However, - People get
to remove themselves from your life, even if it's unfair.
Yeah. Um, or based on false beliefs
or, you know, done cruelly like Mm-Hmm.
that part is wrong and it sucks,
but they get to do that.
- Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, that's their preference.
Prerogative. Prerogative. Thank you. Mm-Hmm. .
Thank you. You know, it'd be nice to say, and,
and you know, I, I agree with you that Yeah.
It, it is hurtful and it's,
and it's sad that people have to be so judgmental
about things, but unfortunately that's gonna happen.
Mm-Hmm. , um, you know,
whether you'd like it or not.
Yeah. Not, not everybody is, is gonna be okay on,
you know, there's
- A reason most kinky people are very under the
radar, very private.
Yeah. Do not tell their friends
or family that they're kinky.
Um, that doesn't mean just 'cause other kinky people do it.
That that's the choice you have to make if your choice is
to be open, open and honest.
I think that's wonderful. Mm-Hmm.
, uh, I'm, I was forced to be open
and honest with my family.
Yeah. JB was forced to be open and honest
and not really open.
More of a, oh, we found this thing out about you went,
went looking where was wasn't really any of our business.
We weren't invited in and then judged you for it.
We both have had that experience separately to the extent
that I literally have not been to my mother's house
in Mississippi since 2019.
Now I've seen my mother. It wasn't my mom who had a problem.
It was the evil stepdad who threatened us
if we didn't immediately get off his property.
Yeah. Like South Mississippi gun toting
folks threatened us.
Mm-Hmm. . So we haven't been back .
Um, and I'm, I'm of two minds
because of what we've gone through and
because of my own personal feelings about privacy,
and I don't want to deal with judgmental opinions,
even though we live on the internet.
So we get judgmental opinions all the time.
I tend to be a little bit more private and
or if you're gonna know about my kink life, it's
because I've met you through kink.
That's a personal preference. Mm-Hmm. .
Other people want to talk
to their friends and family about it.
They want to be open.
But what you may, as it sounds like you have
quickly figure out, is that some people are judgmental,
some people don't wanna learn that it's not all the things
that they think they know about it
goes against their beliefs.
I mean, all these reasons don't like it.
Think you're a danger to children.
Now, do we know that all of those beliefs are inaccurate
and are based on, you know, misconceptions
and false information and understanding?
Absolutely. Yes. Sometimes we are not the best person
to teach that family member or friend.
Sometimes we are if they're open to it and wanna learn.
Mm-Hmm. . We can, you can have
that conversation.
They can grow. They can, like my mom is,
I don't really wanna think about it too hard.
And I would never, but are you happy?
Are my grandchildren happy and safe? I don't care.
That's her philosophy.
Evil stepfather thinks, I mean,
he doesn't even believe in heaven and hell.
But basically we're going to hell. We're miscreants.
We're deviants, we're harming our children. Mm-Hmm.
the worst things he can think about us. Right.
He's not open to hearing from us that
that is incorrect and inaccurate.
Right. So sometimes they're not,
they're not in a space to learn from you.
And you have to decide if it is worth trying
to salvage the relationship.
And sometimes they're not gonna let you salvage it.
They're gonna walk away. They're gonna cut you off.
And that hurts.
And that is gonna cause depending on the closeness
of the relationship, a level of grief within you
that needs to be honored.
And you need to let yourself feel it
and get help from your kink community, your therapist,
whoever, whatever support you have, lean on them.
But you cannot control them.
You cannot at that point change,
necessarily change their mind.
They have to be open. Mm-Hmm.
to changing their mind, reconnecting, learning
and growing, deciding
that they just don't want to think about it.
Even though they know it about you,
they don't want to talk about it.
That is also their right.
You might have friends and family members who are like,
okay, you've told me this thing about you.
I don't, I don't understand it.
I don't like it and I don't wanna talk about it.
I can be in your life and we can do other things together
that do not revolve around this part of your life,
but leave, leave me out of this.
They also get to have that, uh, opinion
and they get to consent about how much
of your kink life they need to know about you then have
to make the decision, is this relationship worth it to me?
And is not talking about my kink side with this person.
Okay. For me, healthy enough for me.
Like sometimes it's gonna be toxic.
They're gonna want you to, to deny everything
that you are just to keep them comfortable.
That's, that's not necessarily a relationship worth keeping,
except that's up to you whether it is or not.
Right. On the other hand, sometimes it's like, oh, well
I don't go around telling my coworkers about my kink
so I can keep conversations with fr friends and family.
You know, on the non kink side of things.
It's, it's not difficult for me to do
and I'm willing to do that.
So it's, it's about what both sides
of this are comfortable with.
And the, the shitty thing is,
is people are gonna make these decisions about whether
to keep you in their life based on false beliefs,
but you will not necessarily be the one
to convince them otherwise.
And that's not necessarily your job.
That's for them to go have their life experiences
and maybe, maybe have their eyes opened one day.
Your job is to go live your life in a way that is authentic
to you and allows you to sleep at night.
And Lola agrees. Yes. So what do you do?
You live your life as authentically as possible,
and you grieve the loss of connections with people
that you thought would be less judgmental.
Mm-Hmm. that you hoped would
embrace all of you.
You seek out found family
and new friends that do accept who you are.
A lot of that will likely come from the kink community,
whether that's online or in person.
Lola still agrees. Yep.
Um, there may come a time when family members
and friends who misjudged and were judgmental , um,
and cut you off, come back
and say, oh, I've learned new things.
I've changed my mind. That's possible.
But I would not hold my breath waiting on it.
I would go live my best life without them
and grieve the loss of them.
And then if by some chance they come back into your life,
the person you are at that moment can decide,
is this worth rekindling?
Is this worth going down this path again?
Um, but there's a very good reason that most people,
um, keep it to themselves.
They use false names on the internet.
They don't let the, the streams of their vanilla
and their kink life cross online or in person.
Um, because it's, it's a very real possibility.
People lose jobs, people lose custody of their children.
Right. People get divorced over it. Now that mm-Hmm.
is the divorces as, as much as that hurts
to go through a divorce with a person you loved,
and they have now, you know,
made a judgment about you based on your kink.
It, I think it helps you in the long run to not be tied
to a person anymore who does not embrace the fact
that you're kinky and or just isn't kinky.
'cause you're incompatible. But
that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less .
Right. You know, um,
but it's, you handle it by letting them live their life,
grieving their loss, and then Mm-Hmm.
, go live your best life.
- Yeah. I, you know, a couple things when it comes
to telling someone, especially family, you know, you,
you have to look at it just like any other practice in kink
and assess the risk.
Mm-Hmm. , you know, you, you have to sit down
and, and assess the risk of what could happen when you,
you know, tell them Mm-Hmm.
not everybody's gonna be open
to it, unfortunately.
So, you know, and,
and the other thing, like with me at this point, um,
my blood family, I have pretty much cut off contact
- For reasons not necessarily about King
- About King, but I mean, yeah.
And, and my family is now Kayla and,
and my king community. Mm-Hmm. .
- Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Uh,
after meeting your family,
and then your former, like
previously married family, you helped raise stepchildren.
Mm-Hmm. the first time.
Now he is doing it again.
Um, he's really good at it actually.
Um, after having come across those folks,
I basically offered up my family.
When you, you can have my family .
Uh, we're not perfect. We got our issues,
but we're not that .
Um, and then the evil stepfather Mm-Hmm.
threatened us with violence
to get us off his property.
Right. Without telling my mother, she had no idea that
that was the conversation.
Um, and you know what it was,
because he got too damn nosy I'd kept, they understood,
like I worked, um, in these, in the adult industry,
not making, they even understood I made content,
but they thought, oh, you just review
vibrators and that's what you do.
And he got nosy. I kept a lot of that from them.
'cause I was like, look, once you know,
you can't unknow right?
And if this stuff makes you uncomfortable,
I'm gonna keep this distance for you
and for me, quite frankly.
And he got nosy and he went digging,
and now he can't unsee it and he can't unknow it.
Um, and there's a bit of a rift,
and I still have a relationship with my mother.
She comes to visit, but it's strained when ,
I'm her only child and I'm literally not allowed on his
property, even though it's her property too.
Um, that, that does cause a strain.
Um, the other thing, you know, you talked about, you need
to, uh, assess the risk.
You do need to, to, what's the word I want?
You need to respect consent. Mm-Hmm. .
If you have a family member who incorrectly
and in the most judgmental way, doesn't want anything to do
with you because you're kinky, you get
to know in your heart that they're wrong.
That there's nothing fundamentally wrong with you. Mm-Hmm.
that you are not a different
person than they knew before.
But you, they get
to decide who's in their life and who isn't.
Even if it's for wrongheaded, uh, uninformed reasons. Right.
So let, to the extent
that you can let them go, they might come back.
They might not. Um, but, and gre, and I'm gonna say it again
because I think this is the part people want to avoid
because we all want to avoid non-consensual not good pain.
Yeah. , um, grieve, grieve the loss.
It's, it's their loss, but it's still your loss.
Like I Mm-Hmm. , it's easy to go.
That's their loss. They have one
less fabulous person in their life.
Yes. But you have the loss of a relationship.
Now, my experience has been
that the most judgmental people
that I have come across about kink were
very judgmental in other ways.
And once I could step back
and kind of take a look through slightly clearer eyes about
who that person was, I wasn't really surprised.
Sometimes people will shock you, like they play real nice
and they, and as long
as the conversation topics are mundane,
you can, you don't really know.
But sometimes the bigger the reaction,
the more judgmental the reaction.
It's not quite from left field. Yeah. It's painful.
And it's not really a shock.
So, you know, I think the more levelheaded of folks
who are just disturbed,
because they only know stereotypes are
people who could come around.
Mm-Hmm. . But they get to decide that not you.
So all you can do is keep doing what feels right for you,
what makes you happy,
what you feel is safe enough.
'cause as we've said many times, there's some such
thing as safe in kink.
Mm-Hmm. . There's just being aware of the risk
and making a, a judgment call.
Um, and surround yourself with people who,
who appreciate you for you.
Um, and maybe make sure more of those people are kink aware
and or kinky, you know?
Mm-Hmm. . But it's tough and it sucks. Yeah.
It absolutely sucks. Yeah, it does. Um, and it changes you.
I mean, I, I already had trust issues,
but I'm almost like,
I'm almost a ghost when I'm out in the vanilla world.
'cause I, I'm much more comfortable being Kayla Lord's
kinky woman than I am being insert legal name,
just person on the planet.
Um, and no, if I don't already know you're kinky, you,
you will not be given that information about me.
Right. Um, from me willingly.
Um, there are times like the, we have an 18-year-old,
he's now a legal adult.
He does not know a single detail about our life
or our relationship, but he knows it's not a vanilla flavor.
Right? Mm-Hmm. , that's
as much as he needs to know.
But he li you know, he lived in this house, he lived
with me his whole life.
Um, kids aren't completely, you know, oblivious,
especially as they get older.
But we also have the, the added bonus of we work in this,
you know, part of, part of life.
So it is all encompassing for us.
So there's certain things that once they get older
and you're not worried about, you know, harming them
or, you know, being inappropriate
because they're just too young, they're,
they might see or hear or whatever.
Um, but even that's the extent of it.
He doesn't have a, he doesn't get to have a single detail.
And, but everybody else, if I don't know, you're kinky.
You don't get to know this part of me. Right.
Because I,
I just won't put myself out there like that again.
No. I didn't even put myself
out there like it the first time.
No. It got found out.
Somebody started digging, didn't ask questions,
made assumptions happened to you.
Two Yep. Years apart happened to him
through fucking Facebook.
Oh God. The bane of our existence. .
Um, and then, you know, gossip spread
and people started becoming the victim in their own
perceived narrative of
how they even connected to any of this.
And, uh, it was, it was distasteful. Yeah.
But all you can do is sort of move on. Mm-Hmm.
and keep living your life in the way
that feels authentic to you.
Yep. Absolutely. So could I keep going on about this?
Of course. We're gonna leave it there. Yep. Mm-Hmm.
, um, for anybody going through this, um,
just know you can get through this.
The only way over under, Nope. Gotta go through it. Mm-Hmm.
. Um, and you can come out the other side
and not be as miserable as you might be right now.
That's true. Mm-Hmm. , thanks for listening
to this week's q and a episode.
If you want us to answer one of your questions,
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