You're listening to the Loving BDSM podcast, episode
four sixty two. Kayla Lords here with the
one, the
only, the
I mean, I only have good things to
say and nothing snarky
for these five minutes to Right. Enjoy it
while you can. Jump Brownstone.
Yeah. Who knows what
the the next five minutes will bring. Right?
If you do something silly, I will make
a joke out of it. If you do
something grumpy and you're over the grumpy and
I'm not worried about you being mad at
me, I will make a joke out of
it.
If you do something foolish slash embarrassing, I
will not make a joke out of it
until you are also able to laugh about
it and are willing to say talk about
it in public.
And then and then I will make a
joke about it.
None of those things apply right now, so
I got nothing.
Let's talk about what we're here for.
We're here because I like pissing off some
corners of the, Internet by, you know Yeah.
Talking about their term, Mhmm. That they hold
dear. And, apparently, that's one of my kinks
now. I don't know.
It's actually a term I have not been
able to stop thinking about since last week
when it came up in the Reddit response
episode.
And then once I
tried to, like, do my due diligence, now
I really can't stop thinking about it, and
it is the term
soft BDSM.
I'm my current reaction, we haven't talked it
through yet, and I, reserve the right to
change my mind as, you know, I take
in different interpretations and Mhmm. New information.
But right now,
my initial thought is what the fuck is
that? We'll get into it. Don't worry.
Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If this
is your first time listening, glad to have
you. If you're back for another week, welcome
back. Loving BDSM is produced every Monday and
Friday for your kinky pleasure in education, and
show notes are found at lovingbdsm.net.
Come back often and feel free to add
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s and the number one. So at Love
ds one,
on Blue Sky at lovingbdsm.
Blah blah blah, or on YouTube at youtube.com/lovingbdsm,
where you can watch us live stream the
podcast every Wednesday. All links are in the
show notes.
Okay. Before we get into the topic, which
is very notes heavy, I will be doing
a lot of reading.
One quick announcement.
The day of recording
is Wednesday, November
12.
Yes. I got that right. I saw the
date on the computer.
You have until
Saturday, November 15,
if you were so inclined
to sign up for our holiday cricket special
tier in Patreon.
When you do, and, yes, you can be
international, you don't have to be located in
The US, you will receive a kinky holiday
card in the mail that I'm hoping to
send out very early in of no. Not
November. December.
And also, you will receive an invite link
to our first ever
holiday party over Zoom on December 20. About
damn time we had a company party. No.
We I don't know that party involves steak.
Okay?
And at least one adult beverage for at
least one of us. Okay?
Anyway,
the cutoff for that is November 15. It
is $20. It's a one time $20 thing
even though Patreon will be like, don't you
wanna sign up for an annual? No. The
fuck you don't. You just the one time
and you get the stuff. And then but
you also get access to everything else we
do in Patreon. So the Discord server, freebies
that are, offered at higher levels, all that
good stuff.
So if you decide you like it and
want to stick around, you can bump yourself
down the whatever works for your budget after
your holiday cricket. Why cricket? Because
the Patreon community is the proud crickets. Why
proud crickets? That's part of our lore.
And you either know or you don't. And
if you don't, I will explain it at
another time, but not right now.
Maybe somebody in the comments will help you
out with the hell of proud crickets.
We do answer that question periodically, so it'll
come up again. I'll explain it. But that's
our thing. Proud crickets.
Anyway, that's the thing. Join us on Patreon.
Patreon.com/kaylalords.
Look for the holiday cricket tier if you
would like to join. If you are a
current member,
you can do it too. And, also, there's
other stuff I've been posting about it pretty
regularly. Yes. I will put reminders up for
our Patreon folks so they know they can
get in on the fun, all that good
stuff. But this is the last time I'm
gonna physically say it prior to November 15,
which is Saturday,
11:59PM
eastern.
Actually, quite frankly,
some it'll probably
it'll probably, leak into November 16 because I'll
have to go manually take that one down.
So may the odds, be ever in your
favor if it's not quite the fifteenth anymore.
Okay.
Okay. Let's get into this. Let's get into
this. So
as part of my notes, because I don't
trust my Swiss cheese brain,
I also put
the important things
that always need to be said when we
start fucking talking about labels, terms, and things
that can be meaningful to others.
First is the disclaimer.
I don't not quite sure where I'm gonna
come down on this term. I kind of
know where I'm leaning right now based on
what I found.
But this is an open conversation. Jamie's going
to have a perspective. We're going to get
to talking about it. I might actually get
to look at live chat. Opinions are going
to infiltrate. I reserve the right to change
my mind. But let me just say,
if by the end of this episode,
I'm not a fan of this term, JB
is not a fan of this term,
that doesn't mean you can't use the term.
We are not, like,
in charge of kink terms. We are not
invalidating somebody else's preference for term just because
we don't like it. So if in this
discussion
we are not impressed at all with the
concept of soft BDSM but it is very
meaningful to you,
cool. Nobody is yanking away your term from
you. You. Okay?
Okay. We all get to have different opinions
about different terms. It's about how we treat
one another with respect regardless of the terms
that we're using. Okay? Okay.
Second. And I say this because man, when
we did did soft dom, hard dom,
people were in their feelings. We did pleasure
dom. Some people were, like, grown ups about
it. We just had a discussion and they're
like, yeah. I like this term and I
can tell you why. And I was like,
cool. And that was the end of the
conversation. Others.
Others had deep deep big big feelings about
it and I was like,
I'm not your mama and I'm not telling
you what you can and can't do. Okay?
That's fine.
The second thing,
as is typical,
I have links to things where I found
stuff.
But YouTube smacked me on the hand the
other day,
about a week ago, over a previous episode
where I'd had a lot of links
because they didn't like one of the links
and tried to, like, knock the whole damn
video off of YouTube.
Think I think it got saved in the
end.
So in YouTube, there are no links because
all of the relevant information was definitely on
sites where somebody has shown their tits, ass,
or dick.
So I can't link in YouTube.
For if you're a podcast listener,
all the links will be in the show
notes. For YouTube folks,
once I have the show notes link ready,
I will come back and put it in
if you were that interested in the links.
You can also always email me about links
from,
an episode if you're like, I can't find
them. I have them. I I have every
script note outline
for every episode we have ever done.
Just saying. So
that's a YouTube thing.
Okay. Now
let's then go to I would like to
also answer the question somebody from the Peanut
Gallery is gonna say, but why do labels
and terms even matter? Why does it even
matter? It doesn't even matter. Well, yeah, the
fuck it matters because It may not matter
to you, but it does matter to some.
Exact that is exactly
it. You know,
everything, but we're gonna be specific to the
BDSM community. In the BDSM community, we are
all, like, using a shared language of sorts,
right? Shared terminology.
So when one of us says a term,
says a label, says a whatever,
what we should all want is for anybody
else who hears it to be be able
to ask what the hell are you talking
about or for us to be able to
explain what the hell we mean. One is
just a member of the community who wants
to share information. Maybe you're talking online, maybe
you're at the lunch, whatever whatever.
But also
any term, any way you describe yourself as
a kinkster, any of that,
in my opinion, you ought to be able
to explain what the hell you mean because
if you don't have an explanation of what
that means, when you're communicating
who you are to another person, how are
you giving them full clear communication and potentially,
you know, able to consent? Right? If somebody
tells me they're a hard dom
and I think I know what that means
and they're not defining it for me and
then I go, oh, okay.
And then like sometime later we're doing a
thing and they're doing their hard dom thing,
but that their definition does not match my
definition. We now might have a problem. So
that's why these things matter. You on an
individual level get to decide for yourself,
does this term mean anything to me? Do
I like it? Do I wanna use it?
Do I resonate with it? Or Mhmm. Do
I not give a fuck and just reject
the shit out of it? As an individual,
everybody gets to do that. But as a
community,
if these terms are being thrown around,
then
those of us who are interested
should have an idea of what the fuck
they mean. So that's why this matters
before somebody,
like, warms up their fingers to start typing
furiously
at me. You know, I do act very
hyperbolic. I act like that's all I get.
It's not. But when I get it, it
always comes out of nowhere, and I'm like,
are you okay? What's going on
on your end of the Internet? Because that
feels like it's not about me.
That feels like that was you problem and
you spit it out through your fingertips into
my DMs.
Anyway,
I am I've only had,
like, a third of my Diet Coke and
I am punchy.
Okay. So
here we go. Okay. So as stated last
week in the BDSM Reddit response episode, there
was a question about soft kink
soft BDSM that came from a subreddit I
had no idea existed called softer BDSM.
And,
for the purposes of trying to define this,
because you will see how s how weird
this gets, how strange this gets,
I'm gonna read that subreddit's
definition of what how they define soft BDSM,
soft kink. Okay?
Okay. I've gotta click the link and hope
it opens. I didn't do this ahead of
time. Okay.
Yes. I know. It's it's, sure. Sure. Sure.
Sure. Just let me no. Please go away.
This is what I get. Mhmm. There we
go. Okay.
What is soft BDSM? A guide. I will
have this linked for people who can actually
access our links.
We use the term soft BDSM as a
blanket term over a whole host of play
styles. Some people prefer to avoid pain, humiliation
or inflicting harm in their play.
These are the types who gravitate to softer
play styles.
Not all soft BDSM require power exchange, but
it is very common. Domination is being in
control, directing scenes, and being a presence over
another with the goal of bringing intense emotions
to a submissive through kinky play. Soft BDSM
often prioritizes fun, comfort and connection while maintaining
a kinky edge. It's about exploring pleasure and
intimacy without a focus on pain or humiliation.
DS dynamics are more care and affection based,
dominants being patriarchal or matriarchal.
Submissives take direction and cues from the dominant.
Many soft doms focus on setting rules or
guidelines that encourage personal growth and self care
for their submissives.
These are daddies, mommies, caretakers, some owners and
good girls, boys, enbies, littles, middles, pets and
some brats.
Dominants that are lovers taking control in the
scene, driving their submissives crazy with pleasure and
it's denial. These are the pleasure doms. Bondage
that looks more like relaxation and pleasure. Submissives
artfully restrained and pose for meditative rest, sensory
There's dozens more types of play that can
fall under the term soft BDSM.
Hopefully I can cover as much as in
another guide. I didn't go look for the
other guide but maybe they did. Many will
have layers of some of each of these
and possibly some hard play included as well.
There isn't a hard line in the sand.
It's their play and they can tailor it
to their own needs and wants.
I love
I still don't quite know how I feel
about the term soft BDSM. And as I
get into what else I found, maybe you
will see why.
This to me is a
well thought out here's what it means
to us. I could semantically
pick some things apart just to be a
bitch but I'm not gonna I'm gonna go,
okay. This community,
this person within this community who I believe
is, like, probably the, you know, the main
person or whatever, thought about it, tried to
put it into words, left some room open
for it's not exactly this, it's not prescriptive,
but in general here's what it is. I
respect this definition,
even if I could pick it apart a
little bit. I'm not gonna I have other
things I could pick apart. I'm gonna respect
the fact that that community went, this is
what this means to me.
What do you think of that definition?
I think it's
I'm not sure what to think of it.
I'm not sure what to think of it,
because
you know
it's about exploring pleasure and intimacy without
a focus on pain or humiliation.
To me,
you know, not everybody's into pain. Not everyone's
Damascus. Not everyone's into humiliation.
Mhmm. Okay. So you know, maybe
I'm a little old school there, but you
know
it still sounds like just BDSM. It just
sounds like BDSM right now. Okay. I I
hear the
term
soft
BDSM. Mhmm. And and I have
this vision
of,
soft
romantic music playing, bringing, you know Sort of
the airbrush quality. The filter is very Yeah.
You know, supposed to bring flowers and, you
know, chocolates, wine.
I mean, you can if you won't. I
still want you to, like, hurt me at
the end. Sure.
Sure. You know,
I I mean, it it BDSM is about
connection. It's about the intimacy.
Mhmm. And it doesn't have to be about
pain. Right? Right. To me, and I don't
know I'm not gonna put this on this
community
because like I said, I respect the fact
that this community went here's here's who we
are. If you vibe with us, then you
found your place. If you don't, no worries.
Right? Yeah. The thing is is when you
have a soft BDSM,
that kind of means that the
what you're
sort
of painting yourself as not is hard BDSM.
Right? And all I you know, the way
I look at it is okay, if all
of this with some room, wiggle room, but
if all of this is soft that means
everything else is hard.
Right? Like isn't that sort of the,
you know, if it's not soft, it's hard?
And I don't like that either. Yeah. A
lot of this describes you and I, and
I would never use soft for myself.
Here's here's where I think there is a
disparity disparity
with the terms.
Soft BDSM, hard BDSM.
BDSM
all comes with risk. Mhmm. What you're doing
whatever no matter what you're doing there is
a risk to it. Right. So may saying
soft BDSM,
I think could give some people
a false sense of
security. Yeah. There's no risk. It's softer than
gentle. It's soft. It's just, you know,
yeah. Sure. Bring it. Right. None of this
will harm me. Eric, that real hard. You
know? And and I I yeah. Whatever, you
know, anything you do in this
lifestyle has a risk to it. I also
and this could be me reaching,
but I don't think I'm alone in this.
When we call something soft,
you know, other words that are gentle, right,
kind, easy,
and the thing is is and this is
me going to an extreme when I say
this probably, but
how easy would it be for a predator?
Predators in BDSM already can hide very easily.
They just gotta know a few words and,
like, keep their shit together for, like, thirty
seconds, you know, in a DM or five
minutes at the coffee meetup. Right?
Predators exist everywhere, but how easy is it
for a predator
to hide as, well, I'm soft.
I'm gentle.
I'm easy because
that implies,
for somebody who might not be thinking this
way you and I know it doesn't imply
shit. But I can see where it would
imply, oh, soft BDSM and, like you said,
is safer. Air quote that real big, real
big. Or it's easier or it's kinder or
there's, you know, I don't have to worry
as much because this is the softer side
of BDSM.
That's I
could that be me overthinking it? Sure. Because
predators are everywhere and abusers will find whatever
they can, blah blah blah. Yeah. But I'm
with you. This
it gives the sense that first, I could
see somebody who comes across it going, oh,
this is not that big, bad, mean, all
black leather whips and chains BDSM, which is
kind of how that gets categorized in other
places not here. And it's like, well, first
of all, that's not all that BDSM
is. Right. And when you know, it goes
back to what I was saying a minute
ago for me. When we say there's a
soft BDSM, well, BDSM, well, then in direct
opposition to that, there must be a hard
BDSM. Well, where the fuck does that leave
the rest of us
in the middle? Because I wouldn't classify anything
we do as soft. Others could classify what
they see from us as soft. I don't
give a fuck. That's you, not me. I
don't call us soft, but I'm sure shit
not gonna call us hard. We are just
kinky people living our kinky life, and sometimes
it's soft and gentle, and sometimes it's kinda
hardcore and a little scary. I I think
in a way,
you know, maybe this is an attempt, you
know, I mean, we talk
through the years about how BDSM is a
spectrum.
Okay? You know from from one end to
the other and and maybe this is just
an attempt to,
you know, put a label on the the
spectrum.
Mhmm.
Maybe. And I you know,
that's why I say from
no matter how I personally feel about a
term, if it resonates with somebody, it fucking
resonates with somebody. I want people to be
clear on what the fuck they're saying because
terms like this are shorthand, and people think
they know what something means. And then you
actually get to talking about it and both
you know, two people might think completely different
things about the same same term. Right?
I also
I don't love this idea
from the outside looking in, not maybe within
a community where you know it's pleasure doms,
caregivers, this, that, you know, the
gentler side. And even that's subjective. My gentle
might be your rough. My soft might be
your hardcore.
Right? That's the other kind of problem I
have with some of these terms is because
Yeah. What you mean by it and what
I mean by it could be completely
at odds with one another.
Will I fit into this community if I
wanted to be in it I don't would
I fit into this community
even if I define soft in a different
way? Right? Mhmm. So there's that. But there's
also this idea and it pops up a
lot online and it's
gonna come up in the notes, towards the
end because that was fascinating. I was like,
that made me think thoughts,
of sort of this idea of
of putting
some kinksters
putting themselves
distinguishing
themselves from the big, bad, scary, deviant kinky
people. We do this sweet soft thing over
here.
Look it up. And I and I don't
agree with it, but the question last week
of, oh, aren't you just vanilla with sprinkles?
That's bullshit. That is complete fucking bullshit.
But if
that the connection I make then is back
to the
domestic discipline episode.
For the folks who are clearly doing BDSM,
They use the language of domestic discipline and
then do everything in their power to distance
themselves from that yucky, nasty, scary BDSM.
Right? Yeah. And I'm not saying this specific
community does it. I'm not saying everybody. But
there's there's a layer to that of I
need to I wanna distance myself from that
scary stuff, that mean stuff, that crazy stuff.
Like, it doesn't come across
as
you know?
If you were soft, the implication is somebody
is hard. Yeah. If you're the the gentle
ones, somebody else is too rough. And and,
yes, yes, let's be very clear. There are
kinksters who want it rough, like it rough,
define rough Oh, yeah. In their own terms,
whatever.
But like you said, all of this is
a spectrum, and quite frankly, the other thing
I don't like about prescriptive terms like this
Mhmm.
Is that
it can
box somebody in
and
either
and these are the things I can think
of. There's more reasons. But it either is
gonna make somebody reject a part of themselves
when it doesn't fit that definition,
when they want to be a little rough,
when they want to be appear a little
angry,
you know, let it get air quote heard
hard kink. Right? And so they're either gonna
think,
uh-oh, I'm doing it wrong, or, uh-oh, I
don't fit, or, uh-oh, I'm not actually a
part of this community, and too many people
get real fucking
this community.
And too many
people get real fucking worried about doing it,
quote, the right way.
Yes. Yeah.
Because they're trying to follow this checklist of
if I say I'm this kind of kinkster,
this is what it means to be. And
that's not true because we all contain multitudes.
Some people a 100% will
will see this particular definition of soft BDSM
go, yep, that's me, and they might live
in that space
forever.
Others, though,
will get new partners who bring different vibes
and they want to try new stuff with,
will, you know, discover things about themselves regardless
of whether they stay with the same partner
or get a new partner and want to
explore some things. They will, you know,
learn about ways to play or see how
other people do it and be inspired
and it won't fit
the tidy little box they're putting themselves in.
And that can create
some am I doing kink right moments that
don't that are unnecessary.
You know?
I was thinking about this earlier. It's this
is a danger
that if I start thinking about my, like,
getting into my own thoughts on a topic,
I'll forget what they are by the time
it's time to talk about it. This one
kind of stuck with me because it's a
thing I come back to a lot. When
I have to describe myself as a kinkster,
I don't have a single term I can
use. I give you all the terms.
And I'm aware
that all those terms can mean different things
on any given day. So if I'm describing
myself,
I usually say submissive, but to be most
accurate, I mean, service submissive masochistic baby girl.
That's a lot of shit. Right? And that
still is just broad strokes
because,
broadly, most people will understand service admissive to
a certain extent. You'll you'll understand masochist. You'll
understand baby girl. Now I can
drill down and tell you what that exactly
means to me, but kind of we're working
in within the same framework. But here's the
reality.
I am almost never,
at the same time,
all of those things at once. Right? My
service side will come out
in various ways and at various times. My
masochist side is very tied to my my
mental head space, my mental energy, and my
mental health. Right? I can take some pain,
you know, when I can actually relax and
get my mind to shut up that I
can't take if I'm tense and my mind
is running nonstop.
My baby girl side will sometimes be playful,
but she'll sometimes be a a snot nosed
little shit too, you know?
And so if I tried to say I'm
just this, well, whatever there is no single
word. If I want I mean, if I
wanna say there's a single word, I would
just say submissive.
Because ultimately,
yeah, that's probably the broadest term.
But based on the way soft BDSM is
described in this particular definition,
which of what I found is the absolute
best, it only goes downhill from here.
I would fit that.
I mean,
until I was like, I'm a need you
to make it hurt.
I'm gonna need you to make me cry.
I'm a right?
And that's
from on a personal level of how I
personally view it, we all get to view
it the way we fucking want to. Mhmm.
That's why I don't like terms like these.
It boxes
us in when it's easy to start out
and kink and think, like, think you are
one thing or think you check very specific
boxes.
You know, my experience is the more you
explore, the more the deeper the trust goes
with a partner. You know, you have time
with one another. You can develop things together.
You get comfortable enough and vulnerable enough. You're
able to be intimate
together, you get comfortable enough and vulnerable enough,
you're able to be intimate enough to go
outside of, like, you know, the the early
boundaries you might have set for yourself in
the very beginning. You discover shit about yourself
you could not have anticipated.
Not at all.
And I would pro like, just call it
kink, just call it BDSM, just call it
powertrain.
Use your broad terms
as an understanding of, like, what it is
you're doing, and then drill down into the
specific terms
that encompass you at this moment with an
understanding
it could and probably will change over time.
That to me, from this angle that where
we talk about when we try and help
people, that to me is the danger of
something like a soft BDSM. Because soft BDSM
implies there's a hard BDSM,
which doesn't make any fucking sense either.
And, you know, well, if I'm soft, I
can't be hard. Yeah. What does it mean
about my identity if I've I started soft,
but now I'm kind of Here's You know
what I mean? Here's an interesting thing and
and and maybe I just
think of things differently.
You know, if you really come down to
it,
it's not the BDSM
that is soft or hard or, you know,
it's the person. Right.
It's the person. What you want, what you,
you know,
I know somebody said, and I know myself.
You know,
shit, now I lost my train of thought
because damn phone.
No. No. It'll come back to you sometimes.
It will.
Silent in the the chat uses the word
that that I was not I could not
get to, but it is yes. It is
rigidity.
Mhmm. It's rigid thinking. And
plenty of people there are plenty of people
who are not typically rigid in their thinking,
but anybody can be rigid in your thinking.
It could be
from a need to air quote do this
right. It can be a I figured out
who I am and I'm I'm done with
that work now. I don't have to do
that again. It could be for all kinds
of reasons. Right?
And I that rigidity and
and how we see ourselves and the terms
we use, the labels, the identity,
that's a problem across the spectrum of kink.
It's just easy to pick on soft BDSM
because I can I can already see how
this could go wrong, You know? Yeah. There
was a time when I thought
that
the most pain I might want would be
an over the knee spank bare you know,
bare handed spanking, and that was it. And
now I'm you know, I haven't
pushed much beyond that,
but those kinds of spankings don't have to
be, but are often seen as a kinder,
gentler spanking than, like, big ass heavy fucking
paddle coming down on you with full force.
Well
Or cane or something. Yeah. You know? Or
any toy you hate, but you consent to
anyway. And that's another thing. I think about
it in terms of that, and I I
think about the nuance, not in terms of
soft BDSM specifically, but who I am as
a kinkster.
Because on one hand there are times I
want the actual pain. Right?
Pull my hair like you're going to take
my scalp off.
Hit me on the ass with whatever
so hard, like, the neighbors are knocking on
the door. Right? There are times when it's
the pain that I want and then there
are times it's not the pain that I
want, it's the submission that I want. It's
the I endured that for you. I understood
what I was getting into. I could could
I fully consented to it. I understood what
was happening. But if you asked me, do
I pick that? Is that what I want?
No. It's not what I want.
But there's another part that I'm getting from
that. It's not the sensation that I want.
It's the moment with you. And those can
look gentle. They can look rough. They can
look hard. They can look soft, like,
whatever.
And it's understanding the nuances of my own
kink play, my own kink identity
that makes me very leery
of terms like this because they feel
somehow both overly
broad,
like, and not and not and yet
not quite enough. Because in order to define
it like this particular subreddit community did, which
again I actually respect them. They that's us
sitting down and going this is what we
mean by this,
but it means
that people who
might actually fall under that definition
will think they don't because of this element
over here. Mhmm. Or, you know,
people who
don't see
you know, are more worried about, oh, the
big scary side of d d BDSM will
think, like you said earlier, that you're in
a air quote safer zone. Like, it can
be kind of misleading.
Yeah.
And yeah, I'll reiterate from what I said
at the top. On an individual level, these
terms can be very meaningful and we get
to put our own meaning in them. The
reason I I one of the other reasons
I care about that and will say that
is I want folks to figure out what
the hell it means to you
once you can share that if somebody ever
asked, but too so you are clear
to the extent you can be at this
moment on who you think you are right
now, but without the rigidity
of I can never change.
You know? This is who I am and
this is who I will remain.
No.
I mean, I guess yes, but I'm gonna
ask five years from now are you actually
happy or are you just doing what you
think you're supposed to because that's the box
you checked five years ago?
And that's where I get skeptical.
So,
let's go.
So that I will say
was the best actual definition I found. Okay?
Now as I was searching,
I came across I think it's in the
same
no. It's in a different,
subreddit, but it's a BDSM subreddit.
Somebody was asking how other people define it
for themselves. Now this is an old thread.
It didn't get a lot of traction, so
there's not a lot there. I have linked
it where I can put links.
The one person's response resonated the most
and I did the whole quote because I
think the last sentence actually shows the difference
of how we,
define these things and that how that can
be tricky. So what the person said was
in, you know, how what does soft or
hard BDSM mean to you? How do you
define that for yourself? Which I appreciated that
person's question because they understood we all define
these things for ourselves. Right?
This person said, I think it all depends
and can be arbitrary
categorization.
It can also create a need to prove
yourself to be hardcore.
Right? Oh, I'm not soft if you reject
soft. Well, that means
for some people,
oh, I I must be hardcore. I'm not
right? But then what they said was, because
this is how subjective this shit is, if
I had to classify
soft versus hard,
I would base it on risk. And here's
the thing.
Yeah. That too has its own subjectivity
to it. Right. Because most people
will classify risk based on physical harm. Are
you going to bleed? Is something going to
fall off? Are you going to die? Yeah.
Because each person's risk assessment
is gonna be different from your Exactly. Risk
assessment. And it often this person didn't. I'm
not putting words in this person's mouth. But
often when we talk about risk and people
are like, oh, that's a lower risk thing,
what can often happen is they dismiss the
power of emotional
and mental
risk that cert even what seems like very
basic from the outside. You know, an emotion
a risk that you
have in
all types of kink play, but
sometimes it's specific types. Is does this thing
become a person's trigger from now on? Is
this thing
you you plan for it, you try, you
thought it was gonna be, like,
your everyday scene and now it's a traumatic
event in someone's life?
Like, you know, I kind of
yes. The physical risks are the most obvious
and the ones that can lead to actual
death
or at minimum a trip to the hospital.
And yes, we all should be very careful
about those, but the mental and emotional
risks
are can often be,
you know,
like they last the length of your lifetime
sometimes. Mhmm. They change the trajectory of your
life sometimes. Yes. And so to
not, you know, to dismiss
what I mean is risk also becomes suggestive
subjective at that point.
My you know, I purposely don't want to
play in ways where I'm risking my actual
physical health that much. Right? Right. I'm not
interested in playing to the point of, oh,
you might have to call 911 now. I'm
that's not how I want to play. But
I know that there are times where we
don't do role play because I don't like
that but JB does and I just respond
appropriately. He's a one man show and I'm
over there going yes daddy, and it works
for us. But it is entirely possible
he could say a thing or we could
do a thing that
I mean, I I could be having nightmares
for weeks or months. That was not intended.
We couldn't have even fucking planned for that,
but now we have to live with it.
And based on what it is
and and how I respond and what it
does to me mentally, well,
is that not on some sometimes on the
same level
as, oopsie now my arm's on a cast.
We didn't mean for that to happen. You
know what I mean? Yep.
So I point that person's response out to
say, you know, some people are talking about
soft, like the the other community on, oh,
well, you're gentle. You're a caregiver. It's about,
like,
calm,
nurturing things and not about the pain. And
this person's like, actually, it's about risk. Well,
then what the fuck is it about? Nobody
knows. Right? Yeah. Nobody knows.
Yeah. But I liked that too. Okay. So
here's where we get into the point where
I was starting to go, what the fuck?
What the fuck? Because here Okay. Here was
the problem. Okay? I'm gonna skip my notes
to get to the point of why this
was a problem. So come across a whole
ass community on Reddit of soft BDSM.
I knew it was not the first time
I'd heard it, but it's not something I
hear all the time. It's not like,
you know, fucking
the
does anybody remember the day caller conversation that
had nothing to do with kinksters? They were
either trad wives or domestic discipline or something
something, and they were like, I have a
day caller, and we're all like, what are
you saying? Right?
It wasn't at that
rate of prevalence. It was not trending
in the spaces I'm at. So I'm like,
is this being talked about? Let me go.
And I went multiple routes. Okay? I was
on Evie's YouTube channel going, has she ever
talked about this? If she has, I couldn't
find it.
I was on Instagram looking looking up the
tag soft BDSM, softer BDSM. Mhmm. I could
find content that either Instagram kinda tagged it
that way or they had tagged, but that
wasn't what they were their conversation was. Their
conversation was communication. It was relationship styles. It
was mental health. And I'm like, what the
fuck does this have to do with soft
BDSM? Like it's not specific to soft BDSM.
I did a Google search,
for, for TikToks because those are you can
find TikToks on a Google search if you,
you know, or look at for them. And
I could see people kind of talking about
it, but not
not from my glance at, like, some great
amount because quite frankly, when you search soft
BDSM
you come up with soft limits, hard limits.
I was like, that's a different conversation.
We've had that conversation.
I went to FetLife. I'm like, are there
groups? Are there I looked under groups. I
looked under writing.
People would talk about they would use the
term soft or softer in their writing, but
the topic was not soft BDSM.
Not The algorithm or however FetLife's search results
work did not pull up anything for me.
And I'm like, then where the fuck is
this coming
from? Other than Reddit Mhmm. And I'm sure
there are people, like, in communities and, yep,
clearly the subreddit. You know, somebody's talking about
it. But here's where I fucking found it,
and here's where I got annoyed. Because some
people
don't go to FetLife first.
If they don't see what they want on
their social media platform of choice, they do
go to Google.
And Google's
fucking AI results, which I fucking hate. I
hate the AI results.
Will
do a conglomeration
of something from what it thinks the top
resources are. And if the resources are shit,
then the answer is shit.
And I am personally offended by that, okay?
Because here
were the fucking
answers I got. Some of the sites I
found, like, one was a sex toy shop
that had a blog element. One was like
a an adult, like, online magazine kind of
thing photos. I can't link to any of
it on YouTube because YouTube will smack my
hand. But here are some of the fucking
definitions I got. And this is where I
was like, are you fucking kidding me? So
from one website, soft BDSM is a lighter,
more accessible version of BDSM
ideal for beginners who wish to be introduced
to this world in a gentle way.
In soft BDSM, pain and humiliation are generally
limited, and the practices are more sensual and
erotic.
Hard BDSM, in this particular case, they were
like, okay. There's a soft, here's a hard.
Hard BDSM, on the other hand, is for
the more experienced and thrill seeking individuals.
In hard BDSM, the pain, humiliation, and control
are more intense and the practices can be
more extreme.
I feel like
many words were used and yet nothing was
fucking said, but that's just me. And then
somebody else another website I have two more.
From another website,
soft BDSM refers to lighter, more approachable
BDSM practices
that focus on sensuality and connection.
Because the harder BDSM, it does not give
me a fuck about connection? Anyway, this is
where I get annoyed.
Unlike intense scenes in a dungeon, soft BDSM
allows couples to experiment
with power dynamics, light restraint, light restraint,
and sensation play all while staying within their
comfort zones.
I get to stay in my comfort zone
no matter how hardcore we get.
Anyway, and then and then this one, this
one had me cussing and JB came to
look at what I was looking at like,
what? What?
This was from the sex toy shop that
just had a blog component, wanted to come
up and search. I get how that works.
Soft kink is just for beginners.
And then it goes on to mention, like,
several things beginners can do. Now beginners can
do whatever. I beg you to do some
research first. Start
where your kinky heart guides you the most,
like, please.
But
in their beginners list
is vloggers
and wax play.
Now can beginners
use that? Yeah?
But I
I don't categorize anything as soft or hard
fucking kink. Yeah. But I'm not sure if
I were to that
vloggers and hot wax are gonna come under
soft to me. That that
unsettles
me a bit. Okay?
You know,
vloggers? I mean, yeah. Vloggers can be
gentle. Sure. They can. But you have to
know what the fuck you're doing with it.
I I I have that small flogger that
I use on you sometimes. That's Sure. Like
a soft warm up flogger.
That's what I use it for. They bring
out the bigger stuff.
But
you know I I
don't know if I consider myself lucky
that I fell into the community the way
I did at the time.
And, and that I I learned things that
you know you just don't pick up a
flogger and start swinging into somebody.
Okay? You know, yeah, it can be fun,
but damn it if you do something wrong
Mhmm. Okay, there's gonna be some hurt. Right.
And it you don't even have to be
going that hard. Mm-mm. All you have to
do is, like, miss aim a little bit.
Miss aim, what do you you know, it's
You've act I mean, it doesn't matter how
long you've been doing it, anybody can make
mistakes. Anybody can make mistakes. You were slogging
me the other night and your aim went
weird and we got lucky.
Mhmm. Look, I don't
we don't
flog or do impact on my actual asshole.
That's not a thing I wanna do.
So when he's flogging me and those very
stingy strands of leather or suede or whatever
go right up my ass crack. We are
both on high alert because that's not the
good kind of pain. And he normally avoids
it and it happened because the mistake
happens. And he and JB went, are you
okay? I was like, we're good. You keep
going. Just just watch your name there.
And that is somebody who's been flogging. You've
been doing vloggers for what? How fifteen to
twenty years? Yeah. And it
it it can happen.
Right. And it was a relatively gentle flogging.
Like, it wasn't overly painful, but that was
a sensitive spot. Mhmm. And so that was
overly painful. So the reason I bring these
up is, one, there's no goddamn consensus on
what fucking ever soft BDSM is. The only
kinks
like, kink
informed definition I found
was
that subreddit on BDSM. Right? Mhmm. Which again,
semantically I can pick it all apart, but
I respect the fact they went, this is
this is our community, this is what I
mean. Okay. I get to disagree with it,
but they couldn't live their best fucking air
quotes off BDSM life and more power to
them.
But let us be real.
People, like, little baby kinksters, they do not
go to fucking FetLife first. They will probably
do their social media platform of choice, and
then many
and I know this because I've had websites
for fifteen fucking years now
many
are going to Google. Right. So what comes
up in Google actually matters to like, we
have to fucking care a little bit if
we I say, well, we on this side
of the microphone have to keep because that's
where people are getting information. People find their
way to Tumblr.
Oh, I have a Tumblr one and Where
where, you know,
and, you know, they find their way to
to porn.
You know, written Yes. You know, I mean,
and
and there is definitely
such an unrealistic
Yes, very much so. Okay. Now here's what's
kind of hilarious.
I tried soft BDSM ver like, these are
my search terms. Soft BDSM versus hard BDSM.
Well, then I got a lot of stuff
on limits and I found some stuff, like,
the stuff the crap I've been reading out
loud these past few websites. Alright. Then I
was like, well let's try soft kink.
Kind of the same stuff came up. Then
I was like, well
hard BDSM?
You would not be surprised that the only
thing that came up in that search was
all hardcore BDSM porn. And I was like,
that's not I mean okay, but that's not
for what I need.
What that kinda tells me is within the
community
at writ large,
this is not a com these are not
common terms. That doesn't mean people don't use
them. Maybe it's a social media thing that
bled over other places.
Maybe, like, there were secret Facebook groups and
it kind of branched out from there. I
don't know. I don't know where it originates.
I can't find anything. I can't even find
consistent, like, ways of defining it.
But here's what I know about
the kind of the generic websites that are
just trying to rank for certain terms. You
you know, like one was,
the site was like playful
something. It was like playful magazine and most
of most of what I saw was like
photography, like erotic photography. Well, that's actually what
they're there for, but they wanna rank for
something so
people can find it. One, I definitely can't
link to on YouTube because
they were talking about, like, pro doms that
you hire, and if you want the soft
BDSM you hire this is how you work
with that pro dom.
Dom. The hard BDSM. Like, it was very
clear we were talking about hiring a professional
here.
But, again,
you know,
I it matters to me because that's how
a lot of people are going
to go try to learn about a term.
Right? Mhmm. And with AI being enmeshed in
fucking Google searches,
AI compiles from what it considers the top
sources the best sources. I don't under I
don't know how exactly it picks who it
picks. But
if that's if you searched
soft BDSM and AI actually fucking work because
it doesn't always, and the conglomeration of what
soft BDSM is is was from those websites
that was like, oh, it's for beginners. Oh,
it's for, like, those crap ones, not the
subreddit.
Then
you're poorly misinformed
when you're learning about it.
But it and then the other thing to
understand about content, every one of us has
come across this you just might not know
you did. So what will often happen is
one or two sites they could be they
could be major
media sites, they can be
little rando sites will write about a topic.
Okay?
And then maybe that trends for a while,
maybe it comes up as a search. Some
some other site goes, we want to write
about that topic too. We want to rank
in Google for that topic. Well they go
to Google to do their research.
Who do they pull from if they don't
have personal lived experience on a thing? They
pull from the previous sites
who have written about it. Now if site
one and two
were completely incorrect in how they categorized it,
in my opinion, like the last few websites
I just read from, that means
sites three, four, five, six, seven just regurgitate.
This is very common in online content
the misinformation from the original sites you wrote
about it. So it just
it just proliferates and you never get a
real understanding.
Well, that's bad for all kinds of things
when you're trying to learn about topics, but
I bring it back to kink. That ain't
good
if a lot of people start with a
Google search.
Whether you're writing about kink or you're trying
to understand a topic or you're like, oh
I think that might be the kink I'm
into,
it's bad information compounded
over and over again and then a Google
search goes, these are the top ones. This
is what it must mean. Kinksters know that's
not what it fucking means.
Thankfully,
Reddit's
subreddits still show up
in Google.
Quite frankly, I
I learned I get a lot of my
information these days from different subreddits.
You have to be you have to think
critically. It's not always right. Sometimes it's absolute
trash.
But that's that's where
as a person who spends
her life trying to go, hey, here's a
way to think about kinks so that you
can have a happy healthy power exchange relationship
and also don't pigeonhole yourself into these boxes
that might not be right for you,
we're combating that kind of information.
And then to find out it's not even
really a thing that the community writ large
in places I would go, that is where
BDSM community lives
frequently,
can't find it. So one, I'm very interested
in where the fuck this term came from.
Two, you mentioned Tumblr. Okay? Mhmm.
Okay. Uh-oh. Now this one I really fucking
liked. Okay. Okay. Okay. So
when I
did the search for hard BDSM Mhmm. And
of course found
porn, I also came across a Tumblr post
that's from, like, four years ago, 2021.
And it kind of mirrored my
own kind of thinking that I was coming
to by myself before this and it was
really, like, solidifying
as we went.
And their post said
hard kink isn't a term the community tends
to use, and the equivalent we might have
would be edge play, and it's all subjective.
And I was like, yes.
Yeah. Now let's be clear. If hard kink,
which we don't usually call it, but I'm
sure people do, is actually edge play,
and edge play, hard kink, whatever term you
want, is subjective,
then that means to me automatically you have
to understand
soft kink, soft BDSM, gentle BDSM, whatever
is subjective.
But if nobody's talking about it in terms
of subjectivity
Mhmm. And you have to define these things
for yourself and you can't apply, like, a
big broad umbrella to it, not easily anyway
Mhmm.
That was the most accurate thing I feel
like I found where I was like, this
is what's making sense to me with all
of this searching I'm doing. Because pleasure dom?
Oh, oh, I found so so much shit.
Hard dom,
soft dom? Mhmm. I was trying to look
for hard and soft BDSM and what kept
coming up was hard and soft DOM.
Which that makes me wonder, is hard DOM,
soft DOM, hard BDSM,
soft BDSM, are people using that interchangeably because
too many people think the dom just leads
the whole BDSM
relationship? So if the dom is soft, then
the whole thing you're doing is soft.
I didn't find anything where somebody said that,
but I feel like that correlation could be
made. Mhmm. Right?
But this is yeah. Maybe it's because I
was a freelance writer for a million years.
Maybe it's because I've been writing content for
my own fucking websites Mhmm. For a million
fucking years. I get really annoyed
when
the and I don't just
personally just rely on first page of a
Google. I'm I'll go 10 pages deep if
I think I can find something that's more
obscure, wasn't popular enough, but is
more correct. Right? Or is another viewpoint that's
worth considering. Right?
But the it's a it's a
almost, but not quite a benign benign kind
of misinformation.
Mhmm. But it is still misinformation.
Soft kink is for beginners.
Look. Slow
kink is for for everybody,
but for beginners. Yeah. But I'm not gonna
say soft kink is for beginners and then
give you a laundry list of things that
actually I need you to at least read
an article or watch a video on before
you try this. You know? It's not please
please please don't pick up that item
and just start using it
because somebody labeled it as soft kink for
beginners. You know what I mean? Mhmm. And
that's the false sense of security people get
when they think of it as soft. Exactly.
I hate it.
Okay.
The I think
for going through the notes, what I found
Mhmm. Then we can sum up and whatever
Yeah. How we feel. I found something and
I again, it'll be linked in the show
notes and YouTube folks, I'll get the show
notes linked as soon as I can.
I did go to FetLife, and I was
like, let's let's search for these terms if
there's a community, if there's people writing about
it.
I have a feeling people are writing about
these concepts without using these terms. Right? But
I came across something that as of the
date of recording,
November 12, this,
piece had only come out five days ago.
Okay? This is relatively new.
It's not somebody I know.
Their
handle is Innocent Empath. I don't know anything
about them. Mhmm. But their piece on this,
that's when I stopped and went,
oh, maybe this is what this is about.
Bear with me.
They their article talked about the watering down
of kink.
About how some kinksters are trying to soften
the edges of BDSM
to make it more palatable
and mainstream
to show that we're not actually air quote
deviance, we're not scary. You don't need to
be scared of us.
And the article is like I'm not being
eloquent. The article was eloquent. Okay?
And and that made me stop in my
tracks because, you know, we've we talked a
few weeks ago about is, you know,
is kink being normalized or is it just
trending? And it is a lot incorporated.
And there is even there, you can see
the softening of that just day color because
you're,
you know Yeah. You happen to be the
wife your heterosexual wife of a man, and
you're living that air quote traditional life. Mhmm.
What? Like Well, you know, I mean,
and and that's why I say, you know,
with things like that,
and,
wasn't there,
a thing with a group
of people
they were
unknowingly I believe, but they thought that No
Nut September meant something else, and they were
kinda going with it.
Vaguely. I think I vaguely remember something about
that. Yeah. Because context matters and the Internet
flattens everything. Right.
Can I say this? I God. Talk about
Google search. I I found this stuff,
Jeeves.
Ask Jeeves. I remember Ask Jeeves. Yeah.
So
but I don't know. It's it's all
man, what's what's I pulled up the article
because this person
really did say it way better
than I I could. And I you know,
I think
I don't know, because I haven't sat with
it long enough, if I agree with everything
this person has has written or if I
see it this way completely, but there's enough
of it that made me go,
is that what this is? Or that's what
this started out or is being perpetuated by
non kinksters. And some kinksters are making it
work for themselves because it resonates,
you know.
So they start out their article saying, yesterday
a slave friend made a comment that made
me pause. She said, I have noticed that
BDSM activities are being vilified by many on
here. On here must mean FetLife because that's
where this article is. And they said, you
know, I've noticed it too, it's been bothering
me. There's a strange, frustrating contradiction happening right
here in our own community. On a site
built for people drawn to BDSM, I see
the very essence of what makes this lifestyle
powerful and appealing, being solely vilified, sanitized, and
watered down. Yeah. Now I don't think that's
just what soft BDSM might be doing, but
I think it's a symptom of us. I
I I think there's a a combination of
things with that. Mhmm. You know, let let's
be honest, a few years,
even FetLife was part of a a a
purge. Mhmm. Okay? You know, anything to do
with blood plague
had to be taken down. Right. And that
was about financial stuff. And that was my
financial stuff. But it's still frustrating. So it
it it is. It's very frustrating.
But I I have been seeing, you know,
we have said this on this show
many many times.
Your kinks not my kink, but your kinks
okay.
Mhmm. You know? And and that was the
big thing about the the BDSM community at
one time.
You know, we do things differently
and, you know, we do not look at
what somebody else is doing. Right. Look down
on them just because it's something we don't
like. Absolutely.
You know?
And and I think that is happening more
and more. Mhmm. I I think that is
happening more and more. I I, you know,
totally agree with
with what they're saying.
You know,
So they had three main
points of why there might be a shift.
Okay. And these are their thoughts, words, opinions.
The mainstream
gaze.
As BDSM has become more visible in popular
culture, a new audience has arrived. With them
comes an unconscious pressure to prove
that we're not the monsters, the deviants, or
the abusers that we've been historically painted.
In an effort to be understood and accepted
by the outside world, we sometimes start policing
our own, making our language softer and our
public faces more respectable.
We try to make it make sense to
them and in doing so we risk losing
what made it make sense to us. Now
I think some of that is very subjective
because some people are into kink for different
reasons and want different things out of it,
blah blah blah, but this did sort of
resonate with me. The next one is the
safety police versus the risk takers.
Safety is paramount, but there's a difference between
advocating for informed consent and attempting to eliminate
all elements of psychological intensity or physical risk.
Some of the more most profound moments in
this lifestyle live in those gray areas in
the headspace of a heavy scene, in the
ache of a bruise the next day, in
the emotional roller coaster of a strict power
dynamic. You know, when we start framing every
intense desire as inherently dangerous or problematic,
we pathologize the very experiences people come here
to find. Now I'm not saying this is
an exact
like
this is either in opposition to or this
is where the idea of soft and hard
kink come from, but I think this can
play into it. Right? You know, I'm I'm
into soft kink. Not that dangerous stuff. Now
that stuff that that can hurt you goes
back to what you're saying. The moment you
call it soft, there's this emotional and mental
thing of, oh, it must be a little
bit safer. It's not as dangerous. It's not
as scary.
And that is also subjective.
Ah, this this one this must have been
why it came up with my search. So
then the third one was the hierarchy of
right and wrong BDSM. I see it in
the comment sections and forums, a subtle and
sometimes not so subtle hierarchy forming. The soft
dominant is more enlightened than the strict one.
Now I have not seen that and I
would Mhmm. My blood would boil if I
had. Certain kinks are deemed more acceptable than
others. There's a push for a one size
fits all version of BDSM that is perpetually
gentle, endlessly negotiated, and never ever messy.
They point out our journeys don't all look
alike. You know, what's messy for one is
good. You know, like, it's all an individualized
experience.
Yeah. And I have not personally seen that.
No. I do see that people,
mostly in social media spaces,
are real comfortable
calling themselves, like, a soft dom Mhmm. Versus
I don't know. I'm sure there are people
out there who would call themselves a hard
dom, just in direct opposition to a soft
dom. But the the folks that if I
had to try to, like, classify people Yeah.
That I would go, oh, maybe that's a
hard dom. They don't usually call themselves that.
They're just a dom or they're strangers. I
just had a I I just had a
little thought. Mhmm.
When I first came into the community, I
I talked about how
there was always,
high protocol was a big thing. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Could it just be a term shift?
Okay. You know,
these, you know, these people practice high protocol.
Mhmm.
Has now become
a hard dom. Dom. Well, to be a
semantic bitch, high protocol is subjected in and
of itself.
Because what's high protocol to one person won't
be high protocol to the next. Because there's
there's layers to it. It's like how I'm
gonna say strict and strict is subject. Is
subjective. It's all fucking subjective, which make you
crazy.
Like, how strict somebody
is, you know, how how strict a dom
is, what the the rules they want their
Mhmm.
Their submissive to follow, the way they want
to structure the relationship,
you know, I think it's in it's
I'm so sorry, y'all.
Shades of gray.
Shades of gray. And I think if you
look hard enough, you'll always find somebody that's
a little bit, air quote, harder, stricter, whatever,
more high protocol than somebody else. Like, it's
just
a a never ending kind of,
like, you know Mhmm. There's a word I
want.
And I think all of these
I think all of all everything plays a
part. And what I mean by that is,
you know,
there is the there's also
the way that if you want to be
on social media,
specifically TikTok, because that's where a lot of
this started, but it has trickled down into
Instagram and Facebook and everywhere else,
you know, you have to self censor.
Mhmm. I am literally reading books where we're
not on social media. It is not context
of you have to self censor, and the
and
the language being used is unaliving
instead of killing or dying. Because that's now
become part of of it's Internet language, Internet
speaking, so it is, like, everyday speak for
some people. And I'm
wondering or curious if
maybe some of this or a part of
this
started with people trying to talk about kink
in places that would not allow the words,
having to self center and start calling things
diff different terms, different names,
you know, is it somehow more palatable to
the algorithms if you say soft
versus hardcore hard edged? Like, and I don't
think it's ever it's any of this is
not one single thing. It's all kinds of
things layered
on top of one another.
There's no single path to how we got
to soft BDSM versus hard BDSM or any
of this stuff. But I I can't help
wondering how much that might play a role
as well because we as a social media
society
have in some spaces I forget that I
don't have to censor myself when I'm on
blue sky or in FetLife.
Wow. And I'm using emojis because I was
like, I can't use the word. I can't
even use the fucking word.
It's ubiquitous
of all kinds of topics, and certainly not
just kink. Okay. First, I just wanna say,
Rama, thank you.
She made she brought a point that the,
blood plate
was did not have to be taken down.
It just,
has to be viewed as only friends only.
Oh, okay. So it's not open to the
Gotcha. Gotcha. To the whole wide world.
You know, I
I As as someone who
was part of the evolution and saw the
evolution of the interwebs.
Mhmm.
The interwebs is a great place to go
and look for information.
Mhmm. K?
On the other side of that, the Internet
is a horrible place to look for information.
You drink it from a fire hose. Okay.
You
know, and,
not gonna go into it too deeply, but,
you know, social media,
I'm sorry folks. I think people need to
pay less attention to social media in so
many ways.
You know, because everybody
has a voice, which is not a bad
thing. Right. Okay. You know, everybody should have
their voice, but what
come down to is, you know,
you use one term, that person uses another
term, and and everybody
and you know what?
Let's go talk to the
go into the community, and you get something
totally different. Everywhere you go. Yeah. You know?
So it it's everywhere you go, and it's
it's -Here's the thing: that is a challenge
of any community is that everywhere you go
in different pockets of the community, which is
why there are some people who say there
is not one community, there's like 10,000,000 communities,
and I don't disagree with that, But every
pocket of the community, every space,
whether created purposely or just accidental, people might
use different terms. Right. That is okay. I
don't have a problem with that, but the
the problem that comes into it is that
folks either haven't learned yet Mhmm. Aren't thinking
about it, or somehow thinks I don't know.
I don't know what the nuance is.
Instead of getting comfortable with going, okay. What
does that mean to you? How do you
define that? Right?
You know, somebody starts a term, somebody picks
up, you know,
terms, hashtags, whatever whatever can get picked up
because people like them, and then they go
viral, and then they become the norm because,
like, two years ago it was it went
viral. It's like talking about the trad wife
thing. The term trad wife, five years old.
Mhmm. The concept,
I mean Low low dreams. At least
as old as the Bible, I guess. I
mean, it's not just a Christian thing, as
somebody, like, angrily,
responded.
Obviously it's not, but,
you know,
the the terms we use
for concepts, those are changing, but we're not
also
keeping up with the idea that, wait, you
use a term
and I use a term, but we don't
have the same definitions. And that is one
of many. One of the problems
of the Internet is because if everybody is
using their voice, like JB said, people are
using terms that
Mhmm. They made up a whole cloth or
they heard somebody else say but they didn't
get context for it, and now we're sharing
all this and nobody is now talking about
the same thing,
which
is frustrating. It does leave room for creativity
and for you to get new terms, and
new terms are not a bad thing. -No.
I just think
that we as, you know, humans
can be very imprecise
with the words we use, and and sometimes
that's cool that leaves some, like, leaves some
space to, like, do something. But when we're
talking about risk assessment and mitigation, when we're
talking about
what kink can be,
I think we have a duty to be
more careful with our words. It matters.
Mhmm.
But, you know, you you mentioned
the shades.
I mean Okay. That book ruined that fucking
expression. Okay. It's a good expression.
But Damn book. Yeah. Well, you know. I
mean,
you know, when that think about it. When
that book came out,
and it hit the popularity
that it did,
okay,
the community we were in at the time,
West Pasco.
The community leader
had a plan.
You had to. Had a plan to in
place because
all these people are gonna be coming into
the community
with
you know,
ideas that Sure. Aren't Right. Because it's because
kink is not a mainstream thing, and it
Right. It's still not mainstream. Some of the
language of kink has Become printed and gone
mainstream.
And I think that goes back to innocent
empath's post, which is by doing that, the
meaning can get stripped out of it. We
were talking about that when we were talking
about normalization versus trending. The context and the
meaning go away, and then by the time
humanity,
like, juggles it around and passes it back
and forth, now it seems to have a
completely different meaning that is not only
not useful
for the kink community it's kinda supposed to
serve, can be actively fucking harmful.
Do I think soft BDSM is actively harmful?
Probably not. But it certainly has the potential.
And it's imprecise to the point of being
kind of unhelpful
because
I think many kinksters, not all of course,
but depending on how long you've been kinky,
where you go to get your community
fixed, like
what spaces you're in.
You know, there's plenty of us who are
like soft, hard?
What are you it.
Yeah. Partly because there are plenty of people
that in some forms of play you'd probably
call it hard, you'd certainly call it edge
play, but in other ways that they play
it's definitely a gentler approach. It's softer, it's
less about this intensity and more about this,
you know, like,
we it's why I look at it and
go, I no. I'm yeah. Technically, by that
definition, I guess I'm soft, but I'm not.
I don't it doesn't it's not right. You
know? Or
you know, even more,
is this part of a shift
now
in in the community, in in the lifestyle
maybe,
as
the younger people are coming up, and and
they're,
you know,
taking it as their own, as as they
should, as they will. Right. That's the the
way it works. Of course. I mean, you
know, let let's look back to the,
oh God, the, the old
guard. Old guard. Old guard. Most people don't
even know what the hell that means anymore.
What that is anymore.
But that's where it all you know, where
a lot of this began. Mhmm. And it
looks nothing like that anymore. No. There are
pockets of it. People are like, I wanna
keep this going. Sure. Like, there are so
many different ways to express There there there
are, you know, and yes, there are there
are people who still trend to that, but
it it has branched
in so many ways.
And and maybe this,
you know, is is just that that shift
of growth that it's it's, you know, moving
into something else now.
I don't know if I can be heard
this far
Your dog was I know. She was she
was a wooing. I heard. I heard. So
here's the thing. I agree with you completely.
Mhmm.
Newer younger generations coming up,
people who are newer to kink and are
learning from different aspects
will bring in new language, new terms, have
every right to do that. This all shifts
all the time. Yeah. And I
have enough humility
to say that sometimes,
yeah, it's probably me being curmudgeonly
about a term.
Pleasure dom is is one of them. I
still don't like it,
but I'm never gonna tell somebody they can't
or shouldn't use it. That's a personal thing.
Same with soft and hard dom and tile.
The thing is is just because a younger
generation or a newer generation or, you know,
people who are new to kink bring in
new stuff. Not all of that is worth
keeping. Right? True. Because sometimes the stuff being
brought in is coming in
from a lack of experience, lack of knowledge,
lack of context. They just learned bad fucking
information on the Internet or
read something in a book or watched it
in a movie, went, well try it and
then everybody's in the fucking ER. Right?
There's a reason that there were plenty of
communities
online and in person that both for the
the publication of the 50 Shades
books and
the the release of the movies, they were
setting up,
like, newbie workshops and spaces to explain. Yeah.
All that shit you just saw I mean,
yeah. I guess you can, but no. That's
not how this works. This is how this
works. Because, of course, all those people were
coming in with preconceived notions based on this
one thing that they had seen. Yeah. So,
yes,
the language we use, the meanings of things,
the way we do things have to shift
and change over time to some extent. It
is why
safe, sane, and consensual is, like, not a
popular thing, and we are now on to
so many new things. I don't even I
can't remember the newest, like, acronym anymore because
it evolves. It's supposed to evolve. We are
supposed to get better at this. Mhmm. I'm
gonna, like, be
an old lady who wants everybody to get
off my fucking lawn
on terms that I think are too imprecise
and or do a disservice,
Right?
Soft
Right? Soft what is the what is the
purpose of soft versus hard? Right? Is it
to help people
find, you know, their path? Maybe. But we
personally have come across in this line of
work for a fucking decade,
too many people
who cannot just fit one path, one lane,
one box.
That is, I think, probably
not a scientist, I don't have the data
but I'm just guessing. That is probably a
more normal,
you know, variation that we all contain multitudes
and little bits and pieces of different things
are going to intrigue us. If what we're
saying is the new way is to start
yourself off on this lane, whether it's because
you're a beginner or that's just how, you
know, that's where you feel comfortable with,
One, you have the ability
to other other kinksters. It's already happening in
real time always. But when somebody says, oh,
I'm into soft kink and this is what
that means, my brain goes, is this your
version of one true way? There's a way
to be a kinkster. There's a way to
be a soft kinkster. Yeah. I I really
don't fucking love that word because
then I go back to my thoughts are
jumbled. I know y'all are shocked by that.
Then I go back to are we fucking
watering down
kink? Kink is transgressive.
Kink is supposed to be a little bit
from the outside looking in, deviant, fucking scary.
We many of us do shit that would
get the cops called on us if a
stranger saw it. I mean, it didn't have
context. Quite frankly,
sometimes we still do get the cops called
on us and they don't even care about
the context. Right. You know, that not all
kink is exactly that, but that is the
trope of kink.
The fact many of us, not all, but
enough,
have been raised to the idea that no
man nope. No woman should be submissive to
a man just because she's a woman. That
is fucking true always. But how many female
subs have to go through
the, like,
mental
hoops and twisting turning ourselves inside out to
go Mhmm. Oh my god. I'm breaking everything
my mother ever taught me about what it
means to be a woman.
I'm setting back feminism fifty years. Why? Because
even that is a little bit transgressive. The
whole rise of trad wives does not help.
It doesn't feel that,
transgressive
in TV.
So it's not just a specific type of
play, a specific attitude. It's it It's all
of it. Yeah. All of it. The reason
it's not vanilla is because it's not the
societal accepted air quote this is all subjective
air quote norm. Mhmm. Right? So why are
we gonna act like
within that, we still need to separate out?
It's all fucking kink. It's all kink, and
it's all our personal playground. Right? We figure
out who we are and what we like
and, you know, what we're interested in and
what we don't like and what sensations we
like and sometimes they're real intense. You can
get real intense pleasure to the point of
pain,
but that gets forgotten when we talk about
certain types of sensation. Is it soft if
I'm crying from all of the orgasms I've
just gotten? I don't know. Doesn't feel soft
in the moment.
Yeah. And that's that's where I come down
on certain terms. Not all. Not all.
And maybe
I said this I think either the pleasure
dome or the soft and the hard hard
dome. I can't remember which.
Maybe this is a thing where
the community over time needs to refine
the terms and or the definitions. Because right
now it's either so new or it's so
unused within the broader kink community
that I found one place that found a
definition that didn't make me
want to gouge my eyeballs out. One. Now
now see,
you know, like
Eva said, she she found the books entertaining.
Oh, well, we know plenty of people who
do.
And I read I read all the books,
and
I looked at them as
erotica. Sure.
I did not look at it as a
how to.
But you didn't
need it for that. Right. You didn't have
your kink awakening while reading those. Exactly.
You know, I I got it a different
way, and I knew enough that I'm I'm
reading that book, I've read
enough erotica and and other, you know. Yeah.
It's
pretty cool,
but it's
not the real deal. Sure. And too many
people took it
as a real deal. Part of that is
because
then, now,
God knows thirty, forty years ago and beyond,
it
BDSM is not as mainstream as it social
media will make you think things are mainstream.
They're still not. Okay? I have I gotta,
like, get my shit together in this, but
I got a whole, like, rant episode of
some of the ways I'm very tired of
how BDSM is portrayed in some of these
movies. It's probably the same thing we've always
said, but there's just some things watching these
movies lately. I'm just like, are you fucking
kidding me?
So even when BDSM gets a little bit
of airplay, it's not
usually
sometimes it is, but usually it's not exact
it doesn't exactly do us justice. Right?
So
if you
read or watch something like 50 Shades of
Grey and go holy shit, I'm really turned
on, and I'm like I'm down for that,
and I want to try that, but you
have never come across this in your life
in a way that doesn't make you go,
I think that's actually assault, and is what?
What is happening in this movie? Right?
Sidebar.
Movie night through our Discord that we do
every other month. There have been many times
I'm in the text chat because we're not
gonna interrupt my voice chat,
interrupt the movie with voice chat. I'm like
you know that'd be really sexy if there'd
been consent there. That kind of stuff, right?
If you're first
erotic
or interesting
or
this is not this doesn't make me feel
bad as a human. Peek into kink is
a book is a movie.
I don't like it but I understand why
people go okay I'll try that because that's
the thing that turned me on. That's the
thing, you know, I want to try because
that's the thing I was introduced to. Because
it's not like you can you can as
a, you know, somebody who doesn't know anything
about kink, non kinkster with no community, just
go to your Facebook page and go, hey,
does anybody know about this bondage thing? Like,
you're not most people are not gonna fucking
do that, right?
So, you know,
the lack of mainstreaming of kink in a
way that's actually healthy and helpful. It makes
sense why people read a book and then
think that's the thing I'm gonna do. And
Yeah.
Anybody's like, what the hell is that noise?
Ella is,
sniffing and,
getting very close to the microphone.
So as always, there's a shit ton of
nuance to this.
I think I think I can currently come
down on the not a fan of soft
kink,
hard kink, those those
divisions because I think for majority of people
they're kind they're meaningless
because one person soft is another person's hard,
one person's hard is another person soft.
Intensity
of player sensation, man, that's really subjective and
could change from scene to scene, day to
day, mood to mood. Right? Some days I
want it soft and fucking gentle and just,
like, be nice and rub my ass, daddy.
Sometimes I'm like, look. I want to question
if you actually like me. Okay?
And I know I'm not alone in that.
I know that from observation. I know that
from all these years talking to all of
y'all over time. You know?
So I'm not a fan of the term.
I don't think currently it's a term that
the larger BDSM community has adopted yet.
If you vibe with the term,
that's your right to fucking do that. I
would request
in
an effort to communicate clearly,
to
know yourself very well, that you
define it for yourself as clearly as you
can.
But also I beg of you, I beg
of anybody who picks a term or a
label or whatever, to understand that none of
us
you are not required to twist yourself into
knots to fit the fucking label. The label
has to fit you, and if it doesn't
fit then don't use it, right?
Don't pigeonhole yourself into something
and then somehow feel guilty or bad or
like you're doing kink wrong when you
sanitization, the
the sanit sanitization,
the mainstreaming, the watering down so that we
can talk about it on non in non
kink spaces
of these terms of kink that
bleeds into all of this in some way.
I don't have any direct correlations. I don't
have any, like, grand answers for how, but
I think that has something
to do with it a little bit. Mhmm.
You know? Because
I agree. We have entire platforms where you
cannot say or type certain words without getting
banned or blocked or kicked off or no
more monetization for you or whatever whatever whatever.
And that does change how we speak as
the general we. Right?
And how we communicate these things
then trickles down to people who are just
discovering it. And if that's their first introduction
to kink
and it's resonating with them, but they're using
words that the actual kink community who's living
the fucking life on some level is like,
what the fuck does this even mean?
It's unhelpful, but
that that's playing a part because
which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Which came first? The term
soft BDSM that somebody resonated with and then
went, shit. That doesn't actually mean anything. Let
me come up with a definition.
Or was that
kind of
grouping
of ways of being kinky out there and
there was just no term for it. Which
one was it? If it is somebody used
a term that resonated but there was no
actual definition and people are now trying to
make a definition,
that's gonna be imprecise until
a greater part of the community kind of
goes actually maybe
that's not the right word, maybe we switch
that term, let's tweak the definition, whatever whatever.
You know what I mean?
I just
That I think it's complicated. I'm not a
fan.
For all the semantic reasons, I can always
bitch about.
You know, one person's this is another person's
that, blah blah blah blah. You put yourself
into a box. It's not gonna fit eventually,
and then you're gonna be all like, what
am I even really? Then you're gonna be
in my inbox and I'm gonna do the,
don't worry. It's fine. We contain multitudes.
You know?
You don't have to keep the label you
picked on day one of kink. Like, most
many of us don't. Some people do, but
many of us really don't. It shifts it
more. It's kind of supposed to.
Yep. Good lord. If kink was all if
the kink life I was trying to live
today was what I first discovered on the
Internet in 2010,
first of all, I think I'd have a
lot more kinky sex. But I'm pretty sure
I'd be fucking miserable because that version of
kink I was finding and resonating with had
no sass,
had no, playfulness,
nobody was giggling. There was a lot of
sort of quiet,
unquestioning obedience.
Is anybody surprised? That's not quite my jam.
Right?
That's all I'm fucking saying. Yeah.
Any parting thoughts?
I ranted so hard my cheeks are really
hot right now. Got them rolling. They're very
red. I know. Yeah. I kinda think I
have rosacea, but I don't know that for
a fact because, health insurance does not cover
those kinds of dermatology
appointments, and I don't care enough to come
back home. But I think
I might. Anyway, that has nothing to do
with this. No. So,
you get to decide for yourself what you
think of soft BDSM. Yeah. I know.
Do you have a a a final thought
on the punctuation at the end of the
sentence on soft BDSM? No. Is it a
yeah what she said kind of deal? It
can be if you want it to be.
I mean, you know, it
it it kinda is what it is. I
You don't kinda care that much, do you?
No. Yeah. No. I'm I'm the word girl
who thinks blah blah blah blah. And I
get very heated over these I mean, like
like I said, I I think it, you
know,
from from my point of view, how I
see it,
you know, I I think it gives a
some can give people a false
Yes. Perception of what it is. Mhmm.
Mhmm. I agree.
So
anyhow
Okay. K?
Yeah. I'm sure somebody's pissed off at me.
It'll be okay. I'm I'm when I'm prepped
for it, it doesn't bother me when it
happens. So when I'm surprised by somebody's anger,
then I'm like, what?
So yeah. We can that's that on that,
and we can hoop on a section. Okay.
So are we good? I don't know. I
don't know.
Keep it kinky, y'all. And we'll see you
next week.
Howdy. Yes, baby girl. Can I talk to
the crickets? Sure.
Tayceu said, is this episode an attempt for
Kayla to keep her inbox clear?
You know, yes and no. Like,
I have a very weird, like,
way of looking at this.
On one hand hopefully I can articulate
this. On one hand,
I believe that part of
the journey of all this is to the
extent that you do like are, you know,
mitigate risk and are still alive at the
end of it, people are gonna walk through
this journey and you it's on the job
training when it comes to kink. You're learning
as you go, and that
tends to have the lessons that stick the
best. Right?
I'm also the type of person that's like,
I cannot protect everybody from themselves. It's just
impossible. Right?
And yet also I am desperate sometimes to
reach the person
who has
tied up their sense of self worth and
value as a kinkster
into
what other people tell them kink is supposed
to be. Right? Or what other people say
is the real way, the right way, the
true way. You know, here's this one simple
term they aren't they won't tell you about.
You know, you're kinky. Like that kind of
bullshit. Like I'm
desperate to kind of like find get to
those people and go, look, look, woah, woah,
you get to make this whatever the fuck
you want it to be. I can't tell
you what this is
because I don't know you and live your
life. Like, that's the other thing. When we
talk about this with many of y'all who
are you know, many of you have plenty
of experience of kink. You're very solid in
your kink life. You're, like, you're not looking
to do a lot of, like, big changes
or whatever.
I don't wanna tell you how I think
you should think about something. I wanna give
you the concept or the question that maybe
you had not thought about before. I'll give
you my thoughts all day every damn day.
But mostly what I want those folks to
walk away from this with is, oh, well,
what do I think about that? Sometimes the
answer is I actually don't give a fuck
and that's valid.
But sometimes it's, oh, I never thought of
it that way. Let me go off and
think about it, have a conversation with my
community or my partner or my whoever, and
then that's how people get to decide for
their fucking selves
what these things mean to them. That's what
I ultimately want for everybody, but there is
a part of me that is desperate to
get to those people
and to validate those people and to calm
the fears of those people who are like
I'm doing it all wrong. You're not. You're
not. Are you are you clearly communicating to
the best of your current abilities?
Are, you know, is consent
informed and enthusiastic
and clear?
Do you know that there are risks associated
what with what you're doing and how you're
gonna try your best to avoid them? After
that,
you're fine. You're fine. You're fine.
Just find your own fucking path, whatever it
is. I don't want anybody to copy me.
I don't know my own path. Some days
some days I'm like, I would like to
have this kink fantasy in my head. And
then I'm like, actually, no. I just want
that to stay right there, up there in
the noggin. I don't need that out in
real life. And some days I'm like, I
wanna be a sassy little baby girl. And
sometimes I'm like, I want you to make
me cry.
Who am I to tell you what your
King Clive should be?
I don't know.
Anyway,
so all that said no. I'm not trying
to keep my inbox clear because
it's gonna be in the Monday podcast, but
I think I should tell him myself
because of the inbox clear comment. Should I
tell him myself?
Your kinky friend
Kayla Lords is a dumbass.
Just put that on a shirt somewhere.
You made a mistake.
It's not the mistake. The mistake is fine.
It's what I put myself through.
We came off of hiatus for the Q
and A episodes. We did one and then
I'm sure if anybody actually listens or watches
those, you're like, where'd they go? We weren't
getting questions. We weren't getting questions. I was
like, I know that email inbox I'm using
is a little janky but I I've been
getting emails. I know it works on that.
I can't send from that email account. It's
very annoying. It's a mystery. Anyway.
So
but no emails are coming through. And I'm
like, I'm not gonna force it. If we
don't have emails, we just don't record
a video that week or record a podcast
episode. It's fine. It's fine.
But after a few weeks I was like,
does nobody want to ask us questions anymore?
I mean I'm a little sad about that.
Is are we should I not focus on
Q and As? Is that not working for
us? Do people not want them? And then
because I am who I am,
do they not like us anymore, y'all? I
know. It's a problem.
And then I'm in the back end of
the Loving BDSM
website and I'm like, why does this thing
have
59
notifications? I'm like, what the fuck is this?
It's not a part of the site I
look at very often.
I go. I click.
And first of all, the 59 was deceptive
because there were duplicates of a lot of
things. I was like, what the fuck is
this about? It was all of the messages
y'all have been sending through our contact page
for a month.
And there were many. There were several.
And I went, Oh.
We are liked. Okay. People do so and
ask us questions. Why do I like
bottle up my own sense of self worth
in that?
I have theories. It's whatever. It is a
problem. I know.
But then I also felt bad. I was
like, man, we haven't been recording Q and
A episodes. There are people going, when are
you gonna get to my fucking question? You
think you don't have questions? I sent a
question in. I found them. If you were
that person going, why aren't they doing questions?
I sent a question in. I found it.
We recorded one for next Monday. It's fine.
Oopsie.
So I mentioned it in the Monday episode,
and Silent,
on my long rant said from before this
rant, that was a very long complicated way
to say you do you,
boo. Look, if I'm not
making a simple
explanation longer, complicated,
windier,
and also like
more chaotic,
is it really me?
And Are You at the Loving BDSM podcast?
I don't think you are. And I don't
think it is. I think it's like somebody
else. Somebody who does this way better than
I do.
Silent asked, does that mean we have a
super mega three hour Q and A episode
coming up? Nope. Nope. Okay. But we I
do not have that kind of patience.
We get
weekly
short episodes again. Look, one, I like to
do this because we can answer more questions
and we I can practice being concise.
Thank God for editing.
Two,
it's because I know new people
are not gonna most new people are not
gonna take a chance on an hour and
a half
episode when they don't know who the fuck
we are or if they care about our
topic. But they might take a chance on
a ten to fifteen minute video. So
anyway.
That was my oopsie and also
my,
lack of self esteem was showing apparently.
I did this is way inside baseball kind
of thing. Why do I use sports metaphors
when I don't know shit about sportball?
Ball? I read an article recently about
people
individuals they were talking about, but in our
case it's like the two of us, who
make your brand, your content, your whatever about
you as the person when you were the
brand,
what that means is in the typical dips
of like engagement
or views or whatever whatever or when,
things aren't flowing as easily for you in
terms of ideas and and content and what
and whatever,
then when you make the brand
about you personally,
often, not always,
often means that when things aren't going well
or it's slowing down or it's difficult,
instead of saying, oh, let me tweak the
content. Let me see what's going on
externally,
you internalize that you were the problem. Now
JB, does he do it? Probably not. Maybe
a little bit. I don't know. Me? All
the time. All the time.
All the time. I cannot tell you the
amount of times I've gone, oh my god
nobody actually cared about that.
And not every idea you can have is
gonna be a good one. But I'm like,
wow nobody cared about that. And then I
go back later and go, oh it didn't
actually publish.
Okay. So maybe I should not assume
I'm the prop. I am the problem if
it didn't publish, but it's a different kind
of situation.
Oh, god. It's yeah.
Shit. I don't know if I need to
be medicated or just have a therapist. Probably
both.
So
what would what do you have for the
bonus section as I've run away with it
as usual? I I don't know at this
point.
I don't know. What do we have
coming up, going on?
What do we have coming up going on?
I don't I don't know.
I mean, next week,
the oldest has a concert Yes. We'll go
to. I think that'll be before next week's,
live stream. I think it's, like, Tuesday. I
think. Don't quote me on that.
We are having a nontraditional Thanksgiving, which we
will definitely talk about later in the month,
but I'm in the process of planning it
now. Yeah.
Are we breaking out the smoker? Basically gonna
be like a barbecue.
And when I say barbecue, I do not
mean, oh, we drag the grill out and
put some hamburgers and hot dogs. That's a
cookout.
Barbecue is something that's smoked,
seared, something. It's probably been in a brine
or it's been
coated in something,
whatever.
It's gonna cook for hours upon hours until
it melts in your hand.
That's a barbecue.
Homemade or jarred barbecue sauce is usually involved.
That's barbecue. Anything else? That's a cookout.
But you're doing a smoked pork what part
of the pork is that? The part of
the pig that is? Shoulder, I believe. Right.
Until it, like, falls apart.
I then went, you know, I could keep
it simple,
or I could lose my fucking mind.
I have,
a list and a chart of all the
sides I wanna do, mostly because and I
told Debbie this. I wanna cook once and
then get, like, three or four days off
where we just eat in leftovers or you
make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
because I'm done.
But also the oldest is has confirmed that
he is it's not confirmation. He said most
likely coming home for Thanksgiving and bringing,
his girlfriend.
So then I'm like, oh, guest in house?
We must
do the most and be so extra so
that
I look like I know how to interact
with strangers and be a hostess. I don't.
I don't.
But my mama did teach me
from the cradle
that when you have company, you feed them.
Nobody leaves that place
hungry. I do have to ask about allergies.
That's the one thing I keep forgetting.
So yeah.
And and are we gonna do that as
we're prepping for Black Friday, except will it
be a Black Friday? Because there's, you know,
chatter online about,
blackout. Blackout,
which Shopping blackout. Shopping blackout, which I get
and I respect, but also I'm like, but
we're just a small business trying to pay
our markets.
And and depends on who you hear talking
about it. Yeah.
You know,
some people are saying, oh, total blackout of
spending and, you know, others are saying, you
know, block out the corporations. Just the big
corporations. Right? So local shop small.
Please shop small this holiday season. Not just
I mean, you might not need a kink
toy. I get that, but if you have
the choice,
the small businesses were drowning over here. Y'all
were drowning.
So yeah. That's you know, it it it
depends who you see who's promoting it. So
Yeah. And I have not my algorithm has
not been feeding it to me a lot
lately, so I'm sure it's out there, but
we all literally have our own version of
the Internet depending on the app you use
and the algorithm you're on. Right. So
who knows? Who knows?
Anyhoo,
are we about done?
I mean, you know me. Once I get
started, I can keep going.
I don't know. I don't know. I was
hoping maybe the muscles are getting a little
tired tired. My cheeks are on fire.
They they are so hot, they hurt.
And I do have to use the restroom
because did I get the extra large diet
coke with lime from Wawa with my points?
Didn't pay a penny. Yes. I did. Yes.
I did. I need to jump in the
shower. But I did finish all of it
while sitting here.
Clean my neck up. As long as it's
just your neck. Just my neck. Mhmm. You
know
I know. We've had the conversation. That beard
lives there. You're allowed to trim it? I'll
trim it. One time he trimmed it too
short and I was like,
Red.
Andre asked, instead of candles, would you do
the wax in blocks? I wore mine in
jars in the crock pot. I have been
thinking about doing different ways of our wax
play,
wax.
The only thing that stopped me is that
I want to if we offer it, I
was hoping to
offer a way for people who do not
have
something already
to use. I was thinking, like,
off brand mini crock pots, if if I
could find those and, like, people could buy
that as a kit if they did not
already have it. Because I so here's why.
It wasn't a block I was thinking of.
I was looking at wax melts, and I
was also looking at
the fun shapes you can like the silicone
molds. I was like, what if I can
make cute little things and you pour those
cute little things in and
and I over I'm overthinking this, aren't you?
I'm overthinking it. Yeah.
Oh goodness.
But,
anyway. Yep.
So, yeah, we had our we had our,
apparently, we broke records with the cold weather
we've had here. Mhmm. But I think most
of the country has.
Yeah. I I think most of the country
was part of that arctic blast, or were
there some parts that were not? I don't
know. On and on. I just know I
was cold and I was so happy about
it. Mhmm. I've been a different woman. Pastor
I was I was actually gonna light a
fire in the backyard last night, but it
was way too windy for that. Yeah. I
know.
Maybe,
maybe tonight. Is it cold enough to warrant
that?
The way I feel about cold air is
the way JB feels about getting to legitimately
just light a fire just because not because
he's trying to burn wood, like, for the
burn barrel situation.
Anyway.
Nothing like sitting watching
a good fire.
Okay.
I support you in that endeavor. Thank you.
We should probably
go. Yeah. Yeah.
Because I have I have drunk this Diet
Coke, and now the Diet Coke is like,
hello? I'm ready to I'll race you.
I'm not above knocking an older
adult down
when necessary.
Anyway
Just remember there'd be re repercussions.
We're going now. Yep.
Okay.
Thanks for being here. Yep. Especially on the
bitter end. Mhmm.
That's all I got. Okay. Bye. Thanks, y'all.
Bye.