Trigger Warning: Mentions of BDSM, sex, sexual power dynamics, pedophilia, rape and sexual assault
encounters. Although BDSM generally encapsulates all things kinky, it does it in a way that puts safety and happiness as the priority, before any sexual desires even start being discussed (ideally, that is).
I’ve been thinking about the domain of the BDSM community for a while now, and I do understand the appeal. The community of BDSM (traditionally standing for bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) comes with the promise of openness and understanding that is comforting to a lot of women, especially those who have experienced sexual assault. The reassurances of safety and open communication are upheld widely in the community, as well as the importance of aftercare for survivors, something that is foreign outside of most BDSM
I recently started questioning the power dynamics within the BDSM sphere and so I took to the wonderfully frightening world of NSFW (not safe for work) Twitter to see where it would lead me (reminder: stop throwing myself into researching things that I know are going to emotionally destroy me).
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The BDSM community is rife on Twitter. I don’t know when Twitter became so sexy, but apparently, Twitter is the new Tumblr. Underneath all the soft-core porn and sloppy make-out gifs are an abundance of submissives often looking for dominants to be their counterparts. And there are a lot of them, hundreds
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