Who am I and why am I writing this?

The first thing I need to do is explain two terms which I’ll be using a lot here: kink and disability. Honestly in many ways, I don’t want to try to define either of these terms. For one, I don’t want to be locked into specific areas of consideration, nor do I want someone with differing views on these terms to think what I have to say doesn’t apply to them. With that in mind, these are simply snapshots of these areas in my life and I reserve the right to reassess my situation at any moment, without regards to what I’ve written before; I fully acknowledge that your point of view may be different, etc.

I’ve been involved with kink to some degree for most of my adult life, and even some of my pre-adult experiences (with partners of my own age, thank you) were distinctly kinky. (You can find a link to my FetLife profile in the ‘About’ section of this blog.) I started with some basic bondage and impact play, progressing up to heavier sensation play, more involved bondage, power exchange, and electrical toys. I am a switch, leaning towards submissive, and a bit of a pain slut. I will no doubt discuss other specifics as I continue to post. I am also polyamorous, and bi/pan-sexual. While these last two aren’t directly related to kink, they do sometimes raise some issues with my health care. Suffice it to say, that while a large focus of this blog may be on kink in the BDSM sense of the word, I’ll be talking about some aspects of other non-standard sexuality as well.

Oddly enough, it’s much harder to talk about my disabilities, or those of my partners, than it is to talk about even fairly intimate details of my sexual activities or my relationship dynamics. Part of this is that so far, I’m not classified as disabled nor do I have too many limitations right now. However, I know how my body has changed over even the last decade and I can see some of the ways this might affect our activities in the future. My most noticeable problem is that I’m diabetic, which leads into some of my other limitations – joint pain and limited mobility in one shoulder; these are caused by ligament deterioration related to my diabetes. I also have some arthritis, but it’s often difficult to tell the difference between this and the ligament problems. Additionally, one of my partners is legally blind, another has physical limitations due to a heart attack, and another has tinnitus and may yet lose more of her hearing. Add more problems with diabetes, general joint issues, and other smaller limitations, and while none of us are severely disabled, we’ve got enough minor to moderate issues to make us more than pay attention to the future.

I intend to write about physical and emotional aspects of dealing with these limitations as well as interactions with my health care providers where sexuality becomes an issue. I will address questions about the complications that my conditions, as well as those of my partners, raise — including why we won’t (or shouldn’t) do certain things. If readers are willing to send me questions, I will certainly do my best to answer them, although please do keep in mind that I am not a doctor and any “answers” I provide to such questions should always be taken with that caveat. I will also seek out other kinksters will disabilities and conduct interviews to see how they deal with their issues.

Finally, if you’re looking for an in-depth discussion of kink solely for puerile interests, there are really much better sources out there. I’ll even recommend some for you, should you desire. I will undoubtedly talk about specific kink activities from time to time, else it’ll be difficult to discuss how they relate to disability issues in any but the most general terms: “We couldn’t do that certain thing we wanted to try because of my arthritis issue.” Yeah. Although it might be interesting just to see how far I can get in describing what might be bondage, but then again might just be a trip to the grocery store …