Musings about recent "kink as a minor" advice page

[bikinksterboy]

so I noticed, in one of the recent advice articles, you had someone asking about learning about kink as a minor, and while the response given was excellent for an all-around understanding, I feel like implicit in that question was some level of specific know how that literally is on mostly 18+ websites/blogs. ie how to safely tie ropes and use restraints, etc. the technical side. As well as like, discussions on how to safely do scenes and such in detail and getting into the nitty gritty beyond the general requirements of consent, communication etc which of course are super important no matter what you're doing but still not the same as specific advice/resources. which again are somewhat covered by this site but naturally will be limited by legal requirements and not wanting to be a "this is how you do X" sort of thing. Idk, maybe I'm just rambling here.

[bikinksterboy]

on the topic of kink, dang I really regret this username, is it possible to change it?

[bikinksterboy]

not so much regret as embarrassment... not fully committed to ditching the handle yet

[Andy]

Hi there!

Others might have some thought to add to your first post, but as for the username, you can change it anytime you want in your profile setting!

[Sam W]

Hi bikinksterboy,

So, since that piece was mine, I can offer a little context on why I chose to answer it the way I did. Part of it is, as you noted, is due to the fact that we don't tend to give step by step or really detailed instructions on how to do specific, sexual things. The main reason for that is we don't tend to give step by step instructions on how to anything that isn't, say, putting on a condom correctly or otherwise related to safety. That's part of why I included the links I did at the bottom, since those go to pieces on our site where we do talk about the safety elements of things like bondage.

More broadly, when we choose advice columns we choose ones where they're going to be relevant to a wider audience than just the asker, and I chose those because I'd been seeing more and more questions here and elsewhere from people about exploring kink as a minor. And, importantly, I wanted to address several patterns I'd noticed in those conversations: the tendency to assume there's a hard line between "kinky" and "not kinky" sexual activities, the trying to use kink and related terms as short-cut around actual conversations with partners, and the fact that many users were falling into the trap of kink being something they had to do "right" rather than it being a liberating idea that encouraged play and exploration.

Not only did I want to address those things for users and readers of the site, I also wanted to write them because how-tos on kink are actually pretty ubiquitous, whereas I haven't seen as many pieces of writing that touch on those other elements.