Every once in a while I get an email or a comment from some pathetic fucking mouthbreather who has some absolutely shocking news for me. I would never in a bazillion years have guessed what they told me.

Are you ready? Make sure you’re not eating anything, you could choke on it when you gasp in shock.

Okay, here goes: I’m not very nice!

It’s okay, it was a huge shock to me too. I don’t know how I managed to write over 90,000 words (according to the Word Stats plugin, anyway), without figuring it out, but you know, I am only a girl. Clearly I can’t be all that bright.

The truly sad part is why these snivelling manchildren felt compelled to tell me what a big meanypants mcpoopyhead I am: apparently if I were just nicer, more people would listen to me. That’s some idiotic bullshit for so many reasons.

First of all, people who don’t like what you have to say will always, always find an excuse not to listen to you. There is absolutely no level of niceness that will make a racist shitstain, for example, listen when you say that maybe cops should stop murdering black people. It’s not your level of niceness that’s preventing them from listening to you, it’s their racism. Given that simple fact, where exactly is my motivation to tiptoe around asshole’s poor hurt fee-fees? If you don’t like the way I write, don’t read my blog. There are only around 74 million other sites on wordpress alone (not all of those are necessarily blogs, but it seems pretty likely that a large portion of them are).

Also, it’s just funny that (so far) I’ve only heard this particular brand of whining from men. I thought women were supposed to be the emotional ones, and here you little shits are crying that reading a few swearwords is so awful that you couldn’t possibly be expected to see my actual point. Which one of us is being emotional again?

Second, I fucking know my writing isn’t for everyone. If I gave a flying fuck at at a rolling donut about this wider audience that I’m supposedly alienating (you know, the ones who wouldn’t listen to me anyway), I would already have changed the way I write. People, I’ve been writing this way since 2011. You can safely assume that either I’m happy with the results I’m getting or that I’m too stupid to understand the connection between cause and effect, in which case nothing you say is going to make a difference. In both cases, it’s pretty fucking clear that your message is about you, not about me. You know where things that are about you go? That’s right, on your own fucking blog!

Third, it’s like none of these people have ever read the goddamn blog they’re whining about. How on earth do you read a post like “Forced” Feminization and think that I’m going to give a shit if you don’t like me? Or my post about cuckolding? Or my post about how there are clearly too many women on Fetlife? Or my post about dumbinants behaving badly? Or basically anything I’ve ever fucking written? If you’re going to waste time whining and crying about a blog post, actually reading it first is literally the least you can do. If you paid any attention to the awful nasty words on the page, you would be able to figure out that I’m not here to be liked. My blog is for me, not for you. I allow comments because most of my commentors have interesting things to add, not because you have any sort of right to squirt your verbal diarrhea on my blog and expect me to leave it there.

Finally, it’s just unbelievably pathetic to whine about my tone and pretend it is, ever has been, or ever will be about some imaginary failure to get my point across. That particular flavour of horseshit is well known as concern trolling, and it is fooling absolutely no one. Honestly, I’d respect you little shits more (not much, but more than I do now) if you would just fucking admit that I make you uncomfortable and you want me to shut up. We all know that’s what this is really about. You’re talking about what a big poopyhead I am because you don’t have anything even vaguely resembling an argument and you fucking know it. If you really care about my point getting out to people who are such pathetic little babies that they can’t deal with a woman who won’t kiss their asses, you are absolutely free to write your own “nicer” (read, watered down to the point of blatant asskissing) post inspired by mine. We all know you won’t, because that would imply I have something worthwhile to say, but there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from posting your own “niceified” versions of my posts.

Again, for the those in the back: I know not everyone will like my writing style. I don’t fucking care. Neither do you, if you’re honest. Just admit I make you uncomfortable and if you absolutely have to whine about it, do it on your own blog and don’t waste my time.

I cannot fucking believe the bullshit some sadists pull. A reader going by the name Sean left kind of a horrifying comment on my post “Submissive != Masochist, Dominant != Sadist“:

Yes! Great post and this is a huge problem. I am NOT a masochist. Personally I am an anti masochist, I am really really really turned off by someone intentionally inflicting pain on me. I see it as someone harming me on purpose. I AM submissive and would love to find a dominant partner – but I can’t. I live in SF Bay area so you would think I could. Finding a dominant non sadist female is nearly impossible.

So then the problem boils down to getting a dominant sadist female that is willing to put limits on themselves during our sessions. This turns out to be very hard. I have ‘hard limits’ which are written and spoken and reviewed prior to any session. So far they have been violated every single time I have had a session. The dominant usually has a very dismissive attitude about these violations. They are sadists after all so it is logical that they don’t feel bad about inflicting pain or marking my body even though those activities are not consensual.

At this point I have stopped having sessions because I can’t find a partner. Not sure what I should do, and it is very frustrating.

I already left a ragey reply, but I’d like to go into more detail and I’d like to publicize my feelings on this bullshit as widely as possible.

It is absolutely never okay to do anything to a person that they didn’t consent to before the scene started (consent alone is not necessarily enough, but that’s a separate post. The short version is that ideally everyone should feel good about what they did after the scene, regardless of what they gave permission for). Sadism is not, never has been, and never will be an excuse to ignore people’s limits. Sadists are human beings, not the kinky version of boner werewolves. We absolutely can and should be expected to control our own behavior or to remove ourselves from situations where we may not be able to maintain control. This is literally the least you can expect from a decent human being.

It doesn’t fucking matter if you’re kinky, you do not do anything to anyone without their consent. The idea that it’s normal or acceptable for sadists not to respect your limits is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing special about sadists or about any other kinky person that somehow magically makes it okay for them to act like complete assholes.

It just makes me so angry that people have outright lied to this poor guy about what it means to be a sadist. Being a sadist only means that you derive some sort of pleasure (not necessarily sexual) from inflicting pain. It absolutely does not mean that you lack the most rudimentary set of ethics that would prevent you from hurting people without their enthusiastic consent. The word for that kind of behavior is sociopath, not sadist (which is not to say that sociopaths are never sadistic). It is unbelievably creepy to hear that this commentor has been playing with people who don’t see him as a human being and don’t even see anything wrong with their obviously reprehensible behaviour.

What the hell is going on in the kink scene that makes anyone think this is okay? As a community we have profoundly failed Sean, who should never ever have thought it was reasonable for people to ignore his limits. We have failed everyone else who has come into contact with the kind of assholes who ignore people’s limits if they’re not convenient. We may have even failed the assholes in that there is some chance they mean well but have been told that real doms do x, real subs always want y, and not to pay too much attention to what any given person actually says about what they want. I still think you’re a jerk if you ignore the actual human being in front of you in favour of some bullshit you’ve been told about how to treat s-types, but there is a lot of terrible information out there and even well meaning people can fuck up pretty badly if they’re told they need to act a certain way to be acknowledged as a real dom.

Just to be totally clear, here is how a sadist who is also a decent human being behaves when they want to play with someone who isn’t interested in receiving pain for whatever reason: they don’t inflict pain on that person. It’s that simple. Either you negotiate a scene involving some of the many many fun things that don’t involve pain, or you decide the two of you are not a good fit and don’t play.

If you like inflicting pain and don’t care to have scenes without it, that’s totally fine. I personally don’t do a lot of scenes that don’t involve pain because I really fucking like hurting people who want me to hurt them. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have the kind of scene that best suits you, but godfuckingdammit you respect people’s limits when you have that scene.

“Being kinky is not a substitute for being interesting.” I came across that brilliant tumblr post the other day and it perfectly sums up what I mean when I ask kinky people, particularly submissive men, what they have to offer a potential partner. As an aside, I understand and agree with complaints that insisting submissive guys exchange service for domination implies that they aren’t desirable in and off themselves, which is totally wrong and more than a little douchey, but that’s a separate blog post.

In this post, I want to talk about how little being kinky means in terms of making people want to spend time with you. Everybody who likes to hang out with boring people, raise your hand. Oh, nobody? There’s a shock. What about self-centered people, who likes hanging out with them? Or people who are obsessed with one topic and won’t talk about anything else? Huh, I think I’m seeing a trend here. Now, what do you suppose happens if you’re both boring and kinky? That’s right, you’re still boring. Okay, what about being self-centered and kinky? Still self-centered. Or obsessed with one topic to the point you don’t notice or care that the person you’re talking with would rather gnaw off a limb than spend another minute with you? Sadly, for no few people that is being kinky.

That’s why I ask what people have to offer when they talk about how hard it is to find a partner. It’s simply not enough to just be kinky. You and about a million other people have a foot fetish or a latex fetish or a medical fetish, that doesn’t make you special. There are so many more interesting things about you, so I don’t understand why people harp on this one thing that is frankly not that interesting. I mean, sooner or later, no matter how kinky you are, you need to do some laundry and make dinner. If you aren’t worth hanging out with while we do that, why on earth would I give a shit what kinks you like?

If you want friends, or play partners, or a casual relationship, or a long-term relationship, you have to have something to offer. Not free labour, not money, not an extraordinary level of physical attractiveness, but the pleasure of your company.

So many times I see people act like they think being kinky really is a substitute for being interesting, and it makes me sad. More precisely, acting surprised that being kinky isn’t a substitute for being interesting makes me sad for humanity. It is simply not that hard to be interesting. Just talk about something you care about. When people do that, they’re pretty reliably interesting. Not everyone will have the same interests but at least they’ll know there’s a person in there, not just a black hole of need.

If you can’t even manage that, then I have to assume that either you’re so ashamed of your kink that you treat it like a dirty little secret that can never touch any other part of your life, or that you are so monumentally self-centered that it never occurred to you that other kinky people are in fact people, not malfunctioning kink vending machines. Do either of those sound like the impression you want to give when you’re looking for friends or a partner?

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to start presenting a new image if that’s not what you want people to think. Just start acting like a human fucking being with interests and hopes and favourite movies and hobbies. Seriously, it’s not that hard. Everybody is interested in something. Even if all you do is go to work and come home so tired all you can stand to do is sit down on the couch and watch tv, you can still talk about your favourite shows. Or even shows you wanted to like but really disappointed you. Or shows that haven’t come out yet that you’re looking forward to. Just please for the love of god talk to people about literally anything other than what they can do to get you off.

I know I rag on submissive guys a lot, but this applies just as much to doms. If you meet a dom and she expects you to treat her like god’s gift to men just because she’s willing to put on some latex and swing a riding crop, don’t waste time on her. Really and truly, you deserve someone who will relate to you like you’re a human being. If she expects to be worshipped just for showing up, don’t waste time on her. If she expects money for spending time with you and isn’t totally up front about being a pro, run from that fucking scammer. If she expects total devotion from the instant she meets you just because she calls herself dominant, she’s kind of an asshole. Simply being kinky does not mean a dom is a good person, it does not mean they’re right for you, it does not mean they can meet your needs.

No matter how you identify, you have the right to hold out for a partner who you actually like, who has good qualities and an interest in you beyond your ability to get them off. I promise you a shitty relationship is not better than no relationship at all.

I keep thinking about that last point from the writing I was mocking in my post Dumbinants behaving badly: 4. Understand the M/s D/s is most definitely NOT about how you [the submissive] dictate how you want everything. If a dom looking for a submissive wrote about how their submissive will “do things my way or  I’ll uncollar them and find someone who will”, nobody would bat an eye. We take it as given that doms have the right to insist on getting their needs met in a relationship, but somehow it’s the end of the world when subs do the exact same thing? Funny, I thought subs were people and had the exact same human rights as doms. Why the fuck shouldn’t they leave a relationship that doesn’t meet their needs?

The idea that people stop having rights because of how they like to get their kink on is just ridiculous. We would never say that latex fetishists are allowed to make demands but leather fetishists aren’t, so why do we act like it’s remotely reasonable to expect s-types to passively accept whatever a dom chooses to give them? Sure, submission in a relationship involves giving your chosen dominant a certain (negotiated!) amount of authority, but that’s very very different from how a reasonable person with any self-preservation instincts should be expected to act toward people they aren’t in a relationship with. I say should because only total assholes would expect expect submissive people to indiscriminately submit to everyone around them.

And don’t we also say that s-types need to be extremely careful about getting to know their partners before they submit, and that they need to advocate for themselves because they can’t count on anyone else doing it for them? Again, what exactly is unfair about submissive people bluntly stating their needs up front? As a big fan of the “scare them off as soon as possible” school of dating, I think the kindest thing you can do for potential partners is tell them about all of your potential dealbreakers as soon as possible (keeping your own safety in mind, of course. Trans women, for example, have no obligation whatsoever to disclose that potential dealbreaker at the potential cost of their own lives). If you’re the kind of pathetic overgrown child dom who can’t deal with s-types who expect to be treated like people, wouldn’t you want to know sooner rather than later that someone is completely and utterly incompatible with you?

Of course, that does assume that said overgrown children can handle basic logic, which is probably giving them too much credit. What they really seem to want is for no submissive ever to feel able to reject them. To be clear, that’s unbelievably pathetic. Nobody enjoys rejection, but if you can’t handle things not going exactly the way you want them to, maybe rethink this whole “dominant” thing. If you want to be a dom, you have a responsibility to keep your shit together when things you don’t enjoy happen, whether that’s a scene going off the rails, your submissive having a shitty day and wrecking your plans, or having a shitty day yourself and wrecking your own plans. If you can’t handle so much as a goddamn Fetlife writing from an s-type saying that they’ll leave a relationship that doesn’t work for them, then I think you have some work to do before you get any ideas about running someone else’s life.

It’s probably not going to surprise anyone that I have a theory about why some doms get so freaked out about submissive people acting like they have basic human rights. I think it’s closely related to the assumption that submission is inherently feminine. Doesn’t the dom who can’t deal with subs having standards sound just like the straight guy who can’t deal with women having standards?

In both cases, I think the solution is the same. GROW UP. I say that not because I have any illusions that the people who need to grow up will do so, but because I think that some people who might otherwise take their cues from sad bastards like that might be able to see reason. If you can’t inspire someone to submit to you on your own, all the whining and crying about how submissives who demand doms who meet their needs are great big poopy heads is just going to make you look more pathetic. Real grownups can deal with people they’re attracted to not being compatible with them. It sucks, but the answer is never ever ever that no one should be allowed to reject you.

Submission is only meaningful if your submissive could tell you to fuck off but chooses not to. If they can’t choose, it’s slavery. We all know that for-real slavery is not okay, right?

Doms, we have two choices. We can admit that submissive people are human beings with the exact same rights we have, or we can admit that we are such sad fucks that we would never get any play if we couldn’t convince s-types they don’t have a choice. Not much of a choice, is it.