#68: Romance vs BDSM - Which is More Intimate?

In this episode, Harley Rabbit delves into the concept of intimacy within the kink and BDSM communities, challenging common misconceptions that equate kink with violence and degradation. Harley emphasizes that true intimacy in kink is built on trust, vulnerability, and open communication. The discussion explores various forms of intimacy that can arise in kink, including the exploration of personal limits and the importance of aftercare. Harley also shares personal experiences that highlight how kink can foster deeper connections and accelerate feelings of intimacy between partners.

If you are interested in exploring some CNC roleplays with a trusted partner, I am hosting an online workshop in October. You can get tickets here:

Beginner’s CNC Play for Couples Eventbrite (Book tickets)

Beginner's CNC Play for Couples (Fetlife Event)

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Transcript

Hey, hey friends, it is Harley Rabbit here. Welcome back to another episode of Turns Out I'm Into It, the show all about helping you discover your kinky self and live your best sex life. In today's episode, I want to talk about intimacy. Now, intimacy has been something that's been on my mind a lot lately for various reasons, which I'm sure I'll tell you about. But specifically today, I want to talk about how intimacy relates to kink

So a lot of people from the outside who may not have experienced much kink or BDSM before, they can see this world and think, like they see often the stereotypical image of a Dom and Sub, you know, dressed in leather

Often one person is being spanked or flogged. It feels very violent and degrading.

And they think this isn't what sex should be about. Sex is about love and connection and romance and, and, you know, showing your affection to each other.

Sex shouldn't be about violence. It shouldn't be about degradation. So this is often the way people view the world of kink from the outside. And I know, and I'm sure you know, if you're already part of this world, that this is a misunderstanding.

that kink actually involves a lot of intimacy, a lot of trust and a lot of connection. It's actually built on those very foundations. So that's what I wanna talk about today. Hopefully dispel some myths, put some anxieties to bed and really.

Get the message out there that kink is beautiful.

Okay.

All right, so before we jump into that, I've got a couple of things I wanted to mention. First of all, I am running a workshop in a couple of weeks. Very exciting. I'm running a workshop in, beginners C and C play for couples. So if you are interested in the,

genre of kink that we refer to as CNC, that is consensual non -consent play. And you would like to explore this with a trusted partner, then this workshop might be exactly what you need to give you some ideas about scenes, easy, practical scenes that you can set up with your partner, as well as we'll be talking about removing some common barriers, like

How do we bring this up with our partner that we have these desires? How do we talk about it? How do we plan and experience? What, what props and tools might we use? How do we keep each other safe?

So I've talked a lot about my experience with CNC on this podcast, but this workshop is really going to be putting all of that experience into action steps that you can take. If you would like to explore this kink in your own life. Now it is not, I've said it's for couples. The reason that I've said that is because we won't be covering things like vetting or finding a partner that's.

a whole other thing. It's a workshop in itself. So you're welcome to attend the workshop if you don't have a partner. But just know we won't be covering that side of things.

So that's going to be happening on, for me, it's Saturday, the 19th of October in the morning. I think it's 10 AM for me. That's Australian Eastern Standard Time. If you're in the States, I believe it will be Friday night, the 18th of October. If you're in Europe, it's going to be some horrible hour of the morning. I'm very sorry. But the good news is if you book yourself a ticket, there will be a replay. So if you can't attend the live recording, you'll be able to watch it later at a time that is.

much more convenient for you. if you'd like to grab yourself a ticket, you can find the link in the show notes. there's also a FetLife event page that I'll link there so you can read all about what's involved. and decide if that's something that you'd like to attend.

all right, the next thing that I want to talk about is a little bit of a life update. Just quickly, won't go, I won't spend too much time here, but I do like to let you guys know what's going on in my life. This podcast is all about being really personal and.

Sometimes what's going on in my life relates to you, so it might be good to know.

but in this case, I have been working on a second brand for my coaching business. So you guys are already very familiar with my Harley rabbit brand, which is my kink brand. It's where my passion is. It's where I get to talk about all my kinky explorations and I don't have to filter myself, which is wonderful. but I'm also in the process of building a more mainstream friendly brand. that will be a.

targeted at the more general population. and I'm calling that relationship and intimacy coaching. because as I've found out the world is very sex negative and anytime I mentioned the word sex in what I do, I come up against a whole bunch of brick walls. especially through payment gateways, through advertising. and you know, sometimes the people that need the support the most aren't

ready to even talk about sex yet.

So I'm creating a brand that is aimed at the mainstream audience, not so much the kink audience, but hopefully I'll be able to market to health professionals, doctors, physios,

even family lawyers. All of these people have clients that I'm pretty confident could use some support around intimacy and relationships. So another thing that I've been building lately. Which is great. It's really exciting. But it is also meaning I'm effectively building two businesses at once, which is a lot.

even by my standards.

The reason I'm telling you this is I am noticing that I'm feeling a little bit burnt out lately. I've been doing this podcast, I think for like 18 months straight. I know I've, I've missed an episode here or there occasionally. Often that's not because I haven't got around to making one. It's often because I've recorded an episode and pulled it, decided that it's not, it's not good enough to put out, which is.

really frustrating when that happens, but it is, it happens because I really care about this show and I really care about what I'm speaking about. So I always want to make sure that I'm delivering this content in the right way. And sometimes I get it wrong and it's not something I want to put out. So I miss weeks here and there, but essentially I have been recording an episode every week for the, for the last 18 months. And I think I need a little break.

if, if I do miss a week here and there, or maybe disappear for a little while, rest assured that I have no intention of stopping the show. I just might need to take a little bit of a break, as needed.

But I'll keep you updated on that anyway.

yeah, so essentially that's what's going on in my life at the moment, or some of what's going on. I'm actually framing this in a way that the vanilla brand is like my, it's going to be like my Bruce Wayne business, because I'm such a comic book nerd. I love the Batman analogy. So yeah, the vanilla brand is the Bruce Wayne business. That's the public facing.

shiny, squeaky clean image, very professional, very legitimate. And I'm calling the Harley Rabbit brand my Batman business, because I have to keep that one a bit more secret and a bit more in the shadows. But it's where...

my, the bulk of my passion is. yeah, unfortunately we live in a very, a sex negative world and a kink negative world. So anytime I mentioned that I'm a kink specialist, I end up closing a lot of doors for myself. So we'll be, we'll be sex and relationship. No, sorry, not sex. Can't say that word. We will be relationship and intimacy coach, Harley. And then we'll also have kink specialist Harley

the Harley Rabbit stuff, which is what you guys get. And honestly, this is where the most fun happens. All right, so that is a little update from me. Let's jump into today's episode.

So intimacy. Shall I get nice and close to the microphone? Record this in a little ASMR tone of voice. How does that sound? It's a nice and intimate.

let's not do that. The, what am I, what am I doing? I've lost my train of thought. Intimacy. Okay. So I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, which is why I thought I would do an episode on it. I've actually been writing a chapter in my book about intimacy and how it relates to BDSM. So

let's do a little experiment here. I'm going to ask you, when you think about intimacy, what comes to your mind? What are you picturing when you think about intimacy?

Is it being really close and connected to each other? Being really sweet? Maybe telling each other beautiful things? Maybe touching each other gently? All these things can be really intimate. And as a culture, we've really developed this... I want to say narrow view of what intimacy should look like. Okay, it's usually the romantic gestures.

The words of affection, the soft, gentle touch, that's intimate. But intimacy, I'm going to argue that intimacy can take a lot of different forms. And that's what I want to explore in this episode, how the many different ways intimacy can show up in Kingkin BDSM.

So when we think about exploring kink with a partner.

We're often sharing fantasies. We're having new experiences. We are.

revealing hidden parts of ourselves, hidden desires, hidden parts of our personality.

And sharing these things and exploring these things, I think, is a very intimate thing to do. It requires a lot of trust.

So when you think about how you operate in the world, if you're anything like me, and I think most people, you put on this really confident, happy, well put together exterior, right?

Where we're, we've got this shiny exterior of how we want to show up in the world. And it's a way that we can operate in the world and feel safe. Like we're going to be well received by other people.

And this is something we learn from very, very young, know, we, we learn how we learn behaviors that feel appropriate. learn behaviors that give us acceptance in our community.

But this, this side of us, while it may be a true part of us, it isn't all of us, right? Underneath that, there's all these different facets to our personality and who we are. And those, those parts of us, I'm going to call our hidden selves. And those are the parts that we often get to explore in kink.

parts of us that we aren't always so willing to share with the broader community.

And that takes trust and vulnerability, right?

Now I know that I talk about my submissive side pretty publicly, but I'd say most people don't do that. Most people don't have a kink podcast, where they broadcast all of this stuff. But even in saying that my submissive side, there's only a very few amount of people who actually get to see that, who actually get to interact with submissive Harley. and usually that's my partner Slade or it's with some trusted sexual partners that I have.

So when we let other people in, when we let other people see our kinky side, we are trusting them with that vulnerability. Right?

Now, when you think about a power dynamic, we'll just use dominance and submission as an example here. There's lots of different forms of power dynamic, broadly speaking, we'll use dominance and submission as an example. So within this dynamic where you're playing with someone, either they're going to dominate you or you're going to dominate them in this dynamic, there's a lot of trust going on from both partners,

So from the submissive side, it's obvious you're literally making yourself vulnerable, physically, like if, you're using restraints, but you're also emotionally and psychologically very vulnerable. So you're trusting this dominant to take care of you.

And in return for that, a dominant is placing a hell of a lot of trust in a submissive to communicate their boundaries. If that dominant does not want to cross this person's boundaries, and I'd hope that they don't want that, then they're trusting that submissive to be able to pipe up with a safe word if they need to, or communicate when something is feeling a bit off.

In a lot of cases, you know, PDSM agreements are not recognized in the law. So that dominant partner is also trusting the submissive that they're not going to incriminate them later. You know, this is something I worry about with my partner Slade. I want to make sure that the subs that he plays with are all really trustworthy and really,

you know, well enough in their mental health that they can assert their own boundaries. So hopefully nothing does go wrong, but if it does, that they can communicate that and they're not going to freak out and just blame him for it.

So there's a lot of trust in this dynamic both ways.

Okay. So we know that there's a lot of trust involved in BDSM. but that's not the trust on its own isn't intimacy, So next I want to talk about some different forms of intimacy, ways that it can show up in that you might not expect or recognize as intimacy.

So the first one I would say that often in BD$M we are pushing our limits. We're exploring our limits, both physically and psychologically. And when we push ourselves, we're discovering things about ourselves. We're learning how resilient we are. We're learning how powerful we are. So for example,

When, when Slade and I first met and we talked about pain, I told him that I'm not into pain. don't, no pain, please. I'm a total chicken. but a few weeks down the track when we started exploring impact play, there was a point where he was hitting me as hard as he could with his belt. And this we, we, we stepped this up slowly, right? There was definitely enthusiastic consent along that way.

But by the end of it, he's hitting me as hard as he can with his belt. And I'm thinking, holy shit, like I can take this. I was so proud of myself. Like aside from all the floaty goodness that comes with those scenes, I was so damn proud of myself because I discovered a part of me that was way stronger and way more resilient than I'd ever realized. And now I get to carry that with me forever. yeah, you think you can take me? I'm f*cking tougher than I look, right?

And that's awesome. And I got to discover that with Slade.

And I would say that that is really intimate when we're learning about our outer limits.

Especially if we're coming up against those limits and going, having to make that decision of whether we want to stop or whether we want to keep going or adjust. You know, these are really powerful places to be in our psyche. And we're getting to explore those with our partner in kink, which is fucking intimate, I would say.

So you might think about like from the outside, if we go back to where this podcast began, looking in from the outside, seeing someone doing an intense impact play scene, you might not think of that as intimate. You might see it as purely violent and about asserting power over another person. Or from the submissive perspective, you might see that as them wanting to be punished.

you know, in a non -healthy way. But hopefully that isn't what's going on.

But this scene is a consensual power exchange and an experience where the submissive is getting to explore their strengths and resilience. And the dominant is getting to explore their power and their capacity to dominate another human. That is something that a lot of the time we keep buried inside of us because we're taught that we shouldn't do that.

and yeah, generally speaking, we shouldn't be bringing our sadistic or dominant tendencies out into the real world and actually causing harm to other people. but in Kink, it can be really powerful to get to explore your power as a dominant. I assume. mean, I'm not, this I can't relate to personally. Maybe one day I would like to explore a dominant side, but I haven't found her yet.

but I see it in Slade. see him being this patient, beautiful, kind man who's very gentle and loving. and kindness is one of his, you know, biggest values in the way he likes to interact with the world. But he has this powerful, mean, sadistic side that is fucking sexy. And it gives him this very different energy, this dangerous, powerful energy.

So he's getting to explore that with me and he's trusting me and feel safe with me to do that with me, right?

So that is a beautiful form of intimacy.

exploring our hidden selves, those parts of us that we don't always present to the world.

and exploring and experiencing our limits and boundaries.

feeling where the edges are, right?

So these are deep forms of intimacy that look very different from a romantic candlelit Or a soft gentle hug.

But we do also have this gentleness in Kink that again is often not always something people see from the outside and that's in the aftercare. So this for Slade and I has always been one of our favorite aspects of a scene is that we go through this intense experience together. It's very serious for us. This is how we play. It's usually very serious, a bit scary and frightening and there's lots of deep

powerful emotions going on. There might be, we might be getting lost in some elaborate fantasy. That's often where my brain goes. We might've just been exploring pain or degradation. And after all of that is done and the scene is over, then we get to reconnect. And our aftercare looks very, very different from our kinky scenes. So...

We contrast all of that seriousness with, like our aftercare is usually very light and we're usually giggling, we're reflecting on the scene, like, I can't believe you did that. I'm like, my God, me either. How did that feel? example I gave in my book that I don't know if I'll keep it, but I'll, it was the first example that came to me was,

early on when Slade and I were exploring, he just suddenly spat in my mouth. in the scene, I was just like, whoa, like really in this degradation head space. And it was really fun. But afterwards in the aftercare, I was like, I can't believe you spat in my mouth. And he's like, I know, I can't believe I did that either. Like, was that, was that okay that I did that? And I was like,

It was disgusting, but I think I was into it. Like, yeah, I liked it. I don't know why, but Kinky Mee liked it. Don't do that when we're in, vanilla head space, but Kinky Mee was into it. Turns out I'm into it. So this is what our aftercare is like. It's usually giggly, fun chats, debriefing about the scene. The first thing I usually want to do is turn the lights on so that I can see Slade's face and

feel like, you know, this is the man that I love and the man I feel safe with, can let those fantasies dissipate. and we can go through that process of reconnection. There's also lots of cuddling and you know, light tickles and like, I say tickles, but I mean, light touches, you know, when it sort of feels really nice.

Yeah, so the aftercare is often a place of deep intimacy and connection for us.

And that wouldn't happen without the kink scene that comes before it, right?

Now I would completely attribute Slade and I's kink dynamic and our kink play as being the reason why we became so close so quickly. I've never had that happen with a partner who I didn't have a kink relationship with. And you know, when when Slade and I first got together, it was only ever supposed to be a kink dynamic, a dom sub dynamic, but we accidentally fell in love with each other to our surprise.

but I attribute that to the kink play, know, kink forces us to communicate. We have to be really open about our desires and about our limitations, our boundaries. All of that stuff is really important. the first day I met Slade, I had to tell him that I wanted to get, I wanted him to get really forcey with me. And even that, like that feels like nothing now, but at the time.

That felt really scary to share with someone. And there was other, you know, relationships I'd been in prior, sexual relationships where we'd never discussed what our desires were. You just kind of had to guess. So kink is amazing for creating this foundation of communication, which is, I think does a lot for the intimacy and fulfillment of the relationship.

but beyond just communicating, when I was letting this man who I'd known for a week or so literally tie me up in his apartment, that took a lot of trust. And I was using my best instincts there to, to gauge that he was safe to do that with. And I was right. but there's always a risk. You never know.

But That quickly created a deep bond in our relationship where, you know, if you trust someone and that is, that trust is rewarded by a person respecting your boundaries about when a person is, is sharing in your fantasies.

and sharing this play together, that they're placing your wellbeing as their first priority during that play. that gives them an opportunity to demonstrate just how much they care about you and how much they are worthy of your trust. So very, very quickly, we're able to accelerate these feelings of trust and connection. And for us, we ended up falling very deeply in love very, quickly.

So it's almost like kink scenes can accelerate that process because they are so intimate, you know?

Now, so a mainstream culture, it conditions us to associate intimacy with romance and, sweet words of affection and candlelit dinners and stuff. And I don't want to take anything away from that. That can definitely feel really intimate, in kink...

I feel like we're taking bigger risks,

It feels, it's really safe to.

tell someone you think they're beautiful. Because you know that that's culturally an acceptable thing to say, and they're probably going to react positively to that, right? There's not a lot of risk or vulnerability in saying, I think you're beautiful. But there's a hell of a lot of risk and vulnerability in saying, I would like you to tie me up and sit on my face, you know, or whatever your fantasy is.

would like you to put a ball gag in my mouth.

I would like you to have sex with me in the car while strangers watch. You know, whatever your kink is or whatever your fantasy is, asking for that takes a lot of vulnerability. There's a lot of risk there.

And that's why I think BDSM I would argue that it has more in a lot of cases, more intimacy than more traditional vanilla relationships. I don't want to shame vanilla relationships because not everyone's kinky and that's completely fine. But just because of the way the world is and the way that vanilla is very acceptable, there's less risk involved and there's less vulnerability involved.

As I'm saying that, I can hear people being like, hey, it's still really vulnerable to tell someone that you love them or you have feelings for them. Yes, it is. Absolutely. All relationships involve vulnerability. All the ones that count anyway. Like that's, that's what we're here for. That's what intimacy is. which is a great way to segue into my last point, which is.

kink relationships are built on trust, vulnerability, mutual respect, honesty.

and care, right? And these are the exact same values that romantic, more vanilla relationships are built on.

They're both the same in that respect because they both involve a lot of intimacy.

So I don't want you to think that if you are wanting to explore kink or you want to change your existing dynamic, I don't want you to think that you're giving up on intimacy.

it's not about exchanging intimacy for degradation, for example.

If you are wanting to explore kink or bring that into an existing relationship, you're going to need all of that intimacy, even more than you're used to. You're going to need so much trust and so much vulnerability and so much openness and care for each other.

If you're in a kink dynamic that doesn't have those things, I would call that a serious red flag. Cause I think these values are absolutely at the heart of kink, just as they should be at the heart of any relationship.

Okay. Is that, is that resonating? Is that making sense? This is a very important, probably one of the most important things to know about this world going in. Cause if it's not there, you, that's where you start to see the, the red flags and know when people are in this world for the wrong reasons. If they're, if they're wanting to dominate you to exert their power over you.

just to satisfy their own ego or their own insecurities. That's not a safe place to be. Okay.

same goes for the other way around. If, if you're dominant and a submissive wants you to fulfill their submissive fantasies and doesn't give a shit about your, your boundaries or your desires, then that experience is going to be really unfulfilling.

We need that connection. We need to care about each other. All right. I think I've made my point. Hopefully some of that resonated. If you have any thoughts or comments or you want to add anything to this discussion, please feel free to send me a text message. I always forget that I have this feature now in the show notes. You should be able to click a link. It says send us a text.

and you can send me your thoughts. I mean, I, the only thing with it is that I can't respond to you. but I might, if it's particularly relevant, I might respond on the show. but otherwise you'll still be able to give me your thoughts. And that's really good for me. It's, it's great for me to get your feedback, to hear about how these episodes are landing for you. it can feel very one -sided from my perspective. Sometimes I'm just speaking out into the void.

so if you've got any thoughts or comments, please, please send me a text and, I'll really appreciate that. All right. That is it for today's episode. hope you're having a wonderful day or evening wherever you are in the world. just quick reminder once again.

The, the CNC workshop, if you're interested in attending, you can grab a ticket by clicking the link in the show notes. that's going to be a really fun day. So, and I know that you'll get a lot out of it if, if, if CNC is something that you're interested in exploring. All right, till next time friends, play safe, have fun, and I will catch you soon.