Interesting point about blaming religion being an easy out, I’ll have to chew on that.

Frankly, I’ve always thought religion to be an easy out for a lot of things, not just this.

I can see why you’d want to make that point on religion clear. In case it’s a concern, know that I didn’t actually infer any religious content from your description of events, I just played with a Jewish idea brought up by your commenters (or is it more universal than that?). But more clarity is always a good thing. Interesting point about blaming religion being an easy out, I’ll have to chew on that.

Were I more serious about religion than your average atheist-Jew, I’d take it as a point of pride that there are respected ancient writings discussing how much sex a Jewish husband is required (not allowed, required) to have with his wife, depending on his career and other obligations. Apparently back in the day if you were out of work for a while, you were basically on call. But I don’t think those texts address kink, I’ll have to check.

I’m reading all this recent stuff and am not sure what to say, other than that I’m glad you’ve been finding the positives, the support, the love.

The point is, ironically, religious authority has declared you’re doing Good with a capital G. Here’s to hoping a time will come when no one has a problem saying that without any irony.

The irony of this is indeed poignant.

I think I should clarify, however, that at no point was I accused or spoken to from a religious perspective. My family is not religious.

I think that the automatic assumption many of us have that all of our sexual censors are objecting over religious grounds is an easy out. Too often it’s a way we give ourselves of dismissing the opinions of others.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I should also clarify that through out this process my family member has demonstrated an encouraging and open attitude towards sex. We struggled (and are still struggling over) the issues of pain and consent.

Juliet-

Outness, and particularly family outness, is very tough. I may have/choose to out myself (as kinky) to my parents sometime soon (due to academic/career things), and I’m really not sure how, or indeed whether, to handle it.

Since all of this happened I have been doing a lot of looking at the materials that are out there for people trying to come out. So far the books “Bound To Be Free” and “When Someone You Love Is Kinky” have both been recommended to me unanimously. I’m planning on reading and reviewing them. Maybe this is a good place for you to start as well?

I have to admit, being out to my family (*really* out, not just “Oh, I thought you got this memo” out) may make my later career/life decisions much easier to explain.

But I don’t think that I’d be handling it half as well as you seem to be; I probably would have put some thought into the “stop being kinky” non-option, for starters.

Honestly, if this had happened to me a few years ago I would definitely have put more thought into this option. I think my dismissal of the possibility of “just not being kinky” is largely to do with how active I am here in the kinky community, and how positive my experiences have been with the majority of the people I’ve met.

That said, I did some second-guessing. Absolutely I did. I also felt as though I was never going to manage to have sex again. This has been thankfully proven untrue, but I’m definitely coming out of this more cautious than I was going in.

Robin -

I have heard these exact words before myself at 17 from parents who then demanded I “change” before I horribly influenced my siblings. Nothing like being confronted at the dinner table – my choice was to promptly move out.

Yikes. My family dynamics are too private to produce such a scene. Thankfully I wasn’t pushed into a corner immediately, but I was admittedly very thankful to have my own space to flee to.
Thanks for your comment.

Alterisego-

Your family member may see your blog as dangerous or disturbed, but to a lot of other people it’s basic reassurance that they are not alone and they are not insane.

Thank you. The trouble, it seems, is going to be striking a balance between the value of having these ideas fully expressed and the trouble of expressing them for various audiences.

What alterisego is saying is also correct; although equally you don’t have a *responsibility* to do that if you don’t want to any more.