Bruised

I have started to post pictures online more frequently. When I first started on a certain social media site, I was not very active at all. A question came through today that made me think about why.

A lot of that time in the beginning was just taking everything in. It can be overwhelming. It was a very popular site even 10 years ago. It was hard to focus and I was mostly interested in learning about poly and seeing if there was a local community. I had read about kink and fantasized about it but didn’t really think that was a place I fit.

Interestingly, I did not find the poly community there at all. I found it somewhere else and once I found it, I found the overlap with Kink. My local community is really what opened my eyes to kink and where I fit into that.

When I was first posting pics, though, I thought they had to be of a different variety. I thought I had to only share evidence of being kinky. I thought I had to share the bruises and the marks. I never thought to share all of myself. Back then, the majority of what you saw was kink-related content. Pictures highlighted and applauded those pics that made you believe a person was a “heavy bottom.” That is not the case now.

Back then, I did care about proving to myself that I was kinky. I did want that validation. I wanted to be seen as someone who had the dynamics and had opportunities to play. I wanted to have the experience of showing everyone I was owned. I still have not really had that experience to this day. But I am finally at a point where I do not need that validation as much as I thought I did back then. I am not taking for granted the connections that I have now. I am not being someone else to fit the mold of what I think a submissive should be.

I may still be someone who enjoys sharing marks and bruises. I may still enjoy sharing kinky thoughts and experiences, but I value those one-on-one connections more. Those are important to me.