MEMBER ARTICLE: BDSM & Mixed-Race Guilt
from
Recon News
06 April 2021
By polyamorous
Whenever I sign up to any website and I must choose my race, I always get this weird feeling of not knowing what to choose; much less my sexual preferences and kinks, since it's always growing and changing non-stop.
Coming from a deep-rooted macho culture (I basically grew up surrounded by Latinos, Syrians and Germans), it became very difficult to embrace my gay feelings, much less fetish ones from an early age.
Thankfully I won the family lottery and got extremely loving parents who managed to support my gay polyamorous journey (my mom once told me, "You're such a slut, but I love you anyway" ...I mean now THAT'S true love). However, to them, I have always kept my kink and fetish side behind closed doors. Having many black family members that were treated as slaves their entire lives, working in the fields, the feeling of guilt is deeply rooted and it's not easy to overcome when confronting them.
How do you come out of the BDSM closet and tell your friends and family that you actually enjoy giving and receiving pain? How do you tell them, despite the fact that your grandparents were actually slaves, that you love being a switch and playing Master/Slave with other people?
But where do you actually come from?
As a mixed-race person (Kenyan, Sierra Leonean, Austrian and Irish), I've always felt very weird whenever someone asks me "But where do you actually come from?" ...I just don't even know how to answer that question anymore. Am I my cultural heritage, my genes, am I what my passport says, or the place where I was born?
On the upside, being mixed race can sometimes be a winning ticket in the gay community. It does feel great to walk into a bar being the only 'exotic' person around. Of course, the downside is that many guys just want to use you as a cute, 'exotic' and disposable sex object so they can tick that box.
The fetish community has been somewhat more welcoming, since many people don't care what you look like, they just want to know what turns you on and if you share the same kinks. But I'm not going to lie, it's always kinda weird to attend a fetish event being one of the few non-Caucasian people around at the party.
Guilt and BDSM
Out of my whole lineage, my grandmother played the biggest role, since I was basically raised by her. She was black and actually born in slavery. As a Kenyan descent, she was unfortunate enough to be born at a farm back in the 1920s. Somehow, she managed to escape, moved to the city and worked as a maid for years, attending evening school to learn how to read and write, and to be a free woman once and for all (I know, I know, you're all waiting to read something kinky…. but bear with me…. we're getting there).
Truth be told, this image of my granny escaping from slavery has stayed in the back of my head since I was a kid. Whenever I'm having a session and I get flogged, whipped and/or treated as a slave, there's a part of me that's completely freaking out imagining my grandma standing in front of me, silently judging me for renouncing my basic human rights for the sake of 'having fun'.
Interestingly, the same feeling of guilt comes when I embrace my dominant side and become a Master. Whenever I dominate someone, there's this mild sense of guilt for having embraced the oppressor's perspective and treating others as my slaves.
All these feelings come quickly into my head, becoming more and more intense a few hours after the session has ended.
Do other Black, Asian, Indian and mixed-race guys experience this same sense of guilt and shame when they embrace their slave side? Am I alone here? These questions keep popping in my head over and over again with no one to answer them.
I'm one of those people who are terrible liars and can't keep a double life, so for the time being I take one session at a time, and I'm slightly open about my fetishes with close friends and family, although still keep some privacy.
However, and since my mom already embraced me as a slut, I don't really think she'll have any issues embracing me as a painpig, but it'll take some time still.
I can't deny my fetish and kink tastes, or my passion for pain play, but the legacy of my family is carried with me, and their pain cannot be denied either. It is therefore up to me to try to find balance, to have the fun I crave, but also hold my respect for them in my heart.
If you'd like to share your experiences of fetish and kink in a member article, send your ideas or a first draft to: social@recon.com
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