Hey y’all, I want to talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Touching.

I had one of those shitty childhoods. (I even wrote a fucking book about it. Thousands of people have read it and concur: yup a shitty childhood.)

Being touched is complicated for me. I like touch. I need touch a great deal more than average because I was pretty severely neglected as a young child. I was not touched appropriately and it has damaged me. What touch I got was often sexual abuse. Which complicates all kinds of touching in a sexualized setting.

I came into the bdsm community at 18 years old. I found the local munches, local private parties, public scene, and I found myself an experienced top pronto.

When other people talk about their college life experiences I cock my head to one side and listen because I wonder what it would be like to be normal. I do have a college degree, but I lived with my Dominant/Daddy/Owner. For two years of college I was a 24/7 slave.

I just don’t identify with the “college” experience people talk about. When I graduated I knew the names of three of my classmates.

I personally knew the folks who taught bdsm from coast to coast. I’d slept in many of their houses and played with them.

Now that I’m at the ripe old age of 34, almost 35 and I’ve been in the bdsm community for almost 16 of those years…

Touching is weird for me. I have expectations about boundaries. My expectations are different when I’m out in the normal world. Yes, I know that little old ladies in the grocery store touch me without my consent all the fucking time and I can’t explode with anger and tell them it ISN’T FUCKING OK TO TOUCH ME.

I know.

But I found a safe place. I found a place where the rule is don’t touch anyone or anything without explicitly asking for consent. It’s posted all over the damn place. If you didn’t learn that rule in kindergarden (you fucking should have) we will supplement your education until you get it.

Don’t. Touch. People. Without. Asking.

I know you don’t mean anything. I know you think it is no big deal to violate consent this way. But in my PTSD ridden body that went through decades of torture…

Actually it is a big deal. I am only able to relax and enjoy this environmentbecause this rule exists. Because I am allowed to be vulnerable and I will have protection around the soft squishy parts of my heart.

I don’t mean that nothing bad will ever happen. I don’t mean that I really think I’ll never get touched without consent. It means that it is safe me to turn around and snarl IT ISN’T FUCKING OK TO TOUCH ME and I’m not bad. This is the one place in the world where it is safe for me to defend myself like that and not get “What a crazy bitch”.

So if it hurts your feelings that this rule exists in the bdsm community, yeah. Maybe it isn’t for you. Because this rule exists for the safety of a lot of people. The right to touch without asking is not something that makes anyone safer. It makes you happier. I don’t care so much about that.

Despite the harshness of this I love you. Even if I don’t know you very well. I think you have a lot to offer.

But don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me.

Boundaries are important for relationships. Because only in the conversation about where those boundaries exist do you get to define the me and the you in the relationship so that you can have real substantial interactions instead of just projections.

I want to know you and I want you to know me. Part of knowing me is knowing that touch is a complicated beast and there are days I’m in agonizing pain and I don’t want a hug. It’s not personal. It’s fibromyalgia.

But you don’t know unless you ask, do you?