written by Micah Brown

Structure as new intimacy from a BDSM perspective

The world has gotten crazy and frightening over the past several years. With that, has come a sense of continual chaos and a distinct lack of stability in many areas of our lives. How do we combat that ever-present pandemonium in our daily lives? How do we fight that building pressure in our kinky lives?

In a world made of noise and division, building structures in our lives can help us compartmentalize the constant stream of media and unending news cycles that threaten to spin us out into oblivion. These structures aren’t meant to contain us or force us into a box, but instead to help us find ways to thrive in spite of the myriad of things constantly crying out for our attention.

It's an analogy that may not work for everybody, but imagine a room that is littered with books and clothes and papers on every surface. The couch cushions are crooked and the blankets are crumpled up and half on the floor. This scene will likely evoke a stress response in many of you, as it presents things in such disarray. That room is a physical representation of what life feels like for many of us.

Now imagine the same room with the same items in it, only now the books are neatly placed on the shelves, the couch cushions are in place, and the blankets are folded neatly over the back of the couch. Papers have been collected and stacked onto the desk into piles based on importance, and the floor has been swept. It’s the same room, with the same items, but now they have structure, which makes them easier to manage.

Is it any wonder that structure in our physical lives can have such a strong impact on our stress levels that the same can be expected of our emotional lives as well? Our intimate lives?

Structure in Relationships

While there are those in the poly community who may thrive on Relationship Anarchy, that’s not most of us. Even within most poly relationships, and even those that may identify with Relationship Anarchy, there needs to be some kind of structure so that everybody involved has a set of expectations for how things will generally work. You might have 3 girlfriends and 4 boyfriends, but knowing when you are meeting with them, what those plans are, and how you keep all of them feeling seen and appreciated takes a fair amount of effort and structure.

You don’t need to be poly to have structure within your relationships, however. Beating on the drum of communication yet again, that’s the first step to creating structure within your relationship. Even if you live together, make plans to spend time together without your phones or laptops or tablets. Settle in to watch a movie once a week without other distractions (except maybe each other…), plan out sexy times where you have a lower chance of being interrupted. Find a night once a month to go out and do something, even if it's just taking a walk around the neighborhood or grabbing a coffee on the corner. Don’t treat these events as disposable. These should carry more weight than the mandatory staff meeting at your job. It can be easy to simply toss them aside because you’re tired or busy, but doing that takes away the structure you’re building to feel safe within your life relationship and within your life.

Structure in Kink

By its nature, much of kink is already rooted in structure. Creating routines within your Obedience App is a type of structure. Making sure you follow through with those expectations, rewards, and punishments. If you’re creating tasks in Obedience and then not following through, you’re only creating more unpredictability.

Outside of structures like tasks and habits, as you find in the Obedience app, there are other aspects of kink that are, by their nature, very structured. Every scene must have some kind of structure to it. What are you portraying? Are you doing roleplay? What type of roleplay are you doing? What are the limits of each participant within the scene? How will you communicate that you need to stop? How will you communicate if your mouth is covered or you are gagged?

While we think of these as safety measures, they are also necessary structures to our play that help keep us safe and connected to each other, making the entire experience more intimate. While there is something to be said for spontaneity within play, having a structure surrounding the play to keep everybody safe and having fun is important. The same can be said for sexual intimacy (which isn’t always a part of kink play). While spontaneous sex is fun, having an evening planned where you know you can be intimate can be just as fun.

As boring as it may sound, structuring your intimate moments can actually lead to more satisfying play. If you know you’re having a session that evening, why not build tension around it by sexting each other and teasing each other in various ways throughout the day so that when the time comes, everybody cums.

Intimacy and Structure

How does all of this play into the structure’s influence on intimacy? Taking the time to create structures around those you care about and play with helps to demonstrate your desire to keep them safe and comfortable. Working together to create structures within your relationship can help both of you communicate better and thereby become more intimate with each other.

Even if your play partner isn’t a romantic partner, having intimacy in these moments matters. We look at the word “intimacy” and immediately think of romance and sexuality – but that’s not all there is. You can have intimate relationships with your friends that have nothing to do with kink or sex. Having structure around all our relationships can help us build stronger ties to each other, regardless of the type of intimacy we’re talking about.

The structures you build do not have to be held together by a rigid set of rules or expectations. They should be flexible enough so that when changes happen, you are able to move with them, but sturdy enough that making changes isn’t easy. I know that sounds complex, but all I’m really trying to say here is that the structures you build with your relationships should have meaning and the strength of your convictions as the framework.