Hi there,

I am literally coming out of hiding (I have a huge deadline this week) to tell you this because it is so, so important and I lost too much of my sanity to kink-shaming: NO. You are not wrong. You are not weird. 

It’s okay for you to like bondage. A lot of people like bondage, even harsh bondage. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. There are studies saying that people who practice BDSM correlate with having better mental health (but let’s remember that this is just one study and correlation does not imply causation!). Let’s also consider that the DSM-5 depathologized kinky sex and proclivities, saying that it is no longer a mental condition. As long as kink is a consensual act between two willing parties that are of age, that trust each other and that communicate, it can be a really beautiful experience, or a really sexy experience, or something awesome that falls into both of those categories.

Your sexuality is a beautiful thing. I hope you are 18+ (or you shouldn’t be reading this blog, youngin!), and there is no shame in wanting to wait to have sex or practice bondage with the right man. Losing your virginity – aside from being a heteronormative and patriarchal concept – is not a race. Your worth as a person is not determined by losing it “too early” or “too late.” And just because you are a virgin doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to have sexual thoughts or consider wanting to do kinky stuff. You also can do kinky stuff without having sex.

Also, you should tell your friends that nymphomania was a trendy term used in the Victorian age for women who actually enjoyed sex because they were said to have a wandering, wayward uterus. It derived from hysteria, hyster referring once more to the uterus (think hysterectomy), and was more or less treated as a mental illness for women who were having excessive amounts of sex and masturbating frequently or to women who were “frigid” or miserable within the confines of a repressed society.

Treatments could range from stimulation, prolonged stays in an asylum, restricted diets, bloodletting, etc. The ancient Egyptians used to put fragrant scents under the woman’s vagina so the uterus would stop wandering into the upper reaches of her abdomen (which they believed was the cause) and would follow the pleasing scent back home. We have hysteria to thank for the use of the vibrator, but we also have an engrained societal stigma against women’s sexuality because of it. 

My point of this history lesson is that hysteria and nymphomania were, to our modern eyes, pretty much pseudoscience. 

The term nymphomania in a medical context has since been replaced with hypersexuality, which pertains to having sexual or masturbatory compulsions so strong that they interfere with your way of life. These are the people who are repeatedly rushed to hospitals after time and time again attempting to insert eggplants and toy trains into their anuses, the people who lose entire days to masturbation as a way of coping with issues, people who treat sex as a compulsion rather than an experience. 

So the bottom line of this very long message is this: there is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with your desires. I hope you find this right man you’re imagining and that he is wonderful and open and communicative and trustworthy and respectful and gentle (and rough where it counts) and that you two have an amazing time. 

I spent a long time telling myself that I was crazy, literally willing myself not even to think about what I liked, and convincing myself that I could not find a person to be with who wouldn’t think that I was absolutely nuts. I would be proud of myself if I didn’t think about bondage for a week, it was like a tally I kept. I would shame myself into thinking that if I asked for the things I liked, the people I cared about would stop caring for me. Even when I was in kinky relationships, I was so ashamed to ask for stuff because I thought I was “just too kinky.” It drove me nuts and it ruined some of my relationships. There is nothing healthy about suffocating a part of yourself like that. And while the world can still be super judgmental, things are looking up! 

So I wish you the best in all your endeavors. You are a unique, special person, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.

<3,

Ivy