Aftercare isn’t about kindness, love, and that sort of goopy shit. It’s not a chore or a to-do item on a checklist that you need to tick off in order to Do The Right Thing. I know that’s how the kink community likes to frame it, and hey, that framing may work for you… awesome. But if it doesn’t, there are other ways to look at it.
For me? Aftercare is a decompression chamber for your humanity. It’s a space where two people who have just done something really strange can spend a few minutes coming to terms with what that strangeness says about them.
