This autumn I've been on the road, moving between cities running kink workshops for gay, bi and queer men+, many of them trying something completely new. It's been a beautiful few weeks. And there's one thing I keep noticing in every room, which says a lot about what conscious kink is, what surrender feels like, and why I think the deepest part of it needs more than a day.
The play changes when the connection deepens
People come for the material at first. The rope and the impact, the things we want to do to each other. That's exciting, and a perfectly good place to start.
Then two people actually meet. They start listening to each other, and suddenly the session is about what's happening between them more than what's in their hands. That's where the creativity is, and it gets hot in a way that's hard to describe and impossible to fake.
It's why I start every workshop the same way, before any of that: two men looking at each other, and nothing else. No rope, no flogger. It can sound like nothing. For a lot of people it's the edgiest part of the day, because there's nothing to hide behind.
A ritual in Zurich
I felt this again at the Naked Men Kink Festival in Zurich. We closed with a ritual: three partners, around half an hour each, playing with the tools we'd learned the day before. It was really hot and fun and exciting.
And it was just a taste. Half an hour with someone you met the day before can open a door but it rarely lets you walk all the way through.
What I mean by kink
People often ask me whether they're kinky enough to come. A lot of what gay men call vanilla, other people would call kink, so I've stopped finding that a useful question. I'm much more curious about your relationship with power. Your own, and other people's. How it feels to let go, to completely trust someone, to be taken care of. And how it feels to be the one taking care.
The simplest way I've found to say what kink is: choosing to play with power, on purpose, together.
I think we're hungry for that because most of us have so few healthy experiences of power. Out in the world it's usually taken without anyone asking. Giving it or taking it by choice, with someone who has chosen the same, can give you more access to your own power, and a stronger sense that you belong.
What does surrender feel like in kink and BDSM?
For me, surrender in kink and BDSM is about not having to control everything. So much of life asks us to work things out, to be good at things, to be competent. Surrender is a chance to put all of that down for a while.
And both people surrender. The person who lets go surrenders into the other's hands and gaze and the person holding power surrenders too, to what's actually happening between them, beyond their ideas of what a good scene should look like. Two different positions, and something bigger than both of them comes through.
You don't need to get it right, either. Trying to be the perfect Dom, or to let go the right way, mostly gets in the way. Things wobble. Slow down and stay in contact with each other. And all of it rests on knowing your no will be heard, which I wrote about in The gap between knowing you can say no and actually being able to.
Something to try
You don't need a workshop to taste this. Next time you play, or even just before you kiss someone, start with nothing. Sit facing each other and look into each other's eyes for two minutes. No talking, no touching. Notice the urge to smile, to fill the silence, to do something, and let it pass. See what's actually there between you.
Then, when you do touch, go slower than you normally would, and notice the moment just before it lands. It's simple, and it's where every one of my workshops begins.
If you'd like to feel this over more than a single day, that's what the Rite of Surrender is for. I'll write soon about why a week changes what's possible.
What would it be to really, deeply let go?
Much love, Simon :)
Simon Magnus is a facilitator, retreat leader and DJ, based in Amsterdam and working across Europe. He runs conscious kink workshops and retreats for gay, bi, queer and trans men+, and queer ecstatic dances. More about Simon.