Aftercare: Are you doing it wrong?

How conditioning and habit still applies... but also something else

“Aftercare”

“Wake up, Giles, you’re snoring.”

I groan and prop myself up on my pillows. “Was I?”

“Go to your cell.”

And I do.

I go into Xena’s dressing room where there’s already a camping mat laid out, snap on my collar and bed down.

It’s pretty miserable being booted out of the nice warm marital bed and the cell is lonely.

At the same time, the fact she can do it so unapologetically and unfairly — she also snores! — makes me feel like her slave. That turns me on, which of course reminds me I’m sealed into a chastity device, and that adds to the enslaved feeling.

As I fall asleep, I feel deeply existentially satisfied with my lot. The only thing that would make it better would be a proper cell with a lock, or maybe a functioning pit prison…

In the morning, I wake before she does, slip out of my cell and kneel at the foot of the bed waiting to fetch her breakfast.

Now rewind!

Imagine if Xena had just sent me off with a kind word to our perfectly nice spare room.

I would have lain awake miserable, scared we were heading for a “sleep divorce”.

I can process being banished from the bed in my submissive headspace, but the same thing would cause me deep distress in my vanilla headspace.

This is not about turning a necessity into a kinky game, it’s about identity: the difference between an “ego syntonic” experience and an “ego dystonic” one.

In psychoanalysis, ego syntonic behaviors, values, and feelings are in harmony with or acceptable to the needs and goals of the ego, or consistent with one's ideal self-image. Ego dystonic (or ego alien[1]) behaviors are the opposite, referring to thoughts and behaviors (dreams, compulsions, desires, etc.) that are conflicting or dissonant with the needs and goals of the ego, or further, in conflict with a person's ideal self-image. (Wikipedia)

Now let’s talk about how this applies to aftercare. (For convenience, I’ll write this addressing the sub.)

Aftercare

So a couple does something kinky.

Say she (consensually) beats him, she humiliates him, she reduces him to a puddle of tears and semen while triumphantly getting her own orgasm and laughing at his spoiled one.

And then the adventure is over for now, and it’s aftercare time and she rushes to provide tea and cuddles until he feels normal again.

Or at least that’s the ideal.

The function of aftercare is ultimately to make the kink sustainable. There are, therefore, several reasons why this might not actually be a good routine to have if your aim is to have a sustainable BDMS dynamic.

The first reason is that it feels too much like extracting a penance from the dominant for an activity that was consensual (and maybe initially started as her doing him a favour). That seems like an unfortunate framing that’s infantilising for the sub and leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the dominant.

The second is that this kind of aftercare still actually affirms the dominant as the dominant, just now in a nurturing role… even if the dominant is actually just a sadistic top and has no interest in a dynamic.

Remember…

…a sadistic Fetlife friend reports ending up in charge after a session. He’s not interested in dominance for its own sake, but he ends up being the one to make decisions like choosing a restaurant.

That’s not exactly a return to normal! (Though fine if that’s what you want anyway.)

The third is related to the ego syntonic/dystonic concept, I talked about earlier…

Ego Dystonic Experiences and how to avoid them

Intense BDSM usually entails generating otherwise unpleasant emotions. Some of us want to be reduced to a weeping, bleeding nobody… or a dehumanised slave, or whatever. Almost by definition, these experiences would be ego dystonic if we were in our vanilla headspace.

It follows that if you are in a deliciously dark place and your dominant abruptly drags you back from it, then the ego dystonic feelings may come with you, especially if they are embodied in welts and bodily fluids. A submissive on Reddit described the experience of lingering “shame”, “sadness”, and “grossness”.

If that keeps happening, there’s also the risk of being conditioned to feel bad after kink! And somewhere in there, you're building in the assumption of your own fragility, rather than coming out of intense kink feeling stronger and indestructible.

The way to avoid the Ego Dystonic experience has to be to make sure that what happens in kink stays in kink:

Aim to have come out of the headspace once the sadness and shame has passed. That could mean suggesting one of the following post-kink strategies:

• Quiet time in submissive role where you just sit (kneel/languish in chains) with it, embracing the feelings masochistically, firmly framing them as pointing to your submission (and also maybe discovering it's mentally survivable).

• Shifting from bottoming/receiving to light service — after whippings I generally find myself giving Xena a long foot massage while still wearing my collar.

• While you're still in role, getting praised and cuddled, experiencing some traditional aftercare during kink.

However, if you are mentally robust consider just skipping the traditional aftercare entirely, e.g. by taking a shower and coming back into the room in vanilla mode.