diff --git a/src/content/blog/between-scores-and-self.md b/src/content/blog/between-scores-and-self.md index 38e2735..cee9832 100644 --- a/src/content/blog/between-scores-and-self.md +++ b/src/content/blog/between-scores-and-self.md @@ -8,108 +8,272 @@ featuredEssay: false draft: true --- -A test can give you a shape. +*A quiet reflection on BDSM, nuance, and why my answers are rarely simple* -Meaning only really appears in context. - -I took a BDSM test recently. Not because I believe a chart can define me — not because I expect a set of percentages to fully explain something as layered as desire, intimacy, or trust. But because I still find these kinds of tools interesting, in the way that any well-constructed mirror is interesting. - -They offer language. They map out dynamics. They give names to things that sometimes resist articulation. - -And honestly, I do not think there is anything wrong with the test. - -What I find difficult is not the test. It is the act of answering. +> A test can give you a shape. +> But meaning only really appears in context. --- -## Questions are simple. Answers are not. +I recently took a BDSM test again. -The test has to ask directly. That is just the nature of the format. +Not because I believe a chart can define me, and not because I expect a set of percentages to fully explain something as layered as desire, intimacy, or trust. -But when I read those questions, my mind does not stay inside the sentence. It expands. I start thinking about tone. About emotional safety. About whether something I would want in theory is something I would want in practice, and whether those two things are even the same question. +But because I still find these kinds of tests… interesting. -I catch myself holding the checkbox and thinking: *yes, but only with the right person. Yes, but not like that. Yes, but that depends entirely on trust.* +They offer language. +They map out dynamics. +They give names to things that are sometimes hard to articulate on your own. -It is not that I do not know myself. It is that self-knowledge, for me, is not stored as a list of fixed categories. It lives in memory and texture and relational experience. Things become clear when they are felt — not always when they are abstracted into a sliding scale. +And honestly — I do not think there is anything wrong with the test. -So a simple question becomes layered, and the difficulty lives not in the test being wrong but in the answer being more than the format allows. +If anything, I think it can be a useful mirror. + +What makes it difficult for me is not the test itself. +It is the act of answering. --- -## Low to medium, and what that actually means +## The questions are simple. My answers are not. -Looking at my results, something confirmed itself that I already knew before I clicked submit. +The test asks direct questions. -I sit somewhere in the low to medium range across most dimensions. If someone read only the labels without context, they might assume something heavier. More extreme. More intense in the way that word usually implies. +It has to. -But that has never been how I experience it. +But when I read those questions, my mind rarely stays inside the sentence. It expands outward. -What draws me in is not *how far can this go.* It is *what does this feel like when it is shared well.* +I start thinking about tone. +About intensity. +About emotional safety. +About trust. -Intensity, for me, does not come from extremity. It comes from attention. Anticipation. Closeness. Trust. The quiet kind of restraint that is really about presence. Being seen carefully. Being able to let go because the ground beneath you is actually there. +About whether something is playful, symbolic, grounded — or something I would actually want to live. -Some of the most powerful moments I can recall were not loud at all. +Sometimes I even catch myself wondering if I am forgetting something while answering. -They were quiet, grounded, and held. +Not because I do not know myself. + +But because these things are not stored as fixed categories in my head. They are tied to experiences, to people, to moments. They become clear when they are felt — not always when they are abstracted. + +So even a simple question becomes layered. + +And that is where the difficulty lives. + +Not in the test being wrong — +but in the answer being more than a checkbox. --- -## Broad results and why I find them coherent +## For me, BDSM has never been about extremity -One thing that stood out in my results was how wide they spread. +Looking at my results, I noticed something that already felt true long before the test. -Dominant and submissive both high. Switch present. Brat and brat tamer. Rope bunny and rigger. On paper, that can look inconsistent — like someone who did not know what they were answering, or like the test is broken, or like the person taking it is. +If someone only saw the labels without context, they might assume something more intense. More extreme. More heavy. -To me, it feels completely coherent. +But that is not how I experience it. -Because I do not experience intimacy as a fixed role. I experience it as something dynamic — something that shifts and breathes depending on trust, connection, and the particular emotional texture between two people. Different sides of me can exist without canceling each other out. +I naturally sit somewhere in the low to medium range. -Giving and receiving are not opposites. Control and surrender are not enemies. They are part of the same movement, just facing different directions. +Not disconnected. +Not flat. +Not empty. -The results are broad because I am responsive, not because I am inconsistent. +But also not driven by the need to push things as far as possible. + +What draws me in is not *how far can this go?* + +It is: + +*what does this feel like when it is shared well?* + +Because intensity, for me, does not come from extremity. + +It comes from: + +- attention +- anticipation +- closeness +- trust +- restraint +- play +- being seen +- being able to let go safely + +Some of the most powerful moments are not loud. + +They are quiet, grounded, and held. --- -## What real connection changed +## A result can be broad without being contradictory -Some of this understanding did not come from self-reflection. It came from experience — from a connection where BDSM was not a concept or a category to discuss. It was something lived. +One thing that stood out in my results is how broad they are. -Dominance was not just control. It was presence. Care. Attentiveness that did not waver. +Dominant and submissive both high. +Switch present. +Brat and brat tamer. +Rope bunny and rigger. -Submission was not just giving up power. It was trust. Softness. The particular kind of letting go that is only possible when you genuinely believe in the ground beneath you. +On paper, that can look inconsistent. -Physical closeness was not separate from emotional regulation. It was part of it — inseparable, in the way that the warmth of a room and the feeling of safety inside it are not really two different things. +To me, it feels coherent. -Once you have experienced intimacy at that kind of depth, it changes how you read everything else afterward. Because then BDSM is no longer just what happens. It becomes what it *means.* +Because I do not experience intimacy as a single fixed role. -And that distinction — between what happens and what it means — is exactly what a test cannot hold. +I experience it as something dynamic. +Something that shifts depending on trust, connection, and the emotional space between two people. + +Different sides of me can exist without canceling each other out. + +Giving and receiving are not opposites. +Control and surrender are not enemies. + +They are part of the same movement. --- -## A score can point at something +## Some things only make sense inside real connection + +Part of why I read these results this way comes from experience. + +There was a connection in my life where BDSM was not a concept or a category. + +It was something lived. + +Something shared. + +It was not about roles as labels. +It was about what those roles carried. + +Dominance was not just control. +It was presence. +Care. +Attentiveness. + +Submission was not just giving up power. +It was trust. +Softness. +The ability to let go. + +Physical closeness was not separate from emotional regulation. +It was part of it. + +And once you have experienced that kind of depth, it changes how you read everything else. + +Because then BDSM is no longer just what happens. + +It is what it means. + +--- + +## Sometimes my answer is “yes, but not like that” + +I rarely feel a hard “no.” + +But I also rarely feel a completely unconditional “yes.” + +Instead, it is: + +Yes, but not in the most extreme version. +Yes, but only with trust. +Yes, but not without care. +Yes, but not disconnected from the person. +Yes, but only if it feels grounded. + +And that nuance does not always fit cleanly into a test. + +But that does not make the test wrong. + +It just means the lived version is more layered than the format. + +--- + +## What I recognise in myself + +Looking at the result, what I recognise most is not extremity. + +It is responsiveness. + +I recognise that I am drawn to tension, structure, play, power, and surrender. +I recognise that I can feel both sides of a dynamic. +I recognise that trust changes everything. +I recognise that care and intensity are not separate for me. + +And I recognise that I do not need to reduce myself to one role to be understood. + +--- + +## The test is useful. Context is still everything. I do not think the test is wrong. -I think it is useful. Insightful, even. Surprisingly accurate in places. I think it can be a genuinely good starting point for self-reflection or conversation, especially for people who do not yet have language for what they want. +I think it is useful. +I think it can be insightful. +I think it can even be surprisingly accurate in places. -But for people who answer from nuance — from memory, from relational experience, from a sense that the yes or no depends heavily on the *how* — it is difficult to compress everything into a checkbox. Not because something is broken. Because something is alive. +But I also think that for people who answer from nuance, memory, and relational experience, it can be difficult to compress everything into fixed responses. -And that might be the most useful part of taking the test at all: not just reading the percentages at the end, but noticing what happens along the way. +Not because something is broken. -Where you hesitate. Where you soften. Where you want to add a footnote. Where your answer would change completely depending on trust. Where something feels different in theory than it does in memory. +But because something is alive. -That tells you just as much as the result does. Maybe more. +And maybe that is part of the value too. + +Not just the result itself, but noticing: + +- where you hesitate +- where you soften +- where you want to explain +- where your answer changes depending on trust +- where something feels different in theory than in reality + +That says just as much as the percentages do. --- -## Closing +## Closing thought I can appreciate the test and still find it difficult to answer sometimes. Both of those things can be true. -The result reflects something real. The shape it draws is not wrong. But the meaning behind it lives in context, in experience, in the specific texture of connection — and none of that fits neatly inside a percentage. +The result reflects something real. +But the meaning behind it lives in context, experience, and connection. A score can point at something. -The lived version will always be deeper. +But the lived version will always be deeper. + +--- + +## Result snapshot + +For reference, these were my results at the time of writing: + +| Role | Score | +|---|---:| +| Rope bunny | 100% | +| Brat | 97% | +| Rigger | 96% | +| Dominant | 94% | +| Submissive | 94% | +| Switch | 93% | +| Brat tamer | 88% | +| Experimentalist | 86% | +| Degrader | 86% | +| Owner | 83% | +| Degradee | 82% | +| Master/Mistress | 81% | +| Masochist | 76% | +| Sadist | 70% | +| Slave | 64% | +| Voyeur | 56% | +| Vanilla | 56% | +| Exhibitionist | 53% | +| Pet | 50% | +| Primal (Prey) | 45% | +| Primal (Hunter) | 45% | +| Non-monogamist | 22% | +| Daddy/Mommy | 13% | +| Ageplayer | 0% | +| Little | 0% |