I received a couple of fascinating comments from Michael on the recent subspace post I published. He concurred with my thoughts that his subspace felt different to the psychology definition of dissociation, but also described how financial domination had triggered a reaction that did resemble the classical sense of dissociation as a detachment from reality. So prodding different bits of kinky wiring in his brain had triggered quantitatively different types of ‘subspace’ for him. I was trying to decide if subspace was more like X or Y, and it turns out it was both X and Y to the same person.
I think that’s an excellent reminder of the dangers of being too reductive when it comes to kink. There’s a tendency to try and categorize, box and label different activities and dynamics. I do it myself on this blog. Simplifying the world is the way we understand it, but it’s always important to keep in mind that you are simplifying, and reality is messy.
Kink is about power, sex, pleasure, control, fetishization, danger, risk, pain and relationships. You know, all the really simple stuff in life. It touches on our most primal instincts and our deepest emotional triggers. It’s hardly surprising that there are countless ways to experience it and although we may share common labels, we all may have slightly different interpretations of them. Be wary of people making absolute statements or asserting a universal kinky truth. I’m not sure there are any.
Weirdly I’m reminded of an old quote from a British football (soccer to the Yanks) manager called Bill Shanky who said that “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” If that’s true, then dare I add that kink might be even more important (and complex) than football?
In honor of Michael’s financial domination dabbling here’s a lovely piece of artwork from the ever brilliant Sardax.
It’s difficult to define many things precisely. Labeling does provide “conceptual convenience.”
For Michael, dissociation is perhaps an unexpected or unwanted byproduct of Findom.
Dissociation in itself can be a kinky activity. The most common form is role playing; pretending to be somebody else. Crank up the intensity, one may start to feel the role being played taking over the body, and the person him/herself as a third party observer. In another word, the person dissociates from the role being played. The altered identities, split personalities, or roles being played, whatever you call it, may not even share the memory, thus causing amnesia. Some people may call it a disorder, but amnesia is another kink that some people are into. I am, both dissociation and amnesia.
For “conceptual convenience,” we can say there are many types of subspace, such as X, Y, and Z, etc. Selective focused attention can be one, dissociation is another, and there may be more.