10 Things I Learnt From Being A Kink Educator.

For the past couple of years I have been trying my hand at sexual and kink education. Funnily enough, it's something I said I would never do and in a fun little twist of poetic justice, here we are! This is an expository list of ten things I have learnt as a kink educator, there is a full podcast episode attached which goes into it in more detail but I've put the list down in written form as well. The podcast is a lot more expansive, this list is indicative of the details but not exhaustive. 

1 

The antidote to identity-driven prescriptive teaching is honest perspective-based teaching that acknowledges its own shortcomings. The main reason I was so sure I would never foray into kink-education is because so much of it seemed like it attempted to teach something that is too individualized and personal to truly codify by turning it into a system of right way/wrong way and I didn't want any part of that. On attempting to solve for that problem, I found that being honest about the fact that I am teaching from experience and perspective that may or may not encompass everything is very helpful, as is ensuring I acknowledge my own inability and shortcomings. Ethically, there are things that shouldn't ever come out of my mouth even though *I could get away with it*, I could give you useful information about STIs and anatomy for sharps but I am not qualified to do so, so I either supplement that by using an expert or I don't do it at all. I also cannot teach motivation, connection, intimacy or what you desire, so I seek only to teach support materials, guidance and frameworks that help access the authentic desire of individuals and I like that. I don't know any right answers, I just know methods that may get you to your answers. 

2 

If you want to teach things that are esoteric or niche, you have to accept that the number of people to whom those things are relevant will not be as wide a range as it would have been if you went with a broader subject. Basically, I realise I have no interest in being a packaged product of fascination for the tittilating consumption of a broad group of people who see what I (or we) do and want to consume it because it *shocking* or weird or trendy, and I will absolutely not tailor what I do to that market. I have an interest in teaching people to whom what I specifically bring to the table is relevant (because it adheres to their genuine desires) and people who may be looking for this specific information and not know where to find it. That is a smaller group of people and the growth (in numbers) of that group is slow as well, that's just a fact and I am okay with that fact, I don't mind having ten students who want to genuinely learn what I am offering instead of fifty who are stopping by on the way to the next currently fascinating thing on their list of cool-people adventures. I have absolutely no interest in mass, broad or salacious appeal. Popularity and name-recognition can suck my throbbing cock. 

3 

I don't enjoy teaching anything that can be clarified by a Google search or rendered into a decent essay by artificial intelligence. People keep telling me to teach Kink 101 or How To BDSM classes because that is what the market demands and I would clean up (bla, bla) but the market can fuck off. This is not in judgement of people who do teach that, that may be what you genuinely believe is needed and you would definitely do it better than I would, I just haven't the fucking foggiest what any of that actually means nor any desire to do it. I like teaching stuff that creatively appeals to me and things that come from an honest place for me, if I started to determine what I should teach (or write) based on the market and its conventions and trends, I would feel like an idiot and a fraud. I don't want to feel like that. 

4 

At least 20% of the people who attend a class are not looking to learn, do the work or be educated, they are looking to find hacks and perfect solutions to what they consider hindrances to them getting what they want. They will ask questions about convincing their partners to try things they don't want to try, they will try to get you to give them aftercare tricks that keep them from having to take responsibility for their actions, they will ignore everything you just said and try to find a shortcut to communication and trust-development, and they will try to use any information you give them to manipulate other people into fulfilling their desire (including touting imagined credibility they get from attending your classes) and you have to be willing to shut them down, refuse to answer and kick them the fuck out of your class. At least, that's how I see it. The danger to becoming a business as a person is that when you start seeing your audience as customers you start catering to their worst instincts and feeling like you have to keep them as (paying) clients and that cannot end well. If you come to my classes and ask how you can manipulate the boundaries of your partner, I will call you on and I will not help you at all, even if that means you think I am rude, bad-mouth my platform or refuse to come to any more of my events. Don't come. In fact, take back the money you gave me for this one too. 

5 

Praise is nice, but ultimately hollow, it is much better to assess success in terms of the impact you manage to have on a personal level. I am not the best personal-level communicator, especially when it comes to people reaching out to me about my own work, but a few years ago, I started making myself more accessible and as a result, something amazing happened, people who had been reading my work (of all kinds) for years, started reaching out to tell me how it had impacted them or changed the course of their lives. My favourite moment was when a woman I had known as an acquaintance for many years told me that a piece i wrote about processing the grief of a wanted abortion enabled her to have better conversations about what she was going through with her heathcare provider and her partner. None of that will ever be broadcast, none of those testimonials will hang on my door and none of it can be measured in the currency of socials (likes, views, follows, meaningless numbers). It's personal. It's private joy and connection and it makes much more of a difference to me than how many people read or like something. I appreciate people who support my work very, very much but nothing matches the joy of knowing someone genuinely benefitted from something they got from you, even if they never tell you that. 

6 

It is extremely unfair and thoughtless of me to assume that things that are obvious to me are obvious to everyone else too. My greatest struggle as an educator (not just as a kink educator but also as a teacher of other things and other kinds of students) has been with being able to determine when the subject matter is difficult and when it is basic. When I need to go slower and when it is okay to speed through something. I constantly think everything in the world is basic and it comes off as being a conceited cunt, I've struggled with this all my life, right from when I was elementary school when I was less than gracious about the difference in the learning methodologies and speeds of other people. Fortunately, I've made an effort to work on that and now realise that I shouldn't make assumptions about what is obvious based solely on what is obvious to me and how I learn. Frankly, my kid was a great lesson in this regard, I love maths because it feels like a beautiful, obvious language and humbling myself enough to compassionately and effectively teach someone to whom it is not so was an experience that made me a better teacher (and person) in many different ways, but I am a work-in-progress, I do still have students who tell me that I ruin their day when I critique their work (but not kink students, only writing students do that to me), and it's a struggle to find the line between holding one accountable as a student and not damaging their self-confidence and even though I don't succeed all the time, I never stop working at it.  

7

I cannot be a good teacher to everyone and sometimes that means a particular type of student will not have a good experience with me nor get anything worth their time from me. Sadly, such is life. Over time, I have realised the best environment for me is one where the students know exactly what they want (or have a goal for themselves in mind) and I can substantiate that with technique, guidance, frameworks and adaptable methodology. My favourite type of classroom is one where everyone brings something to the table, it's egalitarian and we all blow each other's minds. I love that part of learning, the part where someone finally gets something or has a great idea, and that amazing realisation of the satisfaction of using your brain washes over them and they feel motivated to share that with everyone. Not everyone enjoys that environment and not everyone is comfortable in it either which means that not everyone is a good fit for every teacher and that is okay. 

8 

People will ask you for insane things, the entitlement is off the charts and you don't have to acquiesce to it at all. If you sign up for a CNC class, fail to register and then send me a message two days later telling me you'd like to get on a call with me to work out an abduction scene you are planning, you can go to hell? Why in the world do you believe I am sitting around waiting to provide free services to any random person who demands them? I am not. If you send me dozens of anonymous messages about how I don't do enough for the kink scene in India, I have a question for you, I have been doing this for over a decade, how come I only have value to you once people outside the country take note of my work? Your internalised colonial mindset is not my problem to solve. If you are only interested in my "platform" now because it can benefit you and your visibility, you are the problem and please leave me alone. I do not owe you anything at all. I do what I do because I love it, I have absolutely no agenda nor am I interested in one. 

9

Defining failure on your own terms is helpful. Most people are not coming to watch you fail, they want you to succeed but if there are some who consume your work or attend your classes to watch you "break," they can only succeed if you view failure the way they view it. I had the fortune of having an illuminating conversation with someone who openly admitted they used to despise me, believed I was all smoke-and-mirrors and attended a class I taught because they believed my façade would crack, they were surprised when they actually learnt something from the class and then magnanimous enough to come to me to discuss how their own insecurities were guiding how they viewed me. I appreciated the hell out of their courage and willingness to engage like that and it also made me wonder what would make me feel like I failed and I realise I would only feel that if I betrayed a principle I hold dear in order to be more successful. The rest of it? Eh. There are times when I am mid-example and I realise it doesn't work, so I backtrack and start over. I fumble. I forget. I sometimes get so awkward when there is silence in an online classroom, I respond to it by dancing. I literally cannot help it. None of it feels like failure, it feels like being myself, and I am okay with that. If you come to watch me fail, make sure you define what the failure looks like for you, because I sure as hell have. I also cannot focus on my detractors because the people who actually come because they believe in me as so much nicer as a point of focus. Gratitude is better as an experience than bitterness and it is what I choose to focus on. I am lowkey proud of myself but I also don't care about that, I don't need to strut around convinced of my prowess when I can scurry around trying to find more fun and challenging things to do. 

10

Pricing your classes to not be free but also to not be expensive is not equal to arrogance nor to the failure to recognise your own value. My classes are not free because I work my ass off at everything I do and I deserve to be compensated, but my classes are also not expensive enough to be prohibitive to the majority of the population that may want to consume them and that actually caused some people to get mad at me. I was accused of disrupting the market, of forcing others to go cheaper, of not caring about what I (or others do) and finally, of not having enough respect or value for what I do. I actually bought into that a little because, well, underselling myself is something I do tend to do, buy when I actually thought about it, I realised that the notion that I should measure my value entirely in monetary terms is actually kinda offensive to me. I like money, I make money, and I like making money, but education and learning shouldn't aim to price people out and if I genuinely believe that about universities and schools, then I should also be willing to put my mouth where my mouth is. If you bitch and moan about capitalism on the internet all day long but will bend every principle and moral you have when it serves you, your words are empty. I am happy to make less money to be accessible to more people who are genuinely interested. My worth is not solely monetary and neither is yours. 

11

I know I said there were the but this one is just a little bonus point, allied to the last point and less pertinent to the subject of this list than it is to me personally. There is nothing more gratifying than saying no to money on the basis of your principles. I was offered a job to teach cool-kink at a staycation for rich people and I turned it down even though it was a lot of money, I suggested someone else to them and they went with that person instead. It felt amazing for two reasons. First, it feels amazing to be able to get to a place in your life when the cost for sticking to your values actually reduces, when I was younger and I said no to jobs because my ethics and values didn't align, I had no grounds to argue with people who called me idealistic, naive of just dumb, but I stuck to my guns nonetheless, I ate less food and had less furniture because I did not want to have less respect for myself, and now, I can say no with impunity because I also managed to get to a place in my life where that money is not *necessary* to me. The second thing that felt amazing about it was being able to freely and happily recommend someone else, someone I believe would do a great, authentic job at this without feeling the pressure to seize every opportunity or like you are in competition with everyone in the world. I think all kinds of educators have their place and the things I don't want to do have to adhere to my value-system, but my value-system does not have to apply to all and I am happy to help people along the way in any way I can. This is very important to me because through the years I have experienced a lot of the opposite of this, people going out of their way to ensure opportunities do not get to me, and it would have been easy to become bitter and angry, I did not and I am genuinely pleased with myself for that.