3rd June 2011
A few weeks ago on Twitter I came across a project called Portraits Of Kink. This is the brain-child of Remittance Girl and it began life on her blog as part of her Write Kink Right project. She felt that so often in erotic literature ‘kink’ characters were poorly portrayed as very one-dimensional and so she asked for people who were practising Doms, subs, masochists and sadists to provide a portrait of themselves as people. At first she started publishing these portraits on her blog but then realised that they were starting to take on a life of their own…..
“It very quickly became clear that this collection of portraits served more that its intended goal. Many people have communicated their interest in the portraits as a validation of their own lifestyle choices, as a representation of a community of BDSM practitioners, and a good outreach and education tool for the sexually normative world.
I’ve decided that this collection of self-portrait and personal histories deserved to stand on its own, and have a home of its own, and so www.portraitsofkink.com was established.
All I request as a curator is that you appreciate the very personal nature of these self-portraits. That you appreciate the generosity, the candor and the honesty that went into them and that you do not use the material here for commercial or exploitative purposes. As strange as some of these people’s lives may seem to you, they are people – just like you.” – Remittance Girl
As I started to read these portraits I found myself completely drawn in, she was right; these were fascinating, honest portrayals of real people and their lives. They showed that although we might be Dom or sub we were also people too, not just one-dimensional sexual characters. This project was an opportunity to show people in the vanilla world something very different about ‘kink’ lifestyles.
Maybe it is that element of this project that spoke to me the most. My D/s relationship has been the cause of ongoing friction with family who cannot understand that the relationship I share with Sir is loving, tender, caring, passionate and deeply fulfilling for both of us, they view it with suspicion and in fact believe that it is the complete opposite of this. They think I am being preyed upon, that I am weak, that I am foolish and that he is manipulative and has brain washed me in some way.
Could a project like this help to change their minds? I have no idea so far I have not been brave enough to share it with them. Currently we seem to have found a slight peace with each other and I am loathed to disturb that by bring the subject up but if that changes then I hope that maybe The Portraits of Kink just might be able to help them understand.
I took the questions from the site and answered them with an honest and open heart and mind as have the other contributors, I believe. I hope you take the time to read some, if not all of them.
So, yesterday my portrait was published. I am honoured and thrilled to have been included in this inspiring and inspirational project. I want to thank Remittance Girl for coming up with such a brilliant idea in the first place and even more so for including my portrait. You have no idea how much it made me smile.
You can find my portrait and many others by clicking on the icon below and please do read the ‘About This Project’ page as it explains it so much better than I ever could.
Mollyxxx
