How can we create a safe space for kink-shaming victims and enable them to explore their desires?
This question reflects on how we, as a society, are made to differentiate between different sexual activities and are told some are “normal”, and the ones who express desire for the ones which do not count as “normal” are shamed for their desires, this takes a toll on a person and may prevent them from being themselves fully.
The above actions, made me plan an intervention wherein, I created an anonymous Google Forms, and over the course of one week, I have received one response. The potential for change is trying to empathise with the victims, and understand the psychology of the situation and creating a space where one feels vulnerable and comfortable enough to open up. In terms of changing perspectives of the society as a whole, it would help to raise awareness and spreading knowledge about the different dynamics, and the benefits one might gain from such practices.
Some background on the above summary would be in continuation with my research from Box of Uncertainities-1, and using the Question Formation Technique(QFT), I had developed a list of questions, I drew in, which I am going to elaborate in further in here:
- How can we combat kink-shaming?
- How can kinkenabling help kink-shaming victims?
- How can we develop a service to help victims?
- How can we educate people more about kinks?
- How can we use kinkenabling as a method to deal with body image issues?
- How can we use kinkenabling to help people explore their desires?
- How can we combat online kink-shaming?
- How can we use kinkenabling to uplift and boost self-confidence and esteem in people?
- How can we spread awareness on kink-shaming and it’s effects?
- How can we use kink-enabling to help trauma(emotional and sexual) victims?
- How can we build a safe space for people to explore their desires?
As per the QFT, I had reflected on my questions and what resonated more with me personally, and felt more impactful was numbers 2, 8,11, and I was thinking if there’s a connection between them or if they could be used in conjecture? well playing around with the words, i did end up with a question as is the first line of this post, which is ‘How can we create a safe space for kink-shaming victims and enable them to explore their desires?’ this questions called for an intervention for a space which is free from judgement/bias/control, which translated into anonymity to me, and hence i created a Google forms, which is anonymous(to the recipient and me as well), but it also served as background research into my project further, but surprisingly it received ONE response, and even today, on March.10th, over a month later, it still has one response, which says a lot about anonymity, technology, trust etc., which I am going to address further.
For the pop-up showcase, I created a poster to explain my research question and intervention, which I am attaching to this post, in the poster I explain various forms of shaming which are present, and how it affects one’s life, and why does one kink-shame another, and how can we combat, and what is the opposite of this, and the benefits of enabling/practicing kink in one’s life.