How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
I am in a semi-new relationship (both she/they) and, along with everything else we’ve been doing, the sex is fantastic. We are both semi-experienced with our specific kinks and have been exploring them more together. We’re also pretty well-versed in BDSM etiquette and safety measures. Which is probably why I am feeling so out of depth about her biggest one.
She’s into feederism, something that in the past I actively avoided. For background, I am a plus-size person who has struggled with an eating disorder and fetishization my whole life, so I had a very strict idea of what food kinks were, and that made me extremely anxious about the whole thing. However, through active communication with my partner and a lot of recovery work on my part, I’ve been able to really get into the scene we did. I honestly want to do it again because of how amazing it felt to make her feel good. It’s outside of the moment where I start to feel hesitant. I’m worried that because this is so similar to binging, it might end up triggering me in the moment.
How do we stop and do aftercare/a check-in to calm down if I’m in the Domme role, and she’s a bit out of it? She’s mainly focused on sweet foods, which also makes me nervous because a large part of my ED is centered around a fear of diabetes. Is it possible that a once-a-month or so event is going to put her at an extreme health risk? Is this something I can talk to my therapist about, or is that wildly unprofessional, even if it’s something I need real help navigating? At this point, relapse into my anorexia feels almost inevitable, due to factors other than this. Should I stop immediately, or is the feeling of being in charge around food something I should lean into? There’s so much floating around in my head that I want to talk to my partner about, but I also don’t want to paint this as something she should be ashamed of or that I look down on.
—Feed Me Seymour
Dear Feed Me,
This is absolutely something you can talk to your therapist about. Helping you work through complicated feelings is their job. If they offer to, say, let you do a feeding scene in the other room of their office, that’s obviously a red flag, but working through how kink practices might affect your recovery and mental health is an absolutely reasonable request.
However, the way you talk about a potential relapse feeling inevitable even without the feeder factor gives me pause. The last thing you need is more pressure on an already tenuous situation. I’m sure you’ve heard tales of BDSM being psychologically healing—helping people process their emotions and traumas—but that’s some high-octane stuff with a huge chance of combustion.
Talk to your therapist first, about the anxieties you feel around discussing this with your partner. Then talk to your partner. Start the conversation with them by letting her know that you don’t judge her kink, and very much enjoyed playing it out that one time. Follow that with some clear thoughts about why you’re worried that doing it again might cause you harm.
And as for how to do a check-in or aftercare if your partner is out of it, well, you might have to play a little less hard so she’s still connected to herself. It’s good for both the top and bottom in a scene to know what checking out looks like for each partner, and especially for themselves.
—Stoya
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