A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame
There’s a difference between ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at’. The above instance was obviously of the latter kind. Humour has a complex but integral relationship with queer genders and sexualities, and it has been evolving over time.
You don’t even realise what you’ve said until someone in the group, quick as lightning, hits you with the rejoinder, “That’s what she said!” As you’re trying to make sense of what just happened, the group dissolves into giggles.
I tell them to laugh freely but question as much too. This gives them a sense of sheer relief to be able to ask, talk, question, because, even if it is ‘really bad’, after all, it’s being said in ‘lightness, is it not?
From the outside, the world of kink can look like a place where a smile would be a rare occurrence. But come closer if you dare. Let go of your inhibitions, your fears, your judgements, and biases, and take a real, long look..
Humour, either openly, or thinly camouflaged, is a combination of the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, physical nature of being. So quite often, anger, anxiety, aggression, wisdom, love, frustration, wickedness, cruelty, sarcasm and other feelings are a big part.
How would we see the world really, if we were open to the idea that it is not purpose but play that drives us to seek companionship, be it an orchid seeking a pollinator or a human seeking another?