Girl on the Net

This week’s guest blog is by the wonderful @EuclideanPoint – a fellow sex writer and fantastic person who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at Eroticon a few times. She’s here to talk about something that isn’t often discussed: miscarriage. Specifically about returning to kink after the trauma of a miscarriage, so be aware that the post could be a tricky read for some. As I’ve got older, and known more people who have experienced miscarriage, one of the biggest surprises is how we’re still struggling to talk about this heartbreaking experience. When she sent me her post, Euclidean Point wanted to emphasise that she’s on Twitter if any of you have struggled with the same thing and would like someone to talk to.

Returning to kink after miscarriage

I understand that having babies isn’t for everyone, but it was something my partner and I wanted desperately. I’ve been pregnant five times in the last five years. The third pregnancy gave us our daughter, and two weeks ago the fifth gave us our son. This is about the three that didn’t make it, and what happened when I returned to kink after miscarriage.

It took a while before I could even think about myself as a sexual being. Having a miscarriage is a much longer process than I would have thought, and after each one we went through the inevitable crying, talking, hugging, and crying some more.

My husband was my solace and my rock through every moment even though I knew that he was suffering too. We eventually started having sex again. It’s a weird thing, returning to an activity that used to be intimate and playful, to find it now overshadowed by the possibility of conception. The knowledge that each fuck could ultimately result in the baby we so desperately wanted or the tragedy we were so afraid to experience again. Sex wasn’t about sex anymore – sex was about babies. But we did go back, again and again, because we were determined to make our family no matter what the physical or emotional cost.

We’ve always been kinky, and regularly switch between dominant and submissive roles – submission wasn’t out of the ordinary for me. What disturbed me was the violence I now craved. I wanted to be tied, immobilised, gagged, beaten, fucked. Used. Ignored. Dehumanised. I wondered if I was trying to punish myself, blaming my body for its failures. What would become of my sense of self-worth if I was unable to ever have a baby?

Some Twitter conversations and soul searching led me to the answer. Gratefully I concluded that I didn’t want to punish my body, I didn’t hate myself. What I had originally taken for mindless self-destruction was an attempt to escape my negative emotions with a sort of mindfulness – being fully present in a moment of sensation to quiet the inner monologue of what might be or what might have been.

When I am submissive, when I’m tied down, receiving and experiencing pain, I am fully present in that moment. I’m drowning in pure sensation and my body is alive with endorphins. That is what I craved. An escape from sadness and loss by being thrown into the deep end of a pool of struggle and hurt and nerve endings. To be able to strain against my bonds, and cry when the sensations were overwhelming. To be fully and intently under someone else’s control, to be the sole focus of their attention, and them be the sole focus of mine. To be consumed. To be intensely and deeply loved, there, in that moment. And for that moment to not be about anything else.