Disclaimer

I’m polyamorous with RA leanings. I’m also in a TPE M/s “dark” dynamic with no limits and no safewords. By its nature, this is 24/7 and there is no off switch. Most of this blog is likely to be on topics about or relating to lifestyle authority transfer of some variety or otherwise about social dynamics or education in the kink scene. If you haven’t heard of some of the words mentioned here before, weren’t aware people actually do this, or haven’t been directly exposed to any of the people doing or writing about this kind of thing, there’s a reading/resource list below.

I write to explore things I think are interesting or complicated about authority transfer. I’m not writing to produce content or to educate, unless I specifically say something is supposed to be introductory. This means that what I’m writing about is going to be largely about things I find some kind of conflict with, or things I find difficult in some way, or things I’m working through. It’s going to be an honest representation of how I’m feeling, but it’s not going to be the whole story, and it’s going to be biased by design towards things that haven’t gone to plan or where I’m having a bad time over things that are uncomplicated or straightforwardly nice.

This is an intentional choice: dark dynamics are somewhat niche and intentionally violate most of the introductory advice we give new kinksters. This, combined with a general trend towards sanitising kink and pushing D-types to suppress their desires or present them as something they only do for the sake of the s-types, can make it difficult to participate in conversations with people doing this kind of thing. That contributes to a lack of understanding that these dynamics are possible, a lack of access to people who can sense check and support you without just telling you what you want is immoral or abusive, and reduced ability to figure out whether your problems are normal teething pains for any relationship vs if they’re an indication something else is going on. The social pressure to present dark dynamics as something ethical, uncomplicatedly consensual, and purely positive means people interested in pursuing them have limited examples of what they can actually look like, what might actually go wrong within them, or what normal repair for inevitable harm looks like. This kind of play is risky by default (particularly socially). It’s even riskier the fewer people are writing about it, though, and even more so if the people who do hold back to present a more socially acceptable picture of it.

Oh, and (assuming I bother with formatting/putting any in) the endnotes are important. Read the goddamn endnotes.

Academic influence

I don’t have a strong academic background, and this is a blog, not a list of journal submissions. I do care about being in conversation with the things I’m reading, writing and experiencing, and I’ll try and flag that (even if it’s, say, a reddit comment or Fet post that triggered something I wrote). I will be trying to cite things where relevant, but if I say “this is a common approach/thought/opinion”, I’m talking about something I’ve personally seen and interacted with, probably both in person and online, probably dozens or hundreds of time. Not everyone will have come across exactly the same cultural contexts as I have, but I hope readers will understand that I am writing about specific cultural contexts that I’ve personally interacted with.

A lot of the things I’m interested in writing and talking about are complicated, and I know that some of them will hit on ongoing conversations in critical theory that I’m not familiar with or have hit on something kinda downstream of that. If you read something and you’re like “oh this is just like this thing” or “this completely fails to consider this obvious [to me] connection to this other thing it’s downstream of”, please tell me — I’d probably like to read it! Nothing I write is intended to be academic or robust in the academic sense, though, just honest, pointing you to stuff it’s in conversation with, and about something real to me.

Some terminology notes

I use M/s language, rather than D/s. I don’t draw a hierarchy between these things: I see it mostly as a cultural distinction rather than a “level” or “intensity” one. My cultural background is M/s and Leather, but I hope this is interesting to folks from other backgrounds too.

I use TPE to indicate the scope of authority transfer I’m doing; that is, total, with no limits and no negotiation from a position of structural equality.

“Egalitarian relationships” means relationships without a structural power imbalance. This may include bedroom-only D/s or may not, I don’t know how that affects your relationship.

I talk about negotiated non-consent rather than CNC.

If I say SM relationships, dynamics or scenes, I’m probably using it in the Leather sense; that is, relationships or scenes involving some kind of kink/fetish that center a power imbalance (most analogous to D/s or M/s relationships today). Similarly, if I talk about Tops, that’s in the Leather sense where that’s most analogous with Dominant or Master/Mistress. If I say top I’m using it in the giver sense the modern kink scene uses. See The Leatherman’s Handbook II for more context.

Similarly, if I talk about leathersex, that’s sex or hookups with an intentional power imbalance and some element of service in the direction of the D-type. Leathersex might form part of an SM relationship.

Reading/resource list

Alright all that said, here’s the kinds of things that have positively influenced me in one way or another. I’m not going to be including stuff or ideas that I fully disagree with or have fully moved away from, and I don’t uncritically agree with literally everything here, but this contains the main kink resources that have influenced or led me towards what I’m doing and what I tend to think now.

Lifestyle CNC/dark dynamics

M/s and Leather

Some Notes on M/s and Another Note on M/s are good introductory summaries of some of this stuff. HannahTheScribe’s post on 24/7 is a good overview of what that means in practice.
SlaveCraft by Guy Baldwin, and particularly MasterCraft, Pat Califia’s afterword to SlaveCraft
Building the Team, Real Service, and Letters to Raven and Joshua by Raven Kaldera and Joshua Tenpenny
Miss Abernathy’s Concise Slave Training Manual
Leathersex and Leathersex Q&A by Joseph Bean
Leatherfolk as a whole, but particularly What Happened by John Preston and Mr Benson Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Pat Califia
A Secret Side of Lesbian Sexuality, in Public Sex by Pat Califia
Coming to Power and The Second Coming
Mercy/No Mercy (in No Mercy) and The Calyx of Isis (in Macho Sluts), both by Pat Califia
The Marketplace Series (if you follow Chris Parker’s opinions on things, this is unironically an incredibly influential depiction of my approach to authority transfer and service in particular)

Consent ethics

Sexuality beyond Consent by Avgi Saketopolou
No Limits, Yes Safewords, Some Consent (I don’t know if I would call this influential cause like, I was sitting next to Miss as she wrote most of this. She asked me afterwards if I thought it was good and if I agreed with it to which I replied “well yeah obviously I’ve been saying this about aftercare and conflict resolution for years”, so if you want the theory-brained route to “the important part of sex, kink and all relationships is conflict resolution” go read this)

Community/safeguarding/general politics

Gentrification of the Mind by Sarah Schulman
Conflict is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman
After Accountability by Pinko Collective
Abolish the Family by Sophie Lewis
On Community by Casey Plett

Kink classes

I generally attend MsC Worldwide and Thrive every year, often with at least one other weekend-long online con (though I’m quite selective about what classes I attend). I attended Service Oriented Conference in 2025 and plan on adding this in as well, and attend occasional other online classes and events.