Establishing Boundaries - 1

 While it's been a long time, no see, and I will definitely catch up on the backlog, here's something new...

Some one recently asked me to share my insights about boundaries and establishing them – both in kink and otherwise.

I think having strong boundaries is a function of a lot of things. It’s a combination of how we’ve been raised, what we have learnt in regard to power, authority, autonomy, and even emotions like loneliness etc.  It is also about self-discovery and the sense of being sure or not sure about what one wants or doesn’t.

Since it’s easiest to take my own example, that’s the subjective reference I will use to demonstrate what I wrote above. In my experience, the first step to establishing boundaries is the freedom and ability to say a no.

I was raised in a conventional family. This means, a dominating father and a docile, submissive mother. The usual as well as finer internalized layers of patriarchy and misogyny permeating our very existence.

That said, early on in my life, I was allowed to question everything, anything, and anyone I wanted, including my father. I think that’s a curse of democratic parents – They are the first authority their children question. In retrospect, I can now see the struggle my father faced on a daily basis.

There is this particular incident I remember vividly. I must have been 9 or something. I was with my father at his workplace, and he found a book for me to read in the library, He brought it to me to see if I was interested in reading it (Yeah, one of the few privileges I had was a VERY SOLID foundation in education for life). I said – I didn’t want to read it.

The librarian was surprised and blurted – Beta, you should not refuse your father’s suggestion! I didn’t know how to respond to that statement, so I looked to my father. He responded on my behalf – Ma’am, I think it’s OK. I trust her choices in this sense. I have made her read enough by now (I used to read 100 full-length books a year by then – Mostly well-curated fiction classics), to ask her for her opinion and for me to respect her choices even if I might not like them.

The two of them got into a more detailed discussion about how my father was OK with me calling out people, or my freedom to disagree, or to point out if I thought they were wrong. Even if it was my own father. Beyond this I got bored and submerged myself in another book, and didn’t register the rest of the conversation.

But this I think is the beginning of me establishing my boundaries. The fact that a parent asked me what my preferences / boundaries were, and they did not let another adult question them. The fact that I had the freedom to say ‘no. The fact that my judgement was trusted and there was a basis for it, beyond me being my father’s daughter.

All these were the early seeds of a lot of what I said in the earlier part of this piece.

Now some of us may not have experienced these snippets of privilege. My response to that is – Any learning (like coding, language), even EQ, or for that matter even establishing boundaries – is a function of practice. It’s like building a muscle that you weren’t aware existed. It exists, it can be learnt, it needs to be practiced.

The first step to do that is to give yourself the grace and freedom to say no. Oh sure, it shouldn’t be rebelling without a reason to rebel. It shouldn’t be a ‘no’ even when there’s value in the suggestion. It shouldn’t be a ‘no’ for the mere heck of it. However, before anything else, you need to ask yourself – Can you say a no?

If not, that’s the first thing you need to learn – You’re an individual and while your ‘no’ will have consequences, it is your fundamental right to be able to say it when you need / want to.

I will take it further from here in the next piece. Till then,

Happy intimacy

Asmi