I am generally sex/kink positive (obv some kinks should be subject to criticism but..different convo) but it worries me that teenagers on tik tok are going around saying that things like choking and handcuffs are “vanilla” and shaming each other for not being into hard kinks

Like first of all you’re 16 you should NOT be posting about this stuff online and second of all it’s just like extremely obvious that we need better more inclusive sex education because this is what happens when lack of info is paired with access to adult spaces and a culture-

-that normalizes violence (especially against women, trans people and POC) and devalues consent. Like there is not proper education about sex and consent, and since BDSM has become more mainstream without the formal education going along with it and really shitty representation-

-it is natural that young people with no proper education about sex are going to latch on to it and that is really worrisome. Because BDSM itself doesn’t inherently promote violence or devalue consent, in fact it often does the opposite, but without proper education, it does.

now I am NOT advocating for kids to be educated about BDSM at all. That is something that ABSOLUTELY needs to wait until an individual is 18. But I do think overall better sex education, more inclusive sex education, is needed so kids don’t feel the need to turn to these adult-

-communities to explore themselves and their sexualities. There are a lot of amazing QT/BIPOC sex educators that I can only hope find more mainstream success and we can also get schools to provide more inclusive and sex positive sex Ed.