Vanilla extract

Day-to-day I live in a vanilla world. Period. Whilst most of my friends accept that I am into BDSM, some of them are certainly kink friendly and others downright actively curious they are nevertheless mostly not kinky. This isn't usually a problem, I don't especially want to live in a 24/7 lifestyle situation (except in my fantasies, which handily exclude all of those barriers to perfection such as having to have a job and suchlike). The vanilla world is the majority of my existence, superficially at any rate - loathe as I am to admit to being anything other than a full time pervert there are many, many things I do that do not specifically involve kink.

And yet my mind and personal outlook is kinkified. To poorly coin a phrase: I view things through D/s tinted glasses. Not just when I'm in a club or a BDSM environment, not just when I am talking to one of my partners or negotiating with potential partners. But all the time. This isn't to say that I think about sex all the time, although I think about it a lot, but simply that my world view is distinctly, clearly and obviously Not Vanilla. There are of course, difficulties with this, or at least times when the two universes collide or rub along each other causing friction.

This doesn't always occur in the obvious places. By and large, most of my friends have been very understanding and accepting of my lifestyle, inasmuch as I chose to share with them, and their concerns have been limited to those that would be levelled at any type of relationship or life choice: "Are you happy?", "How will that affect the future" and so on. All to the good, but sometimes the situation is not as simple.

On Friday, for example I went out clubbing. Vanilla clubbing, because, well, it was a Friday and I like to dance to real music rather than beats to beat people to. Whilst there, with The Photographer, his partner and another friend, and whilst under the influence of the clubbers drug of choice (not that being stone cold would have massively changed my behaviour) I kissed a couple of other men. This is not outside of our relationship agreement, and I didn't do anything "wrong" but it was strange for him, he later admitted. Which then made it strange for me. We later spoke about it and realised this was partly due to it being a new experience for him, and also myself admittedly, under the auspices of a vanilla relationship this would have at least counted as unacceptable behaviour if not cheating.

The two worlds have different rules. But the more I think about it, the more I find the BDSM ones a little clearer, or perhaps it is simply that The Photographer and I have a shared fondness for knowing where we stand, and being explicit with each other. There is even the thought that it is just that as I've grown older, I've become better at managing myself and my relationships. Whatever the prime mover, I have a very particular sense of both security and freedom within BDSM, and I'm very happy with it.