When “doing it”, are you regularly thinking about putting clothes away, which clothes to wash next or if you emptied the washing machine? Or when you washed your clothes the last time?
Is it distracting to the point you get soft (for penis havers) or dry (for ADHDers with vaginas)?
may i introduce you to - BDSM. no need to imagine a scene when it’s happening! :)
Good call! It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, partly because of comments from other ADHD people. We do some bdsm adjacent (I don’t really know where the line is…) stuff cause be partner likes to be treated rough. I guess it helps keep me focussed, cause there’s more variety and stuff to do, but it also leads to a lot of meta thinking and second guessing “was that too much? Was that too soft? How long have they been in that position and is that going to actually harm their neck…”
Maybe being in a sub role would be kinda relaxing because of the lack of control / responsibility, but I prefer the Dom/top role, and my partner is 100% the other way. I do think it’s easier when there’s more novelty in general, just being somewhere different or my partner wearing some new outfit I find hot helps. But making stuff different everyday would soon get exhausting, while changing my imagination is quick and easy.
may i introduce you to - safewords & colour checks! :D
establish safewords with your partner, the deafult ones are:
green - keep going i like this
yellow - approaching my limit let’s pause
red - stop immediately and proceed to aftercare
at any point during play you can then ask them “colour?” and in a quick and definitive way you get to know how they feel and if it’s too much. (this also goes the other way! don’t be afraid to safeword as a dom if things get uncomfy for you). this helps a lot with the variety of things you can try out during a scene because it cuts short the worrying if your partner likes it or not, or if they mean the “stop” when they actually want you to keep going.
bdsm is more than just the hot stuff, it’s systems and safeties that allow the hot stuff to flourish safely and hot-ly <3
but i get ya, sometimes you want the same thing but a little to the left, and/or to loop the good moment in your mind. nothing wrong with that
I’m familiar with that in principle, and it’s a great system. But my partner is shockingly bad at communicating during sex (they’re on the spectrum). I’ve tried to talk about safe words, or even just any indication that something is not working for them. But they refuse, partly saying “that it’s pretty obvious when I am enjoying something or not” (it is not, or at least not to me). But I suspect the real reason is that they have quite poor body awareness in general (often injure themselves with exercise because they weren’t aware that something was hurting them) and that trying to monitor their own safety is tiring and unfun. But they’re also not super expressive during sex, so I can’t reliably pick up on cues.
We’ve been together a long time, and I think we’ve found things that work for us, but it’s pretty stressful trying to ‘play rough’ without a real feedback mechanism (and I have gotten it wrong and gone ‘too far’ and they’ve been very upset with me). I’ve tried talking about it, and even had a period of refusing to do anything like that at all hoping it would force them to agree to some sort of save-word system. But it didn’t, they just seemed decreasingly satisfied with sex, so I gave in and went back to guessing what’s okay…
it takes some time to learn how and when to safeword. from experience i know that the most common thing stopping someone, both doms and subs, from using them is guilt - they don’t want to stop the play when they see the other person is having fun, perhaps it’s that?
if i were you i’d try to have that conversation again, try to stress the importance of clear and undeniable consent. how if they want to be treated roughly you need to feel safe doing it, and knowing that they will communicate when they get uncomfortable gives you that safety. but of course, i don’t know the whole context of your relationship so i don’t know if this would work, all i can do is wish you the best with that!
shneancy knows what they are talking about!
I also want to add that you can try out BDSM stuff without sex. (BDSM doens’t even need to very sexual) If you two are unsure about how something feels, pain/comfort-levels etc, try it in a more neutral situation and have fun with it.
Example:
Say you two have talked and are curious about face-slapping.
So you or both start with reading about common damages that can happen (hearing-loss eg), what do to if it happens and tips on how to do it in a good way (hand-positioning eg).
Try it on your self first, how does it feel to slap your own face on different places? Maybe compare with slapping other body-parts.
Then you two get together in a relaxed comfy situation. Start SLOW. Like, a light tap on the cheek. Talk about how that felt. Try slightly harder or change position, angle etc. Explore, slow and steady.
Afterwards, depending on how intense it gets, do some aftercare (for many: cuddles, candy, water, maybe a comforting movie and comfort each other) and let some time go to land in the feelings. Sometimes it takes a bit to process it all.
Thanks! That’s pretty much what I do. As I said in my reply to shneancy, it’s made a lot harder by my neurodivergent partner having serious communication issues around the topic. So it isn’t even to get feedback, but they’re the one who love aggressive sex.
I have experimented with some stuff on myself to get a gauge of how hard is too hard. But tbh, I don’t really enjoy getting slapped in face or choked so, it’s hard to guess what’s the correct level for someone else!
Edit: I now realized you wrote in an Adhd community… Sorry for being stupid below. But my point still stands tho
Yes true, it’s different for everyone! I’ve read your reply. Kinda ironic they say it’s obvious while being neurodivergent (sounds like autism, I’m also autistic).
You are not a mind-reader. And it is SO easy to miss a cue even if you knew them all because you can’t look at their whole body at the same time. Also if it is as obvious as they say, they should be able to teach you all the cues. (I realize that isn’t the case tho, but it would be logical)
I would refuse to play with someone who refuses to communicate. The worst case scenario is death and depending on what flavor of BDSM ones like, that can easily happen. Permanent damages even more likely. Being neurodivergent isn’t an excuse to skip communication.
But, a real suggestion. Maybe you two can playfully explore their body to help them increase their body awareness?