Psychology of Kink: Episode 1 Transcript

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Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to The Psychology of Kink. My name is Aubrey Oz. I'm a researcher and educator in relational psychology, completing my master's at NYU, and I have the absolute pleasure of being joined by Goddess Victoria sway, and Mistress Madeline Pryor. Thank you both so much for being here. Thank you. Got us. Victoria Sway is a New York professional dominatrix coach and educator specializing in transformational BDSM, grounded in somatic processing and conscious cage practices.

00:01:04:13 - 00:01:38:07
Speaker 1
With over a decade of experience integrating Tantra power exchange and embodied healing, she has developed healing BDSM, a methodology that guides practitioners and using kink as a pathway to psychological integration and self-discovery. Mistress Madeline Pryor is a New York City dominatrix, intimacy coach, and co-host of the incredible podcast You Like It. Trained in tantra and conscious power dynamics, her multimodality practice, Body Alchemy transforms a taboo into pleasure and explores the intersection of eroticism and psychological healing.

00:01:38:09 - 00:01:57:23
Speaker 1
Her work focuses on cultivating authentic intimacy within structured power exchange, and honors the body as a vessel for transformational change. We are so fortunate to be hosting this educational conversation at Please and Educated Pleasure Shop in New York City, located at 635 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn. Are we ready to dive in?

00:01:58:00 - 00:01:59:04
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Let's do it.

00:01:59:05 - 00:02:06:17
Speaker 1
Let's get into it. So for our very first episode, we are going to be discussing what is desire. And that is a.

00:02:06:17 - 00:02:09:10
Speaker 2
Big question.

00:02:09:12 - 00:02:43:13
Speaker 1
Desire is often not random preference or purely conscious choice. Psychologically, desire is structured, relational and often symbolic and kink. As we all know and study, can be understood as one way the psyche works through needs, longings, and tensions that were never fully articulated or legitimized in early relational environments. Desire is a huge umbrella. Victoria, when I say the word desire, what is desire to you and what do you think is most often misunderstood about desire?

00:02:43:15 - 00:03:27:12
Speaker 3
I'm going to start with what is most often misunderstood. I think people think I desire this object, or I desire to have this, and that is not as deep as desire goes. So and we're also very accustomed to suppressing these things that we want in our desires. So starting to learn how to notice this aliveness of desire in our body and letting that expand, but not chasing it or acting on it, I think is the kind of important lesson for people.

00:03:27:14 - 00:03:34:23
Speaker 3
What makes us feel alive. That's, to me our desire.

00:03:35:01 - 00:03:46:05
Speaker 1
I love the topic of aliveness because to me that is eroticism, right? Life force? Energy, right. Which doesn't have to be a sexual act that.

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Speaker 3
Is.

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Speaker 2
Right.

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Speaker 1
To us all. Not only when I bring up the the erotic in terms of desire, what comes up for you? Well.

00:03:55:05 - 00:04:08:09
Speaker 2
I think my understanding of eroticism and the erotic has evolved a lot over time. And I'll just right at the top, give credence to Esther Pearl's work. The Queen.

00:04:08:10 - 00:04:09:23
Speaker 1
The Queen.

00:04:10:01 - 00:04:40:05
Speaker 2
In the years that I worked with her, I actually worked with her in a marketing capacity. But she really expanded my understanding of eroticism. I definitely used to equate eroticism with sexuality. Eroticism is sexiness. It's sexual expression. It's crawling around and growling and hissing and kind of that like range of sexual, sensual expressions that people have. And in Astaire's definition.

00:04:40:05 - 00:05:08:01
Speaker 2
And now what I hold in my own philosophy is eroticism is alive ness. Eroticism is finding the magic and the potential energy in any given moment. And that can happen in the way you eat breakfast. That can happen in the way you walk down the street. That can happen, and the way you slow down and make eye contact and really savor a moment with another person.

00:05:08:01 - 00:05:33:07
Speaker 2
And once I started to think about eroticism in that way, I realized that erotic living spans so far outside the bedroom to been so far outside your partnerships and your lover ships and your relationships, and it really can exist in your body all your own. One of my teachers teaches a class called Erotic Sovereignty, and I love harkening back to that, actually.

00:05:33:08 - 00:05:45:16
Speaker 2
Her name is Lauren Harkness, and I come back to that phrase all the time. That eroticism can be a feeling and an experience that you have all in your own. It belongs to you.

00:05:45:17 - 00:06:14:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Beautiful eroticism in each and every moment. Yeah, I love that. Victoria, let's turn this specifically towards kink, because we are here to talk about the psychology. That's right. Another fun thing to sprinkle under our desire umbrella today that we are bringing into the conversation. You so eloquently spoke about the misconceptions about desire. What are the misconceptions about kink?

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Speaker 3
Well, that's.

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Speaker 1
Where to begin.

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Speaker 2
Like all of it.

00:06:19:20 - 00:06:26:10
Speaker 3
All of them things go through my head. I'm like, okay, which one are we starting with?

00:06:26:12 - 00:06:59:09
Speaker 3
I think the biggest misconception that I run against or come up against is people chasing their fantasy. So they have this fantasy that they want to act out, and they're very stuck in that pattern. And so they they think that kink is this like fantasy that has to happen a certain way. And learning that can give us more about exploring who you are and the power exchange.

00:06:59:09 - 00:07:26:06
Speaker 3
And there is a much more depth to it than this. This fantasy, I think, is the first kind of misconception. And the other big misconception, which is a little more commonly known, is that everybody who's interested in is traumatized and is, you know, acting out or playing out there. They're trauma and they're not healing it, but they're making it worse.

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Speaker 3
So those are the two big ones that come to my mind at first.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, great. There's actually a fascinating National Institute of Health study on King practitioners and how they they're better in communication, in self-care, in consciously moving through things and multiple studies that disprove the trauma, the trauma, or the path of a lot of things of how we need to reduce something to something. I have a lot of thoughts on the DSM, but what can be fantasy and acted out within that container of kink, right?

00:08:03:08 - 00:08:24:05
Speaker 1
Let's get into that container because it's a fun one. Madeline, tell me a little bit about what is going on, dynamic wise, in a dynamic. And specifically I want to get into subspace, because that is a fun thing in psychology to talk about. Tell me everything.

00:08:24:07 - 00:09:11:14
Speaker 2
Well, I will just, right off the bat, admit that I am a switch. I am fully switching when it comes to being a SOB sub when it comes to being a sub, being a Dom and I dom in my professional life. But in my personal life I am the sub there ever was. So both sides are near and dear to my heart, and both are areas that I strive to understand deeply, both through study and through actual experience, and something that I like to draw at the very beginning for everyone I work with, whether it's a Dom or a sub or someone that I'm coaching, is that dominance and submission not fixed positions, their energetics.

00:09:11:18 - 00:09:42:09
Speaker 2
And so in its most simplistic form, dominance is energy and attention out. Submission is energy and attention in. And so when you boil it down to that level of sort of stylization, it really helps you understand. When I'm dodging, my energy is out, my attention is out, and I am holding the space. I'm holding the scene. I'm holding the person in front of me in this experience that we're having together.

00:09:42:13 - 00:10:10:14
Speaker 2
But as a submissive, and I'm even modeling it with my body of it. I'm relaxing in. I'm dropping into my own experience. I'm feeling into my own body. I'm becoming aware of the sensations of my emotions, of a little nervousness, even sitting in front of this camera in this room. And that experience is step one on the path to dropping into subspace, because subspace is actually somewhere that we go inside.

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Speaker 2
It's a miss. It's sort of a misinformation that subspaces a disembodied out of body experience. It's actually a deeply embodied, ultra present experience. And so subspace is enhanced by being completely immersed in what your Dom is doing. And so if you're going into a pain scene that your Dom is expertly directing because there's so attuned to you, they're paying attention to every little micro message you're sending them.

00:10:42:23 - 00:11:09:14
Speaker 2
Your job as the sub is just to experience each of those moments in each of those actions fully. And by doing that, you give yourself the highest potential to go into and slide into that euphoric present moment. Yeah. You know, people equate it to runner's high. People equate it to the adrenaline rush that you get from doing extreme sports like that in its own way.

00:11:09:14 - 00:11:37:08
Speaker 2
Is submitting to life, submitting to a marathon. And so it's it's a very special place. And I think the trust that is required to go all the way in to release any vigilance or hypervigilance of what's going on in my environment, do I need to hold things in order to be safe? That trust allows you to go all the way in, in that deep, vulnerable state, and that is such a gift.

00:11:37:11 - 00:11:55:19
Speaker 2
It's such a gift that Doms give their subs. And in return, as a Dom, it's deeply gratifying to take someone there. It's a gift in return to be able to facilitate an experience like that, to hold that type of power. It's an honor.

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Speaker 1
Put so well, I feel myself thinking down.

00:12:00:02 - 00:12:02:22
Speaker 2
I know are we all kind of like getting into dynamic a.

00:12:02:22 - 00:12:05:18
Speaker 4
Little bit? This is great.

00:12:05:20 - 00:12:27:10
Speaker 1
The psychological phenomenon happening there is transient hyper frontal. It's literally decreased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex that allows you to relax, to fully sink in. We live in New York City. How many moments are we actually intentionally able to really sit and savor?

00:12:27:11 - 00:12:31:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, not very often. So you have to be so vigilant here. Hopefully.

00:12:31:13 - 00:13:02:10
Speaker 1
You know, maybe you have a practice of doing so, an intentional meditation practice or consciousness practice of sorts. But the ability to access that state, as you said, is a gift. Definitely strange. And I think there's something really gorgeous to that. It's similar to to flow state to me. I studied this of, you know, like you said, runner's high, of repeating an action of really getting into that flow and within that power exchange container that can happen.

00:13:02:12 - 00:13:22:09
Speaker 1
I want to talk a little bit more specifically about what kinks. What are we talking about here? What are we looking at in the day to day. And for, you know, in your work it can be the day to day. What are the most common kinks you see showing up in your work right now? Start with you, Victoria.

00:13:22:10 - 00:13:46:16
Speaker 3
I see a lot of people who are interested in control. Right. And so the they'll they'll say they want to be controlled. And you have to figure out which activities, which tools, which toys are going to speak to control for that person and what control means for that person. So is it the, you know, is it the strap on?

00:13:46:16 - 00:14:10:03
Speaker 3
Is it bondage? Is it, you know, using them as furniture? Is it like what? What is going to make that person feel like they're being directed and held in that their container, which is what they're looking for, what they want to be controlled, they want to be able to check out and sink in.

00:14:10:04 - 00:14:15:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Beautiful. Oh, we are going to get so into containment because containment is everything.

00:14:15:17 - 00:14:16:17
Speaker 3
Right. Exactly.

00:14:16:18 - 00:14:19:16
Speaker 1
Madeleine, what do you see showing up in your work?

00:14:19:18 - 00:14:23:01
Speaker 2
I really see the full gambit. I think.

00:14:23:02 - 00:14:25:14
Speaker 4
I think it's like a.

00:14:25:16 - 00:14:30:17
Speaker 2
You know, I'm always surprised by how much foot fetish lives in the city of New York.

00:14:30:22 - 00:14:31:10
Speaker 4
You love it.

00:14:31:12 - 00:14:56:13
Speaker 2
And I think that the most common kinks that are kind of brought to my doorstep are bondage. And, like Victoria said, control people coming in, being like, I don't know exactly what I want, but I know that I just want to give up control. Gentlemen of Wall Street, right? We see you all the time coming in with that, right?

00:14:56:15 - 00:15:21:00
Speaker 2
A lot of people want sensual domination from me in particular, but that's my brand. I am not a humiliate tricks by nature. I'm softer and I have a dear friend. Shout out to Mr. Sarin. Have to do it. Who is more austere and more of. Kind of like the cool tricks queen. Like she's got that about.

00:15:21:00 - 00:15:21:11
Speaker 4
Her.

00:15:21:17 - 00:16:08:11
Speaker 2
I my epithet is the maniacal girl next door. And so inevitably, what I will often attract is men who are looking for a little more of that familiar trickster maniacal pinch you, slap you, kiss you energy. And it's it's playful, crazy girlfriend. It's it's got kind of that texture to it. And so where the acts themselves, which most often are bondage pain, different types of kind of like trickster fear play, sensory deprivation, worship, different types of fetish worship, foot worship often that those are just the acts that get to be doused in the flavor of every individual Dom.

00:16:08:11 - 00:16:21:08
Speaker 2
And so the behaviors really take on new form once Adam puts their spin on them, like goddess, Victoria and I are going to maybe flog someone in totally different ways.

00:16:21:10 - 00:16:21:23
Speaker 1
Right.

00:16:22:00 - 00:16:29:01
Speaker 3
Right, right. Our archetype is different in the way that we approach something. Definitely, yeah.

00:16:29:03 - 00:16:29:12
Speaker 1
And I.

00:16:29:12 - 00:16:30:08
Speaker 3
Think it might not.

00:16:30:08 - 00:16:36:22
Speaker 4
Be, but I know I haven't seen you. Don. What's going on in there?

00:16:37:00 - 00:16:46:08
Speaker 1
I think you both touched on something really important is it's not so much about the specific acts themselves, but about the energy that you're creating.

00:16:46:09 - 00:16:46:22
Speaker 3
The intent.

00:16:46:23 - 00:17:09:22
Speaker 1
Raising the intent. Exactly who are you stepping into? And we will get into archetypes and all the good stuff in our next episode. But for this, let's just talk about the role of the dominant and the role of the submissive. Madeline, I'll direct this to you since you so wonderfully said you were a switch. What is it like to step into that role?

00:17:09:22 - 00:17:22:09
Speaker 1
What does that do either to you psychologically or when you see someone step into the role of a submissive who.

00:17:22:11 - 00:17:48:01
Speaker 2
Because the submissive archetype is so multifaceted, it really can mean so many different things to different people. I'll speak about what I experience as a sub and also what I see as a sub. For me, I am naturally dominant, have been since I was a little girl. I was like the bossy one on the playground. I was ordering everyone around.

00:17:48:01 - 00:18:14:18
Speaker 2
I was the director in the plays. I was beating boys up on, you know, in the neighborhood. Like that was my way and has always been my way. And so for me, my submissive is the side of me that doesn't get to come out. She's the she used to live in the shadow. And so her role is this liberation of the soft girl, the good girl.

00:18:15:00 - 00:18:38:03
Speaker 2
I was always such a rebel growing up. I was always pushing the boundaries. I was always sort of in the friction and the conflict. And so for me, my fantasy in a lot of my submissive energy lives in being the perfect little princess. Like, I like to be praised, I like to be worshiped, I like to be adored, I like to be objectified.

00:18:38:03 - 00:19:01:21
Speaker 2
And even on the darker side of that, I don't play in the humiliation space. I play in the degradation space. Maybe at some point in this conversation we'll dissect what those are. But for me, it really is this chance to get to be all of the soft, sweet, frivolous, kind of dumb aspects that I don't get to live out in my everyday life.

00:19:01:22 - 00:19:27:07
Speaker 2
And so it's it's like a sweet, sacred, safe space for her. What I see from my clients and what I see more broadly as I teach people about kink, is that their submissive is often either a place they don't get to go out in the everyday world, because this everyday world often expects us to be dominant, pushes us, forces us to be dominant.

00:19:27:08 - 00:19:34:02
Speaker 2
I have a whole line of thought around how capitalism makes Doms out of natural submissives.

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Speaker 4
Yeah, what?

00:19:36:11 - 00:20:06:08
Speaker 2
What a tragedy that is. Because submission is, again, such a liberated state of self. And so when people come to me, they're often bringing the sides of themselves that they don't get to act out. And that can look many, many, many different ways. But what subs most often say is I feel free, I feel relaxed, I feel energized, I feel young again.

00:20:06:13 - 00:20:28:00
Speaker 2
I feel like a youthful energy has been released in me when they walk out of the door. Those are the most commonly the things that I hear. And so there's lots of different paths to get there. And for every person, there's a different series of knobs that turns that on. But I think we're all seeking basically the same set of energetics.

00:20:28:02 - 00:20:30:03
Speaker 1
To hold and to be held.

00:20:30:04 - 00:20:32:13
Speaker 2
That's right. I love beautifully said. Yeah.

00:20:32:18 - 00:20:35:20
Speaker 1
Goddess Victoria, what comes up for you?

00:20:35:22 - 00:21:11:03
Speaker 3
Well, so I haven't historically been very sweet and have recently started playing with a little bit, and I've always considered it a weakness that I haven't been switching because submissives will. They can go with the flow and they don't need to be in control, and they can experience things, and it's much more of a flow state. And and as a person who wants to control and manage and make the impact, I haven't done a lot of submission.

00:21:11:05 - 00:21:27:22
Speaker 3
And so now this kind of entry into it and I've experienced some of it and like it, my mind gets blown by it because I'm like, oh, this is what it's like to not have to pay attention.

00:21:27:23 - 00:21:30:17
Speaker 4
I didn't know what this is.

00:21:30:19 - 00:21:44:03
Speaker 3
So it's a completely different experience for me, and I have found it to be a very healing space to be able to go to.

00:21:44:05 - 00:21:49:18
Speaker 1
I have recently been brushing up on my Reading My King literature, which is very.

00:21:49:18 - 00:21:50:08
Speaker 4
Important.

00:21:50:09 - 00:21:53:02
Speaker 1
And I'm reading both the topping book and the Bottoming.

00:21:53:03 - 00:21:53:10
Speaker 4
Book.

00:21:53:11 - 00:22:21:02
Speaker 1
By Dorsey. You've interviewed is amazing, published so much, but how it is so important to understand both sides of it. Because even if someone is, oh, I am strictly a Dom. It's Dom's responsibility to understand and attuned to the subs experience. Right? And so being able to see both sides of that coin is so essential in creating that container.

00:22:21:05 - 00:22:51:13
Speaker 1
Right before we start to wrap things up, we're going to talk a lot about needs and how kink can meet and heal a lot of unmet needs within us. What do you see in both of your practices of unmet needs coming up, either relationally, psychologically, something that people are trying to heal, that they come to you trying to access that through kink.

00:22:51:15 - 00:23:26:14
Speaker 3
But here in New York, it's pretty consistent. People have to be so hard and so driven, and they don't get to be held and be able to be soft and experience things. So their biggest unmet need is being able to let go and start to feel some sensation and just experience. And I think everywhere that is the need.

00:23:26:16 - 00:23:30:19
Speaker 3
But here it seems just like intensified.

00:23:30:20 - 00:23:31:10
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:23:31:13 - 00:23:34:03
Speaker 3
With the, you know, the culture and the drive here.

00:23:34:04 - 00:23:37:01
Speaker 1
So makes sense. We live in chaos, right?

00:23:37:02 - 00:23:37:15
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00:23:37:16 - 00:24:04:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's right I see that a lot to. Absolutely. And by the time someone gets to a pro dom there's almost like a couple of categories. Either they're super like sex positive kink friendly like big appetite. And so they come to you with needs. But those needs are getting that often because they're in the community and they're super active.

00:24:04:17 - 00:24:27:13
Speaker 2
And this is just a new thing that they're trying and they're like, oh, this is another aspect of this very rich life that I am already living. On the other side of that spectrum, people are coming to you that have been craving this for maybe their entire lives and have not had the need, met or not, had it met often enough or in the way they expected it or hoped it would be.

00:24:27:13 - 00:24:59:19
Speaker 2
And so there are a lot of aching hearts that come to us, and that is a challenging place to meet someone, because often the need has become so deep and so great that as a practitioner, it's almost daunting just to say, how can I meet a lifetime's worth of unfulfilled fantasy in this person? And so maybe that's a just like a word to the world, a word to the ether.

00:24:59:22 - 00:25:25:11
Speaker 2
If you have a desire, if you have a need, even if it's just flickering and percolating, that's the time to explore it and listen exactly. To listen to yourself. Because those needs can become big and heavy other time. And if they're already big and heavy, still seek someone because we can handle it. We're trained, we're trained, and we're great at what we do.

00:25:25:13 - 00:25:27:18
Speaker 3
Go to go to somebody who can handle it.

00:25:27:19 - 00:25:31:08
Speaker 4
And that's exactly yes. Yes. But but yeah.

00:25:31:09 - 00:25:32:06
Speaker 3
Exactly.

00:25:32:07 - 00:25:38:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think the whole, the whole topic of need is a really interesting one because it can manifest in so many ways.

00:25:38:19 - 00:25:42:10
Speaker 1
Beautiful. So get yourself a dominatrix and a therapist.

00:25:42:11 - 00:25:47:04
Speaker 4
If everyone had that, you know, it's it's the world.

00:25:47:04 - 00:25:51:18
Speaker 1
Would be a better place but starts with these conversations, right?

00:25:51:23 - 00:25:53:01
Speaker 4
That's right.

00:25:53:03 - 00:26:07:01
Speaker 1
Well, we've talked about what desire is and how King can give it form. Next we're going to look at where these desires come from and why certain fantasies feel bigger than personal history. Thank you for joining us for episode one, and we'll see you in episode two.