Psychology of Kink: Episode 2 Transcript

00:00:36:16 - 00:01:03:02
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome back to The Psychology of King. Today we are beginning with episode two, Depth Psychology, Archetypes and the Shadow. My name is Aubrey Austin. I am joined by Goddess Victoria Sui and Mistress Madeleine Prior. And today we are at please, an educated pleasure shop in New York City, located at 635 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn. In this episode, we are going to get deeper into the depth psychology perspective.

00:01:03:03 - 00:01:30:02
Speaker 1
We are going to be examining the archetypes. What are archetypes and what's hidden in the shadow? So much good stuff to get in here. Depth psychology suggests that not all desire originates in personal biography. Some fantasies feel archetypal, older than us, perhaps larger than us, and are often connected to what Carl Jung called the shadow. These are the parts of ourselves that were disallowed.

00:01:30:03 - 00:01:52:03
Speaker 1
They were feared or often pushed underground comes up so often in kink. So for those unfamiliar with union psychology, Madeleine, how would Mistress Madeleine, how would you explain the shadow self, and how does that show up specifically in the work that you do?

00:01:52:05 - 00:01:54:22
Speaker 2
This is my favorite topic. I'm just going to say it right now.

00:01:54:23 - 00:01:55:11
Speaker 1
Get into it.

00:01:55:12 - 00:02:29:12
Speaker 2
Let's go. Shadow work is the nerdy side of kink, and I love the nerdy side. And the shadow, just in its essence, is a part that lives in all of us. We all have a shadow. It is a universal human aspect that is pushed underneath the layer of consciousness into the unconscious and is often stuffed away, hidden under lock and key, and is not a part of the psyche that we acknowledge.

00:02:29:14 - 00:02:53:15
Speaker 2
Maybe not even a part of the psyche that we know exists. So this is a part of ourselves that has been, at the bare minimum, pushed down out of the conscious expression. But it's also often a part that has been shamed, that has been told was bad, that has been pushed away by other people. Perhaps. Maybe that is how it got, give me the word.

00:02:53:15 - 00:02:55:09
Speaker 2
That's how it got. Reduced down.

00:02:55:12 - 00:02:59:03
Speaker 1
This repressed do that. Yeah.

00:02:59:05 - 00:03:30:20
Speaker 2
And and that lives in our unconscious space. And the thing about the unconscious, this is, as young would say, we call the. Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our lives and we will call it fate. Quote. There's a book called Existential Kink that I'm not sure if you've read. So good. Obviously we've all read it that really talks about this in a very accessible way.

00:03:30:20 - 00:04:02:04
Speaker 2
Carolyn Elliott does a beautiful job of talking about how the unconscious and how these shadowy aspects of ourselves will creep out and leak out and find their way into our conscious, lived experience because it needs a place to express. It is an aspect of self, and self wants to live, self wants to express. And so the shadow isn't inherently bad, but it is unconscious and so we don't have control over it.

00:04:02:05 - 00:04:32:16
Speaker 2
We don't have a relationship to it the way we do with our conscious aspects. And so it gets a bad rap, which is not fair, right? Because we're not interacting with it. And so I think the way that this shows up in kink is that people are often coming in with desires that have been pushed into the shadow, they're coming in with shame around these shadowy pieces, and kink gives the shadow a space to play.

00:04:32:18 - 00:04:58:06
Speaker 2
It gives those parts of yourself room to express that might not be able to express in the every day. Let's say you have a part of yourself that is a sadist, right? That is desires violence that has takes joy in doling out pain. That place that part of yourself doesn't have necessarily a place to live in the world.

00:04:58:06 - 00:05:05:10
Speaker 2
Although a lot of people have unconscious sadists that are coming out to play in non-consensual ways, and.

00:05:05:10 - 00:05:06:18
Speaker 1
They're jerks to other people.

00:05:06:20 - 00:05:08:11
Speaker 3
They do. They do the thing.

00:05:08:13 - 00:05:11:12
Speaker 2
They're tyrants, they're oppressive. They have.

00:05:11:16 - 00:05:13:04
Speaker 1
Government leaders.

00:05:13:06 - 00:05:13:20
Speaker 3
Like.

00:05:13:22 - 00:05:14:17
Speaker 2
Will we say it?

00:05:14:18 - 00:05:17:20
Speaker 3
We can say it.

00:05:17:22 - 00:05:26:01
Speaker 2
Sticks out exactly the those parts of ourselves that don't get a chance often to live out here, get to live and seen.

00:05:26:03 - 00:05:50:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. Amazing. And I love the examples you brought up. I'd love to get even more into how this presents itself, specifically in kink and in fantasy. And you already named one of my favorite young quotes, so thank you for bringing that up. I also love what young wrote. Where the ego wants progress, the soul insists on regression, and we deal with regression a lot in this work.

00:05:50:11 - 00:06:01:10
Speaker 1
Goddess Victoria, how do you see that idea presenting itself in kink and in fantasy?

00:06:01:12 - 00:06:33:08
Speaker 4
So I work a lot with with teaching people to figure out what their shadow is and how to access their shadow. And then the classes I teach are kind of around that concept. So helping people get comfortable with regression and the process of regression is a first step because our ego, you know, it wants to grow, it wants to control, it wants to achieve, it wants to protect us and feel safe.

00:06:33:09 - 00:07:07:22
Speaker 4
And until somebody realizes that their ego is what's holding them back, getting them to be comfortable with regression is difficult. Yeah. Once someone realizes that what their soul wants is, you know, to experience, to be in flow, to be held, to be interdependent, all of these beautiful things to, you know, like, fully feel their desires and their longings and not push them down.

00:07:08:00 - 00:07:16:22
Speaker 4
When they get comfortable with regression, they can start dipping into these things that make us feel more alive.

00:07:16:23 - 00:07:17:13
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:07:17:15 - 00:07:20:02
Speaker 4
So no. Did I answer the question?

00:07:20:02 - 00:07:21:23
Speaker 3
Absolutely. I don't know.

00:07:22:00 - 00:07:22:16
Speaker 1
It's interesting.

00:07:22:16 - 00:07:25:11
Speaker 3
I just started talking and it's great.

00:07:25:12 - 00:07:30:15
Speaker 1
I love the way you keep circling back to a life ness. It comes back to eroticism.

00:07:30:17 - 00:07:36:21
Speaker 4
Liveness is why we're here. You know, if you're not going to feel alive, what's the point. Of being here?

00:07:37:01 - 00:07:37:18
Speaker 3
Hey.

00:07:37:20 - 00:08:03:13
Speaker 1
Man, to that. A lot of the work that I do is with James Hillman and Hillman's thought, and Hillman argued that the soul is the originator of the scene. So let's start to talk about the scene, the fantasy, what that looks like. Mistress Madeline, I'd love to hear your thoughts on practically speaking. What do you think that means?

00:08:03:13 - 00:08:09:13
Speaker 1
And do we choose fantasies or do they choose us?

00:08:09:15 - 00:08:12:13
Speaker 2
That's a very good question. I'm going to start with that.

00:08:12:14 - 00:08:15:03
Speaker 3
I love it, go for it.

00:08:15:05 - 00:08:46:15
Speaker 2
Because it's both. And I think the conscious and the subconscious and the unconscious are all playing together. When fantasies come into the mix, the unconscious is choosing fantasy, the conscious is choosing fantasy. And when the unconscious chooses fantasy, it feels like the fantasy chose us. Right? And so it's it's a game, right? We are directing a play that we're also acting in, that we're also watching.

00:08:46:17 - 00:09:12:00
Speaker 2
And so at any given time, we can feel the experience of those different positions when we're watching the play of our lives. It feels like the fantasy chose us. When we're directing the play, we know that we constructed the fantasy ourselves. And so it's when you can start to be with life or with scene play or with kink like that.

00:09:12:02 - 00:09:39:17
Speaker 2
The game of it really brings this magical, fantastical aspect in that, I think, I mean, talk about regression, that I don't think that we experience as adults as often as we experience as children. That's why it's called play. And so we get to have this fantastical element of life as adults that was really relegated to childhood imagination, storytelling and, and play.

00:09:39:18 - 00:09:51:07
Speaker 2
And so it's, it's, it's it's quite novel to have that come back in. And when we're talking about the soul being, you said the creator of the.

00:09:51:07 - 00:09:51:19
Speaker 3
Scene.

00:09:51:20 - 00:09:53:13
Speaker 1
The soul is the originator.

00:09:53:14 - 00:09:55:21
Speaker 2
Of the of the scene.

00:09:55:21 - 00:09:57:03
Speaker 3
How interesting.

00:09:57:05 - 00:10:28:17
Speaker 2
The soul is like the deepest part of us, right? It's the essence of what makes us us. Not even what makes us human, but what makes us human and divine and animal and supercomputer conscious being. And so the soul is, of course, the originator of the scene. Because the scene is a mirror, the scene is the outward expression of the soul's desire a good scene.

00:10:28:21 - 00:10:32:22
Speaker 3
Or a good scene strikes.

00:10:33:00 - 00:10:43:23
Speaker 2
A good scene. And so it makes sense that a really great scene that is really authentic and really true, is the mirror of what your inner world looks like.

00:10:44:00 - 00:10:57:18
Speaker 1
Amazing goddess Victoria, I'm curious how you experience fantasy for you. Is it something you create or something you discover? And you can answer that from your perspective or how you create that for clients?

00:10:57:20 - 00:11:27:07
Speaker 4
I feel like people, people that I see or that we tend to see are are often very stuck in these fantasies that have to play out an exact certain way. And for me, getting them to break that thing that they keep wanting to play out is how they actually access, like the real soul stuff that people have going on that they don't actually want to look at.

00:11:27:08 - 00:11:52:23
Speaker 4
They want to keep playing on this fantasy, but it's that's a disassociation from the reality. And that's the trickiest part, is how to get people to feel safe, to actually dig deeper and get out of that fantasy. So I don't I don't like to use the word fantasy. To me, it's a little bit of a dirty word, which is kind of funny.

00:11:53:02 - 00:12:16:08
Speaker 4
It when I hear a fantasy I hear stuck as opposed to exploring and moving and and finding the taboo and what excites you. And, and that's just, I think a definition that I've put on it. Maybe not the, the definition.

00:12:16:10 - 00:12:19:02
Speaker 3
That's a beautiful there.

00:12:19:04 - 00:12:31:05
Speaker 2
I, I do agree with you in a way, that fantasy, when you're locked into a certain level of specificity, can be totally inhibiting to actually having a present day experience.

00:12:31:10 - 00:12:32:10
Speaker 3
And you're right.

00:12:32:13 - 00:12:39:08
Speaker 2
Because where we see that a lot, someone comes in and they're like, and they have the fantasy is.

00:12:39:08 - 00:12:41:02
Speaker 3
Page and you're like, you're like.

00:12:41:02 - 00:12:42:19
Speaker 4
It's it's not going to be good.

00:12:42:20 - 00:12:43:09
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:12:43:11 - 00:12:49:17
Speaker 2
Like men turn to the left and then smile a smile. And then if you could giggle but maniacally, really.

00:12:49:17 - 00:12:50:06
Speaker 3
Maniacally.

00:12:50:06 - 00:12:51:03
Speaker 2
And you're like.

00:12:51:04 - 00:12:51:18
Speaker 3
I.

00:12:51:19 - 00:12:53:22
Speaker 2
Am not an actress.

00:12:53:23 - 00:12:57:07
Speaker 3
And it won't be sexy and it won't be fun.

00:12:57:09 - 00:13:02:04
Speaker 2
And there are Doms who can do that. I'm not one of them.

00:13:02:05 - 00:13:03:04
Speaker 3
I'm. Yeah.

00:13:03:05 - 00:13:33:22
Speaker 2
Very intuitive, very organic. Like I am flying by the seat of my pants. Always, this moment included. And and it's it's inhibiting to the organic magic of the moment when someone is super locked in to the specificity. I find it interesting that we both are studied in Tantra, because tantra is very much the magic of the moment, the magic of co-creation.

00:13:34:00 - 00:13:41:22
Speaker 2
My teacher used to say, when you fixate on form, you completely collapse the potential for what a moment could.

00:13:41:22 - 00:13:42:15
Speaker 3
Be, right?

00:13:42:20 - 00:13:50:03
Speaker 2
And I think about that a lot in the King space when someone's like, but I wanted this specific thing.

00:13:50:04 - 00:13:50:11
Speaker 3
To happen.

00:13:50:12 - 00:13:51:12
Speaker 4
Why didn't you do this?

00:13:51:13 - 00:13:56:05
Speaker 3
And you're like, well, the moment didn't call for it was a great thing.

00:13:56:05 - 00:14:10:12
Speaker 4
With their connection. And that's not where you needed to go. But that, I think, is partially because they don't want to go where they need to go. You know, where you know they don't. Sometimes there's some fear of getting too real.

00:14:10:14 - 00:14:13:09
Speaker 1
Sometimes that applies to relationships at large.

00:14:13:11 - 00:14:15:23
Speaker 3
Know how we are so eager to squeeze.

00:14:15:23 - 00:14:17:17
Speaker 1
Things in this.

00:14:17:19 - 00:14:18:06
Speaker 3
Like this.

00:14:18:07 - 00:14:20:14
Speaker 1
And if it doesn't fit, oh, we can't have it.

00:14:20:14 - 00:14:21:02
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:14:21:04 - 00:14:47:11
Speaker 2
I coach men on this a lot. On the fixation. I mostly coach men. I'm sure every human could be coached on this, but on the fixation around form and how the outcome, whether that be a partner or a date or a sexual experience or a play party or a is supposed to look, and how often that fixation robs you of the 18 amazing possibilities that are just sexy.

00:14:47:12 - 00:14:50:23
Speaker 2
Dancing in your periphery like waiting to be experience.

00:14:51:01 - 00:14:53:03
Speaker 4
The connection and the right.

00:14:53:04 - 00:14:56:15
Speaker 2
So so fantasy is tricky, right? Hold it lightly.

00:14:56:15 - 00:14:58:12
Speaker 3
Maybe. Right? Right.

00:14:58:14 - 00:15:22:13
Speaker 1
Thank you for finding the nuance in that. That's so amazing. One final question before we wrap just to touch on archetypes, because that is a big part of young the shadow things that are emerging that may have even been in a past life. Right. Something that we inhabit, Mistress Madeleine. What? Just give us like a quick what are the archetypes?

00:15:22:15 - 00:15:25:02
Speaker 1
Which is a huge question, but some of the common ones.

00:15:25:03 - 00:15:27:13
Speaker 2
So I'm glad you asked because I've given a talk on.

00:15:27:13 - 00:15:29:05
Speaker 3
This before.

00:15:29:07 - 00:15:29:20
Speaker 2
I'll can.

00:15:29:20 - 00:15:31:19
Speaker 3
It for you.

00:15:31:20 - 00:15:58:00
Speaker 2
The archetypes are aspects of humanity, universal qualities of the human that that have occurred throughout history and that often occur in every single one of us. And so young has a very specific set of archetypes. In kink, you play with a specific set, but an always growing set of archetypes. I'll name a couple just so we have them in our pocket.

00:15:58:03 - 00:16:26:00
Speaker 2
But like The magician is an archetype. The the trickster is an archetype for from the young perspective, the sage is an archetype, and the shadow of the sage is the elitist. Right? So there's there's a lot that you can work with. But often in kink, we are finding ourselves drawn to these archetypal expressions because they are these stylized, universal aspects of what it means to be human.

00:16:26:01 - 00:16:33:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so we come back to them. We play parts that maybe we feel drawn to or if we feel connected to inherently.

00:16:33:14 - 00:16:34:06
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:16:34:07 - 00:16:37:01
Speaker 1
So well said Goddess Vittoria. How do you see the archetype?

00:16:37:02 - 00:16:42:06
Speaker 4
I'm really glad you asked her first.

00:16:42:08 - 00:17:04:22
Speaker 4
I work with them and I use them. I try and get people to look at their different, you know, the different ones and feel where they have some charge to something. The mother of the trickster or the sage, whatever it is. The villain, the victim.

00:17:04:22 - 00:17:08:02
Speaker 3
The victim.

00:17:08:04 - 00:17:08:20
Speaker 2
Unconsciously.

00:17:09:01 - 00:17:10:04
Speaker 3
That one out and that.

00:17:10:04 - 00:17:15:08
Speaker 4
One is is is big.

00:17:15:10 - 00:17:35:09
Speaker 4
And when people can find their charge to one of these roles, I think that's where they start exploring what their taboo is around that and how they can create a scene that's exciting and polarizing and healing.

00:17:35:11 - 00:17:55:10
Speaker 1
Very well said, both of you. Well, if kink Gives formed a shadow material, the next question is how do we work with it responsibly? That brings us to practice and specifically negotiation. Join us for episode three, where we will look at Kink as a laboratory exploring negotiation, consent, and ethics.