To find a way into someone else's life, we need to find a way out of ours - Part 4
Perhaps read parts 1, 2 and 3 first.
I couldn’t remember when was the last time I bought a plush.
I remember growing up on Garfield the cat plushes and ubiquitous Teddy Bears, but as fleeting as my childhood went by and adulthood creeped in, I eventually cleared my plushes one by one for a cleaner room. Adulthood, they say, in all its merciless irony.
A while back, I dated a girl who harbored a profound and strong fondness for Hello Kitty and Sanrio, a fascination that seemed beyond the grasps of what my perceived ‘adult’ brain could comprehend. I chalked it up to the chasms of our age difference. Despite so, I listened attentively when she became enamoured with the latest Sanrio collab, and racked my brains when she asked me to guess her top five Sanrio characters. Slowly, I found myself drawn to her world, trying to understand and enjoy what she loved (Did you know that Cinnamoroll is a dog not a bunny???) and as love found us, I began indulging her. My Instagram algorithm slowly morphed into somewhat a Pinterest board of cutesy stuff, not just about Sanrio but all things that she liked: Sanrio memes, themed cafes, strawberries, mechanical keyboards, Japan travel, nail art, Hotpot & Dimsum, and the likes.
Meeting someone with an ardent love for Sanrio into adulthood was initially puzzling for me, but I found myself first wanting to understand what she loved and eventually loving what she loved. It wasn’t just an act of comprehension, but to embrace as an expression of affection, as my love language for her.
During one of our dates, I told her I wanted a plush as well. On days when we would be apart from each other, I wanted to have something from her next to me that would remind me of her. I remember people the best through my senses of touch and smell; hence, a plush over other forms of gifts, say, a wallet or a necklace.
The next week, we drove down to the mall near her apartment. We checked out a Japanese collectible store and Miniso, and I was torn between an otter plush and a Neko Sumiko Gurashi plush. I went for the latter.
Even after we parted ways, over the next few years, my plush collection grew, ten years after I threw away my last childhood collection of Garfields and teddy bears. My room started piling up with Sumikko Gurashi, Cinna, Hello Kitty, Fluffy the Unicorn and Miffy plushes.
To the outsider, it seemed like a delayed spurt of childhood naïveté and innocence, or perhaps an enduring childhood fascination of cartoons lingering well into adulthood. Yet, it was neither. With each memory of us fawning over Hello Kitty made me rediscover a missing piece within me—something I hadn't realized I had lost over the passage of time. My innocence, pure and unadulterated. It was the floppy ears of Cinna, and also the dumb eyes of Fluffy that I found the way back into my own inner child, amidst the grime, cruelness of adulthood; my traumas, heartbreaks, dejections, and hurt. I started reparenting my inner child—to heal old wounds, to be more empathetic and gentler towards myself, and eventually finding my inner peace.
Through her and her love of Sanrio, indirectly taught me the biggest lesson in my thirties: to find my way into someone else’s life; I had to find my way out of mine. The hurt from A, the spiral I led myself in and the hole I dug. If I wanted to prove myself worthy of love, I had to love myself first.
As a practitioner of kink, more often than not I see concept of kink and BDSM being strongly correlated with kinky sex and arousal on the physical level. However, to me, kink is never for kink’s sake - for example, to me it was never about busting of balls or donning of shiny latex. The intersectionality of kink and self goes beyond the surface but has interceptions with trauma, self-identification, and your inner child. Every single fantasy and kink we hold has implications, past and present to who we are.
Kink offers a powerful conduit to delve deeper into our unconscious psyche, with the power to discover and heal. Within consensual kink dynamics, the interplay of power, vulnerability, and intimacy can mirror early emotional experiences that shaped us. These moments contained within a safe, negotiated space can allow us to revisit, understand, and transform longstanding narratives of trauma. By acknowledging these inner layers, kink becomes a tool for self-discovery, where unspoken desires and suppressed feelings find room to be understood and healed.
Within holistic kink, the convergence of desire, trauma, and personal growth invites us to redefine who we are on our own terms. It encourages us to face and accept our light and shadow sides, empowering us to integrate parts of our identity that might otherwise remain siloed and tucked away within containers. This authentic self-recognition is a powerful catalyst for personal growth and transformation.
The intersectionality of kink and the unconscious self is a multifaceted journey toward holistic growth and wholeness. It is about honouring the complexity of our experiences—acknowledging that our sexual expression and kink identities can be a profound reflection of our inner worlds.
The discovery and integration of the many fragmented selves into one whole self, to understand how we arrived at where we are, and where do we go after, is a lifelong journey in self-discovery and realisation. Many live through their entire lives not knowing the answer, though even more do not realise what the question was in the first place.
Whether through intimate scenes through kink that foster healing or through introspective practices of rediscovering our inner child through plushes, embracing this path invites us to cultivate a richer, more authentic understanding and appreciation of ourselves. And to summarise my growth quite succulently, my love for Cinnamoroll and Sumikkos has made me a better Dominatrix. I may not have the answers to everything the universe has, but that I can say.
Carpe Diem, seize the fucking day.
PS: The End…to a four-part tetralogy that spanned over nine years of my adulthood. Parts 1, 2 and 3 here.