Frenzy... what the hell is it? And how can it totally fuck up your journey?
In this episode, we're going to talk about the concept of frenzy, how it can mess you up if you're not careful, and how to deal with it when you're actually caught up in it. This is an important topic, so stick around for a few.
Let's dive deeper.
You're listening to the Deeper with Red Podcast. A show about the BDSM lifestyle with stories, thoughts, and perspectives to inform, entertain, and challenge your thinking. Are you ready? Let's Go Deeper.
Well, hey there, I'm Red, and welcome to the Deeper Podcast.
Okay, so you may be asking yourself, what is frenzy? Well, the simple answer is... it's a state of excitement... where you just lose your damn mind!
Think of it like this. You know that phrase... "kid in a candy shop?" Well, imagine you're a kid left alone in a candy shop, free reign to eat anything and everything you want.
You'd probably go nuts, right? Be grabbing handfuls of candy and chocolate treats and all that delicious fudge, and probably wash it all down with the biggest milkshake you can find... while it may be the best time of your life in the moment... we all know what comes next.
A stomach that is sick as hell, a visit to the bathroom to exorcise the demons you just consumed. Probably about a week of never wanting to touch candy again.
In other words, you lost your mind, you went crazy, and ate every damn thing you could to stuff your face with. Well, that's frenzy. Except, you're not in a candy store, and you're not a kid. You're in the kink world, and you're supposed to be a grown ass adult.
Now I get it, the kink world looks like one hell of a candy store. There are so many different things to try and enjoy and explore along the way. There seems to be something new at every corner, and yeah, we want to try it all. So how do we manage this? How do we not find ourselves hanging over the proverbial toilet, wishing we'd never even heard of kink?
So a few years ago, I wrote a post over at FetLife.com that got a lot of love, and it was around this topic of frenzy. The title of the writing was "Fucking Yellow, Dammit!" And I wanted to take a moment to visit that writing and share my thoughts with you. So first, here's the writing itself.
Look, I get it.
It's all new, exciting, and exhilarating. You want to experience everything and in every way. But slow the fuck down!
Red and yellow are common words to slow down a scene or stop it altogether. But they don't just need to be used within a scene. They can apply to an overall approach to the lifestyle.
Earlier today, I came across an ad. "New to the lifestyle! My new master is taking me to a local bookstore / porn shop to be fucked, choked, restrained, and generally used any way you want. Come have fun and use me!"
What The Fuck? Seriously? New to the lifestyle and the gracious master is going to throw you to the wolves at an adult theater? A bunch of random strangers that have full access to use you and fuck you and there's no real limits?
Oh, that's right! Master will be there. You are inviting such a horrible outcome. Another person, new to the lifestyle, can't play fast enough.
"I've never met you, but please, come tie me up and fuck me. You, you want to meet at a hotel? Sure. I know you have no photos on your profile and you really don't tell me anything about yourself in your profile. But I can't wait to turn my body over to you completely so you can tie me up and fuck me in any way you please. I mean, we're just talking about a little bit of bondage and a quick orgasm, right?"
Yellow! Fucking Yellow Dammit!
Slow the hell down! This is not a sprint. It's not a race to the finish. This is a journey. And if you're new, take your time. Slow down. Get to know the potential play partners.
Understand what play "partners" actually means. It means that we're working together... not simply that you're there to be used in any way they please.
BDSM does not mean leave common sense at the door. You need to use common sense even more than before... because much of what we do here is dangerous! Done wrong, and without care for you in any way... it could even be deadly or cause permanent damage.
Please, for the love of all that is even close to sane... slow the hell down! Take your time and allow yourself to grow into this.
Can you enjoy a group encounter where you're used all sorts of fun ways? Yes, of course. But good God, let's not try it right off the bat.
Learn about safety, get to know the players, and help ensure your own damn safety.
Personal safety is just that... personal. It's your responsibility to ensure that you are safe. And this includes making sure that the person / people, you are entrusting your safety to are worthy of that trust. Otherwise, you may just well become another sad statistic. And while I'm sure you'll have someone to blame... you'll always have yourself to blame as well because you were in such a rush that you did not slow down to vet those around you.
Yellow, the word of the day.
So this writing got nearly 2,000 loves and over 200 comments, and this was very early on in my journey. It was actually one of my first popular writings, which kind of surprised me a bit. I was just ranting away at some shit I saw, knowing that people were putting themselves in some really fucked up situations... because they were just moving way too fast.
Everything here can be exciting as hell. I mean, seriously, there's some shit you've never even imagined. Maybe you're more like me, and you read those stories on the back of some porn magazine and swore those things could never be true. Only to realize later that, holy hell, this stuff actually does happen.
Either way, stepping into this journey, you quickly find that shit gets real. And exciting. Pretty damn fast. It's not hard to get wrapped up in it all very quickly, and even start to lose your mind. When we get in this headspace, we start to make some really bad decisions.
Now I've said this before, but if you would not meet some random stranger at a shady motel, within five minutes of swiping right on Tinder... you might want to just take more than five minutes to approach some of what we do here.
But when you're in a frenzy headspace, you need to do everything and you need to do it all NOW!
- Negotiations? Who needs that? I just want to play.
- Getting to know someone a bit? Oh, come on. They're a master. Surely things can't go wrong if I just jump in as a slave.
- Oh shit! That's shiny over there! And then you drop everything you're doing in the moment, forgetting the person you were just connecting with. Leaving them to feel used and basically shit on.
- CNC and kidnapping? Hell yeah, sign me up for that. Someone, come take me away. Who? Oh, I don't care, just promise you'll honor my safe words, please?
Before you know it, you can get burned out by running so damn fast. Or worse, you can get taken advantage of, or even seriously hurt. And by hurt, I mean in ways that can affect you for the rest of your life.
Look, I said it in the writing, this journey... it is not a sprint. You don't have to do everything everywhere and all at once. Unless you've only been given three weeks to live, you have the rest of your life to explore the stuff.
The better approach is to take your time. Learn a bit about what you want to explore. What are the risks? What bits of safety do you need to be aware of? Who's trustworthy to help you explore while not trying to fuck you over? And if shit does go sideways, how do you recover?
So much of what we do in this lifestyle falls under the concept of edge play. That's the stuff that can take you to the edge of safety. Which is why it's so damn thrilling!
Think of it like this. You know that rush you get when you're standing at the edge of a cliff or at the top of a building? Yeah, it's a pretty amazing feeling, right?
I can remember standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, and holy hell, what a rush that was. But if I had run full speed ahead to the canyon's edge and tried at the last second to stop... what are the chances I probably would have gone over? Hell, what if I was able to manage that trick, stop just in time, but then suddenly, a gust of wind came right up at the last moment?
You see, knowing how far you really are from that edge, and what the conditions are before you make your approach, can truly make all the difference.
Hopefully by now you're getting a sense of how frenzy can be dangerous... if you're not careful.
So how do we deal with it when it happens? Because trust me, we all deal with it at some point. Even those of us who are more experienced in the lifestyle still fall prey.
Well, the first step is to actually recognize it.
- Are you making foolish decisions?
- Are your decisions coming too quick and putting you in very risky positions?
- Are you finding yourself in a place of wondering how the hell you even got there?
- Are you too busy setting up different scenes with different people, one after the other, without taking a lot of time to figure out if those people are even trustworthy?
Chances are if any of that resonates with you, you may very well be dealing with frenzy.
So be honest with yourself and own up to it. You don't have to be embarrassed about it because it happens to the best of us. Once you realize you're losing your mind, it's time to take a step back and kind of reevaluate things.
Take a look at what you've done and be honest with yourself.
- Where did you make the wrong moves?
- Where did you move too fast?
- What did you do that maybe you wish you had done differently?
Now take that information and apply it to what's next.
- Got a couple scenes coming up? Ask yourself how well you know and trust the people you're actually playing with.
- Have a few new experiences lined up? Have you considered the risk involved? What's your plan?
- Have you even negotiated with the people? And are you actually happy with what was agreed to?
- Are you allowing yourself time to actually process the stuff you're doing? Like for real. Sometimes we need time to process some of the stuff.
Give that to yourself. Talk to your friends. Ask them if they think you're moving too fast. And where you may be taking a bit too much risk.
Once you have a better understanding of what you've done, and where you've lost your way and your mind, and what you have coming up, make adjustments where you need to.
Talk to the people you're engaging with about where you are. Let them know you need to slow down just a bit. Let your friends know where you are and ask them to help remind you to think things through just a bit more.
Pace yourself. That new experience, it ain't going anywhere. People have been doing it for years before you came into this and they'll be doing it for years after you're gone.
So honestly, you have plenty of time.
Now, I will be the first to admit that this is how I see these things and that doesn't apply to everybody. There are people out there that have a much higher risk profile than I do. And there are those that want to feel something so damn bad they really just don't care about what happens. And if that's you, well, you do you.
Here's the thing. You are an adult. You are absolutely free to do whatever you want. This is your journey, after all. Besides, I am not part of the Kink Police. But remember, you're also the one that has to deal with whatever consequences come from your decisions.
That said, my perspective is... slow down. Try to make the best decisions you can and take your time to enjoy the different experiences along the way.
Yeah, it's a little less risky and a little less frantic, but you really do get a chance to enjoy and process what it is you're doing. And doing that can make for some of the best experiences along the way.
We do play on the edge quite a bit, and that's not a bad thing. We often have far better experiences in this journey than most people will ever have in their lifetime. But it's okay to take your time in that journey.
It's okay to slow down just a bit. And it's okay to call yellow on yourself along the way.
Thanks for hanging with me. Have a great day.
Thanks for tuning in to the Deeper podcast. I hope that you not only enjoyed the episode, but maybe something new jumped out at you. Hopefully something that changed your perspective and maybe has you thinking a bit more. I'd love to hear from you. If you have comments, show ideas, or questions, please check out the show website at deeperwithred.com. Click on the feedback tab and send a message there. You'll also find other episodes, related materials, and even ways to show your fan support right there on the website. So we'll see you there. Until next time, whenever or wherever you can, Go Deeper!
