All for Love Coaching

  It’s a story I hear over and over.  “I went to a therapist and got told I have a mental illness because I’m a masochist!” “My therapist reported me for abuse because I have a consensual D/s relationship!” It’s 2024, people. Have we learned nothing about sex and sexuality and, first and foremost, consent? No, apparently not. In an ideal world, when a professional hears something that’s outside their scope of experience, they will go educate themselves on the topic. According to ethical guidelines, if it’s too far out of their experience, they will refer the client to a more appropriate care provider. In real life? Not so easy. Sometimes a therapist will try to educate themselves with the wrong resources and end up worse-informed than they started out. Sometimes they’ll prematurely terminate the therapeutic relationship. Sometimes they’ll just let their own instincts guide the conversation. Therapists are humans too. Humans raised in our weirdly puritanical sex-negative societ...

Well, maybe not “you” specifically. But the vast majority of people? They have no clue. Let’s define our terms. “Sex work” is “the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation.” Prostitution is the one most people think of, but lots of different activities fall under the umbrella of sex work. Stripping, porn, camming, phone sex, all of these are forms of sex work. Sex work, most importantly, is valid work. Sex workers clock in, perform their contracted or agreed-upon services, and clock out. It is no more “selling your body” than any other physical labor we perform. Sex workers have a right to all the usual worker protections, even though in the US they are not currently granted them under the law. I have nothing but respect for those who perform sex work. I’m just not one of them. For context, I get approached to do sex work on a regular basis. Mostly by people who don’t understand the term “coaching” in the context of polyamory and kink. My coachin...

 This is probably the question that all newbies to the kink scene wonder about. What should go in there?  The answer is probably both more and less complicated than you think.  "Of course, a good toy bag needs two floggers, a cane, a paddle, a set of clamps...." Nope! I'm not here to tell you what your kinks should be. If you could happily go about your life without a single impact scene, why should you have impact toys in there? A good toy bag (or trunk, or backpack, or whatever you use) should be, in my mind, not just a snapshot of your kinks, but an overall picture of your good kink practices. I personally abide by the standards of Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK), but this applies to you whether you practice SSC, PRICK, or any of the other acronyms they've come out with since the writing of this post.  It's important to note - both tops and bottoms should carry something with their basic necessities in it. Bottoms are allowed to have a favorite paddle, and to...

Ah, the age old question. How do I get total strangers invested in me as a person through a dick pic and some nominal information about my fetishes? Well... you don't. It's totally possible to meet people through Fetlife. I've had friendships and even business partnerships happen solely through the messages function. It's just unlikely. And the kind of people who bulk-message random accounts are probably not the kind of people you want to form a lasting relationship with. If you are that kind of person? Please stop.  The point I'm trying to make here is that in order to seduce people with your profile alone, you need a few basic pieces of information about yourself. You need a profile picture. In essence, you need to give the impression that there's actually a real person behind the screen. If you want to go a step further and become a Fet-lebrity... well, we'll get to that. What are the basic parts of a profile? Profile picture! This is probably the first b...

Woof. What a title. Despite what I do for a living, my mother has no idea about my kink life. Okay so, I say that, but there have been.... hints. She stared me down after seeing the bruise on my upper chest, but after the fourth or fifth time just told me in an aggrieved voice "Tell your boys to go lower!" "My boys" thought this was a hilarious command, and proceeded to thoroughly ignore it. But getting involved in the kink world professionally, I have the deep and abiding concern that she will find out through a method other than me telling her. Such as, for example, Googling my name and stumbling across my website. With a tab saying "kink." I've known people to come out to their parents to wonderful results. One dear friend had her mother express disappointment, not that she was in kink, but that she wasn't a dominatrix.  On the flip side, I've had friends get disowned after coming out as queer to their parents. It is 2023, people. I thought ...

(cross-posted on BoundBDSM)  The title is vaguely misleading, honestly.  Ego can be defined as self esteem or self-importance, and I definitely don't want you to discard those for whoever you're playing with! When I get questions about "ego," it's usually in phrases like "the male ego." In these contexts, I think ego is something different. I think ego is a Saboteur. In coaching, those negative voices in our head are called Saboteurs, or gremlins, or whatever you want to call them. The ego I'm talking about is the voice that says "should" or "shouldn't." Ego might sound like... You shouldn't want this - you're a stronger person than that! You shouldn't let them do that - how embarrassing would that be! You should be above all this and not guided by your desires. You should want to be kind, not cruel, to someone you like. You shouldn't, should, shouldn't... Good golly gosh, what an exhausting way to live. Be...

 I've made a few. My last blog post was even about one! You can read that here.   But Anneke! You've been doing this for years! How come you're still messing up? Well, dear reader, I don't actually count my mistakes as mess-ups. I count them as opportunities to learn about myself. What I learned from my first business account troll was- I'm a little naïve still. Which isn't a bad thing! I love being myself, and I love assuming the best of people. I'm willing to accept a few message threads that drag on if I can keep being me. Feeding the troll without blocking him was the real Mistake #1. However, I've been putting myself out there more and getting more messages. And due to Mistake #2, I'm seeing a theme. Mistake #2 was joining a newbies group. I thought it might be a good place to advertise, or at least drum up interest, so I posted on the introductions thread. R. I. P. My. Inbox. There's a certain class of people who trawl introduction threads ...

 I got my first troll last night during D&D. Ironically. As our characters were trekking through the mountains of Barovia, I got a ping on my phone. It was a DM about the ad I had just posted in the local classifieds group. I was delighted - I had already gotten three interested messages and it seemed my new profile was going to be a hit. I opened the message and was slightly dismayed - this fellow was soliciting sex as well as profile setup services!  I am not a sex worker, although I understand the confusion.  As our characters began to roll initiative against 6 skeletons, I politely answered him and told him that I do not perform sexual acts, and that if he wanted profile help I could do that via the phone or Zoom.  His next response absolutely baffled me. He claimed that no, he was not confused. He did not think I was a sex worker. Out of sheer curiosity, I expressed my own confusion. Was he asking for both services for free? What on earth was going on? The n...

 I know I promised education rather than self-reflection, but I think that a quick story time can serve both goals quite handily. My first munch... was not technically my first munch. Oh god, I've now lied twice in as many blog posts. This is not a good start. Technically for my first munch, I was still in college, and a friend dragged me along because she was scared and knew I was also interested in the community. It was in a food court, I had a great time and even went out to a restaurant with a bunch of people after the mall closed down. All in all, a great success, even if I never went to another munch in that city again. My second munch was with my then-partner, during which we wandered around until someone deigned to talk to us. One particular guy was very obviously interested in me, so my ex made up an excuse that there was a server down that he had to attend to and we left. It is important to note that we were fully monogamous - had I been poly at that point I would have ha...