Bloody hell, isn't it just a bit much when you feel that lump in your throat, that tiny invisible gag, the second you even breathe the word "sex" here in Northern Ireland? Someone might ask what tickles your fancy, and you swallow the real answer, don't you?
That, to me, isn't being modest, not even a bit. No, that's the Shame Gag. And for my money, we wear it like a second skin around here. It feels stitched right into our school uniforms, pressed into the church pews, whispered in every sly innuendo and every single awkward silence. It's not just "don't ask, don't tell"; it's more like, "don't feel, don't want, and for God's sake, don't you dare."
Girls, they're raised to cross their legs, eyes always downcast. The boys are told to "man up," to bottle everything right up. And heaven forbid you talk about desire, especially if it's a bit kinky, or you like to be submissive, or, God forbid, it doesn't end in a white wedding and a three-bed semi in Belfast, complete with a sensible Ford Focus in the drive.
That shame poisons you, plain and simple.
Old Sigmund Freud (yes, Daddy Freud again), he reckoned that when we shove our desires down, they don't just vanish into thin air. No, they mutate, like something out of a bad horror flick. Repression, it seems to me, breeds obsession, a touch of neurosis, and a whole heap of self-loathing. The longer you clamp that gag on yourself with silence, the more that silence, for me, owns you.
But what if, just for a moment, we stopped fighting what we, perhaps, consider our "filth"? What if, instead of swallowing it down, we swallowed it whole, not as a penance, but as a genuine source of power? To me, kink isn't some perversion of who we truly are; more often than not, it's the most honest confession we've ever dared to make. It feels like cracking open a cold one after a long week, finally.
Here in Norn Iron, we've got layers of trauma, piled up thicker than turf on a bog. There's the colonial hangover, the religious guilt clinging like damp clothes, the political fear always lurking, and generations of silence that just fester. And every single bit of it feeds one big, slimy monster: "We don't talk about that here."
Even our finest bits of media spill the beans on us. Take Derry Girls: teenagers bursting with secrets and sarcasm, but never, ever a real, honest-to-goodness chat about the stuff that truly eats at them. Or Peaky Blinders: men draped in violence and sharp threads, but their hearts? Chock-full of unspoken dreams and gut-wrenching betrayals. Then there's The Fall: a serial killer obsessed with control, and a detective, Stella Gibson, who's hiding her own deepest needs behind her police badge. It feels like she's got her own invisible gag on, doesn't it?
We crave honesty like a pint on a hot day, but then, to me, we punish it. We crave sex desperately, but then, without fail, we judge it. We long to be seen, truly seen, yet we hide behind a pint and a quick, cutting punchline. It's a proper catch-22, isn't it?
Kink, for me, is rebellion all dressed up in lingerie and a bit of rope. It shouts, clear as a bell: "You told me to feel ashamed. So, I took that shame, and I made it my safeword, my altar, and my bloody kink!" The gag itself, when you think about it, becomes symbolic, not of being silenced, but of choosing to surrender.
When someone submissive wears a gag during play, it's not, to my mind, to shut them up. No, it's to crank up the vulnerability, to really lean into that trust, to embrace the almost sacred art of just letting go. What society rammed down your throat, you now choose to wear. That, my friend, is the magic of kink, its alchemy. Shame, if you burn it in the right kind of fire, it doesn't destroy you; it becomes your fuel. It's like finding a hidden gem in a Belfast alleyway, something unexpected and powerful.
A Little Ritual: Burn the Gag
Tonight, why don't you light a candle, or maybe just sit there in the dark? Grab a bit of paper. On that paper, write down the very first time you can remember feeling a real pang of shame about your sexuality. Be brutally honest. Get down and dirty, if you need to. Maybe you got caught looking at something you "shouldn't have." Or perhaps you liked something that raised eyebrows. Or, God forbid, you cried during sex, or just didn't want it at all. Whatever that moment was, your moment, own it.
Then, you can either burn it (but seriously, be careful, we don't need any pyrotechnics) or just rip it up, slowly, deliberately, as you say, out loud or in your head:
"I swallow my shame, and now I speak my truth."
You don't need to shout it from the rooftops, like some mad thing. Just whisper it. Say it in your head. The main thing, for me, is that you truly, genuinely mean it. You are not broken. You are not sick. You are not disgusting. You are, in every beautiful, messy sense of the word, becoming. |
