Finally! A book for everyone who is neuro-spicy and the people who love them!
Kinky & Complicatedis a book for everyone living with either a mental illness or neuro-atypical brain and their partners. Mental health conditions and neurodivergence are just ways of saying "your brain doesn't work like we expect it too." Understanding how various conditions shape emotions, cognition, and behaviors help people learn to navigate the world and their relationships with greater ease.
With approximately 20 percent of adults living with a mental illness and another 12 percent living with some form of neurodivergence, there are a lot of us in relationships with someone who experiences these types of brains. This book explores (through published research) how various types of brains work and what this means for relationships. There is extensive discussion about depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, autism, and other non-normative brains. The author covers how these conditions shape communication, consent, and relationships.
There is a long chapter on various forms of consent and what mental illness or neurodivergence brings to the table when negotiation consensual activities and power exchange. The author covers the common fantasy of using BDSM to sublimate self-harm and "command" someone out of a mental illness.
The back end of the book provides many tools for people to use to help them have the conversations necessary for healthy and successful relationships. This is a great book for anyone living with a mental illness, neurodivergence, or their partners.
What the critics are saying:
Kinky & Complicated: Navigating BDSM with Mental Illness or Neurodivergence is an invaluable resource for folks with a “neurospicy brain” and/or a brain with a mental health issue, and their partners, as they navigate the complexities of BDSM. Drawing from their own life and their academic experience, Rebecca Blanton (aka Auntie Vice) goes deep, covering everything from what a diagnosis may—or may not—mean to recognizing red and green flags in potential partners. Kinky & Complicated is a deeply researched, comprehensive guide to better understanding ourselves and each other.
~Jill Hamilton, "In Bed with Married Women" podcast, Cosmopolitan Magazine, O Magazine
Rebecca E. Blanton offers a thoughtful and valuable resource for kinky people navigating mental illness or neurodivergence without shame. Kinky & Complicated pushes back against harmful myths that BDSM can serve as a cure or therapy on its own, while giving readers grounded ways to think about communication, consent, medication side effects, safety, and care within BDSM relationships. This is the kind of honest, nuanced education our community needs more of.
— Luna Carruthers, author and founder of Submissive Guide
Healthy BDSM requires more than just knowing how to negotiate a scene, you have to understand the whole person you're exchanging power with. Kinky & Complicated brings a much needed conversation to the intersection of BDSM, mental health, and neurodivergence. It should be included in the library of every kinkster DomSub Living
