“You don’t like to cuddle?! You’re a HORRIBLE Person!”

Seems like such a mundane thing to have as a hard limit, doesn’t it? Cuddling after sex or play.

I get this attitude every time the topic of aftercare comes up. Doesn’t matter if I’m the bottom. Doesn’t matter if I’m the top. Doesn’t matter if I’m the dom. Doesn’t matter if I’m the sub.

They ALWAYS mean cuddling. I mean ALWAYS. It’s never about food and drink. Never about tending wounds. It’s always about being trapped against another human being long after my need for close contact is concluded.

When I say I don’t cuddle, people automatically assume I must be some callous, mean-spirited, abusive ghoul. They personally have to have the cuddles, so anyone who won’t do that (even though we’re never going to meet, let alone play) is the worst villain in the world. End of story.

Here’s the thing…there is a story behind it, if only they’d see past their own personal snit to listen.

Not once has anyone ever asked me why I don’t like to cuddle. I’m a very horrible terrible person and that’s the end of it. There are no valid reasons as far as they are concerned.

But, yeah, there are reasons. Very serious, horrific reasons. In order to comprehend how pervasive it is, take this moment to set aside any indignation over the very thought that someone doesn’t like to cuddle with other adult human beings. (Cats and dogs are fine. I’d love a bunny, too. Or a ferret. Hell, even a cuddly snake would be great.)

My reason starts with the molestation I endured for years as a child. Being trapped on the bed, unable to escape him or that nightmare. Not allowed to leave the bed until he’d done what he was going to do to me that day and let me go. There was no fighting him. He was much bigger than I was at the start. He just picked me up and carried me into his room. The cousin trusted to babysit me and his younger brother while his mother and sisters went to the grocery store, which always took two or more hours. It ended when my mother and I moved closer to my school and I no longer had to go to my aunt’s house every day Monday through Friday.

Flash forward to my first husband, who I was with from 1987 to 2000. He would demand that I remain in the bed with him after sex. “Cuddle with me!” he would say in this pleading, childish whine. It may have been cute at first. After years of it, I hated that phrase. At the time, I could not vocalize my dislike. I just didn’t much like to cuddle.

I was literally trapped in his arms, forced to remain regardless how I felt about it. He was good at back-handed guilt trips and getting angry if I tried to stand up for myself and not do something he was badgering me into. There was no winning. Even if I won and didn’t have to cuddle, I lost because he would be angry for hours.

I had to endure it until he started snoring. Close, hot space, sweaty bodies (gross), being breathed on when my skin was already insufferably over-sensitive. 

I hated every second of it. I still do. If a guy flogs and fucks me well enough that I want to cuddle, he needs to mark his belt, put a notch on the bedpost, and make a note in the calendar to celebrate the anniversary next year.

Once he started snoring, I could extricate myself from the bear trap and get some space. I could be alone for the rest of the night if he stayed asleep.

Would it have been different if I’d never suffered through four years of sexual abuse? I don’t know. I can never know, so I don’t dwell on it. This is who I am and people have to take me as I am. They cannot change me to suit themselves, and that wouldn’t be fair of them anyway.

Not wanting to be trapped in a place I no longer want to be doesn’t make me a horrible person.

“Gosh, maybe you should go to therapy and fix that!” I can hear someone saying.

Why? To appease people I’m not in a relationship with? So no one has to suffer the thought that someone else isn’t like they are? No amount of therapy in the world is going to change the fact that I don’t like to be touched after sex and/or play, or that I want to be left alone when we’re done. I don’t need that type of pseudo-connection and manufactured closeness in order to be content.

Another mundane thing that is a hard limit with me is performing fellatio, and for the same initial reason: Molestation I endured as a child.

Over the years, it’s become harder and harder to do. I’m at the point where I cannot bring myself to put my mouth on the genitals. I have zero desire to do so. Rather the opposite. I have complete aversion to the very thought.

I’m really good at fellatio. I used to be able to do it for quite a long time with my first husband, until my jaw ached and I could barely move it. With the second husband, it slowly became impossible. We talked about it many times. He understood. He didn’t tell me to do it very often. He understood when I couldn’t do it for more than a few minutes. He knew it was a thing he was not qualified to fix.

“Gosh, maybe you should get some therapy to fix that!” I can hear someone saying.

Yes, the horror of a woman refusing to suck dick. It must be fixed! All those poor men whose dicks she’s not sucking! THINK OF THE POOR DICKS!

I don’t feel a need to go to therapy just so I can tolerate a sexual act I get no pleasure in performing. It’s not a crime against nature that I don’t want to do it. It’s my choice. Consent and all. I do not consent to giving head, and I’m okay never giving head ever again in my life.

That doesn’t make me a horrific monster either. I’ll still fuck a dude right off the bed. 

While I won’t perform oral, I do give an intense round of fucking. I consider that a good trade off, especially when they wear themselves out and can’t satisfy my need for orgasms. See, that’s another lingering effect of having been molested for years. I LOVE to fuck. I’m all about the penetration. Hard fucking, long fucking, bodies pounding together so hard that people on the other beds stop to watch and applaud when I’m finally done and the people next door light up a smoke.

I’d call that a good alternative.

So, Dear Reader…When someone says a seemingly mundane, everyday common thing is a hard limit, rather than drawing a judgment against that person maybe you should ask if they will share the why of it. Maybe take a moment to realize that there might be a deeply personal and private pain behind that hard limit. Understand the why and accept the person for who they are. Realize it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get that thing, and take what they offer as an alternative.

Their limit isn’t about you.

It’s about them.

——-

TylerRose. is known as Dame Tyler in the NYC public SM/Fetish scene. She has over 30 years of experience in d/s relationships. She is also an award-winning author who has written three “lifestyle”, four cartoon, and twenty seven fiction books.

Read her books on her Amazon page — https://www.amazon.com/TylerRose./e/B00HCPLSP2

You can also find more of her OP/ED work in Fetlife: https://fetlife.com/users/305828

WordPress – https://dametylerrose.wordpress.com/

Twitter — https://twitter.com/DameTyler or @DameTyler

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/tylerroseauthor/

She enjoys crocheting and baking, and will no doubt die with a thesaurus open on her thigh.