Sex Files: Kinky Wellness Might Be Just What You Need

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Dana Shergill loved to play rough as a child. It was a fun way to let off some energy, and she showed off her scars like trophies.

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As she grew older, she quickly realized that behavior that was once acceptable for a small child was no longer considered appropriate for a “good young lady.” Though the opportunities for rough play decreased, the desire never went away.

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In high school, she stumbled across BDSM porn and something clicked. She didn’t understand the full scope of what she was watching, but she knew she liked it. For a few years, she used adult content as a learning tool. Then she met someone in the BDSM community.

“That’s when I realised I didn’t know anything about BDSM or sexual perversion and that I couldn’t learn anything from porn,” Shergill said during a recent Zoom call.

Shergill says she had to start her own sexuality journey all over again — a process of unlearning and relearning safety precautions, including how to deal with the accidents and emotional triggers that inevitably happen during sexual play — but it was an incredibly healing experience for her.

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This inspired her to start her own company, The Partition: Home of Kinky Wellness, to help people explore their desires and learn how to play safely. Based near Toronto, The Partition: Home of Kinky Wellness now offers e-learning courses covering the basics of BDSM and kink, as well as select in-person workshops.

So what exactly is Kinky Wellness?

“Kinky Wellness has two components: the healing aspect and the adventure and play aspect,” says Shergill. Kinky Wellness helps lay the foundations of BDSM, including education on how to properly use toys, tools and equipment to reduce risk, so that it can be integrated into overall sexual wellness.

At its core, kinky wellness is about expanding the definition of health and creating safe spaces where people can be creative, embrace their authentic desires, and heal through play. When you feel self-fulfilled in your sex life, it can have a positive ripple effect on the rest of your life.

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For some people, BDSM is a way to rethink negative experiences and rework their endings, creating healing in the process. For others, embracing their sexual preferences is an opportunity to explore and integrate aspects of themselves that they’ve avoided, such as a desire to be submissive or dominant in their partner.

Shergill hopes that by educating people and providing a forum for discussion about paraphilia, she can dispel some of the misconceptions surrounding BDSM, such as that it’s scary or wrong to enjoy it.

Anyone can enjoy their kinky side, and as Shergill likes to point out, “We’re all kinky!” Even those who identify as “normal” can benefit from incorporating an element of kinky health into their sex life.

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“This isn’t a club where you have to meet certain criteria,” Shergill says. Instead, she encourages people to think of BDSM as a spectrum that includes both extreme acts like piercing play and blood play, as well as softer areas like sensory and temperature play (think of your lover running ice or dripping massage candles on your skin).

The only requirement with BDSM is that it’s played ethically and consensually. That said, Shergill says, “It’s important to respect your boundaries and have some self-awareness. This doesn’t just apply to sex. You need to be self-aware when something isn’t working or when someone is treating you badly or pushing your boundaries.”

But once you learn how to maintain your boundaries and speak your truth, it can easily be applied to other areas of your life and be incredibly powerful, Shergill says.

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If you’re not sure if kinky wellness is right for you, Shergill says that’s normal. Often, people aren’t sure if kink is the answer. “But somewhere in their brain, they know it is, so they feel like they’re at war with themselves,” Shergill says. She says it’s her job to tell them it’s okay.

“Once people feel validated, listened to and understood, they feel more confident and motivated to do the things they’ve been putting off,” like embracing the kinky parts of themselves that they’ve been denying.

No matter where on the spectrum they fall, Shergill wants to help people have honest, fulfilling sex lives. Ultimately, “what I want for the people I work with is for them to feel good about themselves,” she says.

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