What is Aftercare in BDSM?

Aftercare is the process of gently bringing yourself back into reality after a BDSM play session.

Why is it so important?

Depending on the intensity, a BDSM scene can be extremely taxing on body and mind. After play, both Tops and bottoms can feel emotionally drained and fragile. After all, you’ve just let down your defenses and engaged in activities that involve much trust and vulnerability. You need time to recover from this and nurture yourself back to your previous energy levels, a sense of normality and inner stability.

In some ways it’s like how you feel after great sex: you’re physically worn out, a little raw from opening yourself up emotionally to another person and you crave connection and downtime. What do we often do in a situation like this? We lie in bed together, cuddle and talk.

It’s similar in BDSM, except that a play experience is usually more intense and taxing.

Photo: Matthew Henry

What does aftercare look like?

For many kinksters, aftercare looks like a drink of water, cuddles, a snack, tending to physical hurts and exchanging affectionate words, but there are many more ways to do it.

People’s needs are different. Tops’ needs are different from bottoms’. Your needs right after playing are different from your needs a few days later.

Aftercare isn’t just limited to the time immediately after a scene. Play partners will often check in with each other a day or more after playing, depending on what was negotiated and how intense the scene was.

Often a Top will initially focus on the bottom’s needs as they are the ones bearing the brunt of the activity. Yet Tops have needs too, often in the form of reassurance that the experience was welcomed and enjoyed by the bottom (unless it wasn’t, in which case that should be communicated). Also, a lot of what works for bottoms works for Tops too. Cuddles all around!

Photo: Bonnie Kittle

This is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of aftercare. The process of finding out what you need physically, mentally and emotionally after playing requires that you know yourself well enough to verbalize what you need.

This is yet another way in which BDSM and personal growth cross paths. Our needs are shaped by our own personal experience and are influenced by factors like our mental health, neurodivergence, attachment styles, nervous systems and our relationship to our bodies. If we’ve been out of touch with ourselves and our bodies, it can be difficult to ask for appropriate aftercare, which can impact how safe we feel and how we recover from play.

By approaching BDSM mindfully, we can learn to re-connect to ourselves so that we can negotiate authentically, and replace patterns of over-giving with assertiveness and confidence.