After Dark Play practices, such as BDSM, kink, or fetish activities, the “players” can experience intense emotional reactions, which can range from distress, sadness and grief to euphoria, exhilaration, and deep relief.
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Therefore, some kind of aftercare may be needed for either the dominant or submissive partner (or for both) to digest what happened during their play and to manage the reactions afterwards. This can involve emotional, psychological/mental, and/or physical support, which is often essential for emotional recovery and maintaining or perhaps strengthening intimacy and trust.
Depending on what’s needed and how intense a session was, various activities can be involved in aftercare, such as reviewing, reflecting or debriefing the session, affirmations, cuddling, hugging, kissing, providing comfort and reassurance, sleeping together, having loving and “normal” sex, watching a movie together, massage, taking care of possible small wounds, rehydration, eating together, or perhaps simply being left alone.
In the case of a commercial session that involved a professional BDSM, kink, or fetish practitioner, it’s the task of the professional to provide adequate and appropriate aftercare to their client. This may involve some of the aftercare activities mentioned in the previous paragraph, but may also go beyond in the form of more therapeutic support, depending on the goal of the session and qualifications of the professional.
