When I wrote my first two pieces about Pillion (2, 1), I kind of started to worry what would happen once the audience widened beyond film festivals and pre-viewing kink circles.
Some people would say it’s not enough. Others would say it’s too much. Some would complain it’s watered down for mainstream consumption; others would insist it’s toxic, abusive, and “not representative.” They all have their legitimate reasons, and I think it’s the biggest achievement of the movie - people are seriously discussing kink.
What I see concerning and dangerous is when the conversation stops being about opinions on a movie and turns into a morality tribunal.
Lately I’ve heard people argue about Pillion the way people argue about religion: not as a disagreement, but as a character assessment. “How can you like this?” quickly becomes “What kind of person are you?” And if you’re visible in the community - a representative, a “well-known figure”, someone with social capital - then the accusation escalates: you have a responsibility not to like this.
That’s the part that makes me want to sit everyone down and say: no, you don’t want debate. You want enforcement. You want to police how people think and call it ethics.
As I’m watching these arguments spiral into personal drama, something comes up in my conversation with Jamie, Mr. Leather Europe 2026: “sometimes it feels like the SM and Fetish communities are two different groups that happen to be together” - It clicks in me at that moment: we keep saying “the kink community” like it’s one homogeneous thing. It’s not.
It’s roughly two groups wearing the same uniform and doing many same things, but with very different underlying philosophies. Inspecting them is not to create further division, but to better understand each other so that we can co-exist and unite the already marginalized groups of us.
Two Kinds of Kinksters
Here’s the over-simplified grouping, as best as I can name it:
Scene-based kinksters (sex-based kink)
Identity-based kinksters (lifestyle-based kink)
On the surface, they do a lot of the same things: leather, rubber, boots, impact play, humiliation, restraint, protocol, pup stuff, whatever. But the driver underneath is different - so much so that they end up using completely different moral frameworks to judge the same behavior to reach completely different conclusions.
(Since this piece was written, I’ve been developing the idea into a more comprehensive framework. But I think the simplified binary described here is still a useful language.)
Scene-based kinksters: “Kink is what I do”
For scene-based people (and I’m speaking mostly about gay men here), the primary identity is: I’m gay. Kink is a layer on top - an enhancement, a menu, a spice rack.
They want intensity. Novelty. A bigger dopamine hit than vanilla sex. An outlet of certain cravings. They normally have quite specific “into-s” or a fetish archetype. They might be turned on by leather or rubber look & feel, or finding escape in puppy hoods or diapers, but kink is something they put on - physically and/or mentally - to have sexual or adjacent satisfactions, and then they take it off and go back to normal life. They won’t be that offended if someone outside of the community compliments their Langlitz set as a nice outfit, or, god forbid, a “costume”.
Even when there’s power play, power dynamics, dominant language, it’s fundamentally role play with an end time. It can be frequent, it can be ritualized, it can be a long-term FWKB arrangement with specific persons who they admire… but outside the scene, both parties return to the shared base identity: we’re equals. We can go to dinner as friends. We can talk as peers. It’s “Dom/sub in bedroom only”.
And if that’s your foundation, then of course pre-scene negotiation becomes sacred. Consent checklists matter because the scene is essentially a performance: a carefully designed experience, bounded by time, with an ethical baseline that says you cannot really give away your rights and dignity as a social being, even if you try to make it feel real.
They also tend to compartmentalize. Kink stays in its lane, and they’re careful not to let it leak into primary relationships, general friendships, work, or public identity. The mantra is basically: “Kink doesn’t define me”. And honestly, the fear is rational - kink-shaming and social death are real for many of them, so the question of how the general public perceives kinksters sits right in the front row when watching a movie like Pillion.
At the same time, some people who look scene-based are actually closer to the identity-based type I’m about to describe - except for whatever reason, they can’t or won’t pursue it fully. And this is where the moralizing does real damage: when lifestyle kink gets lazily labeled “unhealthy”, “toxic” or “Stockholm Syndrome” without real understanding, it doesn’t protect those closet-straddlers. It does the opposite. It teaches them to doubt their deeper needs, to treat their wiring as shameful, to wonder if they’re not just kinky, but the pervert of the perverts, rejected by their very own community.
Identity-based kinksters: “Kink is what I am”
Lifestyle/identity-based people are wired differently. I identify as one of them.
When it comes to kink, their primary identity isn’t “gay”. Their primary identity is Dom/sub. Sexuality is secondary. Sometimes even sex is secondary. I am kinky, kink is me.
Power exchange isn’t a bedroom game. It’s not an “activity”. It’s a worldview. It’s a set of organizing principles for life. It’s the home address of my psyche.
For people like this, dominance doesn’t require penetration, penetration is only one of the many forms of manifested dominance. Leather is not just an outfit, it represents an attitude towards life and society. I’ve been turned on by power and torture scenes on TV from a mental receiving end since I was a little kid without any idea about sex. I’ve been attracted to dominant “big brother” kind of straight friends throughout my life. I’ve felt pulled by masculine energy regardless of gender. Because the engine isn’t “intense sex”. The engine is hierarchy and surrender. Headspace. Safety through structure. The relief of being held down by something larger than my anxious, over-responsible, overthinking mind.
In this framework, what we do in kink is downstream from who we are. The principles come first; the acts are just their implementation. So negotiation isn’t mainly on a punch card of “I’m into X, not into Y” - they often have such a broad kink range that naming several hard limits in a reverse list would be much easier. Negotiation is first a values check: do we share the same philosophy of power, responsibility, hierarchy, and care? Can we both agree a sub’s jacket should never be hanged the same as his Dom’s? - or, its Dom’s? Consent, then, can be positional, embedded in the ranks themselves, given when people stepping into them. And a “contract” isn’t a scene script; it’s the last explicit yes required before you enter something close to a long-term Consensual Non-Consent, preferably with re-negotiation and exit terms.
Recently a Dom said something that gave me an “aha” moment:
Work is your reverse roleplay.
Society is where I perform “normal” and “successful.” My real identity - and the real satisfaction that comes from living it authentically - exists somewhere else, off the clock and outside the script. And that’s why the inner conflict for lifestyle kinksters runs deeper than the usual fear of kink-shaming. It’s not just “will people judge me?” It’s a much harder problem: how do you build a coherent self when your core identity doesn’t fit the equality-based social norms that scene-based kinksters can comfortably return to?
This is why Pillion hits lifestyle kinksters in the chest in a way it doesn’t hit scene kinksters. It’s not just entertainment. It’s recognition.
The Uncomfortable Part: This Split Often Starts in Childhood
Yes, here comes the trauma talk, and I can already hear someone rolling their eyes: “How cliché.”
But I’m not talking about dramatic, cinematic trauma. Not “abuse” in the tabloid sense. I mean the kind of complex trauma that’s almost boring day-to-day: emotional neglect, chronic invalidation, affection as a reward, too much pressure, too little attunement - too much or too little of things at the wrong time. It’s more common than people realize, and so common among lifestyle kinksters that my recent Master thinks if we all get magically “healed” with some trauma therapy, the “kink community” (as He mostly means lifestyle kind) might not exist any more.
I actually think the movie’s choice to give Colin loving, functional parents makes less psychological sense than the book. In Box Hill, the distance with the parents helps explain Colin’s emptiness and why this arrangement hooks him. In the film, the parents are supportive and emotionally competent, which makes it less possible for Colin to turn out with the same self-esteem issues. It’s not a dealbreaker. It’s just a crack in realism.
The traumatic upbringing, together with some personality traits, can arrest emotional development for adult relationships. Your body grows up; parts of your emotional agency don’t. And later, you can do therapy, you can develop insight, you can gain self-awareness - and I’d absolutely recommend everyone to do so for a healthier and happier life - some deficits are structural, like in puberty: if your system didn’t get what it needed during the window, no amount of testosterone injections later on would grow you half an inch in height or length. Dom or sub, they are just two tendencies from this same root - people-pleasing subs, rescuer/fixer Doms, they are just two sides of the same coin.
And when that’s true, power exchange - not as a role play - can become one of the only environments where your system finally makes sense of adult relationships. There’s less to interpret, less to negotiate into existence. The structure is clean, explicit, unapologetic. Doms and subs step into different positions on purpose, and within that hierarchy they satisfy the same human needs everyone is chasing - security, belonging, fulfillment - just not through the usual vanilla romance script. It’s a different route, one that feels closer to something primal, older than our modern ideals, as ancient as the animal part of us. And that’s why lifestyle kinksters keep craving it even when they try to outrun it to fit society’s expectations. Scene-based kinksters, on the other hand, have much less difficulty to pause, replace or abandon a kink they practice - it’s not something they can’t live without.
The Core Difference Between the Two Philosophies
Scene-based kink assumes equality is the default.
The temporary deviation from it is the thrill of kink.
Lifestyle kink assumes hierarchy is the reality.
It’s present in most intelligent and social species on earth. Kink is just life to be lived authentically.
I know someone will say this split is over-simplified, too polarized, too dismissive of nuance on what’s supposed to be a “spectrum”. Yes - the expressions are diverse, it’s even a multi-dimensional matrix. People mix, evolve, improvise. But the underlying difference is still fundamental. In the end, you have to make a choice: contained play or lived hierarchy. In my life, I have faced that choice several times. The choice can change, but if you try to hold both philosophies at the same time as your core truth, which are logically mutually exclusive, you don’t get sophistication - you get cognitive dissonance.
A lifestyle kinkster might never find the long-term power exchange he’s built for. He may end up only doing scenes because that’s what’s available. But it will always feel like a compromise - functional, some fun, but never fully satisfying in the way it is for a scene-based peer. Play is only to scratch a forever itch. And a scene-based kinkster might be intrigued to experiment with full-time power exchange, for a special someone, appearing as a lifestyle one, enjoy the intensity for a while, but eventually the lived imbalance of power will collide with their basic principle: equality is a non-negotiable birthright, I finally must “return to society”. At some point that conflict won’t resolve - it will become acutely painfully obvious. And they’ll realize this isn’t what they can ever fully embrace.
Equality, from the lifestyle kinkster’s view, is a recent social construct. A moral aspiration. A political stance. It’s good, but not necessarily the truth of human nature. They can still rightfully fight for everyone’s equality in society, but their own lifestyle may not follow the equality doctrine.
Lifestyle kinksters accept hierarchy - not as oppression, but as a chosen structure that organizes desire, care, responsibility, and belonging. They’re not cosplaying inequality for the kick out of it; they’re trying to integrate it into daily life in a way that’s safe, sustainable, and constrained by a shared moral code. That’s why community matters so much to them. The mainstream society won’t protect - or even recognize - the legitimacy of negotiated inequality, and it certainly won’t enforce the ethics around it. So we need our own social structure to uphold standards, create accountability, and make sure abuse of power has consequences. This is also why closeted, purely private kinky practitioners can get out of hand - if anyone needs education, accountability and “policing”, they should be the ones getting benefit the most.
And once you accept hierarchy, power exchange becomes the natural outcome.
The sub gives up certain “rights” as currency - a currency an equality-based society forbids trading with. In return, they receive what they often didn’t get in the first place: attention, guidance, protection, advocacy, containment - an anchor. The Dom, on the other side of the bargain, isn’t just “getting served”. He’s taking on a level of responsibility the same society would never require him to carry for another independent adult, in exchange for another human being’s trust, devotion, and service.
Ironically, a well-structured Dominance becomes the safer option than “equality” in the wild. Because in the wild, people-pleasing subs (and some rescuer/fixer Doms) get eaten. They attract takers. They overgive. They avoid conflict. They don’t ask for what they need. Ethical violations aren’t dramatic - they’re invisible, because the sub never demands clarity by their nature. Meanwhile in a lifestyle dynamic, you stop hiding exploitation behind the language of equality. You admit the imbalance, name it, formalize it, and then hold the Dom accountable to a higher standard: not “we’re equal,” but “you are responsible.”
That’s why lifestyle kink is incompatible with scene-based kink. They are running on different operating systems, with different configuration of parameters.
Why Pillion Triggers the Split
These different operating systems have determined that people in the “kink community” as a whole watch the same Pillion as input and have completely opposite reactions as output.
From the scene-based lens: no negotiation, no explicit consent choreography, high control, emotional coldness, “no way out” feel - therefore it reads as coercion, grooming, abuse.
From the lifestyle lens: a handshake deal is still a deal, even without a written contract. Ray isn’t automatically toxic or evil. He puts the power-exchange offer on the table upfront with his actions - crystal clear, bluntly honest, no hidden fees, no bait-and-switch: the package is sexy (no pun intended), but the customer support is shitty. It may not be what Colin thought he was shopping for, but he sees the fully disclosed terms and conditions, gets a real trial run, and chooses to sign on. And yes, people may get buyer’s remorse after their first car. That doesn’t necessarily mean the dealership scammed them; it may mean they didn’t yet know what they actually needed.
And let me be brutally honest: lifestyle subs often experience the psychological equivalent of Ray’s harshness in everyday life anyway - except society does it while pretending it’s equal so not obligated to return what a Dom would offer. Workplaces, friend groups, circuit parties - there are power dynamics everywhere, including our gays’ favorite, the evergreen Pretty Privilege. The vulnerable ones usually absorb the impact. They get talked over, used, dismissed, exploited, while everyone pretends it’s a fair world. The verbal abuse Colin receives at workplace is exactly the proof.
In that context, consensual hierarchy can feel much cleaner, safer and even “fairer” than the equality we aspire to but have never achieved - at least it’s honest and reciprocal.
It makes more sense if you read the film as coding Colin as identity-based - just initially unaware of it. The best evidence of that is Colin doesn’t abandon the lifestyle even after such a heartbreaking ending with Ray. His Grindr profile doesn’t look for just a scene. He isn’t truly appalled by the structure. He’s trying to get good at it. His struggle is the clash between that identity coming online and the social norms people like his mom expect. That tension finally resolves when he walks out of his boring workplace wearing his Master’s collar, climbs onto His pillion, and rides off with an aura of self-assurance. He’s not moving like a guy who tried a weekend scene - he’s moving like someone who just found his real self.
Your instinct reaction to this scene would probably tell which group you are in - where Colin hands over his jacket, saying thank you, Ray takes it over, roughly throw it on the floor:
Surprised and laughing: “it’s comedy” - vanilla muggles.
Getting annoyed/angry: “Ray is such an asshole! Colin doesn’t consent to this rude treatment.” - scene-based, your OS runs on common social etiquette, they haven’t sit down to talk about the “scene” yet to have - Colin is still a visiting guest.
Recognizing and getting turned on a bit: “With actions not words, Ray makes clear two points of the dynamic he offers: 1) the sub shouldn’t expect the Dom to do service for him; and 2) sub’s stuff, as well as sub himself, belongs to the floor by default. Hierarchy is enforced in every detail of this life.” - lifestyle-based, you naturally see the interaction from a hierarchical lens.
The Day-off Mistake: Asking for Intimacy in the Wrong Format
One of the most revealing moments is the “day off” request. It’s where the value systems collide.
Scene-based viewers read that scene and think: Finally. He’s asking for something normal. Something human. Something he deserves.
Lifestyle kinksters, at least one of which I know, have the opposite reaction: No. Don’t do it. That’s the wrong move. Rookie mistake.
Because “a day off” isn’t just a request for intimacy. It’s a request to switch philosophies. It’s trying to import equality into a structure built on hierarchy. And once you cross that line, you can’t un-cross it. You can’t hold two incompatible realities at the same time. It seems just one day a week, but it may be the rest six days turning into a longer scene.
A D/s relationship is a highly structured system with somewhat rigid boundaries. Think of it as a self-contained engine with built-in tension and deliberately imbalanced energy - subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy, here, is the blurring of boundaries and the decay of protocol. The system always moves only in one direction - more fuzzy, more even, more relaxed. It takes real extra energy to constantly maintain that intended state, daily rituals to remind us why we want this lifestyle. Now imagine you deliberately collapse it into an equalized “day off” every week - basically a little heat-death, then restart the engine every week, over and over. Even if it’s technically possible, it’s exhausting. And over time, it’s not sustainable.
If Colin needed more closeness, it had to be solved within the structure, not by breaking it. There are many ways to deepen intimacy without collapsing the dynamic: time in bed as a reward, quiet rituals, physical tenderness that doesn’t translate into “we’re equals now.” In my own past, the intimacy wasn’t “let’s be vanilla for a day.” It was something like: I massage his head or feet until he falls asleep… and then I still go back to the rug.
That kind of closeness is real intimacy in power exchange. It meets the need without breaking the spell.
Ray doesn’t know how to handle the day-off shift by integrating more intimacy in his structure - limited emotional capacity is his biggest flaw - he just instinctively rejects the idea by saying “it’s not the point of this” instead of proposing alternatives. Colin doesn’t know how to navigate it either as a newbie. And the result is exactly what lifestyle kinksters fear: the structure collapses in a kiss, and now nobody gets what they actually need. It’s a common tragedy among lifestyle kinksters - without both sides upholding the boundaries needed in this dynamic, it inevitably regresses to something else.
To Be One’s Self - the Most Expensive Luxury a Human Can Have
Another thing scene-based viewers often misread: Ray’s “coldness”.
Yes, he’s reserved. Yes, he may be rigid. Maybe he’s avoidant. Maybe he’s neurodivergent. Sheldon Cooper is as big a social asshole as Ray, but nobody calls him toxic. They are who they are, the point is: in the D/s structure, Ray is allowed to be himself without performing social softness that’s against his nature. It’s something he trades for in this power exchange - a great bargain he gets because being one’s self is the most expensive luxury in life.
Remember the scene where Colin steps out, then turns back like he forgot something, and the door is already shut in his face. In social norms, Ray would be expected to do the little dance of politeness: exchange pleasantries, perform warmth, say see you later with a smile, even if he doesn’t want to. But inside hierarchy, he doesn’t have to. The sub must accept his world as it is. And Ray gets the ultimate relaxation - to be himself without a filter.
And for Colin, that initial hesitation - the almost shameful walk-in with a shaved head and a locked collar - quickly gives way to warm, relaxed ease with his peers. He has found and been accepted by a community Ray introduces him to, in which he can be a proud new Colin.
For lifestyle-based people, Ray’s coldness is not cruelty. Colin’s head shave is not insulting. Those are relief. It’s what makes the arrangement attractive: a space where one person doesn’t have to fake “normal,” and the other person doesn’t have to demand fake equality.
And - Ray pays for things. He doesn’t send Colin on errands on Colin’s dime. He funds the gear, orders the outfit, dresses up his slave properly. That’s a particular ethic: you can call it ownership, but it’s also provision. “This is my responsibility”. Without a contract.
Why This Debate Can Turn Unhealthy
So why does this movie cause community infighting?
Because these two groups can use the same prompts, but their contexts are incompatible. The two philosophies are talking past each other from their own very different definitions of right and wrong.
What I find ridiculous is that, both groups are marginalized by the mainstream. Both are misunderstood. Both are judged. The difference is only distance: one group is 1,000 miles from the center; the other is 5,000, but still, both are perverts viewed by people from the center.
And instead of recognizing that shared marginalization and oppression, we attack each other - using the same tactic we hate when it’s used against us: projecting a standard as more moral than others and demanding compliance with self-denial.
Scene-based people complain about “old guard” protocol culture being pretentious and unfriendly to them, while simultaneously imposing their own moral framework on lifestyle dynamics. Lifestyle people dismiss scene-based kink as shallow, while forgetting that not everyone is built for identity-based power exchange, and not everyone wants it.
But the worst move - the one we absolutely don’t need - is turning difference into character assassination. You don’t have to agree with the other group. But if you can’t even recognize its reasons to exist, you’re not debating. You’re policing.
Liking Pillion isn’t proof someone is unethical. Hating it isn’t proof someone is prudish or ignorant. It’s proof we don’t share a single philosophy of kink. And that’s okay. Just have your own fun. Live, and let live.
(P.S. Thank you for reading it through and end up here! Yours truly is a very single, very unowned, very know-what-i-want lifestyle sub, with potential global mobility. Interested parties are welcome and encouraged to inquire within.)
This is what I said when I posed this superb post to my social media:
If you have not yet seen Pillion, you might not want to read this. It doesn't contain specific storyline spoilers, but the discussion might be considered an overall spoiler.
That said, this is one of the most articulate explanations about the leather/kink communities (plural intentional) internal disagreements about the movie.
Also, while it's discussing Pillion specifically, I think it speaks directly to prevalent overall disagreements within those communities generally. When we disagree, we're often coming from entirely different mindsets and one mindset camp often not only disagrees, but judges, the other mindset.
Knowing you pretty well I do get exactly where you are coming from and you knowing me I'm not one to hide my disagreements.
One point is, and I touched on this in my review of it, was that the parents, particularly the mom, were only superficially supportive. The mom never inquires as to whether or not this is what Colin wants, instead she attacks Ray with her knee jerk reaction. I think because of the collar, the shaved head, how Colin dresses it's obvious what kind of relationship he is in but in order to not have that conversation with Colin and spoil their relationship she vilifies Ray to voice her disapproval of the relationship. Parent child relationships don't need to be overtly abusive to be toxic and this is where I think her true nature comes out.
Having been both scene based (which I don't feel the way you talk about that represents me at all but I see what you are seeing with the weekend warriors type) and lifestyle based I don't think I can agree with you when it comes to negotiation (which I will elaborate on in a separate post today or tomorrow). I don't know how Travis took you on but when he took me on there was negotiation, there was a contract which I don't think I actually signed because I understood regardless of my lack of experience at the time that relationships evolve and that I didn't know myself. This is where I see the biggest flaw in Ray's approach.
From my perspective Ray enters the relationship without establishing a baseline which given Colin's inexperience Colin likely couldn't provide. How many subs today put CNC in their profiles when they've never even felt a singletail? He doesn't have a point of reference and where I think how Ray handled it "immorally" is that when the cracks started to form he didn't take stock or review if this is right for Colin. Adjustments needed to be made and it was Ray's responsibility to assess whether the adjustments fit within his needs and if he couldn't meet Colin's needs then he needed to terminate the relationship.
I actually don't think the day off was really what Colin needed, I agree with you on that. What stands out to me is the camp scene where Colin is cuckholded and his response to that wasn't what I would expect from someone who actually likes humiliation. His jealousy was real and palpable and the hurt damaged his relationship with Ray but Ray wasn't looking, he didn't discuss it, he didn't care that Colin is a human with real human feelings which were incompatible with how Ray wanted to conduct the relationship.
For me the abuse is NOT the style of D/s relationship, that style is absolutely appropriate for certain people. The way I see it is that Ray wanted a slave, an object, not a person with feelings while Colin I feel falls more into the boy category where he needs his Dom to say things like, "thank you, boy" or lets him sleep in the bed once in a while because Colin needed affectionate touch and confirmation that he is loved. Ray had no interest in seeing Colin for who he really is and tried to box Colin into the M/s that Ray wanted.
What you didn't touch on which I feel like is the point of the film is that in the end Colin does with the new guy what he and Ray didn't do at the start of the relationship which is that he communicated his perceived needs and set a boundary.
So I don't want to say that you're wrong because again, I know you well and I know that the kind of relationship Ray was after is similar to the type you seek but by dividing the scene players from the M/s group ignores many kink subsets which is similar to what Ray did. Ray treated the relationship with his own cookie cutter without reflection as to whether or not the relationship was right... and the way he ended it was, frankly, cowardly.
For me the film is about self discovery and I do think Colin needed this relationship to grow as a person. Sometimes you need to feel the sting of the singletail to know it's not for you. One time I had a 19 year old kid someone brought to a play party and I was asked to flog him. The kid was scared and safeworded two swings in... I didn't untie him, I checked in and took more time warming him up. At the end of the scene I was using my galley whip on him, yeah the one with the latigo falls, and he was sooo high I needed to be the adult and end the scene. He is now a pain pig, btw. The difference is that I started, assessed, adjusted in a way that allowed us to go on a bigger journey. Ray, by contrast, threw Colin into the middle of the ocean and said, "now, swim!" without even knowing if Colin could float. Ray needed to recognize Colin's inexperience and warm him up to the relationship and that is why I don't respect Ray's approach. If YOU were my slave I know I can push you because you've experienced it and know you still want it. Colin, however, is the newbie who wants to jump right into CNC and so it falls on the one with experience to set the pace.