The Kink Yourself Free Retreat is an immersive gathering where Black people explore kink as a practice of liberation. This is more than a kinky vacation. It is a curated container where we explore power, surrender, consent, accountability, and desire as pathways toward freedom. Through workshops, ritual, reflection, community practice, and opportunities for play, participants engage BDSM as a space for sensation, exploration, and connection — and also as a somatic, spiritual, and relational discipline. The retreat invites us to examine the stories we carry about power, pleasure, and worth, and to practice new possibilities together in our bodies and with one another.

The Kink Yourself Free Retreat is intentionally a Black-only space. It’s a place where Black folks across the gender and sexuality spectrum can explore kink without having to manage the racial dynamics that so often show up in other spaces. We hold particular care for Black queer and trans participants, who are often pushed to the margins elsewhere. This retreat is for Black people who are curious about what kink might open up in their lives — whether that’s deeper self-trust, clearer boundaries, new ways of relating, or simply more room to feel good in your body. One of my favorite ways to describe who this space is for is “from the freaks to the meek.” That means folks who have been in kink for years are welcome, and so are folks who are just starting to wonder if there might be something here for them. You don’t have to show up knowing exactly who you are in kink. You just have to show up open to exploring.

You must submit a completed an application and recieve approval on the application to attend. This process ensures a carefully curated group that benefits fully from the coaching experience and maintains the high standards for the retreat. A completed vetting application includes: 1) Completed Vetting Application 2)  One (1) Completed Reference Vetting Form* *If you have less than two (2) years experience in the kink community, you can complete the reference form for yourself. If you have more than two (2) years experience, please have someone else fill out the form Goddess will review forms on a rolling basis; folks will be notified via email about the status of their form. Only approved attendees will receive a registration link.

Not at all. The Kink Yourself Free Retreat welcomes participants at many points along their journey — from the freaks to the meek. Some attendees arrive with years of kink practice. Others arrive with curiosity, questions, or a desire to explore parts of themselves they have not yet had space to name. Throughout the retreat, participants are invited to clarify their desires, limits, and intentions. Tools like the retreat’s Kinky Desire Map help participants reflect on: archetypes or roles they resonate with practices they want to explore hard and soft limits aftercare needs personal intentions for their growth and freedom You do not need to arrive fully formed. This retreat is a space for exploration.

Yes — there will be opportunities for play. Kink does not require sex, and we emphasize that throughout the retreat. Many people come to explore power, sensation, surrender, and embodiment without sexual activity at all. At the same time, we make space for consenting adults to engage their kink desires in ways that feel aligned and negotiated. Alongside workshops, ritual, conversation, and integration practices, there will be designated spaces where play is welcome. During our play party exploration, participants can join facilitated opportunities for guidance or try something new, while others may engage play on their own terms within the agreements of the container. Participation in play is always optional. What matters most here is choice, communication, and consent.

Kink does not require sex, and we emphasize that throughout The Kink Yourself Free Retreat. Many people come to explore power, sensation, surrender, and embodiment without sexual activity at all. At the same time, we recognize that for some consenting adults, erotic energy may include sexual expression within negotiated dynamics. Our focus is on BDSM as a somatic and relational practice — a way to explore power, desire, trust, and agency in the body. For us, the erotic is bigger than sex. It can be a source of creativity, vitality, healing, and connection to spirit, lineage, and truth. In this space, the erotic is treated as something intentional, sacred, and alive.

This retreat lives at the intersection of the sacred, the political, and the sexual. Participants explore BDSM practices alongside spiritual integration, reflection, and community dialogue. Kink is approached as a liberatory practice — a way to explore power, responsibility, trust, surrender, and agency in ways that ripple beyond the play space and into everyday life. This work is part of a larger lineage of Black practitioners and organizers exploring the erotic as a site of healing and transformation. I honor the work of folks like Dame Sadie through Dope Pleasure in the Woods, Amina Peterson through her somatic retreats in Panama, Costa Rica, and Atlanta, the Black Queer Dom Society, and many others creating spaces where Black pleasure and power are taken seriously. This work is also deeply inspired by my sexual political icon, the late Mistress Velvet, who was one of the first people I witnessed center the political explicitly within her dominance. The Kink Yourself Free Retreat stands within this lineage while offering its own container for exploring liberation through kink.

Yes. Each gathering centers a theme that guides the workshops, rituals, and conversations. The first retreat explored what we must release in order to fully embrace the divinity of our wholeness. The second asked participants to examine how we step into power — individually and collectively — and what it means to inhabit authority with integrity. This year’s theme explores accountable relationships in kink and the possibility of repair. We ask: How do we build dynamics rooted in clarity, consent, and care? What does it mean to navigate rupture honestly? And how might our kink practices help us rehearse the kinds of relationships we want to build in the world beyond the dungeon?

Participants attend The Kink Yourself Free Retreat with a wide range of relationship structures and experiences. Single participants, monogamous couples, polycules, and other ethical relationship formations have all been part of the retreat community and continue to be welcome. The retreat does not prescribe any one relationship model. Instead, it invites participants to engage with honesty, communication, and respect for the dynamics and agreements that shape their lives.

Kinking yourself free is about using the somatic, spiritual, and ritual elements of BDSM to practice the kind of freedom we desire and deserve. Through sensation, power exchange, intentional restraint, surrender, and embodied awareness, participants explore how kink can help us loosen shame, reconnect with desire, and make clearer choices about our bodies and our lives. The work doesn’t end in the play space. What we learn in our bodies — about trust, power, boundaries, and pleasure — can ripple outward into how we move in our relationships, our leadership, our creativity, and our community. When we practice freedom in the body, it has a way of changing how we show up in the world.

In Greek, the word “soma” translates to “the body in its wholeness” Somatics, refers to practices that help us notice, understand, and shift what is happening in our bodies. Our bodies hold memory, habits, survival strategies, pleasure, fear, and learned responses to power, intimacy, and vulnerability. Somatic practices help us slow down enough to feel what is actually happening in the body and to make new choices from that awareness. In the context of The Kink Yourself Free Retreat, somatics might look like paying attention to breath during restraint, noticing how your body responds to authority or surrender, learning the difference between tension and excitement, or practicing how to stay connected to yourself while engaging power with another person. Somatics helps us move kink out of performance and into embodiment — where sensation, consent, and awareness can become tools for practicing the freedom we desire.

Participants come to The Kink Yourself Free Retreat with a wide range of interests and skills, and the space is designed to support many different kinds of BDSM exploration. You can expect to see and practice things like impact play, sensation play, rope or restraint, dominance and submission dynamics, service-based play, ritualized scenes, and other negotiated kink practices between consenting adults. Some practices require additional safety considerations. Fire play and knife play are only permitted for practitioners who receive prior approval from Goddess Honey B. If you would like to practice either of these at the retreat, you must email a request to info@theblackkinkretreat.com before the retreat. Submitting a request does not guarantee approval. Permission to practice these forms of edge play will only be granted to practitioners who demonstrate sufficient experience and who bring the appropriate safety equipment needed to practice responsibly within the retreat container. For the safety of the community, breath play, blood play, scat play, and other forms of extreme edge play are not permitted at the retreat regardless of experience level. If you have questions about whether a specific kink practice is allowed, please reach out ahead of time at info@theblackkinkretreat.com so we can help you understand what is possible within the agreements of the space.