About the Aftercare Project
The Aftercare Project is a free, plain-language educational resource on aftercare in D/s and BDSM dynamics. It is stewarded by the team behind SubTasks, an app for tracking dynamics. We are open about the connection.
Why this exists
Aftercare is one of the most important and least-taught practices in healthy kink. New practitioners can find dozens of pages on knot tying, impact safety, or negotiation frameworks before they encounter a single useful page on what to do after the scene ends. That gap shows up in the field as bad nights, eroding dynamics, and avoidable harm. We wanted there to be a clear, calm, well-organized resource on aftercare that anyone could land on and walk away with something useful.
Who we are
The project is supported by SubTasks, a small software company building tools for D/s couples. SubTasks (subtasksapp.com) is a task and protocol tracker designed for dynamics. It is the tool we know best, and many of its users were the reason we started writing this material in the first place. We saw the same questions about aftercare again and again, and we wanted to answer them in one place we could point to.
That said, the Aftercare Project is not a SubTasks marketing site. We mention SubTasks where it would actually be useful, because using a shared protocol genuinely helps with aftercare consistency. Everywhere else, the goal is a clean, practical education page with no gating, no email walls, and no upsell.
Our approach to writing
A few principles we try to hold to:
- No moralizing. Adults choose their dynamics. Our job is to help those dynamics go better, not to grade them.
- No medicalizing. Aftercare is not a clinical intervention, and we are not clinicians. Where readers may benefit from a kink-aware therapist, we say so plainly.
- No flashiness. Calm typography. Clear writing. Educational tone. The subject is intimate. The presentation does not need to be loud.
- No assumed expertise. Pages start at the basics and build up. We avoid jargon when we can and define it when we cannot.
- Mutual care. We write about top care and relational care, not just bottom care. The community has historically underserved tops in aftercare conversations and we work to correct that.
Sources and influences
This site does not invent aftercare. It compiles, synthesizes, and translates decades of community knowledge from leather culture, kink educators, aware therapists, and the practical experience of D/s couples and play partners. We try to keep the writing honest about uncertainty: where the community broadly agrees on something, we say so. Where individual practice varies, we name the variance.
We do not currently cite specific sources page-by-page. If you are an educator who would like to see citations added to a particular page, or who has corrections to suggest, we welcome the email.
What this is not
- It is not medical, psychological, or legal advice.
- It is not a substitute for a qualified, kink-aware mental health professional if you are experiencing significant distress.
- It is not a replacement for community. Local munches, discussion groups, and experienced peers will often serve you in ways an article cannot.
- It is not a fixed document. We expect to expand and revise these pages over time.
About SubTasks, briefly
Since we mention it across the site, here is the honest summary. SubTasks is a small app for D/s couples to track tasks, protocols, and rituals together, including aftercare. It has a free tier that covers what most couples need. The team is small and reachable. If you try it and have feedback, we read it. If you do not want a tool for this and prefer a paper checklist or a notes app, that is also entirely reasonable. Aftercare is not gated behind any product, including ours.
Contact
The Aftercare Project is a sibling site to SubTasks. Questions, corrections, and contributions can be sent through the contact channels at subtasksapp.com.
The Aftercare Project provides educational content only. Nothing on this site constitutes medical, psychological, or legal advice. Practice within your own informed consent and seek professional support where helpful.