Where's the Vanilla?

Often times on FetLife, there’s questions that pop up that I struggle to answer.  It’s all those questions that talk about “kink versus Vanilla” or “D/s versus Vanilla”.   I look at life with my boy and have no clue how to define what’s kink and what’s vanilla.   I don’t mean from a this is D/s and that’s Vanilla.. what I’m getting at is what makes something D/s and what makes it vanilla.

I mean, just take yesterday for example.  We have some DIY projects that were far over due and with my mother coming to town, I laid down the law that all these projects would be done before her arrival.  That would be D/s, right?  But it’s a simple painting job.  Isn’t that vanilla?  What if I further explained that, in order to get the job done, he choose to hire outside help.  I mean he made that decision, not me… but he still made that decision in order to accomplish my overall intend of getting the jobs completed before my mother’s arrival… so was that D/s or was that vanilla?

So now I sit here, on the couch, with three men running around my house getting all the work done I want done.  Pretty vanilla, right?  But what if I threw in the curve ball that one of the men working today is also one of my lovers?  That he knows what we both look like naked.  He’s seen my boy in some rather compromising positions.  Does it change anything if I told you he took the job that was in my line of sight and is currently shirtless while he paints?  What if I told you we shot sexual innuendos back and forth the whole time he painted?

What if I told you that all three of them would come get me to give the nod of approval every time a big task was completed?  I mean my boy was the one managing the job, assigning out the tasks, looking over their shoulder and checking their work… but they still felt compelled to seek my approval too?

So when I look at my life as a whole, I don’t know how to pull the two apart.  I’m not sure it even makes sense to try.  I used to see vanilla as the things we did to get by in society as a whole.  Things like grocery shopping, cooking dinner, running the kids to soccer practice.  Kink was the sexy play things we did, like flogging, bondage, cbt, cuckolding, etc.  D/s was the intent placed behind things.  So when I told him to do something, it was D/s… when he did something to just please me, it was vanilla.  But after 3 years of living together… it all feels like D/s to me.  Outside of work, his default mode is to make me happy.  Whether I ask him, or he simply does.. in his mind and mine, he does it to keep me happy.  

But we’ve even gone so far as to interlace kink throughout our lives.  Is watching TV kinky?  Most would say no.  But if we’re watching TV while he’s naked and I’m dressed and he’s rubbing my feet… is that kinky or vanilla?  And could someone please tell me where the line between Vanilla sex and kinky sex actually is?  If we’re missionary style for a nice quicky.. that’s vanilla, right?  But what if I give him directions on how fast or slow or certain movements… does that make it kinky?  But yet.. I used to do that with vanilla boyfriends too.  I mean how else were they going to know what I liked and didn’t like?  I still do it with my lovers while my boy is standing right there.  Does it change because my lovers view the statements as guidance and not commands?  But yet they both seem to do as I say.

So I have to wonder.. is there really any benefit to actually separating them out?  Or is this something of an exercise geared more for the part timers than those of us who live it 24/7?