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The online diary of an ethical pervert.

Monday 30 June 2008

Piece of my mind

I enjoy spending time with Offensive Charmer, he's easy to talk to even when challenging me about the reasoning behind my desires. Which I also like, of course. We bounced ideas off each other over dim sum on an over-hot Saturday afternoon, dissecting my mildly conflicted attitude to topping, his feelings on objectification and whether or not the English language has enough words to properly describe the gamut of BDSM relationships (we thought not).

We're still developing our own project which should work in a very different way to anything I've done before. He's very interested in what makes me tick, all the secret underneath bits that constitute my identity. The game will be about me revealing those, and by doing so, becoming vulnerable in an extremely personal way. There will also be a certain amount of rules about behaviour with domestic service as punishment (which I don't particularly enjoy, and that is rather the point).

I'm excited about this because rather than control being exerted over my body or over my submissive self, the power play operates within me. I was bullied quite badly as a child and so to actively hand over levers to my own doubts and worries is something that I work hard to avoid. I cultivate confidence and try to let the criticism of others wash over me. Which it never really does. And therein lies the power-play. Being so open to someone like this will be frightening and yet, I also think, very liberating.

Switch?

I've been having a few conversations recently regarding swtiching. I identify as a submissive, and with the right person, that is certainly what I like doing and find comes most naturally to me. I do enjoy rough roleplay that involves a certain amount of fighting back and once the adrenaline is flowing I can get into a headspace where the power and control starts to become attractive.

The Photographer and I have had one or two IM conversations in which I have gone through the verbal process of me topping him. Given that he switches, and that I am prepared to try mostly anything once, we started to talk briefly about how he could serve me as my submissive. I gave him instructions on how he was to behave around me, how to stand, kneel and generally look pleasing. Doing this textually was suprisingly difficult and I hesitated a lot. I felt a little silly adopting the "Mistress" monicker as it just didn't feel like me. Yet the more he used it, the better and more appropriate it became.

The next night, when we met up I had no intention of acting out any of this, however there was a little bolshiness in the back of my mind which made me move away when he went to kiss me. This got us wrestling and eventually ended up with me astride him on the bed and a look came over his face. A kind of sought-after giving up, a softening around the features. Letting go. And as I leant over to kiss him he moved up to greet me eagerly, so I teased him, not letting him kiss me fully, seeing how far I could push it. We played like that for a while, and I started to feel more confident in moving him around, telling him what to do. All the time, I kept on wondering, and wanting, him to get frustrated with what was happening and just push me over. But he didn't. I made him lick my clit, one hand holding his face close into me. I played with his cock and anus as he crouched on all fours like a dog, it was good to be able to calmly investigate his body and I revelled in the sounds he was making. That I was making him make. I fucked him whilst he lay on his back, then got him to fuck me until eventually he had an orgasm.

I enjoyed the feeling of being so obviously desired and of the pleasure I was receiving. But I didn't feel satisfied, the sensations alone were not enough to make me orgasm, and although I came close, something was lacking. I felt a little lost and alone every now and then, I'd feel a little unsure as to what I should do next. I certainly wasn't horribly uncomfortable with what I was doing: the physical process was much easier than the short D/s roleplay we had done online. I was pleased, but not fulfilled; happy, but not content.

Friday 27 June 2008

Social schedule

I'm seeing The Photographer and Ethical Hedonist for drinks tonight as they both expressed an interest in meeting each other. I should imagine they will both get on, given that they have a reasonable amount in common. Appart from me, obviously. I'm anticipating gin & tonics and possibly food for thought.

On Saturday I'm having lunch with Offensive Charmer now we've finally got diaries to align, we're going to discuss a little more in depth the type of command, control and observation that he is interested in and see where we get to from there. I'm intrigued by how both of our responses to this activity might operate as I'm not sure what type of stimluation I'll get from following protocol for someone who isn't present.

Monday will see me in the pub with Local Dom which could go either way. Not that I have any sense of foreboding, I just don't know how to call this one. I'm not precisely wary about meet-ups because I can always put my hat on and go home. I am, however, very much coming to the conclusion that given you really have to sit down and chat before you can go much further, you may as well do it sooner rather than later. Or it could be my natural impatience.

I've offered to meet up with Plastic Artist at some, yet to be defined, point in the future to see if I am in the mood to be covered in latex. I think I probably am, but it will be whether or not we have any connection in person that will be the sticking point. I can't yet get behind activity for it's own sake and I'm still very much in a place where my enjoyment is strongly based on who I'm with and not merely what they are doing.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Feelings

I have a habit of codifying my reactions to BDSM in terms of the intellectual and the physical. Although I do get certain responses in play which could be considered emotional, they tend to feel to me more like reflex actions: I'll be scared if I'm hurt and know I'm going to be hurt again and I get that powerful sense of attachment towards my partner when I feel like I'm "theirs".

This isn't to say that I don't have a psychology when I'm submitting, I do, but it is disconnected from myself because of the role I adopt: passive, well-behaved and doll-like. I create a gap between my "real" self and my identity in play which means that theoretically my own emotions don't enter into it. I have sexual desires, often very strong ones, and these condition my service, but I wouldn't call such a primal need emotional. But this is only the surface, only part of what is really going on.


Whilst BDSM activity can create the illusion of false intimacy between partners, especially through powerplay, there is also real intimacy involved.
I relate to both of my regular partners as people and as friends so there is a blur between that neat little dodge I think I create through roleplay. My emotions are that part of me which is most private and this post was the most difficult one I have ever had to write and has taken by far the longest to work through. I find it very easy to talk about my body and what I'm thinking, speaking about what I'm feeling in response to my activities is hard, because of what it exposes.

No matter how I intellectualise or objectify myself, I will always have feelings about my partners that are external to response to play. There is no "off" switch that occurs in play, thankfully, because that would divest us of ourselves. I get a little anxious sometimes, I am concerned that they might get bored or just find someone more interesting, I feel genuine attachment and miss them sometimes. I worry about these feelings and how they might affect my relationship with two people who are in (open and poly) relationships with other people.

This is the first time I've been in a position to explore these specific considerations as most of my play has been confined to monogomous and closed relationships or random play in clubs. I'm in a different place now, in both kink and vanilla lifestyles and whilst it can be nerve wracking for me because it is new ground I am also genuinely happy, and wouldn't be rid of that emotion for the world.

Wednesday 25 June 2008

Still life

I'm knelt, legs slightly spread, between The Photographer's knees. I'm naked and collared, facing away from him watching the wall and the sofa opposite. My skin is radiating heat from the shower earlier, where I was on all fours in the draining bath whilst he washed me perfunctorily. He's reading a book. I can hear the pages turn, slowly, maddeningly, as I grow increasingly desperate for his touch.

I'm being ignored in the way a chair or table is ignored. Occasionally he touches my shoulder in an idle grip, and then goes back to reading. I concentrate on keeping quiet and still, which is becoming more difficult. The collar helps to ground me, remind me of my place both mentally and physically.
My universe is totally reduced, confined to certain points of contact between myself and him: the hand brushing my neck, his calf against my side. I feel very small.

I am reassuring and comforted by his presence. I have not been left alone, I am being kept close by and thus must be, in some way, pleasing. This line of reasoning helps me, as does the knowledge that if he wanted me to be doing anything else, he would either say so, or move me. None of this detracts from the pressing fact that I really want him to fuck me. And I know that he won't until he's ready, if he wants to, and not until then. My motionlessness starts to become a torment, and it is a relief when I am asked to fetch some water. The activity and the purpose is refreshing - to actually do something for him rather than be merely present.

On my return he places me back in front of him, this time to be used as a footstool. Time passes, and I can't really measure it, my lack of being has no frame of reference. The functionality of my position is satisfying to me, but the passivity reduces me to one agonising thought that rolls over and over in my brain, getting louder: fuck me, please. I can feel myself getting wetter and there is an ache in my cunt. I think my thighs start to tremble slightly, although I do my best to hold them firm.

I keep silent until I realise I'm loosing sensation in my hands and have to stop. I feel
glad to be back to myself somewhat, but also sorry for being unable to maintain the desired position for as long as he might have wished it. There was no comeback or punishment to my behaviour and I wonder if I disappointed him as I did myself or if it was expected that eventually I would falter. Still life: work in progress.

Not drowning, but waving

Spent the night with The Photographer yesterday. We were in the bath when he took hold of my hair and gently lowered my face partially into the water. When I didn't struggle he pushed me under for a few seconds. Then did it again, faster and with a more force. I automatically jerked my neck upwards slightly so he had to press harder. I was therefore less prepared so when I did go under the water went into my mouth and nose.

Again, I was under for barely moments but the effect on my body was instantaneous: my heart started to race as adrenaline thundered through my veins and I wasn't precisely panicking but the feeling was very similar. I was extremely excited and turned on, both in response to the sensation itself and also the thoughts of torture flashing through my mind. Physically I was not only held in this soothing but hostile element but also deprived of my senses: my eyes had closed automatically, I could not hear anything. And of course, I could not breathe.

Once I was back above the water, gasping for air a little, hair dripping about my face, he held me to him. Leaning against his chest, I felt the same sensations of desire, fear and a certain calm that being hooded inspires in me. An anihilation of self. The willingness to have autonomy removed and the power of deferred authority. An immersive surrender.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Multiple relationships syndrome

Both The Photographer and Ethical Hedonist are in open poly relationships with other people. I'm not actually sure what my precise, OED defined status is with either of them beyond "enjoying myself very much, thank you" but I do know that naming a thing makes it real. To give a name is to bestow an identity and to give it a referent, co-ordinate points that will distinguish it from other interactions that one might have.

Once you've defined something, you create a ideological list of what it is and what it isn't. Which is both limiting and comforting in the way of all definitions and it can cause a little anxiety.
The Photographer and I have started calling it the "r word" in an almost underhand fashion, skirting around any form of category. I like knowing where I stand, but I also don't want to clamp down on something that seems to be doing very well without any linguistic interference. It's possibly a societal hang-up, the need to assign a value to any relationship, to be able to positon "me" as regards "you". In play it's easier, of course, and roles are much more defined.

I got an interesting message from Understated Fetishist, clarifying that one of his reasons behind our mutually agreed "thanks but no thanks" decision was that I was not prepared to enter into a monogamous relationship. Which is fine, and I appreciate his point of view, I just don't share it. This doesn't stem from any particularly strongly held belief about relationships in general, merely that I'm in an experimental place at the moment and I'm not going to be able to explore everything I want to with one person. This may change, of course and I'm open to that possibility. It may not, I'm open to that possiblity as well.

The importance of fucking

During a discussion with The Photographer last night I noted that the vanilla dating process has sex as the goal of one's efforts whereas BDSM tends to take some form of sexual activity as read and then focuses in on how it's going to be done, moving straight into discussions of limits and so on. This does nicely side-step any anxiety about how to handle that good-night kiss, but also slightly marginalises sex.

Whilst there are endless reams that one could pore over regarding rope bondage, wax play and flogging there doesn't seem to be a lot of noise about BDSM fucking. The build-up appears to be key and penetration is more of a piece de resistance or an end-game rather than being entirely coupled with play. This is a shame, because I consider sex to be an integral part of submission. The desperate desire to be fucked, to satisfy and bring someone to orgasm, the feel of a cock inside me.

Perhaps a focus on sexual technique takes us into the fearful realms of the conventional and we'd much rather not admit that there are borders and overlaps. I know that there are some people for whom play is one thing and sex is another and oftentimes they will play with certain people and only fuck their partners, which is of course, fine. There are a lot of avenues that can be explored purely through sex from very basic variation of positions to more highly developped practices such as those of neotantra, which are all food for thought for those of a physical bent.

There is pleasure to be gained in learning about someone else's body, to discover what turns them on and what they enjoy aside from the paraphenalia of BDSM. I am not for one minute suggesting that I wish to divest myself of collars, chains or cuffs, but rather that there should be a seamless flow between both: there are boundaries to be pushed within and without.

Monday 23 June 2008

Bruised / Pristine

I mark easily and get quite large patches of bruising. It can cause a little bit of concern on the part of the Dom, but those that know me are relatively accepting of it, and can even find it intriguing or amusing. I quite like them on one level, they are signs of what has gone before, reminders that often carry sensation with them. I also enjoy having to dress around them, to make sure that those parts of my body are covered, it's a less obvious form of submission but there nonetheless.

When they are fresh, I think they can look very pretty: striking red lines across white skin. A few days later, they merely look a bit of a mess as those blooms of yellows and purples form around the fading stripes. Something that I am conscious of is the fact that I will go and see someone whilst still bearing the marks of another. No-one has commented on this, except me, and on a practical level there is no getting around it. They are an ongoing consequence of the way that my relationships are developing and represent that which everyone involved has agreed to.

I don't like it much though. It doesn't make me ashamed and I don't have an emotional reaction to it as such, but an aesthetic one: I want to arrive each time unblemished with a smooth bank of skin on which you may enact your desire. I want to leave you altered in some way, that only I can see, and perhaps you later if we decide we wish it.

That said, the overlay of marks by different hands is also interesting to me. They make my body into a conversation between people who have not all met: a palimpsest of where I've been, what I've done. It contextualises me, fixing me in a space between "then" and "now", I am not a newly formed thing, but composed of physical memories.

Orgasm

Lying face down on Ethical Hedonist's bed at some point in the early hours of the morning, feeling a little annoyed at my failure to orgasm because of my standard issue difficulties. I got tied to a wall and caned until I cried instead: when asked what I wanted, I said "play". It was an interesting decision to make on my part, to go specifically for pain rather than pleasure, but I needed a definate something and in the absence of one, the other worked. The caning itself was, as usual, exruciating, and I kept shying away and having to be turned around. The feeling after was worth it, legs collapsing a little from under me, falling back into bed and into his arms.

The doesn't usually bother me, but it is at the moment. I know it can be something of an uphill struggle, especially with a new partner and I do feel that it can come across as odd for them, almost ungracious, perhaps? I always try and explain and be upfront about it. It's certainly not that I don't enjoy fucking or fingersex or any sex at all. I really, really do, I just don't climax very easily, masturbation aside, of course.

I'm not embarrassed by it and I never fake an orgasm. I don't think there is either a physical or a pyschological issue, it's not lack of stimulation or a defunct nervous system, but just the way I am. This does make things like forced or denied orgasm an even more intriguing area to play in, and it's something that I do want to work on. I think that time will tell and as I become more used to my partners, it will get easier. Or harder. Depending on which way you look at it.

Sunday 22 June 2008

The Lists - Update

In the past few weeks, I've had a lot of amazing experiences and developped some relationships that I think have a lot of potential. When I started the blog I generated a quick and dirty list of things that, off the top of my head, I had not tried and wanted to do, and now seems like a good point to review that list and also generate some new ones:
  • Piercings - nipple rings are healing nicely, and can be touched and played with, although not very heavily. I am considering labia piercings, but not at the moment
  • Threesomes and more - as yet, no progression on this front, perhaps because I'm more interested in two boys, although it is early days yet and there are only so many hours in the day
  • 24/7 slavery - The Photographer and I had an on-off weekend where we attempted some of this, and are planning another weekend with less (if any) breaks.
  • Caning - it hurts, an awful lot. I have been assured by an experienced sub that it is possible to learn to like it, I'm not sure about this. I can't say that I enjoy it, but I do enjoy the feeling of fear that it instills and the sense of helplessness and release afterwards.
  • Anal sex - is great.
  • Objectification and humiliation - I have done some of the former with both Ethical Hedonist and The Photographer although very little of the latter, or at any rate, I haven't felt embarrassed.
As I've experimented and been experimented upon, there have been a few things that have come up in discussion that I have mentally filed for something to definately try:
  • Human art or furniture, something that Lovely Couple appear to also be interested in. I also think it would make a good subject for some photography as it is very much a display activity.
  • Animal play - follows on from my love of objectification, and a discussion with Ethical Hedonist regarding how ponies are spectacular, to my mind it's more about the human-as-non-human rather than actually being an animal, but the idea of bits and crops is wonderful.
  • (Re)naming and behavioural training / conditioning - I'd like to try an ongoing process of being molded and groomed.
  • Chastity play - The Photographer assures me that the best way of effecting this would be piercings, but I'm sure there are options that can be explored in the meantime.

The Doll Project - Part 2

The doll is a hyperreal entity, an extended metaphor of a sexualised submissive: the ultimate plaything. The doll goes beyond being merely representative of a person becoming an entity in and of itself when it disconnects from the human identity on which it is based. Like Baudrillard's Disneyland, the doll is a simulacrum of fantasy and desire.

Plastic Artist has recently dropped me a note wanting to create a rubber / pvc doll out of me, which is a very tempting offer on several levels: I hadn't actually considered this when thinking about the project, but there are a host of effects that a taut synthetic second skin would give to the experience. The plastic encasing would disguise my flesh making me appear and feel less human, the obvious mental connection between such a material and a doll, the clear falseness of it and also the physical constrictions placed upon me.

Friday 20 June 2008

Playing games

The word "play" gives a clear insight into how important concepts of game-playing is in BDSM. On a very basic level we assume roles, develop rules and have systems of reward and punishment. To be a player is a term of approval. The rules of our specific games are co-authored with our partners and the idea of "fair play" is an underpinning value of being safe, sane and consensual. We adopt the language of gaming and some of its paraphernalia, which we tweak a little to take us from the playground to the playroom: blindfolds, counting games and dress-up.

Roleplay
enhances or contextalise these games through the adoption of mutually agreed scenarios and characters. Rather than being myself playing with you, we put on other identities and the game then becomes less obvious, more realistic perhaps. I am no longer outside of the game interacting with it, but a participant within a game world.

In many respects this can act as a cipher for reading D/s relationships, whether fixed or agreed for just that evening. This is not to say that either is play-acting as such or that what they are doing is fake or false and this can often be a negative connotation of words like "game" and "play" - that they lack meaning or substance. I would argue that not only can it certainly seem very real, but that these identities are no more or less real than those constructed elsewhere in society, at least here there is a certain honesty with the transactions.

In game theory terms, BDSM play can be thought of as a non-zero-sum arrangement: both parties gain and lose together depending on how they play. Although from an outside perspective it might appear like the Dom(me) is naturally the "winner" in reality the game itself is about the often extremely convincing illusion of this conceit. The Dom(me) plays to win, the sub to lose: they playing their own game with each other and with themselves.

Thursday 19 June 2008

The Doll Project - Part I

One of my long term and serious fantasies, and one I hope to start to explore soon, is to become a doll. To move from being a person with thoughts and wants of her own to a porcelain object, impassive and beautiful. I've been batting a few ideas back and forth with The Photographer which has helped contextualise it a little.

The doll is a mirror of desire, and so the doll that I become at any given time will be unique, in effect, and dependent on the whim and will of the Dom in question. Over time, the doll will become increasingly attuned to that Dom and should theoretically develop totally unconscious reflex response to unspoken requirements. They will look different as well, I imagine, presenting certain faces depending on the circumstance. New identies, made to measure.

I want to work through how it feels to be a doll. To be manipulated, touched and fucked and to have to control and moderate behaviour in an appropriate and pleasing fashion. I also want to know what it's like to play with a doll, to have such a thing under one's fingertips, built to satisfy.

Evolution and subcultures

Subcultures sit within and define themselves in opposition to the superstructure in which they are located. We operate in a universe that functions via difference, both linguistically and in terms of human interaction. I am not you: my identity is partially determined by its not-you-ness, the same is true for groups. Both the mainstream and fetish societies are reliant upon each other for their continuing existence and meaning. We are not them, they are not us.

This is particularly interesting with reference to BDSM in that a lot of what we do is based around transgressive acts, that which is forbidden or dangerous is appealing. The societal antipathy towards degredation, for example, gives it some of its appeal, similarly pain, punishment and a host of other practices are determined in part by their difference to what is acceptable behaviour in the mainstream. Images of transgressive behaviour are stimulating because of that air of forbidden fruit.

The boundaries are not fixed. Mass media, in particular, makes use of representations of BDSM culture to create a shock effect or an enhanced, eye-catching eroticism that by its increased use ceases to be either shocking or eye-catching. Over time, that which is outsider, strange or marginalised can become absorbed into the whole, legitimised. Teenage rebels become tomorrow's advertising executives and bring a little of that rebellion with them to make the sale, but no so much as to put people off.

Following this process through, could there come a time when BDSM was absorbed in such a way, when a collared slave and Dom(me) walking in the street looks like a couple holding hands, and what effect would this have on how our desire operates? The key element here is that when what we want is powered in part by it being forbidden we need to move the boundaries once our previously transgressive act is legitimised, what was once exciting can become tame by comparison.

The theory of evolution posists that a change in the genome occuring through sudden mutations can produce a quantifiable difference in a species which has a knock-on effect on its ability to survive and reproduce. It is not a gradual process, but instead a leap, which comes into direct challenge with the norm. The two groups, each with their different code, compete for the limited resources of their shared ecosystem in an ongoing struggle.


Societies and political movements can operate in a similar way, except that the ecosystem is linguistically and ideologically constructed. I suspect that such jump in attitudes is far off, although we can look at gay and lesbian subcultures for a model on how shifting perceptions can alter the way a society operates, and certainly this process is nowhere near complete. For the moment we are safe in our subversion.

Wednesday 18 June 2008

Dear diary

One of the lesser spoken of skills of BDSM is an ability to juggle schedules and plan journeys, I like doing both of these things, as it appeals to my sense of order, and it can feel like an accomplishment in and of itself to get everyone in the right place at the right time with the right bits of kit.

I'm having an Alice moment this evening, although The Photographer insists it's a Treasure Hunt. The Japanophiles have asked me to meet at a certain point in London, which had to be deciphered, in order to receive a wax sealed envelope. After that, well, I'll have to see what's inside. If all goes well and I am not either kidnapped or on some hallucinatory jaunt around the less salubrious parts of this fair city, then later I shall meet with American Dom in London and a smattering of others, who, I am assured will be fun and like-minded.

On the electronic front, Offensive Charmer and I are planning on a day of remote behavioural control, in which I have to conform to certain patterns (simple, non career-limiting things that no-one else should notice) and keep a note of the number of times I fail to do so to receive corresponding punishment later. We haven't got beyond the framework yet, and given our shared love of theory, it will probably form the basis of some sort of intellectual, as well as physical, experiment.

Diary hell continues for both Lovely Couple and Cute Top, but I remain positive and optimistic, we are in contact and I am sure that something will turn up.

Shock treatment

I'm tied to a chair with latex tape and rope. My mouth is held open by a metal dental gag, wire jaws sitting behind my teeth, it feels light and cool against my face and is deceptively constricting. The construction is such that it rests in place and I can't dislodge or spit it out even though it feels like I should be able to. My thighs are burning hot from the cane whose bite is not getting any easier with use, I struggled against it and I think I screamed, but both of these things are reactive and have no effect on my situation: there's a gleaming focus in Ethical Hedonist's eyes which I both adore and fear as a sign of things to come.

He cuts the tape around my legs to survey the damage and feel how wet my cunt has become then, patiently, he inserts a small white pod with electroplates inside me. I don't know what to expect which scares and excites me so to progress forward is the only option. The meter is placed on my thigh and he holds the remote control loosely in his hand. The game is very simple: the voltage will escalate and I will respond. The pain is new: the shock hurts and forces a contraction in the muscles, holding them in place for as long as the current runs. It is a dull, heavy sensation, a little like being punched. Nothing like the crackling sharpness of electricity on skin, this is deep and hard. The intimacy of it is also extremely powerful, to be so trapped and to have something within me the effect of which I can neither see nor anticipate. He removes the gag so I can give clearer responses.

Aversion therapy combines an unpleasant sensation with undesireable behaviours in order to reduce or eliminate such actions, if not attitudes. The sensation can in theory be anything, but an electrical shock is a common example. He moves to kiss me and I reach towards him, I don't want to stop kissing him. Which leads me to three possible hypotheses for future trial: that the pain is not unbearable enough, that I am subconsciously engaged in palacatory behaviour although logically I know that there is no appeasement possible, or that I am actively and in-the-moment enjoying both of the sensations of power he is pressing upon me. Perhaps it is a combination of all of these, certainly they feel linked, and they are also pyschologically interred in the concept of torture or treatment: a facilatative violence seeking a certain outcome.

When he slapped my face earlier, I felt myself go a little limp. The stunned moment afterwards became a vast space, and I leaned towards him, not in anticipation of another blow, but as a reflex action, to make it easier for him to stroke my hair. As he kisses me, whilst increasing the voltage and shocking me again, I get the same reaction. Rather than pull away in revulsion at the one who is the cause of my discomfort, I strain to touch his tongue with mine, press my mouth increasingly desperately towards his. The outcome of the stimulation is my enhanced submission.

Tuesday 17 June 2008

Extreme Pornography

Let's talk about porn. Let's talk about porn specifically in the context of Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. It is an odd little section, and one that, like all English law, is both precisely worded and yet curiously coy in places, resulting in some circular thinking which could take us to dangerous places.

Porn imagery performs a valuable service in the world: it is entertaining, titilating and comes in a variety of shapes and sizes from the monstrously cheap and tawdry to the stunningly fantastic and beautiful. Whilst I tend to be more of a fan of the latter, I understand the need for the former: just as we adore Champagne there is also a requirement for cheap fizzy lager. Although I do not have to drink it, others might wish to. Porn is subjective. Acts of pain, torture, submission and bondage turn me on. Acts of inflated breasts, perma-tans and big hair turn Sun readers on.

I am not, in general, a fan of legislating around anything that covers a person's private behaviours or hobbies, except when they could have a direct and harmful impact on others. And by harmful I mean actual, non-consensual injury, physical or mentally, I use the term direct because if a butterfly looking at some porn causes a storm in a teacup somewhere in Surrey, then perhaps those people in Surrey should switch to coffee and get over it.

For the most part, I think the bill is needless bureaucracy that will have no effect on my day-to-day existence. Yet it is now law, and in its very words lie a turnkey for the state and that moral majority we hear so much about and so little of any sense from. A sensible application of this bill should have no effect on the BDSM community. We should have our art, and our porn and all of the pictures in between. But the world is a prejudiced place and the law is a place where the less-than-conventional should tread carefully. There are images that I would happily hang on my bedroom wall which would fall into the category of "illegal" in this bill, so woe betide me should I chose to become more politically active beyond firing pixels into the ether.

The telling phrase, and the linchpin upon which all of the problems with this bill lie (to my mind) is one of the two defining categories of an "extreme image" and an image must conform to both of these categories to be classified as extreme. The first is a list of things which are extreme, under the terms of the bill, and whilst I disagree with some of them, they are at least clear. The second is subjective and woolly at best, mind-bogglingly unclear and open to abuse at worst, simply stating that an extreme image is one which is "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character".

Extreme images are extreme, but some are more extreme than others?

Honesty is the best policy

Out for dinner with Ethical Hedonist tonight, which I am very much looking forward to as it has been a fortnight since we last saw each other, for no other reason than diary clashes. I have a charming message from him expressing a desire to be sadistic towards me whilst I'm helpless on a cold, stone prison floor, which is certainly the ideal, but I suspect we may, sadly, have to substitute "carpet" or "tile", however the key aspects are present and I'm looking forward to whatever he has in mind.

One of the most refreshing things about him, and my other partners, is the upfront frankness about play and sex. The bashfulness, bullshit and false coy behaviours are absent. We talk openly and as clearly as we can, describing what we want, often at length. I enjoy these conversations not just as fantasy builders, or masturbation material, but as ways of understanding what makes my partners tick. The more I understand, the better I can please them and that is exciting to me.
Honesty in discussion opens us up to each other, private fantasies become public and we work to making them private realities.

The way that we interact with theoretical and hypothetical suggestions and scenarios via text or in conversation sets the pace for how we will behave in play. These give not only the simple boundaries of what we will and won't do, limits, fears, desires, but also the more complicated part of the deal: the interaction of our personalities in and out of scenes. If we get on here and now, we'll likely get on in less comfortable situations. Me in play is different to me sat here talking to you in the bar, but not dramatically so, not unrecogniseably so.

Obviously the two are connected, derived from the same person, and the roles put on are coverings for that more permanant shape. I have yet to speak to someone and find them utterly different in play, although I'm sure the time will come. I don't believe I could ever enjoy play with someone who I didn't like as a person, who I didn't enjoy being in the company of, or feel I could discuss other things with. Perhaps worthwhile on a purely experimental level, as a one night stand, but even then, I don't think I'd want to devote the energy to something so flighty, that came and went and slipped through my fingers.

I'm not talking about one true love, or the answer to everything, but genuine interaction, between two (or more) people who are seeking real mutual pleasure. And it takes time, effort and honesty to build those relationships, those spaces to play in safety, where power is taken but always returned, where trust is given and pain received. We can part in the morning with a kiss to the forehead and a spring in the step in the understanding that all that was done was done in honesty, and between friends.

Monday 16 June 2008

Deprivation as stimulation

Hooded hawks, trained to the glove and the gyre, are kept soothed whilst blinded, kept away from distractions they are secure and tuned to a purpose. The hooded submissive is different. Certainly, restriction of movement and sensorial input by another is a powerful force of control, but the absence of freedom is not a lack in the same sense that the bird is kept from the skies.

Like the blindfold, the hood cuts out light, but it also goes further: the hood cuts out the self, both my ability to represent myself and that of others to percieve me.
The Photographer assures me that I looked good wearing it, dehumanised. This total disconnect between the major site of sensation and identity (the face and head) and the body is a reduction of selfhood to flesh, which encourages both passivity and panic within me.

Passivity because there is a sense of calm, of seclusion which comes from feeling so enclosed. I am anonymous and therefore protected and safe: a faceless body and as such, there is nothing for me to concern myself with because there is no centre for such anxiety. I am also made to feel helpless and without autonomy, whilst tied and hooded my desires are without expression beyond those I make in response to unseen touches. And all of those sensations are made stronger because I cannot anticipate them, not because of the blindness, but because I truly feel cut off from my ability to consider what is happening to me, I experience. The hood makes me more of the body and less of the mind.

There was also panic. As time wore on and the inside of the hood became closer and warmer, I started to get a claustrophobic feeling as my heavier breathing pulled the material nearer to my mouth and face. The concept, more than the actuality of oxygen deprivation lingered. I couldn't hear very well, and I couldn't tell where he was as much as I can with just a blindfold, although that may just be my mind playing tricks. Yet, in the moment, without referent, how could I tell? I worried that I might have been abandonned, there, like that, and hoped that he was merely standing there, just a few feet away from my senses. There was also the psychological panic caused by having my expressions hidden: knowing that any wincing, smiling, tics or tears was lost, meaningful to no-one else, internalised.

The two contrasting feelings were at flux within me, a pull and push, co-existing in their contradiction. They also emphasise each other, the waves of calm and comfort made all the sweeter by the preceding tightness in my throat, cold sweat on my palms. That neither could be reconciled with each other was joyously frustrating, like pleasurable pain, it was there to be experienced as a double edged sword made sharper by the mode of delivery. It is wrong to say that sensorial deprivation heightens other senses, because they are neither actually weaker nor stronger in the absence of each other. What it does do, is give new perspectives on both the senses and concepts that are absent and present.
The hood gives more than it takes away.

Writing the body

I'm sitting naked and cross legged on a towel, on a coffee table in the middle of the room in The Photographer's house. Around my neck is a collar. Looped through the metal ring is a length of chain which is fastened to the underside of the table, holding me down. The chain is taut: I can hold my head up, but only just and when I do I can feel the strain keenly. I am wearing a blindfold and music plays.

He is behind me, silently writing on my back using a caligraphy brush and ink. I don't know what he is writing, it could be anything, the subject matter was not discussed. I try to imagine what he looks like: is he calm and composed or concentrating, frowning; is he smiling, enjoying the moment? I'm silent too, the collar requires it, and it feels right to be quiet just as it feels appropriate to be still. I can feel each brush stroke, cool and wet and yet also sharp as the individual bristles catch my skin at a curious angle, like the touch of a gentle needle, scratching but not puncturing the skin. I become convinced that what I am feeling is a combination of sensations, that the brush cannot possibly be providing such a range of textures and pressures so there must be needles, or some other tool inscribing me. My skin second-guesses me, betrays my clarity and logic as it become increasingly sensitive. Immobile and reaching out, imagining what I cannot see.

I start to lose any concept of space or time. I think an hour or so has passed, but I'm not sure. As we go on, I can feel the heat slowly escaping from my body, and with it seems to go some of my energy and sense of self. My hands on my thighs feel the warmth and solidity of my flesh at first, then less and less, until the two become indistinguishable. The stroking points of light pressure on my back are the sum and total of my sensations, a link to the world outside of my emptying self. As I erode, they rebuild me, line upon line, re-created.

Eventually, the blindfold is removed and I am face-to-face with black and white shots, on a computer screen, of my own skin, covered in writing and symbols. It looks like a marble surface, smooth and pale yet also abstract and oddly disconnected from the experience of feeling it. Myself, viewed from space.

Kink and the English

I write this as an insider, in cahoots with the system, at once fully indoctrinated and amusingly charmed by it all. I'm English, through and through: I say "sorry" when people walk into me, I queue patiently and I dunk biscuits in my cup of tea. I'm also kinky and two things co-exist in a special relationship with each other and I am convinced that there is a particularly English breed of BDSM both in terms of physical practices and social relationships. The formality appeals to us, I imagine, given that having a code to cling to as well as clearly defined methods of behaviour allow us to overcome our twin clashing concerns of being "too forward" or "impolite" in our relations with each other.

There is also a welcome aspect of privacy, the agreed understanding of secrecy which gives rise to those clubs and cliques that we are also so fond of. We get to belong, and in doing so, we get to drop (a little, not too much) of that famed English reserve, which is not reserve at all, merely an outward expression of permanently feeling in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With these things in mind, consider the suburban English play club, which I was able to do in some detail on Friday along with The Photographer. We arrived, and I divested myself of unnecessary clothing and was invested with a collar, lead and ankle cuffs, I imagine I was probably grinning, although also trying not to, I certainly felt like I was grinning. The space itself was very large, a number of reasonably sized private rooms full of benches, chairs and racks with a main room surrounded by seating. There were perhaps twenty or so people present, maybe slightly more. It was clear that they knew each other quite well. We dallied a little, I fetched drinks and he watched the room whilst I, on my knees, facing the other way, watched him. There was a nice moment when I could hear the impact noises and groans from someone being flogged, but not see them, just the calm, slightly amused expression on The Photographer's face.

Later, we wandered into one of the side rooms for a demo. Only it was not a demo, it was someone's birthday, there was a cake with lots of candles. We sang "Happy Birthday". Then played party games. Not kinky party games, but actual party games. Stood in a circle of pvc and leather clad people playing pass-the-parcel (prizes between the wrapped layers included a plastic swatter, condoms and some sort of dentistry set) and then watching musical chairs will go down as one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. Neither The Photographer nor I could stop tittering in that embarrassed fashion of forced participants: it was absurd, delightful, mortifying and utterly, utterly English.

We later restored some level of normality through some play on a bench: canes once again rearing their ugly head and once again I had the honour of being "brave". There was more but different electrical play with a kit that came nearer to pain than sensation, and, blindfolded as I was, a little scary. The Photographer rounded the evening off with a bit of voyeurism-enabling for two nameless men who had been loitering at regulation distance, coming a little closer when I was left alone for a while, but then edging back. I am not precisely sure how well the sight of me, on all fours at The Photographer's feet attempting (and failing miserably for the record) to bring myself to orgasm, worked for them as they had shuffled back into the gloom from whence they came once it was decide that I had had enough.

At play, two people

My fondness for spending time with The Photographer grows, time in general, and time in play. He's very pleasant to be around, even when he's being unpleasant. Which is, of course, pleasing. We didn't precisely do what we set out to achieve, perhaps because we had set ourselves a mammoth list of high-fantasy sexual challenges that needed a lot of mood and build to set them off right, which I suppose could have felt intimidating or strange, as a second meeting. Although I feel like I know him well, I suppose that in terms of real time spent, I do not. The internet can give you a very strange sense of familiarity and intimacy, and the real world is an infinitely better, but more complicated, place to play.

We went to a play club on Friday night, which was interesting for any number of reasons and gets no other mention here, as it deserves its own post. I really rather enjoyed being driven home still in a collar, wearing his jacket for warmth and decency, handcuffed wrists resting against my spread thighs. Smiling to myself as we passed house after house full of people dreaming in the dark, unaware.

He set some ground rules on our return for how I would behave, whilst collared in his house: kneeling or on all fours, following orders, asking permission, speaking when spoken to. I called him "sir", I followed the tug of the lead upstairs, I got tied to the bed and fucked. It was great and I fell asleep very happy and content.

We took a break for most of Saturday, after ensuring that all needs were satisfied in the morning, of course. We reconvened in the evening to chain me to a coffee table so he coud use me as a canvas for caligraphy and take some shots. It was a new experience for me, and so worthy of its own section. Similarly, he put a hood on me later on, another new sensation, and one that I want to explore further both practically and theoretically, if only for the amazing contradiction of panic and calm that I kept feeling in alternating waves, I'll also write about this seperately as there is something about identity I want to discuss.

I realise that I'm splitting things up a little here, not just writing everything down as I remember it. I'm not trying to re-order things, or re-write them, in fact that is the opposite of my intention. I suppose I'm imposing an unnatural structure to ensure that everything is examined properly, described carefully and acknowledged in it's own right, rather than as just something that happened. Because it wasn't, each had their own flavour and feel, little pearls of experience, connected on a chain.

Sunday morning was strange, I had a genuine pang of sorrow at the collar being removed, as if someone had taken away the sheets as you wake on a cold day and that warm sense of comfort is suddenly gone. We sat and talked, drinking coffee and eating Cadbury's Whole Nut, keeping up that flow of dialogue that helps define and support all that we do. We both came away happy and with a definate sense of this being a good beginning, in fact, we are already planning the next stages.

Sunday 15 June 2008

Between states, between the sheets

This is me, now, writing how I was early this morning, with memories as fresh as I can make them. I wake up, wrists chained to my collar, in a prayer position. I slept lightly, unusually for me, I kept on waking every few hours, suddenly aware once more of my position. I can feel you asleep beside me, a solid object and I am ephemeral, entirely contingent upon your existence, air or water. So what am I, when you are not awake?

I'm waiting. Whilst you sleep, I wait. Very calm, there is no anxiety in my being, because there is nothing to be anxious about - all choice has been removed and therefore I have nothing that I can act upon, be concerned about. I am asleep, and not asleep, that light phase of being and not-being. I am a hiatus, a fillip. The break in what is, a liminal space inbetween myself as me, and myself as the submissive subject. I cannot be me, because I am wearing your collar, but neither can I entirely be the submissive self that the collar demands because there is nothing for me to submit to. You are not entirely present, and yet you are also here. The blindfold helps: I couldn't see you, even if I wanted to, but I can hear your regular breathing and feel your warmth, not far away but not touching either. The collar is not heavy around my neck, there is no pain. It is the reassuring weight of a safe pair of hands, holding me up, keeping me together in this moment of not-sleeping, lest I fragment into the total nothingness of non-existence. It grounds me. An anchor in the oceans of submission, tying me to this bed, to this reality, to this body which is for your body.

I'm waiting, for you to wake up, to move from these greys of neither here nor there into function, into activity, into being that which gives and also receives. But this state is also pleasing to me, to be held, in suspension. They also serve who only stand and wait.

Friday 13 June 2008

Dirty Weekend

Going to spend the weekend with The Photographer as his personal slave for 36 hours, all things being equal. I've packed an ecclectic array of things from cuffs through corsetry to a japanese caligraphy set to keep him amused. We have a short checklist of things we'd like to achieve over that time period including: me being a doll, using skin as canvas, objectification and fucking in a club. I'm sure other things will come up.

I feel excited, happy and also very calm. Whatever else, I feel assured and confident in his company (both in and out of play) which is the prime reason for being able to do this, I suppose. We have discussed it a lot, and I feel ready. No hesitation, no delay.

I think I've been very lucky in that most of the men I've met thus far have been clever, funny, inventive and wonderful to be around. I'm sure I could grow rather partial to some of them. There's an ease in all of this which I never expected, I had thought that one of the difficult parts for me would have been to get out of the vanilla conventions that I've probably become used to over the years I've been away. But I needed hardly any time at all and feel all the better for having left them behind. The only slightly troublesome issue has been the "thanks but no thanks" responses, but I think that might be a natural englishness combined with a concern for other people's feelings. Neither of which I'm keen to part with.

Thursday 12 June 2008

Rape

I am a feminist, a submissive, a generally well-rounded and confident individual. I am smart and capable. I also often have rape fantasies. Brutal, totally non-consensual rape fantasies with heavy amounts of violence, often including long periods of captivity or torture. I know that in reality, I would not "enjoy" being raped. I know that in reality it is an awful crime and that many people have suffered from it. I have been very lucky to never have experienced any form of non-consensual sexual violence, or even violence. I've never been threatened or even had something similar intimated to me. As such it is a totally theoretical and alien concept for me: my emotional response to it is based on intuition and fantasy. It has no grounding in my understanding of myself or my world.

Can it be replicated in play? I don't think so. After all, there is a problem in consenting to not consent. To want to not want. Certain aspects can probably be imitated on some level but never the thing itself. Ultimately it is an experience that cannot be experienced - an activity that consenting to and planning for destroys the underpinning meaning of the act. A meaning which only really exists in my mind, because the reality would be appalling.

Should it be replicated in play? A more interesting question, perhaps, especially given that it is unclear precisely what could be replicated and also why I would want to do it. Obviously this is something that has to be handled with extreme care, and could not, for example, occur in a club because of the potentially triggering effect on others and also the privacy and intimacy required.


In my mind, rape is extremely attractive, very exciting and very, very hot. I understand the difference between that which exists in my head and that which lives in the real world, I know that they are not the same thing, but I also know that there is a connection between the two, and I'm trying to pick appart what it is about rape that turns me on. It renders the subject powerless, knowingly so, and I enjoy powerplay. There is a lot of force, including forced entry, and therefore exciting because of the extreme physicality: rough and painful, involving struggling, kicking, yelling and so on. There is also the aspect of the forbidden. Rape is transressive, liminal and dangerous. I think I am interested in it as an expression of need, that which demands and takes irrespective of the damage caused, an act of pure violence upon the body, mind and also upon the spirit. It is therefore dehumanising and objectifying.

It is the phrase "in my mind" that rings loudly for me. Within my head, the rape, is, of course, not a rape at all, it is a series of images I have conjured for myself, controlled, safe and without any existance in this world. There is no pain, no sensation, nothing beyond that which I imagine. What I want is a fantasy, an unattainable experience that cannot be created. A pain that I will not truly feel. A trauma that I will not actually suffer from. I am in love with an awful idea that is not awful because it is just a concept to me, I do not understand it. A woman who has lived her whole life in the desert, dreaming of drowning in the black depths of arctic waters, safe in the knowledge she stands on dry ground.

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Meet and Greet

The Photographer and I had a really good drinks and dinner session with Lovely Couple last night. They were, indeed, very lovely and not at all mad. We discussed all the usual getting-to-know you things, work, life, misc. Japanese food was again in evidence, and so they pass the newly agreed-upon mandate (based on discussions yesterday) that choice in food is a clear indicator of compatability. They both seem very experienced, cool-headed, pragmatic and sure in what they want, all excellent traits in a Dom(me), and we were certainly keen on meeting up again in a more appopriate environment. The plan appears to be to find a date, go round for pre-club champagne, be introduced to the rest of their crowd, play a little dress up and then go on from there. They play with others, but don't swing, which nicely fits into my slight anxiety about married couples. It means I'll have to look to someone else for those all-important pre-, post- and during-play fuck, but I'm sure that can be arranged.

It did mean that we were a little late getting back to The Photographer's hotel. We had a short(ish) and relatively low-key session. As an interesting context to this meeting and ongoing, we'd decided that I was a slave and he had to decide whether or not he wanted to make the purchase. I'd sent him a one page "briefing" document beforehand detailing how I would look and behave. I'm not sure exactly how well I lived up to this, or how much we actually played it through as it was late. I did go with the flow a little more than perhaps I should have done, and was certainly conscious of not always being as quiet as perhaps I could have been.

He speaks orders in a very soft voice, which I particularly liked, meaning that any annoyance or irritation is immediately obvious.
I enjoyed the delicate controlling of my behaviour and movements whilst we fucked, or when I sucked his cock: I did what I thought would please him, or keep him entertained and he corrected me as and when required. He is also much stronger than me, although this isn't especially difficult, but I did get to have some rather lovely ragdoll moments. Remembering the line "I can pretty much do what I like with you, can't I?" gets a little shudder. Feeling extremely relaxed today and smiling around the edges. Looking forward to the weekend.

Cute Top and I are dancing around a bit of Diary Hell, but think that we can probably manage something. Just not soon. Understated Fetishist and I have done a "thanks but no thanks" which is perfectly fine, given I don't think we could meet each other on any of our key fetishes. I'm swapping theory notes via email with Offensive Charmer as we begin to negotiate our way around what we would like to do and how it could be done.

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Tears - Part 1

Both Ethical Hedonist and The Photographer have very clear views on submissives crying. They like it. I also like it aesthetically and anticipate that experiencing it will be powerful given that I don't cry very easily. I get upset, and I get angry, but actual tears occur rarely in my life.

Crying is a release and can be either physical or emotional/intellectual and oftentimes conflates the two. It is a very powerful symbol of loss, through its associations with grief and sorrow and thereby with hurt. Tears represent what is being suffered but are also a way of expelling that suffering from the body by acting as a channel for the pain: you'll feel better after a good cry.

Like orgasm, it falls into the categories of being made to or of letting go. I could either be forced to cry through pain or mental abuse, or through the actions imposed upon me I would start to cry. The difference is that in the former, the tears are the objective whereas in the latter they are the result. In practice it is likely that, as with physical pain causing mental anguish, the two would overlap. I would be made to cry through a heavy caning session, perhaps, and the act of crying would be a letting go. A physical demonstration of my utter loss within the situation - there is nothing I can do but cry.


Privacy as privilege

Coffee with Offensive Charmer was particularly good, and turned into dinner as we had an awful lot to talk about. We discussed several different theories and ideas that I am keen to expand upon. Amongst other things, he is very interested in BDSM as it pertains to control over the individual in their day-to-day and we talked about how it might be possible to monitor someone, perhaps through the use of webcams or ongoing twitter posts to keep one's Dom informed of what one was doing at any given time. I quite like this as a technological expression of Bentham's Panopticon, except that here the onus is on the submissive to relay all the information so it is an active process of input rather than a passive one of being observed. Someting to expand upon I think, it would be interesting to see how I would respond to such scrutiny: to have the right of privacy taken away, on one level at least, and to try and replicate the idea of a prison for the mind.

Meeting up with The Photographer tonight and we are going for drinks with Lovely Couple which will hopefully lead to a series of enjoyable evenings tied up in rope. I'll spend the night with The Photographer and I'm looking forward to properly getting to know him, mixed with a smattering of the usual pre-game performance anxiety.

The majority of the bruising from Ethical Hedonist has gone down, certainly my back is clear, although I do have some stripes still on my ass and two finger-thick marks on my upper thigh from the heavier of the two canes. In the words of The Photographer, it must be time for a top-up.

Thursday 5 June 2008

Durability

I am very tired, despite getting an early (for me) night yesterday. The muscles in my shoulders, neck and oddly enough, jaw are very stiff. There's no actual pain, although the bruising is blooming rather nicely, and otherwise all is fine. I'm hoping that a bath tonight might take the edge of it, along with another good night's sleep. I'd consider a massage, but I have a difficulty with people I don't know touching me. Amusing, no?

Clearly, my body has totally forgotten how to deal with impact blows on any level, understandable, given that it has been a while. I'll just have to ensure that regular effort is made.

Monsters

The concept of the monster has almost always been with us, from the mythical through to the modern. Derived from montrer (to show), they are representational models of types of behaviour, our darker selves, presenting those aspects of humanity that we simultaneously fear and desire. Taking aside mass-media references laden with moralising, we can understand it to simply mean something that shows difference and therefore is often viewed as dangerous.

Man-made monsters in literature (made in the sense that they are created by authors, and also come to creation within the text by human hands) also represent acts of drive and power. Mary Shelley's unamed monster in Frankenstein is created to be a "New Prometheus", to be better, faster and smarter. The intention is to improve, to strive for greatness.

Perhaps you could see the Dominant a monster, certainly they emphasise the parts of us which we repress because we are conditioned to not to behave in such a fashion. They operate through flouting norms, re-arranging convention and by the more traditional monstrous attributes such as a love of cruelty and inflicting harm. The Dominant contains both the will to be different and the sense of danger that resides in the type of difference.

Yet the submissive is also a monster, although perhaps not as obviously so. We are perhaps conditioned into thinking of them in terms of victimhood, which negates the all important factor of choice. The submissive chooses to wear the collar, to kneel, to offer themselves up to all kinds of abuse. What is that, but a show of force, of will and of difference? A wholehearted embrace of that which is feared.

The monster overrides fear, either by becoming it or by accepting it. By Dominance or submission.


Acts which society is afraid of, or does not understand are often deemed monstrous, meaning "evil", but perhaps it is the act of revelation itself which gives the shock value: out of sight is out of mind, after all.
We present ourselves, whether Dominant or submissive or anything in-between, through our actions, our flesh and our words. Our adopted roles are monstrous because of their demonstrative nature. We are monsters of performance engaged in a little play of show and tell.

Caffeine and Normality

It is entirely possible that I may be conditioning myself to associate coffee with BDSM through the medium of meet ups in sober situations. This could have interesting repercussions. Tonight I'll be seeing Offensive Charmer and yesterday ground Guatemalan beans were drunk with Understated Fetishist. He was both very easy to be around and disarmingly normal, although apparantly so was I. Not a weirdo, was the phrase bandied about. I'm not entirely sure whether this is a good or a bad thing, especially given that terms such as "normal", "good" and "bad" are rapidly losing any useful meaning. Too many connotations making them lacking in specificity.

I've always associated the word "normal" with its unflattering synonym "average". From thence we get to terrible words such as "mundane" or even "boring". However I realised that there were other sides to it. Normality is safety, a shared understanding, an agreed space from which to work upon. Normal is what you are used to and also what you consider to be acceptable. It's your own fault if you manage to make it tedious.

At the same time as being the benchmark for the everyday, normal also gives us contrast: the difference between me-at-play and me sat here, sipping my increasingly context-laden coffee. Yet both of them also contain normality. I can be having an abnormal day dressed in either skin, depending on my mood or what is happening. It's a yardstick for measurement, but is different for every single one of us, and once I know where it lies, then we can really start to play.

Your normal is not my normal, but your normal is ok?

Wednesday 4 June 2008

The Ropes

I had a lovely evening with Ethical Hedonist yesterday, as evidenced by the excitable impact bruising on my upper back and ass making those parts of me resemble a Jackson Pollock action painting. Quite appropriate all things considered. Play was a very natural rather than ritualised experience: no formal terms of address for example, lots of kissing and stroking, which was exactly right for the pair of us and for the night as a whole. "Playful", would cover it nicely. I think it was about fifty fifty for grinning and yelping. with me doing the majority of the yelping, obviously. Commands were definate, but calm and quiet which I enjoyed, as it gave me a sense of being looked after.

We kicked off with some rope bondage and a little electro-play wherein he found out quite how ticklish I am around the ribs, and then moved on to a short introduction to caning: I had a delicious catch of breath at the sentence "If you're good you get the lighter one". This was bookended with a slightly longer introduction to caning later on (I had been good), which was horribly, wonderfully painful. I remember feeling the biting heat rise up on my skin combined with the awful knowledge that there was going to be more. What I really enjoyed, in retrospect, was that I got to the point where I thought I was going to have to stop whilst not really wanting to, but also not sure I could take another sroke. Then he stopped and I collapsed in a small heap, as much as one can when tied up.

Once I was warmed up, collared and less dressed, he switched from ropes to leather cuffs and a spreader bar to avoid my wriggling tendencies, although personally I consider slipping bonds to be the height of rudeness. My ass and back became the subject of a reasonable quantity of attention from a tour of his collection of whips and floggers, my (studied) opinion being sought on them afterwards. The piercings kept any play to my front at a minimum, although there was a lot of teasing to that effect especially after I went through exactly how and when they hurt. I can also confirm without hesitation that the Hitachi vibe is extremely powerful and causes serious internal conflict: at one point, until told to stay, I was attempting to edge up the bed to get away.

We finished by fucking, which is always a good end to any scene and then fell to chatting about stuff and nonsense, until the sad fact of having to be up the next day made its presence felt.

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Fears

I don't have nerves of steel, a heart of gold or wire-in-the-blood. I am not iron-clad, silicon based or silver tongued. The cyborg that I am is made of flesh, even though my voice rings with a modem tone and my thoughts come to you in ones and zeros.

I am real, my feelings are very human. And I am scared. The things that I want to do frighten me, a little, when I think about them. Perhaps it is because some of them are new and so I know I can never be fully prepared, the outcome is uncertain. I also want things to be "right" so the preparation and build-up is given an equal if not greater weight of expectation than the acts themselves could ever have. All this, I do to myself and no-one could ever be as tough or unforgiving to me as I can.

I've never understood the reticence to admit when you are scared - even the standard use of the word "admit" implies it is something you would rather keep close and hold inside. Why not announce fear, make it tangible by putting it out there into the world? I want the fear, because it is the shadow of excitement. I need the difficulty and the challenge to be present so that success is meaningful, relief tangible and joy unconfined by the doubts that plague us: we didn't try hard enough, we didn't do what we should have done, it was too easy.

I don't want it to be easy. But I am scared of how hard it might be.

Monday 2 June 2008

Exploratory Conversations

The elegant, not so elegant and occassionally downright obtuse Dance Of Email Conversation is spinning round once more. I can now reasonably categorise them into: Nice or interesting sounding people who I have had goodly chats with and shall meet for coffee or other beverage including Offensive Charmer and the newly discovered American Dom in London; Blokes who want to spank me. There are a lot of these, more than you'd expect, more than I expected at any rate. They get a "thanks but no thanks"; I'm not really sure, but I'm investigating, or "misc".

Amongst the latter category we have the Japanophiles who have sent me some increasingly surreal, mysterious and intruiging memos which is probably leading to something, the question is what? The Photographer suggested it might by tentacle porn, but I doubt that large enough squid exist outside of anime, so I think I'm safe.

I'm kicking off the activity with Ethical Hedonist tomorrow, having been lured by the potential of drinks and bondage. Currently unclear which will feature most heavily. In other, less fun news, Lovely Couple appear to have totally dropped off the radar, leading me to suspect that they were nothing other than a semi-sophisticated piece of software.

Identity and intimacy

I want to get under your skin, and for you to be under mine. I don't want a one night stand with a no-name man, all hard blankness and no contrast: let me know your name but not use it and I'll whisper it under my breath with each "thank you" for every lash. I won't fuck someone I don't know, let alone allow a stranger to tie me up. I want to know that it's you doing it, you who knows me and how far I want to go, when and where I'll come down. That the hand bearing the whip will also gently ease off the cuffs, all power discharged for both sides. Not merely for the sake of safety but for the sake of intimacy.

There are those who think that a tabula rasa is the idealised submissive and that the hooded figure a Dom perfected, and whilst these might be our fantasies we know it's just a look, an idea, a role to put on, not to inhabit permanently. I am the one who is putting on this identity, it is me that you are touching.

Whatever dream we play inside we always wake up in the end once again, wearing these bodies, these faces, these minds and hearts. Our connections are real, and with each other.

Sex and the cyborg

A lot of the recent contact I've had, particularly with The Photographer but also occasionally with others, has been through chatrooms or IM. Cybersex gives us that extra protecting layer of anonymity combined with an imaginary and almost limitless space in which to play. Instead of ourselves and our real bodies, we have online identities born of language: faceless and amorphic, able to change every characteristic of their physical form and surpass it.

The blank field of the text box is our dungeon and we build it brick by brick out of words. In a shared, unspoken dialogue the act of enscribing sex becomes a play of signed and signified with our real bodies only joining metaphorically by fingertips to keyboard. If sex is a physical act of touch, in effect, we are fucking the machine. Perhaps we masturbate in time to the text, at appropriate points and junctures to make the words feel more real. The language stimulates action and we become cyborgs of the word: our bodies turn to textual bodies which are coded and delivered to each other via a technological medium (the laptop growing steadily warmer in my lap).

At the other end, the words are de-coded both by the machine, then by your mind. You translate me first into an image and then, if my words are good enough, into physical sensation as you touch yourself. I'm not touching you, that much is obvious, and yet I am. As sure as your brain processes the feeling of me kissing you, it processes your reading the word "kiss" that I typed and you summon up a memory, of me or of someone else, perhaps and superimpose. I kiss you, textually.

The cyber playspace shifts with every keystroke, allowing us to fuck in an inordinate number of locations and locales that our real bodies, or even anyone's real body, has never been to. Places that do not exist, in the same way that this shared space does not really exist but is in fact code and pixels. The window into it from your desktop and mine is an agreed illusion, just like the images we jointly create and enjoy.