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The online diary of an ethical pervert.

Monday 28 June 2010

Doing things to boys

What with one thing and another I seem to be entering into a dominant phase. This works pretty well for me as I've been wanting to get a broader balance of kinky activities at the moment, so a new period of exploring could be just what I need. And frankly, there are some attractive and doe-eyed men, including Ten, appearing on the horizon, so it would be churlish to refuse. Another quite big part is a natural change in my mood and outlook, revealing desires that haven't been satisfied in a while. Plus I am a switch and thus reserve the right to be complicated.

Now seems a good time to have a discussion around being a switch, as I think that my dominant side is the part I talk about a lot less, probably due to my major partners being dominant. Dominant desire is something that, like my submissive desire, only reveals itself in response to certain people. It's a form of attraction, I suppose, but it's not just a simple "you are hot", in my mind's eye, when I look at someone it's almost as if a little light is flashing above their heads with hurt me written on it. Addictive and unavoidable as the cakes in Alice in Wonderland, you have to reach out for it. So, time to reach out and get a handle on this desire less talked about.

A lot of what I want when I'm on top is driven by the same internal processes and my submission. I like to be beautiful, praised, lavished with attention and pampered. I like to experience pleasure and to witness the effect I have on others, to make them hot, horny and full of desire, leave them content and happy. Wanting more. I want to be special in their lives, even in only a small way, but a way unique to me. I like to have an impact. Make heads turn when I enter a room, and to make them feel proud to be with me, better for being involved with me. I want to go on a journey, an adventure with them, find out new things and to be able to discuss it later. Maybe share what we learnt with others, or keep some bits secret and just for us.

That's the context, the tone of what I want from any partner. It links in with previous thoughts on relationship style The content will likely vary, just as the types of submission I've enjoyed have varied depending on the likes and dislikes of the person I was with. It's been a while since I've played extensively on top, I'll admit, but already my mind is flooded with all sorts of ideas and scenarios. Ten and I are swapping notes back and forth.
Because he's never really played before, I'm happy to take it fairly slow and there will be natural breaks between dates due to our life schedules. I'm also aware that he's new (and currently far away) so I don't want to dump a load of info on him when I don't have a date set for a show and tell.

This is usually the first thing I'll do with any partner. It's something I always enjoy, because I get to combine my love of kink with my love of flexing my knowledge. We'll get together and we'll go through some kit. If we have a day of it, we might go out shopping first and pick out some things together - I always think it's nice to have pieces that are specific to a certain person, and I particularly like getting submissives to pick out something to be used on them later. Only themselves to blame, you see. Certainly, there are things I might steer them towards - my own personal favourites. Ball gags have already been mentioned, as has being strapped down and shaved (I'm also thinking about this as an on all fours, doggy style in the bath scenario). This is important - as Milady once put it "civilisation starts with a shaved man". Ten is currently uncertain about this, which makes it more attractive, of course.

Which leads on to the areas that distinguish my dominance from my submission. The desire to make people do things that make them nervous, afraid, humiliated or pained. Anticipation is a large part of it, so I like long-standing rules or prohibitions. Orgasm denial, behaviour patterns, modes of speech. Warming them up to the event ahead. Which will be designed to push buttons. Partly it's about getting a reaction, but the big part for me, the part that makes me feel on top of the world, is taking them through something that was difficult, breaking them a little perhaps, but always having their trust and desire for me holding them together. Coaxing them along in their submission to me. Helping them get what they want, and giving them new things to want and ways in which to want them. To want me.

Sunday 27 June 2010

Training session

Different Drummer has offered to help me out with my gym routine, he's teaching me a new way of working out so I can build more muscle and become the hard-bodied pervert I've always wanted to be. Apparently, interval training is going to be my new best friend. And given that my thighs are extremely sore today after only our first meeting, I expect we shall become firm friends.

I thought it worth mentioning here because of the many similarities between the things I get out of a decent gym session and a BDSM session. I sometimes get the strange feeling that gyms are fetish clubs for the daytime. Special areas to get changed into special clothes. Coded language and lots of acronyms. Kit. Lots of kit. Machines, benches.
Endorphins and adrenaline. The smell of sweat. An atmosphere focused on bodies, their contortions and the noise of people in pain, or in the quiet space of dealing with pain.

There's more to it than those superficial overlaps, many of which could be about any sort of sporty clique or physical hobby. For me, it's the similarity of my own mindset when doing either that really emphasises it. Working out appeals to my masochism but also on my internal drive for success. The focus of will on the body in order to achieve a goal through a process which is physically demanding and ultimately satisfying - making me feel strong, sexy and proud of myself. One of the things I really enjoy is feeling that I have risen to a challenge, been able to do something that was hard or painful. I like the knowledge that I am somehow better for having done it: I have come away with something new, an improvement, from having the experience. I get that from both BDSM and working out. The difference is that usually with the latter it's me doing it to myself by myself whereas with the former there is generally someone else around or at least involved if not actually present.

Having someone act as a trainer really brings out the parallels, naturally there are D/s overtones available in any teacher/pupil scenario yet I do feel that the pushing past physical barriers has a particular flavour that moves towards S&M. Being shown new equipment, how to use it, where to stand and what to do. Having someone talk you through movements and situations that are painful or difficult. Counting repetitions like counting strokes. There were other moments too, such as one point where it felt as if the muscles in my arm simply stopped working and he had to take the weight from me. I experienced the same rush of concern as if I had to call a stop to a pain or impact play session, and needed reassurance that I hadn't failed but instead just had a very normal response to unfamiliar exercise.

Which will hopefully become more familiar as my body adapts, in much the same way as it has adapted to other forces laid upon it in the past.

Friday 25 June 2010

Ten

The last time we fucked was ten years ago. So Ten is an apt enough name for him. A lot has changed since then, in a good way. I'm not nineteen for a start. I'm older, wiser, better looking and frankly a lot more aware of my own sexuality than I was back then. Then he was the more experienced one, from my teenage girl perspective at any rate, the one who knew what to do and what he wanted (yeah, we've both smirked about that, he was a sagely twenty-three). The tables are turned somewhat, he's acknowledged himself as vanilla - but curious and keen, I'm the one with the knowledge, with the experience. Which isn't to say he's without, he still has the greatest finger-action known to mankind and should probably teach classes: remaining one of my few sexual partners to ever easily and consistently bring me to orgasm, for a total of four and a bit times. But my needs and wants are wide and different to my needs and wants back then.

Desires too. I was initially worried.
Whilst we still have exceptional chemistry and a level of comfort around each other that perhaps only those ten years could have given us. No expectations beyond what it was, assumptions that it would be easy and that it would be good. It had been such a long time since I'd had anything approaching vanilla sex that I wasn't sure whether I would want it, be able to do it or be able to get off on it. As it turns out, it was strange and at certain points downright odd. There was no pain, there were no toys, no rope. None of the conventional points of BDSM foreplay that I had become accustomed too and I did feel their lack. After we stripped down I'd expected him to push me over or hit me, or something of that ilk. I don't know exactly what, but I had this memory of him back then, pushing my face against the cool tile wall of a student-hall shower and fucking me hard. I was waiting for him to take charge, and he didn't. It felt strange to be just there, together.

It was almost like having sex in another language. A totally different mode and format. I'd forgotten what it was like to be touched so much and so softly, he stroked my skin a lot, long brushes up and down in the natural lines of my contours. Kisses too. Hundreds of them. A sudden embarrassment of riches, now, between him and Majeste after my recent drought. Flooded with them. Physical expressions of his infrequent exclamations about my body, how good it looked. Being held and touched like that, without any associations of D/s, without even the tiniest amount of bondage. Yet it wasn't entirely vanilla. Because I was there, and with me came my brain, my context, and whatever else was going on, I was thinking kink.

This naked man, good looking and lean, doing nothing but deliver pleasure, compliments and long, soft looks.

"You're submissive"

He looks at me with those big hazel poet's eyes. I explain, he relaxes as I talk, then grins. "So, there's all these filthy perverted things that you want to do to me?" I nod. He grins again, then goes back to kissing my back and playing with my clit. The pleasure he takes in my pleasure - we didn't fuck much, he didn't come at all - I bathed in the sensations he delivered, luxuriating in them and in his appreciation (worship?) of me and of my body as surely as any Domme with her boy. It's a nice feeling, I'll admit and I'll also admit that, as with much D/s I'm not sure which is "real" and which is formed by impressions in my head. But I do know that when I came, I thought of him as mine, as doing this for me because it was what I want. And what we did came so easy because we are sexually aligned in some senses - no, he doesn't have the BDSM experience but it was obvious what he wanted, what he enjoyed. The power-exchange wasn't huge or deep, whatever was happening was very playful, but it didn't feel like straight sex to me.

He'll be gone from town by the end of the weekend, to another city. We've made some plans to make it less than another ten years. I'm spending the day in the warm glow of many orgasms, formulating a list of things to do to him.

Monday 21 June 2010

The tingle

I can tell whether I want to fuck you within ten minutes of being in your company. Often less. Naturally, I'm using "fuck" in it's broadest term. Using it to mean whatever activity we chose to do that follows up on the pull from my sexuality to yours, or vice versa. Oftentimes it won't involve just straight fucking, and frankly, it's been a long time since I've done that, so call it BDSM, call it kink, call it kinky sex. The upshot is that whatever we do, I'll know pretty damn quickly whether I want to do it with you.

But I have to be near you to decide.

I can't tell from a photo, but I will ask to see one, because first I need to think you are hot, and second I want to know you are who you say you are. You don't have to be wrapped up in latex - and frankly, if you are and I can't see your face then what's the point? Seeing you in the flesh is always better, but I'll want a photo first. I have no qualms about saying I want a partner who I find attractive, I doubt that those who see my photos on a website immediately go into paroxysms of joy over what a marvellous personality I have (I don't, incidentally, for those new readers who haven't yet cottoned on).


I can't tell over the phone, which is ok, because, frankly, I won't call you and I won't give you my number if we haven't met. But rest assured your voice is important, the way that you sound, the words that you use, how, when and whether you laugh. They indicate the noises you might make, the whispered phrases I might hear.
When I hear it though, I want to see your lips move.

I can't tell from any text that you write, although I will look at your words carefully. The turns of phrases, the grammar and spelling - yes, I do this - what you've chosen to say about yourself and how you've said it. Whether you are overly familiar or completely estranged from the shift key. Whether you've bothered to write anything at all, or written War and Peace or used excerpts from poems or prose, and where those excerpts come from. In one rather exciting case, I'll be bemused as to why you have copy and pasted my own description of me and shrug, accepting the old adage about imitation whilst deciding that I really wouldn't want to meet a mirror image of myself.

I have to be near you.

I have to be in your company for a few minutes, acclimatise myself to you, your use of space, how you are around me. I have to see you in the flesh, how you sit in your skin and hold yourself. Get a waft of your smell, the scent of you and your skin can make all the difference. We don't have to touch, but if we do and especially if we kiss I'll know like *that*. I'll get the tingle, you see. That buzzing sound at the base of my skull, like alarm bells for sexuality, something in the animal core of my brain pricks up its ears and is primed and ready. If we do kiss, then there will be a genuine tingle, my lips will hold the imprint of yours for perhaps days afterwards and I'll be able to bring that sensation back to mind for months. It goes right through my lips and down into my cunt, like electric shocks for sex.

I don't know what it is, but it can feel a little bit like a submarine pinging on a radar, in the depths of an otherwise silent sea. Maybe it's pheromones, and that would certainly explain my mild obsession with smell, although interestingly I've wanted to fuck people whose smell I have found initially off putting (although it was a strong, clear scent that stood out) and which later because a sex-smell for me. Maybe it's another bizarre form of body chemistry and desire that has yet to be understood by science. I can tell you how you did it, in the aftermath, and it will never be the same thing twice, although some things will be similar. It might be the way you unfastened your tie a little, the way you pushed your hair behind your ears, the shape of your hands, anything, really, about you. I absolutely can't tell you how to do it, you already either have it or you don't, frankly. You push my buttons and it only takes a few minutes for me to know. But that's all I know. I won't know if I like you, if I want to be friends, if we suit each other or if we are a terrible match. I won't know whether our kinks align, whether the sex will be awesome or merely very good (if I get the tingle it's never bad sex, so I've learnt to rely on it). It's absolutely not love at first sight - it won't tell me my emotions towards you, beyond want-desire-lust. I won't know if I love you or want to be with you for months and months and months, if I ever do.

But fuck you? Yeah, I'll know before we've finished the first drink.

Sunday 20 June 2010

Kit and what it does

A conversation with Majeste, but one I've had before and I'm still refining as I learn new things: about kit and what it does. I think it can be a challenge within BDSM and kinky circles to avoid engaging in masturbatory conversations over pieces of equipment - what type or brand of flogger you have, weight of the handle, bite of the delivery material. a lot of people worrying about whether they have the right piece of kit to do such-and-such. Certainly there are better and worse types of kit, levels of quality like there are better and worse chairs or teacups or bottles of wine. But most are serviceable and crucially, different people like different things. I tend to steer clear of collectors conversations, perhaps because I don't own or can't afford a lot of kit myself, or because I don't tend to use a lot of kit. However, I have had a lot of kit used on me, and whilst I couldn't do the coca-cola taste test on "which brand of flogger hit you" I do have a good idea of what different things feel like, what they do to me.

I've got four broad categories - sensory, impact, bondage and the rather dubiously titled "specialist". They do meld into each other, as you'll see, but talking about BDSM kit in terms of the experience it delivers has helped me immensely in understanding not only my likely reactions (and therefore be able to forewarn people in advance) but also to unpick exactly where I'm getting my enjoyment. And whilst it's almost never because the piece cost hundreds of pounds and was flown in from Tokyo, equally it won't be because the poorly made thing smells peculiar and leaves unintended marks on me from a bad dye job.

Sensory. This includes sensory deprivation as well as sensation-play. I use the latter term to distinguish from "just" pain play, sensation is broader than that, though things can (and should) still hurt. Sensory deprivation always strikes me as the foreplay of the kinky scene, which is why I've put it first. Kit can include blindfolds, hoods, masks, gags, earplugs, mitts and vac-beds to name a few. These cut off one or more of your senses which renders you vulnerable and reliant on the Top, which creates fear (that they might do something bad to you) and also a power-exchange (you need them to look after you). It can also excite your other senses, as well as focus you in one particular area. I find that my skin is more sensitive when I can't see, for example. I especially like hoods and masks, they make me a cipher and help me dissociate from the noise of the day, from my own concerns about my self and whatever I've been doing. They make me feel automatically doll-like and submissive. Like a canary with a sheet thrown over the cage. Losing vision is particularly powerful. You become a little lost in space and enclosed within yourself - all the more so when coupled with a physical sensation of having your eyes or head bound, think about the difference between being blindfolded, in which only you cannot see, and the lights not being on, in which no-one can see.

Sensation delivering items can be anything from fingers, feathers (chickens - old joke), nails, rope, scarves, ice. Penetrative toys, whether they vibrate or not can give either sudden jolts of excitement or a long drawn out sexual pleasure. I always enjoy the feeling of being "full" which helps centre and ground me during more difficult activities, perhaps just because it gives my muscles something to concentrate on and I feel less lonely.
I've put needles, knives and sharps in this category, with their buzzy-high pain and also my dearly-loved electricity: insertibles, pads on skin and violet wands. There's a sense of event to the latter two types of sensation, perhaps because of the time and preparation needed before they must be done.

What I am touching as well as what I am touched with has an effect. Standing on cold floor or wrapped in soft blankets. Touch is not the only thing to consider though. Sound can be very important, soothing familiar music compared to white noise. Controlling sound is another way of controlling the environment, shutting out that which isn't wanted and setting the scene for that which is. I'm a big fan of scent and smell is pretty important to me, the scent of my lover's skin will develop, with time, an aphrodisiac quality.

Impact. The "traditional" toys of the kinkster: whips, crops, canes, clamps, floggers, paddles, hands. Things to beat people with. For me, the experience of being hit tends to be either a build or a punishment. In the former it's about pushing me forwards, either deeper into a sub-space or pleasure/sensation haze - this could be from a long flogging, from a spanking that moves from soft to powerful or from something a bit more short and sharp such as a slap to the face which is often a heady rush. This is where my masochism lives, in getting additional sensation and experience from pain, empathy is important here and more empathy is needed the harder the pain is. Otherwise it's just punishment. Punishment is very different. Here I'm getting pain out of pain and it will make me unhappy and distressed, especially if there is no obvious reason for the punishment. I will feel used and cruelly abused. In some instances, if there's a deep D/s connection, I'm getting catharsis from going through a punishment because of something I've done wrong. I will almost always want a build type of impact play rather than a punishment.

Bondage. A personal favourite. Whether rope, straps, straitjacket, vac bed (again) or even common or garden chains and cuffs. I love it because it is permission to remain still and not have to do anything or accept responsibility for anything, because of the feeling of it - which is where sometimes the act of being tied up can be as exciting as anything else - in many cases good, tight bondage is like being held all over. For me, I get the same sort of vulnerable/safe contradictory impulse that I do with sensory deprivation. I am vulnerable because I cannot move, I am often in a difficult or prone position. But I also feel safe, partly because I feel held tight and partly because I am unable to escape or to do anything other than what I am doing: I am curiously free. There is also the feeling of being "put away" safe, especially for bondage overnight or similar, that someone has taken the time and care to do such a thing to me is very reassuring.

Specialist. This could equally be "miscellaneous",
it covers items for more specific forms of fetish and some - not me - might say kinkier activities: breathplay, watersports and so on. Now obviously you don't need kit to do these things, but it can certainly help. At the very least one might need a towel for cleaning up. Bigger pieces of kit such as a fucking machine, a cage and a lot of what is often described as BDSM furniture falls under this category. The experience I get from these pieces can be mixed, frankly, and tends more to rely on who I'm with and the context in which I'm using them (or being used by them). There's no industry standard for my responses for a cage, for example. I've been bored rigid in them and cosily compliant. In the same cage as well.

Thursday 17 June 2010

A matter of bodies

"So, what do you like about women's bodies?"

I pause for longer than is probably acceptable in polite society, she laughs. One of those full throated, hearty rich laughs I have come to love, that come straight from somewhere real, the kind of laugh that makes you sit up and take notice and hope you can make it happen again.

"What on earth are you doing with me?" She laughs again at the strange look on my face, half aghast at any offence I might have caused, half confused.

"I think you're hot. And beautiful. I don't think it's because you are a woman."

I might have put my foot in it again, that's a common theme for whenever I open my mouth. We talk some more, I try and explain. I think she still thinks me strange and perhaps I am, but I don't mind. I've been trying to think of a decent answer. Majeste shook her head between laughing and said it was because I was straight, but I do want her and she's nothing if not womanly. Very womanly. So what is going on here?

There's something to do with shape, I know that. I like that she is bigger and stronger than me.
I love it when she hugs me, I feel wrapped up and enveloped in her warmth.With all of my partners I have been drawn to the way they made me feel both vulnerable and protected. Knowing they could pick me up to hurt me or to shield me from something. There's a lure of strength, for both dominant and submissive partners - I like submissives who are stronger than me also, because they can protect me (again) and because the submission is somehow more powerful when they are giving up all of their force and allowing someone physically weaker to hurt them.

I think it would be difficult to avoid talking about pure body-chemistry when discussing gender and desire. That bog-standard Darwinistic desire to breed. Are my ovaries merely crying out in the darkness for a decent chromosome match? Obviously there's no such response here, but there is a sexual desire, so the two are clearly not always the same thing. It's hard to tell what proportion of my attraction to previous partners has been based on hormones - there have been many, many studies in the area and it's frankly a minefield of social prejudices - especially given that I'm not actually that interested in having children.

Finally, I have to acknowledge that I do find women's bodies curious and strange, despite, or perhaps because, I have one of my own and I know how odd my own sexual reactions can be. I expect them to be as odd as I am.
Certainly the majority of my lovers have been male, so I have a feel for the male body, what it likes, how it smells when aroused, how it feels. I associate it more naturally with sex. I'm habituated to it. It's worth stating for the record that, in general, I don't feel especially sexually attracted to women's bodies. I am more likely to have my head turned by a man, if I am likely to have my head turned at all. I generally don't feel sexually attracted to a lot of people, I have refined taste (or, more likely, I'm fussy).

Really, there are thousands of little, tiny things that draw me to someone. I can see that someone is or isn't attractive, and that's usually aesthetic. I can see whether they look good, strong or healthy and that's a biological judgement call.
Lots of things catch my eye, the sound of a voice, smell, the way they hold their hands just so. Clothing is a big part - buckles, heavy jewellery, tattoos even, little signs that they might be kinky. Which is when it really hits. When they ping onto my radar. Knowing that I could want to hurt them or for them to hurt me; to be under my control or to cede control to them. That's the sexual drive but it's not because they are women or because they are men - it's because I'm kinky and there's something in them that calls out to that kinkiness.

That's what shines through here I think. Her body is part of her kinkiness, just like the bodies of my other lovers have been a part of their sexuality, the instrument on which it was played.

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Rainy day

I spent a very interesting day with Mr and Mrs Magpie a few weeks ago and have been turning it over in my mind ever since. Not because it was "bad", I hasten to say, but because it revealed a lot of things about myself and my kinks. I'd been looking forward to playing with them for a long while, we first met back in the dim and distant past of my still belonging to The Photographer and have talked a lot but actually done rather little (though the talking was a lot of fun and Mr Magpie and I have a shared joy at both being word-nerds). They had invited me to come and spend time in one of those kinky cottages for rent exploring the world of rainwear fetish in greater depth. Now, I already knew that there were lots of aspects to rubber that I really enjoyed - gas masks are a firm favourite and the alien / alienation senses push a lot of my buttons. I was keen to find out more.

I'd been in a toppy mood for a few days and had the promise of a fetching young gent to play with as well as the company of two people I'm very fond of so was chipper although a little nervous, as I can be with things that are totally new to me. The nerves tend to spring from an uncertainty as to my own reactions and given I'd never been in this situation before I didn't really have a handle on what I was going to do. When I top or domme it helps to have a game plan, not because I want to do things by rote but because then if something throws me I have something in my back pocket to fall back on and don't get caught on the back foot.

I arrived on time and in my shiny mac (buttons fastened, all poppers properly sealed) feeling a little over-warm but having enjoyed a good train journey of people looking at me and thinking - quite rightly - that I was a pervert. We went to the cottage and I changed into PVC shorts and a top and then on top of that was fresh, new bought-for-me rainwear. I loved the smell and feel of it, the trousers smelt slightly different to the top, both smelt a little sweet, slightly of vanilla funnily enough, and with that familiar waft of plastic that brought to mind long walks as a child or summer sun filtering through tents on the morning of camping holidays. A soothing smell, and exciting too, adventure wrapped up in it. At first it was very cool and slippy against my mostly bare skin, much rougher than the smooth latex that I'm used to because of the coarser texture of the woven fabric. After a while it warmed up against my body heat and I started to sweat a little, enjoying the feeling of acclimatising to the situation.

The chap arrived and he was all that was promised and more, a handsome english gent type with the sort of fair fluffy hair that immediately puts me in hope of clippers and a chair to tie him to. We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries then he went to change. He returned fully kitted up and I'll admit that my heart sank a little bit (and thought fondly once more of the chair and the clippers). From toe to top: heavy hunter wellies, thick waterproof trousers and raincoat fully zipped. He had thick gloves and a gas mask and under it all a rubber latex bodysuit. There was no skin to be seen anywhere. I realised then and there how much of my favourite horrible things to do to young men revolved around having at least some of them exposed and how little experience I had at managing someone with kinks in this area. I felt the burden of being on top although was still enthusiastic enough to give it a try. After all I wasn't without ideas...

After taking him upstairs and tying him to a chair (metal clip in hand to tap in case of emergencies) I was advised by Mr Magpie to let him stew a bit, whilst the pair of us tied Mrs Magpie down. She was also entirely encased in rubber, just a cute slit of cunt available to view, and whilst running my hands over her and tying her down I wondered how it must feel, under so much weight, heat and pressure. Deciding it must be really quite nice.

Back to the boy, I tied his legs together with some rope to reduce mobility further and used him as a handy chair from which to watch the other two. I felt that I was pausing and pacing things out more because of my own uncertainty and lack of knowledge which was frustrating for me. On the other hand, I could feel him - even through the rubber layers - hot and hard against me and so I wriggled a bit for good effect, smiling at the little moans and gasps that were amplified by the gas mask. I gave him a few seconds to enjoy it before stopping to go and find a plastic bag, which I then taped around his neck and watched it inflate and deflate. After a short while he tapped out of that and though I got the sense that he had enjoyed it I did worry that I might have pushed him a bit further than his stated intention of passive, objective observer. Feeling a little deflated and having certainly run out of tricks that were practicable - other thoughts included some drowning in the bath or being put outside and sprayed with a hose - again, judged probably a bit too much for a first meeting. I went back to using him as a chair and then, after a while, went back downstairs to try and figure myself out.

Clearly, the rainwear wasn't doing all that much for me. It was interesting and certainly I understood some the excitement from the point of view of the bottom, but mostly that derived from the sensorial experience given by the fabric, the enclosure, the press of the rubber on skin rather than a fetishisation of the kit itself. I enjoyed the fact that it was exciting him, and there was a top-rush from delivering those feelings, but because I didn't share in all of them it wasn't as full an experience as it could have been. Certainly I found the difficulty in accessing the body of the bottom and to a lesser extent the problem of getting feedback from them because I couldn't see as much of the skin, erection, flushed areas or twitches.

In retrospect, I should have done more prep - made time to chat with both the Magpies about what we wanted to get out of it, got some information about the chap himself, likes and dislikes and done a bit of a read and think as to what sort of play I was going to deliver. Equally it might have been easier if I'd have gone into the situation as a sub or a bottom, I could have relaxed into the sensations and experienced them rather than delivering them, perhaps the better solution in future entirely new scenarios.

Sunday 13 June 2010

Living and learning

This morning Captain and I decided to more or less go our separate(ish) ways. I'm upset, naturally, not only as I'll really miss the sex but because I like him. And this, combined with related compatibility issues, is the reason for not carrying on. A friend of mine put it rather neatly when she said it was better to jump off a boat whilst you are still able to swim back to shore. I'm not as near to the coast as I'd like to have been but I'll be home and dry within a couple of weeks: some tears and sighing, a resignation to short-term ongoing and unresolvable sexual frustration - being with someone else right now would not be fair to them - a few good nights' sleep and decent morning masturbation plus hefty workouts at the gym and I anticipate being better, if not precisely content with the situation.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been off my game and really feeling it. I've found it harder to get into things and have not really enjoying my kinks to the full, certainly needing a longer warm up than usual. I've been sulky and discomfited, feeling out of place or in the way or generally not quite right. I've been distracted, basically, by a worm in my BDSM apple. As usual, it's an issue of clarity and compatibility. I've got a very keen sense for when things are right and I'm fussy so rarely settle for good enough or kind of ok. I've been treading water with Captain: not getting enough of what I want and therefore finding it difficult to give enough of what I should. So dissatisfied on both sides: with my own submisssion and what I've gotten out of it. I've hoped that time might have eased these difficulties but it wasn't a bedding-in issue, rather something more basic: we weren't doing the same things at the same time. Or rather, the way that he was playing was sometimes different to how I was playing. When we both hit the same note, we were awesome and I do not regret a minute spent in his company, he does what he does extremely well, but it's just not right for me.

The two most obvious disparities were between my greater desire for very regular penetrative sex (what Mrs Magpie helpfully terms "skin sex" to differentiate from rubber-clad play) and my need for an ongoing D/s context that extended outside of the bedroom. This was pretty distinct from his desire to not have anything approaching a relationship at all but instead have lots of cool, kinky partners to do BDSM with on a catch-as-catch can basis.


Fundamentally, the set-ups that Captain and I want are very different, neither are "right" or "wrong" beyond the fact that they are what we individually want and therefore right for us. Carrying on would have resulted in frustration for both of us as well as probable upset. So we talked, well, mostly I talked but that will come as no surprise to anyone used to my level of analysis. Talking to him about what I perceived as the distinctions helped me clarify what I want from partners in the wake of The Photographer.

So, these are my "new and improved" rules for future BDSM lovers:
  • We don't need to be in love to have great sex but I do need to feel cared for especially if you are going to do horrible things to me and my feelings of self-worth. You need to say that you care because I am not psychic.
  • I need kisses and hand holding and a little romance. Show me you want me and not just me-in-latex. You don't have to parachute into my house clutching a box of Milk Tray (the lady prefers Hotel Chocolat at any rate) but a bit of grinning, flirting and touching under the table goes a long way.
  • There will be kinky sex. This will involve kink and sex. I need both.
  • How we do our kink must match. It's not enough to have a shared enjoyment of CP, we've got to both want to do it in the same fashion - whether it's a punishment/consolation scenario or a piece of foreplay, the act must mean the same thing to us both.
  • I need to feel special and unique. I'm a queen bee, we don't share well and I do get jealous the more into you I am. I don't need to be anyone's sole partner, but I do need to be their only partner for doing X or Y. On some level, I must be the one and only or at least first and foremost.
  • Whatever we do, it must be clearly defined, once we've made the decision we want to do something together we must both be able to say what that something is and invest a little pride, value and meaning in it. Even as simple as "the girl I fuck on Tuesday" if said with a wide enough grin and eager enough eyes.
I'm sure that these rules will change if and when I get seriously emotionally involved, or even, perhaps, fall in love again, but for now they are a good framework to go forward. After I've spent a few days licking my wounds. It's mostly pride that's hurt - given that no-one likes to put themselves on the line and be turned down, but I've got a few emotional bumps and bruises too.

They'll heal. Things do. And we move on. I'm looking forward to finding out where I'm going next.

Thursday 10 June 2010

Take three

I had a much anticipated double-domme session with Spiral and Majeste last night and am still floating on air and occasionally grinning like a crazy person.

Admittedly, it was not an auspicious start. I was running late and had not been able to set the space up as well as I'd have liked by the time the buzzer rang and they arrived. I hate not being prepped for a session - part of what I want to achieve through my submission / bottoming is the sense that the top has felt catered for in every respect, that their wishes have been adhered to and that they feel suitably valued. I'd been a bit anxious all day about my own performance, because I did so want to do well and also because I'd been really looking forward to this and like with many things you can build up a certain level of self-pressure to fulfill the potential. What this meant was that I felt like I'd already dropped the ball when they arrived to find me mid-way through arranging the room, I wasn't in a good service space, feeling a bit ratty and annoyed at myself for not being able to arrive sooner. I almost instantly failed at one of my protocol tasks by making eye contact and just generally felt flustered.

After a while I did manage to settle down, kneeling on the floor in a plain white vest top bought for the purpose (I had hoped to make myself into a "neutral" body, without any flounce or frills, a simple object), breathing calmly, feeling the cool of the floor under my legs, trying to let myself out of my body and just relax into whatever they had in mind. I was very glad that I didn't have to speak and could enjoy the quiet as I cleared out my brain and tried to adopt a blank slate. They started off with strokes and light touches, I was instantly struck by how they worked in tandem, mirroring movements and actions in a way that seemed almost rehearsed. I was extremely taken with this, feeling a little spoilt and it really helped me begin to lose the problems of the day and get into the space with them. I was laid out and starting to warm-up, a rain of hand slaps on the whole back of my body instantly triggered an aggressive fight or flight response and I jumped up screaming, then fell onto the floor in tears.

I'm still very surprised and annoyed at myself for doing this. I think that part of it is
that the first few blows came too soon and too heavy: I'm having difficulty at the moment getting into the right head-space in order to take "aggressive" pain, the sort of thing that would normally make me twitch and buck but in this case really threw me. I feel like a badly broken-in horse these days, lacking in the patient ability to settle. Similarly I'm slightly concerned that this is the beginning of some sort of brattish tendency, although I never deliberately do anything to upset or annoy a partner, it's just my own instinctive reactions have been quite strong and headstrong recently. They were both incredibly supportive and brushed away my apologies, moving me back to the sofa and giving me time to relax and chat to them about inconsequential things until my skittish jitters had gone away.

This time we took our time. I was blind through most of what happened and could only tell every now and then which of the two was touching me, for the majority of time everything blended. I was faceless and anonymous and (eventually) sapped of will, happily blending in with them, especially thrilled at moments where all three of us were together and I was the one in the middle, absorbing and revelling in the pleasure of being pleasurable and pleasured. At times it was very hard to concentrate on what was being done - I felt carried away by what I was feeling, the extended waves of built up flogging and the fact that sensations seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Even now, I can feel a certain wetness in my cunt as I try to bring it to mind but I'm losing the precision and ability to distinguish between what happened and when - like catching the tail of a delicious wet-dream: ambiguous, vague but hot, hot, hot. One of the things that I am trying to preserve is the contrasting sensations of "soft" and "hard" that recurred throughout, feelings that kept me buoyed during heavy or difficult pain and made me extremely wet and turned on. Kisses mixed with flogging, strokes and caresses and being held against warm, feminine skin whilst it pinched, grabbed, bit and slapped me everywhere. Especially the sensitive bits, particularly my poor, much abused nipple piercings. I often wonder if I should have drawn so much attention to them with those pieces of metal.

Mostly, I remember the evening in flashes, through the post-play glow I'm still sporting. Sat on the Sybian, arms cuffed above my head, held down against the increasing vibrations and feeling the pressure build hot against my open cunt and clit. A second time round with this piece of kit and this time I certainly felt that an orgasm might happen, but I was perhaps too busy revelling in the space between pleasure and pain to concentrate enough to come. My concentration was elsewhere, or rather, nowhere. I was carried by them both, by the lashes from a flogger on my front and back, sometimes one side, sometimes both so I peaked and troughed with the breaks in the pain, the moments where it was stroked away and smoothed down only to be done over and over again as if my skin were a palimpsest for blows. I remember being helped away, thighs wobbling, to be fucked by Spiral whilst held down and having my chest half-caressed, half tortured by Majeste. Being put on my knees to suck the strap-on clean for the amusement of them both. I remember endless scratches along my back where the flogger had bit before - the hot, bright pain flashing in front of my eyes. I remember being ushered into the vac bed and the air being drawn out, plastic drawn tight, then released again in a mimicry of breathing. The sudden sadness at being released, cold and clammy out of the blessed, pressurised safetly of that darkness.

The long, slow come down on the sofa, naked in between them, being stroked and petted like a kitten and relaxing into the praise and reassurance that my earlier actions had been forgotten. Then dinner afterwards, grinning at each other, reaching for hands and making promises of again, soon.

Please.

Wednesday 9 June 2010

A moment in space

For the past few weeks something has been under my skin. I've been snappy, grumpy and generally dissatisfied: kicking over the traces for no discernible reason. I'm not usually prone to moodiness and before anyone mentions it, no, I don't get PMT (fortunately). I was just really cross and fed up. I was trying to work out what it was, thinking about my job, life plans, family and friends and could not put my finger on it. I wandered about my flat and a variety of coffee shops wondering whether I had some sort of terrible malaise or "drop" that had come from nowhere.

Then it hit me.

I really, really, really needed to have some kinky sex.

Fortunately, Captain had arrived back in town at the moment I was trying to walk some of the frustration off and so I was able to voice my concerns to a caring audience. He knows what it's like to feel that mixture of tired and horniness. Needing sex is both a practical and emotional requirement. On the one hand its a need, like food or air or sleep that has physical knock-on effects when lacking. The remedy is physical also and to misquote zen: when hungry, eat, when horny, fuck. But on the other hand it does more than scratch an itch, it fills a certain mental and personal space, the bit of me that craves that sort of intimacy that D/s offers, the reassurance of the power exchange, the satisfaction in myself of being that desired, beautiful and fuckable object. Even if just for an hour or two.

Which is how it went.

Lying in bed, hooded and safe as a canary under a blanket, convinced its nightfall. The leather hood is buttery-soft, laced tight at the back of my head so it forms a barrier to the world and all its many harassments. I can't see you, so you can't get at me. There are no holes for my nose so breathing is a little difficult - mouth-breathing always makes me concentrate on the breath itself, rendering it forced and unnatural, lacking in normal reflex. A collar fastens around my neck, padlocked tight and the weight is comforting and almost nursery rhyme levels of "just right". Cuffs on my ankles and wrists, similarly sealed, with a chain running from feet through hands to neck and pulled tight enough so I can't lie out flat. I'm on my side in a loose foetal position, my back nestled in against his chest and his arms around me, fingers playing lazily with my nipple piercings.

"This is the kind of D/s I like" He mutters and I couldn't agree more. It's a normalised abnormality, this kind of kink. An easy and uncomplicated set of actions that feel entirely appropriate to who we are and where. No messing around or fuss. Me, in bondage, restrained and exposed at the same time. Him, in bed with something to use or not use, as he sees fit. He fucks me and then we sleep. Or rather he sleeps and I doze. I'm not sure I could spend every night in bondage, much as I would like to, because although the sense of security and "ownership" is strong and deeply pleasant which does lull me into calm slumber it's usually fitful. Lack of free movement makes natural sleep difficult - you move a lot more than you'd think whilst asleep - so keeping one position becomes awkward.

And yet, despite that I woke up feeling better, rested and refreshed. The anxiety, tetchiness and annoyance at the world had receded, things were back to normal. For a given value of normal.

Monday 7 June 2010

WTF FWB?

As you may know I despise the phrase "friends with benefits" almost as much as I do the term "fuck buddy", considering it, amongst other things a pretty superficial way of engaging with people as well as a good way of having a dull sex life. Think of it this way - the more at arm's length you keep someone the less well you know them, can see into their heads so you touch their kinks only lightly, if at all. Play becomes transactional and loses a lot of its edge. Quality suffers from lack of intimacy. Also, I don't want my partners to be "friends who I have sex with". I have friends, they are not for having sex with. They are my friends. I have partners to do that, people who have a place in that private part of my life. That private part of me. Perhaps I'm a terrible romantic but I've always liked the term "lover". Not because I think you need to have a love affair or even to be in love, but you do have to love what you are doing with them and also because it has a slightly old fashioned filthy ring to it.

So, nomenclature and my personal preferences aside, the other terrible thing about fuck buddy-ism is the way it tends to assume that this way of having sex is a masculine approach. Take this article for instance. There are many points in this article at which a sensible person might raise a few questions, certainly eyebrows. That there doesn't seem to be much "friendship" going on in this proposed plan, and that anyone who honestly thinks that women use pregnancy to trap a man needs to give the 19th Century their values back. My major sticking point with it is that it seems rather unlikely to generate decent sex: no staying the night, no talking about anything "real", no bites or marks and no acting "indecent". Which to me speaks of rather a wham-bam approach lacking in anything of interest. How people manage to generate an orgasm on such cold, dull ground is beyond me. Frankly a nice glass of wine and masturbation seems like a much better option.

The writer, perhaps awash with his own testosterone manhood keeps on hammering home how this is "rough game" in which men (who want commitment free sex) can control women (who want sex free commitment) into having this sort of sexual "relationship". He is also, rather sadly, allegedly a wise sage well versed in helping men meet women. I'm rather torn between who I feel most sorry for, the men who read his ghastly advice or the poor women they then approach.

This binary is one of the oldest and most annoying of all the gender stereotypes about sex. It closes down all sorts of free expression and exploration of how we fuck and how we feel about it, rendering women into sexless, desireless baby-craving nesting lunatics and men into penis-driven emotionally stunted misogynists. A battle of the sexes writ small, in which each side is using the mating game as a tool to get what they want.
Reams of nonsense have been spilled on how to "win" this war, going back many, many years, but this rather neatly encapsulates them. All the tropes are there - laid out in ghastly glory.

The question is, what to do? The article made me alternately cry and laugh. Crying because perhaps these are genuinely reflective of prevalent attitudes. I've heard them before and they make me sad that we could still think these things, not of ourselves as individuals, because surely there are people who might only want a quick uninteresting fuck on a Friday night and never be seen again, but because we think that only men want this and that all men want this. That we can assume these things of 50% of the population and that we bring up our sons and daughters in an environment in which these ideas form the basis of many social interactions, which perpetuates the myth, making it real. Girls are better with feelings. Boys are only after one thing. Having a husband and family is the most important thing a woman can have. Men should behave badly.

Laughing because I know that many people will find those notions as outdated and silly as I do, because the more that we expose and laugh at this sort of behaviour the quicker it will become embarrassed and hide under rocks. And also because at the very least, given the hideousness of the "advice" given and the emphasis on contraception - it's unlikely that they will have any sons or daughters to infect with this terrible nonsense.

Sunday 6 June 2010

Shock and awe

Over the past couple of months I have been meeting and talking more and more with Majeste, with a view to us developing a D/s relationship. It's been a process that has revealed a lot of nervousness and skittishness that I hadn't really been aware of particularly around certain areas of my sexuality and emotional outlook.

I've always put the word "kinky" before "bisexual" when in a situation where labels were required. I'd usually go on to elaborate - and to ensure I sounded appropriately right on and bohemian - that it is more important that my partner is kinky than they are either male or female. In a sense, this is true. I need to have kinky sex partners. However, the vast majority of my ongoing play partners and certainly all of my long-term relationships have been with men. I could never see myself settling down with another woman in a loving, sexual relationship. And I hate to admit it, because to me, being able to say that I am bisexual means that I never had to admit that my desire turned on gendered lines. I wonder if it does? On a day to day basis, men turn my head more than women do. Yet women do. But my desire to fuck someone is not the same as my desire to say hello to them in the morning and make them a cup of coffee then discuss the day. There's a difference between the animal lust and of wanting to have that specific person around for more than a few hours.

I've never wanted to play the gender card and had often argued at length in discussions that started "men do X and women do Y" because I thought that they were grossly stereotypical and paved with socially conditioned truisms. But I'm finding that there is a difference. For me, the difference is exactly that - in the sense of difference because I feel that the relationship we are negotiating is in a new and strange (perhaps queer would be an appropriate term here) place compared to my previous ones. Relationship is the key word here - the decision to make something ongoing and to create parameters for interaction. Rules of engagement. For the first time, I'm doing this with a woman and the process feels different - I'm trying to work out whether this is because she is a woman or simply because she is new. I feel as if I might be making crass, sweeping comparisons here, but perhaps every relationship and ever interaction is new and deserving of being discussed in this light, but because when we do not see the difference so easily we do not take the time.

So let's take some time. Why is this valuable and worth pursuing, why am I finding it "new" and why has the process been difficult? Start at the end, to ring the changes. It's been a challenge because both of us have brought nerves to the table. I've been nervous because of her passion and intensity, which is exhilarating because it is an obvious and strong desire for me (clearly very flattering) but also frightening because I do not know whether I will live up to these expectations. It's been scary because of how she plays - a new area of balancing fear and pain that I've never done before and thinking about it makes my legs curl up on the chair like a teenage girl watching a horror movie. For her, she is returning to BDSM after a long gap, and has worries about skills with implements which are not helped by my own internet published range of experience. She's been worried about being a "good enough" Domme for me. Which is also extremely flattering.

It's fascinating for me to see the other side of the coin - the Domme twitches rather than just my submissive tics. It's also been a process of helping each other along with this, of talking and clarifying through many emails, texts and sundry other online media about what we meant by this. It has also included a lot of checking in, of making sure that one or the other was ok. For once I do not feel like the solely emotionally inclined member of the relationships - no longer was it like pulling teeth to get the other person to say they were feeling anything. Again, I feel a terrible stereotype coming along but we talked as much in terms of desire and we did in feelings. But feelings are part of our shared D/s desires: fear, protection, care, adoration, objectification. These are all emotional at their core, and whilst I was initially thrown by these conversations, finding them a bit much, a bit overwhelming (mostly because I wasn't used to having a dialogue about this, normally it's me, monologuing here) having spoken about it and been very forthcoming I now understand more about where we are both coming from and feel more at ease.

A lot of this is the shock of the new. For both of us. That drawn out process of getting to know someone new and trusting them enough to let go and to trust in their response. That they won't freak out. That they will take you places and bring you back. That they will not hate you afterward or want to call the police. That they will still be happy with you even though you did something "wrong" or stupid. We put a lot of ourselves on the line when we get into a power exchange and you need to trust you'll get all of it back plus have an amazing experience.

For me, a lot of the new is because she is a woman with whom I am seeking an ongoing power exchange relationship and I have never done this with a woman. I've played with women, many of them more than once, but we've never formulated an ongoing dialogue or attempted to make space in each other's lives. She's a woman and I'm interacting with her in a new way, for me, in a space previously only occupied by men. Until very recently been much more of a boy's girl - often to the extent of being an actual tomboy - I still do not feel entirely comfortable in the presence of other women. I particularly do not know how to interact with women on a "relationship level" so things like being taken out and wined and dined by her put me on the back foot. It is a new thing. It is exciting and an adventure. It also leaves me without a roadmap.


Finally, but not least. The value. It's all about her, really. She has the ability to make me feel both intensely awkward and uncomfortable, then reassured and looked after. She makes me wanted to the point of feeling frighteningly under the spotlight of her desire. She is without doubt a very powerful, dominating presence - in a way entirely unique and special to her - which forms a large part of the attraction. I fear her, sometimes, I am drawn to her, often. She is quite, quite magnetic.