Read all about it
The online diary of an ethical pervert.
Switching Sides holds my head to his chest as I press close, racked with sobs. I'm naked, cuffed in a cross shape against cold chain, leaning against him. Crying my heart out. Real tears that hurt the throat and come from a painful place in the middle of my chest where all my fears and worries live. Each of them pouring out of me, confusingly, terrifyingly. This has never happened to me before. In retrospect I clearly didn't know what to do, but at the time there was no such obvious thought process, I just cried. It was a tremendous release and I smiled whilst I'm doing it. He kisses each tear from my face. I feel safe, cared for and able to be vulnerable, without shame.
In unfamiliar surroundings I've felt on the back foot since arriving and each action seemed to compound my feelings of anxiety. I'm still not precisely sure what I was nervous about - the fact that he is a new partner who I didn't know as well as I did either Ethical Hedonist or The Photographer when we first played; that I didn't know what to expect; that I am here in his house, far from home; that for whatever reason he made me a little frightened. Not unsafe, never unsafe. But unsettled, unprepared.
The point that set me off was the pain. I've been beaten before, and worse. This was somehow different, as each blow fell, rather than press myself into it and become absorbed in the feeling I became more sensitive to it. It hurt, genuinely and with the knowledge that it would continue to hurt. And as the pain built I cracked and started to cry. Alongside the physical pain, I was also crying with real emotion - the stress of the whole week, various concerns in my day-to-day life, all of them came out. A small part of me immediately wanted to stop everything and go home. I was scared, trapped but also unwilling to end what was happening, because the intensity was breathtaking. And I was being held. Able to let go.
We played three times or thereabouts. The first time we had to both stop after I cried as neither of us had expected it at all and we were totally thrown. We curled up together with cups of tea and talked it through, I used up a number of tissues. I felt shocked, drained and also quite giggly. I tried to remember the last time I cried and couldn't. I have always listed "being able to let go" as one of things that make submission exciting for me. For a long time, this has been a way to not be in charge, to relax into someone else's hands and also to settle in to my body and sensations without thought for the world. I feel like I've been shown another type of release, rather than subsuming my worries for a few hours I expurgated them.
You feel better after a good cry.
First play session with Switching Sides tonight, and I am a little nervous. In fact, I noticed a slight tremor in my hands this morning which could not be put down to gin and tonic consumption last night. I quite like the physical sensation of anticipation - makes me appreciate what's to come all the more, as well as adding a bite to the proceedings: a touch of adrenaline in the blood never did anyone any harm.
We've discussed what we are both interested in, what we do and don't want to do and I have also explained the situation regarding access to my cunt. And then re-clarified that with The Photographer so that I am certain of following expectations to the letter, to which end I have special dispensation for play, orgasm and penetration by objects, but not actual sex. I'm hoping to be able to show my gratitude at some point shortly, as well as enjoying tonight.
That all said, I don't know specifically what is going to happen, and from there perhaps, stem the nerves. As well as the fact that we will both be new to each other. I'm energised by these feelings, rather than made worried - the day I'm not excited about play is the day I will stop and re-evaluate. Part of the reason I find BDSM so pleasurable (and vanilla sex so "meh") is the heightened states of sensation, physical and otherwise: that shiver down the skin whilst waiting for what comes next.
In BDSM, as in life, it's nice to know where you stand (or kneel). I'm very fond of clarity, and do my best to be as clear and direct as possible, especially when it comes to talking about what I do and don't enjoy. The difficulty is that whilst labels help, they only help up to a point. And then they become constricting. More like a starter for 10 than the be-all and end-all. But we do use them. because if nothing else they help kick-start the conversation.
I'm as guilty of this as the next person, and I've ticked boxes with the best of them. I try and work around this with expansion and addendum, but the real issue is that I'm still exploring; I'm attracted to different things from different people, and whilst some are more frequent flyers than others I have no desire to stop looking, to stop trying.
Language is a mutually agreed shared simulation and the words we use to describe ourselves become our identity so when we fix ourselves with a category, do we start to live up, or down, to the reputation? It happens all the time in day-to-day life: someone repeatedly told they are useless will start to believe it so, and positive comments from those around us can make one glow all day.
I'm not saying that our labels don't hold some truth, or that they are entirely imposed from the outside. That would be a terrible thing, and I certainly am not implying that our identities, needs and wants are not real. I absolutely intend to say what I mean and mean what I say, but there are roads untraveled. A good example is my ongoing flirtation with girls. I kiss girls a lot. I've had dalliances with a few, and played with one or two. I wouldn't stamp myself with the word "bisexual" however, although I want to do more so neither do I feel able to wear the "cocks only beyond this point" T-shirt. I'm open to options. And also to a wider range of words to discuss these options.
A short while ago The Photographer and I went out to a play club with Kiss Curls, a rather adorable girl we had met via IC. Sadly, she had a prior arrangement with some other people, so we didn't get to inflict or receive any abuse. We did, however, meet up with Twosome with the intention of playing together in a four. The Collective, a group of young kinksters, were also there, and the early part of the night turned into a very nice social gathering. We sat and chatted, made introductions where needed and swapped stories.
We had a brief meeting with Twosome in the pub beforehand ostensibly to assemble our thoughts but we never actually talked about what specifically we would do in the club and how our play might work. This, as it turned out, would have probably been a good idea. We got into the club and talked a bit then separated. Although we did watch a bit of each other's play, there was no group participation. I'm putting this squarely down to being new to each other in the first place and not having sounded out what we wanted to do beforehand.
We have all agreed that we shall certainly do better next time, and I am especially looking forward to arranging a little boy-on-boy for the delectation of the ladies, as well as organising some sort of complicated hierarchy, possibly through the medium of drawing straws and then negotiating over the finer details. I like planning, personally. Talking about what to do not only steadies the nerves but excites them: verbal foreplay.
I had a lovely dinner with Not Blond last week, a relatively new arrival to BDSM who is interested in polyamory, mixing it up a little and general experimentation. He's also smart, funny and nice to be around. We talked about his ideas on polyamory, which is something I've been thinking a lot about recently now that The Photographer and I have moved to having a more 'serious' relationship. Not Blond expounded a 80% / 20% idea in which his ideal relationship was to have one fixed partner who took up most of his time and energy and then a number of casual interests who filled up the other 20%.
Like Butler's theory on gender, I'm beginning to consider relationships as a sliding scale rather than a binary and exclusive on/off situation in which some roles are prioritised more than others. There are a lot of ways of working it, but not an awful lot of words for describing it, and being a very wordy person, that can be a little challenging. However, whilst not having a template for how-it-works can be daunting, it is also liberating. Polyamory works in the way that those involved in that specific relationship require it to work. But it is still very new and needing a lot of thrashing out.
There is a strong element of social and cultural conditioning and also a certain element of old-fashioned English politeness. I've met The Photographer's partner, she is very clear on not wanting a monogamous relationship with him and I think we get along well enough. I still have strange sensation of treading on another woman's toes. I am self aware enough to realise that this isn't the case, but logistically I do have to 'share', for want of a better word. I'm working my way around to considering it as I would any other fixed requirement in the life of someone I want to spend time with. Given that all parties understand and accept the situation for what it is: is him being with another partner any different from not being able to see someone because of their work, or their family commitments? We have a (small) number of clear rules on how the relationship works and the more time I spend with both of them, the more real and therefore familiar and easier the situation is.
It also gives me plenty of space for myself and my musings, as well as time to have alternative dalliances. Over coffee with Offensive Charmer recently he worried that my increasing connection to The Photographer might perhaps harm my 'Great Experiment' as he put it. And that is a valid point - there are only so many hours in the day and there is only one of me and certain situations exclude others such as The Photographer's control over my cunt. It is exciting, and I'm enjoying it, but it limits other options. I cannot have my cake and eat it. But I can take a tasty morsel from lots of different ones.
I'm intrigued by humiliation, having never really experienced it in a BDSM context before. In many ways the physical signs of embarrassment is very close to plain old sexual arousal: flushes of heat as blood drives towards the skins surface, heightened awareness of place, increased heart rate. All very powerful. I am particularly interested in the psychological elements ever since The Photographer commented on how there was an element of embarrassment when we play and he serves me. Certainly, this feeling seems to increase his arousal and general sensitivity: when we were fucking and I reminded him of his position in servitude by idly musing over getting him to introduce himself as my slave in a club or offering him out to people, he bucked, twisted and got generally hotter under the collar. Which is always nice.
Humiliation is very different from objectification or pet-play. Only a human can be humiliated: animals and tables can't, so within a scene the position of the submissive is very much that of a person, suffering from the conflicting desires of their situation. Context is clearly very important, as is an audience, to a certain extent. I imagine that having others watch one's submission or to be publicly humiliated would be very intense. There is also a fine line between sexual humiliation and just downright embarrassing and silly. Apart from causing an attack of the giggles I think there are probably situations that could devolve into farce and end any serious quality to play. Humiliation is a tool of oppression - to push down by dint of superiority, to force someone through something they find uncomfortable because you are more powerful than they are, because they give you that power.
For me, I would not feel humiliated by acts such as crawling on hands and knees, eating from a dish on the floor or introducing myself as someones slave. The latter is something of a badge of pride, I guess, and I do relish the idea of being owned: it makes me feel special, wanted. The former are things I find arousing because they are acts of submission, not because they make me hot with shame. In as much as I am able to reason whilst in a submissive headspace (although I often pick apart my motivations afterwards, to share with you all) anything I am asked to do whilst submitting is something I do for my Dom, and so is perfectly normal, therefore not at all humiliating. Of course, it could just be that I haven't done anything yet that I personally find humiliating and the feeling is yet to come. Never say never and all that.
I promised The Photographer I'd take him out, and top him in public. Antichrist where the edges of fetish bleed in with goth. Bleeds very slightly, like a deep scratch. Fundamentally, it's a goth club, with a small playroom. That said, there were several pieces of interesting kit and watchful house Doms. We met up with Offensive Charmer, who was charming as always and I think that the two of them hit it off. Leastways I was occasionally asked to listen in the other direction (not hard against the loud music) in order for them to speak about something. Vanity hopes it was me, but it might not have been.
The Photographer and I both found it hard to get into a reasonable headspace for play, and we mostly danced and chatted. Later on, we went back to the playroom where I had an interesting blast from the past in the form of a male sub I'd once topped at TG several years ago. Offensive Charmer introduced me to Esinem, who I have heard much about but never actually met. He put me in a lovely rope suspension bondage, whereupon I grinned like an bastard for a good while after and am still proudly sporting the marks.
I was now very much in the mood, despite the room not being the most conducive area to play in. There plenty of barging and a very high onlooker to player ratio. Not in and of itself a bad thing, if the space was bigger, because an audience is always nice, although now I was in the position of top, they gave a certain weight of expectation. I settled him down on his knees, removed his shirt, and chained him arms outstretched to a metal frame. I clipped his collar on a short leash to the frame so he couldn't lean back too far when I played with his piercings. I slid a chopstick through each ring and balanced them, so they pressed against his nipples and caused him to jerk every time I tapped them. I used another set to scratch then beat lightly on his back, making pretty pink lines appear. After a while I gagged him, then used a flogger on his back. The one I have has a smooth metal handle, and I pressed the cool of the metal against his skin once I'd warmed it up thoroughly.
When I take him home he later confesses a thrill from being a little "embarrassed" to use his precise word about being seen as a slave, in public. So I've squirrelled that piece of information away for later use.
A very brief note, on the slightly tangential subject of body hair. I've always been an adherent of the smooth school, and have recently reacquainted myself with the joys of waxing, specifically, bikini waxing. I actually rather like process of being waxed, especially when I know that it's really part of a secret little BDSM ritual which makes all play and especially fucking feel a bit closer and more intimate. Being completely waxed makes me feel that more naked, vulnerable and open.
I enjoy the fussing and preening element to it as well as the attention to detail. The sensation of the warm wax together with both the anticipation of the tiny shock of the hair being ripped out (and it is more of a shock than a pain). The best part is to come, however, returning home to receive The Photographer's ministrations. Still a little sore and certainly very sensitive, even a light touch is heightened in a wonderful balance of pleasure-pain. I want to press my cunt closer to him, but part of me also flinches, wanting to shy away. Tender conflictions.
I received a wonderful email from Switching Sides recently which was a kind of pre-match questionnaire to run through details of our first actual session, which should be in a few weeks, although he is attending Antichrist this Friday where myself and The Photographer will be gothing it up.
I like talking about kink and I also have a fondness for practicalities. They make me feel safe, prepared and full of the thrill of anticipation. I have a mild horror of people who come over all coy or squeamish at the subject of sex (BDSM or vanilla) as realistically, if you can't talk about it, you probably shouldn't be doing it. So it was with a sly smile and quick tapping fingers that I jotted down some responses for him. Aside from the standard points about contraception, injuries and possible previous bad experiences (I thought that was a nice touch), there were more detailed notes on types of pain, levels and thoughts on bondage. I'm now really rather looking forward to spending some quality time with him.
There's probably a lot to be read into the questions that people ask and how they phrase them. Aside from friends of friends I'm introduced to at clubs, parties and munches, the internet is the first point of contact for most new people I meet. This means that the typed word becomes prioritised: no voice, no body language, no flicker of facial recognition and (sadly) no smiles or laughter. Lols are no subsitute, I feel. Some people are better at text than others, and some are better in text than person: with all the human contact lacking it can be very hard to get a feel for whether you will like someone, and all-too-easy to be turned off by people's online personas or how they come across. But I do like language. I've been given some marvellous stories by filthy minded people (and admittedly some blatant copy-paste ones with the wrong insert-name-here put in) I've swapped some extremely pleasant perversities over IM.
It is, and always will be for me, pre-amble. A beginning of something, and not a relationship in and of itself. I do appreciate that there are those who conduct BDSM activities over the internet, and certainly Offensive Charmer and I have discussed technological possibilities, but they will be a side dish, an addition. I don't really live on the internet, although I do have a lot of fun there.
I place two lit tea-lights next to The Photographer's feet as he crouches on all fours. "You'll need to keep still now." I remind him. I take a lit taper and hold it a few feet above his back and start to slowly drop the wax onto his bare skin, there's something quite therapeutic about it - the pause between the drops, waiting for it to melt. He gasps at the first one, then seems to relax into it and I enjoy myself by carefully painting up and down his back with the wax.
After a short while, he is having difficulties with the chains on his nipple piercings so I down tools to remove them, and run some ice over the wax droplets and his abused nipples I move the tea-lights and unchain his legs. I take a length of rope and tightly bind his legs from ankle to mid-calf and then from just below his bottom to mid thigh, ensuring that his, by now really rather sensitive looking cock is held tight against his legs. I take some time to apply lube to a third chopstick and insert it into his anus inbetween the other two, then press a vibrator against the tips, listening with satisfaction to the moans.
Then on to the real reason for splattering him with wax: removing it. I sit in a kneeling position and press him down a little so his stomach is resting against my knees and I can put my arms around him. I take an extremely sharp knife that has been resting in a bowl of ice and run the blade gently down his spine, I ask him if he's ready and then gag him. It takes a long time to take the wax off. I pull the skin taut and then peel each spatter off him one by one. It feels uncannily like methodically removing skin, a sensation that he echoed when we later talked about it. I intersperse the wax removal with playing with the chopsticks.
Eventually he's ready, and I remove the bonds, the gag and the chopsticks and let him lick my cunt. If he does well, I'll let him come. Fortunately, he's very keen by this point, especially once I've added a vibrating cock ring, which turned him into my own personal vibrator, something I will certainly be repeating in the future.
I was reading a BDSM handbook recently and came across the charming word "pervertibles" - those day-to-day objects that can be easily put to better use. With that in mind, I prepared a session for The Photographer last night. For me, it was something of a turning point because not only did I have an awful lot of fun both planning and executing my schemes, I also felt that sensation of calm, controlled excitement and eroticism that many of my top friends talk about. Usually me topping him is a very adhoc affair, but this was different, and all the better for it. We played for around three hours, which was quite a long time for me to top, but it didn't feel that way. I'm going to split the post into two sections, for length, second to follow shortly.
He was quite jokey to start off with, and both of us got the giggles a little whilst I was undressing him (never set the ipod onto shuffle) which initially threw me but he quietened down when blindfolded. Once naked and in collar and wrist cuffs, I put him on all fours and removed the metal cock-ring he'd been wearing since this morning, noting how tender and sensitive he was from the little noise. I put chains around his ankles and secured them in place and threaded another length of chain through the front hoop on the collar and attached each end to the wrist cuffs. It was reasonably unlikely that he would go anywhere, however I wanted him to feel weighted down and secure. I used some finer lengths of chain to attach to his nipple piercings, placing them so that they swung, pendulum-like when I tapped them. I played with those for a while, enjoying his moans, and then linked them to the collar so that any movements he made would be felt by his very sensitive nipples.
I spent a while stroking his back and legs, warming up his skin gently, before pouring a stream of lube from the small of his back, over his anus and down onto the underside of his scrotum. I massaged him with my fingers to ensure he was nice and wet, letting him wriggle against me slightly. I took a long, smooth chopstick and started to drum lightly with it against the back of his legs and his cock and balls. I varied the pace for a while, and then slowly inserted the chopstick into his arse, wriggling it gently as I did so. Once in place, I took another chopstick and tapped the first one before sliding the second in. He moaned. It was wonderful. I felt totally in control.
"Now you're warmed up, we can start" I pressed my fingers into his mouth, and he sucked them, greedily.
I lit a candle.
I'm on my back, The Photographer is fucking me. My hands grip my ankles holding my legs wide appart as instructed. I'm held in place by his word: no collar, no cuffs, just control. He puts his hand over my mouth, pressing down against my lips and orders me to look at him. He is cool and calm, exactly as I am on edge. We balance. He is firm, rigid and almost mechanical inside me and I'm starting to twitch: spasms moving up and down the muscles in my thighs as I struggle to maintain position.
He lifts a pillow and presses it over my face. I close my eyes against it instinctively and the world becomes warm, dark and claustrophobic. It's not that I can't breathe, although it is more difficult. A part of my brain immediately starts to panic making me whimper with each gasp. The air gets warmer, more uncomfortable and I'm concentrating on each breath, every now and then some padded fabric gets trapped against my mouth and I gag slightly. As this continues I start to shudder, first a tremble then stronger as my head begins to swim. He thrusts harder and my cunt tightens around his cock, in a combination of shock and desire perhaps, it's involuntary certainly and makes me jerk against him, increasing sensation even further. More time passes, he keeps fucking me hard and steady. I'm already a little tired from keeping my legs splayed and that in combination with not being able to breathe tires me further. I feel conflicted: I want to stop, to rest but I don't want to release my grip, to prevent him from enjoying me fully. To prevent me from enjoying this fully.
He presses down more, I can feel his face against mine through the fabric, he's listening to my increasingly loud moans, I can just about hear him shushing me gently and I quieten down, but do not feel any calmer. The combination of soft placatory noises, my inability to move and the pillow over my face is very exciting - on the edge of rape play. The fantasy of it plays through my mind as I start to buck against him, increasingly desperate to feel him orgasm inside me. When he does, it is very quiet, and after a while he moves away from me, pushing me onto my side. I lie there, covered in cooling sweat, unable to speak, thinking of nothing whilst my limbs continue to vibrate, achingly. Smiling.
In conversation over the weekend with Different Drummer, a friend who may soon become a little more than a friend, and he expressed a certain amount of shock when I told him I was a submissive. We'd been discussing pain and the general wonderfulness of it, alongside a promise to take him out to a club and introduce him to the joys of BDSM. I'd long suspected that he leaned in that direction, which was confirmed enthusiastically, but I was interested to realise that his impressions of me were not correct.
I do switch, but occasionally and only really with The Photographer. Overall I prefer to submit and yet, this person who I know reasonably well, assumed that I was a Domme. I am a strong personality, I suppose and I remember a conversation with Understated Fetishist where he was a little disarmed by the combination of confidence and submission.
I don't set out to be untruthful or to deliberately confuse, but for very obvious and private reasons neither do I wear my outlook on a T-shirt. That said, I also don't feel that in order to be a submissive one should appear so all the time, or that there is any one particular mode of submission. I like to submit, and I tend to be very enthusiastic and energised about things I enjoy. Confidence is internal and external - it is the value I have for myself, and also the face I present to the outside world: the strength that allows me to hand over my body and my mind to someone else in full acceptance of what might happen. For me, without that there would be no submission, because nothing would change or be exchanged.
Posts
