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The online diary of an ethical pervert.
Winter has arrived, and with it a different flavour of kink. All thoughts of romping outdoors have been put to bed: pony frolics will have to wait. Wrapping up warm, and staying indoors are of course very compatible with a bedroom orientated lifestyle, and there is no better excuse to remain under the covers than being tied to the bed. No more worrying about hiding red stripes or bruises under little summery dresses, works of kinky art are hidden under coats, boots and scarves.
That said, the weather also has its downside. I have fairly poor circulation and so tend to get cold feet (literally, not metaphorically) and hands. Getting cold is always a concern of any play I engage in, and its something I have to be aware of, my fingers will quickly lose sensation and it will be hard to tell whether or not those ropes are too tight. Naked people in the house are always a cause to keep the heating a little higher, and now it needs an extra level of toasty warmness to contemplate being able to remain still or exposed for any length of time.
Low temperatures are a punishment for me, I dislike being cold. Not in the sense that I dislike the cane - that hurts, but cold does something different. I can just about appreciate the sensation of an ice-cube melting on warm skin, a light touch that doesn't linger. Or a short sharp shock like a blast of cold water from a shower hose. The classic torturer image of drenching a body suspended from cuffs and balancing on slippery wet tile has a fascination for me - I find it very attractive but I know that it would just be unpleasant. Not sexy, just cold, cold, cold. I'm shivering thinking about it, my skin reacting in sympathy with the numbing prickling of it all.
Unlike impact play where the sensation builds, increasing as skin turns pinker, cold turns me off, switches my senses down. I lose track of myself and disconnect from what is happening. Not in the light floating way of subspace, but in the gritted teeth, head down and get on with it, trip to the dentist sense. And not a kinky dentist at that. Just numbness, my body refusing to play, teeth chattering, miserable and fed up. All of this, of course, is probably appealing to some, but for me there is no masochistic pleasure in being cold, no adrenaline or euphoria. Just a need to be somewhere else, in the warm, hands cupped around a hot cup of tea, naked under a blanket, face flushed, collared and grinning.
Recently come into my possession are two documents. One was sent to The Photographer and myself from Welsh Dom (he in whom we place the reins of pony play fantasy, amongst other things) and is an extremely comprehensive list of BDSM activities, arranged alphabetically. There was a guide to completing it: alongside ranking the activity from 0-5 with a "no" option to set it as a hard limit there were spaces for notes, previous experiences and a little code to use for likely types of comments such as "D" for "discuss beforehand". We filled it in together, stretched out on the bed, alternatively frowning or giggling whilst we remembered one activity or the other.
I enjoyed it as a theoretical exercise and it could certainly be the basis of a lot of interesting conversations (though never a replacement for them). It was good to contextualise in such a clear fashion what we were and were not keen to do when we actively seek to submit to other people. Penetrative sex was an area of concern, aside from the standard infection-and-babies worries we both thought that there were things we might like to keep as just between us. That said, neither of us would want to cut down the opportunities for an exciting and engaging scene with sexual content (as it might say on the box set) but sex isn't the be-all and end-all of this aspect of our explorations.
I wonder if this might not be a useful ongoing document, to see how our tastes change, if they do, over time and with experience. I am a great believer in discussing and evaluating play, keeping what worked, improving or rejecting what didn't and thus far I've learnt a great deal not just in scenes but after them, talking to others about how they felt.
The second piece of electronic paper on my virtual desktop is a small questionnaire, written in a very open style, inviting my comments on a few points from my perspective as a female submissive who is in a heterosexual relationship. They centre on ideas such as self/identity, empowerment and gender, so certainly play well into my favoured arenas. Unlike the hierarchical and codified table, this is taking me a lot longer to complete as I'm also able to be much more free flowing and associative in my responses. It is also something of a mood piece, and I keep going back and adding or amending my notes. Eventually when I've worked through them I will probably put a truncated version here because they are interesting questions. Whether what I've said is of any use or value to the person who asked originally remains to be seen, but I'm very keen to take part in the discussions, if and when they occur.
The dressing gown cord is a underrated object. Bringing as it does reminders of those first forays into bondage - impromptu ties made from whatever was to hand (often including ties). And whilst rope is purpose made and can be either silky smooth and a pleasure to run over the skin or coarse and untreated so it locks into whatever vicious position you have assigned to it, there is something down-and-dirty fun about casting your eye around the room in a moment of playful not-so-innocence and grabbing whatever is nearest to inflict upon your dearest. Ropes and shackles are prepared, patient tools of a planned out scene, which is a wonderful thing, but so is the spur of the moment, and the more I top the better I get at recreational impromptu abuse, which makes me more confident in general.
I have started to mingle the two more and more, so I'll plan certain things that I want to happen and then see what reactions I get along the way. Which is where the dressing gown cord comes into it. I'm sat astride The Photographer, playing with his neck and nipple piercings. I take one end of the handy cord and push it through one piercing, and do the same to the other, pulling it reasonably taut and enjoying the squirming, and the noises that follow the squirming. Then I tie his wrists to either end and get him to play with my breasts as I lean over, secure in the knowledge that even the tiniest movement causes twinges of sensation. Another cord was put to good effect in my first attempt at tied cock bondage, a couple of loops around the base, then another around the scrotum then back up to secure around the cock. Then pulled a bit tighter and given a nice bow. Present.
A bit later on and he makes a couple of jokey little comments and giggling, which normally would pop the Domme balloon there and then and have me feeling awkward, silly, and not in the mood. I'm still a little sensitive about it, I suppose, even though I do know that the jokes are not bratting but rather a nervous reaction. However, there was the cord, lying in plain view on his chest, so I picked it up, pulling at the piercings as I did so and put it, taut, between his mouth with the instructions to hold it nice and still until he had learnt to behave. I could then direct my attentions, and the attentions of the pinwheel to his bound penis. And enjoy the muffled whimpers.
On top of the world.
"We're not crazy in Sweden anymore" said Ethical Hedonist over dinner last night. He's becoming increasingly active in the politics of the BDSM world, and relates these bite size nuggets of news with enthusiasm. I've long been aware that given the medicalisation of sexuality what I want from a partner is not a "natural" baby-making drive, but rather a terrible condition afflicting my poor, underdevelopped brain, and it's nice to know there are some countries who accept that there are different strokes for different folks.
The difficulty that I find with considering a penchant for BDSM as a mental health issue is that all desire starts with the mind, so by classifying some activities "bad" then by following the logic backwards (and it is, indeed, backwards logic) these terrible thoughts must therefore derive from some fault within the psyche. Rather than starting with a poorly brain and working out what it is making that person do. Because, of course, we can't see into someone's mind, we can only judge their status by their actions and actions are codefied by society. Change societies (like going to Sweden, for example) and you change the perception of the action. What is good becomes bad and vice versa. Black hat to white with a quick costume change, the important thing to note is that the activity itself has not changed. Like a chemical catalyst it remains unaltered, but it does cause an awful lot of reaction.
I view BDSM as being fundamentally amoral, that is, outside of the scope of a moral framework. Neither good nor bad simply something done without concern for societal norms or prejudices of right and wrong, between consenting adults whose only value judgement would be based on pleasure and sensation. Morals only enter into it when we are talking about how we manage these interactions: are we being honest, fair and caring? Morals relate to the motive and the method of the activity: how we go about doing it. A shorthand for an idealised sexuality, where everyone is free to stick whatever the hell it is into wherever the hell it is as long as that's what all adult participants willingly signed up for and are happy with. I love these ideas and would wish them for everyone, because I do not see the value in laws that intrude or put expectations on what we do to our bodies, in private, of our own free will. I am, however, not the arbiter of law, sadly, and that means that what I do is considered to be "wrong". Even though I know it's not, and the existence of national boundaries of legality further compounds my argument - I'm either sick in the head or I'm not. I can't possibly have a disorder in England whilst being hale and hearty in Sweden. That would be like being "a little bit pregnant". It just doesn't happen.
For the moment, I am ill and in the UK. And situations like this are unlikely to change overnight. Everything we do requires others, and with other people come their thoughts, lives, past experiences and current beliefs. Society, in short. We have to live somewhere. I just don't particularly like the idea of home being where the headache is.
The Photographer and I have recently set our stall out as wanting to play more together, co-subbing for want of a better word. We had a great experience with Lovely Couple and are hoping to secure some more fun and games. Thus far, as with the hunt for the Hot Bi Babe (male) either the universe has a lack of such people, or we are looking in the wrong places. Optimistically I'm hoping it's the latter, although willing to concede it might be the former. Given the general mood of heternormativity within the kinky circles I'm travelling in the types of responses we are getting seem par for the course: cuckold fantasists, "porn" directors, and a lot of don't-touch-me whereby the respondent indicates that they do want to play with a couple but don't want to lay a finger (or vice versa) on the male part of the equation. Which puts paid to any boy-on-boy fellatio daydreams that either myself or The Photographer might have.
Part of it is that we are not looking for sex, specifically. We're looking for play. Straight vanilla fucking (with or without a total stranger) holds no interest for me, and besides, no wives to swap here. But we are interested in a sexualised context, a powerplay of desire and manipulation where we each get to be objects or tools of attraction, service and need. Like most things BDSM it's about a mental attitude, and that is, I suppose what we are searching for: like-minded folk, and given that we are all specialists, with our perfect kink playing out in our minds, there is going to be a lot of non-overlap. And oh, there certainly is.
That said, we do have a number of potential offers on the table. Welsh Dom has made me excited enough to clap my hands by proposing a weekend in a horsebox for the pair of us, which is probably not a November activity, so we have plenty of time to chat. And buy tack. Additionally, a couple of charming young men have answered my rallying call for finding terrible things to do to my partner in crime and we are hovering at the diary point with them.
One of the things I enjoy so much about team games is the added sense of confidence and excitement I get in actively seeking new opportunities. Having someone else to perve and plan with is a wonderful aphrodisiac, and knowing that I won't be traipsing over to God-knows-where by myself is always a plus. Then there is the sensation of sharing, in a very different sense to poly, or to watching him play with someone else in a club. Of co-existing, as equals in a similar headspace, similarly confined and constrained.
The thought occurs that sub-space, like being in love and orgasm, is something that if you think you don't know whether you have experienced it, then you almost certainly haven't. So, with that logic, it's fair to say that I absolutely have, but it took a while. Descriptions of sub-space feel a little like those magic eye pictures, which I can't see, everyone assuring me that, yes it's there, I just need to focus, or relax, or both at the same time. I still can't see magic eye pictures and I think there is more to subspace than just a general encouragement to "let go".
A lot of the people I've spoken to indicate that pain is important in getting them there, and certainly I find that this can push me into deeper feelings, pushing away ephemeral concerns, calming me and allowing me to switch off. It's interesting to consider how this actually works. I'm basing the following on how the bodies autonomic system functions and the likely impact of BDSM activity upon the chemical balance.
Stress in the short term triggers the release of adrenaline, increasing heart rate and converting glycogen into glucose, raising blood sugar levels. This is the classic fight-or-flight response, and it is reasonable to take this as the initial biological response to pain. However, in a situation where neither fight nor flight is possible (bondage for example) and where the pain is also pleasurable, then norepinephrine would also released, which is stimulated by arousal and alertness, both of which will be in evidence.
Pleasure/pain. A push and a pull taking you in both directions at once, which, assuming the forces are as equal as they are opposite, holds you static. And that is for me the essence of submissive space, it is a place where you are kept still light and floating on a sea of blood-red calm. When I'm there I can hear static in my ears, crackling at the edges of my senses, I start to lose sense of myself as a shape, even less as a person and I do not connect with the world around me except those parts of it containing my partner and the sensations they are giving to me. I'm not in the bedroom, or in the club, or anywhere except deep down within myself, caressed with chemical kisses and buffeted in storms of sensation. Carried away? Absolutely.
I try to write up my experiences as soon as possible after they have happened - memory, especially sense memory fades so fast and gets replaced quickly with inference and assumption in a mental equivalent of filling-in-the-blanks. Cliches substitute for descriptions, and I try to avoid that. But reflection is important and sometimes, particularly with an intense scene it takes me a while to process what happened as my brain needs time to come back to itself, to reconnect with language and thought. Especially with this.
"Are you OK?" asks The Photographer. I'm staring at the ceiling, but not precisely looking at it, I nod. Speaking is not something I feel able to do, there is literally nothing I can express: I have that closed-down feeling you get upon just waking, limbs have yet to come to and my mind is a heavy swirl of impressions and impulses. Primordial soup for thought patterns. I am not OK. I am so much better, and so much worse than that.
It's Friday. I'm pinned under him, my arms by my sides, staring up at him. He dragged me on all fours into the bedroom and threw me on the bed, pulling off my trousers and pants, to fuck me. He holds me by the shoulders and stares at me, blank faced, hardened with a calm, focused look. He pauses, then slaps me in the face. The pain is shocking, up-close and personal it is literally in my face. The first blow hurts, absolutely, but the pain brings with it a rush of adrenaline, and excitement, anticipation: I feel playful, exhilarated and excited. It is the next, and the next and the next that hammer these feelings down. The slaps don't stop, the pain rises and the excitement is replaced with something else.
It really starts to hurt, properly, a stinging, unforgiving, bullying force. Hard against an extremely sensitive area, physically and emotionally. My arms are just by my shoulders, fists clenched as I begin to cry. At any moment I could bring them up and protect my face. But I don't. I cry harder; he doesn't stop. I don't stop him. There is a part of me that does want to run and hide, I can see myself getting up off the bed and locking myself in the bathroom. I can almost feel the relief of being by myself, of putting cool water on my tender cheeks. After the longest time, he stops, picks me up and moves me into a better position to use. He starts to talk to me as he fucks, accusing me in a coldly aggressive tone of letting him down, of messing him about and not behaving as I should have done, not being the slave that I should have been. He keeps asking why and I can't answer him: I'm crying too hard. After many false starts I can speak, barely. I plead with him, promising to do better, but it doesn't make a difference. There is a pain in my throat, and my stomach is churning: he starts slapping me again and the combination of the two wipes my mind clear of any possibility of response. I am incoherent, shouting "I don't know" through the tears, feeling totally trapped and unable to express to him how hard I am trying, how much I want to please him and how I just don't understand what he wants.
Eventually he is quiet and so am I. He fucks me, pressing me down until he orgasms. I lie very still for a while, mute and numb. He opens his arms and I tuck myself in around him, he starts to stroke my hair, comforting me. My face hurts - my ears ringing and the muscles and bones in my jaw and cheek are especially sore. That's the first distinct thing I remember as I start to come back together after being shattered. I'm sensing the feeling of my skin, it's very hot to the touch, streaked with tears, prickly against the hair on his chest. Then come the emotions, slowly, drip fed. I'm not panicked or upset, but I was very recently so I'm loitering in a very peculiar head space. I am on the surface safe, comforted and calm. But not quite. It's a close cousin of those sensations: I feel held down and happy for it. I hesitate to use the phrase "properly submissive", however I feel very real in my experience. I'm not in a scene or hedonistic playing through of emotions. I am here, deeply connected to him. Thinking backwards, working through what happened as already it starts to slip through my fingers. I don't want to let it go.
I can feel something pull at my nipple piercings, and I moan softly. It's Kiss Curls, I can tell from the brush of her lips against my cheek. I'm blindfolded and tied face forward to a St Andrew's cross, the pulling continues and I get a little louder. I'm reasonably sure The Photographer is watching. I hope he is watching. Then, without warning, a firm slap is delivered to my back, then many more, in a quick, steady drumming sensation which builds up to a deep, thudding pain at which I start to cry out. It is a fantastic feeling, actually: part heavy sports massage, part beating - warming up all my muscles and then bullying them into submission. The rhythm stops and someone thrusts hard against my arse, gyrating a little:
"Guess who?" Hedwig, but of course. Then they both continue to play with my front and back, my corset is discarded and I am blissfully pinched, slapped, tweaked and kissed. Girl on girl on girl. My blindfold is removed and I grin massively at them both, catching in the corner of my eye The Photographer and Ethical Hedonist watching with an air of amusement. Then the girls sing Happy Birthday and we all burst out laughing.
We went to Subversion on Saturday, meeting up with Offensive Charmer once we arrived. It was a good night for getting to know new people, chatting and watching different styles of play. There was plenty of equipment including some of my personal favourites - tables and racks that are also cages. I just have yet to work out something exciting to do with this combination. I want to make cages work because I love the idea of them, especially the smaller ones, where someone (or better yet, two people) have to be close together on their knees. Waiting to be used is a very erotic concept, putting me in mind of concubines, slaves and also dangerous animals that need to be secluded. Cages are like boxes, keeping something safe, away from anyone else, a prize possession or beautiful object. At the moment though, they remain better in my mind than in practice.
My current issue with a cage is that you put someone in and then, well, they are in a cage aren't they, on the horrible this-is-actually-a-student-union floor, getting slowly cold and bored. I'm thinking along the lines of cage as a grope box or to tie someone in such a way that they can interact with the person being beaten on top but the club was quite crowded and really the caged one might just end up being ignored. Which is a fitting punishment, especially for someone like me, but not a great way to spend a night out. Personal preferences I guess, and I'm sure that for some people being tethered and abandoned in such a way would work, but not for me. The cage needs to be the beginning of something, a start, not a thing in and of itself. It's possible that it would work much better in private play with more time to dedicate to building a scene around it, although this will have to wait until I have a little more space and a little less vanilla flatmate.
One of the things that struck me about playing with Different Drummer was his level of trust in me, which I've been thinking about recently. He told me later that he had never let go in a similar fashion before, ever, and it seemed as if it had been quite an intense experience for him, physically and emotionally. At the time, I could tell he was enjoying himself, certainly, but because he had been the one to ask for that particular sensation, and that particular type of bondage I didn't feel entirely in control or that he was entirely in my hands. I can see now that's probably not precisely how it felt to him.
I feel quite proud that he was able to do that with me, that he felt secure enough with me. Admittedly we have known each other for a while, but still, it feels like a big thing, and I'm pleased that I was able to do that for him (to him?) It gives me a retrospective feeling of dominance that I did not have especially at the time but can bask in a little now. Part of my own love of submission comes from the fact that I don't often get the chance, in my day-to-day life to let go, to allow someone else to be in control, so I feel as if I can empathise.
Benefits of switching, I guess. Although I think there can be a problem with second guessing or if there are incompatible expectations. I didn't have any particular expectations when I went into this particular session, and certainly didn't expect to be topping (in whatever limited sense) but was quite glad that, rather than be thrown, I was actually genuinely interested and excited in exploring his sensations in that way and it was very different to the planned scenes I have done in the past - more of a physical game than a D/s situation. I didn't speak much, for example and certainly there were no titles or acts of obeisance.
Maybe for another day?
A lot of my communication with current partners and also potential partners is done via email, memo or IM, for a number of reasons not least that I am not all that keen on widely distributing my phone number. The Internet is a great medium but it does have its downsides.
It affords anonymity, and this cuts both ways. Whilst I am safe and protected behind my computer screen, so too my conversation partner is hidden from me. I can only see what they choose to present and that can make getting to know a person quite difficult. It also means that I make decisions on who to talk to and who to bypass based on things that wouldn't normally be immediately obvious if we had, for example, met in the pub. I put a lot of stock in language, as is probably quite obvious by now, and look quite hard at how people phrase themselves, the words they use and how the spell and punctuate them. Or not.
I'm interested in the images people use to represent themselves online. On this site, I've chosen two shots of parts of my body, no face shot. However, on sites where I am looking to meet someone for play or chat then I will use a face shot rather than an image or an icon, and I tend to avoid people who don't do this. First, because I want to connect with another person and having a face shot helps me with that, second I'm superficial, I judge partners, in part, by their looks because attraction is important to my experience of play.
I want an face to put to those words, to be able to picture the person I'm talking to, saying those things. Neither of which is entirely possible over the internet. The Photographer and I have decided that it might not be a bad thing to go to more munches and other socialising events to meet people face to face rather than in either club or online personas.
I have bite marks on my neck, I am ashamed to reveal. I'm not big on them, I must admit. Normally I quite like sporting the temporary trophies of a play session - red lines or swirling bruises. But not on my neck. It's not just the fact that they are hard to conceal, although fortunately it is Autumn so I don't look out of the ordinary in a high neck top, but visibility is a part of it. I like to keep my BDSM and work life separate, very distinctly so.
I'm also not fond of the connotations of bruises in this particular area and never have been. From the terrible teen movie term "hickey" through to the puerile playground "lovebite" even language used to describe kisses bitten deep is a little distasteful. This is not, by the way, a reflection on the sensation that produced them. I have a very sensitive neck: I really enjoy having it kissed, played with, bitten or gripped with firm hands. All of these things are fantastic. The marks, less so. However, I'm also not handing out blame. These things happen, and no real harm done, my neck is still a little stiff and sore, however. Different Drummer and I did have a conversation afterwards where he agreed that yes, I mark really quite easily and he will remember that.
That aside, our play session was interesting in that I found myself topping, but not topping. He is relatively new to BDSM so I was showing him some kit, some rope ties and so on. Then there was the pinwheel, which he really liked. So he stripped to the waist and laid down whilst I sat astride him and played with the wheel on his (very twitchy) back. After a while he thought he might like to be gagged, so I put that on him. I could feel him get carried away with the sensations as I played, and he later revealed that he had felt extremely relaxed. It wasn't so much him topping from the bottom as a joint experiment in physical stimuli, I didn't feel like I was topping, but neither did I feel as if he was: we were playing around.
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