Tension mounting

I now understand the meaning of crying from frustration. Because last night, that's exactly what I did. Having had a annoying day at work I already had a coiled up, angry feeling inside and desperately needed to blow off some steam. Then I ended up sat in front of my lap top, realising that I had nothing to write about. No new news. Plenty of complicated theory stuff floating around in my mind but I just didn't have the clarity or desire to be able to write it, my brain just wasn't interested. My body was practically on strike, refusing to respond to any personal ministrations. I wasn't aware that it was possible to become bored of masturbation, but apparently so. To tears, in fact.

It's a wretched feeling, sexual frustration. Particularly kinky sexual frustration. Casual sex won't do at the best of times, it really won't do now. It wouldn't fill the breach, only emphasise it, like empty calories. I need the empty headspace, intensity and physical impact of BDSM. I want to be able to cry, scream and vent, to let everything out, preferably into the echoing, cloying presence of a tight rubber mask. I'm fussy and very picky about the sort of play I want and this only increases when I'm suffering from a lack. Like a craving that can only be satisfied by a specific item. I'm similar with food, having gone through Lent without sweet things I can't countenance breaking my fast with anything other than the finest chocolate that boutique providers can offer. I want my desire to be fulfilled by something worthy of the need.

Part of my problem is time. I don't have a lot of it, and without time and effort it's almost impossible to develop the type of relationship required to deliver good kinky sex, especially the sort where you can drop a phone call, have them arrive in an hour and leave a few hours later with no emotional hang ups. I also have my own misgivings as to just how healthy or satisfying that kind of situation is. The other is expectation. It's been a few months now since The Photographer left and I still miss the routine of regular, reliable kinky sex. I can be a creature of habit, and some are hard to break. I'm craving my fix, confused as well as annoyed at the lack.

It is quite possible that the next person I play with may well be met with an explosion. Forewarned is forearmed.

Walk tall

Just a brief point on high heels. Having practiced and practiced and practiced I am now at the stage where I no longer fall over.

However, neither do I appear to look especially sexy:

"You're still galumphing"

Am I?

I thought I was sashaying. Or maybe strutting.

The problem is, unless I actively devote every neurone in my brain to paying attention to walking in heels I appear to just settle into my standard, normal, getting from A to B pace. I am coming to the conclusion that heel wearing is a bit like language acquisition, if you haven't got it by a certain point you never will.

Back to the drawing board...

Love your vagina

For the past few weeks I have been rendered into mute horror and stormy rage over a particular advertising campaign. The love your vagina campaign. You must have seen it - large posters full of pink, purple and glitzy bits of fluff, diamante or ribbons spelling out the cutesy irritating names that women are taught to call their genitalia. I am taken with a massive urge to print out enormous A1 posters full of black, curly hair and daubs of red blood which spell out the word "cunt". We cannot possibly love our vaginas whilst we continue to view them in diminutive, prettified and unrealistic terms. That is not love, that is not even acceptance. That is trying to make parts of us go away, to reduce them to metaphor, to weaken and dilute them until they are as socially palatable and "feminized" as big tits, bland expressions, long hair and passive behaviour.

I have no issue with what individual women chose to call bits of their bodies. Equally I have no issue with what individual women chose to look like. Assuming that those are real choices. Assuming that those choices aren't made because of the crushing tidal wave of opinion over how women should look and how women should talk about their own bodies. Advertising campaigns like this do not free women to talk about themselves - they narrow the goalposts by expressing only the soft pink, flowery language. They make women into girls. Cunt into fu-fu. And that is not acceptable.

Now, I love language. I love variety and difference in language, the way that it allows us to express ourselves in a wide range of ways and how it gives us our identities. Which is why this feminising lexicon needs not to be shut down, but blown open. So, I heartily encourage you to add to the campaign by entering the word "cunt" on the website. When I typed it in, it had a pleasing 912 votes. Unlike "pum pum", "nether petals" or "twinkle". I can barely write these with a straight face. I know that they are silly words, funny words and that they make you giggle. There's nothing wrong with being funny. What is wrong is only having joke words, only feeling able to use silly language.

Which is strange, because it's not a silly product. It is, in fact, a product that requires the women who use it to have a more hands-on and grown-up approach to the cunt. The product in question is the Mooncup, a sanitary device - even that phrase makes me shudder, implying as it does that periods are unsanitary, so lets try that again - a gizmo for collecting menstrual blood. The Mooncup is a good product: it's much better for the body, and the environment, and the wallet, than tampons, encourages people to be less squeamish about an entirely normal biological process. Plus you can do cool things like monitor how much blood your body produces over a few hours or in the course of your cycle, which is a handy thing to know.

I've actually ordered one, so I'll let you know how it goes. I'd usually avoid buying any product whose advertising campaign annoys me so much, but tampon adverts also make me want to punch things and they haven't yet had the ovaries to put the word "vagina" on anything. Which is at least a start.

Strike whilst the iron is hot

"Have you read my latest blog post?"

He shakes his head.

Damn. That means I'm going to have to explain myself from scratch. I've gotten terribly used to being able to communicate with partners through this medium, like opening up my brain letting them take the thoughts then using it as a starting point. It's probably a bad habit. On the other hand, it's one that has always generated a lot of interesting conversations and ensuing exciting evenings in. Like a lot of bad habits, I suppose.

Captain and I are having takeaway. There's beer, which is good. I'm a long way down the first pint before I'm really able to start the conversation. I'm nervous, naturally. Vulnerable. There's something I want, and he's got the ability to say "no". It's about my feelings, which makes it worse. But then again, I'd kick myself for missing this opportunity - fortuitous that he emailed yesterday afternoon, responding to my mildly tremulous "I miss you" message. There's no time like the present. I take some more sips of beer and remind myself that I am a grown-up and that the longer I don't say anything the longer things will remain unsaid and thereby unclear.

I talk. I say that I want a "proper" D/s connection with him, to put what we are doing into a process, a context. Fuck it. A relationship. We talked about what that might mean, what sort of commitment it might entail. A couple of things became obvious, one was that he seemed interested, which was good and got rid of my initial worry. Yet also reticent, and the reason for this didn't seem to have anything to do with me, and a lot to do with where he was in his life and what he could offer. What struck me as interesting was how he described his concerns - that he felt in a D/s relationship the onus and bulk of the effort would lie with him as the Dominant, that he didn't have a lot of time and was worried about meeting my "needs", which he assumed would increase the moment we put a D/s hat on it. Whereas I wasn't especially interested in changing much of what we actually did - more time and attention would of course be lovely, but that is the case regardless. He was concerned with practicalities, whereas for me, they were already in place. What I was talking about was less tangible.

I want a sense of belonging. An arrangement that matches my feelings. A situation in which my desire to see him, and to play with him was part of something more than mutually enjoyable transaction. I wanted a reason for what we were doing, space for my brain as well as my body. A D/s situation will allow me to move beyond a place in which I control myself, handing over parts on an adhoc basis, and one in which the control is elsewhere. Outwardly, it's unlikely that anyone else would ever see the difference. I don't want or need 24/7 micromanagement, I can mostly look after myself. There are things I want. But they are not time-consuming. A few simple rules to live by and I can maintain my own submission. That's what trust and power exchange stand for in my mind. I want to have that little secret, hot and wet inside of me where no-one can really see, that says I am his to do with as he wants. In essence, it is not a change of behaviour, more a change of view. However, as I pointed out to him, there's no point me having these thoughts and feelings if he doesn't want to share in them, otherwise I'm essentially masturbating and using our interactions as a prop. Pleasurable, but not as good as it could be.

And I always want to do better.

I've left him to think about it. Having said everything that needed to be said, I'll see what the response is. I feel as if a weight has gone from my shoulders, there's relief, if nothing else. I'll be sad if he comes back with a "no", of course, but I'll be better for knowing where I stand and able to go on to explore with other people. If he says "yes" that's when the fun really starts.

The intimacy twitch

A number of things have happened to me over the past week which have forced me to re-evaluate where I stand on sex, intimacy and relationships. So, not much, then. It's part of the reason why I haven't posted in a while - I've been turning things over in my mind and just when I thought things were clear they changed. This is quite annoying as I usually pride myself on being fairly methodical, on knowing my own mind and desires. Sadly, I appear to be rather changeable and unpredictable at the moment, which is leaving me surprised and confused, in turns, at my own responses to situations.

Here's a brief run-down of what's been happening. I'm hoping that the process of actually writing this all down might give me more direction. I've been seeing Captain for a few months now. I like him, I love his kink, the way he plays and the places that takes me. We see each other semi-regularly: once a week or so. I'd like to do more more, but it's a time issue, more so than a lack of willingness (I believe). I am, however, disconcerted by the lack of any handle or signifier over these interactions. I hate the idea of being "friends with benefits" - it's cold, dull and smacks of waiting for better things to come along. I'd rather not be a time-filler: hopefully, I'm not. He's been pretty clear that he doesn't want to have a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Which leaves, from my point of view, an unspoken D/s arrangement. And that unspoken aspect is driving me a little nuts. I feel insecure, unsafe. Hanging on a limb.

This is generally fine - most of the time I like being able to come and go as a please and, the desire for more kinky sex notwithstanding, I'm able to do so. But two things have changed. The first, is the realisation this morning that I miss him. I didn't see him last weekend which was unusual and I felt the lack today. The second is that I don't want to have sex with anyone else. I spent part of the weekend with Knight of Wands and whilst lying next to him, his arms around me, was fine and I enjoyed the human comfort of another body my muscles twitched and part of me froze. I know myself (now) to be both monogamous and somewhat territorial on my own behalf. If I'm with someone, I'm with them and I have clear boundaries on how I relate to others. This usually boiled down to enjoying playing, flirting and being tied up by other people in specific and pre-planned circumstances, but not having sex with them.

I have a backdrop of exciting play offers, including some pet play, time with Mr and Mrs Magpie and a proposed double dom sessions from Majeste and Spiral as well as an upcoming rope bondage class with Hedwig. I'm keen to pursue all of these offers and none of them make me bristle, pause or panic. Because they are players I know and can interact with on a "pure" play level - we will enjoy ourselves, a lot in some cases - I don't connect with them emotionally and that's a good thing. It keeps it simple. This isn't to say I don't like them nor that the play is not intense. But they are not lovers, or partners. They are players and I love them for that. They also don't give me the "intimacy twitch" that I experienced with Knight of Wands, experienced so obviously that he laughed at me for it, for the way my body expresses itself in capital letters, even when I'm not saying a word. Add to this, I met up with another friend last night and we ate, drank and were merry. Then discussed kink. Then kissed. It was a very good kiss, the sort that I have been lacking, we held hands. I'd be lacking that as well. But the desire for anything more, or what that more might have been was nebulous and confused, to say the least. I'm still not certain where it was all coming from and though I'm neither guilty nor sorry I did it, it was all very unexpected. We're meeting for coffee in a couple of weeks and will discuss. It's clear that I needed the kiss in the same way that I need the play partners and couldn't cope with the soft embrace of an early morning sleepy sexual encounter.

What I've come to realise is that I'm now obviously viewing Captain as my major partner, without actually getting everything I would want from that kind of relationship. Including clarity on whether or not we have a relationship and if we do, what it entails. This means we need a conversation. And that may well go down like a ton of bricks. However, I refuse to be embarrassed about how I'm feeling, and if it fucks things up, then so be it. With any luck, though, we can both be grown up about where we are and what we want and come to some sort of arrangement. I don't want to stop seeing him, but equally, I need an easy life at the moment. With a lot of filthy sex.

Here's hoping.

Archetypes Part 2

Another day, another doll. This one's a classic: the French Maid. The request comes from Captain, who is hosting a party and needs appropriate accessories. As well as someone to fetch and carry drinks, one assumes. Though I'm not entirely sure how much work will actually get done once I'm wearing something that looks like this or this or (heaven forfend) this. He's picking the outfit, not me, although we have narrowed it down to the two extremes of either distressingly frou frou and femme or rubber. Personally, I'd prefer the rubber. Which almost certainly means I'll be wearing more frills than a bad-taste bridesmaid.

The Maid takes me to two places, when I think of her, which rather neatly divide along the lines outlined above. So let's look at the Frou Frou Maid and the Rubber Maid. The first is replete (in my mind) with bad french accents circa Allo Allo and hen parties stocked from Ann Summers, that bastion of English high street "naughtiness". It's that element of being "naughty" and British seaside postcard sexual humour, that I'm hoping this doll will help me explore. There may well be giggling involved. I'm quite looking forward to injecting some silliness into the project, which whilst being very enjoyable has hardly been precisely funny. The second is the fetish aspect. The Maid is fetishised both as a outfit/uniform and as a practice, there are a number of professional fetish maid services (some supply maids, some train people as maids). Additionally she is very common in Sissy circles, combining elements of feminisation, submission, service and petticoat punishment all wrapped up in a clearly defined character role. It's little wonder that the Maid is so popular.

I do have a slight concern, however. Given all the possible doll outfits, this was the one I felt strongly was the "least me" and I think that the forced feminisation aside the service element is problematic. The Maid rarely to serves in a conventional scenario, instead it's usually as a trope for D/s play. Having a servant makes the dominant a de-facto Lord or Lady, reinforcing their dominant position, and providing a framework in which the power exchange can operate. The Maid is here to "work", yet, the service is almost always sexual - whether directly through performing sex acts or by watching the wearer perform tasks around the house in a suitably deferential manner, probably requiring punishment at some point.

On a personal level, I simply don't find service sexy. I cannot imagine anything especially erotic about washing the dishes. I understand the desire to serve, to do things to make your partner happy, often things that you might not especially enjoy. But there's a difference between enduring something because it is difficult (heavy CP, long-term bondage) and because it is boringly hum-drum. I wash dishes every day. I do the laundry. I make my bed. They are activities to be gotten out of the way so that the rest of life can occur. They are not tasks I wish to linger over.

I'll admit to being caught in something of a quandary, because I do also derive some enjoyment from doing those things for other people. I'm house-proud, I like cooking for people and for them to have a nice, clean bed with fresh sheets to sleep in. This pride, is not sexual, and neither is it especially part of a power exchange (certainly not with my friends) I don't do it because I defer to them, I do it because I want to give them those things. I realise how finely this is sliced, how easy it is to draw a link between my the non-sexual desire to please and the sexual desire to please and assume that they are part of the same thing. Yet they are not.

The Maid's costume expressly shows me how they are not. I can do all of those things naturally and normally. If I did all of those things whilst wearing a Maid's outfit I would feel like a fool. It draws attention, unwelcome attention, to the act of service. It makes service sexy. The sexualisation of traditional "female work" is something that naturally troubles me. From a political point of view, I do find the idea that female automatically equals submissive difficult (even though I am a female submissive) and I worry that the Maid plays into this stereotype. Of course, the point of the Maid is that she is a stereotype, and exploring stereotypes is one way of understanding them as long as the background and motivation is explicit. In this way, I'm assuming that my own appreciation for what I am doing will negate any worries on the evening.

Aside from all this, there is the importance of context. It's a party, after all. The point is to enjoy myself (and entertain others, so I'm sure my exhibitionism will get a good showing). In this situation I am adopting a role for an evening, rather than an ongoing D/s service situation I'm agreeing to. The former allows for a light-hearted play-acting, the latter, less so. I am knowingly playing the fool, as it were. Because this doll is also about fun. Whether rubber or otherwise, I get to enact all those comedy British memes of sexuality, becoming part of the joke rather than the butt of it. Which is rather the point, I feel. We can be serious about sex without being po-faced, amused by things that are cute and pretty, be silly for an evening and just let go. Crack a smile.

I like making people smile. If I can make them wet or hard at the same time, so much the better.

Confidential moments

The fine mist of water hits me and I shiver as everything tenses. It's not freezing cold, but it's cold enough and makes my naked skin go taut, firming up with goosebumps. It makes me feel vulnerable, as well as damp - the strangeness and emotional isolation of being treated this way allows me to step outside of myself and become something else.

I feel calmly attended to, like a thing, a doll, a toy. Not necessarily his, or even just his-for-the-night, but a thing by itself, emptied out and waiting. There is a burgeoning excitement at whatever is about to happen. I wonder if he feels the same. Captain's actions and mood are expressly not those of a lover - we still do not kiss, which adds to the sense of being held at arm's length, an abstracted cool quality without any of those powerful heart-swelling feelings that I had become used to with previous partners. What we have is something different, that I am still trying to understand. Passion is not a word that springs to mind when I think about it. Although I am driven towards and do want him, hard, but cannot take him. There's an invisible barrier that I'm scared of crossing, some unwritten rules that I'm dancing around, on eggshells. When I'm with him, in an otherwise "normal" situation, I am nervous of doing the wrong thing. I'm hesitant, tentative, always waiting for him to make the first move, lest I break the fragility of the threads around us. I don't know what I'm supposed to do because I don't know what we are. It's only when we start to play that I become more assured, the D/s comes to the fore and my behaviours are more certain. I let go. He catches me.

Like now. With scant words he helps me into the thick rubber sack. It's cold and I bristle slightly, but carry on. The texture is smooth like wet heavy silk, and it smells strongly of plastic which is now the scent of deep black spaces, of enclosure and sex. They are all the same thing. Once inside, I feel my breathing slow as I draw myself together, checking off the senses I no longer need, like turning off the lights in a house before leaving. I feel the pressure of a gasmask fitted around my face, each strap that is tied is another bulb going dim, another concern I no longer have. I love this held-in feeling, tied firm, yet free-floating. My link to the world is through the oxygen I'm inhaling only. Ropes wrap around me and once more I'm a package, amidst other packages.

This place is much clearer for me and easier to negotiate. Yet no less removed. If anything I'm further away from him. As I lie there, I have the feeling that he is caring for me in some abstract way (not necessarily pleasant, but always thorough) like grooming an animal, the bustle of a surgeon around the prone patient, the mechanic and the car engine. We are disconnected, touching only where and when we physically meet and nothing in between. Each individual meeting point seems like a bright dot in nothingness. We come together, then part. I always feel a little lonely a couple of days later, but at the time I do not. This lack of feeling is perhaps a feeling in and of itself, which gives me space to be myself and nothing else. My submission is my own little empire in which I am sole inhabitant. Ruler and ruled. When in the moment, the parts of me that are worried, that have concerns, upsets and complex desires fade away, to be replaced by simpler things. I am my body and it's needs alone. Responding with mute delight to stimuli.

There are holes in the sack. My nipples are exposed and a small area around my clit. He plays with these isolated parts and I feel them like little sparks in the darkness, my cunt is wet and my body arches towards nothing. Then pain. Clamps on my nipples, hot, hard. That biting throb that is endless, surging waves. Never lessening. It's another chord to hold on to, as if I'm a far away outpost, connected to this world only by lines of pain and pleasure. I get wetter. Clenching my legs together around nothing, I become pure want. Wanton. I have no freedom to move towards my desire, only to stay put and wait. I growl. Half impatient, half revelling in the sensations. I desperately want to be fucked. He pushes his fingers in through the mask and I suck them eagerly, tasting his skin. There's gratitude in that action, my desire to please him, to thank him for what he's done to me. The fingers are replaced by his cock and I move towards him with urgency: life is simple, I am here to receive this. Nothing more. But it is everything, powerful. The crest of the wave. He comes in my mouth and I am contented. The orgasm I did not have for myself, but instead he did.

He unpacks me and puts a blanket over my prone form. I can't really feel my legs, they are heavy and not really part of me. He sits beside me and I put my head against his lap, kissing his legs and stomach lightly inbetween sleepy words that I no longer remember saying. There is tenderness here, a warmth and, yes, attachment. And although I know it will fade, for the time being it has not and I can wrap myself inside, like a dreamer not quite awake. Enjoying the moment.

Women, porn and politics

Another snippet from a newspaper, I'm afraid. Still in recovery mode from a cold and waiting on my tattoo healing, so my kinky activities have remained at zero for the past fortnight. Not for lack of trying, but diary and communication issues seem to be getting in the way of firming up any dates which is rather frustrating. Trust me when I say that I am really rather keen to get in some form of kink this weekend.

Anyhow, I spotted this in the Guardian (you may detect a certain flavour to my online news consumption). There's a lot to like about it. A smart, bisexual, sex-positive, feminist woman standing for office. There's also a lot not to like. Such as the almost desperate need to defend her career choice, reminding folk that "it's not illegal" and assuring them that her potential consituents really wouldn't notice. Even her own part are attempting to distance themselves from her work whilst remaining supportive of her as an individual, a hard task, really, smacking a bit of love the sinner. I'm not sure whether this is indicative of outdated attitudes to porn or outdated attitudes to women working in porn. Probably both. Along with a spattering of outdated attitudes to women in politics (we live in a world where female politicians are still considered newsworthy merely by the fact of being female). She's a particularly interesting case because she is a filmaker, who has focused on making porn for women and also on making porn from a femal point of view, often literally, in the case of her trademark filming style.

Good luck to her.

I don't know much about Art but...

An interesting article in today's Independent, featuring snippets of an interview with fashion photographer Rankin. A quote caught my eye "Porn objectifies women, but erotica doesn’t". Really? Let's have a little think about that for a moment.

I think that it is misleading to assume that porn is objectifying and erotica isn't because unless you have seen all the porn/erotica in the world (which would take some time) you can't really make that judgement, and moreover, the decision on whether something is or isn't objectifying is rather tricky. There is no set definition on what is and what isn't "objectifying", but the word is bandied around as if somehow everyone knows precisely what it means. Clearly, at some point everyone has gotten together and decided that objectifying women (and men one hopes, though no-one ever really says that) is a bad thing and have had to set definitions up in order to not be doing bad things whilst carrying on doing the things they want to do: look at pictures of beautiful, naked women. I think that this leads down into an incredibly circular argument which boils down to: if it's objectifying then it must be porn, and if it isn't then it's erotica, in other words, porn = bad and erotica = good.

This is a fairly familiar trope amongst those who wish to distance themselves from the murky world of porn. I've always been of the view that erotica is "posh porn". Middle class porn. A "better" standard of porn. Porn for educated people who like tasteful black and white arty shots far removed from the day-glo orange of a Sun page 3 spread. Certainly Wiki (my source of commonly held, though certainly open for argument, definitions) seems to have the dividing line as that of an artistic aspiration, whilst admitting muddy waters. So it appears that "porn / erotica" suffers from the same problem as "objectification" - we aren't really sure where to draw the line.

It's all very well for an artist to say that their work is not objectifying - and whilst they may well have not intended it to be - but the beauty is in the beholder and the artists is not the sole arbitrator of how their work is received. Whether or not one agrees with this is another matter, but the fact is that once a piece has left the studio and is in the public domain the way in which it is perceived is out of the control of the artists. One person can consider a piece to be "disgusting" (porn, one presumes) and another "beautiful" (erotica) yet they are still looking at exactly the same thing. Note that I'm not saying that pictures of beautiful women are or are not in themselves objectifying or bad (that would be rather hypocritical), merely that simply by calling them "erotica" rather than "porn" does not alter the content of the images, nor the impact that they might have on people.

Counting problems

I am having a terrible problem working out how many people I've had sex with. Not because I cannot count, but because I don't know how to count them, or what counts. This all came about from a conversation with Captain who claims to genuinely not know how many people he's had sex with whereas I was fairly sure it was fourteen, with him as number fourteen. There has recently been a further development in the Doll Project, which will be an evening that I will spend in the suit, whilst many people take it in turns to fuck me. The number is already fourteen. Everything else notwithstanding, being fucked by more people than you have ever fucked in your life in the space of a few hours is fairly daunting.

Then I thought about it. Was it really fourteen? The more I thought about it, the less sure I was. I suppose it comes down to the rather basic question "what is sex?" which can sometimes be difficult enough in vanilla circles and gets even harder when you throw BDSM into the mix. Starting with the vanilla, because that is certainly how I started out, spending what should have been formative sexual years trying to decipher out what on earth people were so worked up about. Sexual activities, kissing aside (which still remains one of my serious turn-ons), were generally a bit dull and mildly uncomfortable. There was a lot of fumbling. An awful lot of fumbling. More fumbling than anything else to be honest - they didn't know what they were doing and I didn't really care except that perhaps they could be a bit quicker about it. I was very shy around the actual act of penetration. I didn't feel especially sexy. I had any number of body issues as a teenager and was never especially comfortable in my own skin on my own. I certainly didn't consider the act of sex sexy: penises were downright weird and boys appeared to treat them as if they had some sort of mind of their own which was distracting, to say the least. I spent a few brief months considering whether I was gay and having done the basic experimentation decided not. I found both men and women attractive. I liked kissing them. I just was left cold by anything else.

Having decided that fumbling about, whether with fingers, oral sex or variations on frottage probably didn't pass muster I basically discounted everything I did before I was eighteen as "not sex". Then came the "definitely sex". Penises and penetration were involved. One boy whose name I cannot remember and who was collected strictly for the purposes of losing my virginity (he had a car and his own room) and then never seen again. I had a couple of flings at University, including the one who introduced me to BDSM by pressing my face against the tiles of the shower whilst fucking me "because he could". Two long-term partners, strictly monogamous, account for the next eight years. Then we get into the territory covered by this blog, from which I can draw a clear five including Captain. So that's a firm and in some cases very well-documented ten. I feel almost virginal.

But what about all those shades of grey? Should I count people who I have played with but who, strictly speaking have not actually fucked me, although they certainly put objects in my cunt; does oral sex count; does strap on sex count? Putting sexual politics aside for a moment (I'm sticking to personal thoughts on the topic, whilst acknowledging that hetero-normative definitions of sex are very problematic), there are times when I have considered myself to be fucked, but would not have said I had sex with that person. Fucking machines, hitachi and strap-ons certainly fall into that category. Wikipedia has a handy list of all sorts of sex that isn't intercourse. What particularly interests me is that I have played with people who have barely touched any of my traditionally defined erogenous zones but who have given me more sexual pleasure than the entirety of my teenage activities, including times when I have absolutely, certainly had sex.

This leads me on to think whether "having sex" is even a meaningful category for me anymore, given that it doesn't seem to describe the effect that it appears to. I know that I don't consider sex to be a vital component of sexual enjoyment: in all probability I'd rather have really good play and then go home and masturbate than have sex. There are some times when only being fucked will do (admittedly, that's usually as part of a play session), but I think that's more because I crave the closeness and the sexual gratification of someone else alongside the sensation of fullness, which could be effected through any number of not-really-sex methods.

Of course, lists are only really good for comparing with other lists. They aren't especially useful for anything beyond that. It's terrible to reduce such powerful and intimate feelings to numbers. And, hopeless, kinky romantic that I am, I demand that there is more to sex than just jiggling my bits inside someone else's pieces. I'd like to think that my inability to give a figure relates to my better understanding and appreciation for BDSM, rather than just being unclear or forgetful. That the experience isn't measurable by the number of people involved but what was felt, by who and how. Which I guess is why I blog rather than carving notches into my bedposts.

Yellow belly

I have a confession to make. I'm a coward. I am terribly risk averse and have a rather practical mind which means that whilst others are stripping off and running naked into fountains I am standing around holding the towels, worrying about chest infections and water-borne diseases.

I'm currently enjoying a series of email offers from various potential play partners and whilst I love getting my fingers dirty with other people's fantasies, when it comes to actually doing them I can get cold feet where certain sorts of play are concerned. The main area of concern is public play. By which, I mean play in the vanilla sphere, where one might get caught not only by random passers-by but by levels of authority. To be specific, Majeste wants to take me out to a well-known department store and fuck me in the changing rooms. Now, I am very keen to play with her (even though or perhaps because she scares me) so the content of the play is fine and dandy. It's the public element that has me worried.

I can easily wrap this up in a desire not to expose the public to BDSM, because I am firmly of the opinion that the only spectators to any sort of sexual act should be consenting parties. But that's not the whole truth. The truth is that I am terrified of being caught. I'm a good girl, you see. I try and do the right thing, to be well behaved, to be polite. I don't want to break the rules. I'll feel guilty. Worse, I don't want to get caught breaking the rules. I'll be embarrassed. Worse still, I'm terrified of what might happen if we got found out. Would we be arrested? Would there be charges? Would I have to tell my mother?

I realise that there is a thrill here, an attraction. There's a part of me that wants to do it simply because it does scare me. I want to go through the process of being scared, the feeling and the adrenaline and come out the other side stronger, because I faced my fears, to experience the high of getting away with it. I want to be brave. I also don't want to let Majeste down, because on a certain level, a denial of someone's fantasies can come across as a denial of them, because fantasies are so personal. I know how difficult I have found it in the past when partners have been unwilling to participate in my fantasies.

I normally enjoy responding to the desire of others. Not just because pleasing people is satisfying but because they take me to strange places, expose me to new things. This means that sometimes I end up doing things that I would not enjoy in and of themselves but do end up enjoying because my partner derives pleasure from them. This is even more powerful when they are things I really don't like doing. It's easy to "submit" to something you enjoy, after all. This is where the D/s comes in and where my brain takes the lead. Submission is not merely about physical endurance, it's about psychological barriers, willpower, acts of control and self control. Which means that a lot of it is about me and what I do and don't want to do. It is only when I'm confronted with something I find personally difficult or challenging that I feel I am really submitting.

When it works, when it works well, when I'm with someone who knows me and can handle me correctly, I can find the pleasure in my own personal hell. In this instance, the overcoming of the fear of being caught in order to merely go through the act would be just the first step. Finding actual pleasure whilst being used in this way - not from being fucked and spacing out on sensation - but from dropping my own boundaries to facilitate the desire of someone else would be a wonderful moment of submission.

Fingers crossed.

Submersion

A little something from last weekend. To tide you over whilst I recover from a very dull cold. Apologies to anyone I sneezed on at the very busy U35 munch yesterday.

Sound of the rain. It's a recording, loud and without interruption, a little touch of white noise. But softer, wrapping around me and making me warm, safe and soft inside. The sound of the rain has always had an eroticism to it for me, I don't know why. I am sheltered from the storm, immobile, waiting.

My world is black and tiny. Just the space between my eyes, less than a dot in a universe I cannot see but only imagine. A heavy black latex bag encases me, lying flat on my back on a bench, secured with endless loops of firmly tied rope. I'm breathing deep and slow through a tube that extends, elsewhere, into that uncertain non-existance which is everything outside my shrinking field of experience. With each breath I feel as if I'm dropping further backwards. Deep sea diver, into an inky, thick liquid world which is three layers and counting: the plastic against my skin, my body, my mind. I feel like I'm shrinking. Dropping away. It's beautiful.

I'm still in the doll suit. My plastic skin is smooth and pure, pristine. And invisible. I am a gift wrapped for transport, a toy put away. A dirty secret hidden from prying eyes. A private matter.

He kisses my forehead, through the plastic on plastic so his lips are just an impression in my mind: "Goodnight"

A door clicks shut. I don't know whether he is still watching, or what he could see of me. Something black, the centre rising and falling under the press of the rope.

When he unpacks me later, which can only have been a short while, I have all but forgotten myself. In perfect contentment, curling up, naked having sloughed off my many skins, head pressed against his shoulder, arms around his waist for some sort of support.

I'm blank, but fulfilled. Full of warm nothing but full nonetheless.

Quiet night in

It arrived a week or so ago, but neither Captain nor I had managed to do anything about it due to not being in the same space at the same time. But it was there, and it had to be played with. A latex catsuit designed to look like a blow-up sex doll. It was love at first sight. I've never wanted to wear anything more in my entire life with the possible exception of certain costumes from Michael Manning's artwork. Except this was real. I think I clapped my hands together and did a little jig on the spot when he showed it to me. I emailed over a long list of precise body measurements, which was an interesting experiment in and of itself as I literally sized myself up. Then waited.

My instructions for the week preceding were simple: no body hair and short, smooth nails. Nothing to nick or tear the latex. We had a lot of plans. Some were exciting like being taken out to a club in the outfit; some were scary such as being fucked by anonymous, gumtree advertised strangers. The latter sent flutters through my stomach, genuinely frightened and excited by the prospect. The first time in a long while I'd had those feelings of stepping into something unknown and uncertain.

Come Friday and we were both feeling a little under the weather, but I needed kink much more than I needed a duvet - I had that ratty, coiled up internal pressure that comes from too much work and not enough play. There are times, frankly, when the only thing that will do is a gin and tonic followed by a good, hard kinky fuck. I know my needs. I'm starting to think that I know some of Captain's needs too, which is helping me unravel a bit more each time I see him. I like knowing that progress is being made. Neither of us were in a fit state for a full session, but equally there was no way that we were going to leave that plastic doll suit untouched.

I'd never worn a latex catsuit before, so was being talked through it by Captain whilst he went to put on his own. There was an air of jovial communal changing rooms as we sat, both naked save for a slick of lube, working our way into the outfits. The material was cool, floppy and thin. It looked a bit creepy, which was part of its charm. It was very soft and I was a little scared of tearing it as I slid my feet into the ends and pulled the pink plastic up my legs, trying to ease out the wrinkles. It took me quite a long time, by which point Captain was already silvery and shiny in his suit. He looked amazing, I've always loved men in tight fitting shiny outfits but this made me want to lick him all over, for the taste of the rubber, the sensation of the smooth plastic with the muscles underneath. I made a mental note to talk to Mr and Mrs Magpie about this and to update my list of "things to do" to include vast quantities of rubber and latex.

Eventually I was done. My hands were in mitten shapes, and my face encased in plastic. I had two little holes for my nose and a wide, red-rimmed O at my mouth and between my legs. I felt very warm and curiously protected. Captain helped me up and put me in front of a mirror. I was looking at something very pink, very strange and if it weren't for the fact that when I moved, the doll in the glass moved, I wouldn't be able to connect myself to my image. It was like looking at a photograph of someone else. Of something else. The tiny pinprick eyeholes added to the sense of dislocation - I could only see a limited field of view and needed to turn my head to see anything at my sides. My brain was already giddy and freewheeling, set loose from having to make any efforts at being me or being rational, it was like being high without any of the chemical sensation of having taken anything.

He stood behind me and reached around to grab my breasts, I could feel the warmth of his flesh then the tacky press of our rubber suits. I felt space-age. Futuristic sex doll. I loved it. I really fucking loved it. I felt made to wear this suit just as it was made for me. What surprised me the most was exactly how good it felt. I had thought that my pleasure in this outfit would be derived from the yearning of skin to skin contact but far from that I wanted this plastic against plastic. Second, perfected skin, with tight flesh enclosed beneath. I could still feel - the material was very thin - and what I felt was smooth, slick and fantastically sexual. The rubber was not erotic because it prevented my desire, but because it channelled it, instead of just one or two touches in the places where my lover's hands rest there were now many. Hundreds and thousands of stimuli. Every place the rubber touched my skin.

Being fucked in the outfit was spectacular. There was a very specific feeling to it, one which I've had before when mummified or similarly enclosed and it's something I especially want when I'm feeling out of sorts. The sensation of being used as an object is very powerful for me and in this instance there were lots of buttons being pushed all at once.

Partly because I really, really needed to be fucked but also because once in the doll outfit that was especially what needed to happen. It felt right. More than right, it felt as if not being fucked was an error, an omission. The doll was there to be used. I'm not entirely sure whether the sex felt better for us both being in latex, for the fact that I had been craving sex or because I was in a dollish frame of mind. Probably all three. But it was precisely what I needed. It wasn't about orgasm either (very little of my play actually is) instead the sensation of being full, of having those holes used. The best positions were those where he held me and I kept still, mouth open or hips spread. A vessel for his desire. Which was also mine, and each thrust pushed me deeper, until I was almost completely blank except for little flashes of how I must look, images kept appearing and disappearing around the immense blackness of hot, fulfilling sensation in which I was floating.

Doll space.