(Not) like sex? Part 2

Back to Saturday morning.

Falling asleep being able to feel the press of your partner's hard-on against your back is always satisfying, if a little strange because of the padding of the nappy. And the knowledge that you being in the nappy is part of their desire. Still, strange is what you are used to. Another press, this one a little more urgent, from by bladder early on in the morning. There's some murmured conversation with Captain and I'm allowed out of bed to squat on the floor to relieve myself. As I start to do so, he pushes up towards the edge of the bed, putting his cock in my mouth. I find out, curiously, that I can't piss and give head at the same time. Something in my brain is just not wired for that kind of behaviour (lack of practice might also factor) so I concentrate on the important thing, which is him, until he pushes my head back and waits, watching me. I catch his eye. I think I grin, but it might have been a grimace.

It's easier the second time around though, clearly there's a knack to it. There's also a lot of piss - I was dehydrated in the night and drank a pint of water - so there's some leakage, despite the couple of inches of padding, which is now warm, damp and heavy. Exactly like a fat, wet sponge, hanging bulky and awkwardly between my legs. I can't see him, because I've lain my head in my arms against the mattress to steady myself. But I can hear him grinning.

"Fetch that towel, and the plastic pants."

I reach over for the towel and mop up the spill, moving carefully lest I make the mess worse, but most of it seems to have been absorbed now. I'm very clunky in my movements, now in a shuffling pace. The plastic pants have not become any more attractive overnight, the material of the incontinence bloomers reminds me of seventies polyester fabric, only a little slippier and heavier. Waterproof. Institutional. Ugly as sin. I put the pants on and then come back to bed. I can feel him grinning. We fall back into a spoons position and doze some more.

After a while, he gets me to stand up and remove the plastic pants - by now they are wet on the inside from my own sweat and thus even less pleasant. He puts the towel on the bed, and lets me take off the nappy, which is heavy and body-temperature, placing it on the towel. He gets me into a crouch, face hovering above the soaked nappy and I know what's coming next. He fucks me, and at the same time he grabs hold of my hair and pushes my face into the nappy. I go cold all over, despite the warm wetness in my face, a damp heavy cloth that smells faintly of me. The smell is actually pretty mild, nothing particularly offensive or challenging about it. It's what is happening. The way he's holding me down, wrapping the used nappy around my face, pushing me hard into it. I am not humiliated. I am not embarrassed or a little shy or getting any of that funny, toe-curling titillation.

I feel eroded. Degraded. Made less of. I don't feel like I'm participating, I feel like I'm being used. A prisoner or captive made low for cheap laughs. And that hurts, because it cuts to my own sense of who I am and what I am worth. To him. Which matters. Which has come to matter over these past few months. So, I do what I do when things get hard, I exhale and let go: give myself over and let him take my body wherever he wants to put it. I stop thinking about it and try to blank out the moment. Although he's put my hand between my legs I can't really feel my clit, there's no arousal in what is happening, I'm numb. He comes quickly, whispering his pleasure at the act in my ears and I fall down in a stunned silence for a few moments before starting to cry. He picks me up quickly, holding me to him until I've calmed down and we lie there, talking it over.

I tell him I feel made worthless, that I feel emptied out and as if I wasn't important - I could have been just about anyone then, with no face, no will, nothing. Not special. Worse than that, something disgusting. He reassures me, tells me that I'm not worthless, that I am important. As I speak, I realise the contradictions in my words, remember the times when that emptiness would have been extremely erotic, the absence of self, being just a channel for his desire. But it wasn't the same. Instead of being made into something beautiful I had been made ugly and wretched in my own eyes. It wasn't about shame precisely, although I'm sure my vanity played a part, because part of self-worth comes from perceiving myself as desirable. Which I didn't feel. Despite his obvious desire, because my picture of how I looked was different to his. Debasement makes you low, that's what it does: it grinds you down and whilst I expect, like with pain and other endurance submission, there are highs to be found within that, I didn't get that.

Later, over breakfast we talk briefly about his fantasies that revolve around degradation - something I need to delve deeper in, because I want to understand more, we also talk about how the effect he wanted was not the one that happened, that he had wanted me to feel controlled and yes, degraded to some extent, but never to feel worthless or unhappy because of who I was. I'm still not sure how to square the two, in the sense that if someone enjoys and revels in the degradation, does that still make it degrading?

I've asked myself a few more questions since, the main one being, if I really didn't enjoy it, why didn't I ask him to stop, the second one being why did I find it so hard and the third, and most interesting:why does it turn me on now, in hindsight, thinking about it?

The first one is fairly obvious, it was difficult but it wasn't painful and it didn't really push my red button, merely made me unhappy. I was also interested in whether my feelings might change as we progressed and there was, of course, the backdrop of being fucked, which is a comfort in troubled times. I think I found it hard because it was new, so it threw me, it was also unpleasant and made me feel bad in and of myself - it took me to a lonely and isolated place. That's not an uncommon (though it is a rare) reaction for me, I'll sometimes get unhappy during other types of play, not usually because of the play itself but because the act distances me from my partner and I feel adrift and my brain dredges up sad thoughts and ideas. I think much the same thing happened here - I didn't feel part of what was going on. It was also quite swift, so there wasn't much time to absorb and process what was happening, which meant it all occurred in a bit of a whirlwind of stimuli response (mental and physical). Perhaps a note for the future that discomforting challenging play might need to be done a little slower, like edging myself into a too-hot bath.

And the third question. Why is it hot now? And it is hot now, if I'm being honest. Not so hot as to make me rush out and buy some incontinence pants, but hot enough to know I'd do it again. Important too as a memory, as something that I have done. Again, this is possibly a factor in endurance play or any play I've found difficult, there is a sense of achievement, of liberation almost, in having done it. Not just in a notch in the bedpost way (although like those on the quest for the hottest curry, there is also the quest for the kinkiest, filthiest thing) but the element of discovery, of another kink unturned, another string to the bow. Taken in one, including the pre-amble, the night, the morning, the tears and the comfort, it is a powerful whole. Another step, albeit a difficult one.

This town ain't big enough for the both of us

Now, what I should be writing about is "further adventures in the world of humiliation play" or "when humiliation becomes degradation and how you deal with that". But not today.

Today I got an email from The Photographer. It wasn't a long email, and I'm sure I will spend more time, thought and text on it than its words merit (I'm always the verbose one), but it brought a few things home to me. It was a shock getting the email, because I'd asked him to only get in touch if he'd decided to leave his partner and give us a proper, monogamous, try. So my heart was racing when I opened it, after all, this had been the stuff of dreams for a good few months after he'd left: that he'd realise how amazing we were together and want to be with me, just me.

It wasn't about that. No moment of high romance or riding off into the sunset for me today. It was much more prosaic, and much harder to deal with because of its tepid tone. He's moving to London. He wanted to get in touch and see whether we could build up a friendship or at least be able to be in the same place as each other. There were going to be "other things" but he'd "deleted them". Ever the man of mystery, or perhaps the man who doesn't know how to say the right words.

At first I was upset. I cried a little. It brought a lot of things back, especially compounded by the indignity of it all: realising that even after all this time he can still get to me, still hurt me. How vulnerable I am to him, how unprotected my feelings are. How many feelings I still have and what a mess they are.

I developed a split-personality over the email as my heart and my head instantly picked up banners and weaponry over how to proceed. I wanted (desperately) to respond, to congratulate him on what must be a new job, to find out all that has been going on with him, to book in a date and meet him. At the same time, I wanted to respond with a torrent of abuse, demanding to know why he thought that getting in touch now would be a good idea for me and if he'd even considered the impact it might have? After all the conversations in which I'd patiently explained that I really, really didn't want to be "friends", that I had lots of friends and that what I wanted from him was something much more. And how I didn't want to be around him if I couldn't have those things because it hurt too much.

I deleted the email.

It was the only thing I could do. Because there was no response that would ever be adequate, ever really get across the mixture of love, hurt, dismay and anger that it inspired. I'm good with words. But I'm not good enough to compose that note. And I know that either way, whichever tactic I took, I'd end up involved in emotionally draining conversations to no purpose.

If nothing else, it did help me drop a few illusions I've had about him. The first being that he will ever come back into my life in anything like the manner I would like. The second that whilst I might still have love and desire for him (diminishing, fortunately), I don't like him very much anymore. I really don't want him to move to London, however I don't have the ability to close borders so I guess I'll just manage as best as I can and hope like hell he doesn't try to come out on the scene. Or if he does, then that enough time will have passed that I will have a better response than turning on my heel and walking away.

(Not) like sex? Part 1

When I get in the door he puts his hands on my shoulders and steers me over to the bench, he sits me down, then onto my back, legs bent, and starts removing my shoes, tights, underwear. In another universe this would be a prelude to sex, and in a way, it is. He encourages me, with soft, soothing words, like you'd use to a child, to lift up my bottom, manoeuvre around, so that he can fix a thick disposable nappy, made thicker with extra padding, on to me. He dusts me with talcum powder then tapes it firmly into place with rather incongruous silver gaffa tape. I already feel weird. Uncomfortable in the padding, uncomfortable with my body enclosed like this, not entirely sure where this is going. Then the final, horrible touch: plastic waterproof pink bloomers that come up high on my stomach and reach down my thighs. He pulls my skirt down, smooths it in place and heIps me back up, holding me against the mirror so we can both see the bulk of it, under my skirt. He touches the padding, patting it a few times. I wrinkle my nose in disgust at my inflated bottom and duck waddle gait and he grins. He hands me some money to go to the shop. I pause, then accept with a resigned, downturned look. He lifts up my chin and kisses me, full and deep. A "proper" kiss of the sort I don't get very often and I know I should pause and enjoy the moment, kiss him back, but my mind is whirling, heart racing. I don't want to go outside like this. And yet, I also do. I want to see what will happen, to see what it will be like.

"This is like sex for me." He says, and I don't really get it. I get that he's excited, but the feeling isn't really mutual beyond a response to his excitement. Mostly I feel a bit silly. What I definitely don't feel, is sexy.

Once outside, I think a bit more about how I do feel. My feelings are quite complex. There's the response to the nappies themselves, which give me reminders of hospitals, fear of physical degeneration - it's always age, illness decrepitude and senility that adult nappies put me in mind of, rather than infantilisation. I don't want to be, and have never felt like a baby when in them. I feel like me, forced into something awful. It's an ugly thing, bulky and awkward. Awkward too, the thoughts that come with it, body consciousness, erosion of attractiveness and sexuality. But there are other thoughts, as I walk down the (mercifully) dark street towards the off-licence. The waddle is also a bit of a wiggle, the padding has given me a bigger, curvier bottom and the bulk between my legs forces me into a different gait. My skirt has slits down the side and I'm uncertain as to whether the ghastly pink plastic pants can be seen as I move. That turns into the desire to be seen, which is where my exhibitionist streak runs roughshod over any sense of embarrassment, as I remind myself of the many ridiculous things I have chosen to do in public, and this is a choice. Whilst I have not picked my own attire I have chosen to do what he wants. I wiggle a bit more, wondering if the passers-bye catch a glimpse of the plastic, wondering what they think, wondering if they will make eye-contact, perhaps say something. Grinning to myself about what I might say.

It's over in a few minutes, even some conspicuous leg shifting in the shop failed to get anyone to notice, and I walk back without incident, smiling to myself. On return, there is a flurry of "good girl", smiles, tea, biscuits and curling up on the sofa. My fingers wrapping around his as I lean against his shoulder and snuggle up to him. Content.

I want to take a moment and draw a line between two types of humiliation. The first is a sense of discomfort within oneself, the second a sense of discomfort that arises from social situations. In this respect, embarrassment can occur when you are by yourself, whereas humiliation requires other parties and, crucially, is a guilty or otherwise awkward response arising from the social approbation of others. This distinction is fairly important to me (maybe not so much for others, I'd be interested in hearing about that) partly because of my exhibitionist fetish, which can work in tandem with "public humiliation" and turn it into more of a potential thrill, as with the walk to the shop, and also because the sense of discomfort about myself is far stronger than a sense of discomfort given to me from someone else. I can often brush the latter away because of my submissive state - I'm in this position because someone has put me in this position, it's no fault of mine etc.

As the evening wore on, I thought about the sexuality of humiliation. It doesn't work for me merely because it turns my partner on and I find his desire sexy - though that sparks my interest in trying and is a natural draw. There is the D/s aspect of control, particularly control over the body and those bits of us we normally consider private. The nappy acts as a chastity device. This can create a sense of intimacy, of trust and through that a connection. When I'm doing something difficult, feel like I am really submitting in instances like this - I am clearly being made to do something I don't want to do (although compulsion is a little strong given I acquiesced without only a couple of half-hearted whines of complaint on the way it made me look). I am submitting to his will. I am allowing him to do something to me that makes me feel uncomfortable. So I get to be submissive, which fortunately for me, is a sexual thrill, like the exhibitionism. Titillation. It was embarrassing, in the classical sense of it being a disruption of my own composure (from the french embarrasser meaning to block or obstruct).

So far, so good, so thoughtful. But then it came time to go to sleep. As anyone who has ever possessed a bladder knows, there is a relief in urinating, especially when you really need to go. And once we went to bed, I really did. But I couldn't. I then endured several hours of extraordinary frustration. I knew that the nappy would keep me dry and so assumed that I would find it pretty easy just to piss when I wanted to. Yet I didn't. There was no constraint upon me not to: Captain was actively encouraging it, reminding me to relax, stroking my skin and hair. I had this immense pressure in my stomach area and the clenched muscles and heightened sensitivity around my labia was, in a very real sense, sexual. I could feel his hard-on against my body, he was playing lightly with my nipple piercings and I was definitely turned on. My legs and arms hand tensed up in the same fashion as the build-up to orgasm, with all the attendant difficulties. No amount of relaxing, tensing, cat-napping, breathing exercises or sheer bloody mindedness seemed to work. I was very upset with myself, starting to feel like a failure and cursing my body no end. At certain points I began to be confused as to which I was actually trying to do as either would have been a release at that point, and I was bitterly confounded by my body's apparent refusal to "let go", which in turn not only made me feel more physically uncomfortable, but also as if I was holding back for an unknown reason.

Eventually, he encouraged me to get out of bed and squat on the floor, stroking my hair whilst I was finally able to piss. The warm wetness flooded around me, then was absorbed by the material, which got noticeably heavier. There was a definite - almost defiant - sexuality in pissing, though, the connection to orgasm was very strong. It was quite liberating, as well as powerful. I entertained thoughts of pissing on someone, on their naked back, into their mouth, to mark them as mine. The nappy didn't exactly support those fantasies, but the sensation of finally urinating worked for me irrespective of the coverings. He broke through this reverie, hammering the humiliation home by demanding I refer to it as "pee pee" when informing him that I'd finally managed to do it, which did make me feel silly, bringing a rush of colour to my cheeks, followed by a bit of a giggle. The relief was overwhelming, in more senses than one, not least being able to climb into bed and fall asleep.

Negotiations

"Can I hit you with this?" A long, black evil-looking crop is waved in my face. I squirm.

"No"

"What if I start slowly and build up?"

"No"

More swear words may have been involved in my response. I don't quite remember because that was not an ideal moment for scene negotiation. The request was perfectly polite, but came from someone who I didn't know very well - I've chatted to him briefly at a club and met once or twice at a munch. The main issue, was the context. I prefer to select my partners after exchanging a few messages either online or at a munch then meeting up with them for a date or two in a vanilla environment, perhaps coffee or dinner, then a discussion about what we might do should we decide to proceed. It's a lengthy process, perhaps, but has yielded good results thus far.

So I tend to feel rather on the back foot when a conversation starts whilst I'm tied down to a spanking bench playing with someone else. I'd already taken some (very pleasant) leather-gloved open palm action from Kobe, someone who I had agreed to play with a priori, including sending a text message a few days before to confirm this. I was a little flushed, starting to get happily spaced out and felt for all the world like I was suddenly in a BDSM Jane Austen comedy of manners as someone else requests to cut in during the dance. Fortunately, Kobe had a better grasp of the English language at the time and was able to sort it out and I think everyone went away happy whilst I got to nuzzle appreciatively against his face before he pushed me back down into the dark, head-shaped cavity of the bench. It was actually a rather nice moment because it reflected well on his ability to control a situation and manage my desires.

The issue was not about whether I would want to play with that person. It was about whether that was a good time to decide. For me, it wasn't. I expect that other people may have behaved differently. It wasn't just that the scene itself was interrupted, more that perhaps there was an assumption of the "house submissive" in the air, possibly because of my role as a maid. Looking back on the evening, I can see how the confusion might have arisen: there were a couple of people who did touch me, play with me and press cake into my face (I'm repeating this for emphasis, also it was hot, thank you Hedwig) but these were all people I knew quite well and had played with before. The situation was resolved pretty quickly, and no harm was done but it did get me thinking about individual expectations of protocol, "scene rules" and how they really are not as fixed and firm as we might like to suppose, especially in a more relaxed and private atmosphere as a party that doesn't have a published set of acceptable and unacceptable behaviours.

There is no such thing as one fixed code of conduct within BDSM. I've posted a few times on my own perceptions of how the etiquette and behaviours of the scene communities might operate - most recently here and here. There are certain things that everyone can generally get together and agree on which are more or less an extension of general social practice with a bit of "being English" thrown in for good measure. But there will always be shades of grey and differences of opinion. Just as everyone has their own viewpoint on what they enjoy within a BDSM context, everyone has their own understanding of how they want to practice. Which can sometimes cause difficulties.

The important thing is that other people's boundaries are respected, as they were in the situation above, where everyone was clear and understanding. Protocol is important, not just because it's nice to be polite (though it is), it's also about protection and safety - for the dominant and the submissive. Which can also extend to emotional protection, good protocol can make a submissive feel safe and looked after, avoid the worst of dom guilt and provide a framework in which to develop a D/s relationship.

Service with a smile

Saturday was Captain's house warming party, and we've been running around trying to make everything perfect. A combination of DIY, BDSM and OCD on both our parts over the past two, hectic, weeks since the flat move meant that once 6pm rolled around and people started to actually arrive it was something of a relief. We were ready. The night managed to encapsulate a number of hot topics that pushed all of my "must do this well" buttons, so I had spent the day being a bit fraught, especially due to a series of irritating stresses such as delayed deliveries and arranging pick-up of new laptop that wasn't ready at the promised time.

But I was there. Finally. Food and drink was all laid out, a second maid had arrived and the decision made that I was in charge and she was my maid-in-training (which had all sorts of connotations for the future). We got ready together and chatted a little, which felt something like being backstage before a show, I wasn't precisely jittery, but I was very keen for everything to go well. I was acutely aware that whatever I did wasn't just going to reflect on me, but also on Captain. And I wanted him to be happy, to be proud of me, and of us.

At first, I'd really been very nervous about the maid costume. It felt a lot like roleplay, which isn't normally a turn on, and it was also domestic service, which is also something I don't do. But there were other elements. First, I wasn't a maid - I was a dolly maid. Baby pink wig, with matching make-up and nails in tandem with the PVC black dress and frilly lace accessories made me feel much more cool, calm and collected. I felt sexy, too, which I had really not expected. I'd anticipated enduring this outfit, at best, it was a trial to be gone through to amuse and entertain Captain and our guests. But it was actually quite a lot of fun. It was a little silly, I bent over and showed my bottom a lot, Mrs Magpie spent the entire evening failing to keep a straight face every time I pouted or poured a drink from a kneeling position.

There was also something a bit deeper going on. Perfectionism is a part of my submission, as is a desire to please my partners, I also always like dressing up, kink and being told I'm pretty and a "good girl" (there were a lot of compliments and flatttery, including a couple of requests to keep or kidnap me). Add to this that in my general life, I like hosting parties and feeding people lovely food and drink. I was pretty high on the praise before anything kinky had even started, and it was fantastic to have my efforts acknowledged, in a way that very rarely happens in the day-to-day, or when it does is always a bit offhand and lacklustre. Here, I felt centre-stage and full of praise. Reactions were varied - some people loved being waited on, others were a little flustured, some still were not quite sure how to handle it, others giggled - but all were welcome. Exhibitionism requires reactions of some sort, and there were plenty going around.

Serving itself was a lot like work. Because it was work, as anyone who has ever done silver service or waitressing will tell you. Even with someone else to help, bustling around making sure drinks were filled, food was doing the rounds and greeting people on arrival kept me very busy. Added to that the importance of looking and sounding good whilst doing it. After a few hours my feet were hurting (high heels and fishnets meant I had diamond patterned soles the next day). It also meant that I wasn't really able to talk to my friends much, particularly once the party started to get going. The enjoyment was not coming from the social aspect, but from the kinky side - from seeing everyone in the room happy, from making people feel "decadent" in the words of Maple. There was a serious pleasure in knowing that I was creating that atmosphere.

Later on, the kink part of the evening started. After a "not-punishment" spanking in bondage, Captain found a pink ball gag to match the wig, pulled my knickers around the tops of my legs (which later fell off, of course) and left me to wander round with one arm behind my back and a tray of canapes, I truly felt like a Michael Manning creation. A BDSM iconic fantasy. Which I played up to, naturally. I was able to be a little cheekier, a little more interactive now I couldn't speak - winks, muffled noises, deliberately confusing gestures. Hedwig captured the spirit of the whole thing by taking one of the cream cakes I was offering around, checking with Captain - always a nice moment - then smearing it slowly and deliberately into my face. The feeling was not unpleasant - like a lot of supposed humiliation play, it has the initial shock of transgression, then the flood of liberation, particularly so as an exhibitionist because it means more people look at you. And getting excited, turned on or embarrassed by you. And have to go and fetch cameras to take pictures of you. Which naturally, you pose for. After being paraded round for a bit to cries of mock pity, I got fussed over by some of the other submissives who cleaned my face for me, adding an exciting touch of complex hierarchy to the mix and setting me to think on how submitting to Captain whilst having a group of slaves, pets and servants to play with would make for a very exciting evening. We're contemplating a dinner party as the natural follow up. I am putting in my request for someone to put my feet up on.

A boy's eye view

Here's the challenge: being queer, feminist, sex positive and kinky in an heteronormative sexual environment. I write this following a conversation with Majeste and Mrs Magpie, as we tried to balance the desire to look good (and thus feel sexy, confident and suchlike) without feeling like we were being categorised according to what we were wearing, or, more to the point, without feeling like our ideas of "looking good" are responses to male sexual desire. This was even more complicated for Majeste: at least I can affirm that male sexual desire is interesting to me and that my submissive tendencies make responding to it part of my own sexual make-up.

We were talking about club Black Whip which I've never visited (although do hope to do so), but which Majeste had recently attended. Ostensibly, it's a club for black, female dominants. However, the impression that was received was that is was more a club for men who wanted to be dominated by black women. I'm not casting aspersions on the club, far from it, rather I'm using it to emphasise a general trend, which is also observable in mainstream sexuality, of desire being male-led, of catering to male fantasies and of, effectively, all sexuality being male sexuality.

In her book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy coins the term Raunch Culture, describing western society as hyper-sexualised. Rather than the 70s bringing about a sexual revolution in which we are all free to enjoy whatever type of sexual experience and gender expression we wanted we are instead caught in a closed system that only classifies a very narrow field as "sexy" and does so in abundance: sexy is when women are made attractive and available for the male gaze. Whilst Levy is primarily focused on criticising the way in which women have been co-opted into this system as equating "sexual freedom" with "going to lap dancing clubs". My issues with lap dancing clubs are reasonably well known, but putting that aside, where is the room for female sexual expression that doesn't merely ape male sexual expression. Can we find enjoyment in doing something other than gyrating on a pole, or watching other women do it?

My interest was particularly piqued by the similarities I found between the sexual mores of the world Levy describes and those generally found within the BDSM scene. Surely, I thought, surely we kinksters are much more alternative and varied in our sexual expression - it can't all be young, attractive girls with big boobs dressed in tight black latex and getting hit or hitting people?

A quick glance at the internet is probably enough to prove me wrong. Whilst there are some sites and publications that cater to the wider market, the pervert's porn is very much like the vanilla porn. Except in black. And shinier. The emphasis here is on the look and sexualisation of the female for the consumption by the male. I'm not sure whether this is entirely driven by the vanilla world becoming more "extreme" (one could point to the rise and rise of hardcore pornography) or more accepting - one could say, expecting - of nude and semi-nude women in compromising positions.

It could be argued that porn on the internet is always going to be more reflective of the mainstream, but here's another argument - the standard BDSM aesthetic touted around is not so much a reaction or rebellion against vanilla sexuality and gender norms as logical conclusion of it. Let's take some examples - the standard expectation of "girl on girl" and the rejection of "boy on boy", the eroticised dress of the dominatrix as roughly similar to that of the submissive - revealing, figure hugging, with high heels, the high conformity to gender norms (and yes, I know that I might be adding to this through the Doll Project, though hope this works to explore and challenge the issue), the total lack of decent, sexy fetish clothing for men that don't make them look like a vinyl Count Dracula.

The important thing to recognise is that this is not female sexual empowerment. It's not anyone's sexual empowerment, if anything, it's a reduction, a weakening, a limitation. We need to challenge the stereotypes that exist within BDSM, not because I am looking to criticise sexual choice (and vanilla kink is a sexual choice, no matter how much we might look down our noses at it), but because I want to widen sexual choice. Next step is working out how.

Twenty four long hours

Dinner last night with the kinky ladies, Spiral, Painted Lady, Mrs Magpie and Majeste were all in attendance. We had a good catch up, mostly revolving around each other then, planning our next play day, and wondering how many other women we could invite to the party. We also balanced our diaries, and I was able to come away with a handful of exciting dates for the future.

I turned up a little stressed - running a late due to work and generally feeling somewhat behind the times due to my laptop dying over the weekend (I am still in mourning and have yet to be able to go shopping for a replacement - this will, after all, likely be the most significant relationship of my next three years). Fortunately, at least one thing was in place - what I needed to wear, and how I was to behave. Majeste, as a "taster" had requested a little bit of the doll. We were both concerned over being to overt about doing a scene or anything over dinner, so we settled on protocol. I asked for some rules of engagement, she sent them over:

I will wear heels
I will not touch, kiss or greet her on arrival
I can flirt with her during dinner
She will not flirt with me during dinner
I will wear something that is reminiscent of the Secretary Doll
I will drink what she drinks, what she orders or pours for me
I will sit across from her at dinner
I will walk behind her at all times

Rather than being stressful, they codified my behaviour, gave me limits in which to operate. What I was going to wear was decided for me, alongside other social interactions. My evening was made easier, simpler. It also gave me an opportunity to show off, to show what I was made of, at least. I like getting dressed up and being taken out, especially when, the next morning I get a flattering and complimentary email about my behaviour, a desire to fuck me with a fist full of lube, which gave me the usual fear/excitement I've come to associate with her. We're planning a classic date - dinner and a movie - and the soft kisses alongside stern rules received before leaving to catch the train home give me something contradictory to remember her by. I love pleasant contradictions.

Message from Captain once I'd landed back to head over to his to provide some lip service, so I grinned to myself and turned around to head out again, always happy to pick up some mid-week action. Which was not to be. Despite phone calls and angry buzzer pressing he'd managed to fall asleep between my setting off and arrival (next time I'm going to request he sends a car for me and that I have a set of keys). So it was home again, after hanging around in the cold waiting for a bus, heated with the rage of my internal fuming, as anyone who follows my Twitter will have noticed. Not made much more mollified by getting an apology phone call just as I was drifting off to sleep.

The morning found me distressed, still grumpy and very horny. Three orgasms later, the final one against the cold press of a glass dildo to compensate for my feelings of incompleteness and to enjoy the wet/smooth dynamic. I tried to work out what to do next. I knew, really, that it was an accident, but still felt let down by it. We had a few text exchanges in which I expressed displeasure and then I had a thought that made me smile. Homework for Dominants: something to make me feel better.

In this case, he came up with a kinky shopping and clubbing trip to Europe. And plenty of rubber. We then spent the rest of the day planning his future exploits in the blogosphere and things for his flatwarming, so all in all I feel like I'm in a whirlwind of BDSM. Which is no bad thing.

Comfort and sweet humiliation

Captain and I have been having a couple of discussions about humiliation play, and both coming to roughly the same conclusions. We like it, a lot. That uncomfortable, leg squirming rush of blood to the cheeks as someone tries to reconcile a socially unpalatable activity with hidden sexual desire. The coming-out of it. They way that embarrassment and arousal heighten each other: blushes of shame turning to flushes of excitement. I remember that images of humiliation were my earliest brushes with the erotic, the balance of revulsion, taboo and exhilaration.

What's harder, is actually doing it. The more play I explore, the less bothered I am about flouting convention, especially in my private play (public play is a little different). Humiliation, never particularly accessible, gets harder and harder to do as I don't generally get embarrassed. I get other responses, however. I certainly get the thrill and the excitement of crossing an invisible line, I also get a heightened sense of submission. Types of play normally associated with humiliation, make me feel more submissive because what I am doing is viewed in general as an act of degradation, or as being dehumanising - they take me out of being myself, and into the space where I am reminded of my submission, of my position as less-than. They also tend to enhance the sensation of control by forcing me to do something that is uncomfortable, difficult, nasty or just plain weird. Which is, of course, a double-edged thrill - I'm reminded that I'm controlled, and it's a control that it kinky.

Spending the night in adult nappies falls firmly into this category. The nappies themselves were of the deliberately bulky sort. Captain taped shut with gaffa tape, which I was sent downstairs to locate allowing me to experience just how hard is it to move when you've got a few inches of padding around your hips and between your legs. It was a little funny, a little silly but also made me feel looked after, attended to. It was a signal of the amount of control I had ceded, and in turn, the responsibility I no longer had. The nappy was both access-control, in an almost chastity belt way as well as management over my excretions. It also gave a certain amount of pressure on my cunt, as the padding pushed against me when I rolled over on to my side. That was very pleasant - a light reminder of how wet and turned on I was, which let me fall asleep in a turned-on haze, with his arm around me.

I certainly didn't feel humiliated or embarrassed by the process. I was excited and interested, as it was a new experience. I'm not sure whether I felt infantilised, although I did feel as if they marked me as unequal, as needing of care. But given that the care had been provided, I actually found it quite a sweet and comforting situation: one of my usual problems with being put to sleep in bondage is that I tend to need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, especially if I've been fucked hard or had a lengthy play session. The nappies were a form of bondage that resolved this issue and I slept very soundly - for whatever reason I actually didn't actually piss during the night, perhaps the simple fact that I could was enough to keep my bladder quiet. Handily, though, my period had started that evening so the pants were not left pristine but I think that the lack of genuine waste disappointed Captain somewhat and I got a murmur of "chicken" in the morning as he peeled off the pants to fuck me.

There was pleasure in that also - in how he had to remove the bindings to use me, like unlocking a cage or removing a gag. A reminder of his rights and privileges upon my body, and also a slight feeling of being a present unwrapped. What I thought was especially telling about the entire situation was that, whilst pressed face down under the duvet, he pushed my hand against my clit so I could play with myself whilst he fucked me and I came in under a minute. Significant in that it was the first orgasm I've had with him (always a bit of a hurdle for me) and perhaps as much reflective of the actions of the evening as much as the night before, but certainly a much needed release. Just not the one that the nappies were intended to deal with.

Breathe

Over time, the sort of play and interactions you have with a partner change. By and large, it moves in a slow process of getting used to each other's bodies and behaviours - as with any relationship, I suppose. But sometimes, I have an experience that I feel moves me on a definite step, and these often correlate with physical experiences that push me, where what is happening becomes very difficult, and I have trouble with what I am doing, with what is being done to me. Getting to that stage and getting through it is very powerful. Last night was like that.

Now, I'm shattered, completely knackered and mostly I want to sleep, but I need to get this down right now before it falls through my fingers - already my brain is very mushy and finding it hard to recall exactly what happened when and how it felt. I've got that quiet, calm and emptied out feeling, a little like a chemical hangover, but without the sickness or the drop. Wiped clean. I've also got the physical reminders - my nipples are very sore, there's a small bruise below my lower lip and red lines running along my right thigh. But they are lonely bright marks in a map that is fading by the second. And I don't want to lose the memory of this.

It started off easy. It usually does. The pleasure of stripping off and giving yourself over, like stepping into a warm bath. I'm naked and sat on a leather bench, arms crossed in front of me, below my breasts. Captain is wrapping strip after strip after strip of black, shiny pallet wrap around my chest. He's pulling it tight, at varying angles so that the pressure builds and doesn't let up. I start to feel slightly light headed as bands criss-cross around my shoulders and rib cage reducing the amount of air I can pull into my lungs. I try to take steady breaths. Keeping to a rhythm and calming myself that way, relaxing in to what he is doing. Because it is relaxing, initially. I love mummification, the way it can make my mind go utterly blank as soon as I shut my eyes and let myself go into myself. Which is what the cocoon does - there's nowhere to go, I can't do anything but just lie there.

This isn't a cocoon though, this is an iron vice, a static bear-hug that squeezes me hard. My upper body is covered, save for two gaps which force my breasts out through the tape. I imagine what they might look like, two small white and pink mounds, topped off with circles of metal.. He moves upwards, wrapping my neck and face tightly, leaving a slit against my lips to breathe through. With each inhalation I end up pull the plastic against my nose and further limiting my oxygen supply. I'm reduced to a small space in the blackness, concentrating hard on breathing. A pleasurable absence. He lifts my head and I feel the cushioned reassurance of a heavy collar locking in place. That changes things. I suddenly feel less like an emptied out thing, and more like a person, more like me. This is a little scary - the self-acknowledgement that I am a person, a feeling, thinking person, lifts me up and out of my reverie and into an appreciation for my position not as one of safety and deep, dark space, but as one of vulnerability. With the collar on I become his, certainly, and that's a good feeling but, like the doll he once made out of me, I'm a smooth, faceless, impassive manipulable surface that contains a sensitive, fragile body, along with my self and emotions. All wrapped up and unable to move. Just to experience whatever it is that he wants. I've given all that, all of me, over to him.

That's the first point when I started to get scared. At that moment, it was still the thrilling, uncertain adrenaline rush of wondering what was going to happen, of knowing there would be pain but really thinking about the pleasure. Of hoping to be fucked, toyed with, teased and used.

He picks me up and lays me down on my back, bending and binding my legs into a tight frog position, feet resting on each other, heels together below my open cunt. He lifts me up again, and I realise how immobile I am - I feel heavy, like a dead weight - I have no flexibility or control over my own position. He puts me down then secures my legs with rope, tying my thighs and feet tight to the bench. The pressure is quite intense now, starting to get painful aches of uncomfortably held positions, especially on a number of points where the rope cuts in. Whilst he's tying the cords, he lays a light cloth of some sort - I can't tell what - over my mouth and I'm shut off. I know that I can breathe through the fabric, so I'm able to quell my instant, panic response. But I can't breathe very well. I try to take it in my stride. Part of being a good girl, of trying to please him, is about taking what is handed out. If you can't take it with gratitude, keen and happy, then take it quietly and endure without being annoying. So I keep silently breathing. Waiting.

The next few minutes, and they can only have been minutes, I don't remember very well. They are a jumble of images, sensations and actions with no clear order to them, only that they kept on happening one after the other. The order that I'm writing is probably not the order in which they occurred - a lot was going on at the same time and my brain was not engaged in the act of noting them down precisely.

There were clover clamps on my nipples, which were held firm and pulled to tightness, like you would rein in a bucking horse. He slapped my cunt, in strong, repeated blows, increasing in force. It's a familiar action from him, something I expect but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Each time I think I can cope with it for longer, and each time I end up screaming before he stops. The first few blows are always exciting, pleasurable even in their intimate shock - blood rushes to the area and there's a part of me that recognises them as a precursor to fucking so I respond accordingly. He did fuck me, I remember he took my hand, after I'd pulled out of the plastic, and pressed it against his cock so I'd feel how hard (and how!) my struggles had made him. Mostly, I remember not being able to breathe. He kept stopping my breath. I don't remember how many times, but it is my enduring memory. At first, he used his hand, a finger and thumb clamped around my nose, holding me in and pushing down hard against my struggles.

This is what happens. At first, it's a nice feeling. His skin against my mouth, the excitement from being completely closed in. It's intimate, it's a game of trust and I like that. There's warmth, wetness and quiet as I am totally stopped up. Sealed. After a moment or so of enjoying this, I need to breathe, but I don't because I know I can't and also because I know I'm able to hold like this for a good few seconds. Calm, comfortable and confident in my ability to do so. I feel strong, secure, happy at being able to withstand and even enjoy this moment of submission. There's a buzzy high starting in my brain, and although I can still feel some of the ache in my legs, really my world is my mouth, nose and lungs. After a few moment more, I really need to breathe. There's a pressure growing in my mouth, throat, nose and lungs, it starts off like an acidic sensation, acrid and bad tasting. It's a pain that keeps going the longer I have to hold my breath. I've passed the point of doing this comfortably, I am now pushing myself to keep still, to take what he is doing to me even as I start to panic, realising that there is no give to this pressure. There is a burning heat in my lungs and no way to get it out of me. All of the muscles in my body start to clench with the effort of holding it in. And it is a holding in: even though what I most want to do is take in air, the act of breathing is an expansion of the chest so the sensation is horribly confused. I feel turned inside out. And all the time there is nowhere to go. I cannot do anything about it. I give in and start to struggle. I feel guilty about doing so - struggling is a failure on my part, a bad thing which demonstrates my weakness and my unworthiness. But I can't not. My body cannot take more of this and I'm deep in an animal response which desperately wants to claw out of these carefully made bindings and rip apart anything that stands between me and lungfuls of fresh, cool air. I thrash around, I scream and keep screaming. There's no rationality to what I'm doing. I know that my noises won't suddenly make him stop, I even know that the fact I'm still moving is a sign that I'm still alright, still able to take a little bit more. But I do it anyway. Because I literally cannot do anything other than this - the pain and pressure within me is driving me. The calm and control that I thought I had is long since lost, there is just internal agony and a blinding desire to breathe.

He lets go. I inhale, hugely. Oxygen is pure relief. I shake and gasp lungfuls of air as hard as I can manage.

He fucks me for a while then goes back to hitting me, or to pulling on the clamps. To stopping my breath. He takes a strip of plastic and tapes my mouth shut. Each time he stops my breathing it's harder, because I'm more tired, because I'm still reeling from the last time, because I am getting more scared and because I know that when I think I want to stop is never, ever when he will think I am ready to stop. The tape is over my mouth forever. I am a disorder of violent fear, of panicked confusion. I can't breathe. I really can't breathe and I'm in pure agony - part of me hoping that I will pass out but for some reason I'm still conscious. My screams are coming out of a raw throat, an aching chest. They do me no good because they use up air and energy but they are all I've got and the pain and panic has to go somewhere. My thrashes are huge now, erratic, wilder and without even the glimmer of trying to lie still and be a good submissive. Fuck that noise. I need to breathe. I know I'm fighting back, I know I've let him down but I need to breathe. My arms are slippery with sweat under the plastic and I can work a hand free to reach for the tape. He stops my hand and for a split second I let him, out of habit, out of hope that by doing this one last thing he will let me breathe. He doesn't. I press my fingers against the tape and cry out that I just can't do it any more. I've given up. I'm part sobbing, part sucking up air and all of me is in some kind of despair. I start to apologise, immediately, as he begins to remove the tape, the rope, the collar.

I feel awful. Misery washes over me as I hold myself in painful stillness - all of the deep aches in my legs return as he slowly peels off each bit of tape, cutting me free for what seems like eternity. I'm silent. I think that I should go home, and hide myself away for a while, until I'm worth all of this time and effort. I didn't manage to do it. I called out. Then, I'm surprised. He reaches his arms out to help me sit up and lets me fold myself against him. I rest my face against his chest and sob some little apologies into his skin. He strokes me hair, tells me that it's ok, that I'm a good girl and that he wanted to push me, that it was a hard thing to do and that he's happy with me. Relief floods over me as blood starts to return to my legs. I keep holding him tight, not wanting to let go. It's such a strange moment, to know that what you thought was weakness, giving up, was also a climax, an expected and desired result. That by trying and failing you have done well. It's akin to having those ugly parts of you admired. The things we are ashamed about lauded. It raises all of you up, realising that the time you thought yourself at your worst, you were not.

The body beautiful

Today, I'm going to write about my body, my self and my submission and how the three are interconnected. I've been meaning to write a post about physicality and identity for a while but have merely succeeded in tying myself up in intellectual knots over socially-constructed gender, whether I'm wearing heels or not and sexual representations of women in the media. I've decided to take a big breath, a step back and go to the basics.

My body. I like my body. Some days I love it. Rarely, I hate it and it annoys me. It's not been an easy journey to be able to say that with any honesty. As a teenager I had on/off issues with eating and weight, which were fundamentally about personal control and anxiety over my place in the world. By managing my body, I gained greater control and confidence in myself and my ability to navigate the universe. These things are still true, I just now do them in different ways. Back then, the goal was to be thin. As thin as possible. To be invisible, would be ideal. And to have controlled myself into that invisibility - into silent absence. An erosion of my body, my self and my personality in other words.

Now, it's more about making my body "better", self improvement. I am my own project. Being healthier, stronger, fitter. Having smoother, softer skin. Minimizing fuzz. I accept that, on some level, I am still changing my natural body shape to suit certain conventional standards of beauty, but on the other, I am not. I am not trying to turn myself into a cookie-cutter expression of porn star proportions (I'd need a boob job for a start, and to grow my hair). I occasionally get comments about looking "boyish" which I quite like. My body is female and I love having breasts, a cunt, those smooth lines, but I also love muscle definition, strength, edges. Part of what I'm doing with my body is using it to become more like me and I am not especially feminine all of the time, so I like having a physicality that allows me to play with that. Play is important to me. Playing with my identity, playing with how others perceive me. We all express ourselves to the world using our bodies - how we move, talk, dress and behave all send our signals to others about ourselves. By acts like the Doll Project I can use my body to put on different identities, each of which allow me to play with others in different ways and, crucially, have a lot of fun.

There's also a lot about the enjoyment of my body - I love having smooth skin that is soft to touch, soft for others to touch. Keeping my cunt waxed is a good example - the hairlessness is an aesthetic I enjoy, partly because of the doll-like factor but also because it makes me feel chameleonic, able to play with and adopt different roles by adding them onto this blank slate palate. It also feels good - I have extra sensation, better feedback from my fingertips when masturbating, more awareness of my cunt and my desire. I'm wetter too, or have more appreciation of that wetness. My body and the shape I have made it into connects me to my own sexuality. And to my own submission.

My body is the first thing I offer up. My submission comes second. My self comes last. This isn't a hierarchy of importance or value, it's just how the process works for me. Moreover the three are not replacements for each other, but overlaid. The most basic interactions are at the level of the body. Touching. Feeling. Fucking. Pain. What a classical BDSM lexicon might call "bottoming", doing it for the sensation of the thing, not really for anything else. Responses garnered are my body's knee-jerk reactions to the physical input only. Getting deeper is better, which isn't just about racking up the impact, and in fact, in many instances that will just turn me off. Just pain is just pain. Without any connection between what is being done and why, there is very little to keep me interested if the situation is actually difficult. What I need at this level, is for someone to play with my brain, to interact with me directly, and not just my body. With that, you get submission.

When I submit, I begin to rely on you, in a capacity beyond physical care of my skin and bones and letting you into other bits of me. The parts of me that want to please, the parts of me that want to be better, that desire praise and support, or punishment and catharsis. This is the bread and butter of where I play, my body becomes a battleground of will, a presentation of beauty, a servant, a host, a channel for desire, a toy, a game. It opens up to so many more possibilities because of the new context in which it occurs. These stoke the fires of my synapses, increasing desire and engagement in the physical process. Because there is a reason, a goal, a greater will than satisfying physical pleasure, there's now psychological pleasure. And pressures too.

Finally, there's my self. My me.The real stuff that's warts and all. It's been a long time since I've engaged on this level and I'm still not really ready to, although I am beginning to feel as if I haven't entirely abandonned it as a possibility for the future. This is a life pursuit, a situation that needs love, commitment and mutual support to start to flourish. Here we deal with genuine fears, gut wrenching desires. The stuff of hopes and dreams. Whereas submission consists of my body and mind acting in accord with constructed contexts of the moment, here, the contexts are real and ongoing. It's more than the physical interaction in which I make you come, you makes me come. More too, than the submission where I make myself happy by pleasing you, then going home and forgetting about it until the next time. In the final stage, the stage of the self, I'm always yours, there's a part of me that I've given over. Like my heart when I fall in love. With it comes everything and I make myself extremely vulnerable and open. By this stage, I'm not playing with my body any more and neither are you. We're making it real. And beautiful.

Evolutionary Psychology Bullshit Bingo

I was very amused to find this chart on the internet today, which highlights some of the issues I'm dealing with at the moment. My current reading list contains a lot of gender theory and I often feel as if I'm slamming my head against the wall over wrong-headed Darwinism. There are a couple of books that manage to debunk a lot of dreadful gender myths masquerading as Science - Walters Living Dolls is a very good example - however there are many, many others that continue perpetrating the illusion that because certain patterns of behaviour have been observed in particular studies, we must have evolved "naturally" that way. Rather than, say, been immersed in a culture that teaches us to conform to certain tropes.

A great example is colour preference. Girls prefer pink, we often hear. Because they have evolved that way in order to forage for berries. It takes a little while to unpick that sentence and see it for quite as ridiculous as it really is, because we hear it so often it has become a truism. Women "naturally" like pink. Our genes tell us to like the colour pink. Really? Even though this desire for pink is a relatively recent thing - until a hundred years or so ago pink was a "masculine" colour, because it was watered down red, and blue was really the better colour for little girls. Even though a great array of forest fruit is not, in fact red. Could it be that women show a preference for pink because we surround them with pink from birth and it is the foremost colour used to demonstrate femininity which is a behaviour pattern positively reinforced in females?

Even assuming that the science behind the studies is good and correct (not often the case, given tiny sample sizes and badly planned experiments which can give awfully skewed results) It's one thing to report the results of a study, it's quite another to draw the conclusion that because it exists in the population it must be inherent in our genes.

There's a terrible fixation with expressing everything to do with gender as inherent, built-in and pre-programmed. Which then leads on to the idea that gender is something fixed and immutable that we are born with, rather than a set of values that we have been taught from birth. The problem with the former, aside from the fact that it is wrong, is that it puts us all into boxes from which there is no escape. Worse still, all of our identity and behaviour is already a given, we cannot be anything but what we are programmed to be. Little pink and blue robots living little pink and blue lives. If we are born male, we can only behave in a masculine manner. We wear trousers because our genes tell us to, and cut our hair short, and never wear high heels (or if we do, we are effeminate and probably have some sort of genetic or psychological disorder to account for this "unnaturalness").

There comes a time when we need to accept that whilst our biology might have gifted us with particular sorts of bodies we are greater than the sum of our hormones, our muscle mass, our body fat ratio. Now would be good.

Standing room only

I'm hanging in suspension, I feel like I'm floating. The connection points are around my chest, thighs and ankles. The tight fitting leather hood blinds me and I'm disorientated by the time Captain has spun me round once or twice, unsure where my centre of gravity is, precisely, especially when my head hangs down and I feel as if I'm descending, face first into free-fall. I know that I am not, but the endless blackness in front of my eyes and the slow twirl of my body in space gives me a confused sense of motion. I'm already a little scared and shaken, left to wait for him, hooded and tied to the ring on the cross beam, whilst heavy thuds echoed around the space. I'm not used to the sounds in the new studio and everything is loud and reverberates. Metal clangs against metal. I can't work out what is going to happen and I start to worry.

He returns and fucks me, hard, grabbing at my breasts and hips, moving me around for better angles. I can do nothing but be open for him. There is a frustration in not being able to respond to him, beyond the clenching of the muscles of my cunt and later arse around his cock. I can't thrust back, can't serve him, can only hang there. There is no reciprocation, I am a channel only. A set of holes. He whispers that in my ear and the connection between his voice, his vocalisation of my predicament and the position itself is powerful. In the darkness, used, he makes me his.

After a while, he drops me down, tying me down to the foot of the bed, bent forward, legs splayed, continuing to fuck me. My hips slamming against the metal bed posts with each thrust have given me two matching bruises this morning. I moan and try to reach out towards him, instinctively, but my movements are limited. He stops, abruptly and pulls out to slap my cunt with an open palm, I yelp. It's a blunt, exposed pain, revealing my vulnerability in more ways than one, there's also the shock value of going from the deep, submissive pleasure of being fucked to being hurt in the same place. He keeps hitting me and the waves of pain make me buck, growl and rise up, in a panic to escape, lifting the edge of the bed with me until he pushes me back down, returning to fuck me. I move between trying to take the pain and trying to fight it as I work my way through the feelings. Neither makes any difference to what he is doing and he continues alternating in this fashion, using my cunt however he likes until, eventually, he stops and unties me, dropping me to the floor and unpeeling the panel from my mouth so I can suck his cock.

The hood laced around my face has no nose holes. I can't breath. The air that I manage to get is re-circulated, inflating the hood as I do so, getting less and less oxygenated with each cycle. I can feel myself starting to get light headed, but I don't want to stop, to pull away from him so I force myself to continue, lungs burning, fingers scratching against my thighs in diversionary tactics - sharp pain and adrenaline bursts to try and keep me going. Eventually I have to stop, pulling away in a huge gasp like a swimmer breaking the waterline. I get a couple of pained breaths and then he presses back against me.

The guilt at having to pause shames me, makes me wish I could have done more, held on for longer. I dread that moment of failure, that point where his pleasure is interrupted because of the weakness of my body. Yet at the same time it is also forms part of the bedrock of my submission: I like being pushed, tested and for that you need to go to the edges of where you can go and further. I submit to something difficult, something hard, perhaps even too hard which that means that I will eventually fail. This failure makes me initially feel small, inferior and I have to build myself up to try again, to do better and face harder challenges. Submission makes me stronger.

Like this. Later on. I'm stood on my tip toes. Teetering on the edges of them, actually, about as far as I can manage. And it's not quite far enough. Every little stumble, twitch of calf or attempt to readjust my weight causes me pain because there's a rope looped between my legs and into the hoop above, forcing me to stand like this. The rope is tight against my cunt which is already sore and wet from earlier and my arms are tied behind my back, around the elbows. I'm still in the hood, and he's bid me good night. I hear the rustling of a duvet and wish I was lying there, wrapped around him, instead of in my own little, twisting dance of discomfort. Predicament bondage lets you make your own pain, within the limits of rope you have been given. I can choose to ease off on my legs and send shooting arrows of hot pain through my cunt, or hoist myself as high as I can go and let my limbs take the strain, muscles tensing as I take little steps this way and that. At first, I try to keep still, to stand as tall as possible and reduce the pain that way, doing my best to be "good" which in this case I've inferred means being quiet. After all, he may be really trying to sleep. Though I hope not. Neither way works. My legs start to throb and the effort of moving from one painful position to the other is tiring and does not help me. The more I move, the harder it is to return to a different position. Parts of me are wearing out. I whimper. A sudden noise in the emptiness, a little groan attempting to attract attention. Making noise is also soothing, it allows me to express and relieve (in a certain sense) the pain I'm feeling, which isn't precisely pain at all by this point. It is discomfort. I am not comfortable. I am, however, very sore and with no way of not being sore or knowing when I will be released. Eventually, I go quiet again, my torso hanging limply on top of hard, aching legs, which twitch and grumble their displeasure. My cunt is getting numb and I can press more and more weight into it, lowering my slumping self nearer the ground.

When he unties me, I fall against him with relief. In silence, barring a whispered "thank-you" that probably doesn't express the extent of my gratitude through my weariness. I just wrap my arms around him and let him untangle me and put me to bed. Lost for words.

Teaching and showing

A lot of the time, when I'm watching a performance on stage, my instinctive reaction is "I'd rather be up there, being watched." Last night was one of the rare, other occasions. I'd had a really good day at the somewhat clunkily titled London Festival of the Art of Japanese Rope Bondage (I'd have shortened, that, personally). Hedwig and I got up at an unpleasantly early hour to attend a class by Kinoko Hajime, which was something we'd both been looking forward to for quite a while. He showed us two different, very complex and beautiful ties, and then demonstrated a lotus suspension position. He was focused on getting us to be able to emulate the final product, rather than a lot of theory or esoteric considerations of what shibari meant and shibari culture and so forth - I hadn't been sure what sort of class it was going to be, but it was fortunately very practical. Concern was given to the aesthetic - the best places to add on extra rope, how to avoid those nasty little end pieces ruining the effect of the whole, the right symmetry and tautness to create the final effect. Aside from the complexity of the pieces, there were a couple of things that struck me as being different. The ties that he did were flowing pieces, with additional rope added on to the original, so that the whole was formed from one, continuous line. Bands around the chest were done in fours, rather than the double width of rope I'd been used to, which gave an extra sense of security. Hedwig learnt a lot more than I did - I just enjoyed the sensation.

That was the morning. In the evening. It was a good night, I was able to catch up with a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while, including Shuttered Lens: we talked at length about pain, and I'm hoping to get some time in with him to work on my pain acceptance / enjoyment and the words used to describe it. There were also performance, including from our tutor of earlier in the day. I was busy having had a lot of fun being prodded with chopsticks, then used as a suspended sushi table, especially as it was something I've always wanted to do and involved having two people tie me up, which is always a fun experience. By the time I was unknotted and had removed wasabi from my belly-button, both he and his partner were in traditional kimono on the main stage. He was stripped to the waist with a look of hardened concentration, far removed from the chirpy, trendy youth of the morning.

She was also semi-naked, with a splatter of what I initially thought was blood, but turned out to be red wax on her shoulder and breast. She was in an intricate breast harness, kneeling on the floor, looking down. She looked tiny, delicate and vulnerable. He tied in smooth, extended strokes, wasting no energy. He wasn't super-fast, but he was efficient, each movement was intended to cause an effect. He moved her through a variety of positions, pausing after each one to deliver a particular sensation - wax from a candle, a beating from a bunch of thin canes, heavy blows from a wet piece of cloth. The latter caused a lot of wincing from the audience. I smiled as he poured it onto his open palm before letting it flow through his fingers and onto her back, this had the wonderful effect of making him appear controlled and caring, whilst also, through her twitches and little yelps, showing his own pain resistance and hence, strength and more control. The thick, red wax candles were later slotted into different parts of the rope suspension, making a beautiful candelabra that made me wish they'd dim the lights in the club, as well as continuing the squeals from the dripping wax.

There was an obvious intimate connection between the two (I'd assumed they were partners, from her appearance at the class this morning) but it was very precisely done, he was absolutely dominant, she was absolutely submissive. I don't believe I caught a single glance between them, not even when he took her by the head and kissed her forehead. It was beautiful to watch and had a certain passion but it also made me feel a little conflicted. The one thing that has often struck me about the more traditional shibari models is their extreme passivity, and the same was true here. She was a doll, certainly. Beautiful, small but with full breasts and smooth, perfect skin. She was also relatively inert: the only responses given were to the pain received. It was strange to watch and I had mixed reactions to it. On the one hand I was drawn to her puppet-like behaviour, the way that the rope drew a line for her to follow, I was also impressed by her ability to retain the positions and stay so quiet. And of course, I can empathise with that sort of behaviour, the deep, dark space to lie in and be calm, to absorb all that you are given and be held by safe, cruel hands. Yet, it was also very different to how I perform (and perhaps the simple answer to this is that we just do it in different ways and certainly I know myself to be entirely inappropriate for classic shibari work), she never looked at the audience, only a small peek when she finally took a bow to massive applause, there was none of the interplay between performer and watchers. There was a bare minimum of interaction from him, thinking about it. Although obviously the scene was set and staged for our benefit, we were not involved, we were watchers drawn in only by our own minds and desires, held back by the awe and rapture exerted by the strange power of it all, by the way both of them were caught up in what they were doing, which in turn caught us up in watching it.

It would be very interesting to try that private, removed style of performance the next time I do something public. It was a lot more like the kind of play I would do at home, where I am not caught up in the buzz of exhibitionism. In some ways, it struck me that it would be like pretending to wear a mask or a blindfold, that cutting yourself off from the world that generates a certain sort of space. And, of course, being a candelabra is now on my to-do list, especially now that I've satisfied (or at least confirmed as being a hot thing to do) the urge to be a table for diners enjoyment.

Open

Captain and I managed to meet up last night for some much-needed mutual stress relief. I am always amazed how good the world looks on the other side of a decent fuck: I'm grinning and swaggering down the road in yesterday's clothes with some new red marks on my wrists. The world exploded in springtime pathetic fallacy, skies going from the rainclouds of twenty-four hours earlier to sunshine, blue overhead and pink cherry blossom lined roads. Not trying to suggest that the power of my sexuality has weather changing properties, but that with one thing and another, the world is looking like a better place. Captain is onboard with attempting a D/s scenario that suits us both and takes into account schedules and the mutual desire for both of us to play with other people.

And I have content. Am content. Good thoughts of last night.

I take my clothes off and lie face down on the bed as instructed. I rest my head on my crossed arms, smelling clean sheets. I close my eyes. I often prefer not to see what's going on, enjoying not-knowing, the tang of anticipation. Absorbing it all. He fits a metal spider gag in my mouth, there's the sharp taste of steel, the pleasing sensation of being strapped in. I play with it a little with my tongue and teeth, experimenting with how much space I can occupy, what is open and what is closed. To me and to him. Obviously, I can't close my mouth, but the gag is not especially wide and fairly comfortable, I still have a lot of movement with my lips and jaw. I rest my head back on my arms and wait for the first drops of saliva. Relishing it when it comes, those cold gobbets of myself, falling out of my control. I love that moment, like a small release of self.

His body presses on mine. He's clothed, smelling as much of cotton as the sheets. Hands run over me whilst he does this, smooth over my skin, my bottom, legs, shoulders. A pause to grab my breasts and press against the piercings. I wriggle a little, contentedly, it feels good to be touched. To be taken. Rope goes around my ankles, and my legs are bent towards my head, the rope pulled taut and bound at the top of the bed at a bit of an angle. Rope too, around my wrists, wound around several times to form secure bonds then my arms are stretched back behind me, tied off at the foot of the bed. I'm splayed out, cunt open, back arched, bottom raised a little to compensate for the pull on my limbs. I hear the rustle of plastic, and rubber-coated fingers press into my cunt, I push back against them, eager for the sensation. He plays with my clit for a moment or so and I moan gratefully, before pausing to spit on my arsehole, then rub the moisture in with cunt-lubed fingers. It's a hotter, tighter feeling, but no less needed. The spit sends a shudder through me, as practical as it is dehumanising, a bit rough and ready, without fuss.

Which is how he fucks me. Cunt first, pressing deep so I gasp, quiet first, then louder yelps as he takes what he wants, as much as he wants. And I want him so much for it. A pause whilst he pulls out. His cock pushes against my arsehole and he whispers a warning in my ear before fucking hard. I shriek, loving the intensity, the force of him, relishing the deep, broad notes of pain, of pleasure of pain that becomes pleasure and vice-versa. After a while, he stops. Moves away.

A smell fills the air, menthol. I open one eye, curious. A tube of deep heat. Then I start to worry. He presses something hard and rubber inside my arse. I don't feel the cream instantly, it takes a moment or two, and I'm distracted by the inflation of the plug penetrating me. The pleasant sensation of fullness starts to become uncomfortable, swollen, unnatural. Then the spreading warmth. That curious cold heat of menthol. It's just on the good side of stinging, like into a too-hot bath, or a spicy curry - an intensity that raises the stakes without really causing pain. I settle into it. He turns off the lights. I wait in the dark.

I imagine myself being found like this, constrained yet exposed. In the middle of use, but left for whatever reason. An unattended object, waiting to be fucked. I smile, crooked against the gag. The lights go on and he comes around to my face, pushing his cock into my open mouth. I suck and lick him contentedly, happy to please, an oral thank-you. Another hole filled. Another wedge of satisfaction. A bit more fucked. He moves back to my cunt, using me until he comes, then wrapping his arms around me, done. I mumble a "thank you" through my open mouth, another grin.