Saturday, October 4, 2008

Safely fucking anonymous johns with inspiration from TCP/IP

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM techniques, Bisexuality, Communication, D/s dynamics, Fantasy, Male sexuality, Professional BDSM, Sex, Technology

I can still remember the day when Eileen said to me, somewhat dismayed, “Sometimes it feels like every kinky girl who’s even close to being classically attractive decides to become a pro-domme sooner or later. Why am I the only one who doesn’t?” And of course, when she was offered a job as a pro-domme at Rapture she naturally briefly considered the opportunity. I mean, why wouldn’t she? I would have considered it if I were in her shoes, and I would have done so for a number of reasons.

The most interesting reason why I would have considered it, though, is because the thought of being a sex worker (and a sex worker is what a pro-domme is) feeds a fantasy of mine: sexual expression in exchange for money. The thought of having sex with or—even hotter—to be made to have sex with people I didn’t really know very well has long been an undeniably arousing thought. That fantasy is, to this day, one of the very few role play scenarios I can somewhat comfortably get invested in. I vividly remember the pounding of my own arousal the night Eileen came home with her half of the month’s rent in cash, pushed me onto the floor, tied me up, fucked me with a knife at my throat, and then threw the cash in my face.

Like most fantasies, the fantasy itself would probably be very different from the reality of the situation. Getting tied up in someone’s home who I didn’t know just so that I could make a few bucks is so ridiculously unsafe that I’ve purposefully avoided even getting near the possibility of doing it. Nevertheless, this sex-for-money fantasy is a rather frequent one for me, and in fact it’s pretty common among others, too. I think it’s so strongly rooted in the sexual psyches of so many people that it’s one of the most common reasons why I see bottom-ish and submissive-leaning women become sex workers, such as pro-dommes.

But that’s not what this post is about. (I could talk about inverted power dynamics of (many) pro-domme and client relationships for ages, but I won’t since there are lots of places where that’s discussed already.) This post is about the idea of the sex-for-money fantasy in general, what makes it hot for me, and some (geek-inspired) ideas I have about how to go about realizing it safely.

Perhaps it was Tristan Taormino who best explains why the sex-for-money fantasy is so hot. She recently wrote this in the Village Voice about the brothel-themed sex room at Dark Odyssey, affectionately known as “sex camp” among the attendees.

People don’t tire of the sex-for-money fantasy. Actually, there is no one fantasy, but multiple scenarios, dynamics, and roles possible within the brothel setting. I talked to a bunch of this year’s whores (who included men, women, transfolk, and cross-dressers) about what they got out of their experiences. Some said they like being a whore because it’s taboo, naughty, and transgressive; the fact that it’s illegal prevents them from pursuing it in real life. For others, being a sex worker is a longtime fantasy[…].

Playing this role can trigger other turn-ons, like having sex with strangers, no strings attached, and no pretense of romance.

[…]

A sex-worker fantasy can also fulfill a desire to be used for sex, objectified, forced, pimped out, or made to perform. Many of the whores had pimps who collected their money or made them work. There are so many power dynamics to play with. “I am turned on by the power exchange involved,” explained Ellie, a phone-sex operator in real life who’s never done sex work with physical contact. “To some extent, the worker is fully in control of the sexual encounter and can create seemingly arbitrary boundaries or limits without being expected to explain them to a partner. On the other hand, the worker is acting in service to the client, and is expected to please and satisfy them. The tension between the dominant and submissive roles in these sorts of exchanges is interesting to me.”

These excerpts showcase a couple of points. First, it confirms (yet again) that different people have the same sorts of fantasies due to a variety of different motivations. Second, when Tristan mentions that playing the role of a whore can trigger other turn-ons, she’s talking about how enacting one fantasy be a catalyst that often fulfills multiple impulses at the same time.

For me personally, ultimately the fantasy of sex for money boils down to expressions of control, just as most other fantasies do. Fantasizing about whoring is about my desire to be objectified, pimped out, and made to perform, to use Tristan’s words. Now, these aren’t things that I necessarily find directly pleasurable—theoretically I could be made to do something I didn’t really want to do—but it’s not always direct pleasure I’m after. Rather, it’s the derived pleasure I get by being controlled by my “pimp” that I find so hot, even and sometimes especially if that exertion of control is tormenting me.

While at times these desires manifest in a prostitution fantasy, at other times they fit nicely into slave, harem, or even prisoner fantasies. In some of the more extreme ones, I’m made to perform not merely for my livelihood, but for my very life. This can be very intense, but that’s because it’s this intensity of control that I lust for.

Of course, realizing such intensity in reality just isn’t practically safe. Moreover, if any of the life-or-death fantasies were to become real, they’d pretty much have to be one-offs for the obvious and very unsexy mortality issue; sometimes in my fantasies I’m killed, but that’s only sexy in the fantasy, not reality. In no way do I actually want to be in an unsafe life-threatening situation like that, and it’s a fact that there are enormous risks associated with thoughtlessly enacting these sorts of fantasies in real life.

This brings me back to the first part of the title of this post: barring one’s attendance at an event such as Dark Odyssey—which I am even more intent on attending after reading Tristan’s article about it than I already was—how can one go about experiencing the thrill, nervousness, and excitement of this fantasy in a way that isn’t insanely unsafe? As it turns out, some of the best advice I’ve found on this topic came from one of Dan Savage’s Savage Love articles, in which he writes to a bisexual man who has similar fantasies as I do. (No, it wasn’t me writing in!) Dan said:

[T]he only way to safely realize this fantasy […] is by sharing it with your most adventurous [Friend With Benefits] and enlisting his help. After you tell all, ask your FWB if he would be willing to facilitate the realization of this sexual fantasy. In other words, ask him to pimp your ass out. It would be his job to find and recruit a guy you don’t know, a guy who’s trustworthy and safe but just a little freaky, a guy that he knows you would find attractive. Then your FWB/pimp tells you what corner you need stand on what night and you wait there until your pre-screened, pre-selected john drives up and rolls down his window. Be his ho, be safe (the real pros all use condoms), get paid, and run home to your pimp and hand the money over to him. Everybody wins.

I think this is sound advice, but it could be better, which is where the second (nerdier) part of the title of this post comes into play. What Dan’s advice is missing is a certain measure of protection against selective forgery attacks.

What I mean is that if I were to follow Dan’s advice to the letter there’s no way for me to be assured that the john who drives up to me and rolls down his (or her; women aren’t always relegated to the prostitute’s role in my fantasies!) window is the same john that my partner had selected for me ahead of time. Although this may be perfectly acceptable for some people, while the excitement of the fantasy would certainly be heart-pumpingly, penis-hardeningly awesome, without this added level of assurance obsessively detailed people like me would still feel an unacceptable twinge of apprehension.

Therefore, after reading Dan’s advice, I came up with a way to ascertain that the john who might (theoretically…) roll down his window in front of my slutty ass standing on the street corner was, in fact, the pre-selected person while still maintaining the fantasy’s mirage of anonymity. Since I’m an utter nerd, the inspiration of the solution came from the TCP computer networking protocol.

Here’s how the revised scenario would play out. For the purposes of this example, I’ll call my john, well, John, and we’ll assume that Eileen is my pimp (because that would be hot).

  1. After discussing this fantasy and building up the courage to actually follow through with it, Eileen would search for and pre-screen a john for me. She picks “John” and she tells me to go stand on a specific street corner at a specific date and time. She also tells me to expect a specific pick-up phrase, for instance, “Hey, pretty boy. How much for a fierce ride?” The phrase is specific enough so that it’s unlikely to be typical (but really, I have no idea what a typical line to pick up a prostitute would be). Finally, she also picks a specific amount of money that I should be whoring myself out for. (After all, she knows how much my ass is worth on the streets.)
  2. I wait at the appointed place at the appointed time (possibly wearing the appointed slutty outfit) and when John rolls his window down, I listen for the pre-scripted phrase. This step is analogous to the TCP SYN packet that computers send to initiate a connection. It’s useful because at this point I’d know whether or not this john is really my John.
  3. Assuming the phrase I hear is correct, even though I know who he is, he still doesn’t know if I’m his pre-selected ho for the night (though I suppose he could be given a picture ahead of time) so now he waits for me to respond with another, pre-scripted statement. Furthermore, this gives me the opportunity to bail if I needed to for whatever reason. If I decide not to bail, my pre-scripted response, maybe something like, “For you I could be $75. $50 if you only want my mouth,” is analogous to the SYN/ACK packet used to acknowledge a successful connection.
  4. At this point, everything is set up and we’re both reasonably confident things are going as planned, so one last pre-scripted response (“I’ve got $150, so I want all your holes, and more than once. Get in.”) from him could be used to signal the end of the pick-up precautions and start the scene, which is analogous to the final ACK in the TCP connection establishment phase.

In computing, this is known as a three-way handshake. Its purpose is to initiate a connection between two parties, and because there is a round-trip before a connection is formally established, it’s resistant to spoofing. That’s exactly the protection which is needed in any fantasy involving sex with so-called “strangers,” so it seems to me as though something like this, which could be thought of as an extension on the concept of safe-words, is just what the doctorpimp ordered.

Then, hopefully, this mysterious stranger, who would appreciate me in all my sexy nerdy glory, would proceed to treat me like the slut I am, and we’d go to a cheap motel and fuck like bunnies.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Top Ten Tips for Long-Term Male Chastity Device Wear

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM techniques, Beginner BDSM, Chastity/Orgasm denial, D/s dynamics, Fetish, Male sexuality, Myths and misconceptions, Sexual teasing and control, Training/Conditioning

I’ve had a number of what I’d consider relatively long-term experiences with the CB-3000 (which I think is safe to say is the most popular male chastity device available today). I’ve been able to wear the chastity device for several weeks with no problems, almost 24/7. However, that success did not come easy (no pun intended) and annoyingly, very little if any of what I know now came from the page of (really pathetic) instructions shipped with the product itself.

So, since this is the sort of stuff I see asked time and time again on newsgroups and forums and the like dedicated to male chastity, I figured I’d share a top ten list of things I’ve learned. Lots of these things are probably not sexy, so if you came to read some erotica you’re probably looking for Tom Allen’s hawt chastity porn instead. (Or maybe “Real Ultimate Male Chastity”?) These aren’t in any particular order, though, they’re just noteworthy.

Also, of course, the standard caveats of Your Mileage May Vary apply. These are just things that work for me and are thus naturally untested on anyone else. (Though that lack of testing on anyone else is mostly only due to a lack of opportunity. Are there any volunteers who want to give enforced chastity a try with Eileen and I?). ;)

1. Cotton swabs (aka Q-Tips) are your friends

I’m a really, really big fan of cotton swabs for lots of reasons, and one of them is their usefulness for hygienic purposes during a long-term chastity belt lock up. It probably seems obvious once you’re told, but lots of folks don’t realize that getting locked in a chastity device is a lot like wearing a rubber glove non-stop. That can get pretty messy and—worse—unhealthy, if you’re not careful about hygiene, so it’s important to be able to keep yourself clean.

Cotton swabs are one of the two essential tools used to clean one’s genitals when they’re all locked up. The CB-3000 and most other male chastity devices have some kind of small air holes big enough to stick the cotton swab in, roll it around and rub off any dirt, sweat, and general ickyness that may have accumulated in the device over the course of the day. They’re also helpful as a follow-up to using toilet paper to wipe down any urine remaining after peeing that has seeped towards the sides of the device, which is hard to get to with just toilet paper alone.

Unlike what you may have heard elsewhere, it’s a good idea to keep your genitals as dry as possible without drying out your skin. One way to help do this is to use cotton swabs to dry off the inside of the device as much as possible after taking showers, swimming, or otherwise wetting the device (such as, say, dripping lots of precum during a sexy scene where you remained locked). This is because in such a small and confined area, stagnant moisture like that is your skin’s worst enemy. This holds doubly true for people with especially sensitive skin (such as yours truly).

On the flip side, you may find yourself getting dry skin on occasion, such as what might happen if you over-wash with harsh soap. In these cases, put a drop of your favorite moisturizing cream on the tip of the cotton swab and apply it to your genitals. At first it might be hard to maneuver the cotton swab to the right places, but you’ll soon learn how to roll and twist it just right—well, right for cleaning, anyway. (I could never get enough stimulation this way for any pleasurable sensations.)

One last cotton-swab-related tip is that they are great indicators of how well you are doing hygiene-wise. Take a whiff of the tip of the cotton swab after rolling it over your genitals and you’ll quickly be able to determine whether or not you need a thorough cleaning. This may sound gross, but seriously, how often is your nose right up in some genitals anyway?

2. Strategically placed baby oil helps scrotum soreness, particularly at night

The single most difficult part of wearing the CB-3000 for me (and I imagine this would be the case for most trapped-ball devices), is the soreness it causes on my scrotum when I get involuntary erections at night. It’s a catch-22 because the device is designed not to let me orgasm and so I get hornier, which causes more involuntary erections which causes more soreness. When it’s real bad my ball sack gets red and painful and it becomes difficult to sleep comfortably because every way I turn I feel it being stretched.

It took a while to figure this out, but I realized that one of the most effective solutions is simply to rub a bit of baby oil or other absorbent cream (NOT LUBE! An exception is a thicker, water-based lube such as Babelube; just a little bit works like baby oil but stays on the skin longer. Thinner lubes like Astroglide that contain glycerin are too sticky for my tastes.) on the sore areas. In fact, doing this before bed (and after a cleaning) can even help prevent the soreness throughout the night. It works by helping the so-called A-ring (the cock-ring portion of the trapped ball device) slide more easily away from the body. If you’ve sized the device correctly, the ring is still snug enough that your testicles won’t be able to slip through, but when they get stretched due to your nightly erections (and they will), the ring won’t scrape your scrotum.

Note that doing this for your penis by placing baby oil or other moisturizers inside the tube portion of the device is a very bad idea. See tip number 1, above, for why.

3. Hygiene is easiest with a nozzle and high water pressure

Along with the cotton swab thing, I find that the other absolutely essential tool for hygienic long-term chastity device wear is a squeeze bottle with a nozzle small enough to maneuver just inside the holes of the device. I found one in the form of a hair dye developer bottle and it works wonders, but a specialized shower head can also do the trick. What you’re after is a high-pressure stream of water that you can aim with precision.

I put a drop of moisturizing body wash in the squeeze bottle, fill it with lukewarm water (or cold water if I’m all hard right then), shake it up a bit, and then squeeze the water into the CB through its various holes. Lather, rinse, repeat a few times, then lather, rinse and repeat some more without the soap. This pushes water and soap all the way through the tube and underneath the ring, cleaning both it and me. Couple this with the cotton swab tip for a decidedly thorough clean.

This tip along with number 1 is how it’s possible to stay so clean for so long without ever removing the device. And, yeah, that’s kind of a frightening thought…. Aren’t you glad I told you?

4. Body wash or other moisturizing soap is better than lube for application

It’s kind of hilarious, but for chastity fetishists such as myself, it’s actually very difficult to put a chastity device of any kind on! Why? Well, most chastity devices for men require you to apply them when you’re flaccid and, if you get turned on by the idea of wearing a chastity device, it’s very unlikely that putting a chastity device on is going to be a situation in which you are flaccid. As a result, it’s surprisingly difficult to get the tube over my penis in order to get the CB-3000 on me sometimes. I’m sure other men (and probably some women) have had this experience as well.

For some crazy reason, the manufacturers of the CB-3000 ship instructions that says using lube helps this. Well, it certainly makes you a bit more slippery, but lube is not a good idea because it’s sticky and it’s hard to wash off. Furthermore, many lubes contain glycerine, which is basically sugar, which in turn is basically like inviting a yeast farm into your privates. Yuck! Instead of lube use regular soap; it’s just as slippery, it’ll clean you while you’re putting it on (see tips 1 and 3), and it’s cheaper than lube.

Also, the penis is surprisingly malleable. I don’t even bother trying to “git it all in” on first application anymore, especially if I’m semi-erect while getting the device locked on. Instead, I just get it locked and take a shower to clean myself up. By the next time I’m ready to take a shower, I’ll have gotten flaccid enough to finish adjusting myself however I need to.

5. Press on to smaller sized rings, spacers for both security and comfort

The other major hurdle you need to get past when you first begin wearing trapped ball chastity devices like the CB-3000 is proper sizing. You want to find a fit that is snug when flaccid, yet not too restrictive when erect, and that is comfortable all the time. Without going into the merits of the CB3k’s security, suffice it to say that smaller rings and smaller spacers are “better” than larger ones.

I think it makes the most sense to start out with the largest ring that you can easily fit your index finger under, and one of the larger spacers. Wear that combination for a while, and decrease the size of the spacer ’til you hit the smallest one. If this combination is still comfortable for you, revert to the next-smallest ring, and up the spacer’s width. Keep going in this fashion until you reach a point where you can still push your index finger under the ring but just barely, and are using the smallest spacer you can handle. You’ll know if you can’t because your testicles will feel cold, look blue, and lack blood shortly after putting on the CB. This is a sign that there is not enough space between the ring and the tube for your testicles’ blood vessels to keep flowing smoothly and it is a very bad thing.

It’s also worth noting that I think it’s actually the size of the spacer that is the biggest boon to the security of the device, since it’s the spacer that determines how “tightly” the device grips your testicles.

In any event, it turns out that smaller rings which are more snug are actually also better for your comfort. The simple fact is that the larger the plastic thing between your legs is, the harder it is to wear pants with a smooth outline, or just sit down comfortably! The smaller rings are also lighter, which pull on you less, and are also easier to find suitable underwear for. So whenever you can, go for the smaller ring.

In case you’re interested, I currently wear the size 3 ring with the second-smallest spacer that came in the pack, but am considering trying the next smallest ring size soon.

6. Swap the default lock for a rubber-coated one to avoid pinching

Another of the annoyances I have with the original product is that it ships with a pokey metal Master-branded lock. I mean, the thing has edges and corners that, yes, may look cool but when you’re all bulging out of the top air holes can really pinch you hard. More than a few times I’ve even gotten a small cut from twisting the wrong way and having one of the four corners of the master lock dig into the uncovered bit of my penis.

The solution to this is to go to your local department or hardware store and find a lock of equal size that is rubber-coated. These rubber-coated locks also often have curved edges, which is even more helpful. They cost on the order of 5 to 10 dollars depending on the make and model and are just as effective as the factory’s master lock, but they don’t hurt when they poke you.

7. Trim pubic hair short for increased comfort, but do not shave to hairlessness

There’s a lot of fantasy material out there that suggests you should shave yourself hairless before putting on a CB-3000. OMG NO! This is a terrible idea. First, you’re about to make it much, much more difficult to keep yourself clean, you’re going to cause potential irritation to your pubic area already, and now you want to compound that challenge by shaving all your pubic hair off?

A word to the wise: when your hair starts to grow back you will be very itchy, probably irritated, and unless your stint in the chastity belt will be for a grand total of two days, you are most certainly going to stay locked up longer than it will take your hair to grow back. Quite simply, do not do this. It is dumb.

That said, it’s a surprisingly good idea to trim your pubic hair so that it is short. The reason is so that you avoid situations in which a single hair or two or three get caught in the CB and pull on you. This is not a major problem since you can just yank them out, but it hurts and gets annoying when it happens too often. By trimming your pubic hair short you simply avoid this in the same way that cutting your hair short makes it harder for people to pull your hair (which may or may not be what you want, I guess…).

My longest pubes are approximately a centimeter in length right now, and that’s plenty short for fantasy play as well as CB comfort. The easiest way to do this is to use an electric razor with a guard (without wearing the CB, of course, though it can technically be done with it on, too) and simply trim that way. It’s fast, easy, and lots of folks consider it sexy. :)

8. Do not avoid hydrating, not even before bed

This is kind of related to tip number 2, because there’s this myth that it’s a good idea not to drink too much before you go to bed so as to avoid a possibly painful erection during the night. This is stupid. Why? Because it’s never a good idea to avoid hydrating your body. Your body needs water to survive, and peeing is a natural thing to do, even at night.

Further, I found that this doesn’t even work. Your body’s gonna want to go pee whether you drank water or not. It just might not pee as much. So instead of not drinking, I say drink all you want, as normal, and when you need to get up to go pee, go pee. If you’re having pain at night due to erections, it’s probably caused by soreness in your scrotum and you should take a look at tip number 2 to see how you can use something like baby oil to help ease that pain.

9. Tuck it in (like a drag queen) to keep your bulge from showing

Often times, people are frightened that the bulge from their chastity device is too noticeable under clothing. Obviously, one solution is to wear baggier clothes. This works, but is more like a work around than a solution, though it is a good one. Wearing a baggy swim suit, I’ve been able to go swimming at crowded beaches while all locked away without even getting a second glance. Nevertheless, I love wearing tight jeans, girl’s pants, and so forth, which are typically pretty form-fitting and thus not very CB-friendly.

Luckily, I can tuck my penis downwards and back between my legs to a certain degree and in many cases this helped reduce the bulge in my pants to nothing, depending on how severely I tucked. Drag queens are famous for doing this, but of course they (probably) don’t have unyielding metal and/or plastic between their legs to deal with. Since we do, things are a bit more difficult, but still possible.

Wearing the right kind of underwear can help you keep your chastity device-encased penis “tucked.” This is actually one reason why I wear certain kinds of thongs (sort of wide in front, thin in back) while locked up; they help press my penis to my body and avoid the bulge in my pants. The fact that they are also traditionally thought of as women’s underwear is kind of icing on the cake at that point. ;) Also, arguably even more effective than tight thongs are girls’ boyshorts panties.

10. Take it off if you’re not having at least a little bit of fun

This should go without saying, but it never does so I’m saying it. If wearing the chastity device becomes more trouble than it’s worth, take it off. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including sustaining an injury such as a patch of dry skin that needs healing, being unable to sleep due to pain or other problems, or even just because it’s not fun anymore.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a break for a while, and in fact I found it was necessary for me to adjust to wearing the CB long-term over a period of time, gradually building up the amount of time I would spend in the device over each round, as well as shortening how long I would spend out of it at the end of each round. It took no less time than a full month of trial and effort for me to be able to spend 5 full days in the CB, and it wasn’t for another three months that I could spend 10.

This was not easy, and you better believe there were lots of days when it came off during that period for one reason or another.

Finally, keep in mind that no chastity device is proven 100% effective 100% of the time. Staying chaste, not orgasming until your partner “permits” you to, is just as much up to you as it is up to them no matter what kind of chastity toys you’re wearing. Sure, your orgasm may not be quite as pleasurable if you orgasm while in chastity than while you’re released, but if you were determined enough you could probably do it. For me, it’s actually downright painful to come while in the CB, and it takes a ton of effort for a result that isn’t satisfactory at all, but it is a release of some kind, no matter how small.

In other words, chastity devices available today just aren’t denial devices, they’re deterrent devices, so it takes a bit of cooperation from you—the wearer—to maintain your abstinence. Rather than see this as a bad thing, realize that this means you can be just as denied without the device as you can with the device, and you and your keyholder can take that as license to remove the device if it’s not working out for some reason. There are a number of circumstances, mostly mental and emotional health reasons, where Eileen will remove the device from me and still tell me not to orgasm. This is hard for me, sometimes even harder than being locked up, but it’s still sexy and it’s still orgasm denial.

I guess my point is, find what works for you and go with it, even if that means what you go with for a day, a week, or entirely, is not a chastity device.

If you liked this, you may also like Kink On Tap’s T&D episodes 6 and 7.

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Monday, June 9, 2008

Sexism at Large in American Politics: Armed and Dangerous

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM safety, Masculinity, Politics of sex, Sexism, Vanilla life

I’ve never been extremely thorough about pursuing political current events, but I’m finding myself ever more personally withdrawn from American politics now that I’m living in Sydney and no longer living in America. However, I actually feel more knowledgeable about American politics now than I did when I lived in New York City, mostly because local people here won’t stop asking my opinions on things.

It’s funny to me, how much Australians are interested in the happenings in America. I suppose that makes sense, but as an American who (like the stereotype) never really realized how much of an influence America was to the rest of the world, it’s taking me a little by surprise.

Anyway, needless to say, I’ve been keeping up (a bit) with the Democratic national primary. It’s hard not to. The whole world was practically sitting on the edge of its seat wondering who will win. A black man or a white woman as candidates give rise to only two topics in the right’s conservative hypocrisy: racism and sexism.

This was such a heated race that I’ve even received regular emails from some people in my extended family about it. Their emails are extremely strongly-worded short essays with arguments as to why I should or shouldn’t vote for Obama or Clinton (though mostly only because of the candidates’ opinions on Israel, which I couldn’t really care much about anyway). I’m thinking of telling them to start a blog.

I really have no opinion one way or the other about the merits of either candidate—I’m simply not very well informed. That said, Debra Haffner linked this 5-minute video produced by the Women’s Media Center showcasing myriad clips of all the sexist remarks made about Hillary during her campaign. I rarely link videos in this blog, but this one is worth your time.

There’s a lot of sexist language harassing women in this video, since its goal is to showcase how the media is sexist against women. However, that’s just half the story. There’s at least an equal if not greater amount of sexist language in today’s media against men since, obviously, most public political discussion happens about and between men. Where’s the highlight reel of political pundits proclaiming that some candidate “doesn’t have the balls” to do something brave?

One reason I’m more than a little withdrawn from politics is because I know I’ll never be elected to public office. Even if I had the aspirations, I would simply never survive a smear campaign. I mean, look at this blog!

Indeed, back in the “good old days” when I used to stay at Paddles, the local NYC public BDSM club until 4 AM, that was even a joke. The lot of us, my friends and I, would stumble up the stairs in the dark and then burst out onto the street like mole-people, bleary eyed from a long night. We used to joke with another, “Well, I’m certainly not running for public office after tonight!” the implication being that we’ve done yet another thing that would get us booted immediately if the word got out.

While this threat is meaningless to me, since I don’t want to be in public office anyway, I have met more than a few people over the years for whom this is a real concern. They remain anonymous to this day precisely because they do, at some point, want to be in public office in order to make our government better, and most of them don’t even want to get into the areas of sexual rights. They’ll never have a blog like this, though, because having a blog like this—doing what I’m doing right now—means I’ll never win a race for public office.

But hey. I still get to vote. And of course, I will.

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Saturday, May 31, 2008

Article published in Kink-E magazine: Learning the Ropes

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, Beginner BDSM, Communication, Community, Femdom, Male sexuality, Myths and misconceptions, Personal experience, Personal history, Writing and blogging

I’ve been somewhat silent on this blog for a little while and some of you probably already know why. For those that don’t, my professional life has been all a twitter with all sorts of tasks related to my first (non-BDSM or sexuality-focused) book publication. That’s quite exciting, but it also means I’ve pretty much taken on another part time job in addition to my full-time one.

A while back before any of this began I submitted an article to a small local kink magazine here in Sydney called Kink-E Magazine. Apparently it’s been accepted and published and I never even knew about it. You’d think I’d get an email or something of the sort (if not an author copy), but I’ve not heard a word from the publishers. The only reason I found out the article was published was because I met a nice fellow at a dinner party of sorts who recognized my name and said he’d found this blog through the magazine.

Another very annoying thing is that apparently the magazine decided to print my article—which includes a picture of my back—on top of a large picture of a submissive, bound woman and some other random picture I’ve never seen before. I’m not claiming I should have had artistic input for the layout, but doesn’t it seem more than a little disingenuous to print an article about a submissive boy with a huge picture of a submissive girl behind the text of the article itself? This might be a great time for another one of my rants about the state of acceptance for submissive male sexuality but in deference to my exhaustion, I’ll let it slide without another word this time.

Scanned image of \"Learning the Ropes\" article text (Click to enlarge.)

Sigh…. Either way, I’m glad to see that the article is in print, and that it’s providing this blog and the great blogs I link to some additional exposure. Since the magazine’s website has seemingly gone from a partially free online publication to a closed “we won’t show you our content unless you pay us” model, I’m going to repost the entirety of my article here for your viewing pleasure.

This article was a part of my efforts to encourage educational events focused on BDSM and alternative sexuality (beyond queer or homosexual issues) in the Sydney area. See also My First Two Months in the Sydney BDSM Scene.

I still remember [my partner] Eileen‘s face the first time she talked to me about hitting me with a single tail whip. “It makes a completely different noise when it hits skin,” she said, brimming with excitement. I gave her a knowing grin. When the two of us began playing together regularly she was the new-blood and I was the one with the reputation.

Her enthusiasm and eagerness to learn more and to try new things was enthralling, attractive, seductive. Sometimes she would tell me that her fingers itched, that they wanted to hurt me. I wanted nothing more than to give her unfettered access to me to do just that.

I think ‘access’ is a sexy word. It’s seductive in implication, explicitly slippery on the tongue, and just sounds raw. Even its meaning is primal: a means of approaching or entering a place, or person. Part of what I found so enthralling about playing with Eileen was how much her newness to the kind of play we were doing was teaching me things, too. Contrary to the popular stereotypes, I didn’t actually have much hands-on experience at the time.

For a lot of people, the answer to the question “When did you know you were into this BDSM stuff?” is very similar. It goes something like, “I’ve known as far back as I can remember.” I’m no exception.

I was four years old when I started making requests of my father to tie me up. At that young age, I wasn’t really questioning why I was asking this of him, I just knew that it was something I felt like I really wanted to have happen, something that would relax me. As a boy, I liked crawling into small spaces like the one under my bed or in my closet. At night I would wrap myself up in a cocoon of my sheets to relax, enjoying the compression and tightness of the fabric on my body.

When I was nine my family got a computer connected to the Internet for the first time. By the time I turned ten I had several hundred bookmarks of BDSM resources saved on the computer. I started reading each one voraciously. Thousands of words a piece, all about sexual dominance and submission, straight-out sex, sexuality, sadism, masochism, and erotica of course.

At first, most people look aghast when they learn this about me. In what world would exposing a ten year old child to endless information about BDSM sex be a positive experience? Indeed, I believe there are myriad dangers in doing so, arguably more so with today’s Internet than the one of thirteen years ago.

To be certain, that kind of access to information is Pandora’s Box. Looking in hindsight at my own experiences, as I’m sure Pandora must have done, I can now see both the good and the bad. The bad: misinformation, and deceitful, predatory, or just plain misguided people. The good: information in abundance, and a community of like-minded people.

For more than eight years I lurked in cyberspace, reading other people’s experiences. I spent a lot of my time filtering out what I thought was fanciful fiction from what seemed like an accurate representation of events and fact. I learned safety basics such as risky parts of the body to strike (kidneys, the tailbone, the neck, etc.), which led me to pursue other interests in anatomy.

Finally, together with my first kinky girlfriend, the two of us braved the real world together. We went to our very first BDSM-oriented meeting at The Eulenspiegel Society. It was a lecture-plus-demo-style presentation on flogging by the well-known Boymeat and his partner at the time, Luna.

“Not everyone plays this way,” I remember Boymeat saying with ernest while locking his gaze straight at my girlfriend and I, who—dressed in our casual cottons and Birkenstock sandals—stood out like a pair of sore thumbs in the crowd of some thirty-odd much older people wearing leathers, vests, and other black accoutrement. “Because we know one another,” Boymeat continued the caveats to his demo, “Luna and I play very roughly together.”

Little did he know at the time, but he didn’t need his caveats. When he began the demo and his flogger literally shoved Luna into the wall she was standing near, I was endlessly intrigued. Here, now, I could finally see with my own eyes everything that I’d been reading about for nearly a decade.

I realized that I could once and for all put to rest dozens of questions that I’d had about flogging and begin to answer dozens more. Watching, I remembered descriptions about flogging I’d read online and started cataloguing some as plausible and others as fantasy, distinctions I could not be confident of just twenty minutes prior. The experience of attending that presentation was invaluable, and for years following that attending similar presentations proved very rewarding for a lot of different reasons.

On a very personal level, spending time with other people who had similar desires as I did helped to legitimize my own thoughts and fantasies. It also showed me just how social an activity education really is. The vast majority of learning happens in the presence of either peers or teachers (or sometimes someone who is both). This is even more apparent in a community like ours that is heavily focused on physical, social experiences, either with a single partner or with a group.

Education, like sex and play, is a social activity—and learning can be very sexy. This makes face-to-face education even more valuable because, in addition to being the single most effective measure against accidents, abuse, and other negative consequences of ignorance, it can also provide opportunities to make friends and to network with others. At that first TES meeting I attended, I met Virgil, now former Vice-President of Columbia University of New York City’s BDSM discussion group called Conversio Virium, where a few years later I first met Eileen at a single tail demo I participated in.

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Monday, April 21, 2008

The Gadfly publishes an interview with myself and the VP of CV

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM terminology, Beginner BDSM, Community, Masochism, Sex

This is probably old news to a lot of you, but for those who don’t keep up with news from Conversio Virium, I wanted to direct your attention (however briefly) to the latest issue of The Gadfly, Columbia University’s undergraduate philosophy magazine. As part of their Winter 2008 issue, the Gadfly has published excerpts of an email interview that Tyler, the current Vice President of Conversio Virium, and I agreed to do with Stephanie Wu, the Gadfly reporter.

I think the article, which is titled Tie Me Up: A Gadfly Interview with Conversio Virium and begins on page 13 of the PDF, came out really well. I hope it gives CV some more positive exposure to the Columbia University community, and to other colleges and universities as well. Here are a few choice samples:

Gadfly: Are there ways to think about pleasure and pain apart from the classic continuum defined by opposites, with a line in between marking the transition? Is the relationship between pain and pleasure actually circular?

Maymay: I think there are as many ways of thinking about pleasure and pain as there are people thinking about it. When you generalize, you begin to see that more people share classic opinions than those who share the radical ones, but that is true of anything, not just pleasure and pain. People who do SM often find themselves broadening their own awareness of what kinds of interpretations of pain and pleasure are possible, thereby increasing their own maturity and capability to navigate the world around them.

It behooves us to be humble, to acknowledge that we don’t know as much as we think we do. SM doesn’t suggest a relationship between pain and pleasure. On the contrary, SM challenges the relationships science, theology, morality, and other cultural norms have already established about pain and pleasure. SM doesn’t aim to indoctrinate, SM aims to free us from such indoctrination.

[…]

GF: Besides an interest in pain, what commonalities do the activities covered by BDSM share that are unique from other sexual interests?

MM: These things are grouped together largely because there is no other space where people can talk about them. Not even the Queer clubs do enough to educate people about how to practice these forms of sexual activity safely (both physically and emotionally) and consensually, and that’s okay as that’s not their place. These activities are grouped because they share a common physical theme. This is rough sex. Like a sport, people can get hurt. Like a sport, people can become very skilled in doing it in a safer, more effective manner.

You can read the full interview (PDF) over on the Gadfly’s web site.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008

Stuff I use for sex

Category labels: BDSM safety, Beginner BDSM, Fetish, Pic Post, Sex, Sex toys

It’s Thursday and all and I’ve not posted for too long. Australia is keeping me busy, but I’ve had these photos in store for this blog ever since I was packing, and I figure there’s no better time than the present.

Toy Bag Picture 1

A while back, Mischief made a pact with Switch and Boy to bare their toybags to the world. I don’t remember exactly how he wrangled a promise for the same out of me, but he did. My excuse for the tardiness of this reveal is, well, look at all that shit! I didn’t even know I had that many sex toys.

In fact, not even all of the sex toys Eileen and I had were in this photo at the time of the shot, and some of the items in the shot were items we (regrettably) never got the opportunity to use (like the big eye-hook and ring wall mounts from Home Depot). Alas, with our move to Australia, we’ve had to slim our collection down even further into two categories.

  1. The bare essentials, which we have brought with us in our luggage.
  2. The really-want-to-haves that we’ll (probably) be shipping as cheaply as possible to our new home Down Under.

If you’re brave (and bored) enough to read through it, here’s a pseudo-itemized tour of all the items you see in these photos.

At the top left of the photo, right beneath my feet, you can see the TENS unit we own. We’ve not used this much due to lack of experience with such toys and because it was a relatively recent acquisition, but I’m looking forward to learning about more of what it can (safely) do.

Laying alongside the TENS unit are two wooden homemade spreader bars—cheap one-inch diameter dowels with eye-hooks drilled into them, all from the kinkiest store in the world, Home Depot—laying atop our small and growing collection of three whips. Only the two whips with the green coloring are ones we use for play; they’re both four-and-a-half-feet nylon singletails. In fact, the one on the left was my first, and a gift—and still a favorite (thanks, dad). The other one, an old nine foot bullwhip we got for $25(!) at one of the Leather Pride Night Flea Markets is mostly for making loud noises in parks.

Back at the left edge of the bed, you can see our pile of rope. Most of it is MFP from Rainbow Rope, but there’s are a fair number of hemp bundles mixed in. We’re somewhat new to hemp and so we’ve got bundles from just about everywhere: Twisted Monk, Venus Ropes, Rainbow Rope as mentioned earlier, and I think I’m missing another vendor, too (sorry!). At this point, hemp is hemp is hemp to me just because I don’t have enough experience with it to really feel the difference, so I mostly look at price when I shop. (Ask Dov your hemp questions, he’s very knowledgeable. So are Switch and Boy.)

That said, the hemp is clearly far superior to the MFP and other synthetics if rope bondage means something special to you. Also, the different diameters of some hemp over others makes that length more or less suitable for certain things. Most of our hemp is 8mm thick, but for wrist, ankle, and other body-part bondage, Eileen and I are finding that the 6mm or even the 4mm is much better. Of course, for genital bondage, we’re strongly considering even thinner lengths, like 2mm in diameter. Or, y’know, really coarse twine from Home Depot.

We’ve also got a roll of bondage wrap (larger, left) and one of bondage tape (shorter, next to the ball gag). I absolutely adore bondage tape, and I’m not too embarrassed to admit that it’s partly because of the aesthetic. Pretty boys and girls bound in bondage tape are shiny, and the whole industrial tape-gag damsel in distress look is smokin’ hot. The only thing missing from this pile is vet wrap, which is probably more useful than both bondage wrap or bondage tape (especially for turning your human pet’s hands into paws), but it’s also more expensive.

Of course, along with the ropes and the rest of the bondage equipment is the EMT safety shears. Ropes and bondage wraps or tapes without safety shears are one of those bad situations you should take care to avoid finding yourself in. And, of course, you should make absolutely sure the safety shears can cut through whatever it is you’re being bound or binding in. How do you do that? You cut a small piece of it once before you play (not necessarily every time). You do lose a little rope, but that’s a lot more palatable than losing your life.

A good tip when buying rope is to buy one longer strand than you need and cut it yourself. So if you’re intent on purchasing two 15-foot lengths of MFP, buy one 30-foot length and cut it in half yourself. That way you know your EMT safety shears work properly.

Between the rolls of bondage wrap and bondage tape we have a standard-issue ball gag, vibrator, and nylon quick-release wrist and ankle cuffs. The ball gag, unfortunately was too big for me when I bought it because I got it at The Leather Man, a shop in the Village for gay men. Apparently, anything and everything made for gay men is way too big for me. Instead, when I shop for bondage gear, the only restraints that won’t slide right off me are the one’s in small women’s sizes. Unbelievably, even the most heteronormative-focused novelty shops, the ones you’d think would carry all sorts of little bondage things for men to put their heroin-skinny girlfriends into, don’t often carry restraints small enough for me.

Anyway, at the very corner of the bed on the lower left of the photo above (and much more clearly visible in the photo below at the bottom right of the picture), are three toys laying atop the case for Eileen’s Njoy signature product, the Pure Wand, which is nestled within the tender pink folds of…ahem, its case.

Toy Bag Picture 2

To the right of these things are a number of synthetic sex toys. There’s the unmistakable, must-have Hitachi Magic Wand and beneath it is a see-through (“Ice”) Fleshlight. Beneath that is a cyberskin pussy, one of the items from my EdenFantasys sex toy reviews.

Moving on, to the right of these sex toys lie our small but growing collection of dildos and ass toys. There’s the funny-shaped Aneros Helix in white sitting to the right of the Fleshlight and beneath that is the black Nexus Titus, both prostate massagers. Two black butt plugs lie beyond a cylinder containing the Mistress silicone dildo by Vixen, and next to these are the two medical-grade blue plastic attachments for the Hitachi Magic Wand.

Moving back a bit, there’s also a collection of metal cuffs of various sizes and shapes, mostly silver. Eileen’s favorite fire-engine red handcuffs stand out, as does the silver asshook—another gift from the generous and talented Boy. Then, of course, there’s a long bunch of black leather and nylon straps, buckles, and collars of various sorts. There are also (some of) Eileen’s play knives there, including her poniard and curved hunting knife, and her butterfly knives (those are the scariest ones).

Finally, the last patch of the bed is covered by our medical supplies: needles, gloves, gauze pads. There are also the sex essentials: condoms, lube (such as Babeland’s excellent Babelube), our strap-on harness, a blindfold (a Mindfold branded one, as well as a few soft pieces of dark fabrics), locks to go with our loose lengths of chains, and a number of other odds and ends. Our (sadly, now broken) graphite evil stick is there with the blue and white handle, as well as the Master keysafe, used for storing emergency copies of really important keys like the one to our chastity belt I sometimes wear (not pictured).

And, of course, the boy in the photo is me, wearing my “Vivid”-style Eternity Collar, as usual. Eternity Collars are making a name for themselves as being extremely elegant. I’ve worn my collar shamelessly for months on end, including time spent in the office. My office-mates thought it was “kinda hardcore” at first, but said nothing of it afterwards.

Though unabashedly overpriced, the collar is a great fantasy object, not to mention useful for relatively safely attaching leads and ropes to a bottom’s neck. When Eileen started kinking real hard on a certain porn story involving metal collars and was spending quite a bit more time than usual lusting over the pictures at the Eternity Collars web site, I knew I’d buy us one.

I’m also wearing a small leather wristband—a purchase from the innovative Leather by Danny of gripcuff fame—with the words “Boy Toy” engraved on it. Perfectly fitting for this photo.

Phew!

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Wednesday, December 5, 2007

On Friends and Enemies

Category labels: BDSM safety, Bitter and jealous, Community, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Kink events, Personal experience, Stupid dominants

Early Monday morning before dawn, back at home from Black Rose and in Eileen‘s arms, I was crying because I felt lonely and invisible. Moments before, out of bitterness and jealousy, I had just said that the people I like were not my friends in scene (kink) spaces. A little while later, I told Eileen parts of the following story. When I was done, she sighed at me and said, “You say these people aren’t your friends, yet you defend them viciously.” This is that story.

I think I met Rona, a relatively young, beautiful, and obviously intelligent woman, the first night in the Black Rose dungeon. It could have been the second night, and it could have been in one of the relaxation areas known as the Oasis Room. I can’t remember exactly because just about the first thing I did on that Friday evening was stand against an X-frame and present my back as the target for singletails and fists.

In any event, sooner or later one evening during the weekend Rona, another new friend, and I were sitting in the Oasis Room talking about some inconsequential thing. Eileen’s new fire-engine red double-locking handcuffs were locked around one of my wrists. With my hand, I fiddled with the open cuff making loud ratcheting noises in the room.

Out of nowhere, a man who shall remain nameless approached our little circle, smiling, and said, “If you’re going to make some noise, do it with some real cuffs!” He handed me a set of heavy metal handcuffs that dwarfed the standard police-issue pair of handcuffs I was playing with.

Immediately, instinctually, I knew I would not like this man. His announcement was clearly not intended for me but for Rona, whom he turned to with a lascivious smile after depositing the enormous set of cuffs in my palms. Pissing contest, I thought to myself. It is thought typical of older men who aren’t kinky to buy sports cars to show off the size of their penis. Perhaps older men who are kinky buy large handcuffs for the same reason.

In an attempt not to be overtly rude I said, “Wow, these are huge.” They also don’t sound any different than mine, I also observed, though I did not say that part out loud.

“Yeah, and they come in different sizes, too,” he said, taking the first pair out of my hands and replacing them with a slightly smaller version.

“Where did you get them, and how much were they?” Why waste my time asking questions one by one when asking related questions in groups might make him more likely to say only those things I cared about hearing? I had to admit, the cuffs were pretty. If I disliked this man’s presence, perhaps I could find some solace in his cool toys at least for a few moments.

Germany, not too expensive, they’ll make ‘em custom for you, they’re special because they don’t pull, and he’s got so many because he’s been collecting them for some forty-odd years, I learned. A brief conversation about his toybag developed, during which he called over his slave to bring this or that or the other thing.

By this time, the man was lounging on his side next to us and grabbed every opportunity he could to talk about himself, belaboring points like his experience (some forty-odd years), name-dropping every connection he had, and doing this all while looking at Rona and decidedly not at me or our other (male) friend. The two of us might as well have been invisible, since he seemed to turn towards us with a little start whenever we would say anything in response to him.

“I make her sleep in those cuffs,” he gestured towards his slave while he rambled on and on. “Yeah, they’re comfortable enough, but why should I care? I’m not wearing them.” Oh yeah, I thought to myself, you’re so bad-ass, you definitely have a bigger penis than me. I’m kind of amazed you haven’t creamed your pants fantasizing about yourself already.

This is exactly the kind of thing that would happen to me every Friday and Saturday night in Paddles, New York City’s only public BDSM club, almost all night, for two years straight. (Why I poured money into Paddles’s coffers twice a week for two years straight is another story entirely.) By now I’ve become quite accustomed to that sort of interaction from these kinds of “mandoms” (to steal a term from Bitchy).

These days I take a little more glee in steering the conversations towards topics that I know these men would find uncomfortable, or that might prove amusing at least in some small way. One such highlight I can remember is the following:

Me: I used to live in Manhattan in a 250-square-foot apartment that I shared.
Him: Shared? With someone of the opposite sex, I hope, so it’d be nice to get close!
Me: Well, I’m bisexual, so I’m not particularly concerned with a roommate’s sex.
Him: Oh! Well…I always said bisexual people are the luckiest. My friend, she’s a bisexual switch. She’s got the whole world to play with because bisexuals are all basically sluts!

(I’ll admit to paraphrasing that, but I guarantee you that it sounded even better in person.)

Rona seemed decidedly uninterested in this fellow and had become much less talkative since this man encroached upon our space. His slave, for her part, chimed in frequently with verifications of her master’s claims (“I often cook dinner in those cuffs!”) at what seemed like expertly rehearsed opportune moments.

Back to the cuffs, however, he reiterated their comfort and then asked Rona if he could borrow her wrist. I tensed at this, but a moment later she agreed and allowed her wrist to be cuffed. Up until now this man was a nuisance, obviously hitting on Rona but in no position to be a threat. Of course, we were surrounded by other friends having their own conversations and we were in an environment where safety was on everyone’s mind, even going so far as to have designated volunteers serving as Dungeon Monitors perusing the nearby areas. Nevertheless, there was a line that I felt he had crossed.

Now, I started watching this man’s shoulders and face closely. I watched his shoulders because their movement would be the first sign that he would move his arm, and I watched his face because his eyes would tell me where his attention would focus next and his mouth would tell me a lot about how he was feeling about the thing he was focusing his attention on. If he was going to have my new friend’s wrists cuffed, then I wanted to make sure, as the person physically closest to my new friend, that I could serve as a first line of defense. If this was combat, then this man was an enemy.

Of course, Rona clearly needed no defense in this particular situation, and yet, I was already bracing myself to go all commando on this guy’s ass—that is, assert Rona’s requests, whatever it be, vocally or physically if necessary—the moment a signal from Rona indicated I should do so. Eventually Rona cited exhaustion as an excuse to get him to remove the cuffs. When he started tickling her instead, she quickly became rightfully insistent and he did finally leave us, taking his German cuffs with him. Rona was—and is—fine.

The experience, however, put me in a sour mood. I had been reminded of dozens upon dozens of similar, negative experiences. None that ended any worse than what I just described but negative nonetheless. I was reminded of a few stories my ex-girlfriend had told me, some stories long-distance online friends had told me, and dozens of stories I’d heard elsewhere as well, some of which had ended in worse ways than this one. Most of all, I felt angry.

I was angry about everything that had just happened. The invisibility; the assumption that we—or she—was too stupid to see what this simpleton’s desires were; the roundabout way he felt he had to go about chatting Rona up; the pissing contest he wanted to start—consciously or otherwise—with me. It was all so unnecessary, I think, and so damaging. Maybe not if it were just once, or twice, but after two times a week for two years straight it starts to add up. I’m living, livid proof.

Epilogue: Interested persons might find this post by Rona an interesting followup.

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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

On kinky competence (epilogue)

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM techniques, Emotions

My prior post, On kinky competence, generated a few really good replies in the comments, and across the blogosphere. Perhaps even more are yet to appear.

One short piece in particular by Dev so perfectly represented most of the reactions to my post that as I began writing a comment to her I realized it might be better served as a pseudo-comment, or (since it’s so long) an epilogue if you will, to my own post.

Dev states that she feels intimidated by me, or more probably by my attitude towards others. (I haven’t found others who know me in person to be intimidated by me, only by my reputation or the expressions of my way of thinking, such as my writing.) As a result, she says she’d never try to play with me because she feels as though I would judge her to be too incompetent to be interesting, or attractive.

I’d never try to play with him. He intimidates the crap out of me[…]. I’m not super confident and I can’t even play at dominating someone who makes me feel the way May does. […] I have no particular bdsm skills.

Of course, I know I give off an air of potentially arrogant intimidation. I assure you, it is very deliberate. I do it because it’s useful in a couple of ways. First, it’s very expressive. It’s obvious to everyone what I think because I make no bones about thinking or saying it. This saves a lot of time. If only I could learn to be this direct in all my communications, but alas, I am actually rather shy sometimes. (Also, in person, I wiggle a lot more. :)

Second, it can act as a sort of pre-screening process, which again saves time. People who would not feel comfortable playing with me don’t bother to ask. This is not a bad thing. If I want to play with them, however, I (thankfully) have gotten into the habit of asking. (I only wish I got into the habit of asking even sooner than I did.) There are no losses in this situation that I care about too deeply.

In the same vein, people who don’t agree with me about these things are probably not people I want to play with anyway, so the fact that all the cards are shown make compatibility errors a lot less likely. This is basically an instance of Eileen’s negotiation tactics in reverse. The fact that the two of us approached this getting-to-know-you phase in symbiotic ways certainly helped speed our familiarity with one another.

However, I think Dev (and those like her) are more competent than she thinks I think she is. Here’s why:

I have some crazy levels of emotional competence

Most people don’t even have a concrete emotional awareness, so having crazy levels of emotional competence is leaps and bounds ahead of most people already. I also find that emotional competencies are a fundamental ingredient for many other kinds of competence. So, if you care about emotional competencies—which I obviously do—this is a big one, though I’ll admit it’s not actually on everybody’s radar.

Emotional competencies are not a direct subject of this blog post, but they are a fascinating subject in their own right, whether or not you relate to them in a kinky or sexual context. Learning more about emotional competency and, to use the academic term, emotional intelligence, is something I’d recommend to everyone. This is one of those topics that is application-agnostic. What you learn about emotional intelligence in the context of, say, the office, is entirely relevant to the bedroom, and vice versa.

One of the most telling things Dev says is this:

I consider it always my responsibility to play safely, but I also appreciate my partner’s watchfulness in a scene.

Responsibility is an expression of emotional competence, and if Dev is actually playing responsibly every time she plays (and from her writings I believe she does), then she is in fact emotionally competent. Furthermore, an inherent part of being responsible is acknowledging that you are not always going to be able to control every variable in the scene, that things will go wrong sometimes. Appreciating your partner’s watchfulness and responding appropriately is a key example of that, which many incompetent tops and inexperienced newbies don’t do properly.

Again, this blog post isn’t a discussion of BDSM safety 101 (there are tons of great resources for that online, such as those behind the links on my sidebar) so I won’t go into safewords, safegestures, and the like here. What I’m trying to point out is that good tops prepare for the unexpected and take responsibility for the situation when the unexpected occurs.

In conversation a while ago with Eileen about this subject, I remarked that I liked the fact that the way she plays is sometimes incredibly childlike. With little prior understanding of a thing, she will poke at it anyway, she will experiment, and sometimes she will fuck up and the scene will take a turn for the worse. When this happens, however, she pulls it (and me) together, and we regroup in a new emotional (and sometimes even physical) space. She’s not afraid to take risks, and neither am I.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the physical skill of throwing a whip, for instance, and everything to do with the emotional competencies necessary for responsibility. Like a child, she explores with wonder and fun and the faith that everything will be all right regardless of what she does, and like an adult, she cleans up after herself. To really play with her, I have to be willing and able to do the same. Again, competence is not a one-way street.

Regarding BDSM-specific skills, Dev says this:

In a scene, I think I am decent with touch and tone of voice and things like that. Physically, no – I have no particular bdsm skills.

Using touch and tone of voice and things like that is certainly what I consider to be under the umbrella of BDSM skills. BDSM is, as a simplistic definition, a superset of sex, so I think most skills that can be sex skills are also BDSM skills.

Most people frankly aren’t that competent at sex. Since so many people are so different in so many subtle and not-so-subtle ways, it’s actually quite difficult to be really competent at sex in general when most of your understanding of sex revolves around things like how to suck and how to fuck. Instead of focusing on the mechanics of sex and other factors that change from person to person, smart (or intuitive) people focus on skills that are universally relevent to making sex better. These are (perhaps counter-intuitively) mostly skills that relate to oneself, such as confidence, attitude, and an ability to adapt.

This is why the sexiest people you meet are always the ones with the air of self-assured seduction. Convince yourself that you are sexy and, by golly, most people will actually agree with you. Act, look, and talk that way, and I don’t think anyone will find reasons to disagree. They probably won’t even be looking for reasons in the first place.

Also, it’s really easy to be “good enough” at sex. “Good enough” is certainly a level of competence and it’s likewise really easy to be “good enough” at BDSM sex. I’ve played with and had sex with people who I’d consider “good enough.” It wasn’t spectacular, but it was certainly good enough, even for the competence snob that I am. There’s really nothing wrong with something that’s only satisficing, instead of something that’s very satisfying. In vanilla terms, this is usually a “quickie,” and kinky people do that, too.

As a final point on sex skills, just so it’s on the record, I don’t think most people I know—including myself until very recently—actually know how to use their tone of voice as a tool to enhance sex or a scene. It’s actually quite a tricky thing. It requires quite a bit of skill and situational awareness to use consciously, and a lack of self-consciousness to use unconsciously, so “good enough” is actually not that low on the bell-curve, I think.

Most of my toys don’t require much skill to be safe. I pay attention to safety. (I pay a lot of attention just in general.)

Many people who are incompetent betray that fact specifically by playing with toys and in ways that they should not for safety reasons. (I have seen so many people use a flogger while not even looking at the person’s back they are flogging. For fuck’s sake, look where you’re aiming! You seem to be able to do that when you pee, why not when you flog?) That’s actually the classic earmark of a clearly incompetent top.

Furthermore, when incompetent people try to learn things they do so in thoughtless or unsafe ways, whereas competent people tend to learn skills from people they already know to be competent and continue to play with such things only under the watchful eye of their teachers until both them and their teacher feels that they can safely do it alone.

In other words, if you’re doing what Dev is saying that she is doing, then you’re competent insofar as your own training is concerned. For obvious reasons, being a competent learner is one of the competencies I consider to be most important.

This brings into the spotlight another distinction I feel compelled to make. That distinction is the one between incompetent partners, as I’ve described before (briefly: someone who does not have or show the required skills to do something successfully and thus does not perform successfully), and unskilled partners, who may become competent but aren’t yet. Via an optimistic eye, all people could be said to be merely unskilled, not incompetent, but that is not very helpful. Instead, the word unskilled connotes merely a lack of some special skill without further implication that they are thus not executing this skill successfully.

I don’t really have much of an issue with unskilled tops as long as they are competent enough learners in general to become skilled. I’ve let more than a handful of people learn things like singletails and piercings on my flesh, possibly the two most “edgy” things by some people’s standards that I do often. I’ll admit these scenes were not as exciting for me as the scenes in which I play with one of the other more skilled tops or tops with whom I am emotionally invested, but then again, excitement was not necessarily the goal for the scene.

Finally, Dev notes:

I am honest about my level of experience.

Obviously, honesty is critical. Honesty is in a way the underpinnings of all of competence. So naturally, I am just as honest about my standards of competence as I am about my level of experience.

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Tuesday, November 6, 2007

On kinky competence

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM techniques, Bondage, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Myths and misconceptions, Stupid dominants, Stupid submissives

With a little observation, the very first thing you will notice about kink in the public communities these days is that it’s all about what you can do or have done to you. It’s about skills, abilities, and stamina. It’s a sport when played in public. And, just like sports, there are winners and there are losers.

How do you win at the sport of kink? What do you have to do to get the prizes? Your two options are very straightforward: become very competent at the requisite skills, or make people think you are very competent at these skills. They both work, even though I think one is abhorrent.

In point of fact, there’s very little I think is wrong about the necessity of competence. Competence is a good thing. It is so necessary a thing, in fact, that it’s probably the main reason why I have so relatively few play partners—more common a reason than the supposed Femdom Demographic Issue or submissive-male-phobia, for instance. I judge most of the people I meet to be incompetent, and I have very little interest in playing with people who don’t prove their skills to me.

I’m a competence snob, but I think I should be. I think everyone should be, and it should be (at least partly) obvious why: I don’t want to be harmed, physically, legally, or emotionally—regardless of whether I am bottoming or topping. I think of myself as too important to me to risk my well-being in acts of recklessness or irresponsibility even as I strongly desire to be hurt and to suffer. I feel as though this is obvious; I would need but to hold up a mirror to you to show you why such an attitude might be important.

I wish competence were recognized by people as being one of the most important factors in choosing a partner for a scene, or for a relationship. (They recognize the importance when choosing a doctor, yet when it comes to sex and education otherwise smart people behave in very dumb ways.) It’s clear that being competent makes you attractive because it gives you some value that you can provide to your partners. However, it’s also clear that most people are constantly fumbling about trying to discern what this value they are seeking actually is. They don’t know what it looks like or how to find it. I don’t think most of them are even aware of their own search for it in the first place (at least not concretely).

Classes and workshops present so thin a slice of the big picture with such frequent repetition that after attending them for a while you may quickly assume you have seen all there is to see. A Martian (or a naive young newbie) using such resources to learn about BDSM might assume all there is to kinky sex is ropes, chains, whips, and sharp objects, with the occasional actual sex act thrown into the mix. In such an atmosphere, it’s no wonder that the skills deemed most necessary to win this sport are those such as how accurately you throw your singletail whip, how securely and prettily you can tie a bottom up in ropes, or how much attention you pay to the safety best practices during a needle-play scene.

Yet not everyone attends classes and workshops. Those who don’t typically engage in kinky sex blissfully unaware of their own ignorance. Few “bedroom kinky” people I have heard of have ever shown a concerted effort to pick up an anatomy book with a mind towards safer rougher sex—though it’s obvious, even to them, why they might want to consider it. These are the kinds of people I have never found attractive. They never take the time to analyze their own successes or their failures, and consequently sentence themselves to lives of mediocre experiences at best or, more commonly, continuous bewildered failure.

I am very specific about what I consider to be factors of competence, and about how I value these various things. I am also utterly ruthless in my appraisal of the things I see. I have a similar reaction to badly executed rope bondage as I do to bad web sites. It thus behooves me to say that I find consistently executed safety best practices, exceptionally functional and simultaneously aesthetically pleasing rope-work, and accurately administered whippings all to be valid and useful earmarks of competence, and I use such criteria as part of a standard barometer for a certain kind of competence all the time.

Similarly, it also behooves me to make explicit mention of the fact that it is one thing to preach these things and quite another to practice them. I find nothing impressive about intentions alone; intentions can not be competent.

It is for that reason why I have never been interested in listening to such sermons as the proper disposal of bloodied needles given by people who keep no sharps container in sight when they play. They are only proving themselves charlatans to me, because I know how to spot such a fraud. If I did not know how to do this, as was the case for me and for everyone else at one point in life, then I have always been better served by withholding final judgement as well as trust until I became better educated in the skill and the person both.

In other words, to trust without knowing shows me your ineptness. That’s one way I evaluate the competency of other bottoms. Incompetent bottoms act before they think; little wonder so many of them end up in situations they later regret.

It bugs me, viscerally, when I see people who are clearly not skilled (or not any more skilled than an average fellow is, anyway) being misrepresented or, worse, misrepresenting themselves as having a level of competence that they clearly do not have. What bugs me most of all, however, is that this sort of false aggrandizement is something that is accepted, unquestioningly, when dominants do it (by either dominant female asshats or dominant male assholes) and is allowed to proceed unabated, but is instantly recognized and rightfully shot down when submissive people do the same.

I know of more than a handful of male tops who have a quite sizable number of (typically young, usually naive, almost always seriously troubled) groupies for reasons I can not even begin to fathom. These men are almost always significantly older than their groupies, and though not necessarily ill-intentioned or malicious, they are so unremarkable to me that I would blithely ignore their existence for the most part. They have no great skills as far as I can tell, they are not strikingly physically attractive, they speak of no rare or enthralling things, and I can find no particular intelligence, empathic ability, or other quality that makes them deserving of such long-lasting attention.

What seems most unusual to me is that, had these people not been dominants or tops, everyone else would and does think of these people the way I just described that I do. The submissive or bottom men—the older, not necessarily ill-intentioned or malicious, remarkably unremarkable men—are blithely ignored, by pretty much everyone. I imagine, with no experiencial evidence, that the same is true for women in complimentary roles, though finding evidence one way or another would certainly prove additionally enlightening.

I can’t help but find this odd, and my theories as to why this is so center around my observations of the simplistic notion most people have about competence. Most bluntly, that competence is something to be admired without analysis, that it’s something only tops have, and that it can be displayed merely with intention. How ignorant, and dangerous, I find this to be.

Competency is gained through experience, practice, and questioning. It’s something that’s acquired not through some spontaneous or uncontrollable happenstance of luck and fate but by very deliberate efforts. In other words, you have to care about having it, or you won’t.

In this entire discussion I have tried to refrain from using examples or language that were orientation-specific. That’s because competence is not a one-way street. I have seen just as many, if not more, incompetent bottoms as I have seen incompetent tops. This is possibly because as a bottom it’s far easier to get away with being woefully incompetent at just about everything you do than it is for a top. Alternately, perhaps this is because of the unfortunate misconception that bottoming is inherently a passive act and that the entirety of a valid kinky encounter involves a purely active top and a purely receptive bottom.

In some competencies, this makes obvious sense. When you’re on the tail end of the whip as opposed to the handle, you don’t need the dexterity to be able to throw the whip perfectly. But you do need to understand what is happening. You should know how to breathe, how to move, how to scream (if it’s good), and how to communicate what you need, if you need something. Your top is not a mindreader. (And they probably like the screaming.)

The point is clear: competence in bottoms is just as attractive as it is in tops, and vice versa. Competence is sexy. What does a competent bottom look like? I think competent bottoms are self-reliant, emotionally hardy individuals who have a discerning eye, and have the presence of mind to act responsibly—to be willing to get things wrong and make things right again—and to act with empathy and generosity towards their partners. In other words, the same exact qualities that competent tops share. Try that on for size.

Thanks to the wonderful comments, I’ve since expanded on this quite a bit in an epilogue to this post.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Kink on Tap 6: Sexual Teasing and Denial

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM techniques, Beginner BDSM, Chastity/Orgasm denial, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Femdom, Fetish, Kink on Tap, Personal experience, Sexual teasing and control

In lieu of the fast-approaching Floating World convention, rather than do a Kink on Tap roundtable as I’m (trying) to do regularly, I thought this time I’d share some of the fun around for those of you unlucky enough not to be able to attend. SaraEileen and I are doing several presentations at the event, one of which is all about chastity play, orgasm control, and sexual teasing and denial.

We got the chance to go through much of our old notes on the topic (we’ve done similar presentations elsewhere before), update a few things, add some bits here and there, and thought we’d share a large part of the presentation with you in podcast form. So, if you’re not going to be able to make Floating World, you’ll at least still get the majority of the experience of at least this one class of our’s.

I hope you enjoy the episode and, as usual, feel free to write me about it by emailing kinkontap+feedback@gmail.com.

Here are the list of resources and links I had compiled. By no means is this complete. And of course, Google is your friend.

  • Erotic sexual denial – Wikipedia
  • Chastity-UK – A British web site on the topic of chastity play that includes articles, user-submitted content, galleries, several very helpful FAQs geared to introducing and employing chastity in the context of relationships (of every sort), and more.
  • Lady-Jester – A site dedicated to contributions from wearers of the CB-2000, CB-3000, The Curve, and other male chastity devices and their female keyholders.
  • OrgasmDenial.com – A large web portal dedicated to orgasm denial, obviously, and filled mostly with submissive men and dominant women.
  • Chas’ Sweet Chastity – Dedicated to female chastity under male dominance and also to male-to-female transvestitism while incorporating male chastity devices. This web site is also home to the infamous (and fictional) “Chasti-Permalock Corporation,” a webiverse of chastity stories about devices implemented with nanotechnology.
  • Chastity Yahoo Group – A huge and always growing collection of individuals who discuss various topics related to chastity and teasing and denial.
  • Prostate Information and Milking
  • Altarboy’s Chastity Belt Web Site — has a section devoted to erotica, and a subsection within that devoted to female wearer/female keyholder stories, as discussed in the podcast.
  • Tantalism — this is an all inclusive community, though most participants discuss female denial.
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