Sunday, May 11, 2008

CBT? WTF is up with that?

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM psychology, BDSM terminology, Cock and ball torture (CBT), Femdom, Foot worship, Male sexuality, Myths and misconceptions, Stupid dominants, Stupid submissives

I just got an email I thought was pretty funny. In it, the sender implies a conspicuous lack of an item from my toy collection: weights. I mean, doesn’t everyone have weights, at least for cock and ball torture?

Actually, no, I responded…and why would I? I don’t actually like cock and ball torture that much. I don’t really mind cock and ball torture—I mean, it can be fun and all and I’ve done it and stuff, hell I’ve even felt Eileen pierce my ball sack with a needle and poke my penis a bit with one, too—but I just don’t really enjoy it. It’s not a fun kind of pain for me. I just don’t get off on it.

Even if I did, though, would I really need to go out and buy special weights specifically for the purpose of dangling them from my genitals? Eileen’s response to this idea was something along the lines of, “Why the fuck would I spend money on that? There’s tons of shit in my house that’s heavy and tons of ways I could attach it to you. I am way more creative than that.”

Evidently, this sort of attitude is nearly unheard of for submissive men. It’s one of those things, right along with foot fetishism and a desire to be forcibly feminized, that many people tend to automatically assume every single man who is submissive must be into. I mean, I must at least have a weight for cock and ball torture, right?

You see this everywhere. Cock and ball torture is probably in every single stereotypical representation of BDSM that I’ve ever encountered. Women, usually women dressed in stereotypically shiny outfits, who are kicking, punching, slapping, poking, clamping, or otherwise delightfully abusing the male genitalia. Again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Like I said before, if this is the kind of yodeling garden-gnome sex session you want to have, be my guest, but don’t assume that I’m going to want to do it with you.

And while I’m on the subject of yodeling garden-gnome sex, I’m sure there are a lot of dominant women who aren’t particularly enthusiastic about the idea of cock and ball torture, either. Like chastity and orgasm denial, this is so often just one more unbelievably penis-centric fantasy that the men who perpetuate the stereotype don’t even stop to think about what’s in it for their partners.

Cock and ball torture is so common, actually, it’s got an acronym: CBT. I kind of like this acronym, though, because it means I get to snicker quietly to myself when the HR director says something like, “Maybe we should invest in that CBT package to help our employees understand the new database system.” Of course, she’s talking about computer based training, which actually gives my filthy mind even more awesome fantasies in the office.

Anyway, I find the whole thing to be rather a big nuisance. It’s a little like going to a big city, New York for example, and assuming everyone you meet is a fan of the most well-known sports team, say the Yankees, right off the bat. Most of the people you meet are actually not going to be huge baseball fans at all, and some of them might like the Mets instead. Obviously, making the assumption that everyone you meet is a Yankees fan is kind of dumb.

Well, so is the assumption that all submissive men like CBT, or feet (which I think can be beautiful, but are often very silly looking). It’s more likely to make you look like an ass than anything else. So my advice is the same as it’s always been: stop treating sexual situations so differently from the rest of your life; if you’re not walking around making assumptions about sports teams based on where I live, stop making assumptions about my sexual preferences based on my submissive orientation.

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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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Friday, February 8, 2008

One, sir: On Titles in Scenes

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM terminology, Beginner BDSM, D/s dynamics, Exhibitionism, Masochism, Myths and misconceptions, Personal experience, Whipping, Writing and blogging

Reading through my own personal journal’s archives reminded me of how early on many of the thoughts, feelings, and ideas that I express today have been inside of me. It’s also shown me how some things changed, and looking at which things have changed and which have not is an interesting pursuit in itself. This post, below, which I wrote on April 26th, 2005, references a Singletailing demonstration I did with an occasional play partner and friend of mine at Conversio Virium that was very well-received.

Back then, I didn’t even identify publicly as submissive, and in fact I was such a stalwart bottom that more often than not I was often described as being one of the “toppiest bottoms” people knew. I knew how I liked to get hit, with what, where, and when. I would scoff at attempts to get me on my knees and never, ever wiggled cutely.

Along those lines, I never used titles in my play or otherwise, because that’s something submissives did. I cared little for honorifics, not out of a lack of respect but out of a narrow-minded view engendered by my environment of what they were for and how they could be used. Of course, now I use some titles more than others, and have even grown to enjoy their use at times. That’s not to say that titles are “better BDSM” or “more real” or anything of the sort (that’s bullshit), but I have managed to broaden my view of what they can do.

This post from April 2005 is republished here in part because I think it’s a pretty good entry, in part because I still strongly believe the things I said were true for me then and are true for me now, and because I’m way too busy to spend that much time writing posts at the moment but I’d really like to keep some new content flowing into the blogosphere from this blog. Enjoy.

I’ve already decided this kink-blog thing is a step in the right direction. Many reasons, not least of which is the enormous relief I feel to be able to unburden myself of these musings and, later, look back on them as I do with all my other writings. Another benefit, however, (beyond the social ones of sharing these writings with pertinent folk, such as those with whom I play) is that it will lead to reflections I’ve not been able to access for a very long time.

Eileen brought up some great points about tonight’s CV singletailing demo/scene (was it a demo or was it a scene?), which I did not have the presence of mind when I was writing the earlier entry about it to make note of. Specifically, I said Sir.

Titles are a funny thing. They’re amazingly common, I dare say deeply loved and deemed important to many, and yet they make very little sense to me. Calling someone (my top) “Sir” or “Ma’am” (or “Mistress” or “Master” or whatever) during scenes just isn’t something I’ve ever had the inclination to do.

That’s not to say I have much of an issue with it. I’ve occasionally done this during private play sessions with past partners. In every case I can recall, though, it was either initiated by their request or due to a role-play scenario which was currently unfolding. It makes sense to me if, say, a partner and I were playing out some specific scenario with very defined roles to then refer to my partner with a name respective of their role in the scene. After all, we’re already role playing.

But scenes, for me, are not usually role play. I love BDSM. I do not love roleplaying (though I do enjoy it on occasion). When I scene, I’m not “the victim” or “the slave” or anything like that. I’m me, plain and simple—and it’s so much hotter that way, too.

Similarly, my tops aren’t “my Master” or “my Lady” or anything. They’re just themselves as well (at least they are in my head, most of the time) and again, that’s so much hotter for me. I can’t speak from a top’s perspective, but Eileen expressed this issue for herself rather eloquently: I feel like I’d rather be a scary-yet-caring version of myself, rather than a scary-yet-caring hypothetical dominant construct.

Three things about this statement:

  1. First, version of myself. Yes; when I bottom to someone, I have chosen to bottom to them, not their image or their reputation. (Sidenote: For now I’m going to assume that this is one of the reasons playing with pro Dommes at the parties they invited me to was never as much fun as playing with lifestylers in clubs or friends at home; pro Dommes are constantly keeping an eye out for potential clients, and showing off what they can do to me is an advertisement for themselves more than it is a scene for me. Fun, but lacking.)
  2. Second, scary-yet-caring. One of the overriding themes of my fantasies, for as long as I can remember having fantasies, is the notion of feeling precious to someone, specifically, my top. (You will get smacked if you make a LOTR reference in the comments.)
  3. Third, hypothetical dominant construct, which ties back in with the first thing. Titles make things fake for me. They turn something real into something imagined. They build hypothetical dominant (and submissive) constructs of who we are in our heads.

    For some scenes, like the one during the demo, this is fine. Other times, such as during structured role play scenes, it’s even great. For other scenes, it just has no place because it wrecks the realism. (Sidenote: I have a huge thing with realism. For instance, it’s one of the reasons I simultaneously love and fear knife play. I have to write about that sometime in the future.)

So, I said Sir. That’s not really the big deal. The big deal is that I said it publicly, and not just publicly out at a club where it’s noisy and dark and no one can really hear. No, I said it in a room full of people who were neither doing nor saying anything because they were intently watching his whip and my welts.

The effects of this was interesting. Fortunately, singletails hurt (god, do they ever!) so at the point where I was counting strokes there was little actual thinking going on inside my head beyond “Oh fffuck!” and similar. I neither wanted to nor do I think I could have, at that point, think too much about anything that was happening. (Also, see earlier entry about feeling free, relaxed, and not self-conscious, which helped.)

When asked if I could count strokes, my response was a tentative I think so. When pressed, it did take me a moment to respond. Why? What was going through my head at that moment? I’m not sure, but after the above reflection I think I entered “a role”—specifically, “the demo bottom.”

That sounds obvious; may, you do realize you were actually demo bottoming, right? Well, yes, of course I do. But in the role, it wasn’t me at CV being hit with the singletail while leaning against the chalkboard playing with my top anymore. Instead, it was me as the demo bottom at CV…. The difference is subtle, but the difference was there, and it did change the scene. (It didn’t make it worse or anything like that, it just changed it.)

At first, I was being singletailed and then, later, the demo bottom was being singletailed. Again, that’s not worse. It is enjoyable in an exhibitionistic sort of way to perform in such a manner and such a performance is not necessarily less authentic, though it has more potential to be. The devil, as always, is in the details.

My conclusion, then, is that for me (like most things) titles in scenes are tools to be used when appropriate. It’s important for me (as well as for my play partners) to understand how things like this affect my head and what responses they will get from me. All of this needs a follow-up entry, but that’s for another time. It all also ties in very strongly with the realism bit which I mentioned earlier, so that will need to be explored as well.

For now, however, I’m headed to the shower and to tend to my skin. I’m really looking forward to that first hit of the water on my back. After that, it’s bed time. ‘Night, all.

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Friday, August 31, 2007

Flying, the kinky sex orgasm, and the lack thereof

Category labels: Altered States and Headspaces, BDSM terminology, Bondage, Emotions, Humor, Personal experience

People often draw analogies between things in kink sex and vanilla sex. They do this sometimes out of necessity and sometimes out of a desire to avoid the overhead of defining every term they use, but mostly they do it (as I’m about to do) because it’s something they’ve heard done before.

I’ve never “flown” in a scene. That is to say, I’ve never “checked out” or “seen my body from outside itself” or “felt like the pain was sexually pleasurable,” or many of the other things lots of people who do what I do and claim similar labels as I claim have often told me about their experiences. Typically, they call this experience flying, and I’ve usually heard it discussed as though it was the BDSM version of an orgasm.

Well, if flying is the BDSM version of an orgasm and scenes are the BDSM version of sex, then I’ve never come.

Of course we all know that different people play differently and for different reasons and different goals and it’s all good no matter who you are or what you’re into or whatever, but whenever this subject gets brought up it makes me feel a little anorgasmic in regards to kinky things.

A part of me is always wondering if I’m just too technically-minded, too focused on comparing experiences with descriptions that I’ve missed the boat already in the same way vanilla people sometimes seem to me to be so concerned with orgasms and ejaculations that even when they experience them they sometimes didn’t know that they had. And then part of me says to myself that it must be practically impossible not to notice something like an orgasm (”oh, you’ll know!”), so a kinky scene orgasm should be similarly impossible not to notice, and since I’ve never noticed one I’ve probably never had one.

A lot of people talk about flying by talking about how pain, when experienced at a certain intensity, rhythm, and circumstance, makes the rest of their existence kind of fade out and brings into focus only the lovely sensations of the moment. I can understand that very viscerally; one of the reasons I love BDSM (and kinky sex, and sensual experiences in general) is because they help me get out of my head and into my body, for lack of a better description at the moment.

However, these same people tell me that the pain is sexually exciting. That’s not something I can relate to. Friends have told me stories about whippings and beatings that have left them wet or hard and rutting in place, making their very thought processes change somewhat dramatically. I wonder what that sort of an experience would be like. It honestly doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me, because as I’ve said before, pain doesn’t turn me on.

As a perfect and somewhat humorous example, take a very sexy takedown scene that happened recently. Having been pulled away from Eileen for purposes completely unbeknownst to me at the time, I got worried about her when a friend said they had ended their scene because Eileen seemed “a little ADD at the end.” Strange, I thought, Eileen only gets that way when something is wrong. I should go check on her.

I quickly turned around and started walking back toward her when several more friends appeared and stopped me. No, hang on, I told them, I need to check on Eileen and make sure she’s okay. Then, when they pulled a hood over my face and quickly grabbed me by my limbs, you want to know what my first thought was? It was:

Oh, this is a takedown. Eileen’s probably fine.

This was no surprise to Eileen, who later remarked, I knew your brain would keep working. It did. My second thought was, “In takedowns, the victim gets to struggle. I’d enjoy doing that!” So of course I struggled as much as I could while staying (as) careful (as I could) not to inadvertently kick the wrong person in the genitals.

This illustrates a very typical experience that I have when I play: I’m very often completely conscious of what’s going on and very aware of the reality of a situation. When Eileen and I play with knives, I’m not scared that she’ll purposefully cut my throat, or gouge my eye out, I’m scared that she’ll do it accidentally. (The risk is what’s appealing.) When she whips me, I’m often adjusting my position and I’m motivated to do so by the conscious awareness that my back is no longer straight after that last stroke and that it should be made straight again, or that the sound of the whip and the feel of the air it pushed toward me means the whip is approximately four inches in that direction so I should turn appropriately.

Really, and I’d hate to destroy people’s illusions of my kinky sex if they have any, but I’m actually extremely unsexy in my head when I play. Rational thought processes are not really that sexy no matter how you try to dress them up. Everything sexy is entirely about emotion.

Getting beaten with a nightstick is just that; a stick and a body. It’s all very mechanical and not very hot. However, with some feeling in there, like being forced to the ground and invited to violently show the emotional aspects of aggression by fighting back, then physically losing and giving in to overwhelming force, now that’s sexy.

It’s very, very hard to get me out of my head. The only two things that have ever succeeded in doing so have been intense pain and intense pleasure (not necessarily orgasmic pleasure), and even these things don’t manage to do it for very long stretches at a time. The way lots of people describe flying, it seems as though they experience some kind of emotional or spiritual climax too abstract for words. This is all wonderful, but is far too abstract for me.

I don’t deal very well with abstracts. I’m a rather technical person, obviously, so I like things that make sense and which are grounded in rational thought. When people try to explain things to me that they say are based on “auras” or “energies,” I usually just smile and nod. I have no problem with these things, most recently evidenced by a sudden interest in my social group with tantric practices, but I’d prefer to keep a critical eye pinned consistently in that direction.

So when I think about flying, in all the experiences I’ve had the one that comes closest to it has been getting suspended in rope bondage. Because that’s when I was in the air, swinging around, and that’s what flying means to me.

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

Stream of consciousness on BDSM 101

Category labels: BDSM terminology, Beginner BDSM, Bondage

At one of the BDSM organizations I attend, I volunteered myself to participate at an “introduction to kink” panel presentation for another discussion group that had invited us to speak. When I heard back from the group, I was asked to speak on two things: definition of terms and bondage. Yay! Both topics that I truly love. :)

What follows is the notes I put together in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way over the last half hour or so. They’re obviously not very refined or comprehensive because, keep in mind, I kind of wrote them as if I was speaking to the audience and this is supposed to be a mile wide, inch deep overview of what BDSM is about.

Feedback is always welcome.

Definition of Terms

Vanilla isn’t so much a definition as an anti-definition. Technically, “vanilla” means not kinky. However, this is actually a complex issue because the effective meaning of that definition depends on the definition of what is (and what is not) “kinky.”

For example, do you consider spanking to be kinky? I would consider that as an activity within the broader set of sexual activities called impact play, which we’ll cover a tad more in a little bit, but a lot of very so-called “vanilla” couples engage in spanking all the time. So, you can see how much of this terminology will need to be interpreted as you see fit, by what feels right to you. Suffice it to say for now that when I say vanilla, what I mean is “not as kinky as me.”

If you didn’t notice, I also introduced another term there surreptitiously: play. What is play? This one’s easy because it’s exactly what it sounds like: play is having fun doing something that you enjoy. In BDSM parlance, playing means “engaging in a BDSM activity” such as spanking or flogging or sexual teasing or role-playing, or whatever is of interest to you.

When two people are playing together, what they are doing is called a scene. A scene in this context is similar to a scene in a live-action play (see the fun we have with terms!), where people get together, interact with each other, and then the activity stops. A scene marks the time period from when the play begins to when the activity (though not necessarily the playing) ends.

Defining the beginning and ending of a scene is difficult because scenes can involve more than one kind of play. It’s a little bit like the geometry statement “a square is not a rectangle, but a rectangle is a square.” A scene is not play, but playing is a scene. Most people seem to use emotional peaks and valleys to mark the beginnings and endings of scenes; when the emotion or activity has taken on a high intensity, that’s part of a scene, and when it has subsided significantly, that’s the end. Other people use time as the distinguishing factor; one block of time spent doing one activity is one scene, another block is another.

Then, of course, there’s the actors involved in the scene. Typically, there are at least two, and one is dominant (the partner doing the dominating) while the other is submissive (the partner doing the submitting). Alternate terms that have less emotional context attached to them are a top and a bottom, respectively.

Finally, there’s a concept called polyamory, which literally means “many love.” Polyamory is not strictly a fetish or BDSM term, but actually a relationship paradigm that is in many ways the opposite of monogamy. In fact, there are entire communities centered around practicing and learning about polyamory that are completely separate from the BDSM world. Where monogamy is committing to be with one romantic and/or sexual partner at a time, polyamory is, for lack of a better word, different. In essence, it means being open to more than one love at any given time.

It’s important to note that polyamory is not polygamy, nor is it noncommittal, carelessly promiscuous, or emotionally insensitive. Interestingly, the ideals of polyamory have little to do with the number of sexual partners you may have (or want), but rather focus on the quality of your relationships, a fluid definition of what a successful relationship is, and encourages honesty, communication, negotiation, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence.

Bondage and bondage safety in the blink of an eye

Bondage is a huge subject, and there’s no way in hell anyone can cover all the really important bits in five minutes, but I’ll give it a shot. As always, if there any questions about this or anything we’ve spoken about today, please don’t hesitate to ask me or anyone else about them. Also, I’ll provide a list of resources that you can check out on your own time on my web site (at the bottom of this page).

Bondage is all about physically restricting someone’s movement or ability to act. This covers everything from handcuffs, ropes, shackles, gags, straightjackets, to cages, and even corsetry in a way. Anything that can be used to aid in the goal of restraining someone is fair play for bondage enthusiasts, so this also means standard clothing, scarves, belts, plastic wrap, bed sheets, and a host of other objects can be used.

There are three primary (but many more secondary and tertiary) ways you can categorize bondage. These are:

  • what object you’re binding or being bound with,

  • what interpersonal dynamic you’ve engaged in while being bound and

  • what position you’re being restrained in.

As I mentioned, many objects can be used for bondage. However, many people have a preference for a specific type of object. Personally, I’m in love with rope and extremely heavy metal shackles, but everyone has an individual preference.

Similarly, everyone’s preference for how they like to be tied is different, too. Some people prefer to try and avoid being tied up by fighting against the efforts of their binder, or forcefully capturing and restraining a partner who is acting reluctant. This is often a major facet to scenes like rape and kidnapping fantasies for a lot of bondage lovers. There are many techniques and even martial arts that are specifically designed to teach you how to take someone down and tie them up such as hojujitsu, or Japanese prisoner bondage.

Others see bondage as a means to relax and enjoy a cozy sensation of snugness, or to focus on creating the perfect rope harness or to find the most creative position they can get their partner stuck in. For such people, bondage is as relaxing as a warm, hot bath after a stressful day. Yet others see bondage as a means to some other end. Once you’ve got your partner bound, that’s when the fun can really begin! So bondage really is, to a very large degree, what you make of it.

However, regardless of why do you it or what you do it with, there’s some general safety information you absolutely must know. Keep in mind that despite the seemingly benign nature of the play, bondage is one of the more dangerous, more physically stressful and demanding forms of play you can engage in. Yes, it’s okay to take a scarf and tie your lovers hands to the headboard, but you really ought to know what you’re doing if you get into more serious positions like hog-ties or suspension.

So the first rule of bondage safety is this: never leave a bound person alone. Just don’t do it. You never know when an emergency will pop up.

The second rule of bondage safety is always have a fast way to release the bound person available to you. My girlfriend and I always keep EMT safety scissors right with our rope, so they’re never far away. Also, if you’re doing that, be sure to actually test the scissors to make sure they cut the rope you’re going to use before you start playing, for obvious reasons.

Thirdly, be careful of how tight and how long you are keeping someone bound. Essentially, you want to achieve a snug fit that does not cut off circulation to your partner’s extremities or cut off their breathing. (And if you’re worried about cutting off their breathing that means you’ve got neck bondage happening, which is one of those things you should never do until you’re feeling really comfortable in your ability.)

Good things to remember when you’re tying someone up is that you want to be able to slide one or two fingers comfortably underneath their bonds. If you can’t, it’s too tight. One way to tell that circulation is being cut off is if the bound person’s skin feels very cold. A little bit of coolness is okay, as is some tingling, but if your partner reports either of those sensations or you can feel that their body part is getting cold, you need to keep a strict eye on the clock from then on out. Don’t leave them tied that tightly for too much longer.

Furthermore, try to avoid tying knots that press directly into veins or arteries or joints, such as on the wrists, elbows, and the back of the knees. These are often uncomfortable for the bottom and indicate a sloppy knot on the top’s part. I won’t go into knots here because it’d take too long, but there’s a ton of information about this stuff in books and on the Internet. Just search or “how to do erotic bondage” and you’ll hit a plethora of tutorials.

Finally, but certainly not least, use common sense to avoid accidental injury. In other words, do remember to do things like have your partner holding on to something or lying down if you’re tying their ankles together. Especially if they’re arms are already bound, you don’t want them falling down and breaking their nose by accident. If you want that on purpose, that’s one thing, but an accident is just not sexy.

Before I hand it over, I just want to reiterate one last time that this is absolutely, positively, not an all-inclusive guide to bondage or bondage safety. If you’re interested in this stuff, come talk to me and do your due diligence. It will probably make the experience a hundred times better, and it may just save you an embarrassing (and costly) trip to the hospital.

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