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!) 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.

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Monday, September 22, 2008

Insomnia and pleasant sexual frustration (no relation)

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Chastity/Orgasm denial, Community, Relationship, Sexual teasing and control, Vanilla life

As I’ve recently discussed, I’m becoming increasingly upset with life here in Sydney. Since I’ve found the local scene all but worthless, Eileen and I aren’t finding ourselves with lots of opportunities to play or explore others or ourselves. Besides that, we’re both caught up in (equally increasingly upsetting) non-sexuality-related work such as our day jobs and other pursuits.

Catching up on some blogs tonight (during yet another bout of procrastination and insomnia), I see that I’m not the only one. The enviable Mischief has some plans but isn’t doing much about them at the moment, and Selina emailed me to say hi but due to an (equally enviable) overabundance of sex hasn’t blogged about it much. Tom’s even feeling a bit depressed and doesn’t have much in the way of new erotica on his blog these days. I’m finding myself feeling more severed from the only communities I’ve ever had major social roots in than ever, and it’s decidedly unpleasantly disconcerting. It’s even more upsetting that this happened mere months after the first optimistic signs that things could actually get better for me back in New York City.

A few weeks ago, in response to this, I remarked to Eileen in a conspicuously offhanded fashion that I’d like to play with our CB-3000 some more, and since we lost our shower’s water pressure in the move, I’d like to find a good squeeze bottle for hygienic purposes, too. I like starting down the orgasm control route again because it’s a (for lack of a better phrase) low-intensity thing we can do to mix a little bit of our former lives back into our daily interactions. I feel like letting my arousal build and release at her whim helps counter some of the less desirable things of all that “domesticity” that has been creeping into our lives of late.

It was an indescribable pleasure to feel the tenacity with which my sexual attention was affixed to her late last week and especially Saturday, when we had the time to spend the day at the beach and napping on the park’s grass lawn. I was reminded of the first summer we’d spent together and of the fact that I can count my orgasms during those three or four months on two hands, and of when we met. I bristled with pulses of arousal at her touch, and whenever I’d see a pretty girl walk past me I’d think of both Eileen and the pretty girl. Little did I know that meeting Eileen would be the catalyst for so much pleasant sexual frustration of exactly the sort I craved, and keep craving today.

Of course, orgasm denial brings with it its own challenges, both to me via the obvious and somewhat newly novel sexual frustration as well as to the relationship. Daily obligations don’t just go away, and Real Life hasn’t been exceedingly accommodating of our want to play. Eileen and I both still get tired, we’ve each gotten ill at different times this past week alone, and of course work incessantly mounts upon itself. I’ve tried to sneak away some time for personal projects (some of which are sexuality-related and which I hope to unveil shortly). I’ve also been doing my bit to improve Conversio Virium’s presence, of course. (Sidenote: CV has a Twitter stream now.) I sorely miss CV and a big part of me wishes I could be there in person to witness their ongoing success.

I do feel like I’ve grown here, and if nothing else in this circumstance absence is surely making my heart grow fonder of all that I left.

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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Why Orgasm Logger? Well, why not?

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM psychology, BDSM techniques, Chastity/Orgasm denial, Communication, D/s dynamics, Humor, Myths and misconceptions, Orgasm Logger, Personal history, Politics of sex, Sex, Sexual teasing and control, Technology

This is majorly cool: Viviane linked Orgasm Logger in her Links for January 4th, 2008 post and it’s since been picked up by Boinkology, and a few higher-profile bloggers are beginning to display Orgasm Logger counters on their sites, too, like Tom Paine. A few months ago, a search for “Orgasm Logger” revealed only a handful of hits but now Google shows over 1,300 results, which is quite a bit for a project I put a single night’s effort into months ago primarily for my own, personal use.

I’ve also been seeing discussions about Orgasm Logger surface on message boards and other blogs every so often. It’s a lot of fun to read through the discussions people are having and to see what they’re saying about it. Here are some telling examples.

This woman, on an Informed Consent discussion thread, says:

Having orgasms isn’t a competitive activity, it’s just something that happens, or doesn’t and it certainly shouldn’t be used as a measure of anything. In my opinion.

I have to say I agree with her regarding her view on the usefulness of orgasms as a competitive measure, but I disagree that it shouldn’t be used as a measure of something. Measure of what is the question. Well, I think that’s up to the person doing the measuring.

I never think of orgasms as competitive, just a lot of fun. They’re fun to have, and they’re fun for some of us not to have, and the fact that some of us are having more than others is also a lot of fun for some of us. I don’t think there’s anything in this world that turns me on more reliably and so thoroughly as watching my lover have a screaming-good orgasm. For me, when she has ten or twenty, or maybe even a hundred and I haven’t had one, that’s an even sexier thought. I like the disparity in the numbers, but I don’t feel competitive about it.

Naturally, kinky people into chastity play and orgasm control see the value of this tool really quickly. Later in the same thread, another woman writes:

I think the ‘logging’ idea would be a nice little extra feature for those who do chastity play.

And then another guy echoes her sentiment:

I can imagine it might be of use if a man were in a sort of chastity arrangement without a device i.e. based on trust, and monitored by a domme at a remote location.

Curvaceous Dee is (fittingly) ahead of the curve by already having experienced first-hand the intent of Orgasm Logger:

It was a great relief to finally come again. The very useful Orgasm Logger has confirmed to me over the past few months what I’d suspected for a while—that I like to get off every couple of days. Doesn’t matter too much whether it’s self-pleasure or pleasure with partners (both have their moments), but, almost like clockwork, every two days on average will see me gushing, groaning, and generally feeling great. Which explains why I’m always running out of ‘bedroom towels’….

Indeed, as she points out, keeping track of stuff let’s you know more about that stuff.

Here’s another blogger’s comment, one I really love:

I clicked, and found out this guy had his last [orgasm] 3.58 days ago, and this is a feed from an actual Orgasm Logger site! What an add-on to one’s blog! The ultimate in advance orgasm management strategy systems!

The ultimate in advanced orgasm management strategy systems? I think this blogger coined a new acronym: OMSS! Naturally, I can think of dozens of improvements to Orgasm Logger so I’m not going to be calling this thing “the ultimate” any time soon.

Of course, Lux of Boinkology said it best:

We’re both fascinated and confused by this application

In fact, that’s been the most common reaction, and it’s really interesting to me. Long before I created Orgasm Logger, I’d just been naturally keeping a tally on my orgasms. It seems to me like most everyone does this, if only not as mindfully as I do. Of course, what made me mindful about keeping track of my orgasms in the first place was my near-fetish for orgasm control, in a sexually submissive headspace.

I got really serious about keeping track of my orgasms about two years or so before I created Orgasm Logger. At first, I simply wrote down when my last one was, so I’d always know. Then I wanted to be able to easily share that piece of information with Eileen, so she’d be able to know whenever it interested her. To make that happen, I started recording my orgasms as events on my personal calendar, publishing those events as an iCalendar to a local WebDAV server I run for the two of us here at home, and then subscribed her iCal to the calendar feed I was publishing.

It worked flawlessly. Now I had a real database of all my recorded orgasms with embedded date and time, location, and participant information! It was pretty much all I needed. But it wasn’t perfect.

It didn’t do the things I was most interested in, which was tell me at-a-glance how long it had been since my last orgasm, the most personally interesting datum. I had to do that calculation every time I wanted to know. What’s today’s date? When was the date of my last orgasm? What’s the difference between then and now?

Obviously, computers are the answer to computational problems, so I started thinking about how I could get the computer to do everything I wanted. In the process, it occurred to me that lots of people heavily into orgasm control are always talking about “how long it’s been” or “what their last one was like.”

Hell, people who aren’t even kinky are talking about their orgasms left and right, up and down, inside and out, this ways and that ways! Moreover, the entire political debate over contraception, abortion, teen pregnancies, abstinence-only sex education, and a host of other issues, are all centered around exactly this topic: orgasms!

None of this would even be happening if it weren’t for orgasms, but I’ve yet to hear someone acknowledge that simple fact. It’s as though, if you were an alien, you’d think orgasms were what made the world go ’round, but nobody was allowed to talk about them directly.

Which brings me to my point. Orgasms are really important for a lot of people. What’s interesting, then, is why it’s so puzzling to so many people that I’ve made a tool to help people keep track of them. After all, throughout history, the one thing people have continued to do with nearly no change in behavior at all is come up with ways to keep track of the stuff that’s important to them.

No value judgement, no assumptions, just an awareness of what’s important to people and the benefits that can be garnered from using increasingly sophisticated tools to broaden that awareness. That’s what Orgasm Logger is about, for me. That’s what I think everything should be about, on a philosophical level.

No one would have looked at me askance if I wrote improvements to banking software, because money is very important to a lot of people. That’s why it’s tracked so rigorously. That’s why it’s used as a competitive measure of status, of wealth, and of many other things, even though a lot of us think that it shouldn’t be.

Why, then, do orgasms seem so out of place? Maybe the answer to that question is also the answer to a lot of other things that we as a country, a culture, and a species, are struggling with. Maybe understanding value, understanding why the things that are important to us are important, things that are currently so deeply ingrained in the cultural tropes of our society that we don’t even realize we can question, will help us in ways we can’t even imagine today.

That’s what I’m puzzling over.

Update: News of the existence of Orgasm Logger is still spreading, and it’s still getting the typical, puzzled and, in some cases, even hostile reactions I can pretty much expect from the mainstream world-at-large. Latest sighting was at a site called Dear Sugar.

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Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas, with picture presents!

Category labels: Chastity/Orgasm denial, Erotica and pornography, Spanking and paddling

I don’t really have a lot of things to say about holidays most of the time. I rarely remember they are even approaching when they are, I don’t do anything special to celebrate them, and I’m generally apathetic to their meaning. None of that, however, precludes the possibility of hoping everyone else is having a very merry Christmas or a happy holiday or whatever it is you have chosen to do on this and any other related day.

As a brief interlude from all the heavy-hearted posting, I thought that, instead of making associations between this holiday and the fear of sex (I mean, as I understand it, people all around the world are generally celebrating immaculate conception, which doesn’t sound like any fun at all to me) I’d give you all a few moments of “mmmm, that nice!” in pictorial form. Enjoy.

Christmas Chastity
Christmas Gay Spanking and Paddling
Santa’s List

As an aside, if anyone has information as to the identity of the artists, I would love to give them due credit as, unfortunately, I do not as yet know the original source.

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Wednesday Wanderings: Welcome Back and Fond Farewell

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Chastity/Orgasm denial, Communication, Male sexuality, Politics of sex, Professional BDSM, Sexism, Wednesday Wanderings, Writing and blogging

A long time ago, when I was just beginning to explore the sex blog corner of the blogosphere, I decided I’d set myself a task: find a few interesting links every week and publish something nice about them on Wednesdays. Since these were only going to be links I could say something nice about, they would, of course, have to be good links (or at least decent links), because otherwise I would say something bad about them. Yes, my mother did tell me that if I have nothing nice to say, I should not say it at all, and no, I did not usually take her advice.

Well, it’s been a long time, and I don’t know if this is a tradition I can sustain every week. I’m simply not that fast a reader. However, at least every once in a while, because I think the activity of seeking novel quality content is a beneficial one for so many vital reasons—to always question, to always listen, to always be open to new opportunity and possibility—I’ve decided to give this another try and see where it takes me.

I’m also going to forego forcing this tradition to become a search for new sources, because frankly that’s a less pressing goal. This means you might see more of the familiar bloggers showing up here every once in a while. This should be your clue that you should probably subscribe to their blog feeds. ;)

So, this week, I’m going to make special mention of a few blogs that I’ve added to my blog roll, as well as point out a particularly poignant recent post by a blog that is not. (If you’re curious what criteria I use to decide who I list on my blog roll and who I don’t, then you’ll be sad to know that so am I.)

  • First is Figleaf, of Real Adult Sex, who I’ve been reading for quite some time and linked to on more than one occasion. His posts fill my newsreader with such consistency and frequency that I have completely given up reading every one of them. However, this was really hard to do because each one is just so damn good. In many respects, he belabors the same points over and over again, but he does so on points that are important enough that are always impossible to ignore and, moreover, he does so with novel observations each time. Quite simply, I admire his tenacity and patience, his clarity, and his consistency and commitment to his blog. You can now find him linked from my blog roll.
  • One blog I don’t keep up with much (simply because it is not personally interesting) is Married Man’s Fucktoy, but this post in which DL’s Toy relates some experiences with orgasm control is decidedly hot. For one, it’s clearly experience and doesn’t read like erotica, which while fun in its own right is sometimes not what you’re looking for. Second, it touches on a few issues that relate to orgasm denial that I am currently grappling with myself, and which I might one day soon write about here. In any event, for the moment, the post is simply a fun romp in which I vicariously experienced a few moments of her covetous desire for an orgasm. Also, it might be a fun glimpse for some male submissives out there to see just how similar orgasm denial can feel for women in some ways as it can feel for us.
  • Calico, who is pretty much always writing amazing stuff, has done it again for me, this time in a post less than 250 words long. The message? Sex workers teach customers how to talk about what they want. I think we can all agree that’s a good thing.
  • Another wonderful blogger that I’ve known about for some time but that, for some reason, I simply didn’t start really reading seriously is Chelsea Girl from over on Pretty Dumb Things. Her incredible talent at writing pieces that are at once beautiful and meaningful and thought-provoking have, now that I’ve been listening, given me a lot to consider. For this and other reasons, she’s totally earned a permanent spot on my blog roll.
  • Finally, another blogger who, evidently, has been blogging for years and years and years and who I only had the pleasure of meeting last week is Debauchette. Debauchette and I met at the most recent sex blogger’s tea hosted by the one and only Blog Mamma, Viviane of The Sex Carnival whose blog is also totally worth a look. She struck me as a surprisingly soft-spoken individual with an obvious abundance of Good Things to say about sex and sexual experience, which is of obvious interest to many of us. I can say the same thing of her writing I’ve read so far.

That’s all for this week. It’s plenty, though, really. As many of you may already be aware, I’m not planning to be in New York City for much longer. This saddens me at the same time as it excites me. I have never in my life met so many intelligent, capable, and enthralling people in this city as I have in the last few months.

Figures, doesn’t it? Just as I get ready to leave, I find that part of what I was looking for elsewhere has been here all along. Sigh. I’ll miss this city and all the new friends and connections I’ve made here. Still, I badly need an adventure—and going to Sydney will be an awfully big adventure.

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Rope bondage video of the day

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Bondage, Chastity/Orgasm denial, Femdom, Humor

This video has everything. Bondage, begging, a super hot blonde dominatrix, and cookies! :) When I shared this find with Rona everyone over at her blog got a real kick out of it, so I thought I’d share it here, too.

All the begging totally put the idea of Cookie Monster orgasm denial porn in my head. “Make a choice, Cookie Monster, do you want this delicious cookie or an orgasm?” Tee, hee, hee!

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Friday, November 2, 2007

The unexpected clarity

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Chastity/Orgasm denial, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Femdom, Masturbation, Personal experience, Relationship, Sexual teasing and control

I am anal retentive, persistently consistent, and have a notorious dislike for change. Yet whenever something new happens for the first time, I am endlessly fascinated by it. Just such a new thing happened the other night. Allow me to set the scene.

It is late, past ten o’clock in the evening. It has been a long day, pleasant at parts and disagreeable at others, but it is over and I am through it nonetheless. Throughout the day, I have spent some short moments flirting with Eileen and making horribly inappropriate remarks about the use I think she should put me to when we are home for my being in an office. I don’t dare stand up, though I have been looking forward to being home.

And, of course, I am horny.

Eileen and I met up on the subway and went home together. At home, she ordered me to fetch her food and drink as she settled down with her computer onto the bed in our living room, which doubles as a sofa because neither of us really care for “proper appearances” and you might be amazed how useful a four-poster twin-size bed is in the living room. Eventually, I had gone to the shower, where, because I was horny, I spent a chunk of the night masturbating (and, of course, not having orgasms).

Now, after ten o’clock in the evening, I am horny.

But, I am also somewhat disappointed, and consequently somewhat annoyed, and consequently somewhat pissed off. I wanted to spend time with Eileen, ideally being sexual, but if not then just spending the night with her. I was specifically looking forward to it, and thought she was looking forward to the same. Instead, I feel lonely because it’s been three hours and her computer is getting the attention I want from her, and now it is getting late and I am tired anyway and soon it will be bedtime and then I will have missed the chance to spend time with her and then I will have a crappy day the next day or I will not have a good night sleep…and…and…and….

And, by the way, I am horny.

I try to ignore the horniness, as masturbating will only make the distraction stronger and anyway I’m not permitted to do that without Eileen’s explicit permission. But even if I did have permission to pleasure myself and even if pleasuring myself would have satiated my growing sexual restlessness, I am uninterested in doing so because it’s not what I want. What I want is to spend time with Eileen, and masturbating while she is focused on her own work does not fulfill that desire in any way.

So I sit down at my computer, trying to forget about how incredible horny I am.

Only, I can’t. I turn to Eileen and dejectedly remark on the time. Only, the conversation doesn’t proceed like the one in my head and instead of making me feel better it makes us both feel bad. Now Eileen, I imagine, feels as though I am too much to deal with, too clingy and demanding of way too much time. I feel bad because maybe she’s right, because I have frustrated myself further by failing to create a better situation for myself, and I still feel lonely and want to spend time with her but then isn’t that potentially asking too much anyway? I am like this a lot. I really am a high-maintenance boyfriend.

Now, I am upset. For a few moments, I’m no longer horny at all.

We stop talking, having gotten nowhere and instead I turn back to my computer, intent on watching iPhone Developer Technical Talk videos from Apple’s WWDC 2007, something that is sure to lift my spirits. Only it doesn’t, and as I’m sitting naked in my chair I feel silly and needlessly exposed.

I do something that is actually a big deal when I’m home: I put on some pants. My mood has shifted and I shed the old one like a skin, donning the new one like a shell that I crawl into. My pants are this shell, letting me emotionally “climb under the covers” and away from this badness.

Only that’s not enough either, and now I’m feeling worse because Eileen is in the kitchen without a smile on her face and I am further away from her, which is exactly what I didn’t want. I’ve succeeded in nothing at all. And now, worst of all, I am getting horny again.

In uncontrollable frustration, I stop the video and rip off my headphones and glasses—but not my pants—and march into the bedroom where I abruptly shut off all the lights and jump into bed, under our sheets. I curl up on my side and try to relax. I tell myself to let it go, that it’s not really a big deal and I’m just being moody, just being affected by all the hardship of work and the uncertainty the next few months are undoubtedly going to bring. But now I’m thinking about hardship and uncertainty and I am angry at the situation I have found myself in and I don’t want to be thinking about it and I just want it to go away.

And worst of all, every time I succeed in calming my mind even a little, my body forces something else to fill the void: I am horny.

Soon, Eileen tentatively enters the room and asks if she may lay next to me. I say nothing, way too deep in my invisible shell to speak, and she knows this. She joins me, snuggles up next to me. I feel her warmth and her skin and her arms around my shoulders, and my penis becomes ever more insistent. My breathing changes involuntarily. She notices, and moves her hand to my back, carefully.

How dare my body do this to me? I am angry, and in some perverse way, I want to be angry right now. And my body isn’t letting me because I’m too damn horny to be thinking about anything except her hand on my back and the softness of her skin and how hard my cock is and how much I want her to fuck me ’til we come. I want it, but I don’t. I try to stifle a soft moan, but can’t. She hears, and now her hand has found its way to my ass.

Eventually she pulls me out of my fetal position and removes all the layers of fabric that are covering me until I am naked once again. “Tell me this is okay,” she says to me. “It’s okay,” I whimper, surprising myself with the speed at which the response came out of my mouth. It’s no use trying to fight it anymore: I still don’t want to be sexual but I want her to force me to be sexual with her anyway. I am not so naive as to be perplexed by how these two seemingly contradictory feelings could possibly be within me at once, but I am nonetheless unfamiliar with their incredible genuineness and intensity.

What I want is to have things—my mood, our communication, the night—be better. I want to let go. This is the most indispensable quality of surrender, and of submission. I no longer care what happens. I just want her to take me so that I am dominated.

She touches my penis and I instantly shudder. Slowly, she moves my own hand to it and strokes me with my own fingertips. She tells me to keep masturbating myself the way she is showing me and I do. While watching me, she brings a bottle of lube and pours a few drops on the head of my cock and tells me to use my index finger and thumb to slowly rub along the underside and the top of my penis, from base to shaft and back again very slowly.

After another short while of watching my body shake and my mouth gnaw at my lips, she tells me to press harder. Then to go slightly faster. Then she closes the rest of my fingers around my shaft and guides my masturbation somewhat faster still, all of this to the music of my moans and whimpers.

Then she peels her underwear to the floor and lays down next to me to begin masturbating herself. “You’re not going to have an orgasm tonight,” she tells me quietly and I fight for breath at the thought, “but I’ll give you a choice. You can keep masturbating now, or you can stop and lie next to me here so I’ll hold you while I come.” I just whimper more. “It’s going to be excruciating either way. Do you want to keep masturbating?” she asks. For a moment the only sound that fills the room is that of the lube between my hand and my penis popping. I nod, and she smiles. “I like seeing you like this.”

She gave herself a strong orgasm that night. When she was done and had caught her breath, she looked back at me, my face contorted as one might be when near to the point of tears. She addressed me by my real full name, something she rarely does, paused so we could lock eyes, and said simply, “stop.”

Though I did stop, I also almost shrieked as I did so. She quickly collected me in her arms and hugged me close. Afterwards, I felt oddly satiated, and I had no trouble falling asleep that night.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Kink on Tap 7: Tom Allen

Category labels: BDSM techniques, Beginner BDSM, Chastity/Orgasm denial, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Femdom, Kink on Tap, Relationship, Sex, Sex toys, Sexual teasing and control, Training/Conditioning, Vanilla life

This Kink on Tap is kind of an extended addendum to our previous episode where we talk about and introduce the topic of sexual teasing and denial and chastity play. If you haven’t listened to that episode already, I strongly urge you to do so.

The best part, however, is that Tom Allen from the Edge of Vanilla joined Eileen and I to talk about his personal experiences. Of course, the advantage of having someone on the phone is that you can ask personal qusetions and get immediate, personal responses.

There’s no shortage of that in this converastion, where Tom shares a lot about his own reasons for enjoying chastity, the way in which this kind of sexual power play developed in the relationship with his (very blessed) wife, and of course why this kink in particular is often thought of as being very “vanilla.” I couldn’t help but share some of my own opinions and experiences as well, and Eileen does the same.

Lest you think that Tom’s always this cerebral, however, don’t forget about his super-hot chastity porn. My own fantasies tend to drift towards slightly more painful tastes, but that doesn’t stop me from being the first to admit that I’ve sprung more than my fair share of hard-ons looking at Tom’s stuff.

As always, I hope you enjoy this episode of Kink on Tap and invite your feedback of any kind (though especially regarding audio engineering) either as comments here or by emailing kinkontap+feedback@gmail.com. Have something you want to hear talked about or a story you want to share? Write to me at kinkontap+viewermail@gmail.com (and don’t question why it’s called viewer mail, ‘cuz I wouldn’t know what to tell you).

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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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Friday, August 10, 2007

The first blowjob I’ve ever bottomed to

Category labels: BDSM psychology, BDSM techniques, Blowjobs, Chastity/Orgasm denial, D/s dynamics, Femdom, Personal experience, Politics of sex, Relationship, Sex, Sexual teasing and control

This morning a friend asked me to give her an image that turns me on, followed by an image that is iconic of a “top” or a “domme” and then to determine whether the answers to those two questions share any key visual elements. Yes, this friend’s really smart, by the way.

In response, I told her that the first thing that popped into my mind of an image that turns me on was Eileen’s lips and tongue during the blowjob she unexpectedly gave me last night, but that’s only because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for the past twelve hours or so. In fact, if my friend had asked me for an image that turns me on another day, I probably wouldn’t have said blowjobs at all.

The last significant mouth-on-penis action I’ve received hasn’t been for more than two and a half years. Before that I wasn’t even that excited about blowjobs. Handjobs always felt better to me anyway, so I wasn’t very interested in getting them, though I don’t think I ever turned down the opportunity. All my partners were far more skilled with their hands than their mouths anyway but more interestingly—and more to the point—I liked handjobs more because it was easier to bottom to them.

Few men can deny the fact that having someone else’s hands around your genitals can be a vulnerable position. Of course, it isn’t always intended that way (unless you’re me, in which case it probably is) but our culture is saturated with images and stories of men’s genitals being vulnerable in the hands of women. It’s even in our slang: “She has got me by the balls” means that I am well and truly dominated by her control of the situation. I’m not sure why this is supposed to be a bad thing (</sarcasm>), but it is.

Contrast this with any imagery of blowjobs displayed by popular culture and the exact reverse is true. For some reason, people seem to think that putting your penis in someone else’s mouth gives you some kind of control over the situation and makes the person whose mouth is around your genitals submissive. This has always been somewhat baffling to me, because it is far easier to hurt my penis with your teeth than it is to hurt it with your hands. Is my penis somehow more vulnerable to teeth than a so-called “Alpha Male”’s is? I’d love to know if it is, as I’ve unfortunately had no experience putting real live penises in my mouth.

(As an aside: if you want me to feel submissive while you make me go down on your cock then you should use something along the lines of a ring gag (NSFW) while you do it. Not that there aren’t other ways to make fellatio into a submissive act—you could close my nose so I have trouble breathing, or hold a knife at my neck, or you could just whisper in my ear that you know how badly I want to drown the back of my throat in ejaculate, but the point is that it’s all about how you do what you’re doing.)

I think blowjobs are so riddled with unnecessary connotations of submission that whenever my previous partners went down on me they were, in effect, submitting. (As another aside, these particular past partners were for the most part submissive women, which I’m sure had something to do with it. Why my dating history has a 3-to-1 ratio of submissive women to dominant women is, however, another frustrating post entirely.) While I enjoy sexual stimulation from a talented mouth as much as the next man, girls who go down on me with a disposition that is solely intended to please are just not as sexy as the ones who do it with a mind for taking control of me.

There are two times in life when people will show you their true emotions. The first is during a round of poker. The second is during sex.

It should probably be obvious, but maybe it’s not: submissive men like assertive blowjobs, not amiable ones. In fact, in case one thing doesn’t lead you to the other, submissive men like assertiveness and control in general. We like assertive handjobs and masturbation, fucking (of many varieties), kissing, and pussy-licking. In other words, we enjoy all the very same sexual acts anyone else does, but what we enjoy most about them is the assertiveness and control of our dominant partners.

So when Eileen took hold of my wrist and placed it behind my back as she enveloped my penis with her throat, I nearly shuddered from the hotness. There was the key visual element that combined one of the sexiest things I have ever seen with my iconic image of female dominance: assertive and control, wanting me and taking me. She took me, this time, with her mouth.

She licked my cock from base to head and from head to base, not in worship to me but in her own indulgence. Whereas before I was used to blowjobs being a rather piston-like up and down motion or a stationary sucking sensation (penises aren’t straws, by the way), Eileen’s mouth slowly travelled all over my shaft. When she combined a powerful suction on my penis’ corona with vertical strokes from her tongue I had to say it out loud: “I’m going to orgasm if you keep doing that.” And in response, she eased up just enough to make it possible for me not to come.

In response to my friend’s second question asking for an iconic image of a “top” or “domme,” I responded that to come up with one is actually pretty difficult. After all, there are so many different looks that I associate with dominance. Does the so-called iconic female dominant have long hair or short hair? Is she dressed in tight clothing or is she lounging in bathrobes? It can all be hot.

So my answer was that an image iconic of a female top or domme for me, at that moment when she asked, was a tall woman wearing jeans that shows off her ass nicely and some kind of tank-top-like shirt, probably black. It’s comfortable yet sexy—sexy because she’s comfortable. And in my fantasies, she’s holding something, like a knife in her right hand and a coiled rope in her left, not to be too specific about it. (I realized later that I was actually just describing Eileen in one of her more playful moods, but that’s besides the point right now.)

Clearly I have a thing for the outdoorsy look, but what I really have a thing for is the confident type. This should be no secret (and if it is, I pity you and would like to invite you to listen especially close right now), but confidence is always sexy. Always. It’s sexy to me when you look into my eye and feel confident enough to know you can make me hard just by licking your lips.

Confidence is about being sexy, regardless of orientation or activity. Assertiveness and control is about taking that confidence and applying it to a particular sexual power dynamic. Like, you know, leaving me literally laughing on our bed from desperate arousal after giving me the most dominant blowjob I’ve ever felt and then smiling as you tell me there’s not a chance you’ll let me orgasm tonight.

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