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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Friday, December 28, 2007

Three easy steps to meeting and playing with people in BDSM clubs

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Beginner BDSM, Communication, Femdom, Fetish, Foot worship, Myths and misconceptions, Stupid dominants, Stupid submissives, Vanilla life

While filling the Conversio Virium calendar with other group’s events to publicize to the CV crowd, I came across a curious meeting topic that DomSubFriends (one of our local NYC BDSM groups) is going to be presenting on shortly. It is a presentation, taught by a dominant man and intended for other men regardless of their various potential orientations (or so one is led to believe from the description), about how to be more successful when trying to meet partners. It’s called “Why can’t I meet someone? (In the scene!)”.

I have to say that I’m glad this topic is being brought up at a local kink group. I also have to say that whenever it’s been brought up in the past, it’s been a miserable failure of a presentation with no insight and nary a good point being made by the presenter or the audience. But maybe this time will be different….

Of course, it is an oft-cited criticism of the BDSM scene that many men have: “It’s too hard to meet women!” Indeed, many men feel that their attempts at engaging members of the opposite sex are consistently unsuccessful. What many men fail to note, however, is that women decry the experience of trying to meet a partner just as much, usually with the similarly oft-cited complaint: “Why is every man who talks to me so obnoxious and weird?”

In my decidedly not-as-vast-as-other-people’s personal experience and observations, there are a few key guidelines that have proven themselves to be invaluable to me personally and have been present in every successful pre-play interaction I have witnessed—ever. Astonishingly, very few men actually seem to follow these three simple steps, which apply regardless of situation, circumstance, or participants involved:

  1. Vanilla rules apply. Just as certain common-sense rules of etiquette are followed in non-kink spaces, so too must they all be followed in kink spaces outside of a scene. If you’re not invited to be a part of someone’s scene, that means you’re not in a scene, clear? Being in a BDSM dungeon does not implicitly grant anyone the right to be rude to, to invade the personal space of, or otherwise behave poorly towards anyone else, no matter who you are or who they are. End of story.
  2. Make conversation. Nine times out of ten, if you ask someone to play with you before you even say hello, you’re going to get turned down. Think about it: do you walk up to random women in bars and ask them to have sex with you? No, you talk to them first, you flirt. Do that in a BDSM club, too. If there’s some chemistry in the conversation first, then the apple of your eye is much more likely to say yes when you broach the topic of playing together.
  3. Be generous. Give and you shall receive. If you get turned down, be gracious and accepting about it. There’s nothing more damaging to your search for a play partner than to be seen acting like a big baby that can’t handle rejection politely. On the other hand, if your offer to play is accepted, then do something you are both going to like when you play and make sure your play partner knows how much you’re liking it while you’re playing.

    If you’re topping, this means you top with enthusiasm tempered with lots of care. If you’re bottoming, this means you’re reacting to what she’s doing because, remember, she wants to be having an effect on you. I don’t think I know a single top who doesn’t like noise, or squirming, or something of the sort as long as it’s an authentic reaction and not a big phony act. Conversely, almost all of them really dislike playing with a stubbornly stoic, silent, expressionless bottom.

It’s unfortunate that when something isn’t working, many men simply try to do more of the same. If asking ten women to let him rub their feet didn’t work, he’ll just try asking another fifty, thinking one of them will eventually acquiesce. Sadly, this just doesn’t work. “Trying harder” without entertaining some kind of introspection is nearly guaranteed to fail every time.

The only cure for desperation is alternatives. If something’s not working for you, for goodness sake, give something else an honest try.

See also

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Abandoned, accidental orgasm

Category labels: Chastity/Orgasm denial, Foot worship, Personal experience, Sexual teasing and control

Last night, Eileen and I were cuddling in bed. I was horny and hard, of course, and I was thrilled when Eileen let me masturbate while I kissed her feet as I did so. Naturally, I was quickly on edge, and continued to edge while kissing her feet for quite a while (an estimated 30-45 minutes).

I have always found feet to be one of the funniest parts of the body. Not sexy funny, really, just ha-ha funny. However, there is something strangely comforting about resting my head on my girlfriend’s feet, and humbling about kissing them. She has had me do this for her before, and even though it’s not something I would do of my own volition, I find it very enjoyable. Tonight especially, I wondered if she was trying to make me associate worshiping her feet with the pleasure of masturbation. The thought is arousing in much the same way as it is humiliating, especially since it is the foot fetish that I typically associate with the standard “stand and model” crowd I dislike.

While I was edging, Eileen was busying herself on her laptop, stopping to lift my chin with her foot and look at me occasionally when I would make moaning sounds she enjoyed. When I was close to the edge, I kept thinking how much I was enjoying that feeling, and though I was very seriously considering begging for a release, I found myself instead hoping not to have one.

Ironically, after a while, I pushed myself just a little too far and felt myself peak just over the edge. Wanting to be good and to keep edging, I immediately stopped touching myself and tried my best to relax and let the orgasm fade as I had been doing before. I froze but it was too late, and after a few moments my penis weakly oozed out its ejaculate. I almost didn’t notice it until it was nearly over; I had given myself an abandoned orgasm by accident.

“You beat me to it, naughty boy,” she told me, sort of grinning, “I was going to let you cum. Better double the single-tail lashings.” I already owed her 50 lashings for a previous accidental orgasm when she had to leave for her trip overseas, so now I’ve earned 100. (Though I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to these lashings or not.) I moaned aloud when she told me this, not because of the lashings but because she said she was going to let me cum.

I knew the orgasm she would have let me have would have been full and wonderful and a true release, but instead I had given myself a weak and ruined orgasm that didn’t even help my erection waver. Our typical pattern is a release for me about once every 6-12 days (it had been 7 days since my last orgasm at that point), so I’m not expecting another one for a short while and I’m already craving it, loving the anticipation of my next release after having ruined my last one myself.

And…the thought of having had “missed” the real chance…that’s also really turning me on. Hmm….

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