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.

Comments (2)

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.

Comments (8)

Saturday, December 29, 2007

It doesn’t matter if she’s got a brain when your dick is in her

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Communication, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Erotica and pornography, Masochism, Sex

The other day, Debauchette wrote the introduction to a post called On Boys and Pornography that promised to be a very interesting one.

If you say, “Can I come on your face?” or if you try to come on my face, I’ll assume you’ve watched a great deal of porn in your life.

Indeed, porn influences men’s (and women’s) expectations and ideas of sex, what it should feel like, what it should look like, and what we should think about it. I first discovered pornography back in 1994 when I was ten years old and was given free reign to explore the Internet. “Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!” most parents would cry in knee-jerk outrage, but I’d urge adults to entertain a more level-headed approach to the situation (which is not to say that I, nor my parents, approve or have ever approved of minors having free access to pornography by any means at all—but that is neither here nor there at the moment).

Since then, I do see certain and undeniable ways in which my exposure to pornography has affected my sexual development, and it has definitely impacted how I have sex today. I have, of course, seen a lot of visual pornography. Despite this, I think anyone who knows me would agree that there’s a distinct difference between how I approach those parts of social interaction that are sexual and how people of whom they say have “seen too much porn” do so.

This is why I was looking forward to Debauchette’s second piece: why are some men’s exposure to porn seen as the cause of an issue that I clearly know can not possibly, in isolation, be the entire story that explains the malicious intent these “porn-addicted” men seem to have? Turns out, she didn’t write the post I thought she might have, which makes me smile and want to take her out to diners to keep on talking about it over coffee re-fills somewhere.

When I take issue with porn, it’s the quality I dislike, not the genre. I dislike the tedium, the predictability, the fake tans, the plasticky breasts, the baseball caps, the lack of imagination, the boredom, the soundtrack, the lighting, the dialogue, the inauthentic orgasms, the lingerie, the decor, the overall assault on my sensibilities. But when porn’s good, it blows my fucking mind.

Nodding as I read this, these reasons are also why I consistently decry porn, even “alternative” porn, to be monotonous representations of the very same going-through-the-motions activities that are just not exciting on anything other than a vicarious, or worse, detached experience after the first or second viewing.

Yet two things beyond Debauchette’s well-made points struck me about her post. In this paragraph,

When I say that I can sense if someone’s watched a lot of porn, or too much porn, what I mean to say is that I can sense that their relationship to sex is largely visual. […] Since 90% of my libido is fueled by the physical chemistry and psychology (or, in rare cases, emotion) of the experience, in those situations I just prefer to go home and jerk off on my own. Sometimes to porn.

Debauchette claims that 90% of her libido is fueled by the “physical chemistry and psychology” of the experience of sex. Only rarely, she says, are her emotions involved in the lust. This is very interesting.

It’s interesting to me because, with recent analyses of my own thoughts and feelings, mostly regarding no-strings-attached (or “NSA”) sex, my explorations are increasingly leading me to discover what it is about sex that I find arousing, and therein lies a new distinction. Things that I find arousing are not necessarily the same things or the same reasons that get me to orgasm. In other words, things that make me attracted to a person are not necessarily the same things that I want to get off to.

The best example of this is intelligence, a display of which is the easiest way to get me to crush on you. Meeting someone who displays intelligence and talks about sex that way makes my dick rock hard. I mean real hard, and real fast.

Anyone with enough intelligence can probably turn me on in one way or another. Even exceptionally smart people I despise, I’ll admit, have sometimes appeared in fantasies torturing me with their arguments with which I disagree—and with a lot of psuedo-consensual, psuedo-forced sexual advances, of course! (Seriously. They’re some of the absolutely nerdiest fantasies I have ever had.) Smart people are sexy to me by virtue of their smarts.

However, that said, I don’t always (though, again, I do sometimes) find that their intelligence is what I’m after when I ask them for play, or for sex. To put it really painfully bluntly, the horribly politically incorrect phrase “it doesn’t matter if she’s got a brain when your dick is in her” holds true.

When it comes to sex, the reasons I’m attracted to someone are often the reasons why I want to have sex with them, but they’re not necessarily the same. Maybe the key to understanding “casual” sex, then, is to be able to consciously shift my focus from the thing that was attractive to the thing that is hot. Practically, still using the intelligence example, this means that I’m not going to be very attracted to a gorgeous bombshell who can’t put a sentence together, which means I’ll never have sex with that person in the first place.

This is enlightening because it highlights a distinction between what is attractive and what is orgasmic, for want of a better word. That’s an important distinction, because it plays right into the reasons why some people can find themselves fulfilled by cruising for no-strings-attached sex and why I seem to have been unable to do so, yet it also offers an explanation (or at least hope of one) to explain why my interest in “casual sex” (and, to a lesser extent, “casual play” in the kinky sense) is not a doomed endeavor.

The second thing that struck me about Debauchette’s post was this following part, not because of any unique insight but because of its common-sense value:

Porn will get better. But also, I suspect extensive sexual experience and a modicum of self-awareness will mitigate its influence.

Specifically, extensive experience with sex is valuable, when tempered with self-awareness. Those of us with a sex drive know this intuitively, and we are drawn to sex by our instincts. It’s a part of what makes us happy, and human.

Sex, especially the kind of sex I like to have, is also risky. Kinky sex is much riskier than vanilla sex for a whole host of reasons, many of them plainly obvious; my kind of kinky sex typically involves the heavy use of restraints, percussive implements, lots of roughness, and intense psychological stimuli that crank up the volume for things like power inequality skewed to my disadvantage. If I place this power in the wrong hands, such as someone with malicious intent, it’s obviously going to be dangerous and perhaps even downright lethal for me.

Yet even for vanilla people, sex can be dangerous, and is risky. This is why extensive experience is often denounced as a “Bad Thing”; the more you do it, the higher the chances of something going wrong. Nevertheless, extensive experience is obviously valuable, because it’s the only way to corporeally understand (duh!) what’s going on physically, emotionally, and even spiritually (if you’re into that sort of thing). This isn’t to say that it’s necessary to do this with multiple partners, unless the whole many-partners-thing is what you want to corporeally understand of course, nor is it to say that there aren’t other ways of learning about these things that aren’t intrinsic to the physical experience, but—especially for me—experience is the greatest teacher.

So how do you balance this risk with its obvious potential reward? Like anything else, you have to become educated about the topic in general and, more importantly, about you specifically. It’s nothing knew, and you’ve heard it before, but it’s true: “know thyself,” and then when it comes to sex, I’d like to add “and then explain thyself.” As it happens, pornography can be a very helpful tool to learning more about your sexual self but it can’t be expected to be a good substitute to corporeal self-examination or emotional self-awareness.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

How an outdated view of masculinity ignores the needs of all men

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Communication, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Femdom, Gender fluidity, Male sexuality, Masculinity, Masochism, Myths and misconceptions, Politics of sex, Polyamory, Relationship, Sex, Sexism, Vanilla life

As his posts usually do these days, this post of Figleaf’s got me thinking about personal needs, how we provide for those needs, and how those needs become needs in the first place. In it, he says:

Just as we indoctrinate men to strive so mightily to provide that they/we never come home, so we also indoctrinate women so thoroughly to believe men won’t even see them unless they’re starved, then scraped bare, then repainted that some of them/you are afraid to be seen by your partners after a night of roaringly good sex. The real thresholds for being sexy, being a good provider, being a man or a woman, are surprisingly easy to meet. However to embody sexiness, or worthiness, or manliness, or femininity is a fools errand[…]

(His thought-provoking post was inspired by none other than this eloquent post of Calico’s, which is also worth a read. So are the rest of both their blogs, by the way, which each have posts that are almost always equally eloquent.)

Acquiring an accurate understanding of my personal needs has always been the central focus of my life and, sadly, I fear that I still have a long way to go. Having needs that are (or, equally bad, feel as though they are) unfulfilled is the obvious source of a lot of sadness, anger, resentment and jealousy in my life.

When it comes to social and sexual relationships, in fact, jealousy is the word most often associated by most people to indicate a lack of fulfillment of some need in some way. This explains why the polyamorous community and their resources, writings, and issues seem to deal squarely with discovering personal needs and understanding the needs of one’s partners in order to overcome that jealousy.

When reading Figleaf’s observation that men are indoctrinated “to strive so mightily to provide” I saw myself in his words. In most typical instances, what men are indoctrinated to provide is “a living” for their family, which in more concrete terms is often defined by mainstream gender roles as “a dependable source of financial income for the nuclear family unit.” Everyone knows that it’s the man’s job to bring home the bacon, and he’s expected to sacrifice everything—his time, his happiness, his independence, his freedoms, and ultimately himself—in the pursuit of this noble, self-sacrificing, almost holy endeavor.

This is masochism perverted into martyrdom—”no pain, no gain.”

Indeed, there can easily be satisfaction and emotional fulfillment to be found from this goal. I have always absolutely loved to buy Eileen dinner, or treats at Starbucks, or spontaneous gifts—big gifts like several-hundred-dollar jewelry—or to treat the two of us to a night at the movies. All of this all on my dime. I enjoy that because my dime signifies my hard work and spending money on the things that make me happy is something I’ve earned.

Something that makes me happy is providing good experiences to Eileen, which is also the cornerstone of many components of submission. Feeling as though I am capable to provide good experiences for my partner is one thing that is necessary for me to feel submissive. This relationship between being submissive and being a provider and each of their connection to masculinity is most obvious in service-related kinks (sissy-maids and men-turned-”homemakers” are two prime examples that come to mind), and equally obvious in stamina-related kinks (in which men are tortured but, because they are MEN! GRR! they do not whimper or scream and only display a stoic pride), both of which is the (frustratingly) universal representation of male submission everywhere.

Could this be the root of men’s “chivalrous nature”? We are certainly taught that chivalry is a good thing. These activities and the feelings that come from them is both the hegemonic masculine view of how a man should behave towards a woman and an accurate description, at least in parts, of how I want to feel about the way I treat my partners, men and women alike (though the expression of this is, interestingly, different in my relations with men than they are with women).

And that, now that I think about it, may be the first time on this blog in which I have actually described myself as fitting nicely into the masculine gender role stereotype.

Moreover, there’s nothing wrong with this that I can see. Providing for another person makes me happy, and it simultaneously makes me feel strong. Is this not, in fact, the epitome of the knight submissive concept? The knight submissive is a representation of a man who is at once powerful, who uses this power in a way that is courageous, honorable, and makes the lives of those he chooses to effect better, and yet—contrary to the accepted display of hegemonic masculinity—is also submissive to his partner. One might even say he is dominated by his partner, or perhaps in other words that may provide for more insight, is guided, steered, or advised by his partner.

In other words, “behind every good man, there is a good woman.” To me, this sounds as though the knight submissive is the hegemonic masculine man that women read about in romance novels.

Only, because gender stereotypes are idealized versions of atomic characteristics of gender and the masculine gender role has been elected as “the one who provides” whereas the feminine gender role has been elected as “the one who needs,” men are disallowed from needing and women are disallowed from providing—period. End of story.

The classic examples provide evidence of this dichotomy in abundance. What happens if the wife of a heterosexual married couple makes more money than the husband? Suddenly, the husband feels bad because his perceived “manliness” is threatened since she provides more financial income to their family unit than he does. What happens if the wife has a love affair? Again, negative feelings and a perceived threat to his manliness because he is not the one providing her with sexual satisfaction and some other (presumably) man is. This is even true in the way many conservative men respond to vibrators, or, god forbid, pornography intended to be consumed by women.

Any remotely emotionally functional individual will recognize that this system in which women only need and men only provide is harmful to both men and women. Women are expected to need only what men can provide and men are expected not to need anything except, of course, the needs of women. Thanks to the prevailing viewpoint that monogamy is the One True Way to Love® this set of needs is further restricted to include only, for women, the things your one man can provide and, for men, the needs of your one woman.

I see it as self-evident that both men and women have component needs that are irrelevant to their specific partner(s). In other words, a need is intrinsically born of oneself, not of one’s partner. Otherwise, whose need is it, really? Academically, this concept seems as though it can, broadly speaking, be contained within the greater need for self-actualization.

It seems nothing if not utterly ridiculous to function day by day under the rigid and false pretense that only a traditional understanding of the gender model allows. There’s simply no way that I can see being able to squeeze fulfillment and happiness out of being a man whose sole need is to fulfill all his other partner’s needs because, obviously, need-fulfillment is by my earlier definition not actually possible to obtain from a single source. It may, perhaps, be possible and even healthy to seek to fulfill the specific needs of a partner that can be fulfilled by other people, but ultimately there is going to be something, no matter how small that your partner is going to have to do on their own to feel fully fulfilled. (And, if you’ll take a word from the wise, it’s never something that small.)

That piece, no matter how much you or I strive to provide it, being the good, otherwise capable, and self-sacrificing men that we are, is not ever something we can succeed in. Not recognizing that fact leads invariably to codependency of one form or another and then, inevitably, to unhappiness in at least something, be it our work, our social partnerships (of which sexuality and pair-bonding is a form), or—worst of all in my opinion—one’s ability to think effectively and to make good personal choices in one’s private life.

In other words, by focusing so strongly on the experience of our partners, men end up being unable—forbidden, even!—to live our own lives. We need, as a friend said wisely to me the other day, to find a way to disconnect from the experience of our partners, but not disconnect from our partners themselves.

Finding submission with Eileen, for me, has been a major component in being able to connect with another person on a sexual (and thus at least one piece of a social) level that, finally, feels good, and right, and fulfilling. Being submissive meets one of my needs—specifically the need to have fulfilling social interactions. However, in becoming submissive, I must also allow myself the freedom to disconnect from her experience, to allow her the capability to provide for her own needs.

Submission, or masculinity or being a “man”, is not in reality the rigid, narrow thing society tells us being a man is. Being a man is not about providing everything for our partners. It can be about providing for them, but it’s also about providing for ourselves. And guess what? That’s what being a woman is about, too.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The kink culture of fear

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Community, Kink events, Masochism, Myths and misconceptions, Personal experience, Personal history, Spanking and paddling, Strap-ons and dildos, Stupid submissives, Whipping

Where do I start? Do I begin with the retelling of the stories from years now long past, or with this weekend? It’s hard to tell what would be more effective. This weekend, while filled with spectacularly virginal experiences for most people in the realms of play, pain, pleasure, and of course sex, was actually somewhat old news to me. After all, unlike for most of my friends, this was not my first BDSM convention.

So what was new for me? Some play was new, like participating in a friend’s gangbang fisting along with seven other people, getting suspended in rope bondage by two switches, and getting jumped by I don’t even know how many people for a “forced” sex scene. Those things were new for me, but after the fact I am finding that my mind is reflecting on quite another element of this past weekend that is new to me.

For the first time in my life and the first time in all the (more than five) years I’ve spent in the public BDSM community, I felt that other people who are not necessarily friends actually respect me for more than just my pain tolerance, that they began to actually see some things about me that don’t have to do with how hard I like to be hit.

As a person who primarily bottoms, I’ve often felt that people in general only listen to me when I talk about what it’s like to get hurt. It’s as if, in their minds, all I am is a punching bag. For some reason, it’s hard for people—even other bottoms—to see bottoms as anything else.

The awful phrase “take it like a man” rings loudly in my ears whenever I see this because more than anything else I see it cause self-doubt in men who bottom, and makes them afraid they won’t be able to “take enough pain.” I will instantly confess that I, too, once felt and sometimes still feel this pressure. I think this is stupid.

Mind you, I have little trouble playing the part of a punching bag. In fact, I rather like it, I think I’m very good at it, and wish I had more opportunities for it sometimes. But after more than five years of interacting with people at large, being a punching bag is a very unsatisfying, frustrating social existence. It’s made even worse by the fact that I’m a rather picky punching bag to begin with—I don’t let just anyone hit me. You have to earn it first.

On the first night of the three-day weekend, as a kind of appetizer scene, I got whipped ’til I bled and that night the white hotel sheets were speckled red. Shortly after the whipping scene was over, Anita Velez, the official event photographer, asked if she had permission to take a photo of my back (I said yes). After that, Eileen and I found her again and asked her for a photograph of our own.

On the second night, after I fisted my friend along with seven other people, I got suspended in a rope bondage scene, and then after that I got jumped by I don’t even know how many people who all beat my arms, ass, thighs, and chest ’til they were bruised using a rubber nightstick, an acrylic cane, and some other heavy objects I couldn’t identify due to the spandex hood they put over my head. They pushed an NJoy wand into my ass and then made me go down on some of them while beating my already-whipped back with what I’m pretty sure was a rubber tire tread flogger. (I had felt that particular rubber flogger before.)

On the third night I got bound in a hog-tie with my hands behind my back and my legs kept bent with thick leather belts. Once secured, I was again beaten on my back and ass, this time with what I could identify as a (probably deerskin) flogger, a flat paddle-like object (but it was small, so I’m guessing a kitchen implement), and a heavy rubber taws, among other things. The rubber taws hurt the most, especially when it struck my already-bruised ass.

So like I said, I rather enjoy playing the part of a capable punching bag.

Of course, I got the usual, “Wow, great job,” awed comments from all sorts of people who had seen us play (and who I didn’t even know were watching the scenes). I also eventually overheard from second-hand accounts that others had more negative remarks, such as things like “That’s wrong; you should never crack a whip on someone’s back.” (Fuck that, whoever you are, by the way. I’ll play the way I want, thank you very much.)

Of course, this wasn’t really the hardest Eileen and I have ever played with a single-tail. I even have another picture of more marks taken some time ago, for example. I have been beaten much worse before, like the week before that previous photo was taken; Eileen gave me my first caning which an inch-wide acrylic artist’s cylinder, which resulted in purple and yellow bruises that lasted well over a week and a half. Another time, my friend who made the tire-tread flogger brought over a wooden table leg and bruised my thighs so badly that they swelled to the point where I could no longer fit into my jeans.

Nevertheless, people were still impressed by the intensity of my play this weekend and they still expressed their respect in the form of an appreciation for my personal preferences for pain. Misguided as I think this expression is, I did (and still do) enjoy the recognition.

This kind of misplaced respect happens to me all the time. It’s happened many times in the past, when “heavy” single-tail scenes have earned me the respect of someone who prior to witnessing it didn’t seem to think very much about me.

In 2003 I was a fixture of the New York BDSM scene among the ranks of TES members, quickly earning a reputation as the quiet, shy boy in the corner who watched but never played. Reminiscent of all my school years, most people treated me with an uninterested attitude evidenced by their neglect to acknowledge my words or my presence. Later that year at TES-Fest I had my first single-tail scene that ended with band-aids and a giddy if somewhat worried pair of tops who relished in retelling the story of how the waifish, quiet boy took the hardest whipping either of them had ever given. I’ll admit to being very surprised at my own enjoyment and what I interpreted back then as “stamina” and now simply call my usual preference. All of a sudden people were coming up to me and remarking on how impressed they were with me.

The lesson was clear: to get noticed, play extremely hard.

Even though I was certainly getting noticed a lot more, I hardly felt respected. Perhaps that seems strange to many people because playing that way is exactly how a lot of people who bottom, such as myself, earn respect in the scene. (We would all also be wise to remember Richard’s words when he reminds us that the scene is actually representative of a tiny minority of kinky people and we are, for the most part, the public exception to the normal kinky person.)

We play “hard.” We can “take more.” We have a “higher pain tolerance.” We can “handle it.” Tops respect us because we can challenge them, bottoms respect us because they’d consider themselves broken by things we consider warm ups. People think we deserve respect because of the way we play, because they are scared of how we play. And they’re completely wrong.

Bottoms who don’t play as hard as I do feel bad about it; they feel frightened and inadequate. What a horrible shame that is. Tops who don’t want to rip open flesh or turn skin rainbow colors or emotionally batter a bottom until they sob and beg also feel bad about not wanting to do these things. Again, what a horrible shame that is.

Respect should not be accorded based on someone’s preferred physical intensity of play, and yet every time I play that way in public I get at least someone coming up to me and saying, in an often dejected tone of voice, “I could never do that.” I try to tell them that they don’t have to, that it’s silly to think they should try if they don’t want to. As Eileen said cleverly before me,

And then let’s talk about the fuckupery of according respect to a scene member based upon the intensity of their play. What kind of logic is that? That’s like saying that you respect The Rolling Stones more than The Beatles because The Rolling Stones are louder. Respect isn’t about what people do in the scene; it’s about how they do it. I have young friends who have been in the scene just as long as me, who don’t get the respect I do because they don’t have the balancing factor of being intense players as a weapon to carve out a place for themselves. God help you if you’re perfectly content with a light spanking now and then. The patrionizing smiles will probably drown you.

(Emphasis added.)

In other words, I’m not more worthy of respect than any other bottom because I have a higher pain tolerance than they do. If you respect me for that reason, I feel invisible. I’m worthy of respect because I have impeccable judgement, a razor-sharp mind, incredible intellect, a generous attitude, a commitment to my scene partner as well as myself, and because I respect these same things in others. If you respect me for that reason, I feel seen.

So this weekend I didn’t feel respected when I was asked “How much were you really struggling in that take down scene?” I didn’t feel respected by the people who thought I was on the Power Bottoming panel because I like to limp for days after I play. I definitely didn’t feel respected by all the people who stopped me in the hallways and told me what an intense scene they saw me do (though, again, I did appreciate the kind words and enjoyed the obvious admiration and surprise—I don’t look like someone who likes to scream until my throat is hoarse, but I do).

On the other hand, I did feel respected when a fellow attendee approached me and asked for my opinions regarding TES’s web site (and others) because he had heard people mention my name in conversation about the topic. Likewise, I also felt respected when people came up to me privately after some of my presentations and told me that they thought I had made good points, that I articulated myself well, and that I exposed them to something new and provoked some new thought or insight inside of them.

Thanks to the transman who told Eileen and I that we had finally articulated his primary kink in our Sexual Teasing and Denial presentation. Thanks to the young woman who taught me the word cyberbalkanization in my Sex and Technology presentation. Thanks to the people who congratulated me on my bravery and willingness to get naked on the first night in front of more than thirty clothed people during the demo for the G and P Spot Stimulation presentation.

In other words, thanks for seeing underneath all the cuts and bruises and welts. Thanks for rejecting the rhetoric that to be worth a damn as a bottom you need to have a pain tolerance that rivals a super hero’s. That’s the kind of thing that makes most men think they need to be stoic and “strong” when they are in pain, which is stupid because the last thing a sadist wants to see when they’re hurting someone is a lack of painful reaction (duh).

The people who did this with sadness and envy in their voices made me the most upset at the BDSM community’s constant self-aggrandizement through what amounts to nothing more than fear mongering. The people who I think should be the most ashamed of this are the ones who call themselves teachers, who present so-called “classes” in thinly-veiled attempts to advertise themselves as “intense players” in order to earn what they think is credibility and respect, like the one Switch encountered and wrote about in her post.

Those people are spreading a culture of fear through BDSM that is damaging to people’s self-esteem (both bottom’s and top’s), to the BDSM community’s image in mass media, and—most importantly—to their own partners. Playing at a certain physical intensity is simply one very mechanical aspect of what makes a scene work. It is natural that players with more physically intense tastes would be drawn to one another. There should be no reason to fear that you’re “not playing hard enough.”

It’s just a matter of BDSM chemistry. No one’s going to put you down for liking blondes over brunettes. Don’t let people put you down for liking, or not liking, a certain kind of play.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Where’s the pain?

Category labels: Altered States and Headspaces, Cock and ball torture (CBT), Faceslapping, Masochism, Spanking and paddling, Whipping

It is still fascinating to me how differently I react to pain when it is inflicted on the buttocks versus on the back versus on the face versus some other location. So much focus is often placed on the implement causing this pain but it’s always been that the location of the pain has a stronger effect on my headspace.

Years ago, I disliked getting hit on the buttocks but I adored getting hit on the back. (I still adore getting hit on my back.) Facing a wall and being whipped was and still is, for the most part, the epitome of my mental image of strength. In contrast, having my ass hurt used to piss me off. I had never really been slapped in the face.

Over time, I was able to eroticize pain delivered to my ass through canings, spankings, and paddlings. I suspect this mostly has to do with the gentle and overtly sexual introduction of my ass cheeks to my play with Eileen, for which I am now, of course, very grateful. I’d never thought it possible before, but for the first time recently I actually got turned on with a properly rhythmic caning that left bruises for several days. But hitting my back still doesn’t turn me on.

There is cultural imagery associated with beating certain parts of the body. The back is where you whip the insolent. The ass is where you paddle the disobediant young. The face is where you hit any kind of victim. Certainly, these associations are not far from my mind when I experience such sensations. I wonder, do other cultures (or individuals) with different associations have different reactions because of that?

While feeling pain on my back or face doesn’t translate sexually to me, feeling it on my ass does as long as there’s sufficent erotic context. Certainly, the proximity of my ass to my genitals helps this, though I think more to the point is the fact that the ass is a larger erogenous zone to begin with. I suspect this is how it works for people who enjoy CBT. (I’ve never been much a fan of cruel attentions to my genitals. They seem made for gentler manipulations.)

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Don’t be nice

Category labels: BDSM psychology, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Masochism, Masturbation, Torture and abuse

I have this lovely little buddy icon of this pretty boy on the floor, leaning back wearing a sweater jacket that reads, “Protect me from the things I want.” I love that icon because the boy looks so sultry and so vulnerable and so seductive and so helpless all at the same time. I want to be that boy. (I also want that boy, but that’s another entry entirely.)

Why is it that I want the things I don’t want to actually happen to me. And do I really want them to happen to me for real or do I just like the threat of them happening?

Mean things. (Backhand me.) Deadly things. (Suffocate me.) Bloody things. (Stab me.) Things I just don’t like. (Bite me.) I fantasize about having all of these things done to me. In some cases there’s a part of me that really wants it to happen because I think I’d enjoy it. I’ve had too many fond experiences with pain to feel bad about liking that so much.

And then there are the things I’m not really eager to have happen, but I’m so nervous or frightened about them happening that a part of me wants them to happen just to get them over with. And hell, being nervous and frightened is kind of fun too. And there are the things I just don’t get off to, but I know my top likes so what the hell. I like getting my top off—doesn’t quite matter how they like as much as I like doing it.

But then there are the things that, no, I really don’t want them to happen and if you do them to me I’ll fight and scream and cry and beg you to stop. And those are the things I want to have happen because I love the fighting, the screaming, the crying, the begging, but most of all the very fact that I’m not enjoying myself. I won’t like it when you do it, but I’ll love that you did it. It probably won’t turn me on while it’s happening (though it might), but I’ll masturbate to the memories of it later. And oh, it’ll be good.

I do want to be tortured. I don’t want to be tortured, but I want it. I have no idea how to explain that in simpler terms because everything else about this fact in my head is just circular logic. But y’know, a lot of things about submissiveness and masochism is pretty paradoxical.

Take orgasm denial, for instance. A classic example to be sure, but an appropriate example nonetheless. The wanting to orgasm is what gets me all hot and bothered. Once I’ve come, well sure I’m enjoying it, but all the goodness of wanting that orgasm is sated and the replacement satisfaction just isn’t the same. It’s the same with the death fantasy. Dying is pretty awful but, for me, it’s only awful because once I’m dead I can’t be bothered to care about the dying anymore. It’s like, “Oh look. Here’s death. Well, the dying was fun while it lasted. So…what’s the weather like in hell these days?” See? Not hot.

I want what I don’t want because I don’t want it, but I also want my top to want it. It’s similarly not hot if I’m being pierced by someone who doesn’t enjoy piercing me. The reason I do it with Eileen, despite my preference not to actually be poked with sharp things more than necessary, is because she has a great time with it. Back to the getting my top off bit again. Yes, I know I’m a total whore.

Is this service? If so, then could I conceptually extend the service theory to the point of torture, or death? And now that I’m thinking about it, doesn’t that sound a lot like some very well-known cultural and religious imagery? How many times have I been reffered to as Jesus on the cross when I’ve been whipped in a public setting? (I bet my hair doesn’t help avoid the analogy, but still.) Martyrdom is hot for tops, I guess. It’s not the martyrdom that turns me on though, it’s the suffering. Martyrs who don’t want to be martyrs.

Make me suffer. Please.

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Saturday, May 26, 2007

Professional Domination is actually Professional, remember?

Category labels: D/s dynamics, Femdom, Masochism, Professional BDSM


If you’re tired of this topic, too bad. In fact, blame Calico this time, since she rekindled it. :P

She’s been musing over pro-domming again and, as usual, generously shares a lot of her thoughts.

I happen to think my style of sex work is a fantastic deal for all involved, the best bargain (marked down from Invaluable! and Priceless!) there is, but I am biased.

I have to admit that, on a visceral level, the idea of sex being a “fantastic deal” is instantly unappealing to me. If I feel as though I am offering something invaluable, I would feel badly about providing it for a marked-down price at an hourly rate. This has nothing to do with pro-dommes specifically and everything to do with the nature of my interaction with the world, itself something different than what other people experience. I can’t fault anyone for their choice of interactions.

Perhaps this is why I am so heartened by Calico’s reinforcement of professional domination as sex work. It provides a much simpler to understand reason why I might dislike it so and I am eager to invite a simple explanation to anything this complicated and that causes so much internal conflict.

Lots of things Calico says in this post show me, again, that she really, truly isn’t like what I’ve experienced to be the typical cross-section of Pro Dommes.

I can tell you what it is that I do, as best I know. It might not be dominant, and it might not be smart or correct, but it is certainly sincere.

…

I’ll freely admit that when it comes to power exchange, I play. Submission, domination: I make no pretentions.

…

D/s is not what I do as a “prodomme”. I wouldn’t consider taking on a pay-for-play relationship, period. As a whore of any sort I’m hourly. Sorry, a girl’s gotta have boundaries! The only homework I want is the stuff, like this, that I inflict on myself.
As such I doubt I’m a “proper” prodomme, and I have said as much. Not all my sessions are BDSM — they’re fetish, they’re fantasy facilitation, they’re sex work for crying out loud. I don’t make my foot fetish clients call me Mistress, and I don’t kick anyone in the balls without permission. If they want BDSM they will ask, and I’m happy that plenty do.

I imagine that this is not what you’d expect to hear coming from a proffesional dominatrix. It’s certainly not what I heard from dozens of them back when they were a central part of my social circle. It is what they said but it’s not what I heard. And isn’t that a turn off for anything, feeling in your bones that the situation you find yourself just isn’t as authentic, as sincere as you hoped an emotional experience would be? The magnetic repellant of inauthentic interation was so strong I never even got around to paying anyone, though I did have a thought or two about it a long time ago.

Perhaps the expectation of authenticity is too much to ask for a business transaction. One must remember that professional domination is actually a profession, after all.

(As a side note, I know it must be hard being different in a community of those who are different, though I think it’s also cause for great celebration, and I hope Calico realizes that, too.)

I won’t stand up and tell you I’m a dominant woman. I haven’t got a line of proof to show you.

…

I like to say that when you see me, as Mistress Alena, you are paying for the time and not the inclination.

This is fair enough, and is the most oft-cited reason why professional domination may not be a disagreeable profession. It’s what all my friends (and partners) have said to me when they mentioned the idea (all of them). However, I have to say in response that the fact of the matter is that any job I would have that I would be paid for my time rather than my inclination is not a job I want. In fact, I’ve quit 2 such jobs in the last year alone. Maybe others feel differently, and I can’t begrudge them that if they do nor would I ever impose my world view as theirs, yet I feel this argument strengthened by the ex-pro dommes who concur with just this feeling and who offer just this reasoning as the reason they are no longer doing professional domination.

What does that tell me? That every pro-domme is just on a path towards burnout? No. Many are, and that’s unfortunate. Perhaps the nature of the business can change to become more fulfilling. Perhaps it just wasn’t for them.

But I know that when I grab a man by the handcuffs and slam him up against the wall, the startled grunt of air he gives is like the sweetest of moans.

A pro domme who enjoys her work? Why not? Good for her! Good for her clients! In fact, if a friend were to come to me tomorrow to ask for advice on seeing a pro domme, the first thing I would tell him or her would be see someone who will enjoy your session just as much as you, and I might very well point them Calico’s way. But at that point, they’ve already made up their mind.

So maybe we’re focusing on the wrong topic. What is it about my hypotehtical friend which has brought him or her to the decision to see a dominatrix? What is it about me that has brought me to the decision to not do so? Is it just those early negative (and perhaps formative) experiences? I think not, and I hope not, but maybe it is.

When you beat me, I want you to like doing it. When you hurt me, I want you to want me to hurt. When we play, I want to feel us both acting from instinct, not from expectation. I will simply make no room for spurious things in my sex.

Is a pro-domme session then necessarily mutually exclusive of these traits? I don’t know. I guess neither does Calico.

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