Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Now I remember why I love and hate New York City’s BDSM scene

Category labels: Bitter and jealous, Community, Femdom, Male sexuality, Personal experience, Rant, Stupid dominants, Stupid submissives, Vanilla life

So, this is a complete and utter rant, because that’s just the mood I’m in. Also, it’s my blog. In case you didn’t know, I rant hard (and fast).

My first half-week in New York City has been an utter roller coaster. In these few short days after I (mostly) finished regrouping with friends, I remember exactly what I love about New York City, and exactly why I can’t stand it anymore. On Thursday, my first day back, I literally got off a bus, called Sinclair, and spent the evening first at Alphabet Soup (organized by the extremely perky and energetic Mina), and then later at a smaller, somewhat more private gathering of a few particular sex bloggers.

Let me say that again. I literally got off a bus, and went to a kinky social gathering with friends. I spent the majority of my time at Alphabet Soup talking to Sinclair about femme identity as it relates to cisgendered men. Others joined the conversation and things branched from there, but never did the conversation stop, and rarely did I say something that people couldn’t offer their own opinions on. I think I got the “you’re kind of an alien” face twice, maybe.

Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt like any gathering—regardless of whether it was filled with kinky people or not—was even remotely interesting on a sociosexual conversational level? That’s right, a year, because I was in fucking Sydney, where despite not being in a body-phobic culture like America is sadly entrenched in, people are still so massively ignorant about gender and sexuality issues (including people in the BDSM community), that it felt like I had actually travelled back in time. So, that was awesome.

But Alphabet Soup had its less-than-awesome moments, too. One dominant woman (plus one point) started talking to me, but her tone and demeanor was so overly presumptuous that I lost interest pretty quickly. One of the first things she said was, “I can get any man I want.” (Minus ten billion points.) ‘Really?’ I thought, ‘Well, you must not want me, then, because you’ve just ensured you’re not going to get me.’

Since I’m a submissive man, I get similar reactions when I turn down would-be advances from dominant women as I do for being a self-sufficient professional from bosses when I quit jobs: shock and a certain degree of indignation. It’s like they simply can’t parse what just happened, and the conversations would almost be funny if those conversations didn’t betray how totally fucked up these people probably treat the rest of their professional or sexual lives.

On the sexual advances front, I blame a massive swath of other submissive men for this, the ones whom I sometimes feel compelled to apologize to my friends over because they are so stereotypically stupid. No, really, on behalf of my gender, I’m sorry. (On the job front, I blame the education system for lying about life so horribly and for not giving students the actual skills they need to make it on their own.)

I was having a good time at Alphabet Soup, but was glad when Sinclair pulled me out of the bar to grab a slice of pizza and continue our conversation. Afterwards, we met up with Axe and Bad Man, among others at yet-another-bar. I had a blast getting to see Axe again, who also introduced me to Mia, and then had another awesome conversation about pornography and the impetus behind MaleSubmissionArt.com, my photo-blog-ish thing where I try my best to make poignant remarks about “bad” porn by showcasing “good” porn.

My favorite exchange from that conversation had to do with horse sex—which isn’t and probably never will be my thing—where somewhere in there I said that I’d be happy to see pornography depicting men having sex with horses because so much of that same stuff exists depicting women. Seriously, doesn’t it strike anyone else as being somewhat fucked up that it’s 2009 and I had to make a web site so that when you Google “submissive men art” or similar, you actually have a shot in hell of getting what you’ve been searching for? And no, damnit, pictures of women dominating men are not the same as pictures of men being submissive to women.

Also frustrating? The fact that “Femdom Sissy Art” is still ranked higher. Fuck’s sake. This was supposed to be the future. Where’s my goddamn equal sexual opportunity? And while you’re at it, where’s my goddamn flying car?!

Anyway, I left when the gathering whittled down to few enough people that the conversation, thanks to the skew of hegemonically masculine men, I suppose, began to go places I was no longer interested in going. Like, uhm, why girls don’t call you back when you send them text messages that read “come over.” (Should I apologize for this one on behalf of my gender? No, probably not.)

I spent the night in Brooklyn and the next day, mostly, with my family. That was good. The weekend was as relaxing as I could hope for, but I’m still stressed and need a vacation. Badly.

Then on Monday I hopped down to Conversio Virium for some pre-meeting sociability, promptly ditched the meeting itself in favor of food and conversation with Reki, and then returned for some additional post-meeting sociability.

It’s absolutely inspiring to see some of the Conversio kids be as outgoing and proud and happy as they seem to be. Their vice-president in particular is a young man who I remember as someone who was barely able to whisper when he spoke. Now, he hugs me warmly and openly.

I’m at once incredibly satisfied knowing I had a hand in making a space where he could blossom in that way, and also incredibly envious that his experiences were so quickly so positive while mine at that age were so utterly bitter. I sincerely hope he takes all of those positive experiences and works to make sure that others can also benefit so profoundly from CV.

I keep my iPod with me at all times because I’m constantly writing notes in it, ideas for blog posts or other rants, things I can do better for my community-related projects, and so forth. It’s simultaneously inspiring and depressing being back here. I’m thrilled that I’m surrounded by such wonderful stimuli again, but I’m more than a little overwhelmed at the challenge that lies ahead. Cuz, fuck, I’ve still so much work to do to make the kinds of spaces I’ve always wanted to have ahead of me.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

KinkForAll and the Evolution of Sexuality Communities

Category labels: Community, Generation gap, Kink events, Politics of sex, Vanilla life, Writing and blogging

Sexuality communities need to evolve or they’ll die. You probably don’t need me to remind you of how hard a time fetish shops, nightclubs, non-profit activist groups, community centers, sex-ed funds, and other sexuality-based initiatives are having right now. Venues are expensive, a cultural war on sex rages fiercely with targeted attacks against sexual freedom, and sexuality community groups are having increasing difficulty engaging younger generations. And that’s not the half of it.

When I think about the world around us and the role of marginalized sexualities such as BDSM, polyamory, transsexuality, gender queerness, and others, I’m reminded of Professor Charles Xavier’s opening lines to the original X-Men movie:

Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.

So, evolve or die. But evolve into what? Unconferences like KinkForAll are the next evolutionary leap forward with regards to how people will learn and talk about what-it-is-that-we-do.

Admittedly, that’s a bold statement. “Evolutionary leap forward” sounds like something ripe either for stereotypical hollywood films or esoteric scientific white papers. Thing is, our lives and our sex is filled to the brim with influences from many disparate sources, such as blockbuster motion pictures and scientific white papers. However, despite having a venerable Horn of Plenty for our sexuality palettes, traditional sexuality conferences and community organizations have remained stalwartly segregated from these influences and—worse—even from each other.

There are problems—deep-seated, gigantic, and incredibly frustrating problems—with the way we as a community and a culture present sex and sexuality to one another and to the next generation. These things need to change, because the world around us is changing. Somehow, despite all this upheaval, our sexuality communities are trapped inside aristocratic institutions that more often act with an interest in risk-avoidance instead of value-creation. Perhaps these organizations’ timid, closeted behavior used to exist for a good reason; membership meant association and building social walls kept the predators on the other side, but that system is feudalism and those days are over.

KinkForAll offers a new, much-needed outlet that can not only radically transform sex education for both mainstream and niche communities, but also revitalize many grass-roots community organizations themselves. By making it possible to bring together influences from all corners of life into a melting pot of sexuality discussion, we unlock the as-yet-untapped value that the sex communities have failed to harness.

The current structure of sexuality organizations is institutionalized to the point of ego-centric gridlock. This can be illustrated by examining the principles on which KinkForAll is founded, since they highlight some weaknesses in these other structures:

  • At a KinkForAll, there are no spectators, only participants. Attendees must give a talk or presentation, or help with one. This is called sharing and we like it.

    For far too long, information about sex has been under one kind of stranglehold or another. Even within sexuality subcultures, who can present, where, and why, has focused very strongly on the currency of the day. Most recently, that currency was reputation, and it created an elitist aristocracy who unwittingly monopolized the very thing they claimed to want to make free: having sex, and how we do that. When reputation becomes more valuable than results, egos prevent progress.

  • At a KinkForAll, anyone can present, on any topic related to sexuality. You do not necessarily have to teach a new skill or idea. You might share an experience, review a product, or read a poem. The goal is to start a discussion, make connections, and exchange knowledge.

    All such activities are valuable, yet too long sidelined or actively discouraged in sexuality circles. Our reasons to wall our sex away from the rest of our life are disappearing one after the other, and we should do what we can to live un-closeted lives in every way we can. Moreover, the amazing potential within inter-community spaces is astonishingly under-appreciated. In fact, I argue such potential is way more valuable than any single organization can ever become.

  • KinkForAll is free (as in beer) and free (as in libre). One of the things I’ve been frustrated with for a long time is the utter lack of accessibility to young people when it comes to topics of sexuality. If a young person (or any person of any age) wishes to engage the wider sex-positive community in the places where it has its discussions, this comes with a terribly high price tag.

    Sexuality conferences run by the sex communities are typically large, expensive, and very intimidating. Many people, not just young people, simply don’t have several hundred dollars and a week’s time to dish out going to sexuality events. This extremely high monetary cost creates insurmountable socioeconomic barriers to many people’s pursuit of sexual freedom because it bars them from obtaining the technical information and the social connections they need. Freedom isn’t just about principles, it’s about actions; enabling people to involve themselves (what we know of as “volunteering,” though I strongly prefer participating) isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the entire point.

None of this negates the fact that older, larger, and more rigid organizations and events have their place. When done well, they can provide spaces for in-depth exploration. That said, there are many places where they will continue to fail to do what newer ideas like KinkForAll will succeed in doing. Audacia Ray summarized this as well, saying:

[KinkForAll] is the perfect event to go to if you’ve always wanted to check out a sex/kink related conference but are afraid that you’ll be swarmed by naked people who are not aesthetically to your liking. It’s the perfect event to go to if you’ve always wanted to check out a sex/kink event but think you don’t know anything or won’t be part of the in crowd. It’s the perfect event to go to if you are in [the area] but have no money and are curious about this kind of event. There are lots of reasons I’m going, but the clothes-on, free, open reasons are my main ones.

The evolution of our sexuality communities from walled gardens to freely and safely traversable pathways like this is hard because it threatens the status-quo, perhaps especially if they are struggling just to survive. Sadly, if their heads are indeed placed firmly in the sand and their heels dug into their risk-avoidance behavior, they will continue to struggle. Of course, they’re struggling for a reason: as Boymeat points out, I love that [KinkForAll] is doing something new and unique in NYC, because I have to say, most of the stuff [the scene's] been doing isn’t working. (Sic.)

KinkForAll is new, and very young, but—and there’s no doubt about this—it’s here to stay. The response to the first-ever KinkForAll unconference, KinkForAll New York City wildly surpassed the expectations that my other unorganizers and I had. As Sara Eileen said,

I have to say how gleeful I am over the entire thing, conceived and brought to being as it was, in less than 3 months and with us on the other side of the world.

[…]

[Maymay] and I expected perhaps 40 attendees. There were over 100.

I had worried that we wouldn’t fill the schedule grid. There were 45 different presentations.

We started with no money and figured we would pay for what we needed ourselves. Over $1000 dollars were donated.

I wasn’t sure we’d have everything we needed. In the end, we were overly resourced; extra projectors, kosher and vegetarian and gluten-free food, gallons of drinking water that appeared seemingly from nowhere.

As I said at the end of the day when I stood on the stage, “our cup overflows.”

My analysis of this is simple:

There’s no question that this kind of event is something the sexuality communities at large really need. It’s not just BDSM people, but poly people, transfolk, queers, butches and femmes, and everyone else who takes part in public, social sexuality-related spaces obviously want to see happen. I’ve personally already heard from folks in Washington DC and Toronto who are interested in replicating similar events, and through several other channels multiple people in San Francisco have also expressed interest.

To borrow from Sascha’s analysis, unconferences like KinkForAll create a new, less intimidating platform for new generations:

I think that the unconference trend signifies something greater—an evolution in the sex and kink positive communities in how we come together and how we exchange information. Don’t get me wrong, I think that more structured events such as TESFest and Dark Odyssey still have their place. But these spaces provide a new, less intimidating platform for new generations of sex geeks, kinksters, activists, educators, and aspiring educators.

More specifically and perhaps even more powerfully, the platform itself is what is being created. It’s a platform for education, for friendship, and for activism the likes of which has never been available to sexuality outlets before. Emily Rutherford describes it similarly, emphasizing KinkForAll’s ability to bring disperse communities together:

Basically, KFANYC was a conference—a vehicle for members of the various sexuality communities in New York to come together, talk, and learn from each other.

Emily also highlights the fact that KinkForAll is engaging the participation of communities and academics of all stripes, even from outside the walled gardens of sociosexual circles:

I think that a lot of what was exciting about [KinkForAll] is the way that the format combines academic and non-academic modes of talking about sex and sexuality. The “conference” is an academic model in a way that many existing modes of social interaction for sexuality groups aren’t, but this conference didn’t presume any academic background or qualifications and didn’t have the same standards of format and presentation that academic conferences do. I, as a first-year college student, was able to participate, but so were people who didn’t finish high school and people with graduate degrees. KFANYC very nearly, I think it’s safe to say, made academia accessible to everyone, which is an important thing that those of us entrenched in the ivory tower should be doing. Academic modes are a sort of subculture of analyzing and presenting information, but that doesn’t mean they have to be elitist—just different from, say, journalism, or casual conversation. I think that as much as KFANYC bridged gaps between disparate sexuality communities, it bridged gaps between different registers of discussion, taking academese down a peg while applying a theoretical and philosophical level to more casual conversations.

(Emphasis mine.)

Time and again the same themes crop up. As Axe wrote a while ago,
there will be presentations on topics that you may not find at other events. New platforms bring new ideas in new ways, which in turn bring new people, who are needed to keep moving us to where we want to go. StacyCat commented on her experience, saying It got me really excited about the scene and education and life again.

So, an old idea was reborn: make free events for the sexuality communities, and use them to effect a paradigm shift in the way we present marginalized sexuality issues like BDSM, transsexuality, gender queerness, asexuality, and others to the world at large. The rebirth freed us from the constraints of current systems and organizations. With the knowledge that such rebirth is healthy and risk-avoidance is itself inherently risky, to use Boymeat’s words again, the structure has been built entirely to prevent any power plays, and is focused on autonomy and transparency.

We gave the idea a name, KinkForAll, and then we gave it massive amounts of our time and effort. I made a web site for KinkForAll, Sara Eileen started talking about the idea with our friends, who (with our encouragement) started talking about it with their friends, and on and on the cycle went until we had people we didn’t know wanting—and instantly able—to participate.

So where do we go now? We’re continuing to put recordings of the presentations given at the event online so that anyone with an Internet connection can freely get some of that value. Our goal has always been to make an easily-digestible packet that we can give to others to help them recreate the positive energy and value that came from KinkForAll New York City. To that end, I’ve been working on writing a KinkForAll unorganizer’s guide.

Of course, nothing is as supportive as actual participation, and so I’m talking with people who have shown interest and initiative to run KinkForAll events in Washington DC as I hope to also do for Toronto and San Francisco soon after that. Suddenly, there’s grass-roots momentum around making such content available on a global scale, for free, because the infrastructure already exists in the form of the Internet.

But, as Sara said, It’s out in the world now. Anyone can take it on, and up. Many participants at KinkForAll New York City travel frequently to DC and elsewhere, and I encourage those uniquely experienced people to spread the idea with their actions. And that’s the ultimate take-away point: Sexual freedom is for everyone. But you have to take it and run with it yourself.

Interested? Learn more about KinkForAll at http://KinkForAll.org, our Frequently Asked Questions page, or our public mailing list.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

KinkForAll New York City: Rest and Recovery and Then We Do It All Over Again

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Communication, Community, Gender fluidity, Generation gap, Kink events, Personal experience, Technology, Vanilla life

I spent today recovering from KinkForAll New York City, which was an unbelievably smashing success. I’m so incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish and so incredibly optimistic about the future, even if tentatively so. My tweet-stream from the day is now archived, and I’ve spent far too long reading and re-reading it already.

Organizing KinkForAll was a really new experience for me. I’ve never before seen a vision of mine that involved so many people so wonderfully executed. As I said during the discussion in the presentation Evan gave on Youth and Leadership, There’s a fine line between leadership and control.

Now that the first event has been a success, I can feel much more confident that the idea I’ve had for it is one that’s proven. Many people didn’t believe it could work, and I know there are still many others who are dubious—even close friends, like one I spoke to tonight. The biggest sticking points are obvious: 20 minute presentations are “too short,” playspaces “should be part of the event,” and of course, “encouraging cameras is a bad idea.”

To each of these I say that the NYC event, which was even more strict with regard to the timeframe than I thought it would be, had absolutely no playspaces and lacked even an after-party (which is unfortunate, because I think a simple after-party would be loads of fun after something like this), and only 1 day later already has 53 Flickr photos from the event posted online, proves the format and the methods we used are sound. Not only that, but I recall multiple people stopping me in the hallways and saying things like, “You know, I thought I’d show up and hang out for a half an hour, but now it’s 3 hours later and I really wish I didn’t have to go!” Further, and even more encouraging, several people also told me, “I really thought that 20 minutes would be too little time to do what I wanted, but I really love this 20-minute thing!”

There’s no question that this kind of event is something the sexuality communities at large really need. It’s not just BDSM people, but poly people, transfolk, queers, butches and femmes, and everyone else who takes part in public, social sexuality-related spaces obviously want to see happen. I’ve personally already heard from folks in Washington DC and Toronto who are interested in replicating similar events, and through several other channels multiple people in San Francisco have also expressed interest.

So yeah, talk about a smashing, unexpected success…. If you missed KinkForAll New York City, or if you were there but missed my presentation, Audacia Ray—one of the event’s two sponsors—offered to video record it and has put the video up on Vimeo for the world, and you, to see (below).


Maymay on Gender, Technology, and the Idea Behind Kink for All from Audacia Ray on Vimeo. (Watch other KFANYC videos.)

You can also download an audio-only version of the above video, which also includes an extra 10 minutes of Q&A that filled the rest of my presentation.

Of course, with such success I’ve got a whole new set of challenges. I don’t want this idea to be something intricately tied to my person—that’s entirely hypocritical and totally defeating of the point. At the same time, I want Toronto and DC and San Fran to experience the same kind of thing as we did in New York City. There are still some people in those areas that believe presentations need to be allowed to go longer than 20 minutes, that a playspace should be a requirement, and that other issues make holding the event itself too risky.

While a KinkForAll event in these other places cannot be identical to the one in NYC, at what point does such fundamental variation become something that’s not KinkForAll? Not something that’s necessarily bad, just something too different to bear resemblance. As I said earlier, how can I lead, without exerting undue and unnecessary control? It’s a balance I’m going to be challenged to strike accurately; I’ve never done that before.

Interestingly, some of the people who contacted me about wanting to run their own local events have expressed a specific distaste for the same sorts of things in the sexuality communities that I’ve also expressed many, many times before. This is no surprise, of course, but rather it’s an immense point of validation. In Evan’s presentation that I mentioned earlier, for instance, he mentioned trying and failing to bring some of the ideas present in KinkForAll to Black Rose. Later, others expressed similar frustrations at KinkForAll New York City, and still later more from DC expressed the same frustrations.

I’m sadly not surprised that efforts to catalyze established BDSM organizations have failed. In my experience, scene organizations are especially resistant to change and very, very ego-centric. They tend to enjoy power struggles for power struggle’s sake, and they fail to seize obvious opportunities for technical improvement when they do this. Naturally, I despise egotism when it gets in the way of good ideas because it actively creates very negative spaces, hence the free and open and autonomous nature of KinkForAll.

To do what I can for the incredible potential that’s here, I’ve thrown my hat onto helping KinkForAll Washington DC by signing up on the wiki page with “advocate+assist organization” for my participation, but it really isn’t my show, just as KinkForAll New York City wasn’t really my show. KinkForAll is all about doing, not saying, it’s about individual collaborations, not organizations, it’s about newness and innovation, not regurgitation, and —I want to make sure it remains an environment where actions and results speak louder than words.

To that end, I think the role of unorganizers like myself is really to make sure we exemplify that behavior. If we can continue to do that well, then everyone we recruit to help out will not only be much more helpful, but will also protect the goals and the methods of KinkForAll: flat organization, personal responsibility and autonomy, and results-focused behavior with a desire for creativity and positive social change in sexuality communities. I am unspeakably excited to see a KinkForAll Washington DC off the ground, so as my life begins to calm down, you can expect to see my activity in helping make the DC event a reality begin to ramp up very quickly.

I’m looking forward to it!

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Friday, February 27, 2009

8 Things Submissive Men Want From A Dominant Partner

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Beginner BDSM, Communication, Male sexuality, Myths and misconceptions, Relationship, Vanilla life

My friend over at Kink In Exile, has recently posted a fantastic list of 8 things dominant women want. The list is so spot-on that I think it is a must-read regardless of whether you are in or are looking for a kinky relationship or not—or even if you’re not even “into all this kink stuff.”

I’ve been struggling to write more in this space lately. I want to, but between having to deal with the stress of moving to New York City from Sydney in less than two weeks and, more recently, the stress of losing my relationship with (Sara) Eileen, most kinds of words seem beyond me right now. Naturally, reading over a list of the things dominant women want during this time triggers a certain amount of introspection.

Kink in Exile’s list is so good, actually, if it were not unspeakably lazy of me I would want to copy it in its entirety for a post of my own. Instead of plagiarism, however, here’s a companion list of the things that submissive men want from a dominant partner that I think might be helpful. Astute readers of both my post and hers will note how similar these two lists actually are in content if not in voice. That, of course, is no coincidence.

For the sake of clarity, I’ll preface this list with an explicit remark about how it’s not intended to reflect anything other than a generic exploration into what I believe submissive men want from dominant partners, and should therefore not be interpreted without salting to your own taste, so to speak. I’d also like to acknowledge the excellent pre-publication input I received on this post by Kink in Exile herself, ironrose, as well as a few more friends. Thank you all for your thoughts.

You act upon details

Everyone’s fantasies—and demons—are in the details. Specific words, intonation, materials used in play (e.g., hemp rope versus metal bondage), and other things all have different meanings to different people. Personally, for instance, I react badly to words I associate with worthlessness (like “pathetic”) but favorably to others (like “whore” or “slut”) that I associate with wanton sexuality. While I am not alone in these particulars, there are others who respond in their own, unique ways.

It’s important to understand what these details are before you access them, but it’s equally important to eventually access them; ignoring such details is tantamount to ignoring me. When I play with a partner, a sense of depth and meaning is literally impossible to achieve if I have not first talked (usually at some length) about the details of my desires and fears, and asked questions of my partner to understand the details of theirs.

You need to be consistently inviting these details into our talks and our play; merely acknowledging their presence—without acting upon them later—is not enough. I do not believe a meaningful relationship can be built without successfully interfacing over these details.

You treat me as an equal person first and a submissive partner second

I am not a doormat—no submissive man is (even the ones that say they are). I see both dominance and submission as requiring equality first and power play second, and you should too. Moreover, you need to not only recognize but articulate the distinction in your actions when you demand something versus assertively request something of me.

My submission is a vital facet of who I am, so you never act in ways that are disingenuous, exploitative, or demeaning of my submissive sexuality, nor do you suggest that innate parts of who we are or the situations in which we exist (such as orientation, race, spiritual beliefs, socioeconomic status, or other external influences in our lives) make us unequal beings in any way. You strive towards fairness in all your dealings and recognize that our different wants and needs means that the goal of such efforts is equivalency, not sameness.

You can distinguish fantasy from reality, and objective reality from subjective interpretation

You understand how to live out a fantasy without living in a fantasy. This doesn’t mean so-called “24/7″ situations are unacceptable, because even in more casual relationships you need to be able to intelligently distinguish between playtimes and other times. Using protocols or any “lifestyle” behaviors as barriers to communication is not okay, so you must be adept at sussing out problems between us as well as vigilant in and receptive to addressing them.

You understand the difference between entitlement and advantage; you recognize the advantages you have that I may not share, but do not feel as though you are somehow more deserving of them. In reality, you do not consider yourself entitled to my submission or acts thereof. In fantasy and play, however, you are not afraid of asserting such behavior.

It’s also important that you remain aware of and empathetic to concerns I raise and act with consideration toward them both inside and outside of play. It helps if you also expect the same from me—don’t be surprised at my vehemence in encouraging your comfort and pleasure because doing so is a pursuit of my own happiness. Part of that pursuit is making the effort to build a common understanding of things between us, and I need you to make an effort to refine this understanding with me over time. Doing so will make it possible to interact with me as a dominant partner, a top, and a friend, all of which you need to be able to do.

You know and make your own desires clear

You are knowledgeable about yourself and communicate what you know openly, honestly, and freely. You needn’t be divinely enlightened but you do need to have a solid understanding of something you like and be assertive in asking for it. You must have actively pursued explorations into your own desires, or are at least actively pursuing them with me; your sense of self must be strong enough to weather discoveries of new desires in yourself and in me over time.

Being eager to often try new things (in terms of play specifically and in general) is also important because it tells me that you are interested in learning more about yourself, more about me, and more about how we work together in all of the ways that we do. You delight in novelty and discovery; you “know thyself,” and you share who you are with me—I think it’s sexy. Moreover, you encourage me to do the same because when I share who I am with you, it’s out of a desire for you to reciprocate.

You are confident and independent in your dominance

Your dominance cannot be your dirty little secret; my submission isn’t mine. You may be excited by taboo but you don’t rely on it to provide enjoyment (because very little is taboo with me). This does not mean that our play can’t be respectful of public boundaries; it means that you know wanting to see me in physical pain is not wrong or sick, and you know that my desire for such experiences is similarly not unhealthy. You enjoy challenging both my physical and mental endurance but are not out to inflate your ego by causing mine harm.

You are an independent, whole person and you celebrate your dominance as a piece of that whole. You are not dependent on my submission to validate your dominance. You appreciate the support and encouragement I provide and are self-sufficient enough not to need it at all times, self-empowered enough not to want it at all times. You do not need constant reassurance that basic aspects of our kinky sexuality are acceptable behaviors (e.g., “normal”).

You must be comfortable discussing and acting upon your own sadism, desire to receive service, or other potentially socially unacceptable traits for us to have fulfilling interactions (because I am similarly not always socially acceptable). Moreover, you need to have and be constantly developing a sense of your own skills so that you know what you can and can’t realistically and safely do. Feeling insulted or offended if I point out the realities of your potential shortcomings in these areas should be a warning sign to you—I do so because I want us both to become better at what we are doing.

You value my input and experiences

You reject the notion that my sexual submission negates the validity of my opinions and beliefs. You know that dominance does not equal superiority, and therefore you are willing and able to reexamine aspects of yourself. You solicit and incorporate input and feedback from me in doing this because you know that my perspective and experiences are valuable. You want our relationship—whatever form our relationship takes—to grow, our intimacy to deepen and you don’t expect this to happen without expending your own energy to help make it so.

You make me a priority and will treat me to indulgences

My submission doesn’t make me more willing to abandon my wants or needs than people who aren’t submissive are, just as your dominance doesn’t make you more entitled to have yours met. You know this and therefore make me the same kind of priority that I have made you. You make time to see me, play with me, and occasionally treat me to indulgences you know I like because you enjoy seeing me be happy.

Being dominant does not mean you get to do what you want whenever you want. Your dominance doesn’t free you of the obligation to treat me with consideration or respect, to dismiss my desires or concerns, or to unfairly prioritize your own wants over mine. This doesn’t mean that I feel inappropriately entitled or deserving of the things I want, and you must not resent me for having these needs or for filling them. Additionally, you are emotionally intelligent enough not to feel guilty or personally at fault when you can’t fulfill them for whatever reason, are communicative enough to speak frankly with me when such clashes arise (because they will), and trusting enough to believe me when I say I’m doing my best to resolve the situation.

Your dominance is personally meaningful

Being sexually submissive is just one facet of who I am. You desire to dominate me because my presentation of self—all of it—is personally attractive to you. You recognize my strength and power as well as my vulnerability and are aroused by both aspects of who I am.

You do not treat me as a replaceable object (out of a fantasy scenario) or as though I am a dime-a-dozen, cookie-cutter submissive man. You understand that our D/s relationship is about the relationship and the power dynamic, not the activities or toys or clothing; I am not a random man that will clean your house for free, and you are sensitive to the fact that any expectation of either this or similar depersonalization will feel exploitative and insulting.

You should feel just as eager to dominate me whether or not you are dressed in fetish gear, wearing makeup, are at a club with an audience, or have a particular toy handy. None of these things matter to me in terms of our connection during play because I desire you, not your image. You should not feel the need to conform to stereotypes you see in pornography, and you must not expect me to do that, either (because I won’t).

To submissive men, I want to say that many—if not all—of these things apply to you as well. Knowledge of yourself, self-acceptance, and confidence in your submission is not just healthy, it’s what makes you attractive to dominant partners (especially the intelligent, sexy ones). If you don’t think your own submission is sexy, how can you expect anyone else to?

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I like feeling like a beginner again

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Beginner BDSM, Bondage, Chastity/Orgasm denial, Communication, D/s dynamics, Emotions, Erotica and pornography, Fantasy, Femdom, Fetish, Male sexuality, Masturbation, Relationship, Sexual teasing and control, Training/Conditioning, Vanilla life, Writing and blogging

Things have been a little bit busy in my life lately, and for once the busyness has not been solely professionally-driven. Though I am working on a number of very exciting things, my days have been excitingly full because after I work hard, I come home to Eileen and we play hard. The play, however, hasn’t been the same sort of stuff we used to do. I think isolation from our friends and community and our efforts in our respective professional lives have actually helped us enjoy our time together.

As we usually do, when we reconnect like this, we talk. A lot. Recently, though I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, the huge blocks of time I’ve set aside to work on writing about web development professionally have also yielded some time to write erotica on the side again. (As an aside, that, and crossing paths with the intriguing Ranat has led to some renewed interest in my hypertextual porn experiments.) I actually have the beginnings of a very promising short story based on a more-or-less off-handed remark that Kink in Exile made, which I found really sexy.

Anyway, one thing led to another and in the conversations Eileen and I have been having, the fact that I find it ridiculously hard to speak about my fantasies came out. It may be surprising to some of you, but it’s true: verbalizing my fantasies out loud is unusually difficult for me. Writing about them is for some reason relatively easy. Making my mouth move (which I can do) so that sounds come out of it and form words that describe my fantasies (which I rarely do) is inexplicably hard, even when I’m alone with her. I often literally just lose my breath. This clearly poses a few challenges to discussing such things, and it’s something both Eileen and I would like to see me be more comfortable with.

On a largely unrelated note (no, really), tonight’s also my 31st day denied an orgasm, which is the longest I’ve ever gone since, well, since I was 9 or 10 and began masturbating. This is significant not due to the time span, but rather because it happened thanks to an increasingly apparent shift in Eileen’s attitude and comfort level with my being denied. As she put it, “I simply no longer have any sense of guilt about denying you.” Then she paused for a moment with a thoughtful look on her face before casually adding, “You should probably be scared about that, by the way.” That was the comment that has hatched a swarm of butterflies in my stomach, which—since last night—has yet to dissipate.

There’s quite a bit more to say about this that I’ll be saving for later. In the mean time, suffice it to say that I was given a few tasks today, one of which was to write and then read a short fantasy “snapshot” (a brief moment or vignette) to her. Coming up with what to write was unsurprisingly easy, but reading it aloud at dinner tonight was actually very, very challenging. This is what I wrote and then, yes, read to her.

The thin rope tasted dry and scratchy in my parched mouth. I opened my mouth wider and extended my tongue as far as I could just so I could feel the cool air. Some of my muscles felt cramped, the cause of which was not the immobilizing bondage I was in but my own exertion. Although she was quiet now, her earlier words still sounded deafening. “Be good, my beautiful toy. Hush and hold out until I want you to come,” she had told me in her kind, almost charitable voice, for what she was doing to me now was indeed generous.

For the first time in longer than I care to recount, one of her hands had spent a pleasurable eternity slickly caressing, gripping, pulling, stroking, and pumping my cock. Her other hand alternated between doing the same to my balls, thighs, and perineum. Occasionally, when she would tire of her manual ministrations, she played with the remote controls of the large, self-propelling vibrating prostate massager she had inserted into my ass and I could hear her giggling with enjoyment as she varied its intensity. Eventually, she would always find a combination of settings for the machine that she seemed happy with and resumed stimulating my penis, complete with a fresh dollop of lubricant. The only indication I had as to how long she’d been playing with me was provided by the increasing wetness dripping onto my thighs and torso, and my own growing incoherence after each frustrating edge, as I had lost all sense of time early on.

After a while, I could no longer decide if her actions were merciful or torturous since for ages even prior to this she hadn’t given me any indication whether some sort of relief was in sight. I couldn’t see through the opaque bondage tape that covered my eyes, but somehow I could tell she was smiling. She loved watching me struggle—and suffer—and so she would make games out of tantalizing me more and more. This was her most satisfying form of amusement and I am, after all, one of her favorite toys.

There’s no doubt that intense control, teasing, and orgasm denial are on my mind of late. (I mean, hell, it has been over four weeks now!) The fact of the matter is that since this particular kink is a fetish of mine—orgasm control is an integral part of my understanding of my own sexuality—for me, when we play with such things and when Eileen actively takes control of my sexual pleasure to choose when and how I get it, it’s a wonderful tool for catalyzing lots of other possibilities.

Now, I look forward to a cozy night of cuddling, snugly locked in my chastity device. If only I had checked that store’s hours earlier in the day, I might have had other things to look forward to, as well….

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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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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

My latest sex toy review and thoughts at day’s end

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Cock and ball torture (CBT), Community, Gender fluidity, Kink events, Reviews, Sex toys, Strap-ons and dildos, Vanilla life, Wednesday Wanderings, Writing and blogging

This week’s theme is “not here,” I suppose, because right on the heels of Rori’s fantastic top sex blogger list I have another (albeit really short) list of really awesome things for you. No introductions this time, let’s just get straight down to business.

  • A Pleasurably Versatile Experience – This is my latest sex toy review published on EdenFantasys.com. I think you’ll find it quite interesting, especially considering it’s a review for a toy that is ostensibly made for the purpose of hanging weights off one’s testicles, and I’ve shared my opinion on that almost laughable practice before. Here’s a choice excerpt:

    Cock and ball toys are without doubt one of the most unfortunately stereotyped of all sex toys. Those made out of leather and metal, even more so! The Large Parachute’s description doesn’t help any here, citing that “this original cock and ball torture accessory…provides a firm grip over the package” and “has a 6” long jewel chain that lets you attach additional weights for an increased cock and ball tease.”

    […]

    The good news is that I discovered other uses for the Large Parachute. The bad news is that it’s still mostly useful only for the types of CBT play you’d expect because it’s not as durable as it needs to be for some of the more inspired uses I came up with for it.

    If you’re so inclined, I’d very much appreciate a positive vote on my review(s).

  • When I Was A Boy – this is one of my good friend Switch’s latest posts that I read tonight and just about fell weak at the knees over. It’s so good and full of queer gender-bending hotness that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to link to it. My favorite part:

    In this submissive position, my cock meant a whole other thing. It never occurred to me that I was a girl in that context: I was a boy, submissive to a bigger, stronger Boy. And I LOVED it. I had never been a boy the way I was like that, even though vaginal intercourse made my girl parts very apparent. Nor had I ever felt submissive in the same way I did, with my hard silicone cock pushed into the bed and the base pushing against my pubic mound, turning me on even more as Boy fucked me.

    Guh!

  • Also, just because I can, a pair of links go out this week to KinkInExile.com and Essin-Em.com, who have simply been on my mind a bit lately.

On a completely unrelated note, I think it’s worth a mention that Conversio Virium is receiving an ever-growing amount of email on a wide array of topics. In the past week alone, we’ve received email from:

That’s no less than 9 emails this week, more than one per day on average, and I’m pretty confident that CV’s email load will simply continue to grow as it gains more exposure.

Just…food for thought. Okay, that’s all. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming, kthnxbai.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

An Un-Wednesday Wandering: So-Called “Top” 100 Sex Bloggers

Category labels: Community, Personal experience, Vanilla life, Wednesday Wanderings, Writing and blogging

There’s a lot of reasons why I haven’t been very active on this corner of the Internet. Fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that there really isn’t all that much to say because I haven’t really done very much worth talking about.

As it turns out, my initial instincts were (yet again) right on the money, and I’m utterly disappointed in the Aussie kink scene and its inhabitants. When it comes to the sexual and social aspects of my life, I am becoming increasingly eager to leave this very large island.

Thus, imagine my surprise when I found myself on a list of 100 “Top” Sex Bloggers of 2008 that Rori of Between My Sheets recently put up. On her list, which includes some absolutely fantastic sex bloggers, I’m apparently “number 36.”

Being called the “36th top sex blogger of 2008″ by anyone’s standards actually makes me think this is not really an ordered list, because there’s no way I’m the “36th most” anything sex blogger of 2008. I mean, seriously, I’m not having anywhere near enough sex, nor am I talking about my lack of said sex enough, for that ranking. I think Rori got a bunch of submissions and then just started listing the top 100 of these bloggers one after the other, not in any particular order. (By the way, thanks to whomever told Rori about my blog. You totally get brownie points.)

Nevertheless, it’s certainly an honor to be placed in the company of such fine bloggers, and in light of the fact that this list doesn’t just constitute a cool honor but is also a fantastic list of sexy links, I’m totally stealing it from her to use as one of my very sporadic Wednesday Wanderings. (I don’t care that it’s not Wednesday, can’t you tell I’m being lazy?)

So here it is, without further ado, an enormous list of provocative, sexy, inspiring, and downright fun things for you to check out this weekend. Enjoy, and thanks again, Rori!

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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

This is not the post you’re looking for

Category labels: BDSM psychology, Personal experience, Reviews, Sex, Sex toys, Vanilla life, Writing and blogging

The post you’re looking for is actually my new review of the Tantus silicone cock ring on Eden’s site. Unless, of course, you really are looking for this one, in which case read on.

It was recently my birthday. This is actually a bigger deal than it would otherwise be because I’ve just turned twenty four and, by my logic, this means I am entering my “mid-twenties.” For the first time in my life, I kind of feel old.

Of course, I’m not that old, but I’m still kind of old. It’s summer in New York City even though it’s winter in my new home on the other side of the world, which means school’s out of session. The new Executive Board of Conversio Virium is finding their feet, and though they’re doing a fantastic a job of it if I do say so myself, I notice all the little gaps in their knowledge about things. These are things that will come with time and experience, two things I seem to be finding plenty of in myself lately.

I’ve been a very busy bee and thus haven’t been paying much attention to this little corner of cyberspace except in the form of sporadic tweets where my real life intersects (as it often does) with the BDSM stuff. It is one of those cyclic things wherein kink takes a back seat to life. In part, this is simply a matter of lack of opportunity. I miss the public scene I know and complain about back in New York.

I think this has made play a form of comfort rather than a form of exploration, and doing a scene for comfort is not at all the same as doing one for personal exploration. I’m sure there’s a post in there, somewhere…. Ah, well. At least I am still getting new sex toys to review.

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Monday, June 9, 2008

Sexism at Large in American Politics: Armed and Dangerous

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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