A long time ago a friend turned to me one night and said, “I’d play with you.”
“Really? Thanks,” I said. This reaction clearly surprised my friend because he stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me quizically.
“Thanks? I just told you what amounts to ‘I’ll have sex with you’ in our scene, and I’m straight!” he said.
“Is playing really the same thing as having sex with someone?” I asked.
I think it’s still a good question. The distinction between sex and BDSM play is often a funny one. Some people insist there is no difference, some people insist the two should be distinct and always separated, other people insist one is the other, and I’ve gone through so many different phases I forgot what I think right now. I do know, however, that never before in my life have I so closely linked playing with sexual activities and that is a direct result of Eileen’s influences and our opportunities for play.
Case in point, the entire kink of orgasm denial is intensely sexual. It’s not something I’ve ever done—or even mentioned, actually—to anyone I knew in person until I met Eileen. Thankfully, she broke the ice on the matter. I was all too happy to let the floodgates open.
Today, teasing and denial (or T&D as it’s sometimes known to those of us for whom it’s a common kink) is a central and integral part of not only our relationship but of our life. After all, how could something so fundamental as the freedom of sexual gratification not affect your life when you begin to play kinky games with it?
Which brings me to the point of sex and kink, and what lines, if any, are drawn between these things. It’s obviously a very gray space, very few bits offering themselves as either black or white. Each person has their own take, informed by their personal interests and kinks.
A good friend of mine has recently confessed to wanting to top me. This, I think, is awesome, both because I think we would have a great time but also because I have never actually seen her switch with her boyfriend and would love the opportunity to do so. Of course, this was just a remark and I don’t intend to read too much into it, but it did get me thinking. Is wanting to top me the same thing as wanting to, in some form or capacity, have sex with me, even if the sex is limited to something as commonplace as mentally undressing someone in your mind’s eye? I’ll confess to having had such thoughts myself.
It also wouldn’t actually be the first time. About a year and a half ago, Eileen and two of her close friends (who are also my friends in their own right now, and yayness for that!) all triple-topped me one night in a very mild, practically introductory sort of breath play. I think if we were to actually play together again, it might help her if Eileen was there for part of it, or all of it, at least at first.
Of course, all of this needs a roundtable discussion, as is—and I believe should be—the way of things.
by Eileen
09 Aug 2007 at 15:25
For me, wanting to top you is very often the same as wanting to fuck you.
by maymay
09 Aug 2007 at 15:31
For me, wanting to top you is very often the same as wanting to fuck you.
Is it that way when you think of topping other people?
by m.t.
09 Aug 2007 at 16:04
For me, wanting to bottom to someone is very different from wanting to have sex with them. Or, it’s not so much that it’s different – they are related. But there are people I’d enthusiastically bottom to who I wouldn’t be comfortable having sex with. For me, bottoming is a lot less intimate than having sex. (For one thing, you don’t have to get your body all over the other person’s body, look them in the eyes necessarily, etc.)
But then I’m not that great of a bottom. Apparently I give no feedback and nobody can tell what’s going on with me. Oh well.
Topping someone is probably closer to sex. You can’t top someone if you’re not comfortable handling their naked body.
I fell in love with Jos by topping him. That was before we ever had sex. Early on in our sex life together, he complained that I was not a dom to him in bed, only in scenes. I didn’t really know how to integrate the two as the top.
I think part of my separation of scenes from sex results from having had most of my scenes at a club in public. You can have sex there, but for the most part people don’t. So the scenes I’ve had have tended to be quite separate from sex in my mind.
Of course, I talked about sex above as though it’s mainly whether you are or are not repelled by the idea of having sex with someone. What about the positive desire to have sex with someone?
They’re kind of separate for me. In my scene bottoming to the guy I call Good Dom, who I never dreamed of getting to scene with before that, I didn’t think about sex at all. I could want to have sex with that guy, but I’ve never really thought about it, despite how many times I’ve watched him play. And having him hold my naked body while I trembled and nearly passed out from part of the scene didn’t push my mind in that direction either.
by Eileen
09 Aug 2007 at 16:18
Is it that way when you think of topping other people?
Actually, no. Or rather, not often. I don’t always want to fuck the people I play with – you know how weirdly wired I am about sex. And I can find people very attractive as play partners wthout wanting to sleep with them.
I think that has more to do with you. You, and your bum.
by tom allen
09 Aug 2007 at 16:22
May, you know how people often equate sex with orgasm, but in chastity play one ends up discovering that orgasms are only a small part of sex? I’d imagine that it’s kind of the same mindset for some people – scening might present such a range of sensations and emotions that actual sex is not necessary for their enjoyment.
by maymay
09 Aug 2007 at 16:47
Oh, I agree that scenes are not necessarily sex and sex are not necessarily scenes. I have wanted to scene with people I did not want to have sex with, but I can rarely think of a time when I have wanted to have sex with someone who I did not also, in one way or another, want to scene with. I imagine some people have the reverse inclination, but I’ve not heard them tell me about it.
by tom allen
09 Aug 2007 at 21:03
*raises hand*
I’ve had sex with women toward whom I’ve not felt the slightest inclination to indulge in kink. I’ve lusted after certain women, thinking that it would be fun to have sex – plain, ol’ sensual, fun, happy sex. And certainly, I’ve had kinky partners with whom I’ve had great kinky sex and great non-kinky sex.
IOW, I separate the desires depending upon, oh, I dunno, some kind of criteria that I can’t describe. To me, it’s all part of the same continuum, but not all equivalent.