On Knowing Someone First

I think I'm going to stop having sex with people I don't know well. Or, well, I'm going to stop having sex with people I don't specifically and individually desire a lot at a given moment. I finally recognize that this desire happens more often once I know someone.

There's a person I've met several times at a big kink and sex event. We had mutual friends, one of whom recommended me to him as a play partner. He's something of a big, scary dom and sadist, which appeals to me generally, so when he proposed that we set up a play date I said yes. We talked about the specifics: he suggested using a gas mask, evil stick, cattle prod, and a few other painful things I don't remember the details of. We set the time and place. Then, when that time rolled around, I just didn't feel like it. I basically chickened out, and told him I wasn't up for it.

This happened twice.

Last week, this guy messaged me to suggest that, rather than trying to set up a play date, we plan to get together during the next event to just hang out and talk and/or cuddle and get to know each other. He said he still thought we "might have some heat," but that we might need to get acquainted to really create friction.

I felt so relieved, and then I felt surprised at how strong the relief was. I hadn't realized how uncomfortable I'd been at the thought of playing, particularly as a bottom, with someone I didn't know well or feel generally comfortable with. He's reasonably attractive, yes, and he has a solid reputation. I didn't feel unsafe with him or repulsed by him. Neither, though, did I feel especially attracted to him or comfortable with him. I'd initially decided to play with him because, "why not." I didn't think to ask, "why him."

Now, I do badly want to bottom more. I miss that in my life. I've felt that way for a long time, and yet I still haven't been doing it. I know lots of people who are good tops, who have good reputations and who I think are cool people. What's been missing is that feeling of "I want you."

I've had sex with men before who clearly were more interested in having sex with someone than in having sex with me. This didn't feel good. I've known that for a long time, but I hadn't really applied it to my own behavior.

The reality is that I almost always to some degree want sex and/or BDSM play. At any moment. If I'm on a date with someone new and it's clear that I could have sex with them, the predominant part of me has so far thought, "Well, I like sex. I could have sex with them. Might as well do it." This, I think, has been a repeated mistake. I've had a lot of mediocre (and bad) sex because of it.

I've decided I'm done with that. Sure, I do like sex, but I'm also uncomfortable having it with people I don't know and want for who they are and how they make me feel. I don't need to ignore the latter in service of the former. It's just unnecessary. It's easy enough for me to have sex with my boyfriend or one of my established lovers, anyway.

I guess what this means is I'm becoming a two or three date girl, rather than the usual first date sex seeker I've been forever. It feels weird, like I'm somehow submitting to The Rules, but I think it's better. I'm honoring my feelings and what I actually want, and that's what's important.

Coming Out Kinky

Back in college when I was uber-involved in the queer student group, we used to have educational meetings around National Coming Out Day. One of the things we talked about what the Cass Identity Model of coming out, which described several stages in the process of coming out as gay.

The initial few stages are things like "identity confusion" and "identity tolerance," but what I'm interested in for this post is the second-to-last one, "Identity pride." Cass describes a phase when a gay person feels like they have to tell everybody about their newly realized orientation, where they divide the world into gay and straight people and mostly only feel comfortable with the other gay ones, where they might be a gay activist, where they surround themselves completely with the gay community. This is the last phase before "identity synthesis" in which one's sexual orientation is understood as just one of many aspect of self.

I think I’ve been in that uber-gay phase, except with kink. It’s really a similar process, I think, to come out as kinky as it is to come out as gay. They’re both marginalized sexualities which have potential legal and life-altering consequences. You can lose your job or your children for being kinky. You can be jailed for assault, even if it was consensual. It definitely can have social consequences. You can end up in therapy to “fix” your kinkiness. Parents don’t necessarily want to know about it.*

I’ve been practically cloistered in the kink community for the last year and a half. I work at a kinky sex shop. I live with kinky roommates. My boyfriend is kinky. My friends are kinky. I go to kinky parties and classes. My vacations are at kinky retreats. It’s been a little ridiculously consistent.

I think I’m starting to get over that stage of my coming out process. I did need it. I needed to learn about what I like and to feel okay with it. I needed to explore and I needed help in giving myself permission for that. I needed to meet people with whom I could play in this way and with whom I could talk about my kinks. I’m extremely thankful for the relationships that I’ve made in the kinky community, especially with my boyfriend and my roommates and coworkers.

But I’m ready for a little more variety. I have so many interests. I’m passionate about gender politics. I’m interested in spirituality. I’d like to do yoga, and I’m interested in health. I care about the environment. I love to write, and to read just about everything. I love to learn and study and be intellectual. I like to perform. These are all things I’ve neglected to one degree or another for the last year and a half.

Just sayin’ it’s time to branch out a little, and maybe write about it here!

*There are nuances to this argument and it’s an aside to my main point. There are of course differences between the social and legal impacts of kink and queer sexuality. But there are also lots of similarities.

D/s

I've been feeling dissatisfied lately with my play as a bottom. I thought for a while that it was because I keep having these short scenes at play parties that only tease me, getting me into a nice head space only to be over as soon as I arrive there. I still think that's part of it, but I've realized it's not the whole story.

When I was in San Francisco, I visited with the lover I met and spent lots of time with at Dark Odyssey Summer Camp. We spent most of the day just hanging out, and we fooled around for maybe twenty minutes. This was just as brief as the scenes that have been frustrating me so much, but for some reason I found it more satisfying.

The difference, I realized, is that rather than just straight up beatings without frills, the dynamic I have with this lover is much more D/s. The physical things we do together aren't even all that "kinky." It's mostly just sex stuff, with a little hitting here and there or he'll put his hand over my mouth or move me by the hair sometimes. What makes the difference, though, is that he'll talk the whole time and tell me what to do in a calm and expectant way, call me baby girl and get me to call him Sir, and tell me I'm a good girl when I do what he says.

I crave this. Playing with him, however briefly, made me realize that the power exchange is what's really been missing in my recent life. The dynamic I have with this particular guy is nice, but it doesn't have to be exactly that. I'd just like to be submissive in some capacity, rather than just bottoming for pain.

I want that feeling of giving over control. Beatings are good, but the real reason I like them is that they help bring my mind to a submissive place. I'd rather the pain be in a context of D/s than D/s kinda sorta be a part of things because there are beatings happening.

This desire is a little harder to realize than just wanting to be hit with things. So long as I know somebody has the skills and isn't a total creep, there aren't a lot of prerequisites to beat me. I feel pretty casual about it. D/s, on the other hand, requires that I trust someone enough to hand them not just physical but also emotional control. There's a more delicate balance of what excites me and what could trigger me. It requires more specific compatibility, since I like certain kinds of submission and not others. It's more complicated.

I'm going to see what I can do about this by both talking to the people I've been spending more time with, and trying to schedule some time with the play partners who I know can take me there. I'm quite happy with just about everything else going on in my relationships, so if I can get this one desire met then my life will be overall awesome sauce. It just takes some doing.

Play Piercing

When I was 18, or maybe 19, I went to a house party put on by San Francisco Sex Information. I had just figured out that I wanted to be involved with sex education and I was doing everything I could to meet people who worked with sex in a serious way. When my contact invited me to the party to talk about how I could help at the hotline, it seemed like a perfect opportunity.

Predictably, this party was filled with sex positive, polyamorous-or-close, kinky types. It was a group of people firmly entrenched in the community that today I'm a part of but was then just finding for the first time. I did what I like to do at house parties, flitting from one conversation and new acquaintance to the next. It was so novel to be around people who had a vested interest in sexuality.

Novel, and a little shocking. Someone pulled out an impact toy at one point that was shaped like a metal ruler, but thicker. There were a bunch of people passing it around and trying it out on themselves and each other, talking about how thuddy it was, versus stingy like a regular ruler. That was the first time I encountered those terms. There was a computer in the living room, and the screen saver showed photos of women in various stages of bondage and torture. I was sitting next to a woman and her play partner when they started talking about knife play and prostitution role playing. As cool and collected as I wanted to seem, I'm pretty sure my eyes were as big as saucers.

At that point, I was only theoretically interested in BDSM. I knew I had fantasies of being tied up, and I knew I liked spanking. That was about it. I had an open relationship with my boyfriend, but neither of us had yet dated anyone else. I'd never slept with a woman, though I knew I wanted to. I'd met kinky people, but my impression of them had largely been related to the fact that they were much older men leching in my general direction. I was pretty shy about it all.

I was telling a story to one of my new acquaintances (I don't remember who) about how I'd worked at the Renaissance Faire on my 18th birthday and a friend, to accentuate how popular this made me, gave me a pin to wear that said "Legal" on it. My new, kinky, poly party friend said "I bet you'd look great wearing just that pin and nothing else."

I was taken aback by this. The memory is fuzzy, but I might've had to ask him to explain what he meant, that the pin would be piercing my skin. I'd told him earlier in conversation that I was possibly interested in BDSM but hadn't explored much. I know he was trying to get a rise out of me. I said something along the lines of "Oh, I don't know about that," and tucked the idea away on my list of Really Kinky Shit that was probably only for special, experienced, and rare Heavy Players.

Fast forward to the other night, September in New York City. I did my first play piercing scene in the basement of the local BDSM club, tied topless to a bondage table and ignoring the people standing around to watch. Today I'm feeling the itch as the puncture marks from the needles and staples heal and I'm enjoying the bruises on other parts of my body from the rest of the play that we did.

It's funny how far we can come in the space of five years.

Self Taught?

Often the easiest way to figure out what you like sexually is to experiment on your own and figure it out. The first thing I tell anybody to do who's having trouble reaching orgasm or worried about having sex is to masturbate. A lot. That way they'll have some familiarity with their own bodies and know how they like to be touched before they have to interact with a partner. It's hard to tell someone what you want when you don't know yourself.

This is basic advice. It applies to lots of things. Self knowledge is power.

I'm wondering, though, how it applies to kink.

For years one of the things that kept me from dipping my toe into deeper kinky waters was that I didn't know where my pain tolerances where and which activities I would like. It felt weird to explore these things with a stranger, and I wasn't seeing any kinky people regularly enough to know them well. I needed a partner with whom I was comfortable enough to be inexperienced, someone who would help me figure it all out without being judgmental or expecting me to know more than I did.

I've found a few people to play with now, but I still wish I knew more about my personal preferences and what my body can take. I'm discovering with my partners that I like pain a lot more than I anticipated I would. I still haven't figured out, though, which types are my favorite and which body parts can take more and less and there are many things I still haven't tried. I've got lots to learn, basically.

Normally, I'd just try to figure it out on my own. I'd play with myself. But it feels really weird when what I want to explore is pain.

So much of what's appealing to me about BDSM has to do with the DS part. (Dominance and submission.) I like the physical sadomasochism for sure, but it's inextricably tied in my head to a dynamic of domination. Even if there's no real role playing going on in a scene, in my head I'm thinking "I'm taking this pain to please my partner" or I'm simply imagining that they're in control even if that dynamic isn't especially there. It's a huge part of the turn on for me.

I don't think I can get very close to that when I'm by myself. I can of course fantasize, just as I would when masturbating. But it's going to take a good amount of effort and even technique to effectively hurt myself, especially if I'm trying to experiment with something new like caning or I dunno, rubber band torture on my feet or god knows what. That's going to make it hard to concentrate on a fantasy. And I'm not sure I'd have the same reactions to pain when it's just pain than when it's part of a scene and in the context of a certain relationship.

I'll probably still do some experimenting on my own. Hell, I sit at work all day and idly play with the toys we sell. We keep evil sticks on the counter and I'm constantly fiddling with them on my legs. I do enjoy the pain on its own to an extent. I can totally do that kind of thing in private in a more deliberate way.

It is a weird Catch-22, though. I wonder if other people have had this issue. Comments?

Birthday

I turned 23 on Saturday, and I think it was my first birthday that felt truly emotionally significant. Usually the day goes by and there's food and a few gifts and there might be some legal rights I gain but that's about it. You know, life just continues.

This was different. It was a really lovely birthday, actually, just emotional. I went to the beach with Conrad and then we played at his hotel room before he headed off to more travels. It was a strange and beautiful sort of day. Being near the ocean and then in a fresh hotel room made it feel like we were away from New York and away from daily life. I don't think we stopped touching each other for more than 15 minutes in a row throughout the whole day. It's easy to get high on that kind of touch.

He massaged my shoulders all day, saying he liked that he could hurt me and heal me at the same time. I've got really bad knots in my upper back and shoulders (right in the heart chakra, yes) and at a few points my knees actually gave out because he was working on them so hard. He was holding me up, from behind, and using his chin to dig into the knots. It was a whole different kind of pain. Penetrating.

Later, at the hotel, he whipped me and I cried.

It was the first time I'd ever cried during a scene. I was feeling so much from the total picture of the day: his work on my shoulders and his opening of that physical manifestation of my knotted emotions, the slight menstrual bleeding and heavy hormones I was still experiencing, the way being so close to him all day had made me feel, and the sense that this so-difficult year was passing away. Something about the whip made it coalesce and let the water flow. It was a different kind of crying than I usually do. It wasn't tortured, and I wasn't trying to fight it with every muscle in my abdomen. He was just hitting me and the tears started coming out. And I felt surprisingly okay with it. The whip even started to feel better after the tears began. I wasn't embarrassed or afraid to be crying. I just was.

I'm really, strangely glad not to be 22 anymore. I suppose in the full shake of things it wasn't a particularly good year for me. Or rather, it was a really hard year. I left home to live all on my own for the first time, clear across the country to New York and far from my family and friends. I worked as a canvasser for eight months, which is just a brutal job. I was depressed to varying degrees for all of that. The gaps in blogging here were rough periods, and there are lots of gaps. It was a year of struggle.

That also means, though, that it was a year of huge growth, which is why it's not really accurate to call it a bad year. I made that cross-country move and found an apartment and I've paid my rent every month. I found a job that covered my bills and then found a different job that I love. I bit the bullet and finally started anti-depressants. I forced myself out of the house and finally made friends and found lovers. I embraced BDSM and have started exploring and finding new, deeper parts of myself. I created a home for myself in this craziest of U.S. cities. Essentially, I became an adult.

And boy, am I glad that year is over. And to have released some of what it meant for me in that clean, quiet hotel room.

Satisfaction

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how insatiable I can be. Everything I wrote there still applies: the more sex I have the more sex I want, and I'm more satisfied when I have a deep relationship.

But!

As I've been embracing kink more and finding partners who want to tie me up and do very fun painful things to me, I'm finding myself way more satisfied. To the extent that maybe even for a day or two after a good scene, I'm not craving sex or touch or anything. Just buzzing in some afterglow. It's a novel feeling.

Last Saturday, I went to a sex party with Conrad, a newish play partner. (Dear god, he is hot.) Now, I'm normally pretty private about who I'm playing with. It seems slightly awkward to write about the sex I'm having as I'm having it, especially if I'm talking in ways I wouldn't with my partner. But Conrad asked me if I was planning to blog about him and told me I could post a link. So I have permission!

He and I played, ladies and gentleman, from 9:30pm to 5:00am last Saturday night. We had an audience at the party, but we were almost exclusively fooling around with each other. I spent the better part of seven hours bound in one way or another. He put clothespins on me, he whipped me, he dunked my head underwater in the hot tub, he used electro-stim on my nipples and pussy, he pinched and hit and bit and kissed me. He pulled my hair and stuck his cock down my throat. He made me come more times than I'm sure of. For sustenance, he blindfolded me and fed me a hot dog and some fruit. (I spit a watermelon seed at him!) At the end of the night we fucked next to a bunch of other people having fun. And then in the morning, after we went home to my apartment and got some sleep, we fucked some more.

After that, I was satisfied. Boy was I ever. Actually, I was exhausted, but in a pleasant way. And I took a couple of days to just chill out at home after work, watch movies with my roommate, and generally do tame, vanilla, calm things. I slept a lot the next two nights. And I felt great.

I had never felt that way after vanilla sex. I've had some really great sex that stuck with me. I've made some beautiful connections and hot memories. But I'd never felt so bone-satiated. So finished. Content.

I'm so glad I've finally come to this point, where I'm actually acting on my submissive urges on a regular basis. It took me a long time to get here, to be ready for it, but I'm happy I've arrived. It's clear to me that BDSM is a fundamental piece of who I am and what I desire, and something that was missing from my life for a long time. And now I get to have it. And I'm so grateful.

Submission is Not Passive

"Submit" is an action verb.

Well, duh, Paradox, you might say. Of course it's an action verb. That's just basic grammar.

You would be right, but I mean it in a deeper sense than that.

For a long time, I felt a little guilty when I had long sessions with lovers where I was being submissive to them, where they were doing hurty or bondagey or sexy things to me and being in control of what was happening. I felt like the burden of creativity, of action, was on them and that it was somehow unfair. That I was simply taking what they gave me without contributing that much, since I was going along with what they thought up and told me to do.

I've realized it's more complicated than that. And better than that, really.

When I'm playing with a top (or dom or whatever) who likes what he* is doing, he's getting something out of it too. I'm giving him my reactions and my permission and contributing my energy to the scene. Depending on our dynamic, I'm giving him my obedience. I'm using my strength to hold uncomfortable positions or to accept whatever pain he gives me. I'm giving him a release that he probably craves on his own, access to my body and to an activity that he wants. I'm exciting him. It is, as I say on my Fetlife profile, a gift.

To submit is an act of will. It's an active choice, one that I continue to make throughout a scene. There's a saying in improv of all kinds: Say yes to your partner. And it applies in kink (and sex for that matter) because if I'm not saying yes, we can't do anything. If he's trying to feed me and I don't open my mouth, that's the end. If he's trying to hit me and I run away, that's the end. If I use my safeword at any time, that's the end. And when it goes well, when it's hot and exciting and satisfying, it's because we created that together.

Which is so, so much fun.

*I use male pronouns since I tend towards heterosexuality in my kink life. I play with women sometimes, but not nearly as often. But this could all apply to dominant types of any gender.

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Gossip and Being a Scene Newbie

I spent most of a slow day at the store a couple weeks ago reading Fetlife discussion posts. (You need to have an account to read.) There was a big hubbub in one of the local groups over some inappropriate behavior by a leader of said group. The main thing to come out of it was that invasive/abusive/assaultive behavior doesn't get addressed very well in the kink scene in New York. In various threads on what is essentially the Facebook of kink, people have been proposing different methods to deal with this problem. (If you read my post on dirty laundry, you know what my ideal solution would be.)

I've always been really wary of and hesitant to enter the kink community. It's true that there are misogynist and entitled men everywhere. In any bar or club or party I could go to, at least some segment of the male population will be liable to creepily hit on, grope, or even rape a woman. That's just the awful truth of things today. I do think there are things we can all do to help change that state of affairs, but that change is definitely not here yet. Not even close.

In the specific kink community, though, we are dealing with intensified power dynamics and some potentially very dangerous forms of play. Interactions that are already really problematic in the straight world take on a heightened importance when you need to trust someone to tie you up and beat you. Or even just be a present at a party where you're being tied up and beaten. Kink creates vulnerability, and I was hesitant for a long time to be that vulnerable in the presence of a whole community.

One of the cool things about reading this discussion is that people seem to have a better sense of gender dynamics and the consequences of abuse. There's much more open discussion about consent than in other arenas. It's a community that has to be more aware of respectful sexual practices because of the extremes of play it favors. This is a good thing.

On the other hand, it's become really clear that there are plenty of kinky folks who have NO inkling of acceptable behavior or speech*. Some people who posted in the thread, a couple of whom I've met cordially in real life, were completely out of line and exposed themselves as misogynist, or gay-bashing, or victim-blaming, or some horrid combination of the above. I of course had no idea of this when I met them and wouldn't have ever known if I hadn't finally found enough friends that someone mentioned to me that I should check out the threads.

I find myself in a weird position here. I'm a newcomer to this group and I want to find partners to play with. There's a lot in BDSM that I haven't done and want to explore and I know the best way to do it is to get into a relationship with someone who has the same interests. The play parties and munches and all of that are largely forums to meet people with similar interests.

But really the only way I have to tell who is safe to play with, who is not going to be an asshole, is through the grapevine or from reading posts on an online forum. Which I find very frustrating. I much, much prefer to keep my relationship with any given person between me and that person. I hate triangulation, all that he-said-this and she-did-that bullshit that's really just a consequence of not dealing with conflict directly. But when it comes to safety, I suppose I must get information wherever I can.

The consequence of the shit that I alluded to last week (which, no, I'm not going to say much more about) is that I'm just going to throw myself into the community. If there's a rumor about someone, I want to hear it. Just to be on the safe side. If I'm going to play privately with someone new, I'm going to ask for references from past partners. I wish very much I didn't have to do all that, but it seems that I must. On the plus side, I'm finding a cool new community, which I've already started to have great fun with. It's a whole new world to open up and explore.

*Please don't bring up the first amendment, I'm talking about speech that makes someone an asshole, not that makes them a felon. This is about ethics, not law.

Derailed

In News of the Last 48 Hours of Paradox's Life, I had a bit of romantic catastrophe that's left me reeling and rethinking many, many things. A lot of which I want to write about.

I've got some kind of gigantic post or series of posts coming about gossip and abuse and responses to abuse and public domain information and personal responsibility for the safety of others and how all of the above relates to the BDSM/poly/sex positive/whatever community. Which is going to take me a couple of days to sort out.

I just wanted to write something down here to be like, whoa, some SHIT has been going down and I have THINGS TO SAY. That is all. More to come.

BDSM Trigger and a Newly Found Boundary

I had a complicated afternoon today, which was mostly not fun but also very informative.

I did some BDSM play with a new partner with whom my chemistry had very much lent itself to a dominant/submissive dynamic.

The fucked up thing about that, which I realized today, is that the reason I've felt so submissive to him is that he reminds me of my dad. Bear with me here, and I'll explain. I'd been sort of confused as to why I was so responsive to him. He's a nice enough guy, but I'm not really attracted to him at all. He's had a very active sex life, so he's clearly attractive enough, just not to me.

Despite that, I found myself still talking to him and wanting to play with him. I liked the way he talked about BDSM, and there was something about his verbal manner, especially when he was being dominant, that appealed to me. He very easily and instantly brought out the submission in me. I wasn't sure how the sex was going to go, since his looks are an actual turn off for me, but I went ahead with it anyway. I figured if I had this unexplained pull towards him, especially in a more submissive way than I'd thus far experienced, it was worth seeing through.

Well, this afternoon the sex wasn't working so well for me. I wasn't able to overcome my dislike of his physical appearance and mannerisms, and the thoughts circling my head were distracting and unsexy. So I told him so. (I'd been pretty honest about my conflicted feelings towards him all along.)

We were having a very awkward conversation about it, and I was feeling very embarrassed that I hadn't known my own mind better beforehand, that I hadn't known I wouldn't be able to overcome my lack of attraction to him. I was, therefore, covering my face a lot when we were talking, which is something I do when I feel very uncomfortable, scared, or too emotional.

In an attempt to bring our D/s dynamics into the conversation (which we'd been doing a little, to see if it helped my lack of interest issue), he stood above where I was sitting, grabbed me by the hair and very sternly told me not to cover my face while he was talking to me. This was a fairly minor thing, something that many doms would do. And yet, it very suddenly triggered some heavy emotions for me and I started crying.

When I was little, my father used to lose his temper in a very scary way, usually over little things. He never hit me or my sister, at least that I remember (although I maybe, very vaguely, have a memory I'm not sure is real of being spanked once in anger by my father). But he is 6'4"and big. He would loom over me and yell very loudly, right in my face, would put me down in vaguely awful ways when he was mad, and would move my body around in ways I didn't want. My memories of these things are really fleeting, but I remember him once picking me up off the floor by my arms and shoving me onto our guest room bed to yell at me into my face. It was terrifying.

Most relevant to this post, he would pull my hands away from my face if I was trying to hide from him (because I was scared or later because I didn't want him to see me uncontrollably cry) and he would make me look at him in the eye as he was yelling at me.

Something about the way my partner today grabbed me and stood over me and ordered me to look him in the eye made me lose it. It also made me realize how similar his mannerisms were to my dad's when he was being dominant, how there were similarities in his tone and body language and even the words he used. And here I was, in a state in which I could easily have just broken down sobbing and needed to process this memory from my childhood, with someone there who I didn't know well, didn't really want to be a sexual partner with, and with whom I was already having a very awkward conversation.

I held back on the emotional fireworks until after he left (and he did leave not too long after that). But it's really weird to realize that at least a big chunk of my interest in D/s comes from my history with my father. Like, the mysterious element that drew me to this guy was that he reminds me of my father. (Ew.) That's why I felt submissive to him. I've got mother-fucking daddy issues. Goddammit.

Also, it is now clear to me that while I can play with spanking and bondage and hair pulling and forceful oral and whatever other physical SM stuff I like with casual partners, I definitely should not do D/s or other role playing stuff unless it's with somebody I already deeply trust and care about. Because it sucked to have to process what came up today by myself. And I wouldn't have been able to do so with this partner I didn't know well.

So, I guess we'll call this Another Fucking Growth Opportunity and set a new boundary for casual play. And I'll be more cautious moving forward. It was a rough afternoon, but I guess in the end it's good to know. Sigh.

Kink and Me

When it comes to my personal interest in BDSM, in both my fantasies and real life, I don't think it's really the image or illusion of non-consent that appeals to me. I know that these kinds of consensual non-consent scenes are what draw a lot of people to BDSM. Rape fantasies abound, and I'm not knocking them. I've had my fair share.

One of my favorite erotic stories when I was younger was about being kidnapped by pirates and tied to the mast naked for all to play with. When I was very young, I'd fantasize about a male soldier tied up and seductively teased by a female captor to get him to talk. I clearly do like SOME non-consent.

But most of the time I find that my fantasies turn more towards being told what to do and then doing it. It's not so much about a lack of consent (or a pre-negotiated pretense of a lack of consent) as it is about simple dominance and submission.

I want to give over control to someone who I trust and who I want to please. I want to take pride in my ability to please them. I want to be a good girl. I think maybe that's always what it's been like when I go into sub space. I become very obedient and I get very turned on over following orders.

I like it best when my dom orders me to do things that are hard for me to do. I especially like it when they are sexual things or things that require physical endurance. Like attempting to deep throat a very big cock or holding myself in a difficult bound position or just breathing through some pain. (Yum, spankings.) My dom would of course have to take care not to violate my physical or emotional boundaries, but I like to be pushed.

For me, all that is not so much about a lack of consent as it is about a gift I'm giving to my dom. As I said, I take pride in it. It's a special thing that only I can give. It's not a vehicle for humiliation or disempowerment.

If I'm giving over my power, then that means I possessed it in the first place. We start from a place of equality and enter, consensually, into a power exchange. This makes the feminist in me comfortable even as it turns me on. The equal negotiations are very important, and that means I don't want a 24-7 Dom/sub relationship. And I pretty much need to play with other people who believe in equality.

All this is also why I don't like casual or public BDSM. It's a very serious and intimate gift I'm giving someone - trust with my feelings and needs and body. I can't do that with a stranger, and I don't really want to do it in front of strangers. It puts me in a very vulnerable place, and I need to feel safe to be there. I can't really feel that way with random folks around.

To recap: I like to be told what to do. I like to be brought into intense physical sensations. I like to give my obedience as a gift. I like to be asked to do difficult things, praised when I do them, and punished (lovingly) when I don't. I'm completely uninterested in casual, public, or 24-7 BDSM. I require equal and respectful negotiations in order to play.

That all took me a long, long time to figure out, but maybe now I can start acting on it.

Fetlife Giveaway

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Sex Worker Personae - A Submissive Mistress?

I've spent a few shifts now at the dungeon, and helped in a few sessions. I'm not yet sure how I feel about the whole business, but I do know what a few of my challenges will be.

The most difficult thing for me, particularly in sessions with other mistresses, is to stay out of sub space. The whole setting of the place is meant to send a submissive person into a state of mind that's aroused and obedient. I'm surrounded by "instruments of punishment" and women in skimpy fetish clothing. When I go into a session to train, I'm standing next to a woman in a dominant role, one who calls herself mistress and who has control over at least one other person in the room.

My first instinct, of course, is to be full of "Yes, Mistress" and attempts to please. Trying to work as a professional dominant has made it only more clear to me how much of a little sub I am. It comes so naturally to me, the obedience and reveling in the sensations, whereas I definitely feel awkward trying to dominate or humiliate the clients.

I understand now why people have sex work personae. As a stripper, I never really needed to be anybody but myself. I'm already all these things that men want in a dancer: extremely sexual but reserved with it, bisexual, available, articulate, eager to please. Genteel but dirty. It bugs me a little that these character traits that I happen to have are also the ones that men fetishize, but there you have it.

As a domme, though, I know I'm going to need to find/build a persona for myself. I'll need to find a way to act that's comfortable, but different from the way I usually am. I know there are people who do that for stripping, who act out a role when they hustle and lap dance, and now I'll get to experience that in a different industry. It should be interesting to see how it turns out, what roles I end up playing. I'll certainly fill you in as I find them.

Something New

I mentioned earlier that I was going in for an interview at a dungeon. That was, of course, a teasing hint since I haven't blogged about it since.

Well, I went in for my interview just over a week ago. I sat in a little room with simple but decadent furniture for about two hours waiting for the owner to see me. I ended up choosing a different, better dungeon, but the time before that first interview stands out in my memory.

I wish I could capture the feeling of walking up to a strange building, ringing a buzzer, and being let into a new work space for the first time. The dark rooms and BDSM instruments and even the smell of the place affected me like a client: intriguing, arousing. I was wide-eyed, taking it in. I want to put that feeling into a bottle and save it for later. There's nothing quite like the sense of total newness, of having no real idea of what I'm getting myself into.

It's the same feeling I had when I went for my audition at the strip club. It's a feeling of nervousness, yes, but mostly actual excitement over the mystery of it all. I think wanting to feel that is what drives me a lot of the time. It's a unique and pleasant kind of agitation. I like to be stimulated; I get bored with the everyday. I can only have that special sensation from truly novel, vaguely dangerous situations.

It feels really good to be back to that freshness. I know that being a domme will eventually become just a job. I'll learn from it and acclimate to it and it will change me, just as stripping has. I won't be able to imagine anymore what it was like to be me before I started.

That, though, is why I write. If nowhere else, I can find that feeling again on this page, on the internet for everyone to see. That's a pretty cool thing.

Being a Grown Up

Well, I've now signed my first lease.

My mother used to always say that you're not a real adult until you have to pay your own bills. After a couple of weeks of sitting on the phone with the cable, gas, and electric companies, setting up appointments and equipment for same, tracking down and paying for furniture, and unpacking boxes, I think I can now officially say I am an adult.

I've been getting up every morning at 9am and trucking on the subway into work. I'm still canvassing here in New York City, which I definitely don't want to do for much longer. It is, however, a job with income. This is currently important.

I don't believe I've mentioned this here before, but one of my friends is a professional dominatrix (or pro-domme). I'm planning to go in with her to the dungeon where she works and have an interview with the boss this Tuesday. If you read here at all regularly, you know that I definitely have a submissive bent, so this venture should be pretty interesting.

I have no idea whether I will like dominating men for money, but it's another one of those things that I figure I might as well try and see how I feel about it. I'll certainly be writing about that, and much more about my adventures in this biggest U.S. city, now that I'm finally a bit settled. I'm such a nester; it makes me much happier to have a home to go back to that's all set up and pretty and comfortable. This is the first one I've gotten to build myself.

P.S. See, Myca, I blogged!

Domination vs. Humiliation

I was thinking yesterday about my kinky proclivities, and the reasons why until fairly recently I've hesitated to act on my submissive desires. I've known that I'm into restraint and submission for a very long time, but I never did much about it. I didn't feel ready, somehow, or comfortable with the idea.

I realized yesterday that a lot of what turned me off of the available images of dominance and submission was the way humiliation is often connected to any kind of sexy power play. Very often along with the spankings and bindings and hittings and tossing arounds, there are words and narratives thrown in about how humiliating it all is. About how the sub is naughty and should be ashamed and needs to be punished.

For me, the desire to be dominated is not at all connected to these narratives of shame. I don't feel ashamed of having sexual desires. It's true that I have been shamed by other people for them and sometimes even felt abnormal and freakish. My response to that, however, was more to say "fuck you" and learn to be proud than anything else.

I grew up in a household where, despite some of the usual discomfort about sex, my parents and especially mother always said "whatever you do is fine by us and we love all of you, including your sexuality." This stood up to my coming out as bisexual, my disclosing that I'm a stripper, and some overnight visits from special friends where we made a wee bit more noise than intended.

This is not to say that I begrudge anyone their enjoyment of humiliation, just that it's not for me. I just can't eroticize words that turn sex into shame. I understand the value of reclaiming these narratives and getting off on them, I just don't do it. It makes me too uncomfortable.

What I like about being dominated is simply the loss of control. I'm incredibly, sometimes destructively self possessed in "real" life. I am able to let go of some of that during any kind of sex (which is one reason I like it so much) but being dominated lets me do so even more. I can hand the restraining of me over to someone else. I don't have to do it, at least for a little while. It actually feels freeing.

I also just love to please and it makes me wet to be ordered around and thrown over someone's knee. I can't necessarily explain the physical response, but as it is, I'm just going to enjoy it. Minus the whole "You've been a naughty slut and need a spanking" part.

Links Because I Read Too Many Blogs Not to Share

About Time I Take a Stand
Jem writes another great response to the whole BDSM kerfluffle (yes, that's how I spell that word) going on in the blog universe. It seems like she has a nicely balanced perspective, and I appreciate her respect.

Speech on Innovation in Sex Education
Heather Corinna of Scarleteen includes the full text of her inspiring speech on sex ed and innovation. I think she's an amazing person, and while the speech is long it's well worth reading. She talks about how she got to where she is as a sex educator, reaching tens of thousands of people each day.

25 Things About My Sexuality

I'm sure you've all seen the 25 things meme on Facebook or wherever, given that the New York Times wrote about it. There's a new blog up where folks can anonymously share 25 things about their sexuality. It's an interesting read and I figured it'd be fun to join in. I'm posting my 25 things on here, since this blog has enough anonymity for me.

1. I'm a stripper (duh, if you read this blog) and I've dated/had sex with exactly one man that I met at work. It was when I first started and he was very cute and nice, but terrible in bed. After our first time, I stopped seeing him.

2. My first clue that I was interested in women was when I was 12. I had a sex dream about my sister. I was pretty horrified and upset, but also suddenly realized that I was seeing women in a sexual way. This was quite separate from my sister, but it's always bugged me that she was in the dream that brought me to that realization.

3. I "came out of the closet" at the exact moment that I realized the label bisexual could apply to me. I was on the bus on the way home from school and discussing what bisexuality meant with some acquaintances. I said "I know I'm attracted to guys, but I'm pretty sure I'm also into girls. So yeah, I guess I'm bisexual." Thank you, California upbringing.

4. I once gave a boyfriend a blow job in front of a pack (flock? gaggle?) of wild turkeys. Really.

5. I almost never masturbate with my fingers. I went from rubbing myself against a stuffed animal for years to using a vibrator. Fingers are generally too rough for my very sensitive clit. I can make it work, but it takes a LOT of effort and lube.

6. The first person I fell in love with was an emotionally abusive asshole. The only good things he did for me were teach me how to drink and give me lots of good sex. He also made me feel bad, though, about sex, as part of the whole abuse thing. I'm proud of myself for getting out of it before he became physically abusive, as he did with his next girlfriend.

7. I took naked pictures of myself when I was a teen and sent them to at least one person I was having random cyber sex with. My mom found them on my computer and chose to believe me when I told her they were just for me. I deleted them. It makes me feel kind of awkward (and scared, given recent prosecutions) that they may still be out there.

8. I didn't have sex with a woman until I got to college. This made me feel a little like a fraud saying I was bisexual, but I knew it was true. I didn't tell my first few female sexual partners how inexperienced I was. I wish I had, so I could've spent that time learning from them.

9. When I was young I used to have fantasies about being tied up by a male figure and put in cold places or deprived of food and then fed grapes. They were vague fantasies and not exactly sexual as I'd mean the word now. They were arousing, though, in a not-quite-sexual-yet-but-almost way.

10. I keep a list of all the people I've had sexual encounters with. If I didn't, I'd have trouble naming them all, particularly in order. I like to look back at it and remember.

11. I used to read and write erotic short stories and romance and erotic novels. I got teased at school for reading "porn for women," which actually didn't bother me at all. I was kind of proud.

12. I've never watched that much porn although I find it very arousing. It's too much effort to find what I like to see, and I can get off just fine without it. Lately, I've been trying harder.

13. My first time having anal sex was when the afore-mentioned abusive boyfriend got me drunk on his birthday. I was open to the idea sober so I didn't mind. However, the only time we'd talked about it, I'd said I wasn't sure. I'm pretty certain that he was getting me drunk so I'd do it, which is really rapey. It's a weird situation because I was actually willing despite the alcohol, but he didn't know that.

14. I love group sex. I want to have much, much more of it. I've had a few really good threesomes, a foursome with all bi folks which was fantastic, and one of my favorite sex experiences was a lesbian orgy in San Francisco I was lucky enough to be invited to.

15. I have had sex in all kinds of ridiculous places. I've posted here before about how much I love public sex. It's definitely something I've done a lot and will continue to do.

16. I'm just starting to really experiment with BDSM. I've been interested in it for a long time, but the community's focus on pushing boundaries was really intimidating. I'm finally at a point where I'm comfortable negotiating exactly what I want so I can feel okay with someone topping me. Boundary pushing can come over time.

17. I really like being spanked. I'm not sure why this is as I was never spanked as a kid and it's arousing in absence of any role playing. I just like the way it feels; it turns me on.

18. I go through phases where I'm more attracted to one sex/gender than others, but normally I'm pretty pansexual. I don't identify as pansexual because most of the people I've met who do are kind of annoying. Growing up, being pansexual was the cool, non-conformist thing to do and I still associate it with that.

19. The more sex advice I give, the more I realize how little I actually know about sex and the more comfortable I get with that fact. There are always more questions and new things to learn!

20. I like sex outside of committed relationships, but not really "casual" sex. I want to have a connection with someone I'm sleeping with, even if it's just once for forty minutes. Otherwise it's not particularly satisfying to me, even if I have fifteen orgasms.

21. I almost always masturbate before I go to sleep. I often also masturbate at random moments during the day when I'm reading or bored or just horny. It's been a very long time since I've gone more than one day without masturbating.

22. I sometimes get aroused during lap dances. It has a lot to do with how respectful and responsive my customer is. If he or she is both, I'll get turned on.

23. The only things I can think of when my mom asks me "What do you want for your birthday?" are more sex toys. They're some of the only things I want that are too expensive to buy for myself. It doesn't seem appropriate, despite our good relationship, to ask Mom for them.

24. My best friend calls me "Little Nelly Bottom." I worry sometimes that by being more of a bottom I'm not contributing enough to sex. I know that bottoming for me is as much about giving and wanting to please, but I still wonder sometimes if I'm being lazy by wanting my partner(s) to take control.

25. I'm hugely orally fixated, in a not-just-a-joke kind of way. I love giving head and kissing and using my mouth as much as possible during sex. I have a candy problem. I chew on things. When I masturbate, I do things with my mouth like bite my pillow, suck on my fingers, or go down on a dildo.