Chinese chastity devices!

China, it seems, is awash with male chastity devices. There are lots of suppliers, but only a handful of actual device types, many of which - intriguingly - have model numbers.

I've been looking at metal chastity devices from China!

For example, here's the A080:

"The A080  Male Chastity Device"

Intriguingly, one supplier describes it as "short for Asian penis". Have Chinese men discovered the chastity fetish? Or is this something rent boys where in the Far East?

Then there's the A081:

"The A081 Male Chastity Device"

This fits more standard sized dicks. For the well endowed there's the M500...

You'll notice that it has a system for connecting the cage to the ring. "science.in.a.cage" has a nice review of the M500  male chastity device (he calls it the "Chinese bird cage"). In his case the chrome broke down and he had to give up using the device.

Chrome is an issue with Chinese import devices - some people are intolerant to it, sometimes it comes off leaving jagged edges. However, some suppliers are adamant that their devices are stainless steel. At least one supplier goes to great trouble to tell you how to identify stainless steel:

Identification of stainless steel

1,when you receive the product, please use the weapon (such as blades, screwdrivers, nail clippers, etc.) in the product does not affect the use of obscure or where a little hard to draw a mark, shown in Figure 1, if the paint marks, the products appear on the right this brass, to prove the product surface plating...(read more)

Of course this could be BS. However, since very similar devices in stainless steel turn up in European and American sex shops, I'm fairly sure that at least some of these devices aren't  chrome or - God help me - pewter.


Finally, there are terrifying devices, such as this "Male Boundage chastity Short Cage Urethral Tube Gimp GAY BDSM Fetish":

"Male Boundage chastity Short Cage Urethral Tube Gimp GAY BDSM Fetish"

 Um. No thanks! However, where did they get the idea? It looks oddly like a cheaper version of the Looker 02 from Steelworxx.

Chinese chastity devices; real, or fake?

Search one portal and you'll see some very recognizable male chastity devices, some in metal, some in silicone. Are they real or fake?

Some must be counterfeits... but there are reports that some counterfeit CB6000's are less prone to splitting than originals. On the other hand, are the splitting CB6000s actually counterfeits as well?

Some probably reuse original molds, like the endless versions of Bon4/Birdlocked. Too bad for the original designer - I've been pirated once, and it made me mad.  Or is the story more complicated?

Some, like the monster above, are at least... inspired by original Western designs.

However, a good many turn out to be what Western sexshops have been quietly repackaging as their own; when the lights go on and we can see where things are really made, the "Errant Knight's Night Cage"  from www.XXXbigmanuniquechastityworkshop.co.uk (made up site name at time of writing) turns out to be something like "Gimp Fetish Male Chastity Device Number 27" from a factory somewhere near Shanghai.

It's a bit complicated...

What qualifies as real and fake anyway?

In the case of Chinese chastity devices, "fake" and "real" turn out to be relative terms.

Ignore the issue of patents and copyrights, and it's down to design and quality. It's real if the design is relatively secure and comfortable, and the quality acceptable.

Some market leaders in the Western fetish world actually consistently fail this standard!

As for chastity devices from our Chinese friends, it's down to manufacturers, batches and ultimately the quality control of the individual shop - buyer beware!

There may be something to be said for sticking to more local middlemen in the hope that the markup represents quality control - one UK couple have a nice review of what looks like a device of Chinese origin (but for all I know could have come out of a workshop in Birmingham, England).

The future is chaste

Whatever the quality, the fact that Chinese factories are churning out male chastity devices is a good omen (but goodness knows what they think of us!).

It means there's a large enough market to support competition - perhaps driven by a nascent gay subculture of "locked bois". This competition should lead to some very effective CBs. It also means - since ultimately they want our money- that we can expect the Chinese to be shipping some high quality low cost cages and belts within the next few years.

Me. I'm tempted. I'd rather buy a Mature Metal device. But since I don't have the budget... I'll let you know how it goes...

For spicing up your sex life with some male chastity, see my Femdom self-help guides....

Does BDSM ever really take over a marriage?

Kinky couples seem to become more rather than less kinky over time.

BDSM gets around most of the issues that
get in the way of vanilla passion

Even if the intensity hovers round about the same level, the ratio of kink to vanilla in the bedroom usually shifts in favour of the kink.

At first glance, it looks as if the BDSM - OMG!  Like a sinister erotic mind parasite! - takes over marriages.

But, how much sex would the couple be having without the BDSM?

Married couples don't have as much good sex as we'd like

Most of us go through dry patches. Something like 15% of us  have drifted into sexless marriages. The average for people in general in their 40s is supposed to be about once a week, but that means something like half of us are having much less sex than that.

How much of it is good sex?

How truthful are people being anyway?

Poke around online - listen to the jokes people tell at work and in the bar - and you find the default assumption is that married couples don't have much sex at all. It's commonplace for couples to slip away on second honeymoons and find other ways to rekindle the passion. Look at all the vanilla self-help sex guides on Amazon.

No, the sad truth is that marriage and lovemaking are structurally incompatible - for reasons of Evolutionary Psychology, delightful intimacy gradually destroys excitement. Unless you are part of a drama-prone relationship, the longer you are together, the less good sex you will have.

Married couples simply don't have as much good sex as we'd like. 

The war against bedroom boredom is unwinnable and unsustainable

This structural  incompatibility explains why many vanilla couples are locked in an intermittent war against bedroom boredom: try this spice, try that form of yoga, go to this class, escape for romantic weekends...

Some couples enjoy this as an adventure or a hobby. Others don't have the time and the energy. And, I bet, most end up feeling discouraged and ultimately self-conscious.

After all, it's like fighting coastal erosion. Doable, but not winnable.  You can build a house on the edge of the storm-battered cliff, but don't expect it to be there in the Summer! Passion can never become routine, or it would not be passion.

This war is not really sustainable at any intensity. Sooner or later, most couples must give up and accept that sex will only be exciting once in a blue moon, drift into joining that 15%, or simply split.

So, BDSM is a replacement for marital passion, not an alternative

BDSM gets around most of the issues that get in the way of vanilla passion:

• Taps different areas of evolutionary psychology: Capture bonding, and conditioning get around the whole "in the mood" problem for the sub. Consensual exploitation gets around the same problem for the dom, e.g. "this isn't sex this is slave-assisted masturbation".
• Generates excitement by tackling it directly: You can't revisit the thrilling fear of that first kiss, but the prospect of a whipping can make sex feel dangerous again. In general, BDSM creates distance, which restores excitement.
• Eroticises bad sex: A lot  of subs want to be used, exploited and denied. Throw in a power relationship and a chastity belt, bad sex becomes darkly kinky sex.

So when it seems to take over, isn't BDSM really just occupying the space left by the inevitably retreating vanilla sex? Aren't kinky couples really choosing, not between kink and vanilla, but between kinky sex or no sex.

For adding some BDSM to your sex life, see my Femdom self-help guides....

On Subspace and Sub Drift

I've been following fur sissy's recent posts with interest - he's always very articulate, considered and wise, though he comes from the lifestyle side of Femdom. One post in particular got me thinking about subspace.

BDSM culture uses the term very loosely indeed, ranging from the in the moment stoned on brain chemicals experience, through to deep and long term mental changes. However, I am starting to think that it really covers three mutually supporting experiences: 

The Three Kink Spaces

When people talk about subspace, they are usually refering to one of three different kinds of experiences which are not actually unique to subs or bottoms, so lets lump them together as "Kink Space".

Each of the three Kink Spaces works on a different level....

Overload Space

"..stoned on brain chemicals..."

The subject is stoned on brain chemicals, compliant but disassociated. There is usually an erotic element however you can get a similar effect through a conversion experience (see W Sargant "Battle for the Mind"),  through various extreme sports and through vanilla bondage games such as Slow Masturbation.

This what people normally mean when they say "Subspace". Actually "Bottom Space" would be a more accurate term because if somebody experience this, it is usually because somebody else has carefully put them there through alternating sexual and other stimulation. This stimulation can be entirely mental - it's the brain chemicals, not how you generated them, that matter.

Overload Space lasts as long as it's continuously maintained - you can't wake up in it! People in Overload Space don't know when to stop, don't want to stop, and when they come down can feel somewhat... confused.

Usually - thankfully - only subs and bottoms experience Lost Space during pain games. However, a dom or top can experience Lost Space when being served erotically - think spa plus vibrator.

Fetish Space

"Everything is erotic by association."

Fantasy and reality merge. Everything is erotic by association. Seemingly unerotic things take on an erotic charge because they point to the rest of the experience.

So, cleaning the kitchen is normally dull. However, it implies that I am a slave, that punishment may be forthcoming, and that more erotic tasks await, and thus becomes erotic.

The intensity of Fetish Space comes and goes depending on subject's capacity for arousal. The space itself, however, can continue for as long as the subject is receptive meaning, hours, days or even a lifetime :)

Both subs and doms can experience Fetish Space. However it isn't actually necessary in order to enjoy kinky activities (sometimes it's just useful to have a slave and relaxing to be one, and sometimes Overload Space is enough).

Lost Space

"The roles become psychologically real"

The subject loses all perspective. The roles become psychologically real - it's as if the subject has "gone native" in a culture where the particular kind of role is the norm.

Lost Space is like Stockholm Syndrome or Folie à deux and not of itself erotic. However, the idea of it is erotic since it implies erotic activity...

Lost Space can last as long as you let it, and it is entirely possible to wake up and go to sleep in this space. Both subs and doms can experience it, which presents challenges for a dom who is also a sadist.

How the three Kink Spaces work together

Overload Space reinforces the Fetish Space by training the subject to associate a particular role and/or props with the prospect of an intense experience. Conversely, Fetish Space adds erotic intensity to Overload Space.

Meanwhile, Fetish Space and Lost Space reinforce each other by playing "pass the sub".  When you drop out of Lost Space, you think, "OMG I forgot I wasn't a real slave back then," and plunge into Kink Space. Conversely, Fetish Space rewards us for entering Lost Space. E.g. after a while, being a slave becomes a happy thing in its own right.


Finally, Lost Space enhances Overload Space because it makes it easier to just surrender to the experience - you give up asking yourself, "Am I enjoying this?" and let go. And, of course, Overload Space works like a conversion experience and makes Lost Space all the more real.

Examples

Mostly, I drift between Kink and Lost Space, with occasional descents into Overload. Fur Sissy - from his descriptions - seems not to visit Overload Space. A husband in a WLM possibly lives entirely in Lost Space.

Three kinds of sub drift?

This approach gives us three different kinds of "sub drift":.

• Overload Space may tempt us to seek greater and more intense stimulation to "enjoy" a deeper experience or to counteract diminishing returns.
• Fetish Space may "contaminate" our normal sexuality; we begin to associate getting aroused with being kinky.
• Lost Space may leak into our vanilla relationship since the kinky relationship feels normal. It can also be so pleasant to escape into simpler D&S roles, that your emotional focus shifts in that direction.

Not only do these work together, they also work between both sides of an established couple.

Example: Me

"kink has entirely replaced the bad or perfunctory sex"

Looking back up at what I've written, I realise I've drifted a long way.

We don't usually go in for intense "play", but I do enjoy Overload Spaces in which I feel bleak, aroused, used, exploited and denied. In the quest for this, I've given up any attempt to build my own gratification into our sessions. Where practical, the chastity belt stays on even after Game Over (in my books, I call this Taking Home the Consequences).

My wife has started taking this for granted - sometimes she's very happy to get her satisfaction then fall asleep. So her Lost Space has become deeper and longer in duration.

Knowing that's coming, of course, intensifies my Overload Space and her casual act of denial has become eroticised; it triggers my Fetish Space, thus rewarding me for staying in role, and thus strengthening my Lost Space.

These days, feeling horny and frustrated easily triggers my Fetish Space. Hard on its heels comes my Lost Space in which having a free erection feels... wrong. Plus Lost Space is a comfortable place to escape into. So, whenever there's the prospect of intimacy, I'm happy to go either way. For me kink or vanilla have become equal and equally routine.

Meanwhile, my hard working wife has become used to being able to call on my services as a slave whenever she feels too lazy to engage a husband. I suspect a similar drift has happened with her but I prefer not to try to make her confess this in detail.

So, an odd and pleasant thing has happened. We have the same amount of good vanilla sex as most middle aged married couples. However, kink has entirely replaced the bad or perfunctory sex.

For how to get a slice of this life, see my Femdom self-help guides....

Dommes are niether aliens nor stupid

Over on Fetlife.com, I keep seeing threads like:

"When do dommes have orgasms?"

"Do dommes like weak men?"

"Do dommes let their slaves have jobs and stuff?"

 Then over on tumblr,  I see captions such as:

"A domme milks her slave in order to weaken him so she can force him to dress as a sissy maid..."

A domme forces her slave to scrub the floor"( while in chains using his mouth to hold the brush)

"A domme relaxes" (in full latex with her feet on a human table etc)

And I don't know where to begin! Let me try...

1. Dommes aren't aliens

A domme is just a women who likes to be in charge some of the time, or all of the time.

A domme is just a women who likes to be in charge
some of the time, or all of the time.

Just like any other woman, she has personal preferences. If she likes men with red hair, tall men, short men, men of particular ethnicity, then those are the men with a better chance of becoming her boyfriend and or sub. She may enjoy having a small man to dominate, or bringing a large one down to size. It depends on who she is.

Women - people, actually - have all sorts of tastes and needs. Apart from fetishes - perhaps a tuxedo gets her hot and wet -  all that the "in charge" bit does is extend who she already is.

If she likes  to make men squirm in bed, then perhaps - as a domme - she may enjoy making them squirm using nipple clamps and a whip. If she enjoys being pampered, then - as a domme - perhaps she will enjoy service. If she enjoys an orgasm then - as a domme - she will get it the way she wants it, as often as she likes.

People also have a broad spectrum of needs. Most of us need companionship and feel some sort of responsibility to our partners. So even lifestyle slaves don't usually spend their life in chains keeping house. There'll still be companionship and career. And there will be bills to pay.

This should be no surprise if you've read about Ancient Rome. Favoured slaves were also companions, and often ended up as freedmen with businesses and careers of their own. This is just a human thing.

Dommes aren't aliens.

Dommes aren't stupid either

If the boots need polishing, your tongue is
probably not the convenient way to do it.

True, some women are turned on by the whole milking thing. Even so, don't pretend to me that the "victim" - carefully bound and enjoying wild sensual pleasure - isn't enjoying himself.

True also, some women like to dress up in Fetish gear. However, it's hard to imagine relaxing and taking afternoon tea in all of that.

And, if practical service is required, it's hard to see how this can be delivered by men holding brushes in their mouth or serving as human lamp stands.

The whole "Oh no I am being mistreated pardon me while I stop to masturbate over this" thing is frankly embarrassing.

Some dommes are sometimes playful, and some are sometimes practical.

When they're playful, they may do things for effect, fun or out of pure sadism. When they're being practical, then they'll get the practical things they want. Like all real people, they understand the difference between the two. If the boots need polishing, your tongue is probably not the convenient way to do it.

Dommes aren't stupid.

---

For more reality-based advice on Femdom, see my Femdom self-help guides....

The 6 Orders of Kink?

"the comfort of humiliation"

...the comfort of humiliation.  Think your penis is small?  It is, but she doesn’t reject you for it.  Think your kink or fetish makes you a freak?  It does, but she doesn’t reject you for it.  With one act, all of your fears and doubts about yourself are completely justified and true.  We believe it, know that it is true, and are grateful that she keeps us around even though she feels that way too.   (Fur Sissy)

Fur Sissy's recent posting on the comforts of humiliation  made me think about the Orders of Kink. I don't mean as in Holy Orders, or Knightly Orders, though one does wonder about the Order of the Garter... I mean order as in level of complexity.

And no, I'm not sure how useful this is yet. Read on and tell me what you think.

How complex is the explanation for your kink?

Vanilla partners often ask the awkward question, "Why do you want me to do this? What's in it for you?" How complex your answer matters because it may determine whether or not you get your kink. (For this reason, it's worth initially offering the kinks requiring the least complex explanation.)

What determines that complexity? Pretty much how many turnings it takes to get from there to sexual pleasure. I'll call these Orders for now.

1st Order Kinks enhance physical pleasure (think, sex toys and bondage games)

"only kinky if you decide they are"

Some kinks go direct to physical pleasure. In fact, many of them are probably only kinky if you decide they are. For example, anal sex, spanking, butt plugs and vibrators often feature in people's kinky fantasies, but equally well are just ways couples give each other physical pleasure.

The best example is actually bondage and orgasm control. According to Joy of Sex - I have a battered copy from my youth - American Vietnam veterans learned to enjoy "slow masturbation" in the brothels of Asia and brought this home to their wives. There need not be any fantasy or power relationship wrapped around bondage. It can just be a great way to string out an orgasm.

1st Order Kinks are very easy to explain to your partner, for example, "The Male Chastity Belt gives me a plateau phase normally denied to men."

2nd Order Kinks are aphrodisiacs (think, stockings and power games)

"I like women in stockings"

Some kinks turn us on because... because they do. For example, I like a woman in stockings. Other men like wearing stockings. As a sub, I enjoy spending time in chains getting turned on. Other people like to see their partner wearing a slave collar or a maid's uniform. These are all - I think - fetishes. However, there's still a very obvious connection between the kink and actual sexual arousal.

When bondage games segue into power games, when the "top" goes from "let's string out your orgasm" to "you only orgasm when I let you", you can't pretend this is a vanilla spice anymore. However, the action is still about sex.

Explanations of 2nd Order Kink involve admitting to a fetish but are still focused on sexual gratification, for example, "The Male Chastity Belt makes me feel sexually helpless, and that turns me on horribly so I get a  great orgasm when I do come."

3rd Order Kink trades orgasm for arousal (think, denial and spoiled orgasm)

"stoned on arousal"

Some kinks entail the kinkster - usually the bottom or sub - not getting to come properly or at all, but instead getting horribly turned on. All variations of "denial" and "spoiled orgasm" fall into this order. For the kinkster, the erotic focus has shifted from getting off, to getting stoned on arousal.

When a bondage game culminates in the top getting a very nice orgasm, then untying the still aroused bottom and telling them "game over", it's not immediately obvious why the bottom should enjoy this!

Explanations of 3rd Order Kink involve admitting a fetish coupled with a desire to not have an orgasm. It's almost impossible to say this without sounding a bit odd, for example, "The Male Chastity Belt makes me feel sexually helpless, and that turns me on horribly, and I enjoy the turn on so much that I'd rather be totally helpless than have an orgasm."

4th Order Kink creates perverted passion (think, erotic slavery)

Some kinks involve taking one aspect of romance or courtship and giving it a perverted twist in order to create a moment of perverted passion. Bedroom domination, submission, erotic slavery, chastity key holding... these all involve an odd kind of romantic moment. The focus has shifted from the strictly sexual, to the erotic relationship. However, this is not necessarily a comfortable thing since it implies some shared dark emotions.

"bad bodice rippers"

When bondage becomes about the bottom "surrendering" themselves to the top, or the top "possessing" the bottom, the dynamic is a long way from hearts and flowers but still uses the vocabulary of romance, albeit of the bad bodice ripping kind. (Oh, and it doesn't matter whether or not the bottom gets an orgasm.)

Explanations of 4th Order Kink can be uncomfortable because they involve reciprocity. For example, "I want to wear the Male Chastity Belt during 'sex' because I want to give myself to you without regard to my own gratification" carries the unspoken assumption that your partner regards your orgasm as a chore or imposition.

5th Order Kink is about relationships but not passion or sex (think, humiliation or service slavery)

Some kinks seem to have very little to do with sex. Humiliation - of the kind Fur Sissy described -  and service slavery, for example, can be more about the relationship than getting hard or wet or excited. Humiliation can affirm that we are loved despite our failings. Service can make us feel giving and loving. Slavery enables us to feel that being possessed doesn't rely on us being lovable.

"where your dom wants you to be"

When bondage is a way of being where your dom wants you to be - chained to the wall, or locked in a cage - there's no longer an obvious erotic or romantic component. Sure you will get turned on from time to time, but the main benefit is feeling utterly possessed. It's the quiet romance of wearing an engagement ring day in day out, but with more chains.

Explanations of 5th Order Kink are hazardous because they are so very far from the bedroom, involve reciprocity, and admitting to some non sexual relationship craving which is offbeat or embarrassing. For example. "Let me be your slave and clean the house and do the dishes because I would be happy if the only option I had was to make you happy" implies that your partner would love to have you do all the work, and that you would enjoy this.

There's also the problem of being disingenuous. If pleasing her makes you happy, why do you have to be a slave to do it? If she wants a bit of physical space, why does she have to chain you up in the cupboard? Couldn't you visit a friend?

6th Order Kink is only about you (think, being a slave)

"all about you"

Some kinks have everything to do with your role, nothing to do with your partner, and little to do with sex. For example, some cross-dressers just feel comfortable that way. Some slaves just like the absence of responsibility. That deep sense of freedom or relaxation may make it easier for the kinkster to feel erotic, but that's not what it's about.

When bondage is just about  enjoying feelings of tranquility and peace, then it's no longer about the relationship. Being chained up or locked away becomes a form of yoga.

Explanations of 6th Order Kink can be... uncomfortable because they are so self contained and can make a partner feel rejected, or reduced to mere enabler, and at the same time appear to point to deep issues. "I like wearing the Male Chastity Belt because not having access to my penis makes me feel relaxed" can read like both a rejection of intimacy and an admission of ambivalence about masculinity.

How useful is this?

I suspect that this is a good way of looking at kink before asking for it. There are some imediatly obvious implications, however I shall save these for future posts.

For ways to make kink work when one of you is mostly vanilla, see my Femdom self-help guides....

Very good review of the Mature Metal Jail Bird

Over on Locked in Chastity, there's a very good review of the Mature Metal Jailbird.

In case you didn't know, the Jailbird is a bespoke metal male chastity device from Mature Metal. Over on Fetlife, people tend to speak highly of this chastity device.

Actually, I'm seeing a lot of metal chastity devices around the web.

The merely chrome-plated ones are probably a bad idea because the plating can come off, leaving sharp(!) edges. However, the stainless steel ones have the potential to be better value than the plastic.

 Plastic CBs have been known to split, which is potentially painful - ever caught your dick in your zipper? - and could spoil an otherwise perfect evening. They also have a reputation for holding odors in the way that metal does not.

I doubt ball-grippers are ever going to be 100% secure, however they have a lot of advantages over full belts. The reviewer writes:

Overall, I am very satisfied with the Jail Bird from Mature Metal, and after 6 months of living with the device, I still recommend it highly.

I sometimes wonder what the Romans used for their male chastity belts. I bet it worked.

For ways to introduce male chastity into your relationship when your partner is mostly vanilla, see my Femdom self-help guides....

New product description for Roman Dominatrix

I'm just about to update the Amazon product description of my How to be a Roman Dominatrix self-help guide.

Some readers seem to be expecting a very different kind of book, perhaps the Mistress Lorelei's Mistress Manual,  which as I recall - it's been a while - uses the male partner's fantasies as a starting place and relgates benefits to the dominatrix as a byproduct. It's a good book, and by giving a woman permission - since she's doing it to please her man - has a good chance of giving her the space to explore her own feelings.
Roman Dominatrix just does something different - it starts off with the idea that owning a slave can be fun in vanilla ways and assumes that the sub gets his kicks as a byproduct.

Other books I haven't read are more embedded in the BDSM Scene. That's not a bad thing. A sense of belonging to a wider culture can - again - grant permission. However, some women just aren't interested... aren't natural joiners. They only want to know "What's in it for me?" That's who my book is for.

I've tried to update the product description to reflect this more clearly. Hopefully this will help me avoid any oddly angry reviews. What do you guys think?

Ancient Roman ladies enjoyed having male slaves, and - yes - they did put them to erotic use. Why does modern bedroom Femdom have to be so much effort? What’s in it for you?

Written from experience by an otherwise normal (!) submissive male, this book is for women who are sexually adventurous but have neither the time nor inclination to embrace BDSM culture just in order to satisfy their partner’s fantasies.

It WON’T teach you to be a “good” dominatrix, nor guide you through clubs and munches, nor drill you in bondage, topping or protocols, nor help you negotiate scripted scenes, nor expect you to manipulate your man, nor urge you into a Female Led Relationship.

It WILL use techniques drawn from modern psychology to help you build a strictly part-time Roman version of your relationship… and to make that mistress-slave relationship feel 100% real.

You need never feel silly or awkward or at a loss. You’ll always know what to do because you’ll be following your natural inclinations, albeit unrestrained by consequences or reciprocity.

Relax and be… self-indulgent, introvert, extrovert, mean, affectionate, playful, practical, flirtatious, sensual, clinical…  There’s a good chance that, as a byproduct, enough of his fantasies will be satisfied to make it worth his while.

You get to be yourself. He gets to be your slave. You get to have a hot secret couple adventure. Everybody gets to be happy.

But why are you reading this description? Take a look inside the book and make up your own mind!

How to prevent Domination Drift

"The pain and pleasure are real,
the obedience is real."

Erotic domination and submission is  real.

Yes, even if it's bedroom-only, even if you call it "role play" or "spicing things up", it's still real.

The pain and pleasure are real, the obedience is real.

If she says, "Kneel!" and I kneel, then that's real in the same way that it's real if when the referee blows his whistle and all the footballers stop playing.

This is great. I don't want to pretend to be a slave, I want to be a slave.

The snag is, we want to be slave and mistress on Friday night and Saturday morning, but not the rest of the week, and the beautiful reality of our domination and submission can chip away at this....

 It's possible to suffer from Domination Drift:

The threat of Domination Drift

In an otherwise vanilla long term monogamous relationship, it's easy for power relations to leak out of the BDSM zone, for the domination to drift into real life.

Deliberately or not, subs have a way of stealth submitting, which is made easy because erotic doms usually have a dominant streak in "real" life. If you have submissive tendencies, then you're going to be attracted to people who push those buttons. In my case, I've always liked forthright women who say what they want and don't look for approval.


With a partner like that, all the sub has to do is stop pushing back! This is not necessarily a good thing for either person.

Why part-time D&S?

"We're vanilla most of the time, 
and that's how we like it."

I think most Femdom couples are like us. We're vanilla most of the time, and that's how we like it.

Others do it 24/7, or have a gentle patriarchal or  FLR with more intense episodes. I'm sure that can work for some couples. However, for most of us that would have a too-many downsides:

• The sub usually won't want to submit all the time (no matter how much they fantasise about this).
• The dom usually wants a conventional relationship most of the time; the benefits of being in charge 24/7 being outweighed by the responsibility and potential loneliness.
• A lifestyle relationship may be inappropriate, e.g. because the couple are raising children.

Part-time domination and submission also has an erotic advantage along the lines of "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". New, nasty, developments apply only to the kinky corner of the relationship. The dominant partner need never define themselves as "somebody who does X or Y to their partner - it's their inner master/mistress that does that to their slave.

Why self control isn't enough to prevent a drift into a 24/7 relationship

"All the sub has to do is
stop pushing back"

It would be nice to be able to say, "Exercise self control"! However, remember that in most cases, for drift to happen all the sub has to do is to stop pushing back. This means there are two problems:

• If the dom tries to exercise self control, that means they will always be second guessing their normal behaviour. I can't think of anything more irritating!
• If sub tries to exercise self control, that means remembering to actively assert themselves. Can they be trusted to do this? Will they have the energy?

No, if there's a strong BDSM undercurrent to the relationship, relying on self control will just put strain on the vanilla relationship.

Fortunately there's another approach. It's much easier to manage the subtle dynamic rather than to try to resist it.

"No collar no command" - the power of the firewall

"No collar no command"

Peel back the layers of the brain and we're all Pavlov's dogs. If you establish a context for the domination and only do it there, then that's the only place it will happen. By context, I mean "the stuff that accompanies the D&S" - time, place, props, toys, protocol.

In our case, I only ever submit when locked into my male chastity belt on. Conversely, I am always submissive when chaste.  Over time, thanks to conditioning, this feels like the natural order of things: without the chastity belt, D&S is simply not on the menu; with it, it is unthinkable for me to be anything but a slave.

In effect we've created a firewall around the Femdom. It keeps our day-to-day relationship vanilla, and at the same time strengthens the D&S one.

 * * *

For how to make this work in practise, see my Femdom self-help guides for couples where the female partner is mostly vanilla....

Gay male kinksters have it easy...

Nice true story over at Locked & Denied:

I dashed to the bathroom, stripped and jumped in the shower, did a quick wash.  As I walked into my bedroom he was there, glass of wine in his hand, looking at my stack of blue rays.

He turned around as I came in - towel around my waste - he smiled broadly and handed me a glass of wine, "I'm going to fuck you."

I'm panicking a little 'cuz my cock is locked and he doesn't know.  He knows I'm a total pig bottom, but he doesn't know about the BDSM / chastity kink. I bring the glass to my lips as he steps closer and slam this wine.  He reaches forward and yanks the towel off.

"HOLY FUCK!" and he almost drops his glass.  "What the fuck is that?"

"A chastity device."

"A what?" My time to turn the tide.  "Who cares? I don't need it anyway." and drop to my knees.  I unzip his pants and pull them down to his knees, then bury my face in his crotch, munching on his swiftly hardening cock through his underwear.  I hear the clink as he sets his wine glass down on my dresser.  He grabs my head and grinds my face into him harder.

 I seriously doubt this would work with a vanilla female!

Got a US Tax ID (EIN)

One of the downsides of being UK-based and publishing on Amazon Kindle is that they withold US tax unless you leap through hoops to get a US tax identity.

However, it turns out that the hoops aren't so difficult. It was really easy to get the right ID - an Employee Identification Number. It really does take only one phone call to Philadelphia (click for good blog entry on this).

Things that didn't matter when applying for the EIN by phone

• Didn't matter I was sole trader and not a Ltd company
• Didn't need any tax ID number or any other kind of ID

Things I did need

• Full address, which I needed to spell
• Date I started publishing
• Full international phone numner
• Glass of water

Useful to know

• It takes 2 weeks for the EIN to stick!

Overall

The operator I dealt with was  friendly. Thankfully they didn't ask what I publish :)

Conservatives can teach us a secret about Femdom!

In the UK we have lots of queens but also an actual Queen - old lady, wears a crown on occassions, odd taste in dresses.

Silly...

And that's the thing, take away the deference, the "OMG it's Her Majesty" and you're left with something pretty silly - the Empress has no clothes on!" (Ewww!)

Less silly?

For example, (left) here's a top-flight lawyer receiving his knighthood. A moment of great solemnity and a life achievement but...

Most social institutions are potentially silly

The ultimate recognition for a hard-working lawyer who presumably earned every single ounce of his achievement is to kneel down before  an elderly woman who - though charming and hard working - is a monarch via random inheritance? What she gives him is a title that qualifies him to clatter around the medieval countryside rescuing damsels?

Isn't that a little bit silly?

The same goes for all the objects of relationships that underpin traditional society.

You can choose to see: a President as just a politician with an interesting record; a flag as just a scrap of cloth; a teacher as just a science graduate who couldn't get a research post; a priest as somebody with a friend you can't see; a boss as just somebody who holds the purse strings; a (traditional) husband as just the partner with the penis who leaves the house to work, rather than stays home and works equally hard....

Looked at from the wrong angle, it's all silly.

The right angle

Oops

One morning in AD1789, the French commoners woke up and - as one - exclaimed, "Zis monarchy she is merde!"

Monarchy stopped being real and we ended up with the Great Terror - not ultimately a happy thing. (Happier examples include the collapse of East Germany, and of the toxic regime in the Philippines.)

This is what conservatives of all flavours fear. They know that the entire social and political structure can potentially be laughed out of existence if enough people insist on looking at it from the wrong angle. Hence the loud "defence" of the head of state, the Flag, deference and protocol in all walks of life, and of the institution of marriage itself.

So, rightly or wrongly, conservatives are always rushing to defend this institution or that.

A Femdom blog is not the place to discus their choice of what to defend, and to defend rather than to adapt. However, they are absolutely correct in the way they choose to defend their preferred institutions; by insisting we only address them from the right angle; which is the one in which you treat the underlying relationship as real.

Treating relationships as real makes them real

Humans only think we are fully self-aware and consciously in control.

The sad truth is that situation and context mostly determine our behaviour. There are plenty of experiments to back this up, most notoriously the Stanford Prison experiment: pretend jailers and pretend prisoners quickly began to act their roles, and - however tongue in cheek or ironic their initial behaviour - ultimately believe in them.

Treating relationships as real makes them real.

The the real world, people - abused spouses, bullied workers, alienated teenagers - stay in bad situations they could just walk away from; the relationships have become more real than the practical means of escape!

This loss of perspective can be also happy thing.  In what Stephen Pinker calls the Civilising Process, the state, social pressure and choices made by potential mates forces the cowboys to become gentlemen, and then they start believing in it. I think the same goes for many very happy marriages.

So, the evidence is that most relationships gain strength from the outside to the inside.

Call it pragmatic or cynical, but conservatives have long known this, hence their love of deference, formality and protocol... sounds a bit BDSM, doesn't it?

Conservatives teach us to treat the Femdom relationship as real

In a  wonderful recent blog entry, Robert Anthony wrote:

The weird thing is, it seems totally normal now... which is how it should be I guess. Although I am somewhat surprised that we've never looked back, never had a break from it, never had second thoughts - either of us.....[my edit]  I no longer crave denial. Oh I still want Mistress R to control my orgasms and I still want her to tease and deny me for however long pleases her, but I no longer 'crave' denial, because denial is my everyday reality.

We've had a  similar experience:

Loss of perspective...

I want to tell her I love her. Tell her how much I desire her. Instead, I can only rub, pummel, and thumb her naked flesh until she's limp and relaxed. I know what's going to happen and I segue from frustration, through irritation, to a kind of erotic horror; I know we have a relationship beyond this slavery, but I can't reach out and touch it. I'm powerless to do anything other than massage her until...She announces that she's ready to sleep and does just that.

So, no, I'm not going to argue that conservatives are all perverts, or that any flavour of conservatism is inherently inspired by the Marquis de Sade. That's not the point!

The point is that our Femdom relationships are as inherently fragile, as potentially silly as any of the institutions beloved by our conservative friends. No slave contract is legally enforceable anywhere you would want to live. No punishment is really inescapable. No discomfort is truly forced.

And yet, our Femdom relationships - be they 24/7 or part-time, or some nuance in between - can easily become real to us. We can - gloriously - lose perspective.

However, this loss of perspective only happens if we take a leaf out of the conservative playbook and unremittingly treat the power relationsip as real.

Don't step outside the Femdom

He dropped her best coffee mug!

We submissives need to never step outside the Femdom. If we question an order or express pain or discomfort, if possible we must do it as a slave ("[this] will result in [that], mistress."). Mostly we shouldn't question an order, nor do anything to elicit a dommish response. Mostly we should accept the rough with the smooth, the boredom with the ecstasy, the frustration with the fear. Safewords, yes we need them, but only as a last resort.

Dominants also need - or I would humbly advise them - to never step outside the Femdom, not for practicalities, not for safety, not even for irritation. If the slave does something annoying the slave gets punished; don't flip into your vanilla role to yell at your husband or partner. If the slave is suffering but the husband seems to be enjoying himself, ignore it. If the slave is really suffering and you feel sorry for your boyfriend, shrug it off. You can cuddle him later.

Anything that looks beyond the power relationship to the consensual one wrapped around it risks committing the worst sin of all...

Why "not treating it as real" is the worst Femdom sin

Really, beyond safety, sanity and consent, "not treating it as real" is the worst Femdom sin because as soon as you go "You know what, I/you don't have to do this!" then the lights go up and neither of you look very dignified. One or other of you may look just plain silly.

The dominatrix is caught being evil, which can be very uncomfortable if she is ostensibly vanilla. She may also feel a fool for playing such a childish game of tying up and make believe, and suddenly embarrassed by her sticky-crotched husband cringing at her feet.

"...suddenly embarrassed by her sticky-crotched
husband cringing at her feet."

The sudden splashdown to reality is just as bad for the submissive. It's the nightmare of being found out made real, coupled with the embarrassment at his partner's embarrassment, and a fear that the Femdom will go away.

And if it does keep happening, then the Femdom will probably go away. That glorious loss of perspective? You can only achieve it if the vanilla relationship isn't lurking at the boudoir window.

She needs to know her orders will always be obeyed, otherwise she will start second guessing your wants, and you'll start editing your reactions to prevent this from happening. Soon you'll both be on edge, irritated and going through the motions. It won't be real anymore. It'll probably just be embarrassing.

So, like the conservatives do for relationships they care about, we must treat our Femdom  as 100% real.

For how to make this work in practise, see my Femdom self-help guides for couples where the female partner is mostly vanilla....

Is erotic submission a gift?

Margo Adler, ethusiastic kinkster, says in her blog:

...sadomasochism is embarassing enough without adding an additional layer of cheese and canned corn over it.  Jesus Christ. Are we going to a Renaissance Faire next?  I don't know about you, but I am absolutely terrified that a filmmaker out there is planning to make a Trekkies-style documentary about us.  When that happens--and it will--we will never, ever live it down.  

Who is giving who the gift?

She's talking about subs who loudly tout their submission as a "gift".

I tend to agree.

In Femdom, the only gifts that count are the ones that aren't your (the sub's!) idea.

Suppose your dominatrix wants more than you would normally give for fun: she wants more service, or more suffering, or more of both. If it's her idea, and you give it because you want to please her, then that is a gift. However, it's the kind of gift you can't offer up front, especially to strangers. (Perhaps it's also the kind of gift you shouldn't give. Would it not be better for the rest of the relationship to ask for a trade?)

There is one other kind of genuine gift you can give a dominatrix. If you truly serve - e.g. polishing the boots, not licking them - then you are making a gift of yourself as a slave. However, in return she gives you the precious gift of experiencing being a slave.  This is the kind of gift that cancels itself out in the giving! 

So, either you can't offer it up front, or else your gift is really one side of an exchange of gifts. In either case, it's not really something you should rush to mention, let alone get any kind of advantage from. To do so reeks of emotional blackmail, of trying to be special like the Mary Sue of a million episodes of one-handed slash fiction, or grasping at a figleaf of dignity, when shedding dignity is the whole point.

Most of all, it's making a fuss! If you have followed this blog or read any of my Femdom how-to guides for semi-vanilla couples, you'll know I'm big on Not Making a Fuss Over Your kink: stick to specifics, don't unburden or expect to draw your partner into fantasy land.

Ferns: Trust works both ways

The wise, dominant and articulate Ferns says (among other things):

Without that trust, I can’t exercise my dominance. I can’t. Because I will be second guessing myself over and over. Without trust in him, I will feel like I am not at all able to understand where he is in it, it will be as if I am blind in trying to read him, like I am groping around in the dark while worrying that I am going to knock him over some cliff and I won’t even see it coming. And that doesn’t work for me.

She's talking about the need for the dominant to trust the sub.

Treat the power relationship as real,
and it will become real!

Yes, BDSM culture talks about trust, but usually dwells on how the dominant must earn the trust of the sub. However, for a relationship to be sustainable, then the trust has to go both ways; the submissive must also earn the trust of the dominant.

In other words, the dominant has to trust the submissive to actually - guess what? - submit, and also trust them to provide safety feedback (emotional and physical) when required.

It is incredibly jarring to be in dominant mode and to be suddenly jolted back to vanilla world and perhaps - worse - be made to feel foolish. It's also impossible to relax and enjoy dominating if you can't rely on the submissive to tell you when something is really wrong.

Ferns identifies as a dominatrix from one relationship to the next. When she can't trust a sub, she reconsiders the relationship.

However,  if your dominatrix is also your wife or girlfriend, and she can't trust you as her sub, then she'll reconsider being a dominatrix! Ever.

Treat the power relationship as real, and it will become real. Treat it as packaging for some kinks, and both the power relationship and the kinks will go away.

For how to make Femdom work in your relationship, see my kinky self help guides.

Subs! Don't forget the vanilla (even if you are FLR)

Since we men like our absolutes, and since there's a culture of grasping for the "authentic self" (which actually doesn't exist), it's logical for a submissive male to want to surrender everything and hand power and authority to his - usually - wife.

Don't forget the vanilla

Female Led Relationships/Wife Led Marriage - great erotic fantasy, a reality for some, and a longed-for relief for many men (since adulthood is hard).

There's this snag.

(Actually there are lots of snags, some ethical, some psychological, but let's stick to the erotic in this post.)

In a Female Led Relationship, unless she's naturally kinky - and let's admit it, in most cases, the male sub was the one who introduced his vanilla wife to Femdom - you're not likely to get the deep and nasty Femdom action you crave.

There are two obvious reasons for this.

Domestic Authority isn't automatically kinky

"Where's my kink?"

Think back a century or so to when men were in charge. The women didn't spend a lot of time tied up,  there wasn't much protocol, and - though it happened - men didn't routinely chastise or chastity-tize their wives. 

It's nice to be in charge

If morality is not an issue, then there are lots of reasons why its nice to be in charge, and most of them are vanilla. It's great to be waited on, served hand and foot, to choose the colour of the duvet or get an orgasm on demand with no need to reciprocate, or to play away from home (if that's what you're into).

Reversed patriarchy isn't kinky

When female subs have time-travel fantasies, they make one-handed visits to eras where women were real slaves and save Victoriana as an excuse to wear corsets at Steampunk conventions. The year AD 1850 was not a Maledom heaven.

* * *

So, when if you set up a reversed recreation of a classic patriarchal marriage of yesteryear, why should you expect anything different from what your great great grandmother experienced?

Your wife may be trying to control the descent into kink

"What happened to the
whip and the nipple clamps?"

She may feel that anything she does may quickly become mandatory or routine.

Kink's fun, but not all the time

Yes, she might enjoy having you serve dressed in only a French Maid's outfit and pink CB6000. Once. Or occasionally. Or even every Friday.

However, she probably doesn't want to come home to that every night.

Yes, she might enjoy - or at least be happy with  - applying ferocious discipline, strict protocol, total orgasm denial some of the time. But this stuff takes energy. If she lets intense BDSM become your expectation, the routine price of her authority, then he's storing up trouble for herself.

"Not the man she married."

Perhaps she likes having a husband?

Plus, she might also want to enjoy having that thing she walked up the aisle to get in the first place - an actual husband.

* * *

So, if you've given over your entire marriage to Femdom - if you are "FLR" - then it's in her interest to set expectations and to avoid going too far, too deep, in case it's hard for the relationship to go back.

The problem is that without boundaries - without a firewall - kink still has consequences for her.

Why the vanilla space helps the kink, even in FLR

"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"

People act their worst when there are no consequences. So, the best way to foster deep and dark, female-driven BDSM in your marriage is to remove those consequences.

Permission to be bad isn't enough

In the morning, they're going shopping.

It's not enough just to give her permission. You're still asking her to be a person who beats her husband when the dishes aren't done. There has to be a place where the consequences simply don't exist.

Vanilla protects the kink

In the case of Femdom, that means a vanilla space. That way, she's a person who sometimes takes on the role of a person who beats her husband when the dishes aren't done. That way, utterly subjugating you tonight doesn't mean she won't have a cuddle in the morning,  companionship round a gallery, or hot vanilla sex in the tomorrow night.

* * *

So if you want kinky Femdom, you need a firewalled vanilla space, even if she controls when you are in it.

For help creating a firewalled Femdom space, try my kinky sex guides!

Review of How to be a Roman Dominatrix

I've just realised that Amazon doesn't let you post anonymous reviews! So, unless you use a dedicated account for buying erotica and sex guides, you are unlikely to review my work on Amazon.

The good news is that you can post in other places. Goodreads, for example, is a safe place to post reviews of adult material without outing yourself to Entire World.

You can also post on forums. "Sal1972" was sufficiently enthused by my Femdom manual for vanilla women with submissive partners that he posted a review on Fetlife:

Just finished an interesting story that i found on Amazon and was able to down load to my Kindle. "How to be Roman Dominatrix" by Giles English.
And before so one says "were does a guy get off telling a Women how to be a Dom"
It is not the ultimate, be all answer, you name to it bible, etc. But perhaps for a couple new to the "sport" might be a fun starting place, just a thought.

Reviews mean an awful lot to me. I wrote my manuals to help other people, and it's always a relief and a thrill when people find them useful.