Wednesday 22 June 2016

Three ways the BDSM Scene misleads (unless you are part of it!)

The BDSM scene is an awesome
achievement... but...
The BDSM scene is an awesome achievement; all those people getting together to safely and consensually do stuff that's supposed to be bad, wrong, "unhealthy" or just demeaning.

And they've been doing (mostly) safely it for decades!

However, what comes out of the scene onto the Internet is misleading for wannabe kinksters.

BDSM is all about activities (Wrong!)

Sometimes it seems that the BDSM Scene exists to output kinky educational material: how to do bondage, how to whip, how to brand, how to... and so on. If you look at Fetlife profiles it's often the same: a list of available activities and skills.

It's not deliberate, it's just that some stuff gets - needs - more coverage and is easier to write about than other stuff. So you're more likely to get a three page tutorial on suspension, than on simple domestic service.

This is great for doing kink safely. However, it can obscure the fact that underlying all those kinky activities is a dynamic, and underlying that dynamic is a relationship of some sort: whether play only or something deeper.

If you're not in the Scene, especially if you are part of an established couple, then you'll usually have to work from the relationship, to the dynamic, to the kinky fun.

Dominatrixes are Monster Aliens (Wrong!)

Dommes are real people...
When you glimpse the scene online, it's all Lady This and Mistress That and Her Divine Will etc. It's as if these women lived in Gothic mansions with latex sissy maids at their beck and call.

What's actually happening is that you're either not really seeing the Scene - these are pro-dommes rather magnificently weaving a fantasy for prospective clients - or else your attention is being drawn by the more flamboyant scene personas projected by dommes.

In both cases, the public image is not necessarily false as far as it goes, but it's part of the fun and definitely not the whole story.

The reality - if you stop to read blogs and twitter feeds, or have any real-life BDSM experience - is that dommes (and pro dommes) are real people just like you: ordinary people who experience boring first world problems, get sick from time to time, have complex relationships with their families, and non-kink hobbies such as Dungeons and Dragons.

This is important because outside the Scene, you're likely to encounter your future domme in street clothes drinking coffee in Costas. Don't lose hope because none of the women you like wear thigh-length boots to work.

BDSM is all about negotiation, consent, and aftercare (Wrong!)

...when your dominant is mostly or originally vanilla,
the real challenge is to get them to
do anything kinky at all! 
Since they're hard to get right and reasonable expectations are subject to discussion, the Scene generates a lot of online material about negotiation, consent, and after care.

To confuse things further, some dominants make themselves feel better about their preferences by talking as if that was what BDSM was really about - one lady, for example, described herself as a "consent fetishist".

The reality, of course, is that the Scene is about the BDSM action. Negotiation, consent and aftercare are vital, but only because they are what makes that socially and ethically possible.

The misconception - that it's about these - can be unhelpful in two ways:

First, when your dominant is mostly or originally vanilla, the real challenge is to get them to do kink at all!
...aftercare at home need be nothing
more than snuggling up in
bed together.

Anything that makes things even more complicated for them is likely to make the kink go away. So outside safety issues (including psychological safety), you're pretty much going to have to take the rough with the smooth if you want to get any kink whatsoever.

Second, it encourages you to apply the most stringent standards designed for relative strangers to what should be a comfortable relationship based on underlying trust.

Yes of course two strangers need to establish affirmative consent when doing a flogging scene in a club ("I'm going to hit you with this? Are you OK with that?"). However, if it's part of your routine and nothing has changed, then at home with your partner, it's probably OK to agree that the whipping will just happen (still subject to safewords).

Similarly, aftercare at home need be nothing more than snuggling up in bed together.

The BDSM Scene is the only place to find BDSM (Wrong!)

 ...there are plenty of kinky people
who never go anywhere near
the Scene
Finally, when people in the Scene talk about dating, they normally talk about dating in the scene because that's where they live. For the same reason, when somebody asks for advice about finding a kinky partner, they instead offer up advice about getting involved in the Scene, going "poly" if necessary.

This is not usually realistic for middle aged married people, or for single but otherwise conventional people - the Scene does not necessarily look like a good place to find a mainstream monogamous relationship.

It's also unhelpful because it encourages wannabe subs who are single to only look in the scene, where churn may create poor odds, or to give up if they are not comfortable with munches and clubs.

In reality, there are plenty of kinky people who never go anywhere near the Scene, perhaps because they are private people or not joiners, or are only found around it's edges because they are geeks or Goths.

It is also unhelpful because it encourages people to think that once they have kink in their relationship, they should rush and join the local BDSM Scene. This is pretty much the equivalent of persuading your partner out for a Sunday ride on a bicycle, then insisting you both join the local cycle touring club.

Make no mistake. The BDSM Scene can be an amazing place, 
and it's full of amazing people. Just don't 
let its online shadow mislead you...

Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)
(For ebook format, 
Lulu or iTunes.)

Friday 17 June 2016

NEW RELEASE! How to Ask For Kink: A Very Short Guide

Click to buy!
There has never been a better time to ask for kink! Thanks to the media and… a particular book, the cat o’ nine tails is out of the bag; kink is in the air!

Even so, for those already in relationships, it's hard to open up and make yourself vulnerable by asking for the unusual in bed. 

It’s also possible to get in a muddle and go horribly wrong, forever losing the chance of getting the kink you could have had.

In this very short guide, experienced kinkster Giles English shows you how to effectively ask for any sort of kink without being pushy, annoying or whiny. (He also covers how not to do it and why not...)


Concise chapters cover:
  • Why it's a good time to ask for kink (as long as it's between consenting adults). 
  • What your responsibilities are. 
  • Why commonly suggested approaches are bad ideas. 
  • How to pick which kinks to ask for. 
  • How and when to ask (which is both simpler and more complicated than it seems). 

It's short. It's sensible. Click here to read it and take the first steps to exploring your kink, whatever it is.

Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)
(For ebook format, 
Lulu or iTunes.)

Tuesday 7 June 2016

When should I feel OK to wear my male chastity device? (The Ethics of 24/7 Wear Part 2)

...wearing a male chastity
device outside the home
What people don't - ever - know usually doesn't hurt them, so as long as you stick to the Iron Rules of 24/7 chastity (broadly don't get caught in, or distracted or limited by your device), you are not doing irreversible wrong.

However, if that was all there was to it, then things like non-consensual voyeurism would be fine (which it obviously isn't) as long as you weren't caught!

It's certainly possible to wear your chastity device in ways and places that make you feel guilty, even if it seemed like a good idea at the time. You may also later feel awkward explaining your actions to a partner, or your partner may feel awkward about exploring your chastity fetish.

So how do we make moral sense of wearing a male chastity device outside the home and in social and professional situations?

...going out without underwear
We can start by thinking about the range of stealth erotic things women do: for example going out without underwear, wearing sexy panties, having a secret tattoo or piercing, or walking around with Chinese balls inserted.

Which would be OK in the street? At work? At a family party? At a funeral?

At one extreme we have Chinese balls. They are OK in the street, but not at work unless it was really boring and you had reason to hate everybody. They'd be wrong to take to a family party, and creepy at a funeral.

Because Chinese balls are a sex toy designed to get you off, using them automatically exploits or objectifies the people around you. This feels fine in purely public spaces - where people expect to be lusted over by strangers anyway - but wrong as you cross from the public space into more personal and private ones.

Chinese Balls
At the other extreme we have intimate piercings. There's no situation in which they are wrong to wear because though they may be about sex, they are not actually sexually stimulating unless we think about them. They're just part of who we are, perhaps part of our armour against the world, or a secret expression of our full identity.

Everything else lies on that Sex Toy-Piercing spectrum.

Going commando, is sexual but not as sexual as a sex toy, so OK at work, wrong at a family party, weird at a funeral. Wearing sexy underwear is mostly like a piercing, but a bit like using a sex toy (because of the thrill), so wrong at a funeral but OK otherwise...
Sometimes they're sex toys, sometimes
 they're like piercings
Probably.

And so on.

Now back to our male chastity devices. Sometimes they're sex toys, sometimes they're like piercings - valued for their presence rather than their stimulating effects. To complicate things, we often have the option to remove them.

For these reasons, it's easiest to look at behaviour rather than motivation. When we do that, it gives us two Golden Rules for Public Chastity:

Golden Rule #1: Give yourself more leeway the longer your lock up

The longer you've continuously worn your device, the closer it is to being a like piercing; about identity and perhaps comfort.
If it would be wrong for a
woman to masturbate...

So if you are going out with friends, don't put it on specially! And if you're wearing randomly, you should probably remove it. However if you're locked up for days or weeks, then wearing it to the pub or to a dinner party is fine.

(And, if you've been locked up for truly epic periods of time, then you probably also have a pass for funerals - you'll might even feel more comfortable wearing it, though for god's sake don't get caught!)

Golden Rule #2: Don't treat your device as a sex toy in inappropriate situations

Even if wearing 24/7 is business as usual, if at a private dinner party, it's wrong to run off to your host's restroom and take a chastity selfie! 

The line isn't hard and fast between appropriate and inappropriate, but if it would be wrong for a woman to masturbate, then it's also wrong or in poor taste to get hard and drippy in your device, or take selfies or take risks for kicks.

The Golden Rules are about what kind of person you want to be, rather than what harm you do. However, if you follow them, it will also be easier to justify wearing and reduce the harm if caught out.

(So what about that surgeon? Assuming the stories are true, then he broke my two Iron Rules: by being careless, he freaked out his colleagues and upset his patients; and by (allegedly) getting turned on  by secretly wearing, he (may have) distracted himself from very serious tasks. That strikes me as pretty selfish.

He also seems to have broken my two Golden Rules. He'd have to be a very long-term wearer before it would be OK to go into the operating theatre chaste! And he seems to have got sexual kicks out of wearing it to work.)


Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)
(For ebook format, 
Lulu or iTunes.)

Thursday 2 June 2016

The DickBug - the simple digital device that will transform male chastity

 The elephant in the room of male chastity is that, without piercings, male chastity devices don't actually work. I mean, we can slip our dicks out the back if we really want. Yes, mostly we don't want. Even so, there's something nice for us about being securely locked, and our keyholders may appreciate the certainty. Trust is good, but it's nice not to have to.

A while back, I described a complicated device called the DickBit which would have a lot in common with the legendary DreamLover2000.

However, it doesn't need to be that complicated!

An easy win for somebody with access to the right electronic design skills would be the DickBug.

The DickBug is a simple ring that integrates with a ball-gripper chastity device.

It comprises:
  • Two pulse-rate sensors, left and right.
  • A red LED
  • A reset button only accessible if you unlock the chastity device and remove the DickBug.
If both sensors don't read the same pulse, then the warning light starts flashing. 

Having two sensors means that if you pull out but jam your fingers in, you are really unlikely to get a good pulse on both.

So: no WiFi or Blue Tooth, no big batteries or need for a girdle. Just a DickBug.


Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)
(For ebook format, 
Lulu or iTunes.)

Wednesday 1 June 2016

How to get a timid but potentially kinky partner to dominate you in bed

...scared the boundaries
will slip and they'll humiliate
or misuse you in real life.
It's startlingly common for a vanilla partner to try out a dominant role, enjoy it, but be afraid of that enjoyment.

I once had a girlfriend tell me, "I'm not comfortable with that kind of power." However, it's mostly a male thing; Dominating your wife or girlfriend goes against both traditional chivalry and modern feminist upbringing.

The three common problems are:

  • Not really believing you can want to be dominated like this.
  • Being scared the boundaries will slip and they'll humiliate or misuse you in real life.
  • Feeling that it's potentially a lot of effort just to get you off (since they are uncomfortable with embracing their own interest).

Here's what seems to work:

First, rather than trying to educate your partner - lecture them on BDSM culture, talk through the ethics and so on - explore with them.  Do some verbal only roleplaying in bed, weaving a fantasy together. If you it doesn't make you feel silly, use a non-real world setting; "I imagine you're a Viking and I'm your wilful Celtic slave..." or whatever to give it some distance. Take it in turns to add bits to the story. When you get really turned on, don't rush to bring out the bondage gear. Instead enjoy some mutual masturbation or sex.

Second, get a play collar. Tell your partner that they are ONLY allowed to dominate you when you're wearing it. This has two benefits: it's makes it really clear when you are and aren't playing - that should reassure him; and makes it easier for both of you to ask for kink - "Shall I/would you like to use the collar tonight?"

Third, when you do play, make it as sexy as hell for your partner. If you are female, bring out the stockings or whatever floats your lover's boat. If you are male, wear something they like, or - more plausibly - suggest starting with you providing a sensual massage while in a submissive role.

Learn how to how to walk the same Femdom path with your partner! 

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)
(For ebook format, 
Lulu or iTunes.)