Friday 30 September 2016

Why it would be nice if D/s was more mainstream...

"Oh, you do realise I'm very
dominant, right?"
Two high schoolers on their first date:

Her: "Oh, you do realise I'm very dominant, right?"
Him: "Yes. I'm cool with that."

And according to the user who posted this on Reddit, this was several years ago and they've been together ever since.

Reddit, however, is also full of sad stories where a long-term partner gives a decisive "no" to BDSM.

Wouldn't it have been better for both parties if, back when they started dating they could have casually had a conversation like this:

Her: "Oh, you do realise I'm very dominant, right?"
Him: "Oh? I'm not sure this will work out, then."

People would understand that they
can be D- or S-types and not be fetishy
all the time
Or...

Him: "You do realise I'm very submissive?"
Her: "Oh? I'm not sure this will work out, then."

Those rejections are also wins, since they save everybody precious time and avoid the later sadness of a long marriage (or equiv) coming to an abrupt end due to sexual incompatibility.

Alas, growing up with a D/s orientation is still a bit like being gay or bi in - say - 1930. You may have no idea about your orientation, or you may suspect it but be put off by the popular image and therefore be in some kind of exaggerated denial.

There are also more potential compatible partners around than you realise because you not only can't you see them, but also they may not be aware of their own D/s potential.

If D/s were just a little bit more mainstream, then people would be aware of and comfortable with stating their preferences. There would be more happy D/s pairings and fewer relationships broken or marred by kinky incompatibility.

"I'm looking for somebody who likes to be the alpha in the relationship/bedroom."
"I like to be the alpha in the relationship/bedroom."

Yes, it would still take years to find the right partner, but the process would be less awkward and more fun.

That wouldn't affect me, but it would make the world a better and happier place.

Which would be nice.

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Thursday 29 September 2016

It's OK if the Kink is For Real: The Exchange Student with Vaginismus

Greta: lots of black hair, round
face and rosy cheeks.
I think it was vaginismus. It might have been one of the other several causes of painful intercourse in women. But let me back up a bit.

Once, when I was at college, I got talking to this exchange student.... let's just say she was from one of those European countries where chastity devices are now manufactured and we'll call her Greta: big, buxom, lots of black hair, round face and rosy cheeks.

Greta was wearing a beret - honest! - and reading a student poetry magazine - as student intellectuals did back then - and we got talking about life views.

"I believe in transcendence," said Greta, all very European and sophisticated. "I want to transcend the physical world to attain perfection."

At the time I was full of 60s ideas... Hedonism as spirituality mingled with secondhand Existentialism plus a bit of Venus in Furs, and -

- and so very much loud certainty.

"No," I said, getting animated as I spoke. "We transcend in the physical world! We ride the storm. This is all there is, so we must grasp it with both hands and wring every last drop of experience from life!"

"Oh," said Greta.

Looking back, neither of us was being honest with ourselves or each other. An honest conversation would have been this:

Greta: I find sexual intercourse painful, so have embraced philosophies 
which enable me to feel fulfilled without the need to have sex.

Giles: I am a sexual submissive, so have cobbled together a whole philosophy
 to make me feel OK about it (and to seduce women into domming me).

I don't know about Greta, but my line of patter certainly worked for me. It was spectacularly easy to get girlfriends to tie me up, but much harder to make the kink sustainable because (a) I wouldn't shut up, and (b) I had sub panic.

However, right then I quickly established she had a boyfriend back in Europe and didn't make any advances.

A few days later, we're walking back from a class and she says, "You have caused me a problem with my boyfriend." Her accent was thicker than normal and her big round face was flushed deep red.

"Oh," I said.

As she talked, I realised that my half-baked hedonistic existentialism had punctured her transcendental philosophy.

"Now you have to show me," she said walking close enough that her big soft breast bumped my elbow. "I need to know."

"Show you?" I said, suddenly getting hard. "Let's go back to my flat."

And so we ended up in my room one sunny afternoon with the light streaming through the net curtains.

We started with kissing. She had a big squishy tongue that filled my mouth. Her blouse and skirt just kind of fell away, as did my jeans and T-shirt. I fondled her breasts, stroked her legs, worked my way to her thighs.

"Not in there," she said when my fingers probed between her panties. "It hurts to have sex."

"Oh," I said.

After a moment, I said, "Fine. We don't have to have sex." Then I thought, what the Hell, nothing to lose, "How about I be your slave and do everything you want?"

It was a risk, more than now days.

This was before the internet, before 50 Shades of Grey. This wasn't me suggesting she experiment with an edgy sub culture. This was me inviting her to be a pervert. These are very different things.

(My collar wasn't as nice
as this one)
Oh and we both still had on our underwear!

She looked amused. "Oh, OK. Let's try that."

So I dug out a collar, a leash and a riding whip.

She had me strip off fully, inspected me, then had me kiss her belly, the exposed flesh of her breasts, take off her bra and lick her nipples, then gnaw them with surprising strength.

Finally, with a look of determination, she stood up and slid her panties over her wide hips. This was the first time I'd gone into a first sexual encounter as a slave and as close to being a fantasy sex slave as I could imagine. I was horribly horribly turned on.

I'd expected wild black curls to match her hair. Instead she had a shaved pussy - my first and last encounter with such. "Go on," she said with a broad cat-smile, "Lick me."

So I did. She was a bit stubbly, to be honest, but I didn't care. I was her slave and I licked.

Dear reader, it was a long time ago!

However, I think she had more than one orgasm.

Afterwards Greta stood by the bed, still naked and magnificently statuesque. She flourished the whip - which she hadn't really used except to direct the action - and said with a her wide grin, "I was made for this!"

I was made for this.

I was young and didn't really appreciate the significance of what she said.

Looking back, I realise that she probably wasn't just saying she was made for adventurous sex because she was busty and horny; rather she was made to be dominant in bed.

I think she tied me up and got me off - apparently she had nothing against penises, she just didn't like being penetrated.

Then we talked about her problem with penetration.

Yes, Greta had sex with her boyfriend because it seemed wrong not to. Yes, we could have sex if I really wanted and if I could come quickly. However, it was always uncomfortable and sometimes painful.

Looking back, I think she was risk taking too.

I decided, but privately, that not being able to have sex would be a show stopper for the long term. However, we had only a few weeks.  "We'll just have lots of kinky fun instead," I said.

"Sounds good," said Geta.

After that, we had - I think - two more encounters. 

On the second we switched - because she was adventurous and I was insistent on being kinky rather than merely submissive. I remember having her on a leash and discovering her big mouth was ideal for delivering a very nice blow job.

On the third, which we both knew was our last, we did Femdom again. I think she beat me a little. Mostly, however, she got sensual service and oral sex.

And I can't remember how I got off - this was before chastity devices, so I'm sure I did. It doesn't seem important now, and probably didn't then.

An hour or so later, we lay around naked enjoying the afterglow. I started to feel horny again. With a resigned amusement, she let me examine her vagina with my fingers. I suppose I thought that all those orgasms might have loosened her up - I was young, remember?

It didn't feel right. The roof felt distended and wrong. And I could tell it was tender even without her reaction, so withdrew apologetically.

We talked. She was never going to enjoy penetrative sex. She hadn't, she said, been to the doctor about it. It was just who she was.

So no, even now with the help of the Internet, I've no idea what the issue was.

We talked some more, and she asked whether - hypothetically - that would bother me in the long term.

Being young and thoughtless I said, yes of course it would. I liked kink, but I needed regular sex just like any other red-blooded man.

And so she went back to Europe and her boyfriend.

We exchanged a few letters. A year later, she returned to tour England with her boyfriend. The three of us met up for coffee - I don't know what she'd told him - and she took the opportunity to bump my elbow with her boob.

And a couple of years later I met Xena and here I am, two decades later, typing this while locked into a chastity device.

So who was exploiting who?

Back to the pre-Internet 1980s and Greta and me experimenting with Femdom one sunny afternoon:

  • Greta didn't like sexual intercourse. I was... ambivalent about it?
  • Greta enjoyed being selfish without feeling guilty. I was a service submissive.
  • Greta liked being assertive in bed without feeling unfeminine (culture was a little different back then). I was a submissive who loved to be dominated.

If she hadn't dropped her "I was made for this!" bombshell, you could say that one of us was exploiting the other.

Arguably, Greta was exploiting a naive young pervert in order to get her rocks off. She wasn't turned on by dominance, or by topping me. She was merely using the power exchange to get an orgasm while "dodging" sex.

And arguably, 20-something Giles was exploiting a young woman with a sexual dysfunction in order to get his drooling kinky kicks.

You can also portray our encounters as an honest but coldly calculated trade: kink for orgasms.

And you'd be right, and you'd also be dead wrong.

Sometimes BDSM culture seems puritanical in its search for the perfect ethical bubble in which to enjoy "play".

Apparently, it's OK to give a whipping while pretending to be angry, but not to actually be angry. It's OK to pretend disgust, but there should be reassurance in the afterglow. It's OK to pretend to be selfish when being dominant, or to be weak and biddable when submissive, but only after extensive negotiations and talk, and more talk.

It seems, everything (between sane consenting adults) goes in BDSM as long as it's play.

However, we weren't playing.

Greta discovered she needed real things granted by power exchange: namely control without guilt, and thus "permission" to skip intercourse and security that she could, and permission to seek her own pleasure.

Put those together and you have a dominatrix. (There are other flavours as well, of course.)

So yes, she was exploiting me, but I wanted to be exploited and she knew it. That's what gave her permission.

And, though I thought I was merely role playing a fantasy, I was also doing real things: I was serving erotically for real without immediate orgasmic reward (though it did arrive). If I was exploiting, I was also genuinely serving. Certainly, the orgasms Greta had were real (well she did come back for more...).

I don't think of her very often, but I do wonder whether she has discovered male chastity and whether she has found somebody who appreciates her aversion to sexual intercourse as much as her sensual hunger.

What am I saying? Why am I telling you this?

 It's OK if the kink is for real.
Greta had some intractable underlying physical or psychological problem that gave her an aversion to sexual intercourse. We can speculate that that aversion generally made her feel unsafe in bed because there was an implicit cultural and emotional pressure to have sex.

Then I introduced her to Femdom. This gave her "permission" to not be penetrated and also the assurance of control over the action. The perfect storm. "I was made for this".

Greta is an extreme example and I'm not for one moment saying that Femdom would help all women with penetration problems, nor that their partners would all consent to power exchange or male chastity or whatever

However, Greta demonstrates that power exchange need not be an end in itself. It can also be a happy means to an end.

And looking back, I wasn't playing either. I was in the grip of the urge to serve, and the darker but no less real urge to suffer while doing so.

So, as long as things are safe sane and consensual, I think it's OK if the kink is for real.

Postscript: Suppose that we had been a long term couple and her problem had emerged - or been admitted to - ten years into the marriage? Perhaps when we had a shared life, children, a house...

Femdom with male chastity would have at least given us a safe holding pattern. I think it would also have made it easier to follow the typical therapist's advice to explore sensuality without penetration for a while.  

Greta was one of those woman who felt an obligation to have sex. Also, most people care about their partner's needs, even if they misunderstand them. Just as it did in my college room all those years ago, Femdom would probably have freed her from any sense of pressure and given her the space to explore her sensuality with no sense of guilt. 

You might think it in bad taste, but it would have made a kinky virtue out of her unfortunate necessity, so why not?

So I think that, though - of course - kink isn't for everybody, where it's present and people are comfortable and consenting, there's no reason why it can't be used for real, grown up purposes like working around or through a sexual dysfunction.


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, 
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Wednesday 28 September 2016

Four Things I Wish the Mainstream Understood about Domination and Submission

Being Dominant or Submissive doesn't
mean anything.
1. Being Dominant or Submissive doesn't mean anything. I mean, it doesn't imply a political stance - you don't have to believe in authority for its own sake, or in gendered authority, e.g. you can be a straight male dom or female sub and still be a Feminist!
Nor does it imply a life plan - you can be submissive in private and high-powered in "normal life". Subs aren't all losers. Doms aren't top dogs. (Though I suspect your orientation may affect how you go about what you do.)

2. It doesn't have to take over your life.  You don't have to be in a BDSM club. You can be dominant or submissive just in the bedroom and only some of the time. Dominating your partner in bed doesn't mean you get to chose your next vacation destination. You don't have to do it 24/7.

3. If you do do 24/7 D/s, it doesn't have to be 24/7 kink.  It probably won't be 24/7 kink actually. Real life just doesn't lend itself to that, and people like range in their relationships.
Even so, you can have an asymmetric relationship that works over the long term - FLR or MLR. We already know what the male dominant version looks like; basically an old fashioned marriage.

4. If your relationship is asymmetric it still doesn't mean anything. Hell! You can sleep in  a cage every night and go to work in a chastity device, and still be a take charge person at 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.)