How to kneel - a short guide for fellow kinky slaves - Part 1

Blame the ancient Egyptians.

My phone alarm goes off. I jerk awake and a chain jerks me back: I'm sleeping in my cell - Xena's dressing room - on a bedding roll, a short chain leash running from an attachment point in the wall to my new steel collar.

Hurriedly I unclip, slip out of my cell, and kneel at the foot of the bed waiting for my wife and mistress to wake...

Kneeling is odd because it seems such a natural slave posture, and yet it's impossible to keep up for any length of time.

"Slaves kneel"

I've always thought of kneeling as a slave thing; the ultimate being present but not present, of making myself small. I probably picked it up from all those erotically charged kids books on the Ancient Egyptians.

Later, there was 1970s Fantasy art in crinkled second hand art books. Then, it was kneeling slave girls, but I got the idea.

Slaves kneel.

The joke is, historically, no they don't.

Or, they do sometimes, but mostly in cultures, like Ancient Egypt, where everybody kneels. I couldn't find a single contemporary illustration of a kneeling slave - not Roman, not Greek, not Egyptian.

That's because, kneeling is really impractical. Your legs inevitably go to sleep. Perhaps that's why kneeling is a gesture of submission - it's hard to leap up and defend yourself if your legs aren't working.

"Seiza"

For practical reasons, a real slave would wait like an 1800s servant, standing unobtrusively out of sight, or at least out of line of sight, ready to serve.

Even so, we modern kinksters really like the idea, and I'm certainly... stuck with it. How then do we go about it?

It turns out there's a whole modern culture that spend a lot of time kneeling: the Japanese and they call it "seiza".

Wikipedia tells us:

Non-Japanese who have not grown up sitting in this posture may, however, have difficulty assuming it at all. Those unfamiliar with seiza will likely find that maintaining it for more than a minute or two tends to lead to paresthesia, whereby the compression of the nerves causes a loss of their blood flow, with the accompanying "pins and needles" feeling, followed by painful burning sensations, and then eventually complete numbness in the legs. However, the physical discomfort lessens with experience as the circulation of the blood improves. Experienced seiza practitioners can maintain the posture for forty minutes or more with minimal discomfort.

Reread that last paragraph: a mere 40 minutes is an achievement.

Kneeling is also the yoga pose, "Vajrasana". Typical recommendation is to aim for 2 minutes at the start, and work your way up to 5-10 minutes... this makes me feel good about my meagre 20 after 6 years practice.

However, I've recently improved. The last 5 minutes of that 20 came recently, and very quickly, and that's what this blog post is about.

CAVEATS: I'm not any sort of yoga instructor. What follows is just the result of googling and experimenting. If you have any sort of joint problems, kneeling is probably a bad idea and you should do further research. You can also "cheat" and simply order up a meditation cushion, or experiment with folded blankets behind the knees.

So, if you are male slave, submissive, here's how to get into a sustainable kneeling pose:

1. Half kneel with your feet flat, your toes crossed and your knees a hands-breath apart so you aren't crushing your balls.
2. If you're not naked, draw your clothing away from the crooks of your knees so it doesn't get trapped - this is really important!
3. Lower your buttocks so they rest on your heels.
4. Tilt your pelvis - make a pelvic thrust - so that your buttocks really do rest on your heels.
5. Relax your spine and sit naturally.
6. Whenever the discomfort starts to becomes intense, shift your weight of your legs by leaning forward slightly. It's a good idea to do this whenever your dominant leaves the room or is looking the other way - it's all about projecting stillness and self-abnegation.
7. Once you've gone on as long as you can, shift to cross legged. Mentally note the time, and perhaps agree this as a the current limit.

And that's it.

There are, however, things you can do to improve your kneeling endurance. I'll get to that next time.

---

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Are BDSM fantasies good when you do them for real? Would I do the things in my books?

My erotica takes me to darkly kinky places.
(Click here to download this book.)

My erotica takes me to darkly kinky places.

I'd like to claim that they are all escapist BDSM fantasies, not manifestos.

However, I didn't honestly expect to enjoy any of the intense kinky things that are now part of my life.

Back when I was young, I liked getting tied up and edged. There was a clear sensual benefit - long plateau phase followed by powerful orgasm. The other stuff I filed under "fantasy".

I mean, who would really want to be whipped hard? (Me, actually.) Or to spend hours kneeling being ignored? Or chained up in a cell? Or slaving away at domestic service? Or to spend weeks or months locked in chastity?

So I worked on ways to simulate these experiences, either nerfing them - soft whips, just a 30 mins chained or in chastity -- or roleplaying that they were true - "Hah! Slave! I condemn you to eternal chastity! Bwahahaha!"

Neither approaches felt particularly satisfying. Nor did either work well with partners.

Most people aren't talented actors or good at improvised role playing. Moreover, all that simulating required my partners to drop into the role of facilitator, certainly hard work, but also not really compatible with the dominant personalities of the women I tended to date (and have now married).

So gradually, partly by accident, I started experiencing my fantasies for real.

I started experiencing my
fantasies for real.
(Find out how!)

I am now routinely whipped hard enough to make me squeal, long enough for me to want it to stop, and though "enjoyment" isn't the right word, I'm certainly happy that it's part of my life. The effect is exactly what I imagined: thrilling fear, deep submission, intense sensations, loss of self....

I've knelt for hours at a time, and spent entire evenings chained in a makeshift cell. Again, it had the effect I imagined: I was deliciously frustrated, wonderfully relaxed, scarily powerless, deeply surrendered.

Then there's extended chastity... it seems odd, but it's an awesome experience I could not however undergo without being forced to. My sensuality is expanded, my plateau phase extended, my submission deeper and more acknowledged, my power exchange relationship more ever-present.

Finally, our Female Led Relationship, which a few years ago I would have dismissed as a foolish fantasy, but which now makes us both so happy.

And here I am, churning out books about men who are permanently enslaved and condemned to permanent chastity with permanent orgasm denial. Whose wives or girlfriends cuckold them with other women. Who descend into total power exchange.

Who would really want to be
whipped hard? (Me, actually.)

It really feels like a slippery slope!

So, how do you tell what BDSM fantasies would work out for real, not just in your head when you masturbate?

I think it's down to realism and consequences.

Realism is the gatekeeper. If your fantasy is not realistic, then it's not going to work out in practice.

Some fantasies are clearly not realistic. People into being eaten in the non-cunnilingus sense, are usually aware that the sensations they imagine are not the ones they would experience. Less reflective men who hack off their own man parts for erotic reasons are often surprised to find it hurts.

Some fantasies are also unrealistic if you research them. For example, long periods tightly bound are impractical because of cramp (and thrombosis!) and because of the need to pee. There are similar problems with stress positions or being human furniture. Days of intense 24/7 Femdom would also be too physically draining for most participants.

Realism is the gatekeeper. 

Most detailed just-so fantasies are hard to replicate in practice. Real people aren't telepathic so can't guarantee on getting inside your head to play you like a musical instrument, or do things with the right intensity at just the right moment.

And of course, some kinky behaviour doesn't produce the desired response in other people. Public sissy-style cross-dressing may trigger polite indifference, rather than humiliation, or perhaps a thorough beating from homophobic thugs. Putting on a chastity device isn't guaranteed to turn your conventional middle aged wife into a nymphomaniac cougar.

So if your fantasy isn't close to the reality, you are unlikely to get the experience you were looking for. At best you'll be disappointed and perhaps cause irritation to your partner. At worst, you'll get hurt emotionally or physically... which leads us to consequences.

Fear of consequences can spoil kinky experiences, no matter how realistic our expectations are.

So, to take an extreme example, somebody who gets off on the fear of a castration, would genuinely be afraid when faced by the real thing - the fantasy is realistic as far as it goes - but would probably not enjoy themselves because the consequences - not having a willy, extreme pain, violation of self... - would loom too large.

Similarly, even if our exhibitionist does get just the reaction he expected, his pleasure may be spoiled by fear of legal, social, moral and professional consequences.

However, I think it's fear of more personal consequences that keeps people from exploring kink: the consequences for their sense of self and their relationship.

Who I am at work is different from who
I am when I lick my own semen from my
wife's feet

Scarily - and here's the slippery slope - it turns out that most of these consequences are damp squibs.

Unless we have unresolved traumas, our sense of self is far more robust than we might expect.

We can do the wildest, most humiliating, things and still be the same person after.

This is partly because self is context dependent: who I am at work is different from who I am when I lick my own semen from my wife's feet.

However, it's also because if we want to do kink then we are already kinky. If anything, carrying around a secret kink is a burden. It actually turns out to be quite validating to just do it.

Kink can have consequences for relationships, but often they are either ones we secretly want - like our Female Led Relationship - or else don't actually manifest.

A broadminded partner can do dirty things with you in bed, and still respect you in the morning. Properly handled to insulate from practical consequences, couples can survive all sorts of shenanigans, from extreme power exchange through to the whole cuckold, hot wife and bull thing - not my cup of tea unless the bull was a lesbian...

Which leads me to: Would I want to be in my own Femdom fiction? I'll get to that in another blog entry.

---

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

GET THE "FOR HIM" MANUAL RIGHT NOW!
GET THE "FOR HER" MANUAL RIGHT NOW!

CLICK HERE to download my Femdom Erotica (all written while chaste!)

(For ebook format, 

Lulu or iTunes.)

Did 50 Shades of Grey miss the trend?: How many women fantasize about sexually dominating their partner?

46.7% of women fantasize about
dominating somebody sexually.
Find out how to not mess it up when you meet one.

Good news! 46.7% of women fantasize about dominating somebody sexually, according to a survey of 1,517 Quebec adults.

64.6%, meanwhile, fantasize about being dominated. So rather than 50 Shades of Grey revealing the dark truth about women's sexuality, it really just revels in one of several dark truths.

Sure, two thirds of women get off on the idea of being dominated, but roughly a half of them quite like the idea of doing the dominating.

Better yet, since 53.3% of men have submissive fantasies, it follows that the true sexually submissive male to potentially sexually dominant female ratio is 1.14:1, pretty much one domme for every sub.

Depending on what female switches really do, this is slightly better or much better than the estimated 1.6:1 to 4:1 ratio in the active fetish community.

But the game changer is: these new statistics are for the whole community, not just the active fetish one.

Just think about it. Half of modern women are potential dominatrixes.

...if a woman has a dominant fantasy
it's likely to be a fairly soft one...Learn how to sell yourself to her as a slave!

Half of the entire pool... the pool of every single datable woman in your city, the ones you have other stuff in common with, not just the ones who pop up in the Fetish community. Those are pretty good odds if you approach it right.

It feels as if something has changed. Are modern women simply more confident and empowered? Is it that there are more dominatrix-like role models on screen and in books?

One thing that I think is very clear is that you can't assume these dominatrix fantasies are off-the-peg ones, or match what the webcam dommes get up to.

"Dominate" implies a dynamic, yes, but only 23.8% of women imagined spanking or whipping somebody, and 10.8% were interested in "forcing" somebody to have sex. However, 41.7% imagined tying somebody up for sexual gratification.

So, if a woman has a dominant fantasy it's likely to be a fairly soft one, and -- I'm betting -- she's still unlikely to have done anything about it, or even be prepared to admit it.

That means that, if you are compatible in other ways, you still need to approach Femdom honestly but with care, always asking yourself "what's in it for her?"

---

Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

A dominatrix's vulnerability - don't do this at home!

Fern's has written a wonderful post on what it feels like to be the dominatrix in seemingly trivial domestic situations. Her sub has run out of toilet roll. She wants him to fetch some but...

“Really?” he asked, “But it’s *snowing*!” [Hmmm... okay is he really resisting, or just needing a push?]“Yes, really,” I said. [A little push.]“What?!! Come on!” [I try to read him. He is half kidding with this over-the-top response, I can feel it. I'm pretty sure he will do it, even if he is pushing back...]

Skip over and read the rest of Fern's post - it's awesome, as are the comments.

Now, consider the circumstances. Ferns is a self-identified dominatrix, so the power balance within the relationship is about 50/50. If she pushes him too hard, or in the wrong way, then she may lose the sub.

If you have persuaded your existing partner to turn vanilla dominatrix, then your situation is different.

 "...for all matters domestic you need to think like a s
tereotype pre-Feminist housewife..." (pic source)

Both my Femdom self help books focus on the idea of what's in it for her?

If she's not kinky, she can still enjoy owning a slave in the same way Roman ladies enjoyed owning male slaves; guilt free domestic service plus massages with happy endings can be a pretty strong proposition.

This falls down as soon as she has to second guess herself before sending you out to buy toilet roll!

Yes, if she wants some heavy BDSM action, or hits your triggers, you need negotiation and safe words. However, for all matters domestic you need to think like a stereotype pre-Feminist housewife.

The vanilla dominatrix project only works if you accept the risks of authentic slavery; in any given session, you may be bored, uncomfortable, sad, or frustrated.

In the long run it will be worth it...

For more on Femdom for vanilla wives and girlfriends,  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....

4 rules for when you're caught doing kink

"Caught in the act!"
Find out how to get some of this 
in your life!

So, you've established a part-time Femdom relationship. And you're having fun, and then--

 --you're caught at it, or somebody finds your stash of BDSM toys... OMG!

What do you do?

What is the right thing to do?

In kink, the right to privacy goes both ways

Obviously, you have a right to practice consensual kink in privacy - not to be interrupted, judged or defined by your kink.

However, other people have the right not to have your kink rubbed in their faces.

Even people who are kinky
themselves don't necessarily
want to get flashbacks of
your twitching buttocks.
Find out how to get some of this 
in your life!

Since kink, especially domination and submission, is often intentionally transgressive - i.e. mimics evil - and can look abusive, your idea of fun can be triggering for non-consenting witnesses. Perhaps the uptight spinster across the street got that way because she saw her mother raped - it's hardly fair to expose her to your consensual rape play, is it?

Kink is also visceral.

Even people who are kinky themselves don't necessarily want to get flashbacks of your twitching buttocks. That kind of thing can ruin a precious friendship, and put strain on even a close family...

And talking about family, I think offspring - even grown up ones - deserve not to know what you get up to. Aside from just freaking them out, you may be giving them the sense that what you do for play is actually normal in real life. And if they themselves grow up to be kinky, then it's hardly fair that their first kinky sessions will be marred with visions of their middle aged folks at it! (Remember that episode of Friends?)

So privacy has to be two-way. That means first and foremost, you shouldn't get caught.

Rule #1 Don't get caught being kinky

Lock the bloody bedroom door! 
Find out how to get some of 
this in your life!

Lock the bloody bedroom door! Really. A locked door will never be as embarrassing or traumatic as the kink it hides.The same goes for if you share your living space with friends, relatives or roommates. Also consider the front door to your apartment or house. If a relative has the key, put the snib on before you bring out the whips and chains.

Consider audio privacy. How far does the sound carry?  Can you mask it using the right kind of music. If possible run tests. You can always visit neighbors to apologize for the noise of home improvements while your partner makes appropriate sounds in the bedroom.

Finally, have a secure place for your toys and use it. Pick something that locks, and isn't too obvious. A suitcase is good. A Gothic trunk with "TOY BOX" stenciled on it, less good. Be aware that older relatives like to help with laundry unasked, that visiting children like to hide in closets and rummage in cupboards...

Even if you do all this, be prepared for a privacy fail.

Rule #2 Be prepared

Murphy's Law says what can go wrong, will go wrong. I don't think we need to be quite that pessimistic.

However, things go wrong, routines get interrupted, toys get left lying about, people peek through keyholes.

So, have a response prepared. This will enable you to deal with any discovery right away.

Rule #3 Respond rapidly

People don't like change.

there's a good chance that somebody
who catches you...will push away
the inconvenient knowledge.
Find out how to get some of this 
in your life!

Things that don't fit their view of the world cause cognitive dissonance, meaning that they will cheerfully lie to themselves, or believe an obvious falsehood just to avoid the discomfort and inconvenience of adjusting their view of reality.

Thus if you act quickly, there's a good chance that somebody who catches you in kinkiness will push away the inconvenient knowledge and do their best to forget about it.

After a while, they won't even be sure what they remember! Only consider addressing the revelation later if the person is being weird with you.

Of course, this only works if you say something that minimizes the impact in the first place.

Rule #4 Reveal as little as possible

This is a time for damage control, not taking any sort of stand.

Take a breath to consider what they actually saw, heard or found and then pick an option based on order of desirability:

1. Plausible lie (What kink? There is no kink here!)

If they didn't see you do it, then lie. If they did see you but are innocent or unsophisticated, then also lie.

Yes, lie. Honesty would be self-indulgent. The only moral course is to restore that precious two-way privacy we talked about.

"The riding whip is left over from an
equestrian holiday."
Find out how to get some of this 
in your life!

The lie only has to be plausible enough so that the discoverer can decide to believe it, or decide to pretend to believe it:

The toy is modern art, was sent as a prank, was left by somebody else, or relates to some non-kinky activity. The costume relates to a fancy dress party. The female clothes in male size result from an Ebay mispurchase. The scourge is a prop from a play. The riding whip is left over from an equestrian holiday. The sounds you heard were me practicing martial arts/pelvic floor exercises/yogic breathing/tickling/a foreign film. Those marks relate to a martial art/DIY accident/animal attack/fall onto barbed wire/skin condition.

2. Partial truth

"We like to spice things up."
Find out how to get some of this 
in your life!

If you've actually been caught at it, then serve up an explanation that gives away as little as possible and fits the world view of the discoverer.

Deal with what they actually saw, not the drooling fetish feelings that drove that action, nor the D&S relationship wrapped around it.

Make it a one-liner so you can both swiftly change the subject. People will want to believe the least perverted explanation:

We were just horsing around. It's something the sex therapist suggested. We like to spice things up. It was the result of a bet/practical joke.

3. Go on the offensive

To back up a partial truth, or if the partial truth is unbelievable - God forbid somebody find out we've converted the Victorian coal bunker into a Medieval dungeon! - then you go on the offensive. You are morally in the right, after all.

That box was private!
Find out how to get some of this 
in your life!

Remember, thanks to cognitive dissonance, your discoverer is feeling confused. You need to tell them how to respond to what they are seeing. They will also be feeling vaguely guilty. Let's exploit that.

I suspect the best approach is to go on the offensive in a way that assumes what you are doing is normal...

What do you expect if you violate somebody's privacy? That box was private! Didn't anybody teach you to knock? What are you doing in here? This is our bedroom! That chest was closed for a reason.

...but if you can, balance it out with an injunction or stage direction. For damage control, the best is probably something like:

Let's pretend you didn't see this. This never happened.

However, for marking boundaries and perhaps doing a little aggressive reeducation:

I'm sorry you were shocked. You weren't supposed to find out. However, what we do is consensual and we have every right to do it in private. It's also not that uncommon. Now, can we agree to move on and respect each other's privacy and boundaries.  

Best of all, stick to Rule #1

Just thinking about being caught should concentrate your mind on not getting caught!

EDITS: Good reddit thread developing here. And here. And here.

---

Of course, before you need to worry about this kind of problem, you need to work out how to build a kinky relationship in the first place!  When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her. 

How to timelock yourself in a chastity belt

Sometimes male chastity is about being locked up,  rather than the locking and unlocking.

Sometimes your lady is happy to have a locked up partner, but doesn't want the fuss of managing the keys, or the responsibility of deciding when to unlock you.

Sometimes, she enjoys being in what I've called the Send Only and Shutdown modes.. she wants to ignore your experience completely and not even think about the key.

In the old pre-Internet days, chaste men used to leave the keys at work, or post them to themselves. The downside of this is that you end up locked in for days at a time - there's not much fine control.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a simple timelock? Or a timesafe? Something you could set for, say, 8 hours?

Doesn't exist, or at least not for any price I'd be willing to pay.

The good news is that you don't need a safe or a complex gizmo, just a combination padlock, a  PC and a flatbed scanner.

Setting a new combination on a padlock
You may not realise this, but most combination padlocks enable you set a  new combination. Just turn the U-bar to a particular point, push it in, and then adjust the number barrels. It's pretty easy to do this without actually looking at the padlock.

So now you have a padlock with a combination you don't know. The next problem is to record that combination in such a way that you can encrypt it. For this you will need a flatbed scanner...

Scanning the combination

Flatbed scanners are great for this. Just plonk the padlock, combination down(!), on the glass and scan. Make sure your software doesn't flash up a big image onscreen, otherwise it rather defeats the purpose.
(It's a good idea to practice this stage a few times, to make sure you really are capturing the combination in readable form!)

So, now your combination exists as a file on your computer. All you need is to encrypt it for a few hours or days. Fortunately there is free timelock software for this.

Timelocking your lock combination

Dead easy. Just download and install  PictureLoKiT. It's not very pretty, but with a little fiddling you can learn how to encrypt a file for a set time.
Make sure that your computer has Internet access, so the software can read the timeservers (no, you can't cheat by dicking with the internal clock!). You don't have to leave the computer on - the software catches up on itself whenever you run it.
You can then use the combination padlock to lock your keys aware somewhere secure, for example in a toolchest.

WARNING: Get the padlock installed before triggering the encryption. There's nothing more annoying than - say - dropping the padlock and losing the setting.

All this is harder to explain than do. Once you get the hang of all it, it's quick and easy. Whirr... click... click... CLUNK. "Look honey! No cock!"

For actually building a Femdom corner of your relationship where you can both enjoy playing with male chastity, see my Femdom how-to guides...