A couple night ago, Sir and I were up late finishing a set (he works in theater, as do I). It’s a great thing to talk about our kink anytime, but especially late at night, painting a floor, spackling flats - it’s really great. A mutual, intellectual masturbation with good secondary activity: scrumptious.
We talked through protocol things, as mentioned in the post before this, and made some addendums. But we also talk about our Dominant/submissive dynamic, separate from the sadomasochism we play with. And came around to some pretty interesting conclusions. They’re probably not new, but they’re new to me, so here goes.
Looking back to when we first started playing, Sir and I have come a long way. Emotionally, in our relationship in general, but also in how hard and how long we play, in how much we trust each other. Undertones of submission have always been a part of this for me, but they’re relatively new to us in an explicit sense, and they’re beginning in much the same way the physical pain (receiving and giving) began; that is to say, slowly.
During our conversation, Sir told me a lot of things I hadn’t known before; he told me about his experiences, what it felt like and where it took him to hit me, flog me, etc. We’d talked about it tons before, and nothing was a surprise, but it was one of those conversations where we delved deeper, and more specifically, into his side of the dynamic than we ever have before. Something he said that did surprise me, I think, was that initially, he wasn’t sure that I was a masochist. Let me clarify: I had told him I liked pain, and we have played with pain from the beginning, but it took him a little while to actually believe I liked it as much as I did. And that’s understandable, for many reasons.
Both he and I have been in relationships with a lot of talk about kink and pain, in the beginning. And then it would turn out that what we meant by “hit me” and what they meant by “hit me” didn’t exactly line up. In his experience, he would meet a girl who would say she liked it rough, say she liked pain, and in all the sexy ways that couples starting out sometimes talk about their sex lives, this is the vibe he would get. But when it moved into the bedroom, a pulling of hair, or a scraping of nails, or a slapping of asses would provoke an “ouch! what are you doing?” “hey, what the fuck?” reaction. For me, it was always a light slap on the ass, or a pinch of the nipple, and a long discussion afterwards about how “that was so hot,” and “so naughty.” Which is totally great for that person. And totally not what I’m interested in.
Now, this was never true of the two of us (my reaction was, from the beginning, “more please, harder please” and his was “hell yes, hell yes”), and while it isn’t entirely the reason why we started slow, I think it’s part of it (on both our ends). Another part is simply the nature of developing a long-time relationship playing with someone; things start to run deeper, and the space you have to give or receive pain increases. This isn’t meant to be prescriptive, but I think this is how it was for us. Which is why, in the beginning, the way we play now would have been too much, and why now, the way we played in the beginning seems relatively light, almost vanilla, in comparison.
There’s also a clearer communication, and always has been, in our sadomasochism as opposed to our D/s dynamic. Part of that is where we started from; we didn’t talk about D/s dynamics in the beginning, although I think they’ve always been there. Or rather, I’ve always thought of myself as having strong submissive undertones within my masochism, if that makes sense. And so post-play, we would talk about the pain, talk about the experience for both of us.
Another part, and this is where it gets interesting for me, is that the language of pain is actually easier for us to use, both within the scene and afterwards, and thus it’s been a more clear path (though not necessarily a more important or interesting one) from the beginning. Talking after play, it’s much easier to say “when you hit me with the whip when I was bent over, and that one time I cried out that way, that’s what that meant. When I said ‘yellow,’ this was what I meant and the confluence of stimuli that brought me there. These things are what I salivated over and will later probably masturbate too; these things are what pushed my edges in a good way; this thing maybe was a little too far.” Etc., etc.,
And let me note really quickly, to clarify, Sir and I work on a color system: “yellow,” from either of us, means that we’re close to a limit, and maybe need to back off whatever is going on for just a minute. “Red” means stop the scene, proceed directly to aftercare. A lot of the time, I’ll use yellow (maybe every third or fourth time we play), and I think that’s a good thing, because we usually talk about it afterward, and clarify what happened, and learn more and more and more each time. We’ve talked a little about pushing limits more, which is something we’re both interested in, and how to do it safely is a challenge, but we’re getting there. I’m fairly sure playing without safewords isn’t something I’ll ever do. I like colors; I like communication. I also like trust, but those three are pretty interconnected, in a good way, in my head.
Back to the communicability of sadomasochism:
Talking after the fact works well with my own experience of masochism, partly because what we’re pointing to is so clear. It’s pain, how that pain lands, it’s specific blows or stimulus. But I think sadomasochism also lends itself better to communication during play. I shouldn’t say “better.” Maybe “inherently clearer.” There is a sensation he’s giving, to me, and I’m reacting to. Sure, it compounds and builds on itself, and there are D/s dynamics present, but much of the experience is an exchange; I can read where he’s going, or where he is, based on how he’s hurting me, and he can read where I’m going, or where I am, based on how I’m reacting. Like I talked about in the previous post, with the cane, it’s almost like we’re talking to each other while it’s going on. Sometimes we miss, sure, but it’s then easier to point to the place where we missed and talk about why.
D/s dynamics, for me, are not so clean cut (and I’m sure for many people, neither is pain: let me disclaimer again, this is just my experience). For one, they’re moreconstant; from the beginning of a scene to the end, I’m his submissive, I’m submissive to him. How that plays logically, emotionally, psychologically can change and muddy with the passing moments, either from an order he gives or a way that he touches me, or from something within myself. (I also think this is a *great* thing about dominance and submission - the ongoing nature of things can be so, so hot. So, we’re playing on new, exciting ground, as always).
For another thing, the language I have for it isn’t as clear as the language I have for pain. I can’t say things like “that was too much, that there, with the flogger, and it was too much right here, on my upper left torso (etc. etc.),” but instead, I have to look back and discover, while explaining it to him, why I felt small, or sad, or ashamed (I like feeling all those things - it’s the “good pain” vs. “bad pain” equivalent: there’s a “good small” and a “bad small” sort of feeling too, but again, it’s harder to codify, harder to distinguish, harder to talk about). It also plays with the line I talk about in the previous, between the “real world” me and the “play time” me. Plays much, much more than masochism does. I don’t ever get turned on, or get stimulated in a good way, by stubbing my toe. But when he asks me to get him coffee? When we walk in a certain way? When I sleep in the collar? What do these mean?
And here’s where communication, long conversations, and discussion til we’re exhausted comes in. Part of what helps this is, I think, our protocol: it’s a way to clearly communicate a power dynamic, during play, a way to establish the D/s between us. It’s also, for me, comforting. When I bring him the collar and he takes it, and I drop to my knees for him to put it on: that’s a reassurance that he wants this, that he wants to be in that place for him, and wants me in that place for me. That I also want those things. It’s a mitigation of the vulnerability, and the establishing of the place in which greater vulnerability is possible, for both of us.
Sound muddled and strangely confusing? That’s because it is. We’re still talking, and still working through it. Mid-spackling, there was a long explanation of what it does for me to do a task he’s asked me to, what focus and containment that offers me, how wonderful it is for me to exist in such a space. There was long discussion of the different tones of voice of uses, how they land for me, how they feel for him to use. There was, throughout, ideas of what D/s foreplay could be… He’s on a quest for a nice pair of jump boots for me to learn how to polish. I’m so excited.
So. This is our process, our understanding and building of a language between us, and the discussion in plain English (which in itself sometimes fails us anyway) of what each person experiences and attempts to communicate with that language. It’s protocol and it’s everyday. It’s birthing the babblefish, breath by breath, strike by decadent strike.
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