As discussed earlier, Sir and I have been trying out some new protocol. Or rather, trying some new things, and formalizing some other things that already existed. And, like anything we make up as we go along, there’s been some adjusting.
The thing that makes me… nervous (although the elipses there are meant to indicate that I’m looking for a better, more precise word) about protocol, is the line between who I am every day, and who I am when we play. I don’t have a problem with this line, or the fact that it exists, or even crossing it at times when I’m not tied up or being flogged (walking down the street in our pre-discussed way, etc). It’s when I don’t know where I am in that line, or when I’m somewhere in between, that it becomes more difficult,.
As a side note, the language that I have to talk about this is really vague, and I’m trying to read more in a effort to clarify the language, but for now, I’m sort of muddling through.
Like many things etheral and of a muddier nature, maybe this is best talked about through example. The night after we discussed some new protocol (found here), Sir and I went home to play (we’d been talking about BDSM for like, four hours, so… that was enough foreplay, take me home!). And we tried it all out, and for the most part, it was really great. Part of what attracts me to D/s dynamics* in the first place is the sense of place it gives me; the sense of purpose and the sense of belonging that is so clear, so focused on that person, that task, etc. And the protocol made it not only easier to fall into that space, but it made that space more clear and more constant. The consistency was incredible; how it built tension and built the dynamic between us, even when I was doing nothing, and (even more remarkable) when he was doing nothing. Just me kneeling at the foot of the bed, and his standing next to me; it involved our protocol in a constant and passive way, a way that I had to keep in mind (stay still, eyes down, etc) that wasso hot. And while that had been true before a little bit (I’m always a little in that space, when we play), it was so much clearer, and gave me so much more of a space to inhabit. Like many of the things we play with, I think the restriction gave me more freedom, more space to be (the ropes become something to fight against, the pain becomes something to move through, to move in etc…). It was amazing.
So, we played. And we played harder with the cane than we ever have before, which I’ve gotta say, is becoming one of my more favorite (and feared) toys that we have. It’s such an acute moment of pain, so specific, crisp, almost sickly sweet and sour in flavor, an overwhelming of that line across my ass or my thighs so that, for a second, that becomes the only body and the only skin I have. I can’t articulate this when I’m in the moment, so perhaps I’ll never really know, but it seems that, with the cane, each strike is so individualized (as opposed to with his hand, or with the flogger), that it’s almost a communication between us. Language through mutually consensual violence: Yes please, Sir!
The pattern of our playtime usually (but not always) goes something like: he does what he wants, beats the crap out of me, etc., for a while (of course, I want and like this too. When I talk about him doing things, or him choosing things, it’s just the nature of the game: him as dominant and me as submissive yields this division of agency; I love it, and he loves it too). Sexual touching and aspects of sexual turn-on come into things after a while. And it stays fairly violent all the way through (especially when there are clothespins involved… that moment, post-orgasm, of taking them off - that is… that is indescribably delicious). But we have some sex, and then usually, after he’s come, we wind down. I like it this way, and he likes it this way, although we’re beginning to explore more extended things (our play doesn’t usually last more than two or three hours).
And it was in the wind down, and in the aftercare, that the protocol began to feel restrictive (in a bad way. Bad restriction bad, good restriction good!). My experience of aftercare can be pretty volatile. I cry a lot. Cry maybe isn’t the word. I sob and weep and feel full, just full, of everything shameful and everything guilty and every self-loathing I’ve ever felt. He holds me, and doesn’t let go, and tells me I’m safe. In this this way, we work through it (and it’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful). It was hard for me, at first, to understand thatoffering this care to me was his own aftercare; I wanted to do more for him, I worried that he wasn’t getting enough of something, that I wasn’t doing enough for him. But we talked through it (like we do), and even on a simple level, I understand that caring for someone who you’ve just beat the crap out of can be very cathartic indeed. Anyway.
I was lying there, curled up against him, and the only thing I could think about was the fact I couldn’t call him by his real name. That I was supposed to call him only Sir, that there was a basic way that I identified him, in the real world we were both suddenly plunged into, that I couldn’t say. I found a way to check in, without necesarily breaking our protocol, in which I said his name (“can we still be [his name] and [my name]?” I asked him; he said yes, yes, of course yes, and kissed me. It was all better, in the moment). I knew that later we’d have time to talk about it, which we have. But this leads me to a little bit of why, I think, some aspects of protocol are so much easier than others.
I don’t want a 24/7, TPE relationship. That said, it gets me hot to think about a D/s dynamic in my everyday life, about a ritualistic practice of this part of myself (because more than anything, what I’m wading into reminds me of practice, of times I lived at Tassajara Zen Center. But maybe that’s another post). But I’m terrified, terrified, of losing myself to the dynamic. I don’t know how to be the bubbly, contrary, argumentative, intellectual, never-back-down-from-a-debate-ever person that I am, while within a D/s dynamic. The answer for that, to me, is the separate the worlds. And that works, except that it makes the transition between them fraught with a bit of peril, at times.
I think a lot of this anxiety comes from, believe it or not, issues I have in relationships that have nothing to do with BDSM. In the past, I’ve lost myself in relationships. Dropped my friends, dropped my hobbies, bent my life to another person’s schedule and preferences. Which might be part of the reason I like the formalization of the dynamic, but might also be why I’m scared to encorporate things into my everyday life. So maybe it does have something to do with BDSM. Well.
Anyway, back to protocol. Sir and I decided, after much discussion, that protocol during aftercare just doesn’t work for us at the moment. I’m not sure that he had a big problem with it, from his experience as it exists in a void, but he did have a big problem with how my experience went, and so did I, and so we’re adjusting. As for now, we’re not going to have any protocol during aftercare, and he or I can indicate that we’re done with aftercare by using the other’s honorific/diminutive in a distinct way. That sounds a little wishy-washy on the clarity side, but I think we’ll manage it. And it’s funny - sometimes I forget, and sometimes he forgets too, that when in doubt, we can just ask. That basic communication, even though we’re in this sort of… otherworldy headspace, doesn’t just go away. “Sir, I think I’m ready for to come up out of aftercare. How are you?” is a perfectly valid thing to say.
Back to the loosing myself fear, just for a minute, to wrap this up. I just finished re-reading The Bottoming Book, by Dossie Easton and Catherine A Liszt (although Liszt now goes by Janet W. Hardy, my copy has her listed by her former name. It’s a first printing, I think, and if not, it was published the first year the book came out, 1994. I love it dearly, for it’s zine-like binding, and also because… well, I’m a book nerd. Weird books get me hot). And there are few quotes that I think help streamline this conundrum a little bit.
From the section on San Francisco S/M, about roles and personas:
“A persona… is a term borrowed from Jungian psychology to describe a character, personality, or archetype that we might play, that might a role that you put on like a costume, or might be an expression of a particular part of yourself.”
And later on, in the introduction:
“Rule #1 of S/M: The rules don’t work every time.
Thinking with your head and your gonads. The reason we cannot make rules that will protect us every time, or tell where the boundary should be in every situation, is that the desires we play with are not rational. The desire you may have to be utterly bottom, ot be operated by and operated on by another, to be very small, to be owned - this desire is not reasonable.”
(bolding and italicizations are in the original text).
First of all, I think the use of the term “reasonable” in that second quote is meant to parallel the use of the word “rational,” and is in no way claiming that S/M desires are unreasonable (we’re reading from The Bottoming Book, after all).
Both of these ideas struck me as resonant, partly because I identify with them, and partly because I disagree with them. I think the personas that I work with, and the places that I go during play are nothing like a costume, and nothing like a get up. They feel much more like the later, and much more like a part of myself than like something external I’ve put on. They come from within. And that’s why, when I get to the point of the second quote, they become difficult to live with. Where these worlds intersect, during aftercare, when I look back on the hours I’ve just spent and the things I’ve just done, when I’m still in that space of myself that’s small, that’s owned; when all this is happening, and my rational and reasonable brain is also surfacing - it’s impossible. It becomes an impossible place to be.
And while the idea of bringing it more into my everyday life is hot, and appealing, and something I want, the action of the doing it also brings up this in-between more. And as a good daughter of two psychologists (one of them Jungian, no kidding) is want to do, I see a darker space, a harder space, and go deeper into it. I am compelled to explore and make intricate cartographies of that place. Doing that while, say, standing a starbucks; this isn’t so practical. Examination during experience doesn’t always work, especially when it comes up in the real world, reality-bashing-me-in-the-face kind of moment. So the answer for now, I think, is baby steps. Wade gently, wade carefully, wade with excitement and a great, cautious thrill into that good night.
* The next post here is going to be, I’m pretty sure, about a long converastion Sir and I had about the difference between the masochist/sadist dynamic we have, and the Dominant/submissive dynamic we’re currently building. It was fascinating, for me. So… that’s coming. For now, I’m assuming it. One over-intellectualized hot thing at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment