Context, Context, Context

Because the town we have recently moved to is very small (and very remote), I was, as Jamie promised, the "most qualified substitute teacher in town the moment [I] stepped off the plane." And I was excited about that; I've worked with kids a lot, although never taught them, and I was excited to learn new things, make a bit of money, feel more a part of the community, etc. etc.

Never did we think that I'd fill in for Jamie's class, though, because we figured that when he'd be out of town, I'd be out of town with him.

That was, until the computer lab needed fixing, and he was the only one to fix it. I stepped in, last minute (and did pretty well, especially considering all the students know we're a couple, and what a fun meandering minefield that was to navigate).

But never did I think I'd be writing about it here. That was, until I was up at the board, writing my name in front of twenty seventh graders, and a kid asked a question. To which I answered.

"Yup, I'm Mr. Jamie's sub."

Needless to say, nobody else got the little joke I had with myself there.

Kink Fest; The Quotes Post

I'll write a big 'ol missive on the event later, I'm sure, but for now, here are some favorite quotes from the last day and half. Heard in classes, around the festival, and in the dungeon (no names posted, because I don't have anyone's permission, or even what some of their names are). From hilarious to quippy to profound, perverts say it all.

[from a presenter, on people arriving to his class on time] "I appreciate your radical acceptance of the schedule." 

"We cannot have power exchange unless everybody has power to begin with." 

[on suffocating someone with your hands, and using different smells (wasabi, fish sauce, scat) to make breathing unpleasant] "Some people, when they smell certain smells - they stop breathing. They're like 'fuck you, fine' and just stop." 

"You, darling, might be an asshole" 

"I had a partner who identified as a human ferret." 

[on being asked to bottom in a double penetration rape scene by five new-ish tops, in a lecture given by the bottom on how to play with new tops] "I was laying there, after they'd tied me down on my back, while they were trying to figure out how to put it in. And I was just sort of waiting. And then I suggested, gently "Hey, maybe the problem is the position of the bottom..." They flipped me over and got right back in. It was awesome." 

"But I said 'Sir' at the end, so it was all okay." 

[from a very shy person, in a lecture on negotiation for shy people] "I wore a name tag that said 'My name is ___, wanna fuck?' It opened up a lot of doors."

More details later! Now: on to further adventures!

The Conflation Game

it's a pie chart! kink is the red. just 'cause.

I get pretty excited when kinky articles or posts pop up in non-kinky settings. Feminist blogs, or blogs of my friends, will occasionally feature kinky subject matter, and it puts my worlds together in a really great way. It's both that my sexuality feels less relegated to a dark corner of the internet, but also that it's somehow less pigeonholed, less quarantined (because even when kink isn't judged worse than... other aspects of being human, it's often very insular: people talk about kink in kink spaces, with kink people, and that's the only place it happens). Coming across it this way, it feels like part of a whole, an integrated whole, as opposed to a separate space.

I had a moment like this with a post by sex geek on feministing; the post is long, really long, but it does a good job of breaking down how the mainstream media talks about kink, and tackles a couple of recent and particularly egregious examples. One of my favorite of sex geek's points, and a thread throughout the post, is the conflation of kink and violence; or rather, the mainstream's choice to ignore how pivotal, and how essential, and what a cornerstone, and what-other-language-can-I-look-for-to-reinforce-this-point, consent is to the kink community (I've also written about this conflation before, from a more personal context, so I'm excited to see it getting discussed other places).

It's like the flour in bread, dudes; if you leave it out, you don't have "sorta kinda something like bread." You have water and yeast and sugar. Which is both gross, and very, very far from bread.

Kink in The NYT

Oh man! Guys guys guys guys guys!

There's an article about BDSM in the New York Times!

The New York Fucking Times!

And it doesn't totally suck! Yes, they sound like people talking about some strange breed of believed-extinct animal at certain points, and they mention That Book far too often, but still!

Plus, they've got comments in from Lee Harrington, which is just... icing on the cake.

The drippy, sweaty, perverted little cake.

(That's the second cake metaphor today... Maybe I need to bake more).

Anyway. Check it out, have opinions, but mostly, I think, just it's existence is pretty huge. We're not in Kansas anymore, kiddos. And fuck, what a big wide delicious world it is.

Kink Documentary (and James Franco)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Imagery of Kink

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I work in theater, and that I'm currently ASMing on a play that is very much up my alley, re: feminism, consent, kink, etc.

Because it's a new play (and because the rehearsals/reading are all under a workshop umbrella), I can't talk about specifics. But there is something that comes up in the play that... really challenged my riteoughness about kink and consent, I think. Or not challenged; maybe, put in perspective. Maybe.


There's an arc in the play involving a woman, in the attic of the house they live in. She's gagged, but not tied up, and debatably drugged. The details aren't important, but the debate we're having in rehearsals is, basically, whether or not it's consensual. And how that affects... a lot of things in the play. Choices characters make, what kind of people they are, what the play says as a whole.

The debate about whether the woman is there consensually (or if that's even possible, with the debatable drugs involved) isn't one I can tackle here. I mean, I could, but I don't think it's appropriate to go into the details of the play, as it's still a play in workshop. But the dramaturgy happening in the room; that is simple, and that is fascinating.

Dramaturges are the literary and research department of the development of the production (for more info, see the above link).  For a play in workshop/reading (which is what this is), they're another analytical voice in the room, as sometimes (as with our play), they bring a smattering of visuals pulled from the text of the play. For this play, those images include frat boys, frat houses, the anatomy of a cell, a pair of slippers, images of strippers and strip clubs, and, of course, images of bound women.

They're all pulled from metaphorical images, or actual events in the play.

We refer to it as our "wall of porn."

I didn't think much of it until a few days ago, when I was moving it between rehearsal spaces, and actually looked at the images of the bound women. There are two.

The first is a highly styalized photo, maybe even from a photoshoot with a professional model. The woman has a blindfold over her eyes, and a band of fabric around her nipples, pressing her breasts in so they bludge above and below. The shot cuts off just above her brow line, and just below her breasts. Both the blindfold and the band of fabric are muddied, but in a professional photoshoot kind of way. Her collar bones are promiment, her lips are full. We can't see her eyes.

The second is less professional looking. It's a full body shot of a woman in normal underwear, cuffed at the wrists and ankles, with chain running from the cuffs to the wall behind her. She's spread eagled, but standing, sort of almost smiling. It looks like it was taken for an instructional manual of some kind, like "this is a woman in leather and chain bondage, see illustration 2.43." It's well lit and simple.

The two photos couldn't be more different, but they have a couple of similarities that make them both problematic for the play.

1). They scream consensual.
2). They scream organized kink.

Scenario one is that, from a dramaturgical point of view, the woman in the play is there consensually, and there's some kind of kinky shit going on. If this were the case, then the play assumes a few things about kink: 1) that it's sort of like abuse, or is abuse, and 2) that it's okay to leave a bound person (or gagged person - it's never specified if she's bound or not) alone in a room for extended periods of time (or, at all, really).

Scenario two is that, from a dramaturgical point of view, the women in the play *isn't* there consensually, which brings us around to an even more problematic, albeit similar point. Namely, that consent doesn't matter in kink, and that the women in these pictures actually are representative of the woman in the play; that there is no difference between being tied up with consent, and being tied up without.

To put this all in perspective, I know that there was probably .02 seconds of thought put into these pictures, and that our wall of porn is mostly for comedic affect. The work of dramaturgy is not clip-art. But in a room where the subject of women, consent, gender relationships, and feminism are at the heart of what we're discussing, I think it's fascinating that we have obviously consenting, styalized women tacked up to a pin board in order to represent a woman who may or may not be stashed in an attic against her will. I think it says a lot about the split second assumptions we make about kinky imagery.

But I am, as always, an ASM. So I sit in the corner and keep my mouth shut. Would you like irony rare, or medium?

For the Love of Sex

I've been exhausting myself with feminism lately. I've been saddened and frustrated with how many arguments are uphill, how many points go unanswered or dismissed, how many times a day I feel the need to be feminism super-girl. I posted about it here (a new reddit group! And it's a lady safe space! Hell to the fuck yes!), and the chief advice they gave was: take a break, get off the internet.

Which I have intentions to do. Soon. But before that, I thought I'd get back to what this blog was supposed to (but maybe never was) about. Sex. Kinky, feministy, well-written sex.

It's basically porn. But I like it! And I think it's good for me to remember that there are really great, hot, sexy things in kink and feminism, and not just assholes and MRAs. Hell, this is the reason I got into this in the first place.

Without further adeui:


We're laying on the couch; he came over to comfort me, after a bad dream, I think. I'd woken up from a nap, startled, the way waking sometimes happens in daytime. We're pressing together, slanted towards the back of the couch, the weight of different parts of my body pressing on his body pressing on my body pressing on him. A big tangle of pressure.

Some days, I like this; cuddling, being sweet to each other. Some days, I love it. And some days, it pulls from this place in me that makes every touch, every breath, into another bet, another bump in the stakes. I tell him it's one of those days, leaning down to whisper in his ear, how I'm turned on, inexplicably, so fast after the jolted waking into the word. He pets my head, tells me to hush. It just makes me wetter.

His hand makes its way over my thigh, thrown over his torso, traces the skin up to the top and back down again, his palm flat against the inside, then the outside, then the inside again. Never quite stopping at the top, barely grazing the fine hairs there, waiting until I beg for it. Which I do. His hand finally stops, after I've asked nicely, sweetly, like a good girl should. He slaps my thigh open, displays me to the empty living room. His fingers make their way up, pressing on the outside of my swollen lips, just pressure. I hold my breath, look him in the face. He meets my eyes, examining, like a scientist would a specimen, the utmost objectivity, and slips one finger into the wet, the lightest pressure on my clit, slowly, so slowly, back and forth as we breath. He keeps looking. I pant, objectified, wetter by the second under his hand, his little object, his salivating, dripping play thing.

In one move he's up, standing above me; he snaps his fingers and point to the floor. I kneel there, as quick as instinct, watching his fingers shining with my slick, and then my eyes to the floor. I expect his cock in my mouth, but instead:

"Go get your collar." I scurry to the bedroom on all fours, swollen, feeling my lips rub against my clit with every step. I pull out the tiny drawer in the bedside table, and grab the collar with my teeth. I crawl back to him, in the kitchen now, and kneel again in front of him.

"Good girl." He tells me, and takes the leather out of my mouth, and lays it around my neck, the familiar weight, the familiar click as the padlock closes at the back.

He strokes my hair, reaches down, unzips his fly, and pulls out his cock. It's hard and big and the skin is soft in my mouth. He thrusts in and out, pushing down into the back of my throat. I gag and sputter, long lines of spit trailing out my mouth when he pulls all the way out, slapping my face with it, asking me if I want it, if I want to taste it. I nod, my mouth open, eyes beginning to well, gazing up at him. He stuffs me with it again, and again, and I loose track of the time and the thrusts. At some point, my dress comes down, my bra comes undone. My hair is falling out of it's pins and I'm a mess, disheveled, his fingers pinching each nipple, still pushing down my throat, pulling harder at my tits with each thrust, a mathematical calculation of the angels and momentum of pain.

"All fours. Now." He pushes my head away, and I flip over, hiking my skirt up, the entirety of my dress bunched around my middle, bare ass in the air. He runs a hand up the outside of my thigh, and I feel his cock resting on the small of my back. He slaps me, open palm, up the flank. Lightly, like testing a good horse.

"Touch yourself." His hands grip either side of me, fingers sinking into the flesh of my hips, and he teases my lips, still dripping, with with head of his cock. My fingers are furious and fast on my clit as he slips inside, fucking me slow at first, then faster and faster. Face in the linolium, hard points of cheekbone and shoulder against the floor with every thrust, I'm swelling for him. He slaps me, open palm still but harder, as he fucks me into the floor. He runs a finger down my back, resting the hand over my ass, the thumb pressing on my asshole, holding me like an animal, calculated and raw.

"Do you want to be a good girl?" His voice shakes with each thrust.
"Yes Sir."
"Be a good girl. Be my good girl."
"Yes Sir Yes Sir Yes Sir." I mumble into the floor.

He gets faster still, his hands digging in, hurting all the right places, all the right places wet and slick and on fire. And then, in a sudden movement, he pulls away. I feel a hot over my back, feel it land in my hair, a sticky mess.

I pause, collapsing a little.

"Did I tell you to stop?"
"No Sir." I start in on my clit again, right back to the edge again, but my hole is aching, empty. My fingers can hardly find it, I'm so wet.
"Go get the black toy. Don't stop touching yourself. Kneel on the bed."

I crawl to the bedroom and find the dildo, black silicone, and hold it in my mouth, one hand running circles between my legs the whole time. He walks in, stands in the corner, watching.

"Fuck yourself with it. Fuck yourself for me."

I spread my knees open wide, hold the toy underneath me, and slowly lower myself over it. It slips in, tight, up past the swollen, pink outside, and I'm riding it up and down, up and down, holding the base to the bed with one hand, flicking fast on my clit with the other. I'm moaning for him, trying to look at him, tearing up with shame, face flushing, every time I do. I'm cresting, close and desperate for it, filling up fast.

"May I come Sir, please Sir?" I look at him and falter, suddenly embarrassed, knowing that he's watching me, that he sees everything.
"Who do you come for?"
"You Sir." He walked towards me, takes the back of my head in his hands, pulls my hair down, making me look at him. I rub against his chest, riding still, eyes squeezed shut.
"Look at me."
I whimper.
"Look at me."
I open my eyes, my face shining with tears and spit.
"Yes, you may."


It comes out a gasp, and I'm crying, a hot mess of come and sweat, clothes hanging off me, his come down my back, tits bouncing against him, hands slipping between my legs, cunt grinding against the toy for all I'm worth, crying out and coming hard, Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Yes Sir.

I fall into him, and we collapse on the bed. I cry, and he pushes the hair back from my face, and we kiss.

"There's my good girl."
I smile at him, big relief smile, still crying. He wraps me up in his arms.
"Yes Sir."

My mother, part deux

My mom and I haven't always had the best relationship, but we're on pretty solid ground these days. I posted about her seeing my 302.83 tattoo here, and was surprised to get an e-mail on the same subject a few days ago. I think I like that, in our relationship as it is now, we can bring up and talk about awkward moments. But this is most in-depth I've ever gone with my mother about my sex life, kinky or not. And... well, it's a tad awkward.

Her first email was very sweet, actually. She's honest and open about how she feels about "my masochism," and asks "what that diagnosis means to you?" It was hesitant, if supportive, and I do appreciate her delicacy. As if she's acknowledging this as not only important to me, but a subject we both need to be careful talking about, with each other, lest it get... unnecessarily awkward.

It's refreshing, in a way, to have somebody I love who's so outside of my kink world actually ask about it. Actually want to know about it. As if she's saying "this freaks me out a little, but I love you, and I want to know about you." I feel really supported.

All of that said, I haven't actually talked about it much, and my mom, bless her heart, is trying to... identify, I think, a little too much. Here's a paragraph out of the second e-mail she sent me, after I'd replied to the first:

"I know talking about sex with your mom is tricky. I understand. I am curious but if not, I understand. Proud of masochism is hard to get my brain/heart around. I have always been sad about my own masochism and one of the reason I left your dad was because of his sadism(though not sexual). So, hope that is not saying too much. I don't take the word disorder very seriously...I am open...I am always interested in knowing you and love you much and... respect your privacy also. I value how much I learn from you too."

And I mean, wow, that's amazing. That's amazingly supportive and respectful, and yet true to her own feelings. That is an incredible response to get from a parent about kink.

We're using the terms "masochism" and "sadism" pretty differently, and that's where the over-identifying comes in. It makes me bristle in an automatic way, which is both an honest emotional response, as well as vaguely inappropriate, because I know she's saying what she's saying with really good intentions. Nonetheless, I end up wanting to stamp my feet and say "No, mom, YOU don't underSTAND!" Which is not to say that I don't think she will in the future, just that... well, take the sentence about masochism:

"I have always been sad about my own masochism."

I don't think we're talking about the same masochism. As for my father, he may have been violent and very angry at times (the jury's still out on that first one; I wrote my undergraduate thesis about it, actually), but he wasn't a sadist. My Dad didn't enjoy causing pain, and my Mom didn't enjoy experiencing pain. I think my Dad probably hurt my Mom, and my Mom probably endured a lot of pain in their marriage. But I wrote her back, and tried to clear it up a little, without being confrontational. As much as I have that initially bristled reaction, I know that's not where she's coming from.

So I explained, briefly:

"As for the other stuff, I'm not sure we're using the words "masochism" and "sadism" in the same way. As in, I don't think Dad is a sadist; not anywhere close. And I don't mean that as defensive - it never seemed to me that you were a masochist either. Causing hurt, being in hurtful relationships; that isn't Sadomasochism, by the definitions me and my community use. That's abuse, that's really terrible, but it's unrelated to what we do. 

By my definitions, masochism is enjoying pain, or wanting pain, reveling in the experience of pain, etc. Sadism is the enjoyment or desire to cause pain, reveling in the causing pain. Simply experiencing pain, or causing pain, don't qualify as masochism or sadism. And not all pain is enjoyable to me. Say, stubbing my toe? That's still a crappy experience. Burning myself on the oven while baking? Ouch, bummer. 

But other kinds of pain - and I don't know how specific you're comfortable with me getting (I'm good with talking about anything, but I want to be cautious of your boundaries - are wonderful. And, most of the time, pain is a turn-on for me. So... that's sort of an overview of what that 'diagnosis' means to me."

And I guess that's sort of it, for now. She's on vacation for a week, and I'm out of town after that, so we'll see where the conversation picks back up. But mostly, I think this post is meaning to say:

I talked to my mother about kink and it wasn't terrible!

Which is worthy a post all on it's own, I think.

abuse: a communal perspective (part deux)

Back to some of the initial questions this started out with. Namely, what to do with an instance of abuse in the frame of a larger community. Or rather, a friend of mine (now, a woman I'd consider a close friend of mine) is living and working in close proximity with an ex dom who abused her, and watching as he pursues other women, and what exactly do we do with that kind of complicated thing?

There's a great Pervocracy post on the legalities of this question, and I don't exactly want to get into those. I think important and relevant, but it's just not what I'm focusing on right now. So, read Cliff's thoughts about it if you like, she's amazing, as per usual.

The first reaction that I ever have to abuse, and abuse in communal situations, is that yes, of course, you should speak up about what happened to you. And at the end of this post, that's still going to be my perspective, I think. It's just a lot, a lot more complicated than that.

Talking to Hannah about what to do at the festival, and what to do in her local scene, she said something that hit me really hard, along the lines of: "I don't want to out him here, or to talk about the things he did to my friends here, because I feel like this is the place [the festival] where he comes to do the good he does in the world."

And I completely understand that, but I don't think it's enough. I hate that the questions of "what is enough," even comes up, because at the end of the day, I don't think that's the right question to ask. When a person does a bad thing, many, many times over, it doesn't exist on the side of some magical scale, one that can be balanced out by doing good. I also know that bad people do good things sometimes. I suppose, for me, it brings up the question of how many bad things, and how many bad instances of abuse, make a person "a bad person." Even typing the question, I sort of know the answer already: really, just the one. And it's not the one you think.

It comes down to a place of judgment. Faced with letting someone know about instances of abuse, like Hannah is faced with at the moment, you start to question your own judgement. Not the judgement you have of that person (because that's pretty clear for her, and it would be for me, I think), but how to use that judgement. Whether that judgement is enough to go out into the world and say "Hey, guess what, you need to know something about this guy." And again, it's a question that sort of answers itself.

There are, I know, two sides to every story. That said, if that story is anywhere near a reasonable misunderstanding, or an isolated instance of abuse, hearing both sides of it isn't going to be a problem for anyone. Meaning, the question of "should I tell?" holds in it the assumption that the other person, the abusing person, somehow isn't telling. And that's the one instance. The attitude someone takes towards their actions: this is what, for me, tells me their character, far more than their actions standing alone.*

*In some cases. Obviously, I couldn't give a fuck about what really abusive people think about their abuse. But I'm trying to wade into the middle ground here, where it's not so clear cut.

Because imagine a situation, the situation that always comes up in these debates, in which there's a dispute about whether or not a situation was abusive.* Partner A claims that they were mistreated; Partner B counters that Partner A was not, that Partner B was not abusive. What I think a lot of people miss here, and what I think is the catching-all for the accused-but-not-actually-guilty abusers, is the treatment of this conversation, both between the partners and in the community. Meaning, if there was an instance that was questionable, would the parties involved not talk about it? If no harm was meant, if there was simply a miscommunication, wouldn't it be resolved, even if it ended the relationship, as opposed to driving a divisive stake, and splitting a communities into factioned allegiances? Wouldn't it be at least an amiable, if not maybe tense and hurt and guilty, admittance by both parties that something, whatever that something was, did, in fact, happen?

*Note: a lot of the time, the BDSM community talks about dominants abusing submissives. Based on the nature of the game, I understand this. But it can definitely go both ways, so I'm trying to stay away from a language that assumes one way or the other.

Basically, what I'm saying is: an abuser who needs the abused party not to talk about it is clearly an abuser, no matter what they say. Were they not, there would be an explanation, I think. A conversation with new partners that said something like "Well, yes, we used to play together. This is what happened. These are the mistakes I made, and these are the mistakes my then-partner made. We couldn't come a resolution about it, and aren't together any longer. Here's what I learned from it." Etc.

What paints an abuser most clearly, I think, is the denial of past instances. The proof of the existence of abuse made obvious in the need to shroud it in some kind of secrecy. Which is why, I think, speaking up about abuse is never a question, because once you're in a place where the abuser themselves won't, it's clearly an instance where it needs to happen.

So. That's my happy logical conclusion. And I wish that it were ever that cut and dry. Sometimes, maybe, sometimes it is. But know there are more complex situations, and I know people are not emotionless robots of logic and reason. I also know false accusations exist. I don't really know what to do about those. I think that if we had a culture, in kink or anywhere else, that offered women (and yes, that's gender essentialist and stereotypical, but I'm going with statistics for ease of language, here) a better avenue for voicing their frustrations, and an equal footing from which to deal with this sort of thing, false accusations would go down a whole lot. But I don't have any answers.

In terms of the community, and what to do in a larger framework, I don't really think there's any answer but talk. Talk talk talk. Talk about it with your friends when you need support. Talk about it in a non-escalating, non-gossiping way. Talk about women who might encounter this man in the future, who might fall for what you fell for. Approach them, and say "Hey, I don't mean to butt into your business, and I recognize that you're an autonomous, adult being who is free to make their own choices. But I just wanted to offer a thought about that guy who's been flirting with you. I've had some bad experiences with him. Really bad, actually. It may be that that's not the case with you, and I'm not trying to smear his name. He may have changed, and things may absolutely be different with the two of you. But I wish some of the women he'd hurt before me had let me know, so I'm trying to pass it forward."

I really, really don't see anything wrong with that. Because say that new woman, the new partner, the warned one, then takes that information to her possible-flirting-partner. If everything was hunky dory, or if he's grown a bunch since then, or whatever, then he can tell her that. They can talk about it in an open and honest way. If he hasn't, then... well, then I think it sort of proves it's own point, right?

I just don't see another way to be a self-governing community. I don't see another way to keep the scene safer. Reputation can be a strange thing, full of rumor mill and misinformation. But it can also be a great thing, full of recommendations and positive experiences. I don't think having a reputation is a bad thing. I think that hiding what your reputation might be... well, if it might be so terrible, that's all I needed to know.

abuse: a personal perspective (part un)

This is part one of two. Two's already started, so it'll be up later today. If your read this (there are like, three of you? Which is awesome! Hi handful of people! Thank you thank you!), keep in mind there's a second part on it's way shortly.

There's an argument that comes up every few months on the BDSM community subreddit that I'm a part of (it's here, and also in the resources section). It's a debate that I'm sure comes up in lots of kink communities, online or not. It usually starts with a question or a story about a bad experience during play with a particular person, and then the community continues to discuss abuse, abuse and BDSM, and what the appropriate course of action is when it happens. What is abuse? Is it more likely here than elsewhere? Who do you tell? Who do you not tell? Who's place is it to talk about? What responsibilities do you, as the experiencing-of-this-bad-thing person, have to tell and/or to not tell? Where does accountability stop and the rumor mill start? How do we as a community treat reputation, and the idea of reputation?

It's an interesting argument, and one I've participated in before on an... intellectual basis, I suppose. But I had a conversation this weekend that brought it a little closer to home. And I don't think my views have changed, but they've certainly gotten much clearer.

I work for a festival each summer, a big hippie party in the woods. And although I'd known this woman in years prior, we had a kink-recognition moment this winter that was pretty great. "Wait, did I see you at kink fest?" "Wait, you went to kink fest?" "Wait, yay!" "Oh man, yay yay!" The conversation devolved (or evolved?) pretty quickly into techniques and rope preferences, and I was happy to find a kinky friend in this other part of my life.

But, as I said, that sort of changed this weekend (not the friend part; the knowing her better part. As in, I got to). We were walking around the grounds of the festival, taking a break from working, and we headed towards a part of the grounds where her ex hung around sometimes. And Hannah (not her real name, but various places on the internet have told me it means "grace," or "beauty," or "passion," all of which this woman is) couldn't keep going. And her kids went ahead with another friend of ours, and we hung back to talk. She told me about him, this man, who'd been the first person to introduce her to BDSM. This man who had two sides to him, one that was sweet and benevolent and caring, all of which she learned quickly was a pile of crap. This man who was emotionally abusive. This man who, over the years they were together, took that emotional and psychological abuse to the physical place. This man who lied about his STD status. This man who eventually choked her out without her permission, who hit her in nonconsensual ways, who manipulated abuse under the guise of BDSM. This man who ignored her safeword. This man who raped her, and who she knows from her own experience and those of others, is a fairly terrible partner. This man who puts up a very good front. This man who, she's learned in the last year, has done this other women before. This man who, she's probably sure, will do this to other women again.

I'm not going to go into a lot of specifics (I have her permission to talk about it here, but they're just not needed). We hugged, and she cried, and I cried with her. I cried for a lot of reasons, and then I drove the two hours home and did a lot of thinking.

I usually hate it when the "How is BDSM like abuse?" questions comes up, because I see (and much of the BDSM community sees) little to no link between abusive (read: actually abusive) relationships, and what we do in kink. But in this sort of situation, the question seems relevant. It has very little to do with healthy kinky relationships, I think, and more to do with the physical action of what we do and its proximity to what actual abuse looks like.

Physical abuse, in non-kinky relationships, is usually distinct. As in, the physical language between partners doesn't usually involve pain, either giving or receiving. In kink, that changes. And the line between "ow, that amazing, ow yes please thank you Sir," and "ow, stop, ow, safeword, ow, red," becomes a matter of consent, and a matter of enjoyment. I like this about kink; I like that there is no action that is okay, even if the person didn't like it (read: "Well, I mean, I was kissing her, I thought she liked it;" as opposed to "Well, I was hitting her, I thought she liked it." You've got to be much more explicit about one than the other). In this way, it's not so different from the non-kink world (or rather, not so different than I'd like to think the Whole Big World could be, one day). As in, anything without consent becomes exactly that: nonconsensual, abuse, sexual assault, and rape. Doesn't matter what the initial physical interaction was; now, it's the not the same. Not even in the same universe.

Those last two paragraphs are meant to acknowledge, and then put aside, the idea that abuse is easier in BDSM relationships. I understand where that idea can come from, but I don't agree with it. If anything, the kink community is more of consent-culture oriented community than the Outside World. But I do understand how it could look that way. To those people, I say: look harder.

I've never been in a abusive relationship, kinky or otherwise, so I'm not speaking from personal experience. But hearing about the psychological and emotional abuse that happened to Hannah hit me just as hard as hearing about the physical assaults. I don't want to set up a kinky vs. non-kinky dichotomy here, but I imagine they were harder for her than might be for other people involved in non-kinky relationships. Not to say that abuse isn't hard, and terrible, in any situation. But I've found, in my friends and in my relationships, that kink often has a great deal of trust and open communication involved, much more so than many non-kinky relationships I've been involved in. So maybe it's wrong to say that abuse is worse in kink, and more correct to say abuse is harder in relationships built on trust and vulnerability. Again, it goes back to the consent-culture idea; one is more aware, because the things we play with require it, than the other. And with kink, the trust involved can relate directly to trusting someone physically, with your body, and emotionally, with your vulnerability, in a very direct way. In kink, when I play, I offer up the smallest, most defenseless parts of myself, and I ask my partner to hold them, to play with them. I do this because it's fun for me; I do this because it's fun for him; he does it for similar reasons. But there is risk, physical and emotional, that I don't think is as often encountered in non-kink relationships, simply because there's not an interest. Do I think all non-kinky relationships are trivial and trust-less? Not at all. I just think it isn't as often confronted as directly as it is in kink.

Brief caveat: I'm not talking simply about play, or play parties, or casual kink encounters, if you will. I'm talking about emotionally involved kinky relationships. Just... a note about seriousness, I suppose.

What I'm trying to say (and I'm saying that a lot in this post.. maybe it's a difficult subject? It's a muddled post, that's for sure) is that BDSM abuse can hit much closer to home, particularly because of that line that exists, because the materials we play with (emotional, physical, psychological) are closer to the materials of abuse than, say, a non-kink relationship. To this point, Hannah spoke to me about how confusing her physical reactions were when this would happen. How her body didn't understand, that these were her partner's hands, that these were actions they'd played with in a happy way so many times, suddenly turned sinister. How hard it was to feel that, and all of the fear and betrayal and panic, and how lost it left her. And when you're turned on by pain, like I am, like she is, it's really, really hard when your body thinks Bad Pain is Good Pain. A mixed message from beneath your skin. When she told about this, that's when I cried with her.

And on top of everything, she's confronted with him. In communal situations, like this festival, like the local BDSM scene. And there stands the question of what, exactly, she should do about it.

Back in a bit with ruminations on that question, and more.

Wanting and Needing and This Little Depression Thing

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I differentiate between "want" and "need" in terms of relationships. In most cases, they're specific to BDSM relationships, but I think it's really sort of all romantic relationships. I'll get around to how this relates to depression (or Big D Depression? I'm not sure what the difference is there, or why I feel the need to point one out...).

I don't think I "need" a partner, or that I "need" my current partner, but that's a sort of pretty obvious one. I'd survive; I'd continue to eat and sleep and work and write and have orgasms and call my mother and pay bills and blog, if he left. I'd be really sad for a while. Probably a long while. But I wouldn't cease to function as a human being.

And yet I'm really careful of that word and how it relates to romantic relationships, and it really scares me when other people use it. I think where I differentiate between what I'd deem a healthy, non-squicky independent relationship, and what I'd deem a get-yourself-a-less-codependent-perspective-and-outta-there relationship; I think I'd define it without such a split infinitive, like: the difference is in how you're able to feel happy.

So, it's not live or die, it's not survive or not survive. It's your ability to be content, to be normal, to be happy, whatever you want to call it - all on your own.

I say that like it's an easy thing. And although I don't think I'm clinically big-D Depressed, I know, and have felt acutely, how not-easy a thing that can be. Mostly, it manifests as the Everything Thing (basically, the world coming down around your head and everything being not good enough all at once. Ze Frank explains it better; the link is to his show on the Everything Thing. He's great - not kink related at all, but really great). So I don't mean to brush it off (see also: Chase That Happy, which sometimes works, although sometimes the Everything Thing is too big for Chasing Teh Happy).

What kink does for me, I think, isn't dissimilar to what cutting used to do for me, although I think it does it in a healthier way, and to a much better extent. And maybe that's even taking it too far; I think they're not the same, but that maybe my desire for them comes from a similar place. I think kink lets me have a place where I'm allowed to feel pain, allowed to feel bad, allowed to feel shame and humiliation, allowed to cry and scream and rage. And all that gets lifted away, all the bad gets gutted out, and at the end, I'm clearer. I think clearer, I think faster and sharper, I'm calmer emotionally, and I chase my own happy better.

Would I find other places were I not in a kinky relationship to do this? Sure. I try to anyway; when I'm sad, or feeling the Everything Thing (which is really a better word than "sad," a more accurate word, anyway), I try to honor that, and sit with that, and let myself feel it as much as I feel it. There's always a little guilt (or a lot of guilt), and some pressure that I shouldn't be wallowing,* but I get there. Kink is a different way to get there, I think. They're not interchangeable, in any quantities, they just... sometimes seem to fit in some of the same holes (no sexy puns intended).

*I know that I sometimes wallow, but really, I hate that word. Like feeling anything just for the sake of feeling it is a bad thing. I know sometimes I can wallow; that I need a kick in the butt to let things go, but I don't think that's nearly as much of the time, for most people, as those most people think it is. Feelings are feelings. Honor them, let them take their time. They're going to cause way more problems if you don't.

So I guess what I mean when I say you shouldn't "need" anyone is that I think you (the proverbial, royal you) should be a whole person all by yourself. And that doesn't mean you can't be a better person with the right partner, or partners. That doesn't mean other people can't bring out the better parts in you (because obviously, people do this, even people you're not in relationships with). It doesn't mean you can't want someone really, really bad, or really a lot, and it doesn't mean that picturing your life without them should be some cheery happy thing.

It just means you should be a whole person. And that's enough of a not-easy thing all on it's own, so good for anybody (me, maybe?) even trying.

My Mother

...is a psychologist. A very good one. A very well-studied one, as it turns out.

Mom: Hey, is that a new tattoo?
Me: Oh, uh, yeah.
Mom: When did you get it?
Me: In Ireland, in Belfast, actually. [Partner's name] too.
Mom: Huh. Is it... it looks like a DSM-IV number...
Me: Yup.
Mom: Oh! Cool! Oh... which one?
Me: Well...

(crickets...)


Me: You really want to know?
Mom: Yeah. Sure...
Me: It's the code for sexual masochism.

(crickets...).




So. That's done, I guess.

taking off the collar

Sir and I never did a formal collaring ceremony, but I do have a collar. We have a collar. Or rather, who's collar it is and what kind of possessive pronouns to use for it is another post altogether, so: there is a collar. He puts it on for me, takes it off for me, I wear it. I made a protocol post a while back that explains a little bit about how it functions for us as defining space, as defining play.

It's also a pretty powerful symbol, for me. It makes me feel safe, contained, acts as an undeniable marker of Sir and I's relationship, of this part of myself as strong and excellent and right, a stop gap for all of the doubts and insecurities that inevitably come; I look in the mirror, and there it is, a strip of black and red leather with a hard metal lock: quiet brain, quiet worries, quiet, you've no place here right now. Sometimes, especially recently (we've hit a bit of a rough spot; not huge, but it's been hard. Again, another post), I've been wearing the collar just to bed, with no play beforehand. And even if there were play beforehand, the result is the same: I go to bed, wrapped up in this gorgeous part of myself that feels honored, cherished, and as always, full of dirty, dirty thoughts. I go to bed feeling whole and effervescent about all sorts of things, and not just the kinky parts either, as if feeling solid in this part of my life allows a certain perspective and confidence for other parts of my life.

And them morning comes, as it inevitably does. We do the coffee shuffle and the getting dressed shuffle and somewhere in there, the collar comes off. He usually has to be the one to remind me. He holds his keys in his hand, the smallest, silver and rounded at the base, pinched between his fingers. I kneel, or bury my head in his chest, exposing the back of my neck and curling my hair out of the way in gentle fists. He unlocks, a click, and hands it back to me.

The moment the leather leaves my neck, there's a rush.*

*The language here is getting flowery, but it's not meant to overdramatize; rather, I'm grasping at something I don't fully understand, and in that grasping, I'm talking around it a lot.

The rush is dazing and a little bit sad. Sometimes I cry, and usually I get pretty spacey for a few minutes. I don't know if it's me ascribing more worth to that collar than is strictly necessary, or if it's just how much I love, really love, being in that place. Being there with Sir, it's such a relief, a long breath of stale air out, and I can swim in the fresh, contended with pretty much everything, for a while.

This is starting to sound like the rest of my life, when I'm not collared, is riddled with anxiety and hopelessness. It's also starting to sound like every moment I'm collared is perfect; neither of these things are true. But put those opposites on a spectrum, and the gradient below them is about right. It's not as absolutist as I'm putting it, but there are marked trends.

Which is maybe what's scary, in part, about taking my collar off, and how much I feel in that moment. How much my "real life," (whatever that means) is unappealing, and how much my "kink life" is better. What does that mean, that I need this thing, to be okay? What does it say that, after a while of not playing, I sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) get antsy and anxious and weird? What does Sir think of all this, and will it scare him, and is it too intense, too serious-about-kink? Can I also be playful, bratty, and funny about my kink? And why can't I just drop the whole thing, be normal, be content during kinky times, during collared times, and during regular times.*

*like right now, for instance, sitting at work. Yes, I'm blogging at work. As a great latex-maker said on his blog: "This blog isn't safe for work, unless your work is AWESOME." And while I'm not sure my boss would exactly approve of this blog, my work is pretty awesome).

When Sir takes my collar off, there's very little I can do to keep from missing myself. Not missing as in, not-seeing, but missing as in longing-for. Like, there's this part of myself that I'm so comfortable with, when I'm collared, and I don't know how to carry that part of myself into everyday life. It's that split again, that meandering divide between a kinky self and a "regular" self that, even as I try to challenge its squirmy, icky division, pops up again and again.

There was a morning, a while back, when we just forgot to take it off. I was wearing a sweater with a high neck, and I think we just didn't notice it as we left the house. When we got in the truck, Sir caught a glance, and we laughed and remarked what would have happened if we'd both missed it until we got to work. I sat in the cab, and he leaned across the mountains of sound gear and coffee cups and unlocked me. But those moments before, I can't imagine I'd been happier about a day beginning in a long time. I don't actually remember, and I didn't know I was still wearing the collar, but there was no letting go, no missing, none of that part of me slipping away. There was no mourning. Because that's what it feels like; not as much, and I'd never make a comparison, but it feels a distant kin to that kind of grief.

Who knows. Maybe that morning was the same as always.

I've been talking to a friend at work (did I mention yet that my work is really cool?) who's an incredible craftsman and jewelry designer about making a formal collar (her work can be found here). Fancier, but also more subtle, one I could wear as a necklace and/or to balls or leather dinners or what have you.

And I'm excited about that, but I think it's also important for me to remember that I don't need the collar. That the collar, whatever collar, is a symbol. That what's actually going away is a certain unity; what I actually need to work on is keeping that partition down, or questioning the partition's existence in the first place.

So, now that I've said the same thing about five different ways, I think it's back to work with me.

Happily bruised, as always,

The Good Girl

baby's first kink: part deux

I wrote about the first time I remember feeling kinky a little while ago here. It's "part un" of the firsts, because I've got a lot of kink firsts (and will continue to have, I think). Lots of beginnings and new discoveries and revelations. Which sounds a little culty, but it's true, and part of why I continue to love this life as much as I do.

I was a wee lass when I started to like heretofore learned-as "kinky things," but I was almost twenty before I first experienced anything In Real Life, as they say. Like a lot of things I learned as a teenager, the first time wasn't exactly the safest, or most thought out, and I didn't use that fantastic "sense of judgment" my parents regularly boast about. With a lot of things, that doesn't matter as much (smoking pot, for instance. Oh no, I got to stoned! Oh... well, I won't do that again... and in the meantime, I'm going to find some oreos...*); with kink, I think it matters more. I wouldn't trade the way I got here for anything, I think my first foray could have been afforded a little more planning, and some better communication. But that's the not the point of this, really. The point it to tell a (maybe sort of sexy and interesting) story.

*I recognize that this situation could go bad for many people; what I'm trying to stress here is not that other gone-bad experiences can't be as dangerous or destructive as kink-gone-bad; rather, I think that kink, because of the nature of the things it plays with, has a greater possibility to go bad. Like, juggling with bowling pins or juggling with flaming bowling pins; both can hurt, but one begs more caution at the outset than the other.

I was a sophomore in college, sexually active since I was fifteen, and having bunches and bunches of fun. Before my encounter with Jeffry*, I'd slept with men and women, and significantly older men on occasion. I hadn't really been in any kind of serious or long term relationships, save for a very complicated off-again on-again situation with a boy back home. We'd continue to be off-again on-again who-knows-again for many years after, but that's neither here nor there.

* This isn't his real name. Nobody's name here is real, which is actually sort of fun. I get to pick names that sound right, or feel right, for people I know. I just have to extra careful not to refer to them that way In Real Life.

Jeffry was in my drama-lit class. He was six four, broad shoulders, teeth like a horse and big broad eyebrows. He wasn't particularly smart, but he had a serious sense of stage presence and honed flirtation skills. So much so that I found him sort of preposterous and fake at times, but initially, managed to gloss over those minor details. Because that's what you do when you're smitten with someone; the haze of a crush, while softening the edges to perfection, can impair visibility something awful.

Jeffry and I flirted, and sat next to each other in class. I'd rip his arguments apart, and he'd try to convince me "what I really meant was..." after class. Being the impetuous, fiery lady I am (others' words, not mine), my masochistic/submissive curiosities came up conversation, and rather than discuss them, Jeffry's flirtation just sort of... shifted. Like, he'd grab my arm and hold it in place when he wanted to make a point. Or he'd make jokes about me "liking it," standing straight and tall behind me with a hand pinching my shoulder.

And so he and his girlfriend had been fighting, and we'd been talking more and more, and late one night there came the phone call. I remember being in the sort of knowing-but-not-knowing-what-was-going-to-happen place that makes new things so exciting. That perfect balance of probability and uncertainty that allows hope to flourish and adds a pinch of nervous butterflies; the lack of a sure thing allowing for a kind of fearlessness, coupled with anticipation, that tastes so sweet. I sat on the balcony of my dorm room and watched for him. He walked across the fields below, long steps, wearing what he always wore at night: a long trench coat with big buckles and a wide brimmed black hat. Which should have been a tip off from the start.

He cried on my lap when he got there. Cried about his relationship ending, cried about having feelings for me and not being able to do anything about them. We talked and talked and it got later and later, breaching almost to the point where it isn't so much very late anymore, but moderately early. And then he took me by the waist and kissed me. He kissed like a slobbery dog, the kind you love a lot; not unpleasant, but his mouth seemed to big for mine, and there was a lot of spit. I honestly can't remember what it was like, the actual physical, sexual aspects of that night. I was swept up in what I know now to be the kinkier aspects of what was going on, and I didn't so much care what he kissed like.

He didn't ask my permission (consent was there; I was enthusiastic, but there was none of the hesitant, careful touching I'd encountered with boys in the past). He ripped my skirt, covered my mouth with his hand, and, in my single dorm bed, rested the weight of his whole body on top of mine. I felt used, dominated, like I couldn't speak or resist, like I wasn't allowed to breath even, all in the best way. But as it turns out, his mouth wasn't the only thing that was a bit big (that part, I do remember). It hurt when he fucked me, and not for lack of lubrication, but because he was painfully large. It felt like something was tearing, like a burning, and I cried a little. At the time, I remember thinking "I don't like this, but I'm supposed to like this, I'm supposed to like pain, and we've talked about me liking pain, and I can't just stop things in the middle, and..." He asked, towards the end, "are you ready?" and I nodded as best I could, although I had no idea what he meant. In retrospect, it might have been "are you ready to come?" or "are you ready for me to come?" but regardless, come he did, and then it was over. I felt relief when he pulled out, and feel asleep shortly afterward.

Let me be clear: yes, it hurt, and yes, I should have said something, but I didn't ever want him to stop. This is a story about the growing pains of me finding my kinky self, not a story about sexual assault. That's not what it was, for me anyway (and in this case, I think it's me who matters).

He stayed the night in my dorm room, and left early in the morning. I remember waking up and wanting nothing but for him to leave. He stayed and cuddled me for a while, but I just wanted space; I wanted my space back. I think that had less to do with the kink, and more to do with the fact that I actually didn't like Jeffry that much. He walked back across the fields; I didn't watch, and went to breakfast by myself.

We slept together once more after that night, after a dance party in the student union. We walked down into the canyon, below the foot bridge covered in blue lights, called (surprise) the Blue Bridge. Under that Blue Bridge, in full view of those walking by (had they cared to look), Jeffry bent me over a picnic table and fucked me again. He pulled my hair and slapped me hard. He forced me to my knees, in the dirt, and pushed himself far back into my throat. And, again, I loved it.

I realize that there were a lot things that weren't so great about these, but I want to be absolutely clear - both encounters were consensual, and while I was learning my way through my own communication skills, I don't think Jeffry should have done anything differently, and I don't think (really) that I should have done anything differently. When I talk about not liking things, or wanting things to stop, it isn't meant in the "I felt like I couldn't speak up and felt like my consent was violated," or anything like that. I'm fairly certain I'm not apologizing for it after the fact here, either. I really do think I was trying to figure out what I wanted, and how I wanted it. I was learning through mistakes, which is definitely okay in my book.

And I did learn. I learned that I don't like genital pain, that I do like whispered questions or commands in my ear. I learned that I like that feeling of having my permission taken away (or rather, I like power exchange, and giving my power freely to someone else, which is what "permission taken away" is called in the language I have now). I learned that I like a person's full weight thrown upon me. I also learned, over time, that those things can feel even more awesome when I talk about them and negotiate them with my partner beforehand. That stopping a scene sucks, because I don't get to experience that scene, but it's way better than continuing with a scene I'm not comfortable in. I also learned I like the thrill of being found out, the feeling of other people watching, the scrape of wood splinters under my hands, the cut of pine needles against my knees and the stain of dirt smeared there afterward.

So, my first time around with kink wasn't the best, but looking back, none of my sex was very good back then. I never came, but more than that, I rarely experienced much pleasure. Sex was more about being vulnerable with someone, being naked with someone, and I liked penetration for other reasons, for the feeling of being taken, being used. You might even say that before I got sexual pleasure out of the act of sex, I got some of the kinky pleasure I couldn't find anywhere else.

Nowadays, the sex I have is on a different planet. I know I don't like that kind of pain, and that I can communicated with my partner. More so than this, the kinky parts of my life are about way more than sex, which is where they've always been from the get go.

After we'd slept together a few times, Jeffry confessed to me that he and his girlfriend hadn't ever broken up, and that I'd been fulfilling, unbeknownst to me, the "other women" role. We stopped sleeping together, and he told his girlfriend about everything that happened. At which point she broke off her engagement and wrote me an e-mail, after which Jeffry admitted that, prior to our little tryst, his girlfriend had in fact also been his fiance.

So that ended really fast, and post home-wrecker drama ensued. His ex and I actually bonded a bit (not at first - she was pretty mad), but after a while, he got the icy end of the stick from both of us. I moved on to other things, and we all lost touch.

So. What was the point of this again? Besides a story about kink? Maybe that, like anything you learn when you're young, kink has it's hiccups along the way. My hiccups were relatively mild, but I think I was lucky more than anything. Here's to better-negotiated picnic benches in the future.

The Perils of Cohabitation

Sir and I moved in together! And it's going really great. But the title here is a little misleading; the perils mentioned above actually refer to my roommate, let's call her Cindy, and not my newly co-habitating partner. Dominant. Boyfriend. Sir. (I really like all the names for him).

Cindy and I have lived together before, and she's an up-and-up kind of girl. She knew, before we went apartment searching together, that I was kinky, and that the sex would sound like... well, like kinky sex. I make it a point, whenever I can, to talk to people about this beforehand; it's not a show-off thing; it's a consideration thing. I'd do the same if I were... I don't know, grossly flatulent, and thought my gaseous passages would echo through walls into the sleeping space of a future roommate. It's common decency.

Sir and I haven't been officially "living together" until about a week ago, but he's stayed over a bunch in the months Cindy and I have lived together. And we'd joke about playtime, in the mornings after, and she'd giggle about noises she'd overheard. Our apartment isn't particularly small or particularly poorly built, but it's still an apartment, and a certain amount of noise bleed is unavoidable.

We've tried to be conscientious about playing - like anything that makes noise, we try not to do it late at night when she's home (and she's a bartender, so there are plenty of late nights when she's not home, which works well). We live on the second floor, so the late-at-night thing is also for our downstairs neighbors. Nonetheless, I secretly hope that the bedroom below us is actually a converted office or workroom, simply because sometimes, with all our efforts, I'm sure it would bother someone trying to sleep.

Cindy has never been rude about our sexual preferences, and she is, generally, supportive (although her support comes with sort of backhanded language sometimes - see below). She also has no problem speaking up for herself, a quality I value in a roommate. Which is why I think I'm having some trouble with a conversation we had last night. It went something like this:

Cindy comes home.

Me: Hey! How's your night lady?
Cindy: Good! Good. (snuggles with cat on the floor)
(pause)
Cindy: Hey, so, I love your face a lot, but...
Me: Yeah?
Cindy: Whatever you guys were doing last night, you can't do that when I'm home.
Me: Um, okay.
Cindy: And I mean, it's not even just me. You can't do that when people are home. In the building. I mean, it's not just that it's really horrible to fall asleep to. I was waiting for somebody, or the cops, to come knock on the door, and trying to think about what I would say when I answered.
Me: Hey, it's no problem if it makes you uncomfortable. We can absolutely keep it down when you're home. And you don't ever have to answer the door - I've thought about that a lot, actually, and we'd answer the door together, no problem.
Cindy: Okay, sure. And I mean, I'm totally down with whatever you guys wanna do in there - if it's your thing, go for it, do what you do. But I'm just saying, when [insert Sir's name here] is playing the guitar in the living room, and I can hear it when I go check the mail, that's... noise travels, you know.
Me: Sure. And I've got no problem keeping it down when you're home. Thanks for letting me know.
Cindy: Yeah, and really, do what you do, it's just... you can't do that when people are home. I mean, it was like... sounds of ritual slaughter in there (giggles).

Anyway, you get the idea. Our back and forth banter about issues (roommate issues) goes sort of like this. She asks something very directly, and then I tell her what I think about it (usually, that it's totally cool - her requests are fairly reasonable), and then she proceeds to explain many times, in many different ways, it's justification and why it's important to her. Which, if we were arguing, might be productive. Except that we rarely disagree, so it just sort of cycles until she runs herself out of things to say.

It's starting to sound like I don't like Cindy, which isn't true. I like her a lot, and she's a great roommate in a lot of ways. She just has very... particular things about her, which most of the time are funny, and in this case, ended up hurting more than I initially thought.

Partly, it's her language. The way she always frames talking about our play in this sort of "I am supportive, of that thing, of that big freaky thing you're doing look I am supportive." As if the staunchness of her support is proportional to how freaky the thing is that she's supporting. But that's never really bothered me much. Her coming home and telling me, first thing, flat out, that I "can't" do something? That's not okay. Again, it's mostly her language, which is why I didn't have a big problem with the conversation at the time. I know that, although she's framing it in a really condescending way, what she's trying to say is "Hey, this thing made me uncomfortable, and made it hard for me to sleep. Think next time you could keep it down a little more?"

But how she said it really stung. In a few different ways. It stung because (and she does this, from time to time) she was trying to tell me what I should do, not based on her experience, but based on the plausible experience of other people. She was trying to tell me, based on the rules of arbitrary propriety of the neighbors, that I should be secretive about what I'm doing. I would have no problem with a neighbor coming to knock on my door, and telling me that either a) we were too loud, or b) that even though we weren't too loud, the kinds of noises we were making were unsettling or uncomfortable for them to hear. I honor that. I honor that sounds of violence and pain aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that many people have very personal reasons for not wanting to hear them. But the way that Cindy said what she said left me feeling very ashamed of what I do in my own bedroom, which is just... a really terrible thing to feel.

What I don't honor is somebody telling me that I should bend to these peoples, up to the point un-stated, preferences. There is nothing I can or cannot do based on someone's opinion who I've seen passing in the hallway; I don't think we're ever louder than a boombox, and I don't think expecting a neighbor to deal with that level of noise, at a reasonable hour, is that unreasonable. But most of all, I don't think Cindy has any place, at all, telling me to change my judgments of a situation based on her own. I think that's rude, oppressive, and smotherly motherly in all the bad ways.

There might be a little bit of masking going on. And I'm not trying to pop-psychologize (although maybe I am trying to make myself feel better about this by casting it in a different light), but I think Cindy might be a little shaky on telling me that noises were disturbing to her, so she's using out neighbors as a front. Or maybe she's a little embarrassed about interacting with our neighbors because she lives with me, and because the sounds also come from her apartment - again, this is totally valid. I have no issues with the motivations that come from Cindy, I just have issues with her prescribing other people's values (that don't actually exist yet) onto me.

To get meta for a minute: I also think part of the problem I have with what happened because of the way I responded. Or rather, the way I feel about the way I responded. I cut Cindy a lot of slack because I know her, and I like her a lot, but at the heart of it, I'm shaken and a little bothered when I don't stand up for myself; when I don't walk the walk, as it were. I've thought about talking to her about it, but I'm just not sure it's worth the heartache, or the cyclical conversation if would yield. So, there's me feeling not only hurt, but a little disappointed with myself.

At the end of the night, it really is just that I'm hurt. Kink is something I'm really proud of, that I really like about myself, but sometimes it's hard when the people closest to me use words like "animal slaughter," in a dismissive tone, with a laugh, to describe something that's a really integral part of my sexuality. Hell, of my identity in general. So, despite all of my strength, and all of my knowledge and reading about this, I end up feeling like a freak.

Sir and I went out for a cigarette before bed, after this happened, and I talked with him about it, which helped. I told him that I have thought about the neighbors, a lot, and about what I would do if someone came to the door. I looked him in the face, into his sleepy eyes (he'd worked something like a fourteen hour day that day), and told him that if someone, cops or otherwise, rang our bell, I'd open the door wearing my collar and holding his hand, and I'd tell them to kindly fuck off. Not in so many words (or maybe, depending), but that's the sentiment. I have to remember to hold onto that; remember that this is part of who I am, a part that I like. Ritual slaughter nay sayers be damned.

the way you do the (submissive) things you do

The last couple of days have been rough. For a lot of reasons, not all of them kinky, but not all of them not kinky (I’ll take double negatives for 400, Alex). I didn’t start this blog for the purpose of making-me-feel-better writing, but maybe part of what’s making me feel bad would be interesting to other people. Maybe I’m just cheating. Who knows.

I’ve been reading “The Ultimate Guide to Kink” over the last fews days, and it has some really amazing essays in it. I’ve been sleeping in my collar most nights, walking with Sir arm in arm in the specified ways our everyday protocol offers (but doesn’t demand - it’s a voluntary expression from either of us). I’ve been reading first book in the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by Anne Rice. Sir and I have played a couple times over the last few days, both of them fairly intense (and one of them involving a lot more humiliation play than we’ve ever done before, which I loved, but which presented a really different kind of aftercare, for me). In short, I feel like I’ve been living and breathing kink, eating and shitting kink. Which is awesome. Learning about sex (nerding and geeking about sex) is one of my favorite activities, especially when it’s sex that I really like. But I worry that it’s getting to be too much. And then, being the just-so-full-of-neurosis lady that I am, I worry about the worry. Oh dear.

I’m drawn to kink because I’ve always been drawn to the kink, drawn to submission and masochism because they’re a part of me, and before this little tryst into my subconscious, I’d like to make it clear that those aren’t in question. Kink will, as far as I can tell, always be a part of me, and (with any luck) a part of my sexual and romantic life. Their manifestation, and not their existence, is what I’m parsing.

One of the questions is how much I want kink to be a part of my life. Another is in what way I want kink to be a part of my life. That’s the question I’ve been asking myself when I wake up in the morning, when I go to bed, when I’m knelt at Sir’s feet and taking off his boots at the end of the day. How much of this do I want? And what kinds of this do I want? And if I have the answer to neither, and each affects the other, then what kind of twisty turny shit creek have I gotten myself all up in?

I start to see it as a pie chart, as a mix drink yet to be stirred. One part work life, one part writing life, one part sleeping life, one part social life, one part love life, one part kinky life.

But I’m not sure that’s even right, and here’s where the worrying about worry comes in. I wonder why I’m making that distinction, and why I’m making it the particular way that I am. The only way I can think about it is examples of other things, like: what does it feel like when I’m not writing enough? Well, it feels like I’m not spending enough time with the blank page, and at the computer, and slogging through submissions (heh, no pun intended). So the rememdey is to do those things. When it feels like I’m having too much social life, the remedy is to go home and curl up with a book or a movie, or to sew a new corset, or to do anything that is entirely driven by me, occupied in my own world, quiet, productive, contented. Anything that makes me feel like a whole sturdy person all on my own.

But I’ve never thought about any of these things (writing, work, friends, etc.) astoo much in my life the same way I’ve tried to process kink in the last couple days. I wonder why that is. Maybe it’s the fact that kink influences directly, and obviously, the everyday, mundane aspects of life. Holding hands a certain way is different now; going to bed is different now; my name even, sometimes, is different now. It imbues my life in a way I’m not particularly used to.

But that also raises a distinction that I don’t like, and I think working against this distinction is maybe the answer (if there’s ever going to be something to mercifully clear cut and simple as “the answer”). Just because I’m a good girl, and my partner is Sir, doesn’t mean that I’m not still me, that he’s not still him. It’s easier to see it, with him. I can look at him and see the man I’m in love with, in another role he plays, another expression of himself that’s exciting and gorgeous, but not any less himself. With myself, it’s harder to see… myself (and now we’re getting to the point where I sound like an 80’s teen movie). I can’t see that, being a good girl, or putting a collar on, doesn’t mean that my life isn’t still anything I want it to be, doesn’t mean that I’m still not spit firing below everything. Reconciling these two, letting them exist not even together, but exist as the same thing, is incredibly difficult.

Part of it is that I feel like a freak. Hence the recent obsession with kink literature. I always read, but I’ve been reading *a lot* in the last days. Pouring myself into a community that says “we’re all freaks! A lot of us are way freakier than you, whatever that means! Be okay with it! Be comforted!” And it is comforting, in a many ways. But it’s also a feedback loop. Read more about kink, feel more comfortable about the amount of kink in your life, realize how much kink you’ve been reading, wonder if that’s too much kink in your life, etc…

Part of it is the cycle and method of meaning. Being a submissive headspace (not subspace*), or a masochistic moment, are incredibly meaningful to me. They carry weight. And then I get out into my regular life, and I forget that many, many other things also carry weight. That I don’t have to be actively submissive, nor does my partner have to actively dominant, for a special moment to happen (and blech, that sounds like a hallmark card; bear with me). That I can take pride and meaning in completing a task at work, or doing a good job, without having to define that, or even associate that, with submissive service. In this past couple days, this has been almost impossible for me to believe.

It’s really terrifying, on a certain level. I’m scared I’m creating a life I don’t want, or pouring meaning into something I’m not going to stick with (why this is a fear needs some more sitting, I think, before I can delve into it). I’m scared I’ll disappoint my partner somehow, which is also ridiculous, because he’s an amazingly supportive teammate. I’m scared I’m wading in too deep, too fast, and that I don’t know what I’m doing.

I have some issues with control, and I always have. I like to plan and I like to worry. And it’s a big step, in this part of my life, to try and let that go. To know that no matter how much I talk about it, write about it, read about, that kink is probably going to throw some wrenches at me, some delightful, some probably terrifying. Accepting that is something I’m still working on. And the belief that underneath it all, I get to make a life, and be person, in whichever way I want to be: that’s key. It’s hard too, but that’s essential, and something that maybe one day, I can revel joyful and decadent in.

Ending a sentence with a preposition. Shame on me.

Bruised and confused, but happy enough,

The Good Girl

* “subspace” is a term I don’t like much. I prefer “the forever place,” with no disdain for the other option - I just think “forever place” sums it up better, for me.