REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

Sometimes it's strange that it's actually difficult to write about this kind of stuff—kink, I mean. You'd think it would be easy, you know, comes from the heart and all that, but it's not. So many personal things hinge on the acceptance of this sort of writing. What would she think? What do you think? What will I think, looking back, reading my own words a minute, a week, a month, a year, a decade from now?

I can't help but think, though, so I do it all the time. It's shocking, sometimes, how central kink is to who I am, to what I do, to why I do what I do. It doesn't just manifest in the bedroom (or the club), either. It's everywhere, all the time, involving itself in my relationships with friends, even employers in some indirect ways. (When thinking about living choices, one of the first questions I ask is, "What's the scene like there?")

That is not what I sat down intending to write tonight, but it's certainly worth thinking about. I'm sometimes amused at the directions my thoughts wander when I let them. I sat down wanting to write about some of the recent experiences I've been having.

Last weekend was the first time in a long time that Eileen and I made it out to the club. I used to hang out there religiously every Friday and Saturday night, long before I knew her. I used to miss the club because it was the club, it was my hangout, where everyone knew my name. But for a while, I was missing it—we were missing it—because it meant play, the kind of play that works better in noisy dark spaces with (I'm almost ashamed to admit it) onlookers you know are watching because you can feel their eyes but you can't see their faces. There's something delicious about that space, so fun, so personal, so intimate, yet so public.

It was an absolutely amazing night for the most part. I was chained to a metal frame and took lash after lash of the singletail 'til I bled. I didn't bleed much at all by our typical standards, but I bled. It felt good to bleed from a whipping again. Strangely, she thought, and I concur in some ways, in part of the scene I kept saying, "I'm not a masochist!" only to breathe in deep and obvious pleasure when she would strike me again.

She is getting bolder with the whip, which I like, making it dance on my back in the way she knows I enjoy but also starting to let her crueler side out a bit more. I noticed it most when she picked up a fast and hard rhythm that seemed to purposefully stay at the same spot on my back stroke after stroke. It hurt, a lot, but I was so happy to have her hurting me again that I wanted more of it.

I'm really not a masochist in the way the dictionary defines what a masochist is. The definition I've seen most often is:

Someone who obtains pleasure from receiving punishment.

Wikipedia, naturally, does a better job:

The counterpart of sadism is masochism, the sexual pleasure or gratification of having pain or suffering inflicted upon the self, often consisting of sexual fantasies or urges for being beaten, humiliated, bound, tortured, or otherwise made to suffer, either as an enhancement to or a substitute for sexual pleasure.

Without being baited by these definitions or going down the dark path that is defining "punishment" or even "sexual pleasure" for that matter, why was I saying I'm not a masochist? Well, because I don't like pain. To put it bluntly, it really hurts. It's uncomfortable, it's painful (duh), it's not a state I really enjoy being in for the sake of being in that state. It certainly doesn't turn me on in the make-my-dick-hard way most often associated with "sexual pleasure." However, I have found no equally intimate experience to share a moment with a loved one in any other way, and that's probably one reason why I enjoy being beaten so much. I cried a little by the end of the scene. It was from joy though, not from pain. It was just…so loving.

The whip marks are fading by now (I've been told I heal like Wolverine, apparently an invaluable trait for a sub as far as a dom's concerned, though rather annoying if you, like me, enjoy the visuals of the marks), but they're still there. And hopefully I'll have more in a week or two, when I'll be the demo bottom for a singletail demo again. Now that brings back memories. It's how Eileen and I met.