REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

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Tech geekery in both my professional and personal life has kept me away from this blog for a short while, but it was relationship angst that initiated the suspension of my time here. I got upset with Eileen for one reason or another (it doesn't really matter for this entry).

When you're in a relationship—any relationship—it can be hard to express being upset. When you're in a relationship that's specifically structured around power imbalances and the notion that things are unfair, it's that much harder to express being upset. Being actually angry doesn't always even present itself as an option.

Something somewhat astonishing to me is the fact that a lot of people who are enticed by the "things are unfair" idea seem to think this kind of emotional repression is actually the way such relationships are supposed to work, and that there's nothing wrong with that. Some people even use phrases like "Master/slave relationship" or "protocols" or other intelligent-sounding words to codify this behavior into a full-fledged system or "lifestyle."

Ultimately, this is not actually so hard to understand. Like so many other things, this behavior is an example of people structuring their relationships around their fantasies instead of structuring their fantasies around their relationships. The trap is in a particularly persistent blind spot most people have: their sexual desires.

Kink in Exile articulates one manifestation of this so clearly that I simply have to quote her:

I have seen more than one d/s relationship that seemed to be founded on at least one of the partner’s fear of being an adult and having to make decisions. Explain to me again how you willingly give power to your master or mistress if you don’t have that power to begin with? Submitting has to come from a place of power and control over your life, otherwise what’s the point? Otherwise you are not handing control of your life or even your evening over to your dominant, you are seeking out a caretaker.

Of course, doing anything like this is what we tech geeks call a Bad Thing. When people do this, they consistently fail to identify distinctions between different components of their relationship to one another and in doing so they often fail to address even the most basic of relationship concerns. In other words, a slave in a "Master/slave relationship" is still a person in a relationship first, and a slave second.

There's this concept of layers, or more technically a stack, that is fundamental to the construction of many things in our world today. The basic idea is that one layer builds upon the things it receives from the layer beneath it and provides things to build upon to the layer above it. In this way, a robust and reliable system can be developed—and maintained—by segmenting different pieces of the system.

I think that a D/s relationship could benefit from a construction similar to this. It's the way I think about my relationship with Eileen. I am at once her friend, her lover, her boyfriend, and her slave. Indeed, I am her slave because I am her boyfriend, and I am her boyfriend because I am her lover, and I am her lover because I am her friend.

Our relationship developed in a decidedly organic way; right place, right time, right person. I'd been playing for long before I met her, and I'd been looking for submission in a number of venues. When I didn't find fertile ground, I thought maybe submission wasn't for me. That's why I was a self-described bottom and not "a submissive." Of course, I'm submissive now to Eileen but this is because submission is the top (or last) layer that rests upon quite a few other things.

It turns out that, at least for me, any meaningful submission requires a foundation of both friendship and sexual attraction. Only once these things are established does the opportunity for submission seem to be present.

Being aware of this construction helps in many ways. One of the first questions I ask myself these days when confronting some kind of emotional obstacle (or novelty) is: "In which layer does this interaction belong?"

For instance, it's clear that asking for her permission before I allow myself the pleasure of an orgasm is an interaction that belongs in the D/s dynamic we've engaged in. Thus, it's a higher-layer interaction, and it relies on the well-being of lower layers. Contrastingly, cleaning the bathtub because it's dirty and we don't want our drain to clog is probably something that belongs in the friendship layer; I'd do that for any roommate, not just one that sexually dominates me. As Tom puts it, doing nice things for each other is one of the lubricants of a good relationship.

For the first time in over a year, I asked Eileen for a break from orgasm denial that weekend when I was feeling upset. I had already accidentally had two orgasms, felt terrible about them, and was in an emotional state in which I couldn't deal with maintaining that explicit D/s dynamic because the boyfriend dynamic was having trouble. Of course, this was an extreme case, but it serves as a useful illustrative example of this concept in action.

This entire concept is, of course, a drastic simplification of emotional interactions. Obviously, I clean the tub sometimes because I am submissive, and I'll ask for an orgasm because I'm Eileen's lover and my own sexual gratification is served by the asking. The difference between theory and practice, is, of course, that in theory practice is the same as theory whereas in practice they are different.

That said, the point still stands. When there are problems, you need to address them at the layer or with an approach that actually confronts the issue, instead of sidestepping it. That's what Eileen and I do when we have issues to work out. She never pulls the "but I'm your Mistress" card when we're not dealing with an issue that's a part of the D/s layer. It would be harmful to do so.

Where do I start? Do I begin with the retelling of the stories from years now long past, or with this weekend? It's hard to tell what would be more effective. This weekend, while filled with spectacularly virginal experiences for most people in the realms of play, pain, pleasure, and of course sex, was actually somewhat old news to me. After all, unlike for most of my friends, this was not my first BDSM convention.

So what was new for me? Some play was new, like participating in a friend's gangbang fisting along with seven other people, getting suspended in rope bondage by two switches, and getting jumped by I don't even know how many people for a "forced" sex scene. Those things were new for me, but after the fact I am finding that my mind is reflecting on quite another element of this past weekend that is new to me.

For the first time in my life and the first time in all the (more than five) years I've spent in the public BDSM community, I felt that other people who are not necessarily friends actually respect me for more than just my pain tolerance, that they began to actually see some things about me that don't have to do with how hard I like to be hit.

As a person who primarily bottoms, I've often felt that people in general only listen to me when I talk about what it's like to get hurt. It's as if, in their minds, all I am is a punching bag. For some reason, it's hard for people—even other bottoms—to see bottoms as anything else.

The awful phrase "take it like a man" rings loudly in my ears whenever I see this because more than anything else I see it cause self-doubt in men who bottom, and makes them afraid they won't be able to "take enough pain." I will instantly confess that I, too, once felt and sometimes still feel this pressure. I think this is stupid.

Mind you, I have little trouble playing the part of a punching bag. In fact, I rather like it, I think I'm very good at it, and wish I had more opportunities for it sometimes. But after more than five years of interacting with people at large, being a punching bag is a very unsatisfying, frustrating social existence. It's made even worse by the fact that I'm a rather picky punching bag to begin with—I don't let just anyone hit me. You have to earn it first.

On the first night of the three-day weekend, as a kind of appetizer scene, I got whipped 'til I bled and that night the white hotel sheets were speckled red. Shortly after the whipping scene was over, Anita Velez, the official event photographer, asked if she had permission to take a photo of my back (I said yes). After that, Eileen and I found her again and asked her for a photograph of our own.

On the second night, after I fisted my friend along with seven other people, I got suspended in a rope bondage scene, and then after that I got jumped by I don't even know how many people who all beat my arms, ass, thighs, and chest 'til they were bruised using a rubber nightstick, an acrylic cane, and some other heavy objects I couldn't identify due to the spandex hood they put over my head. They pushed an NJoy wand into my ass and then made me go down on some of them while beating my already-whipped back with what I'm pretty sure was a rubber tire tread flogger. (I had felt that particular rubber flogger before.)

On the third night I got bound in a hog-tie with my hands behind my back and my legs kept bent with thick leather belts. Once secured, I was again beaten on my back and ass, this time with what I could identify as a (probably deerskin) flogger, a flat paddle-like object (but it was small, so I'm guessing a kitchen implement), and a heavy rubber taws, among other things. The rubber taws hurt the most, especially when it struck my already-bruised ass.

So like I said, I rather enjoy playing the part of a capable punching bag.

Of course, I got the usual, "Wow, great job," awed comments from all sorts of people who had seen us play (and who I didn't even know were watching the scenes). I also eventually overheard from second-hand accounts that others had more negative remarks, such as things like "That's wrong; you should never crack a whip on someone's back." (Fuck that, whoever you are, by the way. I'll play the way I want, thank you very much.)

Of course, this wasn't really the hardest Eileen and I have ever played with a single-tail. I even have another picture of more marks taken some time ago, for example. I have been beaten much worse before, like the week before that previous photo was taken; Eileen gave me my first caning which an inch-wide acrylic artist's cylinder, which resulted in purple and yellow bruises that lasted well over a week and a half. Another time, my friend who made the tire-tread flogger brought over a wooden table leg and bruised my thighs so badly that they swelled to the point where I could no longer fit into my jeans.

Nevertheless, people were still impressed by the intensity of my play this weekend and they still expressed their respect in the form of an appreciation for my personal preferences for pain. Misguided as I think this expression is, I did (and still do) enjoy the recognition.

This kind of misplaced respect happens to me all the time. It's happened many times in the past, when "heavy" single-tail scenes have earned me the respect of someone who prior to witnessing it didn't seem to think very much about me.

In 2003 I was a fixture of the New York BDSM scene among the ranks of TES members, quickly earning a reputation as the quiet, shy boy in the corner who watched but never played. Reminiscent of all my school years, most people treated me with an uninterested attitude evidenced by their neglect to acknowledge my words or my presence. Later that year at TES-Fest I had my first single-tail scene that ended with band-aids and a giddy if somewhat worried pair of tops who relished in retelling the story of how the waifish, quiet boy took the hardest whipping either of them had ever given. I'll admit to being very surprised at my own enjoyment and what I interpreted back then as "stamina" and now simply call my usual preference. All of a sudden people were coming up to me and remarking on how impressed they were with me.

The lesson was clear: to get noticed, play extremely hard.

Even though I was certainly getting noticed a lot more, I hardly felt respected. Perhaps that seems strange to many people because playing that way is exactly how a lot of people who bottom, such as myself, earn respect in the scene. (We would all also be wise to remember Richard's words when he reminds us that the scene is actually representative of a tiny minority of kinky people and we are, for the most part, the public exception to the normal kinky person.)

We play "hard." We can "take more." We have a "higher pain tolerance." We can "handle it." Tops respect us because we can challenge them, bottoms respect us because they'd consider themselves broken by things we consider warm ups. People think we deserve respect because of the way we play, because they are scared of how we play. And they're completely wrong.

Bottoms who don't play as hard as I do feel bad about it; they feel frightened and inadequate. What a horrible shame that is. Tops who don't want to rip open flesh or turn skin rainbow colors or emotionally batter a bottom until they sob and beg also feel bad about not wanting to do these things. Again, what a horrible shame that is.

Respect should not be accorded based on someone's preferred physical intensity of play, and yet every time I play that way in public I get at least someone coming up to me and saying, in an often dejected tone of voice, "I could never do that." I try to tell them that they don't have to, that it's silly to think they should try if they don't want to. As Eileen said cleverly before me,

And then let's talk about the fuckupery of according respect to a scene member based upon the intensity of their play. What kind of logic is that? That's like saying that you respect The Rolling Stones more than The Beatles because The Rolling Stones are louder. Respect isn't about what people do in the scene; it's about how they do it. I have young friends who have been in the scene just as long as me, who don't get the respect I do because they don't have the balancing factor of being intense players as a weapon to carve out a place for themselves. God help you if you're perfectly content with a light spanking now and then. The patrionizing smiles will probably drown you.

(Emphasis added.)

In other words, I'm not more worthy of respect than any other bottom because I have a higher pain tolerance than they do. If you respect me for that reason, I feel invisible. I'm worthy of respect because I have impeccable judgement, a razor-sharp mind, incredible intellect, a generous attitude, a commitment to my scene partner as well as myself, and because I respect these same things in others. If you respect me for that reason, I feel seen.

So this weekend I didn't feel respected when I was asked "How much were you really struggling in that take down scene?" I didn't feel respected by the people who thought I was on the Power Bottoming panel because I like to limp for days after I play. I definitely didn't feel respected by all the people who stopped me in the hallways and told me what an intense scene they saw me do (though, again, I did appreciate the kind words and enjoyed the obvious admiration and surprise—I don't look like someone who likes to scream until my throat is hoarse, but I do).

On the other hand, I did feel respected when a fellow attendee approached me and asked for my opinions regarding TES's web site (and others) because he had heard people mention my name in conversation about the topic. Likewise, I also felt respected when people came up to me privately after some of my presentations and told me that they thought I had made good points, that I articulated myself well, and that I exposed them to something new and provoked some new thought or insight inside of them.

Thanks to the transman who told Eileen and I that we had finally articulated his primary kink in our Sexual Teasing and Denial presentation. Thanks to the young woman who taught me the word cyberbalkanization in my Sex and Technology presentation. Thanks to the people who congratulated me on my bravery and willingness to get naked on the first night in front of more than thirty clothed people during the demo for the G and P Spot Stimulation presentation.

In other words, thanks for seeing underneath all the cuts and bruises and welts. Thanks for rejecting the rhetoric that to be worth a damn as a bottom you need to have a pain tolerance that rivals a super hero's. That's the kind of thing that makes most men think they need to be stoic and "strong" when they are in pain, which is stupid because the last thing a sadist wants to see when they're hurting someone is a lack of painful reaction (duh).

The people who did this with sadness and envy in their voices made me the most upset at the BDSM community's constant self-aggrandizement through what amounts to nothing more than fear mongering. The people who I think should be the most ashamed of this are the ones who call themselves teachers, who present so-called "classes" in thinly-veiled attempts to advertise themselves as "intense players" in order to earn what they think is credibility and respect, like the one Switch encountered and wrote about in her post.

Those people are spreading a culture of fear through BDSM that is damaging to people's self-esteem (both bottom's and top's), to the BDSM community's image in mass media, and—most importantly—to their own partners. Playing at a certain physical intensity is simply one very mechanical aspect of what makes a scene work. It is natural that players with more physically intense tastes would be drawn to one another. There should be no reason to fear that you're "not playing hard enough."

It's just a matter of BDSM chemistry. No one's going to put you down for liking blondes over brunettes. Don't let people put you down for liking, or not liking, a certain kind of play.

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I've never been a manly man. When I was younger, I watched quite a bit of television. I remember lots of the imagery I was presented with quite vividly. In almost every case, I wanted to be the girls. Growing up, I quickly learned that wanting to be more like the girls was a desire frowned upon by pretty much everybody else—not least of all, by the girls.

These days, the same things still come up in daily conversation as they did in years past. "I wish I could lose ten more pounds—I don't feel pretty," I hear women say all the time. In response, everyone simultaneously begins talking about the oppressive nature of our culture's media campaigns. "Oh, come on. You don't have to look like every model in the magazines. You're smart, you're kind; of course you're hot," they'll say to her in an effort to comfort and sympathize.

Most of the time, I think women's self-image issues are physically, though not emotionally, unfounded. All but one of my girlfriends were, to use the obvious example, heavier than the BMI charts would have them feel comfortable about. My femdom fantasies have always been tilted toward larger girls. Hula dancers were an ironic motif, but I attribute this mostly to the healthier, more attractive weight Hawaiian girls tend to carry. I'll never understand the fetish for stick-figure girls. That can be sexy but I think women are sexier if they're shapely.

Issues men may have with their body image, however, are almost never even recognized. If they are, they discuss how unmanly boys feel and offer ways to feel more manly. Nothing we see in our culture tells boys that it's okay to want to feel pretty, to want to be treated in ways similar to the way we see people treating girls. If a boy, like me, wanted that, they call him a sissy and expect him to want to feel bad about it. I find this fact, an association often cited between cross-dressing and humiliation, nothing less than repulsive.

Furthermore, every time I've ever hinted at having body image issues of any kind at all, a very strange thing happens. Rather than address these issues, people turn to my girlfriend and give her a once-over. Then, they turn back to me. "How can you think of yourself as not attractive?" They ask, puzzled. "Your girlfriend is so hot."

Granted, my girlfriend is hot. But what, pray tell, does that have to do with my own self-image? You've just told me that my own self-image should be measured by how hot my girlfriend is. Call me crazy, but my girlfriend's attractiveness should not be the scale by which I measure my own.

Is that what you'd say to a fat girl, by the way? Oh, you're totally sexy because your boyfriend is super skinny. What kind of logic is that? It's not only completely missing the point, it doesn't make her feel better. In fact, it often makes her feel worse. And that's exactly what doing that does to me: it makes me feel worse.

Why is it a taboo to discuss men on the basis of their looks? Even in romance novels, where the gallant and obligatorily handsome man plays center stage, most descriptions about his looks center on his other attributes. His strong muscles. His virile penis. His healthy hair. It's not about the way he looks, it's about what he can offer in every other realm; wealth, health, or power. Even here, men's sexual attractiveness is being judged on everything except their looks. This is crazy.

To top it off, even the pretty men, who were called the derogatory term "twinks" in gay slang for quite a while, are usually portrayed in as decidedly not delicate a manner as possible; sweating profusely, working out, doing some manly chore, or otherwise being rough and tumble. The message? Be ruggedly handsome, sure, but don't be pretty.

By this culture's dogma, being pretty is a woman's job. Women are the ones who are "supposed to" do the attracting; men are supposed to be attracted. But this is insulting, and unfair. Wanting to feel pretty often goes hand-in-hand with wanting to be pursued. The emotions are the same: love me, I'm precious. But being pursued is the woman's job, as if they are the only ones allowed to feel as though they are precious and worthy of loving attentions.

This whole fucked-up mess does a lot of things for men. It makes us get paid more at work. It makes it easier for us to attract people into old age (where, I'm sorry, looks are just not going to follow). It makes it harder to objectify us in ways we don't want. And, unfortunately, it makes it a lot harder for us to talk about body image issues—especially if you're like me and you don't even want to have the traditional Vin-Diesel-the-body-builder look and instead want to look like the lithe, nubile, pretty young things you only see cast in the gender role of supreme femininity.

Well, I have a confession to make. I like dressing up as a girl because, in part, it makes me feel pretty. It does this because putting on frilly panties is the only time I feel the culture in which I live is telling me that I might actually get away with being pretty.

This confession, low and behold, is not uncommon. Men who want to feel pretty end up wanting to emulate women because we have no other choice. Why can men, secure in their masculinity, not also be pretty? Even the dictionary is stupendously unhelpful here. Defining "pretty" results in this definition from Princeton's web dictionary:

pleasing by delicacy or grace; not imposing; "pretty girl"; "pretty song"; "pretty room"

(Emphasis added by yours truly.)

I have been called graceful. I have also been called delicate. I've been called pleasing a bunch more times than these other two things combined.

People I don't know ask me if I dye my hair when they look at its color in the sun (I don't). They ask me if I've ever played the piano when they notice the way my fingers curl around cups as I drink (I haven't). They have remarked on how carefully I treat all my belongings, and how thoughtful I am when I am hosting a guest. But they have never called me pretty.

It may surprise some of you to hear this, but Eileen is actually the first person I have known that has called me pretty. She is fond of my ass and these days I might call it one of the prettiest parts of me, but it was not always this way.

One night many years ago, well before I even consciously thought about why I kept wanting to feel pretty, I was lounging with my then-girlfriend in the bedroom I shared with my brother. I remember only a single sentence from the conversation we had that night. It was this sentence that my girlfriend said to me that cued six years of body image issues centered around my butt: "I would like it if your ass was firmer."

What did firmer mean, anyway? It meant that I should have more of a boy's body. I didn't have a muscular gluteus maximus; I didn't have the body of a strong, rugged, self-respecting man. But you know what, I didn't want that body, either. And that should've been okay.


Addendum: For those interested in a bit more academic self-education (the best kind, if you ask me), I would highly suggest reading the Wikipedia articles on sissyphobia and effeminacy, for a start.

A particular passage of interest is cited below, and serves as a wonderful example of the fact that cultural ideals change with time. My message in this post, if you are to take one from it that I did not actually intend when I started, would be to stay aware of this constantly changing cultural stereotype—in all cultures and in all situations—and to avoid letting cultural noncompliance result in prejudiced or oppressive actions of any kind.

Pre-Stonewall "closet" culture accepted homosexuality as effeminate behaviour, and thus emphasized camp, drag, and swish including an interest in fashion (Henry, 1955; West, 1977) and decorating (Fischer 1972; White 1980; Henry 1955, 304). Masculine gay men did exist but were marginalised (Warren 1972, 1974; Helmer 1963) and formed their own communities, such as leather and Western (Goldstein, 1975), and/or donned working class outfits (Fischer, 1972) such as sailor uniforms (Cory and LeRoy, 1963). (Levine, 1998, p.21-23, 56)

Post-Stonewall, "clone culture" became dominant and effeminacy is now marginalised. One indicator of this is a definite preference shown in personal ads for masculine-behaving men (Bailey et al 1997).

My personal experiences written above are likely the result of my interaction with New York City's leather subculture, as that community is my primary social outlet (for now).

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This morning a friend asked me to give her an image that turns me on, followed by an image that is iconic of a "top" or a "domme" and then to determine whether the answers to those two questions share any key visual elements. Yes, this friend's really smart, by the way.

In response, I told her that the first thing that popped into my mind of an image that turns me on was Eileen's lips and tongue during the blowjob she unexpectedly gave me last night, but that's only because I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for the past twelve hours or so. In fact, if my friend had asked me for an image that turns me on another day, I probably wouldn't have said blowjobs at all.

The last significant mouth-on-penis action I've received hasn't been for more than two and a half years. Before that I wasn't even that excited about blowjobs. Handjobs always felt better to me anyway, so I wasn't very interested in getting them, though I don't think I ever turned down the opportunity. All my partners were far more skilled with their hands than their mouths anyway but more interestingly—and more to the point—I liked handjobs more because it was easier to bottom to them.

Few men can deny the fact that having someone else's hands around your genitals can be a vulnerable position. Of course, it isn't always intended that way (unless you're me, in which case it probably is) but our culture is saturated with images and stories of men's genitals being vulnerable in the hands of women. It's even in our slang: "She has got me by the balls" means that I am well and truly dominated by her control of the situation. I'm not sure why this is supposed to be a bad thing (</sarcasm>), but it is.

Contrast this with any imagery of blowjobs displayed by popular culture and the exact reverse is true. For some reason, people seem to think that putting your penis in someone else's mouth gives you some kind of control over the situation and makes the person whose mouth is around your genitals submissive. This has always been somewhat baffling to me, because it is far easier to hurt my penis with your teeth than it is to hurt it with your hands. Is my penis somehow more vulnerable to teeth than a so-called "Alpha Male"'s is? I'd love to know if it is, as I've unfortunately had no experience putting real live penises in my mouth.

(As an aside: if you want me to feel submissive while you make me go down on your cock then you should use something along the lines of a ring gag (NSFW) while you do it. Not that there aren't other ways to make fellatio into a submissive act—you could close my nose so I have trouble breathing, or hold a knife at my neck, or you could just whisper in my ear that you know how badly I want to drown the back of my throat in ejaculate, but the point is that it's all about how you do what you're doing.)

I think blowjobs are so riddled with unnecessary connotations of submission that whenever my previous partners went down on me they were, in effect, submitting. (As another aside, these particular past partners were for the most part submissive women, which I'm sure had something to do with it. Why my dating history has a 3-to-1 ratio of submissive women to dominant women is, however, another frustrating post entirely.) While I enjoy sexual stimulation from a talented mouth as much as the next man, girls who go down on me with a disposition that is solely intended to please are just not as sexy as the ones who do it with a mind for taking control of me.

There are two times in life when people will show you their true emotions. The first is during a round of poker. The second is during sex.

It should probably be obvious, but maybe it's not: submissive men like assertive blowjobs, not amiable ones. In fact, in case one thing doesn't lead you to the other, submissive men like assertiveness and control in general. We like assertive handjobs and masturbation, fucking (of many varieties), kissing, and pussy-licking. In other words, we enjoy all the very same sexual acts anyone else does, but what we enjoy most about them is the assertiveness and control of our dominant partners.

So when Eileen took hold of my wrist and placed it behind my back as she enveloped my penis with her throat, I nearly shuddered from the hotness. There was the key visual element that combined one of the sexiest things I have ever seen with my iconic image of female dominance: assertive and control, wanting me and taking me. She took me, this time, with her mouth.

She licked my cock from base to head and from head to base, not in worship to me but in her own indulgence. Whereas before I was used to blowjobs being a rather piston-like up and down motion or a stationary sucking sensation (penises aren't straws, by the way), Eileen's mouth slowly travelled all over my shaft. When she combined a powerful suction on my penis' corona with vertical strokes from her tongue I had to say it out loud: "I'm going to orgasm if you keep doing that." And in response, she eased up just enough to make it possible for me not to come.

In response to my friend's second question asking for an iconic image of a "top" or "domme," I responded that to come up with one is actually pretty difficult. After all, there are so many different looks that I associate with dominance. Does the so-called iconic female dominant have long hair or short hair? Is she dressed in tight clothing or is she lounging in bathrobes? It can all be hot.

So my answer was that an image iconic of a female top or domme for me, at that moment when she asked, was a tall woman wearing jeans that shows off her ass nicely and some kind of tank-top-like shirt, probably black. It's comfortable yet sexy—sexy because she's comfortable. And in my fantasies, she's holding something, like a knife in her right hand and a coiled rope in her left, not to be too specific about it. (I realized later that I was actually just describing Eileen in one of her more playful moods, but that's besides the point right now.)

Clearly I have a thing for the outdoorsy look, but what I really have a thing for is the confident type. This should be no secret (and if it is, I pity you and would like to invite you to listen especially close right now), but confidence is always sexy. Always. It's sexy to me when you look into my eye and feel confident enough to know you can make me hard just by licking your lips.

Confidence is about being sexy, regardless of orientation or activity. Assertiveness and control is about taking that confidence and applying it to a particular sexual power dynamic. Like, you know, leaving me literally laughing on our bed from desperate arousal after giving me the most dominant blowjob I've ever felt and then smiling as you tell me there's not a chance you'll let me orgasm tonight.

A major problem many people have is the inability to draw distinctions between one thing and another. This is especially true when the separation between two things are gradated. To simplify the problem, most people resign to black and white distinctions, this or that, tearing things apart that are inherently interwoven together into what they perceive as separate strands. It's as if they believe doing so will magically reveal all that which created the thing in the first place. But they are misguided, at best, and purposefully destructive at worst.

Many things about me are more than the sum of my parts. While it is certainly possible to break these parts away from one another, doing so reveals information only about my constituent parts in their new, isolated context. I should know; I continually undergo this exercise as part of watching myself growing older.

Possibly the saddest of things to fail to distinguish in my opinion are the emotional paradoxes brought on by sexual fantasy. It creates a situation where most people structure their relationships around their fantasies, when they should be structuring their fantasies around their relationships.

Trinity said it another way:

I was honestly flummoxed (though not surprised) when he didn't understand. Wouldn't it be better for someone to accept your service because you're you than because you're a boy?

I mean, I get the whole "I'm just one of many, depersonalized, a number in a harem" as sexual fantasy. But the guy in question is so obsessed with asserting he's not talking about fantasy when he is... that befuddles me.

Fantasy is fine and great, when clearly marked.

As did Richard:

For other men it is just another sort of hot sex fantasy. But they don't know how to distinguish the source of the thrill from actuality.

A couple of women have based lucrative careers on promoting this: Sutton, Abernathy.

And there is a legion of telephone prodommes who invoke the rhetoric as a means of attracting clients.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric is sexually exciting at first glance and too few people are trained in the skills required to control their own immediate gratification to put thought into their emotions and see the rhetoric's flaws.

Inequality turns me on. As a result of that, I enjoy fantasies of female superiority over males when I'm feeling like submitting to feminine authorities. Long have I had dreams, like most submissive men, of being objectified and degraded because of pieces of my identity: my gender, my physical attributes.

Some fantasies are quite vivid. I remember one from when I was barely a teenage boy (maybe 13 or so) of being captured by a race of women who kept me bound in a dark cave (where there were other such helpless male victims in abundance) with a substance similar to super powerful spider's webbing and whose only contact with me would be to feed me food and drink and occasionally come to "collect" my ejaculate. A classic fantasy, really, undoubtedly from the mind of a youth twisting science fiction imagery to suit his preferred sexual expression.


As I grew older, I maintained the same fantasies, but the imagery changed somewhat. Instead of science fiction, I more often used personal experiences as fuel. As I was more-or-less in school at the time, school-grounds were a favorite locale where the girls (and sometimes certain boys) could take sexual advantage of me in all manner of creative ways. The image above has been a favorite source of this kind of fantasy for many years now.

In that way, I enjoyed the fact that I was as skinny as a twig and frightfully anemic. My sexual fantasies of being overpowered actually dissuaded me from taking care of my body and ensuring my own health back then.

That's the kind of inability to distinguish fantasy from reality that I'm talking about. When it's so personal, as that is, and when you crave something so much, as I did, you don't want to let reality get in the way of your fantasies. There's not anything wrong with trying to live in reality more elements of your fantasies. I do that all the time. But I'm only successful when I take reality into account.

Doing anything else is foolhardy.

I have this lovely little buddy icon of this pretty boy on the floor, leaning back wearing a sweater jacket that reads, "Protect me from the things I want." I love that icon because the boy looks so sultry and so vulnerable and so seductive and so helpless all at the same time. I want to be that boy. (I also want that boy, but that's another entry entirely.)

Why is it that I want the things I don't want to actually happen to me. And do I really want them to happen to me for real or do I just like the threat of them happening?

Mean things. (Backhand me.) Deadly things. (Suffocate me.) Bloody things. (Stab me.) Things I just don't like. (Bite me.) I fantasize about having all of these things done to me. In some cases there's a part of me that really wants it to happen because I think I'd enjoy it. I've had too many fond experiences with pain to feel bad about liking that so much.

And then there are the things I'm not really eager to have happen, but I'm so nervous or frightened about them happening that a part of me wants them to happen just to get them over with. And hell, being nervous and frightened is kind of fun too. And there are the things I just don't get off to, but I know my top likes so what the hell. I like getting my top off—doesn't quite matter how they like as much as I like doing it.

But then there are the things that, no, I really don't want them to happen and if you do them to me I'll fight and scream and cry and beg you to stop. And those are the things I want to have happen because I love the fighting, the screaming, the crying, the begging, but most of all the very fact that I'm not enjoying myself. I won't like it when you do it, but I'll love that you did it. It probably won't turn me on while it's happening (though it might), but I'll masturbate to the memories of it later. And oh, it'll be good.

I do want to be tortured. I don't want to be tortured, but I want it. I have no idea how to explain that in simpler terms because everything else about this fact in my head is just circular logic. But y'know, a lot of things about submissiveness and masochism is pretty paradoxical.

Take orgasm denial, for instance. A classic example to be sure, but an appropriate example nonetheless. The wanting to orgasm is what gets me all hot and bothered. Once I've come, well sure I'm enjoying it, but all the goodness of wanting that orgasm is sated and the replacement satisfaction just isn't the same. It's the same with the death fantasy. Dying is pretty awful but, for me, it's only awful because once I'm dead I can't be bothered to care about the dying anymore. It's like, "Oh look. Here's death. Well, the dying was fun while it lasted. So…what's the weather like in hell these days?" See? Not hot.

I want what I don't want because I don't want it, but I also want my top to want it. It's similarly not hot if I'm being pierced by someone who doesn't enjoy piercing me. The reason I do it with Eileen, despite my preference not to actually be poked with sharp things more than necessary, is because she has a great time with it. Back to the getting my top off bit again. Yes, I know I'm a total whore.

Is this service? If so, then could I conceptually extend the service theory to the point of torture, or death? And now that I'm thinking about it, doesn't that sound a lot like some very well-known cultural and religious imagery? How many times have I been reffered to as Jesus on the cross when I've been whipped in a public setting? (I bet my hair doesn't help avoid the analogy, but still.) Martyrdom is hot for tops, I guess. It's not the martyrdom that turns me on though, it's the suffering. Martyrs who don't want to be martyrs.

Make me suffer. Please.

With recent explorations into the realm of friends-who-also-have-sex realm, something that has come to my mind recently is what kind of distinctions I can draw between fetish, kink, and sex. There are actually so many things that make up what we usually call in one pathetically limiting word "sexuality" that this is actually a very difficult thing to piece apart. So much of fetish is sex after all, kink is fetish in a way, and sex can certainly be kinky. But again, not always. Where's the line?

In my experience, this line varies so wildly that I'm not surprised it's so difficult for people to draw distinctions between them. What are the distinctions though?

Contrary to what many people believe, my experience has been that fetish, BDSM (kink), and sex are each distinct realms, separate from one another. This is true in both a cultural sense—because the fetish scene doesn't actually always mingle with the sex-positive scene doesn't always run in the same circles as the BDSM crowd doesn't always rub shoulders with the swingers, and so on and so forth—and a personal sense, because these three distinct parts of my sexuality developed in wholly distinct periods of my life.

While you will never get any argument from me that there are large sections of the three that overlap with each other, I maintain that these three things are different enough from each other to warrant observation and thought as distinct entities. I have been also been making bigger strides in cross-polinating with other groups, and the variations in etiquette and general tone is surprising (and refreshing!) to even me. (This is supposed to be impressive because I'm one of the younger, "Yes, I've seen it all types." And I have actually seen quite a bit.)

Ultimately, the point is not that one's sexuality must be thought of in terms of distinct components, but that it is very helpful in getting what you want when you know that what you want is a mix of different things you can put together in any damn way you please. This freedom to pick and chose what you like is absolutely essential to making a sexual experience rewarding, and it's bafflingly undercommunicated for some strange reason.

The public BDSM (heterosexual) scene, for instance, seems to have some kind of taboo against sex. Sex is so frequently the after-thought in BDSM meetings, that recently TES-TiNG did a whole meeting asking the question, Where'd our sex go? In fact, the blurb for that meeting is so appropriate to this post, I'm going to quote it:

A little confused about where the 'sex' went in 'kinky sex'? Want to get it back in there? Heard rumors that people used to play and have sex -- in public! Wonder why the "Scene" isn't quite like that anymore? (Was it ever?) Confused about how sex & BDSM could be separated in the first place? Concerned with safeguarding the spaces we still have?

Surprising, right? Well, the taboo's not against sex, of course, but it certainly drives the point home. Indeed, when I first began to get into the scene, I divorced sex so completely from BDSM that it actually surprised me when Eileen started playing with me sexually a couple years ago. Now, with (somewhat) non-kinky explorations of sex (which is almost a first for me), I wonder if there's not new and ever more interesting possibilities to play with by mixing and matching elements of fetish, kink, and sex to my liking. Will I create something entirely new? Will that even matter? I'm just going to have a lot more fun!

A lot of people think BDSM is an all-or-nothing sort of arrangement. Either you are my slave and do everything I ask of you, or you are not and shouldn't be wasting my time. Either I am always, absolutely forever and constantly at your feet and abiding by protocols or whatever, or I am not, and I never play that way. Either you are a pain slut and there's nothing you can't take, or pain's just not your thing and don't ever want to be really hurt.

All of these things are pointedly untrue, though this misconception is popular not only with the mainstream vanilla folks, but with many BDSM players and kinky people as well (which is endlessly frustrating). It certainly offers some explanation of why kink can be so scary for people who don't understand it and who are not at least intrigued by the acitivities. The fact that extended play time such as the extremes described above is actually a common, lustful fantasy offers, I think, a very plausible explanation to why so many people even of the kinky inclination think such a thing is true. And perhaps, though I have reason to doubt some of the claims I have heard, there really are people for whom "24/7" literally means every second of every day.

In the realities of day-to-day life, play time that lasts more than a couple of hours is very, very hard to come by. Beside from the fact that we all have "Real Jobs" and a life to lead outside of the bedroom, it's hard to stay in, for instance, slave headspace when you are constantly surrounded by your personal belongings at home or even at a friend's house. This was not something I ever anticipated being problematic for certain scenes such as longer-term ones, though it is. It's also particularly problematic for other certain kinds of scenes, namely singletail whipping. Again, not something I'd have guessed.

Another point of note regarding the length of a scene is the definition of what precisely a scene is. Two weekends ago, when Eileen and I were at a friend's house for a party (a vanilla party--not all the parties I go to are beat me, whip me affairs) we do as we always do, and I was ordered rather plainly to fetch her drinks from time to time. This was not a dramatic event, but it was not subtle either. It was only after our friend pointed out how strange it must seem for those in attendance who did not already understand our dynamic that we even noticed that it seemed like anything remotely like play at all. Was that a scene? Not for us. It might have been for some of our friends, though.

It's the fact that our dynamic is that way at all that makes it appear as though we do the kind of 24/7 play that you hear people talking about with awed tones, but I think this is actually kind of silly. I don't really consider myself a 24/7 slave with any of the weight people seem to place upon that phrase, I just find the juxtaposition of day-to-day life and servitude enjoyable, both erotically and otherwise. That makes the line between scene spaces and vanilla spaces very, very blurry sometimes, though that is a side effect rather than a direct effect of how Eileen and I interact.

There are, however, certain things we have done expressly for creating play headspaces for longer periods of time. Some of these things are play-specific, and others are again blurry, as above. For instance, a little over a year ago, Eileen bought me a rather heavy locking leather and metal collar. When it goes on me, I know she wants to play. The collar usually stays on a lot longer than the scenes last, and this helps keep some of those slavish emotions around after the beating is through. When we play at night, sometimes she uses the collar and some of our lengths of chain to secure me to the bed for the night to the same effect.

Being leashed or hitched is also a way to actively induce a desired headspace, and is also something that often can last quite a while.

Aside from that collar, I also wear 5 lengths of small jewelry chain all the time. They are placed around my neck, each wrist, and each ankle, and they are have no clasp with which I can remove them (so I don't). They're my "everyday collars". Recently, Eileen's been very turned on by the "harem slave" idea, and so she's added a sixth length of chain around my waist that she calls "utterly decadent."

All this decoration does not leave me unaffected. It's very much like wearing the heavier, locking leather collar, only with a different twist. Rather than being her pain toy, the whipping boy, I'm her cherished posession, and quite often her sex toy. There's something intensely erotically humbling about being equated in some way to a favored vibrator.

I recently attended a bondage class by the excellent, and incredibly knowledgeable Lee "Bridgett" Harrington on Speed Bondage. I learned a few great new tricks, a couple of extra ties, and a super-quick rope bondage chest harness. And, god, it reminds me how much I absolutely love bondage.

How appropriate then, that Lady Julia recently linked this article from Fox News stating that bondage may make men happier. The good things from the report:

…says Dr. Richters, men into BDSM scored significantly better on a scale of psychological wellbeing than other men.

“This seems to imply that these men are actually happier as a result of their behaviour, though we're not sure why,” she said.

“It might just be that they're more in harmony with themselves because they're into something unusual and are comfortable with that.

“There's a lot to be said for accepting who you are.”

At the other end of the spectrum – least happy – were men who reported being attracted to men but had never acted on their desire and didn't regard themselves as gay.

Researchers said the study helps break down the reigning stereotype that people into bondage and discipline were damaged as children and were therefore “dysfunctional”.

“We really found that BDSM is simply a sexual interest or subculture attractive to a minority, not a pathological symptom of past abuse or difficulty with 'normal' sex,” Dr. Richters said.

“They've just got a broader and more unusual sexual repertoire than most.”

I have very little to add to this except for yay, a positive portrayal of BDSM in an extremely right-wing, conservative media outlet! That has to be good, right?

Yet there is still a huge misunderstanding of what BDSM is or is not, and the incredible amount of misinformation out there can be damaging. Case in point, from the same article:

“There will definitely be more men and women who have sexual tastes in this direction but won't call it this,” said Dr. Juliet Richters, of the University of New South Wales.

“They might not like sex magazines but they just happen to like being tied up and spanked as part of foreplay.

“Ask them if they're into BDSM they'll say 'Yuck, no'.”

"Yuck no" to being tied up, but "bondage may make men happier" in the same vein? This is misinformation and misunderstanding at its best. Such hipocracy is an earmark of social stigmas. One very good book that I enjoyed a few years back was Bound to Be Free: The S&M Experience by Dr. Charles Moser and JJ Madeson (a 20-year veteran of the San Francisco BDSM scene). They talk about this issue at point-blank range, and is a highly recommended read for anyone interested in some more personal viewpoints.

Naturally, the best attacks on stigmas and misinformation is quality information. Now more than ever, the Information Age is best poised to tackle these issues. That's why this next point is completely unsurprising:

In women, BDSM was most popular among under 20-year-olds…

I am encouraged by reports like this. They validate to the rest of the world what I already feel every time I kneel in front of my girlfriend; that I am stronger through my self expression than I could ever otherwise be.

A long time ago a friend turned to me one night and said, "I'd play with you."

"Really? Thanks," I said. This reaction clearly surprised my friend because he stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me quizically.

"Thanks? I just told you what amounts to 'I'll have sex with you' in our scene, and I'm straight!" he said.

"Is playing really the same thing as having sex with someone?" I asked.

I think it's still a good question. The distinction between sex and BDSM play is often a funny one. Some people insist there is no difference, some people insist the two should be distinct and always separated, other people insist one is the other, and I've gone through so many different phases I forgot what I think right now. I do know, however, that never before in my life have I so closely linked playing with sexual activities and that is a direct result of Eileen's influences and our opportunities for play.

Case in point, the entire kink of orgasm denial is intensely sexual. It's not something I've ever done—or even mentioned, actually—to anyone I knew in person until I met Eileen. Thankfully, she broke the ice on the matter. I was all too happy to let the floodgates open.

Today, teasing and denial (or T&D as it's sometimes known to those of us for whom it's a common kink) is a central and integral part of not only our relationship but of our life. After all, how could something so fundamental as the freedom of sexual gratification not affect your life when you begin to play kinky games with it?

Which brings me to the point of sex and kink, and what lines, if any, are drawn between these things. It's obviously a very gray space, very few bits offering themselves as either black or white. Each person has their own take, informed by their personal interests and kinks.

A good friend of mine has recently confessed to wanting to top me. This, I think, is awesome, both because I think we would have a great time but also because I have never actually seen her switch with her boyfriend and would love the opportunity to do so. Of course, this was just a remark and I don't intend to read too much into it, but it did get me thinking. Is wanting to top me the same thing as wanting to, in some form or capacity, have sex with me, even if the sex is limited to something as commonplace as mentally undressing someone in your mind's eye? I'll confess to having had such thoughts myself.

It also wouldn't actually be the first time. About a year and a half ago, Eileen and two of her close friends (who are also my friends in their own right now, and yayness for that!) all triple-topped me one night in a very mild, practically introductory sort of breath play. I think if we were to actually play together again, it might help her if Eileen was there for part of it, or all of it, at least at first.

Of course, all of this needs a roundtable discussion, as is—and I believe should be—the way of things.

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.

I have only ever done face slapping with my current girlfriend and Mistress because it is a very hot-button issue for me. There's an intensely contextualized component to this activity that can give it so many meanings, both for the person doing the hitting and the one getting hit. Being hit, I can feel any one of defiant, submissive, or abused (in both good and bad ways). Each emotion carries a huge weight and affects the scene.

Face slapping is tricky for me that way because I can't ever seem to predict what reaction I'll have from it, regardless of any prior activity or the context of the scene. So this form of play is very hit-or-miss for me; either the activity will add a lot of pleasure to the experience for both of us, or it will really send me into a negative spiral that I don't really want. That is to say, if I am feeling like I want to be abused but instead I feel defiant when struck, that wrecks my mood pretty harshly and causes all sorts of emotional "static" that I have trouble with during the rest of the scene. Of course, "wrecks" is not always the right word, because the issue is mostly about how this incredibly intense button is pushed, not always what happens because of it.

Hm.... Certainly something to think about more, eh?

One thing I was never able to relate to was the notion of ritualizing this form of play. On Fetish Lore, Ranai writes:

A ritualised form of face slapping:
I sit. He kneels before me. I order him to keep his hands behind his back. I look into his eyes, raise my hand and slap his cheek. Then I present that same hand before him. He bends down and kisses the back of my hand. He straightens up again. I slowly raise my hand and slap him again. I present my hand. He kisses my hand again. I do it with the other hand. And so forth. Doing this a few times in silence can be a powerful thing.

I can certainly relate to the power of this action, and I would also very willingly (perhaps happily? I'm not sure...) do it if commanded to by my Mistress, but this is not something I can see myself wanting to do of my own volition. I have trouble with rituals and tradition to begin with, so maybe that issue plays a large part of my reluctance to do that sort of thing. On the flip side, it is an intensely erotic and arousing thought to be conditioned to enjoy this ritual for some reason, but the kinky desire in that context would be the conditioning and control, not the ritual.

Ranai also provides a contrasting mood:

In a fun mood:
If I have brought my partner to the edge of an orgasm, a deep look into his eyes and a slap or two on his cheek can be the final action that sends him over the edge. That's a great experience for me too.

Now this I can totally get behind, for several reasons. First, it has always been hotter to me to think of single slaps, not consistent or rhythmic slaps. Perhaps it is the spontanaety of the act, or perhaps it is just because I'm not really that big a fan of face slapping to begin with. (Hitting is awesome. Hitting my face is questionable because I don't know why it makes me react so unpredictably.) Either way, there is a strong contextual undertone that I link directly to orgasm control with the idea of being slapped during orgasm, and that is simply that the pleasure of the orgasm is being very cruelly interupted by the dominant. And that, as is not surprising, is really hot for me.

I also react strongly to being touched simply and lightly, caressed on the cheek or the bridge of my nose. There is something extra powerful, especially intimate about the face.

Over a very, very late lunch (or early supper), Eileen made the rather endearing comment that she was somewhat intimidated by the profuse amounts of blogging and writing that I do. My response surprised me. I told her, "Well, all subs write more than doms," and just as I said that I asked myself if it were really true.

Now, I certainly can't speak for everyone and I typically dislike over-arching generalizations except when they are understood to be such a thing, but I really do think that submissives typically write more than dominants. In fact, to be even more specific of my own observations, most experiencial writings are publisehd by female submissives, most fantasy was published by male submissives, and most "how to" articles and technically-minded material was published by male dominants. This is an interesting observation in itself, but on the whole my observation is that subs write more stuff.

My theory on this is very straightforward (by which I mean completely unfounded, untested, and underdeveloped): submission is ultimately a very internal process, whereas domination is far more externalized. In other words, submission is largely passive and receptive and domination is active. (This sounds a lot like sex psychology 101, right?)

My hypothesis is thus, perhaps as a result of these properties, submissives (by which I mean myself) tend to take the opportunity to write--and especially blog, due to it's easy push-button publishing nature--to externalize their own submission. Certainly domination also requires high degree of self-analysis, but dommes who play with their subs regularly are already externalizing a lot of things, and perhaps don't have the desire to do so as much as subs seem to.

So there's my completely underdeveloped theory as to why subs write more than dommes do.

On an off-topic but tangentially related topic, finding the wealth of femdom material online that I have is rather new for me. I've never been that interested in it because the last time I really looked for this sort of material was ages ago, and it was really hard to find anything at all, much less anything good. Furthermore, all the femdom stuff I found was so focused on D/s and light play such as light spankings, sissyfication, verbal humiliation, and orgasm control (not that there's anything wrong with any of these; please, bring them on!) that there was very little material about the really fun stuff like hour-long singletail whippings that left men's backs bloodied, threaded piercings used for bondage, torture and interrogation scenes, and brutal cuttings and intense knifeplay. It's just not that easy to find female dominants talking about playing much physically at all. (Of course, I'm really thrilled to have begun finding exceptions to that remark!)

These intense things are, of course, not everyone's cup of tea and that's okay, but they are at the heart of most of my deeper fantasies and so I sought them out where they were available: fictional erotic literature. Granted, these things may not be written about nearly as often because they are really hard to do well, or even at all. Do you have any idea how much preparation an interrogation scene takes? A really involved one that lasts more than a night? A lot!

Ironically, this is the second time I'm writing this entry because my Web browser ate it the first time. How utterly frustrating! Grr on it! Of course, I think the first entry was far more interesting and insightful. Oh, and it was longer too.