REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

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.

People often draw analogies between things in kink sex and vanilla sex. They do this sometimes out of necessity and sometimes out of a desire to avoid the overhead of defining every term they use, but mostly they do it (as I'm about to do) because it's something they've heard done before.

I've never "flown" in a scene. That is to say, I've never "checked out" or "seen my body from outside itself" or "felt like the pain was sexually pleasurable," or many of the other things lots of people who do what I do and claim similar labels as I claim have often told me about their experiences. Typically, they call this experience flying, and I've usually heard it discussed as though it was the BDSM version of an orgasm.

Well, if flying is the BDSM version of an orgasm and scenes are the BDSM version of sex, then I've never come.

Of course we all know that different people play differently and for different reasons and different goals and it's all good no matter who you are or what you're into or whatever, but whenever this subject gets brought up it makes me feel a little anorgasmic in regards to kinky things.

A part of me is always wondering if I'm just too technically-minded, too focused on comparing experiences with descriptions that I've missed the boat already in the same way vanilla people sometimes seem to me to be so concerned with orgasms and ejaculations that even when they experience them they sometimes didn't know that they had. And then part of me says to myself that it must be practically impossible not to notice something like an orgasm ("oh, you'll know!"), so a kinky scene orgasm should be similarly impossible not to notice, and since I've never noticed one I've probably never had one.

A lot of people talk about flying by talking about how pain, when experienced at a certain intensity, rhythm, and circumstance, makes the rest of their existence kind of fade out and brings into focus only the lovely sensations of the moment. I can understand that very viscerally; one of the reasons I love BDSM (and kinky sex, and sensual experiences in general) is because they help me get out of my head and into my body, for lack of a better description at the moment.

However, these same people tell me that the pain is sexually exciting. That's not something I can relate to. Friends have told me stories about whippings and beatings that have left them wet or hard and rutting in place, making their very thought processes change somewhat dramatically. I wonder what that sort of an experience would be like. It honestly doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, because as I've said before, pain doesn't turn me on.

As a perfect and somewhat humorous example, take a very sexy takedown scene that happened recently. Having been pulled away from Eileen for purposes completely unbeknownst to me at the time, I got worried about her when a friend said they had ended their scene because Eileen seemed "a little ADD at the end." Strange, I thought, Eileen only gets that way when something is wrong. I should go check on her.

I quickly turned around and started walking back toward her when several more friends appeared and stopped me. No, hang on, I told them, I need to check on Eileen and make sure she's okay. Then, when they pulled a hood over my face and quickly grabbed me by my limbs, you want to know what my first thought was? It was:

Oh, this is a takedown. Eileen's probably fine.

This was no surprise to Eileen, who later remarked, I knew your brain would keep working. It did. My second thought was, "In takedowns, the victim gets to struggle. I'd enjoy doing that!" So of course I struggled as much as I could while staying (as) careful (as I could) not to inadvertently kick the wrong person in the genitals.

This illustrates a very typical experience that I have when I play: I'm very often completely conscious of what's going on and very aware of the reality of a situation. When Eileen and I play with knives, I'm not scared that she'll purposefully cut my throat, or gouge my eye out, I'm scared that she'll do it accidentally. (The risk is what's appealing.) When she whips me, I'm often adjusting my position and I'm motivated to do so by the conscious awareness that my back is no longer straight after that last stroke and that it should be made straight again, or that the sound of the whip and the feel of the air it pushed toward me means the whip is approximately four inches in that direction so I should turn appropriately.

Really, and I'd hate to destroy people's illusions of my kinky sex if they have any, but I'm actually extremely unsexy in my head when I play. Rational thought processes are not really that sexy no matter how you try to dress them up. Everything sexy is entirely about emotion.

Getting beaten with a nightstick is just that; a stick and a body. It's all very mechanical and not very hot. However, with some feeling in there, like being forced to the ground and invited to violently show the emotional aspects of aggression by fighting back, then physically losing and giving in to overwhelming force, now that's sexy.

It's very, very hard to get me out of my head. The only two things that have ever succeeded in doing so have been intense pain and intense pleasure (not necessarily orgasmic pleasure), and even these things don't manage to do it for very long stretches at a time. The way lots of people describe flying, it seems as though they experience some kind of emotional or spiritual climax too abstract for words. This is all wonderful, but is far too abstract for me.

I don't deal very well with abstracts. I'm a rather technical person, obviously, so I like things that make sense and which are grounded in rational thought. When people try to explain things to me that they say are based on "auras" or "energies," I usually just smile and nod. I have no problem with these things, most recently evidenced by a sudden interest in my social group with tantric practices, but I'd prefer to keep a critical eye pinned consistently in that direction.

So when I think about flying, in all the experiences I've had the one that comes closest to it has been getting suspended in rope bondage. Because that's when I was in the air, swinging around, and that's what flying means to me.

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.

This image has been removed. The new photo is still available at the current mirror blog site.

Unfortunately, for some reason, Orgasm Logger has been brought down due to network connectivity issues. This means your counters will have stopped showing up and the Orgasm Logger web site is unavailable. This is remarkably bad timing (is a network outage ever good timing?) because I am off at The Floating World in New Jersey so I can't even begin to troubleshoot this issue until I get back to my home base in Manhattan late Sunday night.

If this is purely a network outage and the fault of my ISP, then Orgasm Logger may be back up at any moment. If something else is going on, then I'm going to troubleshoot it ASAP and get it fixed as soon as I can. Sorry about the nuisance may have caused anyone; unfortunately I don't have the funding for any kind of more reliable equipment or service at the moment.

On completely unrelated notes, The Floating World is going pretty well. Susan Wright's presentation on media strategies for BDSM was absolutely fantastic; she's an amazing speaker, extremely well-organized, and made tons of great points.

She impressed us so much that both Eileen and I are considering taking her media spokesperson training program to learn more about how to deal with BDSM in the media. Unfortunately, her class was scheduled opposite the fucking machines class, but frankly I think it was totally worth it.

The only downside to her whole presentation, if you could call it that, was that since Susan's also incredibly hot, and since she was wearing biker boots, a short black mini skirt, and a sheer top, there were times I had a lot of trouble concentrating on what she was saying.

After all the classes, Eileen and I had a lot of pent-up energy, so we played with our single-tail whip in the dungeon. This morning, I awoke to find the sheets on my half of the bed bloodied, but that's hardly a surprise. The best part for all of you, however, is that we got our pictures taken. Yes, the picture is of my bloodied back.

Orgasm Logger is back up. As suspected, the issues turned out to be related to the network outage, either by my own equipment or the ISP's. All fixed now.

Also, the weekend at Floating World was an amazing blast and I suppose I should write about it at some point, but not when I'm half asleep and having trouble sitting down on a sorely beaten ass comfortably.

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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.

I've been really, really pissed off the last couple of days weeks months years. I thought it was getting better and I was beginning to get out of my bitter and jealous funk, but it's just not happening. Might even be getting worse; instead of ranting on my own blog, now I'm ranting in the comments on Elizabeth's blog (sorry about that, by the way). Pretty sad, really.

I had a long converastion with Lady Lubyanka today, whom I am almost certain thinks I am a very angry and very smart troubled young boy. (She would not be entirely incorrect either; but I did have to look up the word erudite when she called me that today. She's such a sweet charmer.) Then, later, instead of spending dinner with friends I became too upset to be social and wanted to leave early, and this ended up as a very long conversation with Eileen about what was wrong.

So what is wrong? A lot of things are wrong and were never right; these things have hurt me from the first moment I interacted even remotely sexually with another person, but they are especially painful right now because of a few personal experiences that I'd much rather not go into on such a public forum. I mention that now to tell you, dearest reader, that these things are not solely the belidgerant words of an angsty youth. These things do happen. They happen all the time.

Even though there's no help in this post, I ultimately thought that writing about how to make things better without also showing the hurt may not actually be that effective. So here is the bitter taste of reality submissive men drink day in and day out:

I wanted to write about the incredibly aggravating notion that regardless of orientation, dominant or submisive, men are expected to be the pursuers while women, dominant or submissive, are expected to be the pursued.

I wanted to write about why many submissive men are just as responsible for debasing their own sexuality as the many pro- (and so obviously not-so-pro-)dommes who take delight in squashing them down while lifting them of that burdensome weight in their wallets. ("Thank you for stealing my money, Mistress, would you like another dollar?")

I wanted to write about the lack of empathy so prevalent in the public BDSM scenes where more often than you'd probably think (more times than I can count and over the course of two relationships) people of all sexes befriend you if you're a guy for the purposes of getting closer to your girlfriends, both significant other(s) and otherwise. After all, you're a guy: you're just a dime a dozen anyway and another twenty like you will walk through the door in the next two minutes. But oh my god, is that a breast standing next to you? Is there a photographer in the house? Someone must capture this moment and make it last a lifetime! (I still remember the near stampede bee line that was made towards my then-girlfriend when we came out to our first public BDSM meeting. It's happened lots of times since then, too; mostly I'm just used to it now.)

I wanted to write about how most people assume that if you're a guy you're probably controlled by nothing more than that little blood-shot rod of tissue called a penis, and how incredibly shameful I feel to be male because so many times these people are actually correct in their accusations of men. (See above. 'Nuff said.)

I wanted to write about how submissive men will pretty much always, without fail, lose a race for sexual satisfaction out of any gender/sex/orientation combination you can come up with. Always. I've had a sex life that any submissive man you point at would kill to have, yet stick me in a room with other orientations and I'm still the first one sidelined, the last one standing by the fruit punch and chips, so to speak. It's not like it hasn't happened before, and it's certainly going to happen again.

I wanted to write about how if you're a submissive guy you're treated with near-fear if not written off if you don't call youself worthless or think you're only value comes from how much money you make. My god, he's submissive but he likes himself. He's gotta be like the unabomber or one of those kids from Columbine—he's clearly fucked up in the head. No self-respecting male would actually be submissive. I mean, he's submissive? Doesn't he not want to be respected? (Yeah, keep talking Einstein.)

If you are a man and you have had any experience at all interacting with almost any sexually oriented community (including non-kinky contexts), maybe you're pretty pissed off, too. Worst of all, maybe a lot of people are telling you that you don't have a lot of reason to be upset. After all, you're a man, and the world handed you an easier time of things than, say, if you were a woman or if you were living in a third-world country. Shut up and be grateful, you selfish little prick.

I'm not ungrateful, you should tell them, I'm very grateful for the things I have. But that does not negate the unjust, oppressive, systematic starvation of my sexual identity, the hurt caused by the intentional and the unintential assumptions made about who I am and what I should enjoy based on it, or the pain from seeing how excruciatingly invasive all of this has become in my bedroom.

That's what I wanted to write about, but I'm clearly in no state to be writing such things. I'm way too angry about it to make any kind of coherent sense. So like I said, move along, keep channel surfing. There's nothing to see here that you haven't seen a million times before.

I think a lot of people enjoy the notions of a BDSM community because it feels good to belong and to know that there are other people who share your feelings. That's certainly true for me, but lately I've been reminded rather harshly about just how much of my own community does not actually include me in any significant way. And it hurts. A lot.

At the risk of posting a rather dreary self-pitying entry (on a Monday, no less), I have to say that I often feel like there is no space here for me. While I know intellectually that I'm not alone, it sure feels like I am.

Because friends were involved and it was free and sounded the least bit interesting, I went to a low-key erotic art show that OneTaste NY was producing. The artwork wasn't bad; it was just so typical. I can't tell if it helped the show or made it worse that the theme wasn't specifically BDSM-oriented. Why is it that even in people's supposedly non-kinky erotic art ideas women are submissive?

The overwhelming feel of the event was decidedly…patriarchal. "This is a flirt-heavy zone," the greeter told us as we entered, and proceeded to inquire about Eileen's weekend. Maybe "flirt-heavy" is just the PC word for meat market now. Maybe that's too harsh, but there's no denying the implication that men would do the purusing and women would be the pursued. There's nothing wrong with that (putting my head in Eileen's lap at a party was how we got together—quite the forward thing for submissive male to do, many people would probably think), but the expectation is nauseating.

Even the men, the poor ignorant sods, are succumbing to the peer pressure. (Maybe that's because most of them are spineless bastards to begin with who are just aching to be told what to do. Oops, maybe that was too harsh again.) You see it in their ridiculous bait-and-switch routines where the submissive men pretend to be dominant only long enough to get the woman to bed with them. Then they turn around and get on their hands and knees and start talking about how pathetic they are. This is probably one of the very few times I'll actually agree with those men: they are pathetic, and I'm not only ashamed but enraged to be thought of as similar to them, not to mention just how many things are wrong with the very idea that this tactic might actually work out well for anyone.

I'm jealous of the submissive women for whom this kind of space must be an incredible cornucopia of sexual celebration. I bet they actually had a blast at the art show. At the same time, I'm sorry, for their sake, that this potentially wonderful environment is all but destroyed by utterly disrespectful men.

In the end, no one's really all that happy, are they? Is there anyone out there who actually thinks the scene as it is right now is just peachy keen? That it couldn't be better?

A really long time ago, friends of mine who were elected to the TES board of directors encouraged me to run alongside them. They told me that I could do so much good for that community. And that was why I chose not to run: it's not my community, really. It's the closest thing I have to a community, so I adore it, but it's not mine because so much of what they do does not welcome or include me in any significant way. Oh sure, they encourage male submissives sometimes but the way they do so is so amazingly repulsive in so many ways that I just can't see myself having much to do with it. I don't begrudge that community their right to exist. I just want one of my own.

So I'm working hard to build it.

I was going to say a lot more, but a picture is worth a thousand words. This year's march was much like the one from 2005, above, except this time I was in chains and jeans instead of ropes and khakis. Happy Pride. :)

Oh hey, guess what? A friend of mine pointed me to some more photos of myself and Eileen from around the web that she found. Here's another, of the parade a few days ago, taken when Eileen and I were taking a short break from all the whip cracking for a sip of water and diet coke:



And hey, yet more pictures are cropping up. Here's another of my back this year:



Okay, I know I keep updating this entry with more links to photos, but that's 'cuz they keep appearing. Here is a gallery with a number of additional photos of me and Eileen. Enjoy. :)

Playing with other people in a sexual way has been a new experience. I'm a gigantic slut in my fantasies, but in reality I've only ever been with about as many people as I can count on one hand. For some reason, while I feel perfectly okay doing "crazy kinky shit" with people I've just met, like letting them beat me with whips, letting them tie me up in very strenuos positions with rope, shackles, handcuffs, and whatever else is lieing about, and more things, I feel far more self-conscious and uncomfortable with the thought of kissing, groping, or fucking people that I don't know very well.

When Eileen and I were talking about our positive weekend experiences with others, one thing that has stuck in my head that she's mentioned is that she said she felt good about the experiences in part because she, "felt like [she] was giving [our friends] a new toy -- you." This struck a chord because that was so much the feeling I got that I was glad she felt it too. In fact, our friends felt similarly!

To make the feeling even more blunt, a week before we had purchased a little gold dog tag at Petco (ahh, one of the many pervertible stores in the city) and placed it on my collar. The collar reads, appropriately enough, "Property of Eileen" and makes a lovely little jingling noise when I shake my head. This thing feeds directly into my human pet fantasies and I've been crushing hard on it ever since we got it. (Note to kinksters on a budget: for God's sake, go visit Petco! Not to mention the fact that this tag really enhances puppy play scenarios!)

I liked feeling as though I were being given to our friends for the night. Eileen went so far as to give them the option of letting me orgasm (or not) once and once only that night. The combination of these things had put me deep into a headspace of feeling owned. The funny thing about it all was that this feeling was around even while spending the night and, wonderfully, it didn't impede or hamper the activities at all. I was still EIleen's, but I was there with our friends. I think this worked so well, at least in part, because they not only understood, but enjoyed the dynamic as well.

This experience makes me want to dig deeper into exploring feelings of ownership and, beyond that, of being shared.

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!

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Richard over on Femdom Blogs poses a question that has been on my mind for quite a while now. Specifically, have you ever drunk, done drugs, or otherwise been in an altered state as part of a BDSM scene? If so, did the intoxicant enhance or diminish the experience?

Two years ago my answer would have been a sharp, "No! Never!" Nowadays, however, I have to say that yes, I have. Back then, of course, I was also harshly against the notion of intoxicants or medications of any kind. I still don't even take Tylenol when I've got a headache. I never liked the idea of putting things into my body that would somehow change or alter my so-called "normal" reactions to stimuli. No matter that these changes might have been desired (I certainly enjoy a good buzz now and again these days), they were not my reactions, and so I shunned them.

However, this thinking has changed. It now surprises me how unbreachable a wall the BDSM community at large has created around the notion of intoxicants. This is not surprising, however, as there are certainly a great many dangers that such things bring. The mantra of "safe, sane and consensual" is often interpreted to mean that intoxicants of any kind were not involved in a scene, a negotiation, or even a fantasy. But I think this is a decidely restrictive view.

In other subcultures, using artificial substances as part of sex is actually the norm. Is it really just of me to judge that activity as immoral or unethical? After some thinking, I had to say no. An altered state is just that, altered, but that does not necessarily mean it is one with less self-awareness or foreknowledge of the consequences.

Furthermore, I know that for many people, myself included, controlled substances play a significant role in certain fantasies. Putting the all-too-often terrible reality (IMHO caused by a lack of self-control and self-awareness, which is another issue entirely) aside for a moment, it's nothing if not very, very sexy to think of getting drunk and then being taken advantage of.

Looking back on my experiences with just such scenes, a few things have been consistent during what I'd call my "better" scenes:

• I was never so drunk or otherwise incapacitated so as not to be able to respond to my partner, either physically or emotionally. Being passed out is just no fun for anyone, but being buzzed can give us both a nice thrill.


• We never played with anything specifically dangerous while intoxicated, such as knives, needles, or other forms of play that require precise motor control. Obviously, physical safety always comes first.


• While playing, I (the bottom) am always more trashed than she (the top) is. I think this is because being slightly handicapped is what makes the game fun for the bottom while being handicapped is not exactly a benefit for the top. It's easier to subdue someone who's drunk, rather than subdueing someone while drunk.


• If we are playing with such intoxicants, we always give ourselves much more time to recover than otherwise. This means almost all of this sort of play has been done on Friday or Saturday nights, when we didn't have to work the next day. Again, common sense is the best guide.

So did the intoxicants make the scenes better? I don't think I can say yes, because the scenes are so different with intoxicants than without. And half the time, the scene is getting drunk and getting used. Thank god I'm a cheap date.

I've been found out! More and more of my non-cyber friends, the ones who know me in person, have been finding this blog. And, strange, I haven't even written anything in like, three weeks. (Apologies, by the way, as if I actually owe something to readers. That's another post, though.) Of course, it isn't really that hard to figure out who I am. This seems to be concerning a select few of them, mostly because they are kind and caring individuals who don't want to see me "ruined" or "outed" in a negative way.

So, a couple of points are, I think, due to be made.

First, let's face it, I'm already out and there's nothing I can or really want to change about that. This means that there's too much out there about me for me to go track down and sanitize (as if this sort of thing was dirty to begin with, which I think is a silly notion). I've written a ton of stuff about my sexuality, but so have others. I'm mentioned in at least three main stream media publications that I can think of, though not by full name, so there's just no turning back now. If I'd had any hopes of running for public office, which thankfully I don't, I wouldn't have won anyway.

Second, and more importantly, there's very little power someone can wield over me by exposing me as kinky. See point one for why. The fact that I'm already out about this sort of thing is precisely what prevents this from being a vulnerability. Yes, if certain people found out about my sexual proclivities, I may be in some financial duress, but this is not a major concern for me for at least two reasons. The first is perhaps the more important and it is because I am appropriately discreet. I am careful about keeping my personal life out of my business and this would be the case even if my personal life were not so atypical. (Nevermind the fact that the Internet is proving more and more each day that my personal life is actually pretty darn typical.) The second reason is in part based on this first one and is that I would have a number of questions for the colleague who found this blog and read enough of it to trace it back to me. In fact, that would be a delightful conversation!

A friend and reader pointed out to me rather bluntly that I am not actually interested in true anonymity, but instead only care for a "comfortable layer" of it. This is an astute and accurate observation. None of this would actually hold any meaning if it were really anonymous. It's only powerful because it's really, truly, me, actually authentic.

The truth about anonymity is this: you can't be out and be anonymous. You can't be free while being invisible.

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 was surprised to get a number of comments and questions on my latest post showing a photo of my marked-up back over the weekend and early into the week. It seems that everyone wants to know what kinds of instruments were used. An anonymous reader wrote privately:

…those marks are so gorgeous in the photo—what implements were used?

Thanks…. :) I love marks, and one of the reasons I play so "hard" is because it seems as though the harder I play the longer I can enjoy the aftermath. (I'm sure you understand what I mean.)

So, there a number of things going on in this photo. First, and most obviously, there are single-tail marks. A single-tail or, more specifically, a signal or snake whip is a type of whip originally designed to control teams of sled dogs. It is, in fact, the type of whip most commonly associated with BDSM play. (That whip prop they sell with dominatrix costumes, yeah, that's a horrible facsimile of a real signal whip.) There are, however, many different kinds of whips with one tail (thus "single-tail"), but my favorite by fair is the signal whip, a short 3-4 foot whip that is typically weighted at the butt end.

I own a nylon snake whip, which is what made the majority of those very red welts and cuts on my back in the photo I posted. Nylon is an interesting material, because it requires a lot less care than other kinds of whips such as the traditional leathers and kangaroo hides, is much lighter and thus easier to throw, and provides a slightly different sensation. It's far more poppy, very stingy and not nearly as heavy-feeling as the thicker materials. It's also a lot cheaper. :)

Underneath the whip marks, you can see some knife marks in the shape of angel's wings. I think these were made with a butterfly knife, a few days before the nearly hour-long whipping scene that produced the previous photo. In fact, I happen to have a picture of these marks as well.



Knives and whips are too often considered "edgy" toys to play with, but they're also a lot of fun. There's nothing quite as painful as a whip that can be wielded with such (relatively) little effort by a top. Likewise, few things (except perhaps firearms) are as scary as knives when pressed up against your skin. Of course, as is always the case, whips, knives, firearms, and every other implement you may use during sexual play such as a BDSM scene should be carefully researched and practiced before its use is sanctioned by yourself or your partner. Please be careful. There is a real possibility for serious harm when using such tools.

Finally, in the photo, the remains of an extremely severe caning Eileen had me endure while bound in ropes the previous week, evidenced by the sunset yellows and blues in a semi-circle on my ass, is also showing in the photograph. This was actually caused by repeated hits with a clear acrylic rod an inch in diameter. Not a cane, per se, but a pervertible that Eileen found at an art store. She bought two, and after that scene only ended up with one. (The other broke.) The feeling of this thing is seconded only by a broken-off table leg a friend of mine beat my thighs and ass with more recently. It's intensely painful.

What instruments were used more recently?

Just the whip. Unfortunately, Eileen and I ran out of time at the club before the violet wand made its appearance.

On a compeltely unrelated note, the week has been surprisingly busy and somewhat stressful, both emotionally and otherwise, so my lack of posting should be considered a result of that thing that real life does when it swallows you up and makes you pay attention.

Oh, the wonderful intricacies of idioms and toying with them through language. Such cryptography can only succumb to cryptanalysis that accounts for the relevant factors of today. (Apologies to those readers who aren't actually a part of my non-cyber life.) In such cases, a picture is worth a thousand words.



The picture of me, above, was actually taken in 2005, though a similar and yet distinctly very different night was had just a few hours ago.

I've been a bad boy. It's nearly Thursday and I've yet to get to my Wednesday Wanderings posting this week. I don't think I really have the readership who cares, but I've not been very good about posting lately and I certainly want to write about the events of the weekend and this past week. They have been amazingly wonderful, and the explorations into D/s that Eileen and I are doing right now is pushing us both in new—and exciting—directions.

However, once again, tonight I haven't the energy to draw it all together and so instead I'll make note of some of the recent goings-on elsewhere that I've found to be interesting. Rather than try to continually find great new stuff (because, damn, that's really hard—there isn't really that much great stuff out there, really, and even if there is it's hard to find), I'll do the ol' some old and some new link list.

So without further ado, this week's Wanderings:

• Bitchy Jones's Diary: Fuck Me, and Fuck Me Again - Bitchy Jones has, in traditionally beautiful Bitchy style, posted about her frustrations with the ideas of penile-centric sex and what it means in the realm of Femitydomity™ and the kink world as a whole. I loved these posts because I can relate to large parts of them, and I can see how I completely don't relate to other parts of them even though I can agree with her points. As usual, that is what the topic of BDSM (or kink, if I must, Bitchy ;) will do to folks. Everyone's got their own point of view because it's such an intensely personal topic. I love that about this subject matter. Anyway, long story short(er), you should go check out these posts.


• MWK's Weekly Wankcast - In the vein of new stuff, I followed some links on timidboy's site that led me to Mistress Wycked Kitten's "Weekly Wankcast," a podcast of teases and all sorts of other such wonderful things of that nature. I'll admit I have yet to listen to a single one from start to finish, but the excerpts I've been picking up sound very hot. As an information junkie and technologist, it's exciting to see people take advantage of new media in this way. Props to Mistress Wycked Kitten for being one of the first ones on the map in this space, and I certainly hope more will join her soon. Hell, I've got a ton of ideas myself....

In other news, it appears that a majority of bloggers (save Bitchy, of course) haven't been that active this past week, myself included. Richard and Alexandra are finally together again, and I wish them the best of times and a lot of fun while they spend their time together. Tom Allen's been spending a good deal of time responding to comments on his recent entries and as I'm somewhat more familiar with Tom's story from ages ago, I'm remaining a little quieter than most. Tom, you're becoming quite the little superstar. :)

For me, the past few days has been a whirlwind of activity in the non-kinky areas of my life. Suffice it to say that I'm voluntarily unemployed (or will be very soon) and am starting to freak out a little bit about it. I'm in that situation where I have no clue what my life will look like one week down the line, and this is both a freeing and somewhat frightening experience.

Eileen and I have enjoyed way, way more play than we normally do, as well, so there's a lot to write about. Almost too much, in fact, because I've been mulling the experiences over for days now and am no where nearer to writing about them. In some ways, I'm not sure I really want to quite yet, because they were awesome and personal and I don't have much of a basis for understanding them beyond the experience itself. I'd love to play that way some more in the future, and keep exploring these areas. And I know, I'm being way vague, which is totally unfair to readers. But hey, I may be a subbie but it's still my blog—and don't worry, you'll hear allll about it soon enough. :)