REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

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Just earlier today a friend sent me to this Savage Love article in the Village Voice. It's about pegging, aka strap-on sex. We've all talked about this before, remember. The reason this article stuck out like a bright and red sore thumb in all the otherwise mundane vanilla-oriented sex advice columns was the nugget of wisdom by the ever-wonderful Violet Blue shared in response to this woman's concerns:

Everything I've come across so far seems to be playing into the stereotypes that plague male- on-female anal sex. ("You're going to take my cock up that little ass," etc.) I don't peg my man to work out my aggression, I peg him because the prostate is a wondrous thing.

When I point at other submissive men who are blinded by their own irresistible cravings to think before they act and tell you that they have hurt me in my sex life, this is (an example of) exactly what I mean. When I point at pro-dommes and tell you that they are cheapening me to other dominant women, this is exactly what I mean. When I point at the media and say that this is why I feel like it is invading my bedroom, this is exactly what I mean.

Violet Blue responds with some much-needed reason to all the craziness:

Pegging in most porn is festooned with stereotypes of shame and pain, like most sex in mainstream porn," says Violet. "And, unfortunately, these stereotypes have seeped into online sex culture. But you don't have to be Mistress Asscrusher, and he doesn't have to answer to Worthless Buttslut, in order to enjoy strap-on sex. Like I explain in my book, most couples who peg do it because it's fun, intimate, new, exciting, and quite loving.

I've said it before, but I guess it behooves me to say it again: I don't see anything wrong with Mistres Asscrusher or Worthless Buttslut, but if you start to expect that of me (by behaving in ways that show it—I couldn't care less what positions you fantasize about me in as long as they remain fantasy) then you are actually hurting me and it doesn't matter who you are or what your orientation, submissive man or dominant woman or albino monkey or whatever, you're not going to see much respect beyond that I accord fellow humans coming from me. Respect like that is and always should be earned—you don't get it just because you're of an "alternative" sexuality.

Addendum: I was just talking to that brilliant friend of mine who asked me what the hell my beef with pro-dommes is. It's a fair question. She asked me to describe it in twenty words or less, because she was tired. So I did:

Pro-dommes have a monopoly on the expression of female domination in the majority of online and real-world kinky contexts.

One thing led to another in this conversation, when she finally remarked that she never thought she'd see "the personal is political" from this side of the sex wars, but yeah, ok, I can see it. Being completely untrained in feminist theory I'd never heard that word before, so I did a little bit of searching to find out what she's talking about. I have no conclusions, but I wanted to share what I found because I feel it is inherently relevant to the above post.

• A Z-Magazine editorial on the various meanings of the phrase "The Personal Is Political" through time since the late 1960's. (I highly recommend reading this first.)


• Wikipedia's article on identity politics.


• Newsgroup archives discussing the origins of the phrase "The Personal is Political".


• and more….

In brief, I am beginning to wonder if this phrase and its related political associations are an accurate description of the feelings of systematic marginalization in the post above. I'll leave further speculation, however, for a time after more significant rumination.

In reply to my previous post, Eileen left some prodding comments. (I love it when she prods me.)

How can we make the spaces for everyone wider? CV is doing a fantastic job of it; what else can be done?

CV succeeded in creating a space that does not feel fragmented because there was more than just tolerance and acceptance, there was invitation and inclusion. At the same time as we celebrate diversity and showcase our differences, we are also welcoming.

It's not what you do, it's how you do it. Communities can learn a lot from that mantra. Everywhere else I look I see groups built upon expectations instead of invitations. Their party line is, "Come here if you are interested in BDSM and you are gay." The "Join us if" mentality is exclusionary, an odd thing for a marginalized community to be based on, I think. The end result of such things is the current state of the sexuality communities: fractured and divided and so utterly, utterly siloed.

Instead, why not just say, "Join us." No qualifiers, there's no need. Rules of civility and organization operations are no hindrances to this sort of thing. And of course, don't just say it. Do it!

Dom Sub Friends (aka DSF) has what is probably their view of a very inviting tagline: The Friendly BDSM Society. But go to a meeting and you'll be greeted by the most adamantly heterosexual, maledom/femsub group you're likely to meet in New York City. They may be friendly, but they are anything but inviting if who you are is someone like me. On the other hand, they are probably a great find for people who are looking for that sort of thing. (In which case I recommend them—they've never been anything but friendly to me.)

Naturally, communities will organize around their own cultures, and what they determine as criteria for valuing BDSM activity is not mine. It makes sense, then, that I would not find this group inviting. It also begs the question: would they find my culture inviting? Maybe not. (As a side-note, this is why I am very much not worried about people who may pose a threat to CV taking over the population of the group. They simply have better places to go than our little oasis. To quote our current president of vice, we're really pretty boring if you're not actually interested in learning about BDSM with an open mind.)

Therein lies my point, however. They don't need to find my culture inviting, they already have one. I, on the other hand, don't. There are no erotic art shows I know of that display imagery such as that in Van Darkholme's Male Bondage photography book. As a matter of fact, I don't even know of any other books that do such a thing.

Should we start making our own porn? Should I take photos of you? Should we pitch a fit over spaces, or work to make the spaces different, or leave the spaces altogether? And then, will what you're working to make and what already exists ever have significant cross over?

I don't know. I hope there will be crossover, because even though I don't feel welcome in their community I certainly appreciate their presence as a community. Sexual rights are important for everyone. Their presence strengthens my own stance, as mine strengthens theirs. It is not impossible to stand together and still be different, but it is impossible for me to stand with them when I can not call anything of theirs my own and when there is nothing else for me to claim for myself.

Maybe they don't even want anything to do with me, but I guarantee that I'm a voice they'd be better off having on their side, especially with the recent climate of sexual oppression and misunderstanding growing stronger every day. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: for some reason, sex and education seem to be the two topics that otherwise smart people consistently behave very stupidly about.

I don't want to go to the same parties as these other people do. Neither of us would have a good time. My griping isn't because they have a community, it's because mine is practically non-existant. What's sprung up in the past couple of years is truly extraordinary, and I am in the unique position among my tiny social circle of being able to remember what it was like before. I want to cultivate it, and make it grow.

Does that mean making my own porn? I don't know. I'd be willing to try it. There is no greater equalizer than currency. If selling my brand of sexuality earns it a top spot on people's radars, why shouldn't I try for it? That's what I admire about Tristan Taormino. It's too bad she's not a submissive guy. But then if she were a submissive guy, like I am, would her brand of sex sell at all? Would mine?

There is no doubt in my mind that there are other people who have not been lucky enough to find a place where such acceptance and intelligence has coalesced and these people are still looking for it. I hope they keep looking, because I am, and one day we might find each other.

Being loud helps you get noticed. Maybe I am just trying to rouse my little corner into making a little more noise. I feel I have been deafened by the never-ending rhetoric of others that so many people have written about lately.

If you're tired of this topic, too bad. In fact, blame Calico this time, since she rekindled it. :P

She's been musing over pro-domming again and, as usual, generously shares a lot of her thoughts.

I happen to think my style of sex work is a fantastic deal for all involved, the best bargain (marked down from Invaluable! and Priceless!) there is, but I am biased.

I have to admit that, on a visceral level, the idea of sex being a "fantastic deal" is instantly unappealing to me. If I feel as though I am offering something invaluable, I would feel badly about providing it for a marked-down price at an hourly rate. This has nothing to do with pro-dommes specifically and everything to do with the nature of my interaction with the world, itself something different than what other people experience. I can't fault anyone for their choice of interactions.

Perhaps this is why I am so heartened by Calico's reinforcement of professional domination as sex work. It provides a much simpler to understand reason why I might dislike it so and I am eager to invite a simple explanation to anything this complicated and that causes so much internal conflict.

Lots of things Calico says in this post show me, again, that she really, truly isn't like what I've experienced to be the typical cross-section of Pro Dommes.

I can tell you what it is that I do, as best I know. It might not be dominant, and it might not be smart or correct, but it is certainly sincere.

...

I’ll freely admit that when it comes to power exchange, I play. Submission, domination: I make no pretentions.

...

D/s is not what I do as a “prodomme”. I wouldn’t consider taking on a pay-for-play relationship, period. As a whore of any sort I’m hourly. Sorry, a girl’s gotta have boundaries! The only homework I want is the stuff, like this, that I inflict on myself.
As such I doubt I’m a “proper” prodomme, and I have said as much. Not all my sessions are BDSM — they’re fetish, they’re fantasy facilitation, they’re sex work for crying out loud. I don’t make my foot fetish clients call me Mistress, and I don’t kick anyone in the balls without permission. If they want BDSM they will ask, and I’m happy that plenty do.

I imagine that this is not what you'd expect to hear coming from a proffesional dominatrix. It's certainly not what I heard from dozens of them back when they were a central part of my social circle. It is what they said but it's not what I heard. And isn't that a turn off for anything, feeling in your bones that the situation you find yourself just isn't as authentic, as sincere as you hoped an emotional experience would be? The magnetic repellant of inauthentic interation was so strong I never even got around to paying anyone, though I did have a thought or two about it a long time ago.

Perhaps the expectation of authenticity is too much to ask for a business transaction. One must remember that professional domination is actually a profession, after all.

(As a side note, I know it must be hard being different in a community of those who are different, though I think it's also cause for great celebration, and I hope Calico realizes that, too.)

I won’t stand up and tell you I’m a dominant woman. I haven’t got a line of proof to show you.

...

I like to say that when you see me, as Mistress Alena, you are paying for the time and not the inclination.

This is fair enough, and is the most oft-cited reason why professional domination may not be a disagreeable profession. It's what all my friends (and partners) have said to me when they mentioned the idea (all of them). However, I have to say in response that the fact of the matter is that any job I would have that I would be paid for my time rather than my inclination is not a job I want. In fact, I've quit 2 such jobs in the last year alone. Maybe others feel differently, and I can't begrudge them that if they do nor would I ever impose my world view as theirs, yet I feel this argument strengthened by the ex-pro dommes who concur with just this feeling and who offer just this reasoning as the reason they are no longer doing professional domination.

What does that tell me? That every pro-domme is just on a path towards burnout? No. Many are, and that's unfortunate. Perhaps the nature of the business can change to become more fulfilling. Perhaps it just wasn't for them.

But I know that when I grab a man by the handcuffs and slam him up against the wall, the startled grunt of air he gives is like the sweetest of moans.

A pro domme who enjoys her work? Why not? Good for her! Good for her clients! In fact, if a friend were to come to me tomorrow to ask for advice on seeing a pro domme, the first thing I would tell him or her would be see someone who will enjoy your session just as much as you, and I might very well point them Calico's way. But at that point, they've already made up their mind.

So maybe we're focusing on the wrong topic. What is it about my hypotehtical friend which has brought him or her to the decision to see a dominatrix? What is it about me that has brought me to the decision to not do so? Is it just those early negative (and perhaps formative) experiences? I think not, and I hope not, but maybe it is.

When you beat me, I want you to like doing it. When you hurt me, I want you to want me to hurt. When we play, I want to feel us both acting from instinct, not from expectation. I will simply make no room for spurious things in my sex.

Is a pro-domme session then necessarily mutually exclusive of these traits? I don't know. I guess neither does Calico.

Calico over at Dominatrix Next Door remarks on the influence of money in sex work:

On the way out I picked up $pread magazine’s new issue, which has a whole section about money. Of course it’s about money, I thought, how silly! All jobs are about money. But it’s not actually so straightforward. Quite often we predicate the entire value of sex work on the money and free time. Our critics like to point out the tenuous nature of pay in an effort to discredit the work. Sure, we make money (and thus our work is worthwhile) when young and well and pretty, but what if we’re sick or grow old and fat, which could happen at any time? Sex work can’t possibly hold any merit if it can’t guarantee its one redeeming feature.

One of the problems (I think) I have with the notion of sex work is that it is ultimately a service industry, and there is no real way to reap continuing financial rewards from such a thing. The proven way to make money (and simultaneously not be working) is not to sell a service, but to sell a product. Thus, I feel better about the idea of pornography as a product (videos, sponsorships, physical items) than I do about something essentially ephemeral, such as stripping, professional domination, escort services, or anything of that sort.

I'm not sure if this is any "better" an idea in terms of morality or ethical egalitarianism, but a part of it, at least, rings true with my own experiences.

I've been completely remiss with this blog. I shan't give excuses because, well, what good would that do? Instead, some quality reading material that I've found—or that has found me—recently.

• Bishounen Works is the fantastic web site of P.L. Nunn, renowned yaoi fan fiction author and artist. I've known about her site for, god, ages now and it has long since been a bookmark in my collection 'o naughty sex sites. She's got a ton of fantastic artwork, if you're into that sort of thing (I am).
  
  However, recently Eileen discovered several specific pieces of fiction that have quite literally rocked our world. They are absolutely wonderfully horrific tales of torture and abuse and are certainly not for the faint of heart, but their extreme violence and unabashed eroticism make them true must-reads for anyone who finds the fantasy of non-consensual BDSM (rape, kidnapping, captivity, torture, etc.) arousing.
  
  I don't often feel the need to place such disclaimers around links, but these are very extreme stories. They are also purely fantasy, an important point to keep in mind.
  
  Here's a brief list of some of my favorites so far.
  
  
  
  
  • Bloodraven - a fantasy world where invading Ogres capture and enslave humans finds one such man taken hostage for the sexual amusement of his new Ogre master.
  
  
  • Walking with the Dead - Okay, I haven't actually read it yet but Eileen says it's filled with all sorts of sexy hotness. :)
  
  
  
  
  Reading this kind of intense stuff is sometimes frighteningly sexy. The thought of having my life ripped away from me and being thrust into non-consensual slavery wherein I am abused day and night to the point of exhaustion and near-death almost daily at once fills me with several kinds of lust. I am pretty sure for obvious reasons that the eroticization of such a thing would quickly vanish in the face of being confronted with such a reality, but other emotions would not. The bloodlust, fighting instinct, would be stroång, and it's more than often that feeling, too, that I crave when I want to play with pain really hard….


• Dominatrix Next Door - This extremely intelligent pro-domme's blog is clearly in its early stages, but is already home to some wonderfully insightful posts about sex work, and what that's actually like. In case you missed that, this is a BDSM professional's blog who calls her profession sex work, and that alone should tell you just how observant this young lass is. I've been reading some of her writings for quite a while now and I'm always interested, and sometimes humbled, after reading her perspective on things.


• Behind Kink's Free Documentaries - Of course, I'd be remiss not to mention Kink.com's wonderful new announcement that they have made access to all of the Behind Kink documentary videos absolutely free. This comes right on the heels of Kink.com's recent mention in the New York Times and is exactly the right thing for them to do, and it is the first move towards making the pornography industry something that will really benefit from, instead of being hampered by, the advance of technology and media sharing. If you have yet to watch a few of these, go check them out. It's not always what you think.

I think I figured something out just now, in the shower. I was thinking about the whole issue of professional BDSM and what the deal is with prodommes and what not, how money plays into the equation and the economics of the situation when it struck me: the men are the whores.

What I mean is, the reason I get so pissed off at the other submissive men out there who are willing to pay for domination is because in my view they are cheapening something that I find to be priceless, namely my own submission. How dare they willingly say, "Dominating me for an hour is worth two (or three, or four or whatever) hundred dollars to me." I could never say that and mean it the way they do, because frankly, my submission is earned. I don't just give it away to the prettiest girl or the strongest man or the cheapest dom I can find.

I can't understand why these men sell their submission the way they do. It's insulting to me, as a proud human, bottom, and submissive, that they even consider the thought. No wonder I have such a hard time respecting them. What's there to respect about someone who so willingly sells such a deeply important part of themselves, and furthermore, cheapens the entire idea by placing finite financial value on the thing?

These men are the most unethical of sluts I can imagine. They are more unethical than the prodommes because the prodommes (usually) know what they're doing emotionally and they make conscious choices to protect themselves. But these men…they know what they're doing and they're doing it on purpose anyway (and if they don't, they're just too dumb to be respected on any level other than the basic respect I'd accord a fellow human).

I'm not sure if that made any sense to anyone except for me. Whatever, it's just my two cents anyway.

Oh my god, I could rant about this forever (via Femdom Blogs), but I won't because I'd quickly become incoherent considering the current time. That said, I will say that this is precisely the difference money makes, and it's one reason why I believe I've consistently found so many professional dominants to be longing for submissive interactions in their private lives.

When thinking about professional dominas, so many people often focus on the second word. The real heart of the title, however, is the first one, professsional. To be successful and worth half your salt, you need the same kind of dedication to the craft as a surgeon might have to his. Yes, it's fucking hard work, because professionals are hired to perform a very specific task, and the harder that task is to perform the more valuable their talents are.

When a client pays you to do something, you're expected to do it. That, right there, changes the equation. When Eileen and I play, there is no expectation from me but rather acceptance. Yes, there is some give and take, and the truth of the matter is that there is far more one-sidedness in the prodomme's circumstance than in mine. All I can see the prodomme getting, besides an experience (which you can argue the real value of 'til the cows come home), is a paycheck.

And damnit, your job should never just be a paycheck, 'lest you be miserable for your entire career. It's the overestimating of the value of the "prodomme experience" that is the single most common reason I've seen prodommes quit that line of work, and I can think of at least four I know (or have known) personally right off the top of my head. 'Nuff said tonight.

Update: Just wanted to make a few ammendments to this post now that I'm more rested. These were actually comments on Bitchy Jones's take on the Pandora's Box article that I left on her blog, but I like how I said it and wanted to add them here.

This is one of those things that I have too many thoughts about and as a result can't write anything coherent because every time I look at the situation my mind kind of explodes inside my skull and I feel like it's oozing out of my ears. So, so frustrating.

However, let me try to get a few points across:

1. Prodommes, for the most part, are about looks and not about skill. I am always utterly depressed when I see how awful their form and aim is, how ignorant they are of safety techniques, and how generally uneducated they are about BDSM 101-type things. So it makes sense that it's their looks, not their skills, that are economically viable and that they are the ones supplying the demand. And who demands it? Why, lonely, usually socially awkward or emotionally unintelligent submissive men who can't or don't know how to get what they want except with the one currency they can actually bargain with: currency.


2. Prodommes are supposed to be first and foremost professionals. There's not a single prodomme I've spoken with (and I've spoken with quite a few, mind you) that doesn't try to draw a very distinct separation between their work and personal lives. That right there makes their professional interests a lot less interesting to me as a submissive male, because why would I want to be with someone who is proactively separating me out of their personal lives? Again, it comes down to the fact that there are just too many pathetic men out there. Makes me ashamed to call myself male sometimes, really.


3. Ultimately, the situation is the way it is because it's "correct enough" in that it works. The only way to change the system is to beat it economically. And believe you me, this is something I've been trying to come up with a way to do for a long time. Create something truly better that proves itself as such by completely destroying profit expectations of these abysmal esetablishments, and you'll change the system and remake it in your own image.

End mini-rant. I guess I'm tougher on the customers than the suppliers because I'm a sub male and I get a lot more upset about seeing the worst of my breed displayed than I do about seeing the worst of someone else's breed. I've gone to dozens upon dozens of fetish parties and whatnot, and at each one, the prodommes there didn't know what to make of me or how to react to me or even what the hell I was about because the first thing out of my mouth was never "may I rub your feet?" Blech! I'm pissed off that most dominant women expect that to be the first thing out of my mouth.

The wonderfully expressive Bitchy Jones has a fantastic post about professional female dominants (i.e., a pro-domme, a dominatrix, etc.), in which she says:

It makes me sad that the only dom women you ever see in the media are professional doms. The shelves in the erotica section of my local Borders are thick with the memoirs of prodom women, but no memoirs of anyone like me. And no matter how much these women with the memoirs out love it they *are* getting paid. And that’s just different to doing something for love. It just is.

Frankly, I agree completely. As a male submissive who has been fortunate enough to get the chance to enjoy scenes with pro-dommes, I viscerally dislike the whole industry built around this aspect of BDSM. It's just not real, and that tarnishes everything about the experience for me. Most of the times I've interacted with pro-dommes they didn't know the first thing about how to react to me. She (as a general plural "they") would go into her whole "I'm a beautiful domme and you want to give me things" routine andd I just shake my head at her. It's annoying and it's not sexy. Oh, and it's pretentious, too.

Furthermore, I can't feel submissive to someone like that because I feel embarassed for them. Eileen made the good point during a recent conversation about being a professional dominatrix that she would probably find the experience humiliating. Doingg anything just because you need the money, even if you don't really mind "that much" that you're doing it and even if you can genuinely have a good time, is still humiliating.

And it's submissive, at least to the situation if not directly to the client. But then again it is, because most Pro-Dommes work hard for really great tips and there's no way in my mind that that instinct is not utterly submissive. As a male client, I know that I have at least some level of control over the so-called female dominant's motivation in a way that I just don't have when money's not involved. On the flip side, however, it is (or at least it certainly should be) within the pro-domme's power and right to say that she will never want to scene with me again, and it's not as if there isn't an ocean full of other fish she can fry.

The other interesting thing I have noticed from my (admittedly one-sided but still rather vast) experience in the Pro-Domme scene is that an overwhelming majority of professional domintracies (dominatrixes?) are actually submissive (or at least switches) in their personal lives if they're even "into this stuff" in their personal lives at all. There's nothing wrong with being a submissive or with being a switch, but the very fact that this is such a hidden thing makes those who hide it completely unattractive to me as tops. It comes back to the fact that they are doing this not for me or with me, but for my money, alone.

Sure, there are exceptions (see previous link to enjoyable scenes with pro-dommes), but these are certainly not the typical experience. One would think, then, that there is a huge business opportunity for a "real" pro-domme, one who "gets it" and for whom BDSM truly is a "natural" thing and not just a "job." The money is a lure that is hard to resist. But wouldn't that change things? And of course, how can I reallly judge so harshly without having walked a mile in those high-heeled shoes, so to speak?