REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

Due to personal reasons, I've decided to drop off the radar a little bit this past week. Instead of sex, I brought you Mario.

Tonight, however briefly, it's back to the sex.

Lest you think this is merely a pulp post, let me make my point explicitly (pun intended).

No matter how hard some people want to stop sex, it just doesn't work. Hypocrisy, oppression, and repression is always a losing play.

Sex crosses every boundary you can imagine.

You can't stop the signal.

(Some links via Gloria Brame.)

When I was a child in elementary school, a friend turned to me and said one day, "Hey, what color is that crayon?"

"Blue," I said.

"What does it look like to you?" he pressed.

"Um. It looks blue," I said.

"What if it looks green to somebody else?"

Hmm. Now here was an interesting thought I had not previously pondered. How would I describe what this blue crayon looks like to someone to whom this crayon looked green. I first thought that I could use the word "green" to describe "blue" but quickly realized that method of color-swapping would fall apart when I needed to explain what green looked like to me. (Would I call it blue? We'd be back in square one, only with the terms reversed—even if it "worked" to avoid a situation wherein I was handed a green crayon when I wanted a blue one, the colors would still look "reversed" to the other person.)

This elementary thought experiment is not just relevant to recess periods in schools. It's something everyone grows up trying to figure out and is an example of the budding awareness in children that different people think about things in different ways.

The exposure to this thought started me thinking about how to use words to convey meaning. Eventually, after this question had been percolating on the back burner of my mind for literally years, I came to an ever-evolving (for lack of a better word, pun intended) conclusion that the only way to convey meaning perfectly and be assured that my meaning had been understood perfectly—that is, understood in exactly the way it was intended—was only possible through some kind of Vulcan-esque mind-meld telepathy communication mechanism that I'm probably never going to get the chance to experience in real life. That's a pity, really, because the fact of the matter is that verbal communication is a pretty pathetic substitute for mind-melds.

The problem of trying to figure out whether or not someone really understood you is very hard to solve. In computing, guaranteed-delivery protocols like TCP have built-in methods for acknowledging the receipt and integrity of a message (TCP uses flow control algorithms and checksums for this). That is to say that when the sender transmits a message, it waits for an acknowledgment from the receiver that says it has been saved correctly. (Technically, this is still not guaranteed to be perfect but it is extremely reliable.)

However, human communications are not always so simply verified. There is no checksum I can calculate for my message, for instance. People do often use similar protocols to that which computers use for the purpose of acknowledging receipt of a message. Sharing a telephone number is a pretty good example: "My number is 555-5555. Did you get that?" "Yeah, you said 555-5555, right?" "Yes, that's right." "Great." See how much back-and-forth there is? That's all a (social) verification protocol.

However, the more abstract or emotional the payload of your message gets, the greater the uncertainty of successful verification becomes. Little wonder couples fight about "not being understood" over and over and over again. Communication isn't just a matter of transmitting a message, it's about receiving (and believing) an acknowledgment that states the message was understood as it was intended. That's quite a tall order, especially when you consider how difficult it is to express your own emotions accurately in the first place. (It is for me, anyway.)

So what can you do to help mitigate this situation? I strive for precision. I say what I mean (transmission) using the most accurate words (payload) that are most likely to reproduce the originally intended meaning (checksum) in the listener (receiver). Yes; precision such as this is actually a learned skill.

But there's still a problem here. What if the person I'm talking to thinks of green when I say blue? (Even this is not so abstract a question when you consider I am partially colorblind in reality.) Clearly, we have a miscommunication. That fact might not even make itself evident immediately, but it probably will at one point or another if we keep interacting.

More to the point, what if they think of binary gender ideals when I say I'm bisexual? (After all, that's what my blog's tagline labels me as—a submissive and bisexual man. More people read that tagline than have read this far into this particular entry.) Do I use another word, such as pansexual, to try and get readers thinking about gender fluidity and try to steer them away from making an assumption about gender that I think isn't true?

I've chosen not to do that for this simple reason: when I say I'm bisexual, I'm not talking about gender fluidity, I'm talking about my own sexual orientation.

The claim that the word bisexual implies two binary genders isn't one that is actually a part of the word's literal definition (though it has become so engrained in today's understanding of the word that you'll find this assumption even in most dictionaries). People will tell me that "bi" means two and therefore bisexual means "one of two sexes" (like bicycle, literally "two wheels") but this definition still assumes that the "bi" in bisexual is talking about two singular points—man and woman.

Instead, possibly because I never liked riding bicycles and while still a child I was diagnosed as bipolar (a medical condition that causes one's emotional state to swing wildly between euphoria and depression), I have always understood the word bisexual to refer to the range between two points, and not just two points, and, even more to the point not just a range of gender identity but of sexual identity and gender role and a whole lot of other things, too.

Gender theorists such as the estimable Kate Bornstein talk a lot about the existence of many different axes of various qualities that, together, make up a person's gender identity. However, at their fundamental level, these axes all have this in common: they are a range between two points. That's what the "bi" in bisexual means to me.

That's the only thing that makes any logical sense for the "bi" to refer to that doesn't also have some kind of assumption concocted from cultural subtext. After all, sexuality is generally accepted even in the mainstream to refer to psychological, spiritual, physiological, social, and emotional makeup of an individual.

That's why I don't like the word pansexual, by the way. I don't think it's quite as precise.

That doesn't mean it's wrong to use the word pansexual to describe oneself or to use it for the purpose of raising awareness of issues relating to gender identity (in fact, I encourage raising awareness of gender identity issues in whatever way people want, as long as they're nice to each other about it). It does mean, however, that using the term pansexual (like its near-synonyms polysexual and omnisexual and a slew of others) validate its use for a more ambiguous meaning. It makes the term obtuse. I don't like that.

Overloading terminology in that way causes problems for people who wish to be precise in their use of English to maintain accurate communications.

It is not my fault that people are ignorant of gender fluidity, even though it is occasionally problematic for me that they are. However, I don't see why I should have to dull my communication tools (the English language in this case) in order to accomodate their ignorance. Instead, would it not be more mutually beneficial to simply educate these people about the gradations of gender identity that exist? And would it not be more effective to do this by specifically discussing gender fluidity rather than overloading a perfectly acceptable term used to describe a perfectly legitimate sexual orientation (namely, pansexual) for this secondary purpose?

Is this love of precision too idealistic to work? In a casual sense, yeah, probably; I consistently have to define the words I use to remind people to take me with utter literal understanding, for the most part. (Even the word literal, by the way, has its etymological roots in scripture—in literature and writing.) But then again, I've found that this works exceedingly well once people learn that what I say is what I mean and what I mean is all that I've said.

It also makes people aware of just how much subtext they assume is present in their communications with other people after they start seeing how often and to what extent they have added it to conversations with me. Communicating with subtext is all fine and well (really), but it is dangerous to do so without intending to or without an awareness of what part of the message was subtext and what part was not.

This Kink on Tap is kind of an extended addendum to our previous episode where we talk about and introduce the topic of sexual teasing and denial and chastity play. If you haven't listened to that episode already, I strongly urge you to do so.

The best part, however, is that Tom Allen from the Edge of Vanilla joined Eileen and I to talk about his personal experiences. Of course, the advantage of having someone on the phone is that you can ask personal qusetions and get immediate, personal responses.

There's no shortage of that in this converastion, where Tom shares a lot about his own reasons for enjoying chastity, the way in which this kind of sexual power play developed in the relationship with his (very blessed) wife, and of course why this kink in particular is often thought of as being very "vanilla." I couldn't help but share some of my own opinions and experiences as well, and Eileen does the same.

Lest you think that Tom's always this cerebral, however, don't forget about his super-hot chastity porn. My own fantasies tend to drift towards slightly more painful tastes, but that doesn't stop me from being the first to admit that I've sprung more than my fair share of hard-ons looking at Tom's stuff.

As always, I hope you enjoy this episode of Kink on Tap and invite your feedback of any kind (though especially regarding audio engineering) either as comments here or by emailing kinkontap+feedback@gmail.com. Have something you want to hear talked about or a story you want to share? Write to me at kinkontap+viewermail@gmail.com (and don't question why it's called viewer mail, 'cuz I wouldn't know what to tell you).

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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.

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.

Perhaps this should be three separate posts, but whatever. In preparation for Floating World, Jefferson from over on One Life, Take Two has asked for some reader participation. The topics are absolutely fascinating so I couldn't help but offer my input:

1) Do you blog about sex? Let me know your site, your reasons forblogging, and your experiences as a blogger.

My experiences blogging are somewhat unusual because I have been blogging since before it was called blogging. Back in 1995, I set up a web site for bipolar youth on which I kept a semi-regular running journal. I was 12 or so at the time. My life since then is a remarkably open book. I find that blogging is one of the key techniques I use to maintain self-awareness and self-observation. I do this about sex, but I also do this about friends and family life, social events, and my work life. Making things public just makes things more accessible. I've gotten correspondence from people and have friends I would not have had other wise. To date, I've never experienced a profoundly negative effect from public blogging.

I keep getting warned that one day this is going to bite me, and you know what, maybe it will. But I've already gained so much from my own openness that it seems like a silly thing to fear the potential backlash of the future. I am much stronger now anyway, more confident but also more of a success in other people's eyes. It becomes very difficult, I believe, to point at someone and say "You're bad because of this or that" when you are presented with all the other things they have done that you don't have any problem with.

Those of you who only read this blog may not know about the other topics I write about elsewhere, and those people will probably not wander on over here to read about kink and BDSM. As a result, while I am just one voice, I am a voice for many things. It's that kind of diversity that gives people their strength and which makes it hard to demonize any one aspect of a person's life.

2) What are your experiences with male bisexuality? I'm interested in your personal experiences as well as those involving friends, lovers and/or communities. Anyone is welcome to reply; you needn't be bisexual or identify as male to have an opinion or experience to relate.

I'm a bisexual guy. Bisexuality is hard: there is very little community identity because I don't know of any bisexual guys (or girls?) who are *only* bisexual. Everyone is bi but also kinky or heavily involved in LGBT activism (from which I've noticed the B and the T get dropped very frequently), or something else such as polyamory. Indeed, I am guilty of this myself. It's been to my own detriment, in fact, because while I strongly desire male-male experiences I have been focused elsewhere.

It doesn't help that community norms typically marginalize male bisexuality, and it is infuriating that female bisexuality is actually expected to be par for the course. (First because, hey, I want some of that same-sex action, too, and secondly because don't you think this is completely unfair to the women who aren't interested in other women?) I often shy away from meeting gay men because all too often they dismiss my homosexual interests as merely a passing fad. Or sometimes the reverse case, where my heterosexual interests are inauthentic. To this I say that they have clearly not been reading their own "liberation" material.

Furthermore, the notion of claiming a bisexual identity because it is the cool thing to do, annoyingly dubbed "bi chic" and thankfully not nearly so big a social stigma anymore as it was in the mid-1990's, casts nothing but more shadow over an already veiled identity. Conversely, there is the popular notion of "forced bi", wherein self-declared straight men have irresistable fantasies about being forced into sexual encounters with other men. (Oh, and that's another thing that pisses me off: guys who say they are bi for the sole purpose of getting women. But that's a whole 'nother rant.) When I was in high school and trying to understand what my body was telling me, I struggled for longer than I'd like to admit with the binary idea that I was either gay or straight, but that bisexuality was not an option.

What is it about such black-and-white simplicity that is so attractive to so many people? It's easy, but it's false. Once again, the diversity and fluidity of my gender identity is extremely important to me, and is something I think is actually a healthy thing for everybody to have an understanding about.

3) What are your experiences and interests on g spot and p spotstimulation? Do you enjoy them? Are you frustrated by an inability tolocate them, or to stimulate them?

Kind of dovetailing off the last item, one of the reasons why I am a little hard-up for male-male action is because I absolutely love receiving anal sex. This is primarily because the prostate stimulation is so intense for me. Maybe I'm just wired differently than most people (though I doubt it), but prostate stimulation is so incredibly spot-on (no pun intended), that I am convinced it's one of the most perfect developments in the natural world.

I've never had any problem stimulating my prostate. I've been doing so as a regular part of masturbation since my very early adolescent years (about 11 or so). I started by first pressing my fingers into my perineum and gently rubbing across it. Eventually I began to anally penetrate myself with my fingers. Thank goodness for flexibility! When I masturbate this way, I feel like orgasm approaches much, much quicker than it would otherwise. It's a wonderful addition to sexual play, one I enjoy a lot. I've since bought toys specifically for this purpose, such as the aneros helix. At times, it's actually difficult for me to avoid ejaculating when sexual stimulation is supplemented with prostate stimulation. When I met my current partner, Eileen, we quickly took to strap-on sex in part for this reason.

However, another aspect to our prostate stimulation playtime actually stems from our orgasm control and chastity kinks. Prostate stimulation is a central part of many submissive men's chastity regimes for reasons of perceived prostatic health. In addition, the incredible arousal I experience when my prostate is stimulated makes me super horny. Eileen calls it "stoking my fire" when she fingers me. It's very effective for sexual teasing because many men, myself included, can't ejaculate powerfully via prostate stimulation alone if they can even reach orgasm at all. The net result is that I get more horny, but can't relieve my arousal. That, of course, is the point.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few days ago I asked whether or not regular sex was actually regular. Today, on Richard's Fetish Lore discussion forum I was reminded of a time when sex was almost (so close!) to being regular:

The most "vanilla" sex I think I've ever felt was when she was fucking me with her strap on on our bed. No ropes, no chains, no teasing, just sex. Of course, there was an element of power play present, but the experience was also just very indulgent for us both.

I like that word, indulgent, because it rings in my mind as the very essence of what sex is. I think that if there is such a thing as regular sex, both partners would feel as though they are indulging themselves as well as their partner at the same time. In fact, they would be indulging in the body of their partner (or partners).

In many ways, this implies a physicality that is almost more present than in a D/s sexual dynamic because the participants thoughts are (and I'm guessing) geared exclusively on the pleasure of the experience. While this is ultimately the case for a D/s scenario as well, there are many more layers of emotional construction that the experience lies upon in such an emotionally charged context.

It's very difficult if not impossible to have a Dominant/submissive dynamic without some kind of very intense emotion, good or bad. However, I feel (subjectively) as though with "regular sex" it is far easier to engage on a purely physical level. This is how I felt about BDSM scenes before I found the desire to be submissive to my girlfriend. The scene, whether it was a flogging or a whipping or a knife play scene, was always about the physical sensations and never about submitting or the emotional connection I had with another person. In hindsight, it was a lonely experience and that's probably why I craved the conversations about the experience afterwards. That part was the emotional connection.

I loved those scenes and I was, and am to this day, very good friends with many of the people I played with. The notion that the physicality of the scenes were somehow less emotionally heavy did not make them less "good." Nevertheless, there was more to the picture for me, and D/s is the other puzzle piece. Once again, the dichotomy of the experience is absolutely necessary; both body and mind must be engaged to feel fulfilled.

It's just that fulfillment is a complex thing, so it makes sense that so many different people experience it so differently. For some, "regular sex" is the means to their end. For me, and I am no better than others for feeling this way, it just isn't.

Laura Goodwin (whom I know very little about) wrote an interesting post on how to train a man to be a sex slave (via Femdom Blogs). While there are a few things in this post I don't feel is right for me, here are a few things I do strongly agree with this:

The ultimate object of sex training is to get your slave to the point where they can successfully do you, so you can just relax and enjoy yourself.

[...]

If you know you like penetration then teach him or her how you like that done, and don't let up on them until they get it right. Then praise and reward.

[...]

It's very frustrating for a sex slave to remain untrained. If you are going to be using the person at all, then devote yourself to teaching them right. One of the most rewarding things for a slave is for them to know for certain that they have satisfied you. If your sex slave cares for you, he or she will want to please and satisfy you even without the threat of punishment. You can help him or her to really feel like a slave and love being yours simply by making sure they know all the good techniques for getting you off.

An able slave is a proud and happy slave. It's good for your slave's self-esteem for them to know that they are *capable*.

It took me a relatively long time to figure out that my interest in ensuring my partner's happiness wasn't necessarily such an altruistic goal, but rather that it came out of my slavish desire to be owned and controlled. I craved pleasuring my partner because it made me feel accomplished. That feeling of success is far more pleasuring to me than anything else I can imagine, so a lot of what I cited above strikes deep chords in my psyche.

I still don't know how much of it comes from the desire to be a slave and how much of it comes from other things. I suspect it's sort of a chicken-and-egg scenario, however, because both facets of the emotion feed upon the other and strengthen the whole. It is, perhaps, more comforting to think of myself as more than the sum of my emotions anyway.

On her blog, YesssMistress wrote a little while ago about how hard it is to have regular sex in a D/s relationship:

I'm wondering how, being new to this world... do you ever have regular sex? I mean, sometimes I miss being tossed on the bed and fucked... though I truly enjoy dominating... Seems that I put on some black leather gloves and he cums in a second, but take a traditional sexual position and neither of us can cum. I don't know that we need to take on traditional sexual positions. I mean, does it really matter? I guess it matters in that there is a part of me that wants to be man handled a little bit.

This is something I noticed ever since I was a young pre-teen boy, when my first awareness of sex and sexuality was coming to light. For me, sex has absolutely always been about power play. Going as far back as I can remember and continuing to this day, I find it extremely difficult to find anything erotic without adding an element of BDSM to it. That element can be just about anything such as toys, ropes, fetish clothing, or even just an expression of pain or fear or control, but there has to be something or I just won't find it hot.

Even when things seem plain and ordinary, such as the image I posted above, my mind creates something to eroticize in the form of power play. In this image, probably due to my submissive tendencies, I don't see only a couple having a loving embrace (although I certainly see that as well), I see a man pleasuring his lover and I see her enjoying, even expecting it, and basking in the delight it brings her. Similarly, when I'm having "good ol' fashioned regular sex," in my mind I'm always doing it, in part, to pleasure my partner, and that part of sex must be forefront in my mind or else the sex itself just isn't fun.

This probably speaks more to just how much of my sexual identity is predicated on the foundations of my kinks than it does about sex or people in general, but the observation is an interesting one nontheless. It makes me wonder how much different (or alike) I am from other people. I will happily admit that I also enjoy bodychecking my girlfriend into our bed and making love to her without any apparent BDSM frills attached. However, even in this "vanilla" headspace I am still wanting to play on her terms, and please her as she would like to be pleased because of my feelings of submissiveness to her.

More interesting than that monotony, however, is the fact that there is also a part of me that wants to be the one being pleased at times. This is a very dominant feeling for me. Further, it's a very sexual one. In fact, most of my dominant urges are very closely intertwined with supremely sexually explicit ones. I'm far less interested in being sadistic to a bottom than having them be my sex toy (although I can easily see where the line will get blurred). This, however, can't be seen as "regular" sex either.

Or can it? Just how much power play is in "regular sex" anyway? I'm willing to bet that there's a lot more than is typically acknowledged. Just look at the flood of dominant and submissive messages in mass media. Calvin Klein adds are famous for their sexually explicit, D/s-y overtones.



Advertising sex is about advertising power exchange. I think I just like the power exchange more than most mainstream audiences do, or at the very least, I'm far more comfortable with it.