REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

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.

It is still fascinating to me how differently I react to pain when it is inflicted on the buttocks versus on the back versus on the face versus some other location. So much focus is often placed on the implement causing this pain but it's always been that the location of the pain has a stronger effect on my headspace.

Years ago, I disliked getting hit on the buttocks but I adored getting hit on the back. (I still adore getting hit on my back.) Facing a wall and being whipped was and still is, for the most part, the epitome of my mental image of strength. In contrast, having my ass hurt used to piss me off. I had never really been slapped in the face.

Over time, I was able to eroticize pain delivered to my ass through canings, spankings, and paddlings. I suspect this mostly has to do with the gentle and overtly sexual introduction of my ass cheeks to my play with Eileen, for which I am now, of course, very grateful. I'd never thought it possible before, but for the first time recently I actually got turned on with a properly rhythmic caning that left bruises for several days. But hitting my back still doesn't turn me on.

There is cultural imagery associated with beating certain parts of the body. The back is where you whip the insolent. The ass is where you paddle the disobediant young. The face is where you hit any kind of victim. Certainly, these associations are not far from my mind when I experience such sensations. I wonder, do other cultures (or individuals) with different associations have different reactions because of that?

While feeling pain on my back or face doesn't translate sexually to me, feeling it on my ass does as long as there's sufficent erotic context. Certainly, the proximity of my ass to my genitals helps this, though I think more to the point is the fact that the ass is a larger erogenous zone to begin with. I suspect this is how it works for people who enjoy CBT. (I've never been much a fan of cruel attentions to my genitals. They seem made for gentler manipulations.)

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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.