Post Modern Sleaze

Rope and safe spaces

2012-02-13T12:09:00.003Z

The cloth goes over her face and there is a low gasp as it is pulled taut. They sit, one in front of the other, tucked neatly together in a pose reminiscent of puppeteer and doll. The bottom's hands flex once, twice, then sit splayed on her thighs. Hedwig puts her face cheek to cheek with the blindfolded bottom, listening in. I know what she is doing, I do it myself, it's like tasting a dish you have prepared to make sure the seasoning and temperature is right. Putting yourself as close to them as possible, feeling their mood through their body. Checking in before you make the next move.

The rope goes around over the eyes and the moans start, they are low and rolling, like a contented cat. Each time the rope winds around, when I can see the tension against the clothed face, the neck, the cheek, the temples. I can hear each pressure point, each different motion through those moans. I smile. The intimacy is palpable. I imagine that each and every one of us who is watching can feel those tiny movements, the way that the rope must be pulling, enclosing the bottom in with a firm grip.

We watch. There are perhaps twenty of us, possibly less. We sit on blue mats which always make me think of school gym sessions. It's quiet in the space, there is the rough yet quiet noise of hemp rope being pulled against itself as behind me other people practice their ties, whispering to their bottoms as they do so. I'm coiling a bundle of rope in my hands whilst I watch, wrapping loop through loop then tying it off into bundles. I like the feel of it, the way it flows in a curious solid / liquid state round my fingers when I move them this way and that. There is a slight masturbatory element to what I am doing, touching rope whilst someone else ties, connecting the sensation in my hands to the way the rope must feel to the person I am watching.

I could watch Hedwig tie forever. And watch her untie, too. The way she takes the same length of time to tie, to play with the tie and then to untie. Like perfect begin, middle and ends of poetry, spaced out with exacting rhythm and cadence. There is a living thing, here. Two people and the rope between them making something else. A rush to untie is like a rush out of the restaurant before the meal in completed, surely better to linger? In the hush that follows, I watch her hold the bottom, a hand over her eyes to let her adjust to the light, and to bring her back slowly from where she has been. We talk about what we have seen, learning from each other and suggesting things that we thought might work. The practical is mixed with the emotional, safety tips mingle with suggestions for aftercare, eventually the bottom comes to enough for us to listen to what she felt, how she experienced it. Then we take a short break and practice our own versions of the face tie.

On Saturday I went along to Hitchin Bitches, a peer rope class specifically for female riggers, there's more about the specifics of this community on the link, so go and have a little look and read. I'll wait. Back? Marvellous.

So there's a few things that are worth noting here, the first is that small, peer learning groups are brilliant, if you can create a safe space, which Hitchin Bitches certainly does. The value of these sessions, to me, are immense. Unlike bigger rope events, and unlike rope events which I help to manage, I am able to relax and practice. My usual role is either to make sure the event is running well, or to keep an eye on the crowd for any potential issues. Not having to do that makes a big difference. Being in a predominantly female space also makes a difference, partly it's because there are less of us (sadly, female riggers are still outnumbered by male ones) and that makes it more comfortable and friendly, but also it means the assumption of male top / female bottom doesn't apply. Taking aside any sort of misogynist nonsense - which there unfortunately still is on the scene, much along the lines of "women aren't funny" - the face value of much of the regular scene is still outwardly about this dichotomy, so places where this isn't happening are wonderful.

What also interested me was what wasn't happening. It was a small event and there was no "showboating", no-one got dramatically suspended, no-one was lining up to tie or be tied by such and such a person, no-one was wearing sexy clothing (it was a little cold). No-one was drinking, except water or Ribena. No-one was taking themselves seriously - we made a lot of jokes about femdom and about BDSM in general. We were not making a political statement. There were several men present who had happily offered their services as rope bunnies, and all to the good because tying up men is different to tying up women, not least in the chest harness area. I had a very good time practicing a series of ties on both men and women, enjoying the different feel of their bodies and their responses to me and to the rope. I felt pleasingly unselfconscious.

We were a group of women practising tying up other people. Nothing more. Yet there was something extremely refreshing, and rare, to be in a space where your identity is normalised, predominant and in the majority. Unlike big female orientated events like Pedestal, where femdom is very much "on show" and sexuality is a display activity - for both men and women - this was very relaxed, I just turned up. I didn't have to wear anything specific or try and project any sort of persona. The play that did happen was all rope orientated. What was happening was playful, funny and friendly. We were messing about with rope, being serious about rope and learning about rope - all at the same time.

Oh, and the face tie? Hot.

Party favours

2012-02-09T14:46:00.003Z

I think that I have finally found the correct use for OKCupid, and no, it's not purely for the lols, although there are many and they would be funnier if they weren't so painfully true. It is a shopping site to get men for sex parties.

Let me wind back a little, my extraordinarily beguiling friend, Glamourama, she of the infamous hen party and I were having dinner a couple of nights ago and discussing an upcoming private sex and play party at hers. There was a good and varied list of ladies and a short to the point of being absent list of men. I'm happy with women-only play parties, but to be frank, we needed more cock. And a very specific kind of cock as well. The sort that plays well with others, isn't scared of (and is possibly quite interested in) playing with other men, the kind that participates rather than expects voyeuristic girl on girl for their viewing pleasure, the sort that is kink-friendly, if not actually kinky.

It's harder than you might think, if you will pardon the pun. Finding the right people for group sex is difficult. Parties are all about balance and getting the mix correct, and that means often you rely on who you know, because, well, you know them. The trouble is, we all know a lot of men, but we don't know a lot of men who fit that bill, who are available and who will work with the people already invited.

As I've commented on before, there are a lot of men who find public play, public nudity and group fucking quite difficult. There are also very, very few single men around on the scene who are open for public sexual experimentation to that extent. The twin problems are "public" and "open". I know many men who are interested in orgies provided they don't have to touch, look at or preferably be in the same room as another naked man. Which is a curious type of orgy, from my point of view. Then there's the whole "naked in public" thing, even though it is a private party, it is a party. There are a lot of men who are looking for that special (submissive) someone to have private bedroom antics and possibly even one of those relationship things. But this isn't going to be a space for that.

Finally, there is something rather liberating about inviting men who you have never met before. It gives me that opportunity to play with stranger sex, to concentrate on the physical rather than the emotional or intellectual parts of relationship management - because we will have no relationship. This isn't to say that I will deliberately hurt their feelings (I may hurt other things) but that something new, with no strings and no stress is exactly what I need right now.

Thus, a plan was formed. I have drafted up a little invitation message, and together with another lady who will also be present we are going to seek out men who fit our bill and interview them. I am prepared for noises of outrage or upset at such an action, but it seems to make perfect sense to me. I have never, ever played or fucked someone without meeting them for a coffee to see whether we clicked, I'm just broadening the project somewhat as well as giving it a rather pleasing dose of efficiency.

Drafting the message was interesting, and I ended up with something like this:

I'm running a kink-friendly sex party on Saturday 10 March for a selection of lovely ladies in SW London.

We are looking for atttractive, open minded and sexually flexible men to join us

You must be:

Confident in group sex situations,

Polite and well mannered (of course you are, naturally)

Kink friendly - there will be bondage and some S&M at the party

Liberal in your attitudes

Comfortable touching, fucking and being naked and sexual around other men - threesomes and moresomes will be happening. You don't have to be bisexual but you must be cool in the presence of cock. We will be happy if want help experimenting...

So if a message like that hits your inbox, you know what is going on.

Poly Means Many: Explain yourself

2012-02-06T12:00:00.002Z

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month six bloggers - Amanda Jones, An Open Book, One Sub's Mission, Polyamorous Parenting, Post Modern Sleaze, and Rarely Wears Lipstick - will write about their views on one of them. This month: explaining poly to other people.

I'm currently single, which means I'm going on a lot of dates - I think I worked out that last year I'd gone on over fifty, resulting in only two second dates. This is a tribute to my own particular specific tastes as much as anything else, more on that later, but what it does mean is that I'm developing a very good line in a particular sort of sales patter, specifically on how I want my relationships to be. Generally speaking I don't mind, and even quite enjoy the whole "explaining myself" thing. Especially on a first date. After all, it's really important to be able to tell a prospective lover what it is you want - if you can't articulate, how can you both work out whether you might, well, work out?

Currently I'm going with: "Hi, I'm electronic doll, I'm bisexual, kinky and non-monogamous" followed by a big grin. Reactions vary, if I'm honest. Some people have needed further elaboration, which is fair enough. And it's mostly around what people think I mean when I say those words.

There's a lot that I don't mean.

I don't mean "I will fuck anything" because frankly, nothing could be further from the truth. For all that I write a detailed kinky sex blog, I haven't actually had a lot of sexual partners (it's around twenty, or so, if you are interested). I don't do one-night stands and I don't fuck around a huge amount. I have very exacting standards for what I find "sexy". I'm a specialist, you see. I only find a few people sexually attractive and I like really, really specific types of sex, which means it takes a lot of time for me to find the right person - or people.

Kinky sex is also more disposed towards things that don't look like sex but we perverts enjoy them just as much, if not more - flogging, bondage and so on. It's all "sex" to me. And I want all of it. But only the good stuff, and I would rather not have sex than have any old sex, which means less sexual partners. On a really practical point, I also have a very high sex drive, so when I find someone, I tend to fuck them a lot. Which makes them tired. Which makes it very useful, and pleasurable, for me to have other people to have sex with. Sex is like any other activity. You wouldn't only ever go to the cinema with one person, or go for a meal with only one person, or go to the same supermarket, so why would you only ever fuck one person?

This is the point in the conversation where I generally take a deep breath, and check whether my date is still awake, looking at me with horror, or drooling with their tongue on the floor. No-one has actually run away yet, but I suspect that's because of car crash fascination or "what will she say next?" rather than anything else. So, assuming they are still interested in what I am saying, I try and summarise: I think it's very unlikely I will want to only have sex with one person for the rest of my life.

This often leads us on to the second incorrect assumption which is that "non-monogamy" means "I can't commit and can't settle down". I'm actually really looking forward to falling in love and building a life with the love of my life. Now, here's the rub. That might be one person, it might be several. Together, one after the other, or all separate. I can't predict the future or what's around the corner and I don't want to be closed to those opportunities, either. But when they come along I want to be able to grab them with both hands and love them with all my heart. In my mind's eye, I imagine that I will have one main partner, and either as a pair or separately we will have lovers who come and go through our lives. I am not stating that this is exactly how it must be and nothing will sway me, merely that this is the kind of future I can see myself being happy in, so it's the example I use to explain myself.

This does cause confusion, no matter how clear I try to be. And I do understand the confusion. There's a lot to take in, if the universe has hitherto consisted of monogamous, heterosexual, vanilla pairings. "Exotic" relationships are often the stuff of film and fantasy: crazy sex fuelled hedonism of the rock and roll variety which is not a very realistic example of how people might live their lives. Throw in the kink and the bisexuality and people can sometimes think I will only ever be satisfied with an high-octane orgy on the hour, every hour. I do my best not to come across as some kind of sexual revolutionary, but as someone who wants a normal, but different, life. I don't always succeed. It can be difficult to explain "non-monogamy" as normal. Because for many people, it just isn't. Communicating an entire world over a cup of coffee on a first date can be a bit of a challenge.

There's also a lot of responsibility in being the first person who explains all of this. Because then you become, in part, responsible for how this person perceives this new universe of relationship possibilities. Over time, I've learnt to become very specific with the words I use, partly because I love words dearly and like to make sure they are put in the right places, and partly because I appreciate that what I'm saying is new to lots of people and I don't want to give them the impression that I'm speaking for every person who has ever had a "non-traditional" relationship. I can only ever talk about what I want, what I've enjoyed, what has worked for me.

So, for example, I don't describe myself as "polyamorous". I use "non-monogamous" specifically because I enjoy having more than one ongoing, sexual partner (when the opportunity presents itself), but I've never yet had an extended relationship with more than one person for anything more than a few months. In other words, I've never been in love with more than one person at a time, so I don't feel I can really call myself "polyamorous". I've loved several people at once, certainly and I've been fucking several people at once, and been dominant or submissive to more than one person. So I'm absolutely non-monogamous. These days I use the phrase "lovers", because it's a nice romantic word and I'm a romantic at heart. It's an easy word to get your brain around, and I think it sounds positive, caring and sexy in a genuine way, rather than "partners" which can sound as if you are in business together. I never, ever use "fuck buddies", because I don't like relationships that are "friends with benefits", I want relationships, sex and romance.

Following these, often lengthy, often with diagrams, explanations, reactions have varied. I've had people who are happy to have "found" other people who think the same way they do, relieved that they aren't the only ones, I've had surprise from people who genuinely didn't know this was a real thing outside of films and books, I've had friends think I was doing it to be cool or to be different. I've had people worry I'd get hurt. I've had people be angry or upset with me for still not wanting to sleep with them despite obviously being a slut. I've had people who got what I was saying but didn't think it was for them. My favourite was from a friend who merely said "gosh, that's quite, um, bohemian of you."

To finish, I'll give you two concrete examples of "explaining myself." My most recent two encounters, with Ten and Technophile, have resulted in break ups or whatever you have when you break up before you've really started dating. In this case, it wasn't about the sex, or the kinky sex, or the group sex. It was about how the relationship might function. So, the important bit, really.

Neither of them felt as if they would be able to "cope" with what they considered such non-traditional set ups. They were simply outside of their comfort zone. The idea of having a threesome, especially with another girl, was exciting. But the idea of my having a girlfriend, who might come and stay regularly, was strange. Still exciting, but I could tell they weren't sure whether I was being serious (I was) and if I was, how on earth it might work. The idea of my having another boyfriend was mind-blowing and triggered all kinds of negative responses. In the end, both of them decided that I wasn't the one for them, in part because of how I wanted to live my life. Neither of them were willing to give it a go so I can't comment on whether I am extremely good at explaining and it is entirely the opposite of what they wanted out of life, or I'm a bit rubbish at explaining and they would like it if they tried it. Mind you, I do keep telling straight boys that this is also true of sucking cock for my viewing pleasure, and they don't seem keen on that either.

Perhaps it's the way I say it, or the way I leer when I'm saying it?

Fundamentally, however you explain yourself, the reality of living relationships is always a little different to the writing on the box. I know from my own experience that some multiple-relationship set ups have worked better for me than others. Frankly, some monogamous relationships have worked better for me than others. The main factor that has divided the good from the bad has been about the content of the relationship, not the set-up in and of itself. It's been about the people. The expectations we've had of each other, our ability to deliver those and the way we have communicated our hopes and dreams. Not how many of us there were, or how we were living at the time.

But those are all topics for another month.

Berlin Story Part Three

2012-02-03T13:37:00.005Z

This is the point where I tell you something strange. It gets complicated from now on in, here be dragons, I'm afraid. What you have to bear in mind as you read through this is quite how much history is involved. This is the culmination of a relationship that has been on and off for over twelve years. It spans my first enjoyable sexual encounter to the present day. It's the back story to my sexual evolution, and in a way to my life.

Ten and I are having dinner on our second day in Berlin. I decided that this would be a perfect point to have that usually dreaded "relationship conversation". Except I wasn't dreading it. I was quite looking forward to it, to talking over dinner about how we can make this work and bring in to land the circling love affair we've been having, Turn the odd hotel room fling, text message barrages and letters from cities around the UK into something we could build a life on. For the first time in a while, I'm actually excited.

Usually these conversations are instigated by me and usually they end in break-ups. I feel like I'm forever dragging a reluctant lover into admitting that they really don't want to do more than continue down the tracks of an interminable series of casual fucks. Harsh but true, I find relationships without futures difficult. They can be, theoretically, enjoyable in themselves, but the longer they go on beyond one or two play dates the harder it gets. I start to care, to feel deeply, to want to make them part of my life. Casual lovers stop being casual in a very short space of time. And I have to make a decision to carry on and risk getting hurt, or to stop.

It has been a very long time since Ten and I have been "casual". I make a joke about him being the love of my life, and yet, in a way, he is. I have loved him for longer than anyone else. For all of my adult life, nearly. We have had long gaps of not talking, infrequent moments of contact. But over twelve years, or so. We became a storyline, a romance: a chance meeting that lasted. And lasted. He has always been my most supportive lover, keen to please, lavishing in attention and praise. Like all the things I love, I want to make the most out of them. I'm prepared to work hard at this one, I know it will be difficult, but I want to at least try.

And I thought he did too.

"We love each other, but we're not in love, are we?"

Oh. Sucker punch.

I was in no way ready for that, and it catches me off guard, I hold my breath like I'm waiting for the pebbles bouncing down the cliff to subside in the hopes the avalanche never comes. This wasn't the way this conversation was supposed to go. I wait for him to continue, with the sense of dread rising and all the usual noises come out over commitment, worries about kink and non-monogamy, it's not you it's me. Well, shit. Here we are again, then. Another one biting the dust. But this one was especially bad because I wasn't expecting this at all.

We talk. I tell him that this wasn't the conversation I thought we would have. He stares at me as if I have gone mad, as if there was no way that I could have not known. And yet, how could I? I feel as if I had been promised something only to have it melt away, but for the life of me I cannot remember when he made those promises. I panic, internally. I have a dreadful habit of hoping for more than can possible be achievable, of building castles in the air on the vaguest of potentials. And I've done it again. I've let myself want more, desire more and ultimately need more than I am going to get. I've fallen upon my own sword.

I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. I stare in the mirror. I want to check I look the same because inside I am now completely different. Eyeliner cat eyes and scruffy blonde hair stare back. A light flush about the cheeks from the warmth of the restaurant and the warmth of the alcohol I've drunk. My mouth is a straight line. I am still me, to look at. My chest is an acid-swirling pit. I might cry. I might be sick. I might just stand here and do nothing at all. A combination of resignation, upset, sadness and anger rolls around beneath my rib cage. I have nowhere to put it all. We have two more days together before the flight. I swallow, hard. Physically forcing every single feeling down into a cold, hard little ball. Marbles in my stomach. I walk back upstairs, deliberately slowly, forcing composure. I will not lose face in public. I'd at least like to finish the meal and return to the hotel where I can dissect this in private.

I bring the dinner conversation to a close, keeping it light and leaving aside my objections and my sorrows. I order a strong cocktail and the bill. I pay. We walk back in intermittent silence, it's cold enough to hide emotions under the blanket of night and freezing wind. I don't want to say too much, I don't want to betray myself or the strength of my upset. Because somehow that would feel like losing even more than I already have. The one crutch I'm leaning on is my own outward strength, my dominance over his submission. But I can feel it crumbling as the realisation of what has been said sinks in. D/s relies on a power exchange. One party takes, the other gives. It's a see-saw of sexuality, and is all about balance.

I am unbalanced. Off-kilter and we are out of sync. When we get back to the hotel, I brush aside his noises about sleeping on the floor or getting an early flight the next day. These are pointless sacrifices to an unappeasable god. They will make nothing better, and will only make me feel worse. I don't want him to go away. That's the entire point. I want him to stay. And the realisation of that need, that dependence upon him, and every dominant feeling I might have once had drains out of me like blood from a corpse. I feel small, sad, lonely and frightened. I don't know what to do. I curl up in a little ball on the bed and try not to cry. I remember the feelings I had for The Photographer, the way I wanted so badly for him to want me enough to make some concession in his life toward making me a part, and how this situation is a reflection of that. Another man, another country even, but the same feelings of rejection, of fear and of sorrow.

The switch in my head clicked. And it clicked in a bad way, for all the wrong reasons. The nasty neediness of submission flooded me, the bodily need for erosion, for destruction, to have someone take you over and do whatever they want to your body, to hurt it, to possess it, to match the emotional power that rejection causes. Hurt. Comfort. The things I wanted from him were things he could not provide, he's a submissive and an inexperienced one at that. The kind of violence I needed (desired, wanted?) was the kind he could not provide. Combined with his urge to please me we very quickly got into a difficult place. He became confused and rapidly upset by my physical responses - the "smallness" of it, the placid quiet, the doll-like behaviour.

It all sounds very dramatic, and it was. In common parlance it was pretty fucked up. BDSM can be fucked up, especially when the connection is intense and intimate. I was shocked by the strength of my own reaction, horrified even, and quite angry at myself. But I couldn't help it any more than I could have held the waves of the sea back from the shore. I didn't want to feel this way. I didn't want to react the way that I did. I wanted to be cool and unruffled and strip him naked and use him until I was done then fall asleep. To take what was left on offer to the fullest of my ability and to ignore the things I couldn't have. But you can't help the way you feel. You really can't.

In the end, it was his confusion and upset that brought me back from whatever mental hole I'd fallen into. There he was, that doe-eyed long limbed boy with nimble fingers and face full of concern. Not knowing what to say or to do to make me feel better. Something inside me receded back from where it came, in the depths of my mind. I took his hand and gave him his instructions to please and serve me.

I took not quite what I wanted, but I took what was there. And there was a satisfaction in it. In the barren nature of the use. He had no other purpose to me other than to lick my cunt until I came, to hold me until I fell asleep. Within the fantasy that brewed as his tongue lapped at my clit, I worked to erase him. To remove the person who might have spent his life with me, who warranted an emotional space in my heart, and into a tool and a slave. There was an element of talking myself through it, like building walls around the weaknesses I had just exposed, cementing up again the bits of me that wanted love, protection and someone to care for me. To do that to myself, I had to distance myself, to rise above the world of need and desire and become the cool dominant once more. Perhaps there were parts that were faked. Cobbled together, not quite all there. However, by the time I was tired enough to sleep I felt a little like myself once more. But harder.

Every tale has to have an ending. When the holiday draws to a close we needs must return to our normal lives, for whatever definition of normal we feel like using. I realised long ago that the relationship with Ten was different to any other relationship I'd had. The distance, the length of time we have known each other. However, ever the optimist, I had thought that our difficulties were merely logistics. Every relationship has challenges, and each one is different. Formalities of space and time which could be overcome with the will and desire to do so. And therein lies the problem, simple when written down, it's the same problem I've had before and the same problem that other people have had from me.

I don't want you like you want me.

Hard to swallow, those marbles. Slippery glass choking hazards and tightly crushed hopes. Yet swallow them we must for they are also seeds. And even as they sit in my belly, rattling against my sides and reminding me of the things I have loved and lost. I know that the damn things will grow again. Like pearls forming from irritant grains of sand within an oyster. Time will smooth them over until they look shiny, new and precious. I will find someone else, I will, without reason, want them more than they want me. And I will once again be crushed by my own failed expectations.

Until one day, hopefully, I won't.

Berlin Story Part Two

2012-01-26T17:46:00.008Z

Waking up with a generous (and well-trained) lover is one of life's gifts. To be able to turn over and wrap arms around a warm, compliant body that leans keenly into your touch, breath syncing in with yours. To feel them stir, aroused, wanting. Ready and willing. But waiting to be told when it is time, to wait upon your desire, not their own.

Those moments of waiting are like savouring a meal cooked especially for you, to be able to smell and absorb each scent before tasting. The pleasure of them waiting for you. The pleasure of being able to take your time. The anticipation can make you salivate, but it also makes you appreciate what is on offer, like delaying an orgasm by slowing down in order to come stronger and harder at the final finish.

I wake and turn over. How long Ten was waiting and watching me I don't know. The fact that he was waiting is enough. I stroke his shaved head, enjoying the fine stubble and the feel of his skull beneath, the fragility and nakedness of it, the aura of servility. Slave. Submissive. Toy. Boy. Words that float through my sleep-warm brain. I apply a touch of force, just a touch, and he moves to lick, then suck my fingers. He closes his eyes and moves his head up and down. I smirk at his "blow job face" and wonder what he would look like performing those services on a boy, for me. I hook a finger against the inside of his cheek, catching him like a fish and moving his face to where I want it.

Down.

Lower.

He kisses attentively over my breasts and then down between my legs. He's been a good boy and shaved his face fresh this morning so the touch of bare skin to perfect bare skin is cool, slippery and delicious. Nothing to rub or bar the way to pleasure. This was one of the first things I taught him, months ago, in some other hotel room: how to give head to me. I know what I like. And I know what he likes, and that's giving me pleasure. It's about gentle, slow movements of the mouth and tongue, like languorous kisses, only becoming firmer and a little faster - but never hard, never fast - closer to the end, when I hold my breath, my legs and bottom clenches and my spine arches up and towards his mouth.

It takes me a long time to come from oral sex, but it's always worth it. The orgasms are stronger, longer, wetter and spasm through my body for minutes afterwards as wave upon wave upon wave shudders over me. I loose coherence and any sort of language as the world becomes a warm, blank wash of explosive pleasure. Like an expansion outwards from the space into which I fall. No, not fall, dive. The act of orgasm is almost - not quite, there's still an element of chance that makes it all the sweeter - a conscious decision. At some point I become ready and then it happens if I give myself a push.

Everything stops.

And then starts again.

But slower than before, as I gently come back to myself, then to my body, then to the bed and with him in it.

I turn to him and smile.

"Go and turn the shower on, I need you to wash me. Then we can head down to breakfast."

All mornings should begin like this.

Berlin story. Part One

2012-01-23T20:01:00.004Z

I've been looking forward to Berlin for a while, after the kink and companionship that Ten and I had over Christmas, when he came to spend time with my family. I like the city and it's always had a kinky connection for me, so being able to spend it with him was going to be a BDSM filled romantic weekend.

We met in a coffee shop under the Fernsehturm, finding no spare seat he knelt without question on the hard floor, smiling up at me with his big puppy eyes and kissing my hand, telling me that I am beautiful, that I was missed and how much he is looking forward to spending a weekend serving me. I smile wide and my heart rises up, warm. Kink can often make you feel as if you are living in your own secret world, that other people don't know about. The knowing glances, the inflection in the things you say, the way you hold hands and deliberately clutch fingers too tight. He winces, his eyes sparkle and he grins.

We walked out into the eastern side of the city, neon lights cutting through the cold night. I felt happier than I had in a while, and a little light headed, full of all the things I planned to do to him. We talk, catch up and

I take him back to the hotel and he goes to shower and shave. He knows I like him better smooth. I strip down and lie back on the bed, reading a book and waiting for him. There is a small bag of kit on a nearby chair. I'm deliberately keeping each item a secret until I need it. I run a finger experimentally over my clit and inside my cunt, knowing that I'm wet already but enjoying the thought of satisfaction of what is to come.

He comes through from the shower, absent mindedly applying lotion to his cock and balls where its been stripped of hair. He catches me watching and laughs, a short, slight burst of not exactly embarrassment. I beckon him over and apply some menthol paste to the tip of his exposed cock, watching his face bloom into surprise. I pull him down onto the bed and lie back as he covers my skin with kisses. His mouth and tongue are soft and wet, each kiss a small act of submission. Every now and then his eyes flicker up from under long black lashes to check whether I still approve. He moves his mouth down over my stomach before settling between my thighs to lap at my clit. I can feel the delicate strokes, exactly as I have taught him and I murmur "good boy" whilst lightly stroking is cheek. I lie back and let him bring me to a shuddering orgasm.

When I'm done, I reach over to kiss him, tasting myself on his lips, before pushing him down onto his front and blindfolding him. With his eyes gone, his sensitivity is heightened, but confused. He relies heavily on his sight to process sensation, he's a voyeur and I suspect that viewing acts is important to his ability to feel them, in a strange way. I enjoy putting him into challenging spaces, taking away his usual certainties.

I take my time - we have a whole weekend ahead of us, after all - and begin by slowly pushing lubed plastic thai beads one by one inside him. A hand in the centre of his back, alternating firm pressure and flickering scratches. I watch his mouth for reactions, the parted lips which groan lightly every time I press another bead inside him. Eventually, he is full enough, for now. I focus on his back, twisting and pulling at his flesh as he hisses and whimpers. But each time a smile returns back to his face. I smooth down the skin over each bruise or cut as it flushes pink, then red. I like to layer sensation over sensation, balancing the pressure inside him, with the sharp pain of my nails, with the spreading warmth of the menthol on his cock. Encouraging him to breathe I pull out the beads one by one then begin the press a wide glass plug against him, his back twinges as he arches away from me.

"I can't do it, it's too much."

He's gasping for air, disorientated and slightly panicked. I take of the blindfold and roll him over so I can hold him until he calms down. His breathing subsides a little and between kisses I check that his is feeling better. His lack of sight along with his own inexperience meant that any new sensation leaves him feeling unprepared and more likely to scare. Eventually he comes back to himself and as I stroke him, his cock hardens against my stomach.

It's time to fuck him. I slide a condom onto his stiff cock and roll him onto his back. I put him inside me and ride him, slowly at first, checking his responses, he grips my hips and thrusts against me. I know he wants to come badly. I want to take a little time. Fucking is always better post orgasm, the tissue around and inside my cunt is more sensitive. His cock feels smooth inside me, the lube on the condom and my own wetness. I hold his arms down and watch as he stares up at me, his mouth moves and he starts to moan "fuck" over and over again, seemingly without realising. He comes hard, I can feel the orgasm push up and out from his body.

When he's done I lie on his chest and stroke him as we both cool into our sweat and onto the white, once-pristine sheets of the hotel room. He is unable to speak for some time, and his legs shake so I cover us both with a duvet and wait until he has returned to himself. He looks at me with an almost sheepish expression.

"This is going to sound silly," he gives a small laugh, "but when you hurt me, you make me feel special."

Because he is, to me.

Label talk

2012-01-17T23:01:00.001Z

I went to an extremely pleasant discussion group last night, which in addition to being in a pub that served Thai food and had a draught beer on tap named "Unicorn" was the first time in a long while that I have been able to sit down in a group and talk over sex and sexuality without feeling as if I was justifying myself, explaining or teaching, selling something (including myself) or creating a pre-amble to something else entirely - usually kinky sex. We just talked. About things that were interesting to us.

It was a particularly well mixed group of various genders and backgrounds - sexual and non-sexual - which made the topic all the more pertinent: labels, their uses and mis-uses. Although sadly, no-one felt in the mood to don serious spectacles and a pencil skirt to pose provocatively and take secretarial minutes (next time, perhaps?) I've been doing a little musing of my own which will meander you through the conversation.

I'm going to go through some of the labels and some of the phrases as they came up.

Queer This was pretty much the first label that hit the table. And it caused a mixed reaction. Some folk hated using it because they felt it had a negative connotation, partly the historic connotations, but also the sense that it was a bit of a "non-word" the catch all term for someone who was not straight. There was a feeling that the word was political in nature, and that it included the sense of rebelling or challenging or criticising the "normal" culture.
Vanilla We talked about how this is sometimes used as a pejorative word amongst the BDSM community, and as a word for "white, middle class and straight" in certain circles. We touched upon vanilla sex and the varieties of vanilla sex - just as there are varieties of kinky sex - but didn't really explore the idea of vanilla identity (as opposed to kink identities), which might make a nice topic for another time.
Bisexual there was a neat little statistic raised that only 0.5% (or 0.05%, something minuscule) of the population considered themselves "bisexual" which meant that the people around the table were a vast over-representation, or that something is going wrong with the ONS. We talked about sexual orientation as a scale, rather than fixed options, and how people change over time, or depending on the people they are with. The idea of hetero lexibility, or just flexibility came up,
Cisgender and transgender We talked about this curious use of chemistry terms and how the labels came about in order to avoid words like "non-transgender" or (shudder) "normal gender". A quick jump to wikipedia led us onto the fascinating, and new to me, concept of cissexual.
Pervert another word with "bad" connotations, but it's also a word that many kink people at the table chose to describe themselves, perhaps because of those connotations - there is a tendency amongst the BDSM community to enjoy shock value and to "play the villain"

In general we thought that labels did have their uses, to a point. I use them as a "starter for ten" to help kick off conversations about myself and my kink - often during dates. Other people thought they were handy in advertising events and clubs, to show what may happen and the sort of crowd that might be along. We diverted into an interest sideline about equality and diversity monitoring, training and LGBTQ (with discussion on the addition or subtraction of the T and the Q and why this might have been done) groups in large corporations and organisations, which is probably a conversation for another time. Similarly, we got onto a discussion of privilege and the difficulties of managing the phrase "you can't possibly understand X, Y or Z because you are A, B or C" both in terms of accepting that in many cases it is true, regardless of how much you want to understand or empathise, and how upsetting it can be when people make decisions for you and about you based on their perceptions of who they think you are.

We talked about labels that had been put upon us, and the upset that the prejudices of others - intentional and otherwise - had caused. Many of us referred to our childhoods and teenage years, labels seemed to keep cropping up when we were "growing up" and perhaps we have adjusted ourselves around them, left them behind or used them as stepping stones to get where we are today. We found the positives in labels - the way they can help you find out about things, especially with the magic of the Internet, that you might not have known about before, the sense of inclusion in being able to put a name to that thing you like, and the feeling of comfort that other people might like it to.

Grab me on Twitter if you'd like to come along to the next one, and I shall see you there!

Enhanced responses

2012-01-12T14:32:00.005Z

One of my requirements (and I am a woman of many requirements) from my play partners is that I receive email feedback following on from sessions. This has a number of effects, first and foremost, it's good for me as a dominant and as a person, to know how they felt. I can guess, certainly, and usually I find out the highlights or low points at the time but there's something about giving someone quiet processing time. This allows thoughts to swirl around, connect with other thoughts and memories and create a narrative of what went on in their heads, reminding them of their connection to me and, when I receive it, it reminds me, with pleasure, usually, of what we did and how it felt.

I am an avid reader of these messages, just as I am an avid listener when people speak to me of their desires. I like knowing what makes people tick, even more when I intend to keep count. I've been getting several messages from Ten of late and parsing the similarities and differences between why I did a certain thing, the intention that I had in doing so and the effect it actually had - both in the moment and later.

I laid him face down on the bed, I had limited kit with me so no bondage. Instead I tied a silk scarf over his eyes and went to fetch a few items from my bag: a couple of anal vibrators, lube. I started with pleasure, inserting a lubed finger into his arse, playing with the muscles, feeling the tightness of it. He was tense, to a point, but a few whispered commands to breathe started to relax him. I used the smaller of the vibrators at first, to tease the outlying nerve endings, before lubing up the larger, a multi-beaded affair which coiled around on itself to hook neatly under the perineum, sealing itself in. I pressed it inside him in one smooth movement, listening out for the expected muffled sounds of protest followed by a groan of satisfaction. I was not disappointed. I let him absorb the experience for a while, to float away into the pleasure of it.

Then, pain. Maintaining contact with him was important, the comforting sensation of my presence, in my mind he became something akin to an animal, likely to shy or to buck at anything which frightened him. I straddled his back, letting him feel my weight, the muscles of my legs against his sides offering enough restriction to keep him still. I started slow, light touches of deft fingers against the exposed flesh of his naked back, a palette to my gently increasing impact. Pinches became scratches became the rubbing of knuckles against ribs - a surprisingly painful experience.

He has a wonderful ability to elegantly capture his feelings, and, assuming he is being honest, the extent to which I was able to affect him. From my point of view, the play that we did was physically "light" yet clearly the rapport we share and the D/s connection, together with his relative inexperience, creates a much, much greater reaction than I might have expected. He describes the fear in being blindfolded, the confusion at loss of his usual position of authority and control. A natural voyeur, sight would be the way he would try and experience and explain unusual or new sensations, removing that is a control mechanism certainly, it weakens his ability to perceive the world and puts him more under my tender mercies. It also controls how he is receiving pain or pleasure, forcing him to feel rather than to understand. I wanted him to be driven by the sensations and by the knowledge that it was me doing it, instead of being able to witness his own position.

There is enormous satisfaction in reading these missives, the most evocative of which I read and re-read with a smile playing on my lips. They are love letters written after the fact, full of mirrored reflections, the inverse and converse of what I did, what I felt. They draw out the pleasure, allowing the scene itself to have second and third existences in our minds, on our fingertips as the pads touch the keyboard. I love words. A well turned phrase or sentence is perfect in and of itself, when it describes something intimate that I have done then it transcends and dances like poetry, making the time between meetings if not bearable, then certainly full of wonderful memories.

The law is an ass

2012-01-05T13:12:00.005Z

Ah, the Obscenity Trial.

I am clearly in the mood for a little social commentary, laid up as I am on the chaise longue with naught but a very large pile of Hotel Chocolat Christmas goodies and box sets of quasi-lesbian tomboy anime to amuse me (poor me, however shall I cope?)

Having been brought up to relative speed at last evening's munch and read through the very thoughtful points raised by Obscenity Lawyer here, I don't want to add to the legal wranglings, it's not my forte. So, instead I offer up a little commentary on what is being discussed in the public sphere and my own thoughts. This will doubtless contain a scattering of scatological references to anal fisting because at heart I find the whole thing funny in a dreadful peep through your fingertips mortification sort of way.

First up, some historical and linguistic warm ups - it's very important to prepare the subject, and ensure they are primed for expansion. "Obscene", from the Latin obscenus or Greek ob skene. The Latin comes with a host of crunchy references including ill-omened, genitalia and lewd person, I am especially taken with the idea of bad luck or bad fortune, given the facts surrounding the case itself and the potential worries over repercussions amongst the BDSM community that a conviction would hold. Greek references take us to the world of staged performances whereby depictions of extreme emotion were considered unseemly and therefore done off-stage (hence ob skene). There's a lovely article here on the pleasures of staged violence. The idea of the obscene being that which is unseen or unknown first hand lends another interesting slant to everything going on in the courtroom. The audience of judiciary and jurors are not kinky, to them, this is another country, and consequently they are having an entire lexicon of BDSM explained to them. That's a lot to take in, as it were.

Moving forward slowly, and with carefully lubed up fingers, the word "obscenity" has its first uses in the middle of the C16, where it loses some of that nuance and becomes properly filthy. A word to mean foul or loathsome or, interestingly, profane as in "religious obscenities", something sacrilegious, this coming from a world where morality was the rule of God. These days, the term is more likely to be found in the realms of the legal, supposedly secular field, though the backdrop of unholy terminology remains, especially regarding ideas of "corruption". The challenge is with language, which is why I wanted to start with words. Words make law. This is particularly true for perverts in the wake of the so-called "Extreme Pornography" laws (Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008) which also created problems of definitions around the word "extreme". But to get back to "obscene" the full definition on wikipedia here, instantly gets us bang up to date, as well as bang up to our knuckles, into the quandary of morals, social mores, taboos and what is generally considered normal.

Together, these two points neatly illustrates the entire problem. It's a problem of perspective. I, for example, consider anal fisting to be normal, I have first hand (I'm sorry, I just can't help making the puns) knowledge of the practice, am aware of the risks, the pleasures and the practice. It does not scare me, I enjoy doing it. I have seen the greatest orgasm ever generated through anal penetration by a strap on bigger than my arm.

Now, normal is not the same thing as everyday or easy. That orgasm took time and was certainly special. But many difficult, special things are thought of as normal. Boxing is normal, and that takes a lot of training with risk of injury. But people seem fine with men getting fists to the face. Fisting takes time and patience. It is a very intimate activity for all those involved, and very involving it is too. It is something to be be savoured and enjoyed, like a splendid meal or a fabulous bottle of champagne (Marilyn Monroe's enema liquid of choice, if rumour is to be believed and Captain indicates it certainly works).

Most of the people around the Obscenity Trial, barring the defence and their witnesses, appear not to consider this normal. Or indeed have much of an inkling of the wider world of sex or kinky sex. Which to me indicates a difficulty in the idea of being tried by ones peers. Those who do not know, or who have not seen will not understand, not wholly, not completely. This is me trying my very best to not be condescending or misjudge the intelligence or capacity of those who have not experienced or witnessed these things but more and more I am realising what little people know or understand of BDSM. We exist, off-stage, ill-omened and filthy, as stereotyped monsters and will continue to do so for some time yet, it seems.

Apocalypse list

2012-01-02T18:43:00.003Z

With the New Year and potential end of the world scenarios looming it's always a good time to review where I am with all things kink. I've been tracking back over previous lists of desire, and smiling to myself to realise that I've done everything on one of my first lists and it's subsequent updates. My original requirements are somewhat different to where I am now, though not just in the most obvious way - that those were submissive wants and needs. Actually the desires remain, I still enjoy a lot of those things. I'm still looking for new experiences, and to learn about myself, my feelings along the way, however it's (mostly) from a dominant perspective: there are still types physical, bottoming BDSM I enjoy, but that's very much from the position of "do this to me because I like it".

With those things in mind, in the year ahead I'm looking forward to doing some more of the things I have recently enjoyed, and learning a few new tricks

Genderfuck play, especially games of masculinity and my teenage boy persona.
Fireplay, I've love wax play and flicking matches at people so...
Single tail whips - something I've never experienced on the receiving end either, so that means I'll need to lie back and take it at some point soon.
Bloodplay
mFm threesomes
Hunting - one for the warmer weather but the idea of chase and capture is very appealing.
Needles. Some people like massages, I like getting stuck with pins
D/s training - to find someone, potentially Ten, though I'm not counting chickens, to train up to be properly "mine"
Hard labour - I do like heavy stocks, irons and watching muscles sweat. I could even pretend to sip a diet coke whilst overseeing the pointless rocks breaking.

And I'm hoping that there will be plenty along the way to divert, amuse and entertain me that I haven't previously considered.

Mistress Fanservice

2011-12-31T00:40:00.000Z

I spent last evening being variously angry and disappointed at the portrayal of Irene Adler in BBC's Sherlock. I don't usually use this space to comment on the happenings of fictional characters, but I was so taken aback at this portrayal of a dominatrix that I wanted to explore some of her "characterisation" and why it was wrong.

First, some preamble, just to stake my claim for why this is quite so important: this kind of bullshit in the media really fucks with how I am perceived. And how my friends are perceived. I'm a dominant woman. I know a lot of other dominant women, both professionals and non-professionals. I also know a few sex workers who are not dominant. I know kinky straight women, kinky bi women and kinky gay women. To the best of my knowledge, none of us has fucked Kate Middleton, and for the record, of all the royals, Harry would be my preference. With this experience, and with zero interest in relations between this product and the original story (there's a good article discussing those writing choices over here) I am going to simply outline why this character is a terrible depiction of a dominant woman.

Dominant women are not just uber femme seductresses. Now, I accept that the "femme type" is a standard tool in the arsenal of the female dominant. However, there are many, many others and many, many different types of desire and sexuality that a professional female dominant works with. Particularly true I would hazard, for one who has worked with the wide range of clients that this character appears to have. We don't see any of that, in fact, aside from the fact that we are constantly told she is a dominant, she appears as a seductive woman. This is not, I repeat, not the same thing as a dominant woman. This is the main problem with the entire portrayal of the character, she isn't a dominant. She's a seductress: she uses sex as a substitute for power. Dominants use power as a substitute for sex. Her clothing neatly illustrates this: she sweeps us through row upon row of glamorous frocks when deciding what to wear to greet Sherlock. No militaria, no rubber, no leather. No fetish outfits of any kind. Not even a pair of jeans and a white vest top. Maybe there's another wardrobe somewhere. And speaking of things that should be there but aren't...

Where's the kit? Personal opinion here, kids, but I don't really believe in the whole "I can dominant you with only the power of my mind" theory of dominance. I know what I've enjoyed as a submissive, and I know what submissives I've played with have enjoyed. And that's having a lot of horrible things done to them with a variety of objects as well as good D/s. Dominance is very strongly correlated with S&M and fetish. I honestly don't know a single kinky person who doesn't like some aspects of these things. I certainly know no professionals who don't, because doing those things and having access to that kit partly what you get paid for. The flat we are shown has none of this. Nothing. Oh no, wait. There's a riding crop. A slim, feminine riding crop. And a sliver of black rope around a present. This is all very soft stuff, and the continual portrayal of female dominants as soft, mysterious and delicate is deeply annoying. We like doing hard, heavy and nasty things.

Dominant women are not two dimensional sex obsessed freaks. Irene appears unable to say any sentence that does not reference sexuality or the fact that she fucks for money. She does nothing else, there is nothing else to her. Every single bloody line. Now, even for us who live the lifestyle 24/7, we have other interests, interests not connected with world domination. Being dominant is something that is part of life, and for me it is a deep and meaningful element of my personality. But I don't talk about it all the time, far from it. There are many situations in which it is entirely inappropriate to do so. Dominant women are both women and people as well as dominants.

No dominant worth their salt, male or female, would ever upon seeing their submissive, unconscious on the floor step over them with an uncaring shrug and a quip. This was the moment in the show that I actually put a (submissive) blanket over my head and refused to come out until the scene had ended. Seriously. The CIA have broken into your house and your submissive is lying on the floor. Any dominant I know would immediately rush over, check them and then tell everyone else to fuck off until they had made sure their submissive was fully recovered. Sod the mysterious detective malarkey, real kinsters know their priorities.

Sex workers are not waiting for the right man to come and save them, to help them or to make everything magically better. This is doubly true if they are gay dominant women. The very worst stereotypes of sexualised women are presented in this character for the consumption of the male viewer: the tart with the heart, lipstick lesbianism, women as manipulated by men, feminine emotions as critical weakness, seductive women defeated by male intellectual superiority. It is high time we got past all of this. Dominant women are actually dominant. Seriously. They are capable, self-aware and real people who can do things for themselves, by themselves because they want to.

Ghost of Christmas past

2011-12-29T12:00:00.005Z

"I can't carry on, you've just blown my mind."

It's a cruel trick to play, but it works really, really well. I love a good head fuck. I call this one "the submissive boy on top". I flip him over so he's fucking in the way that a vanilla boy might, hands on my shoulders, hips between my legs, gazing down and me then I watch as he realises that he is not in the driving seat. The short-circuit happens when the submissive feelings clash with the muscle memory of other women, other situations. His desire to please me is a physical, visceral thing, I can read it in the hardness of his cock, the twitch in his lower back. The confusion between his understanding of "traditional" desire and the way he feels right now is a wonderful thing to behold. His eyes widen and he stops dead, staring at me as if I'd just performed some impossible magic trick.

"Oh sweetheart, it's got nothing to do with the angles."

I flip him over again, and he tumbles as if made of paper and string. Resting my head on his shoulder, we talk into the night about dominance and desire. I let him lick my clit and bring me to orgasm, accepting his grateful thanks alongside his tongue.

In a moment of inspired madness, spurred by my mother enquiring over the course of many, many weeks whether perhaps I had a "friend" who I would like to bring home for the holidays I invited Ten to come and spend Christmas with my family. In the wake of my confessions of bisexuality which so upset my Mum this provided me with excellent heterosexual normal credentials as well as a spot of submissive company in my childhood bedroom. It is also a lovely side note to the fact that around eleven years ago he was supposed to come home for Christmas but then we broke up.

In less cynical terms, and I'm afraid I am becoming a little cynical, it also gave both of us some time to explore the nascent yet ongoing D/s relationship we have been, more or less, pursuing for many, many years.

We spent a few relaxing days amidst my family (who have since phoned to say that they thought he was a very nice young man, I agreed). We spent a few nights where I let him indulge his favourite activity of lavishing worshipful attentions on me as I re instructed him in the precise methods of orgasm. The ease of our power exchange would be frightening if it weren't for the way it feels so right. As with all well-matched partners the D/s is simple because each of us is giving and taking precisely as much as we want. The fact that, for him, a lot of this is still new, only really adds to my satisfaction. I enjoy being the first one to take him to these places, and to be the first, perhaps the sole person, who inspires these reactions.

It's a strange mental space to be in, now, back home and many miles away. Now we are separated once more, for however long. I left him, a little wobbly-legged but well-fucked, on the train platform. We spoke briefly about future plans, though we've spoken about those before and I know him well enough to not hold him to account. I'm curiously calm, at other times I would be building castles in the air, imaginary futures. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like for things to continue. I've been conducting aftercare via text message whilst really wishing he was resting his head in my lap.

I remain, ultimately, pragmatic about this. We live far apart, he travels a lot, I hate leaving London. We both love each other, but I don't feel in love and that's an important distinction. I enjoyed our time together, as I always enjoy our time together, and the little gifts, cards and messages I sporadically receive from wherever he is in the world. The question of whether he could ever be anything other than the icing on the cake is unanswered. I've left it in his court. As fond of him as I am, and I am very fond of him, I have no intention of turning my life upside down for anything less than wholehearted commitment, and that's a "C" word which goes alongside "C for cynicism".

Separating the Christmas present from future.

Reading (unwritten) rules

2011-12-21T12:40:00.005Z

Following on from my thoughts on KSL and Torture Garden, I've been the way developing some methods of improving interactions in sex clubs, fetish clubs or at kinky parties. This is both a distillation of my own opinions and how I want to fulfil my own desires, so your mileage may vary. There's two main aspects here, one is around meeting new people, with the possible intention of fucking or playing with them, and the other is around the public play / sex and the aftermath. I'm going to be using "sex" as a bit of a catch-all term in this post to cover all manner of sexual encounters that are not about putting bits of genitalia in other bits - so I'm using sex to include BDSM play, sexualised games and similar.

Let's take the social bit first. We're British, so we have a lot of unwritten (though Watching The English does write some of them down, and it's a fascinating read) rules on how, when and where we can relate to each other. These all count for double when we are around strangers. And triple when they are potentially sexually available strangers, potentially available for potential sex, right now. There's a lot of potential, and that means a certain amount of expectation management is in order, partly so you don't become crushingly disappointed, but also so that you don't let false hopes cloud your ability to behave in a way that will give you - and those around you - the most pleasure and benefit.

At the most recent Kinky Salon London I ran a couple of games in the space to help people mingle and learn the rules of the event. The night was panto themed, so I styled it as a quest in which people could help Prince Charming (me) discover some magic items. I'd placed pictures of items around the space and a little word puzzle on the back which was made from the rules. Players found the "magic word" hidden in the puzzle, thereby reading the rules. I also ran a little "secret santa" messaging service so people could approach potential partners in a more covert fashion.

The two games were designed to counter two of the biggest problems that occur again and again in these environments - at almost every kinky, perverted, swinger and sex club I've been to. People who don't know the rules, or who don't follow them and people who don't know how to approach others and ask for sex or play.

People who are new to sex clubs or to the BDSM scene often do not realise that almost every club or night has its own particular set of rules - things that are and aren't allowed. Often called "dungeon" rules from the days when we kept our kink below stairs and in cellars. These are available in advance and often they are at the events themselves, although not always. Like check box terms and conditions on iTunes, I am fairly certain that no-one actually reads them, which is a shame because each set of rules reveals the kinds of games that are permissible in the space. And I mean both what sort of activity you can do and the sort of form the event will take - you can learn a lot about a club by looking at how they choose to write and present their rules.

So, if you are going to a club for the first time, read the damn rules. I'd do that before I bought a ticket, personally, and there have been events where, following a look at their rules I've decided that it wasn't the night for me (especially swingers nights that don't allow boy-on-boy). Further to this, when you get to the club, behave according to the rules, even if others around you are not. It's a basic piece of respect to both those who are running the event and people who have decided to turn up on the strength of how they thought the event was going to turn out. This is important especially if you want to do something that is against the rules. I like knives, cutting and blood. A lot of clubs don't allow this, so I don't do it at those clubs. I can do it at home, I can do it at other clubs. Just because I consider myself an experienced kinkster doesn't mean I get special rules, and if I decide to break rules because I think I am "special" or "better" then I send a very poor message about the etiquette of kinksters and about what it means to be on the scene.

The arrangement of space on the night will also help you see the unwritten rules. KSL was interesting because it separated the space for fucking (which they refer to as "the playroom") and the space for BDSM play which gave a nice visual cue to people present. There was overlap, of course, and the handcuffs and restraints on the bed showed that to neat effect. Take your time when you arrive at a club, look around, see how things are laid out, this will tell you, louder than words, what the organisers think about how play should happen. But be warned, just like the written rules, the arrangement of space will tell you what the event organisers expect to happen and what they want to happen, not necessarily what you might want. Unlike the written rules, it is sometimes acceptable to be playful with the layout of space, as long as you are considerate of other space users. Things like moving a spanking bench into the middle of an area designed for mingling is not a good idea, but nudging it slightly so you can move all the way around is probably fine. If in doubt, ask an event organiser.

The final element of the rules is you yourself and your interactions with others. The rules you have for yourself and the rules they have for themselves. Most people do not come with a sticker which indicates their desires and limits. Sad but true. People are often poor at talking about these things and poorer still, especially if new and nervous, about negotiating. Additionally, rules change according to context and the person you are negotiating with. You are not a mind reader, you do not know what other people want. You need to ask. Ask before touching, ask before assuming.

Assumptions are rife, and many rules in clubs are assumed rather than being actually real. Parties and events create a sense of carnival and festival through dress-up, themes, alcohol, dance and the element of secret society. This makes us feel liberated from conventional rules and mores which can be very exciting, powerful and sexual. We feel able to say and do things we would not normally do, because we are following the "rules of play", playing a game as we perceive it. It is permissible, in these places, to ask strangers if they want to have sex. But this atmosphere can also turn us into idiots and put us in danger of going too far as we forget that the rules are only suspended, not removed. They will return the next day and we need to feel comfortable with how we behaved in the morning.

There's also the matter of what is sex and how far you can go - which is where the permissiveness culture of sex clubs can cause problems. For me, regardless of how the club rules appear or even how they are actually written, the onus is always on you to secure active consent, from yourself and from your partner, before any kind of touching can occur. This kind of rule is one that is often included in written club rules. But it is not always in such an explicit way and the behaviour (and dress, unfortunately we still live in a culture where revealing clothing equals "wants to be touched") of people within the space can make it feel unclear. When things are unclear, it's vital that you create your own clarity.

You need to be clear in and of yourself about what you want and don't want. And stick to your guns. Talking to a friend on the night and we both agreed that it was "ok not to have sex at a sex club". We had both had a good night, but neither of us had been in the mood and were comfortable with our feelings on that front. Just because others are fucking, doesn't mean you have to. We are not in the playground anymore. Similarly, when others are fucking, and you want to, but are unable to find a partner you like, you need to be prepared for that, to accept the fact that whilst you might want sex others might not want to have sex with you. It's a sad fact and it can make you angry, unhappy or miserable. But it needs accepting and respecting.

The fire in your eyes

2011-12-09T21:18:00.003Z

Her face is lit up by the candle flame, but the glint in her eyes is made of more than that. There are smudges of black around her lashes where the mascara has run from tears. And yet she is smiling. She looks up at me and smiles and the world shifts into sharp focus. Something passes between us in the moment where I hold the candle near her mouth and say she can blow it out if she wants to stop.

She just smiles.

And I go back to pouring the liquid wax along her red, red back. Red from the scratches where I dragged my nails through the threads of solid white wax to reveal fresh, bright skin. Red from the streaks and strokes of the rubber flogger I used to warm the skin and bring the blood to the surface, flood the capillaries and the nerve endings with plenty of sparkling oxygen. All the better to feel me with, my dear. I can feel the heat on her skin without even laying my cool palm on her flesh, hovering in that not-quite-touching place when you almost feel the magnetic pull of one body towards and another. It's in direct contrast to the cool of the metal cross she's tied to. After turns and turns of wax poured on and skin scoured clean, both on her front and on her back I decide she is ready.

There's a small vibrator nestling in her underwear, just a gentle reminder of the balance between pleasure and pain, soft and hard sensation. Eventually, I slip my fingers between her skin and the white fabric, teasing her open, feeling how wet she has become and knowing that this too, belongs to me. I play with her clit, watching her face for those twitches at the corner of the mouth, the tell-tale signs of an oncoming orgasm. She looks at me, whispering a request for permission, and I grant it swiftly enough - this is something I want her to do for me, perhaps more than she might want for herself. She tips her head back and moans as she comes, then thanks me.

I take her down, to a smattering of applause. Slowly we move, leaning a little against the other, collecting our things and towards a nearby sofa, in the gently cooling dark. I lay her down, head on my lap, naked body open up to me like an unfurling precious piece of rich fabric. A tapestry of endless fascination. I stroke her hair, kiss her forehead and with a small knife, carefully pick off the remaining wax as we both return to something approaching normality.

When we play it is so, so easy. I move this way and that, feeling like an artist, an action painter, where every move makes something special happen. Each time I play with Blush I'm reminded of everything that is good about BDSM play, we riff off each other very well with our kinks and our desires. I trust her body to respond to my touch and she trusts mine to guide her through each scene. There's a balance to our bodies, they fit well against each other. I step forward and she leans back into my arms, I cup her cunt in my hand and push her upwards, she flexes against me and her feet lift up from the ground.

And whenever I hurt her, whenever I press, pinch, clip, strike or grind my knuckles against her ribs I can see the exhilaration flash in her eyes like sparks of light. She bites her lip, she grins, and oh help me, she even giggles. Her mouth opens in a perfect "o" as if I've said something deliciously witty whilst presenting her with a surprise box of kittens. I have never seen such a positive response to pain. I want to keep seeing it again, and again. I love her pain, it is enthralling, fulfilling and beautiful. It makes me happy. So I hurt her, again and again and each time she smiles, and each time she says thank you, and means it.

After turns and turns of wax poured on and skin scoured clean, both on her front and on her back I take her down, to a smattering of applause. Slowly we move, leaning a little against the other, collecting our things and towards a nearby sofa, in the gently cooling dark. I lay her down, head on my lap, naked body open up to me like an unfurling precious piece of rich fabric. A tapestry of endless fascination. I stroke her hair, kiss her forehead and with a small knife, carefully pick off the remaining wax as we both return to something approaching normality.

She smiles.

Club rules

2011-12-06T13:35:00.003Z

Saturday saw the annual Torture Garden outing, and despite the fact that a number of The Tribe were unable to attend we still had enough perverts to make the night worthwhile, including a last minute addition of Blush. I'd been a bit sad within myself that I hadn't really been able to spend more time with her, either for play or just coffee, so it was nice to be able to take her out once more. Nicer still that we were at Rossetti's house to begin the night and together played a game of dress up making her into quite the Christmas princess, All white innocence and knee socks, all the better to fool you with.

TG is always a mixed bag. It's a big club night with a dungeon rather than a play night - recently a few of us were bemoaning the existence of good, hard play clubs outwith the gay fetish scene. The TG crowd is always better looking than average, so there were lots of well-defined male torso on display and a performance by a beautifully androgynous hula boy made me grin wolfishly. Any man who can strip whilst twirling a hoop around gets my vote.

Then there was the not-so-good.

The drunken, drugged up crowd falling over themselves (literally, one woman collapsed on the stage, bringing part of the decoration with her) and the grabby, gropey behaviour of vanillas let off the leash without knowing how to behave. The dungeon itself was bigger and better laid out with more kit than usual, and lent itself to more showy, exhibitionist scenes: racks, cages, st andrew's crosses, benches, exactly right for that kind of crowd. It was very, very dark. We like some darkness, we perverts, but we also like not to fall over whilst we are playing. I rather long for a club with a bright, white playroom.

However, it wasn't well monitored. I saw a couple of - predictably male dungeon monitors, predictably delivering flogging to newbie, nubile women in a very "look at my manly domming" sort of way. I'm never keen on DMs playing, I think that it's a bit like bouncers drinking and dancing. I appreciate that the line between showing someone a little about kink and actually having a scene can be hard to draw. However, in a club where there is likely to be more new people, and more new people who are drinking, then closer supervision is required. You can't watch play whilst playing.

They were not easily identifiable, especially as they were often busy playing or moving people out of the way so that they could play. One was masked, which I especially don't like as I think it makes it much harder for you to talk to them or ask them a question. It also makes us kinksters look like dickheads.

My feelings were compounded by the fact that when I really could have used a DM - a man was being extremely rude about stepping back from where I was about to play - there wasn't one to hand and I could hardly leave Blush by herself near Mr Angry And Entitled whilst I went to look for teacher. I'm able to take care of myself and he eventually left in a flood of curses but it hardly set the scene for a good scene - we recovered, naturally, and more on that later.

Now I know that these are problems faced by being a big club and by being a club that mixes a vanilla accessible party with play. TG does not call itself a play club, it isn't a play club, it is a fetish party with emphasis on the party. Throw in the "it's Christmas" vibe and everyone was probably getting more high and more hammered than they might usually. That meant the dungeon was full of people who, especially towards the end of the night, were really not in a fit state to stand up, let alone play, or, importantly consent to play. The rules for the dungeon were printed on a board outside the entrance to one of the play areas - though not all. They were hard to read in the light and obscured by people going to the nearby bar. If I wasn't actually looking for them I would have missed them.

Good dungeon monitoring is a real bugbear of mine, possibly because of my own background in behind-the-scenes event and theatre work plus front of house. DMs create the experience for people in the club and also set expectation levels of what kinky people look like.

I want people's experiences of BDSM to be positive. I don't think everyone in the world has to participate or should be kinky. I do want everyone to think that, even if it's not their cup of tea, they are able to see why some people might enjoy it. Their first physical contact with kink is often via the club scene and I think that clubs like TG, especially with its size and reputation, have a huge responsibility to the scene to deliver. Similarly, we perverts have a responsibility to behave properly and respect individual club rules. Even if we want to play harder or do more. Their house, their rules.

If you are going to allow play and if you are going to have rules then you need to actively manage this, and, sadly, I don't think TG is quite up to scratch.

Respectfully decline

2011-11-26T18:36:00.003Z

I had a fifth and final date with Technophile last week. It was a good conversation in some ways, not because it was especially nice or because it had a pleasing outcome, if anything it was a good conversation because difficult things were said in the right way. We parted ways with as much honour and dignity as is possible.

To summarise, he decided that we couldn't have a relationship because he, most emphatically, wanted children and I, most emphatically, do not. Now I don't want to discuss the why I don't want children because I am sick to death of having to justify a personal decision that impacts upon no-one else. But I do want to talk about the way it made me feel. I surprised myself in being more upset than I thought I might be. He's been the first man in a while where I'd thought "there might be something in this" and that something was more than kinky sex. A future, if you will. So to find out that there was no future was disheartening and I felt it keenly. Not because I had suddenly developed a large amount of feelings for him - certainly I still care for Mr Smith much more (and of course those thoughts are also tied up in the lack-of-future).

I felt it because it was another thing that was not to be. We can't help creating little hopes and dreams for ourselves that are leaps and bounds beyond where reality might be. It's one of the glorious, beautiful things about being human, it's also a very key part of being a pervert, the ability to imagine and to try and make those imaginings come true. Each time we leave a partner, or they leave us or however you want to phrase it, we let go of the bundle of aspirations and expectations we had for future times with them. They aren't always big things - it takes a long while for me to build up the emotional courage to consider moving in together or even, dare I say it, a wedding. I'm too aware of how far off those things are in anything other than abstract terms. It's more about the many, many small things that are now not going to happen. They sail away when someone says "no". Full of air and not much else, my small hopes are balloons floating up into the sky, leaving me like the small child who let go of the string, dwindling out of view. I'm left with that peculiar sense of loss you get over the irreplaceable.

I've done a lot of saying "no". I've had a lot of "no" said to me. For all kinds of reasons the nascent relationships I have built up over this year - with Dandy, with Mannequin, with Mr Smith, with Technophile and with the almost never-ending stream of first dates who never get to second dates and rarely get written about - have ended in a "no". Add onto that there are a couple very good kinky friends who I know would make wonderful, loving partners but just aren't right for me. More "no".

That's a lot of "no". And it builds up. I am at risk of becoming the girl who keeps on saying "no", which is ironic because I had originally decided that this was going to be the year in which I say "yes" to things. I wanted to shed my fear of spontaneous decisions and go out to find new experiences in a way I haven't done since my first few months on the scene. But I'm a bit older, much more discriminating, nuanced and clear in what I do and don't want. Saying "yes" to everything is not an option. But I do want to start to move forward.

I've been thinking about the future, about who I am and where I want to be, who I want to be with. How to get there. I've been thinking about what I don't want, I've been thinking about stopping doing things in order to devote more time and energy to fewer things that I can do better. One of the instant upshots of this is to stop going on dates for a while. I recently put out on Twitter that I hated the idea that "you find the one for you" when you stop looking, because that sounds a bit like reverse psychology on the universe and the universe doesn't care enough to react to that kind of behaviour. I'm also reconciling myself to the fact that my life is extremely busy and perhaps I don't really have time for a partner right now - I'm not really sure I have time for myself these days.

All of this has put me in a whimsical frame of mind. Sort of sad, sort of thoughtful, all kinds of needing to go and think things through. I'm writing this from my family home in the rural north (family home makes it sound like a country estate - it's the home where my family live) and, as ever, going home gives you time to think. Even the train journey outside of London, and outside of London's internet and phone connection blocks the space between there and here.

I don't want my love life to be made up of little bits of random dates that never go anywhere. The great romance in which I meet The One sounds like an adventure for a woman who has more time than me. I've never been that interested in casual sex or hook-ups and I don't have the energy or schedule for planning and executing D/s play in anything more than the most adhoc fashion which doesn't sit well with D/s and anyway can only happen on the one evening a month that I'm not already trying to do four things.

I need breathing room. To think. So for the moment, and until further notice, I respectfully decline.

What I mean when I say I'm kinky

2011-11-25T17:42:00.003Z

"I mean, do perverts want normal things, like hugs and companionship - or are they 'vanilla' too?" a paraphrased excerpt from a recent conversation with someone who is finding his feet, and his desires, in the widening world of sexuality.

I replied "yes" but using more words. And then thought about how this must mean we might be perceived as kinksters and the issues that might raise. Here is a sensible, smart and thoughtful chap who was worried that a life of crime and punishment might involve letting go of everything to do with what he understood relationships to mean: a partner, caring, loving, snuggling under duvets. That having kinky sex meant that these other things were not part of the bargain. Now, accepting that he isn't daft, that implies to me that when we talk about ourselves as kinksters and perverts we are only telling part of the story.

Think about the way we sometimes present ourselves, as edgier than edgy, more kinky than thou, always racing for the next thing: harder, faster, stronger. We do this for a lot of reasons - we want to be interesting and exciting, we want people to know who we are, we want people to think we are hot. We pride ourselves on our hardcore attributes, and we can isolate ourselves by doing and replace our personalities with personas. Cruel bitch. Evil bastard. Wicked masters and mistresses. Similarly, drooling submissives with no minds of their own. Creatures of sex and sexuality. But we don't talk about ourselves as people with love and with lives.

Make no mistake, I do not want to distance myself from my kink. It is a core part of me. But it's not the whole thing. The belle dame sans merci might be a wonderful place to play, and certainly part of me, but I can't do that all the time without becoming a gross (and emotional, intellectually empty) caricature. Even if it does become the pleasing acronym BDSM.

We have created the kink / vanilla divide. And we need to think a bit about how that is playing out in the wider world. When we emphasise, as I do, the importance of the lifestyle to us, we must be careful that we explain what we mean, rather than assuming that people will understand - the same goes for a lot of things in life.

So here's what I mean when I say I'm kinky.

I'm kinky. It's a thread of steel that runs through me like a backbone, supporting my body structure. I could no more remove it than you could remove your spine. Everything would come crashing down in a big mess. I'm kinky. I want to do awful, dreadful things to your mind and your body. I want to put my dirty fingers into your brain and pull on all those feelings that make you writhe and blush. I'm kinky, I want to use D/s rules and control to build you into the person you want to be. I'm kinky, I want to hold your hand, talk to you about silly things, fall in love with you and grow old in a shared house where other kinky people might stop by for a cup of tea and a spot of shibari.

I'm kinky.

Singled out

2011-11-15T20:32:00.005Z

I met up with a very good, very kinky friend for lunch yesterday and we ended up, head in our hands, mildly depressed, over coffee. There are certain stereotypes that I have always thought a myth and that of the single woman, bemoaning her status to other, single friends is seemingly not one of them. I felt depressingly Sex in the City, and hated myself a little for it.

There comes a point in every life when you can look across the room and see a host of couples - if you are a pervert you will also see a host of other sorts of relationships, but fundamentally, togetherness. People who you like, people who are your friends, people who right now you really, really don't want to be anywhere near. Because you do not have that special someone and you are starting to feel like a leper. Furthermore, you can look at the pool of other single people within that room and realise that you have either fucked, played with or are incompatible with all of them. And then you feel a bit stuck.

We tried to work out what was going wrong, as we often do when things are not ideal, we look inwards, to ourselves, to what we might be lacking (aside from a primary partner who practically explodes with desire to have kinky sex with us right now). Now, I have faults. I have many. I have cultivated them over the years and some are good friends. But there is nothing basically wrong with me. I'm a good catch. I'm smart, attractive, funny have all my own teeth, make a mean banoffee pie and am frankly, amazing in bed. The same with my friend, although I'm not sure about the pie. She does make great cookies. We are not crazy wedding obsessed women running around in white dresses screaming "commit, commit!" We just want a nice, kinky chap to spend some quality, perverted time with.

And, annoyingly, the problem is with the men available. Or unavailable. Sorry to be sexist, chaps, but there are a lot more good looking women on the scene who have wide and exciting tastes in kink. Add to that the girls are just a lot better at expressing what they want, going for it and actually delivering the goods. Without being an arrogant prick, though I am an arrogant prick, I have a number of beautiful, interesting and amazing women who want play dates. And I want to play with them. So I play mostly with women these days and go on a lot of first dates with men that go nowhere. Or worse, they stagnate in a kind of circling no-place of unanswered messages. For the moment I've sent out some rather blunt messages to a few people, including Technophile regarding their level of interest.

Perhaps, we wondered, it was the kink thing. We're both very kinky. Sometimes that makes people nervous. Would it be easier if we were vanilla? At least the dating pool would be bigger, and we wouldn't know what we were missing, because we wouldn't want it. Sex would be sex rather than an entire lifestyle, which, wonderful as it is does become a very high bar if you feel like you are just not reaching it. But we are not vanilla. Any more so that lesbians are straight or tall girls are short.

When you boil it down, we are single for a very dull, very simple set of reasons. The people we want can't give us what we need. The people who want us we don't want. And it's very rarely anyone's fault. It just happened like that. We can hardly change ourselves, or change the people that we want. Conversely, we can't expect others to change or to change what they want - because then everybody would be going around pretending to be who they were not and pretending to like what they didn't like. Which is madness. Some things are just part of you, bone deep and trying to be anything other than what you are is a lie you will always come to regret.

More and more I become clearer and clearer on what I want. I had a terrible realisation last night that perhaps this was the problem. My dreadful clarity. This leads me to reject any number of people who could be, might be, if you sort of turn a little and squint almost not quite what I wanted. Then I realised that would be a complete cop out and an utter compromise. So fuck that noise. I want what I want and there's nothing wrong with that. If that means being a little sad and a little lonely for a little while, then so be it.

Votive offerings

2011-11-15T15:47:00.003Z

What goes around comes around. And when you offer something up, it can return to you tenfold, in an unexpected way. As part of Barelesque, a fundraising event for the excellent Albert Kennedy Trust, I donated a session of my services up for auction. I couldn't have hoped for a better recipient, in all my wildest dreams. Smart, beautiful and elegant, with a blush that rose pinkly from the centre of her cleavage like the rising dawn, thus earning her moniker. Perfect.

After a couple of email exchanges a date was booked. Something classic, dinner, drinks then to hers for kink. Blush and I met for a coffee a few days beforehand to check that all was well, we talked about many things before circling towards specifics. The less I know someone the more I tend to plan in advance, marshaling my forces around what might work best for them, all the more so when the activity is paid for. I allayed her concerns about "pleasing me", reassuring her that I never did anything I didn't want to, one of the benefits of being a dominant. Similarly, I attempted to put her at ease with regards to protocol and doing things right, remembering my own anxieties around my own acts of submission and the "correct" ways of being. There is a lot of joy to be had in being the dominant that you at one time wanted for yourself, you feel as if you are fulfilling a part of your own needs through the mirror of another's body, another's desire. And that's all without even counting the pleasure in domination itself.

We met for dinner and talked. With nights like this I always enjoy making each moment part of a greater game. Dominance is, in many ways, all about focus and making someone feel special. Very few people ever pay much particular attention to each other, so when it does happen it can be very powerful. I flirted with her over dinner, listening to what she said, as I picked out little phrases or comments of hers, filing certain reactions away for later. I watched her response, afterwards, as we shared drinks in a cocktail bar, batting off the unwanted affections or vanilla reactions of men in suits. I knew that she was watching me, but that also I was, in a way, taking care of her. She was under my protection, so the verbal sparring I engaged in was for her benefit as well as mine. I exercised my power in simple, little things. Decisions about where to go and when, taking the lead without ever needing to exert myself.

When you meet a submissive who is in tune with your dominance, everything becomes very easy. Like a dance partner who already knows the steps and the music, you can move together in a way that is natural, and not forced. Part of this is attraction, which was there and more so, but there's something else, something deeper. I've been attracted to people who I could not play with, or people who wanted to dominate me when I didn't wish to be dominated. The balance between the D and the s is delicate but, when tasted, very moreish. I was lucky. We were a fit. I held out my hand for her to take and she did. So we danced.

I stripped her down and pushed her onto the bed, tying her arms and legs down before running my hands over the exposed, gorgeous flesh. This is the moment I always relish, when things are about to start. She waits and I wait and we are bodies held in motion, like breath before an exhalation. I start slow, because some things are worth savouring. A week or so earlier she had bought me a set of metal chopsticks - she knows my tastes - for my birthday. Unbeknownst to her, the packaging hid their wickedly sharp points. I made her keenly aware of this, returning her gift to her. The points traced red, red lines in her skin, with a faint scratching sound from the microscopic tears as I moved up and down. Every now and then I pulled myself back from the hypnotic absorption that is found in tracing along someone else's desire. I watched her face, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted. I listened for those gasps of pain, the little moans of happiness as she fell into the floating space of masochism.

After a while, I lit a lot of candles. I had promised her, and myself, fire. This year will be a lot about fire, and I'm looking forward to doing more. I lay candles upon her reddened skin, pouring wax along the edges I had already cut with the chopsticks. Again, I lost myself in the motion of what I was doing, the control of wave upon wave of gently rising sensation. I could feel it, through her warm skin and into my own fingertips. I could feel, through that connection of dominant to submissive, and through the hundred, thousand little tweaks and movements she was making. I grinned to myself as only a switch can - I know what that feels like. And I'm doing it to you. And you want me to, badly. It's like sadism squared. A double whammy of a power exchange.

The best kind of dominance, for me, is one in which the submissive comes to me willingly, wanting to be taken, to be cared for, to be controlled. A conversation with Majeste from long ago filters through my mind as I write this: "you come to me on your knees or you do not come at all." I do not want to take an inch more than is given to me - I would rather leave someone wanting more than angry, hurt or upset because I did too much. And certainly I will push for more, but that is part of the deal with submission, my role is to know when to push and how.

Later, by email, she talked to me of how my style was different to others she had experienced, and how she had been pleasantly surprised by my lack of force. I can certainly use force, if I want to, and sometimes a fight is part of a good scene. But better than force, better than the threat of violence, is not having to lift a finger. That is where power lies. In the power that is offered up to you, as the dominant. I do not need to take my dominance in that way, nor do I need to physically make a submissive do anything: they offer it up to me.

And I accept.

How far can we go? Part Three

2011-11-08T17:09:00.005Z

Finally getting round to completing the triumvirate in my musings on play and edges. I want to bring it all to a close by talking about dominance and submission as an experience, from within and without. Specifically I want to talk about what is and what isn't D/s. Now, there are entire shelf-loads of books devoted to YKIOK as well as the usual liberal (and geek social rules) around how you aren't allowed to say that someone is doing something wrong. So for those of you who ascribe to that principle one hundred percent, I would avoid reading further.

I like to think that for the most part I'm pretty cool with people doing what they want to each other as long as consent is acknowledged and it doesn't fuck up what I want to do. But I'm going to take a bit of a stand here. Sometimes things happen, in life and on the scene, that are just wrong. There are no ifs or buts or grey areas. They are shit things that shouldn't have happened. Now, why they happened is a different story, and we've all made mistakes - I know I have - but that doesn't change the fact that bad things happen.

In the past two articles I wrote about how we can create a moral code for ourselves as kinksters, and how we can use that in our negotiations with others, which touched a little on issues of abuse. Now I'm going to touch a little more firmly.

In a nutshell, my opinion is this: dominance is not the same thing as being domineering. Similarly, submission is not the same thing as being a doormat. In both instances, the former is good, healthy BDSM, the latter is not. Let's think about some definitions. A dominant person is behaving to generate an effect upon the submissive - I've always maintained that dominants (or submissives) don't exist in isolation, they need each other. You are dominant towards someone, you are submissive towards someone: that's the power exchange. A domineering person "naturally" has to be in control (or seen to be in control), regardless of who this is directed towards, regardless of whether they want it or not and regardless of what has been said or agreed. They are just "like that". Similarly a doormat cannot stand responsibility, regardless of the context, regardless of whether other people want to take control. You'll notice that when it comes down to it, these two poles are actually quite similar.

It's all about control and perception of control. It's also about confidence, fear, self-awareness and personal responsibility - all the things that make us people. So it's big stuff and cuts to the heart of who we think we are.

Having the confidence of your own convictions makes you a better dominant and a better submissive. Fear, is the opposite of confidence and it is the enemy. Fear is fun to play with, but it's not fun to live with. It makes you weak and generates reactions that are animalistic fight or flight selfish self-preservation with no thought for others. Domineering types seize control and strangle the life out of things as they take them too hard. Doormat types hand themselves over without a word and close their eyes, hoping for the best.

Knowing when you move from dominance to domineering, or from submission to being a doormat is a personal thing. It requires brutal honesty about how you really feel, and it's about being self-aware. Are you comfortable with yourself and you are brave enough to make decisions and to talk about things that you want. Don't mistake it for bravado or thrill seeking - those are domineering/doormat traits. Pretend bravery that hides gaping holes which will cause problems in your D/s.

It's very easy to look at these examples and think "abuser" and "victim" but what I'm talking about here is deeper and more muddled than that. There's a great post here on how rapists are supposed by parts of society to be obvious which cuts through a lot of our challenges when thinking about nice people who do bad things.

When our BDSM works we are people who try to do bad things in good ways. Which is to say we give and take pain for pleasure, we push people down to build them up. We abuse, humiliate, hurt and harm in order to adore, love, lust and come really, really hard. We're a contrary, contradictory bunch. We're complicated. And complication breeds complexity so sometimes we can't see the wood for the trees. Things become "difficult". What you see isn't always what you get. There's a lot of "you wouldn't understand" going on within our lives. This post is, in part, about trying to understand. It's about breaking down some assumptions and about trying to tackle ideas about "right" and "wrong" within BDSM.

That's the easy bit done. The nice, wipe clean, seen from the outside told-you-so bit. The hard bit is telling the two apart when you are in the thick of it (either giving or receiving) and how to turn the bad into good.

I cannot answer that question for you. I'm not trained to do that and I don't know you well enough (well, most of you). I suspect, because I remember what it felt like myself, that we know, deep down, when we have crossed the line. But when we are in a D/s relationship, with a partner who is providing scenes and scenarios that support, encourage and even excuse our bad behaviour we often lack the impetus to change. This is not to blame them. At all times, what we do is our responsibility. Even if we, as submissives, have handed control to our dominants, event if we call ourselves "slave" or "animal", we are still responsible. I don't care that this might make me less of a dominant or less of a submissive or less of a full throttle pervert in the eyes of some people because those people are wrong and their attitudes are sociopathic. Submission is given. Dominance is given. They are gifts. Someone else makes the decision to take them.

Now here's another tactical conundrum. What do we - as responsible social kinksters - do when we see these behaviours and we aren't involved. From the outside, domineering behaviours can look like, feel like and sound like dominance. And doormat behaviours can look like, feel like and sound like submission. Certainly at first, but in true "boiling a frog" principles we can end up in a difficult place by degrees. How do we know, when we look at a scene, or what we think is a scene, what is really going on? That blow to the face was not part of the scene. That one was.

We can't be guaranteed to be right, I'm afraid. We just can't. Like a jury, we will never completely know the real answer. But we also must be aware, and we must be prepared to act, to say something, if needs be. It's better to say something and be wrong, to be embarrassed, than to say nothing and allow someone to be hurt. Really hurt. Similarly, we must accept that others might want to say something to us, about how we are perceived, about how we act. And we must accept that with grace. Which means giving and taking criticism. And it means talking to people and listening to them. It also means talking about ourselves, letting people know what looks right and feels right for us. The more we do it ourselves, the more others are encouraged to do so. We can make friends with each other and be aware of what works for our friends.

There is a social contract to look out, and look after one another. As a group we must understand and act upon what is and isn't acceptable. We must also make these rules clear. As individuals and as groups. Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups, and given the risks we play with we cannot take those risks. Not for ourselves, not for others. The challenge I'm issuing, here and now, is to start thinking about good and bad dominance and submission. Start to decide for yourselves what is right and what is wrong. And tell people. Then act on it.

How far can we go?

Over to you.

Come to the Cabaret

2011-11-03T17:10:00.003Z

Now, either I'm losing my "touch of death" for cabaret or I'm finding the right sorts of performances for me. Bit of both perhaps. I do still find a lot of vanilla "sexy" performance frankly bemusing, but perhaps they also find we perverts and the things we like bemusing. Certainly it seems that taste is a big issue and there have been many recent performances all in the best possible taste, or my taste, at any rate.

Unsurprisingly, my tastes run to the queer, the impromptu and stuff done by my friends. There's a lot of cold water that gets thrown upon performances done by the "untrained" or "amateur" but several of the strip teases I saw at Barelesque, a charity event done at the RVT contained a lot more heart and soul - as well as that absolutely essential connection with the audience, that many professional performances can often lack. They were fun, rather than work and some shows I've seen, whilst slick and well-rehearsed do look an awful lot like work. And hard work at that. The sort of world-weary stereotype of a sexual performer, mechanically grinding away. This can happen in the industry, people get tired and the thrill can go out of it, there is a freshness in seeing something that has never been done before. Similarly, an audience can (note use of the word can, bad amateur stuff is just as dreadful as bad professional stuff but without the slick delivery) develop more of an engagement with a performer if they know who they are or know that this is their "first time". Public sharing in cherry popping, anyone?

This isn't to deride professional cabaret performers - of which there were several on the night, but to point out that it isn't the word "professional" that makes them good. It's the connection with people in the room and their performance capacity. A lot of perverts make good performers, especially the seasoned exhibitionists who understand the power of being watched and can tune into the feelings within a room. Some perverts make dreadful performers, but them's the breaks. The idea of newness is also important. Good performers make each audience member feel as if they are watching something special and unique - they tell a story that, though it might have been done a thousand times, is still fresh that night, for that person.

Speaking of fresh and along the same lines, I went along to Sleaze at Camden an "NYC style burlesque) last night to watch Jonny Porkpie and Mat Fraser to name but a few. The show was unashamedly lewd and crude, with lots of audience participation (and with plenty of perverts in the house there was ample opportunity for those exhibitionists to get their thing on) and whilst the stage was tiny and an element of "thrown together" prevailed it had the feel of being a shared conspiracy of silliness: something fun, sexy, light-hearted and done just for those people in the room - exactly what good cabaret should do. Yet beneath all of that, the performances were well timed and professional, the pacing was strong without feeling rushed and the room soon filled with screams of horror and laughter and mmm's of delight from the audience.

It's a delicate balancing act, akin to the whole "this old thing? I just threw it on" lies that those who spend hours getting ready might use to throw us off the scent. What looks as if it suddenly happened, is often very well planned. In a similar way, there's a strong connection between performance and scene building, a lot of thought goes into those precious few moments. Again, another reason why there may be a good crossover between perverts and performers. For my own part, I'm looking forward to doing some more of my own shows next year, as well as supporting others in developing theirs.

On with the show.

Patience, partners and personalities

2011-11-02T16:59:00.005Z

I am not by nature a patient person. I can wait, if I have to, if there's absolutely no possible alternative. But generally delayed gratification is not my bag. Now, this isn't the same thing as wanting to do everything quickly. I often enjoy taking my time, as anyone who has been on the other side of a sharp blade held by me will know. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well and often that means spending a lot of time on it. And very pleasurable time it can be too.

The key difference is whether something is being "done" or not. What I do not deal well with is the limbo of uncertainty. The dead, empty time between sending out a message and getting a reply. The "will they won't they" process of hanging around for someone else to arrange their schedule. As Chiaroscuro pointed out, the key is expectation management, vital word:expectation. If I know that something is or isn't going to happen then I can stop worrying about it and get on with enjoying things. Poor communication makes me stressed and it's a needless stress. And I remove those from my life with the same drive that ruthlessly pursues happiness.

I've had to pull back from Technophile due to precisely that, unfortunately. I don't expect anyone to cling to my skirts, or to send me endless chocolates and flowers. I do however require more than one Facebook message a week. It's a curious situation when the person who one is supposed to be dating is the least available, and shows no signs of becoming more available. This would have been fine, had we actual dates (with actual sex and actual kink) booked in the diary for that time, but we didn't. I'm a bit disappointed - I liked him and he intrigued me, but not enough to hang around or play any sort of waiting game with no real end point in sight. Conversations, when they happened tended towards the "I don't know" or the "Not tonight Josephine".

If it hadn't been for the monogamy angle everything would have probably been well. Those adhoc, every-now-and-then lovers are always a pleasing addition to life's rich pattern. Take Ten for example. However, I'd agreed to not see other people because Technophile was uncomfortable with it, and I liked him enough to try. But without any input from him, I ended up having no-one and nothing on my kink radar for a couple of weeks, which is pretty much an Ice Age in electronic doll years (they are like dog years only for BDSM). My usual pattern - which has been admittedly watered down somewhat by my new job - is around 3-4 dates a week with kinky folk, of which two would probably be play dates, then parties and events all weekend. My pattern recently was some lunches with kind kinksters who came to give me vicarious thrills on their own sex lives - thank you all. So to go from that to very little, in combination with a switch in relationship mode, plus still surfing the wave of periodic moroseness following losing Mr Smith and Mannequin meant that I felt a bit like the cowboy surveying tumbleweed.

I expect that this sounds somewhat "poor me" and that lots of people have to cope with an awful lot worse in this world, but it was an annoyance I could have done without and it also set me along the standard issue paranoia line: why hasn't he been in touch, what has happened, what have I done wrong? As it turns out, he was busy, nothing has happened and I am still the same wonderful, awful pervert I have always been. But that wasn't much consolation at the time.

I view frequency and type of communication as being directly proportional to interest. This isn't an obscure game for judging people, it's a way that those in my life, or who want to be in my life, can make me feel happier and more comfortable. Clear channels and timing for communication is something I absolutely require from my partners. And I make damn sure they know about it. On a really basic level, I like knowing what is happening, so I book dates in advance and keep a tight diary. As long as I know where my next meal, next fuck and next sleep are coming from I'm generally ready for anything. Lack of certainty on those fronts can cause me anxiety. It's my issue and I'm dealing with it, but the way in which I deal with it requires me to avoid people who cannot deliver.

We all do this, we look for people whose ways of behaving and living match up with our own. Dominants look for submissives, and vice-versa. People who want polyamory seek others of a similar ilk. Friends are people whose idiosyncrasies sit well with our own. All the more so in partners. Often it's the day-to-day behaviours that can create the biggest rifts - the saying goes that opposites attract but that only works if those opposites are complimentary rather than in direct competition. Planners will always get annoyed with prevaricators, and those who like to live life as it comes will come to loathe being managed down to their last minute. Different strokes for different folks. Sadly, what I'm coming to understand, in my ongoing quests for Goldilocks style "just right", is that there will be people, who through no fault of their own, are exciting and interesting in some ways, but fall short in others.

And just as I'm not prepared to wait without reason, I also will not compromise on those things I really, really need.

Sugar, money and power

2011-10-25T16:31:00.004+01:00

Meet a Sugar Daddy Right Here Today Then Quit Your Stupid Job Tomorrow.

Google ads, wikipedia and the specialised dating websites seem to be pretty clear on the subject: Sugar Daddy relationships are about the money. So why are the people interviewed in the recent BBC article being so coy about it?

Perhaps it's a combination of the famous British reticence to talk about money and the general social condemnation of sex workers? But I think there's more going on here. At it's heart, the "it's not prostitution, really" argument reveals a belief that disparity of power creates a bad relationship. There's an unease around these situations because society tells us that they are unfair, that someone is being exploited. A little like the assumption that all sex workers must be exploited. There are also ethical hang-ups, beliefs that selling sex somehow cheapens it (I personally think that the £313 for "a date" quoted in the article is hardly cheap, especially as there's a suggestion that sex might not be automatically provided. But beyond that, sex is an activity. It's a thing that can be done. It can also be a deep and meaningful connection between people. It can also be both.

Some of the dating websites have a very BDSM vibe to them, as well the might given the explicit power exchange involved. Sugar Daddy (and Sugar Mummy, although those seem sadly rarer) relationships are based on a transaction (often termed an "arrangement") in which the older, wealthy and hence powerful partner gives financial support and offers patronage to the younger, poorer and hence weaker partner. Now, I have had forays into the world of professional dominance so I have no problem with accepting cash for sexual favours. I'm also a pervert with a fondness for D/s relationships that are neatly structured with things given and things taken so these kinds of relationships feel normal to me.

This is where it gets even trickier, because disparity of power is at the heart of many good, caring and loving D/s relationships. D/s makes overt what a lot of us knew all along. Good relationships work because they are a balance of inequalities. One party gives the same amount as the other takes. D/s enshrines that in words and principles, it makes clear things that we do not usually speak about and that can make people very uncomfortable. It's not the fact that one partner supports the other, giving things that one may lack, that creates a "bad" relationship, it's other things. Like lying, non-consensual physical and emotional abuse or being a big, damn hypocrite.

And that is the real crux of the argument. Society does not like these relationships because they reveal us to be hypocrites. We pour scorn upon these relationships yet they are a fundamental truth of how relationships work and we skip over the idea that people can get genuine enjoyment and satisfaction in relationships based on the exchange of money and power. as opposed to say, love and love alone. Don't get me wrong, love is amazing and wonderful and a many splendoured thing.

But so is being able to pay the bills.

Historically we have been more truthful, partnerships between people were partnerships between families, between countries even. Dowries indicated the transaction that was being made. Today, marriage still confers levels of social privilege and financial stability. Yet we talk about "marrying money" as if it's automatically a bad thing - as if someone would genuinely desire to "marry poverty" given the choice. Similarly, we disparage the older man who hooks up with the model (whilst also decrying her as a vapid bimbo). These relationship stereotypes have a kernel of truth that reveals society to be deeply hypocritical in how it views the value of beautiful women and powerful men - and that's without even touching on the heteronormatism and sexism revealed by beautiful women and powerful men.

No-one wants to go back to have all women as chattel (although some of us might like to play with all genders of chattel from time to time) but we must admit that we live in a world of gender inequality and it is childish to assume otherwise or to think worse of those who, honestly and openly, try to make the most of what they have got in the world. You don't like what they are doing? Then give them a world in which their options are better, in which we have other values for women and men. As long as we have a world where men are valued for their money and women for their looks then there will be men who pay to have a beautiful women on their arm.

Hierarchy of Needs

2011-10-21T22:13:00.003+01:00

Over the past two months I've been very conscious of how my life is changing, and the effect that this is having on my kink and how I feel in myself.

“You’ve basically gone cold turkey”. Technophile and I are having a bit of a check-in on how things are going over a beer in a brief moment when neither of us was working or sleeping. Call it a date, if you will, I’m still uncertain about whether meeting people and then not having sex with them can be termed a “date” more on that (sore) point later.

He is, of course, correct. Losing Mr Smith and Mannequin, for reasonable reasons, compounded with the decision to see how things go with Technophile who is new to the scene, unsure about polyamory and generally needs the space and respect to go a bit slower than I might normally means that my sex life is very, very different to how it was a couple of months ago.

Which means I’m having problems. I’m a girl with control issues – I love control, which is why the power exchange is so meaningful to me. I like being in control. I like giving up control. With the right people and at the right time it makes life shine so brightly that I get giddy. Right now, things are unclear and therefore rather dim. The whole “take it slow” process for example. It’s against my nature to be patient or to let things “just happen”. In my experience things generally don’t happen unless there’s a will and desire moving them forward, so lack of momentum indicates trouble.

We’re both busy, I tell myself. And this is true. And we both like each other. Which is also true. I’m breathing deep and taking the plunge on this, at least for now, because I like the boy. And I want to give this whole thing a try.

But damn, this is hard.

Hand (and head) in the air: I’m high maintenance on the sex front. And with a new partner who is wanting to take it slow but is also monogamous I am not getting enough. I don’t know how to manage this – in an open situation I would seek other partners, but I can’t. And this means that talking about what I need, which I’m more than happy and comfortable doing, involves directly criticising, or seeming to criticise Technophile’s ability to provide. And no-one likes to have that pressure on them, and I don’t want him to feel pressured because we are meant to be giving him the space to learn the dance steps to see whether he wants to go further.

I need a lot of reasonably complicated – certainly to non-kinksters – sex. And this isn’t just about fucking, although I need that too, it’s about all the vital ancillary components that make good play, good companionship and just good times.

I’m not getting enough. I get up alone and go to sleep alone. Every night. I don’t have cute flirty text messages to smile about or the scent of someone’s flesh and juices under my fingers and in my hair. When I run my tongue around the inside of my mouth the only taste is mine. My skin is pristine, without a mark or a bruise to grace its whiteness and prove me to be alive. I have no memories of moans or screams or rising red marks to make me smirk to myself on my commute. I am not kissed, held or touched enough. There are no promises to keep or rituals of ownership to make sure are obeyed. I care for no-one and no-one cares for me. Collars are unused in their boxes. Floggers gather dust.

The vibrators are running out of batteries and I am getting a bit bored of my own fingers.

There’s more to kink than the BDSM, of course, and I’m not getting enough of that either. Which is a time issue. I used to be able to go out most evenings, as well as the odd lunch or coffee during the working day, spending time with other perverts, going on dates, attending munches or even just having the downtime to blog, tweet or reply to emails and texts. I’ve not got the space to do this and that’s making me feel disconnected and a strange rising sense of half-guilt, half-panic and all loneliness.

The ability to be around other perverts might not be such a bad thing, as at least it keeps temptation away, and hopefully with time there will be integration and a bit more space for my social life. At the moment I feel rather far away from those I like and the things I want. Which is odd as my recent decisions were supposed to move me closer.

I am hoping this is a stop gap rather than how life is now. I'll keep you posted.

Magic number

2011-10-17T19:03:00.004+01:00

It's been on my list of desireables for years, to have a boy-girl-boy threesome. The logistics involved in this were surprisingly difficult because of the balance that needed to be achieved. An ideal situation would have been a pair of bisexual boys who also wanted to fuck each other, but that still remains out of my grip, for now.

Even without adding "bisexual" into the mix, trying to find two men who I was attracted to and who were comfortable being very sexually active in the same room as each other proved to be difficult. There is something curious about the reaction that many men get across their faces when presented with even the idea of touching another man during sex. They look almost afraid. As if flexibility in the bedroom was somehow a bad thing. Wild protestations of being "completely" or "utterly" or "!00%" straight get bandied about which I find deeply irksome, not to mention problematic for my purposes - however would one manage a threesome with two men who could not touch at all, it would be like some dreadful balancing act.

So, I needed men who were comfortable with themselves to not throw a hissy fit at the presence of another masculine body. I set Mr Smith on this difficult task a long time ago, with the result that our relationship had changed by the time we actually found someone. The guest star was an acquaintance of his who I vetted and recruited from Kinky Salon. They actually made a very good pair, both handsome in different ways, both filthy and both very much up for it. We set a date, exchanged limits and ideas via email then booked a hotel room.

On the night itself we met up for dinner and discussed a little bit more before going to the hotel. I took great satisfaction from positioning myself between the pair of them and must have been grinning like a bastard at anyone who cared to glance in their direction. Smug does not begin to cover it.

The night was to be about sex rather than play, so although I packed a bag of kit we only used a small array of toys. What we did use - in hindsight was probably not such a good idea - was a fair amount of cocaine which I like but didn't really need. As a drug it had become a bit of a mainstay in the play that Mr Smith and I did, and there was certainly something deeply decadent about racking up several lines on a glass mirror then sitting around in our underwear, and ended up (as can happen) being more focused on just chatting and taking the drug than the sex. I think in part it was strange because there was no fixed dynamic and anything which revolves more around "just" sex rather than play, S&M or D/s makes me unsure how to proceed. In the end I just stood up and announced that it was time to have sex - which seemed to work.

We made our way to the bed, leading them by the hand and started to mess around. I kissed one whilst the other licked my clit, one held my arms, whilst the other twisted his fingers inside my cunt. There was something both extremely powerful but also distracting about being the centre of attention. It's actually very difficult to remember precisely what happened at what point because everything started to flow together. It was a game of moving bodies as I was gradually wrapped around their fingers... and tongues. I let myself be tended, and attended to, smirking as one of them reminded me that this night was "for me". So I lay back and let them work their magic.

We worked our way through a variety of positions, getting more warmed up, more open with each other and I became more confident with the balance and bodies of each of the two men. Just like with any new partner or new dynamic it took a while to appreciate the new smells and physicalities. This did mean, as it always does for me, that orgasm was difficult. Masturbation, with encouragement from those enjoying the show, was the order of the day when I became to turned on and wound up to continue with anything other than a drive to orgasm

There was a lot more give and take than would have been "normal" for a scene, but at no point did I feel like I wanted to do much in the way of play. What I wanted - and what I got - was a lot of fucking, the kind of deep down hard fucking that makes parts of your brain switch off. I remember growling with animal pleasure at one point, as the glass anal plug was slipped inside me then I was fucked - hard - doggy style, wriggling against the pressure.

Double penetration was high on my list of priorities so after a suitable break for both of the boys and a healthy dose of oral sex (it's important to give as good as you get). I got Mr Smith to lie on his back, fucking him whilst I felt other arms around my waist, a hand holding on to my shoulder and a mouth hot against my neck and he slid inside my arse. The sensation was intense, lots of pressure against my muscles and all kinds of waves of pleasure riding up from between my tired legs. We fucked for a long while until everyone was orgasm-ed out before collapsing asleep, myself between the pair of them, warm, safe and very well satisfied.

Looking forward to doing it again.

Talk dirty

2011-10-04T10:09:00.003+01:00

Dirty talk.

Even the words have an effect. Whether it's a wry smile, a tingle that rises from cunt up to mouth and lips or a shudder and a poked out tongue to indicate disgust. We distinguish it from all other kinds of talk by raking it through the mud. This is filth. The kind of speech that Jarvis Cocker uses when he breathes and moans his way through This is Hardcore (or mostly any other Pulp song, to be honest).

Some people love it, others can't stand it. For some, it will always be the "oh baby, yeah baby" of dreadful porn. For others, the mere idea of speaking or listening to someone speak whilst they are playing is a complete anathema. I know that I find talking difficult when I'm concentrating on an intense scene - either topping or bottoming, and that generally it distracts me from being fully in the moment. As a submissive / bottom the ball gag is a marvellous toy because it gives me permission to be silent. As a top I use hoods and sometimes earplugs to block off the fact that I am quiet, which I know can be unnerving for some. And yet, I love being talked to, it gives me a sense of connection to the other person, an insight into what they are thinking, how they are feeling. Similarly, if I know someone really likes dirty talk, I enjoy delivering it.

There should be training for it, as a specific subset of public speaking. It's a kink skill, akin almost to hypnotism and sensory deprivation in its ability to transport the mind (and thence the body) into deep, transfixing places. Getting it right is hard. Getting it wrong is really, really easy. The words we like to hear are personal. Dirty talk is an artform. It's creative, subjective, specific and the difference between "good" and "bad" can be the merest sliver of a phoneme, a change in pace and pause, the tone of voice. And all of that is without even mentioning the actual content.

And oh, the importance of content! Just as scenes have been broken by a badly placed crop blow, suddenly shocking one from the lulling build of rising pain, so too can the wrong word or sound. Equally, the right words and sounds can transport you. The spoken word can make for us all kinds of worlds. Fantasies - especially those that are truly unobtainable or impossible - are spun like threads into a rich tapestry of language-images which cloaks you utterly.

Technophile is a talker, which took me by surprise. I realise I keep using that word when describing him, and how much I'm loving/hating the unfamiliar territory of it all. He started slow, with a (slightly Jarvis-esque now I think about it, which makes so much sense) whisper in my ear. The teasing quality of "do you want it? Do you want to be fucked?" Little "ohs" and moans between the words told me that he wasn't just doing this for effect, it turned him on to say those things. The more he spoke, the more turned on he got, he was using the words to build his own arousal and, like mutual masturbation we took it in turns to urge each other on with our ideas.

The speech act was also a sex act. Fucked by language. Language affirms us as sexual beings - the way I described the feeling of his cock inside me, the way he poured praise over how my body felt in his arms. Certain words produce certain kinds of thrill, they have a history and context and their appearance in the bedroom makes or breaks encounters.

We kinksters use words in lots of ways, and many of our words have been chosen for deliberate reasons, such as forms of address such as Sir or Mistress, please and thank-you. Yes. No. Red. Safeword. These words have power. They are words of power, given and taken in certain ways and at certain times. Forbidden to some and absolutely required by others. Use them with the wrong person at your peril. There are only a few people on this earth who are allowed to call me Fox, for example. And those who do know that using that word is a shorthand reference to an agreement (also enshrined in words), a relationship between us, that I will call upon.

Here's another word. Slut. Watch your own reaction and take notes. I know I did.

"Slut. Hot, kinky slut."

Technophile says it with delight as we fuck. Not the spitting or hissing of a humiliation scene, but an almost reverential, not quite believing it, lip-biting (I love it when they bite their lip) utterance. I've always had a strange relationship with the word, only recently acknowledging it as a positive label, something along the lines of "queer" - a word once used in scorn and hate which has been turned around defiantly. It is definitely the kind of word that would go off like a grenade if it came out of the wrong mouth at the wrong time. Fighting talk. But the way he said it, the context and the tone of his voice made it something else. A thing to aspire to, almost, a wanted, desired and even slightly dangerous, mythical thing.

Which is what the best dirty talk does to us all.

The fuck

2011-10-02T20:02:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since I've had sex, I'll admit. And it's certainly been a longer while since I've been fucked (as a slight aside, but to complete the set, it's been years since I've made love, but that's a blogpost for another day). Dominants are not fucked, they fuck. Either cowgirl style on top or rocking a strap-on, I've become used to being the one in control of the motion, the depth and the hip action.

Over dinner with Technophilia, the new and unexpected boy on my horizons. We're discussing the plans for the rest of the night. Initially, we weren't going to meet up at all, which rather put me out, but fortunately the universe realigned itself and we managed to get together. I was reasonably determined to have sex with him, but equally slightly concerned about pushing things too far, too fast and "putting him off" for want of a better word. I told him as much, as we drank porn star martinis (the perverts cocktail of choice) and he pointed out - somewhat coyly, I felt - that he was here and hadn't run away yet.

Once again, in all our interactions, I got the strong impression of playfulness from him, the switch in him I guess, there was a balance still to be struck between us. Things could go either way, he pushes my own switch and I feel equally excited by the idea of pressing his face into the pillow as I do feeling his hand do the same to me. For the moment, however, he is more comfortable on top - it plays better into his experience and frankly, I have an amount of top fatigue right now. The idea of not taking charge is appealing. The idea of having some filthy sex as opposed to building a detailed scene is very appealing. We made a deal over our steak and red wine: he takes me home and he gets to do what he wants with me.

I like playing into other people's fantasies - whether it's as a top or a bottom - and his first request is a strip tease which lets me warm us both up. I finish straddling him, pushing him down on his back. I enjoy feeling his hands run over me, the appreciative noises and the little gasps and sighs as I smooth my fingers around his shoulders, back and slowly, very slowly kiss my way down his stomach towards the top of his jeans. I undo his belt buckle and start to play with his cock which is just as satisfying as I remember, then apply my mouth and tongue to the shaft and head. Immediately, I am conflicted. If there's one thing that screams "submission" in my mind, it's blowjobs. They neatly encapsulate almost all of my challenges with the idea of female submission, with my feelings of vulnerability around my own past acts of submission. My submissive self is a self not often seen these days and it's a part of me that is most easily hurt. I am not certain I want to submit to him. Bottom, yes. Fuck, absolutely. Allow myself to be taken, dear lord yes. But submission is a big thing, a huge exchange of trust and a reminder of many things - both good and bad. We're not at that stage.

But we are at the fucking stage, kinky fucking, certainly and with trappings of D/s - there are "thank you's" (from both sides, he's an appreciative recipient) along with question and response. The thing I realise is that I do want to suck his cock and I know he wants me to do it, which makes me want to do it more. But I'm also wary. not just for the things outlined above. Even when I was back in the land of the vanillas, blowjobs were never been a routine part of sex for me, my partners weren't that into them. Now my standing response is that I have people to do that for me. The truth is that giving head has underlying problems for me: physically I find it quite difficult, which is made more so when deep throating is involved and the recipient is quite so well endowed. Additionally, I worry about whether it's good enough - The Photographer was always quite vocally critical of my oral skills, citing previous partners expertise in the area. Though frankly, the more I think about that, the more I think that it was another of his psychological games, akin to the "I don't love you game" designed to make me feel bad and weak in order to control me.

So I have all these thoughts buzzing around my brain as my mouth makes contact with his cock and he thrusts, hand on my head and moans in squirming pleasure. That works. Just then, the sense of giving pleasure, the desire and drive to do so - akin to the desire to give pain. To hear him make those noises, to feel him get harder inside my mouth, the quickening of breath, the whisperings of desire. I grin. And continue.

Later, he flips me over and forces his mouth against my cunt. His tongue laps quickly, before my hand against his head slows him down to that gentle rolling boil that I find so pleasingly satisfying. I get wet, although frankly, I was pretty wet to start off with. I also know I'm not going to orgasm - we're too new, too uncertain in our nascent kinky exchanges for me to be able to accept orgasm easily yet. He doesn't stop though, and for the first time I understand the dominant factor in giving head (although many people have explained it to me, including Majeste and her wonderfully imperious demands to taste what is hers). This time, I really get it, mostly because I'm getting it. The build of pleasure becomes almost-pain as my body clenches and unclenches and doesn't quite get there. Again. And again. And again. Eventually, I wriggle away from under him.

Finally, after what is realistically a week of waiting. We fuck. Doggy style. Heavy and hard. There's a physical equivalent of a roar coming from somewhere deep in my cunt when he penetrates me - it's a wave of exertion, of pleasure and just the right amount of plain, brute force. He has a skilled confidence that takes me by surprise - although by now I'm not sure why I'm surprised. He fucks like he behaves in everything else: there's a superficial presentation of soft, slightlly cutesy coyness as he bites his lip, then a glint of something nasty as the thread of gleeful filth unspools in his mind and he takes charge. Not bullying or cajoling, but taking and taking pleasure in taking.

And I give. I let the sensations roll over me as we fuck, which translate easily into noises I'm only partly aware of making. I know that I moan. I'm almost certain I screamed a little (I certainly did in the morning when we fucked again because we ended up muffled and collapsed in pillows after he pointed out he had thin walls and neighbours). We don't so much fall asleep as part pass out, limbs wrapped around limbs. Resurfacing in the morning to start again. We lie around in bed, swapping notes and rummaging in his box of toys and as I see the anal vibes, the dildos and ball gag I wonder how he could have ever thought of himself as vanilla?

So now I'm home, digesting what has happened, partly sated, certainly wanting more, and very curious about where we might take this. For the moment, we are dancing and the music has not stopped. Equally, we have yet to really decide if we will continue. I'd like to, and said so plainly. We both agreed we were in similar places emotionally. Both of us are interested in where the next relationship will be and wanting it on some level, but both unsure whether we are ready for it, whether those things which hurt us in the past have properly healed enough to dive in once more.

Thoughts for another day. Right now, I'm enjoying that pleasing tiredness in my thighs and working out when we can next arrange another date.

Erotics and the perverted mind

2011-10-01T10:41:00.003+01:00

Last night, together with a large number of The Tribe I headed over to Proud Cabaret for dinner and a show. I love the look and idea of this place: we all enjoyed ourselves getting ready into shimmying dresses, black tie and lots of corsetry. In the words of Ringmaster, we looked as if we were about to deliver the con of the century. Buoyed up on a wave of such group energy, I slunk along the streetlamp city streets, hearing my patent black heels clack on the pavement, swinging my hips and feeling good to be out after such a long break, it seemed.

On arrival, the Kit Kat Klub inspired stylings with plenty of candles and dark nooks (too dark as it turned out, to see what one was eating) were beautifully evocative and set the scene for what felt like a really good night out. The blonde compere sang beautifully, and whilst she lacked the devilish qualities of Alan Cumming, she had a good voice and a sense of showmanship. Sadly, she was pretty much the only one.

I am picky about my performance, I perform myself and I've seen quite a lot of cabaret and burlesque shows, so I like to think I have a reasonably well developed aesthetic but nothing here did anything for me, with the exception of the one male performer who gamely attempted to stand his own amidst a crowd of plastic barbie dolls. On a practical level, this was the most rushed set of performances I have ever seen. I am frankly surprised that the fan dancer didn't go up in flames given the speed she was twirling her feathers. There is nothing erotic about watching women, with fixed, painted monster grimaces fail to remove corsets in time, leaving themselves unco-ordinatedly undressed besides a pillar. The problem here is that part of the essence of the erotic is in giving people time to uncurl their imaginations. Like a well planned scene, you need to tease and tantalise - these things take time. The performance works because you hook the audience and reel them in slowly, letting them undress you in their minds before you have removed a single bit of clothing. Here, nothing was given any time to develop. From a pure performance point of view, the pacing was dreadful and mechanical. It felt like a production line of bras and pants strewn to the four corners of the room whilst the long suffering stage manager raced around collecting feather boas and piles of tulle. I'm not even going to discuss the "comedy" Russian ballerina. I left soon afterwards.

Then there was the pervert problem. As Ringmaster said, "it's for vanillas". And it was. The rest of the audience, including a large group of young men, seemed to be lapping it up. But for me, there was no sexuality present on stage that resonated with the things I find sexual. Take an obvious point first, I don't think that women taking off their corsets in front of people is particularly sexually arousing in and of itself. I'm probably a bit inured to it, frankly. The sight of a naked breast does not make me quiver or make me feel edgy or titillated. I've seen a lot of it. I've been a lot of it.

To go further, I'm a pervert. The naked human body does not automatically mean "sex" to me in the same way that a gas mask does. I find tears, humiliated blushes, screams of pain and drops of blood as hot as others might find stockings and suspenders. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of stockings and suspenders and use them if I need to deliver that kind of look, but I also understand the appeal of army boots pressed against a naked back.

Now, I know that I was never going to get that kind of show from this kind of place. But I was hoping for a whisper of something sexual. Even just a hint that the performers were enjoying themselves would have been nice, or some indication that they were doing more than dancing whilst taking their clothes off. It takes more than a quick strip to make me wet, baby: you have to make me want you, to be you or to do awful, dreadful things to you.

You have to be erotic.

Eroticism is a story you are telling, a dirty little secret you are sharing with the audience. In many ways it's an intellectual pursuit, it's about the mind. It's often less about how you look or how many items of clothing you remove. Rather it's about how you do it and how you interact with the audience whilst you are doing it. You need to build a connection and play with the way you are being watched, controlling not just what you are doing but how people respond. You need to perform.

BDSM is similar in that it's a lot about context, the sexuality is about a shared agreement between the participants. Things are not quite what they seem, and the uncertainty, the things we don't know or can't see give us a thrill. We are enraptured by what is mysterious and crave to know more, see more, touch more. In a few week's time I'm going to be stage managing a show at the RVT with a group of burlesque performers who are mostly kinky and I'll be interested to see how they perform - I suspect that it will be quite different.

A moment of spontaneity

2011-09-25T17:54:00.003+01:00

Friday night was not my finest moment. I was weighted down with a combination of illness, late and long working hours plus the knowledge that dinner with Mr Smith was precisely and only that: a meal and company.

Dinner with someone with whom you have effectively broken up with is never a pleasant situation, but in the curious way of BDSM and multiple relationships we still have a friendship and still have some dates in the diary for kinky activities. However, the heart of our connection is gone and that made me more mad, sad and annoying to be around than I might have otherwise thought. The knowledge that he was going home to his wife, that I was going home to myself made me feel lonely. Added to this, in one of those twists of fate I seem to trip over quite often, my decision to stop the D/s connection has actually made things better with his wife and his ability to see other casual lovers. Now, I have no interest in being either a casual lover nor his wife so there was little point in getting all dog in the manger over things but it certainly made me feel as if the universe was playing tricks.

So, feeling heavy hearted and in need of some diverting I checked OKCupid and replied to a few messages. Arriving home, it became clear that one of my responses was from someone quite close by. We arranged to meet the next day. If nothing else, it would give me something to do that wasn't connected with anything that had gone before, which was what I needed then and there.

I had no expectations. I had made no plans. I had nothing in my bag beyond my keys and purse. He arrived and we chatted, slowly, strangely, I warmed to him. His smell was right, his physicality had the right sort of shape for me to sit just so, arrange myself near him in a way that was pleasing and extremely comfortable and comforting to my animal hindbrain. We stayed for a drink. Then another. Then another. We talked about all the usual nerd dating things. Then we began talking kink, and things got even more interesting.

"I want to take you home, but I don't want to have sex with you."

I raise an eyebrow at a sentence I've never heard before. He's adamant, however. And his assertiveness is striking - an unseen thread of steel through this soft-lipped boy with the high cheekbones and giggly laugh. It flashes for a moment, in the way that desire does, rippling and turning the evening from a nice dinner that would see me home alone but well-flirted with into something else.

We went back to his house and lay on his sofa, kissing for hours like teenagers whilst watching True Blood and commenting on what we were watching. It felt intimate and familiar, yet I couldn't remember the last time I'd had such an easy ride, to be able to just hang about without feeling the need to do anything much. The knowledge that I wasn't going to embark on three or four hours of heavy play was both a relief and a source of slightly comedic consternation - after all, if we weren't here for sex, what were we here for?

To get to know me better.

I don't know what made him decide to say that, then and there. Something in what I said about my life, my partners, the scene has set him down that particular thought path. Or perhaps something in him, a desire clearly stated, to wait, to hold something back, to take time. The natural response of a pervert is to push - to tease out from people things they see they find difficult. So in that moment he stopped being just a boy from the internet and became a pervert.

We went to bed, and my theory was confirmed - he's a switch as well. After a pleasing amount of appreciative noises over my naked body we started to fool around a little and talked a lot. About sexual encounters past and hoped for, fantasies and desires, lovers long gone and recent heartbreaks. All the while he stroked me, running fingers and kisses up and down whichever piece of skin came to nearest contact with him. All throughout, he kept gently reminding me that we were not going to have sex - made all the more deliciously frustrating by the discovery that he had a large cock. Equally, his own obvious frustrations made me interested in the background to this self-denial. Eventually I announced my intention to orgasm, and he watched, still stroking my skin, pouring filth in my ear with a low whisper that made me gasp, shatteringly to a climax. He held me close. We fell asleep.

In the morning, he brought me tea in bed and we played around more - showing each other our particular tweaks and sensitivities. He took me by the hand and led me to the shower, I washed his hair and he pressed his fingers inside my cunt. We dried each other off and I got dressed and left with his phone number.

I am still wrapped up in that hazy cloud of sexuality made all the better by not concerning myself with what happens next. Yes, I would like to see him again. But also yes, I would like to take things slowly and without the need to assert myself in any particular role or power exchange with regards to him, or indeed anyone for rather a while.

Changes in circumstances

2011-09-20T18:20:00.002+01:00

This month has seen a few changes in my life and lifestyle, and whilst I have been the instigator of most of them, they aren't exactly making me happy.

I started a new job which is exciting but involves very long hours resulting in little time during the week to go on dates, attend munches and by the time the weekend arrives I am rather tired. I'm hoping that this will settle down once I get to grips with everything, but for the moment, I am very much work rather than play - this has it's own attendant problems. I feel disconnected from the scene, especially given my prior levels of involvement and I miss people who I used to see more often. I'm in a more "formal" environment which means that the day-to-day perversity levels are lower and I am certainly in the deeper waters of the vanilla subculture - though that itself might give some useful and interesting insights.

Following on from my reduced social time, in some respects, is the change in my relationships. My partners colour a lot of what I do kinkwise, so I imagine it will come as no surprise that the lack of content on the blog has been driven by, well, a lack of content. I am, it appears, single, once more.

Mannequin, Fenrir and I had a good (though sad and somewhat wistful from my point of view) conversation a few weeks ago in which she was going to be exclusively his. I know that this is something she really wanted, and from what I hear on the kinky grapevine, she's well cared for and enjoying herself. I miss her, although at the same time there is a certain sense of relief - throughout our relationship there was a strain caused by the disconnect between what she wanted and what I was capable of delivering. Ultimately, she wanted a cis-male partner and all the strap-ons in the world will not change this fact. Writing that sentence felt strange, as if there was something to blame for one person's particular preference, which of course, there is not. And honestly, I like male bodies too, and enjoy having them around.

The strangeness is all in myself. It's not a fault of either of us, just the simple fact that having started down the road of D/s with her it has come to an end. All the feelings of ownership, control and self-worth deriving from that power exchange have stopped because of being unable to be the right kind of dominant person, and I wouldn't want to be that person, because that would mean not being me. It is a curious feeling. Wanting something is never reason or justification enough for it to be able to happen. Some things just don't work out. And that's life.

Which brings me on to Mr Smith. There have been various points in our relationship where it felt that the D/s was creating a difficult push/pull for him with respect to how we worked compared to his marriage and other lovers. D/s is a very different place to either of these things. We were not casual Friday night affairs, and neither was I ever going to be the most important woman in the world to him (that would be his wife). Those two poles were markers of where our relationship sits - somewhere in the middle, slightly uneasily.

On the one hand, he craves submissive satisfaction, the control and order that comes with a set of protocol, the firm guiding hand and the patient caring tones of one who owns. He would come to me and be placed outside of the world for an evening, be allowed to let go and bottom out and be put through his paces.

All of those things I was able to make time to deliver, but he was struggling in fulfilling his side of the deal. The things that I needed - the level of service I required from him once he was away from me. Now, these are important to me for a number of reasons - first they make it into a genuine relationship. We have contact outside of our play-dates, talk about our lives, share notes and thoughts, meet for coffee, lunches and similar. They are the surrounding elements that make me feel like a partner, rather than a pro domme. As I reminded him in the heat of an angry exchange - I have no problem with delivering a session in an allotted time and having no call upon him outside of that. But I require paying.

I want D/s relationships. This means that, as a dominant, there are things that the submissive must do for me. Not just kneeling and giving head, or doing all the kinky sex stuff that they want to do anyway. Things that are just for me. Day to day things that are embedded in their life and make me part of their world, just as they become part of mine. Now, this will; never be done "right" straight away - there's always going to be give and take. The training process involves an element of "getting better" and I had no expectations of instant perfection and enjoyed the correcting procedure. It was when things started to be forgotten, or half done, or rules were only part remembered that I began to get worried. Rather than supporting him, the training process became an additional stress - a thing that "didn't get done" and then was an extra weight in his busy and stressful life. And in my busy and stressful life. It was made worse, in many respects, by the fact that we are friends, so in tandem with this I was meeting him to try and help him resolve issues in his marriage - the stress of which, and the sexual absences within it I felt was contributing to his overall unhappiness and reliance on me.

This had the difficult effect of making me feel like part prostitute, part marriage counsellor. Again, all roles I can fulfill, but I'd like to be paid for them, really. What I wasn't getting were the things I needed, and constantly demanding them was making me feel angry towards him. In the end, we have decided to remove the D/s element from our relationship. I place no requirements or protocol on him, we see each other if and when we can and we do what we feel like when we do see each other. We fuck a lot, and it's good sex - but it's not particularly kinky and therefore for me, it is not deeply connected. And I miss that. I miss the intensity and the desire for intensity. I no longer look at him and think "mine" - though I do think "my friend" or "the boy I'm fucking"

I'm pleased with how amicable and straight-forward most of these parting conversations were - admittedly the situation with Mannequin and Fenrir was easier because it felt much more like a D/s handover, whereas with Mr Smith the lack of communication between his wife and myself means I have concerns over whether he is being adequately cared for outwith my patronage. I am also very conscious of theses absences in my life and the loneliness that this has created in me.

I'm working through it. Certainly the world is a calmer place, I'm not upset per se, and I've removed a lot of anxieties by having these conversations and changing these relationships. But I've also removed a lot of good stuff (admittedly, potential good stuff that wasn't working). And that makes my life much emptier. I'm trying to work out what I need to fill it.

Where have all the single men gone?

2011-09-18T20:34:00.007+01:00

Last night saw another of my (now almost famous) failed attempts to have an orgy in a sex club. I strongly suspect that this is pretty much the equivalent of being unable to arrange a piss up in a brewery. I put it down to two main factors - the first is about my feelings in sex clubs as opposed to play clubs, the second about attaining my personal sexual and aesthetic preference.

Take the sex club / play club distinction, fortunately this club (Kinky Salon London) is one of the better clubs that blur the lines between the two, so I feel comfortable exploring my "kink" for transactional vanilla sex here. I do struggle with "stranger sex" - I am dreadfully fascinated and turned on by it: it's something I keep coming to clubs like this to try and try again. I enjoy the liberation in the idea and the simplicity in bodies, fucking. To be able to let go, bottom out, tune everything else down to white noise and just experience the sensation of other people giving pleasure to me.

The venue is lovingly decorated and everyone has fun outfits and there are smiles all round. There's dungeon kit: experimentation and playfulness is encouraged and I certainly entertained myself by tying a friend of mine down onto a rocking horse rack. However, there was no denying that the majority of activity was fucking, and without the regimen offered by D/s protocol I can find myself somewhat at a loss in what to do, and more importantly, who to do it with. Given that, I'd rather set my stall on having a lot of "just sex" - perhaps scuppering myself with expectations. In retrospect I should have kept to my natural environment and packed a bunch of toys then loitered by the rack all night doing awful things to kinksters I knew.

I'm a female top and I find it relatively easy to secure female partners at an event like this. Quite aside from the fact that there are a few women at the club that I know (some of whom I first met at the ladies only hen night, and I've become friends with since) there are far more available, interested and openly "up for it" women than men. Case in point: I strap-on within a few minutes of the playroom opening and ask who wants to be fucked. A smiling woman shouts "me!" and I help her onto the bed, fucking her whilst her female partner licked her clit. The gasps and writhing was gratifying and I enjoyed creating those sensations, the transitory pleasure of it and the act of give and take.

I started to look around for another encounter, leading Mr Smith by the hand as we walked the room. My desire was for another man for a mFm threesome. As I looked around, I saw a lot of male/female couples and a lot of women but very, very few single men, fewer still that I was interested in. The most attractive men there (and being honest, I am exceptionally picky) were with their equally attractive female partners and became quickly "busy" either with another woman or another couple. And even had they not been already engaged - and quite a few seemed to have arrangements already in place -I am uncertain what the etiquette is for approaching a couple with the intent to only fuck one of them, but suspect it's probably rude.

This lack of men is proving to be an ongoing issue for myself and Mr Smith. We initially thought that one had been located - even briefed prior to arrival, but then he arrived with a girl in tow and whilst he seemed keen in general he left early to go to another party. I'm choosing not to take this personally. So eventually, after some pleasant chats with friends we left. And I'm left with a rather worrying thought.

With the notable exception of a small number of my friends: where are all the cute, kinky single men?

Talking to Mr Smith (a classic example of my woe; attractive and we're good match, however he is married and I have no intention of fucking with that) and looking around at munches, clubs and events and you would be forgiven for thinking that the scene was entirely populated by attractive young women in fetching outfits. Perhaps it is because they are the most noticeable, but I suspect that it is, in fact, that they are more comfortable making themselves noticed - whereas single men do not. Here are some of my more general thoughts on why. Another, more worrying thought was around how the scene, and indeed how society itself, reacts to the single man: note that I'm now moving on to more broader areas and not talking about that club night superficially which actually does a damn good job of standing head and shoulders above the behaviours and attitudes of many sex clubs.

There's been a lot of conversations about the different treatment and expectations towards men and women in sex clubs and the fetish scene. There are higher prices for single men in many clubs, some clubs do not let men in until later on and there is a real wariness even amongst the nicest of young men around being "that guy". In tandem to these practical and social exclusions there is also a lack of perceived opportunity. The play balance in clubs is strongly towards girl-on-girl, girl-on-boy or girl-boy-girl sex. That's a lot of girls and not a lot of boys. I know no woman who would not play with or touch another woman and I'm not prepared to call women more "naturally" bisexual because that is a ghastly bag of assumptions. What women are, is socialised to be more bisexual - women fucking each other is is accepted to the point of expected, especially for male pleasure. Bisexual men are made invisible, or in the cases of a few ghastly swinging clubs, actively discouraged. Shame on them.

What do these two things have in common with a notable lack of available men in the scene? Well, for a start, women are occupied with each other or with known partners. I imagine that many new men will come to an event, hang around on the sidelines and then leave - unable to make a connection because of this sense of exclusion. Secondly, the various other barriers to attendance mean that many men may never make it into the scene at all until they secure a girlfriends or partner who can then act as a safety net against any potential accusations of being that guy. Add to this the difficulty that many men feel around presenting themselves as sexual anyway and I'm starting to wonder perhaps all of these potential kinky chaps are at home, fantasising about it but unable to come out and play.

One rule for me, one for you? Part Two

2011-08-27T15:29:00.004+01:00

Following on from the last post on rules, and a discussion on Twitter. I thought it would be good to talk about my own personal rules, in more that 140 characters. This is somewhat of a divergence from a BDSM specific topic, except for the fact that kink is about people, what makes them tick, and understanding yourself is important to delivering and receiving good kink.

The rules are in part about ethics - a way of living, or trying to live, that I consider to be a good way of being towards others and the world. They are also about being good to myself, making sure that I look after my needs and getting what I want. There is a sense in which these rules are "selfish" - which I recognise, but not in the disparaging way that people usually use the word. They are made by me, for me and how I intend to mediate my life - which is an awful lot of me, myself and I.

Personal rules are about really thinking about who you are and doing what you really want rather than what other people think or what they might want from you. How I behave impacts on people around me - I treat other people well (or as well as I can) because I want to be a good person, not because I want to be the sort of person they think I should be.

Naturally the way we are perceived is important and no-one would want people to think badly of them, but as Mannequin commented, everyone also thinks that their own way of being is the right one. Similarly everyone tends to view their own ideas as self-evident facts whereas the rest of the world has opinions. The key thing for me about these rules is that they are mine. I don't expect anyone else to live according to them, or even to like them. So, for what it's worth, here they are.

1. All or nothing

I always get this song in my head when I write that phrase, which always makes me smile. I'm quite a direct person these days, realising more and more that I know what I want and will not be content with half measures. This goes for my personal and professional life. I cannot stand a job half done, or something given a cursory amount of effort. This rule does mean that I am poor at compromising on the things I truly care about - and lack of compromise indicates how much I care about something. This can be a difficult rule to live by, as people pointed out when I posted these rules, life is full of grey areas. But that doesn't mean I have to be like that.

2. Fear is the enemy

Like a lot of perverts, I do like a good bit of fear play, but the fun for me is in pushing past the things that scare us, push other people through their fear. Personal fear, the things that hold us back, is made of the same stuff. Fear, in and of itself, can be deeply paralysing, the sensation of fear is often more powerful than the thing we believe causes the fear. Fear of failing, fear of letting other people down, fear of the unknown. I think it's really important to recognise those fears and to work to remove them as best as I can.

3. Only you are responsible for you

At the end of the day you have to live with yourself and everything you do. You are the only person who really understands yourself, the things that you want, the things that are in your past. It's very easy to blame other people, our background and our situations for things that have happened, and we are absolutely influenced by others and the world. However, there is a difference between accepting our lot and feeling incapable of doing anything about it, if you want something, you need to work for it. That work is part of what makes it yours. This rule is also about recognising and owning our mistakes, the things we have got wrong. The flipside is about taking pride in our achievements and the things we have done right. Basically, being you - warts and all.

4. Be kind, be clear

I've wrapped these two together because I think they rely on each other. Kindness is not about giving other people what they want all the time, nor is it about always putting other people first - though those things can be kind. It's about respecting the boundaries that you need and that other people need and sticking to them, a sort of honesty. Clarity gives you this: be clear in what you want, tell other people about it and then act accordingly. That's kindness.

5. Ask for help

Rule three is true, but it doesn't mean that I want to live in isolation. Life is very difficult, and very boring all by yourself - it's much more fun with people to share it. It's also much easier to get through problems, to learn new things and to generally get on with getting the most out of life if you are able to ask for help. It's something that I find hard to do, which is in part why it's one of my rules - things we find easy we don't need to strive to do.

6. Love fiercely

Final one, and the one that matches rule one the most, but I like keeping them as a pair. Love isn't about flowers, and chocolates and cuddly teddy bears. It's not soft, or weak or silly, and neither is the desire for love when you do not have it. My insistence on fierceness is also about how I behave when I am in love - a protection and a need to stand up for the things and people I love, which means being a little defiant in the face of everything else, and to go for it despite it perhaps not being the most practical thing to do. But without risk or effort, how would we go forward?

Once I'd written these, this of course then led me on to thinking about how I do against my own rules, which are of course an idealised version of myself. Am I living up to them? Sometimes, and I want to live up to them, certainly. Having the rules is half the battle, as they mark out where I want to get to - like deciding your own kink road map, rules give you a way of becoming the person you want to be.

One rule for me, one for you? Part One

2011-08-26T17:47:00.004+01:00

We are surrounded by rules. Obvious rules that we can see and touch and generally all agree on as existing as facts (whether we agree with the rule itself or not) things like signposts, grammar and spelling the legal system and those T&C check boxes we keep selecting on websites and have probably agreed to do something dreadful. There are unconscious rules that we have absorbed as part of our life, probably without really knowing it, but ones that we accept as true, even though they might not be: social conventions are a good example, gender is another, things that are really truisms and stuff our parents said.

We can divide up rules into all sorts of categories. Rules we actively chose to abide by like diets and rules that are given to us without our consent, like laws. Some rules are more important to us than others, some are better enforced than others, either by ourselves or by external agents. This may well change according to what day it is, where we are in the world and whether it's raining or not. Some rules are only really important if we get caught breaking them - like a lot of the legislation around BDSM. The same rule might fall into different categories for different people - religious rules for example might be inherited from our families and fall into the background, subconscious sort of rule that we live by but don't think too much about, or it may be an active choice that we signed up to. No matter what kind of rule it is, it's always, always personal because of the relationship between holding to and breaking the rule in your life.

This has been a week of rules.The sort of rules you give out as a dominant not only reflect the kind of D/s situations you want to create but they say things about you. In effect, you can think of them like the rules of a game. If you don't "play by the rules" then you are not really playing the game. The rules that you build create certain games - change the rules and you change the game. I'm always amused by the completely opposing value of rules within the two D/s relationships in my life.

Mannequin does not need or respond well to having a rigid set of rules. If I am not actively present, things like sending emails at certain times or any kind of remote control rule is likely to not be done and then cause anxiety and upset over it being left. Because I don't really enjoy chasing up on tasks (that sounds like work to me!) and she doesn't enjoy getting annoyed messages from me we don't have rules. We have an ongoing contract that stipulates obedience and whenever I need a particular thing from her I ask and I get it, but there isn't a rigid framework with specific tasks and deadlines. She has a list of things that I enjoy seeing her do, or having her do for me and it is up to her to ensure I am generally satisfied. If at any point she does something I don't like, I correct it then and there: this is currently more of a theory than practice given that she is rather good at giving me what I want.

Mr Smith on the other hand, really, really likes ongoing, set rules. They give him a sense of order and security in what can be a rather chaotic life. For him, lack of rules generates anxiety and a complete absence of focus. Rules remind him of my ownership, they give him "things to do" which correlate directly onto pleasing me. He is under a variety of rules at the moment including a diet and exercise plan, a structured way of behaving in public and private, formalities around greetings, communicating with me and small rituals to perform during the day. These sit alongside existing rules about saying thank-you after orgasm and how he is allowed to have sexual activity outside our relationship. They are quite extensive and detailed, having their origins in a series of conversations about his life, the sort of person (and submissive) he wants to be for himself and for me, the things that give him satisfaction, that scare him, that worry him.

Such a long list might seem onderous but they actually make both of our lives easier and more pleasurable. The rules are part of training. I enjoy the control I have over him, and the fact that I get regular updates, as well as the satisfaction of knowing he is doing things for me in my absence. The rules that we have are clear and simple, even though there are many of them. It is obvious how they can be followed, and equally obvious how they are broken. If he breaks a rule, he is punished. There is no argument, no sulks or stress - he accepts his wrongdoing, submits to punishment and afterwards the slate is clean, except for perhaps a little physical discomfort, but that's a good reminder of doing better next time. Following the rules is not precisely rewarded, instead, following the rules constitutes his submission to me, so its a reward in itself, really.

The difference between the attitudes of my submissives neatly expresses my opinion on rules in D/s relationships: they are worth giving out if my life is directly improved by their existence; they either make my life easier, generate better and more interesting kinky sex or perform another function that serves my purposes. If rules get in the way, prevent me from doing something I want with my partners or make life complicated or stressful then they are pointless. Pointless rules are generally a bad idea. Which isn't do say that D/s rules need to make sense or be logical. The rule "You must always wear yellow on Tuesday" to take a random example could seem fairly pointless without a decent context - good D/s rules follow from good D/s (this is me winning a states-the-obvious-award). So if Tuesday is date night, and yellow is the dominant's favourite colour then that rule might serve to remind the submissive of the evening to come. Or Tuesday is a day that the dominant isn't going to be around, and they want to be present in some other fashion. Or it's a hated colour and it's being done as a punishment and Tuesday is just a good, regular day to pick. There are many reasons why it might work, the point is that the rule does something for both the dominant and the submissive.

How far can we go? Part Two

2011-08-26T15:47:00.002+01:00

A month or so ago I wrote a piece on the edges and boundaries of BDSM, in that piece I talked about how (and why) we might define our own personal spaces for play and participation in the scene. Now I'm going to elaborate on what happens when put other people into the mix.

Masturbation is all well and good - I'm certainly fond of it, but kink is generally better with others involved. They can at least help you clean up the mess afterwards. Let's assume then, that we have a good list of What We Want i.e. we've defined our own edges. Whether dominant or submissive or falling somewhere in between the ideal is to find someone whose edges are complimentary to ours. This isn't the same thing as finding someone with the same list: two people who want to be tied up and hit with floggers are going to have problems getting what they want out of a play session.

In that scenario, you may well decide that you don't play at all. This is something that's always worth thinking about. It's not about saying "I don't find you attractive" or about being critical about someone as a person, it's about mix and fit. Some people just aren't a match for what you want. You aren't a match for what they want either. No-one is bad or wrong or not trying hard enough. Them's the breaks. Knowing what you don't want, and knowing whether you are capable of giving someone what they want are important lessons to learn and absorb.

A second possibility is that you could take turns, certainly if the two people involved are both switches this can be interesting and fun. You find out a lot about yourself and your kink from delivering the thing that you desire for yourself, and vice-versa - and not just from a practical "how to" point of view. You learn the experience of immersing yourself in an unfamiliar role, of the flip side to your own pleasure and perversion, which can be just as pleasurable and just as perverse. Equally, harking back to the previous paragraph, you might find that it is not. I know plenty of switches who don't switch for everything - and why should you? Again, these are good things to learn, rather than bad things that you are somehow "failing" at. I know needle players who love inserting but just feel pain and discomfort when pierced themselves, bondage experts who hate being tied up and I don't give really head but love receiving.

Sometimes it doesn't work. Even with all the prep work in the world scenes fail, stuff goes wrong and what one person wanted was not what happened. There may be arguments and clashes along the way. Taking time to cool off is important, individual time to review as well as discussing together what happened. I'm a sucker for nice lengthy feedback emails, I love someone who is good in text, and refuse to play with people who don't give feedback.

Sometimes it works with one person but not another. Or at one time but not the next. Your feelings over a particular thing might change with time and experience. Edges shift. One of the joys of dominance is helping people to push those edges, for submission its in having those edges pushed. Going places you never thought you could, and that's what I mean by "compatible" edges. Points in common. Things that you want to do, that you want to be, that I want to do to you.

A negotiation between play partners is less about a specific act or action and more about a journey that they want to take together, exactly like the way we defined what we want as individuals, except with more people involved. Now, this doesn't always mean parity or fairness, and in the case of D/s scenarios it explicitly does not. However, there is a big difference between the situation being unfair and the desire for the situation being unfair. And this is where we come back to consent and the RACK kids can line up facing the SSC kids to call names and throw stones, but ultimately, however we define it the word consent is still in there.

We consent to having our edges pushed. This goes for dominants as well as submissives - it's easier to imagine as submissive being forced outside their comfort zone (especially as this is the fodder of many a fantasy) but the reality is that dominants push edges all the time too. Especially emotional ones - we are delicate creatures at heart, really. We press at the boundaries of our dark and dangerous sides when we are given space to indulge the bits of us that thrill to the power trip and revel in the pain we are causing, the control we are exerting, the things and people that we own and command. We need to acknowledge and think about what we are consenting to, on both sides, because otherwise we aren't really capable of saying "yes".

And that's a problem.

If one person really doesn't want something then that's not D/s, that's abuse. To my mind, we need to be super clear on abuse within the BDSM community even more so than in vanilla circles because of how we play and how we interact. Each and every transgressive act that we do, each and every instance of pain or punishment or degradation - everything that the dominant delivers and the submissive swallows should be part of what they both actually, passionately and deeply want. We live in a world where "no" can mean "more please", where voices are silenced and muffled behind gags and masks, where a public display of affection can be a slap to the face. So we need to be damn sure that this is what both people want. And damn sure to come down like a ton of bricks on instances where our edges are trampled on and pushed in ways we do not want and did not agree to. Even if we enjoyed it. Even if they thought we enjoyed it. And this can be confusing if our enjoyment looks exactly like a terrified person screaming the house down. The key point is "looks like". A decent discussion of edges can help clear up the grey areas around "what stuff looks like" and "what it really is" in order to bottom out exactly what is going on and ensure that both parties have the same level of investment in the relationship, even if what they want out of it is different.

To my mind, the way this works the best in terms of edges is to think of the submissive giving an equal but opposite amount of space compared to what the dominant takes. Quid pro quo. For the kink generation.

Decisions, decisions

2011-08-23T22:45:00.006+01:00

A night with Mr Smith and I'm trying a new way of scene setting. I put a selection of toys on the bed, including some new ones we've yet to use.

"Lay them out on the bed. In order of what you want to have done to you."

I like creating the illusion of choice. Or rather, the dilemma of choice. I'm interested in seeing what he does. At first he hesitates, then when it becomes clear that I have no intention of helping him out he starts to lay things out in a pleasingly methodical fashion, picking up each object and placing them on a scale.

I encourage him to examine the toys, get a feel for them and to talk me through what he is doing - half of the skill in domination is in listening and paying attention to the submissive (which can often include creating situations that force their hand, such as in this case).

The objects we've played with the least go at either end. I'm pleased that he has selected some new things to try, it adds weight to my theory that part of his submission is about being encouraged and driven into new activities, especially those that he might be a little scared or intimidated by.

The knife, the inflatable anal plug with penis sheath (I was rather cheered by the acquisition of this little number) go at the "most wanted" end. The pinwheel, dental tools and chopsticks go at the "least wanted" end by the cold steel handled rubber whip and the heavy flogger.

I then tie him up and blindfold him, giving myself some time to absorb this new set of data. It would be easy to go simply for one side or another: building up through pleasant to unpleasant if I'm feeling nice or vice-versa if I'm not.

The "pain" items are all at the far end, which sits in with his judgement of himself as not a masochist. The sharp things are at the furthest point followed by floggers - this is a useful bit of information as it lets me know that he likes thuddy, stingy and sharp in descending order of preference. But there's more going on here, more to think about than just a scale of desire. It's about what drives that desire and the context for it.

The things he really enjoys have gone in the middle, so it's not as simple as "bad" and "good". As suspected these are all anal penetration toys - generally pleasurable, though sometimes a little difficult, well within understood parameters. They are those which he is familiar and comfortable with: part of the "everyday" tools of our interactions and represent the kind of fucking we often do, which I know he responds very well and positively to.

I can use these frequent flier items to judge his thoughts on the newer things. The knife is graded alongside the anal vibrator which packs rather a punch and can be difficult for him to take: he enjoys the sensation but needs a good build up and it causes him a lot of tension and pressurised orgasm build up which may or may not come to fruition. I can mirror those responses onto knives - something he wants to try but is unsure about the outcome. I'm especially interested that the knife has gone at the other end to the rest of the sharps, which makes me think there's something about knives themselves that merits exploring.

Only when I laugh

2011-08-21T11:51:00.006+01:00

I arrive with a smile and my vintage doctor's bag: sturdy but worn, with smooth brown leather and brass buckles. Like the smart red casing of my violet wand, the bag tells a story before I've even done or said anything. It sits, smugly, hiding its contents, on the table as we sit down for the pre-scene chat. The bag whispering subtle hints whilst I check in with my intended, smoothing any nerves and checking out my environment. Playing in other people's houses has some advantages, the unfamiliar environment keeps me focused on the activity and the person I'm playing with, plus it frees me from a lot of hum drum prep work like hoovering.

From her emails I'd decided that "medical" was going to be a loose working theme - I'd seen it listed as a fetish, but not an often practised one. Mood was going to be critical for this, and the freedom to be a little bit silly was important, it was an afternoon session, both of us were going to do other things later on and so I knew that this needed to be a fun rather than serious or scary medical scene. With that in mind, a touch of "mad science" also went into the pot, shortly followed by "test subject".

I stripped her, blindfolded then tied her down on her front, arms behind back and ankles slightly apart. My plan was to mix sensation escalation on different areas with regular check-ins where the subject would have to give me feedback on the experiment. This sat nicely within my own fetish of body exploration - I can quite happily randomly prod bodies for hours on end.

I talked for a while about my own fascination with pain, the language to describe it, the pitch and tone of sensation. I narrate what I am doing, as I do it, asking her to rate the pain between one and ten as I did so and noting her responses. I had a bag of different toys ranging from scratchy to sharp and the old favourite of my hands. Fingers are wonderful things. Slapping, tapping, stroking, flicking pinching and twisting gives an amazing range of sensation from pleasurable massage textures through to extraordinary amounts of pain. And all with feedback and minute levels of control that only skin to skin can deliver. I found sections of her body that responded in completely different ways and wished I had a sharpie on hand to circle them, slotting a number "8" or "9" into the space. Anything above a "5" made her part her lips, and breathe slightly heavily. A "7" or above created gasps. Certain noises were only uttered when certain parts were hit in particular ways.

At the higher level, she giggled. Whether in nervous anticipation or between gasps of pain, as if the laughter surprised her, and me. I do like it when they laugh - it's more common than people think. Usually BDSM is associated with tears and whimpers so laughter is a nice sound to hear. The very incongruity of it makes me smile, especially the oddness of hurting someone until they laugh. It's a response that is very genuine, in the sense of non-contrived. You can hear that people are actually enjoying themselves, even though the experience is painful and the laughter comes through gritted teeth and bitten lips.

Sadists heart masochists, and this was pain expressed beautifully. It was a pleasure to watch and I was truly fascinated by her responses, driving headlong into the clear focus of domspace. I put her on her back and pulled on some latex gloves to begin pegging open her cunt using tiny little clothes pegs, placing the final one on her clit. Following an exploratory finger or two I pressed a vibrator inside her cunt and set it on low, offering up the hypothesis that heavier pain can be taken for longer and to higher levels if it is cushioned by pleasure. I then zoned out completely for rather a long time focusing solely on slowly but repeatedly pricking her mons pubis with an extremely sharp dental pick. Every now and then I slapped the skin and area, building from low pats to hard blows to stop the sensation becoming an accustomed one and to keep the blood flowing nicely, ratcheting up the vibrator until she came. Then kept on going as she rocked through the waves.

I only wished for more time and perhaps some fetching young men in white coats and clipboards to assist my not-so-tender ministrations. Offers to be a filthy assistant, anyone?

Crafting dominance

2011-08-21T09:42:00.005+01:00

There's a lot of behind-the-scenes that goes on, well, behind scenes. Being a dominant is a bit like being the wizard of Oz. You rely on rumour, stage-craft and hot anticipation to contribute to your presence, which is essentially a constructed entity. Like celebrity, leadership and magic, dominance is not about what you do (or even what you say) but how it is received by the audience. In most cases the "audience" is the scene as a whole and those people within it who you decide to play with.

So, to paraphrase Mr Punch - what's the way to do it? Short answer: it varies. Better answer is to tell you what I do. For the purposes of this piece I'm going to focus on creating a scene with a new partner. BDSM 101, perhaps, but it's a good framework to illustrate how my mind works. Once you are in a longer term relationship things tend to get both more flexible and more deliciously complicated because you are able to explore together. The three things I'm going to talk about here are reputation, picking partners and deciding on scene thematics.

Reputation precedes you, and how! I'm lucky - I've been on the scene for a few years and I have played with enough people, in enough places to garner myself a reputation. My reputation is pretty much everything, in kink as in so many other things. I need to be known as a good player, which obviously takes the time and work. My reputation means that I get invited to events to "guest star" with strangers and new people think I'm exciting because I am known but at the same time uncertain: it's that roller coaster sort of thrill which balances fear and safety. Glamour for perverts.

How do you build a good reputation? Books are written on this, many books, so I'm going to touch on it lightly. It's a balance of confidence and shameless self-promotion, which is always a little tricky when you are British and find that kind of thing alien. Again, three points (I like ordering in threes): be yourself, play with people, and get out and about. Your reputation should be a reflection of you - bigger, better and sexier, but still you. You will do much better at being an enhanced version of yourself than a pale imitation of someone else. In the end, you do have to come up with the goods. There's only so long you can fiddle around with smoke and mirrors before people start to get suspicious. Play with people and look after the people you play with - take time to deliver good scenes and to give aftercare, people talk about dominants and you will be quickly known for doing such-and-such, make sure it's positive. Bad things will happen accidentally, but that's fine, the key thing for you is how you are seen to respond to them. Finally, get out there! You will not build a reputation in your bedroom alone. There is a big element of seeing and making sure that you are seen - go to munches, clubs, write blogs(!) talk to people and get involved.

Selecting partners is an important element to having a good scene and probably the most risky part of the mix. After all, you know yourself and you know your skills and desires (hopefully). In the case of new people, you don't know them. As a submissive this means selecting a dominant who you like the look and sound of - so you ask around, watch other people play at clubs and see who looks cute at the munch. As as a dominant the ground is less certain. Naturally you can do the same thing, but people actually talk a lot less about submissives' responses in scenes than they do about dominants' and a lot of what you might hear may well be unhelpful or coloured by someone else's play style. Watching a submissive play is hot, but whilst I can think "I'd like to get them to make that noise" I know that my play with them will be different. How someone responds to an intimate, lengthy shibari scene is not really going to be how they respond to my play given my rope skills are best termed "practical" and left at that. Secondly, the person you want to play with might be new - this is certainly something I do quite often. Mr Smith had no previous owner for example. So you need to do your homework.

Conversations over coffee are a good start. Getting people to write something down in an email as a follow up is better. I like lists, and have received many beautiful and detailed ones in my time. Read them. Ask questions. Listen carefully to the responses. Paying attention to someone else's sexual desire is flattering to them as well as unnerving. The end result is that they feel attractive but also a little nervous and self-conscious. Which plays in your favour. As does what they have actually written or said. People betray themselves when they talk about their desire, consciously or unconsciously, they want you to know what they want to do. Submissives in particularly want to offer up their desires for you, as a dominant, to take control - that's part of the power exchange.

Now to the planning - what are you actually going to do? Desire is slippery, complex and subtle. What you are looking for, at least for the first session is to get a broad overview of the edges of their desire - the things that are most waned and most hated or feared. This is why numbering systems or questions like "is this better than this?" are useful. I look for themes, recurring ideas or obvious groupings of kit, styles, fetishes and suchlike. I like to structure my scenes around a specific trope or two taken from those initial conversations and emails. First, it gives me something very clear to order what I'm going to do around, it also gives me a good insight into the mental state that someone wants to be put into, which will then help me think about the ways in which that might be done. Patterns are your friend, you may actually find that the scene is ready, waiting and obvious.

Do not worry about going for the obvious, there's a terrible tendency, especially if people are new to you and you might be nervous or keen to impress, about needing to do something "special" or that dominance should be about extremes or about always pushing boundaries. There is a lot to be said for a mutually satisfying scene that delivers what both parties want. You don't always have to be pulling people through the furthest edges of their fear, across broken glass, whilst they are on fire. Generally, this is not a good idea for a first scene with a new partner.

Wait for the second time.

Subconscious sitcom

2011-08-20T17:56:00.003+01:00

A comedy interulde, of sorts. Sometimes I have a very clear and well defined interior dialogue. Today, for example, it went like this:

Heart: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Brain: (looks over top of newspaper) Oh, there you are, Heart, old chap. You gave me a bit of a fright. Is everything alright?
Heart: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Brain: Hmmm. Interesting. Where have you been?
Heart: (whilst eating an alarming amount of chocolate) Behind *scrunch scrunch* the sofa *scrunch scrunch* for the past TWO YEARS!
Brain: Ah yes, it has been a while, hasn't it? Not to worry. Libido and I have been keeping each other company.
Libido: (looks up from pictures of abs on Fetlife) Say what now?
Heart: You are both BASTARDS! You have been IGNORING ME! I got BROKEN! It was AWFUL! And now I need ATTENTION!
Libido: Eh? But I have two lovely partners who think I'm brilliant and give me lots of satisfaction on many levels.
Brain: Yes. Also I'm spending time with amazing friends who are fun, interesting and great to play with.
Heart: Lalalalala! I am not listening. That DOES NOT COUNT because none of these people are my special own thing that I can get all wrapped up and obsessed about to the exclusion of ALL ELSE.
Brain: Yes... now we've been meaning to talk to you about that Heart...
Libido: Ummm. I was hoping to avoid this entirely by having lots of kinky sex instead. Forever. I might leave you two to it, there's Torchwood on and I think boys might kiss.
(Libido exits)
Heart and Brain (together): Libido!
Heart: See? Libido is SELFISH and does not want me to find my TWUE LOVE!
Brain: Shut up Heart, there's a dear...
Heart: You HATE ME! I will SULK! Or KILL MYSELF!
Brain: Now really, come along. The thing is that this love business is very complicated and can't just magically happen. Also, evey time you get into it I seem to sort of "switch off". Which is most disturbing.
Heart:(happily) That is because love is the MOST IMPORTANTEST THING EVER!
Brain: Well, certainly it might be nice but I don't think we should get carried away. Remember what happened last time?
Heart: But it was AWESOME when it was good!
Brain: (wistfully) Hmmm. Yes, I suppose it was...
Heart: So can we try again?
Brain: I don't know, Heart. I just think that things are rather good right now and I don't want you to mess it all up by making me go all crazy or falling in love with someone incompatable or that you can't actually have or any of that kind of nonsense you tend to do.
Heart: PLEASE? I am lonely. I know you are too...
Brain: Well, let's see. But I'm going to be watching you very carefully.
Heart: WOO HOO!
Libido: (from the other room, over the sound of the Torchwood theme tune) I don't care as long as the sex is good, kinky and really frequent. With boy kissing!
Heart and Brain (together): Libido!

*fin*

Cheeky chappy

2011-08-19T17:20:00.003+01:00

"I brought your pants back."

He hands my underwear to me across the table in the crowded cafe. I raise an eyebrow. Unwashed, I also note. Unabashed - it takes rather a lot to embarrass me and I have no intention of rising to this - I take them and put them in my bag. On the walk to the tube station I point out, in between some rather pointed nipple flicking, I explain how this is not the kind of laundry service I expect. Later, when there is an audience of kinky ladies to provide a suitable level of humiliating punishment. I regale the story with mock horror and shove the pants into his mouth with instruction to do better next time.

One of the highlights of training Mr Smith has been developing an appreciation for the distinction between cheek and brattishness, and finding pleasure in dominating a cheeky submissive. Given my previous negative thoughts on the subject of any kind of push back from submissives, it was a surprise to me to find that I actually enjoy a certain amount of cute cheekiness.

Partly, I suppose, there's an issue of definitions. One person's acceptable cheek is another's brat. To me bratting involves actually fighting back, with an element of uncertainty over the winner. The kind of submissive who kicks out, taunts and enters into determined activity to get a rise out of me. Generally, this can be interesting as a one-off session, but for a more involved, long-term D/s relationship I don't have the style of dominance that fits with someone who wants their submission to be constantly “taken” over and over again - a little fight every now and then, perhaps, but on a day-to-day basis I want them to offer themselves up to me.

Mr Smith compared his cheek to "teenage behaviour" - it's always interesting to note how people talk about their own submission, the words and phrases they use shed light on how they view themselves which can create structures for play scenes or D/s frameworks. The teenage reference is quite a useful one in his case - the brash, "look at me" element, combined with the shyness or social awkwardness when his cheek comes up against my dominance, and loses.

On some level this is a test, of course and it keeps me on my toes. It's a test of authority in the way that a child might see how far they can push their parent, to see whether they are paying attention, whether they care. In this regard there is also an element of "asking for it" - by being cheeky he is asking to be dominated. If this were a very regular occurrence, or happening in particular ways in order to receive specific actions then it would be worrying, a strong case of topping from the bottom, but I don't feel that it is, more I think it's just how he is.

I don't like a lot of cheek, mind you, and there are certainly limits, particularly along the lines of the kind of cheek given and where it occurs. My desire and interest is much more along the lines of "I like a boy with spirit" than anything else. Light banter which is easily batted aside and replaced with a blush, an apology, a bowed head. There is a dominant pleasure in having something to push against - as long as it gives in. The training process by definition requires a roughened surface to start with, something to mould and smooth down.

In training, I decide what is acceptable and what isn't. I also decide what warrants punishment and what doesn't. That includes the edges of "cheek" and "bratting". Generally speaking anything that could be considered rude or as a direct and forceful challenge to my dominance in public would be bratting and completely unacceptable. Anything that goes against good scene behaviour is also not on - and this would not be "punished" in the same amusing way as cheekiness would be, it would involve more serious conversations and a use of the dreaded (to him) phrase "I was disappointed in you."

Cheek is a game, and it's a light hearted one at that, in which the submissive pushes lightly against the edges of my dominance. There is a shared joy in it, it is the gleam in their eye that reflects their personality. A submissive entirely devoid of any vim or repartee would be a doormat or completely cowed out of existence. As much as I talk about idealised pets and servants, my submissives are my friends and lovers. And pets have personality, of course - I like to see them sparkle. Cheek is a way for them to express themselves, and as long as it doesn't interfere with what I want or put me out, it can also be fun and entertaining.

For others as well as myself, as the pants incident proves.

Holiday

2011-08-02T21:20:00.002+01:00

Dearest darlings, I'm taking a couple of weeks off to rest, recharge and collect some freckles. I will return shortly with some fresh musings from Kinksville.

If you can't be good, be careful - that goes for the sun as much as anything else.

e.d.
x

Give and take

2011-07-30T08:00:00.009+01:00

It's been a draining few days. I'm very tired. I'm tired as I'm writing this. Tired bones and muscles, in that weepy sort of way you get when all your energy has been sapped. At the same time I have a heightened awareness of small things. Most of me feels fuzzy with lack of sleep and heavy bones, but I savour the cold, ripe cherries fresh from the fridge. Enjoy the beautiful, gleaming morning sunlight as it pushes through the apple trees in the garden. It is going to be a glorious day.

It's 8am in the morning, a Saturday. I've been up for an hour or so. I feel wistful, sad and a little bit sorry for myself. For some reason my brain decided that a handful of hours of sleep was enough. It feels as if my thoughts and feelings are too big for the space in my head, they needed the cool no-one else awake time to fully form. So I take myself out of bed, which is too hot with Mr Smith's sleeping body. I don't want to disturb him so I head downstairs. Two voices float around my still-not-quite conscious brain.

"How do you stay so strong all the time?" Hedwig, at dinner a few days ago.

"You need someone who prioritises you, and who you prioritise." Rossetti hits a salient point over coffee.

Mr Smith and I had a serious, productive but quite involved series of conversations around "where we go from here" on the back of a couple of arguments he has had with his wife. It transpires that she is not particularly happy or keen for him to continue to see me, which led to me creating a plan and structure for how we check-in on this relationship to make sure all involved are comfortable and enjoying it.

Mannequin has been spending a lot of time with Fenrir. She is more taken with men than with women, as am I, so I understand. It's vital that she has a good male partner in her life - which he is - and they are having a lot of fun, intense and wonderful play. This is exactly the sort of thing she deserves and needs: I'm genuinely happy (and proud). I love her very much and want her to have everything she wants and will fight hard to make sure she gets it. The same goes for Mr Smith.

The fact remains that I have two wonderful submissive partners who have other important people in their lives. To maintain these relationships takes work, and the grace to back off from them and be rational with what can be achieved with their time. Add to this the fact that my dominant desires and feelings for them means our interactions are structured around what I can give to make their lives better. It's not their fault (it's not my fault either) that currently they both need support from me alongside the "usual" dominance, and I want to provide that support. To be a good partner for them. I don't want to let them down or to fail to give them the happiness I want them to have.

I've been doing a lot of giving elsewhere. I've finished my beloved, but stressful job after three weeks of intensive, long hours at work. I'm trying to prepare for a serious step-change in my career. Spirit and her girl were taken to hospital last night after a bad case of recreational drugs (if someone offers you NRG-3 my advice would be to step back slowly, and perhaps have a nice cup of tea instead). There are a few things happening in my home and family life that don't need to be mentioned here but are "background concerns".

I ended Friday feeling drained but happy. I had worked hard and done a lot of good, so I felt, and was now ready to reap my reward. A night out at Pedestal with both of my pets. I'd been really looking forward to it. The Tribe was in full swing, and it was wonderful to see everyone, especially so many attractive and attentive boys. But things were not quite working out.

Mannequin and I had spent the morning in hospital doing some much appreciated visiting, and she was in need of some play and affection, though probably not in the club. Mr Smith was struggling, finding the entire experience both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. It was his first proper outing to a fetish night and I had promised to look after him. He had started off very nervous, and was now feeling awkward. He was not enjoying himself or feeling very submissive. Instead he was just feeling out of place. Alongside that he had the ongoing unhappiness that he was "letting me down" and as such he radiated discomfort and not-wanting-to-be-there. So needed play and affection, though probably not in the club.

I was out of my depth. I had been looking forward to a night of pampering from half naked, soft-skinned and doe eyed submissives, which we had in droves and I felt extremely lucky and smug. I have a lot of beautiful wonderful people all around me. But I couldn't neglect my two in order to please myself. Much as I wanted to spend the night being seduced and fawned upon (Pedestal is good for the soul in that respect) I had responsibilities. These aren't woe-is-me things, these are important promises that cut to the heart of my sense of self and self-worth. Going off and "having fun" wouldn't have felt right as a dominant, as a partner, a lover or friend. It would not have been fun.

Worse, I couldn't look after both of them at the same time. Giving my full attention to one meant neglecting the other. I felt torn. I felt at a low ebb and unable to deliver. I felt weak, and worse, I felt unable to show these vulnerabilities to the people I care about in case that lessened me in their eyes and hence my ability to look after them, or my attractiveness and importance to them.

I made what felt like an ugly choice (between one partner and another) and took Mr Smith home given that was the diarised sleeping arrangements. I left Dandy with instructions to look after Mannequin. I held Mr Smith's hand in the cab whilst he cried and was very upset. I reassured him and explained why it wasn't his fault that he didn't enjoy public submission, or playing in a club - both of which are true. When we got back I stripped him, tied him to the bed and fucked him till he came before putting him to sleep, wrapping soothing words of "private fucktoy" around him. He slept.

Then, feeling utterly drained and a bit sorry for myself, in a moment of stereotypical girlie shame I locked myself in the bathroom for a few moments to have a little cry before going to sleep. I still feel much that way this morning, a few hours later. Feeling older, wiser and having had another of life's rich experiences. I know that I need to get some time and space for myself, to recover my energy. I now know a few prudent lessons about having both partners out at the same event when they both need personal time. And I know what I have always known - that I need someone for myself.

I also need a nap.

How far can we go? Part One

2011-07-28T14:35:00.006+01:00

I'm going to look at boundaries and edges over the next few weeks, because they keep coming up over and over and over again in a variety of different guises, in all kinds of kinky discussions I've been having lately. Whatever else BDSM and alternative lifestyes are "about" they involves people and their experiences, and it involves a lot of edges. Take polyamory. That's about the edges of relationships, the edges of traditional expectations about relationships, the edges of feelings. Take kink. It's about the edges of physical and emotional experiences, the boundaries between risk and thrill, between pain and pleasure, between consent and non-consent.

We live life on the edge, baby. But what does that mean, and how far can we go with it all?

Before I get into the ins and outs of submission, dominance, switching and all that jazz, I'm going to tackle the broader picture. The space that we have for ourselves, as people and for ourselves as kinksters is marked by where we place our boundaries. Think of it like the territory of where we live. The outlying regions mark uncharted areas. Places we haven't been yet are the fuzzy edges - we might fill in the blanks pretty soon. Places that we don't want to go to are harder edges - but that said, we still might go there. Edges are important therefore because we are the stuff inside them. If we don't understand our edges - what they are, why they are there, what might cause them to move, we don't really understand ourselves.

I have a number of "favourite questions" that I ask quite a lot: who are you and what do you want? Which makes me sound a bit like the special magic aliens from a certain sci fi show. They are big questions, serious questions and actually hard to answer with any degree of finality.

So if we can't really answer the questions, then what is the point of asking? Well, even if you can never, ever come to a definitive, final response, you can at least work out where you are right now. After all, we are works-in-progress, as is our kink. What we can say, if we have a good think about it, is who we are now. What we want now. If you don't know who you are, or what you want, then you will struggle to get it. Simple, really.

Me, I like getting what I want. And I like knowing who I am. So this is all a bit of an experiment in how I think. There are other ways of living life. There are other blogs. This one is mine.

Now, the method. This sort of thing can easily slide into naval gazing so an element of intellectual rigour plus someone else to shout "no!" repeatedly at you can help keep you honest on that front. Anything will do, as long as it actually delivers results. Captain favours large blank piece of paper and black markers, which has a certain charm. I tend to supplement introspective musings with this blog for example, which is both a snapshot of "what I'm thinking now" and a record of "what I thought then". Which is handy.

In other words, we can write down our current borders. We can probably also write down where we want to push these borders. We can even (if we really, really think about it) draw a line between the two and mark out an adventure for ourselves. This gives us the framework for what (we think) we want. Equally, it might not. Life is like that. Insert platitude here. But the important thing is to be an active participant in the journey - to be aware of what is going on.

Self awareness is a big turn-on for me and I push for it in all my relationships because "knowing where I stand" is a key factor in my own sense of self worth (am I doing everything I can do to be as good as I can be with the options available to me?) and general place in the universe. Awareness is a good word to flag up here. Because our little list of what we want needs to be an aware list. We need to know what it is that we are talking about, what lies behind the stuff we want and what it actually is in order to know whether we can have it, and perhaps whether or not we should.

Ethics. Personal morals, perhaps even societal morals. The legal system. The opinion of family and friends. The impact on those around us. A big, big pile of considerations. Our awareness must go beyond what lies behind the simple, animal "what we want" and include the ramifications of getting it, both the process of getting it and how the world will look once we have it. These factors cannot always be identified in advance (the infamous known unknowns and unknown unknowns), but we can at least hang a question mark over them.

We can, of course, say that we don't care. And perhaps we don't. But that too is a conscious decision in the process of getting what we want and it's a factor in who we are. We have decided to be the person who doesn't care about their impact. And if so, we need to own and accept that, and all that comes with it. We don't live in a vacuum. What we do has a knock-on effect that ripples far beyond us and can often come back to us. Even if we have the empathy of a brick, it is the practical implications of consequences that might prevent us from doing certain things.

These form our very own edges. Every single person who we come into contact with will have their own, which are obviously different to ours (though the chances are if you come from the same society, have similar interests, you might have a lot in common). How we work with other people's edges will be the next thing I talk about.

Fixing femdom

2011-07-26T16:27:00.000+01:00

A woman poses awkwardly, hand on hip, bent forward pushing her tits out. She's stood on a tropical beach in tight fitting latex, lots and lots of heavy makeup and with the kind of massive backcombed hairdo I term "Deanna Troi crack-whore". It's the kind of BDSM event flyer that I hate.

Thus far four people have waved the advert for Domme Trips at me giggling about how it's "perfect" for me. Whilst remaining out of reach of a punch or projectile they have joked that clearly I should pay to go on one. Aside from the fact that I'm a natural redhead city slicker who wears dark sunglasses for 11 months of the year and can't function in temperatures above 22C, the idea of spending a "holiday" pandering to the desires of the male submissive gaze makes me vomit slightly in my mouth.

On the one hand, it's nice to know that people recognise my style of domination as being basically the antithesis of this. On the other, it's a ghastly pain that images and scenarios like this one remain the mainstay of femdom. When we think about female domination these are the pictures we paint for ourselves. And with a small handful of glorious exceptions such as Ms Tytania it is the kind of femdom that is on offer. A vicious circle. This is what femdom looks like, therefore to be a female dominant you need to look like this.

Rossetti and I are drinking endless cups of coffee and pondering this problem. It's part of a wider issue of female sexuality and sexual agency, which is reliant upon male approval and projections of generic male desire which means tits-out, blowjob lips, long legs, long hair. You know what it looks like. It's the same in the BDSM world except covered (well, sort of covered, more exposed, really) in latex.

The same can often be said for styles of female submission (and to be honest if it weren't for collars I'd struggle to tell female subs and female doms apart sometimes). The look is everything, and the look is all about displaying the goods. We hit upon the Queen/princess dynamic which is similar to virgin/whore. The "sexy female" within BDSM is either a Queen or a princess. She is beautiful, superficially powerful or important but above all she needs a man to complete her.

Now, as I've said regarding male submission, presenting what is on offer is an important part of signalling availability and desire to play. But it's just the cover of the book, and especially with domination where elements of mystery and power come to the fore, then presentation should not be everything.

We dress to impress and I understand that, but the more images I see the more I realise that it is all the same. All of it. So far from representing ourselves we are covering up in layers of looking like everyone else. There are minor variations in colour of skin and hair, maybe. The same-ness of it is worrying on many levels. It seems that there is little room for personality or unique style within femdom. The "look" is so ubiquitous it raises the suspicion that it is all about the looks and nothing to do with, well, domination - by which I mean a power exchange between one individual and another.

Lots of women wear the stereotypical femdom outfits. Why do we do this - let's be clear, I will sometimes dress in a deliberately sexy femdom way. I might be doing it for effect, for irony or because I think the situation requires it. But I'm still doing it. Still using it to exert sexual power by playing on social perceptions of what I should look like in order to be attractive. In all honesty, we will probably never know whether we are doing this because we want to or because we think we should. It's a difficult thing to unpick, it requires a high level of personal honesty and it's almost impossible to strip yourself completely out of the societal and cultural pressures around you. It also cuts to the heart of what we mean by "dominance" and how "being dominant" sits with "looking dominant."

Here's another one. We talk a lot about the "male gaze" within feminism. This isn't saying that men are causing women to look like this, in fact I rather suspect that the "male gaze" is something that is taught to men, just as "this is what femdom looks like" is taught to women. Men find that look attractive because they have been instructed to find it attractive by the constant and persistent use of these images as associated and representative of female sexuality.

Messy, isn't it? So, how to un-mess it.

Rossetti, myself and other members of The Ladies Who constantly marvel at the level of attention given to how femdom should look rather than how femdom could look - how women could express sexual desire in different ways. Going further, there is shockingly little discussion of how femdom could be, in terms of what that desire entails and what skills are needed to get there. This morning we acknowledged how hard it is to ask for help or mentoring as a female dominant, that you don't want to be seen as weak or inexperienced for fear of being patronised or seen as not very good. Despite the fact that everyone has something to learn. And that there's always room to go over the basics. We can support each other in this. In getting the skills, and in being able to ask for the skills, to be a dominant and not relying on simply looking like one.

Individually we can certainly make inroads into the "looking" part as well. Me, I wear boys pants, combats and vest tops as often as I sport cute dresses, doc marten boots and knives in my anime cartoon bag. Each of us can wear what the hell we want and be as dominant in our pajamas as we are in latex catsuits. We can also support each other in doing this, and that includes making room for traditional femdom attire without dismissing it as stereotypical. I will struggle at this, but I'll try if you try to see me in my shirt and trousers as just as sexy and dominant as the lady in the pretty corset. That goes for everyone, incidentally, men, women, submissives, dominants and you lovely, filthy switches.

Like the emperor and his invisible clothes (an interesting parable on power in and of itself), the more we look at the dominant and the less we look at their clothes the better we might all be.

Playing with masculinity - Daddy and boy

2011-07-24T11:56:00.004+01:00

This post is about personas and the fantasies they come from and create. It's about the kind of roles I adopt and channel within my dominance, but also my life. I am quite clear within myself that these states of being are not "alternative personalities" as such. Nor are they characters or games to play. It is strongly linked to The Doll Project, yet very much a dominant variant. The personas are an assemblage of thoughts, feelings and desires that are all part of the complete me. But just as one day I might be feeling "happy" so too I can spend a day feeling "boyish". Gender as an emotion.

Recently I'm veering further and further into masculine modes of power and sexuality. I've long known that my looks allow me to flirt heavily with presentations of androgyny and masculinity but there's a point where you realise that it's not about dress-up. There's more going on. Much more.

Let's take it from the top, because this is going to get complicated. There's a healthy amount of female Daddy play in the scene I inhabit, a Goldilocks just-right quantity to make it common enough so I don't have to explain myself with footnotes, but rare enough to stand out as a unique feature. Naturally, I have to be special. But it's not about doing something because no-one else does. That's nice, but the real joy has been in finding a mode of play that feels, well, normal.

Take clothes, for instance. I'm a tomboy. This rubs up against a lot of notions of how I should present myself as a dominant and a woman. I like to have a lot of useful space between myself and images / archetypes of traditional female dominance, many of which hold very little appeal to me and in fact are often downright off putting.

Daddy doesn't dress up, or at least, not in anything that I don't feel absolutely comfortable and very much "me" in (more thoughts on dominance and clothes are here). I wear a lot of vest tops. They show off my arms nicely and the shape of the clothes is often quite key to feeling in the right head-space. Some mornings I wake up femme and have to wear a dress or skirt. These days I'm more and more masculine.

I like Daddy play a lot, it fits in well with a lot of my dominant qualities. The "firm but fair" attitude, protection and patronage, strength tempered with care. Daddy knows best. The ways of being and doing I find quite easy - a coaching attitude, kindly but steely. The D/s writes itself. The challenge I'm finding (interestingly) is in S&M and sexualised play. For some reason fucking feels strange. It might be because one of the people I'm playing with is very new to me and also female. Sex always comes much later in those relationships. Perhaps due to my sexual (fucking) experiences being weighted heavily towards men, my play experience however contains a lot more women - I can still quite easily separate the two and for me a good D/s session can often be better than "straight" fucking, which has it's own pleasurable intimacy but nothing like the power trip and frisson that a strong pain scene can offer, for example.

So far, so sadistic. And pain-delivery actions such as beatings, especially spanking and other types of CP come quite easily to the Daddy persona. It allows me to put my hands all over their bodies (which I enjoy) without stripping down myself - which in a way would shatter the illusion. I may have a lean and muscular female body but it is still very obviously female. And part of me wants to keep the mystery going for as long as possible. The clothing also keeps a power imbalance going - I keep clothed, they are stripped. That said, it's not actually terribly serious. I laugh when I do it and Daddy is a fun role to play, there's a joy to it, in the way it operates, which I'm still finding out a lot about and these are just my first real responses. I'm looking forward to seeing where it might take me. Already I can see a lot of possibilities. For example, despite the common assumption of Daddy-little-girl it's also something I can see myself enjoying doing with boys as well both boys as boys and girls dressed as boys - I told you it was going to get complicated.

Now I've mentioned boys, there's a flip-side to dominant masculinity. I love playing the role of a sexualised male predator. Specifically a sleazy, nasty teenage boy predator. This role has no problem with fucking, and indeed seems to require rather a lot of it. As cruel as Daddy is kind, as selfish as Daddy is supportive. He is a nasty piece of work. I am really rather fond of him. Like the boy your mother always warned you about, he has a kind of glamour to him. I find it interesting that I want to be him, to use this model to fuck other people with. Particularly men. Particularly nice, well brought up young men of the sort who might have flirted with homosexuality but never found the right, gamine-faced boy to take them there.

What is it about this that works? I'm tempted to snicker and say what is it about this that doesn't work? But that would be the teenage boy talking. It sparked alive (very brightly) when I went to the cinema with Mr Smith and Dandy. I found myself walking between them, they were both dapper and well-turned out in suits, looking suave from days in the office. I was in jeans, a boy's T-shirt with an Atari logo and trainers. I felt for all the world like the teenage son of two gay dads. Incest fantasies and 90s pop band references aside the sensation was powerful, funny, sexual and very, very attractive. The liberation and gender/sexual fuckery of all those tropes within three bodies that I felt I knew well (theirs and mine). It was quite a rush. And one I'd rather like to consummate at some point. Somehow. Maybe not with those two as the compatability only really exists in my head.

I've made a partial start, spending yesterday morning in vest top and comic-book patterned y-fronts shaking my arse seductively in the general direction of a slightly paternal (and slightly disarmed) Mr Smith. It was a strange but pleasant switch-y moment, albeit very topping from the bottom to get him back into bed and entertaining me. It's also a move which signals a pleasant step-change in our relationship, that I can express my other types of desires, especially for the more rough and tumble sort of kinky sex, without feeling as if I'm loosing my dominant belle dame sans merci cool. Replacing it with the lithe limbed and frisky hipped cool of a yet-to-be-named teenager.

The girlfriend myth

2011-07-20T21:25:00.007+01:00

Ah, female dominants and their titles. Here we go again. Or rather, here I go again, with my need to be special and different. Of course. The thing with being fond of words and spending a lot of time (and education) on their meaning is that you can end up feeling like you are over-complicating things.

But precision is important to me. And the right word in the right place is as beautiful and fitting and pleasurable as the right toy in the right place, the right lover, the right relationship. Because that is what the word describes. A relationship. The connection between one thing and another. Language (words relying on words in a system of meaning) is often defined by negativity: we refine out lexicon by adding words to replace the gaps created by difference, by things that are not. And the process lets us be more specific, more definite, closer to really describing what we mean. The new word slots into place, rendering the old one vague, imprecise.

And so it is with "girlfriend". I am no-one's girlfriend. I am the girlfriend myth. Even before I had full time kinky relationships I hated the whole girlfriends and boyfriends thing. It felt juvenile, strange. Like we were play acting. Possibly because I came to it in my late teens and was pretty much an adult by the time I was really dating anyone in any meaningful sense. Now, as a fully-fledged pervert I have no need of the words whilst in Kinksville, and between my pets and I we have the individualised dominant title of Fox to express my unique place in their lives. Only they can use it as a term of address for me, so it bestows a certain specialness to them.

But outside of the scene, things get a little tricky.

Mannequin and I were casting about for the right way to describe me to her (vanilla) friends and family. She likes "girlfriend", for her it has a lot of positive associations. Not for me. It feels small, pat and paltry for what I am to her, for the connection I have with her. However, despite my dislike of the word, I didn't want to either dismiss her feelings nor do down the associations. She wanted to name us, to give us a stated bond in the eyes of others. She did not want me to be her "friend". And neither did I. In the end, we settled on "partner" for me and "girl" for her.

Similarly, I am not Mr Smith's girlfriend. More correctly, I am his mistress. Which is now how he must introduce me. I will not be dismissed out of hand as a "friend" and I refuse to accept the equality of terms that "lover" might imply. "Girlfriend" is frankly ridiculous in our situation.

Each of these substitute naming words serves a purpose in the training programme for both of my pets. For Mannequin, the ability to introduce me with a positive, supporting word like "partner" allows her to feel comfortable and confident in us. She can tell people she has a partner, and that makes her secure - which she should be. And they know she has someone who cares for, looks after and loves her. Which she does, and I want her to be able to say so whenever she wants, to whoever she wants. It's a strong word, definite and powerful, like the sort of dominant protective patronage I have over her. I am her partner, she is my girl. That maintains the level of power dynamic whilst still expressing the relationship in a way that everyone should be able to access.

For Mr Smith, these things are also true - I want us to be named, to have a relationship that can be easily expressed and understood. But "partner" is wrong here, and not just because he is married and his wife is his true partner. I am no more a wife substitute than I am a "girlfriend". The more forceful "mistress" gives a more defined public acknowledgement of my position in his life as well as an opportunity for a semi-veiled deference to me that is still acceptable and comprehensible to vanillas.

"Mistress" works because it has a certain power that puts him slightly off balance. It's a more defined role than a casual sex partner, of which there might be many: there is usually only one mistress. Those who might have an inkling of the kind of sexuality he's involved in would certainly be tipped off by the use of that word. All of which adds to his public squirms. He still (sadly) feels embarrassed about being seen as submissive. And I will continue to push on this until he can be proud of it.

Behind closed doors

2011-07-18T23:43:00.005+01:00

I had actually imagined that I would arrive at Chiaroscuro's birthday, share a drink or two then be on the last train home. Why I thought such a thing is beyond me. I think the turning moment might have been when I took off my dress and threw it at a young man's head, perhaps in a very basic sort of mating ritual.

So instead of the train, I find myself (a curious yet apt turn of phrase) happily between Dandy and Boy Wonder, all of us in our underwear, all of us running newly purchased pretty knives - including a tanto that I have slightly fallen in love with - on each other's skin. There are hot bi boys everywhere, and a beautiful girl. We are all, for want of a better word, fooling around. It is wonderfully explorative, especially given that there are people here I have never played with yet with whom I click very strongly.

I clearly have no intention of leaving. Especially once Mr Smith expresses his intent to arrive. At which point things get interestingly complicated. I am pleased that my boy is coming, but also cautious.

This will be a challenge for him, he will be out of his comfort zone. This would be the first private BDSM party for him, he doesn't know many people, the balance of play and players is against him (he's straight). This will be a challenge for me because his behaviour reflects upon my skills as a dominant and trainer. It's especially important here because the group is small and well meshed. Unlike loud and busy club environments, things will go noticed. This is a very D/s environment with relationships described in those terms first and foremost. Actually, it's a very pleasurable space for me to be in, a normalised D/s space where one is able to talk clearly and freely about the sort of rules someone is under before you might kiss or touch them.

But all of this is still alien for Mr Smith for whom submission is desired, but difficult and sex is still framed in a swinging / hetero-vanilla conquest context. The sort of protocol that Chiaroscuro can expect in his own house is very similar to the kind I enjoy and hence the sort that I want my submissive to eventually deliver. Then there is the fact that I understand how things work which is probably why the play we were doing felt instinctual and natural, and so might fall into the trap of not preparing my boy well enough because things were "obvious". I also didn't want to throw lots of house rules at him in case that triggered a fit of D/s induced panic. I wanted what we all wanted: to carry on having a great party.

All in all, it wasn't going to be an easy bar for him to reach, nor for me to help him reach. As it turned out, he did make mistakes, partly down to nerves and partly down to inexperience. The mistakes themselves aren't as interesting as what happened as a consequence: punishment. Together with Chiaroscuro we discussed and agreed what should be done, then summoned him.

It wasn't a complicated thing, fortunately. But I was anxious all the same, worried it would not be done, that I might have to force it and what if I couldn't? I knew that we were playing at the very edges of all the things he was deeply uncomfortable with, particularly around perceptions of himself as a submissive male by other men.

First came the public apology on reluctantly bended knee. Eventually. With a request for a repeat due to lack of sincerity. Then came the rest. A bare-bottom beating, in full view of all. And a thank-you. Teeth were gritted, and his awkward embarrassment and nascent impotent anger were evident. The punishment was hard won. It was nowhere near as gracious nor elegant as it could have been. He is not a natural submissive, which in many respects makes this whole process more pleasing and fascinating. But it was done. And the first time such a thing was done, which marks it as special and valuable in my eyes. As I watched I both winced in empathy and swelled with a certain pride. How he took it (mostly) like the man he will become, the one I see flashes of every now and then. The submissive I will make of him. That we will make together.

Later...

The needles go in. One after another after another after another. They are cool little slices of life, tingling and sparkling as they go. They sit next to each other, chattering with a buzzing pain that isn't really pain. Yes, the MDMA is helping them along in their conversation with my skin, with my flesh, allowing the spreading warmth to mingle with the shuddering chills and wrap me up in a full metal jacket of sensation. Once they are all there I float in them, as they seem to float in me. I get up, move around and let them take me where I might go.

Eventually they come out. I rest myself down on Mr Smith's chest. Chastised, leather mitts on to prevent any more unfortunate knocks. One by one by one, Chiaroscuro takes the needles out. I feel the blood slip down my naked shoulder. My eyes are closed. His body is warm. It is one of those absolute moments of BDSM perfection that you want to go on forever.

i am basically wallowing in my own personal piece of heaven. I haven't bottomed in a long time, and tonight just felt right. Full of moments of animal pleasures from all ends of the scale from the simplicity of kissing for hours, of almost constantly being held, stroked, of holding and stroking through to the deep thrill of the taste of blood and the almost reverence with which it was offered and accepted. Everything fell into place, without formula, planning or even intent. The balance of people, the space, the way we interacted. Freeform bodies in motion. Things were done because they were desired, connections created and acted upon. I am not sure whether it was the privacy of the event, and this for me is almost the definition of private play. An intimate group of people sharing kinky desires.

Better behaviour

2011-07-17T20:48:00.008+01:00

The pop sociologist in me is endlessly fascinated by the way that different spaces and groups of people create certain sorts of play environments. I'm not the only one. Rossetti and I will meet for breakfast every now and then and discuss the "mix" in our tribe, the sorts of people we want and need for the kinds of parties, events and gatherings we like. I select kinky events based on who I know is going to be there, rather than the theme, or venue or even the actual sort of play party. Because I know that it's not just the people I am going to play with, but those around them.

People create moods, experiences more so than anything else. It's very new age to say "energy" but it's a word that keeps coming up over and over again in BDSM circles - the vibe and buzz in a room, the waves of sensation that hit you, like a warm breeze, from a hot scene. There are ways of making group dynamics better - smaller groups, who know each other well, who communicate in a way we understand and generally gel nicely with ourselves and our mores. This is why we tend towards cliques surrounding ourselves with those whose play we find enjoyable and in whose company we are comfortable being naked, vulnerable, powerful, weak, pained and pleasured. All at the same time, if we're lucky.

Then there's the unlucky. The awkward shuffling of an inadequate mix with too many voyeurs and not enough players, or the uncomfortable silences of unspoken play requests and poorly worded play refusals. Bad play that causes damage, physical and emotional. A lot of drama goes on in Kinksville, and often it is entirely unnecessary. It happens because we, as people, do not always treat each other as well as we could, with as much realistic kindness and consideration.

On bad days we are moody, socially awkward nerds, shuffling our feet at the edges of the disco, never feeling cool enough to ask the pretty ones to dance. We're over-inflated ego maniacs, desperately attention seeking, swinging from giggling highs to weeping lows - anything to get a bit of a fuss. We're uber dominants swelling puffed up chests out of bat utility belts (you know what I mean) and demanding everyone kiss our boots. We're snivelling, lisping submissives or snooty, snidey brats clamouring for attention. On bad days. We're also a bit unhappy inside too, annoyed with ourselves perhaps. Caught between rocks and hard places. Failing to fit in and needing to compensate or just plain lonely and finding the whole scene too much, too little, not what we thought it would be.

So how do we fix it, and where does the fault lie? We can blame the scene - and sometimes it is the fault of the scene as a whole, but mostly it's because the mix isn't right. The things that we want and the way that we want them cannot be provided by those around us, at this place and at this time. Which includes us. And that's good in a way, because whilst we cannot fix the entire universe and cannot make those we fancy fall madly in love with us (though I stare hard at photos of Tom Hardy every now and then, just in case) we can sort out ourselves. And if all of us agree then we might improve the scene in general.

These are my ideas, they are quite "big asks", so I've tried to expand them a little in terms of what might be eventually possible.

Communicate and listen! The major one, really. Without which everything else will fall over. If you do not tell people things, they will not know. Some people may need telling twice (we play in noisy clubs...). This covers a lot of bases including the ability to articulate what you want, making the approach to someone for play and being receptive to those offers - as in listening to, not an assumption of agreeing to do it! We rarely listen, properly listen, to what people are saying and take it on board. Too often we hear what we want to hear, and happily filter our things that don't fit with our world view. We deceive ourselves, and those around us. And sometimes miss out on the real positives by only hearing the bad stuff.

Know what's behind your desires and feelings. We all have days when we feel a bit tired, low or just out of sorts and that might make us more needful of certain things, or to have something done in a particular way, or not done. We also know that there are people who can inspire feelings in us. This can lead us to want things from them, which is great if they feel the same way, but difficult and painful when they do not. We need to understand what emotions are motivating our desire for play. This isn't to say that all scenes are built on this, but I from experience that if you have additional emotional involvement then scenes become more powerful - both to the good and to the bad - so if that is the case, then it needs to be understood by everyone involved.

Even if we know what we want (often a tall order) we might not know how we will react when we get it, or don't get it. Or when it comes from this person, or that, in this space. We don't think about what we really want when we ask for play - is it to experience the physical sensation, is it a sense of belonging, the thrill of exhibitionism, to be close and intimate with someone? How do our feelings about the person affect what we want, or contextualise what we think we want: is it because we have a crush on them or love them or even hate them and we want the play to act out part of a fantasy of that relationship - real or imagined?

Respect boundaries, and push to have yours respected. D/s creates additional rules to live by. And whilst there are a lot of general guidelines they tend to be exactly that - general and guidelines. Some people are very protocol driven and like having specific rules, some people hate that. A group can seem to be operating at random, but really there are lots of things going on under the surface. As perverts, we have unconventional set ups and need to accept that people have created patterns of living that might exclude what we want. Especially if we in turn want to have that level of exclusivity for ourselves. There's a lot of quid pro quo in these suggestions, but especially in this one. If you want people to take how you live seriously, then treat them in the same way.

I know it's hard, but be honest. It's not always the best policy, but most of the time, it is. Doesn't make it easy though, does it? We struggle to say the truth. We might be ashamed of it, of our "dirty little secrets", we may worry how we come across or what other people think of us. There is rarely any kindness in lying to someone about your intentions if the end result will hurt them more. To say "I'm not interested in playing tonight" when you really mean "I don't want to play with you tonight" will be discovered. I know. I've both had this happen to me, and, to my shame, said it myself. Because I thought I was being kind, because I was embarrassed. I would say to myself that I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings, but really I didn't want to hurt mine, I didn't want to feel the sense of reflected upset you fear from refusal.

Accept the consequences of your actions, apologise if needs be Kind of like being honest, but I wanted to be really specific about this one. Whatever we do, however we chose to behave, and you do chose your own behaviour, ultimately, it has an impact on those around us and we need to accept the consequences that come with it. It's really easy to shrug off blame, to point the finger elsewhere. But we're all just people. We will not be perfect, we will fuck up and things will go wrong. And if it does, we need to say sorry, and mean it. This is something I've always struggled with - and probably always will. I'm proud and I hate being in the wrong. I find acknowledging and apologising for something that I have done which has upset or messed around with someone else - especially if I care about them. Equally, we can accept that our decisions have amazing, wonderful consequences and we should revel in that, really taking the time to enjoy the good things we have created.

Chip in and spread the love, if you have a mind to do so.

Sex and money

2011-07-15T21:10:00.003+01:00

Last weekend saw my first paid-for BDSM client, and it's taken me a little while to gather my thoughts on the subject. That, together with a rather hectic schedule has meant less time for the blog - admittedly part of this lack of time has been doing an awful lot of wonderful kinky things, so I can't complain.

I'm going to try to track my thoughts on what I've been loosely couching as a kind of temple prostitution, though frankly I'm unsure why I need to make that distinction. The decision on what to name things creates a framework for how they are viewed. Think of porn versus erotica, or whore versus courtesan. And so we have here, a delicacy of language covering a simple transaction. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with that, even though I am using the income to pay for my own personal ritual. I don't want to be seen as deliberately, disdainfully distancing myself from other kinds of sex work, whilst at the same time I feel a little awkward about placing myself in that category. I don't want to be snobbish. I don't want to appear to be cloaking myself in a mantle of "trendy" feigned disrepute to garner some sort of kudos.

I am in a qaundary, and I still haven't resolved that. Ultimately, I have a day job, with a reasonable salary. I did not need to do this. But I chose to for my own, somewhat selfish desires. And yes, I wanted to do it to see if I could do it, to see whether my skills were valuable in the market, whether I could professionalise what I did for pleasure, and to see how it felt. I was an experiment, in many ways one of the last, great things undone in my own sexual exploration - to tick the box marked "has had sex for money."

Even that doesn't quite ring true, because what I actually did (what I may continue to do every now and then, time and clients permitting) was performing service dominance for money. There was no sex in the vanilla traditional sense, no "penis-vagina fucking" as I often put it when drawing the line in the sand. And no kissing.

I didn't do much of a fanfare - I used personal contacts, this blog and twitter to source a few people who might be interested. After a pleasingly short time I had three offers, one from a close friend, one from a (mostly) stranger who I had met at the strap on party and one from someone who had been following this blog for a very, very long time. An apt mix, I felt. After a few email exchanges back and forth I booked in one person, another decided my rates were too expensive and another booking is still to come.

I decided that I would try to tailor each session specifically to the client, essentially the service I was offering was fantasy fulfillment. We met twice for lunch, and discussed what he wanted. I spent a lot of time emailing backwards and forwards, we developed a two week long orgasm control / denial routine with detailed reports sent through to me. It was quite a power rush, aside from the intellectual thrill of control and the realisation that what I had to offer was creating such feelings and responses. It was also somewhat strange. There were clear, formal boundaries that I would not have had with my partners. Boundaries that actual became very important to me in maintaining my professional and personal self.

As the day of the session approached, I started to get nervous. Some of this was performance anxiety, after all, aside from the fact that this was not an insubstantial amount of money, I also had the responsibility of delivering to someone a very intimate, sexual fantasy. Something that clearly cut deep and was very dear to them. Money aside, I really didn't want to fuck that up for them. Finally, as I made my journey over to the wonderful Murder Mile Studios, I had a twinge of not-quite-guilt. Specifically, I wondered whether I should feel guilty, whether I should be perhaps ashamed or feel bad for doing something "wrong". The latter thought was brief, and vanished quickly - though I did wonder whether I might feel bad afterwards.

I was right to pick the space that I did. The professional and well kitted out dungeon space does wonders for any last traces of nerves, it's strange perhaps that these gothic settings, with their cages and leather straps meant to terrify actual reassure me. But then, I am going to be the one on top. I'm not going to describe the session in any particular detail, but comment briefly on my surprise by quite how into the experience I got. I had imagined that, given this was a transactional exchange, and that I really did not know or have a "relationship" with the client aside from professional that I might have been abstract, cool and removed. Far from it. Once he was stripped, naked and tied down, under my control, his flesh became mine and I developed a focused possession of it - enjoying using, abusing and discovering all the little tweaks and twists.

At the end I was tired, it was a two hour session with a fair amount of physical activity from my part, and I was pleased that I'd timed it to allow for a close embrace and space for him to come down. I handed over a little "goody bag" with some fruit and lollipops, for sugar, then let him out of the building.

Then I was done. Just like that.

I had a strange light-headed feeling, the kind I sometimes get after a rather intense session, a feeling of invulnerability, of having overcome and pride in my achievements. I swaggered on my walk back home. Later there was also had this sense of benevolence - I'm not quite sure what else to call it. I had given him something no-one else ever had. I've received a couple of very beautifully worded and positive feedback, which make me smile when I read them, another powerful head rush to see the impact I have had in someone else's life.

The first time

2011-07-11T22:45:00.002+01:00

One of life's privileges, to give someone an experience that they have never had before, to turn the key in a lock and show them rooms within themselves that they only imagined, or hoped for. We are sometimes critical of newbies to the scene, forgetting that we were once new ourselves. I was very lucky in the people I met when I first arrived, they took me under their wing, introduced me to many wonderful experiences and were never patronising, never took advantage.

That's part of the reason why I enjoy playing with new people. But I'm not a natural altruist. I also like it because of the power trip, the knowledge that no matter what else I will always be the first. The one who did that. I'm also selfish - I select partners, regardless of their experience on the scene, based on attractiveness, intelligence and sexual outlook. The last part is important. And often it has nothing to do with experience, it's about a shared feel for BDSM which some people, no matter how many times they swing a flogger, will never have - not all kinksters are compatible with all other kinksters, regardless of perversions in common.

What this also means is that it takes more than a coffee and a chat to work out whether someone is a good match. I can certainly tell whether I find someone smart and hot once I've got them close enough to smell their pheromones, but matching up play styles is a practical problem. Or rather, an opportunity.

We set a date. Dinner then play. I do my homework, we exchange emails and I prepare a scene or five in my head that incorporate some of his desires and fantasies that interest me. The toys in my bag are a whistle stop tour of the kinds of kinks I think he might like. Tip of the iceberg. Taster platter. Rope, cuffs, ball gag, pinwheel, small dildo, little flogger, lube.

The "dinner" part of the evening is important, because it allows him to relax, normalising and contextualising the evening into something familiar. I want him to feel a certain kind of predatory seduction, and to be just on the edge of his comfort zone: familiar settings but with a twist. There is a balance to be struck. I make an impact in a form fitting cocktail dress and heels, the sort of thing I rarely wear and it throws him off-guard. Everything in the setting looks like a "normal" date: a boy, a girl, dinner, drinks. But certain things are decided - we will go back to his house, there will be sex (of sorts). This knowledge is a double edged sword for him, the certainty is a cause of anxiety. Other things are decided and he does not know about them, these also create nervousness. The veil of a dinner date helps calm these nerves somewhat, but not entirely dispel them.

When I get him back I make him strip slowly, in his front room. I play on his desire for service, putting him in kneeling positions, on all fours, inspecting his body, moving my hands slowly over it and testing for the delicate points that make him quiver or moan. His flesh and scent is new to me, uncharted territory, virgin snow for my explorations. I'm watching him intently for the little poker tells that let me know whether I've hit the spot. Biting lips, curling fingers, gasps, flushes of skin. Some things play according to plan, the ease and desire for submission, readiness to follow commands. Others are unexpected, pleasingly so - he responds well to pain, enunciating "ow" which makes me smile.

I prefer playing in non-bedroom spaces. The oddness of it, slight surreal nature and the humiliation too - here, amidst all of your things, I make you mine for a few hours. Bedrooms make it more intimate, private and safe. The bed is the "usual" place for sex, so I like to avoid them as much as I can. Especially other people's beds that smell of them and their sleep - too much animal comfort, too much natural anticipation of soft, warm pleasure.

The move to the bedroom is an interesting difference in our dynamics. For me, it signals the end of the night, I'm tired, done and ready to sleep. Playing with new people is more tiring than existing partners because you have to be more wary, more thoughtful - especially if they are new to BDSM and cannot give indicators in advance of things they like and don't like and how they might respond. As well as the physical aspect there is a lot of intellectual energy that goes into creating a scene, especially when you are attempting to make it look entirely natural and fluid.

For him, the move to be bedroom increased his desire and he became more energetic - he's used to fucking in bed, so the bed makes him think of fucking. Consequently, he doesn't sleep all night. Which is fine by me because it means he's awake and ready to give me head in the morning. Then make the coffee.

Towards masculine submission

2011-07-04T15:13:00.004+01:00

"It's not your fault. You are not the patron saint of submissive males."

This is true. I would be a terrible patron saint, starting with the facts that I am neither catholic or dead. Though the iconography and worship is pleasing. But my beatification aside, there is still something rotten in the heart of Kinksville. Submissive men are not getting a good deal, possibly through the reasons I've outlined before, but I also think there is more going on.

Several young men of my acquaintance have recently commented on their struggles to get a suitable dominant - go here for a beautifully articulated, and personal, online starter for ten. To be clear, I know people on all sides of the wobbly, variable kink / gender lines who struggle to find partners and as yet I have not found my knight in shining latex, but I'm (very) happy to enjoy the ride.

Submissive men do get play. The recent strap-on party was well attended by many male submissives who all (I believe) got a good fucking. Public clubs, such as Pedestal also caters to those tastes, but sporadic public play is not the same as finding a compatible partner, especially to a submissive, and I use the word specifically to mean "not a bottom". Submission means D/s and that needs a relationship of trust with an ongoing, supportive power-exchange, these are not easy things.

I think that male submissives struggle to find partners partly because of the conflation within our society of masculine/dominant and feminine/submissive. The structures in which we live encourages these behaviours. Worse, depictions of the alternative are often crass, stereotyped and deeply unflattering. Dominant women are Cruella de Ville, submissive men simpering curs. Power is exciting, so our Cruellas are still somewhat sexy, although evil, the submissive less so unless they are female because under these rules submission = feminine and feminine women are more attractive, right?

So much, so fucked up. So how do we unfuck it: how do we as a community of kinksters and as participants in human sexual explorations move beyond these problems?

As a lover (and fighter) of submissive males - canonisation pending - I'm going to propose a few ideas, please feel free to add your own. Note that these are not things that I think only women should do, but rather everyone - it's very easy to blame either the female dominants or the male submissives for this situation, when it is in fact the scene as a whole that creates and supports certain behaviours which limit the scope of male submission.

Male submission is masculine: This is the stuff that I find particularly hot, so this is a personal one. It's also the one I don't understand anyone not finding gobsmackingly attractive. I love hyper-masculine submissives. Alpha male is a known weakness of mine, those sets of muscles bowing to me and me alone. But that's not the only sort of masculinity I enjoy and there are all kinds of masculinities. Male submission does not begin and end with forced feminisation (we're getting into the "feminine is submission" area here). I'm working with Mr Smith at the moment on his anxieties over being seen as "weak" for submitting in public, especially seen as weak by other men. Literally emasculated. Which is a crying shame because I find nothing quite so manly as the ability to hand over that strength of body and mind to someone else. Me, in this case. So here's the deal - don't call male subs feeble and I won't set my army of buff, combat trained male minions to show you exactly how strong male submission is.

Support the sexy: Men generally don't get as many compliments on how they look. This can lead to generally feeling a bit uncomfortable about presenting as sexual or available, it can also lead to a failure to recognise themselves as visually attractive sexual objects. There is an assumption amongst certain corners that submission itself should be the attraction, regardless of such facile things as looks. Other, "twuer" dominants might subscribe to this purist attitude, my tastes are more superficial and firmly in the gutter. I like sexy men to look sexy, anything that increases the amount of sexy submissive men is good.

Recognise your prejudices, try something different: We all have our own predilictions, things that we think we like. Often we don't try new things because we assume that we won't like them. Assumptions are prejudices, and they can be wrong. They can hamper and curtail us. We are all prejudiced by the dichotomies outlined above. I'm not saying that everyone should do things they don't want to do, merely that preconceptions are a poor basis for selecting sexual partners. Give it a go.

Boy on boy bonus points: Women play with women. We develop skills, relationships and much more, from that play. It's how Mannequin and I got started. Public play is the availability advertisement, like it or not, and from the looks of things, women are much more available. In my social group, women play with women a lot. I do not see as many men playing with other men and given we are roughly 50/50 that's a lot of chaps on the sidelines. I feel like a sleaze (I am a sleaze) for suggesting it, but the fact is that if there was more boy-on-boy the world would be a better place.

Tribe and not tribe

2011-06-30T11:08:00.008+01:00

We walked through the club like a pack. Mannequin in a collar, the lead held lose in my hand. Dandy, Boy Wonder, Rossetti, Ringmaster, Hedwig and more. The club is in a beautiful venue, marble floors, spacious dance floors lit up, music playing. Pretty girls in pretty corsets carry pretty cupcakes. Pretty boys flex their abs and parade around in little shorts. Dancers and circus performers cavort on the staircases.

We walk past them all. They are nice, but they are not what we are looking for. We head downstairs and into the dungeon. We are perverts, after all and we are here to play. And play we do. For most of the night we are the only players in the space and we spread out, taking full advantage. We are exhibitionists and there is no shortage of voyeurs.

I strap Mannequin to a bench and start to beat her. Alternating hard strokes with pressure on her clit. I get caught up in the moment, in the direction she is heading as she cries out. In the beginning I enjoy playing to the (mostly vanilla-kink) crowd that has gathered, making her cry louder to court the attention, but then it starts to become distracting. Then annoying. Someone tries to talk to me as I am applying little clothes-pegs to her labia, another person squats down, about a foot away from her exposed cunt, staring as if he had never seen a woman that close before. A woman tutts disapproval at what I am doing, gesturing for her friends to come and look. They then leave hurriedly.

We spend the time we are not playing standing at the edges of scenes, guarding the rest of The Collective from those who are treading too close. I have to take one of the bar staff aside and have a quiet word after he groped Mannequin's (perfect, round, understandably tempting but absolutely mine) naked bottom not once but twice. His eyes widen like saucers as I explain to him what she is to me and why he needs to go and apologise.

Although perhaps from the outside it seems like chaos, like a decadent free-for-all our behaviours are actually very controlled. We know who will play with who and how and to what extent. Where to push and where to give way. I understand how it might be confusing - to see all these mostly naked people seemingly passing bodies and kit around as if they were sharable dishes at a banquet. But what was most revealing was how I felt about the group, something that was highlighted further to me over cocktails last night with Chiaroscuro and Hedwig. The connections that we have formed are not precisely friendships and they are not protocols for play. They are both those things and they are also are more than that. They are my tribe.

Other people are not.

The word can be difficult for some to stomach, with its associations of football hooliganism, island mentalities and parochialism. It's often used as a criticism of cliques, but cliques have their strengths, importance and value. We feel safe in cliques and empowered by them. It is wrong to think of them as a "natural" thing, although humans are social animals cliques are created, managed and maintained. Social anthropology aside (it's not my area of expertise) group dynamic is an incredibly important thing in all social situations, and more so in BDSM situations. The right balance is something we are always striving for, the perfect mix.

I, along with others, act as a procurer for my tribe. When I meet people for coffees or drinks or ice-cream part of my brain is assessing them for suitability not just for myself, but for the group as a whole. Will they be a good fit, might they have fun playing with this person or would this other person respond well to them? Certainly there may be those who I will play with in isolation, but, like meeting the parents, entry into the group and by extension group play, is required of my partners. They must fit my tribe, not just because that indicates they like the things that I like - remember the tribe is a manufactured thing based on deliberate choices we have made about our kink - but because I live in the tribe. It is my social circle, my friends, my extended, created, self-selected family. The Photographer did not fit with the tribe (and did not with most of my vanilla friends either) and that caused me no end of loneliness as we splintered off into our little bubble which eventually popped.

I'm not going to apologise for this sort of passing judgement - after all, I have my own tastes and desires that need fulfilling and I am not a public service or a democracy of kink. I will take what I want if I can get it - and I do. I'm also not going to apologise for the process of judging and rating either, although it may rankle with a geek culture that incorrectly assumes blanket acceptance is better than elitism, or that "leaving people out" is the ultimate sin. This process is part of what we do, or should do, as socially aware and responsible perverts - the old school assumption that the "vouched for" system has died a death could not be further from the truth. It's just not as formal.

There is a reason that cliques form and a reason they crumble. We grow together as well as our own separate journeys of kinky development and as we do people move in and out of our circle, becoming closer and further away from us depending on where we are in our lives. Sometimes this process is easy, other times less so. The people who I play with, and the people who I play near, are those who I have chosen to be extraordinarily intimate with. I am truthful with them in ways I cannot be every day. Some of them know (and accept, even love) things about me that my family never, ever will.

Later that night I walked Mannequin around the space, arms around her waist, piloting her movements. We view the models in their heels, make-up and carefully constructed fetish wear. I whisper in her ear: "these are all the girls who are not as good as you." The feeling of her being mine is intense, a mixed bag of protection, control, desire, lust all wrapped around a core of authority. Feelings like this, perhaps not as intense, or not as intense in that way, extend to the whole group. I want to protect my tribe, to ensure it continues, to nurture and support those within it, to defend it from others.

Tribe. You know who you are.

Ladies Night

2011-06-25T12:15:00.004+01:00

I have a confession to make. Until last week, I'd never been to a hen night before. I have been to and enjoyed stag parties, with their focus on curries, running around, drinking heavily and baying at the moon. Hen nights, however, less so. Amongst my vanilla friends I am somewhat infamous for my "excuses" to get out of them. For whatever reason, they hit all my dislike buttons and I need to battle with English politeness rules in order to negotiate my way out of a social corner.

It's a combination of many things. First, it is almost certainly going to be an all-women event with women who I do not know and therefore am not prepared to deal with. Following an exceptionally ugly teenage tenure of being bullied I still retain a certain twitchiness around other, unfamiliar women. In my day-to-day life I can deal with this by simply ignoring them and living in a bubble of various types of superiority (justified or not, I'll leave that to you). I can, of course, flash the charm when I need to, but generally, and especially in situations where I have no real interest in either the people or what we are doing I don't. I'm selfish - I have a limited amount of time in this world and only want to do things that are fun, amusing or interesting. Which brings me on to the activity. These do tend towards the kind of ostentatiously public girly activity that I general avoid like spa days and cupcake icing. I prefer to keep both personal grooming and baking as private indulgences. And finally, in the interest of being crushingly honest, there is the element of sour grapes: not only am I not the centre of attention, but the reason that I am not is because someone else has found the love of their life and they are having a massive party to celebrate. Naturally this will rankle with any exhibitionist.

It was with a quantity of interest, therefore, that I received an invitation to appear at a kinky hen night organised by two new acquaintances. There is a certain element of what goes on tour, stays on tour about such events, which does clash a little with my usual internet honesty. With that in mind, and with the fact that I know how salacious (and saleable, we decided we could have funded the entire wedding based on a pay-per-view webcam stream of the night) the idea of a dozen kinky women, clad in their underwear, in an apartment somewhere in London must be I can hardly avoid writing about it.

The plan was to offer "sex education" to the hen - who I had never met. This instantly dissolved the issue of the irksome activity and on one level it felt very much like a private performance gig, which, combined with the fact that I had been selected to attend, indulged my ego to the extent that I was very keen to attend. Clearly, this was the way to make hen nights palatable, in fact, once the day came around I was excited, enjoying spending the few days prior planning what kit and what sort of play I would offer. I didn't know who was going to be there or what level of kink they would be up for. Whatever I did, it needed to have an element of showomanship, group participation and also be easy to access with the opportunity to ramp up to eleven should said access prove too easy. That meant pallet wrap and a violet wand together with their "natural" accessories: pinwheel, point metal objects, glass dildo and vibrator.

Because I didn't know who else was going I was unsure what precisely to expect, so I initially planned to arrive, do my thing and then take the last tube home. I'm glad that was one of the several assumptions that was subverted in the course of the night. There is a myth, supported by almost all forms of media, that women gathering together will watch romantic comedies, drink bad white wine, discuss tampons and men, eat too much ice-cream and then have a gentle, giggling feather falling pillow-fight whilst clad in their bra and pants. There will be bitching, crying and someone will vomit and need their hair holding back whilst over the bathroom. I can confirm this myth to be untrue, at least in kinky circles. There was alcohol, of course, served in pretty tea cups and saucers. We did discuss "women's things", though not tampons. We talked about our relationships, our loves and lovers, coming out to our parents, being queer and not being queer. And yes, there was a lot of lacily clad flesh on display once the latecomers had received their forfeits and the night was officially underway. No-one was hit by a pillow.

After we had all delivered our "advice" to the hen, who now ranks as one of the most glamorous women I have ever seen in the flesh (and what flesh, the range of amazing bodies on display was one of my favourite moments of the evening) the night started to warm up. I took the violet wand upstairs to prepare a space on the bed and soon had a mattress full of giggling women who wanted electrocuting. Feeling like the mad scientist I have never trained to be but can mimic quite entertainingly I ran through the different attachments and power levels, having a lot of sadistic glee over the way that the shocks travelled through adjacent body parts. From there different sorts and styles of play emerged and one of the things I enjoyed was simply lying back and watching. Whether it was seeing someone suffer from an extended period of clothes-peg torture, then holding them still as they were wrenched off, feeling my heart leap as the tears came (I do love tears) or listening to the growls and curious animal gasps from red stripes of pain caused by a misery stick - a thin plastic wand for flicking at skin. I made a mental note to get several of those. We also engaged in some make-and-do by mummifying one of the guests as a present for the hen - mummification is always so much easier when you have friends to help you.

Eventually, after a slow taxi ride home with the hen, still looking extraordinary, in the pale, white morning light I fell into bed at some point around 6am. Grinning madly to myself and looking forward to booking in plenty of future dates with my new friends, as well as hopefully introducing them to The Ladies Who. Another step forward in world domination, I feel.

Buckle up

2011-06-21T12:39:00.003+01:00

So there he lies, more naked than naked. Mr Smith, all skin, cooling sweat and four, black leather cuffs. Mine. The cuffs make them mine, more so than anything with perhaps the exception of a collar. Anyone can be fucked, or beaten, or tied. We all have our little peccadilloes, the sights and sounds that call to our particular kink. These are mine. The marks of slavery on ankles and wrists, that turn a body into an object of use.

One of my personal indulgences is to have a submissive in my bed in the morning to use as a passive sex toys, perfected tools for satisfying my own desires. To take and take again, without need to deliver anything in return. My pleasure, should be their pleasure. No words should be needed. Just a slight readjustment of my body and then their hands should be on my clit or, better yet, roused from sleep by a mouth lapping at my cunt. The cuffs make me think of that more, and as dominance, like submission resides in the mind as much as the real world, that makes me come. Hard.

After I'd used him to bring me to orgasm, then fucked him I undo the thick, padded leather buckles that he sleeps in. I've recently been thinking a lot about cuffs and bondage, having purchased some lovely lockable ones which are much more reassuringly hefty than my current sets. I like keeping my pets in bondage over night, though reactions vary. He enjoys it, but then he has a high tactile requirement: extensive hugs, strokes and general petting will keep him softly submissive for hours on end.

The cuffs are secure reminders of my control over him and act in a similar way, wrapped tight between four points of authority. I don't always fasten the cuffs to anything - although I do often tie ankles to bedposts or clip them to each other - the presence of the cuffs is enough, their heaviness and weight, the way they identify a body, otherwise pristine and without visible harm, as a body that is owned and kept.

I like putting on cuffs slowly, taking my time to pull the leather tight and buckle them down firmly, it reminds me of placing tack upon a horse before you ride it. The importance of preparation, the smooth flow of fingers, leather and skin. As each silver buckle is fixed in place and each little padlock closed with a click the submissive becomes more and more mine. I get angry if any attempt is made to remove them without my permission, and even when they do need to come off I have to do it myself. The hand that places them, must be the hand that removes them - encircling the time and space that I have with my pets in the specific action of buckles and leather. Ritual of ownership and control.

Collars are similar, but more potent. Collars are special, we all know that, whether you subscribe to traditional collaring practices or not, the collar has its own provenance. I have a plain, "play" collar and I'm careful to make distinctions between a collar I might use to fasten someones neck and head to things, or hold a hood more firmly in place and a potential future specific collar. They are things to work towards, prizes to be won and worn with absolute pride. I've seen the one that may well be for Mr Smith, assuming that we make it that far: a heavy, smooth metal affair, made to sit cool and hard on the neck of a muscular man.

Mannequin has a pretty brown leather collar, bought from a pet shop, of course. Perfect for her small, lithe frame. Slim and lightweight, it sits easily around her neck. I enjoy pulling her hair back from the nape of her neck and fastening it in place, brushing her skin with my fingers as I encircle her. With the collar on, she is more mine, even if she is not with me. I received a note from her over the weekend, whilst she was away, that she was wearing the collar and it made me smile, as if I had her held in my arms.

Which in a way, I did.

Morning coffee contemplations

2011-06-21T12:13:00.006+01:00

This is a now familiar routine. I am taking breakfast alone following a night of kink with Mr Smith who after some pouting and bemoaning his status as a wage-slave rather than the better kind, got up, dressed in a slightly crumpled shirt (that makes me smile), suit and tie then left the house. I masturbated then fell asleep for another couple of hours.

When I woke up, for the second time the bed and house is empty, the warm flesh that was by my side is gone. It's just me. I wander downstairs, make coffee, slice fruit and sit in the sunshine, still naked and smelling of sex to spend some time by myself, thinking.

Time by myself is a luxury and I revel in luxuries, trying to enjoy as many of them as I can. I'm having a moment of that sleepy headed sense of personal satisfaction. What is the point of the world if you cannot indulge your vices and make yourself happy? I have, over the years, had my share of sad times, but they have taught me to push hard, and "push" is the right word, with all thanks going to Majeste for what she has taught me in pressing for resolution and clarity.

The more you push, the more you realise you can push - dominance is always pressing at the edges of what is possible, after all. But there's more than that, the more I make clear what I want, the more I refuse anything other than absolutely precisely what I require from my kink, my life, the better it gets, overall. Yes, there will be some things that I will lose, but that is the acceptable risk. I have always been an all or nothing kind of person and spent many years upset and frustrated by the second-best or half-hearted options of things that were almost good enough.

I'm done with that. I've been done with that for a while and I have no intention of going back. Things worth having do not come naturally or easily, they require work, input, thought and effort. Which makes them all the more satisfying when they finally come right.

BDSM takes time - I probably spend about a third (if not more) of my waking hours doing something kinky, whether it's actual play sessions, planning, emails, blogging or "just" thinking about it. That in and of itself is hardly a chore, after all, I love what I do, the harder parts come when other people are involved: you cannot shy away from difficult conversations. The longer you wait, the harder it will get to have them and the less useful they will be.

I spent the weekend having two very different conversations with wives and husbands. In each instance I was presenting what I wanted. The first, with Fenrir, was the briefest and most amusing agreement ever reached, everything is fine as long as we don't hospitalise each other. The second, with Mr Smith and his wife was much harder. I needed to explain my D/s and help her understand what I needed from him. I laid out very clearly what I required in terms of time and commitment, as well as total exclusivity within the time that I had with him, with no interverntion from her barring absolute emergencies. That led on to an interesting discussion of what actually constituted an "emergency", which then went on to a wider conversation around our very different approaches to time management and work versus personal and social lives.

I think she was thrown by the realisation that I was not prepared to compromise. I had no intention of asking them to change their relationship - other people's marriages are not my area of interest - but if I couldn't get precisely what I wanted, I was ready to walk away. With some sadness, of course, but nowhere near as much as the frustration and sadness of constantly attempting to dominate someone from a position of anything other than absolute control.

I am not idle or passive with my kink, I spend a lot of energy "making things right", and not just as a dominant within the context of a scene. Over the past year or so I have ordered myself and my world to the point where I can have multiple partners - something I never thought I'd be able to do again after The Photographer, I'm even getting to the point where I can start to care deeply for those people rather than always feeling there is a part of my heart as yet unready. As well as time, D/s takes real, serious emotion. For me, that is the defining line between topping/bottoming and dominance/submission - the latter is an emotional relationship that goes beyond friendship or lovers.

I now know that my D/s is love, for me. And, like love, it runs deep. It's part of who I am, I'm more certain of that than ever before. I'm also keenly aware that the more you do it, the deeper it gets. I've been pretty far gone once, and I am both inspired and overjoyed to find that there is depth and passion on the dominant side as well. I have no idea how deep it goes, but I'm looking forward to the journey.

Apology accepted

2011-06-16T10:24:00.006+01:00

"You can't come. I haven't come yet."

There's a panicked gasp amidst his entwined moans and begging for orgasm. As he realises he is going to come, to disobey my newly instated rule, his legs start to jerk and thrash. Face down, latex hood closing out the world, he's trapped in his body and trapped in the waves of driving sensation.

I could, of course, always stop what I am doing to him - but where would the fun be in that? Certainly, I've been building him up to this. I'd spent the evening alternating between beating him with his own belt, using his mouth and fucking him with the strap-on as he lay on his back in the middle of the room. I wanted him to feel prone, exposed, so he was stomach up, legs parted and resting on my thighs to get the perfect angle, his arse rising to meet me as I gripped his shoulders and thrust. Once he was suitably tired, I took him upstairs, still blinded by the eyeless hood, bound him to the bed and started to fuck him once more.

Then, surprisingly, an orgasm started. I was pressing the large, beaded vibrator deeper into his arse, holding it inside him with my thigh as I lay on top of him, fingers on my (very wet) clit. Indulging in a little masturbation at the sight of him. I started to grind my hips against his legs, then felt the orgasm rise up out of his body, through my hand, stomach and out into the cool night air. I leaned towards his ear:

"Don't you fucking dare."

He strains to speak through the gasps and pants: he's sorry, he can't help himself, he can't, he can't, he can't not. Of course, he does. And when he comes, he comes hard: sweating, groaning and flailing. There's a part of me that's pleased: after all, I've just popped the cherry of Mr Smith's anal orgasm. Most of me, however is pissed off. I didn't allow this, in fact, I've been trying to curtail his natural, slightly lazy, lie-back-and-take-it tendencies by limiting his orgasm to a maximum of one less than me.

I feel a strange mix of elated, angry, let down and slightly shocked. I've already punished him once for orgasm without permission but this time is somewhat different. Obviously, there needs to be punishment, but equally obviously, I'm not entirely sure I want to keep paying attention to him. I stop everything that I'm doing and pull the vibrator roughly out from him, smirking as he winces. I adjust the ropes at the head and foot of the bed so he's tied over to one side. I am still hot with annoyance, so look around for a leather tawse and lay a few blows onto his upturned bottom. He grunts but otherwise lies still in a post-orgasmic slump, which only serves to make me more annoyed. The tawse raises wealts, red and thick, but I don't actually have the heart to deliver a sound beating. That would be effort and I'm disinclined to spend any more effort on him.

I get up, turn the light off, and without saying anything, get back into bed and curl up facing away from him, leaving him tied up, partly covered and mostly abandonned.

He starts to squirm and whimper. He's extremely tactile, and I know that refusing to touch or acknowledge him after such an intense orgasm will be difficult. I wait, in the darkness, as he blusters apologies, wanting desperately for me to reach over and tell him it will be ok, to hold him and wrap myself around him as I usually do before we both fall asleep. I'm having none of it. I retrieve a vibrator and start to masturbate, informing him that at least this toy responds to commands. I smile to myself as I watch him: tied a few inches away from me, groaning as he hears me sigh with my own pleasure, separate from him and his body. I like the idea of him waiting, for me to be ready to use him. It's a strange kind of voyeurism and exhibitionism: he cannot see me, but he knows what I am doing. I am enjoying the sensation of being desired and withholding that desire. Teasing, yes, but also deeply satisfied by the knowledge that at any moment, if I wanted to, I could do anything to him.

Eventually, brain full of the thought of perfected human toys, I orgasm and he utters a noise of displeasure, a pouting note of unhappiness. The climax flushes out a lot of my immediate personal frustration and calms me somewhat, allowing me to focus on what to do with the disobedient object to my left.

I slowly unbind the ropes and pull him out of bed. I navigate him into the bathroom, roughly, letting him bump a little into the walls as we go along, then put him on his back in the bathtub, kneel over his face and let him believer for a moment he can lick my cunt before rising up slightly and pissing into his open mouth.

"If I can't rely on you for one thing, I'll find other ways for you to be useful."

I smile as he splutters a bit, then starts to swallow. When I'm done, I turn the shower on, setting it to cold and wash myself briefly before soaking him thouroughly until I can see goosebumps. He shivers and brings his arms up to protect himself, then curls them to one side. I turn off the water and step out.

"Goodnight."

I turn off the light and shut the door. A plaintive cry of "Don't leave me to sleep in the bath!" follows me into the corridor and I do my best not to giggle. I shut my bedroom door and listen to the noises of mild, sulky complaint echoing out of the bathroom.

After I've decided he's had enough I turn the light back on and lay a warm, dry towel over him. I gently remove the hood and help him out. It's a slow process, he's shaky and unsteady. I rub him down, reminding myself once more why he's a horse and I hold him close to me before leading him to bed.

Penetrating gender

2011-06-14T00:10:00.002+01:00

Lying in bed next to Mannequin, arms wrapped around her, pulling her slight frame into mine and pressing my thigh between her legs. I want to fuck her, to be able to take her, penetrate her with a part of myself.

What I absolutely did not want to do was have to leave the nice warm girl in the nice warm bed, wander around in the dark until I found the strap-on harness, put it on, find a dildo, put it in the harness and then get back into bed. That would, as one might put it, rather ruin the moment. I want to slide inside her, seamless, perfect, without pause or reflection. To casually reach over and have what is mine as easily as picking up a glass and lifting it to your lips to savour the taste of wine within.

It's not, let's be clear here, penis envy. Either in the psycho-sexual or practical realms. I don't want flesh as such, or to swap this body for a boy's (well, maybe for a day...). It was very much about the impromptu desire, the need to do it there and then without recourse to kit. I don't want a cock as a permanent fixture it just would have been handy right then. And neither do I want one as a demonstration or emblem of power: as a dominant, I already have the power that freudian analysis attributes to that oft over-inflated member.

As I thought about this more, it became muddier. Because I also felt that this need was "masculine", yet I feel the same kind of drive towards my male submissives - if anything, the desire expresses itself as more aggressive, less seductive, more forceful and certainly more violently physical. How did that work? After all I don't perceive them as "feminine" in fact they are very masculine men. To compound this, I realised that when my dominance is in full flight and I'm seeing the world through dom-space, I do not view Mannequin as the feminine (although she is a very beautiful woman) receiver to this "masculine" desire to penetrate.

They are my submissives. They are amazing bodies that I own and want to express that ownership in a very, very physical way. Thus the tropes of masculinity that I am sensing are the hangovers of a society that conflates masculine with dominance. Those particular elements within the sensations and desires that I am experiencing feel "masculine" because in my mind all the words around the act of penetration are associated with masculinity: force, power, thrust, take. I spent a lot of my submissive journey trying to unpick the associations of femininity and submission and how that sat with my tomboyish self. I expect that there is a similar reconciliation to be done here with dominance and gender.

As an addendum, and flirting in the same territory, I played a trick on Mr Smith over the weekend, lying on my back and coyly encouraging him to fuck me, missionary style. He couldn't. Poor thing. Arms around my shoulders, cock inside me but he knew something wasn't right and his body responded accordingly. He became tense and awkward as the mixed signals competed for attention. Even as I made him describe how it felt, made him think about things that were in deliberate contrast to his desire to submit, I could feel him slip away. There was a look of relief and (eventually, when I'd had enough) release after I'd pushed him onto his back to ride him.

Fucking him in both positions gave me the sensation of "penetration" even though, technically, he was penetrating me. The precise physicality of fucking doesn't seem to matter. Context is everything. Because he associated missionary style, boy-on-top with a more powerful mode of behaviour, for him, it didn't work. His penetration of me did not make him dominant towards me, but my dominant feelings towards him meant that I could still feel that way even with him on top, because I was in control. All the more so because he was struggling with the situation.

When we fuck, the connection created by our bodies is a channel through which runs the power exchange. Like electricity through wire. Making everything light up. It is the D/s balance I have between myself and my partners that mediates the way the fucking feels: the push and pull of owner and owned. It isn't about who behaves like a boy and who behaves like a girl, although those are certainly masks we can wear. It's about who takes and who gives.

Deep down, this has been something I've known for a long, long time. Even right back when I was in vanilla relationships it was always the (kinky) images and ideas of control in my mind that informed my experience of sexual pleasure. Now I have the power to make those fantasies of into realities, whilst wearing whatever attributes of any gender I choose.

Walk like a slut

2011-06-08T12:56:00.003+01:00

Ah, I appear to have gotten political again. And annoyed. As some of you will already know I am going to be at Slutwalk this Saturday, please feel free to come and say hello.

My reasons for going are quite simple - I am very, very bored of people thinking that what a woman wears is an advertisement for sexual advances. I am also deeply bored of the abhorrent idea that an item of clothing is a red rag to the bull of rape. It is incredibly patronising to everyone concerned that this should still be part of our culture. And yet it is. Even in leftist media.

Slut-shaming, victim-blaming and the phenomenon of "asking for it" throw together everything that is ugly, unwarranted, stupid and sexist about our attitude to sex and sexuality. Not only does such negative and wrongheaded thinking actually prevent people from enjoying better sex (great article from The Pervocracy here) it also stops us, via classic misdirection, from really tackling the genuine problem of consent.

Because there is a problem about consent. Certain local authorities have recognised this fact and are working on it. Kudos. This is the problem with consent: lots of people don't seem to know what it means. They can't possibly know what it means. If they did then alcohol consumption would not be a factor, what someone wears would not be a factor. Neither gin and tonic nor tiny dresses can consent to sex, so we shouldn't assume we can fuck someone because of those things.

In almost any other situation except sex we would never automatically, innocently assume or infer consent (though we might do it to trick someone into agreeing, but that's a different problem). If we truly want to know the answer we would ask. And even then, we would judge the response on context and err on the side of caution. Who assumes a business deal has been agreed to based on the type of suit the other person is wearing? And if that deal was agreed over an awfully boozy lunch, might you also want to get a confirmation when they were sober before proceeding?

Perhaps we in the BDSM community could assist in this matter, after all, consent is our bread and butter. We tackle difficult issues of consent frequently, including areas of dubious legality, where our desire to do something is at odds with what it is legal to do. I wonder if we could promote the way that we approach our most successful sexual relationships - discussion, negotiation, existing frameworks and networks of support - to place a different, better emphasis on active, positive consent.

I'm not suggesting that there are never any problems within BDSM, merely that perhaps we already have a useful toolkit for avoiding them and should talk about it more openly. In the meantime, I've got my hotpants and I'm going walking.

Vanilla lies

2011-06-06T19:09:00.003+01:00

An unexpected visit from my father on Sunday brought back a lot of unpleasant memories of the conversation I had with my mother where I told her I was queer and dating a woman. Neither my Mum nor I have raised the topic since and I'm mentally filing it as "least said, soonest mended." No doubt we are both secretly hoping that the other person will just get over it, albeit in rather different ways.

As it turns out, and as is often the case, my Dad and I did not discuss matters personal, but concentrated on important things like going for a curry. That didn't stop me from going ahead with the necessary physical arrangements (remove kinky items from house, wear clothing that hides tattoos) and the less necessary but seemingly unstoppable emotional churn.

I hate having to lie to my family, even by omission. I feel like a Judas, albeit on a small scale, betraying my own identity and erasing those who I care about in order to safeguard the feelings of other people I care about. These vanilla lies are not white lies, though they can seem that way on the surface, and they do cause the least harm but they reveal the disparity between who I am and who my family thinks I am. Between the kind of happiness I want, and aggressively seek for myself, and the kind of happiness they think I should have.

At least we all agree on the happiness front. And on some level, there is overlap. Like them, I would like to be settled down with a loving man, a nice house and all the trimmings. But within that house, behind those closed doors the world looks very different. As Mannequin said to me last week, and I reassured her it was true: "If you get married, will your husband allow you to keep pets?"

I would have certainly thought so, but the question is where do I put them when my family comes to visit?