Reactions, Denial, and the Blogroll

I really need to update the links on my blogroll on this blog, I noticed a few of them don't exist anymore. This is pretty sad for me as I really enjoyed those blogs, so I'm sad to see them cease to exist.

Anyway.

Recently I've been being amused by people's reactions.

The boy has been on orgasm denial since December. He has not had an orgasm (aside from nocturnal emissions, which I do not count because I am neither ignorant of anatomy nor excruciatingly cruel) in 2010. Being that it is now the end of April, people's reactions to this can be pretty amusing.

Without fail, they will be astounded or amazed at first. Then they will either proclaim loudly about how they could never do that, never go that long without an orgasm - or they will smile, sometimes a little shyly, and say that that's kind of cool.

I never used to be interested in orgasm denial - I only got into it because it interested the boy. At first it was just extended teasing, then denial for a couple of days, then a couple of weeks, then a bit over a month. At this point, at four months, I can safely say that I've become a complete convert.

The strangest side effect of it has been that I am more secure in our relationship. I feel like I truly am dominant over him at all times, because I am controlling his sexuality at all times.

This means that - as we are polyamorous - that even if the boy has sex with someone else... he is not allowed to come without *my* permission. He also should not ask for permission. Oh he *can* ask for permission... but I'm always going to say no.

And all this... all this leaves me feeling very secure in our relationship. How can I feel jealous, how can I feel possessive, how can I feel threatened or afraid or even just a little worried, when I control the peak of his sexual pleasure? And more importantly, when he *consents* to me controlling the peak of his sexual pleasure?

Yes, I'm definitely a convert. And I keep joking about making the boy wait an entire year before his next orgasm, so it would be in December this year. But every time I say it it feels a little bit less like a joke....

Responsibility

Responsibility is a pretty big part of D/s and Leather. Whether it's being responsible for your submissive, or being responsible for fulfilling your duties to your dominant, it's a pretty important part of this type of lifestyle.

Recently I have been coming into a place of further responsibility towards my community.

Over the last couple of years, but much more intensely in the last couple of months, I've been approached by people. People asking my advice, my thoughts, my recommendations. People asking for my help. People finding comfort and safety in my company.

While a large part of me is stunned at this, being that I am but a baby of the world (I am only 24 years old), I am doing my best to not respond with self-deprecating nonsense. I am doing my best to not say "But why me? I'm crap!" or anything like that.

Instead I am doing my best to take this responsibility seriously.

If people are coming to me asking for help, it is my responsibility to take that seriously. To listen to them, to do my best for them within my abilities. To care for them as much as I am able to do without compromising myself.

If people look up to me, it is my responsibility to do my best at being a person worth the faith they put in me.

It is, of course, not my responsibility to demand an unreachable standard of myself, by any means. But I believe I can find the balance between being a person who holds up to people's ideal of me being a person of good regard - AND being able to care for myself and allow myself my human flaws.

Or at least, that is what I am aiming for.

Differences Between Boy and Slave

My boy is my boy, he is not my slave.

For a lot of people in D/s relationships, the line between D/s and M/s can be very blurry. For others, it is so far apart it's ridiculous to think of them together.

I'm a terrible black and white thinker. I can't do it. I just... don't think in black and white, at all. Black is just very dark grey, and white is just very light grey. They're there, but they're on a spectrum. This is how I see most things in life, and D/s is no exception.

This post is not meant to explain all the differences between boys and slaves. As with everything in life (ah, here is my grey thinking) it all comes down to the people involved and how it works for them.

But for us? Definitely my boy, definitely not my slave. I am his Daddy, his mentor, his guide, his partner, but not his Master.

I think one of the key distinctions for us about this is that rather than control the boy's behaviour or life, I support him and encourage him to build his own. This doesn't mean that I don't tell him what to do a lot - on the contrary, he has a bed time and set gym times, and I can order him to do something at any time of day - but it does mean that I don't utilize that to its logical conclusion. I do not desire to do this for him, and I think even if I tried, he would resent it.

I do not tell my boy who he can socialize with or even when he can socialize. He is free to make his own connections with other people and to interact with them however he likes. Sometimes I will make suggestions, for example I have told him I would like him to attend the local submissive's munch when he can, but they are suggestions, not orders.

I encourage my boy to follow his heart and do what he loves. I do not seek to control that for him. I encourage him to work as he likes, play as he likes, see who he likes, experience life as he likes.

Were I to have a slave, this would not be the case.

In a slave I would expect to have rights over their life (within reason - some people's hard limits may involve things like "no removing me from my career" for example). I would have no qualms sending them to TAFE to learn skills that would be useful for me, modifying their bodies without asking (shaving heads, for example), or installing annoying protocols in their lives that I find arousing (not being allowed to use furniture, for example).

A part of me feels odd laying this out here on my blog for people to see, because the truth is that I'm a very flexible individual. I am open to most types of relationships with most types of people. I like that no two relationships are the same. I like being able to build a relationship from the inside, rather than going in with expectations.

But after a lot of self work in the last few months (well, last few years really!) I find myself in the position of actually seeking a slave. And it means that I have very clear ideas on where a slave differs from a boy - after all, I already have a boy.

What it does seem to come down to is the level of control and authority. While I have an enormous amount of control and authority over the boy, it is not total, nor would either of us wish it to be.

I do not seek to mould the boy into any particular type of person; rather, I seek to assist him in fulfilling his potential as who he is and who he desires to be.

That, dear readers, is a very important difference.

In a slave, I want near-total control and authority. But that doesn't mean I want a doormat, which I am finding means that I am having trouble finding suitable people. I want a slave who is stubborn and ambitious - the type of person who, while they do seek to be a slave, seeks to be the best possible slave they could be.

I'm looking for the elusive slave-minded person who thinks, "I won't settle for being locked in a cage all hours of the day, only used for sexual service. I can be so much more. I can be anything, I can be amazing. I can and will be the most impressive slave anyone has seen. People will compliment my Master on how incredible I am. Master will wonder how he ever did without me."

To be fair, I do actually already know someone who thinks like this - but he is one of my best friends, so that isn't going to work ;)

Eight Hours Leaves Me Sore

At a local event on Sunday night, the boy and I were out for eight hours. I'm quite fucked now, unsurprisingly.

It was a really excellent night. We pooled money together with a couple of other people and bought two people at the slave auction, who we tied next to each other and four of us went around them beating them up a lot. It was amazing, and they totally won the masochistic lottery... having at two people beating on you at any given time, sometimes three? Winners all round. Both of them are total pain sluts too so we could go really hard on them which was a lot of fun. It's been so long since I had that much fun doing impact play - I've been a little off impact play the last year or so, it hasn't been worth the effort, but last night was totally awesome.

Then I tied up and suspended this gorgeous girl and it was one of the most enjoyable amazing suspensions I've ever done, we had this amazing chemistry. When I was initially tying her up she would lean back into me, and when she was up and I put my hand on hers to see if her hands needed to be untied (checking the temperature), she grabbed hold of my hand and entwined her fingers in mine. And at the end she kind of puddled against me on the floor and we cuddled for a little while.

I feel energized from it all, I think perhaps I haven't been getting enough BDSM in my life recently, which is a little odd considering I live D/s. But it can be very easy to let things slide a little, and considering my libido has been extremely high recently, probably not that weird that I've needed bigger doses than usual.

Sorry this entry isn't more interesting - I'm still recovering!

Snippet

Boy: I need to get out of bed.

Myself: I can help you, if you want.

Boy: I don't like it when you help.

I tickled him until he got out of bed. :)

Marking Territory

Let's talk about something much, much more fun.

Recently I gave my boy orders that once he has used up his current supplies, he is only to use scent-free deoderants, shower gels, aftershaves etc. My reasoning for this is that I'm rather like a dog - smell is extremely important to how I perceive the world.

And what do dogs do? That's right, they piss on things so that they're theirs. A dog can smell their own scent on something and know that it belongs to them.

Now, I'm not actually going to piss on the boy. Firstly, neither of us get particularly excited about watersports, secondly, I don't particularly like the smell of piss, and thirdly, it would be awkward sending him off into the world always smelling of piss.

But I'm still going to mark him with a scent. I'm either going to buy, or more likely I'm going to make, some kind of cologne/perfume. Then when I see him, I'm going to spray him with it. That way he'll smell good, and every time I smell his good-smelling-goodness, I will be reminded that he is mine, and he is wearing that scent for me.

The only hard part is actually picking a scent. I'm quite partial to things that smell like baking, or things that make me want to eat them, so I've been tossing up between vanilla or artificial strawberry. That way there's either delicious irony, or strawberry lollipops. Although it has been suggested to use both, which I might do, which may well end in the boy smelling like strawberry cupcakes.

I'll keep you updated. :)

Life and Death

BDSM is dangerous, squeals the media.

BDSM is safe, squeals the kinksters.

The truth is that both are correct.

Last night, after performing suspension totally safely and without any hiccups for years, I had my first emergency.

It was nothing I did wrong. Everything went fine, until the bottom became overstimulated, perhaps a little motion-sick, and had an endorphin dump, and became nauseous, light-headed and dizzy.

When this happened, everything continued to go fine, in the sense that it was under control. A couple of wonderful bystanders helped hold the bottom while I cut the ropes and we lowered her to the floor. We cut the ropes off her, checked her responses, let her slowly recover before giving her some water and a cookie.

Fortunately, she was fine. All that was damaged was the rope I had to cut. But it reminds you, doesn't it?

There are risks to what we do. Sometimes, even if everyone involved does everything right, things go wrong. When they do, it's best to know what the hell you're doing... and also to know when you're over your head and need to call an ambulance.

In a sense, I'm grateful for last night, because it reminded me that I am paranoid about safety for a reason. My paranoia has almost certainly helped me avoid being the type of dominant that has frequent emergencies. And it also reminded me that there are risks to what we do... and that sometimes even if you do everything right, things might go wrong, so you had better be prepared.

Build it and they will come doesn't always work.

I'm excited about an upcoming exclusive play party. It's being held at a very large, very awesome venue, later on this month. I've been trying to convince everyone eligible to come that they should, because it will be a great experience.

Whenever I try to convince friends to come to things I enjoy, the inevitable question is raised:

"Will there be any other queers there?"

At which point I need to shuffle awkwardly, say "Well I'll be there, and my boy, and I'm sure there will be at least a couple of others too..."

Queers (at least the type that people mean when they ask if queers will be there) aren't very common in the pansexual kink scene here in Melbourne. Sure, there's a handful of us who are at every event, but in the bigger picture... most of the kinky queers either stay in the dyke scene or the gay scene. The exceptions being, of course, bisexual & pansexual folk (who are often not welcome in the dyke/gay scene) and some transfolk (though many transfolk stay in the dyke/gay scene anyway... usually whichever one their assigned birth gender matches, unfortunately, because trans politics has a long way to go in the world).

And of course the question of "will queers be there" means "I only want to go if there are other queers".

Which is awkward. Because if queers aren't there, queers won't go, and if queers won't go, queers won't be there.

You can see the problem with this.

I really do wish that queers could handle the idea of trying out the pansexual scene, even just a couple of times, without worrying too hard that "it's full of straight people". Just come out and have fun. Bring a friend, that way you won't be alone with the scary heterosexuals.

I do understand the desire to be with other queers. I have it, too. But sometimes it's worth venturing outside the ghetto. You never know what you might find.

Rope

I am a rope top. I flag grey on the left whenever I am flagging.

I am spiritually, emotionally, psychologically connected to everything I do. Rope is not unusual in that capacity.

But with rope...

Rope feels like the serpent swallowing its tail. Rope is the red string between lovers' pinkie fingers. Rope is strength and ugliness and beauty and it's a gladiator pacing in their cage as the crowd screams for blood.

Rope is an extension of me. Rope flows from me in ways that I cannot describe, ways that people do not believe until they see.

People see me when I use rope. They watch my hands and my face and they feel everything that is happening. People talk to me about my rope work more than anything else. People ask about my rope work more than anything else.

People ask to be beneath my rope, in my rope, between my rope... more than anything else.

Rope is my martial art, the one that has replaced karate.

Rope flows from my feet and my chest, rope gives me control over every situation. Rope is hard, soft.

There was a beautiful moment once, when I was to bind a submissive, and I had the choice between handcuffs or rope. After a moment's consideration, I chose the rope, because I knew it would be faster.

Rather than mess with buckles and keepers that are so delicate and precise, I throw my rope. Two seconds, bound arms behind the back. Safe, secure, and with more precision than I could ever wield a buckle.

I know my rope.

Tomorrow I have a suspension. Tonight I went over my rope, laid it out, ran my hands over it. Checked each and every part of it, so that it's ready for tomorrow.

I know my rope as intimately as my own body.

I know every piece. I know how long it is, just by looking at it, even in a messed up pile on the floor. I know how old it is, and who treated it, just by touching it. I know which pieces are are safe for suspension, and which pieces can only be used for simpler ties. I even know which piece was used on every body it has ever touched, whose body it was, where the rope lay.

I own a lot of very high quality rope. My rope collection alone runs my toybag value to about $900 Australian. I have amassed it over time, ever since I was eighteen years old.

I often wish I had less expensive tastes. My tastes run to hemp. There is nothing 'better' about hemp, or jute, or cotton, or nylon, or any type of rope. It is all about preference, and what speaks to you. I still remember picking up my first piece of hemp. It was love at first touch, and I knew nothing else would ever compare.

I still have my first piece of rope that was bought purely for bondage. I often wear it as a belt, keeping it with me at all times, so that I am always prepared. It is not hemp, it is a nylon rope, bright red in colour, ten meters long. I keep it braided in such a way that should I need to use it, I pull one of the 'threads' and it comes undone in a flash.

Rope is my soul.

More Problem Solving

I've been thinking about what I said about airing dirty laundry and showing how we resolve things in relationships, and I think it's a valuable thing to do. So I'm going to do another post about it.

I'm going to talk about a recent thing, a only-a-couple-of-weeks-ago thing. It became a problem that we weren't playing.

See, things have been rough recently. A dear friend of mine had a huge problem and so I rushed to his rescue as much as I could. The boy has been working full time. My health has not been at its best. So of course, things slowed, and we hadn't been playing (or fucking, but I haven't been in the mood and the boy is on orgasm denial until further notice, so that's not as big of a deal).

I did my best to make it work. I tried to insert five minutes of play here and there, little bits and pieces to make sure we still had some playtime, even if it wasn't much.

Then we had a fight.

Now, when I say "fight", I should say, it doesn't look like most people's fights. When the boy and I fight, it's really more of a discussion. Not even a heated one. It seems to follow a formula.

The formula goes like this:

Person with problem (hence PWP): Hey [partner], I have a problem.
Other person (hence OP): Oh, really? What's wrong?
PWP: Well, I am having [this problem].
OP: Oh. That sucks.
PWP: Yes.
OP: Would you like to elaborate as much as you can on the problem, so I can understand it?
PWP: Yes, my problem is [longer explanation], and there are also these [details].
OP: Okay, let me see if I understand this problem. You are having this [problem, rephrased in OP's own words to express what OP has understood], as well as these [details, also rephrased in OP's own words]. Is that right?
PWP: Sort of, there are also [these issues that are related].
OP: Oh, I see! So there are also these [issues, that OP rephrases into what they understand]. Is that right?
PWP: Yes, that's about right.
OP: Well, [here is my take on this issue], and here are [the problems I am having with it]. Also I feel [this way] about this problem.
PWP: Yes, I feel [like this].
OP: All right, let's talk about how we can fix this. What do you need to resolve this problem?
PWP: I'm not sure, but I think [this] would help.
OP: All right, let's do [this]. Also I have [these suggestions].
PWP: Oh, I like [one of those suggestions]. Let's do that as well.
OP: All right! Also, I would feel better about all of this if [this concession] was made for me as well.
PWP: Yes, I think that's reasonable.
OP: Good! Is there anything else we need to figure out?
PWP: No, I feel that we have resolved this.

Obviously, when it is not a script on a page, it gets more complicated, and if it's a heavy issue there is often some crying. Sometimes I get angry, and I need to go for a brief walk before I am able to calm down and communicate about issues properly. Sometimes me or the boy is crying too hard, and needs to have a cry and a cuddle before we can communicate properly.

If you are familiar with the concept of 'fair fighting' in relationships, you might see a lot of similarities. This isn't because we intentionally try to follow the fair fighting 'rules'... it's just that this way of communicating works extremely fucking well.

So away from the script and back to the real life fight we had.

The boy needed more play. He said the little bits and pieces we were doing wasn't cutting it, and it felt like as soon as he got into it, we stopped.

I felt a little hurt by this, as I had been doing my best to make it all work.

So we talked the issue around in circles for a while, and for a while there it looked like there wasn't a solution. We've had that occur a few times in our fights and let me tell you, it is the scariest god damn feeling.

Anyway, part of the problem we discovered is that sometimes we have incompatible desires. Though we both have broad tastes, kink-wise, our favourite things do not tend to overlap. This can make getting into it difficult, as well as all the other problems (such as time and health etc).

So we worked out a compromise.

I committed to at least one half hour or longer block of solid play with him at least once a week. He also committed to trying some of my kinks that he's not into, but I'm not sure where that's going to go.

But about this commitment I made. I didn't want to make it, and the reason I'm telling you this is because there's something we don't talk about much in the sex positive world - sacrifice.

Now, admittedly, this isn't a big sacrifice. Oh no, I'll have to have loads of kinky fun with my boy, at least once a week? Terrible thing! But, I didn't want to commit to it - because doing so meant that I couldn't just go "oh I have a headache", it meant I couldn't not be in the mood all week, it meant... well, it meant a commitment. And commitment is scary.

I bring this up because this is a common problem in people's relationships. That of conflicting needs or desires, where someone might be required compromise.

I love my boy and I want us to work - and more importantly, I want us to be happy and fulfilled. And here's the important part when something like this comes up. You have to ask yourself: "Is my partner's happiness worth this?" "Is my relationship worth this?"

If it's a good relationship and your partner isn't asking much of you, there will be no hesitation in being able to say "yes, of course", and make the commitment, make the sacrifice, make the compromise.

We all need to get our needs met. But that goes for both people in the relationship. Not just them (making you codependent and unfulfilled) and not just you (making you selfish and leaving them unfulfilled). Both of you deserve to have your needs met and some of your wants met.

Also, to keep things in the relationship happy, I find that you can work compromise both ways - notice how above, I didn't just say I'd play with him once a week, but he also said he would try some things I'm into? If you feel you are sacrificing something, make sure you are getting something in return. If the relationship is good, it won't be difficult to work that out.

This turned into a very long post. But I really hope that you enjoyed it, and just maybe it will help you in your own relationships.

By the way, tomorrow is our three year anniversary. :)