Subspace, Fear and Survival

Clarisse Thorn recently wrote a gorgeous entry about subspace, a state of mind common to bottoms during BDSM play. For clarity, I'm going to call on Wikipedia:

During the scene, the intense experiences of both pain and pleasure trigger a sympathetic nervous system response, which causes a release of epinephrine from the suprarenal glands, as well as a dump of endorphins and enkephalins. These natural chemicals, part of the fight or flight response, produce the same effect as a morphine-like drug, increasing the pain tolerance of the submissive as the scene becomes more intense. Since the increase of hormones and chemicals produces a sort of trance-like state, the submissive starts to feel out-of-body, detached from reality, and as the high comes down, and the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in, a deep exhaustion, as well as incoherence. Many submissives, upon reaching a height of subspace, will lose all sensation of pain, as any stimulus causes the period to prolong.

I can't speak for the science of it. Anyway, I prefer Clarisse Thorn's description, and I feel great about quoting from it heavily:

When I’m starting to go into subspace it’s just soft and dark and slow. But when I’m really far under, I’m totally blank. Falling. Flying.

Somewhere else.

...

What is it, where do I go? It’s just submissive, masochist headspace. But I don’t always get into subspace when I submit, and I don’t always get into it when I take pain either. I’m not sure what the other ingredients are: some amount of trust, of course. And strong feelings about my partner make everything more intense … way more intense. Orders of magnitude more intense. Still, I’ve had new partners put me under with surprising thoroughness.

It’s a lot like deep sexual arousal — hard to think, hard to process, hard to make decisions — but the deepest sexual arousal does not put me anywhere near deep subspace. Deep subspace is. More. Than anything else.

This has been bothering me since I read it yesterday. I expect to be moved by her writing, and I was, but this piece left me feeling sad. A little lonely, a little mournful. And I realized, I was mourning, just a little bit. I haven't felt like that in a long while, and I haven't wanted to until I read that description.

Subspace can be risky. Clarisse addresses this, noting both that many people have trouble saying no or using a safeword when in subspace, and that there's a scary amount of emotional vulnerability involved. She talks about having to learn to slip in and out of deep subspace in order to respond to partners' check-ins.

For me, it feels very dangerous. Subspace feels like one big yes - like I want to say yes to anything. My defenses are down, and I am just happy to be being good. This can be exhilarating. If you, like me, are a person with a history of saying yes when a resounding No and fuck you would have been more appropriate, it can also be very, very bad.

For the last couple of years, anxiety that I might lose all control - that I might betray my best interests, again - has kept me almost entirely out of deep, trance-like subspace. This has been fine by me, since it's made it easier to look out for myself. On the rare occasions that it happened, it would be with someone I trusted utterly, who I knew wasn't going to push me, and who had proven, time and again, that they put a high value on my happiness. (I am thinking specifically of Mina.) Even this has been no guarantee, though. I have an ugly tendency to start to head into subspace, panic as I feel myself give up control, and veer abruptly into Trigger City. (See the sights! Bring the family!)

So, subspace: it is a loaded subject for me, apparently.

Instead of moping, though, I've tried to do some productive thinking. Like Pollyanna, I have been playing The Glad Game - that is, focusing on what I have to be glad about, rather than what I have to be sorry about. In the interest of my continued gladness, I'd like to extoll the virtues of my drug of choice: fear.

I want my BDSM play to be like watching a horror film. I want to be shocked. I want to be left in suspense. I want to be kept guessing. I want empty threats, and the creeping suspicion that they may not be empty after all. I want sharp and shiny, blunt and heavy, weapons I can imagine piercing and breaking me, and weapons that are all the more frightening because I've only glimpsed them out of the corner of my eye, and I don't know what they could do. I want to close my eyes, and then realize that just listening is worse. I want to be wretched, breathing shallowly, unable to look away. I want it to scare the pants off of me. I want to know, all along, in the rational part of my mind, that I'm going to be just fine.

Here is what I love about fear: the rush. I love getting hit with adrenaline. I love the alertness, the clarity of it. I love the way it narrows my focus to exactly what is going on in front of me (or behind me, or on me).

I love that it makes me feel helpless, in a way that's external. I can be afraid for myself, rather than of myself.

I love it for being the opposite of how I experience subspace. Subspace is about surrender. Fear is about survival. Fear reminds me that in spite of my socialization, in spite of my eagerness to please, and in spite of how difficult it can be to put my own needs first, my survival instinct is alive and well.

Subspace is about my play partner: what they do to me, how I feel about them, where they take me. Fear, in this case, is selfish. It is about me caring what happens to me. Right now, that feels incredibly powerful.

And now, since I'm taking care of myself, I am going to get some sleep.

Boundary Rant

I'm really bad at having limits.

I mean, in practice, I'm great at having limits. I'm like the queen of limits. I have a whole bunch of them, and most of them shouldn't be pushed because they're backed up by triggers. I'm good at negotiating, I'm good at articulating why certain limits are in place, and I'm getting better at using a safeword before I start to completely freak out.

I'm not bad at communicating my limits to other people and insisting that they respect them; I am bad at having limits. I'm bad at living with needing them. I'm bad at not hating myself for having them.

Yeah.

I got the idea from Arthur that good submissives don't have limits. They will do anything. Even if they aren't comfortable with something, they will not only suck it up, but they will get off on the idea of doing something they don't want to do for the sake of their dominant partner. In my head, there is an Ubersub out there who will do every single fucking kinky thing and like it. Incidentally, she is also every other partner that all of my past and future partners will ever have. So, it is a pretty major failing, that I am falling short of this.

I could get into how this is irrational and untrue, but why bother? Of course it is.

I blame Arthur for this, to some degree, and not just because it's fun and easy to blame him for things. He definitely trained me to feel lots and lots of shame at refusing him anything. I've always bent over backwards to be accommodating, though, since childhood, and I've always felt a degree of anxiety at having wants and needs that might interfere with someone else's. (My mother told me recently that she and my dad used to worry about that.) Arthur exploited this tendency, but he didn't create it.

I'm also going to go ahead and blame, y'know, This Culture That We Live In, in which women in general are taught to accommodate, to put others' needs before our own.

And this is why I spent most of the last couple of days in a trigger-happy state of panic, convincing myself that no one will ever want to be with me because having limits makes me essentially unlovable.

I can't honestly give him the credit for this, but if Arthur had done this deliberately - had made it so that asserting my boundaries can be triggering - it would have been truly masterful. No pun intended.

I know, even when my brain is flooded with panic, that having limits is universal, and that asserting them is good. I find it really attractive when someone can articulate to me what they want and can handle. I've dated and played with people since Arthur, and none of them has ever behaved as though I've disappointed them. This is all on me now.

I barely identify as a submissive anymore, partly for this reason. (You got a better blog title? The Masochistic Maven? Whatever.) For me, the expectation of obedience can be dangerous. Saying yes too quickly, too often, can make it harder to say no. I've also realized that I can't always handle activities that go along with submission: taking orders, using honorifics. And not being able to handle it makes me feel bad about myself, and then we loop back around to the beginning of the post and start all over again.

This is why I go on and on about consent, and negotiation, and giving yourself permission to say no. It is not just because every single person needs to hear it: it is because I need to hear it. I need to hear it over and over, until that message is louder and clearer in my head than the one that says I should feel ashamed for dictating what other people can do with my body and mind.

I am trying to stop worrying and love my limits.

Best present ever!

My darling friend - who would like to be called Bastian because, like the character in The Neverending Story, she is privy to my wacky adventures without participating in them - just got me this shirt:

In case y'all can't tell, it's the Bronte sisters. Charlotte and Emily are checking out the hunks in Byronic magazine, and Anne is grumpy because her sisters' taste in men tends toward the brooding and assholish. Anne wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the first novel to deal with domestic abuse. It's awesome. It is way more awesome than, say, Wuthering Heights.

I feel that this shirt also does a good job of depicting my actual life, as the jerk who ruins everyone's fun by saying things like, "Blue Valentine was basically The Notebook, only this time you were supposed to think he was abusive."

You can get your own Bronte shirt here. You should also check out the comic that it's based on.

Anatomy of a Negotiation

I'm back on my soapbox. It's been awhile. I've been in the process of moving to a new city, and then in the process of traveling up and down the west coast to visit friends. The former was terrifying and all-consuming, and the latter has been wonderful and also all-consuming. I spent some good time in Washington, and, in between drinking great local beer and trying to spot the stealth vampires, I had some time to think about how the BDSM community fails us all. My favorite pet peeve.

I've been thinking about something that happened at a play party I attended just before I left my last city. I had been chatting with this woman for a while, when she expressed interest in tying me up. I hadn't planned on playing that evening, but I was enjoying her company, and I happily agreed to it. Once I was tied, she got pretty handsy - not in a way that I found to be wildly objectionable, but in a way that fell outside of the mere tying-up to which I'd agreed. Let me be clear: there was an established party safeword. I trusted that if I used it, she would stop, and on the million-to-one chance that she didn't, the twenty-odd people in the room with us would notice and step in. If I'd raised any objection, I'm sure she would have respected it. I wasn't upset; I was just noticing that we were having a less-than-perfect interaction. This woman did everything else right: she expressed her interest in a respectful, no-pressure way, she checked in during the scene, and she made sure that I felt good once she'd untied me. I think that the reason that the groping went unmentioned when we were establishing what we wanted was that she honestly didn't think to separate groping from tying up. I'm sure that, in her experience, no one has objected to it - and I was no exception.

Someone I know was in a similar situation recently, at a different party, with a couple of guys who proposed a tying-up scene and then started in with impact play without asking. It seemed like the two guys, both of whom were new (their first party) had spent the evening watching other people restrain and beat up their play partners, and had gotten the idea that that's the unspoken rule of how things go. It makes sense in that environment, especially if you've got no other point of reference. That tying up leads to spanking leads to whacking with whatever implements you can get your hands on is as natural an assumption as kissing leads to groping leads to sex. Which is, oh wait, a totally fucked up assumption.

Both parties are regular events, each with a list of rules that guests are supposed to read before attending. One list is more comprehensive than the other, but both include basic precautions for safety ("No blood in the air.") and privacy ("No photographs without explicit permission."). Both of them mention negotiation, but not at length, and not enough to prevent the kind of misunderstandings that I mentioned above. Hyde and I were discussing this, and we thought that it would be a nice idea to include some negotiation guidelines with the party rules, as an aid to newcomers, and to ensure that everyone is on the same page. It is deceptively easy to believe that we are, most of the time, since play is supposed to follow a simple formula.

Here's the formula: boy meets girl, boy politely asks girl if she would like to play with him, girl consents enthusiastically, boy and girl negotiate, boy and girl have a mutually satisfying time playing, show-stopping musical number.

There's something missing from the narrative about how to go about playing with someone. Namely, what the hell is negotiation?

Is it when someone takes some hostages, and Samuel L. Jackson has to talk them into releasing the hostages? Sort of. In BDSM, as in the cinema, being a good negotiator does make you a total badass.

In very basic terms, negotiation is when two or more people talk about their wants, needs, and limits before a scene, so that they can come to an agreement about what the scene will entail.

Unfortunately, knowing what negotiation is doesn't make a person good at it. It certainly didn't make me good at it. Learning how to articulate my wants and needs so that I know my partner can understand them, making sure that I understand my partner's wants and needs, and trying to do all of that in a way that isn't a complete buzzkill, has been an ongoing challenge for me. Too bad that it's one of the most important skills you can have, as a play partner or as a lover.

Still, I have learned a good deal in the past couple of years, and I'm going to do my best to articulate it. Below, I've written up some makeshift rules for negotiation. I'm tailoring these more for negotiations with first-time partners, or for individual scenes, not necessarily for entire relationships.

Tell your play partner what you like.

Tell your play partner what you don't like.

Likes and dislikes can go by degrees, so be as specific as you can. For instance:

"I like being pinched, except on my inner thighs."

"I like the violet want, but I can only take it for a few minutes."

"I like being spanked, really hard, until I bruise."

"I like being called names, but don't call me 'toy'."

"I like being called names, especially 'whore'."

"I don't like being bitten, so you can use that as punishment, if you want."

"I don't like pain, but I like proving that I can take it."

"I like being spanked because it turns me on; I like being slapped in the face because it makes me afraid."

Tell your play partner your limits.

This is different from what you like and don't like. These are things your partner should never do. Even if it's something you don't think they'll do in the context of the scene, mention it. (I, for instance, have to tell all of my play partners not to touch my solar plexus. Yes, it's unusual. Shut up your face.)

Talk through what you'd like to do together.

Come up with a list of activities that's good for both of you. You don't have to outline the whole scene if you don't want to, but you should both (all) have some idea of what to expect.

If you haven't talked about it, it's off the table.

It's always worthwhile to say this out loud, before you start. If you're in the middle of a scene in which you've explicitly agreed to handcuff your play partner, drag him around by the hair, and flog him until he begs you to stop, you don't get to start biting his neck, even if it seems perfect at the time. You don't know what affect that's going to have on him, and he hasn't explicitly agreed to it. On the other hand...

Establish whether surprises are okay.

Before you start playing, ask your partner if you can do something that you haven't explicitly negotiated during the scene, as long as it isn't one of their limits.

Check your assumptions.

Do you always have sex with your play partners? Do you always kiss them? Do you always call them sir? Or slut? Do you always give them orders? Do you always punish disobedience? Think through what you expect in a play encounter, and then ask about every element of it, even the ones that you think you can take for granted.

If you think you're going to need some kind of aftercare, ask for it beforehand.

Again, you want to be on the same page.

Set up safewords, and make sure both know what they mean.

Even if you're just using the stoplight system ("red" means stop), I have heard so many different versions of what "yellow" means. Does it mean "stop that specific thing you're doing"? Does it mean "check in with me"? Does it mean "I'm almost ready to stop, so start winding it down"?

Remember: negotiation can be sexy.

You are talking about what you want to do to each other. How is that not foreplay?

And then, of course, you may not be able to tell your play partner about your likes and limits, because you may not know yet. (As I've said before, I've been in the position of having to reevaluate and re-learn what I like and can handle, so this is fresh for me.) In that case, let the other person know that. Talk about what you're curious about, and feel free to ask them to check in with you. Remember that safewords are awesome, and using them when you need to makes you look good.

These are my initial thoughts. I'd love to hear what anyone else has found helpful to keep in mind. I'm hoping to do something worthwhile with this eventually, in the larger world.

Icky Kinky Fiction

There's some upsetting stuff described in this one, so be warned.



A few months ago, during a bout of flu, I read Story of O. A friend had loaned me her copy, and she and her boyfriend (both kinky) told me it was incredibly hot. In a way, I feel lucky that I read it while I already had the flu; I feel certain that otherwise, Story of O would have given it to me.

I could not have hated it more.

For the lucky readers who have never read this classic of filthy French fiction, a summary:

O gets picked up for a date by her lover, Rene. (I haven't figured out how to make accent marks using Blogger. Apologies.) He takes her to a crazy mansion in a place called Roissy, where she is dressed up in a big old-fashioned dress - which turns out to be the uniform of the women there - and is then chained up, beaten, whipped, and raped repeatedly by a group of masked men, one of whom is Rene. O is understandably distressed, but since she is intensely devoted to Rene, she gets into it, since she figures out that this is what he wants from her. She spends a month in the mansion being trained - meaning that she serves as a sort of maid, until one of the men decides that he wants to have sex with her, at which point she's supposed to be completely available to him. There's also a lot of anal stretching, described in loving detail. [I did have to have a conversation with one of my friends in which I explained that it's still rape if she doesn't consent to it and can't say no, yes, even if she secretly likes it. I'm very upset that this conversation had to happen.]

After a month of this (and I am leaving out so much seriously upsetting stuff), O gets to return with Rene to the real world, where she is a successful fashion photographer. Now, however, she is his slave, as evidenced by the fact that she isn't allowed to wear a bra anymore, or some boring, stupid garbage. She also has to wear a ring with a certain symbol on it that will be instantly recognizable to anyone who spent time at Roissy. If a man recognizes this symbol (and there are only male doms and female slaves at Roissy, big shock) and decides that he would like to have sex with the wearer, she has to let him, no matter where they are and what else she's got going on at the time. [It's worth noting that this is not a good use of Chekhov's loaded gun on the mantle in act one: no one ever solicits her because of the ring. It's just there, a sick-making accessory.]

At some point, Rene reveals that he has an English half-brother, Sir Stephen (the "Sir" indicates a real title, for once), to whom Rene has decided to give O over. She'll continue to live with Rene, but she'll answer first to Sir Stephen. [I want to say that there's something Oedipal going on here, but I'm sure what the equivalent is when it's between brothers. Agamemnal? Whatever.] Sir Stephen beats up O a bunch, she decides to make him fall in love with her, he eventually does, and after a lot of agonizing, O decides that she likes him better than Rene. Eventually, Sir Stephen sends her off to this all-women BDSM household, where she gets to hang out with a bunch of ladies and get beaten up by the matriarch for a couple of weeks, at the end of which they pierce her labia and brand her ass with Sir Stephen's initials. Fashion-forward!

Oh, and at this point she's living with this woman Jacqueline that she has sex with, and whom Rene has ordered her to trick into going to Roissy against her will, so that he can make her his slave. O has pangs of conscience about this, but when Jacqueline is totally horrified by O's new body mods, instead of being super jazzed about them the way O is, O decides that Jacqueline deserves what's coming to her. Then there's a lot of stupidity where she, Sir Stephen, Rene, Jacqueline, and Jacqueline's younger sister go on vacation together to Sir Stephen's beach house or something. The sister falls in love with O and is miserable. Jacqueline runs off with a movie producer or some such person. Sir Stephen takes O to a party where she is naked except for an owl mask and everyone admires her, and she feels like the most submissive little flower in the pond. The end.

The end? Yes. Kind of. There's this weird little footnote about how there were two alternate last chapters, both of which were rejected by the publisher. In the first one, Sir Stephen takes O back to Roissy, where he abandons her. In the other, she realizes that he's about to abandon her, and tells him that she'd rather die than live without him, to which he consents. Isn't that sweet?

Okay, so the summary ran a little long, but I had to at least take steps toward conveying how revolting this book is. Holy cow. Also, she couldn't have a real name? Seriously? I read somewhere that O is a sometimes-used nickname for someone called Odile, but still. I mean, did it have to be so ham-handed? Did it? Did it?

Ahem.

I don't think I should have to spell out what's wrong with this, but I will, since I'm so rarely on the same page as other BDSMers. Okay, Rene takes O to Roissy with only a hunch and a hope that she'll enjoy it at all. There's no way she can consent to it beforehand, since she has no idea what's about to happen. Once she's there, she's not exactly in a position to consent, either, since she's chained up and getting whipped. It's not like she has a safeword. I'd say that it's lucky that she turns out to be a big old submissive, but I think that's as much conditioning/Stockholm Syndrome as anything else. You know what else is wrong with this book? Everything. All of it.

Really, the only thing I like about it is its history. Its author, Dominique Aury, an eminent writer and intellectual, wrote the first chapter (Roissy) for her lover, Jean Paulhan. He was a big fan of the Marquis de Sade, and had said at some point that only a man could write something that dark and filthy. Aury set out to prove him wrong (and also to make him hot for her). When she presented him with the pages, he urged her to turn the chapter into a novel and publish it. (This cleared a lot up for me about the writing; the first chapter feels like a passion project, and the rest reads like a writing assignment.) The 47-year-old author published Story of O under the name Pauline Reage, and kept her authorial identity secret until her eighties. I'm gonna say, I think this is pretty cool.

What bothers me more than anything, then, is the amount of attention the book has gotten, and continues to generate, among BDSM communities. It is embraced wholeheartedly as the standard of D/s erotica - a thought which makes me shudder. And then, when I think about it, the other go-to piece of BDSM fiction, the movie Secretary, is problematic for much the same reason.

Secretary tells the story of Lee, a woman who leaves the institution she was placed in after she is caught self-harming, and attempts to join the work force. Lee is painfully awkward and shy around people, but she excels at secretarial school and lands a job as the secretary for E. Edward Grey, a lawyer with a private practice. Mr. Grey is about as socially inept as Lee is, which he barely manages to hide by barking orders at her, criticizing her appearance, and generally being a terrible boss. Seemingly at random, he softens his behavior, and begins to give her orders of a more personal nature, designed to improve her life. Finally, after he punishes a typo by bending her over his desk and spanking her, the two of them begin a D/s relationship in the workplace that neither of them ever discusses explicitly.

I know I'm being a lot more vague about Secretary, but I do think that it, unlike Story of O, is worth checking out, and I don't want to give too much away. And yes, I love this movie even though it's rife with nonconsent and sexual harassment. I know that it's unfair to compare two works written about half a century apart, one of which was intended as some erotic fluff, and the other of which was intended to have cinematic merit. Still. Secretary gets some leniency from me because it is mindful of how not-okay the characters' actions are; these are two very fucked up characters who are somehow able to find love and stability in spite of going about it in the worst way possible.

I also know that I am going easy on Secretary because it was my first real introduction to kink, as I'm sure it was for many people. I saw it in high school and thought, "I want that." Full disclosure: I have a Secretary poster on my wall.



I understand that I can only be so critical of this movie when I have such positive associations with it. At the time that I saw it, too, I had no frame of reference for how BDSM was supposed to be. Secretary was it. I knew that the movie contradicted certain of my feminist and basic ethical values, but I didn't know that there was a different and better way to do dominance and submission, or at least I had no idea how to go about it. I can also understand that the same must be true of Story of O, for lots and lots of people. Probably also those ridiculous Gor books, which I have never read and yet feel fully entitled to mock.

This begs the question: where are the beloved works of BDSM fiction that are all about consent? That celebrate negotiation as a necessary - and hot! - part of kink? Why are the standard collective fantasies about actual rape and assault? This seems pretty fucked up to me, especially since the BDSM communities that I've seen do so little to promote consent as anything other than an annoying formality.

I wonder what would have happened differently if my first exposure to BDSM had been through a piece of fiction about enthusiastic and sexy consent, rather than one about being molested at the workplace. I'm not going to say that I would never have been abused, because that's simplistic and silly, but - I'm going to say this with the full knowledge that I'm about to go home and curl up in bed, under my porny movie poster - Secretary couldn't have helped. I don't want to put all of the responsibility for creating a sane dialogue around anything on any one work of art, but it's ridiculous that there aren't really any other mainstream options. Except, of course, for porn, which is basically Story of O Lite.

I think there's got to be a companion post to this that looks at elements of good BDSM fiction - what I would like to see. That's going to have to happen later, though, because this has gotten seriously long. (Yeah, yeah, that is what she said.)

When Good Etiquette Goes Bad: a short short story

I'm currently living in an area where manners mean a lot. By and large, people are friendly and polite as a matter of course. They smile at me on the street. They make small talk with strangers. After living here for over a year, I've started addressing older strangers as "sir" and "ma'am". It's a little old-fashioned, but it goes over well.

Unless I'm at a play party, in which case it is very bad form to assign those titles to someone with whom you don't actually have an existing power dynamic. Anyway, I don't want to be giving anyone ideas.

So I do a lot of "Excuse me, si... uh, 'scuse me."

I am going to be putting my foot in my mouth one of these days.

On Labeling Myself

One thing that keeps coming up lately is how I label myself. Since I've started labeling myself, I've been calling myself a submissive, and that's been varying degrees of accurate. For a long time it was completely true: I was primarily interested in being overpowered, in taking orders, in service, and in a system of punishment and rewards. That is a lot less true now. I know that a big part of that is my bad experience with it a couple of years ago. For a long while after that, I completely lost interest in submitting to someone else in any prolonged or serious way, and I've only recently started to think about wanting it again. That is, it's barely even a part of my fantasy life again; I just want to want it again.

That's probably another entry entirely, but the point is that it's barely accurate to call myself a submissive anymore.

It is still accurate, in a way, to call myself service-oriented, or at least to say that I'm into service, but I really shy away from doing that now. One really mundane reason is that I've been cleaning houses for money for the last few months, and that makes me a lot less excited even to clean my own house, much less that of someone who isn't paying me. The more insidious reason that I'm reluctant to say that I'm into service, though, is that I'm only into it in specific contexts, and a lot of people would love to take advantage of it.

Okay, let me be more clear. In a blog in which I talk about abuse constantly, "take advantage of" is pretty strong language. Here's what I mean by all of that: I like service, when it is eroticized. I like when the other person is also getting off on having me do things for them. I don't just get turned on by doing the vacuuming. (My job would be a lot more interesting if I did.) I know that there are people for whom the mere act of serving someone else is a total turn-on, but it just isn't for me. I don't necessarily want to make your dinner or scrub your sink; I want to please. I want to delight. Obviously, I want to arouse.

Here's the problem: most people really like to have things done for them. They want their dinner made. They want their sinks scrubbed. They want it for free. Heck, I want my dinner made and my sink scrubbed for free! If I found someone for whom making my dinner and cleaning my house was so intrinsically gratifying that they would happily do it for free, I'd be thrilled! I am not that person, though. And yet, as soon as I say I'm into service, I can see the eyes light up, and a moment later I am getting gleeful offers. When I try to explain the context situation, they say that it would be erotic for them! I could be naked while I cook! "No, thank you," I tell them.

It's hard to imagine ever accepting one of these offers; I think that service is probably something I'll reserve for intimate partners. After all, doing domestic service for someone who is in it for the free labor feels a bit like having someone fall asleep on me during oral sex. It's just humiliating - and not in the fun way. Not to mention that it is a dull-as-bones waste of my time.

On to: why no other label is good either.

Right now, I should probably just be calling myself a masochist. What I actually want is to have painful things done to me. The reason I don't use that label all the time is that I'm already tired of other masochists playing the who's-more-masochistic game of one-upsmanship, and I think that if I joined their ranks, I'd just be bringing it on myself. The other night, I had a woman ask me, very solemnly, if I'm a masochist or a pain slut. When said that I didn't know the difference, she explained that a masochist is into pain, but a pain slut is really, really into pain. ("I used to be a masochist, but I only recently became a pain slut.") I told her that I didn't know. Calling myself a masochist would just be inviting other people to challenge it - and god, will they ever - and I'm just not up for it.

Which leaves bottom. Bottom is true - and it sounds kind of cute! I feel like it's tough to take yourself too seriously when you're calling yourself a bottom. Am I being a jerk by saying that? Am I ignoring history and destroying context? Possibly. Very possibly.

On the other hand, bottom is just so vague, and seems like such a tiny part of who I am, sexually. It's appealingly neutral, but its neutrality makes it kind of disappointing to me. Not to mention that I switch, once in a blue moon.

I don't know. It was never reasonable to expect that my sexuality could be summed up with a word. Maybe I should stick with acronyms. SLUL: Submissive-Leaning UnLabeled. Or something like that.

The Fury of the Righteous (link time!)

When I started writing this, it was to fill a gap. I wasn't seeing what I wanted to see in terms of critical writing about the kink community. I hadn't read Clarisse Thorn yet. (Can I link to her in every post? Probably!) Until two days ago, I hadn't read Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed or listened to its creator's podcast, Kink on Tap. I'm not sure why I didn't listen to it before, except that I think I confused it with a different podcast that I tried and didn't like. I didn't give the blog a chance, in spite of the fact that everyone, everyone, everyone links to it, because I saw the name, and assumed that it would be about someone having all kinds of sexy sex in unexamined ways, and isn't the Master/Mistress of my passion an actual demigod? I was completely wrong. I feel like I should apologize to someone, and maybe I should apologize to myself for denying myself the absolute fucking thrill of reading posts like this incredible diatribe against the kink community.

[T]here is a fallacy, a lie, a self-protective disgusting self-consolement that the sex communities tell themselves to comfort themselves and hide their own massively, outrageously discriminatory practices[…]. And that lie is that those people simply “didn’t find the right space for them,” “wouldn’t fit in here anyway,” or some such bullshit. […S]ex communities do a fucking piss poor job of making it okay to want those things, and that in fact, sex communities are mostly filled with self-contented, complacent, lazy people whose actions make it clear they care more about getting their own lay than making it possible for other people to connect to them, or with others.

Miranda and I read it and gawked for a bit. I waved my arms around expressively. It feels so good to read that, we agreed.

So, go read it. I'm probably going to go comment on it.

How to Not Abuse Me

Ok, so I've been halfway through a post about Story of O, Secretary, and why we BDSMers are so into stuff that glorifies rape, for... gosh, an embarrassing amount of time. I plead NaNoWriMo, and how despairing that particular post makes me feel. So, a new post, quick and dirty.

This came out of a conversation I had with a friend pretty recently. Making up themey, literary names for people is fun, and I'm going to call him Hyde because he'd like it. Mina and I have played with Hyde before, and he and I have had a lot of interesting conversations about what works and doesn't work for us in the scene here. He knows about my (gasp) abusive past, and, the other day, asked me what differentiated abuse from business as usual, when it comes to BDSM. Since we've played, and since we're both total sex geeks, he's got a good idea of what I'm into - in particular, that I like pain and lots of it. Most of what goes on in BDSM would look like abuse to an uninformed observer, and would be abusive in a non-negotiated context. Spend enough time around BDSMers, though, and you'll probably develop a different idea of what's appropriate, healthy, and okay. It makes sense, then, that my friend, a dominant sadist, has been worrying that he could wind up abusing someone and not even know it. (Also, how cute is that? I love that. I want to give him a prize. The prize of knowledge!)

Clarisse Thorn wrote a wonderful article about taking anti-abuse measures within the BDSM community, and she includes a few definitions of BDSM vs. abuse. (You should also check out her blog, with which I am deeply in love.) Here's one, from a pamphlet by The Network/La Red:

The most basic difference between S/M and abuse is Consent. It is not consent if…
You did not expressly give consent.
You are afraid to say no.
You say yes to avoid conflict.
You say yes to avoid consequences (i.e. losing a job, losing your home, being outed).

S/M is…
Always consensual.
Done with respect for limits.
Enjoyed by all partners.
Fun, erotic, and loving.
Done with an understanding of trust.
Never done with the intent to harm or damage.

Just because you consent to play does not mean you consent to everything. You have the right to set limits.

Another list emphasizes intent (that both partners enjoy themselves and feel safe), risk-awareness, informed consent, and having done the research about/legwork for whatever activity you're planning on doing.

I can agree with these definitions, in general, but I thought it might be nice to talk about a few things in particular. I tend to do better with specific examples, since general rules like the ones above seem so obvious that it's easy to say, "Well, of course I knew that, and then not examine my own behavior any further. I should also add that there's a lot of debate about what's acceptable , and I've been surprised by the number of people I've met who are scornfully anti-safeword, for example. I believe that safewords are indispensable, but I know that some people enthusiastically consent to giving them up, trusting that their partner can read them well enough to stop or slow down if necessary. There's always going to be some disagreement, so I've tried to think of this as a list that I would give a potential partner, to keep it focused.


Tips for Not Abusing Susan

- If I've said no to something before a scene starts, it is off the table, even if I change my mind during the scene itself. That is, if I say no sex, and then you tie me up in painful positions and do mean things to my pressure points, and I get all hot and bothered and say, "Actually, yes, do me," do not do me. Stick to the limits I give you when I'm sober and negotiating; they are more accurate than the ones I have when I'm in the middle of a play-induced chemical rush. I wouldn't ask you to marry that chick you went home with when you were drunk, so don't ask me to live with what I think I can handle when I'm totally loopy from play. This is a good way to avoid horrible emotional fallout once the scene is over.

- And definitely don't try to seduce me into saying yes to something. This is just a more extreme version of the last one. Negotiation about limits should happen when we're clothed, sober, and have both had some time to think about it. If I say no to knife play, you don't get to try to change my mind once I'm tied up, horny, and presumably role-playing some kind of submission. I definitely get into sub space when I play, and I'm kind of a neurotic people-pleaser in general, so saying no at that point is going to be really difficult. If you wait until I'm feeling all happy and submissive to try to get me to bend or retract my limits, you're a manipulative dickbucket.

Here's the thing about this last one: some people are going to say that that's okay, in the name of training. Some folks who are into behavior modification and more extreme kinds of power exchange might argue that it's good to seduce a submissive into something that she feels trepidation about - that way she approaches it as something pleasurable, rather than as something to be dreaded. Whitewashing the fence is fun if you're wildly excited for the opportunity, basically. And yet. Limits are there for a reason. That attitude really bothers me, in that it assumes that the submissive doesn't really know what she can handle. I distrust a model that assumes that the dominant partner knows best.

- Don't hit me when you're angry. I am not your worry doll.

"But wait!" subbier_than_thou (not a real person) might cry out from Fetlife's "Sluts, Cunts and Whores" forum (a real thing). "I exist to serve my Dominant, and part of that is being there to be hit when she needs to vent some rage. She gets to take out her anger, and I get to fulfill my service kink. Where's the problem?"

"@subbier_than_thou," stockings_and_boys (not my real handle) would reply, "what happens when you make her angry? More specifically, what happens when you need to tell her something that she won't like, especially if she's at all quick to anger? What if you're feeling upset or uneasy about some activity that she's particularly fond of, or you need to cancel a date, or (if you're not monogamous) you want to plan a date with someone she dislikes, or you think that she's not behaving well and want her to behave differently? In every relationship, there are going to be conversations that need to happen, and will also make at least one of you angry. If she gets to act out every time she gets angry, you're going to start avoiding those conversations. You'll probably start hiding when things make you uncomfortable, and you may start changing your life to make it less likely to piss her off. You know: you didn't need to go on that date. It doesn't bother you that much when she makes rape jokes. Etcetera."

Which leads me to...

- I need to be able to call time-out. I need space to discuss concerns without fear of being punished, and without worrying about rules and protocols. At this point, I have no desire to do another 24/7 power exchange, so this is less relevant, but I think it's worth including. When I was in that situation before, anything I did or said was supposed to be informed by my submissive role, and it was all fair game for retribution. Part of the reason that I didn't get out of it sooner was that it was so all-or-nothing. There was no room to renegotiate once I'd agreed to be submissive. Very fucked up.

- You should reward use of safewords and communication of my comfort level. Let's be clear: it is an act of bravery to say no to something that a sex partner wants. Even in the most vanilla context, it is brave to say, "I don't like it when you touch me there," or "I don't feel comfortable with that." It is harder to do when there is any kind of power exchange, especially if you - like me - kink on service. With that in mind, you should work extra hard to make sure I'm extra comfortable telling you what I need, and what I can't handle. Let's use an example:

BAD: I use a safeword. You stop what you're doing, curl up in a ball and wail, "Why am I such a failure?!"

BETTER: I use a safeword. You stop what you're doing and find out what went wrong.

BEST: I use a safeword. You stop what you're doing, tell me what a good girl I am for letting you know, check to see if I want to be touched and give me a big hug if I do, and then deal with what went wrong. Then remind me again how good I've been.

(I'm assuming here that I'm using the "red" safeword, meaning "This is too intense and it needs to stop NOW," rather than "yellow", or "Hey, could you stop for a sec because I'm a little squicked/ that sensation is too intense/ my arm is falling asleep." I'm also assuming that you've checked for major physical damage, like a responsible person.)


These are the ones that occur to me just now. I'd love to hear what other people think of, so feel free to comment. I'll keep posting them as they occur to me. That will serve the dual purpose of helping me continue to put off writing about sexy nonconsent and how we're supposed to just wet ourselves over how sexy it all is. Tell me what advice you'd give to a dom who just wants to be ethical!

Assumptions: not just for ascending to heaven anymore!

People in the scene always guess that I'm a sub. It's possible that some of them pick it up via some kind of kink-dar, but I'm pretty sure that my being young, female, polite, and usually wearing a dress has more to do with it. It's no radical notion that, by the standards of Fucking Patriarchal Society, femininity = weakness = deference. Even I have some trouble picturing a lady dom waltzing into a party dressed like June Cleaver. (Or Betty Draper to you young hooligans.) That would be unimaginably hot, but that's beside the point.

In certain kinky circles, I get talked down to because I identify as a sub/bottom/masochist, or because people assume that that's how I identify. When Mina and would go to parties and people would see us play, some (very few) of them would approach the two of us afterward, but only actually address Mina. I can understand that some kinksters are used to certain kinds of protocol - having to ask a dom permission to approach his/her sub, for instance - but for crying out loud, we have always played in zero-protocol environments. Especially given that Mina and I have never done any public power exchange, there has been no reason for anyone to assume that we are anything other than a sadist and a masochist with an egalitarian relationship. (When I talk about Mina in the past tense, it's because she left the state for school. Boo! She is still very much a part of my life, and I'm sure I'll continue to write about her.)

A friend that I'll call Bella (yeah, I'm going there) once introduced me to one of her friends at a play party. "That's her dom, over there," she said, indicating an area across the room. I looked around, expecting to see the friend's dom, until I realized that Bella was talking about Mina.

The funny thing is that in settings where no one had seen Mina topping me, some people would assume that she is a sub. Once, at a munch, a new male acquaintance was talking excitedly about an upcoming party. There were a couple of guys at our end of the table, and he turned to them as he detailed the equipment he thought might be there, which included a hanging cage. Then, he turned back to Mina and me and asked, "Which of you is going in the cage first?" I raised my hand gleefully, distracted by the thought of toys. It took me a moment to realize what immediately made Mina bristle: he had never asked about our orientations. There was little chance at that point that Mina, sadistic switch and public top, was going to climb into a cage at a play party, but this guy assumed that she would, presumably because she is a pretty young woman, precisely the kind of person that this guy likes to top. I realize that I am now making assumptions here, but Mina and I conferred afterward, and she agrees with me.

A simpler explanation for people assuming that Mina and I are bottoms is that, at least in this particular scene and I think in general, there are more female than male bottoms and more male than female tops. When I see a man/woman couple at an event, and there are no visible signs of power exchange, I usually assume that the woman is bottoming to the man. I am usually right, but I'm also wrong often enough that it's silly to make the assumption.

Let me also add that I'm usually right *as far as I can tell*. Like I said, people who saw Mina and me play at parties might comfortably assume that I always bottom to her, which is untrue. I might see two other ladies playing, make a similar assumption, and have no idea that the one doing the flogging (for instance) identifies as a service-oriented slave and a sadist, and that her partner is a masochistic switch who likes inflicting pain sometimes as an assertion of dominance.

Of course, there's no reason that I should know this. We are under no obligation to reveal everything about our proclivities at all times. But still: our assumptions influence who we choose to spend time with and get to know better. They influence how we treat others right off the bat. We will be doing ourselves and our community a favor if we make an effort to assume that we don't know that much about the various sexual identities of the people around us, and that the people who seem to fit comfortably into distinct categories probably don't.

This is all very preschool, yes? Except for the sex part.

Then, there are the ways that we assume sameness. But of course we are all liberal, college-educated, poly atheists! And probably geeks.

Yes, in a large, loosely-tied group of people brought together by being slightly outside of the sexual mainstream, these are all very fair assumptions.

Take note of my scorn.

I love this, oh my goodness.

First off, I want to apologize for the format of the last post. I am starting to loathe Blogger.

I have been reading the hell out of this blog called freaksexual. It is everything I want. I just read one of the older entries, titled "Your kink does not get a free pass" and I squealed with delight, repeatedly, and made Miranda listen to me read it out loud.

I have nothing else to say about this. Just go read it. I, personally, probably shouldn't read it again, because I will start licking my computer screen.

As if to respond to my previous comment, Blogger isn't letting me link to this article. Here is the web address:

http://freaksexual.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/your-kink-does-not-get-a-free-pass/

Ah, to be young, kinky and uninformed!

I worry sometimes about how little information is available to underage kinky teenagers. That is, Miranda brought this up to me about a month ago, and now I worry about it.

We know that a lot of teenagers are going to have sex before the legal age of consent. We agree that there are risks inherent in having a sexual relationship, and that even kids and teenagers whom I or you might think are too young to be sexually active deserve comprehensive enough sex education that they will be able to navigate those risks, when they choose to, in a way that leaves them physically and emotionally healthy. (If you don't agree with that, I'm not sure what you're doing here, but maybe you should go.) Many -although not enough - public school students are taught about safer sex, birth control, and basic relationship stuff, like how to handle partners who try to pressure you into something you're not up for. Even for kids who are left uninformed, misinformed, or taught that abstinence is the only way, there are resources available, like Planned Parenthood and the wonderful sex-ed website Scarleteen. All of these legally distribute information about sex to young teenagers, as well they should, because helping them to protect themselves is more important than trying to keep oneself from being somehow implicated in helping teenagers to have sex "too young." Teens are going to have sex, no matter what anybody says, and they are going to do it more or less safely depending on how much information and how many resources they've had access to.

Why does this reasoning not apply to kink? Kinky teenagers are going to tie up, flog, and collar each other, just as surely as their vanilla counterparts are going to fool around in cars. Lots of people don’t realize that they want to do kinky things until after high school, but enough do, and enough act on their (perverse, twisted) desires that it seems only responsible to provide reading material – particularly about physical and emotional safety precautions – for teenagers who want it. Some of the physical stuff that people do to each other can be pretty risky (hello breath play), and while it’s rare for anyone to get seriously injured from BDSM, it does happen. I’m honestly more worried for teens who get involved in power exchange and other mental games, or whose partners use BDSM as an excuse to perpetrate a more standard definition of abuse.

There are, of course, always books, for which there are no age restrictions. It is sometimes possible for a curious adolescent to go to a library or a bookstore and pick up a copy of SM 101. For many teens, though, this is not a practical solution. I live in a pretty big, notoriously left-leaning city, and our library system doesn’t even have a copy of The Ethical Slut, much less any how-to books on flogging. There’s no guarantee that the local bookstore will, either. Even if it did, not every teenager has access to reliable transportation. It is possible to order books discreetly online, even sometimes via money order, but then there’s the question of shipping, since parents and adult guardians will likely be curious about packages arriving for their offspring. (I once had a vibrator shipped to my best friend’s house, since her parents didn’t ask questions about things like that.) Then, there is the money question. Not every teenager has access to money of her own, and books can get pricey.

Really, a teen’s best option is the internet. Most people have access to the internet in some capacity – at home, at the library, at school. It is possible to look up information online discreetly, and it’s pretty simple to cover up one’s tracks. Lots of young folks get information about sex and BDSM online already; I remember my glee when I discovered that if I clicked the “I am eighteen” button to enter an adult-content website, the computer wouldn’t know that I was lying. But then, my parents, for whatever reason, didn’t use the parental controls. I know that it’s possible to block certain websites – probably all of those that you’re supposed to be eighteen to enter. That pretty much knocks out most of the available info about kink. Granted, I don’t know how well parental controls work, but I do know that I can’t check a good number of the websites I frequent when I’m using the library’s wifi. (Yes, I’m a big pervo.)

Actually, a lot of sex-related websites will re-direct under-eighteen people to Scarleteen, an all-ages website. I’ve been trying halfheartedly to find out what kind of content requires an age restriction – and thus how Scarleteen can talk frankly about sex to an unrestricted audience – but I think that might be a project for another day, because the Family Online Safety Institute website is really freaking me out. Too many families staring beatifically at laptops, presumably streaming episodes of Dora the Explorer, or something equally wholesome.

As to online content actually directed at kink-curious teenagers, Scarleteen comes through again. (I swear, I did look at other websites, but the pickings are really, really slim. I did find a site called Queer Youth Exist, but you have to be approved by the moderators in order to get to the discussion boards, and I’ve been waiting two weeks for approval. I think the moderators may be AWOL. If anyone knows of anything else, please send it my way. I will be thrilled.) Scarleteen only offers a brief overview of some kink-related terms and concepts. It is hardly an education in and of itself.

I think that the best solution is for some of us kinky adults (or, more likely, me) to get savvy about what kind of content gets you blocked, and to put out some good, solid all-ages material about kink. I’m really curious to hear if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions about this.

Let's Talk About Torture, Baby

I have a friend who is into torturing girls. It totally gets him off. He tells stories that start out, "So, I was torturing this girl...."

I really hate this word, as applied to BDSM. Torture is perpetrated on non-consenting people. It's something you do to someone whose life and health don't matter to you, someone whose body and mind you are okay with fucking up permanently. I don't really want my sex/play partner to think of me as her torture victim.

Okay, I know that my friend is not actually torturing anyone. He's putting his partners through a series of intense sensations, many of which they probably don't like very much, but all of which they have consented to, because having these things done to them turns them on. He may even be doing some sort of torturer/torture victim roleplay with them. This isn't torture, just as rape play is not rape.

The problem here is in the word itself, as it so often is in BDSM. (Seriously, this is the kind of irresponsible use of language that would make Orwell spin in his grave. Or emerge from it, with vigorous Orwellian re-education on his mind! Zombie Orwell!) I have a big fucking problem with rape, but I don't have a problem with rape play. People can play with the idea of non-consent as much as they'd like. Ditto race play. People are playing with their experiences with, and the presentation of race - which is why it is not called "hate crimes". (Race play seriously squicks me out, but that's neither here nor there. In fact, I'm going to guess that my feelings of squicked-ness have something to do with my discomfort with the heaping piles of white privilege that are my inheritance from birth.) I would not have a problem with someone telling me that they were into torture scenes, because that implies that everyone is playing.

I don't even necessarily think that this is something that one needs to be rigorous about in the bedroom. If you turn to your partner and say, "Lover, I'd like if you'd torture me," I won't think less of you, because at that point, both of you will, I hope, have an understanding of what that means. And a safeword. I do, however, think that people should be cognizant of what they say in public, especially in front of people who are new to the scene. Saying that you're going to go home and torture your lover implies that you think of your lover the way a torturer thinks of his victim. Most people are going to understand what you mean, but do you really want to be responsible for the person who doesn't?

So remember: "I am really into torture scenes."

Rage less, Mary B.

A couple of nights ago, Mina, Miranda, our friend Jack and I went to a play party. [Moment of self-congratulation: Jack is named for Jack Pumpkinhead, of the Oz books - a character who is, essentially, a walking innuendo. I think he'd appreciate that.] Mina and I have been hanging out with Jack a lot lately, often to practice rope ties, and at the last party we all went to, we asked Jack to play with us. This was a really good decision. Jack is a big rope enthusiast and a big goofball: as soon as he had tied my wrists to the legs of a sawhorse, he took the first opportunity to tickle me. He's a lot of fun, very careful about limits, and respectful of my relationship with Mina.

Disclaimer time: I don't want this to turn into one of those blogs that's about my sex life and how totally awesome it is, and how the other night I did this thing that made me feel sooooooooo submissive, and isn't pain super fun? Still, I think that a few concrete details are going to be important for illustrating my point. So: I'll try to keep it tasteful if you try not to get too titillated.

Based on Jack's general awesomeness, we asked him to play with us again at this last party, which was hosted by a group that I hadn't interacted with before. It was a very chill group of people - dorky in the best possible way. In fact, this party seemed like the perfect setting for Mina and me to try out something that we'd been hoping to do for a bit: Mina and Jack got me tied down on a bed, and then Mina scoped out the room and asked a man (a stranger) who was watching us if he would like to get a few hits in. As the session went on, Mina invited a couple more people (both men) to join in as well. Then blah blah edited for content, and I had a really good time.

I was actually surprised by how smoothly things went. I expected to enjoy it, and I felt safe with Mina running the show, but there were quite a few things that could have gone wrong and had to be dealt with, and none of them did. I am interested in enumerating as many of those as I can and trying to pinpoint what we did right, since that's going to be useful in the future. And! It means that I get to write about good things! You want to read about abuse? Read Fugitivus! (No, really, do it.)

Okay, first of all, there is always a danger that I will feel unsafe and vulnerable, and that the bad feelings will completely take over. There was even a brief period during the party where that could have happened, but Mina and I stepped outside and had a little chat and a cuddle, and then things were excellent again. So, to state the obvious: communication is good. We did that right. Being able to be neurotic in front of each other is good. Then, once the actual play started, I not only felt safe in general, but I'd been recently reminded that Mina is totally prepared to handle any freakouts/triggers/neuroses, so I felt safe on that score in particular, and thus a lot less likely to panic.

Next, I reminded myself that we play like ourselves, and not like anyone else. Yes, I am the broken record for the concept album Obvious Things in Obviousville (1973). We had just watched a young couple we know hit the hell out of this girl. There was blood, tears, and intensity. When Mina and I play - and particularly when we play with Jack - there is a lot of laughter, punning, and me swearing elaborate vengeance. This other scene was pretty lovely, and I began to worry that I would be unimpressive in comparison, since I was pretty sure that nobody was going to make me bleed, and certain that nobody was going to try to make me sob. As it turns out, there is an audience for giggly, masochistic exhibitionists, and I'm glad that I didn't let myself get hung up on wanting to be someone I'm not. (This lesson has been brought to you by the letter G.)

In terms of our play partners, Mina chose remarkably well. I couldn't always see them, but I found out later that she went for older men who weren't trying to look tough and domly. (The idea was to find people who wouldn't try to take over with their big domly egos.) She made it clear that she was in charge of the operation and stated a couple of ground rules. Girl's got some poise, basically.

Most importantly, everyone - Mina especially - paid close attention to my reactions. I could tell that they were, because every time I started to feel uncomfortable with something, or like I legitimately disliked a sensation, or like I needed a different intensity, they changed what they were doing to accommodate me, even before I felt the need to articulate something being wrong. When they tried something very different, they would check in with me. The strangers would ask Mina about my likes and limits. The play went on for a long time, and then Mina stopped it while I was feeling very good and very exhausted, before I had to ask them to stop. The whole experience was obviously about making me feel good, and I couldn't have asked for more conscientious people to do it.

This really boils down to: it is good to find partners you can trust, and whose judgment you trust.

I'll go back to being rageful soon, I'm sure.

Abuse? Abuse!

At some point, I should actually talk about abuse, if I'm going to bitch about people not talking about abuse. Ugh, responsibility.

Okay. Abuse.

Like I've said, I was involved in an abusive D/s relationship. I'm going to call the abusive fellow Arthur, because when you want a name for an abuser, just ask a Bronte. (Gals, which one are you? I'm an Anne.) My abuse narrative will sound familiar to anyone who's spent time in Fetlife's groups for submissive women. In fact, after typing the whole thing up, I've opted not to include it here, because I think that anyone who actually knows me will be a lot happier if I omit the details. In very brief, the relationship (not a romantic one) was abusive because Arthur was into maintaining control over me by pushing my hard limits and by guilt tripping me if I used a safeword. I walked around feeling completely fucked up for way too long, and when it hit the point that I was sobbing about it every day, I got enough objectivity to realize, "Wait, this is not how this should go. I don't feel good about this at all." Finally, all of the Are You In an Abusive Relationship? pamphlets that had been stored up in my brain since high school got to have their say. "Holy shit," I thought. "This relationship is textbook abusive."

Now, I do not think that Arthur is a bad guy. I think that he was young and troubled, and completely unprepared for the responsibility of having someone give so much control over to him. I think also that he really believed himself to be acting in my best interest. I think this in part because I've heard some of the views that he espoused from other sources as well, all around the kink community here. They go like this:

- What every sub really wants is to be good. If she isn't striving for this, then she isn't a real sub. [Oh, yeah, I'm going to use female pronouns to talk about subs and male pronouns to talk about doms, because that's what I'm talking about right now.]

- "Being good" means having no boundaries whatsoever, so as to be most available to your dom.

- It is the duty of the dom to help his sub achieve ultimate goodness by breaking down her boundaries.

This is the Father Knows Best model of D/s relationships. I know a lot of people who subscribe to it. Shockingly enough, I think it's extremely dangerous. This philosophy of D/s did a great disservice both to Arthur and to me. (Fucking people up isn't one of his kinks.) Like I've said - or at least implied - before, I think that it's important to maintain a clear boundary between what we actually want and believe and what we pretend to want and believe. I wanted to pretend to believe that Arthur knew what was best for me, and I ended up relinquishing so much control to him that I had to behave as if he actually did know what was best for me.

Here's the thing that separates D/s relationships from vanilla ones: one person is explicitly relinquishing power to another person. That makes abuse all the easier to perpetrate and all the harder to identify. That said, why don't we warn people about this as soon as we find out that they are new to the scene? Why is this topic so taboo? I guess it goes back to this fear that if we tell anyone that anything is wrong with BDSM, that he will pull off his fake mustache and reveal himself to be a secret member of the Vanilla Police, here to take us away (haha hoho) for indecent acts. To which I say, grow up. You are not Oscar Wilde. The worse persecution you will probably ever experience because of your naughty proclivities will be at the hands of a partner who thinks that your sadism/masochism/dominance/submissiveness/balloon fetish is kind of icky. Oh please. You have so little to lose from warning people about abuse and so little to gain from shaming me for warning them.

If I had been told that what I was experiencing was abuse, and not just par for the course, I might have gotten out of that situation a lot sooner. I want to tell everyone that, but I don't, for fear of losing the community that I have. Because, like, this shit is heavy. It's not fun to hear about. It's terrible PR. And now I'm a little ashamed for posting this for the benefit of a few people, instead of saying it really publicly, because it should be heard. I don't know. Maybe it's best not to drop the "a-bomb" because that's, like, totally humorless. Maybe it's better just to point out that not everyone that can tie a knot or wield a knife deserves your trust. Maybe you're better off being hyper-vigilant about safewords until you know for sure. Maybe we bottoms have to look out for each other. Just a thought.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Kink

This one's going to be short and ranty. And in list format!

Sometimes I just get so unhappy about the terms people use, and then I have to monologue about them to anyone who will listen (Mina and Miranda, basically). Now I'm going to do that to you, imaginary readers! For your extreme, almost-overwhelming pleasure, I present... A List of Terms That Piss Me Off:

Subby - Or maybe it's with an "ie". If someone self-identifies as a subby/ie, that's fine with me. Anyone who thinks it's cool to use that as a blanket term for submissives, though, hasn't thought about what the word "submissive" means. It does not mean "into humiliation". Plenty of subs are into being demeaned, but even among those, most of us aren't into being demeaned all the time, by anyone who thinks they know anything about BDSM. Demean me - if I ask you to - but respect my sexual identity, please.

Domme - "Dominant" is a gender-neutral word. "Dom" is a gender-neutral abbreviation. The only reason to make the word feminine is that it is abnormal for women to be dominant, which is, even statistically speaking, untrue.

The Lifestyle - Oh come on.

Do not even think for a minute that this is the end of me being angry about terminology! However. I am about to go to a party, where I plan to be happy, which is more fun. Goodnight!