I’m someone who doesn’t get bent about the sexual activities of others assuming it involves consenting adults. However, whenever, whatever works for me as long as it doesn’t impact my own little portion of the world. It’s very egocentric.
At one time, I was very active in ‘the scene’ of BDSM clubs, activities, play parties, secret email invitations, and the like. It didn’t matter if I was single or dating someone or in a flat out monogamous relationship, I liked to go to those places to be around people that were openly accepting of alternative lifestyles. I liked not being the freak in the room.
Except, as it turns out, I was still the freak in the room.
Unwritten dress code of latex, leather and fetish heels aside, it simply became something of an exhibition, a cold war, if you will, between levels of kink, or levels of awe the activity could inspire. If you drew a crowd that could watch you hog tie your latest play date, or inject saline into the balls of some unsuspecting male sub (sarcasm intended here), then you knew yourself to be some sort of hit. It became a race for toys and the biggest tool kit you could drag behind you without the use of a hotel valet. It ties in what RG was suggesting in her piece, that in the competition to be the most free, the most accepting of alternative lifestyles, the most open-minded, we lost something else.
And when I realized this, the question of authenticity began. Of course, excluding my time overseas (which shall remain a classified matter), all of these places had no blood, no bodily fluid, no sex rules. I honestly thought, in my naiveté, that this had something to do with law, Texas is in the Bible belt after all, into which the stiff ruling hand of conservative (read Christian) leadership is heavily represented. And yes, here in this great state, that is something that would not fly so well with the police were it to hit the radar.
But why, at the private houses was this still in place? These rules were printed in the waivers you signed at the door to the club, but in a private house, they seemed to carry over. I was confused. In the effort to be so outwardly kink friendly, they had in fact shut the door very firmly on some things that I personally, found very arousing. Blood. Pain. Sex.
Don’t mistake me here. I’m not suggesting you can’t have pain without blood resulting, but my particular brand of sadism is rooted in those little red drops, and even in their absence, is rooted in the possibility, the THREAT of blood. It’s one of those things that gets my dick hard.
You like that little rabbit fur paddle, I like steel razors… to each their own? No. That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.
A little clarification before anyone starts on a rant
I’m speaking in generalizations and my experience which is not your own. My observations, my views gathered, and yes, from a male (and dominant) perspective, which I’m sure doesn’t represent the views of a submissive housewife in Des Moines, IA – or 99% of the population as a whole, because I like to fuck women with blood on them. Let’s face it, that’s pretty fucking kinky.
And I’d like to also add that I’m very aware of STD’s and any number of blood borne pathogens, diseases and such that result from bodily fluid exchange – however, we are ALL adults here and if you don’t know your partner’s sexual history, don’t use protection and generally play roulette with your life, then a drop of blood that splashes onto the velvet sofa at a play party that you sit on a week later, isn’t going to be the catalyst to your STD infection.
Now onto my own little rant, excuse the gratuitous metaphors and similes…
The disempowerment we’ve allowed
I’ve been giving this some thought, honestly, after speaking with RG and reading what Tutivillus wrote on the topic – we’ve all sort of taken our own route on this, but in my view, it’s simply a chain we’ve wrapped around our own freedoms as adults.
Was it an effort to distinguish ourselves from swingers? I’d bet that has something to do with it. BDSM people don’t like the label of being swingers, because unlike ‘those’ people, we like to keep our lust in check. Puritan much? It’s as if BDSM became the marijuana of kink, a tolerable and (somewhat) socially acceptable method of getting a high without getting dirty.
Well I played with mud and dirt as a child, and I didn’t grow up as a mutant… just uber kinky. And fucking, well, if you’re doing it right, you’re going to sweat and if I come inside you, it’s going to make a puddle on the bed that one of us will have to sleep in.
Distractions aside…
There is more. Men can be clueless. Women can be clueless. Sometimes, we just can’t read the signs correctly. We can’t pick up on the subtle details that a shrug can mean fuck off, or someone walking away mid-sentence doesn’t mean they want you to follow them.
It doesn’t mean we need some generic rule to cover the fact that the object of your desire can’t work up the nerve to say, ‘Look, I’m not interested.’ Don’t we owe this to each other? When did our ability to defend our rights, our bodies, our interests, become so ineffective that we had to settle a rule in place to cover the ‘extreme’ eventuality that somehow, in this world, a connection might be made – one strong enough to say, ‘you know, I’d like to fuck you,’ or ‘you make me want to vomit, I wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire.’
For my part, I simply withdrew from the public scene. I was always the rebel anyway – sniffing alcohol swabs as if they were cocaine.
And finally, he draws breath….
Ultimately, for my part, and the way I am wired, I just can’t see why, after making a mess of someone, and breaking them down to the quivering emotional and hopefully bloody mess, I wouldn’t want to fuck them. I don’t see how in a world where kink is supposedly celebrated, if someone wants to publically share that with an appropriate audience, how you or anyone else has the right to say, put that shit away. When did we lose the ability to walk away? When did we start needing our lives spoon fed to our eyes?
And when will we stop accepting less than what we deserve? When did we allow ourselves to become so damn disempowered that we need a rule to speak for us?
Interesting.
I think the statement “When did we lose the ability to walk away? When did we start needing our lives spoon fed to our eyes? … And when will we stop accepting less than what we deserve? When did we allow ourselves to become so damn disempowered that we need a rule to speak for us?” Is applicable to nearly every facade of our lives these days it’s actually sickening.
Thank you for sharing.
Angel
For some reason it brings to mind the following: “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” – Ben Franklin
Love this: “I just can’t see why, after making a mess of someone, and breaking them down to the quivering emotional and hopefully bloody mess, I wouldn’t want to fuck them.” Exactly! In my experience, they _need_ you to fuck them to close the circuit!
The “no sex” component of all of this would be highly comical if it were not so sad.
And in writing this, I questioned the whole ‘to each their own’ aspect and how open minded I was really being when presented with a situation that didn’t contain the elements that I enjoyed. I won’t say my time in those places was a lost cause, I did meet some fantastic people, but I imagine they felt the same was I did… a sense that something was missing and that we had, in some ways, settled for less.
To be honest I am finding this debate very confusing, on one hand I completely agree that many BDSM clubs seems to be about strutting your stuff in your best Fet wear, trailing your sub around on a lead and swishing your floggers around as you go…basically posing….and very not for me. This, and the need for Sir to be dressed up in some insane latex outfit or string vest in order to be admit to these venues is a reason that we rarely attend such events. However, they are well attended, LOTS of people go and so I guess for many the dress code and no sex rule works….and good on them.
As for house paries, if they don’t cater to your taste, then why not organise your own that does?
In response to this… “But why, at the private houses was this still in place? These rules were printed in the waivers you signed at the door to the club, but in a private house, they seemed to carry over. I was confused. In the effort to be so outwardly kink friendly, they had in fact shut the door very firmly on some things that I personally, found very arousing. Blood. Pain. Sex.” …it’s their party, its how they wanted it, it’s what made them comfortable, rather than bitching about it organise your own?
“You like that little rabbit fur paddle, I like steel razors… to each their own? No. That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.” And this, are you really saying your kink is a more qualified kink that the rabbit fur paddle? It is this attitude of what feels like intolerance to all different aspects of kink and BDSM that I don’t like. So you like blood….so what? Does that mean you are more of a Dom then my Dom because he is not turned on by making me bleed?
If I have read that wrong then I do apologise but if not, then I say, each to their own, your kink is not my kink and neither is better or more real than the other.
Mollyxxx
Thank you for your comment Molly. The address of the fetish wear was more of a humorous aside because I was always sort of on the out with the where one could obtain such clothing – then. Since I’ve had my horizons greatly expanded and think I could reasonably locate a pair of leather chaps if the need were to arise.
As to organizing my own…. in those days, I was entirely too new to consider such an idea. It never really occurred to me, because I’m not wired in a way that would allow strangers into my private places to engage in casual conversation, yet alone the more intimate experiences we are discussing. I absolutely appreciated and was grateful for the times when I would be welcomed into such an event, of course, but it just fell short for me. The solution, in lieu of ‘bitching’ as you put it, was simply to withdraw, which has worked fine. It isn’t something I miss – and in this case, I’m an advocate for the freedom, not myself, as to open the thought processes to consider other things we may have put aside.
And when I made the comment on the fur paddle (which I also own) it was too say that my kink was the unwelcome one. The fur paddle was then, and to my knowledge, still is, a standard staple to a kink gathering. Talk about blood, however, and watch the faces pucker.
And I am me, dominant. I make no suggestion on someone’s level of dominance because they don’t like what I’m doing or vice versa. If anything, I’m pro thought.. That’s all I’m seeking… thought.
I do agree about the Fetwear thing, although it is a bug bear of mine which is not for now.
I understand about the paddle comment now, I guess again, each to their own, for some people blood is an eww and for others it is an ahhh. It’s not for me, but good on you knowing it is for you. I am sure you must be able to see that for many people blood is a more challenging kink then say spanking? In that sense maybe their puckered faces can be understood. If they go so far as to judge you in a negative light for you kink then I agree, but if they are just saying it is not for us and this is our club/house and we don’t want to see it, then surely thats up to them?
Molly
PS..I agree, thought is always good and you have certainly made me do that!
It is absolutely up to them as to what happens in their house… but this is the given/unspoken rule here that I’m addressing. Thank you for the comments, glad they lead you somewhere.
I just recently read a blog post (I am so sorry, I can’t remember which blog, I will try to find it) from a woman lamenting how spanking, her favorite kink, has become so mainstream, it is now considered too vanilla to be offered at her “venues.” She was wondering why all this judgment had seeped into the BDSM scene, only she felt the judgement went the other way: very pro-extreme. If you weren’t willing to get pierced, branded, whatever, you weren’t really all that kinky, you were just listening to Rihanna too much. As if all this S&M is just a fad from which non-kinksters will eventually move on.
I realize there’s a lot of judgement out there. But I don’t agree with the call that things were somehow better before, and should go back to the way they were years ago when kink was a deep dark secret that had to be hidden away from society. I have found many friends online and in real life because we all felt comfortable being open about our kinks.
This reminds me of a friend who wanted to make caramel apples. She misread the recipe, and instead of adding 2tablespoons of water, she added 2 pints of water. As you can imagine, the caramel in question was diluted and eventually, she just gave up and started fresh.
I’m not asking for a reversal wherein we have to hide what we want, I’m just asking for it to be real, authentic. Instead we are presented with a diluted version (frequently in mainstream media) or worse, an artificial version of the truth, that most of us can discern as being somehow out of place. It’s like having someone fake an orgasm. On some level, it’s a lie.
I’m all for open discussion on kinks and I’m very open on what excites me and what makes me shudder, but even if it crosses a line for me that shuts down my ability to understand – I don’t sit in judgment. Plenty of things I do could be pointed out as doing ‘wrong.’
As for spanking and to the unknown blogger – if someone doesn’t feel spanking can cross into extreme – then they haven’t been introduced to some very nasty toys. Ultimately, whether you like the hard shit, or just want to wear a blindfold while fucking, get your freak on. Carpe Diem. And if the people around you don’t like it… feel sorry for them.
I found the post, in case you’re interested in reading it.
http://www.justcallmeten.com/2011/09/whats-your-flavor/
All that aside, it seems that in trying to include everyone.. we still exclude someone. I think we’d agree that labels are best applied to ones self, because in applying them to anything/one else, we often fuck it up.
A very interesting read. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I found it humorous, insightful & enlightening.
Thank you.
“Ultimately, for my part, and the way I am wired, I just can’t see why, after making a mess of someone, and breaking them down to the quivering emotional and hopefully bloody mess, I wouldn’t want to fuck them.”
And for my part, I would find it damaging not to be fucked or not to fuck (or have some kind of sexual reassurance) – the more intense the circumstance, the greater would be that need. Not allowing/removing the sex, I find it abusive in a way, dehumanising. (Just speaking to my own predilections obviously)
I have to say it gave me a thrill to find some words from Daemon here this morning.
P.
I’m with you here.
I’ve done the race home, or indeed, sometimes to the quietest place I/we could find, to get the sex after. I just think for a community that wishes to be sex positive, it shouldn’t look down it’s nose on sex itself. It’s sex.
sex=good right?
And it gave me a thrill to be here.
Totally going of topic for a second.
“the need for Sir to be dressed up in some insane latex outfit or string vest in order to be admit”
Really? Why? Suits will always possess the most power in any clothing for me. I know you’re not saying you like it Molly so I’m agreeing with you here. I just didn’t realise there was a dress code (yes naive) that involved a substance which frankly just makes me think of work and the body on the slab in front of me. Which is to say, NOT desirable at all for me. God’s I had to stop using latex condoms because the smell reminded me of dead people which was not something I wanted to be thinking of with a hard yummy cock in front of me.
Ok side track over. I’m just going to sit here and shake my head a bit longer 😉
Since we’ve digressed. Yes… a well cut suit does something wicked to my soul. Especially if it’s in any danger of being stained in interesting places.
Yes, I….well lets just say my morning visit meant that the gentlemen had to find new suit pants to wear to his afternoon meeting. And when he was dressed all fresh I was very tempted to get dirty again.
Nothing in the world looks better on a man then a good suit…except maybe me! :p
Men in suits do nothing for me. I don’t get it.
Mmm, suits definitely do something for me, too. There’s just something about stripping that symbol of power off of someone, as well a perverse pleasure in taking something pristine and dirtying it up.
ohhh…yes… dirtying it up. mmm
The Scene is a world I will probably never understand nor experience, regardless of my proclivities. This post, and its predecessors, pretty much convince me I won’t regret missing it. Perhaps I’m still missing something for those who get gratification from it in its current or idealized form. While I don’t mind spectacle or exhibition in others, it’s not my thing, and the strut or the show clearly part of that public side. Plus, it seems to me, all of it – and I mean ALL of the act of BDSM, is by definition either foreplay or part of the sex act itself. It is part and parcel of the path to fulfillment of erotic desire. If it’s _not_, that it’s either hollow, or howlingly incomplete, or sociopathic.
It’s the closet conservative in me that keeps me aware of how incapable I am at being just -that- social. Agreed on all of the above.
I think I would draw the line at calling it sociopathic. Hollow, maybe, in that any kind of short-term-fun sex can be seen as hollow. Lap dances, topless bars, and striptease shows can be seen as hollow. But I wouldn’t call it sociopathic.
Well, absent any empathy and/or disregard for your target’s misery, discomfort or pain is the very definition of being a sociopath. Would one go to such lengths as to forge a relationship only to subsequently break the other person down? absolutely. The world is full of crazies.
At least I’ve got a leash on my crazy.
I see a difference between lack of empathy and total disregard. IMO, a sadist cannot be expected to feel empathy for the masochist; that goes against the dynamics of the relationship. But total disregard? That is irresponsible, and says something about the sadist/Top/Dom. So I guess I’m agreeing with you: a Top/Dom who shows disregard for the bottom/sub is something of a sociopath.
This is where I think we get into the kind of territory I talked about in the post I made after I, Sadist’s post. It’s why I am so loathe to use labels like ‘sadist’ and ‘masochist’ and I’m very careful when I do. Other than the fact that sadists are aroused by causing pain in others and that masochists are aroused by receiving it, any other generalization is, I think, dangerous to make. If sadists were not capable of some kind of empathy, then how could their kink work? You need to have some form empathy in order to understand what kind of pain your causing and get off on it. Also, it has been my experience that at some level, most Sadists are also masochists. I think it’s important to use language carefully. Empathy is a complicated thing and getting pleasure from someone’s pain does not by necessity preclude empathy at all. This is why the exchange is so hard to explain. There’s a very good book called the Science of Evil by Simon Baron Cohen which essentially paints out the pathology of the empathiless.
Yeah. I stand by what I wrote. Hurting someone for the sheer fact of hurting them, or being hurt for the sheer fact of being hurt? We’ve already taken pleasure or gratification of any kind out of the equation, so what’s left? It’s really not just anti- or a-social. It’s not just failure to make a bond or connection. It’s destruction for its own sake, emotionless.
One _could_ go so far as to say merciless sexual tease of BDSM without gratification during or after is almost as bad. That may be a little more contentious, since there is at least some exchange during the ‘play’, but the inability to go to what should be natural conclusions is a different kind of cruelty to all parties than sadism.
I’m pretty sure the more I read on this topic, the kinkier I am going to get. I am way too open to suggestion.
Now where are the steel razors…… *looks around*
I suggest you read. Medical books, wound care, scar therapy prior to the picking up of any razors. Some things you simply don’t come back from.
Steel razors may not be the kink of my particular choice, but I’m totally with you on the “why no sex?” thing. For me, it’s a necessary part of the experience, and stopping short is highly unsatisfying. And frankly, even spectating at one of the parties you describe, I’d be left unsatisfied if the demo didn’t end is some sort of sex.
Well written and interesting post–thanks for sharing!