Finding a Voice

Saturday was an interesting day. I attended a day long workshop on edge play called Taboo.

The classes were great. I learned a lot and I even got to do some hands-on play with one of the demo bottoms which was a whole lot of fun.

But the thing that mattered most to me, perhaps because I am so new to the lifestyle, was simply being around so many others who shared my interests and attitudes toward the D/s lifestyle.

The classes were led by some very experienced Doms who have been in the lifestyle for decades. What I learned from them most was not any particular information, but a lesson in how to be. It was not anything they taught, but more a kind of stolen knowledge.

In each of them I saw something different, something unique that really characterized them, who they were, how they approached BDSM. In some cases that would resonate with me, in other cases it didn't. That was OK. I wasn't looking for someone to imitate or a style to adopt or embrace.

What I found I can best describe as a kind of social permission to be who I am. Because in every case, I saw each of them being who they were, right down to the bone. No artifice, no illusions, no apologies.

In each of them I saw some part of myself. And in seeing it in them, I could more fully embrace it in myself.

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the day came from watching one of the presenters. Only he wasn't on the stage, he was sitting to the side, watching the presentation that was going on. At his feet was a submissive, her arms wrapped around his leg, her head on his thigh. He ran his hand through her hair. Her eyes were closed and I saw a sense of serenity, peace, and calm in her. There was an energy between then, flowing, connecting, and radiating. It was spilling out into the room, yet all they were doing was sitting there.

I heard talks on everything from interrogation to enemas, humiliation, to face slapping, yet the most powerful take away for me was those few moments, off to the side, where I witnessed a genuine connection between two people just being. Being who they were. And it was beautiful.

Now I am one step closer to answering the question "What do you want?"

Wrestling with Social Conventions

I am still very new to this world. Sure, I've been fantasizing about it since I was a kid. Yes, I have written all kinds of erotic fiction, some of which taps into pretty extreme areas of psychological or physical play. But when you are standing there, face to face, with a real live, flesh and blood human being, things get a little weird. And you have to, in that moment, wrap your head around two very different sets of facts.

Fact One: This is who you are. The things you want to do to this person are real. They are not fantasies anymore; they are needs. They are desires about to be made flesh. You are not going to write about hurting someone, you are going to hit them. And it is going to hurt. And you are going to fucking love it.

You don't need to say please and thank you anymore, because you are the fucking Dom. She is going to do what you tell her to, or she is going to face the consequences. Her job is to obey you, to endure what you give her, to accept her place. And at the end, she is going to thank you for it. For making her a second class citizen who is there to be a submissive, little, obedient slut.

You aren't equals. She is your inferior. She is bending to your will. She is there to please you. And she is there because putting you first is exactly what she wants to be doing. Her need is as deep as yours.

You are doing these terrible things to who because of who you are. But she is taking it, accepting it, and embracing it because of who she is.

Fact Two: You grew up in a household where the cardinal rule was "You never hit a woman." You don't lay a finger on your sister, no matter how much of an asshole she is being because you never hit a woman.

You grow up in a household, attend a school, and enter a profession where you are expected to treat everyone as an equal, as a human being deserving of respect. All voices should be heard and given equal weight.

You spend a huge amount of time and energy committing yourself to issues of social justice and women's rights. You decry things like patriarchy, male oppression, and inequality. You protect the powerless, you care about the suffering of others, and you strive to make the world a better place than how you found it.

Fact Two is no less and no more true than Fact One. It is no less the story of who I am.

Like everything else in life, the trick to figuring this all out is balance. A life out of balance is always crazy and usually dangerous. It looks like more fun than it is and it generally ends badly.

So is there a fundamental conflict between these two facts? Is there a way they can be brought into balance and even strengthen each other?

Inquiring minds want to know.

First Time Tying

From January 26th:

Yesterday was my first time tying a woman. And what a time it was.

That statement is a little misleading. I've had a few opportunities to tie up women in the past, but this time was different. My last experience was a class in Tokyo, with a well known Bakushi who taught me a lot about kinbaku and a few really interesting ties. It was introductory stuff, but for me, it was also a whole new perspective. I got to work with a beautiful model, Nami and tie her for quite a few hours. All the while sensei was watching, guiding, teaching. It was about technique.

It wasn't until yesterday that I discovered something different. In Tokyo, I was tying the ropes. Yesterday, I was tying the woman.

After an hour long demo on hogties and gags, we got an opportunity to practice. My friend (who had encouraged me to come to the meeting in the first place) offered to let me tie her for the practice section of the class. It was a very weird feeling, a mixture of nerves, excitement, and a sense that something about this moment was going to be different than anything I had experienced before. And it was.

As she stood before me, my mind raced with possibilities. Where to start? What to do? So many feelings, emotions, desires, needs.

I started with her knees, a simple lark's head, followed by the winding, cinching, tying off. Crisp white rope against her dark stockings. Slipping my finger under the rope, checking its tightness, making sure it was secure, but not too tight. Checking in, "How does that feel?"

But there was so much more. My hands touching her legs, sliding between her knees, working the rope, binding her, slowly taking her freedom, turn by turn. Feeling the energy build. Wanting the rope work to be perfect, not because it needed to be, but because it should be. I wasn't tying the rope any more; I was tying her.

Next the ankles. I wanted her to feel my touch, the strength of my hands, the firm caress of the rope, around and around, then cinched tight. Her legs pressed together. Control, surrender, helplessness.

Up onto the table. I want your wrists now, I want to take them from you, bind them, secure them, allow you to let go, to float, to fly. Feel the rope become part of you. Let them hold you, feel the bite into your flesh. Not to hurt you, but to remind you that you are bound. Feel it. Let it sink in, wash over you.

I want to give you that feeling.

Ankles drawn up and tied to the wrist. Elbows drawn together behind. Tied together. It is complete. For now.

Now I want to watch you. I want to touch you, caress you. I trace my fingers along your back, your neck, stroking your hair, touching your cheek.

Your eyes close and I see your body react to my touch. I can almost feel what you feel. I am connected. And you are beautiful.

You slip in and out. I watch you drift and then bring you back. We talk and laugh. Our conversation wanders from topic to topic and then my fingers trace over your arms, across your back. You slip off again, eyes closed. So peaceful, so serene. I just watch, so happy I can give you that feeling. So grateful that you have let me.

An hour passes and it is time to let you go. It feels right and there is no sadness as I untie the ropes. Even then I am thinking, how best to bring her back out? What will feel the best? What will make her remember the feeling and let it linger a bit?

It is a day for me to remember. My first time tying a woman.

Insight at the Insight

Last weekend I attended my first Insight at The Lair on the topic of erotic knife play. I decided to go out of curiosity mostly. I didn't have any particular interest in knife play and wasn't really sure how it could figure into a BDSM scene, at least apart from cutting, which is an area that I am not ready to even think about exploring.

But what the hell. A chance to meet people, have fun, learn something new, and hang out.

Going to these things alone is always a little daunting, but after a while of looking around and acting casual without, you know trying to look like I am acting casual, I said hello to a few people, got to talking and generally felt welcomed by people. New places are always a little bit tricky, especially when you are stepping into a well established community.

I met the presenter ahead of time and introduced myself. I had mistakenly confused him with someone on FetLife I had been having numerous conversations with (after a half hour of chatting he told me he wasn't actually on FetLife, but by then it we were already clicking well enough that I didn't feel too bad about the mistake). I think my combination of eagerness and inexperience amused him.

The lecture he gave was fantastic. Humerous in all the right ways. A dry, dare I say, cutting sense of humor. He spoke with enough authority that you knew he knew his shit, but with a level of ease of comfort that made it easy to ask questions.

I found myself growing more and more intrigued, especially as he worked on the demo model. I started to get the erotic part of it. I also liked the mind fuck elements. The fear. The helplessness and vulnerability it produced in some of the girls who were trying it out.

In the end I was really glad I went. I learned a lot about knife play, but even more about myself. It was a great demo and I even walked away with two free knives.

Going Offline

Much, but not all, of my BDSM experience has been lived online. From chatrooms to websites to virtual worlds. From writing erotic fiction to creating 3D art, I have always enjoyed being part of communities and building relationships with people. Doing it online was always vaguely unsatisfying and now I know why.

January 25th, 2009, I took my first steps into a bigger world, visiting my local BDSM club, participating in a discussion group, and taking a class on rope bondage (yes, it was a big day). I had played with rope before, even taken some very good classes on rope bondage, but this was different, because it was the first time I felt a true and authentic expression of who I was.

You can live an entire life online and really know nothing about how it feels to engage with another person face to face in a BDSM relationship.

I cannot deny that the feelings I had or the connections I made with people were real, but I do think they were less real than the ones I am finding now. I also find that while I still enjoy places like FetLife and chatrooms to talk to old friends, I know I can never go back to online relationships. There is too much out there that awaits. Too many things to try.

So while I still love to communicate online, make new friends, and talk about all aspects of BDSM, from now on, as far as relationships are concerned, I am definitely going offline.

Things I have learned along the way (a running list)

As a Dom who is new to the lifestyle and finally having the opportunity to live it after decades of suppressing, repressing, sublimating and denying that this is who I am, I thought it would be fun to reduce the complexities of human emotions, on going dramas, and life lessons to pithy phrases that can help me remember significant moments in my journey. Each one refers to something special or significant in my life. What those events were is left, as they say, as an exercise for the reader. Hope you enjoy.

• If it feels wrong, it probably is.

• I can trust myself.

• You are not broken. If you are, I cannot fix you.

• The bunny in the straitjacket is wrong, psycho is not cute.

• Answering the question "What do you want?" is harder than it seems.

• Understanding what the question "What do you want?" means is the first step to answering it.

• It is OK to just be who I am.

• Frank Herbert was right, Fear is the mind killer.

• Using the mantra "What would Hunter S Thompson do?" as a guide to personal decision making sounds more fun that it actually is.

• 90% of life is just showing up.

• I want the other 10% to involve women and a lot of rope.

• Not everyone will like me and I will not like everyone I meet.

• Being dominant is who I am, not what I do.

• Yes, people really do want me to hurt them.