It Never Rains

So I just had potential polyamory dropped in my lap.

What the fuck.

It pours, as they say.

I had attempted to squash my crush on someone once it became apparent they did not identify as kinky. Then someone confessed their crush on me, and I decided to take their example and work up the nerve to confess my crush. Which I did (much shaking of hands and error-laden knitting later).

And it turned out that my attraction was reciprocated.

Yes.

I decided that perhaps I had been going about this backwards; instead of trying to identify people who exactly complement my sexuality then seeking attraction, maybe I should try starting with mutual attraction and from there explore sexual compatibility. Maybe I’ve been putting out markers I didn’t know about, and maybe they’ve been picked up by unexpected people.

Laying my sexuality out on the table in non-kinky terms to both of these people, it seemed that there were a few overlapping sexual interests. One found the idea of a dominant partner very hot, one was curious about being a receptive sexual partner, and neither was immediately opposed to pain, though neither did they seem to crave it. Both were open to poly, though one admitted that they sometimes struggled with jealousy and competitiveness, and the other had seen polyarmory explode horribly from a distance.

So there I was, with several of the things I’d been wanting very badly suddenly within my grasp, and utterly confused about what to do about it. I wanted to explore the potential of both of these, but I also didn’t want to overwhelm myself by starting my first two sexually-aware relationships at once.

In exploring both of these attractions, I was challenged by several things.

1. I cannot control the progression of this. It will unfold, and I need to not try to immediately ask all the right questions and do all the right things so I can know right now.
2. Two explorations will not progress at the same rate. One person I have known longer, one person I was already attracted to, not to mention they have radically different personalities. I need to not try to run this as a scientific experiment or try to keep all the variables the same. ‘I did this with a, so now I have to go try it with b.’ No. It won’t work.
3. WHY DO I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING? I’ve thought about it so much. Real life is so DIFFERENT from one’s imagination. It’s okay to be confused. I can be confused and not try to find the answer. Really.
4. Trying to parse the sexualities of people who have never really thought about it that much is hard. *throw person to ground* “How did that feel?” “… Interesting.” “What does that mean?” “I don’t know.” *cause pain* “How did that feel?” “… Not bad.”

So where it stands right now is that after exploring attraction with them, I do not feel attraction or desire towards the person who had a crush on me. They seem to be taking it well. I am still exploring attraction and desire with the person who I had a crush on. It is not overtly kinky, but it has been very, very enjoyable.

One thing I’ve found very strange in this exploration is the fact that I haven’t gone into the headspace I have during scenes. It’s kind of jarring. Part of this is because I don’t know if there is kinky reciprocation. I might do things that could be interpreted as dominant, but dominating (which is a weird verb to use) is not a one way process. I can’t dominate anybody who doesn’t submit to me. It just doesn’t work. Dominating and submitting are both relationships, not just acts.

At the very least, it’s all quite fun, and it means I actually get to do something with another person. Which is awesome. It also hopefully means an end to my sexual pity-party, and the beginning of actual experience.

Within the Realm of Possibility

I have wondered before, if with finally understanding my sexuality, it would be possible for me to have a fulfilling sexual relationship with someone who didn’t share it. If I were simply dominant, and they were simply themselves, and whether or not anybody related to anyone else’s identification, we enjoyed each other, and that was simply that. Or if that would be like a heterosexual woman trying to have a sexual relationship with another woman, because there were no men around. I wonder if it’s possible to have my needs met, and to meet a partner’s needs.

I have thought about this in the context of someone who shared my desires but did not share a subcultural foundation, and I have thought about this in the context of someone who enjoyed my desires but not in that way that makes your chest clench and your throat hurt.

This has become more than an intellectual exercise because someone confessed their attraction to me. They are nice, attractive, and so, very, earnest. I do not turn into a bucket of lust at the sight of them. We have had a conversation about attraction and what it means to each of us. We will be having a conversation where I explain what I am and what it means to me, and I attempt to map out the sexuality of someone who has probably never thought very much about it. It might come to nothing else than some good conversations. But on the off chance this person is interested in experimenting, or even has complementary desires but has never articulated them, I could get some ass. My goal when explaining my dominance is to use terminology that is not alienating, but very, very accurate. As in, I like to give pain. A lot.

A couple of people around me, who are aware that I am dominant and sadistic, seem to think it would be awesome if I helped my admirer explore non-default sexuality. I would rather not do that. I would rather not be the one to initiate someone just so they can have the experience and know whether or not it is them. That is for later in life, when my hair is whitened, when I have a decent grasp on my life and my sexuality, and someone comes to me with questions.

I’m not a set of training wheels, god damn it.

And neither are they.

Both of which I need to remember.

I Am Jealous of Vanilla People

The other day I was in a conversation with three men in their mid- to late-twenties who as far as I can tell have pretty average male sexualities. The conversation mainly revolved around attraction and desire, what to do about it, and what they personally did about it. The youngest of the men asked another very timidly, “How did you… break the physical barrier?” The rest of the conversation dealt with ways to break this apparent barrier, such as palm-reading, teaching self-defense techniques, flirting, and “So, you wanna kiss me?”

I stared on, uncomprehending.

That “breaking the physical barrier” could be the most complex thing someone has to deal with in finding a sexual partner, is just, how– How can it be that simple? How?

The next day two of the three went with another man to a bar, and I heard secondhand that it was to teach the youngest how to pick up women. So this morning I asked this guy, “So how was the bar-hunting?” And he spent the next flustered half hour trying to convince me he’s not the kind of guy to pick up women in bars. I believe him.

I only consciously meant to be teasing, and I finally said, “Dude, it’s okay. I’m not trying to bash you for going to a bar.”

“Uh, that’s… awesome.”

Thinking about it later, I realized I am jealous. And my jealousy probably came through on some level as judgment.

I am profoundly jealous that these men can walk into a room at any given establishment, and have a good chance of meeting someone who is sexually compatible. I am jealous that it is as simple as attraction > desire > pursuit > yea or nay.

I know it’s not actually that simple. I know people with mainstream sexualities have just as many issues finding sexual relationships. But I think about how many sexually compatible people one of these men has met in his life. Probably hundreds. I’ve met three. And I am so. Terribly. Jealous.

Describing this interaction later to another man, and describing how isolated and frustrated I feel, I challenged myself to describe my dominance to him without using the vocabulary of the subculture. Like the tropes of kink, the vocabulary of kink is not mine. It might be a useful tool, some of it might crudely describe what I feel, but it really cannot be accurate to me.

My concept of my sexuality is largely driven by my desire to be active, the do-er of activities. But also to a lesser degree there is my desire to be receptive, the accepter of activities. My sexuality is about receiving control from another person that is freely given, and receiving trust, freely offered. It is about giving pleasure and pain. It is about stretching boundaries. It is about embracing someone with everything that I am.

I desire people who are receptive, and active participants in their own desire. I desire people who want to receive pain and pleasure, who want to give control over to me freely, who accept my trust. Who want me to stretch boundaries, theirs and my own, who open to me everything that they are.

Sometimes that might involve rope. Sometimes it might involve only fingernails.

Mans

My inner man and I have been staring at each other a lot lately.

We are not yet on speaking terms.

He is understandably pissed at being locked away my entire life and only being taken out to be punished for being a man.

It is strange to have been exploring my repressed sexuality with such zeal, and then realize that all the prisoners have not been let out of the dungeon.

Well I let him out.

He has opinions occasionally. Sometimes he just sleeps.

I think he’s a switch.

It scares me to write that. Like my dominance is somehow compromised. Silly.

I’m still a woman. But I’ve felt I was also something else. Connections.

I’m used to being fairly sure where I am, even if it’s a new permutation of the same path. Well, right now we have wandered off the path, into the woods, and are now wading through a goddamn swamp. I have no idea where I am.

But I don’t think we’re going to be eaten by alligators. Not just yet.

Does This Seem Strange to Anyone Else?

So a while back I decided to compile a list of all the blogs (co)written by submissive or switch men that I could find.

Why did I go to the trouble of compiling this list? Because I’m a masochist, obviously. Also my crazy little research instincts would not let me rest.

As far as I can tell from skimming a few posts off each blog, these are written by real and actual people experiencing what they claim they are. Most of the blogs are written by straight men who have been married to their partners for several years before coming out as submissive. Quite a few in this category are struggling with being legally or logistically bound to partners who are not dominant. Quite a few are written by men trying to ‘turn’ their wives dominant. Most of the authors are interested in or exploring Female Led Relationships (FLR) and Wife Led Marriages (WLM). Those where the relationship seems to have settled into a mutually fulfilling d/s dynamic are almost always entrenched in an Arthurian, Euro-centric paradigm. Fucking with the capitalization of pronouns abounds. Then there are the handful I circulate through constantly, hungering for updates. Blogs I read regularly to semi-regularly are marked with an asterisk.

I’ve written before about how much the Arthurian paradigm of male submission pisses me off. Nonetheless, as someone pointed out, if that’s legitimately someone’s kink, then Godspeed to them. But it seems really fucking shady to me that this is all there is. I know looking at blogs is not a good indication of demographics, since not everyone expresses themselves in a written and/or hi-tech format, but it’s the only plug-in to the kink community that I have consistently. I’m pretty sure this is true for a lot of other people too.

I have probably missed some well-known mansubs and manswitches, and might have netted a few people who do participate in these dynamics but who don’t identify as kinky. Be warned.

1. All For Her
2. All Hers
3. AarkeyBabble
4. At all Times
5. Being Her Knight
6. Client Nine and a Half
7. The Daring Adventures of Switch and Boy *
8. Denying Thumper *
9. Destiny and her pet chance
10. The Edge of Vanilla *
11. The Enchanted Ranger
12. Everyone Needs a Love Tap Now and Then *
13. Exploring Wife Led Marriage
14. Forever in Her service
15. The Glow Inside
16. Happy Wife… Happy Life
17. Hardwired Submissive Man
18. Her househusband’s life
19. Her Majesty’s Plaything
20. HERS Forever
21. High Maintenance Queen – “True stories of success, failure and everything in between of a fun loving fellow trying to turn a high maintenance wife into the dominatrix of his dreams.”
22. The Hitching Post
23. journey into a wife lead marriage
24. Maybe Maimed But Never Harmed *
25. Mistress Lady Vixen and adonis
26. The Mystress and the Paladin
27. Notes on an Unremarkable Life
28. On Female Dominance of the Male
29. The Path Least Chosen
30. Ramblings of a Slave
31. The Road to Self Understanding
32. Serving Her Majesty
33. slaveboy in Marital bliss
34. The Slave Within *
35. Sub-burbs
36. SUBMISSIVE GUY
37. Submissive Little Man
38. The Sub Scribe
39. Surrendered to Princess
40. Starting a Femdom Marriage
41. Under Her Spell
42. Under The Boot
43. Unspeakable Axe *
44. whatevershesays
45. Yes, I’m a Submissive Man!
46. Young Sub Hub

This is soooooo disheartening.

Journeys Into the Scare-the-Shit-Out-Of-You Unknown

I asked the possibly-kinky person how serious they were when they spoke of handcuffs, bungee cords, and anal beads. After their comment last night that “a little pain isn’t a bad thing” I was pretty sure they were fucking kinky. It put me in a really good mood.

They’re not. It was jokes. The pain comment was meant in general, not sexual terms.

They were really cool about it though, and a very good discussion followed. I am, however, truly disappointed. Sad disappointed.

There was one other person nearby who I could unreservedly talk to about being kinky, who while definitively not kinky themselves had had kinky partners and was familiar with and had lived in sexual subcultures. They left under circumstances which may not allow me to see them ever again, and the grief that I feel over the loss of even so new a friend is unlike anything I have ever felt before.

Now that the potentially kinky person is not, I have exhausted my possibilities for finding someone to relate to sexually at the present time and place. I feel sad and uncertain. I don’t think it’s the end of the world.

Interestingly, my non-kinky crush-person came right out and asked the “And you’re sure this is not the result of abuse and a fucked up culture?” question, rather than secretly thinking it while acting supportive. I respect that.

Now, I believed that for a long, long, long, long time. I believed it as recently as this. Unlike the author of “Liberating Ourselves in the Boudoir, An Anarchist-Feminist Perspective Against BDSM” (brought to my attention via Subversive Sub) who feels that BDSM is categorically unhealthy, I had reached the conclusion ‘The damage is done, live with it as healthily as you can, and go enjoy yourself.’ I could not see how my desire to control and hurt and bind could be anything other than a scar of Civilization, of patriarchy, of colonialism, of technophilia, of this culture that is destroying the world.

But then, prompted again by Subversive Sub, this little tiny inkling began to trickle out of the locked-up portions of my brain into the ones I allow myself to think about, that maybe my sexuality was not a product of this fucked up culture. That instead, this destructive culture had culled the expression of these desires to the so-called ‘dark,’ the evil, the unhealthy, the psychotic, the twisted, the high-heeled. That my expression of my sexuality was stunted because in this culture there is no other alternative. You express dominance and submission, sadism and masochism the way the culture expresses it –in war, oppression, torture, genocide, self-harm, rape– or not at all.

Growing up, I never read a book that described the beauty and fulfillment and sexiness of giving and receiving pain, of giving and receiving control. What I read were books that described torture, breaking, enslavement, interrogation, and rape. That’s the way things were. That’s the only way pain and control and dominance and submission could be expressed. Look at kink. What tropes do you see?

What is killing me in this moment is that it is accepted by kinky people. Kinky culture, as I have experienced it and understand it, buys into the idea that kink is dark, twisted, dangerous, and just a little bit wrong, no matter how much we proclaim our desires to be normal and healthy.

I’ve read a lot of glorification of ‘exploring your dark side’ from sex-/kink-positive people in blog-land. What is this ‘dark side’ you speak of? When I examine my fantasies inspired by the colonialist/imperialist/capitalist/war-mongering/genocidal/civilized culture I was born into, yeah, shit seems pretty dark, but in actual practice? There is nothing dark about what I do with another person, when I hit them and bite them and tie them and cover their mouths with my hand. It’s so fucking beautiful, and intimate, and full of trust, and fucking hot. It’s not an exploration of my dark side, it’s an exploration of myself, what I am, what we are.

I have similar reactions to people who claim kink is countercultural or revolutionary. It’s not. It just is. Having the sex you like and fulfilling yourself and your partner(s) rather than remaining repressed and oppressed, that’s revolutionary. But it’s not counterculture just because there’s a set of handcuffs or pain.

“But if that’s what people are into…” someone insists.

Even taking civilized, cultural, or intrinsic arguments out of the equation, very simply these tropes are not mine. They are other peoples’, other cultures’, other eras’, other governments’, other societies’, other economies’ ideas. I did not create them out of my own experience living and interacting with dominant, submissive, and switch people (or other gradations). These are the tropes I adopted because there was nothing else. They were the only dynamics that gave any validation to this hungry, unfed, squashed, crushed part of me, and so I clutched them to myself. At the same time I punished myself for wanting such evil, sick, bad, wrong things so, so badly. The only way I could handle it was to create a dichotomy within myself of ‘evil’ and ‘acceptable’ dominant and sadistic acts.

But there is this whole realm of expression of dominance and sadism out there that I’m just beginning to see faint hints of, forms of expression that civilized culture doesn’t even acknowledge exist. And because ‘The Scene’ is merely a subculture of Civilization –no matter how countercultural it would like to believe itself– The Scene does not acknowledge these forms of expression either. The kink community has adopted the same walls of the mainstream while busily deluding itself that it is pushing the boundaries of society.

I still get off on slavery fantasies, and rape fantasies, and torture fantasies, and interrogation fantasies, and breaking fantasies. I don’t necessarily think I should stop having these fantasies as long as they are also enjoyable to my partners and I understand the difference between fantasy and reality (you know, that part where we’re really equals and I can’t actually do anything to you you don’t want me to).

But there is so much more. So much that has existed that we were never told. So much that I can create with my own personal experience of interacting with partners rather than subsisting on the scraps and dregs we scavenge from the dominant culture.

I know I am not writing this as clearly as I could, but this is the first time I’ve tried to say it explicitly. I have also not edited this nearly as much as I normally do posts, because it is still swirling and bubbling and fermenting and fomenting inside of me and it is messy and it’s not going to be neat and tidy and thesis-like for quite some time. Maybe never.

Knots

I learned a new knot yesterday, and am now busily thinking up kinky applications. I also saw some amazing cordage someone had made, two ply and then cabled four times, that was about the diameter of parachute cord. It was really sexy.

Still contemplating my dominance in its tag-a-long puppy mode, still not integrated into me but out of its cage, and my lonely sadism languishing in its cell. My sole desire right now is to tie someone up and torment their nipples. I don’t need anything more elaborate.

Still trying to figure out what my dominance means to me as myself, not in contrast to or relationship with a submissive person. Wondering why masturbation seems satisfying at the time, and feels so inadequate later.

Still trying to figure out if the tease is secretly serious.

Feeling really hungry sexually, like I’m eating but still starving.

A Different Culture

After Kink For All, Sara Eileen and I got together for chats and delicious foods, whereupon we reflected on the fuckedupness that we are the only dominant women of our age that we know. Seriously. She is the only dominant woman I know within a decade of my age. Technically, I have met one other woman within a decade of my age who identified as a ‘goddess.’

Even including the crazy chick (there were other issues than her deification), that’s three dominant women across a couple of continents in ‘The  Next Generation.’ The only other kinky women we know in our age group are subs or switches.

Whoa.

Whoaaaaaaaa.

Right around Kink For All I was struck, not with an epiphany, but this sudden idea, this thought.

Not to take credit away from the zeal of my self-repression in regard to my sexuality, but part of the reason I was so oblivious for so long was because I had no sexual counterparts to react to. When my desires did surface, I quickly squashed them as unreasonable, selfish, and unrealistic. Who would want to do that with me? I was asking too much, I was ungrateful for what I had.

I don’t feel comfortable appropriating the language of the asexuality community, but ‘asexual’ is the only word I know of that describes what I felt. For all that time, I effectively did not experience sexual attraction. There was no one for me to be attracted to. All the straight, vanilla kids had each other to react to, to be attracted to and have fast, secret, car-backseat sex with. None of this is to suggest that asexual people are merely people who haven’t discovered their sexuality yet, but the definition of ‘asexual’ on the AVEN website so perfectly describes what I felt.

Asexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction.

I misinterpreted my lack of arousal as self control, since at the time I was saving myself for Monogamous (or possibly Bigamous) Matrimony. My understanding of sexuality (Hahahahahaha…) really camouflaged my lack of one.

And then, around Kink For All, I realized: What if, what if, what if, I had grown up with submissive people to react to? Or even when I hit puberty I’d had submissive people to react to? To be attracted to, to feel desired by, to share with, to play off of. Who would I be if I had grown up with submissive counterparts, and dominant role models? How would my sexuality have evolved if my dominance had been accepted both by myself and my culture as a fact of my life, to be nurtured and to grow like anything else?

I thought about it for days, maybe a couple of weeks. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

There’s something terribly sad, and longing, and useless and lost about thinking about it.

For the Love of Whatever

Perusing FetLife for the first time in a while. Good grief. Honestly.

As a sexual community, could we please acknowledge that acts are not inherently dominant or submissive?

Giving oral sex is not an inherently submissive act. Seriously. Honestly and truly.

Being tied up and whipped is not inherently submissive, and wielding a whip and tying the knots is not inherently dominant.

Wearing industrially manufactured synthetic clothing is not inherently kinky.

Could we also please acknowledge that dominance, submission, switch-ness, and any other kinky orientation are self-defined, and you don’t have to meet the criteria of some goddamn checklist to be what you are? Could we, as a sexual culture, acknowledge that our kink is whatever feels good to us and our partner(s)?

Could we please come from places of respect for our counterparts, instead of demanding they present themselves as a blank canvas for the acts and dynamics our sexual culture tells us we must desire to be what we are? By the way, it’s not only dominants who do this.

Here is this incredible, novel, crazy-ass idea: What if we did what felt good, what felt hot, what felt fun and deep and whole, instead of what ‘The Scene’ tells us is our kink?

Sweet

I can now have orgasms without the assistance of a vibrator.

Sweet.