The drive for authenticity

Socrates has eased up on my orgasm denial of late. From the two week period of denial I had owing to some discipline issues, I'm back on my weekly schedule, with several orgasms occurring each time I'm finally allowed to do so.

The dirty secret of chastity is that this is probably more punishment than my two weeks in captivity.

One of my favorite BDSM bloggers once called what we do "a shared conspiracy to subvert the ordinary," and so it is. When in denial for so long, the sexual experience ceases to be a series of peaks and valleys, but a constant presence in one's life, pervading every action one takes. Of course, this sensation could be achieved by even vanilla people, and few choose to do so: critical to the experience is the masochism that finds such frustration.... satisfying, I'll call it, and a submissive mindset that takes joy in handing over control of such an intimiate part of yourself to someone you trust. Strip away that sexual arousal, however, and the joy turns to ashes in my mouth: my daily exercises turn from a joyful expression of my submission into rote chores, my collar becomes neither a defiant expression of my identity, nor a welcome constant reminder of our relationship, but a social liability, and everything from the ball stretcher to the butt plugs become a duty instead of a pleasure. In short, my daily interactions are no more suffused with with the certain knowledge of my servitude; my connection with the sublime (if I may describe my experience in more lofty terms than it deserves, for want of better terms) is severed; that constant reminder of something just beyond the mundane is lost.

I'm not proud that my submission stems solely from my sexuality. Many subs (most of them seemingly female) report that after orgasm, their submissiveness is increased; that they feel that they must repay their dominant for giving something so pleasurable to them. I know not whether to blame my male physiology, which is as responsible for the "roll over and go to sleep after sex" as it is for my lack of submissiveness after orgasm, or the nature of my submission, that it is only triggered by sexuality. Yet, I do not feel it is fair to characterize my joy in submission as simply sexual in nature; my sexuality being active is a prerequisite for feeling that way, but I feel something in that joy that is not merely sexual in nature.

I wonder why I feel the need to justify it as such in the first place, why I'm not proud that my submission stems solely from my sexuality. Of course, there is the ideal of service, which I have imbibed since youth from my parents, religion, and to a lesser extent culture, an ideal that I feel is noble and worth striving for. Yet, that does not seem to be the entire reason: a part of it stems, I think, from the desire for authenticity, for genuineness, for extremism. Even among the most typically reviled traits this oneupsmanship can be observed; geeks will proudly impress their friends by relating the time they stayed home at the prom to watch the Battlestar Galactica season finale, and people within our own community will periodically attempt to out-deprave one another. But even setting aside oneupsmanship, my lack of submissiveness after orgasm makes me wonder about my virtue as a submissive qua submissive.

Of course, none of this handwringing will change my nature. The truth is, my submission is not active if my sexuality isn't, and as an ends-based utilitarian, that's fine with me. The only thing I have to do is work around it, if I wish to functionally be in a submissive state of mind most of the time.

And hey, it'll give Socrates a novel form of punishment. Though if I know that it's a punishment, I may take more pleasure in it than he intends. Witness the paradoxes of masochism