Live and learn

Owing to our long distance relationship, my Master and I have an open relationship; we can date other people. One of the people I was considering dating was a good fit for me in many ways, but there was a deal breaker. See, I like doing nice things for friends; I like using my car to drive them places, I like kicking in a bit more than my share of the booze money. I can take charge when it's necessary, but I'm more comfortable following another's lead. for her, all of these things were a sign of weakness, and every encounter was an adversarial one to get the better of the other. Not only did this make interpersonal relations with her troublesome, but it attacked my very sense of identity. I mean, all of these things that I had been taught from birth that made me a good person- my willingness to share, my lack of pushiness, my (at least self percieved) tendency to desire the good of others, sometimes at the expense of my own was to her a sign of weakness. I was pretty emotionally wrecked for awhile trying to win her approval before I realized I should just be comfortable with who I am.

So it will be quite a relief to return to my relationship with my Master, where such traits are celebrated and not denigrated. A space where I can be myself without it being because I'm too weak, but because we have mutually complementary roles that are equal in diginity. A space, in short, where acting what comes most naturally to me is understood as an examined choice and not a sign of weakness, that I would surely act differently if I had the power to be more assertive or assholish.

John Donne rocks my socks

"BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knock, breath, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me,'and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt town, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy:
Divorce me,'untie, or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

Challenge: write a paper on this without referencing my masochism =)

The stressed businessman

It's a trope I'm sure we're all familiar with: the high powered CEO of a Fortune 500 company is sick of being in charge all the time, so he pays a woman to beat up on him and take the burden of control away from him for a few hours.

I always thought this particular reason didn't apply to me. After all, I don't work at a high stress job; I'm a student, not a CEO. The fate of hundreds don't rest upon my decisions. I don't have stockholders to be responsible to. Though my life does involve some stress, it's no less than what most people have to deal with. And though I can take a leadership position if no one else is competent or willing to do it, I find myself more often following orders than giving them wherever such things are necessary.

And yet, the trope may be hitting at something deeper. A few weeks ago I read an article, now unfortunately lost to the mists of my continually clearing internet history, that claimed that masochism was a result of the modern burden of selfhood, a way to release the stress of keeping up a constant persona. Objectification, being treated poorly, and the trance states evoked by pain are all means to this end. This dovetailed a bit into a recent post over at Trin's:

"To make a man suffer -- to make him feel, to force his walls down and reduce him to quivering sensation, whether pleasure or pain, is an achievement, and more intensely pleasant for being so."

I had never linked this particular part of my personality with masculinity, but what she says about most men certainly applies to me. I'm a reserved kind of guy. I use my emotions; I don't let my emotions use me. For me, they have to be constantly monitored to ensure that I don't hurt myself or others when I give them license to escape my head and affect the outside world. I suppose some would call me repressed, but I think self-control is one of the cardinal virtues, and I think that my tight control of my emotions makes me a better person. Nonetheless, to maintain such control all the time is difficult, perhaps not healthy, and makes it all the more fun and exhilarating when I do finally let go.

And when I finally do let go is very often in a BDSM space. It's there that my dom can force me out of my habitual stoicism and make me feel. It's there that, bound, gagged, and beaten, my emotions can be given voice impotently. I can let them loose and not worry about hurting anyone else or myself, because in that situation I'm powerless.

Super Bowl Commercial

We fade in on a twenty-something somewhat attractive white girl. She's sitting on a stool slightly off-center with a stark white background. Subsequent actors are the standard rainbow array of politically correct races and ages.

"...you spend your whole life being told that you're sick, that you're a deviant, so the first time I met someone that didn't treat me that way, but promised to explore it with me, well, that was a revelation."

Towards the end of her statement she begins to fade away on camera, with our next actor's face superimposed over her until he is all that remains.

"...friends found my porn stash when I was fifteen. Needless to say, my social life wasn't a whole lot of fun till I could escape to college..."

next actor, this one is a bit older than the others

"My employer found out about a meeting I was attending, and fired me for it. Said it was 'bad for workplace morale.' How am I supposed to make my mortgage?"

next actor, again a bit older

"I had always been a good parent. Why did CPS feel the need to remove my child from its loving home just because of what we did in the bedroom?

next actor, this one the youngest of them all

"It's something that's so integral to your identity, but how are you supposed to tell the people you care about about it, like your parents? I mean, they would already pitch a fit if I was gay: no way they're ready to hear that I like pain and am most fulfilled in a subservient role!"

Fade to black, with the following words superimposed in the center of the screen in white

"24% of lypiphiles have lost their jobs because of intolerance. 3%, their children."

these words fade, and new ones replace them.

"Let's fix that."

new words

"www.lypiphilia.org"

Blast from the past

Apparently, my talent for verboseness when talking about BDSM is not a new development for me. Witness this ancient post on a sexuality message board asking for advice right before my first meeting of Socrates.

So, the situation. I've known that I was a submissive since I started having desires about sex, around 13. I've fantasized about this kind of sex for years, but given the glut of submissives and dearth of dominants, I was worried that I'd never get a chance to act like I truly am. So I register for an S&M personals site, despite only being 17 (18 to register). I didn't fill out any profile information, since I only wanted access to the forums and get the lay of the land for when I go off to college and can attain sexual freedom. So, despite the empty profile, I get several messages from a guy very interested in me- I was unable to navigate the message system before, and when I finally did check, he had sent me 4 in the last month, despite my lack of responding. He's 39, and now we're talking about meeting somewhere in real life.

I am slightly worried about STDs. He claims that he's clean, but I don't intend to take him at his word. I'm going to use condoms, but there's always the chance that you're the 1-in-1000 chance where the condom doesn't work. He's admitted to being polyamorous, so he won't be exclusive, so that increases the danger somewhat. Still, I fail to see how polyamory is much more dangerous than the serial monogamy practiced by most people. And if I were truly worried about STDs, I would remain celibate all my life- it's not like marriage causes a magical viel against STDs or anything.

I'm not worried about the age difference. I'm at the age of consent for my state, so we're not doing anything illegal, and I don't feel coerced in the slightest. It's honestly a nonissue for me- I suppose I'd prefer it if he were younger, since it would cause less of a stir if we were caught, but other than that I don't mind.

I should be thrilled- I've thought about this for 4 years, feared it would never come to pass, yet now it is upon me. It helps that, if his pictures are legit anyway, he's someone far hotter than I would think woluld have sex with me; he definitely doesn't look his age. And yet, now here at the cusp, I hesistate. I'm a virgin, and despite my somewhat advanced age, am not at all sure I'm ready for vanilla sex- much less something more dangerous and more intimate. I suppose I am simply playing the part of the blushing maiden on the wedding night- afraid and excited by turns. On the other hand, I'm worried that I'm letting a golden opportunity pass me by if I give this up. As I said, he's really hot, he doesn't mind that my going off to college in a year precludes a long term relationship, he doesn't mind my age, and the previously mentioned lack of dominants and glut of submissives is there as well. It gives me an opportunity to carry this out a full year before I had expected I'd be able to. It allows me to gain a measure of independence from my parents. Perhaps most importantly of all, it could be a vehicle for self-discovery: I want to figure out why I'm submissive, and gain new insights into my personality. The only way I can clarify how I feel about that issue is experimenting.

Undoubtedly most of the responses will center around how inappropriate the age difference is, and maybe that's something I need to hear. Lord knows this would be an incredibly lurid tale if the press ever got its hands on it- S&M! Internet "predators"! Homosexuality! Adult-teen sex! If this couldn't get Foley off the front page, nothing else could. Nevertheless, I could use counsel about the other issues confronting me- STDs, fear that I'm not ready for sex, ect.

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

Comfort or crutch?

I've been under a bit of emotional duress lately, due to issues that would possibly compromise my anonymity, and in any case, lie outside the purview of this blog.

Through it all, I can't help but wonder how much better it would be if Socrates were here. Even more than the counsel of my circle of friends, now mostly dispersed to the far corners of the country away from my university, and even more than having my parent's shoulder to cry on and pour out my troubles to, I wish that I could feel his embrace. More than his presence, though, I wish that he could exert his dominance- no, his possession of me. I want to feel that almost paradoxical mix of objectification and love, that I am his cherished possession, both because of the utility I offer him and because of who I am, with that wonderful clarity and feeling of comfort I can't begin to describe.

I can't decide whether all that means that my submission is a source of strength and comfort in times of stress, or a crutch I use to avoid dealing with my problems, and leaves me wondering perhaps if the formation of my submissive sexuality had something to do with this fleeing of my problems. Then again, I'm not convinced that's even a meaningful distinction, or whether methods of coping that are approved of are sources of strength, and methods of coping we disapprove of are crutches.

Then again, wishing for the comfort of your lover in times of distress is scarcely an unhealthy thing, even if it takes an odd form.