An interesting thing

I’m starting to feel the desire to take  a name on this blog, rather than be ‘Nameless’.

Something has shifted in me today. Perhaps it was this. I sat down late last night to write about fighting, and what came out was something else entirely, and I feel as though I’ve remembered who I am. A bit, at least. I feel more certain.

Perhaps also it’s a sudden rush of new blogs I’ve been reading the last couple of days – Axe and Eileen and MayMay and others. Blogging and the reading of blogs is, I guess, a bit like group therapy.

As hard as I can

OK, now the post I meant to write.

When I was with my ex, I sometimes had the strongest desire to fight with him, physically, to fight with all my strength. I wanted to kick and punch and bite him, as hard as I could. I didn’t, because he didn’t like it. He’d occasionally let me bite him a little, but gently. When we kissed, I always wanted to bite his tongue. He hated that, understandably, but once or twice the urge overcame me and I did it anyway.

Because I didn’t ‘really’ want to hurt him – at that point the idea was inconceivable – I used to long for a guy who was really good at fighting, so that I could fight as hard as I wanted and not damage him – so that he could contain my aggression in a safe space.

When I was tiny, my dad and I used to have ‘rough and tumble’ sessions. I fought him as hard as I could, but of course I was tiny, I could never hurt him, so he could happily let me throw all my might against him. One of my few memories of early childhood is the day I asked him for a rough and tumble, and he told me I was too big for that now. I felt bereft. I never had a great relationship with my dad. Those sessions are the only memories I have of connecting with him at all.

I really don’t know why it never occurred to me before now that those memories might be related to my desire to beat up the men I’m attracted to. Gah. Daddy issues. How pedestrian. I’m disgusted with myself.

Is it really daddy issues? Or were those sessions not a cause, but a symptom of my love of a good scrap?

I want to be able to punch my lover. To backhand him, and see him stagger a little. To kick him, as hard as I can – but not damage him. And I want to take men by the throat, and see a little fear in their eyes. Maybe even to squeeze, just a little.

I’m only starting to appreciate that this doesn’t necessarily make me a bad person, but I’m still not sure about that. I worry that alongside the ‘benign dictator’ there is a real bully in me. I have an urge, sometimes, to play the psychotic. In U2’s Vertigo, halfway through, Bono breathes, ‘Just give me what I want and noone gets hurt’. It thrills me. The menace of a loaded gun or a sharp knife, the threat, the holding hostage. Your power. Their vulnerability.

I honestly don’t know whether I’m kinky or just fucked up and mental.

Who’s queen?

Many years ago, in my early twenties, a drunk guy hit on me in a pub. He meant no harm. He was hammered. He started by trying to sweet talk me, and in true shy English style, rather than telling him to sod off, I smiled politely but absently and waited for him to pick up on the subtle ‘go away’ signals.

Then suddenly he leant in to kiss me. Without thinking at all, completely instinctively, I reached up and took him by the neck. I wasn’t afraid; I wasn’t angry; I was simply disabusing him of his mistaken idea.

He was astonished, as was his friend, who leapt in, apologising profusely, and hurried him away. My action took everyone by surprise, including me. I got many compliments from my friends for being ‘hardcore’ and ‘badass’. But what I personally felt was a kind of quiet satisfaction, because in that moment I had felt more myself than I had ever done before.

As time went by, I came to find that I felt most myself, most free, when I knew I was in charge. There are moments when I just know I rule. Literally and colloquially. My last boyfriend used to refer to me as his ‘dark and terrible mistress’. My friends used to tease me by quoting Blackadder at me – ‘Who’s queen?’

I’m queen. I rule.

I don’t get to feel myself (ahem) anywhere near as often as I’d like. When there are strangers around, usually other things get in the way: shyness; fear; insecurity. I’m afraid even now just writing this that everyone who reads it will hate me, because we’re not supposed to like being in charge. (Especially if you’re English – we call it being ‘up yourself’.) But when I feel it, I know it’s me. I feel I’ve lived a thousand lives of responsible rulership, benign dictatorship.

When I’m in that state of mind, I know my own power. I feel my own power. It’s not an ego-trip. There’s no megalomania. I just know I rule. It’s secure, relaxed, natural. And other people respond to it too. They listen when I talk. They naturally just do what I tell them. It’s the most extraordinary thing.

i used to think it was a character flaw; that I was just ‘bossy’. As I say, we’re not supposed to like being in charge. It was some time before I understood that every archetype has both flaws and virtues, weaknesses and strengths.

It’s funny, really, the dark and terrible mistress thing, as at that time I didn’t see myself as remotely dark, rather the opposite, I was always scared of the dark side and tended to stay firmly in the world of the fluffy. Perhaps he saw something I hadn’t seen yet. He was an extremely clever, self-possessed man, my ex, and he had just as much nataural ‘power’ as me, but there was no doubt I was queen in that relationship. He was a mixture of grand vizier, indentured fallen angel, and sworn vassal. I wonder what he’d think now if he knew I was starting to peek (ever so tentatively) out of the vanilla closet. He probably wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest.

Well, that’s not the post I intended to write at all. I think I’ll stop and start again.

Squee, and beautiful men kissing

You’ll have to forgive me, I really am in fangirl mode at the moment – I just saw the HBP trailers the other day, and the new Harry/Draco promo shots which are spawning a new wave of fanart, and I’ll all overcome with slashy joy.

Geek pride, my friends.

HBP was so great for H/D shippers. Plus, you know, Draco Malfoy terrified for his life and his family’s, stripped of his swagger, set an impossible task, trying and failing to bring himself to kill, totally breaking down and crying big fat tears in the bathroom, so lonely and frightened and desperate that he turned to the ghost of the world’s most annoying muggleborn girl just to have someone to cry at. Desperation. God, I love desperation. When it comes in a pretty blond package, so much the better. And tears. God, I hope Tom Felton can do the tears.

Anyway, as I haven’t posted any video for a while I thought I’d share this rather lovely compilation of beautiful young men kissing. You’re going to want to turn the sound off – the music really interferes with the ability to lap up the boy-on-boy action.

And why have I posted three times in one day? Because there’s a scary piece of official paperwork I’m supposed to be filling in.

Ethical exploration

I need some real people to play with. I mean, people who are actually involved in the game. This toying with my acquaintances thing may be fun, but it’s also not really fair. If a guy behaved towards me like that – well, I’d seize him by the throat and reeducate him, but the point is, I have no desire to be a creep, or a bully, and behaviour that would be fun with consenting ‘victims’ is unfair with others.

But here’s the thing – I’m not ready for ‘real’ people. I’m not ready for people who actually know about this stuff. It’s too intimidating. And besides, I suspect the good ones are rare, and I have very low tolerance for creepy. My budding baby-dom self is so fragile that if I went to some bdsm event now and was surrounded by a bunch of people I found creepy, it might just put an end to the process for good.

So what do I do? There’s nothing I can do. What I need is a relationship. I need a guy that I trust and feel comfortable with, so that I feel secure enough to take the risk of beginning to express this side of me. And relationships are not things we can conjure up. I can’t do anything but wait and hope that the universe sends me someone appropriate.

Gah.

Dreams and awakening

Some time ago, well over a year ago, before I’d come across Ms Jones and been woken up to the possibility I might be dominant, I had the most intensely erotic dream of my life.

There were these two guys, and the dom had invited me into their dynamic as a kind of ‘present’ for the sub, a reward for good behaviour, a gift of love, something to make him happy. All I really remember was the three of us screwing in this weird narrow kind of cage in a night-time marketplace, the dom at the top, the happy and grateful sub in the middle, and me at the bottom of the pile having, even though it was just a dream, the most intense sexual experience of my life.

I woke up and I was like, wtf? Does some part of me want to be placed even beneath subs? But now, with hindsight, I don’t think it was that at all. I think I was getting off on this guy’s submission, and my brain had simply painted me into the scenario in a place it could handle – ie, a place where I wasn’t myself doing any hurting or dominating.

I’ve really struggled with the idea of myself in that role.

Last night I had my very first dom-type dream. Baby-dom, of course – this whole thing is baby steps for me – but it’s still progress. I was one of three women, and there were two men. I started, just a little, to toy with one of the guys in a slightly d/s kind of way, and then discovered the other women were up to similar things. The moment I discovered this was when I had the thought that I could use one of my hair clips as a makeshift nipple clamp, and I went to put it on the guy and found that one of the other women had beaten me to it, and he already had some fairly hefty crocodile clips hanging from various parts of his body. And gradually we women got together and started to team play these guys. I woke up horny as hell and with a sudden urge to write porn.

Why?

Well, it probably helps that I was reading bdsm slash before I went to bed (I’m such a fangirl). But the real trigger, I think, is a new acquaintance. I’ve been hanging out with a good friend of mine and his new girlfriend, and it turns out that this girl and I have quite a lot in common. In particular, we both like to be in charge, though she has far fewer compunctions about it than I do. And because we’ve been playing off each other’s dynamic, these traits have been exaggerated in us, so that it’s got to a point where we’ve been (non-physically) kind of kicking my friend around between us like a ball. Playfully, of course – I’m very aware that we’re kind of skirting the limits of what will be taken in good humour, and so am starting to tone it down – but nonetheless, it kind of feels like two doms playing with a man toy, or as close as the ordinary world allows us to come to that.

If I playfully pretend to hit him, she playfully leaps in to insist that he’s hers to hit. If she playfully spanks him and I suggest that she hits him harder, she responds, ‘Oh, I do.’ We tag-team mildly sexually harrassing the beautiful young man I mentioned a couple of posts back (again, with me carefully watching for the line beyond which this is Not Cool). We make playful plans to capture a harem and keep them in cages in the basement. We discuss the possibility of paying our impoverished male acquaintances to make out for our entertainment.

I feel like a child trying on her mother’s heels or playing kiss chase in the playground. I feel like I’m trying on this role for size. I feel like the walls between the parts of my brain that want this and that are afraid of this are starting to come down, brick by tiny brick.

Footnote: I’ve just remembered that when I was a kid I always wanted to do the chasing in kiss chase, rather than the running.

Son of a preacher man

On Christmas Eve I went to midnight mass with a catholic friend of mine. Now, I don’t much like religion. I’m spiritual, but not religious, and dogma tends to make me uncomfortable. And this friend of mine is not someone I’m remotely attracted to. Not even a little bit.

However, he went up to receive communion, and then came back to the pew and knelt, in prayer, head bowed and hidden in his joined hands, and I suddenly felt hugely attracted to him.

There is something about religious men. Is it another kind of submission, religion? Perhaps it is. Submission to the will of someone or something else, to something external that you consider to be wiser and better than you, to its rules and guidance. To its judgement of your value and worth.

I find religion in males deeply compelling, in two kinds. One is a grown, strong, adult man who is religious, willingly submitting his own judgement to something external. The other is a boy or young man with religious feeling. I should make clear at this point that I have no actual sexual interest in actual underage boys. (*Shudder*) However, the archetype of altarboys is a powerful one. I think it’s to do with contrast. Boys are ’supposed’ to be little tearaways, chaotic, insensitive, boisterous. The idea of a boy or young man with actual religious feeling – well, I guess it’s not just religious feeling. Adolescent boys who break the stereotype and are contemplative or sensitive – that’s always been a powerful thing for me.

‘Son of a preacher man’ always had a strong effect on me. With this archetype you get the imposition of religious discipline on a young, rebellious mind, and religious thought (because if you’re brought up in a religious family it stays with you whether or not you choose to believe), and the kind of cunning that allows him to present a respectable face to his parents while sneaking out after hours to be a very, very bad boy. Submission and rebellion all in one package.

Then there’s catholic priests, who are supposed to be celibate – how much fun if they fail. The fighting their own nature, the breaking, the remorse, the shame.

My head is messed up.

Russell Crowe’s repentant gunfighter-turned-priest in The Quick and the Dead.

Remorse. Repentance. Shame. Guilt.

This looks like so much fun

Sol on Fire Play: Dancing with the Sun!

Let’s talk a little about Fire Performance. Why do we dance with fire? It is because of the primal nature of the element. Man lives in awe of the elements and has worshiped them from the dawn of time. Using the elements brings incredible power to any art. When man harnessed the element of fire the primal nature was tapped. Or have we harnessed it? The illusion of control has at times led to devastating effects. Yet man is still fascinated by fire as he dances with utility and the power he will never control.

In this discussion Michael Sol will demonstrate dancing with fire as it pertains to BDSM play and beyond; for the dance is a must, because control is an illusion. A fire performer learns to move with the fire and guide it in a profound and fascinating dance. We will discuss how a fire performer develops a relationship with the uncontrollable and manages the risk while maintaining intensity. In the BDSM world we use the intensity of fire to build and thrill, and also to massage and relax with sensual touch. Fire is a dance and a journey of the spirit as well as the body. Come see a Dance with the Sun.

Christmas

My Christmas present came early this year – I’ve been snowed in at a friend’s house with a few people, including one very beautiful young man who’s spent a lot of time running around in his underwear. I confess I’ve been mildly sexually harrassing him.

Even more fun, one of the girls teaches this, and has been flying us. I wish I could find a good picture to show you. It’s a bit like when you were little and adults would ‘fly’ you on their feet, only with therapeutic stuff built in. Imagine a tiny, petite woman lying on the floor, with a grown man (a beautiful young man) stretched out face down over her hands and feet – essentially, he’s stretched out the way he would be if he were hanging by his arms, with his chest extended, his stomach pulled in – and she has him raise his arms over his head (this is horizontal at this point), bend them at the elbows, and join his hands, so that his forearms are now pointing down his back, and his hands are in a praying position. It was incredibly powerful – this tiny woman effortlessly manipulating a man’s body as if it weighed nothing, him all stretched out and completely dependent on her. Total trust. A kind of submission, really. A kind of bondage, even.

This is the closest picture I could find, except that in this picture the flyer’s body is angled downwards, in the pose I’m talking about the base’s hands were raised so that the flyer is stretched out horizontally and the spine is curved and extended, and of course the arms bent back over the spine really adds some extra punch. Annoyingly all the pictures on the interweb seem to have make bases and female flyers – it’s a totally different experience the other way round.

Not so fun was an odd little moment one morning. For various reasons I’d ended up sharing a bed with the pretty young man (I was very well behaved), and the next morning I made some quip about how he was tired because he’d been fighting me off all night. I’m sure you can imagine the scenario that was in my head – me pinning him down and molesting him, and him struggling to break free. I quickly discovered that what I said created a totally different image in the minds of my friends – the jokes they made in response were all about a scenario where I was pleading with the PYM to have sex with me. It’s so messed up – for most people, a woman actively pursuing sex equates to her being desperate and powerless. Stupid fucking society. There seems to be no way to get away from the rule that a woman’s power lies in saying no – that men must pursue and women must run. How can we get people to see these things differently?

Suffering hero(in)es

So I was in the shower thinking about heroism and submission and masochism and the like, as you do, and the thought occurred to me that it’s not just our heroes who suffer, but our heroines, too. We have our Atlases and Prometheuses and Odins and Jack Bauers and Wolverines. But we also have Psyche, forced to complete impossible tasks in her quest to recover the lovely Eros (mm, Eros), and Elise, who wove shirts out of nettles to rescue her brothers who had been turned into swans, and Rhiannon, carrying every visitor to the castle on her back in penance for murdering her child (which she didn’t actually do), and Cinderella sleeping in the ashes and serving her sisters, etc etc etc.

We love suffering heroes. We associate suffering with courage, and nobility, and wisdom (see Odin) and love (see Elise). We love it so much that we get people with martyr complexes; so much that we have a tendency to listen to victims more than experts, even when the victims are talking absolute bobbins (a pet hate of mine); so much that we like House even though he’s a total arse. We even built an entire religion around a guy being tortured to death. (Actually, more than one – let’s not forget Mithras and Osiris and Odin and the rest.)

So I wondered why we love our hero/ines to suffer. And the conclusion I came to was because that’s what story is. Story is conflict and resolution. If there’s no conflict, there’s no story. ‘They lived happily’ is not a story. ‘They had a ton of shit heaped on them, bravely overcame it, and then lived happily’ is a story. Hardship is such a key part of the hero’s journey. No wonder we revere it.

Frankly it’s not at all surprising that suffering becomes fetishised for some of us. Actually, I think it’s a miracle we don’t all feel that way.