Not particular in thought tonight. Up here on Delta flight 34.

Newark to Amsterdam.

I’m in 27F

Just spilling. Let us see what evolves…

There’s a tidal emotional pull I’m feeling of late, and I’d love to ascribe it to coincidence, hormones, projection, conjecture, hysteria or a psychic break. But I don’t think it is any of those. I think I’m simply susceptible to the vagaries of the emotions of others. I’m trying to work on controlling that, so that I’m not so readily buffered about by the unthinking energetic thrashings of friends and even strangers. But the thing is? In the case where I’m opening myself up, deliberately, to the possibility of submitting to another human being, I find myself on the peculiar path that leads to involuntary disclosure and reflexive reception.

One of the things with which I’m adept is the capacity to absorb the emotional states of other people. Probably some of this is inborn,. And definitely some of it is learned, a result of growing up with a parent suffering from PTSD and manic depression. It was helpful to be able to read moods and subtle tidal shifts of emotional switchbacks, and decide quickly whether it was appropriate to jump on the wild ride or disconnect before the gravitational pull dragged me in. I would work very hard to engage and entertain when I thought it might help, and did my best to “cheer up” my Father when he was in a depression or to keep him rolling when his manic phases took him on broad stroke impossible flights and seemingly mad adventures.

I sometimes wonder if these impossible dreams… of helping my Father, of saving my Mother from the doomed marriage, of being perfect enough to book every audition I hit so that I could help our family make ends meet, of being good enough in school to guarantee I would be able to secure a secondary education on merit alone since the money wasn’t there, all served to lay a foundation for a core desire for deliberately unequal relationships. The Kobayashi-Maru of love, baby. A chainfall of no-win scenarios

Pop psychology often leads us down this path…distant parents, inappropriate signals, poor bonding, what have you, can lead to a fucked up adulthood. Thing is? For all of the weirdness of my childhood, it wasn’t all that. I didn’t suffer any physical or sexual abuse. And even though my Dad was kinda crazy, his obsession with travel led me to see places even children wealthier than I never saw, and his compulsive musicianship gave me an appreciation for art that stayed with me. And my Mother’s seeming passiveness masked a faith and strength I didn’t realize she possessed until I was well into what passes for adulthood, and  never saw in myself until very recently.

So what if growing up walking emotional eggshells and feeling as though love means working to please others does carry over into adult life? Where does a girl wind up? Well, in my case, it is deliberately seeking relationships where I’m at an apparent disadvantage. I mean, really. What person of sound mind and spirit decides that waiting hand, foot and heart on someone else is a healthy plan?

“Healthy” or not, it seems a soft way to channel what might otherwise be a slow writhing death of a thousand hurts, slights, lost in a confused derangement of relationships that provide the same inequality without the erotic connection of submission, and the encompassing safety of a dominant who nurtures and cherishes that submission as a valuable commodity.

I have had relationships based on power exchange, and relationships with a more egalitarian approach. And with the exception of my boyfriend in High School, all of my relationships have still had an unequal component to them. In retrospect, I poured myself very deeply into relationships, and accepted whatever amount of affection and devotion I received as sufficient, even when I really craved more. It felt natural for me to love more, give more, and so that was the way of my world.

It made a great deal of sense, all of my confusion around the sanity of this dynamic once I uncovered my desire for a D/S relationship. I mean, wasn’t it at its core, about the S giving the D everything they were, and the D graciously accepting it? (more…)

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D/s Without the D/s? – This is one of those situations in a real time D/s relationship where much of the “fun” aspects of the D/s needs to be stuffed in the closet for a bit. And for us, it’s not a great time to be either a masochist or a sadist. We can deal with that.

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Yes, Jelly Sex Toys Can be Dangerous – Even if a jelly rubber toy says “phthalate-free”, it still can contain toxic chemicals that can cause skin reactions in some people. These toys are still non-porous and can harbor dirt and bacteria because they cannot be sanitized.

~ This Week’s Top Three Posts ~

Unfortunately, this edition has no Top Three picks as I didn’t have enough volunteer judges. If you’d like to volunteer to help, visit this page to find out more info and ensure that the Top Three picks continue.

See also: Pleasurists #101 and #100 for all your sex toy review needs.

(more…)

I was chatting with a friend this evening about how I simply cannot view films with realistic depictions of violence, because I have physical reactions to them. She has a similar “thing,” and has been that way most of her life. I think mine spiked when I first began exploring BDSM. I KNEW, then, what it was like to be kicked, punched, whipped, slapped, cut, etc. This coupled with an actor’s capacity to subsume oneself to emotion, to have the body mimic experience so that “truth” becomes a bit more malleable, so that the tensile strength of “reality” is reduced, so that one is able to detach from the simple complexity of “reality” and see beyond truth and past matter into what really matters and that so much bigger than what our bodies transmit to us through our various senses.
I wondered at how difficult it is to talk about these things. How much I fear being “the weird kid” again, and how hopelessly chaotic it is to attempt to give voice to things like spirit, emotion, dreams, process…

My truth? I feel emotion with my skin. I hear with my blood. I cry when I hit cruising altitude in airplanes, because it is so beautiful. My eyes touch, and are touched, by energies I’m only beginning to understand. I feel closeness with virtual strangers, and kinship with people from first glance. I talk to my God, I walk with my demons, I play in the warbling mire of shit that scares the fuck out of me. I listen, in the dead of night, to waves of thought and tendrils of spirit from those with whom I would share my soul. And I Live.

I feel too much. Think too much. I well near drank myself to too, too much only to be pulled back from that edge by a larger fear, and that was of leaving behind friends and loved ones who would be so disappointed in my abandoning hope. Despite fear of success, I vowed to do whatever it took to live honestly, to walk clear-eyed. And I Live.

(more…)

I’d eagerly answered my phone when I heard his ringtone, smiling at the image of him looking all badass in the teeny icon on my screen.  We had spoken extensively earlier in the day, as I’d been waiting for my train to SF from LA, and then for the opening movement of my trip up the coast. The follow-up call was a bit of a surprise.

“How do you hear me?”

I was caught short for a moment. He has the capacity to ask me shit that often seems deceptively simple, but then unpacks a lot of complicated shit. Or that seems as though it would require an essay in response, but on reflection? A few simple words can seal the deal.

I responded with scintillating intelligence and sparkling wit:  “Um. What?” (more…)

I can’t say enough about how much I admire Michele Serchuk’s work. A creator if iconic photography, she has shitloads of photos that every kinkster & pervert has seen so often they become almost ubiquitous as benchmarks for kink, fetish and BDSM. So when she offered me the opportunity to work with her, I squeaked like a wee mousie.

The stars aligned and my friend Gray (You know that Ropecast dude) was going to be in New York simultaneous with my visit there, and Michele had time ot get together with us. A twitter cry here and there, and we I’d found someone to help me with makeup (Thank you Angel!) and a piano with a view (Thank you, Sarah!) and the shoot was on. Today, as I travel from Albuquerque to San Francisco by train, I was smushed with delight to see that Michele had culled some shots from the session and holy crap…well, see for yourself. NOTE: These Photos Are for Grown-Ups!! (more…)

Via Nubian Imp Productions, I’m gonna be

Teaching Classes!

Signing Books!

Performing 69Stories: One Pervert’s Tale!

IN CANADIA, BITCHES!!

YES yes I know it is Canada I just like saying Canadia because they’re Canadians and I enjoy deliberate, provovative misappropriation of shit.

I can’t tell you how excited to make my VERY FIRST trip to visit Canada in EVER!

And that I get to do it Full Leather Style only makes is more deeeelicious!

Please come join us..it’ll be FANtastic!

When I speak about BDSM practices, one of my core assertions about the difference between WIITWD (“What It Is That we Do”) and abuse is intent. The person who verbally humiliates their partner to gain control and erode the self-esteem of the other, or the spouse who beats and harms their significant other, using violence as a means to destroy, is different from the kinkster,  pervert or Leatherperson in one central, pivotal way. And that is intent.

We can argue consent, but in some relationships we play with even THAT slippery edge.

So I fall back to intent.

The intention of the person in a Leather or BDSM interaction is mutual satisfaction, whatever form or means that takes. Sometimes it looks so much like an abusive interaction that our only signal is context. The very controlling dominant, the cowering submissive, any of these postures viewed through the lens of BDSM and Leather can be hot and wonderful.

In the Default World, people aren’t so aware of how gratifying, beautiful and necessary these seemingly unequal and dangerous interactions can be for the practitioners. So, we use language like SSC, RACK and the like to reassure them…and ourselves…that we are OK.

But intent is another soft, treacherous landscape to tread. (more…)

You can find it here and though the title “How to trick your brain into liking sex with only one person.” was initially bemusing, I think the advice for creating lasting pair-bonding is interesting regardless of relationship configuration(s).

This especially resonated for me:

The good news is that the ancient mammalian brain is also home to the only part of the brain that can stay in love. Just as too much sexual stimulation can put lovers out of sync, “attachment cues” can help them look good to each other indefinitely.

Bonding behaviors include skin-to-skin contact, gazing into each other’s eyes, kissing with lips and tongues, wordless sounds of contentment and pleasure, stroking with intent to comfort, touching and sucking of nipples/breasts, spooning or hugging each other in silence, placing a calming hand on our lover’s genitals, and gentle intercourse. These behaviors deliver the subconscious message, “Strengthen this emotional tie.”

As I think about the type of “play” we most often associate with kink, and the type of “aftercare” we often receive, I can count o one hand the people with whom I’ve played where all or most or even some of these behaviours were connected with the play. And it is unsurprising that the bonding thing rarely happened. And, in the cases where these behaviours WERE present? Yeah, lots of post scene attachment feelings, regardless of actual levels of intimacy.

Fuckin’ ancient mammalian brain…

I want to do it right, whatever it is. I want to be pleasing. I want to be beautiful. I want to be gracious. I want to be patient. I want to be strong. I want to be submissive. I want to be able to anticipate. I want to be ready. I want to be perfect. I want I want I want…

And then as I’m running this impossible subroutine, it dawns on me…it is immaterial.

What I want isn’t “What I want.” And then I think about what he wants and it is a lot clearer. He wants to SEE…me. His reasons are clear, and he hasn’t asked for perfection or rightness or grace or anything really outside of everything really and that is unencumbered access to me.

So let’s start. Again.

Let’s see if I can let what I want settle like leaves in a tempest in a tempest in a teapot so that the fortune may be read in the tea leaves of the dregs of my desires. Because if I can see my way clear to really letting myself detach from my desires and let someone else, someone I trust, own them?

That’s a start.

As I lie here wishing I could sleep and not having much success and running too many emotional subroutines I started with one of my really illin’ nagging mental loops.

I was doing a reflexive self-deprecation thing, underscoring my unworthiness in general for doing some stupid shit or other. It doesn’t really matter and what is even more hilarious is now I can’t even recall what it was about.

I recently had someone express to me their desire to have me reveal a whole lotta me. They also expressed other desires I am not going to talk about now. The important thing is that, because this person happens to have the odd capacity to make their requests feel like foregone conclusions, and that my heart clicks right into “OK, how can we make this happen?” without pause, of course I’ve been spending the last little while remembering what it feels like to have submission and obedience be unthinking.

I was rooting around on my blog and happened to find some posts that reminded me of how often and in what interesting ways I’ve pondered this question and it gave me pause.

This lead to a further dig to an older LiveJournal Post of one of my mental struggles with my Demon. One might think I’ve many, but really no, it is just Bubbles. She’s in a transitional period, and we are closer to a symbiotic relationship now

What the fuck am I talking about here…oh yeah.

All this is to say as that poor tired hyena wheezed that same old tired saw about my not being worthy I turned to look at her and said “Hey kiddo…you know what? Out of the thousands and thousands of people we’ve met, you know who the only ones around are who don’t think we deserve the best shit handed to us with a flourish and a fucking doily?” (more…)