Yes, yes, yes! Thoughts about safewords

Well I’ve been working on this for a while. It’s a long one but I think I got out what I needed to. I wanted to elaborate on something I touched on briefly in my post about Kapital Kink:

Someone expressed the opinion that if a bottom doesn’t safeword, a top is absolved of responsibility for their actions, which made me want to scream for various different reasons. It made me feel good that other people challenged him about this, because actually I think that idea is flat out Wrong and Dangerous.  (And this I know from hard Experience which I will not relate here.)

Let’s start from basic principals. What’s a safeword? A safeword is a word that means “no” or “stop” in a context when it has been agreed that “no” doesn’t mean “no”.

I find it weird that many folk seem to consider a safeword essential to power play.  Personally, my kink is on giving away control, so when I say “no” it usually means “no”.  When I get to know someone better, and I think they know me enough, I might want to go to a place where I would say “no” but still maintain consent.  But to me that is much more intimate, and demands the top or Dom to have a much better understanding of me. As I see it, this goes contrary to the conventional wisdom, some of which contends that a safeword is critical at the beginning, but can be dropped more safely as a rapport is created.

(This post focuses mainly on safewords in regards to pain play. It is written from my experience as a submissive bottom masochist.)

Kapital Kink over and done with

Well, Kapital Kink finally came and went.

I had fun setting up for the fetball.  I liked hanging around with the folks I was hanging around with, and I liked putting stuff up and being useful.  I liked working at the door during it because I got to talk with people and hang around.  I am not really one to go out alone into a full, loud room, and make friends. But with something to do and a reason to be standing around cahtting I am happy.   I found out that a fet ball is basically what I imagained it to be and of very little appeal in and of itself.  I am really not a fetishist.

All the workshops I went to were great.

Andrea Zannin’s Dance of D/s workshop was first.  I actually wasn’t intending on going to it, but then I did anyway.  I was glad I did because it didn’t involve the “hands on” that sounded intensely awkward in a group of mostly strangers.

Then there was a discussion about rope bottoming which was a bit interesting.  There was some discussion about consent and rules about obtaining consent.  Someone expressed the opinion that if a bottom doesn’t safeword, a top is absolved of responsibility for their actions, which made me want to scream for various different reasons. It made me feel good that other people challenged him about this, because actually I think that idea is flat out Wrong and Dangerous.  (And this I know from hard Experience which I will not relate here.)

This was followed by a presentation by Morpheous about using finer cords than usual, like yarn and thread, to tie up fingers and toes.  I liked the fingers the best, personally.  It was totally cute when he tied the fingers of his bottom (sub I think?) and then made her go get him a drink.  Maybe I will do it to myself and take a picture, but I will definitely have to get someone to help with the camera for that.

And at the end Sir Dart gave exactly the kind of workshop I wanted to go to about rope: it was about the interpersonal dynamics of tying someone up.  I have to say that out of everyone I met the whole weekend, Dart was the sexiest.  As part of his workshop, he tied my friend up, and I was so incredibly jealous the whole time.

And while all this was going on I got to meet some awesome folks and made some more friends in Ottawa, I think.  I hope to keep in touch with these folks once i get back from Toronto (if I ever get there…).

Surrender

Surrender by Jack Vettriano (click image for artist's website)

Tango

I was thinking of learning how to tango. Lessons are certainly affordable enough. Doesn’t this look like fun?

I usually think of tango as a male dominant activity but I like this video because the woman is is charge of it.

Top/bottom, Dom/sub

Top/bottom

The top is person who is dishing out the activity. The bottom is on the more passive end of this. Many kinky games are played with one player active and the other receiving. For examples

• the top flogs and the bottom is flogged
• the top fucks and the bottom takes it
• the top ties up the bottom

There is some trust and power exchange required here, in the same was as in any intimate encounter. If I pick up a man at a bar and bring him home, I am giving him some power over myself and my personal space.

Topping is very much physical, and the power dynamic could easily be that the bottom is equal to or even dominating over the top.

Dom/sub

Domination is much more subtle than topping, it is a dynamic where power and control are actively given from the submissive to the dominant.

Domination is the taking of power by one person, which is given by the submissive. D/s is more of a dynamic than an activity. Depending on the people involved, many different sorts of activities can be loaded with D/s energy.  The same activity could be a dominant thing for one person and submissive for another.  For instance, a sub could bathe their dominant at a service, to pamper them.  On the other hand, a dominant could bathe a submissive to show access rights over the sub’s body, or because they did not do a good enough job themselves.  It depends on the people involved.

There are some acts which are traditionally seen as being dominant, such as the giving of pain, restraining.  But for someone like me, when I play as a dominant, I still like the same things.  I still like being slapped and squeezed and flogged.  To me these are all services a sub could provide if they were skillful and took my direction.

My personal interest, on the whole, is much more in the D/s side of things than the Top/bottom area, although I think the latter is useful for learning.

Sexy men in suits

For some reason I saved this as a draft a while ago rather than publishing it….

From Male Submission Art (click image for original post)

Look at this sexy picture.  I like the breath on the ear and the fact that they are both wearing suits.  I like the intimate neck touching and the expressions on their faces.  Desire and passivity.  The only thing I would change is the man would be blindfolded with his own tie, instead of apparently having an extra one just hanging around.

I know you will

Ten things I might like about you

Well I keep getting asked, “what do you want?” so I thought I would make a list.  This is my perfect situation.

For anyone

1. You take care of your body with food and activity.  You have a sense of style when you feel like it, at least.
2. You live around downtown and you ride a bike to get around.
3. On first contact with me you provide me with enough information (through a profile or in a message or something) that I can get to know you. “Hey how’s it going, what are you looking for?” does not cut it.  You should know yourself well enough to be able to volunteer information.
4. You have an understanding of your own limits and a willingness to respect mine.
5. Your life has more important things than kink in it.

For dominants

1. You want to slap me in the face, pull my hair, squeeze my breasts and other fun things like that.
2. You want to talk about what you’re doing with me, why you’re doing it, and what you want from me.
3. You know what it takes to please you and you can instruct me in this.  You desire and expect obedience.
4. You want to see me suffer.  You want to learn about the best ways to do this, by talking with me and trying things out.  I love a creative sadist.
5. You know enough about anatomy, physiology and safety that when you make me suffer you are not taking any undue risks.

For submissives

1. You like doing what you are told.  I don’t want you to be bratty to seek out punishments.  You won’t like my punishments, trust me.
2. Orgasms are something I choose to give you if I want to, not something you require.
3. You want to share yourself with me.  I want to know all about you.  I want to know what you want and don’t want, whether I am going to do things which please you or not.
4. You like me in bluejeans and bare feet.  I’m going to dominate you how I feel comfortable.
5. You give good massages.

Talking dirty

Winter before last, when I was feeling inspired, I made a list which I kept with me through a move.  I remember sitting in a lecture with hot loins; the other side of the paper are some notes about the nature of a class structure which show an irritating lack of understanding on the part of the instructor.  The list I made is of words that trigger me to melt a little bit.

Being…

• open
• available
• used/useful
• obedient
• good
• proud
• correct
• tight -> loose
• uncomfortable
• vulnerable

Done to (me)

• mark
• allow
• correct
• instruct
• stretch
• shape
• pull
• inspect
• put
• take
• toy
• train
• place
• demand
• squeeze/compress
• spread

Done for (you)

• accommodate
• allow
• bend
• swallow
• display/present
• kneel
• tilt
• accept
• request/ask
• submit

How

• deep
• raw
• tight -> loose
• immediate
• juicy
• sloppy

Parts

• lips
• hips
• knees
• juices
• flesh

Reactions

• grunt
• thrust
• redden
• joy

My gender and me, again

I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head about gender.

I wonder what it would be like to go 6 hours of waking life without considering my clothes, my hair, my body language, my voice, my attitude, my space.  Not to wonder about my gender presentation, not to imagine I was doing something different.

In the past few weeks I have come across bits and pieces about bois every so often.  It is so appealing to me except that I find myself to be a Kinsey 0 and so not affiliated with queer communities.  That said, queer ideas on sexuality seem to be much more appealing to me that those of the hetro commnity.  I guess my perfect world involves a man who is comfortable playing with gender in this way with me. This is why I always find men who have a bit o’ the queer in them somehow so attractive.  I think they won’t insist on me always being a girl, they won’t be uncomfortable with switching; they might even love it.

Oh I read a really sexy post tonight, via May, When I was a Boy.

Sometimes I think to myself, “Hey I have been a committed polyamorist for my entire adult life.  I have been kinky my whole life.  My gender is still a questionable issue to me.  I have rejected hetronormitivity in every way other than my love of men.  Am I really straight?”

Lately I have been doing a bit more of a special kind of activity you might not expect me capable of.  I have been going out in public in drag, as a woman.  Last week, for the first time in my life I left the house for a few hours wearing high healed boots.  (Oh wait actually it was the second time… once I ended up going somewhere when I had just planned to go down the block.)  Sometimes on hot days I wear sun dresses.  I bought a tube of mascara which I occasionally apply.  Nothing too fancy but I feel incredibly conspicuous.  I think everyone will know what a costume this is for me.  I have to remind myself that while it feels as though I’m going out in some sort of fetish gear, to that rest of the world I am just preforming my gender normally, even sub par.

I normally don’t discuss my submissive fantasies here, because one of the most erotic things in the world to me is being figured out, having the truth dragged out of me, by a prying, relentless dominant (whoops I let a second one slip. ).  So there are things that I intentionally don’t volunteer, not because I am ashamed of them but because it’s really a lot of fun for me to be a bit of a puzzle.  Anyway I will give one out which is that I want to be made to dress up in full on drag, to be a woman like I never have been before with a hair do and makeup and pretty clothes that you can’t ride a bike in.  I want this to be done to me.  To me this is a humiliation scene.  Not as in “it is humiliating to be a woman” but because I think it would be like stepping into another body, a body I am so uncomfortable in.

I mean, I have attempted to do this to myself, in as much as I am able.  I actually have some nice women’s clothes.  But every time I am about to leave the house I am afraid.  I think it would be unbelievably sexy to be forced to do this.

I don’t think it would carry the same emotional weight for me to be made to dress like a man, as many of my clothes are already men’s clothes.  Though I definitely present as a woman on the street, I think my tomboyishness definitely shows through.I think dressing in full on male drag would be fun, but some days I basically do that anyway other than my hair which is long and uncomfortable any way but piled on top of my head.