Coming back

I think it may be time to rekindle this blog... So much has happened in the last four and a half years, so much has changed. So many new experiences that led to a new understanding of the lifestyle and myself - and so many illusions that collapsed. I wouldn't know where to start.

Should I write about the loss, the innumerable losses, unqualifiable, still very raw, each one adding to the last?

Should I write about the little victories? Feeling compersion, truly, for the first time, and understanding what was lacking before?

Write about what I now know? The lies, the gaslighting, the reasons I should always trust my intuition?

Write about love that can transition to friendship deeper than love, more intimate than sex? About how a lover can become family, and how happiness for another can really be happiness for oneself?

I can write volumes on compromises... Raising kids in a non-traditional marriage. Juggling one's multiple identities - as a lover, a wife, a baby, a mom, a friend, a PTA volunteer and a proud slut. Trusting - and not trusting - people and their stories. Realizing past mistakes. Realizing that submission doesn't mean giving up of one's agency - not fully, anyway- never fully....

Give me a start, I'll follow through.

Caned

I lay in bed awake, holding on tight to him, too nervous to move lest I wake him up. I knew what was coming. We talked about this the day before, and I watched him pack his cane case as we headed to the hotel – I was going to get punished. For real. We’ve played at punishments before, and even tried some disciplinarian routines early in our relationship, but it never quite worked – I knew I still had ultimate control over how far we went and how much I took, not just through safewording – but simply being done with play when I didn’t feel like taking any more pain. The offenses were often made up – or the punishment wasn’t agreed upon, and felt like a fight rather than a resolution (him feeling I needed to be punished for something that transpired between us, and me disagreeing, of course). I can see now that we weren’t quite ready.

But something has changed recently in our relationship. I’m not sure when exactly, but I have decided, after yearning for it for quite some time, to actually be his submissive. Since we have been in a D/s relationship from the start, what does this mean, and more importantly, what does it change? Well, I don’t think I trusted him as fully before…. I mean, of course I trusted him – to respect my boundaries, not to hurt me (beyond what I wanted myself), to love me, and to take care of me. But it took me this long to finally trust that he does have my interests in mind, he’s not just in it for what it gives him. And trust not just with my mind, but with my whole self. Maybe it was the trip to Hedo and the threesome that he made possible for me. Or maybe it was just time…. In any case, I realized that I was ready for him to take full control of my sexuality – what I do, when I do it, and whom with, the final word and final veto on all my desires. I just know now that when everything falls together, I will get what I want and need – and I trust him to know it and make it happen. And if I have to miss a bunch of opportunities that may seem perfect or very wanted now just because my daddy doesn’t approve, I trust that he has a good reason and most likely those perfect opportunities aren’t as great as they seem.

With this came the other realization that brought me to my current predicament – I was now ready for him to discipline me. I’d have to agree with the reason for punishment and see that I need and deserve it – that was my caveat. But it would be up to him to decide the time, severity, and methods of my punishment, and I would have to take it no matter what. And that is how this Sunday I found myself lying awake next to him, dreading what was to come, a nervous wreck from anticipation and fear. I knew it would be bad. I knew I’d have trouble taking it. I knew I had no choice. But I also knew I deserved it and would be better off for it. After all, I asked him for this just two days before.

His eyes finally opened. He asked me if I was alright and if I was thinking about my punishment. When I nodded, and said I was scared, he answered sternly – I know. You should be. I swallowed heavily, shivers running down my naked spine. Still holding me tight (or was it I who was holding on to him for dear life?), he told me his verdict – 15 strong cane strokes with the tearjerker (the nastiest, whippiest cane in his arsenal), on each side, without a warm-up. Since we were in a hotel room he didn’t want me to make too much noise, and so I was told to bite on a pillow to muffle my screams. Those words almost broke my resolve to take the punishment like a good girl.  I think by this point I was shaking with fear, clinging on to my teddy bear. Then he told me to go pee while he prepared the bed.  

I came out of the bathroom to pillows arranged on the bed and my daddy waiting for me to take my place, bottom up, ready for my caning. I sighed, and climbed on top. I think I said that I wasn’t ready, begging for him to wait just one more moment, and then I felt the cane gently tapping against my bottom, my daddy taking aim. I took a deep breath and told myself to relax as I heard the swish of the cane through the air – I’ve been caned before, caned hard and long too, this couldn’t be that much worse…. And then it hit me. The impact of the cane threw me forward, but the pain, the actual sting came a few seconds later. Nothing could’ve prepared me for it. I screamed and almost jumped off the pillows, wailing, jerking my feet, clenching my buttocks – anything to chase away that brutal pain. I never realized before exactly how much the warm up helped... I never thought a caning – or anything, for that matter -- could hurt that much. It took all the strength I had to stay in place, and get back in position for the next stroke. I have no idea how I survived them, but I know they didn’t get any easier to take. After the first 15, I begged for a break, and my daddy took me to stand in a corner – since a break from the caning didn’t mean a break from the punishment. I was told again not to rub or even touch my bottom, so even time in the corner didn’t allow the sting to dissipate. Even without touching, I could feel the welts form across my buttocks – raised, red, angry welts. I sobbed lightly (I have a hard time crying when I’m in pain), and thought to myself how much I’d never, ever want to be punished like this again. Yes, my pussy was wet, but the pain of those 15 strokes – and the fear of the 15 still to come was more than I could handle and call pleasant. I’d do anything not to have to take them. I would do anything to avoid a punishment like this. And yet… I can’t explain why or how, but I was glad that I was finally getting it, and fully aware that this is exactly what I’ve been wanting my entire life.

And then I was taken back to bed, over the pillows, for the remainder of my punishment. At 12 I reached my limit and I knew it. I don’t know how I took the last three – but I remember that the very last stroke was an extra hard one. 

A Slut is Born

Negotiating our first scene, two and a half years ago, I wrote on the list I was making for daddy, under “hard limits”: “no yelling or name-calling (I'm never a bitch, a whore, or a cunt -- or their equivalents in any language).” Were I to think of the word “slut” at that moment, I’m sure I would’ve added it to the list. I hated the idea of being verbally abused or degraded – I still do – and I could think of no other meaning or purpose for the words I listed.

A few months ago, at Fet Fest Con, I picked out a choker for myself – on a narrow strip of black velvet four letters in silver, covered in crystals: S L U T. Beautiful. It’s one of my favorite adornments, a collar of a kind – it stands for “daddy’s little slut,” a term of endearment I came to love. Meanwhile, the words “bitch” and “cunt” still make me cringe – they have that tinge of malice in them, those sexualized terms used to denigrate me for behaviors that may have nothing to do with sex, while “slut” and “whore” reflect my sexual practices and desires without inherent judgment – it’s up to the user to infuse them with disapproval.

I think my change of feelings towards the word “slut” came after reading “The Ethical Slut” during yet another upheaval of slut-shaming in the media. Partially as a tribute to the paradigm-shifting book I was reading (yes, decades after initial publication it can still be a powerful discovery), and partially in an attempt to reclaim another sexual word from being a form of scorn, I publicly (to a group of three classmates who happened to be around during the moment of this decision) declared myself a slut. Little did I know how far this choice would take me….

There are many scenes I’m sure to remember from our week at Hedonism II. The sexual highpoint of the trip, however, at least the way it seems to me right now, came at the end of a really hot threesome my daddy arranged for me, with him and a young, attractive fellow from England. This was the second time the three of us were playing around, but the first that we made it to a bed. I was sucking the young man’s cock, growling with lust, as my daddy pounded me from behind… Or maybe it happened later, after I was double-penetrated (I rode our friend as daddy took me in the ass, something that usually takes time and care, but this time was miraculously smooth and painless, as well as, coincidentally, incredibly hot), and was lying spread whorishly wide on our bed, breathing heavily... No, even later, as, exhausted but still turned on we started going at it again, and this time I was sucking my daddy’s cock, massively in heat and drooling all over it, my pussy pounded by the nameless young man: my daddy grabbed me by the hair, forcefully pulled my face off his cock and, holding it close to his own, told me, sternly, lovingly, tenderly, that I was such a little slut, his favorite little whore… That was the moment I burst, orgasming with my body and soul, from the very depth of my heart, my loins, my mind… I have never been happier; I have never been more loved and accepted for who I was, for my entirety, for my physicality, for my material, non-pretending, non-acting, non-appropriate self that I’ve kept hidden from everyone for the duration of my life. With those few words my daddy released me and allowed me to finally and fully be me.

********************

Recently we began experimenting with hypnosis. I think next time we’re playing around, I want the words “slut” and “whore,” when said by my daddy, to be ingrained as triggers for all my future orgasms. Then again, they may already be…. 

Distance makes the heart grow fonder or...

Dug this up from my archive and can finally share it, distanced as I am now from feeling this way. The sentiment, however, still rings true:

They tell me to give him space. To let him miss me. To focus on myself and to ignore... which will only make him want me more. Because distance makes the heart grow fonder....

Only the thing is, distance actually creates more distance. The more you push someone away, the farther they go. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in reverse -- the more you cling, the less they love you. Some of these tactics might work for attraction, but I'm not entirely sure there's a game plan for love.

Sometimes we just have to accept that love is fleeting. By the luck of fate, it just happens to flee when I am at the height of being in love, when I want the most, when I can finally begin to see a future together.

The Lands of Human Sexuality

I've been writing a lot, but most of it has been going into my drafts folder. Now that I'm delving deeper into my own sexuality, it's getting harder to share -- though if I've come this far, what's another step? There's always a fear in my mind that the next secret I share, the next twisted fantasy I admit to, will be the turn off point for my lover -- or make myself cringe. No matter how liberated we are of the social norms stigmatizing kinky sex, there are still the areas that remain difficult to access, and for a good reason. There was some play I engaged in recently that made me break down and I am not even ready to discuss it, let alone try again -- though it still appears, sometimes, as a detail of my masturbating fantasies. Which made me wonder -- are there any other kinks that I entertain, but that I don't want to try outside my fantasies? Are there any that will never cross that line from fantasy to reality? And if so, why?

And then, on theblackleatherbelt.com blog, I came across Franklin Veaux's "Map of the Lands of Human Sexuality" and, since I was procrastinating as usual from doing the work I was supposed to be doing, I created one for myself:

Map of My Sexuality

I like the malleability of this silly map -- while it is still, obviously, limited by language and closed to the discovery of new lands, it allows for the fluidity of one's sexuality: if your feelings about a kink change, you just change the color of the pins. It was interesting to see how many of these lands I have visited, mostly over the course of the last year, as well as to note my shifting limits. There is more I am open to try now than I have ever been before, and there, of course, are red pins of bad experiences -- things I found out were not for me. But what got my attention the most were the black pins -- for "in fantasy only". There weren't many on my map, but I wondered about them -- what is keeping me from crossing that last line from fantasy to reality? 

In some cases, the issue was my apprehension at coming too close to some deep-seated fears: I simply don't think I have the capacity to deal with the emotional and psychological backlash of unearthing something that deeply repressed. It's one thing to be aware that such fantasies exist, and completely another to try to figure out why -- or deal with how they make me feel. But in other cases, it was the issue of trust and logistics. When other people have to be involved to make my fantasy come true, I don't know how much I can trust them not to take advantage of me in a vulnerable state, or overpower me with their versions of my fantasy. And even with issues of trust aside, while I am getting better at negotiating the scenes, there are still outcomes that I can't predict and thus can't negotiate around. I am scared of what can happen that I will be incapable of stopping, either because of being in a subspace or being too cowardly or too proud.... 

The bottom line is, I know how difficult it is to make some fantasies come true, especially when other people are involved. And while I am venturing into the realm of threesomes, foursomes and orgies, the experience has more often been unsuccessful. With BDSM involved, there are bigger stakes than jealousy or hurt feelings -- and while it often makes this lifestyle so rewarding, there are cases when the prize is not worth the cost. At least just yet.... 

Self-Rescuing Princess

It occurs to me that I may have been wrong all along…. You see, I thought the reason I enjoyed BDSM was because I wanted to give up control – I live a life filled with responsibility and have a job that forces me to be an authority figure, and so I often end up feeling that without me, the world would stop…. I have come to believe that in order to enjoy myself fully, in order to relax, I needed a D/s relationship, a Dom or a daddy, who would force me to give up control.

This sounds like a plausible story alright, except -- I don’t really have control in my life. In fact, in order to pursue my kinky lifestyle, in order to stop my self-repression and liberate the deep dark desires that run through my subconscious, I have given up all control – including self-control. In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud writes about the necessity for repression in order to become a functioning member of society. All civilization, according to him, is based upon repression, which starts at the suppression of our first sexual desires (for our mother). I disagree with Freud on many counts, but this is something I find quite logical – and so it follows that lifting that repression and allowing for such in-depth self-discovery of my sexuality makes it more difficult for me – or anyone – to be a part of society.

However, what I find particularly hard to deal with is not the lack of social acceptance, but my own inability to function -- to work and to take care of myself, my family, my home --  that my quest for sexual liberation has caused. Getting rid of repression  puts more focus on emotions, and assigns a much greater value to feelings than to rational thought and decision making. While on one hand, that leads to self-awareness and self-knowledge which, potentially, may allow me to make more informed decisions regarding myself and the people I am attracted to or form relationships with, the downside is the overwhelming power of my emotions that submerge me and then keep coming, wave after wave. And since I have given up the tools to repress them, and have indulged in my hyper-awareness, they have more strength than I can deal with.

So what I have been looking for in my exploration of D/s lifestyle is not loss of control, which I, it seems, have already accomplished, but quite the opposite -- for someone else to take control that I have given up. I have been looking to entrust myself to another human being who'd have my interests and my well being in mind, and who could control, through pain or domination, the scattered, contradictory and overwhelming emotions that have been rushing through me -- and contain them for me, so that I could return to functioning within the parameters of my life. I have been wanting to feel safe from the darkness inside me, from self-induced guilt and my own destructive impulses. To know that someone else can take on this darkness, battle my dragons and eventually keep them at bay, enabling me to return to society without the necessary chores and obligations of repressing, to at least some extent, my powerful desires. I have been looking for a cheat.

On one hand, of course, we are responsible for taking care of each other and helping each other in times of sub -- or Dom -- drops. D/s raises a lot of emotions and responses that can be unexpected and hard to deal with. Feelings of pain, loss, violence or overwhelming tenderness, emptiness, to name just a few, rush coursing through your body, as your mind struggles to reconcile them with social norms and everything you thought you knew about yourself. We cannot contain this. We cannot be expected to, and the worst thing a partner can do is abandon us during those times. However, there is an extent to which another person can help, and in the end, if you are not willing to do the work for yourself, go through and sort and analyse and find ways of dealing with your feelings and thoughts, no one can do it for you. It is an essential step to self-awareness, not just to see, but to understand what is happening inside you, and no partner, no matter how good or experienced, can take you through that.

In the end, after giving up control and diving deep into the chasm of your subconscious, you have to come back for air and regain control -- and so I have to tell myself, "enough," and remember that I am a functioning, responsible adult with a ton of obligations to deal with and a whole lot of responsibility for others than myself. No matter how much I enjoy the fantasy of a knight on a white stallion sweeping me off my feet and saving me from myself (and then spanking my bottom til it's fiery red to take care of any fears or guilt I may still carry), I have to, in the end, be a self-rescuing princess, and learn to slay -- or domesticate -- my own dragons. 

Banging the Attention Whore Inside Me

I spent the day doing a photo-shoot around NYC. It was a hard day’s work, and I came home exhausted, thinking – why am I doing this? No, it’s not my job, no, I don’t get paid for this, nor is this something I have to do to further my career – I am just helping out a friend, who’s putting together a portfolio. Posing in public turns me shy, and then there is the hassle of dealing with security guards, who for some reason don’t want to allow photo shoots in their buildings without a ton of paperwork and proper negotiations. More than that, watching the preliminary results of the shoot – scrolling through the hundreds of photos and seeing all the unflattering poses and silly faces I make when I think I’m looking sexy – can be absolutely demoralizing. And then, there is the nagging question of whether what I am doing is somehow shameful, since my upbringing (that I can’t completely override, no matter how long and hard I try) has taught me that exhibitionism is shallow and inappropriate, and good girls don’t present their bodies to a  gawking public. Feminism and dreams of objectification do not usually get along.

But I am an exhibitionist slut and this is what I NEED to feed my lust. (I wonder, has anyone noticed that slut is an anagram for lust?) In any case, tiresome and disconcerting as it may be, today was pure pleasure for my starving attention whore.

The photographer was totally self-assured and easy-going, and while I was shy at first to really let loose and shed my inhibitions in public, his matter-of-fact attitude and smooth way of charming security guards and nosy passerby finally got me in the right mindset. There’s something about watching a confident man get into trouble and just as easily get out of it, handle uncomfortable moments and not sweat, that makes me feel safe and less embarrassed of what I am doing. And once we both relaxed and got a fun banter going, the rest was easy, and I was able to really start enjoying the experience. He made me feel like a super star, encouraging me to flirt, look sexy, pose in provocative ways and show off my body.

I also realized that having an audience makes a difference. I am used to having the attention of large groups of people – I have enough experience in public speaking, and I know that the bigger the audience, the better I usually do. But it’s one thing to receive that attention in my professional capacity, with years of experience and a degree of confidence in what I am doing, and totally another to have my body stared at – my body, with all its flaws and imperfections, and all the little things that drive me crazy. I am not a professional model by any stretch of an imagination, and while I’d like to think that a few beautiful photos will come out of this photoshoot, I realize that the majority of time posing there in front of a camera I probably looked clumsy, silly, and pretentious. So I couldn’t even imagine what an ego boost it would give me, to have so many people believe I was a model, and to be able to overcome my inherent shyness, forget my doubts, and just… pose away. As for my feminist side -- as long as I am confident in myself as a human being, as long as I believe in the capabilities of my mind and know that I have plenty to be respected for as an individual, as long as I have agency to make my own choices, I know I am not at object -- so why should I care if anyone sees me as one? 

I came home tired… but also smiling and filled with confidence. This mood may not last long, but I had a chance to live what I teach – there’s nothing wrong in wanting to be objectified. There’s nothing shameful or anti-feminist about being an exhibitionist.