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…. 

P(ublic) D(isplay) of A(ffection)

What is the point of etiquette? Or grammar? I often wonder if it wouldn't make more sense if we replaced the first with kindness, thoughtfulness and (genuine) respect, and the latter with clarity and the feel for the beauty of language.... I mean, seriously, why should anyone care if I eat with my elbows on the table or like kissing in public? And yet, some people get disturbed (especially by the latter)....

These people's logic usually works as follows: I don't want kids to see it! or... It's non-consensual display! or... It's disgusting to be forced to look at anyone's tonsils! (like you can actually see those when two people are making out). Like other bodily functions, public displays of affection need to be kept confined to the bedroom or some other dark place where no one has to see it. And yet, these same people watch porn, masturbate, and dress super-scantily to kink events (well, SOME of these people do, anyway -- or so I'd like to think).

This lack of logic especially baffles me in the kink community. I mean, REALLY? Are we so tired of being marginalized, of being raised believing we should be ashamed of ourselves and our sexuality,that now we're willing to take on the role of the censors ourselves? What makes us want to be the voices of intolerance, policing others and ensuring they're just as miserable as we once were, before we dared to become aware of our kinks?

I would much rather children saw the affection and love, often present in these public displays of affection, than the violence of TV shows or the cruelty of practical jokes, so popular in our culture. What is it about someone getting a pie in the face that makes us laugh, what is it about another's humiliation that gives us pleasure to watch, and how are these things any more suitable for those "innocent child observers" who'd at the same time be ruined by PDA? I'd rather teach these kids early on what passion (stemming from love or lust or who cares what) looks like, so it does not become the hidden and forbidden fruit, the drive of their young lives. 

As for non-consensual display... I often see things in a public dungeon or at kink events that disturb me to the point where I can't watch. So? I walk away. If I can't walk, I look away. There's nothing wrong with anyone else's way of finding pleasure -- there is nothing that grants me the right to judge or censor them. Now, I can see how some displays can be distracting.... I too would rather watch two sex-loving people pleasure each other, than sit in a meeting, but -- here the above-mentioned thoughtfulness comes into play. Don't start fingering your partner's nipples at a work meeting -- wait until the break. Don't make out in class -- at least pretend to listen to your teacher who's working hard to teach you something. But out in the corridor? In the streets? As long as you're not blocking my way, make out away!

I understand (or think I understand) that watching PDA can be disturbing, to some, perhaps to all of us, because it stirs our libidos, it makes us uncomfortable, and usually when we are turned on by something we can't have, we can get annoyed, or even angry. I don't have a penis, but I imagine it can be unpleasant to walk around all day with a hard-on, especially if you have no one but yourself to relieve it. But isn't that, at the end of the day, your personal problem? And aren't there better ways of dealing with it than stopping crazy happy couples (or triples, or foursomes, oh my mind is starting to wander...) from showing their affection whenever and wherever they want to?

I suppose it's been too long since my last kink event and so I'm feeling particularly nostalgic, but what I miss most about those cons, more than the sexual high and constant horniness, is the freedom and encouragement I get to simply be myself. To walk around naked, if I wish to, to have sex in the middle of the meadow, to watch a gangbang (or walk by) -- the freedom that is supported and perpetuated by others doing the same. I see how genuinely happy people are, on average, when they don't have to hide or feel shame, how much more peaceful, and I wonder -- why would anyone want to deny that freedom? Why can't we have it, why don't we want to have it in our day-to-day lives? Why, why, why do we prefer to stare judgmentally at those scantily-clad teenagers or that couple making out against the bus-stop glass? 

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

On a somewhat related note, my daddy likes to lead me by the back of my neck when we are out in public. The stares we get are priceless -- in every range of emotions, from anger and disgust to barely-hid envy and desire -- and the best part is, technically, we are not doing anything even remotely inappropriate or openly sexual, and no one can do or say a thing about it..... 

Never the Face

In the time when everyone seems to be reading – or talking about -- 50 Shades of Grey, I wonder, instead, about the reason why BDSM is suddenly and so surely infiltrating the mainstream.  Is it the anti-feminist backlash, rebelling against the notion that a self-respecting woman shouldn’t desire to be dominated by a man? Or is it that finally this light erotica is answering the long-repressed need of so many women to speak about their sexuality and its many different facets, especially those aspects that they grew up most ashamed of? One of the driving forces behind fetish communities, I think, is that desire to feel that you’re not alone, not utterly different from everyone else in the world – that your perversions don’t make you a monster, and that in the realm of “safe, sane, and consensual” they are perfectly acceptable.

Of course I find this phenomenon wonderful. I too grew up ashamed of myself, refusing to accept, even inside my personal closet, the validity of my desires. The fear, however, is that by being introduced as such a surface topic by poorly-written and not very thought-provoking works, BDSM runs the risk of being further relegated to “that kinky element of sex” – accepted, but unexplored. Meanwhile, I believe that both the intimacy and the explicit power dynamics of BDSM make it both more satisfactory and dangerous to those willing but ignorant explorers.

And so, I am happy to come across a book like Never the Face – an intelligent and sexy read that I have already (topically) reviewed elsewhere. I reread it again, just to see if I’d find it as powerful the second time around, and was glad to notice more details that make it so mesmerizing – and relatable – of a story. At the same time, I won’t lie – I found it very disturbing, precisely because the author describes so well some of my own desires, experiences and apprehensions.

For example, here’s her description of subspace: “I’m not sure how long he beat me that night. Time became suspended. The world shrank to two people inside a shack: nothing else existed” (18). When you meet that person who can take you to subspace and then take care of you while you’re in it, it is an intimacy so deep, so powerful, no wonder the narrator becomes addicted to it – and falls in love!

She writes about the sex that follows this beating – and this intimacy: “I thought about the countless times I’d had sex before. They had as much resemblance to what I’d just experienced as a stuffed toy has to a tiger. A small voice pointed out that tigers are dangerous, but I ignored it” (24). Though she is scared of the danger that inevitably comes with such an intense connection (BDSM or not), she also realizes that it’s incomparable to anything she had experienced before. While pain, and the risk of becoming this deeply involved, are the undeniable drawbacks of this relationship, the rewards – oh the rewards! – make us fall harder every time….

I love the internal dialogue she constantly has with herself that shows us her utter confusion at this new and different relationship. Society tells her (and all of us) not just how we’re supposed to act, but also what we are supposed to want and how we’re supposed to feel. When we find ourselves suddenly at odds with these directives, the confusion can be paralyzing (and probably scares many more women than will admit to it from pursuing their desires). She writes about her experience at a restaurant with David, after their D/s affair has begun to pick up speed: “This time, I hadn’t been allowed even to look at the menu: he handed my copy straight back to the waiter. I flushed. Yet, while one part of me raged, another felt coddled and cared for. Which brought a pulse of guilt. You’re not a child. You’re not supposed to like this” (26).

And no matter what I think of David (I would like to believe I pick up on his flaws before the narrator, less experienced in this lifestyle, does), his explanation of the desires that draw us to BDSM is excellent:

“It’s an intimate thing to beat someone. Way more intimate than fucking,” he said.

“Why?” I said, looking up.

“Because it strips away pretense and self-consciousness, it reduces you to your essence.” I shifted under his gaze. “When you fuck someone, your mind can be somewhere else,” he said. “You don’t have to show anything of yourself. But when you beat someone, or when you are being beaten – you can’t help it, you reveal who you are.” (28)

And here is the narrator’s even more astute description of the self-awareness that comes after an intense and emotionally satisfying session:

My mind was still. Empty. Again, I had the sensation that my body was floating.

I curled against him, aware of the warmth of his chest, the heaviness of his arms, the scratchy stubble on his chin.

Aware of the sheets, and the twilight.

Just aware. (39)

This awareness, this feeling of calm is almost like the peak of meditation, as near as one can get to the out-of-body experience. And it stays with you, after the fact: this realization and deep understanding of everything you found out about yourself in the moments of pain and suffering, but could not process till now. By going through pain, through “total sex” as the narrator describes it later in the novel, and surviving it, you become suddenly aware of your physical presence, and the materiality of the world around you, and then every sensation feels like a discovery – because you are truly feeling it, like this, for the first time.

We are first given a glimpse  into what’s going to go wrong between the narrator and David, when the narrator thinks: "Brutality without tenderness" (26). She doesn’t expand on it, or address it at this point, but we see it’s her greatest fear – and a premonition of how the affair is going to end. This is done with such subtlety, you get a feeling that you’re sneaking a peek at something no one else can yet see. And then again, 20 pages later: “He pulled out. I collapsed, sprawling and devastated, on the bed. Cuddle me. Please cuddle me“ (47). Despite her pleading for aftercare, David tells her to get dressed and takes her out.  I felt hurt reading this – imagining how uncared for I would feel if I didn’t get held and cuddled after a severe beating or a rough fuck. Gradually, we are beginning to see David for what he is – his selfishness, his lack of insight into her needs – in spite of what he thinks, his carelessness with her emotions. He only notices that something is wrong when she almost faints at the restaurant – and that is definitely not the attention that a good Dom pays his sub.

Another few pages later, the alarm went off in my head. I wanted to scream to the narrator: he’s bad news! Run now while you still can! This is what David says about safe words and people who use them:

His voice became scoffing. “They’re the pussies who use safe words when they  ‘play.’”

“What’s a safe word?” I said.

“It’s a way to say” – he put on a whine – “Oh! Stop what you’re doing. I can’t take it.’” He paused. “Safe words – it’s like someone telling you to wear a seat belt and a crash helmet during sex. Kinda takes the edge off.” He changed gear and passed the car ahead of us. “A good top – he knows where his bitch is. He knows what she can take and what she can’t. Better than she does herself.” (50)

It’s this kind of arrogance that gets to me – while a good Dom, playing with an experienced sub whom he knows well, can usually tell exactly where she’s at, you can’t count on it – and especially if you’re playing with someone this self-centered and proud. A guy like that won’t admit defeat even when he sees the signs! I know there are people who don’t use safe words –and I don’t think I’ve ever actually had to use one myself – but if that’s the choice they make, it should be the sub’s choice, her willing consent to fully entrust herself to her Dom, not the Dom’s choice to just take that power from her. It’s the issue of control, but that control can’t be taken – it has to be given freely, otherwise I believe it IS abuse. And this foreshadows everything that’s going to go wrong with the relationship – the way that David ends up taking full control while the narrator abdicates it completely, and when he starts losing it himself there is no one to take over, to keep it together. She – an independent, strong woman – doesn’t even know she has that choice when she is with him. And when EVERYONE loses control, things fall apart – and people get hurt.

As the novel continues, and the affair grows hotter, we see more and more of these danger signs. And the narrator can’t keep ignoring them either:

“Sometimes you have to be cruel to be sexy,” he said.

Sometimes – what?

I shivered. Somewhere, in a distant corner of my brain, an alarm bell started clanging. But I muffled the clapper in cotton wool, and ignored it.” (66)

For the first time, she briefly sees him for who he is – that he cares more about passion itself, than about her. It’s not her needs he’s responding to when he beats her, but he’s doing it for the sake of sex, of excitement, while she is doing it for the intimacy – something that cruelty can forever destroy.  She hates pain, so she needs the care and tenderness that come after, while he only gives those because and when he feels like it, not to fulfill her need (and as the story develops, he gives less and less).

I love that throughout the novel we are shown the narrator’s hyperawareness of what’s going on, not just what she’s experiencing, but what her Dom must be feeling as well. She really tries to understand and see the responsibility on both sides of the equation. At some point, explaining it to her girlfriend, she says: ”I think it must be difficult to know how hard to hit, to know how to read the other person’s responses. To generate a feeling of safe danger.” (61)  At another point, she questions: “Who is really serving whom? I began to see glimmers of a paradox.” (54) When it’s working properly, a D/s relationship is a delicately balanced dance (no, I didn’t come up with that J  ), with both partners superbly conscious of each other and the fluctuating dynamic between them.

For me, this novel raised very important issues of consent, especially implied (rather than openly stated and negotiated) consent, that I still can’t entirely resolve. There are elements of the relationship that make me think David is abusing the narrator (even before he actually – and openly -- does), but on the other hand, she yearns for that complete authority, she wants to be taken against her will. In a way, she’s giving him consent by staying with him – but when does that become simply a battered woman’s consent? Here are a few examples that (if this relationship were real and not a wonderfully written work of fiction) would make me most concerned:

When David points out that the narrator didn’t even defend herself, she responds (in thought):

“I was startled to realize that it hadn’t even occurred to me to try.” (26)

And then, when she is telling her secret to a friend who asks why she’d let David beat her, she thinks to herself: “Let him? I didn’t let him. He just did it. Don’t say that. She’ll freak.” (61)

Although I perfectly understand how someone taking control like that can be a major turn on, I am deeply disturbed by the fact that she doesn’t think she could stop him even if she tried; that it has nothing to do with her wishes or her consent, but everything with what he chooses to do -- or not to do.

And so, I am not at all surprised that when David loses control of the situation himself – his marriage falls apart, his sex kitten (the narrator) won’t blindly obey him – the affair finally explodes. He tells her the most unforgivable words of them all: “If you won’t give it to me, I’ll take it by force” (211), and then he carries out his threat – till she actually passes out on him. His actions at this point have nothing to do with her, and not even a pretense of love for her shines through his words. He has lost control as a Dom the moment he feels he has to take her through sheer, brutal force, and he shows how little he has thought of her all along. This complete lack of consideration finally exposes him as a fraud – an amateur in domming, a lover who’s not really in love with anyone but himself. Instead of a careful balance of needs and desires, there’s only him – and that’s the end of any relationship.

This is the end of the story and their affair: David leaves the narrator and goes back to his wife, but although she is the one left howling on the floor, I get a feeling (or maybe it’s just a hope) that she is the one who can no longer believe in his power, see him as her Dom, or even as her lover. Because the book begins awhile later, and is told through flashbacks, we know that the narrator survives this ordeal and finds a way to grow into her new understanding of herself and her desires. She can look back at it now as the moment she became “awake,” and in that word we see that there is more than just pain that she took away from this affair. 

Tamed

I have given The Little Prince to every significant lover I’ve had. I consider this book essential for reaching one’s emotional maturity. It is not a book for children, as many mistakenly believe – though I am sure that many kids will appreciate its light humor and its condescension toward adults. But really, it’s a book for grown-ups – those who risk forgetting the child inside them, the always curious, never letting go of a question, never taking anything lightly. It is a book for those who grew up and never quite learned responsibility that comes not from duty and obligation, but from one’s heart, from genuine care for those we have “tamed” – and those who tamed us. 

                                          

“What does tamed mean?”

“It’s something that’s been too often neglected. It means ‘to create ties’…”

…”I’m beginning to understand,” the little prince said. “There’s a flower… I think she’s tamed me…”

It seems to me that this responsibility is inherent in any working D/s relationship, and the entire book can actually be a good lesson for those of us pursuing this lifestyle. Without this genuine sense of care one would be living either in a highly-explosive and emotionally harmful relationship, or skin-deep, not going further than technically-kinky sexploration. And the first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that this responsibility goes both ways – just like a Dominant tames his submissive, a submissive tames her Dominant. This act of creating ties, of making someone special to you, whether through taking care of them or accepting that care, is irreversible, and just like the little prince will always be remembered by the fox for his hair, the color of wheat, or by the narrator, whenever he looks at the stars, one will remember a lover one truly cared about, no matter if or why the relationship had to end. 

                                        

The little prince went to look at the roses again.

“You’re not at all like my rose. You’re nothing at all yet,” he told them. “No one has tamed you and you haven’t tamed anyone.”…

Many spectators mistake D/s relationships for ones where the submissive gives up control and allows things to be done to them, and where the Dominant is in charge, doing those things, and thus shouldering all the responsibility. There is nothing further from truth in this misapprehension, and if one enters an arrangement believing this, one is likely to get nothing out of it – and hurt the others involved. If anything, a D/s relationship assigns ways of caring, tasks if you will, that work for each partner, while at the same time exposing the extremely delicate balance of power that has to constantly be maintained and nurtured, one that has to come out of sincere care for each other, genuine appreciation and interest – not because of accepted morality or what society deems appropriate. That is the “taming” described in the book, and it has nothing and everything to do with control: it is not exercised, but comes naturally, as in a bond that holds and thus restrains each participant’s movements through their willing submission, their desire to be tamed. And while the cost of it may be tears (and always is), the benefit stays with you forever: out of 7 billion people on earth, you’ll have a few who will always be, irrevocably, yours.   

                                            

“It’s the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”

“It’s the time I spent on my rose…,” the little prince repeated, in order to remember.

“People have forgotten this truth,” the fox said. “But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose…”

Nine ½ Weeks: The Issue of Consent

I know it’s an old film, but it has been on my mind a lot recently, for one reason in particular. Reading some of the critics’ reviews of the movie, I was surprised at how well some of them actually understood the dynamic between the characters: Elizabeth and John. But even Roger Ebert, whose review I generally agreed with, saw the ending of the film as a victory of personality over purely sexual desire: while kinky sex is all well and good, in the end without a deeper connection and knowledge of each other, Elizabeth walks away from John, thinking that she just spent nine and a half weeks having an erotic affair with a perfect stranger.

But somehow, watching the film after I already began my journey into BDSM, I didn’t see that lack of a more personal connection as the reason why the two characters split up. Kinky sex, or any sexual experimentation outside of the traditional heteronormative relationship, I believe, necessitates a deeper intimacy, as the participants are thrown off balance, taken outside their comfort zones, away from the prescribed reactions and responses: this is how you’re supposed to feel when he does this, and these are the sounds you make when you are feeling pleasure, etc. When you’re experiementing, you give up the advance knowledge of your body’s responses. All of a sudden, you may find yourself moaning in pleasure as you’re being hurt, or screaming in pain as you orgasm. You may find that you are not experiencing pangs of jealousy as your partner fucks another, or, you may realize you like to do things that for the outside vanilla world sound disgusting or even debasing. There is a kind of honesty inherent in such new experiences, that comes from simply not having had the time to fake a reaction, or from not having a prescribed path to follow. And from that honesty, in my experience, comes a deeper personal connection – not necessarily love or even a long-term partnership, but a deeper knowledge of one another in each other’s vulnerable and unscripted states.

So why is it that Elizabeth is so freaked out by the end of the film that she has to leave, while she’s still, obviously, longing for John? I think it is the issue of consent and communication. While we can tell that John is more experienced in this kinky lifestyle than Elizabeth, and that he is naturally dominant (which makes him responsible for her), he still makes the mistake of assuming that Elizabeth is self-aware and strong enough to follow him into his kink without getting hurt: that she knows her desires and her limits, and can stop him without breaking what they have. But Elizabeth has no idea what she is getting into! And having had no experience stepping outside her comfort zone, as well as being in a vulnerable place to begin with -- she is recently divorced, she does not have the sense of self, or the strength, to control her situation. And this is what most of the critics reviewing this film (and probably most its viewers) didn’t understand: in a D/s relationship, while one of the partners does submit to the other, they both shoulder the responsibility for the relationship, for setting and abiding by each other’s limits, for being able to safeword out of a scene that isn’t theirs. Though they are in a power dynamic where one dominates the other, they are still equals in the amount of power each of them has to stay in or end the scene, and to ensure that balance they have to communicate their desires, state their hard limits, and discuss the scenes either before or after (or both) to see what worked and what didn’t. Without that openness, they don’t leave each other room for mistakes, and every error or misunderstanding might break their relationship. This communication, in turn, involves consent on both sides, and even though it may look like the submissive has no control, she has to consent to giving it up – and even then, she has the power to get out of the scene she is not ok with through safewording. Anything other than that I see as a dangerous abuse of power that is fraught with danger of physical and psychological harm, or at least, misunderstandings fatal to any relationship.

Elizabeth doesn’t have the power of consent, because John doesn’t give her that option. We see throughout the film that she doesn’t know how to end a scene except by leaving after the harm has already been done: as we see when John puts her in a room with a prostitute. Because she never knows what’s coming next, Elizabeth can’t prevent things from happening, and so it really puts John in complete control over her (granted, he takes that control and doesn’t leave her with much of a choice). Yes, that makes for a better film that’s much more enjoyable to watch and shows the life of kink as much more dangerous and erotic than if we got to see the behind the scenes negotiations and the gradual growth of the characters that would prepare them properly for each scene – let’s face it, successful lovey-dovey relationships that don’t hit any major roadblocks don’t exactly make for great stories. But I think that’s exactly what goes wrong between John and Elizabeth in the end – they get into a scene that doesn’t work for her, one that pushes her limits too far, and she runs away. Their last meeting shows us exactly how much John cares for her – he is not the selfish careless bastard who just wanted her for the fulfillment of his sexual fantasies. I believe he really wanted to explore Elizabeth’s kinky side, to push her to open up to the desires hidden inside her, but because he didn’t do it gently enough or carefully enough, giving her the choice to either consent or break the scene without leaving him or getting hurt, she doesn’t see his love, and so he loses her. Without clear and open communication between them, he forces her to reveal aspects of herself without revealing much of himself, and that swings the balance of power unequivocally to his side, creating an unhealthy relationship. And while Elizabeth is strong enough to walk out when she is pushed beyond her limits, she is not self-aware or knowledgeable enough (neither about him, nor about her own choices in their relationship) to stay and fix what they have, to negotiate and make it work for the two of them. But she doesn’t leave a bad affair, one that only hurt and didn’t benefit her; on the contrary, she leaves with a lot of regret for what it could’ve developed into, but didn’t have a chance to become.