Typology of Coping Strategies - maybe it's simpler

OK, my last attempt was way too complicated!

I still think coping strategies revolve around D&S (the "evil" power relationship) and S&M (the "evil" acts themselves), but I think they all fall into three categories:

• Cool: Has no qualms about playing at evil from time to time.
  
• Distancer:
  D&S- Uses fantasy or e.g. BDSM culture to provide permission and context.
  S&M - Regards S&M acts as e.g. nurturing, or acts of trust, or quasi initiation.
  
• Identifier:
  D&S- Identifies with his/her role, and adopts a morality to justify it, e.g. female supremacist.
  S&M - Would honestly say, "This is the real me."

This gives us 9 possible combinations, which we could write thus: CC,CD, CI, DC, DD, DI, IC, ID, II.

It's very hard online to tell if somebody's D&S coping strategy is to Distance or to Identify; the long postings about small penises and female supremacy could be one handed typing (distancing), or genuinely held beliefs.

Similarly, the rhetoric accompanying an S&M act may be entirely misleading. The lady with the whip may enjoy teasing her "victim" by talking about giving pain as a form of nurture, or she, or her fantasy persona, may be a distancing. Also, it's hard to know if somebody is cool with acts of sadism and masochism, or actually identifies themselves with them.

Even with this simpler typology, the potential for confusion and crossed wires is immense.

Strangely, in my erotica fiction, most of my characters are ultimately are II; they identify with both their role, and the S&M acts themselves.

BDSM and the problem of evil: Incompatible coping strategies

To recap, I've observed that BDSMers cope with playing at evil in several ways... (I've revamped these a little)...

They each comprise a pairing of context - how they place BDSM mentally - and a style - either distancing themselves from the evil, or accepting it:

• Fantasy Acceptor: e.g. "Rape me in a car park (since it's only a game)."
• Fantasy Distancers: e.g. "I'm a Celtic slave and she's a Roman Widow (so we know it's only a game)."
• Experiential Acceptors: e.g. "I enjoy doing this. What of it?"
• Experiential Distancer: "This isn't sadistic punishment, it's a ritual of trust etc etc. (Evil? Moi?)"
• BDSM Acceptors: e.g. "Men/Women deserve to rule over women/men. (I'm not kinky, I'm righteous.)"
• BDSM Distancer: e.g. "I'm into BDSM. This is what BDSM folks do. (Our power relations are nothing to do with the real world.)"
  

This has practical implications, since not all coping strategies are easily compatible.

I've found that Experiential Acceptors make for the best play partners, since you get a 100% authentic experience (bounded by time, of course) - they just get on and enjoy being boss.

The snag is that I've tended to preserve my self esteem by being a Fantasy Distancer.
Experiential Acceptors simply aren't interested in pretending to be Amazon Queens, or don't have the acting talent. At length they get pissed off and the sessions ebb away. My solution is to create scenarios as close to our real world as possible - and that seems to work very nicely, thank you.

Of the others, I only have direct, if disastrous, experience of Fantasy Acceptors. These always seemed to offer the possibility of shared fantasy. However, I quickly found that they would go places that icked me out, and in turn they took my squeamishness as a rejection.

What remains are types observed on the Internet.

The "BDSM Acceptor" turns me on. What could be more scary than to be in the power of a female supremacist? However, we'd be totally incompatible. First, I don't agree with any kind of sexism, and don't really respect people who are sexist. Then, there's the problem that she'd be very unkeen on doing anything that fulfilled my S&M fantasies, for the simple reason that I'd be enjoying them. Wires would be fantastically crossed.

I'd have no problem with a "BDSM Distancer", except I'm not really interested in the paraphernalia. Leather and latex don't speak to me of my fantasy worlds, and they reek of pandering to a male-driven aesthetic.

A "Experiential Distancer"... well, I'm afraid I'd find her rather cloying. My fantasy is about descending into the darkness. Trust is involved... nay, required, for that kind of trip. However, it's not about trust. I don't take a whipping to prove my love, or please my mistress, I take it because I'm a slave (and because it shows I'm a slave).

Looking back up at the list, I wonder if the two styles are always incompatible. We've already seen what happens between Fantasy Distancers and Fantasy Acceptors. BDSM Distancers and Acceptors would also be ultimately doomed, because each would always be chafing at the limits and demands of the other - hence some of the arguments we see in BDSM forums. Experiential Acceptors would see Experiential Distancers as cloying, but the Distancers would see the Acceptors as plain sociopathic or self-destructive.

When relationships cross between contexts, then things get more complicated...

I suspect Fantasy people tend to treat BDSM as a sort of fantasy, but would hit a brick wall with an BDSM Acceptor who wanted it for real, 24/7.

Experiential Acceptors would be happy with both kinds of Fantasy people, and BDSM Distancers as long as they didn't make too much of a fuss - which could be a drawback for the other side of the equation.

Experiential Distancers probably usually embrace BDSM culture, and express themselves ostensibly as one of the two BDSM types. However, I bet they're often at cross-purposes with both...

So, I think to build a kinky relationship, you have to know your coping method and that of your partner, or face the unerotic consequences.

The first chapter of my chastity belt novel... (and the rest for free)

It's almost Christmas, so have a present from me: the whole of my novel "The Chastity Belt" - the first chapter here, and the rest as a free download.

The novel previously went out with a proper publishing house, but has had its (successful) print run and the copyright has reverted to me. It was written from the heart, so I'd quite like to share it around some more. Hence the free download. All I ask in return is that, if you liked it, you review it on Lulu...

* * *

Wanted: Healthy male students to test cure for sex addiction and compulsive masturbation. Apply to Dr. Jones, Human Sexuality Institute, University Campus. Good money.

Chapter 1

Mark huddled into Cassandra’s doorway and tried to calm his breathing. He pinched his jeans, feeling for the chastity belt’s edge beneath the denim. The device was still there, locked around his hips and groin, as unobtrusive as a second skin. Mark exhaled slowly, extended a trembling hand and rang the door bell.

"Mark?" Cassandra's clipped tones crackled from the entry-phone. "I shall be down shortly," she said without buzzing him in.

A crowd of female students rustled past, laughing girlishly as they kicked through the autumn leaves.

Mark’s gaze wandered amongst the forest of knee-boots, some shiny and new, others nicely crinkled, veterans of several winters. His grip tightened on the chastity belt.

A pair of impossibly long legs swept into view, moleskin pants hugging each sweeping curve, black suede boots clacking on the damp pavement. They halted and turned slightly towards Mark’s hiding place.

He froze, not even daring to breath. Slowly, as casually as he could, he relaxed his fingers and slid them innocently into his pocket. He raised his gaze from the boots and discovered a blonde girl looking him up and down with cold blue eyes.

Abruptly, she turned on her heel and vanished into the gathering dusk.

Fresh bootsteps echoed from behind the door. Mark jumped back into the street. "This will work," he said aloud. "It has to!" The door creaked open and he forced himself to take slow, measured breaths.

"Mark? Are you quite all right?" asked a very BBC English voice. As always, with her bobbed hair, fur-trimmed coat, and ankle-length A-line skirt, she looked straight out of his copy of 1930s Ladies.

"Cassandra!" Mark's heart leapt into his mouth. People wove past, but he just stood and stared at her, fighting back the old desire.

Mark's penis tried to erect itself inside the chastity belt. At first the sensation was familiar; like getting a hard on pointing the wrong way in tight jeans. Then the shaft met the walls of the internal tube. Instead of subsiding, the captive member throbbed violently, trying to split its hi-tech prison and rear itself upright.

Mark struggled to keep his feet against a rising tide of panic.

Cassandra eased the door shut and looked at him sideways over her fur collar. Delicate crows-feet formed around her twinkling brown eyes. "Have you been drinking?" she asked primly.

"No," he said over the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

Cassandra gave him a quizzical look. "I have a study date with my roommate," she said, striding out. "You may chum me to the library if you so wish."

Mark shouldered his rucksack and caught up with her. It was then that he noticed her new boots, his favourite kind – knee high patent leather gleaming in the light from the streetlamps. The tightly laced uppers hugged her curved calves up to the hem of her severe skirt and beyond.

"Are you quite all right?" asked Cassandra without slowing.

Mark couldn’t answer. This was his masturbation fantasy come true. Cassandra in boots, old-fashioned boots with prim squared off toes, lace-hooks like a row of steel teeth, high arched insteps, and tapering block heels that clip-clopped with each precise step. She just needed stockings and a garter belt to complete the vision.

The throbbing rippled out from his chastity belt, as if every artery in his body was forcing blood into his imprisoned cock. Mark staggered drunkenly, fighting for balance, the world a blur except for beautiful, untouchable Cassandra, her swishing skirt, and shiny boots.

It was like that first time, a year ago. He'd stumbled across the canteen just to queue behind the mysterious girl who dressed twice her age and made it look good. More grown up than grown up, he'd thought as he fumbled at conversation. It was only later, when she developed a fad for retro clothing, that Mark realised who she reminded him of.

"A little eccentricity will repel unwanted attentions," she'd declared. “I will surrender to no man.”

Cassandra was safe with Mark now, safer than with any other man in the world. If he told her, perhaps she'd trust him to take her to the cinema. He'd sit next to her in the dark for hours on end, brushing arms and shoulders, aware of every stretch of her long legs, hearing her boot leather creak during the quiet moments.

But if he told her about the device, he'd also have admit that it was supposed to be a cure for unrequited love.

"Mark?" Cassandra halted under a street lamp.

Slowly, Mark forced his gaze away from the gleaming boots and made himself look at the special wrist watch that came with the chastity belt.

November’s digital guardian angel shook her finger back at him. Her halo already looked patchy. The more he got turned on, the more of her would vanish, until the chastity belt’s time lock started running backwards. Mark tried to imagine spending the entire year in the device, without masturbating or any chance of sex. He shuddered.

"Yes. I’m fine," he lied, feeling sick and unbearably turned on at the same time. Why hadn’t he stayed away?

"Well then," began Cassandra then smiled past Mark. "Ah, Moira! You made it."

"Sorry!" Cassandra's petite roommate brushed by Mark and stood between him and the taller girl.

Moira reached back to smooth her hair. It was carrot red and gathered into a ponytail which made her look younger than she was. "The Riding Club Committee overran," she said, her fresh Highland lilt out of place amidst the dreary concrete buildings of the university campus.

Mark just stared at nape of her freckled neck. Mentally, he stripped off her Arran sweater and imagined the freckles speckling her back, her slender hips and pert buttocks as well. Did they reach as far as her thighs?

Moira turned to Mark and smiled up at him. "Hiya!" She brushed a stray red lock back from her face and Mark pictured pubic curls in the same spicy hue. What would she taste like?

Moira's green eyes widened. A blush blotted out her freckles. "We’re going to the library," she blurted and scampered behind Cassandra.

Mark's cheeks burned. He didn’t usually leer at Moira like that.

"So," said Cassandra briskly, setting off again. "Do you notice anything different?"

"New boots?" he asked offhandedly, trying to ignore the way his half erect penis quivered each time their soles smacked the damp pavement.

"A treat from last year's Class Prize." Cassandra pursed her lips into a toothy smile. "Practical and nicely old fashioned, don't you think?"

"Very Mary Poppins," said Mark, grasping at an image as far away as possible from his book of pre-war pornography.

"I am no Julie Andrews," she snapped. "Marlene Dietrich, perhaps."

Oh yes please! he thought. "So, is the Blue Angel costume next?" he heard himself ask.

Cassandra rewarded him with a frosty look that sent tendrils of ice to his chastity belt. "That would be pandering to male fantasies," she said and marched inside, Moira in tow.

Mark watched through the glass doors as she swept through the foyer like a ghost from more elegant times. He cradled his head in his hands and rubbed his forehead. How could he have hoped to flirt with Cassandra, let alone date her?

The library doors closed then whirred again for a vision of black fishnet clinging to unashamedly – no, deliciously – chubby legs.

Mark's gaze lingered over the girl's wide hips, barely hidden by a leopard-patterned mini-skirt, then fixed on the curve of her breasts where they overflowed her low-necked top.

A familiar round face smiled at him.

Mark swallowed. Felicity, the class flirt, had always been sexy. But now she was captivating. His penis beat like a second heart and, in the corner of his eye, the digital angel shook her finger.

Felicity's cheeks dimpled. She pushed her lips out into a pout and fixed him with bedroom eyes as black as her wild hair. Then she twitched her hips ever so slightly and purred, "Hello Mark," making it sound like an invitation to sex.

Mark glanced at the digital angel in time to see her halo dwindle to just a thin circle. "Got to go," he gasped and fled into the night.

He was still trying not to think of Cassandra’s boots and Felicity’s bosom when he reached his top-floor room. He shut the door and thought, Thank God! Now I can masturbate.

Except, this time, he couldn't. Not for at least a month. Longer still, if he kept getting aroused. No masturbation until he broke the cycle and escaped his obsession. In theory, at least.

Without touching the light switch, he turned to the mirror and slowly, like a man peeling off a bandage to inspect a wound, eased down his jeans.

He shuddered.

In the gloom, there was just a neat gap between his legs, as if Dr. Jones had sheared off his penis and testicles.

Staying back from the window, he clicked on his reading light. Now he could see the sexless bulge that hid his genitals. It was featureless except for a slit for peeing and a discreet hole for the special shower attachment.

The hi-tech material – Quantumite, Dr. Jones had called it - coated the rest of his loins like a slick of crude oil. Everything about it said hi-tech, evil, and permanent.

It’s designed for much longer than a month, he thought dizzily. He sank onto his narrow bed, only to land on something hard. He reached under the duvet and retrieved his battered copy of 1930s Ladies.

He picked it up, meaning to throw it in the bin. But it was open at his favourite photograph: a statuesque girl in a corset, who, thanks to her bobbed hair, looked a lot like Cassandra. She was frozen in a moment of self-gratification, slumped in a chair with her stockinged legs spread, garters stretched over her thighs, and elegant fingers curled over her pubic mound.

A cold hand seemed to clutch Mark’s genitals. He felt a familiar, bleak thrill in the pit of his stomach.

He frowned. There was something about her that brought him back to the same page, time and again, even before he met Cassandra. Yet, he couldn’t imagine interrupting her, let alone having sex with her. There was no trace of a man in the picture, except for the long-dead photographer's flash lamp reflected in her knee-high boots.

Mark remembered Cassandra's new boots, and for an instant she seemed to take the place of the girl in the photograph. A tremor ran through his groin. "And now, I'd jerk off," he said aloud.

He sighed. That summed up his sex life for the last year - spend time with Cassandra then masturbate in his room using old pornography to fill in the blanks. He might as well have been wearing the chastity belt from the moment he met her. No wonder he was still a virgin.

Beyond his dirty windowpane, a dozen fireworks lit up the sky.

November the Fifth. Bonfire Night. The other – normal - students would be partying, flirting, looking for sex, or just holding hands and watching the fireworks. But not Mark.

Across the quadrangle, a light blinked on in the third floor of Dacre Block. A girl appeared at the window.

It was the tall blonde who'd eyed him up so clinically outside Cassandra's front door. Another untouchable woman, thought Mark.

She shucked off her sleeveless Barber jacket and stooped to get a silver-bottled energy drink from her fridge. Even at a distance, Mark liked the way her sweater hugged her full breasts and slightly flared hips. But she was out of his league if she could afford a Dacre apartment.

A second light came on. It backlit a pair of net curtains, turning them transparent so Mark could see down into the blonde's bedroom. Feeling a little guilty, he started to close his roller blind.

The blonde pulled off her sweater in a single smooth movement. From the waist up she was all honeyed flesh and lean muscles, except for where a white bra cupped her jutting breasts.

The blind cord slipped from Mark’s fingers. He pressed his face against the glass. Perhaps if he’d only spoken to her, he could have been in the room with her now. But then what would he do?

The blonde unzipped her boots and pulled them off. The movement set her breasts quivering. They quivered again as she rolled her leggings over her hips and down her sleek athletic legs. She high-kicked the stretch moleskin across the room. Now she stood framed in the window, a vision in white underwear.

Mark imagined running his hands over her lean body and felt a tightening inside the chastity belt. He knew his arousal was eroding the digital angel. Even so, he just could not look away. All he could think was, Why did I waste a year on Cassandra?

The blonde raised her hands to the ceiling and stretched. Then she bent at the waist and touched her toes, making her breasts swing beneath her and drawing her white knickers tight around her angular buttocks.

Mark flexed his fingers. It would be nice to stand behind her and grind against that muscular bottom, then to lean over and grab her pendulous breasts and squeeze.

Mark grimaced. He'd probably hurt her or something. It was not as if he’d much experience.

Oblivious to his gaze, the long-legged blonde switched on her hi-fi and skipped and twirled to whatever the music was. Finally, her path took her to her bed. She dived onto the covers then rolled onto her back to lie sprawled out, her feet towards the transparent net curtains, her white knickers stretched across her crotch.

How would I get her bra off?

Her thigh tendons tensed. She arched her back and reached behind herself to peel off her bra. Her breasts sprang free and flopped to either side, the rosy nipples clearly visible against the honey-toned flesh.

Mark licked his lips and wished he could suck at the dark pink nubs. Meanwhile his penis throbbed and strained to unfold itself.

The girl shifted her hips and, before Mark's eyes, writhed out of her knickers. Her pubic hair was white blonde, a heart-shaped splash of snow between her thighs. Thick, blood red inner labia divided the neat fuzz. They sparkled slightly, as if covered with glitter... or already speckled with moisture.

Mark’s penis went berserk. It butted against the bottom of its tube, again and again. Instinctively, he reached for his groin and found just the chastity belt's cup, blank except for its narrow slit.

He pressed hard against the cup, trying to joggle it or make the tube shift just a little around his bloated penis... and felt not the slightest change in sensation, just a new, primal fear wrapping its claws around his spine.

Across in Dacre Block, the tall blonde caressed her own flanks and slowly spread her long legs. Her left hand swept up over her flat stomach and captured a lolling breast. The right formed a hook and burrowed into the radiant white curls between her thighs.

Mark's eyes widened. All the moisture fled his mouth. Girls didn’t really play with themselves, except in pornography, not on his dirty concrete campus at least.

The blonde rubbed, driving the digits in and out, faster and faster. Her face went pink, then beetroot red. The blush swept down her throat and between her breasts.

Those could be his fingers, if only he'd talked to her!

Mark trembled. His pulse thundered in his ears. His penis expanded and contracted forlornly in time to her movements. The pressure built up until his testicles ached and he whimpered in dismay.

The blonde squirmed then tilted her hips. Like a great spider, she drew in her shuddering legs and planted her bare feet on the mattress. She curled her toes then pushed off the bed, raising her buttocks until all her weight was on her shoulders and her pale thighs framed her flushed face.

At last, she screwed up her eyes and opened her mouth in an orgasmic moan made silent by distance between them.

Mark's penis spasmed. Something hot and sticky squirted onto his hand. The watch chimed.

He stared at the puddle of semen in his palm. Then he remembered the noise from the watch and checked the digital angel. Half of her had gone. Worse, she still wagged her finger at him, though lazily now.

He grabbed his rucksack and pulled out the big attaché case that came with the chastity belt. He flipped the lid and opened the glossy manual. "Ejaculation," he read out. “Ejaculating halves the guardian angel, or doubles any penalty weeks.”

He dropped the book and stared at the angel on his watch. Day One in the chastity belt, and she was down to one wing, two legs, a head and an arm. Surely she wasn’t supposed to be this sensitive? He reached for his phone and dialled the 24-hour emergency number.

"Dr. Jones? It’s Mark Armstrong here - It’s a mistake, I want out."

"I’m sorry Mark," said the doctor. "There is no override – that's what makes the Tough Love Chastity Belt the perfect treatment for your masturbatory obsession with... uh... Cassandra, wasn't it?"

"But suppose you misdiagnosed me..." began Mark.

Still flushed, the blonde put on lacy black bra. She sat on the bed, pointed her toes and lovingly unrolled a black stocking up her leanly muscled leg.

Just like in 1930s Ladies! thought Mark. His limp cock twitched in agreement.

Dr. Jones was saying, "...so the diagnosis doesn't matter. The device will release when you're cured." She sighed. "Or at the end of the one year safety limit... unless you feel the need to self-medicate, that is.”

"I’ll...."

The girl rolled on the other stocking.

Mark bit back a moan and continued. "I’ll cut my way out."

"With a tame nuclear explosion, perhaps," said Dr. Jones, amused now. "As you well knew when you signed the waiver, Quantumite is almost indestructible. Do try not to injure yourself. Let me spell it out for you, again..."

The blonde fished a pair of black high-heels from under her bed and tied them to her ankles with ribbons that went almost all the way up her calves. Then she rose and stood in front of her mirrored wardrobe, legs slightly apart, like a centrefold model - black bra, stay-up stockings, high-heels, and no knickers.

Dr. Jones's voice seemed very far away. Mark registered technical words like "super conductor" and "quantum action-reaction", but all that really mattered was drinking in the sight of the blonde. She was every bit the modern girl now, but she might as well have been in a photograph for all the chance he had of touching her.

The blonde rummaged in her bedside drawer and took out something pink and sausage-shaped.

Mark’s jaw dropped as he recognised the sex toy. My missing cock. Somehow, his own penis revived and swelled in its prison.

“We are paying you quite well, after all," concluded Dr. Jones.

"I bet you do have an override and you won’t give it to me!" he blurted.

"Believe me, Mark, there really is no override."

Across the quadrangle, the blonde lay back on the bed - this time almost side-on to Mark. She pointed her stockinged toes and spread her legs until they touched either bedpost. She probed between her thighs with the dildo then, abruptly, plunged the artificial cock into her vagina. It came out glistening with her juices.

Mark shook his head from side to side but could not dislodge his gaze from the blonde's window. His hips twitched involuntarily. "I’m... I’m going to get..." He licked his lips and tried again. “Legal advice,” he managed and ended the call.

The blonde’s arm worked the dildo like a piston. The flush returned to her face and spread over the honeyed skin between the black cups of her bra.

"Go on!" urged Mark. He rocked back and forward, as if his hips were driving the dildo.

Her toes curled. The flush spread over her belly and down her thighs and vanished under her stockings...

...and Mark’s penis spasmed for a second time. Again, the watch chimed. I came before she did! He looked on numbly, semen dripping from his chastity belt, and imagined her scorn, or, worse, pity.

But, across the quadrangle, the blonde knew nothing of Mark’s inadequacy. She worked the dildo like a plunger, churning her vagina, on and on, not needing him or any other man to give her pleasure.

An age later, as Mark’s cock hardened, her blue eyes widened, her jaw set, her spine arched and her mouth stretched wide. Then she flopped back, limp and spent.

The blonde lay as still as a picture until her flush faded. Then she rolled onto her side, presenting Mark with the backs of her stockinged legs and naked thighs.

Half an hour slid by as Mark watched over her, hypnotised by the throb in his chastity belt.

Then, at last, the blonde sprang into movement. She leapt off the bed, cleaned the dildo, and, without putting on knickers, slithered into a little black dress. Now she stood framed in her window, rich, sensual, sophisticated and ready to go out on the pull.

"So out of my league," murmured Mark.

Below, in the quadrangle, somebody whooped. There was a whoosh and a huge firework exploded.

When Mark got his sight back, the blonde was standing in front of her net curtains with her face pressed to her own window. She glanced up at him, then drew heavy drapes, cutting off the light from her bedroom.

Mark closed his eyes and mentally replayed the image of her masturbating. His penis responded immediately and he snapped them open again. But already the digital angel had lost all trace of her remaining wing.

Then he noticed the time.

He'd been part of the experiment for less than three hours and already he had – what? – one quarter of the angel to last him until the end of November.

Now he understood that the chastity belt meant far more than no sex or masturbation. If he so much as thought about sex, he risked being trapped right up to the one year limit.

Mark frowned. A year without wanking was too big a price to pay for curing his obsession. It really was time to take legal advice.

In the mean time he should try not to recall the way the blonde writhed to her own touch.

Quietly, without any fuss, the digital angel's sleeve lost its pleats.

Get the free download to find out what happens next...

Rare slavecam footage from the world of Whips and Stockingtops...

To really, take a look...

Planet Earth....

Gene Roddenberry somehow managed to depict a femdom society on mainstream TV. I wonder how many young men got their first whiff of kink through this pilot...?

The perfect chastity belt...

My friends over at Chastity Wear are building the ultimate non-metalic male chastity device, and it set me thinking - what would be my perfect chastity belt?

It has to be secure, or I don't think it counts as a chastity device. At minimum, I don't want to be able to pull out without destroying the device. So - in the absence of a piercing - out go the simple ball grippers. Ideally, I'd like it in a material I can't easily cut with the contents of my tool chest.

It has to be comfortable for long term wear. I need to be able to sit at my desk, go to the shops and in all ways carry on with daily life without discomfort. Some of the more over the top steel devices probably fail at this hurdle, as does anything that relies on pressing too firmly round the root of my penis. The best solution seems to be something with an internal cock-and-ball ring.

It has to pass the shower test. For most uses, it's enough to be able to take a shower without the thing collapsing, corroding or becoming water logged. However, the perfect belt would enable me to actually wash and dry my genitals. This suggests a cage rather than cup construction.

The problem with a cage is that it's downright ugly, doesn't look neutered, and doesn't hide whether or not I'm turned on. These visual considerations mean that I'd always opt for a cup over a cage, even though this reduces the possibilities of long-term wear.

Mmy ideal chastity belt would get around this: a girdle and ball-gripping cage, with a visor-like cup.

Beyond basic design, I want it to be easy to fit a dildo to act as a prosthetic, and can it the belt be adjustable in order to simplify fitting, and account for fluctuating weight...?

Small wonder that the DIY route is so attractive. However, if I had the money and lived close to Chastity Wear, I think I'd be queuing up for a fitting.

Projects...

Now I've let go of "The Chastity Belt", I'm ready to move on with other projects.

The big problem with writing erotica is that a zillion fantasies tug at the imagination. A few thousand words are enough to bring a fantasy to life, but an erotic novel needs at least 40,000 words. So, there's this strong temptation to flit between projects and never quite finish anything.

Also, some fantasies make lousy stories because they're about a lifestyle. I like the idea of retreating into classical slavery. Lots of sexual frustration, punishments and humiliation, but no real story. I also like the idea of being a permanently chaste lover; there would be no dialog over release, no possibility of orgasm, just a life of exquisite frustration and sensuality. Sometimes I evoke these in my erotic captions, but I can't see how to make these into novels since the attraction is the absence of drama.

Themes that I can write about are...

MALE CHASTITY

• Adventures in chastity - Chaste hero becomes object of desire for competing ladies.
• Chaste romance - Chaste hero gets drawn into a romance that would otherwise be impossible.
• Persecuted male - More traditional femdom, in which an angry female victimizes the hero, who she of course traps in a chastity belt.
• Journey into permanent chastity - Usually provides the looming disaster for the above. Ultimately, the hero probably choses this. Coming up with convincing permanence is tricky.
  

SLAVERY

• Slave tale - Chaste male slave as observer of Sapphic comings and goings.
• Journey into Slavery - Chaste male slave grows to relish his role, perhaps as the result of a Slave Tale.
  

In both the kinds of tale, the Journey theme gives the hero a reason to resist; yes I love this girl, but if I surrender to that love, then I'll be trapped forever! Lose that theme, and there's less to keep the story going.

This is probably why I haven't knocked out a sequel to The Chastity Belt. I left the hero enslaved to a very nice menage a trois. I'm not sure I 'd want to disturb that happy ending. If I did, the stakes would have to be purely erotic or emotional... perhaps Moira goes off with some Lesbian bikers, leaving Casandra and Felicity to battle over who owns Mark. Or perhaps Mark is tempted by a more normal romance and must decide who he wants to be. The possibilities are there, but it would be harder to write a real page turner.

In the mean time, I'm working on a Whips and Stockingtops yarn...

Download my novel for free...

Well, I thought about revising it and adding more scenes, but really I'd like to move on to explore other fantasies. So, I've put it up on lulu..com. You can even download the PDF for free... though if you do, please write me a review!

Mark is surrounded by delicious but messed-up college girls. Despairing of ever bedding one, he agrees to wear an experimental chastity belt, only to discover that the girls quite like the idea of a man without a penis!

His chastity belt unlocks the libidos of ice maidens, pathological teases, timid virgins, and super bitches, opening the way for a spectacularly dysfunctional love triangle. Unfortunately, the more he gets turned on, the longer the hi-tech device remains locked....

Which would you choose? Erotic adventures beyond your wildest dreams, or being able to have an orgasm again... ever?

Buy the book, or download a free copy.

Showering in a chastity belt...

There is something unutterably erotic about showering in a chastity belt. Not the sensuality of the act itself, but the fact that it's possible.

If you can keep clean in the device, then there's no theoretical reason why you should have to take it off - ever.

Sleeping Beauty: 1 The Dark Tower

Beauty's tower loomed against the sunset, a column of blackness against the swirling red clouds.

The Wanderer peered into the briars. There were skeletons amidst the tangle, some in crumbling armour, some still clutching rusted swords.
He shivered and wrapped his dreams around himself. It had cost him his name to come here. Now he would be the first to pass the test.

He touched the hedge and the thorns drew blood. The sudden pain brought the feeling back to his numb fingers. He watched the dripping wounds and finally understood what he must do.

Slowly, the Wanderer shucked off his coat and stripped. Naked as well as nameless now, he turned his back on his clothes, closed his eyes and stepped towards the hedge of thorns.
No pain. Nothing but the bare earth underfoot and the icy Autumn wind clawing at his puckering flesh as he passed through the hedge of briars.

When the earth gave way to scratchy heather, the Wanderer opened his eyes and stared up at the tower. She was so close now, he could almost hear her call. Surrender was the key.
Behind him the briars coiled and thrash, obliterating his path. But he did not look back. Half running, half scrambling, he struggled up the side of the hill, the dry heather scratching his bare feet and legs, drawing blood from his hands each time he fell.

At last he faced the familiar stone gryphon that guarded the gate to Beauty's castle. Despite the cold and pain, he smiled. This really was the place from dreams.

The Wanderer waited until all trace of the sun had gone and the courtyard was a black void, peopled by borrowed memories of strange pageantry and solemn processions.

Now it was time.

No longer cold, he stepped into the darkness. Instinct guided his feet to the doorway at the base of the tower. Inside, a spiral staircase went up, and down.

He chose down and plunged deep into the hill, feeling his way past entrances and landings until masonry gave way to damp bedrock and a faint glow registered on his light-starved retina.

A last turn of the stair and he stood blinking in a cavern illuminated by glowing five-pointed stars painted on its vault.

His eyes adjusted, and there she was, naked and snow-white on her plinth. He stumbled forward, his arousal growing. But when he reached her, he found nothing but marble effigy.

The unknown sculpture had captured her perfectly, down to the slight wrinkling around her eyes. "My God, you were beautiful!"

The unnatural stars twinkled, lending movement to Beauty's frozen limbs, but he was a thousand years too late. This was no lady to be rescued. This was a tomb.

But why depict her naked with her long legs tensely spread? And why such anatomical detail in the secret place between them?

Just as his erection became almost painful, his toes stubbed against something cold and hard – a heavy chain leading from the foot of her plinth to a bronze collar around the neck of a skeleton. Seamless bronze fetters enclosed the wrist and ankle bones, and a cup – some sort of codpiece – lay on its pelvis.

He squatted and pulled the collar free of the human remains. There was no lock, just two hairline cracks to show where the hinge and opening were. It was designed to be put on, but not removed.

Was the man a willing sacrifice following her to the afterlife, or another rescuer arrived too late? Either way, the Wanderer envied the man, dying at Beauty's feet.

The collar fell open. Perhaps she needed sacrifices, not suitors. He lifted it to his throat and snapped it shut.

The Wanderer had become a prisoner.

What next...?

So, after a good run with Pink Flamingo, the rights to The Chastity Belt have reverted to me. Do I publish it myself right away, or expand it by a few scenes and publish that in a few months?

Anybody...?

Promising new beltmaker

This maker of composite male chastity belts is slowy working towards something promising.

BDSM and the problem of evil: Darkness is relative

(updated for afterthoughts)

If BDSM echoes real world acts of evil and abusive relationships, then how do good people - or people who think of themselves as good - manage to live with essentially evil fantasies?

Well, mostly they probably don't. They reframe morality to fit their fantasies, or try to crush their own psyche to fit their morality.

But, those of us who do - the kinksters practical and mental - seem to have several coping strategies.

• Fantasy Acceptor: e.g. "Rape me in a car park (since it's only a game)."
• Fantasy Distancers: e.g. "I'm a Celtic slave and she's a Roman Widow (so we know it's only a game)."
• Experiential Acceptors: e.g. "I enjoy doing this. What of it?"
• Experiential Distancer: "This isn't sadistic punishment, it's a ritual of trust etc etc. (Evil? Moi?)"
• BDSM Acceptors: e.g. "Men/Women deserve to rule over women/men. (I'm not kinky, I'm righteous.)"
• BDSM Distancer: e.g. "I'm into BDSM. This is what BDSM folks do. (Our power relations are nothing to do with the real world.)"
  

These are all effective approaches for consenting adults getting off on playing with whips and chains. They are, however, not entirely compatible - I'll get to that. There's another more general problem. For example...

I'm a Fantasy Distancer. I'm happy - these days - to embrace the evil inherent in my fantasies. I imagine and play out (consensually) non-consensual scenarios. However, I shy away from anything that brings me bumping back to reality. So I cheerfully imagine being a Roman slave, but not a prisoner of the SS.

For a Brit like me, slavery is not even a folk memory, but I've seen French villages where, during the war,... well, you know. So the SS are not on the menu, despite the cool uniforms. Sorry Tom of Finland. Conversely, there are cultures and sub-cultures where slavery is a much rawer wound. Talk of owning other humans is abhorent, but posing around in Nazi-style caps is OK because - hey - it was all a long time ago in a country far far away.

So darkness is relative to culture. A bad enough cultural mismatch can be enough to override any coping strategy, and that is a practical problem to bear in mind when playing with others.

BDSM and the problem of evil: Why submit?

The problem with BDSM is that it's based on evil.

No, I don't mean that the consensual activity itself is evil. Far from it. However, BDSM acts and relationships simulate or echo evil real world counterparts.

It's not just that these are a convenient form adopted by lazy kinksters. The evil is an inherent part of the dynamic.

"No no", you say. "They may be playing a master and slave, but we are exploring trust!"

Yes, but would the trust be neccessary if the acts themselves were not acts of violation?

Even "Female Lead Relationships" are just an inversion of the rightly maligned old world patriachal marriage, with some sexual manipulation thrown in. Without the man's consent, in what way would that be different from an abusive relationship?

If evil did not provide the thrill, then the visual trappings of BDSM would be comfy clothing and sensible Velcro restraints. There'd be no dressing up, posturing, and harking back to the titles and ranks of yesteryear.

To dominate somebody, to manipulate them, to hurt them for pleasure, to force pleasure on them... without consent, these acts are evil--and yet we consent to them.

The evil poses an intellectual problem: why would people so ardently seek to become victims?

The psychological answer is probably different for each person. I have a strong suspicion that it's got a lot to do with the flow of intimacy. When you listen to other people's introspection, you also get a sense of catharsis, escapism, and physical pleasure.

But why that particular form? I strongly suspect that both submission and masochism have an evolutionary basis. Just as boredom probably evolved to prevent us from wasting time in fruitless activities, I think there's a good chance that masochistic submission evolved to prevent us from getting ourselves killed in battles for dominance, and to ensure group cohesion.

In other words, monkey people that got a kick out of submitting to stronger monkey people survived to breed, and their clans hunted and gathered more effectively because they weren't always jostling for the top position.

If this is true, then recreational masochistic submissives deliberately seek out submissive situations in order to get that hardwired buzz, partly just for the hell of it, and partly for relief from the endless subtle tussle of human society.

So much for my theory... there are countless others. One way or another BDSM looks and feels evil, even though it's not. This leads to the most pressing problems related to BDSM and evil: the practical ones...

Venus in Furs

I've been rereading Venus in Furs...

"Tread me underfoot!" I exclaimed, and flung myself face to the floor before her.

"I hate all this play-acting," said Wanda impatiently.

"Well, then maltreat me seriously."

Yes, Masoch actually touches on the cruelty paradox, though not in any depth. He's more interested in idea that...

Goethe's 'you must be hammer or anvil'is absolutely appropriate to the relation between man and woman.

In short, the message is; Equality is hard work to achieve, so why not just give in. Besides, women unfettered by morality are so very marvelous...

And yes, he's already setting out on the cuckold fantasy, something I would have said does not interest me except that if you make it a Sapphic cuckolding fantasy, then I'm in hog heaven.

Did this book influence my fantasies? I'm not sure.

I came to it in my pre-Internet youth looking for answers and found only an uncomfortable mirror. Severin, the "hero", faces the familiar real-world problem of drawing a strong woman into an S&M relationship.

He succeeds so far by topping from the bottom, and then - and I haven't got to this bit yet in my reread - she ostensibly tries to cure him by ambushing him with more than what he wished for. He flees the reality of the fantasy and sets himself up as a Gorean-style master.

What was this ending suppose to be? A sop to morality? A warning? It didn't feel like happily ever after. Perhaps Masoch was saying: Warning - most women don't actually want a lifestyle relationship.

Consensual slavery and playing at evil (1)

How can we use the term slave when slavery itself is evil?

There's nothing erotic and everything tragic, wasteful and disgusting about being flogged to death on a plantation in some Caribbean hellhole.

From time to time, somebody online points this out, and goes onto argue strongly (understatement) that using "slave" as a tag for a consensual submissive or bottom is at best in poor taste, definitely disrespectful, and at worst, undermine the public perception of the appalling practice of chattel slavery then and now.

(More to follow)

Roman Britannia AD 2009

Two ways to throw away the key without hypnotism...

One of my friends blogged on hypnotism in femdom. It's an intriguing thought. Half the fun of masochistic roleplay is the delicious ambivalnce - the wanting and not wanting to suffer. No chastity belt is indestructable, no slave contract legally enforcable, so we can only take that sufferring so far for so long. Wouldn't it be nice to use hypnotism to throw away the key?

I wouldn't want anything that negated the discomfort of my erotic roles. However, I'm sure something would work that exploited my ambivalences about freedom. For example...

Your erection is tiny and fragile. It cannot truly satisfy a woman. One day a vagina will crush and maul it. Only the chastity belt will keep it safe.

Your penis is ugly. No nice girl would want to see it. Only the chastity belt will keep it hidden.

All men are potential rapists. Only the chastity belt will hide the shame of being male.

Sex is dirty. No woman truly consents to it, even if she says she does. Only the chastity belt can save you from being a bully.

The snag is, I'm not convinced I - or my lady - could switch this off, ever. We're really just transtemporal tourists. Most of the time, we like vanilla sex!

Fortunately, there are two easier and safer ways to make it hard to break role:

#1 Reduce the need for decision making during play

• Adopt a culture that satisfies both your needs and hard limits.
  This doesn't mean you need to dress up as Romans, just that you need to identify a cluster of shared fantasies as inspiration so that you naturally stay your happy zone.
  
  
• Agree that a slave's health and safety has value.
  That way, all safety communications can be in-game.
  
  
• Set a time limit.
  No need to keep revisiting, "Has she/have I had enough yet?"
  
  

#2 Amplify the real world consequences for quitting early

• Dress up and prepare in proportion to the length and intensity of the session.
  The more you've invested, the greater the moral and emotional pressure on you to follow through on your side.
  
  
• Use hard to replace bondage gear, and timelock the keys away in something even harder to replace.
  If you can't get out of the props, you might as well stay in role.
  
  

Venus in Furs

Interesting book that. Here's the picture that kicked off Masoch's fantasy:And here's the original opening....

My company was charming.

Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus; she was
not a casual woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages
war against the enemy sex, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real,
true goddess of love.

She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire, whose
reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its white eyes,
and from time to time over her feet when she sought to warm them.

Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes; it was all
I could see of her. She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge
fur, and rolled herself up trembling like a cat.

What's in it for her? (continued): Dark Side Safari

Earlier, I asked "What's in it for her?" and got this anonymous reply:

For my Wife it means that all of my desire is kept intact waiting for her to use it. I can't steal it by masturbating and I certainly can't have an affair.
She now knows that after week of chastity I become needy and I dote and serve her like I am her servant. I also never talk back or raise my voice to her when she has me locked up.
I means she gets a perfect husband, or at least the ability to mold me into one.

Taking this at face value, the Mr Anonymous paints a picture of a very normal couple....

No, really, there is a lot that's normal about them: she worries about his fidelity... they both think of sexual energy as finite so have an issue with his masturbation... both have negative feelings about masculinity... and both feel she needs some extra leverage to make him behave attentively.

A lot of people are like this.

The normal thing would be for them to be dysfunctional. Their marriage should be a merry-go-round of trust and distrust, intimacy and frantic distancing, love and hostility. The options should be expensive therapy and/or even more expensive divorce.

Instead, they've addressed their issues directly and used a male chastity device to secure his mental and physical fidelity, and as leverage to resolve the conflict between his old-style machismo, and his urge to be a nurturing husband.

So, now - assuming the goalposts don't keep moving - they're not dysfunctional. But he wears a chastity belt. You can't even call it unhealthy, since they probably have a darn sight more intimacy than most couples. It's not even dark - it sounds positively fluffy.

Strange...

They've done what geeks call, "a hack" or perhaps "workaround". No need to tangle with complex emotions, just slap on this piece of hardware and all will be right.

As a lifestyle, this can't possible work unless both partners have very similar values and feelings about gender and relationships. (So don't try this at home...) But, perhaps it points to something less 24/7 that the rest of us can enjoy: experiencing erotic roles authentically and in earnest rather than in play.

Let's call it the Dark Side Safari.

According to Families and How to Survive Them, we tend to pair up with others who share similar issues by the very act of trying to avoid them. (How this is supposed to happen deserves a different blog entry.)

If you look around you, you'll see that relationships usually go either to the Light Side, where the couple resolve each other's issues, or to the Dark Side, where their matching fuckedupness locks them into a private couple hell.

Mrs and Mrs Anonymous are actually in their Light Side, but for most of the rest of us, that sort of power exchange belongs firmly in the Dark Side. (For myself, had I met somebody like Mrs Anonymous, I would have been sucked in, but would always have been yearning for something more... normal as a baseline for our relationship.)

I think the issues that lure our relationships to the Dark Side don't ever go away. Once in a while we give into the pull - admit defeat - and wallow in them. The safest - and healthiest - way to do this has to be through taking on BDSM roles.

So me, I have mixed feelings about masculinity, a nagging feeling that I am unlovable and incompetent at intimacy. Most of the time, real world experience renders these feelings irrelevant. But, when I take a Dark Side Safari into erotic slavery, I get a holiday from the (very) low level guerrilla war.... and it feels good.

As for what my other half gets - you'd have to ask her. Logically, though, there's lots of authentic benefits that a chaste lover can offer his belle. It all depends on the lady...

• Freedom from performance anxiety - she never knows whether or not he is hard.
• Freedom from penetration by penis - let's face it, chastity belt sex with a prosthetic is about as safe as you can get... it's also clean - nice, even - and not really "sex" (for those harbouring guilt).
• Freedom to indulge - there's no worry that he will run out of steam and lose interest.
• Freedom from being "used"or "giving in" - unless of course you get too clever about the whole thing.
• Freedom to be hostile - sex as a way to cause hurt is normally reserved for men.
  

Of course she also gives up things she likes about vanilla sex - mess penises squirting everywhere, the two-way intimacy of mutual pleasure, his vulnerability when he comes, and the immediate sense of giving sensually.

But then, this is the Dark Side, we'll be home safe in the morning.

What's in it for her?

Normal women enjoy relationships because they are relationships: two-way intimacy, with give and take and a sense of the other's personality. They like sex with men because they are men, with masculine traits and penises.

So why on earth would a woman want a slave, or a chaste lover?

The answer would be useful not just for selling the idea to our partners, but also because it will give us some idea of how to support the resulting action.

So, what shall I write next...?

It's time I wrote some more erotica.

I'm going to write something short - say 10,000 words (The Chastity Belt was 40,000 words) - and sell it directly for not a lot of money.

Here are the options:

Whips and Stockingtops
A slave story from my Femdom alternate Jazz Era setting. It's the 1920s, but the girls are lesbians, and the men chastity-belted slaves. It'll be a lesbian love story told from the suffering slave's point of view. And there'll be stockings.

Chastity Planet
Now we're in the far future. Chastity Planet is a resort world. It's slogan is, "Leave your panties off for the Safest Girls Night Out in the Galaxy". It's safe because all the men are stuck in chastity cups. Some are slave, some are free. There's a system for demotion and promotion, and any female can dish out demerits, leading to a public whipping. Most of the girls aren't actual doms, they're just there for a good time, or to study at one of the excellent Ladies Colleges. (On more conservative worlds, the marketing brochures read, "Where girls can become ladies, without becoming women.") Expect sex with prosthetics, and unwilling self-discovery...

Kolkislavia
The present day, a Black Sea Republic, once home of the legendary Amazons. During the cold war, promising male athletes ended up with booby-trapped chastity implants. Now, young men in a similar state pander to sex tourists. Our hero is a British backpacker who's been abducted and caged. Can he survive the dominant women of the Republic to find the chemical key to his chastity hell?

Aqua Sulis
This one started off as a thought experiment, but it's worth a story. Male tourists from our world infiltrate a female only resort in an alternate Britain where the Romans still rule, and serve as chaste slaves to visiting Roman girls. The thing is, there's always the temptation to stay....

Something inspired by my chastity captions
And finally, we've got the modern world and the dysfunctional relationships people have. The key to a male chastity belt can unlock ice maidens, tempt flirts, or assuage vengeful ex's. There are also capture stories, and seduction stories, where lust and desire take the hero sleepwalking into his own darkness. If you've been reading my captions over at Indecisive, then you know the series - which would you enjoy as a book?

So, what would you like to read? (The first person to suggest the winning topic gets a free copy of the end result!)

The Safe Word Paradox: when "no" means "Yes ", but Hyacinth" means "Heartbreak"

In Femdom, "no" doesn't always mean "no", but "Hyacinth" can mean "Get me the fuck out of this right now!"

Safewords open the gate to the erotic. Without the fuse, who would want to turn on the electricity? However, there's nothing erotic about a safeword. (Jacqualine Carey treats it like a hard won prize in her excellent S&M Fantasy novels, but in reality, a ruthless person could very easily "defeat" any sane masochist. )

With classical slave roleplay, the submission and suffering are real. But if the slave can escape whenever the boredom or discomfort pass a certain threshold, then how authentic is the slave-mistress relationship? Can you lose yourself in the role if you're constantly weighing up whether to keep going? Can she relax and enjoy the service and the control, knowing you can pull the plug, or will she second guess her every whim? It's not slavery if everything that happens is pleasant - there needs to be the random experience of powerlessness, which means being forced to suffer beyond the immediately gratifying.

So, you're the one with the off switch, so let's start with your position....

Would a panic button spoil my femdom Aqua Sulis?

Imagine...

You had such a good week last year, that this year, you come back to Transtemporal Tours and pay for two whole weeks as a slave in the alternate world where the UK is "Britania", and the Romans still rule. As before, you opt for "Aqua Sulis", our Bath, a town dedicated to Minerva where the only men are chastity-belted slaves.

Impersonating a slave in your welded-on steel underwear, you spend an hour in the shop window before Flavia, a poor little rich girl, hires you for her stay.

Like before, from her perspective you are a real slave: You obey orders, and beating you seems to concentrate your mind. She doesn't care that you're leaking from your chastity belt - your desires are simply irrelevant - and anyway, she's too busy trying to get her best friend into a pre-nuptial Lesbian fling.

Unfortunately, the seduction is not going well, so Flavia is short-tempered. She also tends to forget you exist for hours on end.

One day, as you kneel in an empty hall, your back still throbbing from the latest beating, you remember paying extra for an Emancipation button built into your right back molar. You curl your tongue to tap out the sequence, and then hesitate....

Escape has consequences.

You'll miss the moment you've been waiting for... when the relaxing girls finally indulge in a Sapphic orgy. And, you're afraid of the embarrassment of being rescued. What a waste of a vacation!

Worse, there's a good chance you'll never get to come back. Even if Transtemporal Tours don't ban you - extractions are difficult and risk blowing their cover, so this had better be a real emergency - you'll automatically lose your club membership.

Will you ever be able to afford rejoining the club? Also, you'll almost certainly also lose your deposit, which is money you need for other things.

So, you weigh things up. On one side of the scales is the intensity of your discomfort. On the other side are your fear of embarrassment, investment in time and money, the short-term and long-term erotic costs, and the real world practical consequences.

As you kneel there, you notice a real - native - slave sweeping up the courtyard. You feel ashamed to be exploiting a role he's stuck with - until you see the shiny trickle down the inside of his thigh.

"Hey buddy," you hiss. "Do you enjoy being a...," you almost say, real, "...slave?"

"Yes and no," he whispers back.

"Why don't you escape?"

"Scared of getting caught," he says with a shudder. He notices your gaze drift to the semen on his thighs and colours. "And where else would I get to be with such classy chicks?"

Before he can slip away, you ask, "What would make you do a runner?"

He frowns. "I can take my punishment as well as any man. But if my owner started to, you know, damage me, or made me blow her boyfriends, then I'd make for Hibernia in a shot." Then he shakes his head. "But that won't happen. Why would she damage her property? And no Roman man would risk his reputation..."

As he scurries off, you realise that you both have the same hard limits. In fact, you picked this very Alternate Earth because the culture not only satisfies your fantasies, it also makes it unlikely that anything really bad will happen to you.

It's also true that both you and the real slave of you are trapped by fear of consequences. The difference is just one of degree: terrible consequences keep him enslaved forever, mild consequences keep you enslaved for a couple of weeks.

And so you surrender to the slavery. Flavia 's Roman nature gives you all the protection you need. Next time, you won't bother with the button.

(Oh, and Flavia does seduce her best friend, but just too far into the overgrown garden for you to watch. You'll never forget the feeling of the cries of orgasm reverberating through your chastity belt, though.)

Back to the real world...

So, back - kicking and screaming - to reality. What keeps a voluntary slave enslaved in the rough patches? Or, put it another way, what are the consequences of saying "Hyacinth - game over?"

Just like the Transtemporal Tourist, you've invested time and effort in getting to the scene, whether it's clearing your diary, or buying toys. Pulling the plug early will be a letdown - you've everything to gain by continuing, and your discomfort will have been wasted.

Also, like the Transtemporal Tourist, you risk losing a financial investment; if the keys to your chastity belt are timelocked away, then you stand to break your expensive toy, or the wreck a lockable cabinet.

And you may well make it hard to play again - you could leave your playmate feeling silly, ruin her ability to take your slavery for granted, or blow a hole in her plans.

So, there's a lot to be said for taking the rough with the smooth and staying in role.


Playing on through...
If you pick a culture - like Modern Aqua Sulis - that respects your hard limits, then you shouldn't need to step out of role. As long as there's an assumption that slaves are valuable property, then you should be able to say, "Mistress, this (or that) will damage my muscles."

Beyond that, it's good to negate the need for out-of-role decision making, and then to weight the decisions in favour of staying in role.

Set a sensible time span for your visit to Aqua Sulis. If it's an evening session, agree 9pm to 1am and stick to it. That way, there's no need to keep revisiting, "Have I had enough yet?"

With consequences, it's a question of proportion. The longer, the more intense the session, the greater you should make the consequences of wimping out. The more she dresses up, the more effort she puts in, the greater the moral and emotional pressure on you to follow through on your side. If using a timelock, lock away your keys in something more expensive than your chastity belt. And, if you're going for a long term lockup, buy a chastity belt you'd be embarrassed to destroy, and that you can't afford to replace.

If you can reliably stay in role, you've gone a long way to helping her stay in role.

Freeing her inner mistress
Realistically, most girls aren't obsessively kinky in the way men can be. However, many of them enjoy being a tease or a bitch, if given permission, and most will enjoy the pampering and other vanilla benefits of having a slave if they can get over their self-consciousness.

Just imagine we're still us, but I'm legally your slave, and you're OK with that. You don't want to break your valuable property, but you don't really care what I'm feeling, unless it amuses you to do. You can be as selfish as you like, in whatever way you like. Mostly this will turn me on, but you will have no way of knowing this thanks to the chastity belt, and can therefore ignore the fact.

Getting over the self-consciousness requires two things, one obvious, one not so.

I'm going to be your slave. I'll do as I'm told as best I can, but you may need to punish me to get the best service. If you get bored of me, or don't have any task, just ignore me. If I'm bored or uncomfortable, I'll accept that - it'll probably turn me on. If I feel physically unsafe, I'll warn you because a good slave should protect his owner's property. I have no expectations, other than you don't ask me to break role.

Less obviously, and probably most importantly, you need to set a time for coming out of role. Slavery fantasies, unlike flagellation and torture scenarios, can be relatively gentle and lack set pieces. They're about a kind of existence, rather dramatic scenes, so they don't have a natural end point. An open ended session can be daunting to an inexperienced dom. There's also a danger she'll start second guessing you. She may also start wondering whether she's had enough yet, and feel an unspoken pressure from you to keep on going.

At 1am, we'll stop, and go back to loving each other. Right now, I love you, but you don't even care what my name is...

Pictures from Woody.

More Whips and Stockingtops

In an alternate earth, not far from here... (click to enlarge)

(Original vintage images courtesy of Johnny Mahoney, who collects and restores them.)

Whips and stockingtops

In an alternate earth, not far from here... (click to enlarge)

(Original vintage images courtesy of Johnny Mahoney, who collects and restores them.)

The Cruelty Paradox : Masochism is all in the mind - the body still suffers

Masochist: Whip me! Whip me!

Sadist: No!

And it's true. Just look online. For real punishment intended to modify behavior, some doms avoid using whips and chains.

It's another one of the Paradoxes of Consent. I call this one the Cruelty Paradox; if the "slave" is masochistic, then isn't cruelty meaningless?

The paradox doesn't really apply to regular D/S games, or even lifestyles. Judging by the fetish forums, whipping and other corporal punishments are often administered in a spirit of interactivity; pushing and playing with the limits like a dark inversion of making love. Genuine but moral sadists often get their kicks on a one-for you ("Ahhhh..."), and one for me ("Argh!"), or by playing make believe; he really does hate being whipped, (that's why he's ejaculating....).

The paradox does matter when role playing eroticized historical-style slavery – which I suppose is what this series of posts is really about. The more authentic the slavery, the greater the kick for the slave. The cruelty turns us on, but if it's done for our benefit, then rather than serving our owner, we're importuning our partner.

What would 100% genuine erotic slavery be?

Take a trip with Trans Temporal Tours to my alternate modern Bath, Aqua Sulus, and find out.

Collared and locked into your chastity belt, you'll serve one of the visiting Roman women (if you recall, in this timeline, the Roman Empire never fell), with no way out until the portal opens fourteen days later.

Cornelia, your beautiful temporary owner, is just here for a good time. You'll attend her at the famous baths, carry her shopping, dress and undress her, and satisfy her voracious erotic needs. Life with her is like a 24/7 teasing and denial session, but she doesn't care that your chastity belt is always crammed to bursting point. If your distraction makes you incompetent, she'll whip you until you scream into your gag – you're gagged because she'll be chatting on her cell phone at the time – but she's not interested in the semen pooling on the tiles at your feet. In fact, she's not really interested in the pain she inflicts. She just wants you Not To Spill the Expensive Bubbly Again, Ever.

Since your masochism subverts these punishments, isn't your visit to Cornelia's timeline essentially exploitative?

Not really, because Cornelia is still correct in her assumption that you are afraid of punishment.

We masochistic slaves have – to use technical terms – really very fucked up responses to pain.

Very few of us enjoy the pain itself (though I'm assured such people exist). Instead, most of us enjoy the prospect and aftermath: psychologically, because it means we're enslaved and powerless; and usually physically, thanks to the endorphin rush and the quickened heart rate – fear is an aphrodisiac.

Even granted this before-and-after pleasure, most of us are permanently ambivalent about the pain itself. It's no different from taking a rollercoaster ride, going bungee jumping, leaping into an ice cold ocean, or going to a horror movie. Our self is divided and we fear the experience we crave.

So, as long as Cornelia strikes hard enough to hurt, rather than just stimulate, then you – the slave – will on some instinctive level leap to obey her every order, and do your best to avoid another beating. However full your chastity belt, you're still her slave.

The same goes for the accidental teasing and denial. The chastity belt rather suggests that she does expect you to be turned on, but doesn't want to know about it.

By extension, the same applies to deliberate cruelty.

Suppose you fall into the hands of the sadistic Lucia, or the teasing Cleopatra? If the power differential and the chastity belt are necessary before you can endure the experience, then, logically, the same ambivalence applies.

You want it and you don't want it. The inside of your head odd and divided against itself, but the suffering is authentic, and so therefore is the cruelty.

The Power Paradox: Femdom is a foreign country!

A long time ago, in pre-Internet days, a bewildered girlfriend once fumed, "You want me to be in charge, but then you tell me what to do!"

Predictably, rather than trigger a stiff beating, her irritation terminated the scene. I had – as I now know – been caught "topping from the bottom".

My excuse is that I had fallen through a vortex created by the Power Paradox: How can slavery* be conditional?

*I'm using slavery here to mean the power relationship itself, rather than what's in people's heads.

Be honest, most modern 'slaves' know what we're after. There are conditions to be met before we'll play.

Yes, the web's oozing with one-handed talk of female supremacy and total submission. A real slave doesn't need a chastity belt to abstain from masturbation, nor chains to remain still during a whipping. In fact, a real slave shouldn't even need to be whipped…

However, when you get into detail, our specific fantasies are still personal to us; a kinky offshoot of unique lives. I'm drawn to submerge myself in slavery, others to the struggle between slave and owner. I like the experience of chastity, others the ritual and torment of the keyholding relationship. We share the same props, but the drama, or not, depends on the players.

So, no, I'm not a proper slave, if that means submitting to any command from an arbitrarily chosen mistress – and nor, dear reader, are you.

Why should we be? We do this for fun.

Even so, this doesn't automatically make our slavery fake. In fact, we quite like the idea of real slavery...

Let me introduce myself! I'm Giles English of Transtemporal Tours.

You're here because we can infiltrate you into any conceivable alternate Earth, and extract you after a set time.

For example, not far from here is a world where the Roman Empire never fell. Women's Lib happened on schedule, but I'm afraid slavery persists. Bath – the British city of Aqua Sulis actually - is now a female-only spa dedicated to Diana the Virgin Goddess. There she is in the center-piece of the local forum (left).

Aqua Sulis is a popular resort for women of all ages and walks of life. The done thing is to hire a male slave for the duration of the visit.

Ah, did I say female only?

Well, the men all have to wear chastity devices.

Sometimes the slave serves as guide and porter. Other times as lover or whipping boy, or some combination of the two.

I can tell you're excited by the thought of experiencing this unique culture from the inside. We keep notes on all regulars. Let me show you the online catalog… yes these are all real Roman Citizens booked in for two week holidays.

Claudia here… very pretty. Likes to tease you with her fine body, but then caress you with the whip.

The traditional dress looks odd mixed with the modern clothing, but then the Romans always did mix and match to suit...

Olivia… she's a romantic. She always falls in love with her slaves, but never asks for the same one back the next year. Multiply orgasmic, as well. You'd have lots of sex with her… oh, by sex I mean using a range of prosthetics. The chastity device doesn't come off.

Cynthia always hires the cheapest, stubbornest slave she can find. She likes a battle of wills. Careful though. If you push her too far, she'll whip you until you bleed, then rape you with a dildo.

But perhaps you don't want the intensity of one-to-one?

College parties are less predictable since the make up changes from year to year, but each Sorority has its own tradition.

These girls belong to the Sisterhood of the Huntress. The other lot… preppy, you might call them. They're the Cult of Minerva, here to study. They'd be more interested in each other than in you… would barely notice you, even when they made out. Unless you spill anything. Very fastidious and they like to do this thing with hot wax…

Or how about rough trade? There's always a busload of factory girls trundling in from Wales…

Take your pick sir and we'll arrange training and transport.

Of course, once you're there, your stuck until we extract you fourteen (14) days later. You'll be a real slave. If you run, real police will fetch you back. If you disobey, then your legal owners – usually Catriona's Vacation Slaves – will flog you.

You've made your selection already? Fantastic. Just let me print the consent forms…

Gotcha! You really did pick one. (Or come up with your own – do share.)

Imagine if you went ahead and bought a ticket. You'd control the exact nature of your slavery and its duration. So your slavery would be 100% conditional. Even so, it would also be 100% real.

Aside from the inability to withdraw consent, how is this different from - say - an evening of unscripted erotic role-play?

Sure, you pick a time when you're both in the mood for certain sorts of erotic action, but then that's no different from choosing to serve relaxed holidaying babes in Aqua Sulis, rather than workaholic career women in Londinium who just need you to cook and keep house, and outsource all discipline to Marcus's Premium Slave Flagellation Service .

In a sense, you're both taking a trip to a foreign country where the rules are different.

Of course, unless you've agreed the destination together, then you're still topping from the bottom - but that's a subject worthy of another post.