Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Why most healthy relationships have a potential BDSM dynamic...

As promised in an earlier post, here's why I think most healthy relationships have a potential kinky dynamic, which I fall a Shadow Relationship:
a spot where your darkside overlaps hers. You're both acting spontaneously without a script, enjoying your roles for their own sake. Anything that happens is authentic, because it's what you'd both do if your roles were real. The relationship is a shadow one, but still an actual relationship.
If Robin Skynner, author of Families and How to Survive Them, is right, then we tend to share issues with our partners. He calls this the Shop Window Theory (no googleable reference - you'll have to go and buy the book...)

In short, when courting, we tend to try to escape our issues by putting the opposite in our "shop window". For example, if I have a problem with anger, then my shop window oozes with the calm I intuit will attract a living saint.

The snag of course is that she'll also have a shop window. If it's oozing with tranquility, then perhaps she too has a problem with anger; it's like two con-artists marrying each other for money!

So, the relationship can take two broad paths: the functional, in which we both help each other deal with our anger issues; and the dysfunctional - the fucked up - where we repress each other, or boil over into mental or physical abuse, or both.

Now - be honest - much of our kink is driven by our issues, and most of the kinky action, shorn of the context of consent and the trappings of BDSM, looks pretty damn abusive (and is often mistaken as such by outsiders).

So, based on my own experience, and that of others, I have a strong suspicion that the optimal BDSM mode of your relationship is just an eroticised version of the dysfunctional relationship you could have had; the Shadow Relationship.

If that's true, if you're drawn to one BDSM role, then, potentially, she may be more than comfortable with its counterpart.

Note, however, that I'm talking about roles and relationships, here.

Things you fantasise about because they scare you, probably don't represent a viable shadow relationship, because they go against your basic nature. You wouldn't expect your partner to share your love of extreme sports either (though she might).

S&M acts and rituals on their own - floggings and spankings - don't count either. Nothing wrong with them, but they're the BDSM equivalent of a blow job.

There's also a lot of mundane crap that can get in the way. Possibly the particular form of your fantasy puts her off, or your coping strategy. However, I think it's easy to forget the other barriers to play, including self consciousness, cultural imperatives against eroticism, emotional fragility, and plain old fatigue.

And you can screw it up yourself in so many ways....

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Femdom reciprocity in a nutshell

Femdom play has reciprocity as long as she enjoys using the power. If she enjoys wielding the power as well, that's a bonus. She doesn't have to care about your experience.

(If she's "service topping" - doing it for your sake - then the play is not reciprocal, but may fit into a nicely reciprocal erotic relationship where you do other things for her at other times.)

Monday, December 13, 2010

Chastity Planet - Work In Progress

(Since 60% of you seem to prefer my Chastity Planet setting, I've started on a full length erotic novel set on that world. Here's a bit from first draft of the first chapter...)

Despite the tropical heat, a shiver ran down Robin’s spine and into his chastity cup.

The doorwoman had cropped white-blond hair and a build like an athlete’s under her tight black crop top. Across her small breasts, friendly pink letters spelling out, “My name is Ute. How may I be of service?” However, the long laser scar running diagonally over her face screamed “veteran”. Ute - if that was her real name - could probably snap Robin in two without so much as breaking a sweat on her muscular limbs. And she was leering down at him.

Robin forced himself to keep climbing the steps.

The sky lit up, casting a white glare into the narrow street, illuminating the two naked men strapped to the posts holding up the entrance canopy - naked that is, except for lipstick-red collars and chastity cups.

Hard on the heels of the glare came the crackling roar of a shuttle climbing up from New Athens Space Port to one of the orbital stations.

Robin froze. The sensible thing would be to get on the next ferry. He might still be stuck in the chastity cup, but at least he had rights back at the University.

Behind him, a cab whirred to a halt. Giggling girls filed up the steps, all tanned legs and bare buttocks glimpsed under the hems of spangled mini-dresses. As they passed the captives, each tweaked a nipple or drew a backhanded stroke across a bare chest or thigh, leaving the men writhing against their bonds as if dancing to the thud-thud music leaking from the misty strobe-lit interior. Linda was somewhere in there.

Robin took mounted the next step. As he reached the top, the doors swung shut, muting the dance music.

Ute treated him to another leer. Without breaking eye contact, she reached under her leather skirt, giving him a glimpse of stringy thighs and white pubic hair, made hooking action, then held her glistening fingers in front of the face of one of the captives.

The bound man whimpered, extended his tongue, and strained to reach her digits.

She let the bound man fasten his mouth around her fingers. He sucked crazily, and fluid started to leak from the front of his chastity cup. “Free entry to neuters.”

Will shook his head.

Ute grinned, not a reassuring sight. “Don’t worry….” She reached out to the other man, pulled his nipple and twisted, setting off a frantic whimpering and writhing. “…You won’t end up like these two wimps.”

“Really?”

“These bondsmen belong to Miss Lang. She’s just getting them nice and horny so they’ll go find themselves girlfriends.”

Bondsmen. That explained the red collar and cup, unlike his mat-black set. “Why would she want to get rid of her… property?”

“The girls always end up buying their bond.” The bouncer withdrew in her hands and swung the door open. “So, are you going in? Or—” She looked him up and down. “—do you want to know what time I get off?”

Robin whimpered and fled toward the threshold.

As he passed her, she pinched his bottom.

“Hey!” he began. Then the pain set of an echo of pleasure in his captive groin. He blushed and stumbled inside. He didn’t feel neuter . Not a moment went by when he wasn’t aware of his cock and balls trapped behind the nano-plastic mask. Would dating Linda would make things better? He frowned. It was hard to think these days, except in class—even in class, surrounded by all those beautiful unfuckable girls…

And there they were, over by the bar on the raised area at the other side of the dance floor: Cordelia, bushy black hair and as tall as the Ute, but willowy rather than muscle-bound. Next to her, as if hiding in the taller girl’s shadow, the angelic blond Linda sat with hunched shoulders, flashing her front teeth like a nervous rabbit. A craggy looking man perhaps five years older than Robin was craning his neck to speak to the tall girl. He lent closer to Cordelia and touched her bare arm. She shook her head firmly, making her frizzy hair fan out, and tapped her signet ring meaningfully.

The man shrugged, and stepped back from the bar, suddenly looking small before Cordelia’s towering presence. As if nothing had happened, the tall girl resumed a conversation with the woman in the next seat.

Robin grinned. He’d heard there was nothing like the threat of a demerit to bring a man down to size. Of course, now he’d left the safety of New Athens, he was subject to the same threat.

The stud reappeared next to the bar and slid onto a bar stool next to Linda. He said something and the blond blushed to the roots of her hair. She put her hand to her mouth.

Robin set his jaw and started across the dance floor. It was hard to believe there were so many men. He didn’t know what all the collars meant, but each guy’s lower clothing would conceal a bio-plastic chastity cup. Were they all like him, going crazy with pent up lust?

And the girls were crazy - dancing like harlots, rubbing groins and backsides on with wide eyed men, dancing with kick steps that made their short skirts flap and reveal bare thighs and buttocks. This was not a place where women bothered with panties when they went out. He really had to rescue Linda.

“Robin!” A plump girl with rather too many curves escaping from a wrap-round corset blocked his path.

“Hi Julia.” He made to slide past her.

She gave him a fleshy smile. “Dance with us.”

Stacy and Cat appeared behind her, making up what Robin’s classmates called the Three Witches - not that the trio of plump girls had ever been anything but nice to him.

Robin gave an apologetic smile. “I can’t,” he said over the sound of the music. “I need to get to the bar.”

Julia pouted and the three girls crowded round, chorusing, “Dance with us!” Hips and breasts undulated against him. The sensation bypassed his brain and went straight to his chastity cup, which tightened around his penis like a vise.

The rhythm of the girls enveloped him and he swayed on the spot.

Julia wiggled in front of him. His gaze plummeted into her cleavage.

She laughed, put her hot arms around him and drew his face down to hers. Her mouth opened with a scrape of teeth against his lips and her tongue shoved its way into his mouth setting off a pressure wave that made his penis inflate and try to rear its way out of its prison.

Robin stooped and put his arms around her waist. The flesh was sticky with perspiration and as yielding as dough. His hips twitched reflectively and he grasped her ample backside and slid his own tongue past hers to taste the sweet alcohol suffusing her mouth.

A flash of blond in the corner of his eye made him pull back.

The stud was leading Linda by the hand toward the door.

Robin pushed free. “Sorry. I have to go after Linda.”

Julia scowled. “You fucking prick.” She pointed a chubby index finger at him and twisted her signet ring.

A little electric shock went through Robin’s chastity cup. A voice in his head calmly announced, “One demerit.

His hands dropped to his groin. “You bitch!”

She slapped his face. “Let him have it girls.”

Stacy and Cat pointed their fingers.

Robin’s heart pounded. “No! Three demerits means a public whipping.”

Cat grinned. “We know.”

“We’ll come and watch,” Stacy added.

They both twisted.

The voice disembodied voice said, “Mobbing is not permitted. If you are in distress, please seek help from a police officer.”

“Ha!” said Robin. He put his hand to his smarting cheek and looked for Linda. She was gone.

He staggered back to the exit and blundered into the Ute the bouncer.

“Steady on there boy,” she said, steadying him with both shoulders. “You drunk?”

He shook his head. “Got to save a girl.”

The bouncer laughed. “What from? This is the safest girls night out in the galaxy. No cocks and all the men fitted with violence inhibitors.”

Tom’s shoulder’s slumped and his stomach seemed to fill with butterflies. She was right. There was nothing to stop Linda doing anything she wanted. This world and everything on it belonged to women.

“It’s not so bad,” said the bouncer. “Say - I'm just about to get off.” Her grip shifted to his waist, then her iron hard fingers dug into his buttocks. “Since you’re so sober, why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

Monday, December 06, 2010

The Vanilla Dominatrix

I've always craved real female domination.

I remember, at 21, meeting a girl with ME, and being darkly excited by the thought that she'd need constant looking after. I didn't get her, but I did get a parade of mentally fragile girlfriends.

On some level I wanted my life to empty and another person's to pour in.

And, my first girlfriend - was I 16? - was a true psycho chick, lashing out with verbal and physical abuse. Even as I gradually discovered and accepted my fantasies, I still blundered around the spectrum of abusive relationships, being bossed around, verbally abused, slapped and punched.

None of all this made me very happy. A big chunk of me is not consumed by erotic darkness, and the particular darkness I did crave was never fully satisfied by fucked-up relationships... The fragile girls wanted a manly man to pwotect them, so it was like a race to the bottom. The bossy ice queens and psycho chicks were dysfunctional in the bedroom, but only in boring ways.

The take home is; you can't and shouldn't use unwitting broken people to satisfy your kinks.

Playing at femdom was never really satisfying either. Most people aren't natural actors, and even if they do get into role, it's hard not to be aware of the Russian Doll paradox - while you're ostensibly controlled by her, she's really being controlled by your fantasies. Worse, you miss the unfakable emotions, and the real edge of fear that comes from being in somebody else's power.

It took a long time - way too long - to realise the third option, what I think of as Authentic BDSM.

Just be yourselves. No play acting, no script, no expectations or shopping lists. You only have to pretend two things:
Her power is real, and it's OK for her to enjoy and exploit it.
Her power is real...
It's surprisingly easy to pretend the power is real. Most real world power we encounter isn't backed up by the immediate threat of overwhelming force. We grow up obeying teachers, professors, and bosses. Humans are naturally hierarchical. As long as you never do anything to break her authority during a session, you'll both start to believe in it.

...it's OK for her to enjoy and exploit it
Scarily, if you can establish the power, and give her permission and reassurance - without too much direction - then this naturally follows, especially because there are lots of non-kinky things for her to enjoy about being in charge.

Of course, this means you get a Vanilla Dominatrix.

Unless she's as obsessively kinky as you - statistically unlikely (Sorry!) - she won't start dressing up in uncomfortable PVC and latex. She probably won't be excited by your new chastity device, and she's unlikely to spend time devising new and cunning punishments, unless she already has a playful and mischievous bent.

What you do get is the dark thrill of really giving yourself to a real woman.