Money off shipping for "The Chastity Belt"

Remember Casandra from my college chastity novel, "The Chastity Belt"?

I always rather imagined her as a young Julie Andrews. Some of the screencaps from the film Darling Lili capture that strangely stiff eroticism I had in mind. Also, that odd robust vulnerability.

Which reminds me, if you fancy a hard copy, then now's a good time to treat yourself. Enter "FREEMAILUK305", and you'll get £2.99 off the shipping cost.

Amazing nudes...

There's this photographer called Mearle, and he has a blog full of amazing nudes...

A slave's life...

The Steam Room

Original picture lifted from http://filmnoirphotos.blogspot.com/

Through the eye of the chastity belt

It's interesting. Almost any erotic image can be reimagined with a different dynamic, simply by picturing oneself in the picture but in a chastity belt.

For example:Very much an Orientalist picture: it's the Exotic East, an African slave pampers a languid harem inmate.

Now imagine that this is seen from your point of view, and that you're waiting patiently to serve your mistress, a chastity belt welded around your loins.

And perhaps once mistress is done, you and the handmaid share a cell. You can't see it, but she's also locked into a chastity belt. However, she can get off, if only you tease her nipples for long enough.

Secret Lover

Pre Raphaelite Chastity Caption

(updated)

Erotic Caption...

Another image lifted from Britni...

(Double click for full size.)

Roman Slavery

Rather too many uncage penises in this sequence for me, but imagine being the chaste male slave of this lady....

The Joy of Part-time Slavery: #1 Your femdom fantasy isn't the real you

OK, well, probably not the Real You.

(I've introspected and researched enough to get the answers I need. Now I'm going to finish up by setting them out here, partly to see if they make sense, and partly because I wish somebody had told me this stuff when I was younger. I'm going to talk about the sub side of femdom only, since that is what I've experienced, and I'm not going to cite sources, though go ahead and comment if you want me to link to books etc.

So, here we go....)

I think most of us fantasise about femdom long before we ever seek it out, and these fantasies have roots in the time our sexuality emerged, when they simultaneously disturbed and enticed us: disturbed because we often imagined being on the receiving end of evil; enticed, so it turns out, in part because they disturbed us. It also helped that they were easy and, yes, safe.

Guess what? The primitive part of our brain can't tell the difference between real and pretend. When we see a horror film, we really do experience fear. We keep going back because, since we consciously know we're safe, we can enjoy the mental arousal triggered by the rush of fight/fly brain chemicals.

In the same way, sexual fantasies that disturb, scare or shock us also arouse us mentally. Some people get hooked just on this: transgression. It's why Internet porn addicts download more and more extreme material. They've no real interest in sex with deceased donkeys for its own sake, but the buzz gets them off, this time. (Next time, the sheep will have to watch...)

Most of us, though, just find that dark fantasies have the edge over romantic or cosy ones. Being tortured by the class bitch is so much more interesting to imagine than necking with a girl we like--

--it's also easier to imagine. Apart from a lucky - or tragic - few, most teenage boys have to wait a horrible long time before they have the experience with which to build a vanilla fantasy. Girls are just unknown territory. How would a seduction go? What would it feel like to touch her? What would she say? What would she be like naked?

In femdom fantasies, the girl often remains fully clothed. The action stays in the easy-to-imagine realm of torture and restraint - it's on TV daily, and you just have to watch Batman or the Addams Family to pick up a few props. Better yet, the intimacy is mostly that of the lash - and we've all felt pain.

It's also a safe fantasy... no, really... it's an escape from that unbearable emotional longing for love, and it doesn't set you up for a fall. Realistically, the class bitch isn't going to tie you to the school railings and torture you with crocodile clips (sorry!), but if you allow yourself to imagine that the unattainable girl in the next desk might actually kiss you... well, then you'll start obsessing about how to make it happen, and bitter experience suggests you'll only get hurt. And, if you do succeed - what if you upset her or come in your pants!?! RUN!!!

Femdom fantasies are also safe because they resolve all the mixed messages we get about women and heterosexuality:

• "Raw female sexuality is the ultimate beauty, but women's experience of sex is tangled with emotions."
• "The only appropriate sexual partner is a strong woman, but strong women don't just give into a man's lust."
• "Desire is good, but selfish gratification is bad."
• "Women can and should demand satisfaction, but a woman who does things for you may be doing it because she feels she has to. (Shame on you)."
• "Women should be assertive, but a man should dread being a bully above all else."
• "The female orgasm is all powerful, but you can never tell whether she's faking it for your sake."

How much safer to imagine the girl in control, making you manfully earn her favours through pain and humiliation!

So, as soon as the arrow of our hormones points at the fairer sex, we start wrapping them in protective femdom fantasies, and then we masturbate, and the brief satisfaction triggers a chemical longing for more of the same. Eventually, we train our brains to skip a link, and the evil of femdom becomes erotic...

...and it feels good. (I wouldn't change it for the world.)

Looking back, your inner slave (I'll use this as shorthand from now on) is not the Real You. It's just a refuge you built in order to cope with being a horny, inexperienced, stressed-out teenager. You probably also vanished into first person shooters for hours on end, but you didn't rush off to join the Marines, did you?

The truth is, for most of us the vanilla world has much more to offer than that of consensual full-time slavery. The parts of our brain that are not wallowing in a musky dungeon are wired for building, creating, and companioning... for earning a very broad satisfaction with our lives, for carving a place in this generation and contributing one way or another to the next. (This is a good thing, because full-time femdom women are probably thin on the ground; but I'll come to that in another post.)

However, your Inner Slave is still real and part of you - try and see how long you can ignore it for - so what do you do about it?

To be continued...

Evening in Aqua Sulis

The cymbals clash. Electric stringed instruments I still don’t recognize twang, drums rumble, setting up a vibration in my chastity belt.

The Roman girls throw overhead claps and dance. Long gowns flounce around many-hued legs, some long, some short and curvy, all smooth as marble.

It's like being at a toga party, but the gowns are richer and wilder – shimmering silks and printed cottons - and the girls actually do all chatter in Latin as they crowd around the bar where male slaves scurry to fill their drinking cups.

If you watch carefully, you'll catch a flash of steel beneath the men's short-hemmed tunics. Welded on steel neuters their groins, just as it does mine.

This is Aqua Sulis.

It should be the English town of Bath, but in this alternate Earth, both the Roman Empire and real chattel slavery flourish. The spa town is dedicated to Minerva, the virgin goddess, so that long ago it was decreed no penis should blight its streets.

When it became illegal to castrate a slave – in these days of universal Pax Romana, such men are no longer prisoners of war, but self-bonded for a fixed term of years – the city authorities instead "gelded" their much-needed male workers with steel cages.

Cunning tavern keepers quickly learned they could earn extra money by renting out chaste young men to visiting ladies who were less than chaste.

Then, a decade ago, the railroad connected Londinium with Aqua Sulis, and the Virgin Goddess's city became the fleshpot for debauched young women freed of parental control thanks to the Empire's belated industrial revolution.

Now, divorcees come in carriage-loads to wash away the stain of the one arranged marriage owed to their parents. More accurately, they have the marriage licked away by the tongues of slaves, willing or unwilling – they need not care which. And, if their failed alliance has left them loaded with anger, where better to shed it, but on the back and buttocks of an amusingly helpless male, who no doubt would be just the same as the despised ex-husband... were he not writhing under the lash.

Angry women, though, are the minority. For most, the attraction is more innocent. This is the place where families send their wayward daughters to take the waters so they can also take their pleasure and still return virtue technically intact, and the place where single girls and women come - in all sense of the word- because they can.

In this walled city, a Roman Citizen of the gentler sex can drink wine until the world spins, and weave a giggling path by gaslight back to her inn, with no thought of danger from stray males. Better yet, if she has a denarius or two, she can satisfy her every desire, with no risk of disease or pregnancy.

If this is not what nature intended for women, then it is surely what they deserve.

The music stops and this week's mistress sways towards me, red hair wild from the dancing, every swing of her hip a dripping with new sensuality. Without a word, she strides past and I follow her out into the warm summer night.

She turns off into an alley, then presses into wall and simply sheds her gown. Pale skin flashes in the moonlight. The darkness mutes her russet curls, but I know what to do. I kneel on the rough cobbles and crane my head back to kiss her vulva.

The music swells from the tavern, and her hands press the back of my head. My tongue parts her pubic hair and I taste salty sex.

Above me, she gasps, and the sound echoes inside my chastity belt, setting my penis throbbing hopelessly against its steel prison.

Whoops - wrong link for free download

Sorry folks, here's the actual link for the free download of my previously properly published chastity novel....

Whips and Stockingtops: Lover's Tiff

The morning after the chaste night before...

The danger of eroticizing other people's hangups is that love may trap you in your own fantasy...
(Picture borrowed from Britni's blog. I'm happy to take this down or link to the original source if anybody can point me to it.)

What the slave saw...

The Paradoxes of Consent resolved?

I've been Googling further (terms like "sex porn addiction dopamine"). I need to read around this, but what I've found so far is interesting:

Wanting and Satisfaction

• Wanting and Satisfaction are different.
  It's entirely possible to want something - or be excited by it - but not enjoy or like it very much. It's why shopaholics buy crap, then come back for more.
  
  
• Satisfaction quenches Wanting, but then sparks it off again.
  We have a good experience, we want it again... so repeated kinky activity or fantasies can intensify the desire for that activity.
  
  
• Random and often low-level satisfaction increases intensity of Wanting.
  This explains gambling addiction, and the draw of unrequited love.
  

Wallowing in the Darkness: The bad stuff is real

• The animal part of the brain experiences things first and does so naively: it can't tell the difference between real and pretend.
  This is why porn arouses us, even though we can't have sex with the girl in the picture, and why irrational phobias still paralyse us.
  It also means that everything that happens in BDSM is "real".
  
  
• For evolutionary reasons, Submission produces satisfaction.
  There's scientific evidence to support this. It makes sense because animals that persistently fought the pack's dominant would have no chance to breed surreptitiously (being dead), and packs where everybody was always challenging the pecking order would die out.
  This has to be the foundation of most masochistic urges.
  
  
• For evolutionary reasons, Fear and Guilt related to sex intensify wanting (i.e. excitement)
  The brave and transgressive breed more! This explains the pull of the dark, and the delicious thrill we feel when contemplating terrible fates for ourselves.

• If you're aroused enough Pain is also pleasure, but the animal brain still reads it as an attack.
  This resolves one of those central contradictions, I think. You can be getting off on a beating, while still resisting it and pleading.
  
  
• Pain is Satisfying, afterwards
  Even when the pain is too intense to be pleasurable, its cessation releases a flood of happy chemicals, so triggering more desire....
  

Though the bad stuff is real, we choose to let ourselves enjoy it

• Our (let's call it) Conscious Self can decide it's safe despite the (very real) bad feelings. These emotions then intensify our excitement, i.e. Wanting
  This is why people ride roller coasters, and consume Horror films, and other things that "scare" them. The fear is real, but they still pay their money and take their seat. It's also why we masochists come back for more, and yet would hate to be beaten up for real.
  Those of us who seek out safe ways of experiencing negative emotions are perverting our survival mechanisms for kicks - it's the equivalent of getting off on the vibrations from the motor that turns the early warning radar.
  So, we are Perverts. (Yippee!)
  
  
• The Conscious Self can become confused or neutralised.
  Standards can slip. People can take greater and greater risks, or lose their moral compass. This explains Porn Addiction, but is of more interest to writers of erotica.
  It also roots our masochism firmly on our psychology.
  
  

Conclusions

The components of our masochism are simple, but interact in complicated ways. Most importantly, they are distinct systems, so cannot cancel each other out: the paradoxes are an illusion and can never be neatly resovled.

• On a primal level, we experience cruelty as real and uncomfortable.
  
• If we think we are safe, the cruelty excites us or satsifies us, either directly or indirectly.
• Some evolutionary wiring underpins our masochism.
• Our personality still determines which taboos we want to break.
  

I think it's now time to revisit Aqua Sulis...

Does neuroscience explain the Paradoxes of Consent

It turns out that the brain has different centers for "wanting" and "liking".

We all know from experience that you can want something, but not like - as in enjoy - it, perhaps a new gadget, or a cheap bar of chocolate. You can also like something, perhaps getting very very drunk, but not really want to do it.

What's new is that this sort of ambivalence isn't you maturing, or failing to mature, or human weakness, or hypocrisy; it's actually just a normal interaction between two chunks of your brain, meaning it's not going to resolve itself very easily.

To me, this has stunning implications for masochism (in its broadest sense, covering all submissive proclivities).

First of all, it validates the idea of an authentic BDSM experience without adding layers of role play. I can genuinely want to be a mistreated slave, but genuinely not enjoy it. If you beat me, you are being genuinely cruel. If you are a sadist, then you can enjoy that experience with no self-deception. (I think it's more complicated than that, but that will require a different post.)

It also explains how this exquisite ambivalence can be so very stable; how we can fear the lash, and crave it, time and time again without learning one of the two logically possible lessons, either: "Shit! That's painful, I won't do that again!" or, "Actually, I rather like doing this."

This study suggests to me that erotic masochism is a lot simpler than it seemed: a masochist really does seek out unpleasant experiences, and the experiences really are unpleasant.

Update: Very illuminating thread here.

A simple inescapable chastity belt...

No material is indestructible, no chastity contract is legally enforceable, so how could we make a chastity belt inescapable?

I have an idea. Can't guarantee it would be legally watertight, but...

Suppose, instead of selling chastity belts, a manufacturer leased them out to the wearer; say USD 400 a year for three years, after which the rent would drop to, say, USD 50.

The cunning part is that the device would have to be returned to base each year for checking and servicing.

If it's damaged in any way, then - as per the original contract - the manufacturer charges the full value of the device to your credit card. This could be a hefty but realistic sum, e.g. USD 2000.

Even you would be happy to take the financial hit, the chances are that your spouse would not: "Your bloody stupid fantasy - you live with it until your keys turn up!"

It could even have a timelock, so that there would be no legal issues around refusing to return somebody's keys....

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.