Adventures in Bondassageland
Sensual Domination
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Mollena: Posted on Friday, February 17, 2012 7:43 AM
Got Rope?
by Mollena
People are often curious as to why a
particular play-style, pervy activity or kind of kink appeals while
others leave you cold. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’ll
tell you about why I so love bottoming to rope bondage.
There are forty-two reasons, on any given
day, why kinky stuff gets my tingly bits tingling. For the most part,
what I love most about BDSM is the connection with the person (or
people!) with whom I’m playing. I’m one of those bottom/submissive/slave
types who occasionally frustrates top/dominant/master types when
negotiating play.
Oftentimes, when asked “So! What do you wanna do when
we play?” I’ll respond,
“Well, what really makes YOU
hot and horny?” I’m not trying to shirk responsibility for my pleasure,
really! But my gut-level response is whatever truly pleases them will go a long, long way towards pleasing me .
“By why? Why do you do that kinky shit?” Not only do I get asked
this question quite often; it’s one I asked myself while I was trying to
figure out if I was actually going to go through with exploring BDSM.
There are plenty of whys.
At the root of my pleasure in bottoming or submitting is knowing
that the person with whom I am sharing this intimate exchange is
thoroughly enjoying the scene and having a great time playing with me.
When I get to see the smile on the top’s face, or sense their arousal,
feel the building energy and excitement as they plot their next move, as
they revel in the pleasure and pain they extract as they direct the
orchestra of sensations that I will be experiencing and feeding back to
them, I find a profound level of fulfillment. Yes, of course, there are
some styles of play I prefer over and above others, however at the
center of my sexual satisfaction is feeling connected and cared for by
my partner, and the knowledge that our dynamic is mutually fulfilling.
It is important for me to feel connected with the person I play
with, even if the type of scene we’re doing has the framework of
something humiliating or frightening. One of the most connected forms of
play in which I engage is rope bondage.
When I first became involved in the BDSM scene, I was at a play
party watching several couples doing rope bondage scenes. There was a
guy tying up some gals tits and a woman with some thin cord doing some
kinda macramé shit on this guy’s twigs-and-berries and I watched, a bit
puzzled. I didn't get it. It seems really t.
e..d...i...o...u...s and I soon wandered off to watch a scene where
three people were beating the crap out of someone shuddering and wailing
and screaming and...giggling? Yeah, giggling on the floor. That had
drama! Excitement!! Action!!! This rope shit was not capturing my imagination. Like, at all.
Want to give rope play a try? Some suggestions to get you started:
My first dominant was really
into a style of bondage commonly referred to as kinbaku, or shibari in
the USA. It’s a lot of rope, usually jute or hemp, and sometimes it is
used as a way to suspend folks off of the ground, in defiance of several
laws. Most notably, gravity. I wasn’t having any of it. As a fat chick,
I was not at all interested in looking like a tied roast about to
braise in a 450 degree oven, ya feel me?
But one of the things I love most about being submissive is that
I’ve agreed to obey. So, I found myself trussed, twisted and tied, and
somewhat taken-aback when I found myself slowing down, my senses
heightened, my state of mind smoothed out, yet amped up, as the ropes
went on me for the first time. My dominant wasn’t much of a talker while
he was in the midst of administering rope bondage, but I soon realized
that the very act of him laying yard after yard of earthy hemp rope
across my skin was its own form of communication. The rope was an
extension of his touch, and remained in place even after his hands had
passed on to the next wrap, looping the next tie around this wrist and
that ankle, over, under and around my breasts. Then I was in this kind
of between place, adrift, yet alert; present in my body in a way I’d
never been before, and yet somehow diffused throughout the network of
rope.
When I saw how he stepped back to study his handiwork, when he
whispered to me how beautiful I looked at his disposal, at his mercy, in
his ropes, I felt beautiful. I wasn’t
self-conscious about my body; my body was thrumming with limitless
energy. I was alive, alert and at his command. That was a heady thing,
and being in rope brings me to that space of feeling like the gorgeous,
helpless captive all over again.
Even the act of having the rope removed became a wondrous process.
The rope left beautiful marks that spoke eloquently of the pleasure,
discomfort and yeah, sometimes outright pain of being bound. I was being
released back into the Default World, and the connection between us was
moving back into the ethereal plane. For a while, there had been a
solid, physical manifestation of that connection, and that is a marvel
to behold.
I was hooked.
Don Sir — DonSirPhotography.com
Why do I love rope bondage?
The loss of control over parts of my body is deeply intoxicating.
The idea that movement itself, the one thing since birth that we
struggle to achieve and maintain, is now in the hands of someone else —
that is something dangerous. Excitingly so.
It occurs to me that the secret wormhole I find when doing bondage
is not just the loss of control: it is the deeper sense that every
segment of rope is touched and energized by the person applying the
bondage. That focused intent, that specificity can elevate the inanimate
rope to its own heightened state. It is as though every section of rope
is imbued with and carries the energy, control and caress of the one
who is in control of it.
As the bondage becomes more binding or more complex, it is as though
you are held in a physical manifestation of the thoughts of the person
slowly taking from you the control of your limbs, skin, body — rope
bondage can get to the point where even your breathing is restricted by
the rope top. Imagine if every caress you felt while making love lasted
and abraded and caressed and marked your skin in an after-shock of taut
tension and sensation.
It is an echo that intensifies instead of fading.
It is a restriction that frees you to struggle and relinquish your control.
If you add to that the many textures of rope, it is even more .
Engaging. Soft silk ropes, slick serpentine nylon, earthy heady
hemp, scritchy jute, stiff cotton. All of these have their own notes in
the symphony of surrender. Simple, elusive, complex, difficult, joyous,
terrifying, soft, brutal, beautiful.
I have many friends who are “riggers,” the term sometimes used for
people who do the rope wrangling in a bondage scene. There’s a certain
degree of technical skill needed to achieve the more complex types of
rope bondage, and I do love being able to let myself go in the hands of
those people who know what they’re doing. Sometimes, scenes can take
weeks of prep, days of planning, and hours to execute. Sometimes they’re
big, grandiose performances and I love that. Sometimes it’s just a
simple piece of cotton rope around your wrists, holding your hands above
your head as your lover whispers to you of the beautifully awful things
they’re about to do to you. I love that, too.
Whatever the set and setting, exploring rope bondage is a wonderful
path to erotic intimacy. I hope to keep exploring this path for as long
as I have friends and lovers for whom a hank of rope and a willing
victim puts a twinkle in their eyes, glimmering with the promise of
sweet surrender and agonizing sensual bliss.
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Jaeleen: Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:23 AM
Best Bondage Erotica 2012
Review
Mia Moore
As someone who has only read the highest class of smut from far
too early an age, say Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series at age 12, I
can highly recommend Best Bondage Erotica 2012 for both the kinky minded
and vanilla alike.
The book is 226 pages of bondage from both sides of the male and
female paradigm, which is markedly different than the normal male
dominated, literally and fictionally, bondage novels.
Best Bondage Erotica is edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel with a forward by renowned bondage artist, Midori.
These stories made me hot, made me squirm, and reading the book had
to be broken up over several days, as I had to take breaks. Study
breaks, if you will.
The story by Elizabeth Coldwell, called A Night at the Opera, where a
woman dominates her lover during an opera performance, gives me chills
and makes me think of Milan’s famous La Scala opera house, where I’d
love for this to happen to me.
And Laced by Elizabeth Silver, which contains a male on male was so
viscerally arousing, and yet so tender for a hard-edged story about sex
and domination.
This anthology features 21 short stories, so the reading is very
quick, like verbal porn, just enough to get you hot and get you off, but
linger in your imagination. And you know what they say; a dirty mind
is a terrible thing to waste.
Thanks to Cleis Press for providing this book in exchange for a fair review!
www.bondassage.com
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Posted on Thursday, February 09, 2012 1:42 PM
Our First Sex Toy
Posted by Anonymous
Jan 30, 2012
I was never the type of guy who thought I would ever use any type of sex toy.
That was until I got with my fiancé who opened up a new world for me
and her. She’s the kind of girl who knows what she wants in the bedroom,
and you sure as hell better give it to her. She slowly introduced me to
my first sex toy, but that wasn’t our last!
One night while we were talking, she mentioned how much she would love for me to use a vibrator
on her. I wanted to but she’s been my only partner and I never bought a
sex toy. Of course I was a bit embarrassed when I knew she was sending
me to the store to look for a treat for her. Leaving the house with
money in hand, and my stomach was in knots. How did I know what to get
her? All I could think about was wanting to please her, so I knew
exactly where I was heading. I nervously opened the door and all I saw
was porn. I walked inside and started to look around. A man asked if I
needed any help, so I joked about coming in here and not having a clue
what to get. He made a few suggestions and I went with something pink.
It’s her favorite color. Walking up the stairs to our apartment seemed
to take forever. She looked my way with a huge smile on her face. “You
actually went” she said. I tossed her the box, and she didn’t hesitate
to open it. Within the next year, I discovered new ways to make her
world spin. My curiosity was starting to get to me.
The next toy we bought was a butt plug.
She was never interested in anal till the past year or so. I slowly
gained her trust and showed her all the pleasures she had been missing
out on. To my surprise, she was the one who bought the plug and lube. I
was shocked to see that she enjoyed anal that much. I was even more
surprised to see the size she had picked. She admitted to me it was much
larger than she expected, but with a little patience and lots of lube,
she was in heaven. Another purchase she made shortly after was two more
plugs. I had never suspected that she would love anal so much. I love
the fact that she always wants a plug in during sex. It’s really sexy,
and knowing she can get off from anal alone is a turn on in itself. I
love that she enjoys it so much mainly because I was the one who made
her love it. Which is rare when it comes to sex, shes normally showing
me what I like!
Our next purchase was the first one for me. It included a few c-rings
and a lovely masturbator. My girl knows me apparently. She was the one
who suggested we get these items. A masturbator is something every guy
has to try at least once. I rarely masturbate, so I didn’t see a need
for one. If I’m horny, I just get laid. Then I started thinking of all
the fun things that I knew she would do to me with it. So we ordered it
and used it as quick as we could get the packaging off and wash it. It
was like a gift sent from god. Having more toys for the both of us just
means more foreplay and more fun! The masturbator feels life-like and
you can have a lot of fun when it comes to partner play.
The c-rings she had bought were a new experience I didn’t even know
was possible. My girl was pleasantly surprised to find my cock was much
thicker. Since I have ordered my rings, I wear them every time we have
sex, and it has made it a new experience for us both. I get amazing head
for hours a day because my girl loves the way the veins pop out of my
cock when I wear it. I love the results we both get from me wearing one.
It’s funny how a simple ring can cause such a drastic change in your
sex life. But if people have been using c-rings as long as they have,
somethings got to be good about them! C-rings really are a must have for
any man who is sexually active. If you don’t own one then you are
really missing out.
My girl has turned a virgin into a sex addict. I feel that I am lucky
to be with her. She keeps showing me new sides of sex I never would
have had the courage to try without her next to me.
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Posted on Monday, February 06, 2012 6:56 AM
5 Less Obvious Places to Touch Each Other
There are some perks to being a Human Sexuality major — and I’m not
just talking about its potential as a pick-up line. Take the time I used
my favorite places to be touched during sex as a way of remembering
where we have the most nerve endings. Or my discovery — thanks prof! —
that the parts of our body with the least amount of hair have the most
nerve endings. Some of the nerve-rich areas are pretty obvious — lips,
genitals, duh. But then there are body parts — with sparse to no hair —
that don’t get nearly the amount of attention they deserve. Try these
next time you’re in bed with someone:
- The ear. Try light wisps of warm breath over the ear and maybe some small nibbles at the top during your next make-out session.
- The collarbone. It is such a delicate part of the
body that someone else’s soft kiss there can bring you to that romantic
Bright Eyes love poem kind of place.
- The hip bone. This is like the center of movement
during sex. Any stimulation here will have a ripple effect on the rhythm
of what’s going on. Consider a firm grab of the hips or even a little
biting if you’re in the neighborhood.
- The inner thigh. This is a good place to go for a
tease before jumping in. It can be especially sensitive when your
partner is sitting legs apart — the feeling of vulnerability tends to
heighten the senses.
- The back of the knees. This tends to be the most
overlooked sensitive spot. Check in here while roaming down your
partner’s body, or perhaps when their legs are flung near your face.
– Jewely Hoxie |
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Posted on Friday, February 03, 2012 9:57 AM
It's always fun to DIY!
5 Sexy Homemade Gift Ideas For Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day
is approaching, and if you’re short on cash, homemade gift ideas are
your best bet. They’re sweet and romantic, without breaking the bank.
Plus, a homemade gift is much more special than any store bought one.
Here are five you don’t want to pass up on.
Chocolate Covered Strawberries
No, you don’t have to make a trip to your local gourmet chocolate
store and spend a ton of money to get a nice box of chocolate covered
strawberries. These are easy to make at home and can be easily dressed
up for Valentine’s Day with an inexpensive box and some tissue paper.
If you do have some money to spend, you definitely want to go quality
here. Get quality, organic strawberries and high quality melting
chocolate. Simply dip the strawberries in the melted chocolate and set
on a piece of wax paper. Refrigerate until they’re hardened and then
arrange them in your decorative box. Voila! Way better than any box of
chocolates you buy at the store.
If you want to get creative, look up some recipes on how to use white
and milk chocolate together. When you gift them to your partner, make
sure to include eating them sensually with a bottle of inexpensive champagne. That’s the best part of all!
Budoir Photos
Get your digital camera and take some sexy photos of yourself in lingerie
and then again, in various stages of undress. If you have a friend that
you trust to do this, employ them to help you so you can get some
better quality photos. Upload them to a free online video editor (or a
really good program if you happen to have one, but free editors are good
too) and fix blemishes, add a filter if you like or even make it black
and white for a really great look.
Once they’re done, print them out on a home photo printer (no, these
aren’t ones you can send to your local photo developer) and either frame
a few of your favorites or put them in a special book for your lover.
If you don’t have a photo printer, make a digital collage and send it to
him with a sexy email. He will love being able to look at you instead
of porn when he’s feeling randy. Of course, he’ll still look at porn too, but your photos are likely going to be his special favorite.
Sex Coupons
Sex coupons are always in style and extremely easy and inexpensive to
make for Valentine’s Day. You can grab some construction paper, markers
and glitter from the store if you want to go all out, or you can simply
type them out, throw a few cute clip art photos on there and print
them. Either way, sex
coupons are an excellent option if you don’t have a lot of funds for
the big day. Just make sure you actually follow through whenever your
man wants to redeem them.
If he wants to redeem a coupon for a 30 minute long blowjob
and you say you’ve got a headache, it’s like you’ve taken his gift back
to the store, just before he got to open it. So go through with
whatever you put on your coupons, whenever your guy redeems them.
Headache or not.
Cook A Delectable, Candlelit Dinner
You don’t have to go out to dinner on Valentine’s Day if you don’t
want to brave the crowds or don’t have the cash for a decent
reservation. Plan a meal that you can cook, and set the table. Most
people actually don’t eat at the dining room table, so if you set the
table with candles and everything, it’s going to seem almost – almost – like
you’re at a restaurant. If you can’t cook, order out! Just make sure
you’re sitting across the table from your beau without the distraction
of the television, your phones, the computer, etc. To make it sexy, try
cooking and eating while completely naked. Or, let him eat dinner off you.
A Sexy Treasure Hunt
Make your man go on a treasure hunt – with you as the treasure! Leave post-its with dirty messages
on them, or rose petals leading from the door all the way to the
bedroom. Use your creativity to come up with a fun way for him to find
you, so long as you’re waiting for him either naked or dressed in
something very, very sexy. He will love the suspense of looking for you,
only to find you ready and waiting for him!
Thanks for a great article, Kaylen! Find more tips for your sweetie at www.bondassage.com
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Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 3:24 PM
Loved this article:
Sex
is like money. I hear women say ‘Sex isn’t everything’, or ‘There’s
more to life than sex’. But like money, it’s usually those who say it
isn’t everything who don’t have enough of it. The bottom line however,
is that we need money to live…and we need sex to stay ‘alive’.
Admit it. I know I’m not the only one who’s run into someone who’s
being a complete jackass or a raging bitch and thought “Damn. They need
to get laid.” It is a biological fact that any act that stimulates one sexually and
ultimately satisfies sexual desires, releases a chemical in the brain
that creates a euphoric sense of relaxation and well-being. If frequent
sex makes for happier individuals, why aren’t we all having more of it?
If we were all enjoying more satisfying sex lives, would there be less
anger, hatred, war, and general acts of aggression? I believe that
frequency and quality of sex affects our attitudes, our stress levels,
our coping abilities, and ultimately our success in life on a daily
basis.
Pharmaceutical companies are spending a lot of money right now
developing a drug that will increase a woman’s libido, doing for women
what Viagra did for men. Thanks to the wonders of modern science, there
is always a pill we can take to fix what’s broken. First they sold us on
anti-depressants like Prozac, which had a side effect that lowered our
sex drives. Now they want to sell us another pill to get it back again.
Ridiculous isn’t it? When all we really need is to reawaken our
sexuality and readjust our attitudes so we can enjoy healthy sex lives
and reap the benefits of Mother Nature’s anti-depressant – oxytocin.
I talk with women who have not had sex in months or even years. They
are often healthy, attractive, intelligent women, who say they choose
not to have sex, because they no longer have the desire and they are
fine living without it. Many single women feel that if they don’t have a
committed relationship, they would rather be celibate than live with
the complications that casual sex can cause. I have talked to these same
women after reconnecting with their sexuality, whether it was a casual
fling, new friend with benefits, or the start of a new relationship.
They light up like Christmas trees when they tell you how wonderful it
was to feel sexually desired again and physically satisfied.
This tuning out of sexual intimacy is not only an affliction for
single women. I speak with even more women and men who are in
monogamous committed relationships that can’t remember when they last
had sex. I know there are various excuses for this. We’re busy, we’re
tired, we’re raising kids, dealing with debt, blah, blah, blah. But I
think the real problem stems from an inability in our culture to embrace
and celebrate our sexuality.
Unfortunately our society and religious influences have created
feelings of guilt and shame around sex, particularly for women.
Messages like ‘touching yourself is bad’, or ‘casual sex makes you a
slut’ or ‘sex is for procreation, not for pleasure’ have been fed to us
for thousands of years. Yet, through all this there were popes and
cardinals in the Middle Ages who had mistresses and illegitimate
children living in the Vatican! So fast forward 500 or so years and here
we are with politicians who believe that birth control should be made
illegal! What century is this again? There was a time, long, long ago, believe it or not, when female
sexuality was revered. Ancient cultures worshipped Goddesses for their
power, wisdom, and benevolence. They were healers and priestesses. It
was man’s thirst for power and control that turned these revered and
sacred ‘wise women’ as they were called, into witches, and sparked The
Inquisition and the Salem witch hunts where hundreds of thousands of
women were tortured and murdered.
A couple of years ago, the Dalai Lama said that the world will be saved by the western woman. Nicole Daedone, author of “Slow Sex; The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm”
has a slightly different theory, and one that the Dalai Lama would
probably not feel comfortable stating. Ms. Daedone’s theory is that the
world will be saved by the ‘turned-on woman’. And I tend to agree with
her. The beauty of feminine sexuality needs to be rediscovered and
embraced by today’s modern women and revered and respected by men. And I
believe it can change the course of history. In our present day
economy, sex is still a simple pleasure that costs nothing (unless of
course you choose to pay for it).
Our amazing bodies have been intricately designed, not just for
purposes of procreation but for pleasure. What a terrible waste not to
learn how to use them. On my website, Empowered Sex,
I refer to women embracing their sexuality as unleashing your inner
Goddess or embracing your inner slut. You can call it whatever you want,
just do it. There are a lot of things wrong with this world right now
that we can do little about, so if you’re going to make a New Year’s
resolution I would suggest just one. Male or female, and regardless of
sexual preference, make a concerted effort to have more exciting,
pleasurable, raucous, joyful, mind-blowing, consensual sex in 2012. Do
your part for world peace.
Patti
Sommer (aka Patti Cakes) is a sexuality, relationship, & women’s
empowerment coach and writer. She has appeared on numerous radio shows
as co-host & guest and hosts live discussion groups on sexuality.
Patti has an open-minded, non-judgmental approach to sexuality
regardless of lifestyle choice or sexual preference. To schedule
coaching sessions with Patti or read more of her articles go to
www.empoweredsex.com. Patti also recently launched a new business
venture in Denver called Cougar Limo Service - www.cougarlimousine.com.
In her spare time Miss Patti Cakes occasionally performs burlesque - a
calling that started as a research project!
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Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 11:11 AM
A lovely article from Midori:
What Every Submissive Needs To Know Before They Play
by Midori
Published: November 21, 2011
When you find it, the desire to jump
into the deep end of the BDSM pool can be irresistible. The excitement
of new found friends, playmates and activities can drive a submissive
off track and into dangerous situations for mind, body and soul. In this
letter to my submissive friends, I offer some advice to avoid the
pitfalls during your adventures.
Dear Friend,
I am so excited for you! It’s such a thrill to watch you blossom
into your own sexuality and forge ahead with erotic explorations. For
too many years you’ve denied your desires and then struggled to come to
terms with them. Now, as you’ve discovered there are others like you; a
community of people who enjoy the same things you do, you radiate with
the joy of finding acceptance and common ground, a place where you could
be heard and let’s not forget, get hot play.
I know you’re about to rush out the door for a play date, but would
you take a moment and hear me out? I know everybody and everything
you’re encountering seems exciting and wonderful, but will be potential
pitfalls, heartaches and dangers along the way. I’m your friend so I’d
like to do my best to help you avoid them.
Remember, whatever desires, roles or labels we take on, we’re people
first. Respect yourself, respect others and choose to be with those who
respect you for all that you are. Even the most gloriously degenerate
and depraved play must start from a place of mutual respect and return
to that afterwards.
You didn’t get this far in life by being a doormat; so don’t let
people walk all over you just because they say they can. You are
powerful. Choosing submission from a place of power is beautiful. Find a
person who appreciates and treasures that. You’re like a hot-blooded
racehorse; under sleek beauty simmers great energy. But you get to
choose who will take your reigns, so don’t let just anyone take control,
or you’ll get taken for a ride. Be choosy — you’re worth it.
Common sense still rules. Don’t leave it at the dungeon door. Trust
your intuition and gut feelings. They won’t let you down. They’ve served
you well in the mainstream dating world, and they’ll serve you well
now. Remember when you dated Mr. Handsome? He was all slick, smooth and a
hot lover who said all the right things. Remember how that turned out?
Big time disaster! The same happens in kinkdom. There are just as many
smooth talking self-centered bastards with great play skills — don’t
assume everyone you meet has your best interest at heart, even if they
say they do. Take the time to find out who they really are before you
jump into anything.
Take time to make friends you can trust. Honestly, dominants come
and go, but friends will be your lifetime support, asset, second
opinion, conscience, warning bells and shoulders to cry on.
While you’re newly exploring, try playing with many tops and
dominants to see which one suits you best. Some people will try to tell
you that a “good” submissive can be trained to serve any dominant. But,
it’s no different than dating; personality, chemistry and mutual
interests are still just as important as they’ve always been. Where
bedroom chemistry doesn’t necessarily mean good boyfriend material,
great kink skills or dominance doesn’t make him great boyfriend
material.
Remember, tops and dominants are people too. They have their flaws,
strengths, good times, bad times and vulnerabilities, just as you do. Be
kind to them. Like you, most are working hard to figure it out
themselves. They don’t have all the answers, and they’re also
continually evolving. Some have a hard time coming to terms with even
that. If they make a genuinely well-intended mistake, and own it, give
them the benefit of the doubt.
Many people will offer advice, companionship, even protection to you
when you’re first starting out. Some will be genuine offers of
assistance and friendship; others will have their own agenda.
Ultimately, you are in charge of taking care of
yourself. When you are considering playing with someone, you need to
gauge if you’re going into play in a good place physically and
emotionally. You need to take care of your pre-scene and post-scene
health and heart. You need to state what sort of after care you need and
from whom during negotiation beforehand. Maybe certain aspects of your
aftercare need to come from someone other than the dominant you played
with. If so, you need to arrange for or ask for what you need
beforehand.
During a scene, you need to state if things are not working. You
absolutely have the right to say ‘no.’ Yes, bottoms and submissives get
to have a say in their own boundaries, what works and what doesn’t. This
doesn't automatically make you bad or topping from the bottom. If a
dominant can’t deal with your boundary setting, you don’t have to deal
with them.
Surrendering is delicious. It’s like a fantastic vacation from every
day pressures. You can take these mini-vacations, but you don’t get to
check out of life and your responsibilities.
Deep play can give you clarity of vision and perspective on life. It
can be meaningful and feel therapeutic. But that doesn’t make it
therapy. Kink can’t fix you or your problems — nor can any dominant.
That’s up to you and your life’s work.
In this adventure you’re having, you’re going to learn a whole lot
about yourself. Some discoveries will be amazing. Some will be amazingly
challenging. No matter what, love yourself — because you’re utterly
lovable, powerful and amazing.
You are dear to me, my friend.
Love,
Midori
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Posted on Friday, January 20, 2012 12:03 PM
Just saw an interesting article this morning
BDSM: It’s less transgressive than you think...
So says the author of a new book on white, middle-class kinksters in the San Francisco Bay Area
By Tracy Clark-Flory
A young African-American woman walked onstage, led by a white
man holding a leash attached to a collar around her neck. “As he spoke,
he yanked up her dress to display her shaved genitals, and he then
turned her around,” writes anthropologist Margot Weiss. “Still holding
her dress above her waist, he smacked her ass so hard she pitched
forward; the leash attached to the collar around her neck stopped her
fall.”
Then the bidding began.
This scene from a BDSM “slave auction” — before a predominantly white
audience – makes for one of the most viscerally challenging passages in
“Techniques of Pleasure,” Weiss’ book-length investigation of San
Francisco’s kink community, although there are other examples, ranging
from father-daughter incest to Nazi guard-prisoner scenarios.
These
encounters aren’t described in much detail — instead, they’re used as
passing evidence of the depths of politically incorrect play that she
observed, or heard about, during the three years spent observing this
world.
Most kinksters see such “scenes” as standing apart from racism,
sexism and all manner of ugliness that happens in the real world — but
Weiss does not. “The fantasy of the scene as a safe space of private
desire justifies and reinforces certain social inequalities,” she
argues. The truth, she says, is that S/M “depends for its erotic power
on precisely these real-world relations, within which it is given form
and content.”
That said, Weiss objects to the idea that this sort of sexual
make-believe is “the same as the violence that it mimes,” as some BDSM
critics argue. Instead, Weiss looks at how particular scenes, whether
it’s a slave auction or make-believe child abuse, affect the people
participating, watching or (here’s looking at you) reading about it.
She also zeroes in on the contradictions of kink: “On the one hand,
SM is figured as outlaw: as transgressive of normative sexual values,”
Weiss writes. “On the other hand, SM is dependent on social norms:
practitioners draw on social hierarchies to produce SM scenes.” The
mostly-white, mostly-middle-class community is itself an example of
real-world social inequality: ”These [sexual] experiments are more
possible and more accessible to those with class, race and gender
privilege: heterosexual men playing with sexism, white bodies at a
charity slave auction, professional information technology (IT) workers
with several rooms filled with custom-made bondage toys.”
Speaking of toys, she further questions S/M’s “outlaw” status by
painting a portrait of a social network built on capitalism and
consumerism: Just consider the rainbow’s array of classes (on everything
from spanking to rope bondage) and fetish toys (from handcuffs to latex
vacuum beds) that practitioners can, and are to some degree expected
to, invest in. BDSM is not as transgressive as most assume, says Weiss.
As you’ve probably gathered, “Techniques of Pleasure” is a smart, but
not particularly sexy, read. It’s light on kinky lingo and heavy on the
academic jargon. So, I got Weiss, an assistant anthropology professor
at Wesleyan University, on the phone for a more relaxed chat about the
ambivalent politics of the BDSM community.
You write in the book about your initial surprise at your
first BDSM event that everyone seemed so darned “normal” and
“wholesome.” How so?
It was definitely not what I expected. There were way more
heterosexual people and they were older than I thought they would be.
They were wearing not the most cutting-edge fetish outfits — they
weren’t all black leather and riding in on their motorcycles. I realized
then that these were people that I was comfortable with, they were
professional-class people. They weren’t the radical people I expected to
find: They were more like my colleagues or like my parents.
You also talk in the book about how the strict rules and regulations within S/M seem to contradict the scene’s rebel identity.
People find themselves participating in social formations that they
themselves didn’t construct. In the ’80s, there was a concern in the
scene about federal regulation, the possibility of busts, but also
primarily a need to protect people from HIV transmission. The Bay Area
leather scene was so decimated by HIV and AIDS, so safety and control
became a a major concern for different S/M organizations.
Plenty of people in S/M now hate the rules. They say, “It used to be
you could do all this crazy stuff and it was a lot more fun and a lot
sexier and now you go to a play party and you start to do something and
the dungeon monitor is right there yelling at you, ‘That’s not
allowed!’” One thing that I found interesting was that resenting the
rules was one way that you became a respected S/M practitioner.
People outside of the scene tend to think that S/M is totally wild,
there are no rules, people are just doing whatever they feel like doing —
but if you show them a 10-page negotiation form or a checklist or the
20-minute safety lecture that goes into almost any kind of play, people
are amazed.
What about the consumerist and capitalist elements that you found?
I was amazed at how much stuff there was to buy; there are toys,
manuals, books, classes. A lot of scholars have argued that in late
capitalism in the United States, people’s identity is about what they
consume. In S/M, there is a kind of “work on the self,” or self-mastery,
that’s about different practices, different kinds of technique, but
then those techniques are then tied back into toys,
different paraphernalia, different kinds of commodities. You become a
bondage master in relation to different commodities.
Not everyone in the S/M scene can afford to buy all this stuff. In
the same way that whiteness is normative, it’s in the center, there is
this normative professional-class person who has the money and leisure
time to devote to S/M practice, and that is the ideal for consumer
capitalism.
S/M is not alone in this. This is just a way that communities based
around sexualities work in the U.S. today. But S/M is also a really
great example of this, and you can see what that does to the community.
People have debates about toys: Are they destroying social connections,
did it used to be more authentic? And how now you can just buy your S/M
identity, and that creates a lot of anxiety for people.
More so even than gender dynamics, you found some complex and interesting racial issues within the scene.
The scene in San Francisco, at least the pansexual
scene, is almost entirely white, which was surprising to me given the
demographics of the Bay Area, and that was something that most of the
white people that I interviewed didn’t seem to notice. It wasn’t until
[the BDSM organization] Society of Janus did a panel presentation on
race in the scene that the people I was interviewing said, “Oh yeah, I
guess the scene really is white, that’s so strange.”
The people of color I talked to felt marginalized by the scene’s
normative whiteness. It wasn’t so much that white people doing S/M were
overtly racist or didn’t want to play with people of color, it was that
the scene itself had a normative, assumptive whiteness at its center, so
that people of color doing S/M experience themselves as marginal to
that community.
Most people that I talked to didn’t see S/M slavery play as having
anything to do with historical slavery in the United States — but none
of the people of color I talked to thought that this was the case. I
talked to an African-American woman in the scene who’s well-known for
doing race play and she said, “You know, I don’t think these white
people ever think about handcuffs and whipping and the slave auction as
connected to histories of slavery, but I can’t help but think about that
when I play.”
So, for me, it’s not that charity slave auctions are simply terrible,
politically suspect and clearly wrong, nor is it that they’re
transgressive and that they open up new radical possibilities.
Debates about S/M so often come down to their ultimate social
impact — whether it reinforces or transgresses sexism, racism and the
like. Is that question answerable?
You can’t before the fact decide on the politics of S/M. The way that
S/M is talked about in feminist theory, the way it’s debated by
practitioners, it’s in the stark pro or con, binary debate. You can’t
really make these political decisions on such a simplified basis. You
have to really ask, “For whom?” There are scenes in my book that really
do open up people, get them to think differently, provide a new vantage
point for thinking about inequality, but there are other scenes that
don’t. The very same scene has different effects on differently
positioned people. My book is a call to get away from abstracted
thinking about the relationship between sexuality and social power, and
to think more concretely, more socially.
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Jaeleen: Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 9:32 AM
Big news ~
I've added two "traveling trainers" to Bondassage's amazing training team! Pele and Daria are available to travel through the United States and Canada to train you in Bondassage!
Pleasecontact them directly for more information ( I know Pele is in Hawaii through March).
Here's an interesting story I found about increasing your sexual energy. It's an easy Chi Kung exercise:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/01/how-to-increase-your-sexual-energy--jerry-stocking/
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Posted on Monday, January 09, 2012 10:41 AM
Just trained an amazing new Bondassage practitioner this weekend ~ Genevieve Genteel ... she'll be offering sessions in SF soon!
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Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2012 9:33 PM
Lots of great news ~
We're getting very, very close to releasing the new Bondassage website, and it's a beauty! It should be live next week :)
Tracy in Berlin will be offering Bondassage Practitioner Training starting this month, and I've just certified two additional "Traveling" Trainers ~ Pele (Hawaii/Utah/San Francisco/New York) and Daria (Texas/Chicago/New York). Contact them directly and have them come out and train you!
I'm still working on the book, and just starting production on a series of short (30 sec) videos for youtube.
It's going to be a fabulously kinky year, folks!
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Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 11:14 AM
I'm so excited to introduce you to our latest practitioners:
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Jaeleen: Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 10:51 PM
Lots of new projects in the works!
There's a new Bondassage® Trainer in London (Miss Greta Muse), one in Australia (Liana Gailand), and one starting in New York this fall (Christina O).
I'm in the middle of re-designing the Bondassage website (it should be live August 2011), and it's STUNNING!
Just returned from a great trip to LA to the Temple of Bliss, where my good friend Donia Christine, held a Business Tips class for Sexuality Professionals.
Check back often for the latest news in Bondassageland and beyond... |
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