May 2008 Archives

Threesomes, foursomes and moresomes are great. Recreational sex in general is great. I don't think I need to call myself a swinger though; I just enjoy sex, and that's that. And I can't really call myself a swinger when I'm not actually swinging. And right now, I'm not. The boyfriend and I made a mutual decision over the weekend - after he asked me to go to a club and I declined - to steer clear of the whole swinging thing for the time being.

(note that I highlighted the word 'mutual' - this will be because we don't often make mutual decisions, heh. Usually, he decides one thing, I decide another. But I digress.)

I was rather shocked at myself for being so bloody sensible instead of completely hedonistic, but quietly, I was also very pleased with myself for learning and respecting the number one lesson in swinging: there's a time and a place for it. And right now it's neither the time nor the place. We need to navigate this ongoing BDSM dilemma first... if we can. Don't quite know how at the minute, but as the saying goes, better to do it right than to do it right now. I'm certainly not naive enough to think it's going to happen overnight.

Dominance and submission never happens overnight.

It's very much a 'journey' - a word I remember the boyfriend mocking last year, but it really is the best descriptive. It's a trip into the dark side, and like any good journey there is exploration, discovery, adventure, and little pots of magic that make your spine tingle.

And like any other journey, it's taken one step at a time.

It's alright (excellent, in fact) making a conscious decision to embrace my kinks; I feel really liberated by it, and nothing's even happened yet. Something has clicked in my head though, possibly that of one door shutting and another one opening, and it feels like there is no turning back now (thank fuck!).

But. (There's always a but.) That's left me looking at the relationship with the boyfriend and wondering where that figures in my new found liberation. I love him to bits, but if I'm not going to get my needs met, is it ever going to work? This has in turn has led to epic 'conversations' (and arguments, sadly) as we try and work out if it can work, if we want it to work, if he's ever going to get those bloody handcuffs out again, and if I can believe that he wants to get them out... the absolutely last thing I want is to feel like I'm topping from the bottom. That is defeating the whole point, and I can't have that.

So last night, same as every other night this week, we had a talk. For the first time this week, we had a talk that didn't leave me feeling totally deflated. We talked about where we got to last year when we first made any real attempt to get it moving, and we talked about what worked and what didn't, and then I said 'anticipation's good'.

A minute later, he replies 'Ah. Anticipation. There's a clue in there somewhere'. And I think to myself everything I've been saying for the last four years is a clue you daft bastard. So I smiled. And then we talked about anticipation, and build-up, and the concept of getting in someone's head, and yeh. It was productive.

Only problem now is that I'm anticipating the anticipation!!

When I think about my school days, I often wonder if all junior schools have this underlying sexual thing going on that my own seemed to, or if it was just something me (and a few select others) bore witness to - and participated in.

We used to play Kiss-Chase, the rules of which were simple: run away. If you're 'caught', the catcher was allowed to kiss you on the cheek (before running off and giggling with his mates). I'm quite surprised that despite being one of the top sprinters at school, I was always getting caught ;)

We used to play a more risqué version of that game as well: Knicker-Chase. The rules of this were also very simple: run away. If you're caught, the catcher is allowed to see your knickers. I was not caught so often in this game - but still more than I would've 'liked'. Although if I didn't like it that much, I doubt I would've been playing it in the first place.

Both of these games would take place in the playground, in perfect view of everyone, students and teachers and dinner-ladies alike. And because they did, it always seemed perfectly acceptable to play them. I didn't really feel 'dirty' showing a boy my knickers - just embarrassed.

There was another game that we used to play though. One that did make me feel dirty and embarrassed. One that didn't take place in the playground, but rather in the dark and dingy recess that we called the cloakroom. Concealed behind a sea of anoraks and donkey-jackets and fluffy pink coats, was a game I never did catch the name of. But it involved being surrounded by five or six boys, and being molested in a way that only boys of that age could. Hands in my knickers, and in my top... I would love to say it only happened once, but it didn't. It happened regularly, especially during year 6. The same cloakroom, the same boys, the same feeling of humiliation versus excitement that I still enjoy now... when I get the fucking chance!

And my mother thought I went to a good school... ha!

Since I started dying my hair bright red, I've been asked the 'why?' question several times, like there must be some sort of psychological explanation for it, or something. Perhaps I just like the colour red, especially on hair.

Or perhaps there is a psychological explanation for it, afterall. Yes, I like red hair, but to dye my hair red because I like that on others suggests some kind of narcissism that I ain't particularly happy with (even if it is true!). I think the real reason (she says, putting on her pop-psychology head) is that I see it as a reflection of 'me', and what's going on underneath my skin. My hair finally looks as wild as I feel.

And I do feel wild. it's no coincidence that the boyfriend describes me as 'a tiger covered in petrol and running through a forest fire'... that is what I'm like, internally and externally. If only he would realise the reason I'm wild is that I'm without containment, without structure, without rules. I would feel really quite free I suppose, if I wasn't feeling so fucking out of control. And the more out of control I feel, the more angry I get, and it's a vicious bastard circle that I just cannot break on my own. Weirdly, I have felt like this since I was about thirteen, perhaps even younger.

(Oh! Deep joy: something else I can blame on my mother!!)

I didn't have mad red hair then, though. I had 'Boy George plaits'. Eeek.

Despite my issues with trust (who doesn't have issues with trust?), and despite the general consensus being that I'm a cynical old pessimist, I always hope for the best in people. I always hope that they won't let me down, and I always hope something good will come of any relationship I get myself tied up in. Whether that something good is a shag, a friendship, a love affair, whatever. I hope people are going to be every bit as good as I want them to be.

And then I get crushed by disappointment. I think I'm so busy being hopeful that I either can't see the reality of the situation, or I ignore it. Because when the reality finally does hit me, it hits me really fucking hard. And I've had enough of it.

So can everyone just stop being a cunt, please? Ta.

After taking a long hard look at myself this week, I've made a conscious decision to be more pro-active about my kinks. There is too much thinking and talking going on around here, and not enough doing, and it can't carry on like this. The light isn't going out, and no matter how tightly I shut my eyes, I can still see it. So I'm going to open them, and to hell with it.

I think the breaking point was The Extreme Porn Bill, which made me want to stand up and be counted, and defend the BDSM community that I am a part of, even if it has only been in spirit for the last 20 years (lol). And it was the realisation that I am a part of the community that's spurring me into action, and not my passion for extreme porn - honestly!

I've celebrated this by dumping my old profile on Informed Consent which was created back in 2003 (although for what reason I don't really know, as I've never contributed anything), and creating a shiny new one. I am going to get involved, I am going to embrace everything it has to offer me, and I am going to shake this procrastinating bitch out of me if it's the last thing I bloody do.

If I could also shake the angry bitch, the scared bitch, and the impossible bitch out of me too, that would be a big help, because as things stand right now, I'm a fucking terrible sub.

If I could get the muse out of my head, that would be even better.

Right now I'm busy thinking up new and inventive ways to seduce the boyfriend over to the dark side. Whinging and crying and flipping out clearly isn't working, so it's back to the drawing-board. Of course, it might be completely futile - I might never get my submissive 'needs' met in this relationship outside of a little light bondage and a bit of choking, but I have to try.

I've bought him a copy of The Loving Dominant. He hasn't read it yet, but I have, and I have to say i wasn't all that impressed with it. There's plenty of advice on tools of the trade, types of play, plus a few ideas for scenes, but I expected it to be more about the relationships and the dynamic (I obviously read too much into the 'Loving' part of the title!), and not so much like a manual. I already have Screw The Roses, and there doesn't seem to be anything more insightful in this book. But that's just my opinion, and what the hell would I know anyway - I'm not a dominant.

I did find the section on humiliation interesting though - not least because according to the author, John Warren, it is more of a male-sub thing than a fem-sub thing - which puts me outside the norm ... again! I also like that he touched on the difference between that and 'erotic embarrassment' - which is a beautiful way of describing something I have always rather less elegantly called 'squirming'. In his example, you may be embarrassed when asked to make a speech at a dinner, but if, as you stood before the guests your pants were pulled down - that would be humiliating.

It's the first time I've read anything about 'embarrassment' in any of these guru books that I own, and it was reassuring to know it isn't just me who goes red-faced and unable to speak when faced with having to do/say something that they 'would like to do anyway if society and their own inhibitions would let them'.

People who know me won't believe that I get shy, but I do, painfully so. I think I must have some subconscious shame (?) about my submissive tendencies, or something. That would also go some way to explaining why I crave the humiliation factor so much too. Hmm.

Anyway, so I liked that bit. And I like the fantasy questionnaire too, which I might utilise in my mission to win the boyfriend over - if I can get over my erotic embarrassment enough to raise the scary subject of 'fantasies'. Gulp.

In 2003, schoolteacher Jane Longhurst was murdered by a Mr Graham Coutts who was 'obsessed with violent internet pornography'. He was sentenced in 2004, and Jane Longhurst's mother, Liz, vowed to campaign to have the sites she holds 'responsible' for Jane's death made illegal.

Enter section 62 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.

Brought in because stopping people watching this 'grossly offensive' (thanks Lord Hunt) material will apparently stop them wanting to go out and kill people. And before you've killed/harmed/raped anyone, you're a criminal.

The legal wording of these things is up it's own arse as these things usually are, but basically it will be illegal to own any image or video where 'extreme' violence (or the threat of such) and pornography meet, even if those captured on film are consenting adults. Even though the acts themselves aren't illegal.

It isn't illegal for us to consensually 'threaten' and 'plead' and dominate and submit. It isn't illegal for us to consensually play with knives, needles and whips and smack each other about in the confines of our own bedroom. it isn't illegal for us to bend over and taking a caning, and neither is it illegal to indulge in tit torture - or indeed any other torture, if that's what you want to do... with consent of course ;)

So while it won't be illegal to tighten your hand round your lovers throat while you're fucking them, because she fucking loves it when you do that (rarrr!), it will be illegal to own material that portrays this, unless you are actually in those photos and can prove that you were both/all consenting. The examples I could use are endless... some more extreme than others obviously, but I don't need to be shocking here. I think this law does that.

This is the thought-police, coming along and locking you up because you like a bit of rough in your porn, so you *must* be a danger to society. And locked up you will be - for a maximum of three years (you get less time for fucking a dog, apparently).

I wonder where it will end? Because one thing is for sure - this is just the beginning. As one of the Lords stated in the house last week: Orwell would be proud.

I was supposed to be writing an essay on The Extreme Porn Act, and why it upsets me, confuses me, offends me, and scares the fucking life out of me. But unfortunately, life keeps on getting in the way. Relationship traumas, wasp emergencies, and ice-cream dilemmas have all featured these last few days... I guess it must be summer.

And at this precise moment in time, I also have a hangover, which isn't so much a symptom of summer, and more a symptom of me getting roaring drunk on a school night, like the naughty little girl that I am.

I'm going to be even more naughty on May 9th when the Extreme Porn Act gets Royal Assent (and it's looking like it will) and turns me into a criminal, purely because a few poncy Lords find some strains of BDSM porn 'disgusting'. Not as disgusting as paedophilia, but more disgusting than bestiality.

I think I might move. Or become one of those annoying activists. Not yet though - my head hurts too much.