Wednesday, December 19, 2012

For @atlloki: Switching it up

In my trolling for blog topics, @atlloki asked me "As a switch could you/would you sub in front of or to someone you've topped?"

My short answer is that I don't switch with individuals: Whether I top or bottom, I generally fall into a role with that man.  When I submit, I tend to stay in that role with him, or at least want to.  When I top, I enjoy that experience and fear that if I try subbing to him, I won't want to return to topping him.

It's more than fear, it's also a comfort level.  Defined roles mean knowing where you stand with someone and knowing what's expected of you.  Call me conservative, but predictability, while it might not be sexy, is certainly comfortable.

Other considerations that may affect switching with and around others - ongoing relationship like I have with my partner, negotiations about what will be going on (I have experience the type of scenes I dish out as a top, but I don't enjoy them myself).  My husband and I don't have a power exchange relationship at all.  We made a conscious decision to remain complete equals.  As such, my machismo gets in the way when I bottom when he's around but not directly involved.  I obsess about what he's thinking of the things I enjoy doing with others, worried that he'd get jealous of what someone else is doing with me, (or more likely that he'd be jealous that it's not being done to him).

The answer to the question really depends on the men in question.  I'm just an emotionally delicate man, I guess.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

For @johnnygear: Tops do make mistakes


In my trolling for blog topics, @johnnygear asked (by way of @atllokie) "How do you deal with pain the dom didn't intend?"  (ex: loss of circulation, strap pushing in wrong spot..)

This is something that I'm not actually very good at.  I'm a huge advocate of communication, I like safe-words where the words mean what they say (ie, no means no, stop means stop).  However, when it comes to letting a top know I'm having trouble, I'm really bad.

It's a bit passive or maybe even passive aggressive, but I'll start with shifting around.  It's a combination of trying to adjust myself so that maybe I can cope with or correct whatever is not working right and letting the top know there's something wrong.  I've bottomed for such an array of people, I never know if a given discomfort is intended or accidental.  However, I'll have difficulty actually saying that there's something wrong;  I'll hope that he'll see my shuffling and twitching and either ask or realize the problem and fix it.

Unfortunately, I really have trouble saying I'm having a problem.  I feel bad when I have to tell a top that something's wrong.  It's like I've somehow failed him.  It's worse when there's an audience in the room.  I don't want the top to lose face by having a scene appear go bad and I don't want to seem like a whiny or pushy bottom.  There's also the bit of machismo that I'm not gonna quit, not going to let a little problem ruin a scene (even for very large values of "little").

So kids, do as I say, and not as I do.  Talk to your top and tell him what's bothering you.  It's part of the learning process for you as bottom, him as a top, and you as a pair of playmates.  If he intends you to deal with it, he can tell you, or just gag you.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

For @skylos: Do it with the things on the Discovery Channel

On twitter a couple of weeks ago, I asked for suggestions for blog topics.  In response, @Skylos asked "ever done a blog about thoughts about bestiality"?  I don't think I ever have.

For clarity, bestiality is is the practice of sexual activity between humans and non-human animals (ie, dogs, cats, sheep, rhinoceros).

When someone asks me what I'm into, I start by saying what I'm not into.  "No women, children, real animals, scat.  Nothing that involves a doctor, hospital, mortuary visit after the scene is done".  The "real" qualification is because I am, and hang out with, a lot of furries - people who hang out in anthropomorphic costumes (that's the short-short-short description).

So if I like furries, why not real animals?  Humans use animals as pets, as transportation, as food, for therapy.  What is the real reason I'm squicked by it?  How does using an animal for sex differ?

Straw-man arguments

  • A vegan could argue that using an animal for sex would be like using it for food.  I'm not vegan.
  • An animal cannot given consent and so using one for sex would be rape.  Then they also can't consent to being killed and eaten, and they sure are tasty at the churrascaria.
  • It's against the "word of god".  Clearly, Leviticus 20:15-16 cover this, saying "don't screw the sheep!".  Yeah, but Levitcus 20:13 says "don't be gay", and I clearly like the cock.
  • The Goldilocks dilemma: too big or too small.  Yeah, but some really are the right size.

Okay, it's easy to come up with arguments to knock down.  So what's the real reason?

Health is the big one.  There are enough known viruses, bacteria, parasites that can travel from human to animal, and back again, that this is an unreasonable risk.  The potential unknown contagions to be transmitted are too large of a risk.  An animal cannot be expected to tell you it's health history, can't tell you what it's been exposed to.  No animal can put on a condom and even if you put it on the beast yourself, you can't expect it to stay on.

So health is the main reason.  It's the reason that bestiality is a non-negotiable limit.

Why else, though?  There's no intelligence.  I need to know that the entity I'm engaging is a self-aware, reasoning thing (with a cock attached).  So even if we could 100% eliminate the health concerns (and we can't), I wouldn't be interested.  Hell, even if I'm playing with an anonymous other, there's still an intelligence there; a head-game of some sort is going on.

Sex for me is more than just a physical act.  It's a mental and emotion exchange as well as a physical one.  If it's just the physical, I could use my hand for that.  (If I weren't on a masturbatory moratorium, that is.)

Now if you could eliminate the health concerns and provide the intelligence requirement, I'd be happy.  Say you could provide me a 6'5" anthropomorphic rhinoceros in bleachers, boots, bondage mitts, chained to a wall?  I might find a way to enjoy that. :)



Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Words are never safe



So my friend and partner's boy, the rubber freak, recently wrote about safe-words.  He and I have some of the same ideas about safe-words.  I decided to comment on them as well, but first I want to establish a base reference.

What's a safe-word?

In BDSM play, a safe-word is something you can say while playing that can tell the other person that you need to stop or slow down.  It's usually a word or phrase that the participants would not use in normal conversation.

But why would you want a safe-word?  Well, playing in BDSM involves occasional ambiguous consent.  There are times when a participant may want to say "no" in play and not actually mean it.  Also, it's a method to give a participant a way to feel in control, able to end or alter how the scene is going.

Effectively, safe-words become an alternative to direct communication between the participants.

There are alternatives to safe-words, frequently for people who are for one reason or another are unable to communicate verbally.  Some examples are: a specific series of nonverbal noises such as three quick grunt in a row; holding a ball in the hand and dropping it to signify a concern; snapping fingers; or smacking the hand against the table, chair, or thigh.  However, these alternatives to safe-words become more than safe-words because they're substituting as the primary method of communication.

Concerns about safe-words

What I see as the first failing of the safe-word is that people get the impression that a safe-word will protect them from a bad scene.  There's an unspoken assumption there that the safe-word will be honored.  Pepole need to remember that safe-words are not magic-words.  The important part of a safe-word working is that both people are trustworthy and respect each other.

The second failing I see in safe-words surrounds the idea of being able to say "no" and not mean it.  It's essentially planning to deceive your partner(s) in play.  By establishing that "no" doesn't actually mean "no", it teaches the perception that other words don't mean what's expected of them as well.  It creates a potential ambiguity in what the participants mean and the opportunity for miscommunication.

A further failing in the "no" no meaning "no" is when "no" actually does mean "no".  When someone's engaged in heavy BD/SM, they may experience intense endorphin rushes and emotional stimulation.  In such a high stress situation, the various participants may not remember to use their safeword and will resort to "no" and "stop", because they've spent 99.9% of their speaking life using words to mean what they actually mean.

Continuing the line of thought of words and their meaning: if my safe-word is "banana", then "banana" becomes the equivalent of "no".  If I wanted to say "no", and now "banana" means "no", what's to keep me from saying "banana" instead, especially if I'm being trained that "banana" means "no"?  I'll end up just as likely to say "banana" as "no".  I might say "banana" without meaning it.

What does this mean to me?

For me, BDSM involves building trust and communication.  To build up to more intense play requires establishing a strong understanding of one another's limits and abilities.  To have that mutual trust built on a pretense of play-acting means that the base of the relationship is shaky.


I see safewords as a barrier to honest and open communication.  When asked about safe-words, my response is "I don't use safe-words."  What I mean by that is "no" means "no".

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Masturbatory Moratorium


In the month (okay, 28 days) leading up to Mr. International Rubber (MIR) this year, I was in chastity.  Not lock & key, but just under orders from a friend on the west coast who'd be coming in to town for MIR.  We were following my rules for device-free chastity.  They're a set of rules I've gathered from several sources discussing chastity over the past decade and change.  They're designed around helping a guy who's not locked up keep from wanking.

During this chastity run, I came to notice something.  I already knew I jerked off a lot ( 2 to 3 times a day on average ).  What I wasn't doing was externalizing my libido.  I've got all this play I want to do, but I never had the interest because I was always satisfying myself.  Well, in the month leading up to MIR I had a kind of sexual renaissance.  No, I wasn't getting off, but I was playing more.  More BDSM play, at least as a top, and I was really getting into it.

So towards the end, I got the idea to continue with the rules I'd been following, with a slight modification.  I'm not to get myself off alone.  So long as I'm with someone else, and that other guy is intrinsically involved in my orgasm, I can get off as much as I like.

Examples of "intrinsically involved", you ask for?  I've got some ideas floating through my head

  • He's strapped down firmly to the fuck bench at the CHC and I'm fucking him at either fore or aft.
  • I'm strapped down to a bondage table, being edged with my gasmask's air intake being shut off and my balls being regularly thumped until I shoot a screaming load.
  • He's tied spread-eagle on the bed, I'm sitting on his cock, his nipples and mine connected by clamps, and I'm jerking while using him as a living dildo.
  • I'm tied into a sling, muzzled, occasionally fed poppers while my ass, is being stretched and probed by a fingers and toys while getting milked.
  • Tied down to the bed with an electro plug in my ass, ESD straps on cock & balls, and pads arrayed around my lower torso and legs and hooked up to be stimulated until the electro makes me fuck a load out of myself with the plug.
Just a few ideas.

Psssst.  Can you tell I'm horny?

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Out in the woods

I went camping a few weeks ago, planning to get some sun. Instead, I found a hot boy to strap down, strap up, and generally enjoy. I had him swinging from a suspension harness in the tree, strapped down to a table, and stuck into a sleepsack.

RubberCondor gladly obliged by strapping me into a straightjacket and edged me for an hour or two on the cot. So I did more play with him, and got some pics. These pics and more are on my Flickr set, Camping, June 2012.

Sleepsack at Buckwood-001Sleepsack at Buckwood-000Mash cot at Buckwood-004Mash cot at Buckwood-005Mash cot at Buckwood-008

Thursday, July 5, 2012

A call to arms, maybe hands, or at least fingers

I've been a member of the Chicago Hellfire Club now for over 10 years. I joined when I was 26 going on 27, and at the time, it was one of the defining pieces of my life.

I was attending Chicago Hellfire Club events, including Inferno for a couple of years before I actually joined. In fact, I was at Inferno in 2001 during one of the defining moments of our time. I sat in a hotel room in Michigan, and watched the towers fall. The club came together, made sure that everyone got home safely.

2002, shortly after I was voted into the club, the man who told me I was to join CHC (he didn't ask, just handed me my application pre-written with my sponsors) passed away. Then a few months later, my father passed. Less than 2 weeks after my father passed, I was at Inferno, and a good friend beat the snot out of me. I really needed it. That cathartic release helped jump-start the healing process.

2003 was the year I met my mate. But it's also the year of one of my most memorable experiences of my life. I was poke full of holes in a massive temporary piercing scene that left me floating on endorphins for a day after and relaxed for weeks after.

Skip through a few years in between of family building, and we're at 2012. It's been 10 years, and now I'm a full member of the club, even an officer. I've been the VP since January.

I want to make sure that other people get the opportunity to have experiences like these. We're working on reaching out. It's a tough line to walk, having invite-only parties. But a great way to meet us is to come to our next bar nights, which are both the night before our next play parties!
Look for me and our club members at the bar nights and feel free to ask anything about the club.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Poked Full of Holes, an Inferno Story

This is a repost of a post from my old blog. However, now I have pics of the scene - photographic evidence.

In 2003, I had an interesting year, I engaged in a learning experience that affected me greatly, and provided me with a tremendous learning experience. Yes, it involved more than a little bit of S&M. I wrote this narrative in September/October of 2003, a couple of weeks after the event. It was fresh in my memory then. I've decided it's time to bring it back out to share.


It didn't end up like I had planned. That's the nature of what I was asking for, though. If I got what I had planned on, I wouldn't have gotten what I had asked for. That's certainly ambiguous enough for a lead in. If I were to start at the beginning, with all the back-story, it would take too long to explain. So let me pick a time and place, and I'll tell you a little story about Inferno 32.