BDSM Weblog

It seems to me that in any lifestyle, or hobby, or philosophy, many people tend to think that their way is “the right” way. If you’re doing something differently, it might work for you for a little while or a long while, but if you did it their way, then you’d definitely be better off. I suppose this is sort of related to my post “Your Kink is Disgusting! (But Mine is Natural).”

I will preface this with the fact that I am fairly inexperienced when it comes to the ways of the “old guard” and the leather lifestyle. I can only write about the interactions I’ve seen, and even that with the caveat that these are some general observations, and I’m not saying everyone involved in either “camp” thinks or feels this way. Also, this post isn’t directed at anyone in particular.

A lot of people from “the newer generation” (folks in their 20s and 30s in the lifestyle) seem to look down on the old guard ways as overly structured, outdated, nonsensical, and/or inapplicable to today’s world. And by the same token, I get the impression that a lot of people from the old guard tend to look down on anyone who doesn’t follow their ways as disrespectful, a “dabbler,” and/or simply childish.

No one path is right for everyone. Each person has to do what works for them. For some, for example, it makes a lot of sense that you should be a bottom/submissive before you become a top/dominant. You gain first-hand experience, more intimate knowledge of what the effects of certain tools or actions will be. You learn how the submissive/masochist thinks, and you gain insight into how to bend their body or mind to your will when you “graduate” to the other side. For others, that philosophy is simply wrong. Acting out the part of the sub won’t give them any more insight into the submissive’s mindset because they simply can’t think like a submissive, even if they forced themselves to act as one. Feeling pain wouldn’t give them a better view into the masochist’s mind because they inherently dislike receiving pain, and can’t understand the subtleties of sadism any better by being on the other side of it.

And as an aside, it’s just as easy to be a disrespectful snot, or a sensible person, whether one is old-guard or new — I’ve personally seen very little correlation there.

To me, the situation is analogous to that of the Christian-hating atheist, or the lesbian that looks down on bisexual women. There is an inherent hypocrisy there. Though it is, of course, natural to form stereotypes. Every last one of us uses stereotypes on a regular basis. We’d be pretty naive and unable to function in life if we didn’t do that.

Stereotypes are a good thing. Biases are not.

The distinction may seem subtle, but it’s not — the difference is in how open your mind is. If you have a stereotype, you might form a preconceived notion that that guy is probably a hardcore, high-protocol, gay male because all you know about him is that he’s in the leather lifestyle. And that’s fine. But if, in interacting with him, you observe evidence to the contrary and dismiss it or ignore it, then you are being biased. As the saying goes, “Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.” (I’ve heard that quote attributed to Frank Zappa, James Dewar, and Anthony J. D’Angelo.)

So all of this is, I suppose, a long-winded way of saying that I wish fewer people in the lifestyle (and in general) were biased. Most of the people I’ve met are open-minded, but it seems like a few get stuck in the rut of, “My way is the One True/Best Way.” I think that philosophy is bred of insecurity, that it leads to ignorance, and that it is a huge barrier to personal growth. Of course, I also realize the inherent hypocrisy in my saying that — damn paradoxes!

Filed under: Rants, Thoughts by Sammael
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It seems that it is a common thing among bottoms and submissives to naturally wish they could give more (“giving more” meaning take more pain in the case of bottoms).  Being a sadomasochist, I’ve experienced it from both sides of the coin.  Yet still, it’s somewhat confusing to me.

When I take pain, it’s to find release.  When I took a singletail whip to the navel and nipples, it was more a process of breaking down and rebuilding.  That was the furthest I’ve been pushed yet, and ironically it was also the first time that I felt like I couldn’t take “enough.”  Not as much as I wanted to be able to take, not as much as I felt the one holding the whip wanted to give.

My own bottom has been expressing lately that she doesn’t feel like she can take as much as she used to be able to, or as much as she wants to.  I get the feeling that she doesn’t believe she’s fulfilling me in that way, though I do my best to reassure her that’s not the case.  Would it be fun to play with someone who could take everything I could possibly dish out?  Well, the idea seems exciting, but realistically speaking, such a person doesn’t exist.  And even if they did… would it make me feel any more fulfilled as a sadist?  I can’t answer that for sure one way or the other.

But I think that pleasing one’s top/dominant is only part of the equation.  A big part of masochism is pushing one’s self.  Expanding their limits, reaching those plateaus and overcoming them.  I can only speak for myself, but I am my own greatest critic, and I think the same is true of many — we hold ourselves to higher expectations than others do.  I don’t ever expect to be satisfied with my progression in BDSM or anything in life.  For me, self-satisfaction breeds complacence, which is poison to self-progression and evolution.  I want to grow, to learn, to evolve, to get better every day of my life.

So in that sense, I think it’s healthy to want more.  And I love that she wants to give more, but I don’t want her to feel that I need more — that she isn’t enough.  I feel very completed by what she gives to me, and by what I give to her.  So sadists, let your bottoms know what they mean to you.  Without them, many of us would be expressing these urges in unhealthy ways.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Sammael
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Would have posted this sooner, but I wanted to get permission to use the picture below first.

Last weekend I went to a demonstration on medical play, focusing on needle play, medical stapling, sounding, and electro-stimulation. Some of what I saw there I was familiar with, a lot of it I wasn’t.

General safety note with everything mentioned here: use gloves with any form of play that could involve bodily fluids like blood, and make sure your equipment is sterilized.  In many cases, alcohol is not enough.

I’ve always been interested in sounds, for example. The very idea of, to put it crudely, sticking a metal rod down your pee-hole, does seem at first glance like it would be painful. But from all accounts I’ve heard, it’s not. Granted, I’ve only heard experiences from men, since it doesn’t seem to be a common thing to do with women. The word “intense” is frequently used, and when the demonstration guy was asked to describe it, that was about the only word he could come up with (it was his first time experiencing it). That, and that it felt good.

Technique-wise, with a sound you generally want to have the “equipment” (both yours, and the guy’s) lined straight up and down, perpendicular to the floor. Use plenty of lube, make sure your equipment is sterilized — via an autoclave if you have access to one. I understand that you can actually use a pressure-cooker as well, but I am not versed on the details of that. The mistress doing the demonstration says that she actually likes to use polysporin as a lubricant, since it has some antibacterial stuff in it just for extra safety. You start out with the smaller rods, support the cock in your hand, pull at the sides of the head to open up the urethra a bit, then insert the sounding rod slowly. Once it’s in an inch or so, you can pretty much let gravity do the work — never push/force it in.

There is a little valve at the base of the cock, which is the opening into the bladder (the Cobb’s Curve). You can sort of feel it out — it’s a little bump in the urethral passage at the base of the cock. It’s easier to feel it out if the guy is hard, apparently. Generally speaking, don’t go past that. It won’t be a problem if the guy is lying down because of a natural curve there that will prevent the rod from going too far. You only really need to be concerned with that if the cock is pointed down toward the feet. That’s pretty much all there is to it. You can slide it in and out in slower strokes, and/or twist it in your fingers for extra sensation/stimulation. Generally the guy will go soft within a minute or so of sounding. Our demonstration guy never got hard. Being on a table with a spotlight on him and a roomful of people watching, with the mistress’s help being some light fondling and the command, “Get it up,” I highly doubt that I would have been able to either.

The medical stapling was interesting. Medical staples, for those that don’t know, are like normal staples, except the ends curve in toward each other when they go in. I got a few in my arm just to feel it, and it felt like a pinch — not even a hard one at that. In addition to the obvious SM use, they are also good for decorative play — you can run ribbons under the staples and make designs. Similar to corsets done with needles, except medical staples are a bit less prone to being fucked with, so when doing them in a public place (the dungeon, a convention, whatever), you don’t need to be that careful. If you bump into someone or something, no big deal. I don’t think I could ever personally do needles from the bottom end (no huge desire to do them from the top side either), but I do think I could do medical stapling.

As an important note, medical staples do require a special instrument to remove.  So don’t go and get yourself a medical staple kit without one.  It’s a very simple thing, but I definitely wouldn’t try removing one of those suckers without it.  As it was, one of the staples caused some bleeding with me, though the others only caused some little pinpricks of blood.

And speaking of needles, that was also demonstrated. The basics are pretty obvious — the larger the gauge number, the smaller the needle (so a 14 gauge is pretty thick, 22 gauge pretty thin). The smaller the needle, and the more shallow you go, the less it hurts. I did learn that needles are a bit different than most SM play, in that the endorphin rush is almost immediate. The demo pincushion said that by the time the second needle goes in, she’s usually already flying in sub-space.

I wasn’t there for the electro-stim part of the demonstration (had somewhere else to be), but there was a bit of playing with a TENS unit earlier with the medical stapling. You can attach it to the staples for extra fun. You could also use it with a sound. Just remember, when dealing with anything that goes inside, the electrical sensation will be about 10-20 times as powerful, so start out really low, and amp up slowly.

I like going to demos like that — even if you know about the subject matter at hand, you usually learn something new anyway. And at the very least, you can share experiences/knowledge with others.

Filed under: Educational, Goings-On by Sammael
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I’d like to think that I am a very tolerant guy. My opinion is, “If it floats your boat, and isn’t hurting someone else, then great!” Doesn’t mean I’m into everything, of course. For example, fecal play is on my list of “squicks.”  But if you’re into things like 2 girls 1 cup, then great!  There are other people out there who are into it too — and if not, just put it on the Internet, and then there will be other people into it even if there weren’t before.  The Internet is amazing like that.  How else would we get shitting dick-nipples?  I would advise any sane person against clicking that link, by the way.

But what confounds me is when someone into one thing makes a judgment call on someone into another thing.  “I love it when my partner dresses up like a little girl and sits on daddy’s cock.  What?  You’re into play rape scenes?  That’s disgusting!”  And the wording is important here.  It’s one thing to say, “That disgusts me.”  It’s another to say, “That is disgusting.”  The latter implies a judgment call on the activity itself.  I again go back to part of the definition of squick in the ever-useful Urban Dictionary:

Stating that something is “disgusting” implies a judgement that it is bad or wrong. Stating that something “squicks you” is merely an observation of your reaction to it, but does not imply a judgement that such a thing is universally wrong.

It seems that a lot of people are unable to draw the distinction though.  As if because something isn’t for them, then it must universally be wrong.  This is especially ironic in the BDSM lifestyle, where I’ve seen it more than I would have expected.

I think a similar phenomenon is when people are in a debate, and refuse (or perhaps, are unable) to see that the other person has a valid point even though it conflicts with theirs. It seems that few people are capable of saying, “I see your point, and I understand why you believe that, but I still disagree.”

Filed under: Rants, Thoughts by Sammael
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For the past 4 days I’ve been hit by the flu, or a bad cold, or something that’s making me feel cruddy. This has resulted in me missing one party thrown by some of my lifestyle friends, a play party at the local dungeon, and a fetish ball. A new friend of mine was the volunteer for the demo at the play party, which was decorative needleplay, and she was feeling very nervous about it because no one she knew was going to be there. The fetish event looked like it was going to be a ton of fun, and a swinging couple that I’d not seen since maybe August was going to be there. A really fun couple, with a very sexy wife who has been intent on playing with me (read: fucking my brains out) for a long time. And though some lighter play has gone on, various circumstances have always prevented anything more in-depth (pun intended). This is yet another of those circumstances.

I fucking hate being sick. Hopefully today will be the end of it.

Filed under: Miscellaneous by Sammael
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There are certain people in the lifestyle that feel the need to tell you how long they’ve been in it almost as soon as you introduce yourself to them. This strikes me as a bit insecure — as if they are expecting or demanding some level of respect to be given (as opposed to earned) because they’ve “been in this for 48 years.” The people I respect most in this lifestyle don’t wear their years of experience as a badge of honor, but their experiences as a badge of honor. One of my first mentors had been into the BDSM lifestyle for far longer than I’ve been alive, but he never needed to say that.

I don’t personally care if you’ve been in the lifestyle 50 years or 50 days. Your skill, knowledge, and personality will earn my respect, not your trophies and the length of your dominance. There are some that have been doing this for just a few years that have my deep respect, and some that have been doing it for decades that don’t. Of course, then we get into the dichotomy of respecting the person, versus respecting their skill. But that’s a discussion for another day.

On a geeky note, I also saw this phenomenon a lot in tabletop and online roleplaying (of the D&D/Vampire sort, not the lifestyle sort). “I’ve been playing this character for 28 years. Bow before his magic godlike powers! BOW!!!”

I also often hear people in their early to mid thirties saying, “I’ve been in the lifestyle for twenty years.” I can do simple math. You want me to believe you’ve been in the BDSM lifestyle since you were 13? Forgive me, my friend, if I doubt that. Just because you were into rough sex at age 16 does not mean that you were “in the lifestyle” since then (into BDSM perhaps, bot not in the lifestyle). By that logic, I underwent extreme sensory deprivation for 9 months, so I was into BDSM before I was even born! I have just checkmated you in the BDSM dick measuring contest! (Shaddup, I know chess and measuring have nothing to do with one another.)

Filed under: Rants by Sammael
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In the last post, I talked about how S&M oftentimes gets a bad reputation in popular media, whether it’s from the news story of a scene gone wrong, or the depiction of a psychopath disguised as a BDSM enthusiast in a television show.  However, there are also some positive and/or accurate depictions of S&M in popular media, too. So I thought I would talk about just a few of those here. Feel free to let me know about others in the comments.

The Secretary

This movie is a good depiction of how people can discover that they are into BDSM, and also how it can be a healthy tool to cope with and work through life trauma and mental disorders.

CSI – Lady Heather

Lady Heather is the most sensible example of a BDSM practitioner I’ve seen in popular media, bar none.  She represents a good example of the more ritualized aspects of the lifestyle.

Rome

This scene is just an incredibly hot example of rough sex, with overtones of submission and dominance.  It’s set in Rome, so of course this is real slavery and not roleplay, but salient nonetheless, I think.

Filed under: Media by Sammael
Tags: « csi - Media - rome - secretary »
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Most people hear “S&M” and they think of psychopathic sadists, flesh being flayed from bone, emotional abuse, and other such negative things.  People tend to think in extremes, but the media has definitely played its part in sensationalizing the dangerous fringes, too.  A lot of us in this lifestyle and community are seeking to change that image, like my spectacular friend Clarisse Thorn.  I myself sometimes reach out to those not involved in the BDSM lifestyle and try to explain it to them, with varying degrees of success.

One tact I have taken that generally gets people to at least pause and think is to say bluntly, “Almost everyone is into BDSM.  You probably are, but you just don’t label it that way.”  This usually results in disbelieving/guarded expressions.  “Do you like being tied up in bed?  Spanked?  Do you like rough or aggressive sex?  Dirty talk?  Ever played out schoolteacher and student with your partner, or something like that?  That’s BDSM.  It’s not all whips and things.”

I recently told one friend that I was into BDSM, and she had the typical, “I could never do that, but whatever floats your boat,” response.  I found this odd, since I had seen her man laid over a bench and flogged several times (this was years before she had ever met him).  So I probed a bit more.  I found that she had indeed tied him down before, and also that she liked being spanked.  “Then You’re into BDSM.”  She still seemed dubious.

The next time I saw them, I brought up the flogging incident.  Her eyes got wide, and she got pretty excited.  I could see pieces of the puzzle falling into place.  “Wait, what?  So… that time we looked at the whip, you wanted me to use it on you?” she asked him.

He chuckled and responded, “Well yeah, of course.”  Her eyes brightened further.  Maybe she assumed that because she was a woman, she was expected to be the submissive and/or masochist.  Let’s just say that a new door was opened for that couple.

Like all things, there are different types and levels of BDSM.  It can be ritualized and deep, or it can be light and playful.  It can involve pain, or not.  Sometimes it’s hard to get people to move past their preconceived notions and see that, but it is possible.  I think that it is the responsibility of those in the lifestyle to educate the rest of the world, even if that’s one person at a time.

Filed under: Thoughts by Sammael
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As happens from time to time, I’ve been going through some stress in the past few weeks.  Not the least of which was coming to the realization that I needed to break things off with one of my girls — I saw that she needed someone who could be more emotionally available.  But I won’t go into that.  Let it suffice to say, I was in need of release.

Being a sadomasochist, I find release in both the giving and receiving of pain.  I had planned to attend an event at the local dungeon, 1763, and to be whipped with a singletail by a friend of mine named Dream.  I wasn’t aware that the demonstrator for that night was to be Wayne Brawner, though — someone very skilled with whips, who had mentored Dream’s own mentor.  He had come without a demonstration partner, having planned to take a volunteer from the crowd.  So of course, I volunteered.  It actually was a bit more organic than that — we talked some before the demonstration during the social period, I expressed my interest, and so it was.

Wayne talked a bit about his ideas on S&M.  For example, he doesn’t believe in safe words.  This was my first experience with him, but I got the distinct impression that he is a bit of a harder player, and that he uses S&M as a spiritual experience.  He talked about forcing people past their limits, bringing them to the point of tears, and then anger, and then laughter.  In my head, I could see his point.  Those in the Sun Dance ritual weren’t allowed to call “red,” were they?  I knew I was in for a trial, but that is exactly what I came for.

And he did not disappoint.  After a brief demonstration of the versatility of a singletail whip — first beating me on the back with the handle end, then showing how wrapping can be done on purpose to good effect — he went right into it with no warmup to speak of.  After a few lashes to my back, it seemed that he realized I wasn’t very sensitive to pain there, so he went at my front, directly for the navel and nipples (my nipples are extremely sensitive).  He was unrelenting, hitting the most sensitive spots over and over again without mercy.  I knew that his goal was to break me down, and to prove something to me.

And he did.  He took me past what I had ever experienced before.  First I began to sweat, and then to shake.  Eventually it was all I could do to stand on my feet — part of me wished that I had been strapped to a cross, but the greater part of me knew that would have been too easy.  After whipping my left nipple repeatedly (the man has deadly accuracy), he would come up and pinch it, and twist it.  And then my right, but he didn’t torture that one with the whip so much.  Probably just to give a contrast.  I’m not sure how long it went on, but at some point I started to experience nausea, and he stopped shortly thereafter.

I was vulnerable.  Stripped bare of ego and pretense.  I felt… raw.  Alive.

And it struck me then that sadists are more than someone who gives pain, and release.  A skilled sadist breaks you down so that you can rebuild yourself.  Holds a mirror to you, to show you not who you think you are, not who people tell you you are, but who you really are.  Sometimes you’re actually stronger than what you believe.  Sometimes you’re weaker.  Either way, you’re forced to see it, and deal with it.

Later that night, after I had recovered some, I had the pleasure of helping my own bottom to find some release.  I can’t say that I broke her down as Wayne did me, but then again I couldn’t hope to match his experience in that arena.  It felt good to be able to give back, and after that night I’ve come to see my role as a dominant/top in a deeper way.  I also realize what drew me to this lifestyle.  I used to think it was simply about pain and pleasure.  That is only the surface though.  I’ve always sought to help others in their paths in life, with whatever small amount of wisdom or empathy I could offer.  BDSM is an extension of that.  It’s about personal growth, evolution, enlightenment.  It’s about burning everything to the ash so that it can be rebuilt stronger, healthier, renewed.

Filed under: Goings-On, Thoughts by Sammael
Tags: « 1763 - image - singletail - wayne brawner - whip »
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