Polished

Do you know what I love best about having my boy clean and polish my boots?

For the next week or so, however long the shine lasts, every time I look down at my boots, or put them on, or take them off, I think about him. I get this wonderful rise of emotions. Pride at having such a practical and considerate boy. Lust, remembering him rubbing the polish into my boots with his fingers, being able to feel it through the leather and the fun that ensued. And of course love, for someone so invaluable who deems me worthy to be their dominant.

There is nothing more wonderful than having someone you admire and respect go down on their knees and polish your boots for you.

This is a picture of my boots from three years ago. Unfortunately they have gone to boot heaven now, but they served me well.

Did I mention I got new boots?

Did I mention that we've been playing with boots a lot lately?

Heh, there might be a lot more posts about boots for awhile. Hope no one minds!

Devalued male submission

“The BDSM blogosphere has been all aflutter lately about the devaluation of male submission. And it’s about fucking time. Because the kink scene treats male subs as if they are unwanted, uninvited guests, not recognizing the fact that they are real people with feelings of their own, that their dominant partners cherish them. Every time I see a Fetlife profile that reads “I’m not attracted to submissive men” (frequently, in my experience, on the profiles of female switches and occasionally other female dominants), my stomach clenches. They don’t seem to realize that such an attitude is linked to another problem in the scene: the tokenization of female dominants.

The public BDSM scene has a predilection towards the maledom femalesub dynamic. If you are female, you are presumed to be submissive unless stated otherwise, and if you are male, you are presumed to be dominant unless stated otherwise. (And if you are non-gender-normative, if you don’t fit in a nice little ticky-box, then the scene may accept you but not really know what to do with you.) As much as we would like to believe that the scene is a problem-free sexual utopia, it still suffers from many of the problems that mainstream society does. Straight male sexuality is prioritized, and thus straight male doms are the prevailing players in the scene. Straight male doms have no use for male subs, yet they still like female doms—they like us because we bring a certain energy to the scene and are fun to talk to and be around and because they hope that maybe we’ll co-top their girls with them and that they might be able to get into our pants.

So my sexuality is something that people in the scene can appreciate and sort of see the value in from afar. But the object of that sexuality is not accepted in the scene. While male subs are not seen as potential objects of desire, female doms are seen only as objects of desire. That’s how I feel sometimes as a femme dom in the public scene: they see me, but not my desires.

I feel like Geordi.


In Star Trek: the Next Generation, the character Geordi LaForge never got laid (this is where I out myself as a nerd, if the pseudonym and the lab coat and the giant boner for science weren’t already a dead giveaway). They had to have a character who was black and disabled, to show how progressive and inclusive they were. But they weren’t progressive enough to give him a sex life. Hollywood had this ridiculous idea about the primal, savage nature of black men, especially in relation to their sexuality. And so the closest poor Geordi ever gets to having a sexual relationship is with a holographic character, and even that is unconsummated–he gets blue-balled by his own fantasies, because oh no, if we show a black man in a sexual situation then the viewers will have to be reminded of the fact that he has a penis. We all know that there’s nothing scarier to mainstream 90′s American culture than a black man’s penis–the popularity of racist porn stemming from the eroticization of this fear belies it. (Not to mention the fact that Geordi falls right into the trope of “disabled characters don’t have a sexuality.”)  Geordi and I are both welcomed in our respective communities, as long as we keep our sexual desires silent—closeted—and to ourselves.

When I meet het male doms, I always try to make it abundantly clear to them from the beginning of our association that I am not a switch, I am not interested in playing, I am not interested in co-topping girls with them, I am not interested in anything beyond friendship with them.

And often, they continue to be friendly. And I like that because I am also friendly and I like to have friends, of all orientations. And I think to myself, “you know, we’re different, we get off on different things, but maybe he can appreciate me for who I am even though I’m not submissive and he knows we can’t have that type of interaction.”

“Maybe he can still respect me and the dynamic that I enjoy.” But then I hear language that refers to male submission as if it is something disgusting or shameful.

And that’s what bothers me.

A few months ago, maymay was referred to as “such a fucking weak-ass male submissive that he makes male submission look bad” by a dominant man who is well-known in the local community.

This writing has since been deleted. But the harmful words still ring in my ears. Maymay is not making male submissives look bad. The author is the one who is making male submissives look bad, because he is using the words “male submissive” as an insult. Would he have said “a fucking weak-ass gay”? I think not, at least, not in the San Francisco scene—such words have a clear underlying implication of homophobia. But somehow, using someone’s D/s status as a slur is acceptable.

While I don’t enjoy the maledom-femsub dynamic myself, I think it is a completely valid sexuality. I would never presume to tell someone otherwise. These het-male-doms who make up the mainstream of the subculture that we inhabit? I think they like me and respect me and think I’m hot, but I don’t know if they think my sexuality is valid.

And so I feel tokenized. It’s not fair to me, because where would I, a femme dom, be without my masculine sub? We are two sides of a coin. Today I am not beating my queer drum; today I am borrowing maymay’s drum: You cannot truly respect me without respecting my submissive as well. If you value me, you must value him.

There is a lot of male submissive-shaming in the public scene.  You’ll hear it all the time.  “Male subs are creepy,” “male subs spoil the atmosphere, so we don’t want to encourage them.” And while I have indeed encountered many male submissives who have acted in inappropriate ways, I have one question to ask: why do you suppose that male subs like maymay who do respect boundaries don’t feel welcome in the scene? It’s not because they are making male submission look bad, it’s because you are equating male submission with badness.

And by doing this, you are hurting me.

This is the reason I go to sleep alone every night. It’s not because there’s something wrong with me as a potential romantic/sexual partner. It’s because there’s no one for me to date. Because everyone’s been telling all the male submissives that they’re unwanted for so long that they won’t come out to play. So I’m sitting here in my kinky sandbox with my toys all by myself.

And it hurts.

If you respect me, if you respect my identity as a female dominant, then recognize that when you devalue male submission, you are devaluing the objects of my desire, and by doing so, you. are. hurting. me. too.”

Again, by Professor Chaos.

Victim blaming and responsibility

Please read through this. Though I recognize that victim-blaming happens, I find that this also happens a great deal in bdsm circles.


"Once upon a time (not so long ago), when I wasn't yet Piper and was very new and verrrry naive about the scene, I fucked up - biiiig time. After only going to a few public play parties, I decided I was ready to go to a private one, staying with people I barely knew, and not telling anyone the truth about where I was going. I didn't yet know my limits, thought I was the biggest baddest bottom to ever hit the scene, and threw myself into situation after situation I wasn't yet prepared for. I pushed myself way past my limits, didn't safe word when I should have, and did things I was later uncomfortable with, and too upset to voice publicly until now.

I was ill-informed, I was unsafe and I messed up.

When the top I was staying with learned of some of this, he sat me right down and explained how unsafe being mute about my limits and feelings was, and how dangerous I had been to myself. He forced me to accept my limits, and wouldn't play with me until I was comfortable voicing them. He saved me from countless potential future violations and negative interactions.

No one has ever held this against me, called me a predator, or accused me of making the scene unsafe.

However, had I been on the other end of this, people might do so.

I have seen numerous times in this community, a top/dom(me) been held to higher standards of responsibility than a bottom. This is incredibly unsafe and unfair. Not only does this often lead to tops being quickly accused of violating someone's limits, being a predator, or even a rapist before all the facts are out on the table, but it also wildly skews the balance of power and responsibility in the scene - if the tops are given more responsibility, they are likewise given more power.

If I was writing this saying I was new in the scene, I went to a party I wasn't ready for, and I did some things I was ashamed of/uncomfortable with/upset about later, I know there would be people on this site that identify with me. And I know if I said, I know it wasn't all my fault, that it was partially the fault of the people who topped me for not checking in, that people would identify with that, too. What I'm not trying to do here is put my experience on anyone else or theirs, but simply express my frustration.

It wouldn’t have been fair of me to expect these tops to be mind readers. I never gave any inclination of my limits or that I felt pushed too far. They didn’t push me too far – I did. I violated myself, and did so through others, which breaches their consent and their limits, and to those people, I’m truly sorry.

I will never, ever blame someone for something I screwed up.

What I am not trying to do here is put my story and experience on others’. What I am trying to do is voice my frustration about bottoms being absolved of a lot of responsibility and guilt. I don’t think tops can be the only dangerous people in the scene, and yet they receive the harshest criticism and attacks.

I understand, that like me, a lot of bottoms may not fully realize how uncomfortable or not-okay they were with a situation until after the scene has died down. That doesn’t make any violation they felt okay. What it does do is give the bottom a responsibility to talk to the top after the fact. A scene is not a top doing something to a bottom – it is a relationship between two or more people, for however long, and everyone involved in that relationship should have the same amount of power, responsibility, and right to know what happened. How can you blame someone for fucking up if they never knew? How can you publicly chastise someone for being monstrous or a predator if you never discussed that with them?

I am not, and never will be, victim blaming. If a friend came to me saying they’d been hurt, I would immediately be on their side. But I would ask them, did they say something? Did they fully and clearly express their limits beforehand? Did the other people involved know they felt violated? If not, they’ve given up their responsibility in the scene to respect their partner’s/s’ limits and consent.

If you left a scene with everyone feeling good, seemingly happy, and then months later was publicly called out by that person for violating and abusing them, wouldn’t you feel jarred, that your trust in that person to communicate with you had been broken?

I know everyone has their own views, stories, experiences and processes, but I hope that the community begins giving an equal amount of respect and responsibility to bottoms, to not automatically assume that because someone feels badly after a scene that it must have been the top’s fault. Every time we relieve the bottom of all responsibility for their own safety and for their relationship within the scene, we’re not only perpetuating domism, but encouraging a dangerous mindset and process, that I, for one, feel sick about.

So, please don’t throw your story and your experience on other’s/s’. Please don’t absolve bottoms of their responsibilities, and likewise, their respect. Please don’t victim blame, but please also don’t be quick to yell ‘predator.’ And please give everyone the same amount of respect and responsibility you hold yourself."

-tied_piper

Alcohol

She's offering her top a glass of something, or perhaps is taking something he's offering. I'm not entirely sure, but I love the feel of ritual and respect in this photo. She's absolutely gorgeous, pierced, tattooed, nude and collared (also she has the same hair cut as my boy, so added bonus!) and the top, who's gender I'm actually unsure of, is dressed the part of a gentleman. Wonderful. I wonder if this is at a play party, or if this is in their home?

Hm, alcohol and play. Never a really good idea, but I have to admit, it's a not-particularly-good-idea that I've tried before. I've never played drunk, but I have had a glass of wine or a coffee and brandy before playing. As a community 'educator-type person' I always tell people never to drink and play, but as a person who has had some alcohol before playing, well, I always feel a bit like a hypocrite.

Photo from Jim Duvall.

Bowing and finger bowing

Photo from female led relationships.

Nothing gets me into a dominant head-space faster than my pet bowing, kneeling or kowtowing in front of me.

Recently she found out an interesting Chinese bowing tradition that I am already quite fond of.

"According to legend, one of the Emperors during the Qing Dynasty was fond of traveling throughout the country in disguise, in order to observe his subjects unnoticed. At one teahouse he was particularly impressed by the way people were able to lean across the table and pour tea without spilling a drop. The Emperor decided to try pouring tea for his companions. Predictably, he ended up spilling it everywhere.

The Emperor decided he needed more practice. There was, however, one slight problem.Custom demanded that people bow before the Emperor. This would ruin his disguise. Instead the Emperor told his companions to "bow" with their middle three fingers each time he refilled their cup - two fingers represented the prostrate arms and the another the bowed head. Nowadays, tapping the table is a way of paying silent thanks to the person who poured your tea."

How to love poem

Lovely poem from gender queer Chicago, called How to Make Love to a Trans Person.

by Gabe Moses

Forget the images you've learned to attach
To words like cock and clit,
Chest and breasts.
Break those words open
Like a paramedic cracking ribs
To pump blood through a failing heart.
Push your hands inside.
Get them messy.
Scratch new definitions on the bones.

Get rid of the old words altogether.
Make up new words.
Call it a click or a ditto.
Call it the sound he makes
When you brush your hand against it through his jeans,
When you can hear his heart knocking on the back of his teeth
And every cell in his body is breathing.
Make the arch of her back a language
Name the hollows of each of her vertebrae
When they catch pools of sweat
Like rainwater in a row of paper cups
Align your teeth with this alphabet of her spine
So every word is weighted with the salt of her.

When you peel layers of clothing from his skin
Do not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient
Even though it's highly likely that you are.
Do not ask if she's "had the surgery."
Do not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt
If you are being offered a body
That has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel
A sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies
That come with some assembly required
Whatever you do,
Do not say that the carefully sculpted landscape
Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue
Looks almost natural.

If she offers you breastbone
Aching to carve soft fruit from its branches
Though there may be more tissue in the lining of her bra
Than the flesh that rises to meet it
Let her ripen in your hands.
Imagine if she'd lost those swells to cancer,
Diabetes,
A car accident instead of an accident of genetics
Would you think of her as less a woman then?
Then think of her as no less one now.

If he offers you a thumb-sized sprout of muscle
Reaching toward you when you kiss him
Like it wants to go deep enough inside you
To scratch his name on the bottom of your heart
Hold it as if it can-
In your hand, in your mouth
Inside the nest of your pelvic bones.
Though his skin may hardly do more than brush yours,
You will feel him deeper than you think.

Realize that bodies are only a fraction of who we are
They're just oddly-shaped vessels for hearts
And honestly, they can barely contain us
We strain at their seams with every breath we take
We are all pulse and sweat,
Tissue and nerve ending
We are programmed to grope and fumble until we get it right.
Bodies have been learning each other forever.
It's what bodies do.
They are grab bags of parts
And half the fun is figuring out
All the different ways we can fit them together;
All the different uses for hipbones and hands,
Tongues and teeth;
All the ways to car-crash our bodies beautiful.
But we could never forget how to use our hearts
Even if we tried.
That's the important part.
Don't worry about the bodies.
They've got this.

Knightly submission

Kneeling on a cushion, a step below her, head bowed, hands folded in front of him, helmet on the floor...

I don't even have to mention my historical fetish, do I?


From male submission art.

I've found lots of wonderful essays at Within Reality, lots of things that many of us have noticed and ranted about quietly. I will post one of these essays (maybe more in the future) but I highly recommend you read through more than what I post.

More specifically, I recommend you read Online vs Real life D/s, Respect and Protocol and Collars in BDSM.

This is the best explanation and argument of RACK vs SSC that I have ever read.

Rack vs. SSC

RACK = Risk Aware Consensual Kink
SSC = Safe Sane Consensual


SSC has been the BDSM slogan for many years. It is the catch phrase that a lot of people use in the community. RACK has surfaced in the last several years. I would like you to consider the intent or spirit in the differences in the terms SSC and RACK


Here is how Webster’s defines….Safe, Sane, and Consensual. 


Safe
1 : free from harm or risk : UNHURT 


Sane
1 : proceeding from a sound mind : RATIONAL
2 : mentally sound; especially : able to anticipate and appraise the effect of one's actions 
3 : healthy in body 


Consensual
1 a : existing or made by mutual consent without an act of writing (a consensual contract)
b : involving or based on mutual consent (consensual acts) 


===================================


Risk
1 : possibility of loss or injury : PERIL 
2 : someone or something that creates or suggests a hazard 


Aware
1 : archaic : WATCHFUL, WARY 
2 : having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge - aware·ness noun


Consensual
1 a : existing or made by mutual consent without an act of writing (a consensual contract)
b : involving or based on mutual consent (consensual acts)


Kink
1 : a short tight twist or curl caused by a doubling or winding of something upon itself 
2 a : a mental or physical peculiarity : ECCENTRICITY, QUIRK b : WHIM 
3 : a clever unusual way of doing something 
4 : a cramp in some part of the body 
5 : an imperfection likely to cause difficulties in the operation of something 


SSC… safe sane consensual...when you say it out loud it seems pretty clear. So you are either safe or not, sane or not, consensual or not, right? But how does each of us define and set the standard for SSC is unclear. 


RACK…the intent of RACK is education and awareness. You should try to know as much as you can about what you are doing...be aware of the risk. Do you consent or have cosent - and also know the different forms it takes. If you are aware of your risk and you consent to it - go forward. That is the "spirit" of RACK. There is no, "this is safe and this is not." There is only safer and less safe.


The difference between the two terms is even more clear when the spirit of them is applied in the public scene.


When watching a scene that may involve some heavy risk you might hear the person next to you whisper to their partner "they shouldn't do that...its unsafe…that is a dangerous Dominant" - that is the spirit of SSC.


If you hear whispered "I wonder if he knows the risk involved in doing that....I wonder if he does "this" it could be made safer....I think I will tell him about it later after his scene" - that is the "spirit" of RACK. 


Just as we might look at a shade of blue and someone calls it midnight blue and I might call it navy blue. We all see things differently. We all react to things differently - so how can I say that something is unsafe for someone when we are different and handle/deal with life differently. 


Another example: blood play may be a hard limit for someone and they may feel that it is NOT safe or sane plus they would never consent to it. Someone else may enjoy blood play and feel that it is safe and sane, and they frequently consent to it. With SSC, one of those people has to be right and the other person has to be wrong. It can't be both ways.


The spirit of SSC has become one of you either are or you are not safe, sane and consensual. And that is completely relative. The intent of RACK is not what others think you should or shouldn't risk, but that of increasing awareness and making informed decisions on what you choose to risk. 


© within Reality: danae 2003 - all rights reserved 

Abuse vs BDSM

S&M vs Abuse

The key difference between S&M and Abuse is consent.

* Consent = Is an agreed approval of what is done and/or proposed by another.
* Abuse = to use so as to injure or damage.

S&M * Is based on the safe, sane, consensual or risk-aware consensual kink theory * S&M is a controlled environment * S&M has safe words to stop the scene * In a S&M scene the dominant looks out for the well being of the submissive * S&M can be an erotic sexual encounter * In S&M both partners are enjoying themselves * in S&M the dominant respects limits * In S&M there is mutual respect * In S&M the relationship is fulfilling * In S&M both parties feel they contribute towards the relationships * In S&M one can ask their partner to "play" * In S&M relationship there is trust * In S&M a submissive voluntarily serves the dominant * S&M is about building trust * S&M builds self esteem * S&M builds the spirit of a submissive

Abuse * Abuse is not negotiated * Abuse is an out of control environment * Abuse does not have safe words * An abuser does not give a damn about the victim * Abuse is always one sided * Abuse is never negotiated. * In abuse, no one is enjoying the results * The abuser is into non consensual violence * The victim has no respect towards the abuser * In abuse the victim is harmed * In abuse both parties are left unfulfilled * The abuser always feel they are superior * A person does not ask for abuse * In an abusive relationship there is no trust * The abuser does not care for consent * Abuse has no trust * Abuse destroys self esteem * An abuser destroys the spirit of the victim

Dominants:  * A sub may be in subspace and not have the presence to stop the scene. * "Recalling," also known as "Flashbacks." Example of this can be, a sub who was raped years ago, and during a humiliation scene, has a recall of that traumatic moment. Know your sub. * Always clean your toys. Do not use the same toys without using condoms each time. Wash the toys after each use. Do not use same sex toys during multiple partner scenes without changing condoms. * Always use common sense. You are playing with a human being who has given you the gift of trust. Don't abuse that trust. * Reputation takes a lifetime to earn, yet a second to lose.  Don't ruin someone's life for a moment of gratification,