I’d planned to keep this blog fairly regularly updated, but health problems are getting in the way. Good old health problems, eh? How do you maintain the passion when a large part of your relationship seems to involve trips to hospital, the sexy hotness of a theatre gown and paper knickers, discussions of drug side effects, early nights, no alcohol, etc?
Quite easily, it seems. Although I’ve been so tired, the passion seems to be still there simmering underneath.
Because I can, I’ve decided to do a series of posts called ‘My opinion’. These posts won’t be about my personal experience, but about my opinion on something. I imagine that my readers (10 of you today, so far! Don’t all rush at once!) will wait avidly for the next instalment of ‘My opinion’, and will greet each post with frantic nods of agreement and wonder at my superior knowledge and judgement.
No, of course I don’t imagine that. I’m calling them ‘My opinion’ to make it clear that these post are only my opinion, and not meant to be taken as some sort of pronouncement of the worth of the site I’m opinionating* on. I expect my readers (still only 10 of you today. What do you have to do to get views in the blogoverse*, for Pete’s sake? If writing about KINKY SEX won’t bring them in, what will?) to take my opinion with a pinch of salt. In other words, it’s about whether I like something or not, not about whether it’s good or not.
More to follow.
*I made those words up.
While I was doing some shopping I came across this advice in an online stocking shop. It’s taken from their forums, I think. A recently divorced man asks for advice on finding a woman who understands his stocking fetish.
He makes a couple of mistakes I think. He assumes that all men are mesmerised by sheer nylons. Not the case, in my experience. He also thinks that men are equally interested in stockings and tights – my experience only, but most men I have met find stockings sexy and tights unsexy (although some men seem to be into ripping tights, but that’s another fetish again, I suppose). Worst of all, he calls tights ‘pantyhose’ – I wanted to stop him right there. And if he sees a woman who isn’t suitably clad, he’s quite put out: “Nothing is more disappointing to me than to see a beautiful woman dressed beautifully wearing high heels and bare legs.”
But it’s the answer that’s the problem. Instead of looking for a fellow fetishist, the guy is advised to keep his desires hidden and find a (presumably) ‘vanilla’ (in the stocking fetishist sense at least) partner.
“Treat her like a lady. Do the things for her that make her feel good about your relationship. After you have a loving, trusting relationship, share with her your needs and your desire for a relationship with a lady that displays her elegance. Buy her gifts of fine lingerie, and sheer stockings.”
In other words, keep your fetish under wraps until you’ve sucked her in. Once you’ve got some commitment from her, present the fetish as something else (an admiration of her elegance). Then spend money on the fetish (disguised as ‘gifts’) so that she feels obliged to indulge it.
But isn’t this exactly the undesirable situation that so many people get into? Choosing ‘vanilla’ partners, and hoping to change them into something they’re not? Perhaps lying about their kink, or trying to present it as something else, or trying to manipulate their partner into fulfilling it? And what about the people who get deep into a relationship with someone who appears to be vanilla and sexually compatible, only to have some unwelcome kink sprung on them later?
If someone is single and starting from scratch, wouldn’t it be better to find a sexually compatible partner in the first place? In this guy’s case, it would seem like events are loaded that way anyway – he’s so disappointed by women without nylons that he’s only going to be attracted to women who are wearing them (and therefore probably like wearing them) in the first place. And whether they have a complementary fetish or not, wouldn’t it be more open, honest and potentially fruitful for him to come right out with the stocking thing at the beginning? After all, it seems to be a ‘need’ for him. There’s no point in starting a relationship if the person isn’t going to meet that need.
I’ve been through enough years of the ‘find a vanilla partner and convert them’ technique, to know that ultimately, it isn’t fulfilling. It’s a last resort, not a master plan.
When I first found kink on the internet, it seemed as if it opened up a whole new world of People Like Me. Outside of those whispers with my childhood friend, I’d been pretty much alone. I’d had slightly kinky boyfriends, of course, but none of them went as far as me. It was rather to exciting to find that there were people out there who felt the way I did, and to meet them in real life and to be able to talk about this forbidden stuff.
But several years later, I’m finding that I still haven’t met anyone who is exactly like me, sexually. I’ve recently got back into reading people’s weblogs, and I’m finding I’m a bit of an oddity. Maybe it’s not just me, maybe we all are. Maybe our kinks are so individual, that it’s unlikely we’ll come across anyone who is exactly the same.
So what’s so special about me? What sparked this post off today was reading the latest instalment of Bitchy Jones’s diary. I love reading her posts, and very much agree with her idea that ‘femdom’ is misrepresented. When she describes what it feels like to hit a man, I feel so glad that somebody else can explain how sexy and compelling this thing is. But then I read about her opinion on stockings and strapons, and realise that I’m out on my own again. Yes, only men are supposed to like stockings. But my stocking fetish goes right back to childhood, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Recently I’ve been reading some posts about humiliation, and again, I’m reminded that nobody feels quite like me.
This is why it’s impossible for me to leave my boyfriend (I still haven’t thought of a name for him), of course. We don’t have exactly the same kinks, but we’re so close that it works very well. It’s more than that: he understands and doesn’t question my kinks. There’s no ‘why on earth would you be into that?’. I could have ended up with somebody who liked being hit, but didn’t like the other stuff I like. I say ‘like’ as if these things are mild preferences, when in fact they are more like cravings, obsessions, compulsions.
And that’s the huge challenge for kinky people, isn’t it? Finding somebody who is compatible enough, sexually, to practice our kinks with. (If they’re compatible as a partner in other ways, we must treat them like the precious rarity that they are and never let them go!). Nice as it would be to have someone other than your lover understand you, it’s probably too much to expect to find friends, acquaintances and fellow bloggers with exactly the same kinks too.
Another blogger (Down on My Knees) pointed out ‘Sex advice: I spank my wife for her pleasure, not mine’ in the Times. There are two answers to the question:
Q I spank my wife for her pleasure, not mine. But I got excited when she was spanked by a friend as a joke. Should I ask if we can involve someone else?
They are both a little odd, but the first one, by Dr Thomas Stuttaford, is particularly puzzling. He starts off by telling the reader what sadism and masochism are. He then explains
Sadism and masochism, popularly known as S&M, often coexist. In many cases there is evidence in foreplay that the partner of the accepted sadistic or masochistic person has similar tendencies. Usually these will be complementary to the other’s inclinations.
It seemed to me that he thinks sadists and masochists end up together by chance. They get clues about their partners’ inclinations from the way they do foreplay, because, presumably, it must never be spoken of! I’m sure that happens, but it’s really not such a terrible dark secret these days – some people do admit to their desires and actively seek out willing partners, as the reader seems to be thinking of doing.
Not surprisingly, men who display a greater than usual propensity to being oppressively dominant often display sexual urges that include fantasising about or actually inflicting physical suffering or emotional humiliation on their partners. They frequently team up with women – or, if homosexual, with men – who have complementary urges to be dominated.
First of all, it’s not clear if Dr Stuttaford is talking about people who are sexually ‘oppressively dominant’ or people who are ‘oppressively dominant’ outside of sex. If it’s the latter, is he correct? That there’s evidence of a link between a generally dominant nature and sadism?
He leaves out bisexual men, although I suppose it’s implied that they’ll choose male or female partners (he’d probably have been better sticking with just ‘partners’). Women are left out altogether. If I read this, knowing nothing, I’d assume that women are never sexually sadistic.
These people have often had a difficult childhood, lack self-esteem and feel unworthy. In later life they want to be beaten, smacked, humiliated, bound, urinated or defecated on, treated as an animal or child. Potentially masochistic people may indulge in hypooxyphilia, a dangerous desire for partial asphyxiation.
I suppose any group of people often have had a difficult childhood and self-esteem issues, so it’s difficult to argue with that. You could just as well say that nurses or rugby players or people who like oral sex have often had difficult childhoods and and low self-esteem. But why bring it up? The implication is that people become masochistic because of their difficult backgrounds and lack of self-esteem. Mind you, most of the things he says these damaged people are into sound like a lot of fun. I’d guess that the reader’s particular kink might be some sort of mixture of voyeurism and cuckoldry, rather than being urinated on, etc., but I suppose suggestions are always helpful.
It’s strange that this in response to someone saying that he spanks his wife for her pleasure – how did that lead into difficult childhoods, being oppressively dominant, low self-esteem and dangerous breathplay? It turns out that spanking isn’t normally masochism, so that’s OK.
Spanking is a common practice that should be diagnosed only as sadistic or masochistic when there is a real desire to inflict and suffer considerable pain
and
Your wife’s desire to be spanked wouldn’t qualify as representing a masochistic streak in her personality unless it was well established, of at least six months’ duration, and unless the spanking produced obvious evidence of sexual stimulation.
That puzzled me – ‘for her pleasure’ implies that the reader’s wife does find the spanking sexually stimulating.
If your wife is truly masochistic, she is relatively unusual in one respect. Research has shown that 95 per cent of sexual masochists are men and that only 5 per cent of women derive sexual pleasure through pain. Even this minority isn’t always entirely masochistic; one in three of them is occasionally sadistic, often biting and scratching more vigorously than is usual.
These odd statistics have been pointed out in the comments. What he seems to be saying is that 5% of masochists are women AND that 5% of women are masochists. I think that maybe he meant to say that 5% of people are masochists (and 5% of those masochists are women), but I’m not sure. I’m also not sure whether he’s saying that a third of female masochists are also sadistic (whereas male masochists are not), or that a third of all masochists are also sadistic. If it’s the former, he seems to be saying that men become sadistic because they are obsessively dominant, whereas women become sadistic because of difficult childhoods and low self-esteem.
Finally, he gets round to answering the question.
Whatever your sexual habits, asking a third person to share them often leads to trouble.
Statistically, how often? I suppose it’s fair enough to point out that it might cause problems, but there’s no advice on how to avoid potential problems. There’s also no suggestion of other ways they could explore that particular kink without involving a third (talking about it, filming him spanking her, etc.). The ‘advice’ is really just ‘If you go ahead with this then she might leave you’. Then
Your observation that you derive a thrill from seeing your wife spanked by a friend is interesting. Psychologists teach that sadomasochism in its various guises could stem from the pleasure in childhood, long since forgotten, that the person may have experienced when seeing others punished.
This may well be what psychologists teach, and they may be right. But how do they know what comes first? Why would some children feel ‘pleasure’ when seeing others punished and some wouldn’t? If we didn’t expose children to punishment would there be no sadomasochism? If that pleasure and that experience is ‘long since forgotten’ then how have psychologists managed to research it?
I’ve been reading some posts about the development of people’s kinky desires(Axe and Omnivore*). It’s interesting that the signs are often there in childhood. That was certainly the case for me.
I first noticed that something was up before puberty. I found that I got excited about certain things in books and films, particularly anything which involved whipping (pirate films and so on). The combination of pain and humiliation was particularly exciting. (There’s a post on humiliation coming later. It’s something I really need to talk about, even if I find the word difficult to type for some reason – as in physically difficult to type rather than psychologically. My fingers seem to stumble over those particular letters. Although perhaps that’s kind of Freudian, but anyway…). I still remember that feeling – I can recognise it now as sexual, but back then I didn’t know what it was. I know it felt like a very private feeling and I’d feel embarrassed about it.
Back then, corporal punishment was common. Watching it or being involved in it gave me that feeling. I remember thinking how puzzling it was that adults would choose to punish children in that way (a way which was sexually arousing, although I didn’t think of those words). It felt wrong. I still feel the same way, actually. Corporal punishment still feels like a completely inappropriate way to discipline a child. This is something that is never really talked about. For some children that type of punishment is going to feel sexual.
A friend of mine felt the same way, and at around age 10 we would spend a lot of our time in a secret huddle, whispering excitedly to each other about spanking, caning, whipping and and other such delights. I lost touch with her shortly after, and I wonder if she turned out to be kinky (I have no doubt that she was kinky. She got as excited as me. But I’m not sure if she would have acted on it).
At 13 and 14 I was experimenting with sex, and instinctively experimented with kink at the same time. I would bite, scratch and hurt boys. It must have been pretty annoying for most of them. I suppose they went along with it because of the rarity of sexual attention at that age.
It gradually dawned on me that other people weren’t as into this thing as I was. It had always felt wrong. Back then I suspected that everybody else was into it (how could these things not be arousing?) but that they were much better at suppressing the feelings than I was. I felt bad about not being able to suppress it like other people. Later on, it was more clear that most people didn’t have these feelings to suppress. But then we’re getting into adulthood ….
It’s completely clear to me that I’m kinky through and through. That feeling that I had in my childhood is still there and hasn’t changed. If I could have changed it, I would. I don’t think it can be changed – it can be suppressed but not eradicated.
*I imagine that it’s OK to link to those posts from my weblog. Give me a shout if it’s not, and I’ll take out the links.
In other relationships, at some point, I’ve found myself attracted to other men. Sometimes a vague attraction, sometimes an all-out crush. It’s not a big problem – either I avoid the person I’m crushing on, or I take it as a sign that I’m not getting what I want out of the relationship. I do think it’s inevitable that if a relationship carries on long enough, the chemistry is going to be there with somebody else. I did think that, anyway.
But I’m starting to wonder, because it’s been years since I’ve had a crush on anybody other than my boyfriend (I really do need to think of a name for him). I haven’t even been particularly attracted to anyone else since I met him. Is that because of him, or me, or because this is my first relationship with somebody who’s as kinky as me instead of just playing at it? Maybe it’s a mixture of all three.
I obsess about him still. The feeling is a bit like constantly falling in love (rather than just being in love). It comes and goes. Sometimes it’s comfortable and in the background, whereas sometimes it is like a compulsion – as if I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m not complaining – I love that it still feels that way for me. But it seems strange, after all these years.
Maybe it really is just because I wasn’t being satisfied, sexually, in other relationships. Maybe this glow comes from finally getting my sexual needs met. Maybe the reason I’m still obsessed is because he does the things I want. He’s the kind of person I would fantasise about being with if I wasn’t already with him. So it makes sense that being with him, I fantasise about him.
Although I tend to think of myself as dominant/sadistic/a top (wish I could find a word I liked), I do switch, wholeheartedly. In fact, when I dated vanilla guys I was more likely to be on the bottom. I think that even men who are not particularly kinky can get some pleasure out of doing ‘bad’ things to their partner, because they enjoy their partners’ response, or perhaps enjoy the visuals of somebody tied up, etc. They can also get some fun out of being dominated a little, if it doesn’t involve pain. But pain is the sticking point – if someone doesn’t naturally eroticise receiving it, then it’s not something you can do to them sexually. So as a kinky woman, dating vanilla men, you’re stuck with getting them to hit you, not vice versa.
This became frustrating for me, to the point where I decided I was never again going to seriously date anyone who didn’t want to be hit. I think it was a very wise decision.
However, now that I’m in a very happy relationship with someone who wants to be hit (and don’t I love him for it!) I find that I sometimes want to switch back and be on the receiving end. I’ve been thinking about why that happens, and what it means to me.
1. I think that I’m basically kinky, rather than basically sub or dom. I have a kink which involves people hitting each other, and the details of who is hitting whom is less important than the kink itself.
2. Sometimes I feel sadistic and sometimes masochistic, but sometimes I’m floating in the middle, happy to do either.
3. My boyfriend is not only happy to switch but very good at it. He’s very sexy when he tops me and I love seeing that side of him.
4. I lean more towards sadism and masochism, rather than towards dominance and submission. Pain is important. However, the dominance comes to the fore more when I’m topping. On the bottom, I think I’m much more masochistic than submissive, although I can enjoy being submissive for my boyfriend in particular. The things I particularly like to experience are pain, restraint and sensory deprivation – things which aren’t necessarily tied to submission.
5. I do wonder if there might even be some physical basis for that – after a while, I often feel very relaxed and calm, and don’t even feel the pain. Presumably that’s something to do with endorphins, and maybe it’s the way I’m wired. It’s like being in a trance and very soothing.
6. Because of that, bottoming is just the thing if I’m stressed. I’m more likely to want to switch if I’m having problems at work, for instance.
7. I love the attention of being on the bottom. It’s very flattering to have someone put all that effort into doing things to me. It makes me feel attractive and desirable.
8. Because I switched yesterday, I’m feeling a longing to be sadistic now. Although I said that I have that particular kink, and it doesn’t matter too much which side I’m on, even an amazing experience on one side won’t satisfy a craving for the other side.
9. I don’t know how much sexual fantasies tie in to real life, as my fantasies are usually much darker and nastier than real life (a topic for another post, I think). I do have fantasies about both sides, although I tend to have more sadistic fantasies.
10. I’ve sometimes read that it’s a good thing for a top to experience things on the bottom so that they know what the sub is feeling. I think that’s probably true in that it’s useful to know what kind of sensation you’re giving when you do x to your man. But I don’t think I experience things the same way as my boyfriend does – if we switch, it’s not just a case of him doing exactly the same things to me as I’d do to him. We work differently.
Of course, now I’ve got a number 11 in my head, but I don’t want to spoil the list of 10 things.
One thing I’ve found out about kink over the years, is that, like parents, you don’t get to choose it. You like what you like. It doesn’t matter how much you don’t want something to turn you on, how un-PC it is, how repellent, how sexist, racist, ageist, sick, unhygienic, dangerous, immoral, unethical, unfeasible, socially unacceptable or uncomfortable it is. If it turns you on, it turns you on. You can try hating yourself for wanting it, try denying it, try rationalizing it or try converting it into something more acceptable but it’s still going to turn you on.
This is such an important point, that I have a feeling it’s one I’m going to keep coming back to.
I do feel sorry for people whose kinks are beyond the pale – to themselves or others. Sometimes they have to be. There are some things which just shouldn’t be acted out in real life – lots of things, in fact. And some things are just not acceptable to many people. Having a kink which really is too dangerous, immoral, ridiculous or whatever must be pretty lonely and isolating. For some it will mean forever giving up the hope of fulfilment and always carrying a dark secret. For others it will mean guilty, furtive, lonely indulgences, tentative confessions and repeated rejections and humiliations.
Why do I care? Well, because I’ve been there in the past. There was a time when I thought my kink was wrong, morally wrong, and that I must be pretty fucked-up and basically immoral for having it. Luckily for me, it turned out that it wasn’t wrong at all, nor was it weird, disgusting, unacceptable, evil, particularly dangerous or anything negative really. It could be acted out safely and enjoyably and there were plenty of people willing to help me do it. But I do remember the lonely torment of feeling it was wrong and rare. I feel for people who are in that position – either because they can’t accept their kink or because their kink really is unacceptable.
Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com.
