I always endeavor to give this blog a broad appeal, across both the gender divide and the top/bottom divide. Obviously everything I post has to be of interest to me at some level, but I try and avoid limiting it to a narrow range of activities or styles of play. I’m fortunate, or possibly cursed, with a wide range of kinks, so finding topics interesting to me is never too difficult. And anyone looking for a simple stream of hot domme images has plenty of other options.
One area that periodically pops up is edge play, involving activities that some might consider extreme. My post from yesterday would be a good example, as would some of my personal posts on butterfly boarding or suturing. I’m always careful how I present this kind of information, as I don’t want people to casually browse to my frontpage and get some enormous disturbingly graphic image shoved in their face. At the same time, I think edge play is an interesting topic to talk about and don’t want to ignore it entirely.
In that spirit, I want to talk about a type of edge play that scares the hell out of me. It makes branding or cutting look positively delightful, and I doubt I’ll ever try it, or even be in a position to. The description of it comes courtesy of a post from Em called ‘The Real Deal‘ over on Mrs, Kelly’s Playhouse. Let me quote the relevant part:
…. Scott will be totally and completely financially dependent on me. He gets a small social security check that no one could actually live off and that’s it. And though he is well-educated and smart, America hasn’t been nice to him in the job department. He’d have a really hard time making it on his own. Now that’s power.
Fortunately, for Scott, I really love him and will keep my promise to always give him a place to stay (probably the garage) no matter what happens. But when I consider how I want to wield my new — more genuine — power, whips, hoods, and cages, are not the things that come to mind.
I love all the naughty things we get up to, but I want a clean bathroom. I want laundry that is folded and put away properly. I want spotless floors and a meal on the table when I come home. I want organized files and clean counters. And I want all this without a word of complaint. No whining about time for himself.
This is actually a more interesting journey to me. We’ve had great fun but now it is not about fun, it is about what I want.
I find this fascinating to think about on a number of different levels. My immediate reaction was to recoil from the concept. I’ve been an independent and (relatively) successful person for well over a decade now. The idea that it’d be possible for me to voluntarily give-up that type of freedom is abhorrent to me. I’d always want the option to be able to walk away from a situation. But that led me thinking about what femdom mean to different people. Is it femdom to play a few hours a week with a casual play partner or a pro-domme? Or is that simply a sensation seeking physical encounter of a sexual nature? What about a lifestyle relationship where the male is the only financial provider? Even if she controls the bank account, he can walk away or change the arrangements at anytime. Does it make sense to talk about the degree of dominance as defined by the difficulty of ceasing the relationship? And at what point do issues of consent start to become relevant?
I wonder how many men out there, who purport to crave a 24/7 lifestyle relationship, would actually be happy with the kind of approach Em and Scott are exploring. I don’t think I could ever put myself in that situation. I’ve written in the past about the enjoyment I find in being pushed towards my limits. I think a lot of that enjoyment would dissipate if I didn’t have the option to step away.
I found this image on Becoming Nathalie, it’s obviously originally from Nylon Jane. It’s completely unrelated to Em and Scott, but as a nice illustration of a housemaid being scolded it seemed to fit the post.
I haven’t followed the Kellys for years. At some point, Emma evidently forbade her husband to read my posts and they de-linked.
I have been waiting to read/hear that this has happened to them. It’s been evident for years that she would divorce him, find a young, wealthy bull to marry and then capriciously treat her ex as she wishes.
There was some post someone relayed to me a year or so ago where he was beginning to see the light coming through the tunnel and realized he was going to be living his last years totally at her whim.
Given that they have a child, well, let’s see. You and I just had an exchange regarding opinions about others’ play styles.
Let’s just say I have serious ethical issues with cuckolding like theirs when children are involved.
-s
S –
Suggesting someone of being unethically with respect to the upbringing of their children is (understatement) pretty strong stuff. I would hope you’d have some clear rational for it. I can’t believe you think all cuckolding activity is entirely incompatible with a family.
We have been swapping opinions on style’s of play of a different thread, and I see a common theme re-occurring. I’m happy to make statements about my feelings about a particular activity, but I’m very uncomfortable moving to a moral or ethical judgement. It’s not that I would never do that, but there had better be some very clear and unambiguous evidence before I make that jump. The kinky world is big, situations are complex and blogs/forums are imprecise communication mechanisms. I have enough kinks of my own I wouldn’t enjoy the moral majority having a say about. You seem far less constrained to draw lines around what you see as right and wrong in people’s “play”.
– Paltego
Hi Paltego,
Thanks for featuring Mrs. Kelly’s Playhouse in this post. In light of your this post and Saratoga’s comment, I feel a little clarification is in order.
Our life has evolved in a way that has made sense to us. I am sixty-three and Em is not yet forty-two. It’s fairly obvious that at some point I would most likely retire before her. That opportunity arrived earlier than we expected and we have planned for it.
The arrangement is that she will be the breadwinner and I will be the housekeeper and stay-at-home dad. This is the case regardless of whether kink of any kind is involved. People who keep up with our blog realize that over the last year and a half Femdom and kink have been seriously back-burnered due to the demands placed on her by her retraining and career change.
As regards our daughter, she is totally unaware of what we do. I don’t go prancing around in heels and a maid uniform. She doesn’t know that there’s a cage in the locked storage room. Nothing overt or in any way age inappropriate, especially cuckolding, ever goes on in her presence or even her proximity. Being ethical and responsible parents trumps everything else in our life.
Another element in the arrangements between Em and I that often gets lost is that we are a LOVING and happy couple. What we have attempted to do throughout our twenty years together is put Femdom and kink to work in behalf of our relationship. Femdom and kink are there to accentuate our commitment and not undo it. To use a hackneyed term, we are soulmates. What we have attempted to do throughout our lives together is to keep erotic interest active and passionate between us for the very reason that we want to preserve our relationship.
I am comfortable giving up so much power to Em because she is ethical and worthy of such trust.
What is evident to Saratoga, that Em would find someone else and dump me, is precisely NOT what we are about or where we are at.
There are problems of perception in trying to write about what goes on in real relationships. People reading sex blogs obviously want to read the sexy bits. The demands that real life make on individuals and couples evolve over the years and, if an erotic life is going to survive those demands, that erotic life has to adapt easily and grow organically within the bedrock relationship that underlies it.
If, for example, my testosterone levels decline as I age (which it has), Em and I can choose to see that as a problem or take a more proactive approach and eroticize it. Em teases me about getting old and not getting it up fast or hard enough, not to genuinely humiliate and degrade me but to do so erotically. There’s a difference between what an outside observer might see and what is actually going on. B
Em would like to find a play partner with whom to cuckold me again but this is proving to be the most recalcitrant aspect of our reactivating erotic life. We have played out and enacted so many of our fantasies that we are simply not interested unless it’s something deeper and more genuine.
We would conceive of that sort of cuckolding relationship to be more akin to a polyamorous bond rather than a crisis leading to separation and divorce. The notion that a cuckoldress would dump her husband and run off with the bull is the worst sort of outcome a couple into cuckolding could imagine. Cuckolding is a form of edge play and divorce is way over the edge and not play at all.
What Em and I are about is loving couples exploring their sexuality and kinks together in order to keep their sex life a vital and pleasurable bond. In that sense, our bondage is very deep.
Best,
scott
Mrs. Kelly’s Playhouse
Scott,
Thanks for your lengthy comment and expanded views on the topic.
I really hope my original post didn’t make you feel like you needed to justify anything, or that I was being judgmental in anyway. That was never my intention, and I apologize if it came across like that at all.
My main point was initially just to take an askew look at “edge” play, and highlight how the definition varies depending on the person. I thought it kind of amusing that a lifestyle femdom relationship was far scarier to me than what people typically think of when they talk about edge play.
But your original post also got me thinking about the definition of femdom. Is it even sensible or meaningful to describe the way I play and the way you play as the same thing? Hence or my random unanswered (or unanswerable) questions and burbling towards the end.
Your description of your relationship with Em chimes with what I read on your blog. My recoil from the idea in Em’s post was all about my reaction to it and my need for control. Certainly not about your relationship or chosen ways to play (cuckolding or whatever).
– Paltego
Hi Paltego,
I took no offense whatever.
I just wanted to clarify that what Em and I do and how we have chosen to do it has kept us close. Given the years we’ve been together, all the ups and downs, raising a child together, etc., we share a lot more than just kink. We feel a deep familial bond. It doesn’t scare me at all to be totally dependent on her. She’s the one person in the world that I can say that about.
I am forever grateful to her for being my partner in life.
Thanks again for your help with the RSS feed and for your thoughtful post.
Best,
scott
Mrs. Kelly’s Playhouse
Dear Paltego,
Thanks for featuring stuff from our blog on your site. I am a little dismayed by Saratoga’s comments. I try not to get involved in these kinds of things on the internet (I did get involved in a lengthy back and forth once and it is a total waste of time) but I feel compelled to respond whenever someone suggests that we are doing something wrong in regards to parenting. These accusations come from two facts: we are kinky and we have a child. They do NOT come from any FACTUAL information gained from our blog.
Our daughter has NEVER been in our house when cuckolding occurs. Just like most married couples we engage in sex with each other in the privacy of our bedroom after our daughter is asleep. Yes, sometimes this sex is kinky sex but how that negatively impacts a sleeping child more than regular sex behind closed doors is a mystery to me (though people have suggested this).
There are people who believe that kinky people can’t responsibly have children. We do not personally believe this and have met many people in local kink communities who also have children. I’ve never met anyone in these communities that I felt was doing something irresponsible.
I will say that having a child has been the single biggest limiting factor on our kinky lifestyle but also the most wonderful experience of my life. If I had to choose between the two, I would pick my child.
Saratoga doesn’t like Scott or me. This became apparent many years ago. We disagree on what femdom is and we disagree greatly on politics. Scott and I are proud liberals (I am by far way more liberal that Scott) and from what I gather from his comments Saratoga is a proud conservative. We chose to deal with these differences by not engaging on his blog. He has chosen something different.
Anyway, I wanted to basically reiterate Scott’s comments about our child. Also, as the person who has been married to Scott for the last 20 years, I’d say I am the best judge of the stability of my relationship. Scott will be around until he dies and I take his ashes to the Ganges as I have promised.
Dear Emma,
Thanks for your comment. As I said in my reply to Scott, I certainly don’t think you have anything to justify or explain, and certainly not to a bunch of random people on the internet. However, I do appreciate the additional feedback and the extra context you’ve given.
There is an interesting discussion to be had about the difficulties of integrating a kinky lifestyle with bringing up children. But that discussion probably doesn’t start with accusing someone of unethical behavior. A number of the bloggers I follow and list in my blogroll have to deal with this issue (MsMarie, HMP and Kaya at UnderHisHand all spring to mind), and I’m always interested in the problems it presents and the difficult choices that must be made. Although as a single guy with no desire for children it’s not a topic I typically address here.
I’ve found keeping party politics out of my blog is the wisest move. Either people agree with you and you achieve nothing, or they disagree and you risk alienating them. Which isn’t to say I won’t stand up and post what I believe, just that in this context I prefer to stick to concrete issues rather than the abstraction of policy or parties (and all the baggage that comes with that).
Thanks for all your blog posts, and I wish your family well.
– paltego
I cuckold my boyfriend and treat him accordingly, but he is also financially dominated in that he does go out and work then brings home the money to pay the bills. I work as well, but my money goes toward what I enjoy buying for myself while his goes toward the household bills, the mortgage, etc. Everything remains in my name. So maybe we have a 16/24 relationship where he gets to wear the pants for 8 hours a day then comes home to be his true sissy self for the rest of the day.
It’s interesting to see how others handle their own relationships. Thanks for sharing.
Many layers here.
In the post, the posters comment, or reaction to the Kelleys post is interesting. Fascinating really. That is not edge play, that is a full time femdom relationship. A committed femdom relationship, or any long term relationship, for it to work both members have to sacrifice and work towards making that relationship work. In femdom, it is standard for the sub to do the household chores, to free time for the Domme, as a way of worshipping her and respecting her, even without her presence. This is the sustainable way of leading to earned playtime, though it still isn’t even like that, it cannot be demanded. It is femdom after all, it is at her whim. That is submission. Less than that and it is play, fantasy. Typically requiring professional service providers.
Next layer, the wrech thrower, Saratoga. I think he misunderstands the Kelleys, or at least cuckolding. She is not leaving him, ever, they seem so bonded and in love.
Next layer, the kid. The Kelleys seem very ethical and responsible. But it does seem like it will inevitably affect their child. How many traits of even your parents do children pick up on, without having to be taught? At one point in your life, your child will find everything in your house wether you are currently using it when they find it or most likely not. I don’t know how a teenager could miss it. That is just a extra layer in life to deal with. It will have an affect, it is impossible not to, just what direction is impossible to predict. Is that a negative? not nescerrily, could be a difficulty, but I don’t think it is inherrently negative.
I mean your kid will eventually figure out your religion. And your top hobbies.