Cuddling on the Couch

I’m back in damp Seattle. I have a couple of fun sessions from LA to blog about, but right now I just want to unpack, collapse on the couch and catch up on my Colbert recordings.

In the meantime, I’ll keep things ticking over here with this artwork by sadisticsmilez. There’s a lot to love about this. The sense of intimacy and playfulness combined with the kink is particularly well done. My favorite part though is the nipple tweak. That’s a very sexy move, as his facial expression would tend to indicate.

The original title of the piece is ‘videogames2‘. I found it via this tweet.

Strange Reaction

I’ve experienced a strange emotional response in recent weeks. People hitting me has made me angry. That’s obviously not unusual for most people but for me, in the context of kink, it’s very strange. Corporal play was one of my primary fantasies for many years and a staple of my scenes. Yet recently it has generated less of an “Ooohhh, yeah….” and more of a “Hey! That hurts goddamn it!”

I have no idea why this is. Other painful things like needles, electricity, clamps and miscellaneous spiky things still get me buzzed and into that submissive floaty space. I can lean into their pain and relax under the dominants control. Yet corporal play had triggered the bad kind of ‘fight or flight’ response where I just want to make it stop.

I’m really hoping it’s a temporary thing. Maybe it’s to do with external stress or me being general angry at the state of the world. I’m not conscious of that kind of mental shift, but clearly something is awry. I’ve never met a domme yet who didn’t enjoy some form of corporal play, and I’d hate to lose such an important part of my kinky repertoire. Anyone else find they’ve had a favorite activity suddenly twist on them like this?

While my physical response might be screwed up, my visual response to corporal is still working just fine. I love this action shot from the Glasgow based Mistress Scarlet (found on her twitter feed).

Roped Captive

I enjoyed a wonderful session today with Mistress Damiana. However, I’m going to delay writing about that in detail until I’ve have a chance to edit and share the photographs we snapped.

In the meantime, given that I spent a good portion of our session today in bondage, I’ll share this artwork by bondlicitous. It’s called ‘Connection‘, which is very much a thing I look for when I’m being tied up. There’s a touch of the fairy tale about the drawing. I’m imaging that it’s the heroic prince that has been bound in place and the fair heroine, having been through a rather torrid time, is expressing her displeasure with his performance to date.

You can see more from bondlicitous at his DeviantArt and Twitter. I found this via a tweet by maid marta.

Finding the Edge

The Daily Dot has published an interesting article on Edge Play. One of the questions it raises is what exactly is edge play? Before reading the article I thought I knew, but now I’m not so sure.

I think there are three basic definitions you can come up with. They key question is what line is being played up to?

  1. Is it the edge of the submissive’s comfort zone?
  2. Is it the edge of mainstream BDSM activities?
  3. Is it the edge of life itself?

I’ve personally always assumed the definition was (2). That means things like scat, branding or very intense corporal play that draws blood would count as edge play. I’ve also known some professional kinksters who use the definition of (3), limiting it to activities involving knifes, guns, choking, etc. In that case edge play is the kind of thing that might land you not just in the emergency room but ultimately in the morgue.

What this article suggests is that (1) is actually the correct definition of edge play. Which seems kind of odd to me. Everyone has limits and a comfort zone, and that’s going to be in a different place for each submissive. So with that definition it almost becomes a meaningless term. Normally I’d just assume it was an article from a journalist who didn’t really understand the subject, but if features quotes from genuine experts in the field.

What constitutes edge play is different for everyone. I consider edge play to be play that occurs at the edge of what one can bear. Play where there is enough trust to push past what is comfortable creates the possibility of a new outcome.
Mistress Blunt

The article also goes on to list a 24/7 dynamic as another example of edge play, which is something that I’d suggest exists on an entirely different dimension to specific BDSM activities. So where exactly is the edge correctly drawn? Is it just one of those things that is always defined with respect to the person involved? Is my edge just someone else’s light warm-up?

Here’s the aforementioned Mistress Blunt exploring an activity that I guess could be an edge play candidate – mummification. This is from this tweet.

The Thrill of the Tease

My Los Angles trip got off to a fabulous start playing with Mistress Iris. It had been a while since we’d played together and it was lovely to catch up with her again.

I’m always fascinated by the different ways sadism and masochism can manifest. There’s the obvious physical and emotional varieties which I regularly blog about here. Mistress Iris specializes in the rarer kind that manifests at the fine edge of frustrated pleasure and the unsatisfied ache of desire. If you can maintain the necessary balance it’s a wonderfully fine edge to slide along. It’s rare to get me growling unless physical pain is involved, but I was definitely doing my best angry puppy impression in our session today.

This is Mistress Iris deploying her tease talents on some virgin catholic boys with Liara Roux. This is taken from this tweet, via Mistress Iris’s twitter feed.

Heading South

Much as I love the Pacific Northwest, the first few months of the year can be pretty depressing. It’s damp, cold and grey. That means it’s therefore time for paltego to head south and catch some Californian sun and kink. I’m going to be in Los Angeles for the next few days, sitting by the pool and meeting up with some great LA dommes. Posting may be a touch more erratic than usual, depending how heavily I hit the cocktail bars.

While I’m trying to find my suitcase, I’ll leave you with this image from Brazilian photographer Fabio DaMotta. I found it via this Vice article on him. I personally love this combination of art, decoration and bondage. It’s both beautiful and objectifying in the best possible way.

The Sport Report

America had a concert and ads showcase today, occasionally interrupted by a sporting event.

The game itself made me sad, as I’ve been a 49ers fan since I was a teenager watching Joe Montana and Jerry Rice play. On the plus side, the halftime show was a lot of fun with a surprising kinky vibe. Shakira had a hint of bondage going with her rope dance and then Jennifer Lopez came out in a leather outfit that had an awful lot more than a hint of BDSM about it. Not to mention the backing dancers sporting classic leather caps and dommey snarls.

As an added bonus, the sight of two talented Latino women dancing and singing in Spanish appears to have pissed off a lot of right wing troglodytes. So while my team may have lost, I’m always happy to find a silver lining.

Scene Stealer

I’ll finish this nostalgic review of my last decade of kink with the story of the strangest thing that happened to me in a session – the time I did someone else’s scene.

I’m not going to reveal who the domme was. I’ll just say that this wasn’t my first session with her and this was some years ago. Our pre-scene negotiation over email had been, as is usual for me, pretty short and simple. I don’t remember my exact words but the gist was that medical play with staples and needles might be fun. What unfolded during the session itself was a little different.

In hindsight, putting all the pieces together, it was fairly obvious what went wrong. Before I arrived the domme had opened her email folder and clicked on someone else’s session request. I obviously never got to read the original email, but based on what transpired, I’m guessing it went something like this:

“I love lots of bondage with straps and rope, particularly if you keep adjusting and tweaking it, as though you can’t quite find the perfect way to hold me. I want a heavy caning and I think it’s really sexy if the domme is very vocal about how excited and aroused she is by the marks she’s leaving. Oh, and I’ve got a thing for hair, so if you could work that in somehow that’d be great. Thanks!”

Given this email slip-up, there was obviously a fairly significance gulf between  between what I was expecting and what I was about to receive.

The first thing that struck me as weird as we started the session was that the domme seemed to have developed an OCD issue with bondage. I couldn’t figured out why she kept screwing around with it. She’d mutter about needing to get it exactly right, I’d carefully suggest that it was actually fine, and she’d still keep reworking it. Then there was all the sexy moaning and dirty talk to go along with the canes she was wielding. We’d done corporal play before, and I didn’t remember my ‘hot as fuck’ marks having quite this effect on her. Finally, why did she keep touching her hair onto my back and butt? I mean I like hair, I think it can be very sexy, but it seemed an odd thing to intersperse between cane strikes.

My initial assumption was that this was just an unusual warm-up to our medical scene, but as the time ticked past the halfway mark, it was obvious something had gone awry. Should I stop it? Given we were already over an hour in, it seemed awkward to do so. Plus, I was feeling pretty buzzed from the endorphins and she seemed to in the zone and having fun with it. I figured it was easier to roll with it and I’d only yell stop if things got a little crazy. I wasn’t about to get fisted or vomited on for the sake of avoiding awkwardness. Fortunately it turned out that my unknown scene choreographer hadn’t put in a request for a spectacular finale.

The post-scene discussion – after I mentioned what I thought had happened – was an amusing one. The domme was torn between apologizing for the mistake and expressing incredulity that I hadn’t said anything. My answer of ‘well, you seemed really into it…’ got a laugh and the response that my bruised butt was therefore my own fault.

I did wonder what happened later, when she did the scene again with the original client. Did she tell him? Or did he just get a really awesome version thanks to the  dress rehearsal I’d filled in for?

I think this is technically a birching rather than a caning, but this artwork by Jay Em still feels appropriate for the post.

Popping My Cherries

Writing about my decade in kink got me thinking about my kinky firsts over that time. Given I started out as a total kink virgin there have been quite a few. What surprises me in retrospect is how few cherries I actual remember being popped. I don’t remember who gave me my first golden shower or when I received my first pegging. I do remember my first caning – because it was session #1 – but I don’t remember my first paddling, whipping or flogging. I’m going to hope that this is due to the varied kinky life I’ve subsequently led, rather than old age or alcohol induced amnesia creeping up on me. Some new experiences have stayed with me however.

The first piercing. I almost fainted. A short lie down and drink of water was required to recover. Fortunately we persevered and it became one of my favorite activities.

First time in a cage. Made me so relaxed I almost fell asleep. All the reassurance and comfort some people find in bondage, without the discomfort that often comes with lengthy bondage scenes.

My first rope suspension. I had a vision of it being the erotic pleasure of bondage crossed with the fun of a child’s swing. In reality it was more like construction work crossed with roleplaying a side of beef. Rope suspension is tricky, particularly when you’re a somewhat out of shape middle age guy and not a lithe, young and light bondage model.

My first session injury. A chemical scene in 2011 where I triggered back issues that plague me to this day. Admittedly, I’m sure the source of the issues was decades of bad posture hunched over keyboards. The muscle clenching in the session just happened to be the straw that broke paltego’s back.

The first time a domme pulled out a gasmask for me.  My initial thought was – ‘Wow. I’m going to look like a seriously kinky freak. This is some top level pervert stuff we’re into here.’

First time I kissed a domme in a session. A very rare event but it has happened once or twice. Okay. Once. The domme had brought a fancy electrical accessory that made her whole body charged and capable of shocking me. We were having a lot of fun with it and she wanted to see what it’d be like if we kissed and touched tongues. I think I was more nervous doing that than I was when she was sticking needles into my dick.

I’ll finish with an image of a cherry I’ve yet to pop. ‘Forced Bi’ joins cuckolding and cross dressing as activities that have yet to make it into my sessions. I guess you always want to save something for the second decade.

The artwork is by the always amazing Sardax.

Looking Back

As part of my ten year kinkyversary I thought it’d be interesting to look back and try to figure out exactly who I’d played with over that time. I keep all my emails, so in theory I should be able to come up with a pretty accurate list. Actual sessions are way too numerous to count, but as far as people are concerned, I think the total is 37 different pro-dommes. On one hand that seems like a lot, but on the other hand, this is over a decade and spread across 9 different cities.

I wrote last year about my relative success rate in terms of identifying dommes I think I’ll have good session chemistry with. Looking at this list supports the rough estimates I made back then. There were 14 dommes who I played with once and didn’t feel that we had suitable chemistry. At the other extreme, there have been 11 dommes I loved playing with and always reached out to any time our paths crossed. The remaining 12 are dommes I’d like to play more with, but so far time, geography and circumstances have conspired against us.

Two other things also pop out from the list. Firstly, I’m surprised how many dommes on it are now retired from the profession. So if there’s someone you’ve always wanted to play with then I’d encourage you to reach out sooner rather than later. You never know when they’ll decide to hang up their whip (at least from a professional perspective).

The other thing that strikes me is the amazing diversity in styles, techniques and personalities. After all, this isn’t a random list. These are all pro-dommes I researched and decided would be a good fit for my kinks and preferred dynamic. When you browse pro-domme sites and see repeated common lists of activities and equipment you might be tempted to think the variance in play would be small. After all, when you think of other professional services – lawyer, doctor, masseuse  – you don’t expect massive variation between different providers. Yet that’s exactly what you find in the dynamics of a pro-domme session. Even the more creative professions, like a chef or an actor, don’t compare. The best analogy I can think of is a fine artist. An artist will have a distinctive personal style that is common to all their work, but every artist is unique in their own approach.

This is Mistress Eleise De Lacy, someone who definitely falls into the category of people I’d love to play more with, should time and space not conspire against us. We intersected once in Vancouver back in 2013, but since then she has been based in Europe and the opportunity for further play hasn’t presented itself. Should you be similarly constrained, she does have an OnlyFans site you can join for a virtual experience.