The shame of being a dom 8

“I’d really, really hate not to be able to spank you when we’re fucking” might read like a stupid thing to say. Believe me, it sounded even more stupid, spoken aloud. But Maureen nodded at last, and took a sip of the wine.

I took that as permission to get back in bed beside her. Maureen gave me her glass to hold and lay back on the pillows, staring at the cobwebs on her ceiling. There were many cobwebs. “You know, it’s weird, Jaime. I don’t let men push me around. And I’ve always known that if any man ever raised a hand to me, if he so much as touched me then I’d be gone. But this is different, I know that. I mean, that hurt, but it didn’t feel like violence.”

 “Um. Did it hurt badly? Should I go easier?”

reddened“Bits of it hurt a lot, Jaime. Especially at the very end, because I was already sore and you just kept on going, that was … Wow, that hurt. But it felt good. Even when it hurt it still seemed gentle, if you see what I mean. I think because you weren’t angry. I wasn’t scared of you at all. I knew you were trying to please me.”

“Ah. I see. And?”

“And you did please me, you complete wanker, you know that perfectly well. I don’t know how it works, but I get very animal, very primal. You get very brutal. In a good way. Quite unlike you, really.” I decided to think that was a compliment. “So, I like feeling overpowered by you, it makes me feel incredibly – god, I shouldn’t say this – female.” I raised my eyebrows. She closed her eyes. “I’m an absolute fucking traitor to all womankind.”

“I won’t tell.”

The shame of being a dom 7

Maureen gave me another smile, but she was still frowning. “Jaime, I know you wouldn’t ever hit me. I mean, like that. I didn’t mean that you would.” 

Just

Just completely fucked up and wrong.

“Oh my …” I put the quiche in front of her, to demonstrate that I had brought her dinner, and must therefore be in a different tribe from the women-punchers. Maureen ignored it. I wasn’t hungry either.

But I was shocked back into speech. “Maureen, I really, seriously and definitely think this is nothing to do with violence.”

Maureen rubbed her arse. She looked at me, giving me eyebrows. She smirked, too. Cynically.

I said, “Hell, you know what I mean. I don’t want to hurt you, I’d hate to hurt you. Except this kind of hurt. Good hurt. And, I swear I’d rather rip my arm off than have you be afraid of me.”

“Actually, you sound scary-crazy, right there.” But she was mocking me, which was better than being scared. “But, well, are you going to start trying to tell me what to do?”

These days I wouldn’t think about starting a relationship with a submissive woman unless I was in charge of her, not just in the bedroom. Of course I’d tell her what to do, and I’d punish her if she disobeyed or displeased me, whether she felt like being punished or not. But back then I was still dealing with how spanking fits into the same moral universe as “never hit a woman”, and I was finding that was hard enough. Baby steps, okay?

So I said, “No. I don’t want to control you. I mean, I can’t imagine you doing as you’re told anyway. But I wouldn’t want you to.”

“Fat chance, Jaime.”

“Well, good. We decide things together.”

“That’s not going to change.”

“No, it isn’t. Look, if I hit you, or even spanked you without your permission, or if I said I’d punish you because you hadn’t done the dishes or something, you know, smacked you as a punishment, then course you should leave me. I’d help you throw me out myself.”

“Always helpful. Always a gentleman. Less you’ve got a hard-on.” But she smiled at me, and this time it was something like a real one. 

Oh yes. Cherry ripe and very right.

Oh yes. Cherry ripe and very right. (Conditions apply.)

“On the other hand, this works really well as sex. It just, it really … worked. That was so, so good. If you don’t want me to do it again, then I won’t. But I’d hate to lose this. I’d really, really hate not to be able to spank you when we’re fucking.”

That last sentence hung in the air a little, because it was one of the weirdest things I’d ever said, at least to Maureen. Let’s stare at it one more time.

“I’d really, really hate not to be able to spank you when we’re fucking.”

First meetings: Bdsm, safety, and the invulnerability of doms

Another time I was talking to a woman on the phone, on the way to meeting her for the first time. She told me she’d heard of a woman who hated male doms and set traps for them.

batThe dom would turn up at her door, expecting to do his thing, or at least say hello and have a cup of tea, and once he was inside her brothers would come out with baseball bats and beat the shit out of him. It had happened, she claimed, to a dom she knew.

I didn’t feel too uneasy about meeting her, because she sounded sane and funny. Though if were writing a film I’d put that conversation scene in before the dom arrives and gets ritually slaughtered. Good horror movie scenario.

I did make sure that people knew where I was going, and had agreed to call the cops if I hadn’t called back in half an hour to say I was ok. Usually I make it a couple of hours before I check in, but while I really did feel that she was ok, at the same time that made me feel a little spooked.

And, when I turned up, it was fine. Bdsm, orgasms and laughs were had. She’d just been making conversation, slightly macabre conversation, and she hadn’t thought how alarming it sounded.

But it’s interesting how doms think of ourselves as invulnerable (maybe that’s more male doms, come to that), when, well, strictly speaking, we’re not either.

Anyway, safety is a thing for men as well as women, and for doms as well as submissives.

Bdsm: First meetings and safety

I went to meet a girl – we’ll call her Katey – so we could suss each other out and see if we wanted to do hot things with each other. We’d exchanged a few emails and talked on the phone before we met, but we were strangers, really. But when we met we hit it off, and we decided that right now was a good time to get down to it.

I’d told her I was going to clamp her nipples and give her 100 strokes of my belt, and then fuck her while her ass was hot. It was one of those things you say on the spur of the moment (well, I’d been thinking about it for at least ten minutes before I said it). It went down well so it became the plan.

cellWe went to Katey’s place. When she got out of the taxi she took her phone out, switched it off and dropped it in her bag. She dropped the bag on a table by the front door and went through into her her lounge.

Because she wasn’t going to need her phone that night.

She didn’t do this as a gesture; she didn’t even think about it.

It was nice to be trusted, a man she’d spent less than three hours with, who’d displayed enthusiastic interest in causing her pain. But …

Anyway, a couple of days later I told Katey off and spanked her for that. Felt no end of a hypocrite, though.

The point is that we do make quick judgments, based on how we read the voice and body language of the person we’re with. Relaxed, sense of humour, confidence, will all work to build trust, quickly.

But I’d hope that:

(1) people break rules like not fucking or doing bdsm on a first date if they want to, because random passionate sex is good and some rules are made to be broken, but

(2) they follow the other rules about making sure that someone knows where they are and who they’re with, on that first date, even when they fancy the other person.

Safety doesn’t have to get in lust’s way.

(Hat-yip: This in response to an issue raised in Cava Super-Nova’s excellent and eponymous blog.).

e[lust] 62

Welcome to Elust #62 

The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at Elust. 

~ This Month’s Top Three Posts ~

Sex Blogger Life: Real Talk

Selfies, Shame and Safety

‘Dress me like a slut and punish my cock’

~ Featured Post (Molly’s Picks) ~

I live in a sex-positive bubble.

Wicked Wednesday: Silent Memories

~ Readers Choice from Sexbytes 

Are you guilty of slut-shaming sex doll lovers?

Writing About Writing

Why can’t I write gay erotica?!
Cream doesn’t rise: the state of UK erotica
Coming clean about writing dirty…
The Big Book of Submission: 69 Kinky Tales

Erotic Non-Fiction

I’ve Collared Myself a Human Pony
Strapped Back In
View From The Bridal Suite
It’s a date (2/2)
Your Tears Make Me Wet.
Photograph
Spanking – the ultimate mood changer

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

Yes, I am a slut. So?
M feels that labeling myself “gay” erases him
“Appearance Not Important”
Traditional sexual consent vs bdsm consent
Bigger Doesn’t Mean Better!
All in One Person: Thoughts on Non-Monogamy
I Lust, Therefore I Am
Buddhism and Poly
The Great Outdoors
My Love Is Not About You #SameSexCouples
Thinking of You
Tantra Massage For Multiple Male Orgasm

Blogging

Blogging: My Layout Pet Peeves
An Unpleasant Outing

Erotic Fiction

The Flight Attendant’s Return Home…
Kinky Cocktail Story Time: The Jelly Bean
Spanked Silent
Hunted

Sex News, Opinion, Interviews, Politics & Humor

Quantification of Everything (Especially Sex)
Polyphobia – The New Homophobia

 

Thoughts and Advice on Kink and Fetish

For Submissives.
Protocols. I Want.
When You Can’t Trust Your Body
Masters Guilt
BDSM Is Not (the only) Kink
Fetal

 

The shame of being a dom 6

wifebeaterEventually I got up, collected dishes and pattered to the kitchen to make lunch, by way of showing that I might hit women but at least I wasn’t the sort of man who hit women and then sat himself on the couch with the Superbowl on the big flatscreen, demanding another goddam beer. I was the decent, trustworthy, lunch-making and pro-woman sort of woman-hitter.

There was no-one else home, which seemed lucky considering the extraordinary noises we’d just been making. On my return, with salad and eggs, I kissed her bottom, which was already cooling and not as fiercely red as it had been when we’d fucked.

Maureen said there was no pain; she felt pleasantly warm. I was soft-hearted again, so I was glad that she wasn’t hurting. When we’d eaten we made love face to face and tenderly, and that seemed to lift the last of that small, vexing shadow.

Of course it wasn’t. Later that night, when we were exhausted, Maureen said, “Jaime? I’m sorry, I need to talk about this. We need to.”

 “Need to talk about.” I’d already learned to be afraid, whenever a woman said those words. And I’d just been hitting her. I’d never been on such shaky moral ground before. If she’d had recriminations I wouldn’t have been surprised, and I couldn’t have produced any kind of defence. “Okay.”

 “Well, what does this mean, Jaime? This thing we’re doing?”

 “This thing mean?” The kind of sex we’d just started to have together was, obviously, a feminist issue. I decided not to point out that she’d initiated it. We both knew that, but being legalistic and defensive wasn’t the point. It was a fair question: what did I mean by beating a woman? I said, eventually, “Well, this is about sex and pleasure. I mean, for me, anyway. But wasn’t it? Pleasurable? For you?”

 Maureen smiled, though her face didn’t really lighten. “It’s okay, Jaime, yes. I thought that was amazing too. If you couldn’t tell… But I’m just worried about what it means. And when I say ‘means’ I mean …” And she pulled a face and gave up.

pain and pleasure I was sitting on the side of the bed, with my feet on the floor. I wished I’d got under the covers before we started this conversation. Now we had to have it without touching. “Well, maybe it does only mean pleasure. And nothing else.”

“Yeah. But, well, it’s very uncool, you hitting me. I mean, I don’t think you’re going to start knocking me around  -.”

“Christ! Maureen!”

“Jaime, if you ever hit me; you know, hit me like some guy hitting his wife, like if you were angry at me or something, you’d never see me again. I would never, ever give you another chance.”

“God no. God no. Never. Ever. No.” All of my heart was behind that oath, and I was horrified that I’d put myself in a position where I needed to swear it. And yet I couldn’t have clearly explained, that evening, exactly why I was so different from those contemptible men who hit women, though I felt certain that I was. Did she really think I was capable of hitting her in a violent way? “Maureen?”

The shame of being a dom 5

I have heard the Siamang sing. They don't sing to me, of course, but they sing for sex and joy.

I have heard the Siamang sing. They don’t sing to me (well durr, Mr Prufock) but they sing for sex and joy.

I had the memory of Maureen’s screamed pleasure and then my own, even as I’d deliberately hurt her and then fucked her with none of the consideration that my lovers had so carefully taught me.

Her skin still burned under me. I pressed tight against her back, revelling in that heated proof of my own violence. I was still hard in her and I wasn’t tender-hearted yet. I hoped she still hurt, and I was certain that the hurt felt good to her.

 My sweat had pooled below her shoulders and in the small of her back, and spilled down her sides, soaking the sheet. Even then, Maureen was cooler and more elegant than me. I could see the left corner of her mouth, curved in a smile. We were comfortably silent.

This was a world where previously unattainable pleasures had suddenly and somehow become possible. Maureen had cried out in the same joy as me, or a version of it. Incredibly, I had a partner in this. It could happen again and surely would. I held her and was held. She was extraordinary, and real.

Then I felt doubt. In this new and undoubtedly wonderful world it seemed that I sometimes beat her. As I’ve mentioned, I hate men who beat women. As our silence continued, Maureen’s smile faltered. She’d just accepted a beating from a man. More, she’d invited it and had just been screaming her joy at it.

There were uncomfortable thoughts for her to have about that. If a man who hits a woman is as low as a man can be, then what kind of a woman could she be, who had enjoyed that treatment and who lay contentedly with the man who’d inflicted it? I knew that she felt troubled, as I did, and that we had to talk about this.

But I couldn’t find the right words.

The shame of being a dom 4

Maureen said nothing, but made a little heap of pillows and draped herself over them. Face down. Arms outspread. Waiting.

Lots of things that followed from that are interesting. One of them is why she’d been so confident that I wanted to spank her, though at the time I was taking a lot of care to hide my bdsm desires. It’s also interesting, to me at least, that what she offered me with her question and her posture was almost perfect, pure sexual happiness, and it’s good to write about that.

But for now I’m only going to talk about the “almost” in “almost perfect”.

Even naked, Maureen looked like a girl brought up in comfort and privilege. She looked like a girl sculpted out of cream, white and long. I knew her parents had never raised a hand to her, and no lover had ever hit her. I approved of her parents for not hitting their children, and I’d have despised any man who’d hit her. So I thought it was good that she’d never been hit or hurt.

waitingBut, with my attention very much focussed on her delicious ass, which was also where my cock was pointing, I wanted to change that. Maureen was going to be a girl whose lover hit her. Hmmm, I thought. Am I sure that that’s   a good thing?

I knew that spanking her wouldn’t do her any physical harm, and I knew that she wanted it. But I hated men who hit women. Did it make it ok if I was doing it for sex? And if I doubted myself for wanting to hurt her, how did I know her permission wasn’t wrong too? Was she, er, of sound mind? 

Sex won, as it should. 

There’s a rush that doms and subs ride when we get to one of those moments of truth, where we assume our places and we rule or are ruled.  We both needed Maureen to feel pain, heat and submission, and that overrode everything else. So we rode the rush, and we must have deafened the neighbours. It was a good ride. It was oceanic.   

Afterwards, though, there was time to think.

The shame of being a dom 3

I did my first real bdsm thing with a real live submissive girl when I was 17, and that incident is one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing memories of my life and, if I told it to you, yours. I’ve nearly recovered now, but I’ll share it some other time.  

I didn’t get a second chance until I was 22. I was lying on the bed of a woman, Maureen, who was a bit more rich and cultured than me. The university we were at, and quite a few other places and institutions in that State, were named after her family. 

doreI was helping Maureen with her Milton project, for an English paper. I didn’t know as many famous live people as she did, but I knew more about famous dead people. We both knew it was just my excuse to drop by, and we’d finished up in her bed before we’d got round to anything, you know, scholarly.

But it was deadline time, or nearly, for her Milton project, so it was time to deliver the promised help. We were lying on her bed, post-sex, naked with a laptop and a copy of the Oxford Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.

I was being terribly serious-minded. So I wasn’t quite ready when the conversation took a sharp and unexpected swerve. The dialogue went something like this: 

Maureen: Should I shove in a paragraph about Milton’s defence of liberty and free speech in Areopagitica? 

Me: Maybe. But actually he wrote that liberty should only apply to Protestant Christians. He specifically says that Catholics shouldn’t be allowed free speech, let alone atheists and such. So by “liberty” he only meant the right to agree with him.

Maureen: Ok, but I’m still going to have to mention Areopagitica.  

Me: Well, you can say it’s an ambivalent defence of free speech, and hey! you could link it to the Romantics’ idea that Satan was a sort of spirit of freedom. Must be at least 400 words in that. 

Maureen: Mmmm. I guess. So would you like to spank me? 

Me: What? Uh, hrrrrrrm. Um-hrrrrrrm. Oh. Uh, yes. Yes, please. Absolutely. Yes. 

 (To be continued, obviously.) 

The bdsm Onion

Here’s a sample story from The Daily Flogger, the authentic and reliable source for all bdsm-themed news. Like The Onion, it can bring tears to your … oh, forget it. It’s an amusing site, if some of it’s a bit more mean-spirited than I strictly like. But funny is funny. I recommend taking a look. You can check the rest of the nooz here:

http://www.thedailyflogger.com/

Woman Uses Safeword; Foils Rapist

August 11, 2014 

By 

 

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

policeIn a shocking turn of events, Shawna Simonson found herself the victor in a battle of wills when she outsmarted her would-be rapist.

“We were alone in a dark parking lot. It was about 2 in the morning and I couldn’t find my keys.  Before I know it, he has a gun and throws me to the ground.  I could feel the gun pressed against my back and he was pulling my pants down.”

It was then that Simonson came up with an idea.  She screamed the word “Red,” the safeword from her local BDSM dungeon.

The attacker immediately stopped his assault and stood up, putting away the gun and ran off.

“I am still not sure what happened,” Simonson told The Daily Flogger, “it was funny to watch, because his pants were pulled down and his dick was hard.  It kinda bounced as he ran.”

Sven Woolewoo, proprietor of the local dungeon The Leather Dominion, explained the way safewords work.  “If you are into BDSM, they have a quasi magical power, the power to make bad things stop, simply because you say it.”

Local police say “that is the first time we have ever heard of that technique working.  We don’t recommend it, but then again, it probably can’t hurt.”

Simonson was grateful it worked, “I am just glad I didn’t go with ‘yellow.’  Who knows if he would have stopped or just checked in.”

photo credit: YVRBCbro cc