Erotic Thoughts of the Week

So I’ve been having a lot of rude thoughts this week which would be rude of me not to share.

Part of the advantage of having an overactive imagination is that I can provide my own sexual fantasies. (Or ‘wank material’ for the uncouth portion of my readership). I’m too lazy to download my own porn, and stupidly I never think I’ll need it until suddenly I’m horny and impatient. As a result, my mind has become quite good at crafting scenarios – increasingly strange ones. Here are some of the most recent:

Breath play with rope bondage and champagne.

Okay, so, the heart of this idea was pinched from something a (brilliant) friend of mine wrote, which was never intended to be perverted (or maybe it was?). But the thing about sexual fantasies is that they’re like recipes – you borrow the core structure of something that has been proven to work, and then you add your own ingredients according to your own preferences. In the same way that I compulsively add chilli and herbs to bland recipes, I add restriction and pain to the more mainstream sexual concepts, and – voila! Orgasm soufflé.

Um. Anyway. In this scenario, I am tied with my arms behind my back. I’m sitting down – I was toying with the idea of being tied to the chair, but in this one I think it’s hotter if I’m sitting there of my own accord, trying to be obedient. I am in a room (hell, let’s make it a motel room) with a beautifully evil woman (hell, let’s dress her in rubber). She has a bottle of very expensive champagne. (No, this is not leading to a champagne enema. That’s another story). She pours it into a glass, pinches my nose, and forces me to drink the entire glass before I am allowed to breathe again.

Between each glass, she undresses me, slowly, one button at a time. Even though I have no say in this, she makes me want to be touched, need to be touched, and I become increasingly desperate and helpless, willing to do anything so that she might touch me more. Whenever I start to drift into pleasure she takes her hand away and pours me another glass. Again, nose pinched, glass held to my mouth, as I gulp and gulp, dying to breathe.

Needless to say, with each glass, I become more and more inebriated, unable to retain dignity or control. (She stays sober, but she smokes a lot; drawing the tension out).

This continues until the bottle is empty and I am naked, shameless with lust, and coincidentally, busting to pee.

There are a million ways this story can end. I suggest we play Erotic Choose Your Own Adventure:

ENDING A

Still with a full bladder, I am put over the chair and fucked with a strap-on until she is satisfied. I come and come like the dirty little slut that I am.

ENDING B

(I only just thought of this one right this moment, and am actually a little embarrassed to write it. But it’s so perverted I can’t resist). I am allowed to pee – into the champagne glass. Ten points to anyone who can guess what happens after this.

ENDING C

She goes down on me, telling me that if I come I will be severely punished – the cunnilingus is just another form of cruel torture. I try my hardest to resist but it is impossible – I end up squirting all over her face. So then, naturally, she puts me over the chair and canes me mercilessly. The end.

Blades and blood

I had a dream last week, one of those clear, reality based dreams where you dream you are in the same room that you’re actually in. (And when you wake up, you’re surprised to see you’re in exactly the same place, and then you get all freaked out that life is a perpetual dream… etc). This dream was simple, but I tend to find that erotic dreams work best when they are uncomplicated. I was holding a blade (a razor blade, I think), and I was dragging it over the skin of my thighs, enjoying the way it felt, and admiring how beautiful my blood looked. They weren’t deep cuts, and it wasn’t an act of self mutilation or depression – far from it. It was an act of celebration and joy. I was touching myself as I would a lover, except I just so happened to be holding a blade. Each cut was reverent, meditative, and I savoured every second of it, enjoying how it felt and looked.

This continued until my legs were covered in this strange art. The sun was shining through the window. I felt happy.

The image of this dream stayed with me all week, appearing whenever I shut my eyes. It has reminded me of how much I want to experience knife play again. I have a wonderful friend in Melbourne who owns a giant steel scalpel that her boyfriend nicked from a hospital – I think I need to see her again.

Head shaving

I have a thing for women with shaved heads – a serious thing. I first met my aforementioned friend in Melbourne when she had a shaved head, and I was instantly mesmerised. (She also happens to be an awesome person, which helped!) Thing is, although I’ve always been reduced to a swooning puddle every time I’ve encountered a shaven women, I’ve never believed that it would be something I’d do myself.

But my opinion has changed. However funny a shape my head might be, I think it’s something I simply have to do in this lifetime. So the plan is to grow my hair real long, and then shave it off for charity.

Now. I know this is very odd, but I’m currently sitting on this idea for an erotic story, which revolves around a woman getting her head shaved. I’m thinking of it as some sort of initiation ritual for a new recruit into some sort of underground community. This woman is told to go to an place she’s never been to before, at a specific time. When she enters, she is blindfolded, and stripped off all clothing and jewellery. She has no idea what is going to happen to her.

She is placed on a table, where every nook and cranny of her body is examined and then bathed. Then, her legs, thighs, cunt, and underarms are shaved as close as possible, with a razor blade. (I appear to be obsessed with razor blades right now.) Finally, the blindfold is removed, and the woman is told that her head is going to be shaved. It is her last opportunity to back out, before becoming a slave. She makes her choice, and her head is lovingly and thoroughly shaved.

(I saw a girl on Fetlife who had done exactly that for her master – shaved off all her long blonde hair. It was obviously a massive sacrifice for her, but she did it for him as an act of love and submission. She looked amazing).

Caning

Well, this isn’t very complex, but in the last few weeks I’ve really been hankering after a good caning. I feel a bit vulnerable and foolish saying this, because I know what I’m getting myself in for, but the Creature inside me has been severely underfed, and I know I need it again.

That’s all. A nice caning.

(And then, the next day, having my arse squeezed by a horny lover. Mmm hmm hmm.)

Right, well, guess I’d best be getting back to the parts of my life that don’t involve masturbating. Whatever that might be.

Rope Workshops

Hey, you! If you live in Sydney, and want to improve your rope bondage skills, you should totally come to these workshops. They’ll be informative, fun, and even better than that – I’ll be there!*

thursday 7th may 2009: rope bondage 202
at manacle, the clarence hotel 450 parramatta rd, petersham

getting into the groove? getting to feel the power of the rope?
ready to take the next step?

moving from the fundamentals of workshop 101, we incorporate limb tying, with more interesting restraints and combinations.

you will learn the steps to include rope in your play, including the delightful rope tying for [shhh] sex.

[cost $20, $15 SLPA & Kindred, start time: 7:00pm. approx 2 hrs ]

thursday 14th may 2009: rope bondage – body harnesses
at manacle, the clarence hotel 450 parramatta rd, peterhsam

ready for something a little more intricate? the stuff that has the WOW factor?

not just for the visual, the different variations of body harnesses can be a lot of fun to play with, and combine naturally into rope bondage scenes.

Learn a basic harness, then two more, then experiment with different variations on the theme. keep ‘em bound (and smiling).

[cost $20, $15 SLPA & Kindred, start time: 7:00pm. approx 2 hrs ]

For more information, please visit the Uber or Sydney Leather Pride websites.

* As the model, not the instructor. My own rope skills are shamefully bad.

‘Submissive’ Does Not Mean ‘Doormat’

(But it so often, depressingly, does!)

I’ll kick this off by formally announcing that Marauder and I have broken up, and I’ve moved out of the flat we shared.

The reasons for this breakup are as Facebook would describe: ‘complicated’.

Not bad per se. Just, comprising of more than one reason. And for the record, I still think Marauder is a kind, graceful, and generous man. (Graceful in the most manly possible way!)

Over the last few weeks, I’ve come up against the realisation that I’ve been hiding inside relationships for most of my adult life. Hiding in the sense that “I have a boyfriend” is much easier to say than “no, I don’t want to”. Towards the end of our relationship, Marauder told me that he wasn’t going to sit back and watch people take advantage of me anymore (both in the context of kink and in everyday life). Which was extremely dashing and sweet of him, but ultimately unhelpful. Because I need to learn how to stand up for myself.

So, wearing my bravest of brave faces, I packed up my life and moved into my own place.

This is about prioritising myself; looking after myself.

*Cue the Destiny’s Child song*

But where do I begin? What is it that I want, exactly? The stupid thing is that in all my life I’ve never precisely gone after what *I* wanted in life – I just accepted what I got. I thought myself lucky to be paid any attention from boys, no matter who they were, no matter how objectionable they tended to be. I thought myself ugly, and so I always felt inordinately grateful and surprised whenever anyone ‘accepted’ my appearance enough to have sex with me. And when I discovered that I was submissive, I gave my submission away as if it were a disease I needed to be rid of.

I like to think that I’ve come a long way since the days when I used to believe these things about myself, but on reflection, I’m not so sure.

Here’s one that will make my feminist sisters’ toes curl with indignation and recognition:

I have sex with people because I don’t want to cause a fuss by saying no.

I’m one of those women who thinks that, if I’ve wound up inside someone’s bedroom, it would be dreadful manners to back out of having sex with them.

Just because I suddenly don’t really feel like having sex doesn’t seem like a valid enough reason to say no. And I don’t want to be seen as a ‘tease’ or a ‘frigid bitch’, and anyway, who am I to refuse sex? Me, with my weird little body –  daring to turn someone down?

Of course this line of thinking is utterly ridiculous, but it lurks in my subconscious nonetheless.

And in fairness to the men I’ve shagged – I’m pretty sure that most of them would have been perfectly fine with me saying “I like you, but I don’t quite feel like fucking right now”. But instead, I’ve kept my mouth shut, and found myself halfway through the act feeling bad because I’m not connected. Which makes for crappy sex.

Even inside relationships, where I’ve known and loved and trusted my partner deeply, I still felt like I couldn’t refuse them sex just because I wasn’t in the mood. Like it was somehow my job, my role, to be ready and available whenever they wanted it.

Again, that’s ludicrous. But when I force myself to admit it, that’s how I’ve always behaved.

So something’s got to change, and it’s got to come from within me. It’s no good to just be with someone who can read me well enough to know when my heart’s not in it.

Here, for the first time in my life, I face the heady prospect of choosing my lovers according to what I want.

It just seems so decadent; so gratuitously indulgent.

But it’s fucking not. It’s a basic right – as is happiness – which is another thing I’ve never quite felt worthy of. As if I will be ‘punished’ somehow for enjoying myself, for acting upon my desires.

…and I wasn’t even raised Catholic!

What then, do I want exactly?

Um.

Ah.

Well, let’s see.

Okay. I want to be single, but I don’t want to be celibate.

I don’t want one night stands – sex for me is about spiritual, intellectual and emotional openness. The physicality is somewhat incidental.

I want safe sex, always, and for no one to try and argue with me about it.

Sex is not the only thing I want, in terms of physical intimacy. In fact, I’m sick of the intrinsically male viewpoint that sex (as in, intercourse) is the ultimate best thing, and that it is what all sexual acts should lead to. Because it’s wrong. The idea of ‘foreplay’ as being a tiresome precursor to intercourse is lazy and irritating, and I’m sick of it. In fact, I hate the word ‘foreplay’ because the word itself sets up the idea that it comes ‘before’ the main event. As if there’s no value in anything that doesn’t involve penetrative thrusting. Which leads me to:

I want eroticism. Talking, flirting, kissing, touching, dancing, sparring, spanking, grabbing, pulling, pressing. Sinking into it; placing it in the hands of the gods.

Finally, I want my submission to be a gift. It is the most intimate part of myself that I can share, and it is something that I will only share with those I trust and love. I need to be able to know the value of this beautiful and rare thing that makes me uniquely special. It’s not something that should be forcibly taken from me, as is has been in the past. It can only be earned.

So now that I have made my polite request to the universe, I shall wait.

Forever, if need be. But something tells me it won’t be long.

My Kind of Party

A Brazilian man once told me that when he made the decision to move to Sydney, he knew it would mean he’d have to leave parties behind. At the time I spoke to him, he was more than happy with his choice – Sydney is a wonderful place to live. But there was an element of sadness in his voice which, in spite of the massive cultural differences and the age gap between us, I could completely understand.

Not to say Sydney does not have ‘parties’. It certainly thinks it does. But although this might be an undeniably beautiful city, it also happens to be filled with Aussies. And the Australian idea of a good party involves standing around awkwardly, clutching a beer or some other sort of alcoholic beverage, making banal small talk (usually about the football or the weather), listening to terrible music, and sometimes pretending to dance.

…gods!

Growing up, I didn’t like parties. As usual, I blamed myself, rather than consider for a moment that I hated parties because all parties tended to be crap. I liked cake, but that was about all that I liked. Being anti-competitive meant that I didn’t enjoy games (am I the only person who was ever massively stressed out by Mintie hunts?), and being antisocial meant that I didn’t enjoy talking to people. (It wasn’t until I was about 23 that I truly came to appreciate the art of conversation, and the joys of going, like, out).

When I was 18, I attempted to throw a party while my parents were out. And in planning this party, I was struck by the thought: what does one do at a party? Social constructs have never made much sense to me, which is probably due to being raised by wolves my parents. I always overanalyse every social situation, to the point where all I can see is absurdity. Your average 18 year old would not feel the need to question what actually happens at a party. They would just stock up on the RTDs (back when a six pack of Vodka Cruisers did not set you back a million dollars), turn the music up, and set about getting as shitfaced as possible. But as I had yet to discover alcohol, I just didn’t understand the point of parties other than to eat unhealthily and dress up like a mini goth (back when the term ‘emo’ had not yet been coined).

So why was I throwing this party? I think it was really out of a sense of obligation – my parents were out and thus it seemed requisite. Also, I think I might have had a vague idea that if I opened the door and called it a party, I would automatically have fun. Using the Underpants Gnome mode of reasoning:

Step 1: Throw party

Step 2: ….

Step 3: Fun!

Needless to say, my party kind of sucked.

It wasn’t an utter disaster, it just wasn’t very interesting. I think the highlight of the evening was ‘chain smoking’ three Marlborough Lights with a friend of mine in the lounge room, which wasn’t even all that naughty considering I was 18 and could legally buy cigarettes anyway.

The whole ‘I don’t enjoy this thing which everyone else seems to enjoy must mean that I’m the one with the problem’ mentality has been the story of my life. Also, knowing what you don’t enjoy does not put you on a path towards discovering what you do. I reckon that no one enjoys parties as much as they say they do or as much as they feel they should. And yet we all do it – the standing around awkwardly, the banal chitchat. The idea of a party holds so much promise and anticipation – the appeal is contained within the concept, not the execution.

The first fetish party I ever went to started out every bit as disappointingly as every party I’d ever been to, except everyone around me was dressed in fetish gear. I found myself doing what I usually do in awkward social situations – stuffing my face with unappetising food. (Which created some physical discomfort on top of the social discomfort, as I was wearing a corset). And you know when a party is so bad that alcohol is useless? There is nothing worse than thinking ‘well not only am I still bored, but now I have a massive hangover to look forward to. Fan-bloody-tastic’.

(As a brief aside, why do we as a nation insist on pumping ourselves full of alcohol just so we can act sober? It’s a social faux pas to drink so much that you’re staggering around, and yet at every social gathering you go to, alcohol is almost forcibly poured down your throat, and anyone who refuses, especially if they’re male, is considered to be a joyless wowser. Huh?)

So anyway, there I was at this fetish party, eating from the amazingly crap buffet, making small talk with a bunch of PVC-clad people thirty years older than me, wishing that an alien spaceship would fly overhead and take me to the planet Zorbor for anal probes and hopefully death; when at the eleventh hour my boyfriend took me to the front of the house so I could see the room with the cage.

And, just like that, I was having… fun?

‘Fun’ is not the best way to describe the experience I had inside that cage on that night, but it gives you an idea.

It was then that I realised that fetish parties are my kind of parties. For the following reasons:

• They give you an opportunity to shuck your everyday persona

In my experience, dressing up in something outrageously slutty gives me a chance to act out the sexual side of myself that is usually kept frustratingly under wraps. Being a shy introvert all the time gets annoying, and these parties give me a chance to say and do all sorts of crazy things, because the person doing them is not ‘me’. (Even though it is – but shh!)

• They provide you with things to watch, and things to do

At fetish parties, stuff happens. Stuff is entertaining, and means that your night does not need to revolve solely around drinking and talking.

• They encourage acts of imagination and spontaneity

Put a bunch of perverts in a room, give them canes, ropes, paddles and whatever else, warm them up with a bit of booze, and you are guaranteed an interesting night. You never quite know what is going to happen at one of these things. Even though I’ve now been to more fetish parties than I’ve had hot dinners, I still manage to be surprised by how weird and wild and interesting they can be.

• Craziness is largely accepted

If you were at a normal party, and you saw a half-naked person simultaneously screaming, crying, bleeding, and laughing, you would probably call the police. But the fetish party setting provides a heterotopia in which normal social codes are disrupted. Do you know how freeing it is to lose all self consciousness about your body, your mind and your sexuality, all at once? The burden of acting ’sane’ all the time is never so apparent as when you’ve suddenly thrown it off, and have started to interact with people in a way that is intimate and genuine.

• You don’t have to disguise your sexual agenda

Normally, people go to parties secretly hoping that they’ll do something naughty and sexy. Fetish parties remove all that coy bullshit. People don’t have to steal glances at your outfit – you wore it so you could be perved on, and it would be weird if people didn’t look. Everyone is generally very complimentary at these things – a comment of ‘nice boobs!’ is not as sleazy as it would be in an ordinary setting. That said, a fetish party is not a great place to ‘pick up’, and most people who go with this intention end up disappointed. It’s all about the play and the pervery; anything else is a bonus.

• You don’t have to fit into a stereotype to be considered attractive

Most of the people you see at these parties are comfortable in their own skin, which makes them sexy. ‘Hotness’ is relative, and fetish events do not impose the tired standard for women that you need to be tall, thin, big-breasted and blonde to qualify as attractive. I’m willing to bet that there are more men fed up with this cliché than there are women – what would be the point if we all looked the fucking same?

• They’re funny

This might seem a little odd, but allow me to explain. In my general experience, a lot of people at ‘normal’ parties take themselves too seriously. At a wedding, for example, everyone is allowed to have ‘fun’ so long as they stick within the boundaries of how they are allowed to have fun (which, in Australian society, usually means drinking a lot and ‘dancing’ to the Grease Medley). Now, a lot of people at fetish events take themselves very seriously too – but I don’t hang around them. All of my good kinky friends have an appreciation for irony, and have a certain sense of humour about what they do. Sure, some acts of kink are very serious – but they’re only serious in so far as life itself is serious. And since life is pretty funny – good kink reflects that.

Hmm. I set out with this post to talk specifically about the party I went to last Friday, but I got carried away. Which means you’ll have to wait for the next instalment to find out. Sorry!

Stay tuned for more Sexy Times, coming to a darkened computer room near you…

Badness

If love is war, sex is the ammunition.

For anyone who has ever had awesome sex after a fight – you’ll know what I’m talking about. Or anyone who has ever had a moment of weakness and shagged their obnoxious and horrid yet somehow alluring ex. Or for those who have given in to torrid temptation and shacked up with someone who wasn’t yours.

Bad sex is good sex. And good sex is sometimes bad sex.

Don’t tell me it ain’t true. I’m onto you.

It’s this thing that people seem to ignore when they’re theorising about sex. And I should know – I spent a year reading a lot of academic literature relating to sexuality and gender for my Honours thesis. After reading a lot of stuff that suggested we should all be aiming for a genderless utopia in which everyone is treated equally and sex becomes non-violent and unemotional, I came to the conclusion that you can theorise all you want – but ultimately, critical objectivity is never going to get you off.

Sex doesn’t answer to political correctness, and thank god for that.

See, I know I’ve been all a bit down on our friend Monogamy, but I will give the ol’ fellow this:

Monogamy provides rules, and breaking the rules provides opportunities for badness.

Without a standard against which one can be rated as ‘good’, one cannot ever be ‘bad’.

And badness is hot.

Like, jalapeño sauce on top of Scarlett Johansson’s bosom in the middle of a bushfire on Mercury hot. Badness, badness! Badness is hot.

I’m tired of all these Kumbaya alternatives to monogamy that doggedly insist there is a way to have everything you want without it upsetting anyone else. If there were a way for us to have all the love and sex we want with whoever we want without any fear of recrimination, that would be ideal, right?

Maybe, but then again, maybe not. It is a quintessentially human compulsion to go after that which we can’t have. To want more than we’ve got. If we all end up living in a polyamorous commune in which love is shared and sex is exchanged freely as an act of mutual respect, what room is left for that terrifyingly awesome feeling you get from doing something different, unauthorised, unscripted; wrong?

(Actually, the hippies and feminists *did* try to do the free love thing in the sixties and seventies, but it didn’t end up becoming mainstream as they had hoped. If you read Monkey Grip by Helen Garner, you’ll see that all the same issues of jealousy and betrayal still came up in these polyamorous communities, and that in some cases it became even more complicated and heart-breaking than the standard, particularly where kids were involved).

Now, look. I hate hurting the people I love, I really do. Much as I loathe the word, I am, deep down, a nice person. There is no point in pretending otherwise – I generally always want to do the right thing by people, and even more hideously, I want everyone to like me. But here’s the thing – when it comes to sex – I like it mean. What turns me on has nothing to do with my conscious identity. (Or, it probably has a *lot* to do with it, in that everything I deny about myself gets pushed underground into my subconscious, which is the main driving force behind what pushes my sexual buttons).

So I’m a bundle of contradictions, just like everybody.

And I don’t have any answers, not yet. I’m not suggesting that we should all just stick to monogamy and accept that affairs and indiscretions are unavoidable parts of the package. Monogamy can work, as long as it’s what you both want. But ‘want’ is such a slippery word. Any relationship can start out based upon mutually shared values. But what if what you want changes over time? What if one person wants something that will make their partner unhappy? Do they shoulder the burden of that unhappiness by denying themselves what they want in order to protect their partner, thus ruining the relationship anyway through resentment? Or do they go after what they want, thus ruining the relationship through guilt and betrayal?

Clearly, want is ruinous. Buddhists believe that craving is the cause of all suffering. Fundamentalist Christians try to program themselves into believing that the only thing they want is God’s love. Addicts streamline all of their wanting into their addiction. It is human nature to want, and it seems like you’ve got to be more than human to transcend such earthly desires. Which I kind of think negates the point of being here in the first place – depending on what you believe, you’ve potentially got a whole eternity to exist in a peaceful bliss removed from the burden of earthy desires, so isn’t suffering something you should accept as an intrinsic part of the life experience? (Unless you believe that you will be punished for your sins when you die – which I don’t).

I like a little bit of suffering now and then, as I’m sure I might have mentioned once or twenty times. I’ve stopped running away from hurt, and have come to a place where I embrace it as evidence that I’m alive. Just as night follows day, the patterns of joy and sadness are cyclical. The good thing about the fact that nothing lasts, is that even the really bad shit doesn’t last forever. I once met a man who had the words ‘things fall apart’ tattooed on his wrist, which struck me as particularly beautiful. (On the other wrist, now that his life has improved somewhat, he is going to get ‘things come together’).

So, I’m cool with suffering. I like it. Without getting all emo on your arses, I do believe that it’s just as important to feel sad occasionally as it is to feel happy. BUT, the trouble is, I’m still completely uncomfortable with being the cause of suffering in anyone else’s life. I just can’t handle it. Nothing depresses me more than to think that I’m responsible for making someone unhappy. But other people have made me unhappy plenty of times – why can’t I accept that this is just the way things are?

Sometimes I feel backed into a depressive corner where I feel that the only way to prevent myself from causing suffering is to shut myself off from the world. But then I realise that that’s a one way ticket into crazy hermit depressed recluse-ville. And for all that I’ve got to give, say, and share, it would be a total shame for me to do that.

And anyway, without all of this angst and complexity, what on earth would I write about?

Badness makes life interesting, whether or not you accept this fact.

I’m not saying badness needs to be manufactured – there’s more than enough that occurs naturally and spontaneously. And it shouldn’t be overdone, otherwise your life will get thrown out of balance and you’ll end up suffering all of the time. Eroticism hangs in the balance between pleasure and pain – too much of one thing and it becomes artless.

So I’m a good girl who likes to do bad things, but who also doesn’t want to upset anyone.

Hmm. If I manage to figure out how to consolidate all of this, I’ll be sure to let you know. Until then I guess I’ll keep wandering around, rubbing up against people, loving, crying, laughing; blundering my way through.