Secret Confessions of a Smart Girl

This post in MayMay’s journal got me thinking about some of the things I don’t like about primarily heterosexual scene spaces. In particular, it made me want to tell the following story. Some variation on this has happened to me numerous times, and I continue to find it equal parts annoying, amusing, and incomprehensible.

I usually go to scene events alone. I’m almost always single, and although I can be quite shy I can usually find someone nice to talk to, if not to play with. However, almost once during every evening I have gone to Paddles the following scenario has happened: I will be standing chatting with a man, often one I have just met, when another man will come up and ask my conversational companion if I will top him.

Lets examine the problem here. Doing this requires such an absurdly confused set of assumptions that I do not understand how it has happened once, let alone the many times it has actually occurred.

• Assumption 1: A woman is talking to a man, therefore she must belong to him.

By making this assumption you are giving me a good hint that I will not like you. I am somewhat willing to concede that in this environment there are men who would get offended if you did not make this assumption about their relationship to the women they are talking to, but I think those men are assholes. Nonetheless, there is an additional problem with this assumption, and that is its relationship to Assumption 2.

• Assumption 2: A woman who has given a man control over her decisions is going to want to top you.

That one just doesn’t make any sense. You can’t have it both ways. While there are submissive tops, they are not so common that it is remotely logical to approach someone as though they are both at once.

For the record, if you really want to know if I am with the person I am talking to in a way that precludes my interacting with you, you should ask one of us that. I, personally, think it’s far ruder to make the assumption than to treat a person as an individual, but… l’autre temps l’autre mores. One must make allowances for local custom.

That having been said, talking around me instead of to me, in the absence of a very clear indication that I am serving in the role of someone’s property, makes me rude. In general, I’m a very polite girl. If you ask me to play, nicely, I’ll say yes or no, nicely. I’m not going to be offended if you’re interested in doing something I don’t want to do. I only find it annoying when, as I’ve mentioned, someone talks around me instead of to me or is unable to take a polite no. Hell, sometimes I’ll apologize for saying no when I’ve been talking to someone I find delightful, but don’t feel there’s any kinky overlap. This mostly has been an issue with other submissives, since that is the group with whom I am least likely to be able to come up with any sort of public play activity that we’re going to both want to do. If I like a toppish sort as a human being, I can almost always find some mutually agreeable physical interaction, but normally if I’m doing something that appears toppy/dominant in public it’s because I’m doing it to please someone I love. For example, I’ll agree to let my dear friend G. lace me into my boots because it makes him really happy, and we’ve been friends for over a decade, but it’s not something I’m going to do casually with someone I just met because, most of the time, power dynamics with me on the dominant side make me profoundly uncomfortable. I do switch, as I mentioned in my last post, but I have to be either inspired or desperately desirous to jump the other person involved. Usually both.

The other thing that Maymay’s post made me want to talk about was the question that I asked in my response. “Why do certain types of dominant men think that any single submissive woman will be grateful for any drop of their attention?” To a certain extent, I think the answer may have to do with self esteem. I know a non trivial number of submissives who have, or have had, relatively low self esteem. They don’t think they’re beautiful enough, or interesting enough, or whatever enough to attract the people they want, and so they can sometimes be insanely grateful for any form of attention that seems like what they’re craving - even if it’s from someone who in any other situation they would see as being something of a jerk. So, these men have gotten that reaction the past, and successfully taken advantage of it, which feeds their egos and their belief that this is the Right And Proper Way to Be. Combine that with an endlessly renewing supply of young, wide-eyed submissives who want to give themselves to someone so very much, and who think that these morons are the only way to do it, because the good tops and dominants are too polite to be pushy, and you create the nucleus of a serious and self sustaining problem.

I could have been one of them. Fortunately, even though my self image was through the floor for most of my young adulthood, I was lucky. I may have thought I was ugly and unloveable, and walked around with a giant “fresh meat” sign blinking behind me for all the world to see, but I was smart enough, savvy enough, and strong enough to never be taken advantage of. It helped that I had safe places to get my urge for a good beating out, and that I was well read and empowered by my upbringing. It also, probably, helped that I very clearly stated that any and all sexual contact was off limits in scene situations, which probably made me uninteresting to the worst of the potential predators. (I should stop and say here that the vast majority of the people I have met in the scene, dominant and submissive, straight and gay, men and women, have been wonderful people. In my 12 years in the scene I have rarely felt unsafe in a public space. However, I’m cautious enough that I have always known better than to play in a private space with someone I didn’t know well, or consider an acceptable risk. There are people I know who have not been so smart, or so lucky.)

These days, when some dominant male approaches me in a way that suggests he thinks I should be grateful to bask in his graces for even a moment I laugh it off… and then I usually keep half an eye out for who else he is cornering in case they’re someone who doesn’t know how to get away.

Finally, a brief thought on my methods of getting to play, in which I present myself as a Very Silly Girl whose example should almost certainly not be followed by others. When I see someone interesting I want to casually bottom to (either because they’re pretty, nice, smart, or have some Exciting Technical Skill), it’s not usually that difficult for me to go up to them and make the request. (”Hi! You’re pretty! Do you want to play?” “Wow, that was really neat, if at some point you might be interested in trying that on me would you let me know?” “I like you, if you ever want to do painful things together, just ask!”) If someone asks to top me, they seem nice, and I’m even remotely in the mood I’ll probably say yes. The one exception is if I’m fixating on someone else. (If I have gotten it into my head that I really want to play with person X, it doesn’t matter how interesting person Y is… it can be very hard for me to refocus.)

And, on the reverse side, my tried and true method for not getting to play. The only time I’m really reluctant to ask someone to play is if my interest extends beyond a simple casual scene. The second I start to develop even the tiniest crush on someone I usually utterly lose my ability to bluntly approach them and express my appreciation for their shininess. I do recognize the irony in this. I suppose it’s because I have nothing invested in casual play except fun, but if I get rejected by someone I’m actually interested in it might hurt… and not in the fun bruise-y way. I have to admit, I did that this weekend. Several times this weekend I found myself almost saying to someone, “Just so you know, I am flirting with you,” and chickening out. It made me roll my eyes at myself repeatedly, because there were Perfect Conversational Openings and I was letting them slide by. Sometimes I am just an enormous dork.

It’s hard to giggle maniacally quietly.

Therefore, if you are going to have a Pinky and the Brain scene, you should really do it in a place where hysterical laughter and repeated ejaculations of “Narf!” will not be distracting to the people around you.

Otherwise, you will gasp yourself into hysteria trying to constrain the giggles, and bash your head on a wooden table while trying to laugh in silence.

I love being a bad influence. Even though being around cute girls is clearly a major risk factor for concussion (I had bashed my head in the same place the night before after smooching a different cute girl and not realizing their was a metal scaffold behind me right at skull height.)

I like pain.

I like pain when it hurts, and I like pain when it somehow transmutes into something else.

I had 2.5 impact scenes this weekend. The first, with J. and V. was a goofy indulgence. Canes, floggers, knives, teeth, and bad jokes. Things hurt, and it was fun. Later that night, I tried to have a second scene with P. that also involved impact. Things hurt, and it wasn’t fun at all. I could take it, but I wasn’t enjoying it at all. It’s amazing how much of a difference headspace makes.

Playing with J was a planned exercise in ridiculousness. We met for the first time 15 minutes before he started beating me, but we’d spent two weeks making terrible jokes at each other and mentioning buttons. V was a last minute inclusion, but one that was fine with me. We’ve known each other for 10 years and although playing had never come up before, a good time was had by all. The half scene with P. that followed was something else entirely. We had negotiated that we were going to play, but I had assumed that we were going to play in the same way we had before, which was one of the best impromptu scenes I have ever had. P, on the other hand, was more interested in either beating me or doing forced orgasm play. So, when we started playing I was a combination of disappointed and uncomfortable (I don’t generally do sexual play with people I’m not involved with), and I just couldn’t take the pain. It wasn’t any worse than it had been an hour earlier, it just wasn’t doable. In a way, I found it quite interesting. Context makes such an enormous difference in the processing of sensation.

The second full impact scene of the weekend happened the next day. It was a caning scene, and I very quickly reached the point where pain transmuted into an almost sexual pleasure. I don’t really understand the mechanics of that transition. I know the types of scenes in which it is most likely to happen (canes and singletails), but I don’t understand why sometimes a sensation hurts and other times the exact same stimulus is just arousing. It doesn’t, necessarily, have anything to do with the person I’m playing with. It doesn’t require a submissive headspace. It’s just there sometimes, and absent others. I wish I could call it. After the scene was over I spent several hours reveling in the fact that every time I shifted my weight waves of painful pleasure swept through my brain.

I wish I could figure out how it works. One thing that I find interesting, in my brain, is that when a D/s dynamic is present I’m far less likely to process pain as pleasure. Enjoying pain, in that context, is usually about taking it because my dominant partner wants me to. It seems like having the pain feel good (unless it was intended to) would be a kind of cheating, and so my brain is less likely to perform the sensational transmutation. On the other hand, in the context of sex, the infliction of pain is almost always going to turn me on more, whether or not it feels ‘good.’ So clearly, there is at least some relatively high-level control of how the process of pain perception works, I just don’t know if it’s possible to modify it intentionally.

I like thinking about the science of sex (or scene). I like watching how it works for other people. Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk about after this weekend… rediscovering my inner switch.

When I first entered the scene, 12 years or so ago, I identified as a switch. A switch who preferred to bottom, yes, but a switch. Over time, however, I began to identify more and more firmly as a submissive, smart ass masochist, and bottom. I stopped topping entirely. The exception being that I tended to occasionally be rather… forceful in bed. I like to bite. I like to pull hair. I like to take control in order to get a reaction. (I like when that reaction is to turn the tables and hold me down and hurt me, but that’s a separate issue). I finally learned a good word for that a few months ago, “reaction junkie.” That’s the switch for my switch. I like to get a good reaction. Switching, for me, also requires some level of sexual attraction. I can bottom to anyone, but if I’m going to put my hands or teeth (or knives) on someone, it’s going to be because I want to turn them on. I don’t think I would top anyone I didn’t want to kiss. In fact, I generally only get all toppish on people who I really want to fuck. And that “toppishness” generally takes the form of intimate pain. I want to put my mouth on them, my nails, or my knives. I want to play with arousal and denial. I want to make them writhe.

I don’t think I’m going to rewrite my internal labels or anything, but it’s nice to acknowledge publicly that that side of myself does occasionally like to come out and play. Or, more accurately, that that side of myself likes to konk attractive people over the head with a stick and drag them off to a private corner for some ravishment.

This weekend I went to a BDSM conference. It is not the first time I have attended this conference, but it is the first time I have been there in at least 5 years. (I think I had a day pass in 2002 when I was moving, but the last time I actually attended the whole thing was 1998.) I had a blast. I managed to play a lot, meet some people I had really looked forward to meeting, see some old friends I had lost touch with, rediscover my inner switch, and be instructed in some more of the art of vanilla sex.

Yes, you read that right. I leave the state to revel in the depths of my kinkiness and end up doing some serious exploration of the vanilla. As I’ve mentioned in the past, vanilla is a somewhat novel flavor for me. I was kinky long before I was sexual, and it was only recently that I had truly vanilla sex for the first time. So, this weekend, in addition to getting soundly beaten, and thoroughly and enjoyably abused (more about this later), I got a bit of a vanilla tour. Vanilla, after all, isn’t a single flavor. There’s vanilla bean, french vanilla, vanilla vanilla, and the vile Tofutti substitute that I tried once a few years ago and will henceforth avoid like the plague. As it turns out, in general, I like vanilla. I suspect I will never be as satisfied with it as with pistachio, or other more edgy flavors, but it’s not a bad taste at all, and I often wake up with an overwhelming desire for a cone. Now if only I could find a good local ice cream store…

My initial plan for this evening was to be ravished.

I was rather looking forward to it. Nonetheless, when the ravishment had to be canceled because of various technical difficulties, I decided to look on the bright side. Lack of ravishment would become an opportunity to get work done before heading down to BRXX this weekend. It would, in fact, abrogate the need to work while I was down there. That would, in turn, hopefully provide more opportunities for kinky decadence.

So I got my work done.

Now I am insanely horny. Even more so than usual.

I am going to try and turn this to the benefit of one or more of my various jobs by writing about sex. Then, when that fails, I will go eat some chocolate, read some porn, and hope that I manage to be ravished sometime in the near future.

Oooh. Or maybe I’ll watch some porn. I forgot that I have two DVDs on the review queue that need to be dealt with. One of the DVDs is even something I requested, and therefore actually want to see. That will be a nice change. Most of the porn I get sent to review is more disturbing than hot. Sadly, I’ve already reviewed all the new sex toys. Have I mentioned how much I love it when masturbation counts as being productive? I mean, I’d do it anyway, but when its for the sake of work it’s twice as good.

Can it be tomorrow yet?

For me, the secret to successful orgasms is a good book.

Oh, in a pinch a good website will do, or some really raunchy content from alt.sex.stories (what are your search keywords? mine are nc and mmf) , but it’s words that are the most important component in my recipe for getting off. If I’m masturbating, no amount of even amazing sensation will give me an orgasm if I can’t engage my brain in the activity, and I frequently have trouble holding onto a fantasy to fulfillment without the presence of visual aids (literal aids? I do not think that means what I think it means.) In contrast, the right story, such as something from Shokushu High School, can get me off with little physical stimulation at all.

Am I weird? This is an honest question. I’m actually rather well educated about the academics of sex and sexuality, but the answer to this question I do not know. I know that, in general, there is more pornography consumption by men, but also that people who masturbate more consume more pornography - regardless of gender. A quick search of the literature suggests that men are more likely to use fantasy as part of masturbation than women, but nothing specifically on my, possibly ADD mediated, use of the written word.

I was thinking about this prior to my afternoon nap and post my afternoon pre-nap orgasm. It made me wonder, what the most important ingredient is in the orgasm recipe - and if it varies between masturbatory orgasms and interactive orgasms. I don’t know if it’s that they’re different for me, or if I just weigh the importance of orgasms differently in different situations. If I’m masturbating, it’s because I want to get off. I want the physical release and relaxation, either because I’m horny or because its better than drugs for helping me fall asleep. On the other hand sex with someone else can be good or even great, with no orgasms anywhere in sight. Not that they’re not nice there as well, but, for me, sex with other people is about the experience and the interaction - not achieving an orgasmic “goal.” Getting off isn’t an intrinsic desire for me in BDSM scenes, either. I just like having the crap beaten out of me… or whatever*.

Are these things that other people think about as well?

———-
*Here in the privacy of my anonymity I will admit that sometimes when I’m playing casually it’s not about the interaction at all. It’s about experiencing certain types of enjoyable sensations. There has been more than one time when I really could have cared less who was at the other end of a whip, candle, or hand as long as it was delivering enjoyable sensations. It’s certainly more fun to play when I’m playing with someone fun, but sometimes a girl just wants some good no-commitment bruises. Admitting this makes me feel terribly selfish, but it’s the truth.

(and yes, that was sung to the tune of Rawhide)

I’m very excited, because I have a caning date for Sunday. This makes me happy for several reasons. The first is the caning itself. I really like being caned. The second is getting to see the caner, who is a Delightful Human Being. The third is that I get to consciously watch the progression of my marks over the period of a week to see what I have to worry about on filming day before I’m scheduled to have the awkward conversation with my director. So, and I’m sure this will greatly distress my caner, I need to end up with some really impressive marks. You know, for the sake of science. Then, maybe I won’t have to say to my director and A.D. “How exactly will the partially nude shots be set up, and will whip marks be a problem for you on the day of the shoot?” To quote He Who Shall Aid Me in My Experiment “You just managed to make our scene practical. I am amazed.” Yes. It’s true, world. When it comes to pointless justifications… I’m Just That Good.

Speaking of which, I now have two good reasons to make blondies with dark chocolate chips (wanting to eat them is a reason, but it isn’t good.) I shall keep some, bring some to the Wielder of Destructive Implements, and send the rest to The Boy Formerly Known as Crush. When people I care about are distressed I want to make them baked goods. I’m just that sort of a girl, and I have the Donna Reed dress to prove it.

I have a million things to do today. I’m stressed over a film shoot, I have to find a substitute for my absent dog sitter, and I can’t manage to get out of bed because I’m thinking about sex. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not a morning person. One of the side effects of not being a morning person is that if I’m lying in bed fantasizing my mind starts to wander just as it gets to the good parts. Or, alternatively, I end up on an endless loop of revisions until the early part of the fantasy is letter perfect, but I don’t actually get thoroughly and debasingly fucked. It’s not only extremely frustrating, it takes a long time. And, on mornings like this when I have Things to Do, it means I have to force myself out of bed and into the world at large when I’d rather would far rather lie there half asleep, touching myself just enough to enhance my imagination.

But I am responsible woman, and I have dragged myself out of bed, walked the dog, and sat down at the computer to exorcise the fantasy from my fevered brain so that I can then throw myself into the shower and make myself pretty in time to go be brilliant and glamorous on film.

————

“I’ll give you a choice,” he said, while we were walking to the car after I picked him up at the airport. “You can suck me off here, in the car, before we drive home, and then maybe I’ll want to fuck you when we get there, or you can wait until we get home and suck me off there and then I’ll just go to sleep afterwards.”

He’d been gone for a month. There wasn’t really any choice at all. I blushed, and muttered softly, “here please.”

“What did you say?” he asked, leaning against the side of the car where it was parked in the middle of the crowded parking lot.

I knelt down on the cold concrete and looked up at him, “Here please.”

“Good girl,” he said, and I moaned softly as his hand went to the button of his pants…

I used to have a t-shirt that said “Bite me, literally.” It was better than any pick-up line. I got nibbled on constantly. Once, at DragonCon, a bunch of Klingons passed me around like a mid-afternoon snack. I like being bitten. It’s a nice combination of intimacy and pain.

I wonder what happened to that shirt.

In the good old days, when I was spending a great deal more time in scene space, I used to do a lot of what I call “stunt bottoming.” For those of you who do not have a direct line to the translation center of my brain, what I call “stunt bottoming” is bottoming to someone who is learning a new trick. A lot of times I did this because that “someone” was a hot girl, and any excuse to play with a hot girl is a good excuse to play with a hot girl, but I also did it because it pings the ‘helpful’ aspect of my personality… and I’m good at it.

What I think makes me useful as a stunt bottom, or teaching tool, is that I’m quite capable of having a lovely time being hit with things, or poked with things, or otherwise manipulated, without being in any sort of headspace that impairs my ability to communicate. I’m also perfectly comfortable giving not just descriptive feedback “that feels like ‘x’“, but constructive feedback “you’re starting to wrap a little on my neck,” to tops without feeling, somehow, that I’m infringing on their toply prerogatives. Plus, as I told the girl whose topping virginity I took a few months ago, “I’m not going to get mad at you if you make a mistake and miss a target or hit me too hard. I can take care of myself.”

*sigh* I miss having a fabulous local play space. It’s fun to make new friends and get hit by people.