Secret Confessions of a Smart Girl

I went to the party I talked about in my last post, and it was lovely and wonderful and fun and then it was a mess.

The mess was not the party’s fault. Not really. By and large it was a wonderful space filled with a group of people I adore doing fun things and having a great time. I did have some issues, but they were the same issues I always have and reflect more on my tendency to be a bit judgmental about sexual behavior* than on any fault of the party itself.

The problem was with me. I am an introvert even when at my most emotionally healthy, and I am so far from a state of optimum emotional health at the moment that it would take two full days of travel to get there on the Concord. I frequently get stuck in these maddening spirals of thought that swirl around so quickly that there is no way to escape, and when I am tired, depressed, or otherwise off, people quite literally get on my nerves. They make me angry and twitchy and upset simply by being physically near me. I can deal happily with small groups of friends in contained spaces, but if I am even the slightest bit off, which I have been most of the time as of late, surrounding me with flocks soon makes me overwhelmed. If I don’t have something I need to be doing, I simply can not cope.

So on the last night of the party, I fled. I made a valiant attempt to bring up my mood, get dressed in a sexy outfit, and go have fun, and lasted all of five minutes before needing to run away to my hotel room for a good cry. It was there that my MDP found me an hour or so later.

We’d had plans to play, and so he’d come down to find out if I thought I would be more in the mood to play right then or later (in which case he would go play with one of his other partners first.) “Not at all” was not an option (and that combination of considerate and still in charge is a truly delicious and delightful thing.) I left the ball in his court, but apparently was closer to the edge than I thought, because he touched me and I promptly burst into tears.

The most frustrating thing about depression, for me, is the disproportionate emotional responses to minor or nonexistent stimuli. It’s enormously aggravating to be that overwhelmed and upset when absolutely nothing in the world is tangibly wrong, except for being perhaps a little short on sleep. I explained that, or did as best as I could while blubbering, and then he decided it would be better to play right then (or as “right then” as you can manage when you need to inform several people about your scheduling plans) and flopped me into sub space by the simple expedient of telling me to take off my clothes and get ready to please him.

It got me out of my head. It shut off all the doubts and made me present. It, in fact, locked me into the present, which is something I have a lot of difficulty doing for myself. I took off my clothing and was suddenly ready and excited to be used. That is the joy of subspace.

So much of the sex that my MDP and I have takes place inside my mind. So much of what I enjoy is not just what we do, but the way I process it and think about it. It makes for odd, and useful, contradictions like the fact that thinking about him using me when I don’t want him to use me is such a turn on that I instantly want him to use me. I am excited by the very fact that he uses me because he wants to, which is of course why I have negotiated a relationship where someone can use me regardless of my interest at any given time. (I could, of course, always safeword out, but knowing that and believing it means I usually don’t want to or need to. Plus, he’s wonderfully considerate of my feelings, more so than he needs to be, which makes me believe that should he choose not to be because he really, really wants something of me, I would be even more inclined to give in than usual.) It makes me beg him to hurt me as much as he wants, to hurt me more than I like, because it makes me so hot to give more than I actively desire. It makes me fantasize about him doing the things I am most afraid of, and get off on those things, because of that very fear. I can lie in bed next to him, not even touching him, getting more and more worked up by thinking about all the horrible things he could do to me, that I would let him do to me, which I hate or fear… and end up wanting him to do the things I don’t want more and more with every passing moment.

We are conditioning me to give him, and my mental perception of him, rather profound control over my arousal and orgasm. I say we are conditioning, because it is an effort that I actively embrace and further. In fact, I realized the other day that I was asking him to do certain things** while we were playing because I wanted to more closely link sexual excitement to pain. I have fantasized about being able to orgasm from painful stimuli since I first read porn that talked about it over a decade ago, and apparently I was subconsciously trying to get myself there. I told him about it, when I figured out what I was doing in the middle of a scene, and I think he was amused (aroused? amused? such similar words…. let’s just say he didn’t object.)

But really, so much of sexual response is mental and as such can be conditioned. That’s a fun toy, but it also provides a useful conceptual window into other forms of mood alteration. My MDP can knock me into subspace pretty reliably with his actions, but it’s because I’ve - consciously and unconsciously- trained myself to go there. It’s in many ways a form of self hypnosis - learning to get off in the way my mental and physical proclivities drive me to. Why shouldn’t I be able to do that to stave off the worst ravages of depression? I’ve been wondering about practical applications - not of submission but of the mental processes that let me submit - a lot lately.

At the end of our scene that night, alone together in the hotel room, my MDP asked me if I thought I could stay in head space for the rest of the night while he was back at the party, holding onto it until he returned. He was trying to give me a way to function and enjoy myself while alone as well as help keep me from returning to my previously messed up state. I wasn’t sure if I could maintain the head space by myself for an extended period, but the knowledge he was coming back in a few hours made it seem vaguely plausible - so he told me to try and gave me instructions for what was, and wasn’t, acceptable behavior during the time he was gone.

When he left, I basically half napped/half writhed around in head space for a few hours until he returned. He stopped in a few times to check on me, slap me around a bit (Gods, but that was hot), and pick up things he needed, and it worked. I didn’t descend back into the Pits of Despair and what could have been a miserable evening turned into one that was quite intensely wonderful instead.

I really need to figure out is how to apply that trick to myself. It’s been made abundantly clear that I can usually fight my way back to emotional functioning if something or someone needs me to do so, I just have to learn how to manage it on my own volition. It will help, I think, that I have become more and more conscious of when my thoughts are being made irrational by brain chemicals. I just need to determine how to move from recognition to being able, and willing, to do something about it. I shouldn’t need the glorious self-hypnosis of subspace, although it is certainly a tool I can use - even alone in the privacy of my own mind.
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_{*Not judgmental in the way of “judging their character” but judgmental in the way of “things that make me unwilling to sleep with them no matter how much I might want to.”}

_{Although I must admit I have occaisionally failed to live up to my own standards, it makes me really queasy to see people have sex, even safer sex, with multiple new partners - particularly new partners who they have just met - over the course of a few hours or days. I am frequently envious of the opportunities that they throw freely themselves into that I feel are outside my comfortable level of risk taking, but at the same time I have trouble believing that they’ve all had good talks about testing and safe sex and levels of ongoing risk with each casual partner and are making informed decisions about their sex lives. Given my work-related somewhat privileged place as a Holder of Personal Information In This Area, I also often wonder if I know things that they don’t, and wondering that… makes me uncomfortable. I would never break anyone’s privacy about it, but it makes me uncomfortable.}

_{Unfortunately, another thing that this weekend made me quite clear on is the extent to which I am already unhappy with the size of my sexual network, and I have come to terms with the fact that I’m not terribly inclined to make it any bigger through my own direct actions unless I find someone who has the potential to be a primary partner, or at least a significant, ongoing relationship. I may change my mind, but… for right now my level of risk is high enough and I’d prefer to avoid taking on a new sexual partner who has lots of partners already (or a tendency to pick them up on the fly,) which pretty much eliminates the possibility of “casual” sex. Oddly enough, I’m feeling totally fine with the person who may be coming in once removed, but that’s largely because sie seems a uniquely sensible sort about all the issues involved.}

**_{Like begging him to hurt me when he tells me I can orgasm so that, as often as possible, I don’t come with him except when I’m either in pain or doing something that makes me feel even further under his control.}

I’ve been a lot more fragile than usual, lately.

I always have a tendency towards depression, but for the past few months it’s been a pretty constant weight on my back.

A major side effects of this has been that my libido has been pretty much non-existent.

That’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been writing much in this blog. If I’m not feeling like sex, I have a lot of trouble writing about it. I’ve had a bunch of amazing scenes and amazing sex that I just haven’t been able to bring myself to write about. I start and then somehow can’t seem to make it through.

It’s giving a really disjointed picture of my current existence.

I realize that may sound confusing. How can a person with no libido be having amazing sex? In part, it comes down to a conversation I had with She Who I Would Be Dating If We Could Get Around The Impassable Obstacles a few years ago. She has a really high libido, but only when she has a partner to exercise it on. If she has a partner to have sex with, she wants them all the time. When she doesn’t? Sex is almost never on her mind.

In contrast, I normally just have a pretty high libido. When I’m not depressed, I tend to think about sex a lot, want sex a lot, and masturbate a lot - whether or not I have someone to focus my energies on. For me, having a low libido means that it all goes away. I don’t particularly want sex, I don’t have any interest in writing about it, and I won’t make any effort to get it. In fact, I will give up opportunities for sex that I would normally fling myself upon bodily, because I can’t bring myself to care.

Still, even when I’m depressed the act of being wanted usually makes me want. Even if I’m in the sort of mood where I mostly want to hide in a corner and hate myself, someone who I care about actively wanting at me will usually get me in the mood.

I’m just unlikely to be inspired to pounce on my own.

Depression is the destroyer of inspiration, at least for me. It makes it hard to do anything that requires leaving the house… which includes having sex. (I can’t get that delivered. Thai food? Yes. Books? Yes. Dog grooming? Yes. Sex? Not so much.) Right now, the only thing in my life that I have consistently able to motivate my self to get on the move for is, oddly enough, aerial acrobatics. It is, apparently, the good drugs.

I was thinking about why that is today, and a lot of it, I think, is similar to why I can manage to write about submission when I can’t stay in my head long enough to write about anything else. Aerial acrobatics requires total focus and concentration. I literally can not afford to think about anything other than what I am doing at any given moment - how my body is positioned, where my weight lies, the direction I am moving. It is highly effective at getting me out of my head. I can’t be depressed when I’m upside down, because I don’t have the attention to spare. Between the physical pain and effort, and the concentration, it is an incredibly effective mood altering drug. While I’m doing it, I can’t do anything else.

Similarly, submitting gets me either out of my head or so deep into my head that my mood really isn’t an issue. If I can get to enough of that place when I’m writing, I can usually say there long enough to finish my thoughts. For everything else, I can stay in the moment as long as my partner wants me there, but once I’m home and in front of the computer it’s hard to not get distracted by worries, depression, and doubt… or lost in pensive wondering about emotion and motivation. It doesn’t mean I had any less fun, or that I’m any less attached, just that it’s harder to stay in the place that allows me to connect words to story.

Right now, writing is hard. It’s hard when I do it for work, and it’s hard when I do it for pleasure - mine or somebody else’s. Sex is also hard, when pleasure is alternately something I seek and would be happy to just give away.

This too shall pass. Until it does, however, I shall continue building strength in my body with the knowledge that the solidity will eventually confer to my mind. And I will write, when I can, and hope that doing so does not cause pain.

One of the reasons* that I enjoy, and fantasize about, resistance play so much - being held down, overpowered, etc. - is that I have a lot of unexpressed rage. Frankly, the universe often frustrates the crap out of me, and, since there is no local franchise of The Smash Shack, I often lack any way of expressing it. I want to break things, hit things, and hurt things, only I don’t. I’ve fantasized about buying cases of bottles just to have something to smash that I wouldn’t regret later, I’ve even written an erotic short story about it, but I’m generally too controlled. If I get mad enough, or frustrated enough, I’ll lash out with sarcasm, but most of the time I simply focus my temper on where it can do the least harm - me.

I hate that, in this way, I am such a girl. It bothers me that I fantasize about having someone who is strong enough that if I physically resist them I can’t win. That I dream about fighting, lashing out, and being held down, forced back, safe until I’m physically exhausted enough to just let all the emotional walls down and cry and scream and let things go. Catharsis. I find it oddly humbling, and somewhat disturbing, that I feel like I can’t just get there the way normal people do. I have to seek out pain or resistance.

I suppose there is something to be said for at least being self aware enough to realize it’s an issue. I certainly enjoy BDSM for it’s own sake, and the vast majority of the time when I play that’s all it is. Still, sometimes it’s hard to resist the urge to use pain and resistance therapeutically the way I use writing and exercise**, and the way other people use alcohol or drugs. An endorphin rush is the good drugs, even without any catharsis.

I’m going to go do some chin-ups.

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*although certainly not the only one
**Stress and depression are great weight-loss motivators for me. The more upset I am about something, and the less I can do about it, the more I end up working out just to get exhausted enough to turn off my brain for a little while.

Normally I’m pretty good about standing up for myself.

However, there are grey areas.

When someone is starting to annoy me with what they’re doing, but I’m somewhat flattered by it, I will try and get them to stop, but if they don’t I won’t make a big to do about it. Especially if I’m tired, if I don’t think they mean me ill, and I’m in a place where making a fuss seems like too much effort, I’ll eventually give up arguing.

That’s bad.

This happened back when I first met Maymay. I let some guy impose on me to a point where it was annoying me, but not to the point where I felt like I had to object. It happened again, to a much more minor, although far more retrospectively aggravating extent last night.

I was at a party that was not one of those parties, and someone kept trying to undress me. I told them, repeatedly, that I thought it was inappropriate, but I laughed because it was also funny. I allowed myself to be convinced that it wasn’t inappropriate, even though I was pretty sure it was, because I couldn’t bring myself to argue about it any more. But was annoying me and making me uncomfortable, and I didn’t say stop.

I hate that I did that. I hate that by doing that I became an untrustworthy person to myself and to others. I feel like I let myself and people I care about down. Now, I’m not super upset about this, being super upset about it would be counterproductive, but I recognize that this is something I dislike about myself that I really need to change. Since I pride myself on not being a doormat, I have to watch the times I am likely to become one. I have to firm up my boundaries. I don’t like myself when I let people do things to me that I don’t want them to do.

I’m realizing that I’m actually quite annoyed at myself. I need to not fail to be forceful about things because I don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. I particularly need to not let the desire to be polite keep me from telling someone they’re being a problem, because it doesn’t help anyone. In this case, I didn’t want to make the person in question feel bad, because they’re basically quite nice, but I should have said much earlier on “I like you, but you’re drunk, I think it’s affecting your judgment, and it’s making me uncomfortable,” before it got out of hand. I don’t like it when I precipitate a problem. And, you know what? Failing to stand up for myself always does.

I need to work on it.

Being able to stand up for myself when things become a problem is not good enough. I need to start doing it a lot earlier. I know I can protect myself if I need to, but I need to start protecting myself the second I want to. Even when it feels rude. I can be rude if necessary, but I have got to start not being polite sooner. Otherwise I end up spending too much time apologizing for what I should have done, and wondering why on earth I didn’t.

Worse, when I do stuff like this it makes me end up wanting to avoid the person who made me uncomfortable because I’m embarrassed that I let them, and I’m not sure how to fix it without making them feel bad. Plus it makes me feel like I’m an unsafe person to be around, so I start avoiding any situations where whatever I did or didn’t do could be a problem.

It becomes a “How do I address this with them without blaming them?” issue. Because I accept utterly that it was equally my fault. Not, by any means, entirely my fault (also an easy trap for me to get sucked into), but I could have been more forceful about stopping it and I didn’t. Part of it is a generational thing, I was raised to say “no, no, it isn’t a problem” and assuming they won’t do it again when someone apologizes for something I didn’t like, when what I should say is “Thank you for apologizing. I’m not mad at you, but I agree that it was inappropriate and I would appreciate you not doing it again.”

None of this was terribly a big deal. I’m not terribly upset about it, my friends aren’t terribly upset about it, the only person who is actually terribly upset about it is the person who kept trying to undress me and I don’t think they should be terribly upset about it either. I only wrote this much about it, because I’m trying to figure out where exactly my problem comes from and writing is how I process. (And now I’ve processed to a great enough extent that I’m not annoyed with myself anymore. Yay!)

Ok. I think this is what it comes down to -

I don’t want to be rude to people. However, speaking up sooner rather than later when people are getting into grey areas with me isn’t rude, it’s sensible. It prevents me from getting into situations where the only out is anger. I just need to think of it as the social equivalent of safewording. It’s okay to yellow. It’s okay to say “I like that you’re here, but your doing something right now I’m not happy with.” It is, in fact, much better to yellow than to have to red or say “I need to not be around you right now.” It may create an awkward moment, but it’s much better to communicate my discomfort than to get into a cycle where I start avoiding social interaction.

Actually I’ve realized that until very recently (Thanks, Adam!) I’ve had this problem in a strictly BDSM sense as well. I had tended to be very concerned about disappointing or offending people by yellowing or otherwise indicating I had a problem. I never don’t red, if I have to, but I’m not always so great about heading off potential issues (except for sexual issues) before they happen. I figure that I can tolerate what I don’t like, and get over it later. But you know what happens? If things like that come up in a scene I end up not wanting to play with that person again later, when it all probably could have been solved by communication. Since playing with someone who actually pushes me to yellow to make certain that I’m going to do it if I have to, however, it’s become much easier to yellow with everyone else as well. I think that’s great. Things, in general, go much better.

I just have to work out how to apply that in social situations. I’m not, by any means, the most socially ept (as opposed to inept) monkey in the barrel, and so sometimes the intricacies of dealing with people sensibly are beyond me. The trick is, I think, not to get trapped in old habits and learn from new experiences. I’m trying! Most importantly, I have to be better about communicating clearly and honestly even when doing so makes me uncomfortable. Even though doing so does not represent a stunning mastery of the social graces, I always feel much better after I have clearly stated what I need to say - even when it makes me want to throw up. It’s really hard to say everything I need to say, my instinct is to preserve other people’s feelings over being honest, and that’s a bad instinct. Especially since, in general, not talking doesn’t actually accomplish that. Not in the long run, and frequently not even in the short run. And getting it all out there feels so good. I’m always amazed that it’s so hard for me to do it, and then afterwards its such a relief. Slowly, at least, I think I’m starting to learn.

And now that I’ve completely over-processed an minor event to the point where I am like cheese-whiz, I leave you with a picture of my boobs from the cool piercing scene I did the other day. Why? Cause it’s pretty and it makes me happy. Needles are awesome! Needles with manic giggling are even MORE awesome. Everyone should get to cackle hysterically while beautiful women poke them with sharp objects.

This week has been extraordinarily strange for me. I’ve felt a really unpleasant conversation of extremely horny and utterly asexual. My snuggle-drive has been high, my interest in pain has gone ridiculously unchecked, my contextual arousal has been through the roof, and yet… my actual body has checked out.

I have no idea what is going on. I suppose it could be the change in my thyroid meds. It’s not inconceivable. When I think about it, my body has been slightly weird in this area for a couple of weeks. On one hand it’s been all writhy and insistent, and on the other hand it absolutely refuses to be compliant with the standard stimuli. The only really good thing about it is that the weird psychological remnants of my libido, in the absence of much visceral physical desire for nookie, have been easily satiated. Apparently my body has decided that for the moment orgasms are completely out of the picture, and so doesn’t really care one way or the other if it has them. It gets all worked up and then just works itself back down.

I was lying in bed with someone a little while ago, someone with whom sex is not out of the question , when I woke up extremely horny. They were asleep, and all I could think of for the hour or so until I managed to relapse into unconsciousness was “the desire to perform oral sex on a sleeping person is wrong. It is not nice to want to wake people up just to give them an orgasm so that YOU can fall back to sleep. “

I assume this will pass, and hope that it’s not actually medication dose related because other than this I am far happier with my current medication levels than I was with my old ones. It could, certainly, also be psychological.

When I was younger, I felt like I was far too easily aroused. I turned on incredibly easily, and got off with almost no stimulation at all. It seemed, to my teenage self, like there was something wrong with that, and so I trained myself out of it. Still, I remember that with my first sexual partner I was multi-orgasmic. That hasn’t been true in recent memory, but I’m not exactly certain when it disappeared. Not that I don’t really enjoy sex, I just generally do so without orgasms. At this point, when they happen when I’m in bed with someone else it’s sort of a pleasantly unexpected surprise rather than something I really think is going to occur. Still, up until very very recently, I’ve had no problem giving them to myself. The past week, however… nothing. I go to bed all turned on from a very enticing conversation, try to masturbate, and my body goes all “get your hands off me, bitch!” I basically feel like arousing thoughts are getting far enough to send a shiver through my gut, but then getting stuck and shooting out my belly button instead of continuing their descent to someplace where they would actually do some good. It’s really quite frustrating.

I suspect things will improve as I work through some aggravatingly unresolved emotional conflict. I’ve actually been getting a lot of positive attention lately, which has been a nice change for me and has made it nearly impossible to feel unattractive or unlovable, despite the fact that my brain keeps trying to do so. Huh. Saying that, I have Had A Realization. This might just be my body trying really hard to have a depressive episode when its hormone makeup has been adjusted in a way to make achieving that goal much harder. In which case “go drugs!” but next time tell me when you’re going to improve my life in a non-obvious way that requires some serious analysis.

of the Groucho rather than the Karl variety. You know, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.” I was thinking about this last night as a delayed response to a question that I was asked on Saturday. The answer I gave at the time for why I’m always single (the question was phrased in a much kinder, and in fact an incredibly sweet, way) is also true (picky, shy), but there is an unfortunate element of Marxism as well. It’s something I’m not proud of.

My levels of interest in people tend to be strictly constrained by my issues. Attraction for me is entirely separate from active sexual intent. To put it more simply, there have been many people who I have been highly attracted to, and thought extremely lascivious things about, who I will never jump, because there are very few people who I trust enough to sleep with. I have no problem letting even relative strangers beat the hell out of me, but sex? That requires a soul-deep level of comfort that is equal parts instinctive and based on extensive conversation.

Woe betide my spirit when I fail to listen to the instinct and follow the prodding of horniness, affection, and lust instead. The one time I’ve had sex with someone against my inner judgment I felt awful about it for days. It’s now years later and our friendship still isn’t the same. It didn’t matter that I’d known, and lusted, after the person for several years. It just mattered that I wasn’t sure, and shouldn’t have made the decision, in the heat of the moment, to say “fuck it. I’m extremely horny, he’s extremely pretty, how bad a choice can saying ‘yes’ be?” Apparently very. Had I saved the IM conversation I had with one of my best friends that night and looked at it later on I might have felt compelled to join a nunnery… or at least seek serious counseling.

I don’t really know why attraction, hormones, and genuine affection aren’t enough. Part of it is that I am not good at being vulnerable in front of people. Sex gives people an opportunity to hurt me, whereas physical pain, the vast majority of the time, just makes me strong. This is one of the many reasons why I can’t count the number of people I’ve played with, but only recently needed to go over one hand to tick off the number I’ve slept with.

So, to get back to my thesis. Warped by bad experiences in Junior High, I seem to often subconsciously perceive any expressed interest in me that isn’t clearly based on my brain to be an attempt to manipulate me to maximize the ability to hurt me. If someone approaches me, my instinctive reaction is that it’s a set up, and that somewhere there in the corner is a group of boys waiting to laugh at me for saying yes to attraction that couldn’t possibly be real. After all, an ugly girl like me should know better. My rote belief, shaped into my brain by early repetition and unassailable by conscious knowledge, is that any club that wants me only does so as the butt of a joke.

The thing is, in my fore-brain I almost always know it’s not true. I’m not ugly. I’m not unloveable. I’m not stupid, except of course when I am. Falling for people who have no interest in me, while being twitchy around people who are, is not intelligent. Not being able to just enjoy being attracted to someone who is attracted to me without voices in my head shouting “it’s a trap!” is just annoying. Having the social graces of a beached whale… well, that’s just the logical outcome of having been raised a geek in a family of geeks and spending much of young adulthood as a social pariah.

It’s extremely irritating, I must say, for a rational logical person like myself to be so often the pawn of her irrational illogical personal issues. The truly aggravating thing is that I really like sex (not a surprise to anyone who has been reading here.) If I had loud personal issues and no sex drive the whole thing wouldn’t be nearly as annoying.

I also feel compelled to say that I know that sex is not sole the defining element for the switch between friend and partner. It’s just the one that most often derails the process for me. Plus, I almost never have sex outside the context of a relationship.