Fucked-Up Scenes

One of the things that has fascinated me in the past few years is failed scenes. Because I think we are all terrified of failed scenes. Terrified of being left with a hopelessly fucked up crying girl who we have broken and cannot be put back together. And we are right to fear that.

I've talked to people about failed scenes, read about them, watched videos that had failed scenes in them. I am fascinated by when it goes bad. Not because the idea of a failed scene turns me on. The idea of pushing a girl too hard and having her breakdown, safeword or have me call the scene because she didn't safeword because she couldn't. That's the stuff of nightmares.

I don't think you can drive at a hundred and ten miles an hour unless you are willing to visualize yourself dead in a tangled pile of metal. I do not think you can do anything very well or very regularly if you do not face the fears associated with it. Understand the consequences.

I've been in a few car-crashes. I was rammed at a stoplight when I was a relatively new driver. I had a witness that the guy ran a red light and hit me, so I guess I was lucky in that I did not have much guilt about smashing up the family car. When driving for Yellow Cab I got in a pretty bad bust up while rushing some people to DCA one rainy, foggy, morning. I have another friend who totalled out a car and never drove again. To this day as far as I know he lives in New York and doesn't drive, though maybe that has changed.

I figured that I had been through it now, and that it was not so bad. There's no way to get over a fear of being in a car crash like being in a car crash. You understand that freak mischance aside, at suburban speeds a crash is nasty but not usually deadly. We might die by freak happenstance but so we might on the stairs. You understand it's bad and annoying and you want to avoid it, but you no longer have a visceral fear of the thing, it is just another bad thing that could happen like falling on the stair or dropping a tray of drinks.

And that's freeing. Because then you are not fighting an abstract fear, you are just dealing with real and reasonable anxiety and you are not likely to over or under compensate. You just drive.
So that is what I think about failed scenes. I think that you cannot do the scene if you are afraid of the unknown. I think you have to understand the risk that the girl will come apart, and I think you have to know how to have the best chance of putting her back together.

Like car wrecks, most busted up scenes can be walked away from. They are a breach of trust but if they are handled right they can be made a strength rather than a weakness.

What is required is resolve. The response when a scene starts to go south is not to drop everything and begin acting as a submissive. "Oh my godiamsosorrycanigetyouanything" is not what the girl needs to hear. She has just had her Dominant push her too hard or in a bad way. Most likely she is feeling anger for having been betrayed (because she trusted him not to) and guilt for having failed, and a huge amount of conflict.

So let me tell you what I think she does not need. I think she does not need her Dominant to betray her by becoming her submissive at that point. That is a bad thing when it happens in relationships - when one partner suddenly and unilaterally wants to change roles. But it is explosive in a scene.

The girl is in trouble. She may be on the rocks. She may even be sinking. But the one thing that is certain is that the only thing stable in her environment just then is her Dom. He may have just rocked, but she needs him to be steady more than ever. He needs to keep her in a submissive frame, and not allow her to crash out too quickly. He needs to remain in a Dominant frame. And he needs to do all that while being able to figure out what is wrong, and beginning to fix it.
If I were to say this bluntly it means that "the fact you fucked up does not entitle you to quit...you are responsible for cleaning up the mess you made."

So watching the fuckups, reading about them, learning about them, fascinates me. Because if I am going to be what I pretend I have to look at them without flinching and learn.

Science Fact: Glossina Cunnus, a fly found throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere, may impregnate over a thousand females in its short two month life, yet due to huge case backlogs and a comparatively short lifespan even when named almost never survives to appear in a paternity suit.

Something Special of my Own

There was no Thursday post, because I was on the road...which officially means I suck. And Monday is late. But we'll try to get back on schedule this week...even if we're stealing material.

A friend of mine, r. wrote this a while ago. I’ve always liked it, and I asked for, and received permission to quote it here.

“I think the thing I like most about having a Dom is having something of my own that is special to me. I never feel selfish with him, because I just do what he asks, and I never have to worry that I ought to be doing something else or much different. If he wants me to do something else it is his job to tell me, I don’t have to guess. He’s this one little place in my life where it’s quiet and it’s all just for me. I deserve that dammit. Every other lover I have is someone I have to be responsible to, someone who expects something undefined out of me. I always have to try to do better for them.

My Dom gives me love and support conditionally. I know we’re supposed to all want unconditional love, but I am not sure I can accept unconditional love, and I’m not sure I want what goes with it, that I should be available unconditionally in return. I can’t give that much of myself to somebody else right now. I know I am supposed to be romantic and want a man to be nice to me. But what I really want is a man who will actually take control of me.

But my Dom is always there for me in the ways he said he’d be. He has said he would be in control and he is. He’s reliable, he’s a rock, an anchor.

I submit to him and take what he gives me whether it’s good or bad. He always balances it, though it may not feel like it at the time. Maybe I’m just lucky and have a good Dom. But that relationship is all about me. And I have decided I deserve it. I deserve one place in my life where I’m special.

He’s a friend too. There are things that you can trust your Dom to ask him and to help you that you can’t ask anybody else. Because if you asked anybody else you’d owe them. But it’s okay to ask him.”

I can’t add much to that other than that it profoundly clarified a lot of things about the BDSM dynamic in my mind, and I’ve held onto it since I read it. There are little gems that float along and influence you and this is one of them.

I think it’s sobering thought to think that we ought to be worthy of that.

Ecological Fact: Post's "Grape Nuts" cereal, first released in 1897 is comprised entirely of whole grain wheat flour, wheat flour, malted barley flour, salt, and dried yeast. It contains neither grapes nor human testicles.

The little Crop

Sticking to Monday and Thursday so far...the next week is busy as hell, but we'll have a little something out on Thursday...

I have a new favorite toy. It was a Seasonal gift, in that I picked it out on a shopping trip to Tractor Supply Company

I am guessing that most of the people reading this are aware of the basic concept that Home Despot (my blog, my stupid ass puns) is in many ways as good a BDSM Emporium as JT's Stockroom, or Blowfish.

But Tractor Supply is a little obscure. Let me say this. Everything you can get at Home Despot, and Dressage.

When I am working as a Dom I typically carry a horse-bat or riding bat, or a crop. I believe, though I have not been much of an equestrian for years (I know how to ride, and even jump a little, but I've not practiced in years) that the "bat" is the type which has a solid leather "paddle" at the end, give or take about the width of a thumb, and that a "crop" is the type which is a little loop of leather. Also I think there is a difference between a standard crop and a barrel-race bat or crop, which has a much wider loop. I am pretty sure this is historically because when racing to the barrel, the chronically alcoholic British horseman wanted as much crop as possible to urge his failing mount along toward the goal. If I am wrong it is because I am a better drinker than I am horseman.

At any rate, I mostly use the crop to point, steer and gesture. I think maybe I saw too many movies as a kid which had British Officers with swagger-sticks. That isn't to say that I can't bring it down with a bit of a snap on the point above the pubes and between the iliac furrows if the occasion warrants.

I don't play in public all that often. Circumstance has conspired to have me play more publicly in the past year than in the past two before that. But I always feel self conscious carrying a full sized crop, let alone a bat around in a club, or party. On the other hand, if I want to handle my submissive without putting hands on her, I don't have anything to do it with, and I'm used to directing with a crop.
But carrying around an 18" or 21" toy in a club, even a discreet and thin one smacks a little of overcompensation to me. I do abhor pretentiousness.

So my new favorite toy. A 12" riding crop. A nice shiny silver bullet tip (yes, if you wanted to, though it's not very big). And a loop. Bigger than a child's pencil, but smaller than a ruler. A hand sized crop not an arm sized crop. Something that you can carry about without getting in the way.

I love the little crop. I won't likely give up the bigger ones, but it is definitely my new favorite toy for public play and I am likely to adopt it for most other play as my "default" toy. A Dom doesn't need a big stick, just something a little more precise than his bare hands.

Fun Fact for the Day:

Science Fact: While the question is often asked rhetorically, one baby yields an average of 1.3 U.K. gills of baby oil. That's about one sixth of a U.S. cup. Baby Oil first became popular as a replacement for Whale Oil in the 1840s in New England when the population began to boom. The economic reasons are explained by Herman Melville's character of "Girbaud" in "The Isle of the Cross." "Whale's is fantastically difficult to catch. They lives off at sea, and mostly stays under the watter, where we sorts cain't breathe. Then also they lives very far away swimming off to Ant-artyca, and High-wye-ee. So it takes no inconsiderable amount o' time to go get one. Wheras babies, while notably smaller than the whale...well you cain't go round the corner wi'out bumping into a baby? And whereas whales is offen most notorusly unco'operative in their own demise, who ever 'eard of a man dragged to 'is death in the deep by a baby?"

Down on my Knees...

Planning updates Monday and Thursday...usually that will mean posted late Sunday or Wednesday, unless it doesn't.

There are so many things I take for granted. I live in a city that has a first rate BDSM club for public play. By first rate, I mean it's big, it has staff, it's open often. Crucible DC is not as big as Power Exchange in San Francisco, or from what I hear some New York clubs. But most cities don't have a club at all.

I am not really much of a public player. A lot of BDSM to me is about the mind, and that requires one on one, focus. I like to be able to hear what a girl is saying, like to be able to be hands on, measure her responses to everything. There is a lot about public play that I find distracting.

And for all my hedonistic nature, I never was much for "picking up" girls at a club for casual play. I've done some casual play here and there but...it doesn't do that much for me. I've tried and I've found I prefer to work with someone intensely. I think this is because I get interested in their mind and you can only learn so much about someone in one session. Maybe I'm just a rank sentimentalist. Don't place bets on it.

So I felt threatened this fall when I had occasion to want to go there for the first time in a long stretch and read that we might lose the club altogether. The new baseball stadium for whatever they named the Washington Senators this time is being built near there. And there's some thought that the property will be redeveloped.

Ironically this year, I've spent more time doing public play than I have in a long while. Which is odd considering I could be considered to be less actively engaged in the Scene than I have been at some times in the past. But things have just driven me that way, and I paid for a Crucible membership so now I'm gonna use it, because I'm stubborn like that.

I suffer from the problem of feeling I ought to be contributory when I am a member of something. Now arguably DC Crucible is a for-profit company owned by a fellow named Frazier. But let us face it, realistically you know the story on this. Probably nearly any other business would be less risky and make more money.

That is not the point of this story though. The point of this story is that I am an idiot. So there are some work days at Crucible preparing for a NYE party I cannot attend because I have to be drunk and disorderly elsewhere.

So I have a light week at work, and I say that I can come by one or two afternoons. Now I do not know what to expect. I run a volunteer site in the summer, and I have had to learn to direct volunteers and have gotten fairly good at it. But most people do not know how, so I expect some work, some muddling around. I will probably get some of the lousier tasks, because that is my nature. I do the things that other people do not want to do and I do them without whining. Because I had rather do them myself than listen to someone else whine about them. For my part I am indifferent to suffering. I don't get much out of it, I was simply taught to be stoic, and to do what is asked without complaining. My grandfather taught me that I suppose. It is possible that behaving that way is in no way noble, but simply one of many things I do because I have more arrogance and pride than I do fear or capacity for unhappiness.

At any rate I spent the afternoon on my hands and knees on the floor of the Crucible, in the medical area. I cut up the carpet there, then traversed every inch of the medical area with a roller coated with modular carpet adhesive. So I walked across the entire bare concrete floor of that area, every foot of it, on my knees on bare concrete. So the next submissive girl who tells me that the floor of the Crucible is too hard to kneel on...I shall not have much mercy for them.

Really it was a good humiliation scene. Getting down one on one with the stale carpet there. I know people are supposed to clean up and be careful, but you see heavily stained carpet in an area where blood and come are permitted, and it is suggestive. My guess is that most of it was Diet Coke, parking lot grime, and a bit of wax. Hell maybe even regular Coke. *Chuckle* I do not care. Back in the days when I held an "after-school" job, I used to volunteer to clean the toilets at work, because if you are not grossed out by it the work was easier than any other job. I know how to use soap and water.

Later I got to get up close and personal with the old urinals and toilet being stored in the side-room. I thought again that this would make a fine humiliation scene but that I would likely never inflict anything quite on that scale on a submissive.

It was hard work, which means only that the owner knows how to get use out of a volunteer, and I like that better than not. I will benefit from it, I suppose in the coming year if I go there again and that seems not unlikely.

In the end it amused me greatly because I spent the day doing of my own free will some things I would be hesitant to order anyone else to do in the depths of submission. But I have never thought that you should make people do things that you would not do yourself, so I think that is fair and just.

Fun True Fact for the Day:

Historical Fact: In the 18th century French-Canadian explorers called "Voyeurs" traveled through the Northwest in rude canoes. Dressed in hand made fur and leather outfits, they searched relentlessly for Indian beaver and trapped it whenever they could. Because of their actions much of the Northwest was opened up to human habitation and now we have civilization and Tim Horton's.

Welcome

There are a number of reasons why I started this sex blog. Likely they don’t matter to you, and probably don’t matter very much to me. But I am going to talk about them, because realistically what else are you going to do in an introductory post.

I am not a “Master Dominant.” I have a pretty strong dislike of pretensions. I first became interested in BDSM in the early 1990s. I didn’t know where to buy floggers, so I made my own first sort of paddle out of leather I had around the house. I was informal. I was very very bad at it. I had discovered I had some ability to command a woman's attention, but I didn't know how to find out what she needed, get into her mind and find out how she wanted to be treated, and treat her that way. I was just a clumsy boy. But I noticed women responded when I behaved certain ways and those were the ways that felt right, but weren't what you were taught to believe that women wanted.

I knew the things I wanted to do, even then. This is the one truth about me. I am not one of those Doms who says “I could never be submissive.” I can. I've tried it. I don’t think you should do something to a person without feeling what it is like to have it done to you. To be fair, it did not arouse me very much. My arousal is Dominant.

I am a proud and arrogant man. But I think pride and arrogance are shown in what you will do and what you can do, not in being aloof and refusing.

I am a gentleman and sometimes that is mistaken for weakness. I do not mind very much. I know what sort of person I am, and I do not need to dance around waving my cock and singing “I am a Dom!” So, sure, I can be a gentleman. But it is not where my instincts are best, but I think less of somone if they can't act like a gentleman even when they're being barbaric. Many people would think I am a bad man, and often I think of myself that way. The thing I give to the people I care for is the gift of me hurting them.

But they need to be hurt, want to be hurt, in certain ways. What they need is someone who gives enough of a fuck to find out why and how, and do what is needed, not whatever comes to mind. And in this I find the chance to give range to my own cruel instincts.

I could quote a lot of things. In his introduction to Anne Desclos’ (writing as Pauline Reage) “The Story of O” Jean Paulhan speaks of “A ruthless decency.” I aspire to that.

But I have a lot to learn. I am neither perfect nor a “master” of BDSM or any other art. Probably I never will be. I am content to learn. It may be that I am near the end of my practicing cycle. I have one or two goals left and will realize them or fail, and that shall likely be it for me. I am not as young as I once was. I still look good, but I will not in fifteen years.

In the meantime, I did not open this blog to preach or to glorify myself. I opened it to share some thoughts and reflections that as a writer of sorts, I thought might be useful to share. A friend of mine suggested I was a better essayist than writer. That may well be true. In any case. I am going to essay a bit, and you are welcome to follow along or not.

Like I said I did not start out where I am now. I've learned a lot along the way and I think maybe I have learned enough for it to be worth shating.

My only request is to keep comments general. I will not out anyone's relationship to me on this blog or discuss their personal lives. This is not designed to be a blog of the drama of my day to day life (in fact I aspire for my day to day life to have as little drama as possible). I have opened it for comments because I want to see what people think of the posts. I will mention no names here, nor any contemporary situations. When I allude to anyone it will be anonymously. I appreciate the same courtesy.

Regards to everyone reading…it’s a small group and that’s probably fine...

Fun True Fact for the Day:

Just as France controls the legal use of the word "Champagne" on sparkling wine bottled in France, only Italy exerts legal control over the use of the term "Extra Virgin Olive Oil." The term was implemented by the Italian Ufficio di Presidenza del Cocktail di Oliva di Controllo in 1954, in response to an international scandal concerning the sale of "Virgin Olive Oil" in which the Olives had in fact been systematically violated by Tuscan farmers, then powdered up with a little alum and sewn back together. Extra Virgin Olives from Italy are examined by a board-certified physician prior to squeezing.