Literature Review and High Minded Ideals...

I think when it came to literature review, one thing I probably didn’t really underscore enough was that I find a lot of the tone lacking. Probably one of the big exceptions to this is Dossie and Cathy, who I think wrote some great very off the cuff stuff. But overall I find the tone in most writing about BDSM to be preachy, superior, and to have this undertone that convinces me that it was written by a Dominant trying to convince his (or her) submissives that he was born with “safe sane consensual” tattooed on his forehead. On the submissive side, I actually find a lot of the writing better, but there’s an underlying tone of religious reverence. Where it’s genuine, I think it’s great, but often it almost comes off as if the submissive is trying to talk themselves round to it through writing.

I’ve tried at least not to do that. Realistically I know that has scared some girls off of me. I don’t go around starting with a ninety minute safety lecture that is mostly aimed at convincing a submissive I’m safe to play with, and constantly mentioning safety concerns not because they’re plausible but to prove I’m “safe sane and consensual.”

I’ve actually been reading a bit about the concept of RACK (Risk Aware Consensual Kink) v. SSC (Safe Sane and Consensual) and that’s a topic for a later post.

Either you know me and you trust me or you don’t. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing to have a little buffer there, where people maybe need to think twice before they get down on their knees. I don’t want to sell myself too hard. I’m not perfect and I don’t shit perfect scenes, so I am only going to present myself so much as “superdom.”

Anyway when I Googled “Last thing the world needs” this morning, no. 27 on the list after “some bastard to blow something else up,” was “another preachy high-toned BDSM blog written by a Dom who writes about BDSM as a sacred charge on a par with guardianship of the holy grail (or possibly the net at a Stanley Cup Playoff game, I get those things confused).

Don’t get me wrong. I think trust is important. But I often think the language and high minded ideas obscure the real truth. The real truth is this. “I am in a room with a girl who is (usually) much younger than me, and less experienced (at least in bdsm, often sexually). She is counting on me for a lot of things. She’s generally a friend or someone I care about, and even if she isn’t she’s a human being who is putting her trust in me. I need to not abuse that trust by fucking up, being careless, being callous, or by failing to have the balls to be what I’ve said I was.” That’s it. You can add as many choirs of angels as you want, but you’re talking about somebody surrendering their body to you and trusting you not to fuck them up. I’d rather cut that very close to the line where I am damn certain I understand it. High concept is great but not if obscures the basic facts.

So…the review…tone aside, I’ve turned up a few gems.

I am still turning the Guy Baldwin edited Slavecraft over in my head (SlaveCraft: Roadmaps for Erotic Servitude--Principles, Skills and Tools by Guy A. Baldwin, M.S.. Daedalus, 2004). This is a fairly classic piece of D/s writing, and one of the better known works on Slave/Submissive psychology. I have found a great deal in it to agree with and a great deal to disagree with. I think the counterpoint written by Pat Califa is a superb touch. I am probably going to try to go through it chapter by chapter here, or at least feature a few of the essays. For now, my principal issue is that I find the writing itself a little lacking…there are a lot of rather high sounding phrases that seem to confuse issues a little…and I find the author a bit too religious for my tastes. Specifically his approach to submission is as an act of quasi-religious devotion. He slaves for a Master, but there is an undertone that suggests he is really serving slavery itself, just as a Monk may slave for the Abbott, but is truly devoted only to God. He uses a lot of nearly religious phraseology in his devotion.

I don’t have an issue with this per-se. It’s a perfectly legitimate approach, and opens to a whole world of ordeal-oriented bdsm/spirituality. But it’s not my path, nor one I’m really suited to guide a submissive on, other than incidentally. The undercurrent is that there is a subtle antagonism towards the Dominant. It’s frankly clear he’s had a few Dominants that he resented, and probably for good reason.

For me, D/s is more about personal intimacy. That’s why I don’t call my submissives “it.” I have a relationship with a girl. It may be about D/s but it is very personal and intimate to me. Even if I make that girl a piece of furniture, I have a close, intimate relationship with that piece of furniture. Slavecraft at once seems to say that intimacy is necessary, then reject many of the things that I see as critical to it.

It is also the case that Principles, Skills and Tools is limited to the essay author’s personal mental tools for handling submission.

That said, it’s a profound book that has a lot of terribly important insights into the submissive mindset. If you don’t know why you submit, there will be some things to learn there. If you do know why, there may be more. It is a book with a lot of ideas. Just don’t sit down and swallow it as the holy bible of Submission. It is valuable, but it is one slave’s opinion.

Sadly I found Master Nage's Guide To Training Consensual Slaves not to be what I needed. I actually liked the book and the author. He’s a little geeky, but overall solid enough. He gives a bow to online play, which is so strikingly common these days. I think that’s important, because I strongly guess that within a decade probably ten times more people will have done BDSM online than have ever done it in person. So those online communities are effectively making it common, and also establishing things that will become de facto standards. I’ve gotten some interesting insights through online play, and while it’s not real life, I think there’s something to it. Interesting Nage points out that D/s is the one element of WIITWD that can be done, completely and really, online. You can’t beat someone. But you can order them to do something and establish that they have done it. So, online D/s is not stunningly less realistic than rl D/s.

But Nage’s book is a simple one for beginners. It has little real detail. It held fairly little for me, maybe a couple of concepts.

I found Rubel’s Protocols (Protocols: Handbook for the female slave: Robert J. Rubel, Ph.D., Nazca Plains, 2006) to be a very useful book. This was in fact the book I wanted. In pattern it is heavily based on the Protocols online by “SlaveMaster” Mike McDade. I’m going to have to be honest here and say that I found some of McDade’s approach a little offputting. I can’t say in any detail, because in theory I have no problems with consensual objectification, etc. I just didn’t warm to it. It is my understanding which may be faulty that a lot of the material McDade uses is related to protocols that used to be available on the Butchmann’s website (now Arizona Power Exchange – APEX), but I cannot find those anywhere and as far as I know outside of possible magazine instances they aren’t published. All this material, (and again I am led to understand), hearkens back to The Leatherman’s Handbook. As noted earlier this is mostly Gay male BDSM, so that may be one reason I find the tone offputting. It’s not a tone I’d take with women, even very tough women who want to be abused. It’s not content, it’s tone.

At any rate, Rubel put a human, and male/female face on Protocols. I liked his book and it was exactly what I wanted. Short on highblown theory and rants about what it is to be a slave, and long on “this is how you stand….this is how you sit…this is how you take care of boots.”

I have tried as much as possible to use original text in my Protocols, but I certainly paraphrased and in some cases quoted Rubel with attribution.

I’m still reading a lot of online material, and we’ll see what that produces, but that’s the literature review so far….

As the great man said “Good night and good luck…”

Good Girl 3, and Protocols

An online friend of mine posts to Literotica as Angeline DC. She's a very talented writer, and I think a lot of her. Her story "The Bidding of Lot 98" was inspiration for the Holland House (Holland Court in her story) material that appeared in one of the interactive theatre segments produced by J. and myself.

She's recently published "Be Good Girl - Chapter 3" at Literotica.

I think Good Girl 1 and 2 are very good stories, and they captivated me early on, because neither are your normal fuck fantasy bullshit. They are kind of ugly in some ways and have rough edges and are not your mom's sex fantasy. But they were also written five years ago, and the author's style and capability has matured significantly since then, which you can see with "98."

Good Girl 3 frankly blew me away. You do need to read 2 to understand the subject matter - but this is a piece of erotica that has...essentially no physical component. He holds her hand. Kind of hard. It takes place at a table in a restaurant. It is entirely mental. And honestly it is one of the most powerful pieces of BDSM erotica I've read.

Obviously tastes may vary, but it's worth taking a look and I highly recommend it. *Chuckle* if you leave a positive comment, say who sent you. If you leave a negative comment, say you got the URL from Josh Bolten.

Now for something completely boring...

More than one person has noted there haven't been any posts lately and what the hell happened. The fact is I've been working on a project which I really wanted to have in draft by Dark Odyssey (I did) and completed by Camp Crucible (looks good), and set in stone by MaST.

I've gotten a viable draft of my Protocols for D/s. I actually don't think it's boring, but this is not an exciting sexual read, it's a lot of pages of details on how a submissive and Dominant behave together.

It requires a supplement which is not quite done yet, showing illustrations of all the positions. That will be out shortly, it's really close.

So a couple of notes.

First, I owe a debt to several published sources and to Dr. Robert J. Rubel's Protocols: Handbook for the female slave, as well as the APEX/Butchmann protocols.

One of my concerns has been that there is not a serious set of protocols for submissives. The thrust for D/s is 24/7 slaves. I don't do 24/7 work at this time, and I honestly feel it's kind of poor if a girl who wants to hold down a normal job, have a normal social life, and sub one night a week can't have the same experience as someone who has dedicated to being a "lifestyle" submissive/slave. I wanted to create a set of Protocols that I felt were flexible enough to handle "normal" wear and tear, not just my day to day life at the (non existant) Dude Ranch where I keep my vast "stable" of submissives. I live in a suburban context (albeit very far in the suburbs) and all the girls I am currently working with have lives, jobs and social interests and priorities, including other partners.

I'm making these Protocols available to folks who want to see them, since I've already had about five requests. That said I want to give a few big provisos.

Protocols can be elegant, beautiful, and a huge boost to a D/s relationship. Rubel suggests that protocols “turn routine actions into ‘defined, repeatable, events.’” He adds notes on Protocols as a guide to declaring mutual intent, and focuses on the concept that Protocols make a relationship special, by communicating “to the other person – and anyone watching – just how valued this relationship is.”

1) These are not designed to be "point and click" protocols for the Dominant. You would need to read them, likely save and adapt them, then go over them with a new girl.

2) For Gods' sake, do not dump these on some hapless girl without comment and tell her it was my idea. If you do that, to quote Daniel Plainview from There Will be Blood "One night I'm gonna come to you, inside of your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm gonna cut your throat." Just sayin'

3) In all seriousness. Read through these, and talk through them with the girl. These will be a flatulent pain in the ass if you don't walk the girl through them, preferably with your own careful alterations.

I am working on a "getting started" guide, but that's not a major area of concern for me, so you kind of need to read this stuff, understand, and then use.

I am not answerable for failings or lack. If you have something you think should be in these protocols, then by all means download a copy and add it. I haven't even put a Creative Commons License on them, so...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

For the uninitiated that means you can feel free to copy it and make changes to it, as long as you share your changes, but you can't sell it and make money off of it.

Fantasy "Bear"...has to be seen to be believed

So as you might predict, I have a few friends who write, and some of them write erotica/porn/pr0n. Occasionally one of them tells me that they are uncertain of their writing skill. Not certain their work is really good enough. Hell I write some smut, and I often have some doubts about it.

But sometimes someone does us the service of making us feel not so bad. About giving us a mark to aim for so that on any given day we can, without much soul searching, say “Jesus Christ, at least I’m better than that.”

This was just too entertaining not to share...

Enter “Bear.”

Bear is a discovery of my friend C. who came across a reference on Sensible Erection, which he describes as “Slashdot for porn” where he said “this guy asked them to host his adult site, and in a few days became the laughingstock of the community.” I found the original seed

So what makes “Bear” so truly amusing. First, let me pass along the URL of the members only index to the pay site. This woofer wants $23 a month U.S. which even with the value of the dollar falling faster than Clinton strategist Mark Penn’s career prospects, is still far more money than it is worth. $276 a year? Mull that…

So when I send you to the unprotected members only index page at http://www.fantasybear.net/index.htm, you’ll miss the intro. But if you’re not quite up for going there, let me give you a taste of the tone of this...interesting…site.

NOT a Porn Site,[God forbid that!] Sensual Male Photos. Romance-Fantasies and a whole lot more. This site has alittle of everything.

Get to know him intimately through his fantasies and photos. Fall in love. And breathe hard. Sex isn't a sport. It's a creation between two people. It's the way a man tells a woman how much he loves her.

Fantasy Creations*2000

Has Discovered

BEAR

and wants to share his very special love making skills.

Women: Fall in love, breathe hard, and use Bear as your secret lover, or get your partner to read with you to get their creative sexual spirit moving. Find out what Bear likes and try it on your lover. men: Get turned on. Find out what women really feel when they're truly being made love to. Find out what can really happen to a woman's body if it is stimulated emotionally and physically. Learn to be the lover your partner secretly craves. Try out some of Bear's fantasies.

This site will give you detailed, full length, start to finish, real life, lovemaking fantasies of all kinds. There's also a whole gallery of photos to help you really get into the fantasies, a wisdom section, cartoons and jokes, funny viewers stories, and a chance to get into love making classes.

Fantasies contain mature material (not intended for those under 18), but every effort has been made to keep very detailed love making scenes loving and tasteful, and for nude shots to be tasteful, creative, and artistic.

Bear has the body of a hard working country boy (not the sculpted look of today's male models), has gorgeous green eyes that reflect a man with a thousand faces, has long, soft, naturally curly hair (that the women around him keep wanting to touch! ), satiny smooth skin, and his voice is deep and gentle (unless he's very occasionally roaring like a Bear). This guys a bachelor and though he's had some experience to learn what he knows, is a clean cut, good guy. He just happens to love to please ladies. If you're young or old, skinny, just right or overweight, plain, pretty or not so pretty, Bear will love you. He can always, always , always find a woman's pretty parts: legs, eyes, a warm heart, hair, breasts, butts, feet, hands, knees, ears, and even belly buttons. And even though he can rage like a river in the most masculine show you've ever seen, he can purr like a kitten, act as silly as a chimp, make you laugh 'til your sides hurt, pray like there's no tomorrow, be as creative as Michelangelo, problem solve like Einstein, and turn on twinkly eyes that can make you melt.

Oh, did we mention that he's a born philosopher and teacher - - and there's love and acceptance behind every word? - - - -

I shit you not folks…

What ensues are a number of fantasies that share some really stunning qualities. First it is really difficult to imagine writing about sex in a non-clinical fashion and being this sterile. I am not going to say “vanilla” because that’s really kind of an insult.

The writer is afraid to use any non-dictionary term for the genitalia. He inserts his penis into women’s vaginas which sounds about as romantic to me as a rhinoplasty.

He’s obsessed with the idea of women’s instant and overwhelming reaction to him. Sometimes they come just from looking at him. On the other hand, he only uses the word “come” once or twice…usually he says “orgasm” sometimes three times in a run-on sentence.

The only act you’ll find described here is male-female vaginal penetration. There’s a little kissing some running over of hands, but this guy is clearly deeply spooked by getting his mouth near a woman’s “pretty parts,” and you feel pretty sure he’d feel it was in some way unchivalrous to make a woman put her mouth “down there.”

This is sex writing for people who have a hard time even thinking about sex...

It’s…just…well you gotta read it.

He looks at you with those soft, deep, intense green eyes and your eyes are afraid to look down, and the eye contact goes on and on until you start talking silently to him, sure he can hear every thought. You tell him you want him. You tell him you love him with all your heart and that at that moment, your body belongs to him. You think of submission, not in a cruel way, but in the most loving way possible. You want him to take you to where ever he wants to go. And finally he looks down, passes the food around, looks at the flowers you picked just for him, picks up his fork and ever so slowly reaches across the table to give you the first bite. When you lean forward, he shakes his head 'no', the eye contact solid again, and as you draw back slowly, he moves the fork to your mouth and ever so slowly puts the food in your mouth, drawing the fork away so carefully that it runs across your bottom lip -- that he is now analyzing.

Analyze me baby…

Orgasm number 4, as his hands caress your thighs, your legs, back up and under the dress to your breasts - - finally under the material. Just a light touch with both hands on your nipples and another shudder. No more counting. You're starting to multiple big time.

Look folks, you didn’t think that C, and E, and I would waste your time with something that was just trivially bad did you. This is really stunning stuff...

I think what really makes this stuff creepy and kind of disturbing is his flirting around with hardcore subjects but with so many qualifications that they come out as sort of puerile. I can tell you that I cannot wait for "Fantasy #29 - Super Pleasurable Rape." Just in case, you know, you thought Rape might be ugly or painful or something. Like the reference above to submission which immediately redacts itself You think of submission, not in a cruel way, but in the most loving way possible. That just sort of sets off my weird and creepy meter, though I think it's mostly harmless banality.

Finally…

You put your hands under your bottom to increase the depth of his penetration and he raises to his knees and tucks your knees to your chest and he leans down on your raised knees and pumps long, strong strokes that now have you into almost an unending orgasm. Your vagina is so sensitive that you feel every part of every stroke. You open your eyes, and his eyes meet yours and he leans down and kisses you while still stroking in and out. Because he always waits to come until you say, "Now. Make it with me." you wait until you can't stand it any more, and start to beg, "Now." And you feel a change in his size. He felt full and big and straight before, but now he's really, really full and he feels so good you think you'll explode, and then, just as he's about to make it, you pry your eyes open to watch him as his head goes back, and the most masculine sight you could ever witness is this gorgeous creature tensing into his own orgasm and at the same time, your most satisfying orgasm of all hits.

Whew…the picture, by the way, really begs to have “Bear’s Very Special Greatest Hits – 1972-1974” written on it in a script font, with a track credit to England Dan and John Ford Coley.

Anyway, believe it or not, there is a way to make Bear even more entertaining…

We haven’t figured out really how to make this a drinking game yet, since it’s predictable, but try block copying the story and inserting the name of a friend (preferably one you do not think will throw that bottle of Jack at you). Then begin substituting other words. We found that “Penis,” “Orgasm” and “Make it” were good words to substitute, since the first two at least come up nearly every sentence. We substituted “election” with the name of a politically minded friend, but you could come up with your own bon mots. Hmm…is “mal mots” actually a saying.

So, this is silliness, but it killed enough time at C.’s party I thought it was worth passing along, and given how damn busy things are, it isn’t as if I had anything better to write.

Now for something completely different...

I have to remind myself this is a “Sin Blog” not a “Sex Blog” from time to time. So since Bear is really the afterjoke, I’ll throw this out. I admit I found it just now on SE while looking for the original Bear entry.

For anybody who has ever longed for the “good old days” before people were cruel to each other, and committed atrocious murders, barbarities, when life was simpler and less risky…I’m a History/English double major by original worthless liberal arts education, and stuff like this fascinates me. Not the “great stories,” but these little windows into people’s real lives.

http://www.corkscrew-balloon.com/misc/steele.html

A few of the best:

Alice Was too Fast

Irreparably Sullied by a Cad

Whoring, Spitzer, and "things that might be dangerous"

Today, we're going to write a little about Elliot Spitzer. I’m going to be honest and say that this is a recap of an e-mail that I sent to a friend a while back, but it’s been fleshed out a little. I’m still frantically recycling material because I’m under the gun on production and at work.

First let me say I don’t care much about Spitzer much one way or the other. A part of me says he was keeping the Corps a little honest, a part of me says he was a power-hungry personal image developer who screwed other people who were just doing what everybody does in order to forward his political career.

So first a little about prostitution. I know something about it. I’ll admit to a certain fascination with it, and when I’m fascinated by something I find out about it. My “hands on” knowledge is mostly pretty rusty, but I’ve kept up with the concept in a more than casual way. We’ll investigate the fetish value of it at another time. For now suffice it to say I had a broad and misspent youth. I’m familiar with the various systems that were around at the time – escort services, advertising papers and cards, adult massage parlors, outright brothels (not so common anymore) and street action. Nowadays advertising in papers and cards has been replaced by CL and other more modern services, but the principle is still the same.

When I talk about going to prostitutes with friends (and honestly what the fuck is the point of a misspent youth if you aren’t going to brag about it) I usually refer to it as “whoring.” No disresepct to the trade is intended. Prostitution is a trade and in my opinion an honorable one. Whoring is s calling as old as the world…recent studies show that other species whore…and as my wife would remind me, the “Whore of Babylon” is a deific being, worshipped under various names in several of the cultures that gave birth to modern faiths and philosophy.

Let me also add, it’s not a job I’d recommend, and in fact I’ve very recently had occasion to suggest to a friend that they give a very hard think about whether or not it was something they wanted to get into. My reasons aren’t ethical or moral. It’s the same reason I don’t recommend that anyone take up cab driving (which I’ve done) or join the U.S. Army, or teach public school. I respect the people who do all those things, but if you are asking me what field to go into, I am going to tell you that the amount of remuneration for the amount of risk and even emotional risk may be a tough trade-off. On the other hand we need all those professions. Society wouldn’t move forward without them. It’s a calling and one I respect. Everything I’ve read or learned makes me think it’s safer today than it was back when I was seeing girls regularly, more like it was in Canada and Britain back then.

So now that I’ve spun my creds to talk about whoring, let’s talk about Spitzer.

I never met the man. The only person I ever met who worked with him was one of our fucking short-timers. Made a big deal he'd worked in Spitzer's office, name dropped that constantly. Was the most insufferable prick we ever had around. Let me be clear. I’m used to Washington and I don’t call people pricks very much. I don't feel that way about most of my co-workers...the other short timers ranged from irritating to cool. One Coast Guard guy I liked a lot. But this guy was just a complete hyper-motivated ass. He was going places and wanted you to march. I'm a liberal, in some ways an extreme liberal, but...I also favor a certain degree of moderating, getting along and chilling, and this guy was on the warpath all the time. And really he was on the warpath for him. He’d make occasional noises about cause, etc. but it was mostly “I am sticking up for the Chief and running roughshod over you to advance my career.”

If anybody was expecting me to defend the man, I can’t. I try not to be a hypocrite, and it’s the behavior I find most shameful in myself. If I violate the rules, you can find me saying a dozen places I never promised to obey them. If I violate the subset of rules I have said I value, that makes me a failure in my eyes. Spitzer was a man whose rules were “the law books as they stand, the word, not the spirit of the law.” He prosecuted people who were just doing what other people did every day, who thought it was “the system” if not the law. So…when a man like that breaks the letter of the law there’s little I can say for him directly. We all make our beds. Eventually the hangman may go to the gallows, and little sympathy from the outlaw.

There are some things that are interesting to me about this case, though. I admit I haven’t had time to obsessively follow it, so maybe some of these things are well known.

My first reaction is “why the fuck does the Governor of New York have to pay $4000 for a $200 trick?” When I was active a good many years ago Street in Baltimore was $15-35, depending on service. In DC it was never much less than $50. Massage parlours ran about $100 to 150. Escort Services started out at about $200. Based on what I’m seeing today, you’d be $150-200 an hour, maybe a little more depending on the girl. Jessica Cutler (Washingtonienne) was getting dropped about $400 for an afternoon date, but that was presumably more than a quick in out fuck in an hour, unless that’s just exactly what they wanted (which in her case it may have been). Also I don't trust Cutler not to be inflating the figures a little...some of the sums she throws around sound pretty unlikely coming from guys who by my calculation are at my pay grade. Course they were single and probably didn't have much else to do.

So…$4000. One of the things I always think is funny is when you talk to women who are “straight,” about prostitution. I find two things are usually the case. One is that they are invariably fascinated. It’s supposed to be a turn off, but every woman I’ve ever mentioned it to has been very curious. I’ve said before that guys go to prostitutes for one of two reasons, and I guess people can figure out which one is mine. Anyway, the other thing is that they tend to overvalue how much they’d be worth, sometimes dramatically. Usually its innocuous (though not always). It’s a world they know nothing about. People with some kink-aware background, and younger internet savvy girls know more and guess better.

So my first thought was “Jesus fucking Christ, dude….what gives…” And to think that if you’re the Governor of New York, maybe you have to pay high to find a service that you can trust. That basically you’re just paying out the nose for what would come cheap to anybody else.

But I don’t know. I mean honestly for overnight with a girl who is in the echelon of commanding $400, I suppose if you went ten hours, that would work out. Still seems high to me.

So there is an editorial by Brendan Polmer, in the GW Hatchet (for non-local folks that’s the George Washington University Newspaper). I don’t normally out people by name here, but this is printed in a public newspaper. In addition to managing to sound like a complete prig who was writing the piece to suck up to his girlfriend because he’d never do anything like that, he comes out with…

“The report goes on to say that in a wiretapped phone conversation between the Emperor’s Club booker and the prostitute that services Spitzer, the booker states that Spitzer had a history of asking the women “to do things that like, you might not think were safe.” Polmer maturely comments “Eeewwwwww. I don’t know about you but that certainly puts a few unsettling images in my head.” He does not add “which I will whack off to tonight.” How many www’s do Strunk and White give to “eeewwwwwww” anyway? Oh well, what’s a little onomatopoetia between friends.

It gives me a little more respect for Spitzer. I still don’t know what the fuck it means. If it were me on the phone I would have come back with “do you mean he wants to screw without a condom or that he’s into aggressive breath control play…for God’s sakes man, be specific.” But at least maybe he was doing something that was worth putting four grand on the nightstand. And honestly you know, you have to charge high if you are going to do that sort of work. Letting out your body to a stranger to take risks with isn’t a trival thing.

I don’t mean to sound like a callous anus about the money. It’s like when you hear that some Politician got a haircut that cost $1000, and you think “look Hair Cuttery is $18 and I know really good stylists who don’t charge more than $150, and for that I get an Aveda sample.” It’s knowing something about the game. There are people I’ve had sex with who I don’t think you could put a price on the emotional experience, but honestly when you start talking about $4000 I have to think about what that could mean in terms of travel, events, toys, nice things for all my partners, and I cringe a little. It’s just a little over the top to me.

But that’s not really my point…

My question is the basic public commonweal behind the modern sex scandal.

Since the time of John Profumo and Christine Keeler, the press and society has gotten much better at invading privacy. To this day nobody knows exactly for certain whether or not JFK fucked Marilyn. It sure looks that way, but nobody is able to exhume fabric and take samples. Now the tools and, increasingly, legal avenues, exist to track these things.

You could say that Spitzer is an exception because he may have committed financial crime. But on the other hand one tends to think the inaccessibility of this service to him drove him to expenses and desperation that he might well not have undertaken for a boat or a car. Sexual desire is a very powerful drive. It makes us do things whether we want to or not. I'm not excusing him. Your house, your rules. He chose his own rules, and I'm for seeing him hang by them.

Still...

During the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal a noted jurist…and I’ve tried to find the quote and can’t...it was in an NPR radio interview and I have never been able to track it…said something that stuck with me. To paraphrase, “I think there are a lot of people who would lie about that one thing…about sex…who would not lie about anything else.”

So I wonder if we do ourselves any service with sex scandals, or the climate that creates them. Is it possible that we are in fact depriving ourselves of good leadership because technology has outpaced privacy.

Back when it was "lip service" and Kennedy could still fuck anybody he wanted to as long as he didn’t do it in public, it didn't matter. But sex has always been one of the things that drove powerful men to excel. Because it won them the right to have any sex partner they wanted, because women will throw themselves at powerful men.

Let’s take the converse as well. It is very nearly the case that to be considered politically electable, a woman has to be old enough, and modify her looks to enough severity, that she is not seen in a sexual light. Very few people fantasized about Margaret Thatcher, and while I can read masturbatory fantasies about Obama on the internet, I am not reading many about Hillary Clinton. Is that the counter-price. That if men must pretend to have no sexuality, women are held at arms length until their sexuality is deemed “safe.” I have doubt that a woman with much hint of sexual charisma could stand for a major office, though of course some have and do on the state or local level, where deviation from the presumed norm can be compensated with personal charisma and direct dealing.

I understand the concept that we don't want to be led by people who can be led around by their cocks. But powerful people always have been, and I am not sure we want to be led by people who lack natural human urges, or in fact the chutzpah to act on them. A guy who is too cowardly to take a risk to have sex? Is that really the guy I want going to the table to arm wrestle with foreign policy. Insane risks no. But I am not sure I want my country led by the shy kid who can't get the nerve up to ask a girl on a date.

So here, in the "post privacy" era, we're at the point where it's not just "lip service." Powerful men are reduced to insane steps just to fuck somebody they aren't legally married to.

I'm not sure that's healthy. Do we want to limit government to just eunuchs...people too frustrated, cowardly, or uptight to fuck around? Is that going to give us better leaders?

Even one of my very conservative friends, reading about Clinton and Lewinsky in the private kitchen said something to the effect of “it makes you realize just how little privacy the man in that office actually has…limited to just that tiny space where he can be alone and in private.”

Like all social questions this one has no answer other than time. The answer is that variant sexual behavior is already more acceptable in Europe than here, and that as the “other America” is slowly permeated by the America of urban culture, these things will change. Clinton withstood his impeachment challenge. Spitzer was forced down on financial corruption and breaking the law not on sleeping around.

Over time, mores and morals will shift. And every little media source that promotes sanity, reason, and hedonism will help…

Perhaps even one this small...

Why use protocols?

I promised breakdowns of the D/O workshops, but that is not happening right now. I had this piece drafted, and so am going to go ahead and post it. May be a bit more use of slightly older material through next Sunday as I have a grueling set of deadlines in the outside world.

So one of the questions I get is “why use protocols.” A quick guide is that protocols are a formal set of rules, positions, actions that a girl is supposed to know and is trained to. Protocols are more D/s than BDSM. Mine are a work in progress.

To a lot of people the idea seems not intriguing but kind of stilted. I admit for a long time it did to me. Even the first set of protocols I designed were based around a group of nonstandard positions that I currently call my “club” positions. I like them, they’re a mixture of sort of Bond-girl-esque posturing and model poses that I think in some ways are more fluid and attractive than the standard full present, the ubiquitous “nadu” kneel, etc. Sorry when Rubel uses it, I’m going to say “nadu” is one “Gor” term that has just passed into common leather parlance.

I eventually decided that I was not doing any favors to train girls to a set of standards that aren't practiced anywhere else. Realistically I expect most of my submissives to at least play with other Dominants, if not to eventually move on. I think you have to be realistic and life is like that. At the risk of sounding emotional, it doesn't mean I don't care about them very deeply

So…why do this? Not “why does it look cool” but “what purpose does it fulfill.”
Let me try to explain.

It is every boy’s fantasy (well every alpha/dominant boy anyway) to have a woman say “take me, control me, use me.”

But let’s face it. What is our initial reaction when it happens to us at first. Usually to treat the woman like a piece of glass because we are so scared and freaked out that we might damage her. I suppose the other reaction is just to not give a shit and abuse her until she leaves us, and I have plenty of anecdotal evidence on this. So let’s establish that two things are desirable.

a) To give her the sense that she is controlled and you are in control. Not just for it to be real but for her to feel it.

b) Not to hurt her in bad ways…even if one lacks any other conscience, it means eventually she’ll go away and you won’t have her as a toy anymore. “If you break your toys.”

So, I remember being a young Dom trying desperately to come up with things to command a woman to do. Often defaulting to little more than “what should I tell you to do sweetheart,” or “well, let’s relax and I order you to do what you want.” Sure I was never quite that lame (though I understand that’s a real common order).

But sometimes I was really grasping to do much better. And here’s another tip. “Fuck me” or “go down on me” can be incredibly exciting orders once a sense of control is developed. Being ordered to give sexual service is a big experience to most women. But even as a rank novice I knew pretty well that they weren’t exciting just by themselves without any warmup. Yes you can hang a scene on not having warmup, just like you can occasionally hang a sex scene on “I am going to fuck you without foreplay.” But there has to be other content there, or it gets dull fast.

So…in S/M we don’t just go up to somebody and go at them full force with a heavy cane, unless that’s the scene, and then it’s mostly mental and that’s an unusual scene. What do we do? We ramp them up. Hands. Doeskin flogger. Light caning. Cane taps. Varied sensation. Get them up to a level where that’s exciting to them. Yes as time goes by we can train them to ramp up faster. And some women can drop very quickly, feel the bend right away, and be ready for heavy D/s. But in most cases we recognize the need to do some buildup.

That’s where protocols come in. They’re the equivalent of the doeskin flogger for control. They are the tool that is available to the Dom when the girl says “tell me what to do, I want to surrender to you,” and you know on a lot of levels that she is not in a headspace where she is ready for that to be a sex order, and wants to be controlled, not just tied up and flogged.

For every new Dom who has ever had a young girl saying “take me, control me, tell me what to do.” That’s the key. There are others of course. Learning how to actually instruct a woman how to have sex or suck cock is also fairly important, because “tell me what to do,” does not mean “expect me to read your mind.” Even if they know part of the control element is being told.

But protocols are the bread and butter. They are the way to ramp up a control/mental scene. They are the way to build a feeling of surrender and control quickly and recall it with a word. They are the water in the soup. I’ve never heard of any woman coming from being ordered to kneel (though I’m sure it’s happened) or assume a standing position. But positions and protocols for behavior are the start to a control scene that ends powerfully with far more emotional release/exchange/reaction than can be as easily obtained in other situations.

Dark Odyssey - I - Overview...

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Miscellaneous Comments, Baldwin, and Fear...

I missed a post but after the maximum strength core-dump of the moview review, I think everybody can spot me a post. I haven't updated my arts blog either. I'll be at Dark Odyssey http://darkodyssey.com/ over the weekend, in case anyone who reads this blog happens to be there. I mean who isn't going with me.

So, first, a few answers to questions. Almost everybody reading this blog knows who I am. The names on it are real. I don't have my last name dangling out here because while I probably couldn't be fired for this blog, I feel some compunction to show a little discretion.

Scene Names
Likewise, I've been using "James" instead of "Gordon" in the BDSM world. That's just my first name, and I grew up, like many southerners, going by a middle name that happens to be my mother's maiden name. I like my first name fine, but my parents never wanted me to be "Jim," and I don't much care for it either. It's actually nothing new. For whatever reason, very early on, a couple of submissives just felt "natural" calling me James in scene, so that's kind of where it went.

Facebook
For a couple of folks who wanted to find me on facebook, try Gordon (no James) O-D (my last name), spelled out. If you actually don't know my last name, drop me an e-mail through the james@vialarp.org addy on this blog, and I'll put you in contact. And...as a side note. I don't get upset if people spam me with apps, but I don't usually have a lot of time to deal with stuff like that so...YMMV.

Telling people about this Blog
Finally, about the blog itself. A couple of people have asked me about mentioning it to friends, and a few people already have *chuckle.* It is better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission, d? Anyway, all I'd ask is...use discretion. I've gone to some effort not to put this in the face of friends who aren't comfortable dealing with sexual issues. I'd rather not have it circulated as a sensation, and I've gone out of my way to make it a bad source to get gossip about my relationships. But that said, if you want to pass it along, I don't mind. I'm not going to badmouth anyone here, and I'm not worried about people reading me. I go out of my way to protect the privacy of my partners, but I don't personally have much of anything to hide.

Dark Odyssey

So a couple of Dark Odyssey notes...

They finally got a class schedule posted. I'm actually trying to suck in education these days. Let's face it I have a lot to learn. There's a workshop on kicking and punching an unresisting partner I definitely want to see. One of the hottest scenes I saw in a public setting this year fell into that category. Not that I haven't done it before, but I've typically pulled pretty substantially because my training is stage, not BDSM. I'm up for learning more. I've no will to seriously injure a partner.

So funny thing about Dark Odyssey. I know some of the people who organized it/worked on it the first year. It was billed as a big breakthrough event, merge the pagan community and the BDSM community, was going to be BDSM but with a heavy spirituality theme. I kind of yawned. Now I tend to take my spirituality where I find it, and don't really obsess much on it. "I'll have years of old age when I'm too old to fuck to worry about spirituality." Anyway, they came back from the first year, and somebody said "well they made Tristan the primary guest, and the whole thing was really about assfucking and sex and we were really disappointed that there wasn't a big spirituality track." And I said "hmm....sounds like I might have liked it after all..."

What can I say. I'm irreverent. To each their own. There are people who get a lot of spiritual depth out of BDSM, and I'm supportive of that. I get...emotional...depth...passion...out of it. But I don't tend to see that in spiritual terms.

Literature Review

So the first news is that the literature review is going stunningly. I’ve found a resource that is 80% of what I wanted. A lot of what is in it are things I already do (which makes me pleased and probably slightly smug). But there are a lot of new things, a better coherent pattern, and generally a lot of good terminology. Review coming up in the next few weeks. Otherwise a few interesting things, but the same basic issues. Basic, and problems with tone.
I've been re-reading (or having someone read) Guy Baldwin's Slavecraft. Baldwin serves as the editor/interlocutor for "a grateful slave" in a series of essays many of which were originally published in Leather magazines before being bound into a book.

I'd read most of these before, but I've been more impressed in returning to them. Maybe I'm just more able to accept the emotional content now. Most authors who have written high-flown spiritualistic prose about BDSM have been imitating Slavecraft, so it is at least the original thing.

In the coming weeks, I'm going to try to go through the essays a little more in depth. I already covered “Transparency.” The Second Essay is particularly meaningful to me. It concerns the inability of Dominants to really “get” submissives, and suggests that few of us are really able to help our submissives with their growth. Really it’s a substantial critique of Dominants, and I think you have to be able to read it and accept that much of it is true…and is true of you, not just Dominants in general…if you even want to try to be a good Dominant.

“All too rare are the masters for whom “training” means something more than giving orders and correcting compliance. A sadly small percentage of the Masters I know savors the often delicately balanced orchestrations by which a slave does truly develop a deeper level of surrender under Their direction. These Masters delight in devising subtle situations and conversations that challenge and guide us. They watch us to see how we wrestle with our inner struggles with surrender, and then determine the best way to coax, tease, kiss, lure, argue, reason, support, reinforce, hurt, or love us onward past our sticking points and into doing or accepting exactly what They want from us…and, making us love Them for it!”

Something to aspire to. Yet…

“Masters can tell us to obey, but they are usually at a loss to explain to us where we are to reach down inside and find it in ourselves to do so. Even more so whenever those orders bump up against any internal slave obsta­cles, encounter internal reluctance, or lack of experience.

And how often is that really true. Can I say that I really understand the submissive urge in my partners. I am fascinated by it. I spend hours on it. But do I understand it, can I make it happen, can I teach them all they need to know.

No I cannot. I fail as often as not.

In the first essay, there is an elegant summary of the process of giving over to submission which reminds us why it is important to try. I want to note that the one place I strongly depart from Baldwin is the assertion of the real primacy of submission. He very quickly disposes of anyone who is not so deeply called to it as to be moved to it for life. Even though his submissive narrator takes breaks, plays conditionally with Masters and is obviously in many cases a “sub” not a “slave.” I think there is validity in the experience, even if one balances it with other aspects of life. I don’t think it has to be an all consuming urge.

Fear

In the final analysis, the issue is whether one will or will not honor his passion. To back away from the passionate call of deep and ongoing submission and slavery, one risks his integrity and self-respect. Turning away means building into one's aware­ness the knowledge that he is hiding from something important inside himself. The consequences are eventually the same as when a gay person denies their gayness. A war within the self inevitably ensues. These sorts of wars create friction within one's psychology and act as a drag on one's creativity and spontaneity. Such internal wars and the fallout from them are the enemies of anyone's serenity and happiness.

Most often, the thing that is responsible for not honoring one's passion for submission is Fear. Some who hear and feel the call of submission fear that it might mean the loss of, or destruc­tion of, one's Self: "Who will i be if i surrender absolutely?" Others fear that no one will want to Master them. "What if no one wants me?" We may fear that if we explore submission too deeply, we won't ever enjoy any other kinds of sexuality. "If i go too far, maybe i won't ever be able to be anything other than a slave. "

But in life, the pursuit of great reward often means tak­ing great risk. Those who launched for the Moon knew they were risking their lives, and others who have launched for space have paid that price. Even changing from a good job to a better job car­ries with it the risk that the new situation won't work out. Entering a doctoral program does not guarantee a position upon graduation. Getting married does not necessarily mean "til death us do part." Choosing to beget a child does not guarantee that it will be born healthy and will not become a serial murderer.

Know this: slavery requires bravery.

If you're not courageous enough to make yourself take the risks, then i suggest that you go out and insert yourself into programs designed to help you find your own bravery within yourself. If you are too frightened to proceed toward the realiza­tion of your slave passion, then the acquisition of this courage must be the first part of your preparation for the journey into submission.

There is no shame in being fearful. It is only a shame to remain so. And this shame is esteem-killing and destroys integri­ty and self-respect. Who can afford that? Besides, what worth­while Master wants to try things with a slave wannabe who is paralyzed by his fears and has no self-respect? It is not that you must do away with all fear. It is that you must find enough courage within yourself to prevent your fears from paralyzing you to the point where you will be unable to submit enough to actively seek your bliss in surrender.

It is here that I think a Dominant can do the best work. Even without fully understanding they can try to guide past the fear and provide a safe place to explore from. Also I don't think there are a whole lot of programs that give you bravery. But trust in a partner can. Baldwin also suggests…

It is my opinion that, for most Masters, what under­standing about deep submission They do have will usually be an intellectual one at best anyway. It is very useful for Masters to develop a clear understanding of a slave's individual personality so that Masters can provide us with the opportunities to manifest our slave destiny in the context of service and, with skilled sup­ported development, gradually reposition our limits to suit Their appetites.

I have a sort of horror of the idea of working with someone without exploring their individual personality. It is something I may get too deeply involved in. But beyond that, I think the point there is that even when we don’t fully understand we can provide a safe place, a center, where the submissive can explore without fear…

Interesting Note

El Pregonero, published by the Archdiocese of Washington is not only DC's largest Spanish-Speaking Pregnancy Fetish magazine, but in fact the largest Pregnancy Fetish publication in the Baltimore-Washington area.