Dichotomy

How is it that one person can contain both the cruel sadist who pinches my nipples and pulls them until I scream helplessly with the pain of it, and the darling sweetheart who hugs me to him the next morning and tells me how much I enrich his life?

Both are him, both are real. The wonderful joy of such a thing doesn't translate clearly to people without kinky - perhaps even only masochistic - tendencies. The thrill of knowing that the man who hugs me randomly in the kitchen and who clearly adores me can also torment my flesh and tell me that his cock owns me later that same day is surely as good as the high from any drug.

When the morning after a particularly intense fuck I whisper that my insides hurt because he kept shoving his cock into me whether there was room for it or not and the only sound from him is a little pleased "mmm," and he pulls me closer? I know that whatever I have awakened in him, in what I thought was a sweet vanilla man all those years ago, is definitely there to stay. The intrinsic goodness of him doesn't go away because he's sexually aroused by hurting me. So long, that is, as I am also a willing participant in the activities. Which of course I am.

Sex is so interesting. How we relate to it, how in so many polite company conversations we're not supposed to mention it, how what turns us on can so often be used by others who find these things out to indicate some kind of bizarre character flaw.

The nicest, best, most kind-hearted person I know is a sexual sadist. Our sexual desires don't say anything about us as people except what our sexual desires happen to be.

If only teenage me had gotten that memo. How many people are living in some private hell because they think the perfectly normal ways that their sexuality functions is somehow abnormal and wrongheaded and is going to send them to hell? Like life isn't hard enough. Like fitting in all the things we must do and all the things we'd like to do and all the people who give our lives joy and fulfillment and contentment doesn't eat up enough of our brain cycles, we focus on something that's meant to bring us pleasure and instead wring anguish from it. How good are we humans at screwing ourselves up?

Embrace the dichotomy. Life is there to be lived, and sex is there to be enjoyed. Consensually. Of course.

Happy holidays, blogland.

Fluid

I went swimming at a friend's house recently. It had been a while since I had so much skin bare in the sunlight, and though I carry sunscreen with me everywhere, I forgot to put it on my back.

The water was amazing. It embraced me, welcomed me back like a long-lost lover, supported me as I moved through it for hours and hours.

That night, though, I paid for my lack of forethought with a sunburn so severe and painful that lifting my arms over my head brought tears to my eyes. The brush of my hair across my shoulders made me whisper "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" as though being burned with a hot iron. Days later, the pain persists and makes me regret my foolhardiness.

Pondering it all made me think of how relationships are similarly fluid. They change and move and what may seem a tiny oversight can lead to huge mishaps.

Friends, lovers, family, people themselves are fluid. If we don't make an effort to keep up with the changes, apply our protections and keep swimming, we can drown or burn. No one is carved in stone, no one stays the same throughout their lives.

Sometimes it may seem like a lot of work, and sometimes it may well be too much work and we may have to let a relationship go or suffer burns over and over and over again.

Most of the time, though, the rewards are worth the work, and the painful reminders when we forgot to put in the labor still don't make the relationship one we should ditch altogether. We just need to be more careful next time.

Now and then it just pays to remind ourselves that time only flows the one way, and the moments spent we can never get back. Best to spend them wisely.

What's your favorite wise way to spend your moments?

Sleepiness

On Mother's Day, we were going to go for a hike.

But our child woke us up way too early and I spent the day battling intense sleepiness. Standing up became difficult as the afternoon progressed.

"You want to just go take a nap?" my husband asked.

"No, I don't. But yes, I do." I answered. What I honestly wanted was to hike. But I didn't think I would manage very far before succumbing to my overwhelming exhaustion. "I don't want to be by myself, though."

"Oh, I'll come with you," he said, hugging me tightly to him before I turned to go into the bedroom.

I struggled to remain standing long enough to let my jeans, donned especially for hiking, fall to the floor. I crawled into bed and my heavy eyelids slammed shut.

My husband's arms went around me and he whispered into my ear, "I'll lie here and hold you."

I sleepily mumbled my pleased gratitude. As I snuggled into him, I felt his cock grow hard against my arm. His hips drove it against me.

"I can't promise I won't fuck you though," he growled, his arousal becoming more insistent by the moment.

"Mmm," I murmured, "I can't promise I'll be too responsive."

---

There was fucking. And there was responsiveness wherein he forced me to beg to be fucked. And then there was a second fucking.

My husband has a fetish for exhaustion. Not for actual unconsciousness, but sleepiness so overwhelming that it's grabbing and pulling me.

I'm having trouble finding out what that's called. But he definitely has it.

I kind of dig it. It fulfills my need to give him what he wants, even if it's not what I necessarily want in the moment.

Fucking is better than sleep anyway.

I need to find more ways to wear myself out, but preferably not so that I'm miserable all day.

Apparently there's a listed fetish for your OWN exhaustion making you horny. Kopophilia - but where is the "my partner's exhaustion turns me on" fetish? I'll keep looking.

Internal experiences, external actions

His hand pushes on the back of my head, forcing it forward and away from him, exposing the back of my neck to him. He rubs the soft bristles of his beard against me there, a thousand tiny points of sensation, and I gasp loudly.

"You like that, girl?" he asks, pushing harder on my head, rubbing his beard against me while I feel myself melting. He moves his chin over to the tender curve between my neck and shoulder, and I inhale sharply as sensation overtakes me. I can't say which thing I love more - the hand pressing possessively yet almost dismissively against my head, or the sensations his beard is awakening across my body. Goosebumps rise up all over me and I moan.

Forced helplessness

There's a certain aspect of D/s sexual interaction that really gets me going: Being punished, chastised, or otherwise taken to task for something the bottom has no control over, or something the top has actively caused.

Usually the only place I get to see these scenarios is in bad snuff fiction with psychopathic kidnapping murderers, but something over on aisha's the other day triggered my "yummy!" sensor. I thought my husband was aware of this kink of mine, but turns out it must have been buried under all the other kinks of mine littering his poor brain. So when I started talking about it, he got pretty excited. Apparently he likes to learn things about me he either doesn't know or has forgotten.

What followed that conversation was experimental on his part, and very, very intense for me.

---

"Why did you like that spoon on your face so much?" he asked, stroking my cheek, covering my face with his hand and pressing hard.

"I dunno," I moaned against his palm, then, giving it a little more thought, "I like it when you do things to my face." I'm pretty sure that was already obvious since I was sort of melting into him, moving my face into his hand as it roamed.

"Hmm," he pondered, kissing me, stroking my face all over, "I think there's a part of you... that wants me to slap it."

I moaned.

"But I said I wouldn't do that, didn't I? That I wouldn't slap the pretty girl's face.." he lifted his hand from my cheek, pausing as if to slap me, but he didn't. I felt my whole body flush, and suddenly I was hot.

He moved his hand, slapped my breasts one at a time, kept talking about slapping my face. His exact words are lost in the roar of blood in my ears, in the sounds of his hand smacking into my breasts over and over. His lips claimed mine eventually, kissing me senseless while his hand gripped my hair, tugging my face into him, pulling my hair, making me cry out.

"I'm surprised you don't fight back more," he said as he slapped my breasts.

"You don't like that," I answered softly.

"I suppose a submissive girl might just like to submit," he continued.

"I like to fight," I whispered, even lower.

"That's right, you do," he murmured. "I suppose I might like to feel wanted... like you're just saying 'Here I am. I'm yours, do as you wish with me.'" I was on my back next to him, he was on his side facing me. My right leg was trapped between both of his, his leg tossed over my hip and bent so it crossed my leg a second time. His hand was in my hair, his other hand gripping my throat as he kissed me, as he spoke those words. His fingers moved from my throat down my front, toying with my nipples, slipping lower, lower, until he parted my sex.

I nearly screamed when he drew my wetness over my clit. I spasmed, my trapped leg trying to pull away.

"Where is that leg trying to go?"

"Nowhere," I hurried to answer. I wasn't quite sure what he had planned, wasn't sure of anything except how very turned on I was. So I answered honestly.

"You like having your legs forced apart," he noted as I moaned when his leg tightened on mine, dragged it further away from my other one.

"Uh-huh," I answered, his fingers on my sex pretty much robbing me of intelligent language.

"Are you my slut?"

"Uh-huh." I would have agreed to almost anything at that point, but then I started thinking.

"Are you a cock slut?" His fingers, God, his fingers, making me crazy, how can I think, how can I have this conversation?

"Nooo," I protested.

"No? What kind of slut are you, then?"

"Nooo," I argued, brilliantly.

"You don't get to say no now, girl, it's too late. Cock slut. You want this cock to fuck you, don't you?" he asked, his fingers sliding inside me, making me buck up into his hand.

"Uh-huh," I said, twisting.

"So why don't you turn on your side and let me fuck you from behind then?" he said, a little edge to his voice that should have warned me something was up.

I tried. I really, really tried. But the way he was holding me, I couldn't turn. Each time I tried to turn, I felt the muscles of his legs tense around me, holding me in place, holding me open. "Come on, cock slut, just turn over. I guess you don't want it bad enough. I guess you don't want to be fucked from behind at all." His finger moved, faster and faster, lighter and lighter, on my clit, and my body arched up off the bed, still trying to turn, but unable. That is when the orgasm hit me, as his words crashed into me without letup, as his finger worked its magic, as he held me in place even as I tried to do what he told me.

Fuck, yes, I came. How could I not?

"Silly slut can't even do what she's told," he murmured into my ear as I panted. "I guess you don't really want it - but guess what? I want it. I guess I'll just have to show you how it's done." With that, he took his leg off me and roughly - roughly - shoved me over onto my side. I can't even tell you what that I want it did to me. Just whoa.

"Give me that pussy," he growled as he prodded the head of his cock into me. But his hand was on my ass, pressing me forward. Oh, fuck. I tried to back onto him, to feel him filling me, but he pushed on me just enough so I could get about half his cock inside. "Come on, girl, give it to me," he growled again, as I tried to find some leverage on our featureless bed to press against. My hands slid helplessly over the smooth sheets, we don't have a headboard, pressing into the wall would be the wrong direction. I moaned deeply, frustrated, even as I felt myself grow impossibly wetter.

"I guess you really don't want it that badly," he whispered, grabbing ahold of me and yanking me all the way onto him, filling me up by ramming us into each other. I squealed as he hit bottom, stretching me out suddenly and quickly. Fuck.

---

"You're my property, aren't you?" he murmured, long minutes later, my legs splayed open, one wrapped behind his back, his fingers stroking my clit while he fucked me.

"Yes, yes, yes," I panted.

"Putty in my fingers, aren't you?" he asked. "Do whatever I tell you?"

"Uh-huh," I groaned, as those very fingers drove me insane with pleasure.

"Turn over and suck my cock, then," he said.

He let me, though I moved slowly, like one in a dream. I love the taste of me on him, of us together like that. I licked slowly up his length, tasting, before I let myself suck him in.

"Oh, that's a good girl, good girl likes to suck the cock, doesn't she?"

He was fucking into my throat, pulling my hair, telling me what a good fuckhole I am when our poor sick munchkin came zombying into the room. At least the kid has good timing and it was a good moment for interruption.

It was more a laugh and a "Poor baby" than a scream of frustration, at least for me.

And we finished, later, after settling the poor kid down. That story is less defined in my memory, though.

But holy hell, what a first outing for the bits of 'new' knowledge.

---

Somewhere up there, in our conversation, we were talking about him beating me, and he said "But it's so much fun!"

I don't know where it fits in the greater narrative, but it definitely struck a happy chord inside this girl and I wanted to make sure I mentioned it.

Presence

Sex is not just two bodies colliding mindlessly until they happen to feel enough pleasure to stop.

It's about presence, and it's about intent, and, at least for us, it's about love.

Being there with what's happening is just as important as submitting to what's happening, and I have been excelling at being there for quite some time.

But what happens when I am distracted, when there are a million thoughts racing through my head and none of his caresses, none of the blows of the flogger, actually reach my essence? It is off planning a wiring diagram or wondering how we will ever finish the things we'd like to do - what happens?

Sometimes he may persist, drag me back through sheer force of his own not-inconsiderable will.

Sometimes, though, what happens is nothing at all. If I am not present, I cannot participate in play, in love, in sex. I may as well not be there at all.

Being present in the present is every bit as important as being willing to participate. If the body is willing but the spirit is off flying away somewhere already, there is no point.

Interestingly, the same goes for him. He sometimes sets himself on auto-pilot, and his essence is gone off on walkabout. Who knows what he's really thinking, but it certainly has nothing to do with me.

Here's the thing: we can both tell. Why bother pretending when both of us know?

Maybe we hope. We hope our wandering thoughts can be harnessed to do this thing that we actually quite enjoy. We have faith that eventually we will break through and our imaginations will be captured by what is actually going on rather than some imaginary plan for the future.

I am glad we both have faith, have hope - but most of all I am thankful that it isn't necessary so terribly often.

I am incredibly thankful for presence.

Happy new year, everyone.

Chest of secrets

My favorite piece of furniture in our apartment, besides our bed, for obvious reasons, is a tufted storage ottoman with a hinged lid.

Almost exactly like this.

We bought it brand-new from Goodwill for $40. Apparently Target donates a lot of stuff to Goodwill; who knew?

It's very, very roomy. Inside I have stored hundreds of feet of rope that I have dyed, my scissors, matches, candles, dozens of reels of hand-dyed twine, and two large bags of D-rings. On top of all that sits the more vanilla stuff - two hundred feet of paracord and buckles for making bracelets, a 2-lb weight that I use for holding one end of my bracelets when I make them, and my little one's potholder weaving stuff.

We call it my rope chest. When we sit in the evenings, I often have my feet propped on it. We had guests recently, and one of them spent the evening unknowingly sitting on top of all that stuff, while we laughed and chatted and had a good time.

When you open the lid, the stuff on top gets your attention first, but you move that out of the way and all these glorious, beautiful, glowing layers shine out. My rope addiction aside, the layers are interesting to peel back. A gorgeous bit of rope may be lurking at the bottom, forgotten because of the newer things piled on top.

I think everyone has a metaphorical chest of wonders inside themselves. Inside that chest are all our kinks, our innermost desires, the ways that we best relate to others people within relationships. Some people have lots of kinks in theirs, while some people have hidden talents that they show no one. The secrets inside our chests sparkle, but we're afraid to take them out.

Many people keep theirs locked up tight and never even peek inside, but those of us who have taken that leap and opened the chest are greedy. Taking out the first layer is terrifying and exhilarating all at once, but is hardly ever enough. After the breathtaking experiences that first layer gives us, we want to drag out every little thing inside and decorate our lives with it all. The things inside are too spectacular, too wonderful, too fantastic to shove them back in that chest and close it again, to live our lives without acknowledging and celebrating some of the most amazing parts of us. Some of us want to take the things out slowly and examine them, explore and savor each individual wonder, while others want to just dump the whole thing out and let the items inside erupt everywhere in glorious chaos, dealing with the fallout as it comes.

Both of those approaches are completely valid.

It doesn't matter how you explore your wonders, as long as you explore them.

What happens, though, when you have two people in a relationship, they've both agreed to explore those chests, and one is the more thoughtful, savoring type, while the other one wants it all out now? We could of course complicate this endlessly by adding more partners to the equation, but I will stick with two.

Logic seems to dictate that you go at the slower pace, since you can both keep up with that. Unfortunately, life doesn't always follow patterns of logic. To the person who wants more, more, please just let me see/feel/do/experience more, the slower pace can seem torturous, perhaps even intentionally so, if that person is the s-type.

What then?

The way I see it, there are a few options.

• The partners talk. I know, right? While I don't think this is an issue where compromise is necessary, - especially if a power exchange is involved - if the partner with the longing can be let in, in detail, on the thought processes of the other person, I think that would go a long long way toward relieving some of that need to be on to the next thing.
  
• The slower partner picks up the pace ever-so-slightly. Not enough to feel rushed, but enough to give the other person a sense of progress. Perhaps examine several things at once instead of just one. If you have three or four new activities or ideas to ponder instead of just one, that can let the other person feel more of a sense of progress, more like the bottom will eventually be uncovered.
  
• The faster partner chills the hell out. Probably most useful in combination with the above options. It's never done anyone any good to shove a person where they're not quite ready to go yet. In concert with chilling out, talking more about what's on the other person's mind, perhaps even bringing up something new that is tangentially related to what you're already exploring, is bound to go a long long way toward building that bridge between the two of you.

I love my rope chest. I love that it occupies so much floor space in my living room, I love that it's the most attractive piece in our home so far, and I love that no visitors know what's there unless I choose to show them.

I love my kink chest too. We're still only a few layers deep, and I have no idea where the bottom is. We're having a blast exploring it though - even if I do get a little greedy sometimes.

I've just given new meaning to the phrase "Something to get off my chest," haven't I?

Happy Friday, everyone!

Intimacy: The horror

So many people are afraid of connecting with others on anything but the most superficial level.

Society encourages this. Reality TV is full of it - oh, like anyone you please, but don't like them for too long because they'll be right the hell out of here. Don't even get me started on the amazing shows that start up and are then nixed with but half a season's worth of episodes to their name. 

Almost no one is willing to make the emotional investment to really, truly connect, and the entertainment industry just reflects that.

I am a shy, geeky sort of person, but in all the friendships I have, it's been me who's reached out to make the connection, or made the suggestion that we try to build something deeper. My husband and I go to meetups sometimes, where crowds of geeks hang out. We've managed to connect with one (1) geek on a deeper level. One. We've been trying with another, but our schedules won't match up.

We went to a picnic where there were a hundred or more of these folks, and even though we knew quite a few of them on sight, we also knew none of them would miss us if we weren't there. The geeks love to socialize as a bunch, but try to start any deeper connection and you're going to have a hard time.

There's a lingering sort of sadness when you're standing in the midst of a hundred more-or-less like-minded people and you can neither think of anything to say or seem to find anyone to hear it if you did. The opportunity is there but you can't quite grab it. It will haunt you for days afterward, lingering on your soul like an oily residue on plastic.

I am full of love. I love easily, and well, once I've had time to make a true attachment. That's how I work. I attach and I love and I do my best to make sure that my friend is happy. 

Standing there, though, on that bright, sunny day, surrounded by geeks, I felt useless. Unattachable. Unlovable. Unnecessary. Really, I just wanted to go the hell home. Eventually some kind soul took pity on me and we struck up a conversation and my world was right again, because I was having a conversation even if I wasn't connecting. I was communicating, and therein lies a possibility for connection.

When no one is attached, no one can be loved. If no one is loved, then no one can be missed, and so everyone will scuttle home to their lives, their husbands, their children, their lovers and their video games. But if they haven't connected, no one can miss them.

I see people post on facebook: "I'm in town, call me!" and I wonder, does anyone actually call those people? Why don't they just call the friends they'd like to hang out with? I'm pretty sure if I put "I'm in town, call me" on my status, no one would. No one wants to hear that you're already busy. 

I've been standing in a group of my own friends and felt out of the loop. That happens when you can't see them for a year at a time, but beyond that there's this sense of "missing out" on what goes on with them when I'm not with them. In-jokes and all sorts of random stuff that just go over my head and make me want to hide. It's ridiculous, of course, to expect to know everything that goes on in anyone's life - hell, sometimes even my husband doesn't tell me what he had for lunch. That feeling is kind of unshakable for me, that clearly they don't miss me because they're actually enjoying themselves without me. The horror!

Of course I'm not necessary, but I'm preferred. And isn't that better, anyway? For someone to choose to spend time with you because they prefer it, rather than because they can't not? Of course it is. In friendship, in love, in kink, it always is.

It's scary, though, to reach out. Even if you feel like you're being led to reach out, it's scary.

When Kitty and I met, she sort of led me to the place where I would ask if she wanted to meet up. It still took quite some mettle on my part to just come out and say "So, you wanna get together then?" As hard as it was, I am so, so glad that I did.

The idea of hearing "No," which may translate in our heads to "No, you're not worth my time you steaming pile of yuck," is unappealing at best and downright damaging at worst. It's easier, safer, to hope something will just naturally happen. 

What it isn't, though, is better. It's far, far better to have reached out and been struck down, or even ignored, than to never reach out at all. Yeah, being ignored sucks. But the friendships you build with the people who say yes are worth it.

This post was inspired by Lily's need to Water the Bonsai

Opening doors

You don't find a lot of introspection here at Exploring Surrender, which is odd since the title seems to imply that you will. To be honest, self-examination of that kind makes me feel intensely vulnerable, especially since my husband reads here and honest-to-goodness introspection often makes me feel like I've just opened up my head and let all the less attractive parts of me hang out right in front of him. 

Kitty recently wrote a post that set me thinking. When she begins the interlude, she is steely, resistant to her husband's advances, even though they had planned to be there together at that time.

As much as I want to submit to my husband and crave pleasing him, I do this too. I'll sometimes have a steely attitude that will often wind up discouraging him, and nothing happens even though I'd really, really prefer that it did, and then I get sad. At that point, he's in an impossible situation.

I've turned this over in my head for years, but it wasn't until I started responding to Kitty's post that I began to see what goes on in my head.

It's probably fair to say that many submissives who bring the concept to their husbands wind up second-guessing themselves, wondering if he's really into it, or if he's just doing it to humor them.

Our relationship is amazing, honestly, it is, and I know it. But the second-guessing just does not go away. I don't have a nice little window into his head like he does into mine. He becomes more confident by the day, as I write about my feelings and how I experience our experiences. But I don't.

While I always want to be there with him, I sometimes may act as if I don't - because I feel he may not want to be there, and I am trying to open a door to make it easier for him to get out.

He may say a million positive things about our dynamic, but as soon as he says something that can be construed as less-than-complimentary, my heart sinks. I can go from laughing, happy, delighted, to deeply saddened, the spark of joy within me stilled along with my breath, my inner laughter quieted. It actually feels as though a silencer has been applied to the happiness within me, a huge wet blanket of misery blacking out the memory of hundreds of joyous experiences.

There's a large part of this that's tied up with trust - trusting him to do what is best for both of us, trusting that the things he says to me are true, and trusting that he is getting more joy out of the things we do together than he is putting effort into them.

Why is it that I can trust him to hurt me, talk dirty to me, invade every part of my being, but I cannot trust that he is where he wants to be?

It's because I know how much he loves me and wants my happiness.

I need to stop trying to open doors. If I was visiting someone's home and they kept holding the door open saying "Are you sure you want to be here?" I'd eventually feel unwelcome and leave, no matter how much I'd initially wanted to be there.

I'm just not sure how to stop. Maybe if I have to open doors, I should open doors to inner chambers rather than the exit ones, and strive to banish steely-me from our bedroom.


I haven't done a lot of this since I had my lightbulb moment on symbiotic relationships and angst having no place within them. Our "us" is so very close to perfection that it feels like blasphemy to even give this so much airspace. But when it does happen I can feel his frustration as surely as I feel my own inner self go quiet and still. Surrendering to the truth of things he says is every bit as important as surrendering to his will. I adore him, and want him to feel his words are taken for truth, that I don't think he is a liar.

I wouldn't even grant this so much time, but I thought someone else out there may be struggling with the same thing.

Being a toy

His fuck toy.

As appealing as the words are, the reality is sometimes a little daunting.

When he uses my mouth and then comes inside my pussy, falling asleep behind me due to exhaustion, his softening cock still inside me, his finger still buried in my mouth, my needs mostly unsatisfied, my dignity is affronted.

And then I realize, what dignity? This is what I asked for - to be used when he needs or wants, no recriminations, no hassles. 

I feel his seed trickle out of me as his soft cock slides from my body, shaken free by a shudder that wracks my frame as the realization hits me: a toy does not complain when it is used and its owner falls asleep. 

Suddenly it is right. It's okay. I've fixed my own internal anger and I wriggle my body to get closer to his.

But as I shift, he stirs. 

"Why are you so good to me?" he asks, as if he never fell asleep.

"You're asleep," I tell him, laughing a little, lighthearted.

"I am?" he asks. "Kiss me."

I turn my head and our lips meet in the darkness; tender heat builds between us as our gentle kiss lengthens into a place where time has no meaning. Our tongues dance, and my soul flies as his love and appreciation pour into me. His hand wanders to the apex of my thighs, which I closed when I shifted. I purr as his fingertips brush my skin.

"Open your legs for me, sweet girl." His words are gentle and soft but it is nonetheless a demand. I whimper as I am forced to release my resignation to nothing, but I comply, spreading my thighs to allow his hand access.

His words of devotion, adoration, and appreciation invade my ears. As he delivers the pleasure I had convinced myself I did not need, as the lights explode behind my eyes and I cry out with all the intensity of multiple releases, another realization comes to me.

This is what I asked for. The love invades me even more thoroughly than his words and fingers do, permeating all the spaces that are not open to physical intrusion, seeping through my skin and saturating my soul.

I was okay with him being asleep, but when he woke up he wanted to take care of me.

Spouse, lover, treasure, slave, toy.

All these things, we are for each other, regardless of the labels that make our lives more convenient.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

A spanking sex lover's problem

My husband is a lean, wiry sort of man, tall and absolutely perfect. He stays active, especially in the couple of years since we hit thirty, trying to live forever.

He's right handed, and so I sleep on his left, the better for having his right hand free for spanking me, flogging me, and giving me dozens of orgasms.

I was loving on his left arm recently, and as I stroked and kissed it, I began to realize it was noticeably thinner than his right. I stared at it for a while, trying to figure out what on earth was going on, if he'd lost a lot of weight, or what. He doesn't have any weight to lose. I began to be concerned, because I hadn't yet compared his arms and realized his right one was still the same size, and then, we put his arms together. Yep, left one's smaller, right one's bigger.

Huh. What the?

Or perhaps, how to tell if a man
has lots of amazing partnered sex.

Eventually we came to the conclusion that all the orgasms, floggings, and spankings that he gives me have resulted in this size discrepancy. It's certainly not noticeable to an average glance, but getting up close and personal with his arms, heck yeah.

The idea of the "single guy" with the one arm bigger than the other doesn't really hold water anymore, does it? Perhaps that guy is just really, really awesome to his sex partner.

I suppose my husband should add a couple of extra lifts to his left arm's routine.

Why I love sucking cock, take 2

Excellent lovers take their partners' pleasures as equal to their own, knowing mutual pleasure and the pleasure of a lover is the entire point of non-procreative sex. Therefore, a woman who desires to be the best lover possible to a man does not merely submit to sucking cock, she relishes it. She transforms the act into an erotic dance of mutual desire.

The body is rife with nerve endings and sensitivities that vary from person to person. The foreskin of an intact man is particularly sensitive, and rubbing or touching it leads the man to make many noises of pleasure. It glides along the shaft of the cock smoothly, engendering wonderful feelings for the man, and the noises he makes lead to pretty fantastic feelings for his lover as well. When that rubbing and touching is performed by a warm, wet, willing mouth that is clearly quite dedicated to the act, the pleasure is even greater, enhanced by the heat and the moisture.

Rock hard, yet covered with velvety softness, an intact man's erection is a juxtaposition of opposite sensations that feels incredible. What better way to experience all the amazing sensations it can provide than with the lips and tongue, which are also incredibly sensitive? The foreskin is soft under the lips, but a bit of circular pressure against it causes it to flatten, to yield between the two forces it finds itself trapped between, allowing the lips to feel the hardness lying in wait.

With a woman's lips enjoying that particular pleasure, her tongue can slide around the head, prodding just under the foreskin, allowing her to taste her lover, to memorize or refamiliarize herself with all the bumps and ridges and smooth places that are exclusive to him.

All of this pleasure a mere few seconds into a blow job, and the exploration can be continued on for some time before any actual sucking begins. "Sucking cock" is a bit of a misnomer, since it could just as well be called licking, exploring, enjoying cock. The phrase "cock worship" might relay more information, but might also be a little off-putting to some since it seems to imply a sort of expert level of ability. It does not. The single most important thing a woman can bring to a blow job? Her own desire to do it.

Sucking cock also allows for so many varied positions, so the individuals involved can choose to be as laid-back or as eager as they would like, depending on their energy levels. If the couple really want to enjoy each other for a while, getting into a good, relaxed position is excellent. His hands and mouth can reach different parts of her in different positions, leading each one to be its own individual set of sensations.

If the woman is particularly thrilled by sucking cock, she might also enjoy more force, though by no means is that a rule to apply to everyone. She can give herself to him completely, allow him to take her mouth as he chooses. His hands can stroke her hair, or tug on it as dictated by their preferences, as he thrusts into her willing, eager to please mouth. Some women find having him take his pleasure with her like this powerfully arousing, so while it is not for everyone, it is certainly worth exploring.

Intimacy between lovers is increased greatly by the mutual enjoyment of blow jobs. Women have the capacity to enjoy sucking their lovers' cocks on an emotional level as well as a physical one. The sheer physical sensations are definitely pleasurable, but the joy of knowing a lover is enjoying himself immensely is not the only emotional return. The man whose cock is sucked well and gladly radiates gratitude and happiness and feels even more loved. His lover will enjoy that at least as much as she thrills in their mutual pleasure.

This positive feedback loop of physical and emotional enjoyment, so easily brought about by such simple actions, is why sucking cock should be right up there on any man's lover's list of fun activities.

---

I considered doing this APA style, with references and everything. In the end, I decided to just write it as you see it, removing myself from the picture and trying my best to describe why any woman who likes her man might love to also suck cock. Most of my experience is with an intact man, though I did briefly experience a cut one. I adore the extra opportunities for play the foreskin provides.

I'm not so sure I accomplished my goal, but I'm pretty proud of the effort.

Thanks, Spanky, for the challenge. I've really enjoyed it.

Sexual shutdown: submissive defense mechanism

I like sex. In fact, I love sex. Love may even be a bit of an understatement. In a conversation with my husband I once defined sex as my three top hobbies. Writing about sex, thinking about sex, having sex with my husband. Yep, that's three, isn't it? I have a vast array of other interests; I am easily drawn into subjects. I'm interested in most things, but sex is the top three, absolutely.

I also adore my husband to distraction. He is my true love.

Something happens to me, though, when we go long enough without sexual interaction. I shut down. I've written about it briefly before.

We went for three days without sex, activity or talk, except for a blow job one night, which normally I'd count as sex but in this case really felt like servicing him for his relief rather than mutual pleasure. I was already partially into my shutdown.

I had a very bad day in there, and he was extra-attentive during the day, giving me lots of extra hugs, long soft kisses in the middle of the grocery store, squeezing me close to him while we cooked. In fact, he's done pretty much everything right.

My sex drive still shut down.

I don't deny him access to my body, his pleasure, or the opportunity to do other things. I gave him the blow job freely and willingly, even enthusiastically. Despite my own lack of desire, I wanted to be pleasing to him, to hear his noises of enjoyment. We played video games and listened to music and sat around fiddling with our computers. I don't want to be a chore for him; I want him to enjoy spending time with me, and he does.

My sensual, sexual self is really the largest part of me. Lying naked or nearly so next to him night after night and just falling alseep, or briefly servicing him before he falls asleep, signals my sexual self that she's not needed anymore. She's there, ready, willing, wanting, but he doesn't need or want her, and so she goes into what I can only describe as hibernation. She's not really the sort to throw a tantrum, to take her ball and go home, but she's very much the sort to feel unnecessary and to withdraw, quietly, without being noticed.

I do it in the rest of my life, too. I see my friends having a grand time without me and, feeling completely unnecessary to anyone, I retreat - sometimes physically removing myself from being around them, sometimes just withdrawing emotionally. Truthfully, I'm not necessary to anyone's happiness, of course I'm not. Thank goodness for that since having other people's happiness depend on you is exhausting. At most I'm a pleasant diversion from life, but some moments I feel my basic uselessness more than others and I withdraw, sad.

My sexual self retreats even more quietly. I'm still there for my husband, still submissive, still communicative, still very much in love with him. There's no absence noticed by anyone but me, unless my husband might happen to notice something is off. My entire experience of the world feels dulled, my nerve endings and other sensory inputs reduced to perhaps a quarter of their normal functionality. I feel crippled. Delight in the rest of my life is harder to find. I wander around, feeling like a branch that's been cut for a vase; I show all signs of life but I'm slowly dying inside, disconnected from my source. It looks very much like depression. I pick at meals which I only cook because there are people besides me who need to eat, I struggle to enjoy things I normally do, and I think longingly of the days when he wanted me - when he really, really wanted me. The love he expressed over the sexless days was sweet, good, and needed, but it didn't make me feel desirable.

That's the thing, isn't it? It's not the lack of sex we may have, it's the lack of desire that I feel from him. The days I think of longingly are the ones when we were forced to be apart by our widely-flung places of residence, the days when he'd tell me every day, often explicitly and in great detail, how much he wanted me. Those days, if I'd been naked in his bed neither of us would have slept for a very, very long time.

Of course I don't actually long for those days; they were horrible. I spent far, far more days wandering around in a haze of misery then than I do now. We couldn't even talk to each other with our voices without spending a lot of money, but I was wanted, and I knew it.

So this is my defense mechanism: my needs dry up and go away when they're not met, or made to feel important, and it really doesn't take that long for me to begin to feel that way. It's quite clever, really, because it means I can function, even if at a severely reduced capacity.

The biggest problem, besides me wandering around in zombie mode, comes when he does want that part of me again. She's gone, far, far away. I start to plan things that will work around having sex, just to avoid having him realize she's gone. "Let's play a game! Or you can work on your website!" I know he's easily distracted and it will get late pretty fast if we start doing something engaging, and then he'll be tired, and I can go on with my life without him realizing that she is gone. While it makes me very sad that any of this goes on at all, somehow when the defense mechanism kicks in, I feel a great need to protect the hibernating part of me.

Inevitably, the week will end, as it did this time. I managed my avoidance tactics on Friday, we played video games and he fell asleep. My sexual self rolled over a little when he began toying gently with my nipples, but ultimately she never woke up, and we fell asleep. Saturday morning is another issue entirely. With nowhere to go and our little one not yet up, he started playing with me, stroking my body, kissing me, holding my wrist tightly and slapping my inner forearm, spanking my breasts. All things I generally enjoy quite a lot, but this time, while I didn't stop him, I wasn't really feeling anything. I wasn't responsive; it didn't matter to me. I moved when he nudged me, did what he told me, and let him do what he wanted. He's a pretty bright fellow, though; he knew I wasn't into it after a little bit and he stopped, confused.

Then we had to have the conversation I'd been avoiding for two days. I feel like such a failure when I shut down like that, like I am throwing a tantrum. It's not a tantrum, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. It's a failsafe to protect me so that I'm not throwing myself at someone who doesn't want me and getting even more hurt. It's doubly needed because as a submissive woman, it's so so important to me not to force my own desires onto him. I can't temper my needs, but I apparently can shut them off, send them away completely. I can recognize it for what it is, but I can't change it. He gathered me into his arms, feeling pretty terrible himself because it happened at all.

This happens. This is a thing. I have read other people's blogs and heard them talk about experiencing something very much like this. Feel free to chime in with what your experience is like, I'd love to know I'm not alone.

---

Saturday afternoon, we came home from an outing and spent two hours in bed making out. He kissed me until I melted into a puddle of want. "I'll do things to you tonight," he told me as I whimpered longingly into his mouth. That part of me? Yeah, she's awake now.

Turns out, it's been a pretty bad week overall for us, in all kinds of arenas. Hopefully we can start turning that around tonight.

The healing embrace of a good relationship

We like to cuddle. He wraps his arms and his leg around me and I'm wrapped in his body, his warmth, his love. I can feel it, that love, as it responds to mine.  It's a sort of pulsing power source, and it's amazing. It takes my love, amplifies it, sends it back to me in waves. We're connected by it as surely and irrevocably as any physical tie. More so.

"Can you feel it too? Is it just me?" I ask him, sometimes. I'm convinced that I could be crazy, or just tuned to a different emotional wavelength than everyone else.

"I think I can feel it too, love," he assures me. We make happy noises, wrapped up together like that, and I feel like the luckiest, most loved woman in the world. I talk a lot about how amazing he feels to me, to the point I worry that I talk about it too much.

"I like to hear your love," he says, allaying my fears for the umpteenth time.

I could feel that power source a month into our relationship, when he was thousands of miles away from me, an ocean between us, and we'd never met in person, 12 years ago. I could feel it. I wrote him an email about it.

Amidst a sea of rambling, trying to feel my way to my point by writing there, I got to this:

I'm frightened at the depth of the feelings I have for you. I mean. . . Gah. I usually feel things deeply, but. . . This. . . this is. . . gah. Suffusing my entire being. . . not that I didn't feel sort of that way before, with him. I did, else he couldn't have hurt me so badly - and twice! - but it was. . . different. This is..... gah. I keep saying gah like you know what I'm trying to say. Sometimes. . . Sometimes, I just want to devour you. 

Okay. . . I don't really want to sound corny, but. . . the thing is, I can feel your feelings coming back at me. . . I mean, as opposed to having these feelings and dumping them into this giant black hole, and losing all this energy due to it, it's like a whole other power source. That frightens me a bit too, because I'm not really sure of the whys of it. . . Not that I'm not glad of it, I am, but.... I.. mmf. I don't think I deserve it. 

We'd known each other for some time, but the relationship was new. It terrified me, seeing as how in my previous relationship, all the love had come from me, into the other guy, and sort of died there. New relationship energy, you'll say, but it wasn't. It's only grown stronger, so that now when we are together, it just pulses there, a bright thread of love and life and contentment and true, honest-to-goodness happiness.

It healed me, that love. I was seriously heartbroken, not that long before we got together, and pretty damaged from the treatment I'd received in that previous relationship.

He was so incredibly sweet, patient, and good, that when I began to reveal my true needs - my submissive nature, my need to be dominated - he didn't balk. He has accepted every single kink I've revealed to him as if it's just a thing people do. He's amazing, and even when I was struggling with him being a nice guy, with wanting him to have more demands of me, he handled me beautifully.

How can two people who've never met be so connected? How could those threads pulling us together, connecting us across all those miles and all that water, even exist?

I'm convinced we were made for each other. Over the years, we'd been friendly acquaintances, always too distracted by other things going on and, of course, for me anyway, by the extreme distance. I once asked a friend: "Why couldn't I have fallen in love with someone like him?", due to his extreme sweetness and niceness and general all around great person-ness. Another time, another friend suggested I get together with him, and I laughed. "Hahaha, right, me and him, sure." I felt confident in making that into a joke, because I had spent a lot of time with him. We'd spoken on the phone. We kept winding up alone together in various instances. The universe was trying to tell us something, but we weren't listening. We weren't ready to listen.

But... it wasn't such a joke, after all. We even talked about it later, something trying to get us together. He put it well.

"It's like something was saying look, you'll be good together, and that's that."

Something kept telling us that. It's kind of amazing, considering the many hour time difference between us, that we were ever around at the same time at all, to be honest. For it to keep happening, over and over?

Surely there's some design in that. Or our souls just pulled to each other, furiously, irresistibly, despite our conscious selves ignoring it. He was pulled to me so fiercely that he crawled out of the womb early to be born just after I was.

We're meant for each other. Yes, I really, really believe that. I'm not sure everyone has a missing part of themselves out there in the world, but we did.

Submitting to this man is not always easy, but it does tend to be, because he adores me. What he wants is our mutual happiness and the health of our relationship, and for us to be together for a long, long time. Ideally forever, though the both of us realize that's not terribly likely to happen. The choices he makes, the things he asks from me, make both of us better, because - here's the awesome part for me - he's a better person than I am.

I've become a much better person in the time I've been married to him, so that that may not even be true anymore, but if it's not? It's all thanks to him.

I once struggled with wanting him to want more, in these endless cycles, infinite loops where I would resolve to be okay with it, but then the need to be overpowered kept coming back. I'd spend whole months perfectly fine and then I'd rebel, and after years of that, in large part thanks to spewing out my inner turmoil on this blog, I had a realization: Just submit. Just do it. Show him what it can be like. So I began to look for little ways to please him, making "I'll do whatever you want," a reality, not just inside the bedroom. If he asks me for something, whether it's a cup of water or a particular dinner or to go for a walk with him, I try my darnedest to give it to him.

Then the magical thing started to happen: he responded. He responded beautifully. I gave more without him forcing so hard, and then he became more comfortable taking. The thing I was missing all those years was the way he works, while I'd been so focused on how I work. I should have noticed it. It's been there all along. He's quiet, but he dominates the way a gentle stream can cut channels into rock if given enough time. It's even the way our relationship started: he was just there, until I couldn't imagine him not being there anymore. He's slow, but especially now, pretty damned sure of himself, and I am softer, more yielding to him.

I once told Kitty that submission feels like softness - and that's what it feels like for me. I just stopped struggling so bloody hard and let it happen, let him dominate the way he can dominate, because a submissive who's always trying to shape her dominant is not being submissive. My periodic internal struggles arose from the fact that I was trying to submit to an idea of dominance rather than the very real kind he was giving me, from the fact that I was an oxymoron in myself and my submissive nature balked at it.

The power that I give him in this power exchange we're in becomes a part of that power source that binds us together, is fed with our love, and feeds it back to both of us, restoring us from the ravages of living in the world. I give him the power, but it feeds both of us with positive energy. It's beautiful.

He is my jasmine. He's gently intoxicating, unassuming yet overpowering. He surrounds me and I breathe him in and my life is infinitely better, happier, for having done so.

I can't imagine being happier in a relationship. Being wrapped in him makes everything better, even if it's just for the time we spend cuddled together, though often enough it lasts well beyond those moments. It's literally a healing embrace, and I'm delighted and feel like the best-cared-for woman alive to be able to experience it so often.

Blow jobs are awesome

SO I've been wondering. The friends I talk to about sex all HATE giving their men blowjobs. I know they're averse to the TiH/TTWD/D/s relationship model too. Is there some correlation between women who enjoy blowjobs and desiring to be sub to their men? your thoughts please?

-From Fondlers Anonymous

I'm definitely submissive, and have been so for the entire span of my relationship.

I love giving my husband blow jobs. I love everything about blow jobs. I love the ease of having my mouth penetrated, I love how easily he gets turned on by the idea of it. God, I love having his cock in my mouth, growing to hard as steel if it started out soft, just forcing its way into me if it's already hard. The taste, the smell, the texture, the way it gets shiny and coated in my saliva and the way it blocks my air as it enters my throat, the noises it forces out of me as it pushes into me. The feel of his hands on my head, the encouraging and sometimes humiliating things he says to me during.... GOD. Sucking his cock turns me on, yo. One-way ticket straight to hornyville.

Umm... yeah, where was I?

Anyway. I've always loved them. Even cyber ones. But I've found that the more I do it, the more addicted I am to it - just like sex. If you don't do it at all, then you begin to lose sight of the appeal of it.

We went through a period (YEARS, readers, YEARS), and I don't know why because we were up to some pretty kinky shit, of mostly vanilla sex very very sparsely punctuated by intense D/s scenes. During that time I hardly ever gave a blow job, and I didn't really miss it, crave it... anything. I craved more control, yeah, and if he'd told me to I would have. But blow jobs specifically didn't really appeal to me, though I could recall when they really, really did.

And one day, inspired by reading an old chat of ours, or perhaps a deliciously naughty email he'd sent me years before, I decided I'd just do it the next time we had sex.

I did.

It wasn't spectacular for me, I won't lie. But I did feel incredibly submissive and compliant and pleasing, as he lay there panting from pleasure and obviously delighted.

So I did it, every time, not always sucking him to completion but sucking him in some way, shape, or form, as often as I could. It didn't take long before it wasn't just to please him, before I did indeed crave it, before I was, in fact, a complete and total slut for his cock.

I also started writing him letters detailing my desires, once again, as I've referenced before...

It didn't take that much longer before he stepped up and started being the dominant he is now. Perhaps because he saw how much pleasing him was pleasing me, perhaps because he had some vague recollection of how things had been, or perhaps he realized I was after more permanence than the brief, shining, widely scattered jewels of scenes we were having.

I have no proof that the constant, unrelenting cocksucking is what brought back this dynamic, but it certainly didn't hurt.

I don't think it's necessarily a singularly submissive trait to enjoy it - because holy shit but it's awesome to please a lover like that. But I do think there's a certain amount of adoration required before you're thinking more about your lover's pleasure than your own, getting off on getting him off.. and on the sheer physical experience. I think it's all wound up with social conditioning too - if you're going to have sex with it, and if sex is dirty, why would you put it in your mouth?

....how could you not want to put it in your mouth? But then I spend quite a bit of time getting myself clean, and I don't think sex is dirty AT ALL, so...

Multiple orgasms: the extra lives of sex

I've previously discussed how I enjoyed Star Trek and the X-men and various other geeky forms of entertainment, so it shouldn't be a surprise when I reveal that I spent a lot of my childhood and youth playing video games. A large chunk of the time I spent playing games, I spent playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES.

You mean you don't think of orgasms when you see this? Huh.

The game was huge. It took hours and hours and hours to play it all the way through, although you could warp to the end and be done fairly quickly, I didn't figure there was a lot of value in that.  Since the game didn't have a feature to save, I wound up replaying the first levels a lot to get to the later ones, though sometimes I would warp, it wasn't often.

I became an expert at this game. Every secret, I knew. Every invisible block, every vine, every warp zone, every chance to gather 99 lives, every place to slide behind the scenery, every matching game pattern, and every place where it was a good idea to use a special item. I knew this game, inside and out, backward and forward. I played it so much that it is burned into my brain. Even now, twenty years later, I can play it and do things just like I did then, even though occasionally I'm not sure why I'm doing it. Physical memory is a bizarre thing.

The first opportunity you have in this game to collect 99 lives is in the second level, right at the beginning, so I did it there every single time I played, even if it was a quick run-through just for fast laughs. Later, when my husband would play the game in 2005 or so, I would always get those lives for him. He's not as good at games as I am, so he needed the help.

The process could be kind of frustrating, as you had to have a raccoon suit, and you had to wave Mario's raccoon tail around in the air while you landed on endless Goombas as they popped out of a pipe, using the boost jumping on them gave you to stay in the air so that you didn't ever touch the ground.

Here's a video of it that explains more than I can in words. Your points for jumping on each one doubles until you get to 8000, and every Goomba you stomp after that without touching the ground is an extra life.

It occurred to me after my post yesterday that my own multiple orgasms are like that. The tension slowly gathers as we approach the first one, and as long as his timing is perfect and he lands exactly right, he can keep pumping them out of me.

Like this! (read 'orgasm' for 1UP) Yeah, now we're talking.

Of course, the timing has to be absolutely perfect. Even I would occasionally go a little too fast in the game, and run out of Goombas to stomp before I hit the ground. So frustrating, because to get more lives, I'd have to start all over again, back from 100. Seven Goombas before I was back in The Zone, and my timer was ticking the whole time.

If it goes too long before the next orgasm, he may not be starting completely over, but it's pretty close. Once I've fallen off that delicate knife-edge of arousal, he has to get me there again in order to coax more orgasms out of me. 

And in both situations, your thumb gets really really tired.

The extra-life zone is an amazing place to be, as you watch your life-counter just go up and up and up. It may be frustrating when you fall off, but it's so worth it to get back up there again. The quality and pleasure of your entire game rests on those lives, really, whether you panic at losing everything or whether it's just all good fun, later.

He must feel like that as he watches me writhe and scream and pant, as his orgasm counter just goes up and up... and breaks, because I can't count orgasms after so many. The quality of the rest of his life, while not dependent on those orgasms, is probably greatly enhanced by them.

I know mine is.

Social issues: Feminism vs. Homelessness, an anecdote

I know, you all are still anxiously awaiting my second post about how I became the pervert I am today. But that requires a lot of introspection and my visitors do not allow time for such things as introspection. It is half done, but today I have for you a story that leaves me feeling a little unhappy.

During a bit of a holiday in San Francisco, we stopped to be amazed at and take tons of photographs of Ruth Asawa's San Francisco Fountain. I had the camera and I wanted a photo of the plaque so I could read it later, and my husband wandered around the other side of the fountain to look at the sculptures there.

It's really something. If you're ever in San Francisco you should make it a point to see it. We just happened on it accidentally, but it's really beautiful. This guy came up while I was taking photos of the different parts of the fountain, seemingly having waited until my husband left my side.

"Hey, take my picture," he said, posing with the fountain.

I was stunned. Not used to random people wanting me to take their pictures with my own camera. Have taken other people's photos with their cameras plenty of times in the years I've been travelling, but never this. WTF. "You want me to take your picture?" I asked, a little confused.

"Yeah, go ahead." He posed, but my camera has a tiny lag, and he looked over at my husband by the time the photo snapped. You can see him right on the edge of the photo, the guy is looking at him. Yummy.

This guy came over to me and said "Let me see," so I complied with the request but he never really looked. It was a bright sunny day and I'd been using the digital viewfinder all day just to see my own photos, hadn't even bothered with the larger screen - it was almost impossible to see. He started rambling off about being from Jamaica.

"That's cool," I said.

"I just need a dollar to get me a hot dog," he said, done with the pretense of friendliness.

"I don't carry money," I responded. I had $10 for all of us to get on the bus later, but that was it. Even if I had money I wouldn't want it spent on a hot dog. I'm a vegan and I don't carry money! Last time I had to tell that to homeless people I DID have half a package of Fig Newmans on me and I gave them that. I'm certainly not heartless.

"Oh c'mon," he said, "everyone says that!"

"It's true!" I said.

He stalked away from me angrily and I heard his muttered words drift back to me on the wind: "Greedy lying bitch..."

Even if I was! I was trying to have a moment alone with my husband - our little one and my mom had just taken their leave of us for the duration of the few minutes it took for us to see this fountain, and this guy ruined that, suddenly made me feel unsafe.

We work hard. We don't take a lot of travel time nowadays, since we had the little one. What right does this guy have to first intrude on my personal space, make me feel unsafe, and then to call me a liar and storm away?

I was first extremely shaken - I didn't finish taking as many photographs as I would have liked of the fountain, and my husband came back over to me and I wrapped my arm around his waist, asking him not to leave me. As I got over being shaken, I became flat-out angry that I couldn't be left alone at all - regardless of if my husband was mere feet from me - without this guy trying to make some kind of gain from it.

As it happened, the guy took off in the same direction we were going, back to Union Square Park, and we saw him doing his routine with several other women who were alone. He cupped his hands around the cigarette of one to shield it from the wind while she lit it before he went into his spiel about the hot dog.

Okay. I have a place to sleep tonight.

But a homeless man still takes advantage of his male privilege and manages to make me feel unsafe and belittled even when I am completely willing to talk to him and be open and honest.

I am pissed, and now in the safety of my own home, I feel a little guilty for being pissed.

What the hell is up with that?

For fuck's sake: in the news

This is an interruption in my series, which I will continue, but I felt the need to rant a bit, for the sake of fucking everywhere.

Porn Harms National Awareness Campaign
http://www.iphc.org/news/join-porn-harms-national-awareness-campaign

Apparently porn is harmful to our national awareness? So watching porn means you're less nationally aware. Regardless of the poor choice of words here, what the fuck?

"Pornography is destroying society. It is destroying the lives of those around us -and the church is not immune to the effects of pornography. It's time to take a stand. Join us in the fight to end pornography. "

I pasted that to my husband and then immediately afterward felt I needed to wash out my clipboard. With BLEACH.

So consenting adults performing sex acts for cameras is destroying society?

Let's see what their points are.


The program aims to spread awareness about four specific areas:
Pornography Addiction - So anything that can be addictive must be ended? Painkillers, alcohol, gambling? Sex? Right, all those, into the bin, on with it!

Harm to Children - I'm sorry, what? 'cause you're straight up linking standard porn with child-porn, or...what are you doing here? Parents watching porn isn't going to cause harm to children.

Links to Sex Trafficking - Some people in porn are in nonsensual situations. I get that. But porn isn't the problem. Removing porn won't remove the people from the situations. In fact, if it comes to court, removing the porn removes the evidence, yesno?

Violence Against Women - ..... I don't get this. Are we talking BDSM-themed porn now, perhaps, that somehow... promotes violence against women? Oh, you mean like my blog? 'cause when I say I like this stuff, I fucking mean it. Or are no-photo sex blogs even considered pornography? I'm unsure, but with these folks probably anything vaguely referencing sex is porn. Porn promotes violence against women less than your standard horror flicks do, because at least the woman in the porn are probably liking it.

I don't generally like watching porn for myself, but I certainly do appreciate reading it, and since being in/watching/reading porn is a choice made by consenting adults, it's not anyone's business to take that away.

Then there's this:
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/04/18/what-is-gateway-sexual-activity/

I despair. Hand holding is a gateway sexual activity now? WTF, people? These kids are going to figure out how their parts work. I was figuring this stuff out at 12-13, thankfully with books and not with another kid who could make me pregnant, since I knew enough to know that could happen, thanks to my mom's frank discussion with me.

Oddly she's FOR abstinence-only education in schools and now I wish I hadn't opened that can of worms at all.

What's your opinion on these topics?

Q&A: Why?

My husband asked a question, though it isn't March anymore, and I'm pretty sure he didn't intend to spur a blog post. I apparently did a sad job of explaining it to him in person. Anyway, I hope you all know you can ask me anything anytime, I'll be glad to answer.

 "Why do you like sex so much?"

Sex is amazing because of the connection it gives me to my husband, whom I adore. The intimacy, the pleasure he derives from it, and the pleasure I feel all combine to give me an experience I prefer to pretty much any other. The first two things inform the third one to a great degree. If I start to feel he's disconnected from the experience, or is just going through the motions for my sake, it's no good anymore emotionally. I can perhaps even still orgasm, but if the head space is wrong the orgasm will leave me feeling pretty rotten. I could end up in tears. 

If he starts to disconnect from it all, there's really nothing he can do at that point to not make me sad. if he stops I will feel I have done something wrong, if he continues then I'll feel bad he's not really into it. He's in a no-win scenario and I feel really badly for him. The best I can do is lie silently in his arms and not say or do anything to trigger a tremble in my voice - but when I am silent he knows something is wrong too. Thankfully it doesn't all go wrong very often.

Most of the time we have amazing sex and he knows exactly what triggers the most arousal in me, and gleefully uses that information. I love the space where I go during sex, and I love the physical sensations he gives me - hands in my hair, cock in my throat, cock sliding, sliding, wherever he chooses to slide it, impacts of his hand or an implement, the cruel bite of teeth on flesh, the caress of his words in my ear. Delicious. I live for those minutes where I am nothing but his. I am not a daughter, not a mother, not a friend or an employee or a homeowner or any other of the hundred hats a person wears in a day, I am just...his, and I don't have to think of anything but what would please him most. The absolute peaceful bliss that this state of being induces is nothing to be sneezed at.

If my head space is right, and I feel that I have been a "good girl" in my own estimation as well as his, after sex is a beautiful world full of golden light. Everything is right, I am loved, he is happy, and I really do feel as if I float there in his arms. I make a lot of soft happy noises. If I was a cat I'd purr continuously. To me, the love is palpable all around us. It really is making love, even if there's degrading talk or impact play or bondage involved.

If we have lots of good sex regularly then there's really nothing that can get me down for long. Even grief is eased by awesome sex. Best mood adjuster in the world.

All of those are the things I couldn't express when asked on the spot. I answered the question, but I did it badly. Lying in his arms with my head on his shoulder, he casually told me that he was pretty sure it's safe to say I get more pleasure out of sex than he does, and he went on to say that he guessed that made me pretty lucky. I fell silent, my head spinning with thoughts I couldn't express, thinking I had really, seriously botched my job of explaining why I liked sex so much. He kept trying to get me to talk, to tell him what was wrong. He told me to kiss him and I shook my head. He fisted his hand in my hair, tilted my lips up to his, and kissed me anyway.

I burst into tears. No, not just tears, messy, sobbing tears that flooded his chest.

How to explain to someone that doing this thing - this thing that was exactly what I would have wanted done -     can bring me to tears in half a second?

He is good to me, and we kept talking. He was bewildered at first, but held me, gave me a tissue to blow my nose, and we worked it out.

I feel everything more than he does - not just pleasure, but sadness, anger, excitement, nervousness. That's just our different personalities. His statement was only assigning absolute values to our relative experiences, and his personal absolutes don't have the range mine do.

I hope I've managed to be a little more clear in my answer now.

Asshattery abounds

Every winter solstice, a good friend of ours has a party. It's an outdoor party, with bonfires, all different kinds of beer, hotdogs for roasting over the fires, and assorted other snacks brought by attendees. Sometimes, it rains, but the party still goes on, and we huddle ourselves around the fires with just as much cheer - only not quite so many of us.

I talk to people at this party that I don't get to see that often, and people attend who I probably wouldn't ordinarily talk to at all, but I would not, ever, miss it. That party makes my whole holiday season. We're usually the first ones there to help and the last ones to leave, just before sunrise, when we can still get ourselves home safely but only just. We don't ever get drunk, but plenty of people do.

It's not a lifestyle party, but my friend always says clothing is optional. No one's ever gotten naked yet, although we did hear some wild sex stories last time.

A man/boy has come the last two years, and he was just of legal age when he started. We know this boy from elsewhere, but don't see him that often anymore, although I see him on facebook. He has a few physical things wrong with him, and he often, often complains (read whines) that he can't get a girlfriend because of it.

I am here to tell you it's not because of that.

I'll call him Luke, because that's the kind of whining he does about girls. ("But I was going to go into Toshi station to pick up some power converters!")

At the party, Luke had had a few, and was whining to another young man, who we'll call Dave, about how he can never get a girlfriend.

Dave says: "You need to lower your standards. You only want the 10s and you could get some 5s or 6s."
Luke: "That's not true, I could go for a 5 or a 6."
Dave: "What's your definition of a 5 or a 6?" Here he named some girls they both knew, one of whom I knew, as being 5s and 6s.
Luke: "Oh, no, ewww, those are 2s."

Okay, here's my first problem. What the hell kind of conversation is this, where you debate about someone's physical characteristics as if that defines their personhood? Is this a thing guys DO? It must be. It's not something I ever experienced in my real life, I only saw shit like that on dumb TV shows.

Since he was doing it, I went ahead and took the trouble of rating Luke on my own personal scale of hotness, which is not something I tend to do.... but if y'all really wanna know, Luke's pushing it to rate a 4, even if he had all his bits. He kind of resembles Mark Hamill (as he looks now), but smaller and shorter and not saggy.

Dave reasoned it out that his and all sane people's version of "obtainable" levels of hotness were insanely low on Luke's scale, and what most people he knew would rate a 10 Luke would only pass at a 6 or so. "No wonder you can't get a date if you're calling the 10s 6s!" He said something about Luke needing to widen his dating pool, and then Luke... Luke. Gods, the boy can't have been this drunk? He didn't sound that drunk...

Luke said: "I'm a fatophobe. I can also only date white girls, because I could never date a girl that didn't have pink nipples."

The top of my head about blew off, readers. No lie. I know my mouth was hanging open in shock, and I was still processing all the previous parts of this conversation.

I am a white girl. My nipples are not pink, unless it's possible they change color just after being abused a bit. They're sort of a pale brown.

Not my nipple, but the color is about right

Like that, right? Maybe a little darker than that. One day maybe I'll take a photo. This photo, btw, came right from the bloody wikipedia "nipple" page.

So this asshat, this guy says he can only date hot slender white girls with pink nipples? What. The. Fuck. What's he going to do, get all the thin white girls who are clamoring for the coveted position of his girlfriend to line up and flash him their tits? Not bloody likely. Or, say a girl starts to like him because she's taken in by his everyday nice demeanor, asks him to go out for coffee with her. What's he gonna do? Say "show me your nipples first, biatch?" That won't earn him much but a slap across the face. If he's lucky she won't steal his leg while he's not looking.

This asshole would be lucky to ever get to see any girl's nipple, whether it be pink or brown or black or green.

Having a grocery list of physical characteristics for a mate is never going to get you very far in a relationship, even if you start out from a position of privilege-by-your-own-hotness.

My husband says that Luke'll learn, that he's young yet.

My husband and I were married by the time we were this kid's age.

If I had an inkling that my husband had ever had such a conversation? I don't know that I would ever have been comfortable with him.

There's a reason girls have body image issues, have trouble accepting themselves. Ugly little vicious assholes are living inside guys who seem to be perfectly nice in any everyday encounter.

Women are people too, asshat.