Sometimes, after an intense scene or something new and exciting that I haven't done before, I feel...icky. Emotionally wrung out, but also weird and nervous and like people somehow will magically know exactly what I've been doing and will judge me and won't respect me. I used to almost always feel like this after anal sex, I felt like this after I got Eiffel Towered that one time, and I'm feeling kind of like that right now.

Jack and I just had a fairly intense scene. He made me cry and grovel and beg and it was wonderful while it was going on, but now I feel kind of gross. It's like I'm slut-shaming myself inside my head--nice girls don't do this, if people knew it'd be all over, they'd be so disgusted. It's like the end of 9 1/2 Weeks, the horrible, shaming end sequence that I hate. I feel so exposed and all I want to do is hide. Even with lots of lovely aftercare, even with hugs and kisses and reassurances it happens.

Getting dressed again helped, but I'm still a little icky-feeling. I kind of just want to be alone. Jack went out and I'm making mac and cheese, because comfort food seems like a good idea. But I really, really want to know if anyone else ever feels like this. Hey, fellow bottoms, does this happen to you? If it does, how do you deal with it? I could use some advice.

So last night I went out for a few drinks with some friends. Jack had an appointment early this morning, so he stayed home to go to bed early. I knew he wanted me to polish his shoes for said appointment, but wasn't sure if I should do it when I got home or just go to bed.

I came in at around 2:00am, still a little bit tipsy. I unlocked the door, went down the hall towards the bedroom and there, in the middle of the hall, were the shoes and the shoe polish kit, with a post-it note attached that read "<3 ATTN: PET <3" Apparently I was still expected to polish the shoes. I went towards the living room, to plug in my phone which had died while we were at the bar. As I reached to turn on the light, I happened to look up at the ceiling. Before even turning on the light, I saw it there on the ceiling--a centipede.

Now, as a kid I was utterly terrified of any sort of invertebrate creature--ticks, spiders, and any and all bugs. Terrified. Even a closet moth would flip me the fuck out. These days I'm usually pretty calm, but there are two things I am still completely, ridiculously, unreasonably afraid of--black widow spiders and centipedes. Black widows, of course, are fuckoff huge and creepy looking and full of hemotoxic venom that can kill you, so I feel like my fear of them is pretty reasonable. And, of course, I've never seen a black widow in person. Centipedes are really creepy looking, but the kind that live in New York are not at all harmful to humans. Centipedes, however, appear in our apartment all the goddamn time and I am so scared of them I can't cope with it at all. One time, when there was a centipede in our bathtub, I went to the library to use their bathroom. i am unreasonably terrified of them.

So there's a centipede, a creature of which I am terrified beyond all reason, on the living room ceiling. And it's 2:00 in the morning, and Jack is sleeping, and I'm a little drunk and I have to polish Jack's shoes.

I did what any reasonable adult would do--I ran into the living room, grabbed my laptop to protect it from the centipede, then grabbed Jack's shoes and the polish and went and hid in the bathroom (which is roughly the size of a closet, since of course this is a New York apartment) and polished the shoes.

I feel like the Allie Brosh of consensual D/s.

A Whole Bunch of Stuff

I know, worst post title ever.

I haven't blogged in a while. A lot has been going on, I've been cranky, Jack has been around the house more which is less conducive to writing, and since he's been on a less regular schedule we've both been partying more. Basically, I am full of excuses.

While I was busy not blogging, a new Carnival of Kinky Feminists came out! And they included one of my posts again! And lots of other peoples' posts that are far more interesting than mine, so you should go and read them!

While I was reading the various posts in this second Carnival post, I came across one entitled "What We're Expected to Be" over at Beyond the Hills and found it really fascinating. Roles are so complicated, and they get more complicated (for me at least) all the time.

You see, Jack has a bit of a masochistic side--sometimes he likes some pain and attention. And I have no problem providing pain, but I tend to freak the fuck out if I perceive a power shift. Basically, if a scene is going on, I am submissive. I do not want to be in control, I don't want to have the power. Order me to hurt you, and I'm game, but don't put me in control, that makes me really uncomfortable. Once, while discussing this, Jack said "The role of submissive, of being owned by me, so comforting that you don't want anything to threaten that." And it's true.

A story: So Jack and I have this friend, let's call her Eve. Eve and I once went dildo shopping together, and later I fucked her with a strap-on. While said fucking was going on, Eve told me to spank her. "What?" I said, thinking I'd misheard her. "SPANK ME!" she repeated, slightly more emphatically. So I did, while fucking her from behind, grinning from ear-to-ear the entire time while Jack watched. It was fun!

Now, it's possible to see all of this as me switching. I fucked a girl, I spanked her, clearly the roles here are obvious. But in my mind, I spanked a girl because she told me to, and that makes all the difference. I like taking orders, I like doing what I'm told. I will totally hold someone down, or hit them or bite them, but I'm not topping them, I'm helping or following orders. I like helping, but I have no interest in topping.
___________________________________________________

Jack and I have been working on reworking the nonmonagamous aspect of our relationship. The break down of our rules has been, for the past year and a half or so, that I get to have sex with women, either in threesomes or by myself. And Jack gets to beat people up. Which...um...kind of wasn't that fair to Jack, despite the impressive mental contortions I kept going through to explain why this arrangement was totally fair and fine and anyway it works for us so it's really not your business and why are you questioning me and grrrrr.

You may have detected the confrontational tone there. Obviously I was having some trouble with things. But we talked the other day, and re-drew some boundaries (Oral sex for everyone! YAY!) and established a compromise in which, well, we both get to have sex with other women, for certain definitions of sex, but we'll also be doing more D/s stuff together.

We used to do a lot more D/s and service-y type stuff before we moved in together. Have I mentioned that here before? It was fun and hot and made me feel close and connected to Jack even when we only got to see each other on week-ends. I had lists of things to do! I kept a journal! And a lot of my fantasies have been D/s oriented, even before I knew I was kinky. But when we moved in together and actually shared a living space, lists of household tasks that I'd thought were super hot before abruptly became anything but sexy.

It also didn't help that I, not knowing about FetLife had fallen into an unfortunate Maledom/femsub community online where 24/7 was kind of viewed as the only real, authentic way to do D/s. It was kind of like how things were with my college boyfriend, when I was convinced we needed to get engaged because that's what people did and that's the next step and so why haven't you proposed to me yet? I (in my naive, deluded state) thought 24/7 total power exchange was the direction in which our relationship must inevitably go!

Now I realize I don't have to get married if I don't want to, and that D/s and service can be a part of our relationship without my being confined to a cage or not allowed on the furniture. Not that there's anything wrong with relationships where someone is confined to a cage or has to sit on the floor, it's just not for me. Like how marriage and 2.5 kids and a house in the suburbs aren't for everyone.

Actually, that's why actually being on FetLife and being part of a live-and-in-person kink scene and having kinky friends is so great--because you get to know people who have all different type of relationships that work in all kinds of ways and it's easier to avoid falling into the trap of reading one group on the whole internet and thinking everybody does it this way, so I have to do it this way, too.
______________________________________________

More stuff about body image: I have gained back some weight. I realize this is not supposed to bother me, and I actually thought it didn't. I'm working on eating better, not out of a desire to lose weight but more because I've realized I'm a grown up and I need to stop eating like a teenager whose parents aren't home. Also, I got tired of my coworkers making fun of my Hot Pocket addiction.

Like I said, I thought it didn't bother me. Sure, I've gained ten pounds, but don't my tits look great? I was feeling pretty awesome...

...until I found myself in bed with a friend who is totally conventionally attractive (which is to say, attractive in a way agreed upon by most of society, not necessarily conventional-looking), and she kept telling me I was pretty. Every time she said it, I felt awful and embarrassed and like I might cry. I wanted to shout "Stop saying that!"

So yeah...so much for being totally over my body image issues. I need to work on this.

The Submissive Vampire: A kinky reading of Interview With the Vampire

I kind of simultaneously love and hate Anne Rice.

When I was 10, the film version of Interview With the Vampire was released and there I was, already with an interest in vampires and (people tell me) a slight resemblance to Kirsten Dunst, just starting to figure out this whole "attracted to people" thing that was starting to happen in my body and head. I was attracted to the idea of vampires, the power and sophistication that vampires implied, the idea of being more, being better than humans, being special.

I was also, it's worth noting, completely terrified of sex. I had only just recently learned about that whole penis-in-the-vagina thing that was apparently sex, and I was horrified. Also, in my not-knowing, sex had mostly been something that older kids made fun of me for not knowing about, something that was a cause of humiliation and shame and jokes that I didn't understand and would later get in trouble for repeating to my parents. Any mention of vampirism as a stand-in for sex in the nonfiction books I would occasionally read made me intensely uncomfortable, but vampires were also my own personal sex stand-in. Being interested in vampires, being completely obsessed with vampires in general and Dracula and Anne Rice in particular made it okay to be interested in sex--because I wasn't interested in sex, I was interested in vampires.

When the film version of Interview was released on video and Pay Per View, I watched the preview guide all day while my parents were at work, hoping to see commercials. I wasn't allowed to see the movie. It was rated R, it was full of nudity and sex and my parents did not think I was old enough. I saw it on the sly at a friend's house and was actually kind of disappointed, so I secretly got out the book from the library and read it late at night and hid it under the bed.

I'd buy my own copy in high school. Now, from the wise old age of 25, I can say that I think Anne Rice is guilty of serious over-writing. Her prose comes in many shades of purple, and "savage" and "exquisite" are to her what words like "eldritch" and "gibbering" are to H.P. Lovecraft. But in the depths of my high school gothiness, Interview seemed hot and dark and lush and swoony. I felt Louis' pain, understood and wished for his weird, dark fantasies and hallucinations, wanted to be under Lestat's power. Until midway through my freshman year of college when I tried to re-read the book for the umpteenth time, said "Wow, this is overwritten and wanky," and put it right back down.

But it had a huge influence on me, both the book and the movie. Seriously, if you looked at a line-up of the guys I've dated (with the possible exception of Jack) they look like an Anne Rice casting call. And while I mention above that people tell me I look like Kirsten Dunst, and have since that movie came out, I've always claimed to not see the resemblance--not because I have anything against Kirsten Dunst, but because I really dislike the character of Claudia. I'm not like Claudia at all, so how can you say I look like her?

In criticisms of Interview, people tend to talk about the "vampire family" idea. It shows up in lots of modern vampire fiction, the idea that vampires change humans into vampires out of loneliness, to create a blended family, in The Lost Boys and lots of children's vampire fiction (Nancy Garden's books like My Sister, the Vampire) it's a major plot-point. But it never connected for me when people have said this about Interview With the Vampire, mostly because they usually follow this up by saying that Louis is the mother figure and we have a nice little conventional nuclear family here. Even though the Lestat-Louis-Claudia group is referred to as a family in the text, it resembles an actual family much less than it does a leather family (though still an unhappy one), a triangle in which dominant Lestat and Claudia butt heads and power-struggle over who gets to control submissive Louis.

Louis is not so much a mother as he is submissive, to both Lestat and Claudia, and I'm uncomfortable with the reading that says his following Lestat's orders and wishes, even when he doesn't want to, makes Louis feminine and mother-like. Ick. Also, it disregards how thoroughly Claudia has Louis wrapped around her dainty fingers (or, if you like the image better, under the heel of her little slippers). One of the main ideas of the book is that, while Claudia looks like a child, she quickly grows out of this role and has the mind of an adult woman--so why are critics so quick to stuff her into a child-box when talking about the "vampire family"? Louis is the least forceful, the least commanding of the three, and he transfers his loyalty, his submission and willingness to serve, from Lestat to Claudia as Claudia changes from a child-doll to a, well...woman trapped in a child-doll's body.

This continues and is heightened when Claudia and Louis meet Armand. Louis gets all swoony and strange in the pull of Armand's age and power--he's pretty much in subspace when they interact. Weirdly, Armand is also able to subdue Claudia, in a domlier-than-though display that seriously creeps her out, because she doesn't want to lose Louis or lose control over him. Louis is always kind of a passive figure--he doesn't really decide much for himself, or do much because he wants to. He does what Lestat wants, then what Claudia wants, then, Armand tries to take him away to do what he, Armand wants. Louis doesn't seem to want much, except to make whoever his current dom-figure is happy. Or, in the case of Lestat, who Louis doesn't really get along with once the honeymoon period of their relationship is over, not actively angry.

I can see how this eager-to-please Louis can be read as feminine, as a mother-figure, but it makes me uncomfortable to read it that way. I don't like Louis being cast as feminine because he is passive, especially when Claudia an actual female character is there being all strong (and sometimes crazy and obnoxious and demanding) for contrast. I would instead argue that submission does not equal femininity or femaleness, and that Louis and Claudia's relationship much more closely resembles a femdom/malesub relationship than that of parent and child, at least once Claudia "grows up."

And while the "vampire family" idea comes up again when Claudia brings Madeleine, her chosen mother-figure, into the equation, Claudia is still in charge and Madeleine's characterization of Claudia as "'a child who cannot die'" seems creepy and wrong because Claudia is not a child at this point, except in appearance. Claudia wants a family, wants an appearance of normality, but she also wants to control her "parents." Also, Louis has no attraction towards Madeleine--and why would he, when he's clearly attracted to dominant personalities? Madeleine is more like his co-sub than any sort of interest for him. He doesn't want to "curse" her with vampirism, but he also knows her view of Claudia as a child is incorrect and, I suspect, resents her competition for Claudia's attention.

This also explains why, despite being a girl, and blonde, and looking maybe a little like the actress who played Claudia in the movie, I've always related far more to Louis than Claudia. In my reading, the book and movie were not about a vampire family or Louis' loving Claudia like a daughter. They're about Louis, and his transitioning from an uncomfortable relationship with Lestat (who would have him be subservient, but also mocks him for his "weakness") to a fulfilling one with Claudia (in which most of his actions serve to please and serve the object of his affections) to losing Claudia because of being drawn to a similar relationship with Armand. For an oblivious submissive girl like me, Louis was a far more relatable character than the one who was superficially more like me.

Note: This is not to say that Claudia and Louis have an ideal relationship, or that the whole Claudia-as-a-woman-in-a-child's body thing isn't kind of creepy, or that all people who identify as submissive are doormats like Louis who need to or can be taken away from their respective dom(me)s by force. No one should base an actual relationship on anything Anne Rice has written ever, and that's doubly true of her porn, which I'll probably write about in another entry.

Easter

I keep forgetting about Easter. In college, we didn't get any days off for Easter or Passover, so Easter stopped being the big family holiday it was when I was little. But it's still kind of lurking around the edges of my brain.

It's hard for me, as a lapsed Catholic, to talk about Easter without thinking about Lent and holy week. In fact, at this point, the whole not-believing-in-God thing has turned them into completely separate things in my mind.

Growing up, Lent and holy week and the Triduum and the sacrifice and darkness that lead up to Easter always kind of seemed like a bigger deal than Easter itself. Advent, the lead up to Christmas, totally made sense--who doesn't want to count down until Christmas? But Lent is 40 days long. That's, like, forever when you're in third grade. And as you grow up Catholic, going to Catholic school, you learn that Lent is about sacrifice and abstinence (not necessarily that kind of abstinence--just general abstaining from things like booze and anything else that might make you happy) and fasting. You can't eat meat on Fridays, when you're an adult you're supposed to fast as well, and, if you grew up in my house, you go to church, like, 50 times during holy week for confession and to pray and for Easter Vigil and it all feels very Medieval and ancient and strange.

I never really got how all that enforced suffering (though I love fish fry, so that no meat on Fridays thing wasn't very suffer-y for me) was connected with Easter itself. I knew intellectually from probably third grade on what the connection was--we're suffering because Jesus suffered for us, we're celebrating because he rose from the dead, the butterflies and bunnies and eggs are signs of new life (new life, the nuns stressed, definitely new life). But most of what I got out of Lent was that we're supposed to suffer and Easter seemed like a weird follow up.

Now I know that part of the reason for the disconnect is that the bunnies and eggs are co-opted pagan fertility symbols, something I now greatly enjoy explaining to other people. But this is still a time of year I can never seem to really make sense of. But yeah, Lent and Triduum and sacrifice and spending what felt like 60 hours in church are definitely the things I think of when the conversation comes around to "why I'm kinky."

Even though I'm a happy atheist now, and I started brushing off all this "Lent" stuff when I was in seventh grade and told Sister Frances that I was giving up human sacrifice that year, I'm really attracted to the idea of fasting and suffering and sacrifice. Even when I was trapped in that awful relationship in high school, one of my favorite tactics to prove my devotion was to not eat--look what I'm doing for you, look how I'm suffering to show you my love. It turns out fasting is not a great idea when you're hypoglycemic. But anyway, this year I'm thinking maybe I could do with a little more structure and sacrifice in my life. Because it's kind of hot.

Worries.

I am a worrier. I've been a worrier for about as long as I can remember, and worrying runs in my family. My mom worries, my grandma is a seriously world-class worrier. I have had two small panic attacks, mostly because of being exhausted and in crowded places. I often say I have some anxiety issues, but I've never been diagnosed with anything.

One of the attractions of BDSM for me is that I don't have to worry while I'm in the middle of a scene. Especially when playing with Jack--I get to relax and put myself completely in his hands and trust that he'll take care of the worrying. It's actually pretty awesome that it works that way.

(I'm pretty sure lots of people would tell me that this is unhealthy, that this is just an escape like drugs or alcohol, that dealing with anxiety by getting consensually beaten up is sick. I would like to point out to those people that I think it's probably more healthy than frequent binge drinking, which is how I used to deal with my worrying.)

Regardless of how I think anyone would possibly react, it is a relief for me not to have to think. I have never been much of a physical person--I never really got into sports or working out or the other things people say makes them feel connected to their body. There's a line in Christopher Durang's play Baby With the Bathwater where Daisy talks about having innumerable casual sexual encounters because of the moment during sex when you forget everything, even who you are and just feel. Pain pulls me back into my body, makes my brain shut up. And that is really just freaking awesome.

There are lots and lots and lots of other reasons why BDSM and kinky play are awesome, why submitting and surrendering to your partner can be amazing and freeing. There are lots of reasons why I find this sort of thing sexy as hell. But for me, there's a delightful side benefit to be found in not having to worry.

Subspace with Tails

A few days ago, our friend Tails came over. She was one of the very first kinky people Jack and I met, months before we even started going out to play parties. She's very sweet and very fun, and we always have a really great time.

This most recent date was seriously beyond all our previous ones. It's taken me almost a week to process it enough to sit down and figure out how to write about it. I think also I'm having a hard time actually figuring how to write about the specifics of a sexual encounter - the who did what to whom part. It's scary, and I'm worried I won't do it justice.

Tails was the first girl I ever had sex with. And the first few times, I definitely felt like there was a learning curve...I knew where the right bits and pieces were, and I knew what I was supposed to do, but I'm pretty sure it was apparent how inexperienced I was despite my enthusiasm.

This time...I don't know how else to describe it, other than to use words like "beautiful" and "moving." I was going down on her, and I basically never wanted it to stop. I was completely focused on what I was doing, completely absorbed, and blissfully happy. I just wanted to keep giving her pleasure, to keep feeling her grind and wriggle against my tongue and contract around my fingers.

When I was younger, I read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. When you're drawing (and I've felt this while drawing) and your concentration is complete, and your brain shifts into the drawing-place, you don't notice anything else. You can't hear music, and distractions cease to exist, and everything else in your life just fades into the background. That's what this sex was like - complete concentration, my senses completely absorbed in the act. Amazing.

Eventually, she pulled me up into a sitting position and hugged me. I was shaking, almost crying. On some level, I didn't know what was going on at all. I was someplace else. I kept saying "thank you" over and over again, I felt so honored that she'd allowed me to have this amazing, earth-shattering experience. She and Jack hugged me, and stroked my hair and told me I was a good girl, and eventually I came back to myself.

I feel like a lot of the time people I know talk about subspace being reached through pain. And that's awesome (and I'm totally back to loving pain, btw) and exciting and wonderful, but it's much rarer for me to hit subspace just through sex, to lose myself in someone else's body, to be in that place of complete concentration and wanting nothing else in the world but to pleasure this person. I've always had this idea of losing myself in sex, and I'd always thought that was only possible for the moment when a particularly amazing orgasm takes hold. But what I'm learning is that I can lose myself in someone else, and that's even more exciting.

Lots of other really awesome things happened that day. Tails spanked me until I couldn't take anymore, Jack spanked her until he bruised his hand, she showed us some cool new rope bondage stuff she's been learning, there was some candle wax and some squirting. Tails is turning into quite a mean top. But probably the thing that will stick in my mind is how I felt when she pulled me into her arms and I was shaking and on the verge of tears and thanking her over and over again for allowing me to experience her like that. It was amazing.