Cyber Consent Sunday, Mar 4 2012

I’ve been hanging out on a BDSM-related IRC server lately. The level of consent fail in some of the messages I get is staggering.

They follow quite a distinctive pattern. Someone with a capitalised nick sees that my nick is uncapitalised and assumes that I am a submissive. They then send me a message. Sometimes they open with “hi” and “how are you?”, followed by asking for my description.

Quite a lot of them just stop responding when I tell them I’m trans.

Those who don’t, and those who didn’t bother with pleasantries like “hello”, start giving me orders.

I tell them that I’m not taking orders until we’ve negotiated a scene.

They stop responding.

Never once has anyone who takes this approach – find a sub, act like that means they’re your sub – actually stopped and established consent when I call them on it. They just stop talking. They’re so anxious to get their rocks off that the ten minutes to discuss what we each kink on, what our limits are, and decide that we’re compatible enough to have a good time, is too much to ask. If I maintain my right to withhold consent, I become unfuckable.

That’s pretty damn scary. Sure, this is online. But “online” isn’t the same as “not real”. They’re assuming that my consent is irrelevant to having sexy funtimes. I don’t believe that they don’t carry that attitude around in meatspace, and that puts anyone they play with in danger.
I bet they’re more subtle about it in meatspace, though, and that puts me off playing with anyone I don’t already know well, and triply so playing in private. These entitled doms are seriously poisoning the well for all you good people who wouldn’t dream of giving me orders until we’d negotiated to play. It’s your problem, as well as mine, if the scene is full of predators. If when I come to munches I find that several middle-aged men assume I’m a femsub and try to impressive me with their dominance by telling me anecdotes in which consent doesn’t play a role, I’m going to stop coming to munches. If half the people I meet online want me to call them “sir” in the first two minutes of our interaction, I’m going to get a lot more hostile and wary of people who message me.

Oh, and for the record: I’m not a femsub. I’m a genderqueer switch, and you’re not the boss of me.

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Longing Sunday, Feb 5 2012

I hold as still as I can.
He has me pinned, one arm underneath his body, the other wrist gripped firm in his hand. But that leaves him with one hand free, and he has been making good use of that, pinching and scratching and teasing lightly until I asked, breathless, for him to touch me.
Since then my cunt has become the centre of my world. Gentle fingers twisting inside me, or sliding over my clit, driving me mad with his patient slowness. I am so sensitive then every touch of his hand makes my breath catch, and I am trying so hard to hold still and breath quiet because he will not let me come. He knows me too well, knows how I look when I am close, and he never takes me further. His fingers slow down, or stop dead inside me, so that I buck uselessly against them, trying to get those few seconds more that are all I need, all I have needed for hours, days, oh, forever.
He strokes my clit in slow circles, far too slow, and I whimper softly and twist towards him, bury my face against his chest. “Please. Please. I want to come.”
He tightens his grip on my wrist, lifts his hand away. “Not yet.”
“Please?”
He slides a finger back into me, fucking me with it, agonisingly gentle. I rock my hips helplessly, too aroused to keep up my pretence. He has never made me come by accident, there is no use in trying to fool him, but I always try. He leans down to suck my nipple and it is almost too much to bear. “Please. Please.”
“Not yet.”

(Tagged as “fantasy” because this isn’t a transcript, but I’ve done denial scenes very like this.)

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Dominants Chair Meetings, Submissives Stack Chairs Thursday, Feb 2 2012

So this is today’s wisdom, straight from the keyboard of your friendly neighbourhood stringed instrument.

Social dominance and sexual dominance are different things.

You can be dominant and shy. You can be dominant and introverted. You can be dominant and uncharismatic. You can be dominant and disorganised. You can be dominant and afraid of rejection. You can be dominant and poor with words. You can be dominant and flustered under pressure. You can be dominant and scared of public speaking. You can be dominant and unpersuasive.

Whether someone likes being on top in the bedroom tells you nothing, not a single damn thing, about how they interact with people socially.
Let me clear about what I’m not saying here. I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as a continuous power dynamic between specific people.
But I’m not socially dominant. I’m the person at the edge of the conversation, the one who always seems to be at the back of the group when you walk somewhere, the one who gives way when interrupted. I’m the person who doesn’t speak up when group decisions need making. I’m the person who just goes home when they don’t feel welcome. I’m the person who doesn’t go to new places alone, who won’t talk to strangers, who gets flustered by unfamiliar choices.
I’m also the person who pins my lover down and hurts them and teases them and makes them beg and doesn’t give them what they beg for.
There’s no contradiction here.

Too often I hear people talking as if dominance in bed and social charisma were the same thing. As if my shyness made me less dominant, or my dominance should make me less shy. As if people should shut up and listen to me when I want them to, because I like to hear people scream. As if being able to lead a meeting was a necessary condition of tying knots. Or, just as bad, as if nobody who submits in bed were capable of leadership. As if I couldn’t be expected to be persuasive or competent or able to make hard decisions, because after all, I like to have my hair pulled.

This stereotype hurts everybody. It hurts people who have to be assertive and charismatic if they’re to be recognised as dominant. It hurts people who are assertive and charismatic, and aren’t acknowledged as submissive because of it. It’s inaccurate and it’s unhelpful and I want to get rid of it.

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Sir Monday, Jan 30 2012

I lean back against the handrail at the entrance to the club, waiting for people to finish in the changing room. Beside me, a person I hardly know kneels quietly, stunning in a corset and bare shoulders. I stroke their hair gently, feeling very daring, and they lean into my hand. People arriving for the event look at us sidelong.
“If we’re not careful, people will think you’re mine,” I say, not sure if what I am doing is alright, if I am allowed to take liberties with them tonight. They smile up at me.
“Would that be a problem?”
“…no, I suppose not,” I say, and keep petting them, working my hand into the top of their plait, pulling gently, enjoying the sense of being in charge, in control, this feeling I have never had before.
When the others are finally done changing, and we have left our bags in the cloakroom, there are still contacts to be put in and makeup to be done, and I find myself standing by a cage with the same beautiful sub. Still shy, but hungry for more of that feeling, I wind their plait around a bar of the cage, and pull, and watch their eyes widen and their knees go weak. I set my fingernails into their chest, above their corset. Gently, gently scratch. They bite their lip and look at me as if I am the whole world.
It is only a few minutes before the others return, glittered and beautified, and I scratch their chest one last time and unwind their hair from the cage.
“Thank you, sir.”
I am hard so fast it feels almost like a blow.
“Correct answer,” I say shakily, for lack of better words.

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Train Friday, Jan 27 2012

There is only so much we can do on a crowded Tube train. It’s hardly the place for public play. It’s the late end of the rush hour – everyone on this train is tired, everyone is irritable, and nobody will be happy about a pair of horny young things misbehaving when they’re trying to get home.
But still, there are some things we can do. We got on this train just too late to catch a seat, which means we got our pick of the standing room. At the end of the carriage is a padded ledge, and I put you firmly against it, holding you there with my body and a hand on the bar by the door. That was three stops ago, and now we are pressed into the corner by the crowd, and I have both my hands free.
Your arms are around me, your hands gripping my belt, somewhere between keeping me balanced and pulling me closer. I watch your eyes widen, and tap you gently on the chest.
You gasp quietly, whispering “thank you sir,” too soft to be heard over the train, but I saw your lips move, and I know those words.
tap
You bite your lip gently, and I count, and watch your eyes.
tap
Another station, another press of people, another chance to catch your breath.
tap
Back into the tunnels, timing your breathing by heartbeats.
tap
You kiss me hungrily, whisper something about “more, please,” and I interrupt you
tap
stopping you mid-word, and you fight yourself trying to breathe
tap
and I nibble your ear lightly, listening to you gasp
tap
digging my claws into your side just to see that begging look
tap
tap
tap

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Blindfold Monday, Jan 23 2012

I stare desperately into the darkness. It is pitch black behind the blindfold, so dark that my mind paints pictures onto it. My hands twitch behind me. If they were being kind, they’d have tied me up, but instead they just crossed my wrists behind me and told me to keep them there.
Somewhere behind me something clatters to the ground and I swivel instinctively.
“Eyes front!”
I jerk back, stare uselessly ahead, shivering with nerves. I don’t know what they’re planning, except that it will hurt. That’s all they would tell me. It will hurt, and I am expected to hold still for it, or they will tie me down and it will hurt more.
There is another noise behind me, a snap that sounds very much like an impact, and I catch myself before I look, straining against the order to hold still. The door opens and closes, and I shiver, eyes wide behind the blindfold. My hands are free, and I am scared, and it would be so, so easy to take it off…

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Five Friday, Jan 20 2012

I am trembling in the ropes now, my back a single sheet of pain, and I couldn’t tell you if we’ve been here ten minutes or an hour. The heavy weight of the flogger smacks into me again, and I gasp out a breath, hold it again, bracing for the next impact. This is the rhythm of my world. Wait. Impact. Breathe. Wait.
He strokes my back gently, fingers almost unbearably light against my tender skin. I whimper softly.
“You’re doing very well. Five more, and then we’re done.”
I shudder in relief. “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
Breathe. Wait.
The five blows are as hard as any have been, so hard the flogger feels like a block of wood. I whimper as they hit, losing control now the end is in sight, and count silently.
“Good,” he murmurs, stroking my back softly, and I relax into the ropes, breathing in great ragged gasps, and scream as the next blow hits.
“No sir, please, you said five more, please!”
I cannot see him from here, but the smile in his voice makes my blood run cold.
“I lied.”

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Fire Monday, Dec 26 2011

I hate fire. I hate fire I hate fire I hate fire…
The drop of hot wax lands on my back, clings, burns, and I whimper and twist in fear. I am kneeling, bent over myself in a ball, arms pulled out in front and held firmly by one of my tops. He strokes my hair gently and I lean into his hand, try to beg with my eyes.
“Shhh. You’re doing very well.”
“Thank you sir,” I whisper, shivering and fearful. That was only the third drop of wax. The heat terrifies me in a way no other pain does. That is why they are both here, why I am held in hands and not by ropes, to keep me calm.
The one behind me caresses my back. “Next one.”
I hide my face, hold my breath, fight against panic. The drop might be fire for all I can tell, and I tense and gasp and stay still by force of will.
“Good boy. Next one.”
I whimper. Not yet not yet not yet. Fire on my back. I pull helplessly against strong hands.

[Note: I’d really like to do this one.]

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Saying Words Friday, Dec 23 2011

After we have finished playing, in this gentle half-public scene, while I lie with my head in his lap and hope the person who came in partway through won’t think less of me for how subbish I am being, and he scratches me with a metal claw, and we both listen in to the rest of the conversation – after we are done, he unties me, and I sit up and stretch and borrow his hoodie because I have grown cold there on the ground with no jumper on. My front stings where he has been going at me, stings more and longer than I would expect. I slouch slightly, gasp and wince, sit up straighter. That was unexpected. I pull my clothes up, and see thin red scratches, where the skin is torn, just barely broken. I mock-glare at him.
“You drew blood!”
“Well, you asked for it.”
“I didn’t ask you to draw blood.”
“What did you say?”
“Stop teasing and use that thing.”
“Exactly. You asked for it.”
“I was tied up and you had the implement, it must have been your fault! All I did was say words!”

I have a habit of saying words. It gets me into all sorts of trouble.

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Thirty Nine Tuesday, Nov 22 2011

I am at the fetish fair, with a play partner.

This is nothing very unusual; we come here regularly, to look at the merchandise, expand our toy collections, and play. Playing in public generally looks a good deal like playing in private, except that we keep clear of penetration and the like, to stay within the house rules.

Today is different. Today he has decided to put me on display.

I strip slowly, nervously, down to the waist. He is being kind to me, flogging me on the back, where I prefer the sensation. I can endure impact on the buttocks, of course; I have even been known to request it. But it is impact on the back that fills my dreams and gets me hard.

I step up to the spiderweb and stretch my arms out to the sides, gripping the coarse ropes. He presses up to me, warm against my naked skin, and pulls my head back by the hair. I melt back into his grip.

“Good boy,” he murmurs, stroking my back with a coil of rope. “Hold still.”

I close my eyes and lean into the spiderweb. I love this part, the ropes winding snugly around my arms, making me helpless. Here is where it becomes real, a tangible thing, my submission written in ropes. One arm, then the other, and he steps back, and I pull hard against the bonds and relax into them again, pinned in their snug grip.

He moves invisibly behind me, and I gasp as cool leather slides over my back, the tails of a flogger. His warm hand follows them, and I lean back into it, wanting more already. He shows me the flogger then, and I shiver. It is not the heavy one I prefer, but the light one with plaited tails, the one that stings far more than I enjoy.

He stands away. I swallow. We have talked about this part.

“What are you?”

“A submissive, Sir.” I answer clear and loud, against my instinct to whisper. I am on display, and must speak for the audience.

“And what happens now?”

“You’re going to flog me, Sir.”

“Correct. I am.” I can hear the smile in his voice.

“How many strokes, Sir?”

“Thirty-nine.”

I whimper, pulling uselessly against the ropes. I hate that flogger.

“It could be worse, boy. I might have said forty.”

I shudder. “Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

“Tell the nice people why forty would be worse.”

Blushing, I stand up straighter, defying embarrassment to speak clearly. “Because thirty-nine is the last finite number, Sir. When the Romans sentenced a criminal, thirty-nine meant thirty-nine, but forty meant they would continue indefinitely.”

From my position tied to the spiderweb, I cannot see who might be listening to us. Someone murmurs in understanding, and my face burns. I am watched. I am observed.

He strokes my back again and steps away, and I brace myself for the first blow.

“Count for me, boy.”

“Yes, Sir.”

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