by Неизвестный
In our D/s relationship, we have a contract and basic protocol rules. We have different levels of protocol: basic everyday protocol, high protocol and, if need be, levels in between. One rule in our agreement states: “I will not use furniture, unless my Dominant has given me permission or if abiding by this rule would inconvenience or make others around me uncomfortable.” (I would not stand or kneel at a restaurant or cafe if I was there without my Dominant or at a meeting where it would be inappropriate.) The rules in our contract help form the structure of our D/s relationship, and its creation is entirely unique to us. We understand that agreements can change based on the individuals’ needs, which change over time, and we allow time on a regular basis to review our agreement to see what is working for each of us and what isn’t. If something isn’t working, we change it.
Sometimes, our D/s is incorporated into sex. I recall sitting at dinner at a four-star restaurant with my Sir. He ordered dessert for us, and as the waitress left the table he handed me a vibrator.
“Take this and get yourself off before our desert arrives, slut. And discreetly, my pet. I won’t be needing any porn star theatrics. Subtlety is an art form after all.”
“Yes, Sir.”
I took the vibrator underneath the white tablecloth, under my dress, and up my slit, until it rested next to my clit. The buzzing vibrator was barely audible over the espresso machine in the back. I worked my way up to climax and quietly asked, “Sir, may I come?”
“Yes, you may come.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Other times, D/s manifests when my Sir enforces an order, like denying me orgasms. I remember one business trip where I would be in Detroit for a week, and my Dominant ordered me not to masturbate during the trip. I was so incredibly turned on by the fact that I wasn’t allowed to touch myself that I nearly came simply by the denial of my masturbation privilege.
If my Dominant and I are engaging in sadomasochism, I usually find myself in the role of a sensation-hungry lover or the submissive. If we are playing in an SM dynamic as lovers, I’m permitted to make eye contact. With each strike, we breathe together. It can be brutal and bloody, orgasmic and intimate all at the same time. If we’re engaged in SM in a D/s protocol, I will not make eye contact and simply accept the energy of a whip or cane and allow it to flow through me without releasing moans of pleasure. I am only permitted to verbalize gratitude and respect, unless I am granted permission to come. In my role as a submissive, it’s important for me to keep composure and always do my best to serve the needs of my Dominant, according to the terms of our D/s agreement, above my own impulses.
I was once performing in an on-camera scene with my Dominant and another woman. Her punishment for some indiscretion, which I now can’t remember, was for her to watch as I took her caning for her. I knelt before my love, face forward, eyes focused ahead, arms behind my back, and took each strike with complete composure, only releasing breath and uttering a gracious “One. Thank you, Sir. Two. Thank you, Sir,” until we reached twenty strikes. The girl stared at me crying and baffled by what she had just seen; she was puzzled to witness my intense composure during such a severe whipping and the deep level of submission I demonstrated.
In my relationship with my Dominant, he is my primary partner. But during the nearly six years of our relationship, I have petitioned for sexual and kinky relationships outside our own with agreed-upon partners. I once petitioned to be lent to a queer couple, a femme and a trans guy, for submissive service including domestic chores. The femme was the alpha Dominant in the relationship (both were dominant over me, but the femme Dominant was at the top of our hierarchy). After a decadent dinner in which I followed high-protocol standards (only speaking when spoken to, fetching jackets, pulling out chairs, opening the door) and serviced the couple sexually, I was ordered to the kitchen. A huge pile of dishes sat in the sink.
The two sat down at the kitchen table, post-sex and post-orgasm, a bit disheveled, sipping on tea in their boxers, lingerie and robes.
“Get to work, slut,” Mistress ordered.
Naked and exhilarated in my submissive state, I got to work on the filthy dishes.
Mistress looked up drowsily from her tea and gifted me with her praise. “Such a good little submissive, slut. You are doing such a good job at those dishes. Jay, go get my whip.”
Her partner returned with her whip and Mistress whipped my flesh, which was already marked from what had preceded in the bedroom that evening. As Mistress welted my skin with her whip, her fingers teasing my cunt every so often between strikes, and her partner sat at the kitchen table sipping his tea with a devilish grin, I felt absolute euphoric bliss in my service. It was one of those moments of clarity in which I feel that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, full of purpose and with an internal stillness that exists only in absolute surrender.
Submission is a gift of full surrender to another person. It’s the removal of ego and self-indulgence. When I engage in a heavy D/s scene, I picture myself as a hollow cane of bamboo: I allow energy to flow through me, keeping complete focus and attention to my surroundings on my Dominant, without drawing attention to myself. It requires being aware of the rhythm of life around me, life in my scene, and how I play into that rhythm, that cacophony of sound. For example, the sound of a key in the door cues me to remove my panties and kneel into slave position with arms folded behind my back. The sound of the shower’s running water instinctively starts me calculating how long that sound will last before Sir exits the shower and I enter with a fresh folded towel. The sound of the whistling kettle activates my anticipation to prepare Sir’s tea. The whistling kettle, the shower water, and the key in the door are just as kinky to my auditory senses as the sound of the flogger coming into impact with my grateful flesh, the whisk of a cane, the yelp of other submissives, and the cries of orgasmic pleasure that surround us in public dungeons. It is humbling to serve, to give in, without ego, mindful and focused.
But as submissives, we are human. We will make mistakes, and if we choose to disobey or act in a disrespectful manner, we will be punished. The grace and dignity with which a submissive accepts a punishment is just as important as the manner in which you conduct yourself in daily service. It may be even more important.
I remember one instance when I allowed my emotions to get the better of me during a D/s scene with my Sir. Sir told me that because of a production schedule, he would have to work late on our anniversary, which was in a few weeks. This personal matter affected me as my Sir’s lover, not as his submissive. I ran off from the scene in a huff and committed a cardinal sin in D/s: I took off my own collar. The collar is a symbol of dedication to our D/s relationship as well as a symbol of honor and respect reflecting my commitment to the BDSM community. In losing my composure and removing my collar, I was not only disrespecting my Sir but also acting as a disgrace to our community. Therefore my Sir decided that my punishment needed to be a public penance.
I treaded behind Sir in shame. I wished I could disappear and was thankful for the inviting darkness that the blindfold brought. I was led downstairs to a dungeon and placed on a suspended table; it was disorienting and difficult to balance on it without my sight. On all fours, presenting my ass, I awaited my punishment—rope biting around my chest, under my arms, pressed up against my rib cage, attempting to take over my breath and lead me into submission.
I felt floggers, paddles, hands, straps, belts, clamps, clothespins and mouths. I gently cooed, “Thank you, Sir,” and “Thank you, Ma’am.” I heard later that a line had formed; everyone wanted his or her turn. I changed positions, presenting my chest, my pussy, rotating to give onlookers a better view. I stood in difficult stress positions, squatting, balancing—all blindfolded. My head was spinning, chasing after the texture of voices in the room. I heard people negotiating with Sir. As he handed me over to the next participant, one politely asked me, “Could I go harder?”
“If it pleases you, Sir.”
Another said,
“You seem like such a good girl. What could you possibly have done to deserve this punishment?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir.”
I followed the words like light, like butterflies. I let the sensation wipe through me at the hands of seasoned leathermen and Dominants and newbies who were shy and nervous. You would have thought they were the ones under the whip.
I could feel a community around me—young and old, SMers, experimenters and swingers. Each with a different stroke, a different touch. I was polite and grateful to them for taking part in my punishment.
Sir approached, whispering in my ear. “Just one more and I’ll take you home.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
This swing was familiar. The cane struck my ass. I could feel the area of my flesh start to harden after repeated impact, and I could tell my skin had already started to bruise from hours of punishment. But I welcomed this touch. His touch.
“Count and show me you’re sorry,” he said.
“One. I’m sorry, Sir. Please, Sir, forgive me.”
“Two. Sir, I’m so very sorry, Sir, I will be more mindful of my behavior, Sir.” “Three. Sir, I’m sorry, Sir. I will only show the greatest of respect to us and our protocol, Sir.”
I felt tired and broken. Worn down but at the same time fulfilled. I felt an unselfish pleasure from a job well done.
“You did good tonight, Maddie. I’m very proud of you. You made a lot of people very happy.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Sex-positive feminism embraces the entire range of human sexuality and is based on the idea that sexual freedom is an essential component of women’s freedom. BDSM is based on power and sensation play with a strong emphasis on communication and consent. I validate my own desires through the act of submission while simultaneously taking control of and embracing my sexuality. I have had to fight for my sexuality and identity, and I educate others around me about it. My personal has always been political. The aggressiveness with which I embrace my queer identity has translated to aggressiveness in claiming my submission.
Why is it fascinating and stimulating to engage in power exchange? We are breaking the rules. As queers, feminists, kinky persons and sexual outlaws, we have always broken the rules. We go outside designated sexual norms as we search for connection, community and fulfillment in our sexual lives and identities. Our sexual selves were not handed to us—we had to create them. We disassemble traditional power structures put in place by social norms only to reassemble them to use as our own sex toys.
Submissives are often strong and powerful women and men who wish to set aside or give their power to another person. Submissives are willing to make themselves vulnerable and open to experiences. We serve and give something back to both our community and to the one(s) we serve. Our service and education can result in both personal growth and community development. We submit to better the lives of others and, in doing so, our submission enriches our own lives.
In a fantasy world, Sir and I would exist 24/7 in an erotically charged nonstop BDSM scene. But this is reality—and thank goodness it is! It would be boring and not nearly as special to me if submission were a constant. It is difficult to fully appreciate the calm without a healthy amount of chaos. Besides, Sir and I lead very hectic lives, and between work and our newborn baby girl, it’s not possible for us to maintain that dynamic of our relationship on a 24/7 basis. Instead we plan scenes or playdates. Or we find ways to work our D/s dynamic into our everyday lives. I welcome those moments like a breath of fresh air between diaper changes, breast-feedings, sexuality workshops and business meetings. After six years together, my partner and I have found what works for us. And this is what works for us. We are able to be loving partners to each other, passionate lovers, cuddle buddies, and coparents to our daughter, all as we engage in a Dominant /submissive scene.
Sometimes it’s just for a moment, something as simple as Sir pulling my hair and bringing me to my knees before he leans down, kisses me on the crown of my head, and whispers, “I love you, slut.” Or me saying, “I love you, Sir,” before we head out to work. Sometimes that is all the time we have. But it only takes a moment. It’s a subtle shift of power, an opening of my being, slipping into that quiet stillness of perfection and tranquillity. It’s a state of Zen submission.
The space I go to when I’m in a position of submission is a meditative state. When painting or writing, I find myself going into a similar state. I have to step out of the way to give in to the creative energy. It’s a state of pure connection, complete focus and the clarity discovered in letting go. I find it by riding waves of energy that flow through me with each impact from a heavy flogger or sting of a singletail. I find it in the precision and mindfulness with which I complete a task for my Sir. To sink into subspace, I allow my day, my life, my identity outside that moment, outside that scene, to slip into the background, and I offer myself as a vessel for the energy exchange between me and my Dominant.
Ghosts: All My Men Are Dead
Carol Queen
1
The ghost of Jack came back, sending me a spam email message many months after he had died. I cannot tell you how it felt to see his name pop up in that day’s queue. I wasn’t his primary lover, nor he mine. If anything I was down below tertiary, and we had not had any intimate time for ages—the sicker he got, the slimmer the chances became that we would ever again spend time in each other’s arms. Partly this was just an artifact of illness, his body wasting and his energy ebbing. Our love was always a fuck-love, anyway; we’d never had enough time together for it to change into anything else. Partly it was that I felt it proper to move over to make room for his other lovers, the real ones, the ones who took him to the doctor and fed him well and helped him monitor his meds. If he had a single hard-on in the year before he died, I felt I should stand aside so it could point at them. Partly it was because of Robert: to have two men in my life disabled by illness was one too many, and I slowly closed to Jack to protect myself from the pain of it.
And partly it was because watching another man I loved waste and die felt impossible. I do not know how I could possibly have allowed myself to withdraw from him, from any of them, but as I saw time passing, and Jack getting worse and worse, my heart shut down. I still sent him love notes. I still held him when I saw him. I did not speak to him about it, did not let him in on my feelings, did not see a therapist, did not try for closure.
My heart still leaped, when he emailed me after he was dead.
If Jack had been failing because of an AIDS-related illness, they might have been able to help him. But the days when doctors eagerly try to diagnose mystery ailments in beautiful queer men are over. Now there are protocols. Now there are meds that will keep the men alive, changing their bodies into drug-mediated entities of different shape and ability—but alive—but Jack was sick with something else, something they never really diagnosed, so another one of the HIV-negative queer men, like Robert too, who dodged the bullet of the epidemic, was visited by illness just the same.
Now all my men—Robert the exception that proves the rule—are dead.
Death let Jack use his computer, though, and he sent me one email. I’m surprised there haven’t been more—don’t you think the Russian spammers might have discovered a way to harness the dead computer-savvy queers the way the Mormons consider the afterlife their own personal religious recruiting station? I wish he would write back to me, even if only to tell me about some other kind of software I can’t live without. I trusted his recommendations about stuff like that when he was alive, too.
Most of my other men died before the Internet was a thing. They never write to me.
2
If I had come to San Francisco when I meant to—if I had run away to Haight-Ashbury when I was thirteen, as I dreamed of doing, if I had lit out right after high school and gotten here in the summer of 1974, if I had dropped out of college and joined Will when he moved to the city he called New Jerus
alem in time to burn cars in the White Night riots of 1979, I would surely have caught this bullet. I’d have found my way to the commune in the Haight where the Cockettes lived. I’d have been an SM dyke with nowhere to play but the Catacombs, like Pat Califia. I’d have fucked bi men and fags like Cynthia Slater, the first woman I knew who did get HIV, and succumbed. If I had been playing beside her, with the same people, I might have been dead before Jack ever left his small city where he was the biggest scary queer they ever saw because, like all of us, his path inexorably led him to San Francisco.
If I had come to San Francisco when I really should have come, not just for a visit during Pride Week, but to claim my city and promise myself to her when she first called to me, I would have met David Lourea at the Bisexual Center in 1981. I’d have met Steven Brown at San Francisco Sex Information not in 1989, when I did meet him there, but sometime shortly after 1973. By the time I met Robert—who’d withdrawn from the baths years before HIV shut them down because he knew enough to see that steadily rising caseload of hepatitis boded no good—I might have been HIV-positive.
Before I’d have learned, in the early ’80s, to be afraid, I’d have been unafraid, just like all the men whose sexual revolution in the 1970s inspired me from afar to try to understand from what cloth my own sexual revolution might be cut, a small-town dyke who really wanted to fuck practically every gay man she ever saw. Those men, finally unchained, had created their army of lovers, an army of lovers who could not fail: but who expected death to creep in along with the pleasure, along with the cocks-hard community-making? I came to San Francisco for the same reason they did: to fuck queer men, to make a home in New Jerusalem.