The Ultimate Guide to Kink (37 page)

I once participated in a whipping booth at a fund-raiser for the Operation Spanner defendants. (We were raising money for a small, private club of British leathermen who had been arrested and charged with assault for doing consensual SM with each other.) Prospective bottoms were allowed to pick any of several implements and specify the number of strokes and the level of intensity they desired. I was surprised how many eager novices lined up to see what it was all about. This seemed to be a safe way to try new toys and be just a bit of a masochist.

Toward the end of the event, after almost everyone had left, I was ready to pack it in. But one woman was very persistent. When I told her she would not be able to use the tickets she had purchased and offered her a refund, she was quite upset. She told me she had never been caned, she was terrified of it, but she felt so compelled to be caned that she was going out of her mind. She literally begged me to show her what it would be like to be out of control from pain.

So I bent her over the leather whipping bench, held her down with one hand on her lower back, and caned the bejesus out of her. She had asked for a dozen strokes and began to protest when we reached eight. “I have to insist on giving you what you asked for when you first talked to me,” I told her, “because I think that is what you really want and need.” So I hit her quite hard for the last four strokes, then added an additional one—“So you know that everything is not up to you. Sometimes the top will decide what you get.”

She was dizzy when she straightened up, and beaming. So proud of herself and grateful. She fell on my neck and hugged and kissed me. I even got a thank-you card from her years later. Sadly, in all that time, she had encountered no one who would help her over the hump by ignoring her pleas for mercy. What a waste of talent and thrills! Now, there was a potential masochist worth their salt.

But you can see how easily this scenario could have gone all pear-shaped, as our British colleagues would say. If I had been wrong in my assessment of her, she could very easily have come up from the table fighting mad, and justifiably so. She could have accused me of assaulting her. It certainly would have harmed my reputation (such as it is, poor sooty thing) and upset everyone who heard about it. We talk very little, regrettably, about how much the top needs to be able to trust the bottom. Buyer’s remorse can ruin another player’s life.

If it makes your crotch tingle to squeeze someone’s balls until he protests, or take a sharp little blade to her inner thigh, or if you can’t wait to get a blow job after you see the first bruises appear on a healthy pair of buns—well, you are by definition a sadist. The psychiatric experts pity masochists as self-harming fools. But they think sadists are dangerous. The
DSM-IV-TR
has some very silly things to say about sadists becoming rapists and killers.

The vulnerability of the masochist is plain. There they are, perhaps bound, heart pounding, dreading what is going to happen next, promising themselves that if they can just get through this one session they will never ask to be whipped/ branded/clipped/pierced/squeezed/frozen/tattooed again. But what about the leather-clad bastard who is going to put this poor, naked person through hell? Never mind that the masochist begged and pleaded for it yesterday. The expense of the equipment, the time it took to locate a soundproof space and good bondage equipment, all this effort is seen as self-serving rather than an honest attempt to make the bottom’s dreams come true.

NO-FAULT PLAY

It’s so easy to make a mistake once play begins. People shut down and quit communicating. In semidarkness, a whip may land where it shouldn’t. A game that was great fun two weeks ago is causing flashbacks tonight. The suspension equipment breaks, resulting in a painful fall, or a cane cracks in half and cuts someone. And yet everyone involved in these scenes had the best of intentions, and did everything within reason to be a good play partner.

This is why I recommend a no-fault attitude for BDSM players. As long as both partners respect each other, make a good-faith effort to abide by each other’s limits, and are open to feedback, I think that missteps ought to be understood as part of the price you pay for being on the edge. Indifferent or bad experiences are there to teach us how to avoid them. A couple or group who have an accident ought to give and receive comfort, make up, and keep learning. It takes a lot of experience, and a certain amount of innate talent, to correctly assess and challenge the central nervous system. Luck is a factor as well!

If you take any of the above paragraphs as an excuse for being lazy, negligent, or callous, well, you just ought to go to hell, that’s all I have to say. And I’ll probably be there to shovel some coal on the blaze.

ENOUGH, ALREADY!

In closing, let me bring up one more controversial fact. The heavier the scene, the more both partners experience weariness, anxiety, and aches and pains. It takes a lot of strength, grace, and stamina to work on someone’s body for a prolonged period of time. If you are a switch or a top, what is your attitude toward your own pain tolerance? Do you disapprove of it or ignore it? Do you pretend it doesn’t exist? Or do you work with it to build your own excitement? More than one dominatrix is wearing a pair of nipple clamps under her bustier to keep herself focused on her sniveling client. A famous domme author once referred to her extra-high heels as giving her a useful reservoir of irritability. I find it fascinating that in consensual BDSM, tops and bottoms and switches can all have a relationship with pain as a beloved friend and reward.

Some of my favorite play partners are tops who need a break. I am more than happy to anonymously provide a vacation for them at the other end of the whip. Every partner of mine is entitled to confidentiality. But because our community can be so stupid and judgmental about tops who get tired of always being the one to bark out the orders, I never even note the identities of these people in my journal. (As if anybody could ever read my handwriting.)

When a bottom whimpers and tells me they can’t take any more, I have been known to whip out a pair of needles and pierce my own nipples. While they watch. If I can take it, I ask, why can’t they?

And that’s the perfect place to stop. Because there’s only so much you can learn from reading a book. Go outside and play.

CHAPTER 16

INSIDE THE MIND OF A SADIST

FIFTHANGEL

In the dungeon, we entered what Katie and I call “Thunderdome.” Thunderdome is one of those large jungle gym–type things with hundreds of bars linked together to form a half dome. This particular one is rather immense and stands some 12 feet high—tall enough for suspension work. Katie very much enjoys being suspended upside down, so that was the plan for our night, though she had no idea what else I was going to do in this scene. Katie and I have been married for a few years now, and we do not use a safeword that enables her to stop a scene. Of course, if something is terribly wrong or very unsafe, she will bring it to my attention.

I started off by restraining her feet to a metal spreader bar that I had made. After her feet were clamped to the bar, I suspended her upside down from the top of the dome. I lashed her hands together behind her back with deep-red-colored hemp rope that she made for me. The rope is well used and scarred with bloodstains from prior scenes.

As with most times when I have sex with my wife, I did not have an organized plan. What happens is really a matter of what enters my head at the time, so my thoughts and actions are always subject to what she may say or do. For some reason, while I was binding her up, she moved in a direction I did not want. I said something to the effect of “Stop fucking moving.” She instantly began to cry for fear that something unpleasant was going to follow. She would only have this type of reaction during a scene because, in the past, I have punished the part of the body that made the mistake. It keeps her thinking about what not to do. While she cried, I continued my bondage work.

Underneath her were chux pads (medical drop cloths the size of a medium bath towel) to keep the floor clean and collect anything that might come out of her. The vast dungeon was dimly lit in this area, which made clear vision a challenge. Nonetheless, I was able to see the shadows cast by her external jugular veins. Because she was dangling from her feet, the veins in her neck had become engorged with blood.

I felt her neck veins with the pad of my finger, which let her know I was going to draw blood. Because her adrenaline was elevated from the excitement of the scene and she was suspended upside down, I knew I had limited time to work before she might pass out. I placed two holes in one of her jugular veins with an 18-gauge needle. Blood began to squirt from her neck and onto the white chux, and slowly dripped down her face, pooling below her. My cock was very hard at this point and I wanted it inside her. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought that part all the way through beforehand—it was impossible with her upside down.

My next-best solution was to bring her to orgasm by licking and tasting her pussy. Her legs were spread apart and her waist was at the height of my face, so this worked out well. It did not take long for her to have an orgasm. Her body shuddered and withered against the restraints and even more blood oozed from her neck due to the increased pressure in her body from the orgasm. Okay, I thought, she had her fun. Now it’s my turn.

DOMINANT, TOP, OR SADIST?

Later that evening and the next day, many people spoke to us about the scene and how hot it was. But what did they see? Was I being a Dominant? Many would agree that I was topping. Were there any elements of sadism? Viewing a scene from the outside, it can be difficult to see what the dynamics really are.

A Dominant, a Sadist, or a Top can wield a flogger, and by outward appearances they may appear the same; the difference is in the
intent
of the flogging, the receiver’s perception, and what you can’t see.

I have fulfilled the roles of Dominant, Top, and Sadist at various times in my tenure in the world of BDSM. The names of these roles vary to suit the user; the language can be imprecise. Although you can assume multiple roles simultaneously, I believe there are significant differences worth exploring. The emphasis of this piece will be sadism, since I feel it is the most complex, the least understood, and there are fewer examples of it in the kink community.

A Dominant, a Sadist, or a Top can wield a flogger, and by outward appearances they may appear the same; the difference is in the
intent
of the flogging, the receiver’s perception, and what you can’t see.

Top
is an all-encompassing role; topping describes the
actions
performed by one person (the Top) on another (the bottom), like wielding the flogger. But topping does not describe
behavior
. Behavior is how a person conducts himself or interacts with the environment around him. In the case of flogging, a Top’s intent is to flog the bottom, to create various sensations on the bottom’s body. The flogging may be pleasurable for the bottom, even playful and fun. The Top may gain pleasure from the flogging, but not necessarily sexual pleasure. The key element is that these actions do not have to lead to sexual arousal or gratification for the Top or the bottom.

Dominance
reflects a set of
behaviors
or a type of relationship. It is a dynamic where a power exchange takes place; the Dominant accepts control over another person (often, but not always, the submissive), and the submissive gives up control or power to the Dominant. Do not confuse giving up control with giving consent—everything we do is consensual. Dominance can be, but does not have to be, about sexual encounters or sexual gratification. Using flogging as an example again, a Dominant may employ flogging to communicate his control over the submissive’s body, making the submissive bend to his will, achieving the same result as a Top. The Dominant gains personal satisfaction in accepting and exercising this control.

Sadism
is a set of
behaviors
(or fantasies) involving the emotional or physical suffering of another that is sexually exciting to the Sadist. This is all about sexual gratification, nothing else. When a Sadist flogs someone, she wants them to suffer and be in pain at some point. Note that the pain and suffering are not sexually exciting to the bottom.

A Dominant becomes a Top or Sadist within a scene. A Dominant can be sadistic in a scene while he or she is topping. A Sadist does not have to be a Dominant in a scene, and vice versa. I would like to emphasize that dominance is a set of behaviors, not
physical actions
. As a supervisor in my career field, I have taken numerous behavioral tests, and in every case I was classified as “dominant”—an assessment that has nothing to do with my physical actions. Now, as a test subject for sadism, observe how hard my cock gets when my wife is in extreme pain and suffering.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SADISM

I am most noted for my consensual sadistic behavior, and I have performed a great deal of research on the subject of sadism—not to understand my own behavior, but to understand its origins, its history, and the language involved, kind of like some sick behavioral family tree, I guess. So let’s talk about sadism for a bit.

The ravished girls were led away to marriage; their very shame made them more beautiful. And when one struggled hard against her captor, He carried her away in eager arms, And said: “Why spoil your pretty eyes by weeping? Your father took your mother, I take you!”