Origins (1)

8 years old. Third grade. Small kid. Youngest in the class. Exceedingly shy. A favorite target of bullies.

During rec break, most of us in the class, boys and girls, were involved in a major snowball fight. Forts... prisoners... snowballs stockpiled in advance... the whole thing. One clean shot made you a POW... until members of your team overwhelmed the fort where you were held and rescued you.

For some reason that I wasn't really conscious of, in the middle of the action, I started daydreaming that two cute girls from the opposing camp, P and S, would be the ones to capture me. After nailing me with a snowball that would make a satisfying WHAP! against my snowsuit, they would call me out, and subdued, I would be marched over to their fort. Imagining myself held captive by them, I felt a warm feeling inside of me, a sense of relief that I was no longer on the run from other assaillants, I wouldn't get hit in the face by a snowball, or bullied by the class meanies as a sideshow to the actual snowball war. At the same time, I would be in the company of two pretty young girls that I evidently liked, without knowing or understanding why, and I would not have to go through the incredibly challenging task (and without doubt, embarassing task) of having to ask them to be their friend.

Some time later, maybe weeks, but more likely months, on a family trip, I found myself extending the daydream/fantasy when playing in the back of the car. Probably because my father braked suddenly, I rolled off the backseat and I was awkwardly trapped on the floor between the front seat and the backseat of the car. I stayed there for a while. I found my mind straying to a different place, again with an unexplicable warm feeling inside of me, as I found myself captured once more by P and S. I had been bound by rope, in that Cowboys & Indians type binding, with the rope coiled two dozen times around my upper body, in a cartoony kind of way. I was lying on the floor before the backseat of the car, at their feet, and they placed their feet over me to keep me still, looking down smiling in satisfaction at the captive they had in their possession.

This vision/fantasy was a re-occuring one for me over the course of the next 6 years or so. I remember that it often came back when on long car trips, or when a freshly-made bed had had the covers tucked tightly under the mattress, either because I slipped into it while it was like that, which happened occasionally at home, or because, during a stay at a hospital for a rather late incidence of a childhood disease (11 years old), the nurse would tuck us into bed each evening and create nearly immobilizing bondage by placing the sheets so far under the mattress.

The "captured" vision/fantasy took a back seat to other ones when, in my mid-teens, I came across my first novel about a dominant woman teacher forcibly seducing one of her young male students... in a strict but non-abusive way. This book led me to the discovery of a whole variety literature dealing with dominant women and their shy, younger male objects of passion...

Freud, anyone?

Favorite Things... a View From the Bottom

Inspired by a post by morningstar (May 20th, 2008), I thought I provide my own list of my favorite things. Of course, a second list, a view from the top, will eventually be necessary... Two disclaimers: first, not all of these are appropriate for newcomers, ans second, this is a personal list, so it may not work for everyone.

As a submissive, in no particular order, some of my favorite things are:
A caring sadist: someone that will accept the gift of submission with respect and honor. And who will be absolutely giddy at the prospect of what she can do with her new toy...
Bondage: nothing drives the point home that you are at the mercy of someone else like bondage does. Being bound is the signature on the contract of the power exchange...
Floggers/whips: the iconic beautiful, dominant woman wielding a flogger or a whip is a syren song that cannot be resisted. It will bring about altered states of mind if she can use them safely and competently.
Spanking/paddles: as appetizer, as desert, or as the main course, there is something just really satisfying about spanking and/or the use of paddles. Interestingly, it never seems like there's enough of it until there is too much...
Nipple torture: seriously now... is it really BDSM if nipple clamps aren't used? There are few body parts that can provide as a high a ROA (reward on abuse) as the nipples.
Puppy/pony play: makes one feel almost as submissive are one can get without being tied up. The head trip is directly proportional to how much the mistress enjoys it, and how obedient the pet is willing to be.
CBT: about the only thing that can make one more mentally vulnerable than being naked. Funny how CBT is the one type of bondage that no one struggles against or tries to break free from... the less movement, the better...
Servitude: is a room ever cleaned as fast, as well, or with as much enthusiasm as when it is part of a BDSM scene? All of a sudden, keeping chores isn't so boring when wearing fetish clothing, having hurtful implements hanging, or having someone with a crop watching over.
Piercing: within the wide range of possibilities that may come about when making the gift of submission, few things are as intoxicatingly erotic and sensual as offering one's body as a canvas. The needles may form the pattern, but the shades, hues, and colors are all created in one's mind.
Electric play: the combination of the wide range of sensations provided by electric toys and the huge surface of the body they can be applied to are second to none in competent hands. Just try not to think of Luke Skywalker being tortured by the Emperor in Episode 6...
Fire play: the ultimate in the sheer intensity and beauty of the scene, and for the synergy between the players. The nearer to the side of the cliff, the more extraordinary the view is...

There is so much more... but this should keep you busy for a while...

Quirky Observations

1. Recent car commercial by Nissan featuring high-performance CBT transmission...
2. Vanity license plate in a parking lot that read "UBN BAD"
3. Found on a youtube-type website where a trampling video was playing: an advertisement and link for a (vanilla) dating website that said "Have you found your crush?"

The Beauty of Punishment

My Dearly Beloved asked me about a little over a week ago how I would describe the beauty of punishment to someone outside the scene. Hmmmm...

I'm not sure it's that easy to describe in words that flash of images/emotions/sensations to someone that's involved in the scene, even if many would know what it means. Never mind someone outside the scene.

So does it have to do with the aesthetics of the scene? Like a passage out of The Beauty Trilogy, perhaps it has to do with the scenery around those giving/receiving it. It's the walls, the pool, the equipment, the field, the implements, the house, the lighting, the music, etc...

Maybe it has to do with how people look, both the principals involved and the observers. Ranging from fetish clothing like leather or latex to wearing nothing at all, or maybe just a collar, what people wear may be part of the beauty of punishment, primarily in a visual sense, but also on the level of smells, sounds, and touch.

What about the kind of session going on? Which is the more beautiful punishment? More sensual play or something more physical? Corporal punishment or fire play? A puppy-play scene or a piercing scene?

For me, those three factors contribute to it, but ultimately, the beauty of punishment is in the synergy that results from the exchange of power. There is something just magical that can be felt when a submissive surrenders to the dominant, and the dominant will, in return, take the submissive into a different dimension of sensations and mindspaces, enjoying the trip just as much, intoxicated by the power and the trust turned over by the submissive. You intensely feel it when you are part of it, and you can even feel it when you observe it.

It's not just the eroticism that is an implicit part of a beautiful punishment, but the joy, the trust, the caring, the intimacy. The beautiful punishment has both sides giving... the submissive makes the gift of submission and the dominant gives the submissive the gift of their skills, their imagination, their care, their experience... on a journey of mutual exploration and discovery.

A beautiful punishment is one of those things that you can't really make a checklist for. You know it when you see it, when you live it. It has an infinite number of possible variations, but at the same time, it is limited by innumerable contrainsts. It's pleasure from pain, it's receiving when giving up, it's a journey while immobilized, it's being the center of attention when relinquishing control, it's receiving everything we want when offering someone else to do whatever they want, it's realizing one's own fantasy when submitting to another's.

Part of the complexity of describing what a beautiful punishment is that is it so richly contextualized, so intensely personal. And at the end of the day, it would remain a tremendous challenge to explain or describe the beauty of punishment to someone who had never felt the visceral urge to submit or had been intoxicated by the high of dominance.