Thoughts upon recovering from a rope injury

I've been tied a lot lately and I think that I can finally say that I'm back to my full physical fitness from before the injury. It feels great to be able to be in ropes again without constant vigilance over what's happening in my body. To be able to let go like I used to do. 

However, being tied now is not the same. I'm not the same. This experience has definitely changed me. Fortunately, not in a way that I was afraid it will. I didn't become more cautious or more focused on my bodily signals. If anything, I might actually be less now. I think that I became more accepting of the fact that I might get an injury. It happened once and it might happen again. I'm not saying that I became more careless, but maybe less obsessive about it. 

Because when I got injured, I didn't receive any prior signals. It might have been that I was not paying attention, but I don't think that was it. I'm generally pretty aware of what's happening in my body and I'm able to communicate if something doesn't feel right. The scene was tough and I was suffering a lot. The position was not something that I am used to. But it wasn't more extreme than other things that I've experienced so far. It didn't make me feel like my body was violated in a bad way. And yet it did lead to an injury. 

Coming back to rope after recovery, I had two choices, limit what I do tremendously to make sure that I won't get injured again (which, in fact, you can never be sure about) or come back to the way that I used to do rope and accept that at some point I might get injured again. I went for the second option, which was my mindset also before the injury, but which has now become more mature because the risk is not so theoretical anymore. 

Rope bondage (especially if you do semi-suspensions and suspensions) is an edge play. And the nature of playing on the edge is such that you do get hurt from time to time. That's what makes the play exciting. But if you want the reward, you also need to be willing to accept the risk. Especially for me, since I really love my limits to be pushed, I really love to suffer, I feel like it's inevitable that from time to time something will go wrong. Trying to convince myself that I can prevent an injury from happening again while preserving the intensity of the experiences that I get from rope would be lying to myself. And doing that is limiting in my opinion. 

Realising and accepting the possible consequences and making a conscious decision to go forward regardless is freeing. The elephant disappears from the room. It also makes you realise how big value the thing that puts you in danger has to you that you continue to do it despite being conscious of the threat. I know that I would rather get injured again than stop having the amazing experiences that rope is giving me.

Of course, there are ways to minimise the risks. I tie with people who I trust and who, I believe, know their own limits. I work on maintaining my body awareness while being immersed in the tie. I analyse my bodily and emotional reactions after each tie and try to communicate to my rigger anything that I feel might be useful for them during (but preferably after) the session.

But… If I want myself and my riggers to develop, if we want to get out of our comfort zones, we need to move to an unknown territory. And since it is an unknown, you don't know what to expect there and you can't really prepare for it. You can listen as much as you want to other people who have been there but their experience can't really prepare you for your experience. Their body is not your body. Their mind is not your mind. Relying too much on their input might make you pay attention to the signs that were left there for them and miss the ones that are waiting for you.

However, if you stay cautious, self-aware, open and willing to learn, that exploration might lead you to amazing insights. Sometimes your lessons might be painful, sometimes you will need to lose something in order to gain something else. I think that now I am more aware and accepting of that. And looking forward to exploring the uncharted territory of rope bondage further. Because the real adventure has only just started.

I just think that I should be used

Some people might call me a slut, but I don't think that I am one. As far as I understand, being a slut is about enjoying sex and having as much of it as possible because you have pleasure from it. I don't care about my pleasure. I just think that I should be used. Other people should have pleasure from my body. That's their right.

My threshold for physical closeness is very low. As soon as I kind of like you, I will probably let you fuck me. If you realise that it is a possibility and how easy it is to get, I won't say no, because I'll think that you deserve it, just because you’ve requested it. Whether I want it is out of the question.

I think that it comes from the notion that I acquired as a teenager, that I need to repay people for physical closeness. And that payment should come in their ability to access my body. My need for physical touch and closeness is huge. Not necessarily sexual, just hugging, being caressed, kissed. Just feeling someone close to me. Being intimate.

In my youth, I thought that I can't just get it from someone without giving something in return. Somehow, I didn't feel like being close to me might be of any value to other people. So I needed to give them something more of myself to deserve the closeness. And sex was an easy and obvious currency.

So I learned to treat my body as an object and to use it to get an illusion of being close to someone. An illusion, not because they didn't want to be close to me, but because I couldn't really be close to them. Usually, because they weren't the people who I truly wanted to be close with. And those with whom I did, I was too terrified of rejection to ask.

I became a master of my way of seducing people by giving them all my attention. If I decided that I want someone to like me, I would do anything to please them. I still do it and it's not necessarily a bad thing. There is no pretending in there, they do really have all my attention at that time. The problem is that it's not sustainable and when it ends, it hurts. You can't be so focused on the other person 24/7 and not lose them and/or yourself. You should never forget about yourself in your quest to please.

Or shouldn't you? Getting to know more and more about BDSM and especially about D/s, I begin to realise that all these imprints that I have and that I used to see as negative, and which are negative in a normal world with ‘normal’ norms, are perfect for creating a successful D/s dynamic. With the right partner, my inability to be something else than a sexual object, my need to please and my hyper-focused attention on the other, are assets. As long as we both know what we are exploring and what we're both giving up and we agree to it, there is nothing negative about it.

Because can’t my unwillingness to explore my own sexual needs, and the desire to be a sexual object, be a need on its own? Why is it considered unhealthy to get pleasure not from my own physical pleasure, but from pleasing the other? Why isn’t it ok to suppress my own personal expression as a price of moulding myself to the image that someone else might have designed for me?

In today's western society all the above are definitely not valued and understood. We strive to develop the individual self, to express ourselves fully and to be emotionally independent of other people as much as possible. This kind of attitude is often portrayed as an ideal that we should all be striving for. But what if my individual expression is a lack thereof? What if I prefer to please other people than to please myself? What if I prefer to focus on other people than to focus on myself?

And don’t get me wrong, I am not an altruistic mother Teresa. I do have a lot of individual self-expression in my daily life. I do have goals, strong opinions about things and I like some people and strongly dislike others. But in sex, I just want to be used. I just want my partners to enjoy me and I want to please them as much as I can. I want to be their perfect toy. My only need is for them not to care about my needs.

It seems great at first sight, but actually it is a lot to ask. It is easy to get from someone who truly doesn’t care about you, but when they start to like you (or even worse, love you), they usually start to care about what you want. And that becomes very problematic for me.

Before I discovered kink, I had a lot of random sex with people who didn't care about me, because it was very easy to be objectified by them. But when I would start to be intimate with someone, having sex with them would become more and more difficult. They would begin to ask me too many questions about what I want. It was becoming too much about me. And when I started to think about it, I wasn't even sure if I want sex at all. I begin to wonder what should I want. What would they want me to want? Why don't I have needs on my own? What's wrong with me?

There is definitely something wrong with me (maybe 'wrong' is not the right world, out of the ordinary is better), but I don't necessarily want to change it. I found a place where the weird notions in my head can be a source of pleasure without guilt. I finally understand and accept that I enjoy the feeling that being used gives me, proxying my own pleasure using the pleasure of the other, the attention that I am getting from my user and how natural they become with me when they realise that they can just do whatever they want with me and they don't need to care about my needs. My whole life I've been working towards becoming a perfect toy (and I still am) without even realising it, and finally, I am starting to see value in my predisposition instead of considering myself a freak.

Because I just think that I should be used. Is that too much to ask for?

My reflections after reading ‘Story of O’

This writing contains spoilers.

It’s way too late for me to read this book only now, but better later than never, I guess. It is such a deep account of a mind of a woman who gives herself entirely to someone else and it stirred up so much in me that I just had to collect my thoughts together after reading.

My dark side is darker than I thought

First of all, reading this book made me realize that I might be even more fucked up than I thought I am. Because no matter how much I don’t want to admit it, there is a part of me that truly envies O. And it’s not naive childish envy without realizing the consequences. I think that by now I can have quite a good feeling of what being in her place would entail. And I still kind of want it. Not just the sex and the pain and the loss of control over your body. I want her brokenness and her despair. I want her transformation and the total loss of dignity. I want the disintegration of her ego in the name of the man who owns her.

And believe me or not, but writing about it is really scary. It’s scary because it reveals my darkest side which existence I don't necessarily want to admit to. In the same way, as dominants are sometimes afraid of the darkness that lies within them and that revealing it to other people will cause losing them, I am also afraid of revealing my darkest desires. At the same time I feel like if I don’t, they will only grow until they really get out of control.

Because I think that as much as it is scary for a submissive to play with someone who has a really dark side that they must keep at bay or otherwise things will go really wrong, it is as scary for a dominant to play with a submissive who has such dark side. In a different way of course. Because the dominant knowing it about me will not be afraid of me hurting him irreversibly. He will be afraid of him doing it to me and me not telling him when to stop. And there is a part of me that will not want to stop.

I realize that being in such an intense dynamic as O would basically fuck up my life. I realize that I would lose my identity. Because it is not possible to be exposed to such extreme situations of mental degradation and humiliation, to be stripped away of any control over what is happening with you and your body and get out of it unscathed. It would break me. And exactly that brokenness is what is luring me. Because I am curious what lies beyond that state. Would I be able to build myself up again?

In my teenage years, I loved reading fantasy books, because they were full of stories of people tortured physically and mentally and subsequently broken and becoming pets of their enemies. I devoured those stories. And not because I am a sadist and enjoyed reading about their misery. On the contrary, I enjoyed putting myself in the position of the victims. Imagining me being in their place and experiencing all the humiliation and tortures and slow breaking of my spirit. Watching myself becoming docile and obedient.

The interesting thing is that as much as I enjoyed reading about the breaking, I also very much enjoyed the rebuild. Because in the end, they were always becoming stronger. In the end, they always managed to get free and were starting the slow journey of rebuilding themselves. And after that was done, they were even fiercer and stronger. Because once you lost everything that you thought holds value and you’re still there, your perspective on who you are and what really is worthy, shifts entirely. And I think that that is one of the things that I am really interested in. Would I be able to repair myself after being so broken? And what kind of person would I become after that?

I started to appreciate much more the possibilities that the physical pain gives

My journey into kink started with humiliation, as this was what my first kinky boyfriend was very much into. After him, I quickly moved into the realms of physical pain though. I had a period of being extremely masochistic and looking mostly for physical pain in play. But then, after a while, something shifted in me and my kinks made a full circle back to humiliation, while I stopped enjoying physical pain so much.

I am not sure whether it is my auto-sadistic brain that decided that I will have more fun if I actually don’t enjoy pain, as it will increase my mental suffering, or whether after the first period of hormonal high, I decided that there is not enough depth for me in the physical pain domain, but the fact is that currently, I am in a period of appreciating mental pain much more than physical. More than that, I basically stopped enjoying physical pain altogether. I think that one of the reasons might be also that the people who give me pain nowadays are often the ones with whom I feel very submissive and from whom I wish only tenderness.

Reading ‘Story of O’ I started to see physical pain in a new light again. Not as a source of potential pleasure, but rather as a way to intensify my misery and as a catalyst for a mental breakdown that otherwise would be very difficult to achieve. And that got my attention.

I realized that being physically tortured really does something to you that possibly nothing else can. It makes you docile and obedient. It trains you to accept your faith and it shows you that you don’t matter. Of course, you can possibly achieve the same results with mental abuse, but something tells me (although I can’t explain why) that the results would not be exactly the same. There is something urgent and inevitable in the physical pain that mental abuse does not have. I don’t think that it is only the speed with which it causes the person to break, I think that it is also the way that it makes you break that is very different and quite interesting.

There is also another aspect of corporal torture, and especially the marks that it leaves that 'Story of O' revealed to me thanks to one sentence.

"Sir Stephen readily admitted that O was infinitely more moving when her body was covered with marks, of whatever kind, if only because these marks made it impossible for her to cheat and immediately proclaimed, the moment they were seen, that anything went as far as she was concerned."

I’ve never looked at it this way, but it makes so much sense that the marks are something to be ashamed of (or that one should be ashamed of) because they show that anything goes with me. They prove that you can treat me as badly as you wish and I will let you do that. I was always covering my marks, but more because I didn’t want uncomfortable questions. I’ve never looked at marks though as a source of shame about my lack of dignity, as a sign that I will let others do anything to my body. Now I can see it, though. And it offers lots of new exciting possibilities.

There is definitely something of a slave in me

There are many aspects of being a slave, like O was, that appeal to me. Above all, the lack of control and disregard with which other people are treating you. As a submissive you still have dignity, you belong to your Dom and it is something that you can be proud of. He is proud that you belong to him. You obey his orders, also because you know that he values you and he wants the best for you. He cares about you. Other people see that and respect you for that as well. But the position of a slave as was shown in the book is different. And in a way much more appealing to me.

The thing with me is that I don’t want to be cared about and respected. At least my dark side that I feed during play doesn’t. I want to be truly disregarded. I want to be used. And that is why the situation of O was so alluring for me. Because sir Stephen was truly disposing of her as if she didn’t matter to him. Or else, she did matter to him as your car would matter to you, but he definitely didn’t consider her feelings. They were completely out of the question. To him, she wasn’t a person. And she loved it.

"Would she ever dare to tell him that no pleasure, no joy, no figment of her imagination could ever compete with the happiness she felt at the way he used her with such utter freedom, at the notion that he could do anything with her, that there was no limit, no restriction in the manner with which, on her body, he might search for pleasure. Her absolute certainty that when he touched her, whether it was to fondle or flog her, when he ordered her to do something it was solely because he wanted to, her certainty that all he cared about was his own desire, so overwhelmed and gratified O that each time she saw new proof of it, and often even when it merely occurred to her in thought, a cape of fire, a burning breastplate extending from the shoulders to the knees, descended upon her."

And that’s definitely something that I identify with very strongly. To belong to someone who really uses me for his own pleasure disregarding my feelings completely is the greatest of joys.

I also loved all the small things that Rene and sir Stephen instilled on O to remind her at all times who she really is. How her lips always had to be slightly open, her legs never crossed and her clothes such that they are always easy to take off and have their way with her. I can only imagine how such small things can have a huge impact on one’s psyche. And that was only the beginning.

She had to expose herself whenever sir Stephen ordered her to, no matter who else was in the room. He would make his servant beat her, and give her away to his friends for use any way they wanted. Finally, in the last scene, he put her naked wearing an owl mask in the middle of a party, where people treated her as some weird animal, touching her and looking at her, but not once saying a word to her. She was just put in the middle of a crowd like some sort of cheap entertainment and after that used by the men who brought her there.

All these things are fantasies of mine. To be stripped away of my dignity, slowly broken into obedience, disgraced publicly, given away to anybody like a thing. To be put in a crowd for entertainment and really be treated as such. To be truly disregarded by a mob, have everyone around me treat me without respect. Isn't that how slaves are treated?

The thing about a slave in a D/s sense that doesn’t suit me though is that it seems to me like it is an awful lot of work for the Dominant/Master. Because having someone’s life in your hands is a huge burden in my opinion. Deciding about each aspect of someone else’s existence requires a lot of effort. They consume a lot of your attention. It requires a certain devotion from the owner. And I often feel that I couldn’t ask for that. Because I feel that I wouldn’t want to take so much space in someone else’s life. I am not sure if it is because of my tendency to be independent and to make my needs as small as possible or because I wouldn't trust my life to anyone to such a degree. But it's a reason why I don’t see myself as someone’s slave.

What I do see myself as is a toy. Their’s to play with whenever they please, in whatever way they please, and independent and self-sufficient whenever they get busy with their lives. Of course, in such circumstances, you won’t reach the level of devotion and depth that’s possible when you belong to the other at all times. But you also don’t become a burden that you might become as a slave. At least that is how I feel about it and being a burden is the last thing that I would wish to be for my Dominant.

___

Reading this book was quite a ride for me. I can't believe that the author managed to describe the process of falling deeper and deeper into submission and the feelings of the submissive so well. And how many times I wished I was in place of O. I don't think that I ever will get to that point. But the repertoire of my fantasies definitely has grown substantially after the read.

Does being an experienced dominant really mean being a better dominant? And what does ‘better dominant’ even mean?

“Hi Door, I am an experienced Dom/Top/Master...”

I can’t even count how many times I’ve received a message starting with this sentence. Yesterday it happened again, and I began wondering, why do so many Ds (let’s just call them that for the sake of brevity) think that it is such important information to share when they are approaching someone?

The thing is that for me it doesn’t make them any more appealing. Maybe they’ve dominated many people before, but they’ve never dominated me. So no matter how experienced they are, in terms of playing with me, they are newbies. And I like when my partners approach it that way.

I am not saying that it means that every new partner of mine needs to be overly cautious and take things awfully slow (that’s a stereotypical view on being a newbie I guess). Taking things slowly in play is not really my strongest point. I am more of a roller-coaster-experience kind of girl. It does mean though that I want them to be focused on reading me and getting to know me and not fall back on their experience with other subs.

Because the thing that I love the most about kink is that every person that I play with is completely different and also plays differently. That’s the beauty of it. The unique dynamic that is formed between the two people. And it happens through getting to know this particular person and not dominant/submissive people in general.

Saying that being experienced makes you a better play partner is a bit like saying that having been in many relationships makes you a more appealing romantic partner. Maybe in some ways it does, since there are certain obstacles that are shared among all relationships and having dealt with them in the past might help you deal with them in the future. But more often than not, it doesn’t really matter, since people are so complex that your experience from one relationship will probably not be very relevant to the next one.

What is true, is that relationships offer tremendous opportunities for growth and if you are a mindful and growth-oriented person then having been in a few relationships probably have taught you quite a bit. Still, the question here is more what kind of person you are than in how many relationships you’ve been before. If you lack self-reflection then even 100 relationships will not teach you anything. If you are able to self-reflect then one might already be enough.

To the advantage of the experienced Ds, there is a truth in saying that if you've done kink for a while then there is a big chance that you are skilled in some BDSM-related form of play, like impact or knife play or rope bondage, to name a few. And these are the areas where I definitely value dexterity. Actually, I'm a total sucker for skilled people. And I tend not to enjoy playing with people who are beginners in practical skill. I know, it's a bitch tendency on my side, I am working on it, but the truth is what it is. It mostly has to do with (lack of) patience and my perfectionism. To my defence, I do enjoy people who are striving for the best, even when they haven't gotten there yet.

But telling me that you are experienced doesn't tell me anything about your skills or your personality. It also doesn't give me any indication of whether I will want to submit to you. I've had great and strong D/s connection with people who are complete beginners and I've met experienced dominants with whom I didn't feel submissive at all.

In the end, this game is all about attitude and personality. So tell me something about that and not how many submissives you’ve had before. Show me who you are and who you can be to me. To me, D/s is about how and why you play and not about what you do and how many times you've done it before. So please, tell me something more interesting than that you are experienced.

Defining a Toy

I love to figure myself out. And lately, I've been asking myself a lot what does it mean that I identify as a Toy? Why do I feel like it fits me better than a submissive or a masochist that I’ve labelled myself before? Because it's not like I am not submissive or not masochistic. I am. But there is something about Toy that gives a distinct flavour to all the other roles that I identify with. And it really speaks to me.

Because what I want above all is to be played with. And now you can say, “Well, that’s not very special. All kinky people want to play. That’s what we are here for.” but what I mean is that I want to be toyed with, physically and emotionally. And above all, I want to be a source of entertainment.

The origins

Since I remember, I would let my friends make jokes about me and laugh at me. It never bothered me much. What they were saying was funny, they were laughing and I was laughing with them. Other people were sometimes surprised why would I let someone ridicule me like that, but I didn't see anything wrong with that. It's not like I wasn't able to cut their jokes if I wanted to. I wasn't a victim of bullying. I would never let someone whom I didn't like to make jokes about me. It was a privilege for the people whom I really liked. And the way that they were making jokes usually showed how much they knew me, which I was finding really pleasing. They were appreciating my openness and sense of humour and I was happy to be a source of entertainment for them.

I have also always loved to be manipulated. And again, it's not like I couldn't prevent it from happening. I usually knew perfectly what the other person was doing and I could stop it if I wanted to. But I didn’t because I preferred to enjoy their craftsmanship. I let them lead me wherever they wanted to lead me because I appreciated their effort. They were having fun with steering my mind where they wanted it to go and I was having fun being steered. I was glad to be able to give them pleasure like that.

These situations repeat themselves in kink. I like when my partners are mean to me or when they ridicule me. I like when they make the most painful jokes about me. I also love when people are manipulating me in play. When they send my mind in different directions while preparing a trap exactly where I least expect it. I appreciate their wit when they are doing so. I appreciate when they show that they know how to control my thoughts and when they know where to strike to hit me the hardest.

And I am happy to be the person for which they don’t need to censor themselves. There is something appealing in being mean to others and in using others. There is an undeniable joy in malice and in having power over someone. I like to be the source of that joy. I like to provide my partners with this kind of entertainment. And isn’t that what toys are for? For letting other people simulate situations that they would enjoy in real life, but which for some reason are not available to them? And, of course, for entertainment?

I want to have the attention of the other

I think that one of the main reasons why I enjoy all of it being done to me is that it gives me the attention of the other. And what does the toy want more than attention? Its only use is being played with, being entertaining to its owners. If it is granted their attention, then it means that it's serving them well because they want to play with it. If they don’t, then it's failing its purpose.

I love the attention. And when you give yourself fully to someone, you do get all their attention. If they want to use you to play their games, to elicit the emotions that they enjoy seeing in people, then they need to learn you. And for that, they need their focus to be on you. And I love that. I love when people are reading me, when they are seeing me and when they are figuring me out.

I think that part of me thinks that the only way in which I deserve the attention is when I am being useful to someone. The only reason why someone would want to see me is that I can serve them in some way. Part of me believes that I need to be pleasurable to the eye and entertaining at all times for others to notice me. That otherwise I am not worth their attention.

It is a part of me that now fuels my play. And I kind of love it, as it lets me have tremendously intense dynamics with people. I feel like I am in a way channelling my insecurities and my inner pleaser into play. And it allows me to partly eliminate it from other parts of my life. In play, I bring it to such an extreme that I start to see better how ridiculous it is to think that way in general. Also, having time for honest aftercare, when you hear from your partners how they value you for who you are is great for silencing the insecurities. But still, I wouldn't want my attention-seeking, pleasing self to go away entirely. In the end, it is the foundation of my toyness.

I want to see what they do with me, once they realize they can use me as they please

I'm so eager to be played with that I make it extremely easy to engage in play with me. I don't want to make it difficult. I don't want to be conquered and for my submission to be earned. I enjoy submitting way too much. I yearn to be in that space. I want the dominant to take me, to ‘have’ me. That's where the fun starts. I want to see what they are going to do with me. How are they going to use this toy that dropped so eagerly into their hands?

I used to be worried that maybe it's boring. Maybe dominants enjoy the struggle? Maybe they enjoy conquering the submissive, maybe they enjoy making him or her submit?

I don't think so anymore. It's not like the way I am is worse or better. It's just different. For me, the fun is not in having the power being taken away from me. I'm usually handing it over willingly. For me, the fun is in seeing and experiencing what the dominant decides to do with that power. In having a peek into his or her twisted mind. Is he or she thinking what I am thinking? Knowing that I will be willing to do most of the things that they might be fantasizing about, which of them will they decide to put into reality? And how will it affect me?

I want to be used and disregarded

I am not very specific in terms of play that I enjoy doing. Or maybe I should put it differently. I don't pay too much attention to my preferences when it comes to play. There are things that I do like, like rope bondage or being manhandled or knife play. But even apart from these, I can find pleasure in almost anything. Because what I value more than my own enjoyment is being used for the enjoyment of the other. And if it so happens that what they enjoy is not necessarily into my liking, that is even better. I want them to do it anyway because it is not me and my preferences, which are important in this game. I am just an object for them to entertain themselves with.

I love for my needs to be disregarded, not taken into account. I love when the dominant uses me for his or her pleasure. As a Toy, I don't think that my needs should be considered. Ideally, I should not have any needs. I do, though. I could see it as a flaw, but I don’t because I think that it makes it all the more fun for the dominant. As long as he or she enjoys objectifying and emotionally torturing other people. And those are the people who I am usually used by.

I could enjoy the things that are done to me just because the dominant is enjoying them. I believe that some submissives have that. Feeling pleasure from the fact that you are pleasing your dominant. I usually don't. I can be pleased after the scene if I was able to provide them with entertainment but I don’t feel pleasure during the scene because of the fact that the dominant is enjoying themselves. During the scene my discomfort and distress are real. I truly don’t enjoy the things they do to me. Which gives me all the more pleasure afterwards when I contemplate what they did. And which makes me fun to play with for emotional sadists. Because what fun it is to torture people when they find pleasure in what is being done to them?

I want to be a source of entertainment

I’ve mentioned it before and it is a bit tied with wanting the attention, but I feel like it deserves a separate line of thought. Because the thing is that I feel like in order to be able to deserve the attention, I need to be entertaining to others. And what kinds of Toys are the most entertaining? Interactive ones, I figured.

So I am very responsive in play. I react to everything that the other person is doing to me. They provide action and I am giving them the reaction. As I’ve said, I want people to read me, but at the same time I so much want to be played with that I don’t want that reading to be too much of an effort for them. I want the process of reading me to be fun because I am worried that otherwise, they will get bored before they get to the bottom of it. So I want to make it fun from the start, but at the same time to let them know that there is much more to be discovered.

I guess that if I would be a toy sold in a shop, the label on my packaging would read something like:

“This Toy is entertaining, but complex. It has many layers. Peeling off each one of them is a pleasure in itself, but it also leads to something even more enjoyable and even more intricate. So keep discovering it.”

I like to play with people, who enjoy that complexity. If someone gets satisfied after the first layer, I am kind of disappointed. I feel like screaming, “But there is so much more to me than this, don’t you want to play more?”

I like curious people. The ones who are able to discover many of my uses. The ones who are inventive. Because the thing is that even I don’t know all of my uses. When people play with me, I am playing right by their side. Peeking from behind their shoulder at my own reactions. And I am equally fascinated by them as they are.

I want to be used by many

I am not a kind of submissive that devotes herself to one person only. At least not to the best of my knowledge. I can be extremely devoted to one person at the moment, but I feel like I wouldn’t want to play exclusively with one person until the rest of my life. As an object of pleasure, I want to be enjoyed by many. I want to see what each person would do with the possibilities that I have to offer.

I am not saying that I wouldn’t like to be a beloved Toy of one very special person. But people rent their toys, even the beloved ones, to very special friends from time to time. If they are fun, then it is a shame to play with them all alone and not share with others.

Another thing that I discovered recently is that my need to please and entertain is not limited to the people that I feel submissive towards. I want everyone who plays with me to have fun. I will try to do what pleases them, just so that they are having a good time. I will let sadists hurt me because they enjoy giving pain. I will be sensual with people who enjoy sensuality. I will do as I am told by dominants because I want them to keep playing with me, even if they are not my dominant and I don’t really feel submissive towards them.

My draft definition

I think that the love for being treated like an object, combined with a need for being given attention and to be interacted with are very toy-like properties. Add to it the feeling that my purpose is to be entertaining and the extent to which I am willing to go to provide this entertainment, together with being open to being used by many and I feel like some sort of defining traits start to clarify.

I feel like all my other kinky traits revolve around being a Toy. Both my submissiveness and my masochism are flavoured by my toyness. My submission is very use-oriented and interactive. My masochism presents itself only when I can see that the other person enjoys seeing me enjoying the pain. But the Toy is always there and it is overarching everything else.

Finally, I don’t think that the things that I wrote about are all there is to it. But it is a good start. And I will keep digging until I define this elusive identity of mine.

The safewords I use and love

I must admit, I used to not be very good with using safewords. I would always establish them before play, but never actually use them.

My first kinky boyfriend was a bit worried about it. We used ‘apple’ as a safeword. Well, ‘used’ is a big word. We picked it to be our safeword, but I never actually got around using it. At some point, he just told me that he is going to continue torturing me until I say it because he wants to make sure that I am actually capable of doing it. It worked. For the first time, I used it. Part of the reason being the fact that I knew that he wants me to say it, so I felt compelled to do so in that situation. I am not sure what it proved though, it's overall usefulness or just my willingness to please.

I then moved to use ‘red, orange, green’ with my subsequent dominants and play partners. Still without much success. Especially when doing mind play (being tortured psychologically and/or emotionally), it was really hard for me to get myself to use those words. Somehow my mind space was not allowing me to get to say them. We’ve never gone too far, but I am pretty sure that if we would, I would most probably not call ‘red’.

One of the reasons why I almost never safeword is that when I really want to please my dominant, I can go really far. If I am really submissive towards someone, my trust in them goes very deeply. I trust that they know better than I do, what I can take. If they trust that I can take it, then I make myself believe that I can as well. And so far I could. But I am sure that there will be a point when I will need to protect us from going too far. And for that, I need to make sure that I will have the means to do so.

Another reason why I started to feel more need to find some safewords that actually work for me, is that I started to have more extreme scenes with people that I am not feeling particularly submissive towards. I sometimes play with sadistic friends, who can fuck me up pretty badly, both physically and mentally, but with whom my tolerance for how far I can go is much lower. Therefore, with them, a way to communicate my limits during the scene is even more vital. And calling ‘red, orange, green’ does not feel like a viable option.

It looks like I’ve finally found my alternatives.

Mercy

The moment I’ve read about someone using this word instead of ‘orange’ to indicate that the top needs to slow down but not end the scene, I fell in love with it.

The reason why ‘apple’ or ‘red, orange, green’ didn’t work for me, was that they felt very intrusive for the scene. I am a sucker for the atmosphere. I value the psychological effects of play above anything else. I want it to feel as real and as convincing as possible. And I feel that when I say ‘orange’ in the middle of the scene, it breaks the atmosphere. And even though it is not an indication that I want the scene to be over, it is kind of what it does to it. Because to get myself to spell out one of these random words, I need to get out of the headspace. They simply don’t belong in the vocabulary of a scene. So in order to get myself to say them, my mind needs to get out of play mode. I hate it and that is why I would rather suffer in silence, maybe a bit more than I am able to at the moment, then break the atmosphere altogether. I know, not the wisest thing to do, but I've told you, I am a sucker for the atmosphere and I will push myself to the limit sometimes in order to preserve it.

‘Mercy’ on the other hand is perfect. It fits perfectly within the realms of the scene and it is exactly what you want at the moment when you would say ‘orange’. You want mercy. You want the top(s) to give you a bit of a break. At the same time, 'mercy' is not one of the most usual things to say when someone is hurting you physically or mentally. In such circumstances, the first words that come to my mind are ‘no’, ‘please’ and ‘stop’, which I use very often during the scene and I love them to be ignored. I wouldn't want to make them one of my safewords, because I use them way too naturally and without thinking. 'Mercy' on the other hand is not something that I would say instinctively. And that is exactly why I love it so much. It lets me beg using my usual repertoire when I want to beg and not be listened to, and it gives me the power to ask for being listened to, when I feel like I need to, without breaking the flow of the scene.

I can’t take it anymore

This one I've discovered lately just because I used it a couple of times to end a scene without even being conscious of it. I negotiated with my partners that I will use ‘red’ to end the scene if I need to. But I also indicated that I might communicate a willingness to end in a different way and that it is usually clear when that happens because my in-scene communication skills are pretty good and it is easy to read me when I want things to end. I didn’t give them the proper ‘spell’ though, more of a ‘you will know it, when you see it’, which obviously is not ideal when you are a top.

They trusted me with it and it worked well. They could read my willingness to end without me having to 'red' the scene. And then after a couple of scenes, I realized that what I’ve been saying when I really wanted things to end was always the same sentence, 'I can't take it anymore'. And it works for a couple of reasons.

It communicates what it is supposed to communicate in plain English. It is a full concise sentence, so I wouldn’t just mutter it as a way of relief, like ‘please’ or ‘no’. I need to make a conscious effort in order to say it. Finally, it is exactly what is in my mind, when I feel like the scene needs to end.

At the same time, it keeps the atmosphere until the very end. It fits within the scene and it ends it is a non-invasive way. I use it as an indication that the top(s) need to end soon. I don’t want them to stop abruptly though. I indicate that we need to get towards the end, but they have space to wind everything down. And I feel like communicating it using this sentence lets us do so because it keeps the flow going.

Really

This is my latest revelation. My, as one of my friends and play partners called it, out-of-the-scene modifier. It basically means that any word that I add it to, should be taken out of the scene and treated like I mean it.

For example, if I say ‘stop’, I just beg as a way to relieve the tension, but I don’t expect to be listened to. But when I say ‘stop, really’, it means that I seriously want this person to stop and I probably didn’t have enough brainpower to come up with anything more coherent. If I say ‘I really can’t take it anymore’, that means that we need to stop the scene right now. That I don’t want us to wind down anything slowly. I really want to stop.

It can be very useful because sometimes I don't have the capacity to use the safewords that we agreed to. When in the headspace, my brain sometimes doesn't function as planned. At some point 'no', 'please' and 'stop' might actually be what I really want the person to do. If they get ignored, adding a 'really' to them is a very natural thing for me to do. It lets me communicate that this time I mean what I am saying and that I want to be taken seriously. And it is something that I would say without even thinking about it.

So I've finally found safewords that work for me. And I know they do because I actually used them a couple of times. These are the words that let me communicate what I want to communicate without having to get out of the headspace in order to do that. And I really love them.

I love the fact that I found something that works for me and makes me feel safer because I know that I will actually use it. And that I do not feel anymore like I need to sacrifice the quality of the scene in order to make it safe (which I sometimes might be reluctant to do, I know, that is not smart, but I know myself longer than today and it does happen).

I am not saying that well-known ‘red, orange, green’ or any other words are worse than what I listed above. Anything that works is just perfect. I know that for me they didn't work and that is why I am sharing what I've found to be working. Maybe it will help someone, who is struggling with the same issues as I did. Or at least I can use it as another must-read material for people who would like to play with me in the future.

This time of the year when you are reminded once again very acutely how far from ordinary your life is

So it came again. This time of the year, when you meet with your colleagues and their partners for a Christmas dinner and you realize that you are never going to achieve their level of normalcy (which you usually don’t aspire to, but being so acutely aware of your distance from it makes you slightly uncomfortable and feeling out if place).

This time when people ask you to summarize your year and tell them what the highlights were and all you can think of is how your dominant made you believe that he is a psychopath and you feared for your life or how you were hypnotized into a rag doll and fucked mercilessly while being half-conscious and helpless. Or how you were tortured and humiliated in rope in front of forty people and how afterwards everyone was telling you that it is was beautiful.

It is this time of the year when the frequency of biting your tongue, awkward silences and coming up with the worst possible lies is at its year-high.

Will there ever be a time when I can stop hiding my personality from the world?

Both kink and polyamory have grown to shape a big part of who I am. It happened organically and it has changed me on many levels. I really love how I've developed in the past two years and I would love to be able to share it with others. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not the best idea.

In general, people talk about relationships frequently, which makes hiding polyamory quite complicated. Because if I want to talk about my relationships, I either have to lie or I need to explain myself. Becoming polyamorous changed the way that I look at relationships and love in general. It made me both more connected and more self-sufficient at the same time. It made me question the status quo in many other aspects of life, also outside of romantic relationships. On the one hand, I would like to share it with other people, because I feel like otherwise, I am not myself with them. I am putting on a facade that is socially accepted, but it is not who I am. I am also not able to talk about all the important people in my life without lying who they are to me. But on the other hand, I know that my choices are not standard and if I share them, I will have to go through a process of explaining them as well. And not everyone that I interact with is worth going through it. Also, not everyone that I share it with will approve of it. I might turn some people against me. In terms of friendships, it is perfectly fine for me to lose people in my life if they can’t accept my choices. But when it comes to career or family, things get more complicated.

As for kink, one could say that not talking about it shouldn't be such a problem, as people usually don't share with others what they do in their bedrooms. That’s true, they don’t, but kink and D/s are way more than just sex for me. It's a way of life. It's a certain attitude and it permeates all aspects of my life. Accepting the fact that I am submissive, learning about my reactions to dominant people and playing with people, in general, taught me so much that I feel like I am putting on a very thick mask when I decide not to share those experiences. The play that I do requires constant self-analysis and work on myself, which often leads to enlightening discoveries. When I am around vanilla people, I need to police myself a lot not to share certain thoughts and insights, because I don’t want to be asked where I got them from. I need to shut off a big part of my life, lie about my free time activities and where I’ve met many of my friends and partners.

The alternative is even more complicated though because kink is so misunderstood in the society that sharing about it can potentially be dangerous, even leading to losing my career or the people that I love.
For me being open and true to myself is one of the most important values. But by being honest about kink and polyamory, I put myself in the spotlight. I give myself a label. Because once I share it, it is going to be one of the main things that people will remember me from. And they are going to ask me about it and I will have to explain it to them in the best way possible because it might be the only insight that they get into polyamory or kink and I don’t want to create a wrong image. The sheer fact that I’ve made many non-standard choices in my life creates a dilemma where I either have to be dishonest or serve as an example and an advocate of the choices that I’ve made. And sometimes I feel like I just want to live my life.

Will there ever be a time when I can proudly talk about how I express myself creatively?

I am a data scientist and I have an analytical mind, but I’ve always loved art. And I’ve been looking for ways to express myself artistically since I remember. I’ve tried playing the piano, singing, cooking, dancing and writing. Without greater success. Argentine tango was giving me some sort of satisfaction, but it was far from fulfilment.

Last year I finally found an activity that does make me feel like I am really creating some sort of art. It is rope bondage. And maybe writing about kink a little bit, but I don’t feel good enough in it to really be proud of it. In any case, I would love to be able to talk about these subjects. I used to feel kind of inferior towards people who I thought were creative, because I felt like they have something that I don’t. But at the same time, I’ve always found them fascinating and I was looking for their company. Thanks to rope and kink I feel like I also have something to say in terms of creativity and I would love to be able to share it with people whom I admire. Unfortunately, it is not always a good idea.

Last week during a Christmas dinner I’ve been talking to the husband of my manager (whom I find extremely interesting, very intelligent and well educated with a successful career in business, who happens to also be a recognized photographer with a number of exhibitions in galleries and so on). Before dinner we visited a photography exhibition and we had a talk about it afterwards. Then he asked me if I do anything to express myself artistically. That was a difficult moment for me. I really value his opinion and I wanted to impress him. I was so tempted to tell him that I am a Japanese rope bondage model and that I love it. That I feel like rope exposes some aspects of myself that are really at the core of who I am. That I think that I can really touch people with what I do. And that I really am starting to feel like I have something to say in it. That I understand what it means to create. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t because then I would have to explain to him what it is and where it comes from. And I would probably have to admit that I am kinky.
For me, rope is so much more than kink. It really allows me to express myself in ways that I didn’t know were possible. It is a beautiful art that I find utterly fascinating. Practising it is a big part of my life and I love to talk about it. Unfortunately, the only people that I can freely talk about it with are kinky people. With all the other people I need to remember that sharing about it equals coming out. And there are some people with whom coming out might be a really big deal and not in a good way.

Is staying in hiding really a good idea if I want something to change?

I keep asking myself this question. If I and fellow kinksters and polyamorous people keep staying in hiding, will anything ever change? Will public opinion about what we do ever change, if we don’t share about what we do? I hate the fact that I need to hide a big part of myself in most of my everyday interactions. That I always need to weigh my options carefully before I decide whether I can be completely transparent with someone. I hate putting on masks.

I feel like if I want something to change and if I want people to understand polyamory and kink, I should talk about it. By keeping it in hiding, I keep behaving like there is something wrong with what I am doing. And I definitely don’t think there is.

But… Sharing about it is an act of courage that is hard sometimes. People often feel threatened when they hear about other people being different than them. They don’t like them. And we are dependent on other people in our lives. We live in a society. We work for other people. We manage and are managed by other people. And if we want to be successful in a society, we need to make other people feel comfortable around us. We need them to like and respect us. And if we seem too different, they won’t.

So I am still doubting whether I want to be open about my choices or not. On the one hand, I feel like I should, not only because it makes me uncomfortable to pretend someone that I am not, but more because I feel like being open is the right thing to do if I want anything to change in the way that society views kink and polyamory. On the other hand, though, I don’t want to risk being pushed to the margins of the society and losing a chance for a successful life, because I’ve been too honest with the wrong people. Honesty makes you vulnerable and your vulnerability might be abused by some.

I am not sure if I am ready to pick up this fight. I am not sure if my position is strong enough to hold the weight of judgement that will come with coming out. I try to be honest about it with the people whom I trust, but I feel like that it is not enough. It’s easy, to be honest with people who you know will support and understand you. Or at least will try to understand. But I feel like I am not ready to be fully transparent yet. Especially not about kink. I feel like I am not ready to make most of my social interactions about defending my choices.

So I guess that I will have to still suffer through that period of lying and wearing thick masks to pretend that I am just like everybody else. It is saddening that it feels like I need to shield other people from who I am. It is saddening that I feel like I am not strong enough to be fully open about who I am. I hope that one day I will. I feel like I owe it to myself. But this time has not come yet.

If I am living a dream then why does it feel so much like a nightmare?

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a dream...

Throughout my life, I have grown used to getting what I want. It's quite amazing to what length others will go to please you if most of the time it is you, who is pleasing them. Now, you might think that I was a spoiled child, but it wasn’t the case. Quite the opposite. I was, in fact, a very good girl. Good student, good daughter, a good girlfriend. I've been moulding myself into a person who is pleasing to others, in order to make sure that, when the time comes, they will please me. I'm not sure if I would call it manipulation, but I guess in its essence, that's what it was. Intricate and well disguised, but still a manipulation. And it really worked. Family, friends, teachers, partners, they were all under my spell. Because how can you say no to this cute, innocent girl who is trying so hard to make you proud? The problem was that I wasn't really happy in that setting. In the back of my head, I was dreaming of meeting someone who will see through my tricks. Back then, I wasn't fully aware of it, but now I am. And I see a couple of reasons why that was the case.

First of all, if I would meet a person who is stricter than I am, I could finally stop being so hard on myself. Most of my life lacked external discipline, therefore, I was providing it to myself from the inside. It worked and helped me achieve many goals, but it's not a very emotionally healthy trait to have. Usually, when I learn something, I try so hard to be the best that my teachers/people who raise me only praise me, since they think that I'm already hard enough on myself. Well, maybe… But actually, I think that I need a lot of stimulation and push and very little praise. And if you don't provide it to me, then I just disregard what you're saying altogether. If someone is too soft on me, then it must mean that their standards are lower than mine. Why should I then rely on their opinion when evaluating my performance? But if there was someone (let’s call him a Master) who is hard on me, and whose judgement I trust, I could finally relax, and just focus on doing the work, while leaving the evaluation to him.

Secondly, with a person who doesn't fall for my tricks, I could stop pretending and finally be myself. When you keep being praised and rewarded for how well you are doing, it is easy to fall into a trap of associating your value with what you hear from others. Additionally, you become anxious about its end. So you keep trying harder to please others, and you forget about yourself. When you meet someone who can see through that, and who can see you for who you are, flaws and all, you can finally let go and just be yourself. It is who they see anyway. You don’t need to second guess anymore what kind of person you should be for them to like you. They already know what kind of person you are. And they like you. It would be so liberating to stop trying to control how other people see me and just let them be.

Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

So it looks like I finally found this person from my dreams. This person who can see through me, and doesn't fall for my cute looks, and an impression of a good girl. This person, who wants me to go further than that. To make mistakes and to grow. This person, who gives me challenges that are impossible to overcome, who bounds me to fail, only to show me that it's OK to be less than perfect, as long as I try hard enough. This person, who punishes me for every little mistake, with no room for excuses. Because it's OK to fail, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try harder the next time.

Finally, I've found this person, who doesn't give me what I want. No matter how much I beg, plead and curse. No matter how much of a good girl I am. No matter what I try to do to convince him to change his mind. He won't. Because he has all the power to execute his will. Because he has something that only he can give me, and he decides how and when it happens.

And it is heaven as much as it is hell. You see, when you are so dependent on one person to provide for your needs, it creates an entirely different level of suffering. The kind of suffering that you have no control over, and that lasts long after it was initiated. The kind of suffering, where you stop trusting yourself, because your mind will make you believe anything, to get what it needs. This suffering is not sudden and acute, like pain from a punch or from being called worthless. It's a process. A process of being taught a lesson. A process of adjusting to a new situation. A process of a painful realization, that not everything in your life you have control over, and sometimes you have to patiently wait for the things that you value.

It's a difficult experience, but at the same time, it's beautiful and exciting. It feels like this dynamic might teach me something way more valuable than only exploring my sexuality. It feels like it has the potential to change me and make me more at peace with myself and life in general. It already made me realize that sometimes, the things that you have no control over, are the most beautiful and rewarding. And even though there is nothing you can do to get them, you can help yourself, and stop chasing a dream (or a nightmare) living in your head, and start being present and appreciative of what you have and the people around you. Otherwise, you might miss what you so much wanted. And I so don’t want to miss it!

There is duality to me that I can’t quite explain

I've been participating in quite a lot of intense scenes lately. Actually, it's hard for me to recall a scene that I took part in and that wasn't intense in some way. Most of the time I am loving it. I love to scream and beg and cry and moan. Especially with a small crowd of spectators around. Only until I don't.

There is this part of me that wants always to be the loudest, the most sexual and the most intense player. And that utterly enjoys being teased and listening to comments of others about it. But there is also this other part that wants it to stop. The part that wants to just blend in and stop drawing attention. The part that wants some quiet space. I'm usually not listening to it because I think it's weak and boring. And I can't accept myself being either. They don't fit into the stories that I tell myself about who I am.

I've recently grown to realize that being a masochist is such an integral part of my personality that it penetrates every aspect of my life. It's funny because a year ago I wasn’t even aware that I enjoy pain so much and right now I identify myself with the masochist label more than any other in kink. Although I embrace it fully, taking pleasure in acting against yourself can sometimes make things difficult. Especially, when you're trying to grow to become a healthy, independent and loving yourself individual.

Like that time when I was my partner playing with someone else the entire evening without giving me any attention. Instead of doing what a healthy loving person would do, communicating about how I felt and finding a solution that would work for us, I decided to silently go on a rampage. Throughout the evening I participated in one intense scene after another, interlaced with emotionally distancing myself from everyone else and telling myself how unloved, unimportant and useless I am to him. Doesn't sound like a good idea, does it? But a part of me was sure as hell enjoying it.

Or when I pack my agenda with work, tying, dancing, dating, meeting friends, travelling, learning and one hundred other activities to the point where I have literally no time for myself. And I continue doing so until I snap and get sick and just need to get rest, because otherwise I will not be able to function efficiently again. A rational and self-caring human being would rest at least one day a week in order to regenerate and take care of their needs. But not me. I enjoy pushing myself to the edge and over it way too much to spoil it with self-care.

There are also situations, when being a masochist helps. It helped me achieve many goals and push myself far out of my comfort zone. When there is something difficult ahead of me, an exam, a job change, moving to another country, going to therapy, I jump right in, because I know that suffering is waiting for me there. It makes challenges easier to endure, not only because of the improvements that they bring me, but also because of the pain that I experience on the way.

I might be wrong, but I have a feeling that the duality that I mentioned earlier is an inevitable part of being a masochist. When you crave pain, you want something that rationally thinking you shouldn't. So you are experiencing simultaneously dual needs of wanting the pain to continue and to stop at the same time. It's similar with the humiliation play, which I see basically as intense emotional masochism. When you are degraded by someone you love, you actually do want him to stop, say that it's all a lie and that he loves you. But you also want him to keep going and make it feel real, to convince you that you're worthless to him, because that's what gives you pleasure. All these contradictory feelings make me question my sanity at times. While in play it's hot and it's exactly what I want. In real life it's often something that I would rather avoid. But I don’t always can.

So I guess what I'm trying to tell myself is that it's OK to be this dual person who wants two opposite things at the same time. Who wants both to be loud and watched and for everyone to turn their heads away and not pay attention. This person who wants to be loved and cared for but also put down and ignored. This person who is unapologetic and free in expressing herself and at the same time takes other people's opinions way too seriously. Because no matter how irrational and impossible it seems, this is me. And if there is one thing I know, is that logic is not something that my feelings have heard of. And I think they should stay that way.

My kinky play rule book

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my approach to kinky play and risks related to it. And out of all that thinking I decided that it will be good to put my thoughts on paper, both to make them more concrete, but also out of laziness. Now I can just make people read it before we go into any discussions about kink, play, consent etc.

I take the responsibility

Sex is a risky business. Kinky play especially. When I engage in it with another person (or people) I assume that we are all aware of the risks that we are taking and that we are equally responsible for managing them. That means that I am responsible for making sure that my partner is not getting hurt but also for taking care of myself and I expect the same of my partner. I want my tops to feel safe to hurt me. Even though it is the dominant who decides how the scene evolves, I definitely don’t feel like I have no influence over it. First of all, it is my choice how I respond to his/her actions. Through non-verbal (preferred way for me during play) communication I can channel the effects that their actions have on me. Plus I always have the right to stop them. I find it empowering and psychologically healthy to think this way. As this and many other research works suggest, feeling in control over what is happening in one’s life (including sexual life) is a key to one’s mental health. It might not sound very 'subby'. But for me taking the responsibility does not mean that I stay in control of the situation. Sometimes I do want to feel like I have lost all control and all the power is in hands of the dominant. I realize, though, that the result of this dynamic might be that we go too far and I get hurt and I am ready to deal with the consequences.

I take equal share in risk and reward

There is this theory in the economy saying that there is ‘no free lunch’, meaning that there is no return without a risk. And the higher the return, the higher the risk. Implicitly then, if we make the tops run more risk (in terms of the responsibility for hurting the other person), we also imply that they are more rewarded than the bottoms are. This creates a power imbalance that I don’t find fair. I don’t feel like a top gains more from hurting or using me than I get from being hurt and used by him. We want opposite but complimentary things that give us both pleasure. Even though I am offering myself to the other person, it is not a sacrifice. It is fulfilling my own deep need to serve and please. Recognizing and acknowledging it brings balance to the equation. We both get our kinky needs fulfilled by playing a risky game of hurting/getting hurt. And since it is risky, it might sometimes turn out not the way we wanted. I appreciate the risk that the top is taking by making me suffer. The same way as they appreciate the risk that I am taking by going through the suffering.

I play with people who listen

I chose carefully the people who I play with. That does not necessarily mean that I get to know them very well before I engage into something sensual with them. In the end I like the thrill of getting to know a person spontaneously through play. But I do try to assess if I trust that they are going to listen when I communicate that something needs to stop. Are they empathetic and open? Or self-centered and biased? The latter is a no-go, no matter how popular or skilled they are. I trust my intuition about people. And if I have doubts, I wait to get to know them better before going further. I am especially careful when I play with people who are in a way famous. In a small and relatively closed community like kink (and especially rope) community, the popular people are quite accessible for play. Because of the sort of power that they seem to have, it might be harder to say 'no' to them. I try to be aware of that and pay close attention to my intentions. Am I really interested in them as people or just in their skills? For experienced people it might be easier to put you in a certain 'high' state when it is hard to make rational decisions. So basically I run more risk of being manipulated for a higher reward of going through amazing emotions. I am ready to take it but try to be aware of the risks involved and also my own motivations. I do realize that I might miscalculate sometime how well intended someone is, especially with someone that I don’t know that well. It is the risk that I am ready to take in return for the excitement of intense play with a new person. If I do it though, I try to limit myself to the people who belong to one of my circles.

I treat bad experiences as learning points, not breaking points

For a while already I had a view on female sexuality that this article helped me put into words. It might sound harsh, but I think that women tend to be oversensitive about their sexual experiences. We are taught that we should be careful and guard our sexuality from predators lurking everywhere. We should spare ourselves and only get intimate with men who really ‘deserve’ it. I think that it is bullshit. I don’t think my sexuality is in any way more sacred and special than male sexuality. I love sex and I love exploring all its different facets. It takes a lot of trial and error, though, to find out what really gets you. Especially in kink. And that inevitably involves a lot of awkward and uncomfortable moments. Accidents happen when you get intimate with other people. In the heat of the moment someone might kiss you unexpectedly or touch you in a place where you didn’t want to be touched. As long as you communicate clearly that you want them to stop and they do that, I think that it is ok. I try to not get too upset when something goes wrong. Sure, I might have gotten uncomfortable, but it is ok to get uncomfortable from time to time. I try to analyse it and see where it went wrong. Was there something that I might have done better? Was I aware of and communicating my emotions? And do I want to try it again? Sometimes things don’t work because it wasn’t the right person/situation/mindset. And sometimes they are just not for me. It is good to distinguish between those.

I guess that some people would call my approach to kink RACK or PRICK. I do not really care that much about labels. I know that so far it worked for me and made me feel safe and in control.