NaBloPoMo post 19: Something Wicked This Way Comes
I had a long road to expressing my kinky self. I think a lot of that goes back to how I was as a kid, that incredibly cautious, fearful bookworm who was so afraid to speak around others. Dreading a social misstep, and there were many.
I didn't dare offer myself as a person who could control a situation until I felt confident I could: and that confidence took a long time to build. It was even longer, feeling that I had enough expertise to cause good pain and not accidental injury.
I have a lot of difficulty placing the time that I "entered the scene". For most people, it seems, there is a very short period between attending kinky events and participating in scenes. For me, that caution and fear kept me as a silent observer for years. I learned so much by watching others, but I despaired. Sometimes I'd get an invite to a party and couldn't manage to speak to anybody all evening!
I was so happy when the Fetish Fleamarket, a kinky con, made its home in Providence many years ago. "Maybe . . . maybe I'll get invited to a room party!" I'd feverishly hope, and sometimes I did! And often, that was the only playparty I'd be invited to all year. I have a lot of empathy for new Dominants, it sucked so hard to be a painfully shy newbie Domme myself.
Then FetLife came into existence, and it got a hell of a lot easier to find the local scene. Thank fucking God! But attending the gatherings in public spaces (called munches) was one thing, actually being invited to playparties and playing myself was quite another.
I had two very important sets of training wheels: Heather Jacobs and The Society.
Like so many other things in my life, I had to think about being a Domme a lot before becoming one. And once again, roleplaying helped me figure my shit out, giving me a safe place to explore where I couldn't possibly injure anybody. I had a character on Immortal Vigilance who was perfect for this purpose. Her name was Heather Jacobs, and she was a very, very twisted vampire. Everything I could imagine a perfect Domme being. I giggle, thinking back to the way I used to describe her dungeon as "having every piece of bondage furniture you could imagine", because I could only name one or two items! Heather had the power to hypnotise and to create shadow-tentacles, two very handy powers for bondage, rape, and changing a victim's psyche to meet her needs.
She's more hardcore than I'll ever be. But then, most of her worst tortures were inflicted on fellow vampires, who can heal severe injuries without much trouble. In my roleplaying through her, I was starting to get a feel for what got my blood up: tears, protests of "no!", gasps and moans of pain, blood, skin that's pierced or peeled, tight bondage, hypnotism, mindfuckery, treating humans as specific animals, rape.
Yeah, a feminist who likes to rape people (who are "secretly" willing). Even I haven't wrapped my head fully around that one. I'm working on it, though. But I want to stop here and try to explain that the process of exploring kink is a difficult search within to find all of your deepest desires and finding a safe, sane, consensual way to make them happen. Some people are lucky enough to have what gets them going be completely mainstream, like women wearing lingerie or men with rock hard 6-pack abs. But considering how many longterm vanilla couples are encouraged to try mild bondage and light impact play and roleplay, I suspect there are probably more kinky people than "true" vanillas. It's the same as Kinsey suspecting that most people are neither fully straight nor fully gay, but somewhere inbetween. He followed up that suspicion with gathering evidence that wasn't exactly representational, but further studies have proved him to be right.
Still, I totally understand if the thought of me getting aroused by reducing someone to tears is an uncomfortable one. One of the most fascinating things about sexuality is how individual it is, and the thing that horrifies one person can be another's biggest fetish. Rule 34, baby.
My other set of training wheels, The Society, totally deserves its own entry.
I didn't dare offer myself as a person who could control a situation until I felt confident I could: and that confidence took a long time to build. It was even longer, feeling that I had enough expertise to cause good pain and not accidental injury.
I have a lot of difficulty placing the time that I "entered the scene". For most people, it seems, there is a very short period between attending kinky events and participating in scenes. For me, that caution and fear kept me as a silent observer for years. I learned so much by watching others, but I despaired. Sometimes I'd get an invite to a party and couldn't manage to speak to anybody all evening!
I was so happy when the Fetish Fleamarket, a kinky con, made its home in Providence many years ago. "Maybe . . . maybe I'll get invited to a room party!" I'd feverishly hope, and sometimes I did! And often, that was the only playparty I'd be invited to all year. I have a lot of empathy for new Dominants, it sucked so hard to be a painfully shy newbie Domme myself.
Then FetLife came into existence, and it got a hell of a lot easier to find the local scene. Thank fucking God! But attending the gatherings in public spaces (called munches) was one thing, actually being invited to playparties and playing myself was quite another.
I had two very important sets of training wheels: Heather Jacobs and The Society.
Like so many other things in my life, I had to think about being a Domme a lot before becoming one. And once again, roleplaying helped me figure my shit out, giving me a safe place to explore where I couldn't possibly injure anybody. I had a character on Immortal Vigilance who was perfect for this purpose. Her name was Heather Jacobs, and she was a very, very twisted vampire. Everything I could imagine a perfect Domme being. I giggle, thinking back to the way I used to describe her dungeon as "having every piece of bondage furniture you could imagine", because I could only name one or two items! Heather had the power to hypnotise and to create shadow-tentacles, two very handy powers for bondage, rape, and changing a victim's psyche to meet her needs.
She's more hardcore than I'll ever be. But then, most of her worst tortures were inflicted on fellow vampires, who can heal severe injuries without much trouble. In my roleplaying through her, I was starting to get a feel for what got my blood up: tears, protests of "no!", gasps and moans of pain, blood, skin that's pierced or peeled, tight bondage, hypnotism, mindfuckery, treating humans as specific animals, rape.
Yeah, a feminist who likes to rape people (who are "secretly" willing). Even I haven't wrapped my head fully around that one. I'm working on it, though. But I want to stop here and try to explain that the process of exploring kink is a difficult search within to find all of your deepest desires and finding a safe, sane, consensual way to make them happen. Some people are lucky enough to have what gets them going be completely mainstream, like women wearing lingerie or men with rock hard 6-pack abs. But considering how many longterm vanilla couples are encouraged to try mild bondage and light impact play and roleplay, I suspect there are probably more kinky people than "true" vanillas. It's the same as Kinsey suspecting that most people are neither fully straight nor fully gay, but somewhere inbetween. He followed up that suspicion with gathering evidence that wasn't exactly representational, but further studies have proved him to be right.
Still, I totally understand if the thought of me getting aroused by reducing someone to tears is an uncomfortable one. One of the most fascinating things about sexuality is how individual it is, and the thing that horrifies one person can be another's biggest fetish. Rule 34, baby.
My other set of training wheels, The Society, totally deserves its own entry.