This "Images" collection is exceptionally "bloggy". There are a couple "proto-images" and some of the discussions include some fantasy ideas. But this one is a lot more discussion about BDSM than it is BDSM fantasy and fiction. Those interested in discussion about BDSM may perhaps find it worthwhile, otherwise it'd be better to stop reading now. My "Images" (a term I stole from Suki) are short ideas, images, and sketches written for the amusement of and offered as tribute to my Liege and Lady. They were always longer and never so well crafted as Suki's short masterpieces, and over time, my Images files began to include various email excerpts and other works in progress or ideas for works and became more journal than art, so some juxtapositions may seem odd. Some of my Images follow. They are generally cruel and nonconsensual and of interest only to sickphuxs, so please read no further if such doesn't appeal to you. The Images are impurely the products of a warped imagination, and should not be seen as a reflection of the scene, nor should they be imitated by anyone not interested in a protracted term as the ward of the state. Steven S. Davis --------------------------------------------- Emotional Sadism A correspondent asked me for my thoughts on emotional sadism. On the chance that someone might find some excerpts from this correspondence (all words mine) useful, I'm attaching the following: ********* A quick partial answer is that I think the big issue with emotional sadism is the difficulty of gauging impact, both for the top and for the bottom, which is made especially complicated by the way the aftereffects of emotional sadism can be so slippery. The difficulty of judging the impact of emotional sadism, the way responses can be delayed, and the way 2nd day responses can be so different from first day responses[1], all cause me to regard emotional sadism as the much more difficult and hazardous form. As for the ethics of it, I don't find them to be any different than I do for any other extremely hazardous play. The main point I'd stress to anyone planning on doing emotional sadism is that the impossibility of ever having as much information as one would usually want is something that one must factor in. If we did physical sadism with as little knowledge of the impact of what we're doing as we must tolerate when doing emotional sadism, it'd be considered very irresponsible play. But with emotional sadism, you simply can't know (save perhaps when doing something very familiar with a very familiar partner) the impacts as well as you'd like, so if one is going to play that way one just has to accept the higher risks that come with lesser information (which of course doesn't mean taking no care in what one does, one still reduces risks as far as one can and still achieve the desired results, it's just that those risks aren't as reducible/controllable as are those of (most) sorts of physical sadism; a scene can go beautifully today and everyone is very happy, and tomorrow (or worse, next week when no one is looking for it) things can get very, very bad). If it's hot for both partners and they accept those risks and the responsibilities that come with them, and especially when it's consequences seem good for the bottom, then it's a quite acceptable way to play. It's a subject which bears longer discussion (perhaps especially on the ethical issue of doing BDSM with people whose motivations are destructive) but that's my quick answer. [1] I recall a long scene in which between tortures I verbally abused a woman (humiliation/degradation is not always, arguably, emotional sadomasochism, though it can be sometimes; I don't actually think it was, in this case, because her reaction to degradation was not a painful one, however, humiliation/degradation shares with emotional sadomasochism the issue of "day after" responses). I'd repeatedly vilified her and repeated forcefully and frequently that she was an object with no rights or dignity or choice, worthy of no respect, that she existed exclusively for my pleasure and that my pleasure was to use her for sex and pain, that fucking and sucking and receiving pain was her sole reason for being and the only reason she was allowed to keep using oxygen, that she was just an animated sextoy and that what she thought or wanted was of no interest and how she felt only mattered when she was being fondled before being fucked and that she had no inherent value whatsoever, her only worth being her utilitarian value in the pleasure she gave from sex and receiving pain and fortunately for her she was very valuable for that so she'd be allowed to exist though as low as she was[2] she had no rights at all not even the right to exist. And she quite enjoyed it all. But the day after when the sexual pleasure of it all was past and she was dealing with the effect of being so thoroughly degraded, she didn't like it very much and needed a lot of reassurance and emotional support. [2] My line about her being so low that even Robert Ballard couldn't find her didn't go over ;-( ******* [regarding mind-body impacts and does what we do to one impact the other] In either direction, probably so, though the impact will usually be mostly to the body or the mind. Obviously extreme emotional stress can have marked physical effects (up to killing the subject) and physical stress can cause marked emotional/psychological impacts (an issue complicated by the way the post-traumatic stress disorder is partly a physical affliction, the result of changes in brain chemistry that result from extremely stressful events (so if you were to show your submissive the car radios and garage door openers can cause a power strip to turn on, and then show him the effects a meat grinder has when plugged into the strip and when the power is on, then turn the strip off and bind your boy very securely with his cock and balls jammed into the grinder, the blades painfully pressing him, and then walk away say "I hope for your sake no one driving buy is listening to the wrong radio station, and that no one comes home and opens the garage for the next hour or so", even if in fact you've fixed things so the grinder can't come on, and even if he does trust you, if you did a good enough job of showing him the danger and hiding the safety, it's going to be hard for him not to be scared each time he hears a car drive by outside, and if after a couple hours of growing discomfort and fear you flick a button that causes a second grinder nearby to spring to life with that sound you made certain he knew, well, even if he doesn't have a heart attack the fear and stress might alter his brain chemistry (or so I recall though I can't offer a citation for the element of PTSD (and assuming that meat grinders can be used that way, I admit to not actually knowing much about them and whether there are any you could put a kneeling man's genitals into and leave him awaiting his fate)). But while there are physical impacts from emotional play and emotional impacts from physical play, the effects are usually predominantly either one or the other. [snip] Certainly that sort of control, and that toying with feelings and perceptions, can be very hot. And being under such control and being the object of such intense efforts can also be very hot. [snip] Conditioning can occur without intention and in ways that are unwelcome even when the activity is welcome. I know a heavy masochist who has sometimes been played with by having the torture continue after she orgasms, which is significant because her pain tolerance goes down markedly after orgasm. After she comes the pain is just pain, but it's still welcome emotionally because she enjoys the feeling of utter helplessness she has when she's come and he either has or doesn't want to and still the torture goes on and she knows there's nothing she can do to stop or even influence the torture. But a consequence of such play has been conditioning her against coming, because while she may welcome it, her body doesn't and it has learned that to come means to experience terrible undiluted pain and it wants to avoid this. She hasn't been conditioned not to come, but it has happened that it takes her longer to come during BDSM. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it was, as i understand, unintentional and undesired by the people involved. [regarding subs who seek destruction] At this point I'd wonder two things. One, does he really want this, or is the idea of it hot because of what else it represents for him ? Is it the idea of being destroyed, or the idea of being unable to prevent his destruction what's hot ? I can find the idea of being tied down and immobile while a woman in stiletto heels rests her heels light against my eyelids and taunts me about the ease with which she could lower her feet and push the sharp heels through me, how it takes more effort for her to keep the heels out of my eyes than it would to plunge them into them, and how much she'd like to do this but not yet, not till she's enjoyed my trembling and whimpering for a while longer, not till the fatigue - can't I feel the trembling that's starting in her legs - becomes more painful than my terror is pleasing. But it's not that I want to be blinded by high heels. I like the idea of the vulnerability and of the intense attention by and connection with a women who loves my fear and helplessness that such a scene would entail. What is it he really wants ? Destruction, or to be known so completely and so intimately and to feel such emotional vulnerability that he could be destroyed in a moment by his dominant, and to be valuable and desirable enough that she'd take the time to gain that power and revel in possessing it - but would not want to lose it by exercising it ? If he wants destruction, I'd say that he's someone to avoid. If he craves what being vulnerable to destruction can give him, that's another matter. But that's very hard to know - and it's very easy to believe what seems most sensible and most pleasing to oneself even when that isn't or at least needn't be the truth. [snip] Destroying a person is a great temptation, as is having the power to destroy a person. And emotional destruction has the extra attraction that you can destroy a person and then keep reveling in their destruction (while physical destruction, however intensely hot the moment might be, leave you with the moment past and unregainable. I might want to look in a woman's eyes while I'm garroting her, loosening the cords repeatedly while I'm doing so to bring her back several times from the brink and then to actually do it and see the light in those eyes go out forever. And I might think that for someone else to want to do that to me is very hot (though my fantasies have her saying to me, when she has me on the brink "I so want to kill you. It would be the greatest moment of my life. But afterwards you be gone and I don't want to be in a world without you, so I won't".) But it can't be done, the event takes away more than it brings. But an emotionally destroyed person, if he isn't driven to kill himself, that leaves a wreckage you can keep enjoying. It's easy to understand that appeal. I said, FWIW, that I don't think much about emotional sadism. That was using a fairly narrow definition. In fact I think the idea of bring someone to despair is very hot, as are certain sorts of intense emotional pain (I'm not sure what else it could be but emotional sadism to imagine, as I did in one of my Images, having a woman tied immobile and then one by one killing her children by very slowly draining their blood as she watched, and dripping that blood onto her head, her being slowly drenched in their blood while they were blanched of it and as she listened helplessly to their pleas for her help). But I tend not to be as into the sadism which aims to get inside a person and destroy her psyche or break her heart. [regarding the self-doubts our desires can cause] The closest answer I can give is this: 1) Thoughts and desires don't make you a bad person. Just a person with evil thoughts and desires. 2) Some thoughts and desires can't be enacted without doing something evil, and a person who knowingly does evil is evil. 3) Some evil thoughts or desires can be enacted, or approximated, without doing evil, and that's OK. If you can do something with someone in a way that does not leave him, on balance, less than what he was, that's not evil. However cruel it might be and however horrendous it might seem to others or even to you, if it makes your partner more alive than he was without it (after, perhaps, a period of recovery), then it's not evil. And it's your partner and how he reacts that determines that very amorphous concept of "more alive". But if he's not going to be more alive afterwards, or if he doesn't hope and expect to be, with some reasonable basis for that hope and expectation, then it's not something you can ethically do. Can you see a way, or can your partner convince you that he can see a way (applying a very high standard of proof) that what is planned will not leave behind person who has been, for a long term, lessened or destroyed ? When the goal is destruction, if such in fact be the real goal, it's hard for me to see how it can not leave a destroyed person behind. But maybe there's some degree of poetry involved in that usage, and what the person seeks isn't destruction but to experience and survive an ordeal of ultimate pain, in this case emotional pain ? That could be. But you'd need to know the person very well and be very sure about what he seeks and what he can handle before you can agree to provide that ordeal. And if what he seeks is destruction, and more than a few do, then I don't think you can go along with that without being or becoming evil. But getting hot thinking about it doesn't make you evil. Just kinky. ******** [Expanding on the meat grinder scene] I suspect that the optimal variation on this scene would require 1) that he "accidentally" learn that random radio signals can cause this power strip to activate well before he's hooked up to whatever very scary device he's hooked up to* 2) that for some reason you unexpected use this power strip preferably at a time when he's well gagged (and of course securely bound) 3) that you appear to be called away or distracted (perhaps by a phone call) and unaware of how freaked he is Of course, after you've let him fret for some time and possibly after you've scared him 3/4s to death (perhaps by picking up a remote control device that he's observed causes this power strip to come on (how one could have arranged for him to see this, I haven't figured out) but he doesn't think you know this), you'd need to let him know that he'd been safe and that the saw couldn't have come on and you did know all about what he was going through. Playing clueless can be a great way to make a mindfuck work, but appearing not to know what's happening in your scenes does not build your submissive's confidence in you. * Maybe after a childhood seeing people threatened by buzzsaws in TV and movies (I'm not quite "Perils of Pauline" old but I still remember such things popping up often on TV shows in my youth (Diana Rigg threatened by one was almost as delightful as the one in which she was tied to a railroad track (that it was a miniature train made the archness of it all rather fun)), you decide it might be fun for him to be tied with his legs apart and his scrotum resting on the blades of a circular saw (perhaps for effect while you watch old "Avengers" or "Man from Uncle" episodes); of course, it's just for effect and though you make a big show of plugging in the saw you'd never turn it on - but why oh why did you plug it into *that*, you must not know what weird things it does, and ghod, why did you gag him first and did you have to pack his mouth so well, and damn, damn, damn, why did you have to answer that phone, won't you look at him, can't you see he needs to get out of this --- oh, ghod oh ghod oh ghod not that remote, please not that put it down please please don't use that to turn on the VCR please look this way please see him please please NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..... ohhh ghod that's lucky.... but he's *got* to get you to let him out before some taxi comes by and spins this wheel... why won't you see how scared he is... why did you tie him so well why oh why oh why did he ever go along with this idea ? He'd need, of course, a lot of assurance and aftercare after such a scene. [regarding PTSD] It may be the case that PTSD requires prolonged intense stress, though I know it doesn't have to be months in combat that cause it. I'm not sure about this myself, but if you did plan to do intense terror play with people it might be good to know more about PTSD (I wonder if people who *like* terror are vulnerable to PTSD ?). [regarding conditioning that might occur from C&T] It's good to be aware of such possibilities. It doesn't seem a high risk from this activity, though perhaps if you combined it with strict orgasm control and only allowed him to come on days when you torture his cock (expecting him to endure long sessions of fellatio without coming on other days) you could get him to the point where he couldn't have release without pain. Shirley might be able to offer some advice on what to do to avoid inadvertent conditioning (BTW, were you reading SSB when she posted her scene report of torture by fellatio ?; pretty hot scene, I might have it saved someplace). [snip] It certainly is a hot idea to think of getting someone so he or she can only come when you let them and/or that they have to have pain to have release, or can only get erect under certain conditions (perhaps he's kept most of the time in a cock tube which punishes erections and that's only removed (and him brought to orgasm) after alligator clamps are put on his nipples and scrotum; that might teach him not to get erect before alligator clamps are placed on his nipple and scrotum (and perhaps also teach him to get erect when they are put on him)). It's fun to contemplate holding over him the prospect that if you dismiss him he might never have another orgasm, or at least that without you (if you made your voice part of the trigger somehow) he could spend months or years regaining normal sexual function. Maybe a bit hazardous, though. [regarding a sub who sought emotional destruction] .... I have to wonder about what he wanted, could he really have meant it or understood it ? I've never been hurt that bad, but the deep hollow ache of much lesser losses is one it's hard for me to imagine anyone wanting a magnified version of. But then, there are many physical torture that some people like and other can't imagine. I'm also wondering how well this could work with the subject expecting it and wanting it. It's hard for betrayal to have the right effect when betrayal is what one wants. [snip] That's probably it. He's enormously underestimating the pain and the duration of the damage - he'd very likely recover part of the way, but he'd probably always be damaged - if you actually set out to destroy him and succeeded (which with him knowing and seeking might be difficult). And you're quite right to worry about the effect on you. Could you get to know and understand a person that well, and then not be torn up badly by losing him ? [regarding the temptations of such a scene] Understandable. How often does anyone ever get a chance to do such a thing ? The appeal for a sadist with NC fantasies of a person with a terminal disease seeking to be tortured to death is certainly understandable, it's such a rare chance to really indulge. Given that once in a lifetime - once in quite a few lifetimes actually - chance, it wouldn't be easy to pass up if it was offered. [regarding the appeal of destruction] If we really think that human lives and human psyches are so very special, how can the destroying of them not be very special ? That's one of the paradoxes about thanatos or the urge to destruction, that it's based on a recognition of the value of what is to be destroyed. Which is something which distinguishes those with an appreciation of life and of death from those simple and all too common brutes who just want to smash but don't appreciate what they're smashing or the act of destroying it. [regarding taunting scenes] It's something that a lot of people, even a lot of BDSMers, would have trouble understanding, but I'm not sure that taunting someone till he or she cries is any inherently worse than extracting tears in other ways. I'd again find the key to whether it's OK or not in what the experience does for or to the person. I can see where some kinds of taunting could make a person stronger, and how taunting can be hot for the victim (I like taunting, or at least the idea of it (never had it done to me) because it shows a focus on me; as I said once when describing feelings of being ignored in a relationship, I could bear being kept caged up and alone if sometimes she'd just come taunt me about my predicament, that would be much better than the agony of feeling abandoned, like she wanted me caged enough to keep me caged but didn't want me enough to do anything with me). So I can see some healthy taunting scenes. And, of course, some unhealthy ones (as hot as I imagine a scene to be in which a femdom taunts a femsub whose master the femdom has enthralled and now the femsub can remain only by accepting her greatly altered role in his life and the dominance of the femdom over her as well, and the femdom is relentless in taunting the femsub about how she couldn't hold her man, she just wasn't good enough, and isn't it clear why, what is she good for after all save for a little trifling play from time to time (well, it didn't sound really hot there, but I can see it being very hot), I can't imagine how that could fail to harm the femsub). [regarding aftercare] Aftercare can be very important for the top's well-being (both aftercare of the sub for the dom to show that the sub is OK and is pleased with the dom**, and aftercare of the sub by the dom to give the dom a chance to express zir other aspects (and remind zirself that zie's not cruel and vicious, zie just likes to do some cruel and vicious things with people who enjoy that). And for some subs it's the real point of the scene ;-> ** - An idea which some Domly Doms, especially Domly Doms who never actually dominated, might find horrifying, but people who do this sort of stuff to people they care about can badly need that reassurance, and sometimes the *only* thing which can justify some highly sadistic play is the reaction of the bottom. When one is dealing in extreme sadism, the sort of stuff well beyond normal human interactions, then the fact of prior consent, while important, is not enough to make what was done OK. This is a case where often only the ends can justify the means - and where if when we're done the submissive isn't happy and healthy, we did evil, no matter how careful our actions and no matter how complete and informed was the prior consent. Consent is essential and required but it isn't always enough, which is why when we don't think that the actions are going to produce a bottom who is happy and healthy (or at least one who is happier and healthier than he or she would be without the activity) we do have an ethical requirement to say "no" even if the bottom strongly wants it. Partly because of an obligation to protect the bottom, but even more so because of an obligation to protect ourselves. The consequences, emotional and psychological and emotional, of having done evil - even if all we did was legal and in accordance with accepted scene protocols and we would never face either legal or social censure - are too serious to be treated lightly. -------------------------------------------------------- "Quasi-cuckold fantasies" Doing some pondering on my favorite subject, my kink (it was interesting reading a comment that one turnoff in malesubs is when they only talk about their kink and don't ask about the domme's; were I to ever answer a personal I suppose that I should keep that in mind (though I already knew that men talking about themselves too much is a turn-off to a lot of women), especially since as I thought about it I realized I just about never ask anyone else about their kinks, partly because of my own self-absorption (I just *know* there's a joke to be made somewhere about male self-absorption and sexual-denial, but I can't seem to find it), partly because people I discuss kink with generally seem to discuss what they want to discuss without me doing much prompting, partly because it seems somehow a bit rude/pushy to me to ask (my ever petulant advocate for submales (hmmm, "the petulant pet" ?; needs work) is presently singing his favorite song "You Just Can't Win" (of course not; subs are not supposed to win ;-> ) about the unfairness of it all: it's rude and pushy to ask, it's obnoxiously selfish to talk about oneself, it's a sign of either inadequate self-awareness or of too much silly porn if one doesn't talk about oneself; I know. of course, that's it's about reasonableness and balance, but the petulant advocate for submales aspect of myself is, like most advocates, not very interested in being reasonable). Anyway..... I got to wondering whether the ease with which I embraced, in fantasy at least (never having a chance to try it in RL), the quasi-cuckold fantasy (quasi because it's not a cuckold fantasy if the woman is fucking her husband instead of me) is because of an oddity in the way I imagine my dominants. As much as the key to my fantasy is her excitement at the prospect (or the fact) of her doing something to me that she likes and I don't (both because I want her to enjoy, and because I need her to want me (but being selfish, mostly the latter)), for some reason, and I'm not sure why (perhaps I *have* read too much porn and so have a hard time imagining a domme deviating from the "Rules for Domme Interactions with Submales"), I always imagine that my domme wants to conceal from me the extent to which she values me and enjoys what she does with me - even though if she knows me at all she knows that's so central to what I need that if she did actually conceal it from me I'd probably dump her (telling myself some tale about how if she doesn't enjoy playing with me, well, it's my duty as a sub not to let her waste her time on me when she could be doing something she enjoys, when the truth was, of course, that I need her to want me and if she doesn't show me this then I won't be getting what I need and will go elsewhere). In fantasy I can deal with her staying cool and composed when in my view because I can see how desperately excited she is when she's not within my view, but of course in RL I won't see her hugging my handcuffs when we're apart or squeezing the ropes she uses on me between her legs or getting on the phone and so giddily telling her best friend how she's got me tied up in her playroom. But what I could see, in a quasi-cuckold scene, is the way she'd attack her husband after a period of coolly torturing me (her husband would also be able to see this, which has always been something that worried/bothered me about such scenes in RL (though it occurs to me that if *he* had a sort of cuckold fantasy of his own, a quasi-cuckold scene in which his wife would torture me for a while and then come to him with a degree of passion she didn't usually have, that might work out (as it might with a man who was pleased with anything that pleased his wife, or one who didn't care what it was that got her turned on, as long as he was getting great sex from it (none of those situations seems very plausible to me, though, so my worry would still be, if she's getting so hot from playing with me before fucking him, what's that going to do to him, and what will that do to them, and (because I am, ultimately, an immensely selfish fellow and everything always comes down to me in the end) what that will mean for me)). So while I never started having quasi-cuckold fantasies until I was in discussions with a femsadist whose most vanilla husband didn't mind her playing with me (since it meant someone else getting tied and tortured besides him), he didn't want us having sex, so the scenarios my mind started crafting were of her torturing me till she was unbearably horny then going to him. What I hadn't realized till now is that one of the things these scenarios did was getting her showing the uncontrolled passion that my "femdoms don't do that" idea wouldn't allow; since the man getting attacked by a woman out of her mind wasn't her sub, that didn't violate the rule (still need to work on why that presumption existed; possibly because I have some problems accepting such feelings directed at me (simultaneous with craving them) so my fantasy partners, naturally, don't do that, and my RL dom, in those scenes that we did do, didn't do it (which was quite fine, I mention it only to indicate that there was never a "reality blowing away false assumptions" event in my experience); anyway that's a subject for more pondering another time). --- Vaguely related to the above is this recent "proto-Image": Not enough time or focus for a real image, so I'll just share another idea for an image. Another of the strangest of fantasies, fantasizing about what I'd never see, my domme obsessing about me when she's alone (with her always being - or at least starting out being - very cool and composed and in control when we're together (and she's in domme mode; she doesn't need to always be "CCC" with me, of course, but when she's letting herself not be so, she's also not focused on me, which is of course fine but means the only times that she let's herself display obsession with me is when I'm not there). Perhaps some of my sadism does slip out in these fantasies, since generally domme torture is unacceptable, but a hot and frantic domme rolling around in bed hot and horny as hell but unable to to get any meaningful relief and cursing her state and me for not being there and vowing that I'll pay for what I've done to her by giving her this need and ache, well, perhaps that is just a bit sadistic of me. Of course, I loathe TDY (business travel), but maybe if it was going to get my Lady in this state, that would be a redeeming feature of it ;-> Anyway, the image is of a woman laying in her bed, swallowed up in a much too large for her man's shirt, fondling her toys and especially the leather cuffs and collars and harnesses she keeps her boy in, holding and smelling them and hugging them to her, taking bundles of rope and holding them tight and saying how tightly she's going to bind her wandering boy when she gets him back in her clutches, she's going to tie him down so he can't move at all (well, maybe one part will be able to; ah, well, maybe two) and she's going to keep him there and not let him go anyplace till she's had her fill of him and that could take a long, long time. Putting the bundle of ropes between her legs and squeezing it hard, rubbing it against her wet panties (that she's wearing so the rough rope doesn't rub her badly, as she thinks that when she gets him she's going to tie this scratchy rope around his bare skin and show him no mercy, she's going to rub it over his cock and balls and tie them tight with it and rig him up so she can pull a rope across a underside of the head of his cock and then pull the rope slowly across him as he's amazed by how much rope is coming out from under her bed as as this seemingly endless cord is pulled across his cockhead and drives him insane; the only other things she has one, his shirt, and those high heels he likes so much (much as it embarrasses him to react so much to a pair of shoes, and she doesn't mind playing with either his reaction or his embarrassment, and so the shoes she once just tolerated she's grown to love wearing) are to remind her of him) ... ah, rubbing the bundle of rope against her wet panties and squeezing her legs together hard and rocking with that bundle between her legs, flushed and hot and moaning and whimpering, needing him so much, missing him so much, and both hating and loving the feeling which she can't stand and doesn't want to end (so reaching for any mechanical toys doesn't even occur to her, and any insertion toys she fondles she does thinking of using them on him), squeezing her legs tights and shifting them back and forth a little as she hugs and sniffs and kisses the bundle of leathers she uses on him, loving their smell and his and she dreams of what she'll do to him and wonders whether when she wraps this rope around his head and in his mouth again and again, coil after coil filling him and encircling him, if he'll catch the smell and taste of her on t he rope - and as she wonders, she slips off her panties and presses the rope hard against her pussy and squeezes and grinds on it. --- Addendum It might perhaps be that I need to clarify something. I have for some time pondered why I so often fantasize about thinks I don't like. That's not "protesting too much" ;->, I really don't like them. I have no desire to be bound or hurt or terrorized. So why the fantasies ? For awhile I thought that I was fantasizing what I would do if I were the femdom. But they change depending upon who I'm talking to. OK, now I got it, I'm a good sub who wants his dom to get what she enjoys. I'd like to believe that. But it's not true. Or at least it's not the important truth. It's true that I want here to get what she wants, even and sometimes especially when I don't like it. And not because being a sadist myself I understand sadist pleasures and want here to have them (that was the next theory). No, it's because (according to the current theory) I'm an attention slut who craves being the focus of attention and desire from sadistic women. Of sadistic women because (I think): 1) my affection and admiration for women has always been strongly correlated with sadistic impulses towards them, so it's hard for me to really feel valued if someone doesn't want to hurt me 2) because while I crave attention, I also reject it; it's weak and unmanly to want it, it's an ignoble desire, and it's thoroughly poor submission according to my own ideals of what a submissive should be (which once upon a time I actually thought I was) So the only way that the attention and desire is made OK is when I don't have a choice about it and she's doing to me what she wants and not what I want, and/or when it's in the nature of aftercare when I have good objective reasons for needing and accepting the attention (hey, I don't want it, but since she just beat the shit out of me, it's required, and besides, having hurt me she now needs a chance to be nice and to show both me and herself that she actually is a good person; I mean, I wouldn't be accepting it, but I have to do it for her benefit, don't you see ?). Yes, I know. I am *soooo* full of shit. It took me awhile to figure out how full of shit I was. But that's where my digging into my kink (the submissive side of it, anyway) has led me. I'm an attention slut who hates being an attention slut and seeking it through bottoming to femdoms who are sadists is a way of getting attention and desire in a way that I can accept it from them and feel OK about myself. Which makes it rather weird that I so often fantasize about cool, composed femdoms who won't ever let me know how much they crave me, even though their craving is the whole reason for my submitting. I'm still working on that part. I think what you said about power may be on point here: I want her to want to have power over me, because she *does* need me so much, she needs to control me, and the behavior of concealing her desire and her need is a behavior that I'd expect from someone trying to exert power over me and control me. But the twist in this is that if I fail to perceive need and desire, I won't be getting what I need and of course, being a selfish do-me sub not the noble selfless "what pleases my dom" person I used to think I was (what pleases her is important - because it cause her to want me if she's pleased by me, then I'd eventually leave. So I end up with scenes like one in which she chained me to the wall outside her office (home office) while she gets some work done, but she's constantly finding some excuse to step out of her office for this or that, something that gives her an excuse to pass me and to idly kick me in passing. *not* because I want to be kicked (I don't), but because I want her to be unable to resist the desire to kick me. Though not being a masochist, how long I could actually handle those kicks, I don't know. Probably not long. Awkward being an attention slut who wants attention through sadism, but simultaneously being a pain wimp. Regarding a correspondent's comment about not letting her slaves know how much she wants them because it would be a transfer of power to them: That may be that answer to why I imagine cool behavior from my dominant. It may be that my expectation is if she needs me as I want her to need me, she will want to control me, and if she wants to control me she'll conceal her need for me, making the concealment of her need confirmation of it - but only if she doesn't conceal it too well. Like I said, this is a really twisted kink (hmmm, interesting combination of words; if you twist a kink would it straighten ?; this is getting all too confusing ;-> ). -------------------------------------- Burning the subbie (couch) Sent in private email in response to a public article From sd Mon Aug 11 20:42:27 2003 Subject: Re: This isn't personal... so why name a person? To: moonlight (StormWolf) Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 20:42:27 -0400 (EDT) Cc: madylarian > On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 17:18:42 -0400, mady <madylarian> > wrote: > >Terse words???? Oh dear, the shame, the (non-con)humiliation! *delicately > >waving my pink fan then swooning on the subbie couch* > > EEEK! > > BURN IT!!! > > moonlight - damn thing's BACK again.... Hmmmm.... {view mady on the couch} {Begin revelry} Perhaps the problem has been that there hasn't been a proper sacrifice made when the couch was burned before ? Given the importance of this task, I'm sure mady will be willing to make a contribution to the effort. And if when she wakes up from her swoon she finds her hands tied and herself gagged, well, that will just make it easier for her to do this. She might resist a little as we finish stripping her before getting some long Nylon rolls to wrap her in from ankles to neck and around her head, before we tie her ankles and knees and tie her wrists to her legs and ropes around her torso (given that she'll be sitting on the touch, it will be nicer if her hands are in front of her, the better to enjoy their desperate twisting). What would make this especially nice would be a steel seat for mady to be chained into, but such might be hard to find on short notice, and failing that simply chaining her to the couch will suffice. Past efforts to burn it should have given use some experience with the burn pattern, and we can then put accelerant on the couch as needed to move the fire as we prefer. My recommendation would be to coat the edges so the flame rushes around it and edges the couch in flames before it more slower burns toward the middle where mady is. I'd personally recommend a long slow fuse spiraling around the couch that we can light and have it slowly circle towards it (and her) until it touches the edge right on the accelerant and quickly encircles the couch. A couple hours between the lighting of the fuse and the fuse lighting the couch would give time for interest to build (not least, of course, mady's interest). Of course, given that amount of time, we'd have to be sure she was expertly tied, as she'd be trying rather strongly to get free even before the couch lit up, and her by that time exhausted efforts would receive a boost when she felt the heat surrounding her. The metal seat, if one could be found or fabricated, would protect her from the touch of the flames even as the couch was engulfed in them, but not from the heat of the flames (students of burning executions may recall that it's an easier death when the subject burns than when the subject is surrounded by flame and dies from the heat; friends of the condemned would even, I've read, try to push the burning bundles against their friend to hasten zir demise). The heat would be of especial interest in this case, as mady would be nude under the nylon sheathing all but her hands, feet, and face (so the contortions of each could be viewed), and nylon melts at high temperatures, making this especially agonizing for her. But if no metal seat is available, perhaps chaining mady into a wicker chair and placing that on the couch would have some aesthetic pleasure. Such a sweet sacrifice in the destruction of the couch would surely help it stay gone this time. And if it didn't, well, most unfortunate, but still an exceedingly beautiful event. {end revelry} {sigh} Well, surely there *must* be something that can be done about that couch. What that might be, well, I couldn't say. ---------------------------------------- "Cocksucker" A quick image and accompanying thought. The man sits on the stool, his hands tied behind him, his ankles crossed and bound below the stool, his toes touching the ground only because the stool is so low; were it a couple inches higher, the fact there's a hole in the seat of the stool and his bound balls hang through that hole, pulled by the cord from his ankles to his balls. He's blindfolded and wearing a headset to cut off his perception of outside sounds. His only awareness of when someone is near him is when a hand touches his chin and he opens his mouth to accept a cock and suck on it, his visitor tapping his head to indicate whether he should suck faster (his orders being to start each one very slowly; his orders also deny him the right to refuse under any circumstances, though he hopes that his mistress or whoever is watching him (if anyone still is) will prevent unprotected cocks from being inserted, and through the hours of the party none such have been, he cannot refuse one if it were to be pressed into his mouth). Shortly before the blindfold and head harness had been put on him, he saw along side him a couple other devices, a rubber vagina and a rubber woman's head, being set up alongside him. The message, that he was a toy for servicing cocks, had been quite clear to him, and apparently to everyone else, since he'd received no contact at all all night save the prescribed touches to his chin and head and the cocks in his mouth, not one other stroke or touch or pinch or caress; how many hours this had been and how many hours it would continue he couldn't tell, all he knew is that it wouldn't be his choice and even if he were allowed to speak, which his Lady had made very clear he *must* not do, not under any circumstances and were able to say how desperately he wanted this to stop, it wouldn't matter, since whether he liked or hated this mattered not at all, all that mattered is that his Lady enjoyed him being used this way. Quick thought: it matters a great deal whether this is being done to let him know that this is all he's good for, in his lady's eyes, or if he knows that using him this way is a sort of conspicuous consumption, his Lady showing off her wealth by using something as valuable as him alongside such tawdry toys and as a higher-class version of such a toy. To that end, it matters whether the sound in his ears is white noise, or a looping file of her praise, or the sound of person after person saying again and again "cocksucker". ------------- Some ponderings on ponderings From a private email response to a public newsgroup article From sd Fri Aug 15 16:50:41 2003 Subject: Re: Assertive and Strong Doms and Subs To: Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 16:50:41 -0400 (EDT) A very good article, with one paragraph that sort of leaped out at me. > Not that there's anything wrong with that sort of punishment play if > it's a wholly conscious choice, along the lines of, "It just makes my > socks roll up and down when you tell me I am naughty and punish me!" > When it's a cowardly substitute for having the intestinal fortitude to > own up to one's needs and desires, that's uncool. Neurotic. And not > "sane", a la SSC. [FWIW, uncool, definitely, neurotic, probably; not sane, probably not. It's either unaware or dishonest and either of those seem to me good reasons for not doing BDSM with someone, but I think insane is a bit of an overstatement, since being sane requires neither honesty nor a high degree of self-awareness, and any strategy followed which does in fact lead to a person getting what he or she actually does want and need is a sign of sanity, not insanity. But with that quibble....] Why it leaped out at me is really not something you need to have inflicted upon you, but I'll do it anyway. It's a conclusion I've found myself coming to recently after a lot of analysis of my bottoming kink (my reason for being a sadist never needed analyzing; causing fear and pain simply feels really good). excerpting from something I'd written recently: ---- It might perhaps be that I need to clarify something. I have for some time pondered why I so often fantasize about things I don't like. That's not "protesting too much" ;->, I really don't like them. I have no desire to be bound or hurt or terrorized. So why the fantasies ? For awhile I thought that I was fantasizing what I would do if I were the femdom. But they change depending upon who I'm talking to. OK, now I got it, I'm a good sub who wants his dom to get what she enjoys. I'd like to believe that. But it's not true. Or at least it's not the important truth. It's true that I want her to get what she wants, even and sometimes especially when I don't like it. And not because being a sadist myself I understand sadist pleasures and want her to have them (that was the next theory). No, it's because (according to the current theory) I'm an attention slut who craves being the focus of attention and desire from sadistic women. Of sadistic women because (I think): 1) my affection and admiration for women has always been strongly correlated with sadistic impulses towards them, so it's hard for me to really feel valued if someone doesn't want to hurt me 2) because while I crave attention, I also reject it; it's weak and unmanly to want it, it's an ignoble desire, and it's thoroughly poor submission according to my own ideals of what a submissive should be (which once upon a time I actually thought I was) So the only way that the attention and desire is made OK is when I don't have a choice about it and she's doing to me what she wants and not what I want, and/or when it's in the nature of aftercare when I have good objective reasons for needing and accepting the attention (hey, I don't want it, but since she just beat the shit out of me, it's required, and besides, having hurt me she now needs a chance to be nice and to show both me and herself that she actually is a good person; I mean, I wouldn't be accepting it, but I have to do it for her benefit, don't you see ?). Yes, I know. I am *soooo* full of shit. It took me awhile to figure out how full of shit I was. But that's where my digging into my kink (the submissive side of it, anyway) has led me. I'm an attention slut who hates being an attention slut and seeking it through bottoming to femdoms who are sadists is a way of getting attention and desire in a way that I can accept it from them and feel OK about myself. ------------------ Which the more I think about it is actually rather pathetic. Definitely uncool, probably neurotic, certainly either insufficiently self-aware or dishonest, and more than adequate reason for someone to decide not to do any such thing with me, which makes it unethical to seek to have someone do it. [ Wouldn't say it's insane, though ;-> ] Not that I've been bottoming for some time, nor very actively pursuing someone to whom to bottom. Sort of interesting that now that (I think) I know why bottoming appeals to me, to do it seems (for me, with my motivations) rather low and sleazy. Curious little note on the issue of personal analysis of one's kink: sometimes knowing why you want something can make it something that you can't do (or at least now know that you shouldn't). ------------- A highly confused proto-Image Haven't been able to do much in the way of focused/coherent fantasy of late, whatever I come of with I end up wondering about too many things to be able to make it into a story or Image. For example some thoughts about a possible scene in which a domme either kept kicking her kowtowing (I *think* that's "on his knees with his head very low if not actually touching the ground with his forehead, but I'm not 100%; in any event, that's how I'm using it) boy as she circled him putting a foot by his face from time to time for him to kiss or not, with no agreement that she'll stop kicking when he falls to kiss it but in fact she will take that to mean he's had enough and maybe kick him two or three more times so he doesn't feel like he stopped the scene) which went to where he had to kiss her foot or she would stop; as I was seeing it, it'd be much more of a trial for him knowing that however much he wanted it to stop he had to force himself to kiss her foot each time or she'd stop having her fun with him and he'd be responsible for that and he didn't want that and so he'd keep kissing her foot up until the time the agony just become beyond bearing and he couldn't will himself to kiss her foot again, knowing that another sharp kick from those beautiful shoes he was getting to really hate would follow if he did, and even with her toe under his chinning raising up his face while she cooed at him and asked if he didn't want to kiss her foot anymore and did he really mean for her to stop having so much fun with him and he hated to say either thing to her and to tell her both of them by the same (in)action was unthinkable but the ache in so many places (since she'd been careful to spread the kicks around) was such that he couldn't bear the thought of even one more kick and unable to make his lips touch her foot again or answer her questions as they won't from cooing cloyingly at him to sharp and demanding and he just burst into tears.... but that got all tangled up in thoughts about how it seemed like he had too much control and how it seemed like he was exchanging kicks for kisses; now, in fantasy I can know that she knows that neither of these were true, and in reality I can hope she'd know him well enough to know what he was feeling and that neither of those was true...which lead me to thinking that, in real life I'd be desperately hoping that long before that she'd be sufficiently impressed with my suffering to decide to stop without getting my "safeword" and it's very likely that if she didn't, if she let it go on until I broke down in tears, while I'd be very disappointed in myself, I'd also be disappointed in her and (while I might not show it or admit it even to myself) I'd be very angry with her.... which of course is one of those infamous "expecting the dominant to have telepathy" situations and it's quite unfair of me to be holding it against her for continuing something which I could have stopped at any time and was in fact expressly allowing to continue and that's very terrible of me .... but then, she knows me, she knows I don't want to stop her, I don't want to safeword, I don't even want to have a safeword (in the "coded command" sense of one) and she should know that there'd be a danger I'd let myself be hurt before I'd be willing to use a safeword (I'd probably hold off if I wasn't sure I was injured and by the time one is sure, well, then one's been injured for awhile and is probably now badly injured) which is all very bad submission because I sub shouldn't let his dominant expose herself to such an unhappy situation, he owes it to her to stop her before she feels bad about hurting him (and is probably angry at him - whether she'd admit it, even to herself - because he didn't stop her.... but if she knows me, and she shouldn't be doing something like this if she doesn't know me well enough, then she should know that I can't be trusted to stop and she has to be watching for when she should stop.... but she can only tell, maybe, about real injury - and only maybe; besides not having telepathy she also doesn't have X-ray vision - she can't know when it just hurts too much to bear or when it hurts so much that though I can bear it it will hurt me that she made me bear that much.... Well, anyway, as you can see, just too much to process (yet, anyway) into an Image. --------------- Sharing a flirt with a bookloving spanko So I've never threatened to torture you with books, how odd. Cane your ass and let some welts rise then take a big heavy book (an obsolete commercial book; I used to have an out of date list of cars that would serve the purpose) and pound on your hot sore ass, or hang nets from nipple clamps and put paperbacks in the nets as weights until the clamps pull off ? How very rude of me. Perhaps aside from perhaps using them as threats, those nets full of harlequin romances attached to really cruel clamps would not be useful. That which would cause you to leave is obviously of no value, since keeping you is the goal. Ideally by having your fear perfectly balancing your need and paralyzing you so you can neither flee nor advance but can only stand there quivering as I approach and circle you appraisingly and admiringly with you able to do nothing but whimper when I put the collar and chain on you that you know takes away all your options, and now no matter what you might decide to do, you can't escape. Once you're kneeling on the bed, the thick wide collar padlocked around your throat and chained to the rail at the foot of the bed and giving you no place to run to, those two netting bags of books hanging from cruel clamps which are attached to rubber thongs (so you can see how deeply the clamps bite into the rubber, and how much the weight of the book stretches it, and be even more terrified at the prospect of those things being used on your breasts) would mainly serve to motivate you when you don't want to hold your face on the pillow and your ass in the air as I work through a variety of implements for beating your ass ever more painfully. "What, dear, you don't want to put your ass up for more spanking ? Well, as you would have it, my dear, so shall it be, we'll let your aching ass recover for awhile while I use the weights on your nipples... oh, is your ass feeling better now ? How nice. I'll see what I can do about that...."