Thursday, November 29, 2007

Fans of the whackasaurus phone callers – which is pretty much all of you, judging by the emails I get – enjoy the new column…

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A question for my Seattle readers: are any of you professional interior decorators? Because I’m thinking of doing some remodeling in the new year, and wow, I really don’t have much of a knack for that kinda thing. Wall treatments, lighting, and especially combinations of colors. I don’t think I have bad taste, but I just don’t have much imagination. Apparently it all went to my sex life.

I’m planning a bathroom remodel too, and I may even need an architect, if I decide to bump out any walls.

I’ve read dozens of books on decorating, to little avail. Both Jae and Miss K are quite good at this – Jae actually has a degree in it – and they have said they’ll help me. But you know, more input is good, and frankly, someone who I am paying to prioritize me is also good. Jae and Miss K have lives of their own.

However, I imagine a lot of decorators would be somewhat taken aback by my dungeon, so I need someone who - while they need not be kinky themselves – is at least able to work with that. Drop me a note if you have a suggestion...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

People who do BDSM talk a lot about safewords, and what they are talking about is ways to communicate ease up or stop. But while red and yellow get the most press, there’s another color on that wheel, and it’s green. Understanding how to communicate harder, more, is sometimes a challenge. But some folks have a knack for it.

Take the gentleman I played with yesterday. He’s new to me, it was only the second time I saw him. And the first time I met him, I knew I was going to have to be very firm with him, because he’s rather a strong personality, sort of a classic East Coast type. Not a bad guy, but not a guy who was inclined to follow the rules unless someone was strictly enforcing them.

As it turns out, there may be a method to his madness. He likes impact on his ass, and when I met him, he claimed to have both a high tolerance for pain and a tendency not to bruise easily. Now, I do heavy impact scenes, and I enjoy them. But while I do listen when people tell me they can take a lot, I also reserve judgment until I’ve actually tried them out. As I said to this man, it’s okay if you come back and tell me, “You can go harder this time”. What I don’t ever want to hear is, “Last time we played, you went too far.”

So for our initial session, I gave his behind a very respectable beating, and when he came back to see me this time, he told me straight out I could go harder. Which is one of the right ways to communicate that.

There’s another way to signal green, though, and that is: the provocative smart-ass remark. And this guy, rather in keeping with his general personality, was pretty non-stop with the heavy jabs and wisecracks for the first half hour or so.

(He’s not the only person I know who uses wisecracks to indicate green – in fact, now that I think about it, Armani occasionally does it, and so do some of my other play-partners. And for that matter, Monk and I do it with each other when we play. Our classic come-on: “Oh, is that the best you got?” The answer is always, “Why no, sweetheart, it’s not!” Followed by a serious ratcheting-up of whatever is happening.)

So I read all the smart-assery as, “Hit me with your best shot.” And obliging girl that I am, I did. It was great fun. I don’t generally approve of manipulative behaviors, but hell, I am a sadist, and it was in character for the role-play were doing, so I got right into the spirit of the game and just went to town on his ass.

It wasn’t the single hardest impact scene I’ve ever done, but it was on the high end of the scale. And what made it really interesting was that he barely had a mark on him afterwards. He was red, but I could tell it was the kind of red that’s going to fade in a few hours or so.

And this was not a hand-spanking, either. I used heavy wood paddles and a nasty little two-tailed strap called a Dragon’s Tongue, and those are evil enough. But then I caned him pretty good, too.

Now I think canes are great fun to use, but I don’t cane anyone unless they tell me it’s okay if they have some marks afterwards. Because a cane is going to mark you up. Bamboo, rattan, fiberglass rods, whatever – you do more than a baby tap with any kind of long, flexible rod-type-toy and you will generally get a long red welt, that you can see and feel, within a few minutes. The stripe often turns dark over the next few hours and it usually stays noticeable for a week or two. I have had people tell them it took months for their cane stripes to go completely away.

I could not raise a welt on this man. It was the damnest thing. You can swing a toy from your wrist, your elbow, or your shoulder, and obviously the amount of force you can get behind it increases with each joint you recruit. I wasn’t swinging from the shoulder – well, not much, at least – but I was giving him quite a lot from the elbow, and with a cane, that’s plenty. I have made people cry with less. He just closed his eyes and smiled and shuddered pleasantly. Occasionally I got some wiggling and some noises, but not much. Amazing. The smart-ass remarks, however, did cease.

Afterwards I remarked that the pairing of a high pain tolerance with a resistance to marks was not such a common thing, and that it was a very felicitous combination.

“So maybe you’ll write about me in your blog,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, do I have your permission for that?”

“Absolutely!” he said.

So I did.

Monday, November 26, 2007

I Love A Man Who Can Make Me Laugh

You know who I love? I love William Shatner. I think he is the coolest, because for one thing, he’s made a whole career out of playing the hand he was dealt. He’s the perfect example of the saying “If you can’t fix it, feature it.” He’s not Robert De Niro. He’s not Dustin Hoffman. He’s Captain James T. Kirk, and he’s always going to be Captain Kirk for many of us. A lesser actor would have railed against the injustice of being so firmly hitched to such a campy role – George Reeves, the original Superman, comes to mind – but Shatner ran with it.

I also love that he makes fun of himself and the cult around his character so deftly. In the BDSM community – and especially among professional dominatrixes - there's a certain tendency towards pomposity and self-importance. In my opinion, you should take what you do seriously, but you should never take yourself too seriously.

So I found this Shatner ad for WoW very amusing. Not as good as my favorite Priceline ad, but the robes and the “I’m a shaman” part looks and sounds just like a lot of guys I’ve met at various kink events over the years. Only they weren’t kidding.