I love you very much, painfully so, with the yearning of spending too much time apart. We are that couple, together, in public, but just as much with no eyes on us but each other.
I cannot recall the music, writing this now, but I remember, in late February, dancing in the kitchen with you, guarding for the slight slip of my black cotton tights on the faux wood linoleum as we shimmy-twist. Alongside the peril of losing my footing, it’s distracting how beautiful you look in motion, in a blue blazer over a light blue button down. Your body tapers sharply from your shoulders, shimmying. I’m wearing the green vintage dress you bought me for Christmas. When we pull apart and I twirl, the skirt bells out, all picturesque.
We have returned from a Pike Place Market french restaurant, where I stole half of one of your crab cakes, and you took, at my urging, half my salmon filet. I think I got the better trade, though there was nothing wrong with my fish.
There was a window to the restaurant kitchen marked by a pile of citrus fruits, aiming to put themselves into the dining area to make things feel more casual, or maybe make the most of the space. Once upon a time, in the 70s, this was a jazz spot, but its so crowded I wonder where they used to put the musicians. Still, it’s well prepared fresh fish, bread with a $5 up charge and pleasant crab cakes. And noise, lots of it, more crush and clatter than intimacy. The hints of old music, there, are drowned out in the excess of the conversation of others. I am content, holding back my urge to nitpick this nice gift, but nevertheless we do not favour them with the opportunity to sell us dessert. You serve me icecream instead, later, after we have danced. Looking after me is just what you do.
When I arrived for the weekend, I took the train in. It’s always comfortable, but too crowded that particular night to fight the line in the dining car, so you met me with food. It’s been a bad eating week for me again, a fact that I am not proud of, but being home in my space is driving me a bit nuts when I try to cook.
I daydream about kitchens that are not shoved into main areas. I am well sick of exposed, designed for people who don’t cook counters that push atrocious storage and a strict inability to let anything be, lest it become noxious clutter. I keep optimizing, all the endless expenses to try to make the space livable. Hooks for this and that, shelves expanding outwards and upwards. Ultimately no compensation can fix a cramped, poorly laid out space with too many things in it. And there’s no walls in spaces, anymore, a victim of the open plan trend. Sharing these spaces is even more frustrating, because there’s twice as much room to let the dishes or the mess get away from you.
If, perhaps, I lived flung out from my work by another 30 minutes, I might have my own solo shoebox, on my comfortable middle class salary. It pays more, on this coast, but rents jack up to eat one’s earnings. But, even paying more, the kitchen would still be in my bedroom, or at best, still in my living room. On the west coast, new construction is the norm. I think they are so cheap, regardless of the actual cost, they would leave the doors off bathrooms, if they could justify it.
Case in point: Tech job or not, your kitchen, the one I danced in, is “open plan” as well. This pivot and swirl smooth space I slide about in is an island of no texture in the otherwise stucco and wall to wall carpet, an alley of linoleum fenced between appliance and an island counter. For this visit, you draped the island in a rich quilt, handmade in a medley of turquoise and blue, serving as tablecloth to display a bouquet of flowers. Pink and purple and green, stems capped by pale, fat roses that remind me of babygirl birthday cakes. Just for me, to be pretty to look at for the weekend.
We’re in the approximate orbit or Valentine’s day, so we brought each other gifts to unwrap, too. Yours were piled up on the kitchen island when I got there, mine hand wrapped in sticker covered tissue paper and tied with real satin ribbon. You gave me a cape-capped coat dress with a flash red lining; a box of fancy tea; costume brooches; and spangle-sparkly tuxedo bodysuit that tugs at your fetishes to lift the collective sense of power over you, even as the glitter roughness of the fabric repels your touch. I gave you a high end, self thrusting sextoy by lovense.
This was written without being able to consult or personally verify the stories of the three people most affected, but where possible I aimed for a harm reduction approach. I do not link to any source that contributes to the the outing two sex workers, and put my focus primarily on Satanatrix not to diminish the agency of the two others involved, but because she has been most vocal about her personal philosophies. I caution readers that my interpretation and recounting of the situation will, necessarily, be imperfect. However, my motive for writing this is because nobody else I can find has. Indeed, for all the attention given, nowhere else but the sexworker and sexwork aligned femdom community has taken the part of Satanatrix and Empress Ming. I must tip my hat to the podcast, What Women Want for being the only other effort, outside of the immediate community of the victims, to try to combat the barrage of nonsense from mainstream media coverage, and as he has an own voice interview with Satanatrix, you should definitely take the time to listen.
Once upon a time, in 2020, three people, Satanatrix, AKA Lady Vi; Empress Ming; and the priest of the parish decided that St. Peter and Paul’s Catholic church in New Orleans was a good place to do some spiritually themed femdom. Two years later, after the filming of an ill-fated fetish-flick-cum-ritual resulted in the arrest of the three participants, the trial part of the fiasco has finally ended. It did so in the most American way possible, a plea bargain that knocked what might have been a pair of felonies (institutional vandalism & obscenity) to a misdemeanor version of the former. And yet, lest you think that’s a slap on the wrist, it carries a fine of $8K, to be paid in 6 months; two years suspended sentence (with intrusive supervision); and a vigorous NDA that stops not only release of any video or pictures from the event, but the two Dominatrices even talking about it to the media in any capacity. Further, the church had all details of the trial sealed.
The church was very upset by this incident, going as far as ritually burning the altar. The priest was obviously fired, and awaits his own trial, having had a falling out with the two dommes. Thus, the details of the defense now seem split between “I thought we could do it because he said it was ok” versus “that woman, she tempted me”. As it was ever so, where sexuality and social censure intersect.
And it was, in the lingering aftermath, a terrible ordeal for the three involved, particularly the relatively blameless women. Likely the fallout from that first arrest did the most damage. Even without a conviction, including if they had somehow fought it out to a not-guilty verdict, most of the worst consequences fell into place the moment they were placed in custody, head shots taken in loosely striped jail clothes, and thence released to the world. Long before any guilt was legally established, the arrest resulted in the immediate outing of both Satanatrix and her colleague via their real names.
Rows of sleeves visible on racks, shirts and dresses lined up chest to back in a tightness that emphasized the cramped warren of the space. At the door, a display of corsets were rectangles without a body to fill them, showing a liquid warmth in satin, brocade and pleather. From time to time a pattern caught her eye, or the shape of a piece of trim and she would nudge the garment from the press of its neighbours to examine it more closely. It was its own kind of intimacy, accompanying the woman he wanted to possess him while she shopped.
When she brought something out for more scrutiny, the metal hooks scraped in protest against their poles, as if they didn’t want to be singled out. She was fussy and ruthless, checking size tags and materials, but also the attachment of trim and buttons, pulling on seams a bit. He stood a respectful pace away from her, even though she kept him magnetically focused, without much to say to interrupt. Behind him, he was intimately aware of the display of shoes and boots, shining on glass shelves. Most had their own platforms, some as tall as the width of his palm. One pair stood at an impossible angle, spike heels supporting it on its toes. She was wearing something that was a reminiscent echo, Doc Martens beat to hell and back, then polished to smooth the nicks and dimples of regular wear. She had told him, the first time he kissed the toes, they were plastic masquerading as virtuous leather, and the era of when they were good boots was long gone.
Mistress cared about things intensely, and noticed fabrics and stitches. When they were alone she treated his body with the same scrutiny and an attraction that stole the breath out of his chest. He was unsure he remembered being noticed that much, ever.
They were one of the few shoppers at 10 AM on a weekday, casually watched by a woman with a ring through each of her thin brows, her hair a fresh fire engine red/black combo that had the odd lengths of an undercut half way to grown out. A faded t-shirt for a band he only vaguely recognized was held together by safety pins, slit and ragged in an intentional fashion. It was clothing perfectly suited for the milieu, conveying a chic creativity, but also a louche lack of enthusiasm that carried in her slouch. This shop minder had been easy to shake off, not even insisting to run them through the sales litany, but letting them pace themselves.
There was another scrape as some possible treasure was lifted up. He nervously touched the collar she’d put around his neck, when they had met up earlier that morning. “I am not collaring you in the formal sense,” Mistress had said. “This is simply a reminder and decoration for me to admire.”
In theory this was a last longer visit before I return to work. The two body problem kicks back into gear, as my office job cannot be imported over the border, WFH or not. I am a Canadian, and though Silver is more portable in his skill set, Vancouver consistently swings below competitive in tech salaries. We make do, but for now we cram the time together before I must return from portable disability to fixed labour law compliant behaviour.
It feels like visiting another life. He emphasizes “Home”, wanting me to feel that way, and makes every pain to make it that comfortable, but my practical roots are still paying $1000 to share a two bedroom with a friend, and my brain still parks myself there at my legal address. Home isn’t where my heart is, but where my childhood teddy bear, resting on my pillow, and my mess and the clutter I am still struggling to grapple.
With him, I think we have started to escape the honeymoon extra effort period. Even as he continues to dote on me, this feels sustainable. We have passed the first year or so where everyone is on their extra best behaviour. But, with the matter of the extreme step of moving to make this permanent, my life is an Elizabeth Barret Browning sonnet:
I think I could be happy in this quiet domesticity. Working on writing projects on my computer. A farmer’s market in the morning, doing our laundry in that continuous cycle of always being more to do daily, and making us meatballs from scratch for dinner. He puts up with my criticisms of his bachelor kitchen patiently. It’s not the franks’n’beans and no paper towels squalour we stereotype men with. It’s the not having to answer to anyone but yourself- so there’s a kitchenaid mixer, but the grater has a crack in the plastic frame, and things I take for granted aren’t there. And yet… Sure he has less cake pans, but he owns more pots than me, in fact in many ways more things on hand than I do. Deviance in our kitchens is more personal preference than otherwise. Though my tools tend to get junked when they break, I am still getting my shit together after what amounts to 5 moves in 10 years.
The steady progress here says that in another while, there will be a move there, too. All the things I established in Vancouver, my nest, will need to be upended, those possessions that transformed money into comfort and convenience winnowed for duplicates and storage. I am a person who wants roots who has lived relatively rootlessly. I wonder now, if my nest making was foolish and I should have expected to be shaken loose from each new home in the speed I did.
There’s a bit of care there, on my part, sensitive to feeling less than in the totality of the measure of our lives. Though I apply therapy to my insecurity like an ointment, the thought is ever there with a deep penetration. Reader, if you came here to see an ice and leather goddess regiment worms under her boot, or see a woman drift guilt free on a tide of consensual exploitation, alas it’s been ten years of disappointing you and counting. here, we have naught but the neurotic and horny, a fiercely distrustful and scruffy mélange that leads me to only half facetiously say I’m certified femdom trash.
Heterosexual femdom is weird.It’s not colouring between the cis straight lines, but it’s going to get you even more side eye if you call yourself queer than a bisexual woman with a boyfriend does. I tend to settle on the lukewarm “queer adjacent” to avoid some traumatized wee LGBTQ+ getting verbally abusive at me because they aren’t comfortable with spectrums, only binaries. Nevertheless, because our understanding of “normal” heterosexuality has certain gendered power expectations built into it, if you lean F/m, you are going to travel to where your behaviour relative to your gender expectations are not in alignment. That’s even if both of you are the most cisgender folks on the planet. This disconnect is a frustrating, orphaned space. These days, how we perceive the progressive and “safe” is a kind of hierarchical tightness that doesn’t know what to do with things that don’t fit into what is mainstream, but also don’t have a perfectly overlapping experience. No wonder we had to carve out our own “femdom” niche! For its many cultural faults, there is a reason why we are our own distinct identity, and I often feel like the aesthetics of gay men are the only other place you are allowed to consider male bodies as more than a vaguely threatening symbol of potency.
Submissive men offer the opportunity to flip the subject/object nature of typical straight relationships
Sexual perfomance expectations for women are like that old metaphor of the swan, gliding serenely on the surface and paddling like mad underneath. An infinite amount of work, primping and positioning goes into performing femme for fucking, but then there’s a demand for aloofness that borders on disassociative. You become the prize he is then expected to pursue, the elegantly prepared feast to be devoured. Though I don’t doubt submissive women have their own canny inversions, if you are anywhere femme of centre, femdom has the best possible route to flipping that on its head without switching to a same gender partner. Not by default, mind you, as transgressively centring him, his looks and his beauty are hardly the default of mainstream BDSM porn. Nonetheless, big titty anime mommies and needy idiot fanboys or not, there’s a reason gentle femdom tends to be a land of painful yearning. And when you talk to dommes, outside of marketing copy; the people who don’t like submissive men; and the naive morons who think an actual personality like cat piss is a symbol of power, there is a visceral, all quenching immersion in him. He is there for us.
So, even if you have a complex asexual thing going on where it’s the sadomasochism not the aesthetics that matters to you, it also flips how we can interact with the bodies of eachother. One of the most depressing parts of the male default identity is how they are taught to relate to their bodies: penis, penis and yet more penis. Dudes learn this pretty early: Don’t touch anything else, not your nipples, not your lips and for gods sake, not your ass or the puckered hole between your cheeks. It’s no wonder so much straight porn treats its male actors like a life support system for an erection! For a shocking number of men, they live in an inversion of the previous century. Sex positive feminism taught women to look at their vulvas in mirrors, touch themselves down there, and see their genitals as something other than a dirty shame. But for men, almost a century from when your metaphorical (and my literal) granny squatted over a mirror, guys are worrying if proper hygiene makes them gaaaaay.
So, if straight men are putting their prostates off limits out of shame, forget nibbling the inside of his wrist, fingers, sensitive pulse points, etc! By now, our collective sex lore says these are all things that you have to teach men to explore on women. It’s expected it’s not intuitive to him, but agreed on as required, much how millennial dudes and younger now all osmotically learn cunnilingus is the new chivalry. Him though? No dude needs that! Just be hot and grudgingly consenting, ladies!
Of course that’s nonsense. Human bodies are so much more like each other than not. While the individual always varies, the layouts of most things anatomical are lazy, even putting nipples on every dude, and folding a structure that is shockingly analogous to a penis into the groins of cis women. Nerves are nerves, and we are not so sexually varied that a man lacks the physical capacity to enjoy all those erotic sensory things, from finger sucking to a hand pressed to the throat.
Whether you are hurting him or just exploring him, femdom unshackles you from his dick.
So don’t get me wrong, the end argument is not just to lock up all the penises. I agree that men vastly over state how much cock cages and chastity are a universal benefit to women. Men are not actually ruled by their libidos like it was a life sustaining drive akin to hunger or breathing. But what we don’t talk about in so-called chastity is how much it breaks everyone of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, including giving him permission not to receive it. The whole rest of the boy is on the table.
And whether your kink is inadequacy or display, you also get to really look at him. Just as my body is socially considered to be open to public commentary too much, men blunder around uncomplemented even by their loved ones. Stick that guy in the s type role and you center a female gaze that may or may not be pleased, but at least it’s pretty much universally there. Ditto the tentative exploration of lingerie for men, both to humiliate as emasculation via consensually weaponized dysphoria, and my personal preference, to decorate and emphasize. Though dommes grumble that our more shallow needs stay uncatered to, if you are here to oggle a pretty man, whatever your tastes, the options have only been getting better, gradually and grudgingly, over time.
I mentioned GentleFemdom, and while it’s drifted past interest for me into a fandom sausage fest, you have guys pressing in the other direction for a different idea they might be pursued and desired. And while the stock characters might not be my cup of tea, again, the manga influence heavy illustrated boys are most likely to be treated with dialogue that assumes he’s cute.
And likewise, just as his appearance becomes worthy of opinion, physical sadomasochism also needs a bigger canvas. Sure, you can hurt a cock and balls. I do, and enjoy it, but it’s a touch monomaniacal if that’s all you ever do. While you could glide through vanilla on kissing, hugs and touching his dick with bits of you, sadism means you need to get intimate with the sensory possabilities of everything. To stay in the sweet spot of permanent harm free, extended ouchies means more square inches than whatever is between his legs.
Male masturbation toys enjoy more use in femdom
BDSM in general favours a more hands off approach. Be it a flogger, a dildo on a pole, or a bog standard magic wand to give someone a forced orgams, we like our gear. It’s a sexually permissive society that’s has less emphasis, even in femsub land, that you should insist that a vibrator is competition to a man hoping a woman will have an orgasm.
There’s no weird hang ups about it being a cop out to use your belt, not your hand, on the pert behind of whom you are topping. Toys *on* tops are still a bridge too far in most content, and people can normalize for play, regardless of whatever gender combo is featured. However, male subs are the vanguard gradually dragging everyone to admit you can put a vibe on him as much as her. Through our purchasing needs, the plethora of strokers, milkers, butt plugs in various bulbous shapes from the Aneros to the usual blunt christmas tree style stopper are ever so gradually being dragged out of the “gay men only” silo they are stuck in.
Toxic masculinity ruins everything. While I can buy vibrators at Sephora, and female intended sex toys are now aggressively marketed assuming I am the primary consumer, male recreational appliances have a ways to go. And it’s generally part and parcel of femdom subculture for me to be able to talk about using something on Silver without people acting like it’s weird.
I’m enjoying it. One of the most common things I get asked to review, these days, has been the burgeoning male market, and it’s clear it’s a whole new ball game (snrk), with established manufacturers and new brands popping up every day. Between the new toys, and old toys getting more availability, the increasing presence of lingerie and more space to put his body in one’s metaphorical cross hairs, everyone’s sex lives will be better for it. Now to convince more dominants that they can use butt plugs or be masochists. 😛
The fan whirred and bought a gentle breeze over their bodies at each turn of its tall, slim cylinder body. The light was filtered through curtains, bright and searing outside, muted through shades to give the white walls a grayness. She took him by both hands from his desk, led him to kneel in front of her, and settled comfortably against the rustling beanbag chair. Her own back was against the side of the couch, the fat upholstered armrest and less stuffed but still padded straight flat part below it feeling good against gym tugged muscles.
He sat on his heels, like in a martial arts class, comfortable, already starting to relax. Trance was a routine, a habit you slid into when certain cues presented themselves. He couldn’t not start to drop now, when the context came up.
She put her finger to her lips, the easy to understand gesture that made the “shhh” command evident without needing to utter it. His attention was fixed firmly on her, particularly her eyes, but also her slender, long fingered hands.
She didn’t bring any props this time, not one of the watches or pendants from where it hung in their bedroom, not the plastic clicker, nor the toys from other sides of their dynamic: plugs and rope and cuffs and things that made his skin and the flesh beneath yield a little more with every strike. She was dressed for summer, t-shirt, shorts, much the same, but with the stubborn male habit of wearing long pants even in the hottest weather.
By gesture, only, she showed him to disrobe, pulling his shirt up and off, and the fly of his pants open to pull them down his thighs. Of course he was turned on already. Her attention was betwitching enough, on its own to draw that out of him. He could feel his breathing start to slow. She, in turn, knew that to hypnotize was a mirror. The pleasure in playing him down was to follow him into the state of float yet focus.
Indeed, as she raised her left hand so he could see it clearly, curling and uncurling her fingers to get his attention, she went along with how she commanded.
Breathe. 1-2-3-4-5. Her hand pulsed the beats to take that intake through his nose, her own chest swelling with an audible scoop of air.
Hold. 1-2-3-4-5. She clenched her fist in tight little spasms, saying nothing, watching him obey.
Release. 1-2-3-4-5. Her hand uncurled now in the same fashion, slowly, letting him drain out completely. Already, his shoulders were held a bit less tight, his face softer.
She repeated that loop twice more, resetting him, emptying his head of everything but the task at hand. Her willing subject let the pleasure of the resulting looseness let him slump a little more into the beanbag behind them.
Delicately, counting on the tingle that would result from only the most feather light touches, she let only her middle fingers touch her forehead, brushing them along from the midpoint below her parting to where they nudged blonde bangs from her temples. He anticipated this command perfectly, quickly raising his own hands to mimic.
She took her time to explore her face, circling all the nerve rich areas, around the edges of her scalp, along the orbits of her eyes, over her lips. Teasingly, she circled around and around, feeling the slight texture difference of her own lipstick. To him, he saw a mouth ringed in an almond-pink, close to natural. For her, she saw a copy, a thick small pout with a fair bit of colour. No lipstick, but oh so eager to mimic her fingers, now sliding into her own mouth.
His cock didn’t give her many cues. He tended to get hard and stay hard, so she measured the electric extra contact via the other tells, how his eyes briefly closed and savored the silent command to suck. She waited until he naturally opened them again, before moving on, down her neck, to her shoulders and looping around over her breasts.
She made three turns there, before mischief returned and she pinched both her nipples, trading what was entirely pleasure for her for what would be a little bite of sharpening discomfort for him. The intake of his breath was her reward and she moved on, caressing her own stomach, so he could follow, watching her lushness, as she watched him touch muscle under olive skin. From there, to her lap, over her thighs, down to her knees. He remained obedient.
When she finally made the gesture that let him know he could touch his cock, he was on autopilot, the whole entirety of his thoughts gone and only the need to intuit her commands there. She circled the air and stroked, up and down, up and down.
It amused her that, while he was by no means small, her own gestures exaggerated presence. She had no cock, unless she strapped one on. So, her hand wrapped around the air would travel up as far as above her breasts or just down to the fold of her lap, clear, visible and to be perfectly replicated in miniature.
She took her time with it, swoop and stroke, pacing herself. From time to time she would switch the beat, adding a twist into her wrist or a swirl of her palm up to show he must glide it over the head of his poor cock. Even this extra jolt of stimulation did not break his compliance. She could do it over and over again, knowing he wouldn’t let the flinching make him stop.
There was a paradox of erotic hypnosis: did one obey hypnotic commands because one desired to submit or did one desire to submit because one was hynotized?
Trance was trained into him, patterns grooved deeper and deeper into his psyche, bringing him down a little faster every time. She was able to command him like this, without a word or a sound louder than a sigh, because she had done this many times before. To be seduced and hypnotized by her was a memory he could play back for her with only the most minimal reminders.
Thus also, she found it got easier for her every time, stepping into patter as easily as she might her own home, knowing instinctively where to find his levers and vulnerabilities. She supposed that he reflected himself back onto her, the pliancy she found as much about his own talent to subsume himself into her wishes.
Through her puppetry, his face gained a certain returning tension where he had previously held it slack. His torso stiffened, particularly the two visible chords of muscle of his abdomen. Nonetheless, he was still fixated on her and her every motion. Closer and closer. Were this a command she made while he was fully able to speak without being spoken to he would start trying to signal that the point of no return was imminent.
He knew, normally he could not come without permission, but he was on this ride at her control, and if she decided that was what was going to happen, he would. This time she hesitated, enjoying the potential of that outcome and then brought her hand up quickly, her palm smooth and flat. Stop.
His obedience was immediate, but she enjoyed the lingering, instinctual twitches, hand wanting to seek back to where she had removed it. He was almost there. Just a bit more and he would have come. If, in her next gesture, she sent him back to pumping his cock for her she knew any restraint was gone and he would spurt, helpless, in scant more than two or three strokes.
Instead, she pivoted her wrist and SNAP. The pop was middle finger striking thumb, audible, breaking their silence even as he slumped down in front of her, dropping the rest of the way to bask in the relaxation of his complete trance.
—
Alas, I couldn’t post this one early for my dear Patrons because erotic hypnosis content remains on the no-no list for what patreon will permit. Nonetheless. if you don’t want to wait, most Friday Femdom Fiction is posted there first. It also helps support the site, so you really should consider signing up!
Water roared, white noise in a white bathtub, silver tap spouting full blast and warm. The fan, hidden somewhere in the ceiling, churned the air to knock down the steam, though the door was still flung wide, keeping the climate matched to the rest of the house.
Kai saw the space with the wholeness of her attention, the flat rectangle tub with beveled edges, solid sheet tile, behind on the wall and beneath, slightly tinged silicone guarding the gaps. A line of bottles, his and hers, filled the far ledge, against the wall, promising conditioning, moisture and soap without ever saying soap. Her victim was stripped bare, but then sheathed in skin mimicking latex, body unresisting despite the padded cuffs that suggested otherwise.
Jon’s crotch zipper was pulled, and he was erect, but this was to be taken for granted. Polar Bear. Kai called him that, teasing him about baculums and two week long hump fests until he broke. Something about her and her cruelty brought that out in him, and there was no need to coax more. The rubber was black, her own white, some evolutionary mimicry of a nurse in the last century. That is to say it was more cream than snow, but glossed under his obsessive attention. Earlier, she’d kicked off her white patent heels, though the cap was still discreetly bobby pinned into a nest of her curly hair.
There was a game afoot, themed, to a point. Kai had ran spiked wheels against his palm, yanked his cock to the edge several times and pushed an inflatable plug into him, acting with feigned detachment like the balloon inside him was some sort of pulse reader. This segue to another room was an impulse, but good housekeeping made it smooth. Everything was where she needed it. Lube, toys, gloves, nose plug.
She folded the towel on the bathtub rail, set just so where Jon would rest his body. There was a frisson of the danger they embarked on, hovering over their play.
It takes only a few drops of water to drown. Her brain told her, nudging. Are you confident you can revive him?
Kai put that thought in a central place, even as she continued. He was obedient in her positioning, as she undid the back zipped of his hood, folding it up. Blunt clips, meant for swimming, pinched his nose, pragmatic, not sexy. They left a slight bump in the latex she smoothed back over them.
Jon knew what she intended to do. He was the one that bought the nose plugs, after all. Creative sadism was what she provided, he made sure the logistics improved on it.
The tub reached the level she wanted, and she checked the temperature with a bare forearm. The surface holding the light from behind them, where it flanked the mirror over the sink and flowed out from the overhead fixture. Where water splashed on her it made perfect beads, hydrophobic material casting it out, sealed under a silicone sheen. He stayed as she wished, spreading his legs for her so the zipper splitting his ass could be peeled open a bit more. It parted like it was eager to, always a fight to seal him in and then jubilantly letting the parts of him spill out with the smallest tugs.
Kai put her gloves on. He was still lubricated from earlier, and the slick inside the suit that made it possible to fit himself inside. She pulled a bit more and his erection was squashed where she could torment it from behind, even as she added a bit more lube to his hole. She liked the discomfort when his cock was so hard it caught on the rubber, not easily fitting through the gap of whatever he was wearing. “How are we doing?”
“Ok Mistr… Nurse.” Jon caught himself. It was too easy to break character in their games, since ultimately, not matter the sensations, she was the one reliable common factor of his perversion. He heard her murmur her approval, nudge one, then two fingers into his ass.
The hole, from her perspective, reminded her a bit of the nub whorl where a tree had lost it’s branch. Barely different in shade, above a landscape where, beneath, the space between that and his hanging balls had an inviting bulge. She liked the almost medical-lore feeling of pressing there to feel the way his cock and testicles were only part of more, inside. Finding that spot, behind his cock, with two fingers, was like knowing a secret.
That her mind would wander in sex didn’t displace her own arousal, even if she had learned to keep real medical lectures to a minimum. She liked knowing the physical spot on a body spots, archived them in her head with pleasure. Hit here, to do the Heimlich maneuver, count these beats, here to keep a heart going, and push here, like a gameshow contestant hammering a button to knock him into an abject aroused vulnerability. Her grin, unseen by him, moved her face even as a third finger introduced into his ass stretched him to accommodate.
He was where she wanted him, the next step a matter of escalation. “Ready?”
Kai waited for it, before her other hand pressed him under the water. She had to lean a bit, losing some of the good angle of his ass to begin to terrorize him. Her whole body was tuned to his latex wrapped one, reading each twitch, carefully. There was an art to this.
Beautiful panic, over and over again, hammering away at what his body couldn’t control. She wanted to push it just past the point he tapped out, but not so much that he’d accidentally suck in water in a desperate breath.
His eyes were closed. In theory he could pull his torso up at any point, or squirm free, but he wouldn’t. That was the submission he was giving, though his arms were trapped together, the strength of his core was meekly surrendered to her fuckery.
She checked his mask, being sure the extra variable of the hood wasn’t somehow throwing off the safety of her complete control, and,confirming all was well, traded three fingers for stout, bulbed, silicone. The combination of playful drowning and penetration was making him into the best kind of mess. Warm water splashed them, small drops further decorating their impenetrable, implacable costumes. The toy she was forcing into his ass had three bulbs of graduated size, the final one enough to intimidate.
She told him that she wouldn’t let him breathe until it was all the way in, managing the juggling act, crooning to him to take it. Air deprived panic made him tense, more sensation for him, more joy for her. He hitched at the last wide part, but just when she thought she might have to cry off for his sake, his ass closed again on the slimmer neck before the disk-flare of the bottom of the toy.
He gasped, and Kai teased him. “So full for me, and still rock hard. Getting off on your water cure?”
He was two muddle headed to come up with a reply that made sense, so she let him settle before resuming, fondling and stroking to fill the time. Water, latex and silicone oil made a unique texture, her own fingers pruned on the hand she ducked him with. When she could be sure he was fully lucid to her torments again, she didn’t warn him, but plunged him back under.
He was surprised, no air in reserve, quick to break, but even as the first warning buck told her he was at a limit, she fumbled the vibe into his groin. It was clumsier than she liked, but good enough. He got the message even as she relaxed her hand to let him surface. Go down, get pleasure. Come up, she pulled the vibe away.
“If you can cooperate with the cure long enough to come, you have my permission.”
Jon took a deep breath, by way of reply, and her hand on the back of his hooded head pressed him under again.
No candles or altar, just the buff carpet under foot and the grey slab of the bed. That was soft, not the carved stone her imagination summoned, but there were strong straps to hold him fast, so that would serve. In her hand, she had a knife, but it was shielded in plastic and not meant for his skin, a tiny, wicked edge snap off sharp for slitting boxes.
He was dressed for her, magnificently, the buttons of his suit open so the lapels of his jacket lay splayed. His tie was only a little crooked, pulled that way by her hand, earlier. Her feet felt the tilt of her heels, toes adjusting in tall stockings. She had dressed for herself, though for what she was to do, perhaps instead she needed silk or flax or wool in white and unstitched, or maybe a robe, draping her with ominous authority. She was instead, in garters over panties, a longline bra, all a black mesh.
Looking at him, he was denied the opportunity to do the same to her, by an eyeless, red satin mask, stuffed full of little beads so its weight made a seal that blocked most light. She considered that he was also dressed for himself, the pride he had in his clothing. Suits tailored to fit, picked from floor models and matched with fabrics hung on racks in dark tones and the occasional grey or clean white. If she took his jacket off, she would find a half dozen little touches of quality, symptom of wealth.
Inside, she remembered, in those lapels, as well as a hidden pocket, little red hand finishing stitches. Running her fingers over those had been deeply intimate. What was it of masculinity, to put your colour only on the inside or in safe places, the glance of ankle, demure restraint of a pocket square or a scant slash of a tie? It was just another hint of the immense vulnerability she saw in the so-called opposite sex. She wanted sacrilege and a sacrifice. She wanted to tear all that away.
Her hand on his chest told her that there were more layers beneath the buttoned shirt. They had played these games long enough she had guesses at what: lace, straps, mesh. He loved that opportunity to peacock, no shame in what was most close to his skin. Soon it would be exposed.
While he was still blind, she kissed him, her hands moving to press on his pulled apart arms, poking at his helplessness. Thus, then, a clean kiss under his control and sliding off the blindfold, leaving it discarded next to his head. She had his full attention. How could she not, straddling his body, rubbing against him even as he pushed back towards her, against the limits the cuffs on his wrists and ankles permitted.
To play was not to take on a mask, but to take it off. It was a cold-water dive, exhilarating, her sadism popping out to satiate itself. She smiled and found her true desire. “Last chance to beg off.”
He couldn’t, she knew that. She watched him, hawk like, always, when they played, checking for those tells of the edge of where he could go. He didn’t mean to be dishonest to his capacity, muffled by the real desire to give her everything. Still, she trusted him, for the same cruel instinct obliterated much of the barriers between them. She could read fine from not fine perfectly well, overriding even this to hold to his limit.
He was troubled, but not unwilling. It wasn’t actually the last chance, but she was reassuring herself of her power, girding herself before her hands grasped at his collar and yanked hard.
Some buttons popped, some loosened at the sudden wrenching tugged and opened to the waist, his shirt. That was fixable, so far. White t-shirt gaped underneath, soft and flowing over hints of straps. She smiled at her own audacity. It was unclear if this was a transgression against him or her own frugality. Hurting his flesh was easier.
The shirt cost more than she made in an hour, the suit a quarterly bonus for him. The fly of his pants, wrapped around to a button on one side, was soon popped and pulled, the first hint of mesh. Despite the carnage, despite holding no place in his own fetishes, he was still faithfully hard for her.
She would never bruise his pretty face, but here she was doing something that felt just as forbidden. The knife in her hand was comfortable, enticing her towards the next step.
“Hold still,” she warned, thumbing out a blade barely the length of her thumbnail. Cutting was a two-hand job, one to hold the fabric taut, one to stroke it through the fibres.
Split fabric made a beautiful noise. With his body bound there was no way she could fully undress him any other way. But everything he was and owned was hers to use or discard as she wished. She loved good wool, loved to run her hands over the smoothness of his jackets hanging in their closet or feel the weight of it in her hands. And yet the hardest part of its mutilation was an act of will.
Further, it was not an orgy of slashing and stabbing. Every cut, still straddling the warmth of him, was careful, planned. “Measure twice, cut once.”
His face had fear at the blade. She kept her attention on that too, even as ribbons of what was once the work of hours by a tailor were casually tossed away. Revealed, bit by bit, a few threads still littering the bed beneath them, she admired.
Straps, crisscrossing, mesh framing his cock, giving other textures to contrast his naked velvet-and-butter. Beneath the suit he’d dressed as much to be admired, lingerie cut for his body. It was a piece she’d picked out for him, saved her own money to afford it.
Their eyes met and she caught that moment of mutual understanding, her power over him giving them that wonderful connection where she saw his pride in being considered, wanted and consumed. They kissed, again, and then she hooked her thumb into one of the black bands of the body suit, considering: should she cut this free too?
Yikes! Can you believe this story has been sitting unwritten, because I psyched myself out, for the last 8 months? At some point this year I convinced myself all my writing was terrible and crawled into a shame spiral hole. But, here you are, and hopefully you enjoy it as much as int inspired me. <3
To tell the story of Pearl, it’s a bit more than just saying I am a dominant sadomasochist.
At this point it’s probably clear that the whole femdom thing is indelibly stamped into the core function of my sexuality, enough that I have been talking about it a LOT lately, or at least my place on the asexual spectrum. But, part of who I am is influenced by something a bit adjacent todemisexuality, and that has been further effected by the factthat I fall in love easily. I don’t use the word “love” lightly, like I pop off crushes on lots of people. I mean the sort of heart soaring heavy nonsense. Getting there, for me, is incredibly easy.
After many years of having this part of my makeup, I also have determined not everyone falls that hard. Insights into the spectrum of human possible really does involve a lot of guessing, like discovering some people are ear rumblers or cilantro tasters. But, much like the latter case, if people don’t have the capacity themselves, they may suspect you are somehow exaggerating. Which, I suppose is just the part of the human condition that finds it comforting to suggest one is making things up, or that the severity will reduce with the right mindset, like comforting a child with a scraped knee.
For me, sex hormones and falling in love share an entwined history. In addition to my kinks, which grew from day 1, ever since puberty hit, so did the BigFeel capacity. The hardest part is there’s not a lot of support for it. Generally, if you talk about intense feelings of yearning for another human, everyone treats it like an obsessive thing you are choosing to do. Instead, as I experience it, it’s an involuntary WHOMP of an attachment. It’s the closest brush I can get to vanilla, in so much that there’s a tiny window my sexuality will be present without a mountain of kink between me and them.
It’s like those various brain integrated glands got the instructions to lay down the pre-framework, long before I dropped my first egg, and decided to say: “Hello, Miss Pearl (aged 12)! In addition to a single orgasm this year, and some now functionally vestigial parts that will ripen up over the next half decade, your already awkward ability to bond onto others will be amped up to 11. The only saving grace is that you will be completely frustrated in realizing these wants most of the time, thus safe from a lot of dumb follow up behaviour.“
This nonsense was probably made worse by the fact that there’s a cultural assumption that pushes eros into any male/female relationship. When I was younger, I preferred the company of boys for reasons of shared nerdy interests. I liked the company of girls before that- I am lucky I never internalized the sexism of assuming girls were inherently no fun. However, I followed my interests, and the kinds of games that could be played, which meant little in the way of female companionship. As a result, at the best of times, when I was way too young for it, adults were already imposing dating expectations onto my male friendships. But, inversely, even in these erotypical scripts, I had no tools to help me navigate having an Olympic level firework display going on in the brain of a child and young adult. Indeed, most people generally denied it could be happening to me, and further romanticized it as an experience we would be lucky to have once in a lifetime.
(There’s an additional hypothesis one might have about my capacities: there is actually a deeper form of Eros I have yet to experience. If everything to this point was a “crush”, I will end up in a psyche ward when it happens, because this is already pretty all consuming.)
For the lack of support I grew up with, I blame abstinence only education, which depends very much on the idea of rare, monogamous and consistent attachments and no alternatives. It’s much easier to enforce a compulsory, marriage focused heterosexuality when you believe in abstract concepts like a single shot of “True Love” to save you purity for. And yet, when I dug further, past pop culture, much as most research on love is almost laughably primitive. Like sex, people have thought about it a bunch and made more art than a million humans could consume in one lifetime. And yet, the psychology is still in the classification stage. Limerance, the term for the intense attachment and search for connection, was a word only coined in 1979. University labs pair college students in research to see if sharing prolonged eye contact and facts about the self correlate to an increased chance of a relationship forming.
So, you have a paradox. Love, in the broad sense, is a big label. It’s been contemplated forever, and generally serious classifications start with mentioning it’s broken down into sub types to distinguish sexual passion (Eros) from friendship (Philia) or a bond with a family member (Storge), and so forth. Unfortunately, this also hints that a lot of the thinking about it hasn’t really advanced, like we were still using the Aristotelian concept of the atom to try to do physics.
Setting off to navigate the conversations around the asexual spectrum, by the way, is a further challenge of everyone having a different perception of love. All humans don’t have the same capacities or experience, but this is never discussed. So, the other half of the expectation around my experience is that it is on the one hand very rare, but on the other, universally possible. Much is said about “True Love” in art, but while you can find out the wavelength of the colour orange, try to measure dopamine and so forth in new parents, or calculate the age of the galaxy relative to its neighbours, love just seems to be. People expect it to happen, to the point that aromantic folk have to make it clear they are a distinct identity, including having to emphasize that it’s not the same as asexuality. (Though the whole Ace thing clearly has a bit of an umbrella label effect, due to the path of collective discovery).
I can’t know if you, the reader, experiences love like I do.
Moving away from the people who don’t love, or love as much, but further from the Greeks, trying to explain what is going on might be further clarified philosophical observation about love from the late 1820s, of something called Crystallization. That’s the process your entire brain gets melted and leaks out your ears, and in the process, elevates the object of your fixation. In my case, barring rare moments, I am about as attracted to the act of non-kinked sex with another human about as much as humans typically find upholstery, garden ponds, or fruit bowls erotic. If Love wanders in, then these parts actually work.
Moving through the timeline of people writing about love, in the second half of the last century you will find neologisms like limerence. The experience of the early stages, for me, is something I only semi facetiously call a “temporary manic episode”. The first burst of falling in love brings euphoria, dropped sleep needs, and a magnetic inspiration that slams whatever poor bastard I have bonded onto into a muse. It also has a regrettable history of encouraging me to be a pest, though at least my gender flipped pigtail pulling could be tempered by maturity.
But just as nature abhors a vacuum, I am not permitted to walk without attachment. A cozy monogamous(ish) relationship that meets my emotional and sexual needs is the only thing that turns it off. Elsewise, I don’t have it in me to be the bed hopping, casual sex loving slut I wished to be. I was born to burn for desire for one person at at time. More frustratingly, though this limerence allows a brief ability to have a more vanilla sex, trapped in a relationship without kink, my romantic attachment fizzles.
What dignity I have today, in love, is hard won.
I am not the hot mess I once was. I mean, I hope so, as I think I’m in the “middle aged” territory of womanhood now, pre-menopausal, but definitely not young. And yet, the insensity has never wavered. All that coudl happen is I got good at controlling my behaviour. That’s no thanks to pop culture, which excuses the theoretical actions of women in love only a little bit less than the carte blanche it gives a guy with the same thing. Fiction isn’t even really sure that dying for your passion is a bad thing, even if Romeo and Juliet has an aspect that’s a cautionary tale. Cathy might crash her immune system yearning in the moors in her nighty, but we are meant to see her passion for Heathcliff at least understandable and inevitable. Of course, luckily for me, love largely just gave me an opportunity to act like an embarrassing git. My teenage years are, lest you think otherwise, a cringe factory that I survive remembering only through accepting my own sincerity at the time.
Middle school (Junior High for Americans) passed in an unfortunate series of stupidities, to be met with an excess of eagerness in High School. While the adults assumed I was on drugs based on my general behaviour (lol, nope), and shook their heads at my sexual precocity, over 50% of the time such passions were unrequited. That is for the best, and it was only through this experience that a modicum of a clue and a shred of pattern recognition started to assert itself. I lived in an area where all the small town nonsense of the early 2000s was in full swing. It was the era of Purity Rings and second virginity, and I was a baby pervert who wanted to do BDSM. I had the internet, and bonded awkwardly on similarly aged folks there too.
I learned the triggers tended to be creating the fiction I craved together. Not every person, but outside of my first times, where mere positive attention seemed enough to turn me into a giddy idiot, it was a common denominator. I’m super lucky, by the way, that Silver’s sexuality is more primarily mapped on making “story” too. Unfortunately, I also learned a pattern that for most people I fell for, they would play out such creativity with me during a crush on me, and than put that away like some sort of courtship only thing.
Nonetheless, I eventually learned to handle it. It doesn’t force me to pursue a single goal, rather while I can’t temper the intensity, I can find appropriate outlets. It also doesn’t completely suspend my judgement. As an older teenager, I was already able to tell if something wasn’t going to work if we tried a relationship. Gradually I managed to shunt all that enthusiasm and energy away from the people and into writing projects and so forth.
Kink mismatches, and other hazards of love
This does give me a little perspective on the situation of the tale as old as time: the kinky person married (or as good as married for their socio-economic status) to someone mismatched in libido or what they want to do in their sex life.
I am generally on the side of telling people in monogamous, but kink free or dead bedroom relationships not to cheat. Divorce and seperations are economically and emotionally hard, but at least they are legally possible. However, I am a little more sympathetic in how a kinked person stumbles into a union with a vanilla person. Not only is their precious little information about kink, to help one make that self discovery, but circumstances like mine show how one might have a brief window where things could work without kink. Nonetheless, my self knowledge means I have to front load any courtship with what I am into.
Nonetheless, I have had variable luck. In the first place, one of the harder lessons in being kinky is that just because they technically have your fetish doesn’t mean you share it compatibility. Nowhere is this illustrated than among balloon fetishists, where popping/not popping is a deep schism. but even in BDSM and further sub divided into femdom, you can come from two wildly different places. It’s been the end of more than one relationship for me, and painful, at that.
I cannot, however, have much spite for the incompatibility. I did have one party claim to be more kinky than they were, but the delusion there seemed to be wishful thinking. Nonetheless, when things are kink-functioning, I am a very sexual person. That’s an irony for me, lacking all the typical attractions, but unable to sustain the head-load of romantic attachments if we aren’t regularly doing some sort of intercourse. I worry , these days, as menopause is about a decade or two at most away, if my libido will sputter out, changing the picture entirely. But, past evidence shows that even when brain meds tanked things, there was some sort of connection still there.
Silver linings
I think, however, there is one blessing. I have, more often than not, found adult me’s passions reciprocated. Even in my youth, I turned down one budding relationship because I knew were wouldn’t be kink compatible, but the poor person, at least, matched me for the gooey-glue of our wants. And I suspect I owe that to the fact that I love openly and well.
Silver, for example, says he likes the surety and openness of my feelings. I was many months ahead of him for the “I love you”. For him, it was a much more cautious conclusion. But I cannot help feeling that my quick heart probably helped me signal to solidify the relationship that makes me very happy. And, I also noticed, though my looks are often remarked on, I have never been courted because of them. My personality, my creativity and so forth have always been someone’s motive- even as I find my aesthetics are a bonus. That too, I think is related to my loving openess.
I think it is easier to fall for the “personality” of a person when they unspool themselves like I do. I might love immensely, deeply, but it does seem I have been loved deeply, a lot, as well.
As you know, health issues have been a core part of the sporadic hiatus, and emotional well being is part of them. It’s something I am a bit sad and sheepish about. In my happiest D/s relationship, most uncomplicated or “yes, but” tainted, I am also at a point where I am not giving the content here that probably would have helped me equivalent back when I founded things 10 years ago. But, maybe I should talk about the pain of how trying to bring change hurt me, within the community, too?
Content Note: transphobia, social criticism, bullying, burn out, mental health, and sexual assault.
Recently, after seven years in the role, I quit moderating r/femdom. I’d been basically checked out for more than a few years. This was, not in the least part, because ultimately the act of trying to curate porn that gives 0 space for my actual sexuality (while purporting to be about me) is about as inherently rewarding as watching the bailiffs auction your heirlooms to help settle the unpaid mortgage on the family farm they are also seizing. I had started, amusingly, because I got banned and publicly spoke out about how the environment was hostile to dommes, particularly lifestyle dommes and tried to seed a little foothold- not removing the fap but suggesting it could be otherwise. The trigger for quitting is betwixt the therapy I am faithfully doing and yet another DM attempting, in good faith on their part, to point out I was not doing enough.
This isn’t, by the way, an attack on this person. She pointed out, being trans, she was banned for content with her bio-dick, which the group gives a pass to with a strapon. Systemic unfairness is rampant- users flag trans people just for being trans, at the best of times. Since everyone is very, very off the rules, even if you could argue her post broke the letter of the law or spirit, she wasn’t without a solid point. But I was looking at her relatively polite appeal to me, pointing out the gatekeeping of the group, and something just came untied. It was that while someone COULD take on her crusade, I was so burned out and, tbh, socially burned by trying to help that I was the wrong person to do it. If I did, I would probably piss everyone else off, putting her hopes on me and then dashing them. This would also be no win for me, as excessive past experience shows that friendly fire is a pretty standard experience in progressive spaces, as well as fragging.
I wouldn’t be able to get the other moderators to be able to make a useful change, all they would be is more burned out and pissed off. I was the most approachable for her issue, but holy hell was I holding on by a thread. I knew that the team I worked with, however well meaning, were similarly ground down. Bot campaigns, hate mail, trashing and bad faith social justice flavoured appeals had all done a lot of damage, leaving a team that was doing the bare minimum to keep the lights on. Fragility, in its various forms has been called out as a barrier to change, but being what people call a “Geriatric Millennial”, I am old enough to see that while conflict might not be abuse, it is labour. It’s labour to sit with the discomfort of your own faults. The work doesn’t go away, even if it is important, no spoons magically materialize extra to make people more resilient because the work is important.
You can definitely power that gap on anger, or fear, but that is a quick way to cPTSD.
Oh, poor Pearl, making excuses! Nah, this is honesty, not an emotional appeal to you. The direct truth, here, is that me in the moderator role wasn’t going to help her with her problem. BUT. Me in the moderator role was probably standing in the way of someone who could. Not because I was actively blocking someone- like most load bearing, endless in scope volunteer roles, being present was leaving people comfortable enough not to do the work to fix things or let them fail.
I wanted to tell her that I already thought r/femdom being essentially r/grumpypegging and low effort spam killed my joy. I wanted to say that the standards we tried to determine who was/wasn’t a dom were nonesense, that they reflected a mindset that was fundamentally anti-sexworker, while still consuming almost exclusively commercial content. Femdom is subculture that, due to collective marginalization of lifestyle only and pro dommes alike, needed us to be allies. But the conceptual way reddit’s larger user base handles porn still has the pre-revenge porn laws mindeset. It’s a harassing, greedy and piracy first attitude that bred The Fappening. And, ultimately, it wasn’t my subreddit to decide to blow things up to turn into a feminist sex utopia. Nobody died and made me in change, and, nobody gave me a private army to accomplish some sort of coup-by-doing-the-work. But I didn’t, cuz she didn’t message me out of the blue to support me.
How about saying “I just work here, ma’am”?
I knew that wasn’t a good enough reply, either. Ultimately while the rewards of helping were minimal, a reputational boost translating to such a miniscule amount of privilege compared to say, working the same hours at McDonalds and using the money to self promote via ads- I was still there. Why was I doing this? Because I thought, in some small way I could push things to be a bit better for everyone.
I volunteer to feel safe, and foster a sense of belonging. I’m autistic, which doesn’t mean all autistics experience things this way, but like all humans I have people needs. My people needs were nurtured in socially abusive environments, while my head is full of boundless creative energy and vision. I unavoidably stand in the foreground, becoming a lead weight on a rubber sheet, warping the gravity of an environment I am in. Maybe this tendency to check out when I am not actively engaged is an ADHD thing too, but nevertheless, it is a thing. And this trying to be in motion, positively, has a history of harming me.
Then Perish.
My therapist asked me something a few weeks back. Why do I mention taking on an “11 victim serial rapist”, a fair bit, as an anchor in my life narrative? He’s a good therapist, so we have the rapport where the pillars of my self can be poked without hurting me. It was a good question. Taking on a series of missing stairs, culminating with that last one, and trying to emphasize the shit I dealt with, with Dunter, to get people to listen, did me irreparable harm, and alienated me from the Montreal kink community. Oh, and my relationship with my partner at the time fell apart- it needed to evolve because of core incompatibilities, but holy fuck, the timing.
Losing your social group to ostracism sucks. It’s actually potentially spectacularly fatal. I wish it hadn’t taken Lindsey Ellis having a second breakdown due to extended social abuse by mob to trip over: “Hot Allostatic Load“, but it helped understand what was going on.
Trying to understand my mental health can be put through a few lenses. One perspective is that things have never been ok- I was an anxious child, to begin with, who experienced ongoing abuse trauma. Another is that my early twenties to thirties were cyclical disasters: boom and bust, functional to non. Or, a person with existing vulnerabilities moved from an abusive family; to an abusive relationship; to an abusive situation in her community… to another even more abusive community, outside of kink.
Being accurate, when I took on Kommandant and Dunter, both sought to destroy my reputation, the latter by implying that I was abusive as well to change the subject. Then, because I had a reputation as the only person with a spine, when I didn’t deliver the results that people wanted on yet one more of many issues, fairly unpleasant humans decided to dox me. They did so because in social justice, any damage for progress is and ends justifies the means. Nothing like deleting a post using your real name on fetlife, and then being told you were silencing them. Guess that’s tone policing now, isn’t it? >_>
I am not just bitter, I’m traumatized. Also bitter. But, mostly trauma.
At the same time, by the way, my online life was picking up stalkers. Pretty gnarly ones, the kind where yeah, there’s clearly some mental health issues going on, but also someone you have never met or interacted with is hell bent on personally punishing you for a relationship they imagined you had with them. Most crazy people don’t do that, this was more the celebrity dehumanization effect.
So I quit, running away into a LARP club, and into Vancouver. And on the way, the LARP club ripped my spine out through my ass. Because it turns out vampire LARP’s poisoned history makes the sexual abuses of the Montreal BDSM scene look like a walk in the park.
Bleeding out various metaphorical injuries got round 2 of disordered eating, followed by covid’s impact just kicking what little stamina I had left. I have been cooling my heels on about 1.5 years now of long term disability. What can I say about that?
I am getting better. I am anxious I will never be fully “ok” to function, of tackling permanent disability to work full time. I am filled with so much guilt and anxiety around the Patreon thing falling by the wayside, I can’t even bring myself to open the site, even though I probably would go back to it much sooner if I did. But a lot of where I got so far in my recovery is heralded by abrogation of responsibilities. Quitting things.
I first noticed that in the larp side. Like most creative hobbies, it’s notorious for volunteer labour making even “for profit” endeavors possible. The pocket I enjoyed is even more shoe string, nourishing a community where even minimal membership fees are a hardship. Leaving aside stumbling from sexual abuse in kink to sexual and other abuse in LARP, there’s very much an over reliance on “hero” volunteers, running unopposed for elected positions of implied sort of leadership, but largely admin. And the people in those roles are a smaller pool than the member base, doing it at the expense of personal life, reputation and health. It continues, because if they stopped the event would stop.
And at some point I sad down and did the math- if it wasn’t important enough to people to support it, then they didn’t deserve to have it. Would this event, this idea or project die but for one person or team? Then perish.
When I left Montreal, the munch I hosted vanished.
Inheritance, alone in an era of missing stairs and #MeToo, became a mess. Events that didn’t act to make themselves safer, ironically, faced less damage. Not because they were better off doing so, but because the 18-35 community didn’t have its shit together not to turn into a ridiculous mud sling if said can of worms were opened. They grew too dependent on Pearl spending $40 a month on a drink she wouldn’t otherwise consume, and a taxi home so she could host a gathering that was slightly safer and curated than others. The fight over the amorphous cluster of folks that became attached to this group overshadowed the labour of keeping things safe.
Cliff, of Pervocracy, talked about this as well. They have one of the most influential theories on moral and social behaviour of groups, but their Missing Stair essay came at a cost I became familiar with. I became, much as they described their own experience, the holding place for the trauma of others.
You don’t get to one and done, to pick up that sword becomes a lifelong commitment, in the eyes of others. Which sounds noble and ideal for everyone, because, like, shouldn’t we all be unstintingly fighting against abuse? Most of the space we call social media is that sort of participatory effort, a push in all directions, so you would think there would be more people doing the work that needs doing.
Only we clearly aren’t. Because the larger world is a hostile place, the burdens disproportionately fall on these load bearing actors. and then the price of failure or imperfection is “we trusted you, the status of being trusted should have been enough”.
Just purely hosting that Munch was, shocking to me, revolutionary to most folks. One evening a month, emailing a bar and making a fetlife event. It spawned two direct (welcomed) copycats that filled needs my event didn’t. And yet at the time it was a remarkable act of will and inclusion even before I started taking whisper network warnings and shouting them. Acting on them, banning people.
I sort of wondered about those legendary wise people and oracles, with people seeking out some poor bronze age bastard to judge their legal dispute or tell them how to plan their personal lives and granary systems. I think also about the shock people forever have when they discover someone popular isn’t rich, works a regular job.
To help others or to speak is to barter your participation in a group
A pithy bit of writing I stumbled over recently observed that in spiritualist societies, when you started having personal occult revelations, your existing group or church would typically exile you. They might have even be founded by another exile with a vision, but yours would become a bridge too far.
I feel a lot of kinship with Contrapoints, just a girl talking, who lucked into being better at talking and entertaining at the right time. Hers was a monkey paw, trying to protect her community and understand the human condition, which arguably made her inevitable transition a bit smoother, but I can’t help thinking that she was smart/positioned enough to make the same income in a short sleeve polo as a software engineer. Then she could still have spent, as she put it “luxury car money” on the medical side of alleviating some of her dysphoria. There sure are a lot of Tesla orbiting every FANG hub I have been around, and a lot of folks participating in the resulting countercultural communities that spring up in such cities.
Instead, the poor woman became a living goddess style avatar in the way we modern people do it. If you were fanciful and biblically raised you could say the Eden breaking nakedness Adam and Eve traded for was an awareness others could see them and care. Sort of like people suggest the god of foresight, Prometheus, isn’t being punished for stealing fire, but giving humans the anxiety of being able to live outside the now. The maker of the monkey with anxiety, if you will.
Other people have written on the toxicity of the traumatized trapped in a marginalized space, retraumatizing each other endlessly. But, with my double helping of the usual monkey anxiety and being a freak among the freaks, now what?
I guess I do what I always do: process my feelings messily and publicly in a long form essay. But I think I will also suggest that we need to do a way better job on foundational shit. Missing stairs exploit being more effort and social complexity to address than to leave as a shared hazard. Believe the victim was a nice start, but it’s not making a tangible structure of next steps or what to do when you “believe the victim” but all the doctors in the hospital are gunshot victims too.
I need there to be a community that supports me without eating me alive in the process. And I need there to be a community with diffused labour-of-justice that is not done from a place of constant high amp. I don’t know what that is, but right now I won’t be trying to found it, as I am a bit occupied with trying to smelt a few more spoons out of the pile of scraps, swords and old razor blades I have been given to work with.
