Kink In Exile

Maybe because I was visiting a printing press yesterday, maybe it’s just because I’m a dork, but the first thing I noticed about the Bliss 3 is the packaging. The outside cardboard sleeve has a really nice use of embossing that makes it look like a fancy DVD box set. The outside sleeve also has half circle cuts at the outside edge so you can easily grip the inside box and pull it out. The inside box, a purple two part pull-open, is less impressive but still nice. The inside is clearly inspired by a mac book box though, complete with branded tab that lets you pull up the top toy holding tray to reveal the batteries, storage baggie, and manual bellow.

Why do I mention all of this? Because packaging adds a lot to the perceived value of a product, and it seems to be on the forefront of the sex toy revolution. Think about it. Put the same vibrator in a transparent plastic blister-pack with a picture of a porn star on the front and you have a different product. Make it beige and put it in a brown paper bag and you have a different product. I’m not saying that the qualities of the vibrator aren’t important, they are, and we’ll get to them shortly. What I’m saying, however, is that the care and attention paid to the packaging of high-end sex toys highlights the engineering and design that went into the actual toy and changes our opinions of who should buy this product, where, and for how much.

I guess non-geeks out there might want to know about the actual toy though, right? The Bliss 3 is about 5 inches long and over an inch in diameter. It is made out of silicon, and powered by AAA batteries (which are included with the toy in the little sub toy compartment that looks oh so much like a mac book box). The toy claims to be super quiet using “whisper-quiet” technology but I didn’t think it was any more or less quiet than the bulk of high-end vibrators I have seen. The 9 vibration patterns range from 3 levels of continuous vibration to more exotic pulsing patterns and are very, very nice (try #4!) These are all controlled through one power button at the base. I like the simplicity of just one button, but it would actually be nice to be able to go forward and backward instead of having to cycle through all 9 patterns if you miss the one you wanted.

Long story short: Nice vibrator with plenty of options to choose from and a very pretty presentation that makes this a great spoil-yourself-silly kind of toy.

I don’t think so. Ok, so I’m particularly in work-head today having dressed up like a grown up for a meeting with my creative director, but this post isn’t really about dress code. This is a post, one of many, about being so many other things before I’m a domme. In this post Advo discusses his real estate agent as a possible domme, and you know, it bothers me. Not that he is attracted to her all together but that what draws his attention and fuels the post is not the introduction of a competent and experienced agent but rather that of the possibility of a dominant woman. I’ve seen this elsewhere too — the appraising post, the idle chatter on a submissive man’s blog about whether the grumpy bus driver/lady at the cafe/secretary is secretly dominant.

It makes me wonder if people think this way about me? If they hear “human computer interaction…” and tune out to thoughts of being beaten with looped optical fiber. I hope not. I can’t imagine that an interaction with anyone who doesn’t see me as a complete holistic being and is not paying for the privilege of seeing only what they want to see will go far. The bottom line is that it’s downright offensive and if you are going presume to be submissive you could start with a little bit of respect of the kind you afford any other business contact.

I know, sex work is that last resort you’re supposed to turn to in bad time or some such, but that just isn’t true. You see every once in a while I start pining for sex work. I miss the pro-domming sessions or the modeling work I’ve just been too busy to pursue, I troll Craigslist in search of something fast and safe-seeming. I feel bad about this at time, as though I am taking work away from people for whom this is their day job just to get my rocks off, but hey, my once a month pining for a quick $100 bucks just for showing up, lifting my skirt, and peeing on some poor bloke isn’t about to put Capp Street out of business. I’m also finding that this just isn’t a good business model. In fact, it isn’t a business so much as a self-funding hobby. In my fantasy world I’d have one regular client who passed through town every few weeks and that would more than fulfill the whoring item on my sexual to-do list. Maybe that can be my new year’s resolution for 2010.

I was talking to a friend this afternoon about the fact that there are aspects of pro-domming that I miss a great deal. Some of them are specifically about the business, but others are more personal. They are about how the business lets me explore my own kinks. The party line seems to be that there is no getting off at work. Clients are clients, lovers are lovers, and never the two shall meet. And in general I would advocate a healthy distinction between one’s personal and professional self no matter what one’s profession may be. Sex-workers and people doing emotional labor in particular benefit from well defined boundaries. However, some aspects of sex work are deeply personal, and intrinsically fetishistic.

I like being an unapologetic whore. Ok, read a little deeper: this is not just about being unapologetic about an industry or a career path, this is about being unapologetic about a behavior that is labeled as wrong not just in society in general, but also in kinky circles. I like being a demanding bitch, a spoiled little girl, a princess. Pro-domming gave me a context where I could – and was expected to – demand tributes. This isn’t limited to my hourly fee. My hourly fee is in fact beyond the point – that’s just the business part. The personal part is where I demand chocolate. Where I demand that you find time in your busy day to go to the candy store I like, find parking, stand in line, to get my a chocolate dipped slice of dried pear. I can send you on a wild goose chase on a whim and you love it.

I like the part too where you bring with you the tools of your undoing. Gift me with that whip that you’re scared to be hit with. Send me those shoes that get you hard just thinking about them on my feet even though you know I won’t let you cum.

These are the desires frowned upon by the larger BDSM community. Asking for stuff makes me a whore, or it takes advantage of submissive men. But in truth actual whoring does little to fulfill my prostitution fantasy. I want to join these worlds. I want fantasy prostitution and heartfelt tributes. I don’t want you to pay my rent; I can pay my own rent. I want you to bring me something that symbolizes your submission in your mind as well as mine. I want something that is tangible and takes effort.

[And between us girls, your tears are tangible, and obedience takes effort.]

I was chatting with a co-worker of mine, and as girl talk goes we started talking about our personal lives and the men who are a part of them. This is the part where I start wondering if I am a space alien. You know that part where other women tell you what men have bought for them and you wonder if you are either doing something very wrong, not pretty enough, or from another planet. Don’t get me wrong, I love gifts–what girl doesn’t–but as a dating requirement?

My problem has never been with the giving or receiving of gifts. I enjoy giving gifts and I’m pretty sure that all of my favorite jewelry was either a gift or a family heirloom. My favorite toys are certainly my favorite because they carry a particular attachment to someone who gave them to me, or in some cases made them for me. No, no, my problem is with the expectation that this is an arrangement in which men get sex and women get stuff.

Women enjoy sex. Believe it or not, my payment for a hot scene is, in fact, a hot scene. Like every other person, I have likes and dislikes. There are plenty of things that I don’t think are hot that I do at work because I have bills to pay like everyone else. There are also plenty of things that I have driven through 400km of mountain roads with a chicken on my lap and no air conditioning in the fucking jungle to do on my day off. And being human, there are things I thought were gross till I did them and discovered they are in fact hot. But the bottom line is that when I go on a date I am looking for sexual gratification, not a new car.

Of course this is all well and good, but what about the gray areas?  What if I tell you to go out and buy me a toy that scares you, but is not quite a hard limit?  I don’t care what it is: maybe you’re into dressing up as a cat and you’ll come back with a spritzy bottle full of water, maybe you’ll come back with a knife or a cane or a bag of clothes pins.  The point isn’t I want stuff, the point is I want to know what you bring back.  What is that scary thing you really want done to you but wouldn’t admit to except that you really wanted to please me with this assignment.   Different right?  Or maybe it isn’t?  Maybe it’s just another way of saying “give me stuff.”  What do you think?

Calico has a wonderful post on the Unofficial Client Rules, which I think should be required reading for anyone planning to see a professional dominatrix. I will, however, add one more:

Your sexworker is not your girlfriend and she probably doesn’t want to become such.

I was amazed recently when I started getting emails from people who found me through the site of the dungeon I occasionally work for asking me out on dates. I understand that because my work is sexual in nature the lines can be somewhat blurry from the outside. I assure you also that the lines are quite clear from the inside. Allow me to explain; when you pay me you do not, in most cases, pay me to beat you. I would do that on my own time if you asked nicely enough. Nor do you pay for the privilege of calling me ma’am which I would request of you if we played more than a couple of times anyway. What you pay for is the privilege of never knowing if I have a headache or am in a bad mood. You pay for not having to care that I only drink skim milk and take my coffee with cream and no sugar. You pay for me to pretend to enjoy administering a light spanking to naughty boys when I’d prefer to have a filthy little slut beg me to cane the hell out of him or her. You pay for the receptionist who called me three hours before my shift to tell me what color shoes you like so that by the time you meet me I look like your fantasy.

Perhaps most importantly you pay me for the privilege of not having to admit to yourself or the outside world that these dirty filthy things are what you want. You pay for not having to own your desires and that is something I would never allow to the people I love, fuck, and beat in my real life. I provide a service and a large part of that service is the assurance that when I see you and your wife at the park I will walk past without a second glance.

On Thursday I started a job in a professional dungeon.

Lesson number one: my play partners are here for my pleasure, my clients are here for their own pleasure. This is not actually surprising in the least, but it does take getting used to. In my first session I picked up a cane only to realize that my favorite instrument is perhaps less than ideally suited for causing very small amounts of pain and leaving absolutely no marks.

One might be tempted to believe that a man crawling around on his knees, calling me mistress, and thanking me for hurting him is a man I am in control of. One would be wrong; this is a customer service job first and foremost. While I have the strange luck to be working in a place that benefits from the repeat business of respectful, educated, and articulate clients, many of whom I can envision playing with in a non-work environment, as long as they are clients I am putting on a show. I may well enjoy dripping wax on an erect penis while my co-worker smothers its owner, but I do not personally enjoy wearing 6-inch platforms for the majority of an 8 hour shift. I do it because it’s my job, just like bankers wear suits because it’s their job.

This also makes me think of the degree to which a top takes discomfort during a scene. For example, my co-worker (the one smothering the CBT client in the above paragraph holds her breath with him. Not because she is a pro, mind you, but because she is a good top. When she releases him, he gasps for air. She, however, gently takes a breath without ever letting him know she was matching his punishment second for second.

This is definitely an interesting job, and I look forward to seeing where it takes me. One thing I am already noticing is that I want to play hard when I’m off the clock. I want to beat a man’s ass without regard for his ability to sit the next day, and I don’t want to do it in heels.

This is my sanity break in which I get to stop thinking about the piece of smut I should be writing and do a 5 minute rant on something else that’s amusing me at the moment. And right now I am highly amused by how I actually look when I write all those sex, sultry things with characters who wear corsets 24/7. I’m wearing the baggiest jeans I own, a tank top that makes me look slightly pregnant, and a sweater I stole from a boy I’m sleeping with. To complete this outfit, I have on funky glasses, red patent leather Doc Martins, and no make up. This very sexy look is complimented by the ultimate porn writer’s accessory – the soy chai latte.

And now back to the world of sultry pouts, tightly laced corsets, and impossibly high heels…

[This is part of another project I'm working on. It is a work in progress and editorial remarks would make me all sorts of happy...]

Welcome to the big bad world of whips and chains. “You are doing this for pleasure, usually your own; if it’s not fun, stop.” This is the most useful piece of advice I got when I entered the BDSM scene, and it is the first piece of advice I want to give you. Understand first and foremost that what you do here is your choice, you are pursuing your own desires, acting on your fantasies.

Remember that this is about you when you are introduced to Master or Mistress Big Shot who will insist that all bottoms kneel at all times or real tops never take their clothes off, and don’t listen to them. You have navigated your way through the heteronormative culture, found your way to the leather-covered back corner of the queer world. This is where the fun begins, but first you have to trust yourself, trust your experience and your desires, let Mistress Bigshot play with Real Slave; you don’t need them. But here are some things you may want to think about…

History: Learn your history and respect your elders (just like your Sunday school teacher said). You may have heard of the Old Guard – leather clad men rejecting the status quo and setting into motion a side of the sexual revolution hippie feminists never imagined. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Old Guard – these people had the courage and strength to create a space for me to write this letter, and for you to read it. They opened the dialogue of leather sex and their sacrifices paved the way for our successes. However, I am damn glad I missed those years. The Old Guard is marked by a plethora of rules and protocols; most of the kink scenes you’ll find these days are a lot more free form. And by the way, anyone under the age of 50 claiming to be Old Guard either means they fetishize Old Guard style protocols, or they are about to tell you how you are having the wrong kind of sex. Respecting your elders doesn’t mean replicating their lives.

Creativity: Before you go out and buy $500 worth of leather toys figure out what you already have. Can you think of creative uses for clothes pins? Wooden spoons? You can spend hundreds of dollars on paddles, floggers, and rubber clothes, but if you’re living on a college student budget you probably don’t want to. If you are just getting the BDSM scene I know the toys can be tempting, but they will still be at the shop next time you come by and you might have a better idea of what you’re into by then. Unless of course it has been your lifelong dream to be wiped by a girl with a pink bunny tail holding a bright purple whip in which case you want to go right out and buy said tail and whip (try Coyote Whips for colorful designs).

Community: Well ok, there are plenty of kinky people who want nothing to do with other kinky people outside their bedrooms, but if you have ever gone to a GSA meeting or a gay pride event you’ve probably realized that community comes with quite a few advantages. Besides, the best place to meet kinky partners is at kink community events. I’ve seen kink events happen in some unlikely places (Atlanta, Georgia anyone?) so you don’t have to be in New York or San Francisco to find the kink community. Get online and google for some groups in your area. Most will have a regular event called a “munch,” this is a casual non-play event that is open to the public, and usually held in a public space. It’s a nice, low pressure, low commitment way to meet people in your area. One thing to remember is that these events tend to be discreet so you might not be able to tell the leather social from the librarians Wednesday night get-together. Email the organizer in advance and ask where the event will be specifically and if there is someone or something you can look for.

Patience: After years of secret desires and angst filled fantasies you’ve finally found yourself on the dungeon doorstep. Oh who am I kidding? With the advent of the internet do they still have secrets? But in any case, you are here, and ready to explore your not so secret desires at your local leather community center or industrial-loft-turned-dungeon. You’ve read the books, you bought the toys, and you are ready to take a stab at this whole kinky sex thing, but there is just one problem. You don’t have a partner, or maybe you’re in a small conservative town and no one invited you to the dungeon because it really is a secret. Don’t give up, don’t jump on the first band wagon that comes along either. Getting in to the kink scene can be a slow process (unless of course you happen to be lucky enough to live in New York or San Francisco). I started in a fairly large city and it still took me a while to build enough trust in my community to get the coveted private party invite. Furthermore, what we do takes a certain amount of skill to do safely, and of course skill comes from practice. You will probably not be able to swing a whip accurately on the first try; keep trying. And if you’re a bottom this is not the part you get to skim over – I know you’re eager to get out there and experience all these cool things, but take some time to figure out what you want, what you need, and most importantly what your limits are, and then learn to communicate all that to your partner.

I used to run a munch for my local TNG group (TNG stands for The Next Generation and is an offshoot of larger BDSM organizations geared to people between the ages of 18 and 35) and one of the most frequent emails I would get would be a new group member describing in detail his or her fantasy and asking for advice on how to make it happen right now. The only real answer I can give is that some things are worth the wait. Good play partners, and that one scene you’ve always dreamed of are certainly worth waiting for. In the mean time, enjoy the ride and see what you can learn.

The last guy I dated won my heart by bringing me peanut M&Ms and bagels. Forget the flowers, the NGO circus has its own notions of romance.

The kind of work I’m doing, and the kind of work my partner was doing creates some rather bizarre situations. We rode elephants on our dates, made pancakes in a wok, and watched baby goats on the side of the road. We cuddled as we watched Blood Diamonds with Thai subtitles in the home of another NGO couple, and discussed the humanitarian implications of engagement rings. We found creative, and often frustrating, ways to stay in touch while one or the both of us was located in a refugee camp or remote village with no cell phone reception.

I remember telling him the first time we had sex that I was afraid of some kind of ultra egalitarian politically correct something or other based on our shared humanitarian work. He laughed. We had both been steeped in the alt sex scene and this wasn’t about the goddess and the mother earth.

What I have found is that NGO workers by and large date other NGO workers. This makes sense…I think a man covered in a weeks worth of refugee camp dirt is sexy, other more reasonable people might fear leprosy. In all earnest though, the lives we live as humanitarian workers are strange, we are all a little crazy (some of us more than a little) we all have daily routines that make no sense to the average city dweller. It is nice not to worry about how you clean your vegetables because you’ve both been brushing your teeth with the tap water for months. It’s nice to be engrained in the same cultural space both with respect to expat communities and local communities. It’s nice not to have to defend your life choices to businessmen. And you know, how many other people do you know who think playing with a baby elephants is a nice relaxing date activity to be followed by a picnic?

Too bad kinky NGO workers seem to be hard to come by…