take away from reading this -- that the guy you're with isn't the right person for you right
now if you're struggling with difficulty achieving orgasm. But maybe there are other
stories going on as well. Maybe he's insecure about his role and his failings (or his body
or whatever) and maybe he could be the right guy to work through this with you, if you're
the right person to work through his insecurities with him?
And please, please don't take that to mean let things slide because you don't want to
emasculate him. I'm not for a moment advocating putting up with nonsense because he's
a guy with a precious male ego. But lots of guys, certainly including myself, have
personal insecurities, about masculinity and about sexuality, and attached to the
perceptions of masculinity in sexual situations. As a guy, we're all taught that real men
don't give head -- or at least that it's a private thing that we don't admit too -- which is so
fucking stupid, but is still really out there in heteronormative western male culture. We're
all taught that getting a woman off is our job, and to be a good man, and a good lover,
we have to get our partner off before we get off. I don't know a single sexually active guy
who has never felt humiliated because he came too early, and too early is largely defined
as before our partner gets off. And we're all taught that real men get their partners off
with nothing but the awesomeness of our cocks. Hand jobs/digital penetration are fine
for highschool or fore play -- but our image of a good man, and a desirable lover doesn't
integrate with those things. We're coached by pop culture and porn to believe that the
guy every woman wants is the one who sticks his cock in and makes her explode with joy
from the very first thrust. And any time that doesn't happen, the guy is at fault.
And again, to stress my position here, I think all of those things are stupid, illogical
nonsense. But those are the pressures that are on guys. And maybe, if the guy that you're
with is struggling to work through your orgasm issues, maybe it's because he's so far
under the weight of his own insecurities that he doesn't know how to cope with his own
issues, and be a supportive partner to work through yours. But the thing about a good
relationship, is that together you're stronger than the sum of your individualities. Maybe
as a couple, you can work through his insecurities and your orgasm difficulties at the
same time. Nobody's problems exist in a vacuum, and sometimes finding the support you
need is easier if you just fix the support you already have.
I posted the comment in response to the other dude's Feministe comment, and there was
some discussion afterwards -- including some guys saying that they never got any memo
about cunnilingus being "not manly."
Here's my wrap-up: sympathy is good. Trying to build a better relationship is good. And
I understand that some people may have serious, important reasons that they can't or don't
want to walk away from their romantic partner. (That's one of the things feminism has
always worked towards: giving people many sources of support and safety nets, so people
can leave abusive partners if necessary.) But. Seriously, if your partner sucks? Walking
away is an option -- it's even an option, sometimes, when you think it's not an option. Just
remember that.
* * *
This post can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/10/31/a-unified-theory-of-orgasm/
* * *
* * *
* * *
BOUNDARIES:
[storytime] I'm Not Your Sex-Crazy Nympho Dreamgirl
This was originally published in 2011 on GoodMenProject.com, and it got a lot of
attention. I think the feelings I outline in this piece are shared by a lot of people, and that
they're one of the reasons people often get angry about porn. But as I said in "BDSM
Can Be 'Love Sex' Too," I don't think restricting porn is the answer to these feelings. I
think the answer is encouraging people to be honest, yet respectful and flexible about
their desires. For many people, mainstream porn seems to function as sex education --
and that can be a real problem, because mainstream porn shows a very specific
stereotype of sexuality. But if more people had better and more complete sex education,
then more people would recognize that mainstream porn is a very limited and particular
product, and they'd also recognize that most people aren't interested in actually enacting
that style of sexuality. I also think porn probably receives an unfair portion of the blame
in these debates. It's possible that the current ubiquity of porn is partly to blame for "sexcrazy
nympho dreamgirl" anxieties, but there are plenty of other stereotype sources in
our culture -- I wish that all the people who talk about banning porn would also talk
about banning romantic comedies!
* * *
I'm Not Your Sex-Crazy Nympho Dreamgirl
There's this cultural image of what it means to be female, and good in bed. The image
includes being young and thin and cisgendered of course, and that can be problematic.
But it also includes a lot of behavioral stuff: the way you squirm, the way you moan,
being Super Excited about everything the guy wants to do, and Always Being Up for It --
whatever "It" is. When people think about "good in bed," for a woman, that's often what
they think.
Here's a short list of some things I think are totally awesome:
+ Squirming and moaning during sex in a genuine way, out of genuine pleasure!
+ Acting Super Excited when your partner wants to do something you're actually Super
Excited about!
+ Being up for sexual experimentation and trying new things, while keeping track of your
boundaries and saying no (or calling your safeword) to sexual things you really don't
like!
Those things are great. They're great when they happen in all kinds of sex, and I have no
problem with how people experience or deal with with those things -- whether people get
them from vanilla or S&M sex, or porn, or sex with multiple people, or queer sex, or
whatever. All consensual sex is fine with me. (In particular, in pieces like the one you're
about to read, I often have to make it really clear that I'm not anti-porn. OK? I'm not antiporn.
Got that? Say it with me now: Clarisse Thorn is not anti-porn. Yay, it rhymes!)
What scares me, however--what continuously gets my goat, what still occasionally makes
me feel weird about sex -- is how easy it is to perform those three things I listed above.
Because I have always, since before I even started having sex, known exactly what I was
supposed to look like while I had sex. I don't even know how I internalized those
images: some of them through porn, I suppose, or art or erotica or what have you; some
of them by reading sex tips on the Internet or hearing the ones whispered to me by
friends. But I can definitely assure you that before I had any actual sexual partners, I
knew how to give a good blowjob. I also knew how to tilt my head back and moan, and I
knew how to twist my body, and I knew what my reactions and expressions were
supposed to look and sound like -- I knew all those things much better than I knew what
would make me react.
There was a while there, where my sexuality was mostly performance: an image, an act, a
shell that I created because I knew it was hot for my partners. I'm not saying I was
performing 100% of the time -- but certainly, when I was just starting to have sex, that's
mostly what it was. And, scarily, I can put the shell back on at any time. Sometimes it's
hard to resist, because I know men will reward me for it, emotionally, with affection and
praise. It's much, much more difficult to get what I actually want out of a sexual
interaction than it is for me to create that sexy dreamgirl shell: hard for me to
communicate my desires, hard for me to know what I'm thinking, hard for me to set
boundaries.
And hard to believe that a guy will like me as much, if I try to be honest about what I
want. Honesty means that sometimes I'm confused, and sometimes we have to Talk
About It; honesty means that sometimes I say no, it means that sometimes I'm not Up For
It. Something in me is always asking: Surely he'd prefer the sexy, fake, plastic dreamgirl
shell? It's not true, I know it's not true, I swear it's not true -- I don't have such a low
opinion of men as that. I know this is just a stereotype, the idea that men are emotionally
stunted horndogs with no interest in how their partners feel.
So sometimes, I have to fight myself not to perform. But it's worth it -- because the
hardest thing of all is feeling locked into an inauthentic sexuality. I tell myself, I try to
force myself to believe it: even if a guy would like me more for faking and holding back
and being so-called "low-maintenance" -- I tell myself it's a stereotype, but even if that
stereotype is true of some men -- no man is worth doing that to myself. No man is
worth that trapped, false, sick feeling.
* * *
Being a sex and S&M writer sometimes increases my performance anxiety. Occasionally
I'll meet guys who seem to think I am equipped to give any man the Night Of His Life --
and that this is my goal at all times. Sometimes I feel like I should grab certain guys by
the shoulders and shake them and say, "I am not your sex-crazy nympho dreamgirl!
I'm a real person and I have real preferences, I do not exist just as your fantasy fodder!"
But if I really like a guy and he's read some of my work, then I feel less irritation than
concern that I won't stack up. It increases the urge to go all Sexy Dreamgirl Shell, rather
than attempting to communicate.
Being a sex-positive feminist, I also sometimes worry that other women will read my
work and it will increase their performance anxiety. I worry that writing about some stuff
I like will be misinterpreted -- that it will lead other women to feel like, gosh, is this
something liberated sex-positive women do? Is this something I "should" be doing? With
some things I write, I get afraid that I've contributed to a nightmare world where women
are "liberated" only in the sense that we can better perform for men.
I once read a blog post by a radical feminist writer in which she claimed that women
always hate fellatio because it's always degrading and disgusting. She wrote something
along the lines of, "I say this for the women and girls who believe that they have to do it."
Part of me felt frustrated by the way she refused to acknowledge that some women really
do like performing fellatio (and many other women don't love it, but don't mind doing it
as long as they have great sex otherwise). In some ways, it felt like that writer was
policing sexuality. But I empathized with her goal: She wanted women who don't like
fellatio to relax; she wanted to help them recognize what they don't like. She wanted to
decrease their performance anxiety.
I'd like to do the same thing, but I generally prefer to speak from personal experience
rather than making claims about others' experience. Accordingly, I've often thought that it
would be great if more sex-positive feminists would make lists of Things We, Personally,
Don't Like. It's not the easiest project to sell, because one of the big goals of being sexpositive
is to destigmatize sexuality and decrease shame. But if we destigmatize sexuality
without encouraging good boundaries, then we're not moving forward; we're just creating
more bad standards.
So hey, here's an example of a common sexual thing that I don't like: swallowing after
giving oral sex. I love fellatio most of the time, and I like it when partners come in my
mouth, but I really hate swallowing. In the past I've found a variety of creative ways to
deal with this problem, some of which were hot (according to me, anyway) -- but usually
I just spit it out in the closest sink. (The reason I don't like swallowing is that it makes me
physically ill. No, I am not interested in your armchair theories about why this happens;
evidence so far implies a physical cause, not a psychological one.)
A more complicated example would be facials. As a sex-crazy nympho dreamgirl, I am
supposed to love all facials all the time, to which I say: Bah. I'm occasionally into
degradation scenes, and facials feel really degrading to me, so there are circumstances in
which a guy can come on my face and it'll be hot -- but those circumstances are rare. I've
got to really respect him and really trust him, and I've got to be really turned on and
excited about whatever scene we're playing out. And if a guy were to give me a facial
without clearing it with me at some point ahead of time? Serious boundary violation. Not
cool.
Have I destroyed your image of me as your sex-crazy nympho dreamgirl? Good.
I think that people of all genders receive a lot of unconscious training about how we can
damage ourselves in exchange for the attention of the opposite sex. By writing about my
own experience, I don't mean to discount the experiences of others. I get that many guys
feel locked into acting confident and dominant, and that lots of guys hate that role as
much as I hate my Sexy Dreamgirl Shell. I get that many women genuinely enjoy
reclaiming the Sexy Dreamgirl image, and making it their own; hell, I do it myself
sometimes. (Yes, I do it myself sometimes. Sex is complicated.)
People of all genders have a hard time figuring out what turns them on. Authenticity is
hard -- and sexual authenticity gets harder when you're feeling low, or you really like
someone and really want that person to like you, or when you feel bombarded with
messages about how you've got to "compete" in a harsh sexual "marketplace." I believe
that one of the best ways to authenticity is to seek understanding of the pressures on
everyone, and to grasp that everyone's got their own nightmare of the Sexy Dreamgirl
Shell.
* * *
This can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/05/27/im-not-your-sex-crazy-nympho-dreamgirl/
* * *
* * *
* * *
BOUNDARIES:
[storytime] Orgasms Aren't My Favorite Part Of Sex, and My Chastity
Urge
These two articles were both written and published at OffOurChests.com after I
published "A Unified Theory of Orgasm." The first was a followup to "A Unified Theory
of Orgasm," and the second wasn't, but when I reviewed the two articles later, I
concluded that they deal with fundamentally the same issues and belong together.
Interestingly, when I posted this to my blog, most of the comments didn't come from
women; they came from men who agreed that orgasms aren't their favorite part of sex,
either.
* * *
Orgasms Aren't My Favorite Part Of Sex, and My Chastity Urge
My previous piece "A Unified Theory of Orgasm" was really well-received, and a lot of
people have thanked me for writing it. As always, though, there's some mixed feedback
too. And I've been worried about one thing in particular: it seems like a lot of people
missed the part in my article where I said that, now that I've learned how to have
orgasms... orgasms aren't even my favorite part of sex. It's a long article, and I can see
how people would miss that, but I did say it and I think it's important.
It may be ironic that I spent so much time feeling terrible and broken and depressed
because I couldn't figure out how to have orgasms... whereas now I prefer not to focus on
them. In fact, I estimate that most of my current sexual encounters don't include my
orgasm, and very few of my most pleasurable sexual encounters have included my
orgasm.
I'm the first to admit that I don't know everything about sex, and there's a lot that I haven't
experienced. Anything might change. But seriously. The best sex I've had in my life has
been connective and emotional and, for me personally, has frequently involved intense
BDSM. My favorite sex so far? Has also mostly been orgasm-free.
Some people in some sex-related communities have asserted that for maximum amorous
power, it's actually best to limit one's orgasms, because then the contained sexual energy
ends up channeling into a deeper connection with one's partner. I can see that. For me,
another way of thinking about it is that I'm really into being teased -- and I'd rather
experience hours of being teased without an orgasm, than have a quick encounter that
ends in orgasm.
And.... (Oh no, I can already tell this is going to get complicated... but hey, sex is
complicated, so I'll give it a shot.).... Especially when I'm doing BDSM, it can actually be
hot sometimes if I don't have an orgasm. For example: if I go to sleep so turned on that I
can't dream about anything but my partner, and then I wake up in a damp mess, and then
my partner makes my life difficult all morning, it's pretty awesome. (Although it's very
nice that I know how to give myself orgasms now, because that means that if I'm really
feeling overwhelmed by my own sexual energy, I know how to give myself release if I
have to. You know, like... if I need to get some work done.)
Aaaaand... here's the most painful, ridiculous, circular irony of all. Ready? Here goes:
now that I'm capable of having orgasms, I've found myself occasionally having orgasms
only to satisfy my partner. How absurd is that? Plus, I know I'm not alone, because I've
talked to other women who do the same thing!
I've written before that in the past I've felt trapped by fake plastic ideas of "what hot girls
look like during sex"; I've written about how the pressure to "perform" my sexuality can
hurt. What has amazed me, as I've gotten older, is just how pervasive that pressure can
feel with some partners... and how little pressure there is with other partners. The
question of how to create a low-pressure environment for sexuality to flourish is big and
complicated, so let me just say here that although I'm all about people giving each other
orgasms... it's no good if my partner's desire to give me an orgasm turns into pressure for
me to have an orgasm!
Scarleteen, my favorite sex education site, has a great article about "squirting" orgasms
and how some women feel pressured to "squirt" for the sake of the sexual "novelty." On a
similar note, I'll close this post with an anecdote about a guy I dated a while back who
was very focused on giving me orgasms. To his credit, he figured out how to make me
come very quickly. But the problem was that -- I soon realized -- the biggest reason he
wanted to make me come was because he wanted to feel like he could.
Fundamentally, it wasn't about my pleasure; it was about him feeling like "the man."
Let me be clear: he was a great guy, and I was into having sex with him. But it became
very obvious to me that if I didn't have an orgasm every time we had sex, then he would
be really bothered. So there were definitely a few encounters where, although I wasn't
especially interested in having an orgasm, I still closed my eyes and flicked through
fantasies with a kind of panic... until I managed to kick-start my body into coming. Isn't
that messed up?
One thing I've learned, in years of writing about sex and gender, is that anything --
anything at all -- can be a tool for limiting or stifling sexuality... just as much as it can be
a tool for releasing sexuality. Turns out, orgasms are no exception. Even orgasms can
become a difficult duty. I'm so glad that I know how to have an orgasm now; for me,
that was an important step for my sexuality and my self-esteem. But now that I've
learned how to do that, I find myself questioning why it's such an important and
destructive issue in the first place!
Sex is a journey. There are so many directions, so many forks in the road, so many stops
along the way. There are so many speedbumps and roadblocks, uphills and downhills,
free and easy open stretches. Sometimes people stop to rest. Sometimes people double
back. Everything is evolving. A lot of people find it most awesome to simply... enjoy the
road.
* * *
When I was in my late teens, I had a couple straight lady friends who did this thing where
they took a year of chastity... although they had already had a fair amount of sex. It
wasn't that they thought sex was bad. It wasn't that they especially disliked sex. It wasn't
that they regretted choosing to have sex previously. But these women felt powerfully
drawn towards taking a year away from sex, a year where no sex happened in their lives...
and I instinctively understood because I felt the same urge. In fact, I came up with the
idea of deliberately taking a year of chastity on my own, before I heard that anyone else
was doing it.
I'm not telling you this because I want to sound like one of the "cool kids"; I'm not trying
to say anything like, "I was into chastity when it was underground!" As it happened, I
never actually went through with my chastity urge. But I thought about it a lot, and I
thought about the fact that other girls I knew were doing it. We didn't have backgrounds
that one would normally consider anti-sex. We had liberal backgrounds, liberal parents,
liberal educations. Why were we so attracted to the idea of taking a year without sex?
I thought about it a lot, and I concluded this: We felt like we didn't own our sexuality.
We felt like our sexuality wasn't for us. Or at least, that's how I felt.
Even though on the surface it looked like I was totally in charge of my sexual decisions,
there were social pressures and expectations that made me feel overwhelmed and
confused. Not always, and not all the time! But enough that there were plenty of times
that I just felt like all I wanted to do was stop and be done with it... "take my body back"
from a world that seemed intent on constantly telling me how I must look, how I must
dress, how I must have sex.
I've written about how much easier it was for me to learn how I ought to look and
"perform" while having sex, than it was for me to learn what I actually wanted from sex.
That, I think, is where the chastity urge came from for me. That, and the way I kept
finding myself making out with guys who I had zero interest in because it was "too
awkward to say no." Or the way I didn't feel like I could decide not to have sex with my
boyfriends; not because I didn't think my boyfriend would listen if I said no, but because
his potentially hurt feelings seemed so much more important than my bodily preferences.
So many things about the way I was having sex seemed to have nothing to do with me.
And if sex had nothing to do with me... then why was I doing it? I guess I wanted to
reassure myself that I could take control of at least one thing: saying no.
Eventually, I got a better handle on my sexual preferences and began to learn how to talk
about them. It was a long process, and my sexual journey is far from over (yay!). There
were people who showed me what it meant to have a low-pressure sexual relationship;
there were people who made it easy for me to talk about sex; and there were other people
who made it easy for me to turn them down, sexually, which was just as important.
But one interesting thing during the beginning of my learning process... especially given
that I now really emphasize and encourage talking directly about sex... was that I felt like
a couple of my boyfriends really, really didn't want to talk about sex. And while
sometimes this was clearly terrible and toxic, sometimes it felt good. It felt safe. I wanted
to be sexual, but I also felt so much pressure to be sexual that it sometimes felt like a
huge relief to just... "not worry about it."
In retrospect, though, I think that the "safety" I felt when I didn't talk about sex with
certain partners was a mirage. It was a false safety, sustained by a carefully crafted
mutual fiction of the relationship. When we ended up talking about sex later, "giving up
that safety" just made the conversation unnecessarily scary and weird. And the
independent illusions we each had about our sexual relationship flourished and grew
strong within our silence. Those illusions were so much harder to release after months of
self-reinforcement than they would have been if we'd dragged them into the light from
the beginning!
Occasionally, I wonder how it would have felt if I'd taken that deliberate year of chastity.
I wonder which of my early experiences would have changed; I wonder whether a year of
chastity would have made me feel more comfortable with my sexuality sooner. I'm very
happy with how I feel sexually now. I sometimes feel confused or overwhelmed, but I
think I'm okay at handling that and even talking about it. Yet I do wonder how it would
have felt to draw such a strong boundary; to say such a strong "No" to the world and its
messed-up sexual expectations.
* * *
This post can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2012/02/02/orgasms-arent-my-favorite-part-of-sex-and-mychastity-urge/
* * *
* * *
* * *
BOUNDARIES:
[theory] Anger, Fear and Pain
I wrote this post in late 2010. The comments on the online version are especially good,
with a lot of people sharing their own experience of these emotions in S&M encounters.
So if you have an interest in the topic, this is a good post to review online.
* * *
Anger, Fear and Pain
I like pain. I like submission. What do these things actually mean, though? I don't like it
when I stub my toe, for example, and there are quite a lot of authoritarian situations I
don't like either. My emotional reactions, in particular, can get really complicated. So I
need more precise words than "I like pain" and "I like submission."
This is not a new problem, and around the BDSM subculture there are more precise terms
that are frequently used. But when I was first exploring BDSM and didn't yet have access
to the community, I started coming up with my own vocabulary for what I liked and what
I didn't like. The primary words I came up with -- words that I still use a lot in my own
head, and that I sometimes try to explain to my partners -- were "clean" pain and "dirty"
pain.
I think of some pain as "clean" because even if it's intense, I usually... like it. (For lack of
a better word.) This is the kind of pain I fantasize about when I'm really craving BDSM.
There are certain places on my body that take pain more cleanly -- my upper arms, most
of my back, my thighs. There are certain types of pain that are inherently more clean --
needles come to mind. Wide, deep, blunt bites are good too. Heavy whips made of
weighty materials, like suede. Pulling my hair right above the nape of my neck.
On the other hand, I think of some pain as "dirty" because it's... harder to take. I don't
think of it as dirty because I see it as scandalous or perverse -- rather, dirty pain is
complex and hard to process. I never fantasize about it. Pain where my bones are close to
the surface of my skin, like my collarbone, is dirty. Pain on top of scars is dirty. Pinches
and small, narrow bites are dirty. Pulling my hair anywhere besides the nape of my neck
is dirty. Electric shocks are extremely dirty.
But this whole "clean" and "dirty" thing, it doesn't make any sense outside my own body,
my own head. It's hard to explain it. It helps that the BDSM community tends to frame
pain in terms of techniques and less-subjective adjectives, using words like "sharp" or
"sting" or "thud." (A lot of people think of "sharp" and "sting" as the same sensation. I
usually separate them a bit more, but I'm not sure how many other people separate them.)
The BDSM and polyamory writer Franklin Veaux defines "thud" as "sensation of heavy,
dull impact" and defines "sting" as "sensation of quick, sharp pain." These words are
most often applied to floggers (implements for hitting people, e.g.: "this is a thuddy
flogger"), but sometimes the words are used for other things too. I've found that I
generally prefer thuddy-type pain, for example, but it took me a long time to figure that
out, because there are so many specific sharp sensations that I love.
Okay. Now for emotions. This is the really hard part.
A while back I got an anonymous comment on my coming-out story that I absolutely
love. Here's a quotation from the comment:
When it came to it, very little about the reality [of BDSM] matched my fantasies. Oh,
sometimes what we did matched the way a real-life even can match a fantasy. There were
moments that were... Transcendental.
But there were many more moments that... were deeply, deeply conflicted. I NEVER
expected to feel that much... anger... toward someone dominating me and inflicting pain.
I expected it to be a relief. I didn't expect to wrestle with hatred.
He liked to slap my face. Everytime he did it I would feel this burst of pure hatred. At one
point he asked if I liked it. I said, "No. I hate it. But I don't want you to stop doing it."
I can't remember right now if any other "coming out" story I've ever read included such a
visceral description of anger. Of course, I think the last time I read one I hadn't
experienced it myself. Maybe I never noticed it before, but noticed it this time because it
resonated with me. But mostly I remember those stories mentioning fear, shame, worry,
and embarrassment.
The events in my coming-out story took place years ago, and my feelings about BDSM
are really different now. I remember that I was conflicted, furious, resentful. But at the
same time, I have often thought that much of my anger and resentment was due to the
fact that Richard -- my first intense BDSM partner -- was not emotionally available. I
needed support that he didn't give me. (To some extent because neither he nor I
recognized how much support I needed.) And, of course, much of that anger was due to
the fact that I couldn't deal with BDSM. I was fighting back against my sexuality, and felt
unable to take ownership of it.
As I settled my feelings and reconciled myself to my sexual identity, my emotional
reactions became a whole different ball game. (It helped that I dated a string of men who
were more emotionally available and assisted me with emotional processing, too.) It
turned out that the rage that I had suspected was inextricable from BDSM was, in fact,
entirely possible to separate. I entered a stage where I learned how to avoid that anger. To
work around it. I learned to sink myself into fear and desperation, which I love, and
which are easier to work with.
I experimented with different types of submissive play. One thing I've learned is that it's
almost impossible for me to feel submissive unless someone hurts me. (There have been
exceptions, but they were definitely exceptional.) The BDSM community has lots of
jargon for interpersonal emotional encounters, but those words usually describe actions or
scenarios rather than feelings, like "public humiliation" or "domestic servitude" or
"sexual slavery." So I had to learn which emotions are associated with which actions, and
that's complicated too, though some things are just obvious. Some people really get off
on public humiliation, for example, but that's a strong and instinctive limit for me
because it makes me extraordinarily angry. (There have been exceptions, but they were
definitely exceptional.)
I got better at calling out my safeword when I had to. Yes, I think it's hard to use a
safeword, especially when you're new... for all kinds of reasons: you don't want to
disappoint your partner, and sometimes it's hard to realize that you need to safeword,
because it's very difficult to keep track of how you're feeling in the moment... but I also
think that calling a safeword when you need to stop is a skill that you can get better at,
much like other kinds of boundary-setting. So I became fairly practiced at calling my
safeword when I needed to. If I started feeling very angry, I got good at halting the
encounter, or shifting the emphasis to something else instead.
As I gained a more precise understanding of my physical reactions -- clean pain and dirty
pain -- I figured out that there are differences in emotional reactions, too. Loosely
speaking: clean pain makes me feel afraid and submissive, whereas dirty pain makes me
mad. (Though this isn't always true. I hate spanking, for example; it irritates me; but it's
pretty clean pain. And it might be worth noting how much I hate tickling... but that
doesn't hurt.)
If the dirty pain is hard or unexpected enough, I can't seem to control lashing out. I fight
back without even thinking about it (which often functions just fine as a way of
renegotiating the encounter, in itself, without safewording). If it's mild? I just get
annoyed. But if it's intense... I don't just struggle, I attack. I leave marks on my partners.
I learned to avoid dirty pain, usually. I learned to circumvent anger, usually. I had once
seen anger, and dirty pain, as maybe being an unavoidable cost of BDSM. I once
suspected that I might never be able to have a BDSM relationship where I didn't feel
anger, where I didn't feel pain that I didn't want. I was wrong. Those things aren't
unavoidable costs. They can be worked around.
But now.... Yes, now! We've reached the part of the entry where Clarisse makes
statements about her current self and potential future actions that may or may not be true
and should be treated with caution, because she is an evolving and complicated human...!
Now that I've built up all these frameworks, I've had a few encounters lately where I
felt... a lot of anger. Sometimes connected to dirty pain; sometimes not. And I didn't stop.
I watched how I was feeling and I dealt with it while it was happening, and it was... worth
watching. It was hard to take, oh, it was so hard to take. But it was also intense and
fascinating.
I've heard from a few other BDSM submissives that they like feeling anger during their
encounters, that they need anger in order to get where they want to go.
If I follow the thread of anger, now....
Where will it take me?
* * *
This post can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2010/12/26/anger-fear-and-pain/
* * *
* * *
* * *
EVOLUTION:
[theory] Sexual Openness: Two Ways To Encourage It
This was written in 2010, and it amazes me how I've changed since then.
I don't like to talk about people being "further along" in their sexual experimentation
than others; people are simply in different places, based on their preferences and
experiences. I look at this piece now and I think that maybe it would be better-written if
I'd tried to talk about sexual evolution in a more neutral way. However, it's undeniable
that when I was younger, I often felt like I was somehow "held up" or "inhibited," and I
no longer feel that way about sex. And I do think that in general, lots of people want to
explore but aren't sure how to overcome their own hesitance and psychological blocks.
Some of them even write to me for advice, and I can only tell them what worked for me:
the approach I outlined in this post.
* * *
Sexual Openness: Two Ways To Encourage It
I've been thinking a lot lately about the factors that went into my sexual evolution. People
have always seen me as sexually open-minded, and I had an extraordinarily liberal
upbringing... but at the same time, I think I spent a long time surprisingly buttoned-up.
Part of it was the men I fell in love with, the partners I had. Monogamy felt right to me,
and that effectively meant that once I was in a relationship, it was hard to explore
sexuality beyond what my lovers were comfortable with. I've often looked back in
frustration at sexual shame and inhibitions that I feel were imposed on me by some past
partners. But at the same time, there's no denying that -- even when my partners were
relatively inhibited -- I was with those men partly because I felt comfortable with
them. I recall conversations in which I felt frustrated at a lover's unwillingness to explore
or discuss certain things... but I also recall times when I felt relieved that they were
willing to leave those things alone.
How did I evolve through that balance and come into the place where I am today, where
my sexual boundaries have shifted dramatically? I'm up for trying things just to see what
they're like; I routinely have fantasies that would have appalled me in my teens; and I
routinely have orgasms as well.... But why is it that, for example, I'm very interested in
having multiple partners now, but wasn't at all interested a few years ago? Why did I
initially swear I'd never wear a collar, then end up associating collars with profound
sexual love? How is it that I initially considered myself solely a submissive but later
transitioned into an enthusiastic switch (i.e., both a sub and a domme)?
Here are the two factors that, I think, facilitate sexual evolution and openness:
1) A pressure-free environment
This is key! A person can be pressured into sexual exploration, but in my experience it
won't "take." Many people (though not all) who feel pressure react by becoming
defensive and unwilling to change; even if they do try the experiment, they're less likely
to enjoy it. And someone who has a bad sexual experience will often have trouble
enjoying that kind of sex in the future.
Take me, for example -- there were a lot of reasons why I felt less willing to experiment
with polyamory (multiple relationships) when I was 20, but one of the big ones is that I
felt lots of pressure to be poly. Because I ran in highly "alternative" social circles, I was
meeting "polyvangelists" who argued that polyamory is the "best" kind of relationship
and that anyone who doesn't want to try poly is just being selfish or close-minded.
General social pressure exerts an influence, so it helps to have open-minded friends
who accept different forms of consensual sexuality -- which doesn't just mean that
"vanilla" people would do well to accept those of us who are "non-standard," but also
means that even people in "alternative" circles have to accept "mainstream" sexuality.
But in my experience, the actual sexual relationships are the most relevant aspect of
life that must be sexually pressure-free. They're also one of the most difficult,
especially when the stakes are high: if one or both parties are helplessly in love, if they
are married, if they have children, if they live together... then it becomes very hard to
make the relationship pressure-free. A husband who is afraid that his wife might leave
him is more likely to do sexual things for her that make him uncomfortable because he
wants her to stay, for example -- even if she doesn't ask him to. A girl who is totally in
love with her boyfriend is more likely to acquiesce to sex that she's not really into,
because of course she wants to please him -- but she is simultaneously unlikely to tell him
outright that she's not into it.
And then there's the fact that what feels like "pressure" for each person will be different
depending on that person's triggers, the relationship, and the time in their life. Today, I
feel totally comfortable setting limits and clearly telling my partner "no" if he asks me to
do something I don't want to do... but it wasn't so long ago that I'd feel anxiety-inducing
pressure to do something if my boyfriend merely mentioned that he liked it. Which brings
me to my next point: there's a fine line between sharing and pressure. One must be
careful when bringing up one's own preferences and desires -- which isn't to say one
shouldn't bring them up! Merely that it's important to recognize that these are difficult
topics, and when we discuss them with people we love or admire, there's lots of potential
for accidental anxious pressure.
Okay, I'm talking pretty theoretically, right? So here's some actual concrete advice on
how to avoid imposing sexual pressure:
* Don't demand that people explain their preferences. A person doesn't have to
explain, examine, or "figure out" why they're gay, straight, kinky, polyamorous, or
whatever if they don't want to. Even your sexual partner doesn't have to explain why they
don't want to do something if they don't want to.
In fact, it may be very helpful if you merely make it clear that your partner doesn't have
to explain from the beginning -- because they may feel as if they ought to, even if you
don't ask. I so clearly remember an encounter I had a few years ago in which my partner
asked what I was up for and I said, hesitantly, "Well, I'm not really up for sex tonight... I
can't really explain it, I --" and he held up his hand. "You don't have to explain it," he said
-- and I was totally shocked at the gratitude, relief and comfort that poured through me.
I later felt proud and thrilled to "pay it forward" when I had my first serious encounter as
a dominant. Towards the end of the encounter, I asked, "Do you want me?" and my
submissive stiffened, saying awkwardly, "Yes, I do, but... I don't want to have sex so
soon, it's just one of my own boundaries, I --" and I saw how much the words were
costing him. Saw the same anxiety I'd felt once. And immediately I covered his mouth
and said, "Shh, it's fine, you don't have to explain it," and I saw him relax with the same
terrible relief I'd once felt. And then we made out for many hours and it was unbelievably
awesome.
... Of course, sometimes people will want to examine their own preferences, which is
obviously fine! But if your partner or friend is examining for their own mental wellbeing,
that's very different from demanding that they examine to satisfy you. Bottom line:
they don't owe you an explanation, and asking for one may just make them tense up and
feel totally unsexy in all ways.
* Express preferences gently. I once attended an incredible BDSM workshop by the
author Laura Antoniou in which she offered an outline for bringing up your filthiest,
scariest fantasy with your partner: "Buy ice cream. Sit down at the kitchen table and
describe your fantasy. Then say, 'Don't say anything now. I'll give you some time to think
about it -- now let's eat this ice cream and maybe go out for a movie.'" I love this advice
because (a) everyone gets ice cream and (b) it's so perfect for lowering tension. And as
Laura said, "The worst thing that can happen is that they're not into it."
[Editor's Note: since writing this post, Clarisse went vegan, and she recommends eating
that frozen Coconut Bliss stuff instead of ice cream. The chocolate flavor is absurdly
delicious.]
It's important to emphasize from the start: "This is something I'm interested it, but it's not
a requirement and I don't want you to do it if you're not into it." In fact, it might help to
begin by saying those exact words.
And if your partner doesn't want to do something now, it's often worth giving time for
them to grow into the idea. Perhaps by exploring other sexual angles, they'll come around
to yours. I remember that when I was in my late teens, one boyfriend asked me if I'd be
up for a certain kind of sex, and I refused. (He asked very gently, and didn't pressure me
when I said no, which made me feel much safer and happier with him!) At the time I
couldn't imagine ever wanting to do it. Then a few years later -- after I'd gained a lot
more sexual experience -- I ended up asking my boyfriend to try it! I'm convinced that if
my previous partner had pressured me, I wouldn't have come around to it so easily years
later -- and if he and I had still been together, then maybe we would have even done it
together.
... But of course, the difficult part here is that sexual needs are important, and can't be put
on the back burner indefinitely. If you have sexual needs that are being routinely ignored
-- or can't be fulfilled -- by your partner, then it's obviously not desirable to keep gently
saying, "Don't worry, I can do without this." Still, I think that if you're approaching
ultimatum territory -- for example, if you are tempted to say that "If you can't satisfy this
need, then I need an open relationship so I can find someone who can, or else we have to
break up" -- then it's best to at least state the ultimatum gently, emphasize that you care
about your partner and this is difficult, and steel yourself to act quickly in case you have
to go through with your ultimatum. And, of course, to understand that this could make
sexuality with your partner more difficult if you keep trying to date through ultimatum
territory.
Sadly, sexual pressure can sometimes be simply unavoidable. Sometimes the best we
can do is be gentle, understanding, and prepared to face the consequences.
2) Exposure to new conceptions of sexuality, sexual mentors, and sex education
Many gay people say they're "wired" for a certain approach to sexuality, but there's also
others, such as some BDSMers, who consider ourselves to be innately kinky. And we
often say that we would have come to those sexual conclusions and practices whether we
had examples before us, or not. (Even so, it's really helpful to have a community sharing
tips and emotional support, especially when it comes to alternative sexuality. It might
seem like sex will come naturally and obviously, but sometimes non-obvious things can
really trip you up!)
Still, there are lots of sexual ideas are worth exploring and wouldn't necessarily occur to
us if we didn't have examples before us: erotica, pornography, friends and mentors,
workshops and educational materials. Here's some concrete advice on how best to
emotionally access those:
* Find a good mentor, or at least a friend or social group, to talk about sex with --
who you don't want to have sex with. Being able to honestly discuss turn-ons in a
neutral environment is invaluable, as is someone who can guide and advise without
inserting their preferences and desires into the conversation. Naturally, it's entirely
possible to have a good sexual relationship with a sexual mentor -- and sometimes,
mentor (or friend) relationships evolve in unexpectedly sexual ways. But it can be very
useful to take that element out of at least some relationships.
One piece of advice that I love is for mentors to be the same "type." That is, for example,
if you're a heterosexual female submissive, it's awesome to have an experienced
heterosexual female submissive mentor if possible.
This post was edited to add the next paragraph: In the comments, Ranai pointed out that
it's not always a great idea to have just one mentor -- and I agree with her. I think it's
helpful to have a range of voices who can give advice, if possible. There's nothing wrong
with trusting one person above others, but all humans have their blind spots, and mentors
are human too. This is one thing I love about the BDSM community, by the way (or at
least, my experience with the BDSM communities I have been part of -- not all BDSM
communities are the same...). In many BDSM communities, there are many cafe meetups
and other low-pressure gatherings that make perfect environments for getting this kind of
advice!
* Not all BDSM -- or porn -- or whatever! -- is the same. If you don't like (or are even
revolted by) something you see, then you can try watching (or reading, or talking about)
something else. Me, I got really excited when I first learned about Comstock Films: Tony
Comstock makes documentaries that show real couples having real sex, and his
documentaries are much more realistic and comfortably sexual than mainstream porn.
And I really didn't like mainstream porn. But then I found that I wasn't that into
Comstock Films themselves, even though I love the idea so much that I screened one of
the movies at my sex-positive film series. So I concluded that I'm just not into porn at all,
and that I'd be better off to focus on written erotica.
But then I finally saw some porn that turned me on at CineKink, "the really alternative
film festival" -- and I hadn't even expected it to turn me on! I'd just been watching out of
academic interest! And these days, I find that I'm sometimes turned on by watching the
mainstream porn I tried so hard to avoid in the first place. The moral of the story is
obvious.
The bottom line is that mere exposure to new ideas about sexuality can bring personal
sexual evolution -- and that's awesome. So if you're interested in facilitating your own
sexual evolution, the first thing to do is learn about sexuality by whatever means possible.
* * *
This can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2010/05/28/sexual-openness-2-ways-to-encourage-it/
* * *
* * *
* * *
RELATIONSHIPS:
[storytime] Fear, Loathing, and S&M Sluthood in San Francisco
I originally wrote this and published it at OffOurChests.com in late 2010. If you've read
Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, or any of my posts that refer to "Adam," then I
probably don't have to tell you which of these men later turned into Adam. But I'll spoil
the mystery for you, and tell you outright that Mr. ThereItIs is Adam. (In this entry, I
named him after the post I wrote when I met him: "There It Is.")
* * *
Fear, Loathing, and S&M Sluthood in San Francisco
Since I was small, I've loved the Van Gogh painting "Starry Night." I loved the cypresses
in particular: winding spiral trees, hallucination trees. They were so unlike other trees I'd
seen that I thought Van Gogh made them up, and so when I first saw cypresses years
later, I was stunned: the hallucination trees had been imported into my world. I'd like to
think that my world turned a little bit sideways forever, when I first saw cypresses, but
I'm probably being melodramatic. (I'm good at that.)
San Francisco has cypresses, and a lot of other hallucinations, too. The city is full of
angles, vantages, transitions, unceasing changing views: it feels, at times, like an
unsolvable puzzle. A forested path leads darkly under a bridge, suddenly opens upon a
manicured lawn with a white lace conservatory. A cement staircase rises through a
narrow outlet, resolving itself step by step into a slice of brightly painted Victorian
facade. I walked once with a friend alongside an ocean road, pacing through thick fog,
and arrived at a dirt path that I insisted on following; thirty seconds later we stumbled
upon extraordinary ruins.
San Francisco. Halcyon city, heartbreak city. Cypress city. The place I come to recover
from being torn apart and, it seems, sometimes the place where I get torn apart again.
This is okay with me, because nothing is more fun than overanalyzing strong emotions. I
am not even kidding.
* * *
I returned from Africa recently; paused briefly in my adopted city of Chicago to collect
my thoughts; and then went to the Burning Man Arts Festival, thence to San Francisco.
This is my version of emotional decompression, and it worked! I feel much more
centered now. But part of decompressing, for me, was specifically going out to a lot of
dates and BDSM parties and pushing my own boundaries, which carries its own potential
decompressable risks.
At the time of this story, it had been a couple of months in San Francisco, and I was
leaving soon. I'd had an assortment of adventures, but there were two guys in particular
who I was excited about. Not necessarily in a long-term way -- I'm not in this for the
white picket fence and the 2.5 kids (or at least, not yet) -- but definitely in a wow-I-haveto-control-myself-or-I'll-come-off-as-kind-of-puppyish
way. New Relationship Energy: it
is such a mind trick, such a delicious head-trip. You are the perfect drug.
I had to control myself less when I first hooked up with The Artist: possibly the most
postmodern individual I've ever met, possibly the most creative, who I've loosely been
friends with for six whole years, and who has never ceased to fascinate me. It is hard for
me to meet people who keep me thinking, but The Artist never disappoints. If anything,
our problem was shifting a cerebral connection into a sexual one: the first time we made
out, I absolutely had to interrupt the proceedings because I'd forgotten to tell him about
this great sociology paper. It was okay to show how much I liked him because we'd
known each other for so long, it was easier to read the situation, easier to allow
investment. Much harder with Mr. ThereItIs, who came out of nowhere, who I barely
knew but had awesome chemistry with. In the beginning steps of this game, you can
never let them smell your fear.
Saturday morning. I'd spent the night with The Artist, was checking my email while he
made breakfast. (He actually likes cooking, which I have trouble comprehending.) I
wanted to plan my week, and texted Mr. ThereItIs to ask when we'd see each other. My
breath hitched as he texted back: he didn't think it'd be a good idea to spend the night
together again, but he wanted to have drinks and catch up. I closed my eyes, made myself
breathe. Remembered how many times he'd pulled back, how much anxiety he'd
expressed about the BDSM we engaged in. I'd tried to make it clear that he was doing
awesomely, but dollars to donuts he was still freaking out about it. I was his first-time
heavy BDSM partner. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Haven't I learned my lesson
about vanilla-but-questioning guys yet?
After giving myself a moment to calm down, I texted back that I was open to getting
drinks, but wanted to understand his motives better before doing so. "Feel free to email or
text," I wrote, "I can't talk right now," then put down my phone and walked into an
intense conversation in the kitchen. There'd been some uncertainty over my last month or
so with The Artist, due to surprisingly divergent relationship priorities. We're decently
matched in terms of being BDSM-identified, and we have so much else in common, but
there were some things I wanted to do that particularly freaked him out, plus he wasn't
feeling 100% comfortable with polyamory. Most of all, I've been surprised by his
emphasis on settling down.
That Saturday, it ended with him deciding it wouldn't work. "You and I are in such
different places right now," he said gently. "You're still focused on having an interesting
life. I'm not prioritizing that anymore. I would have been a much better match for you
five years ago."
You're one of the most interesting people I've ever met, I wanted to say, how can you
decide this? The night before, we'd had a conversation in which he'd described how
incredibly stable he wants his life to be. Well-designed apartment, respected job, kids, the
lot. How much he wants to get away from past days, when he thrived among bizarre
subcultures, prioritized art above everything. He doesn't even want to travel! I listened,
heart sinking. Trying to understand. "Isn't there anything you can't walk away from?" I
asked.
"S&M," he said promptly. "But that bothers me, because I don't know how I can make it
fit."
Stability; making things fit. Saturday at breakfast, The Artist mentioned that a friend had
compared him to Alex, the main character in A Clockwork Orange: in the famous "lost"
21st chapter, Alex decides that it's time to abandon ultraviolence and settle down.
Obviously, The Artist was never even close to being the psychopath that Alex is, but it's
still an instructive parallel. And I, with all my desire to push and stretch myself, with all
the boundaries I'm still seeking to subvert and hack and destroy -- I don't work with the
desire to settle down. I may never work with that desire.
I understood. Of course I understood. I knew intellectually that it wasn't about me, I knew
it was just about the situations at hand, but of course it hurt anyway. Two awesome men,
giving me the same message at once: This is too much, you're too extreme. A matter of
their boundaries. Not about me. Of course it hurt anyway.
"Is there anything else you want to add while we're having this conversation?" I asked
The Artist finally, as we wound things up.
He thought for a minute, took my hand. "Well, you're wonderful and beautiful, but you
know that."
"Do I?" I asked, and made myself laugh to take the sting from my words.
An aside:
* * *
Occasionally, my mother has tried to convince me that I am at emotional risk in part
because of the fact that I am forward about my sexuality. Because -- I think this is how
the story goes, though she's never explicitly articulated it -- because it means that men
will see me as a disposable toy; the hot edgy girl he likes but would never settle down
with; the whore but not the Madonna. Cute enough to catch his attention and passionate
enough that he'll call her back but ultimately, not "the keeper", not the girl he'd have any
loyalty to in the end. I think my mom is afraid that I'll stumble out the other end of this
brilliant razor-edged fluorescent beautiful funhouse that is my "young and attractive"
years, that I'll come down like a girl falling through a distorted mirrored sheet of glass.
That shards will burst everywhere and I'll collapse, covered in metaphorical blood, and
turn my eyes up to the harsh white stars and wonder how I let men use me and why.
This is the stereotype that I think she's afraid of, on my behalf, the one that comes up on
occasion when she comforts me through heartbreak. My mother is hardly a conservative
slut-shamer, but she loves me and she wants to protect me, so she tells me this. And I'll
admit it -- I fear it too, I feel those anxieties whispering behind me, thrumming through
my veins during times like these. What did I mean to him? Did I matter, did I make an
impression, does he give a damn? Would he be willing to Make A Commitment? He
doesn't care, God, I don't matter, and I was just stupid because God forbid I allow myself
to like or trust a man that I fuck, when everyone knows that men don't ever have feelings
for the women they fuck --
But actually those fears don't make sense, do they -- they don't make any sense at all if I
assume that men are complex humans who want to have relationships but aren't always
sure about it (much like myself), rather than sex-seeking-stereotype-activated-robots. The
fears don't make sense in the context of my own experience, which is full of friends and
relatives and lovers who have been caring, self-aware, honest men. The fears don't make
sense given the fact that very often, I'm the one who prefers not to have a serious
relationship right now, or who can only compromise up to a point.
And the fears especially don't make any damn sense if we assume that I want to pursue
my own goals, my own dreams, my own pleasures, my own sexuality on my own terms.
If we assume that I have no intention of playing by the rules in a world that tells me
women never have our own damn sexual needs; that it's wrong or wicked or dirty for
women to negotiate any sexual exchange for pleasure; that women are meant to trade sex
for "commitment" or "support" (though, bizarrely, never outright for money). If we
assume that I can get something great from sexual relationships without Being On The
Path To Marriage. That I understand and honor my sexual desires, that those desires are
worth fulfilling in themselves. And if we assume that men have something wonderful
they could bring to the sexual exchange; that they aren't always "using" or "exploiting" or
"winning" some kind of sick war-of-the-sexes, every single time they fuck.
But even if the fears don't make sense, sometimes they still come out and whisper at the
back of my neck... I'm selling myself short. As if I should have bargained better, should
have traded my sexuality for far more than "mere" pleasure with someone I "merely"
liked, was "merely" attracted to, who "merely" respected my boundaries and "merely"
was fun to hang out with. Would some people see it as ironic that I prefer relationships
with real emotional heft, even when short-term or casual? Even with that said, though,
there is no description of how reasonable, safe, or awesome my relationships are that will
matter to our slut-shaming society -- or to the fears it's hammered into me. Society,
whose judgment of whether a girl is a "slut" can be sudden and devastating, stupid and
stereotypical; a lightning strike that lands based on absurd factors like how nonnormative
or straightforward or aware of her sexuality she is. And once I'm a "slut" -- if I
dare dance over that ever-shifting line -- then I'm beyond the pale. The world always
seems to be outdoing itself in finding new ways to tell me that once I'm a slut, no man
will ever respect me again.
* * *
I went home. It was raining, all across my cypress city; raining so hard, I had to take the
bus instead of walking. The rain struck me as an insultingly obvious metaphor, as did the
fact that I was scheduled to attend a wedding that afternoon. It seemed strange that
hallucinatory San Francisco would throw such tired tropes at me. (I should have trusted
the city more. It was with me, still.)
I was sad. Not devastated. Just sad, and a little bit scared. I'm such a screwed-up
perverted slut, no man will ever care about me. However, I'm an adult, so I tried to
recognize my emotional baggage, give myself some time to process, then eat a proper
lunch and get some work done.
I took a very dear, very blunt friend out to dinner recently. (Yes, I paid, and yes, he felt
objectified.) Over Indian curries, I tried to explain my fears that All Men (who are of
course a monolith) will pigeonhole me as "too much", "too extreme." A "slut." Whatever.
My friend listened, savoring his delicious lassi as he thought about what I was trying to
say. Then he said, "Look, you shouldn't worry about it. You're extreme. You're also tall.
You couldn't be un-tall for a man, and you can't be un-extreme. There are men who will
like you just fine for it, so just keep an eye out for those men." I could detect the edge
under his words: Come on, Clarisse, you're the one who always says that People Are
Different, why do I even have to tell you this? A fair point, but I can't help it -- stories like
this still shake me.
As it happens, though, this story has a happy ending.
I was about to head out to the wedding when I received an email from Mr. ThereItIs:
So my txt was not really well-considered. I was delaying writing you because I've got
mixed and confusing inclinations about all this and was hoping I could figure them out
before writing. So I spent last night drinking too much and ranting with friends about
unrelated topics, which surprise turned out to not have helped me figure my shit out at
all.
I'm just feeling intimidated and uncertain about our kinkiness. On one hand I've been
feeling "aaa this is weird, run away". But I'm also feeling like this is fun and new and hot
and fascinating, and I should get over my bs and try it again. So if you can forgive my
impulsive txt and my erratic emotions.... I'm free on your free nights this week.
And if I've spooked you or your schedule has filled up, then I would be disappointed... but
I'd understand. Sorry about the drama. I'm usually drama-free, I swear.
It was amazing how much further my internal anxieties resolved themselves upon receipt
of this email: it was not only concrete evidence that men are human beings who are
frequently just as confused as I am; not only concrete evidence that men are different
from each other, and assumptions should not be made about how they're feeling; but
also, it was concrete evidence that a man (a vanilla-but-questioning man, no less!) might
not inevitably fall into the stereotypes that feed my fears.
I was still a little bit spooked, of course, but I did indeed see Mr. ThereItIs later that
week, and it turned out great. And as I was pulling myself together to leave his
apartment, I raised my eyebrows at him. "I don't know if I'll ever see you again," I said,
fishing. I didn't have any nights open before I was due to catch my plane out of the city,
but maybe some other time....
"You'll see me again," he obliged.
I zipped up my backpack. "I wonder why we have so much chemistry."
"I don't know," he said, "but I'll read about it on your blog when you figure it out," and he
laughed and caught my wrists when I pretended to punch him. It was such a stupidly
adorable moment that I am almost ashamed to write it down, but it was also such a
cypress moment, I've got to mention it.
As for The Artist, we went to a charming museum a few days before I left, and had a fine
old time. There was almost no tension at all. Right before we parted, we inevitably ended
up discussing our brief romance, and the conversation was gloriously friendly. "No hard
feelings," I said as I walked him to the bus, and meant it.
I then tried to walk away from the bus, but it turned at the same corner I did and chased
me down the street. Ack, I couldn't help thinking, so much for a nice clean exit. I was
suddenly possessed by ridiculous performance anxiety, knowing he could see me, so I
paused and took a drag of a passing gentleman's cigarette, and then deliberately
zigzagged away from the bus again.
The Artist texted me fifteen seconds later: "That puff of a cigarette looked mighty tasty."
"I needed it to relieve my feelings of being watched from the bus," I texted back, then
added impulsively, "Take care, handsome, and have lots of wonderful children."
"You too," he replied. "We'll see if I become okay with poly first, or you gain these 'adult'
preferences...."
I shook my head and laughed over my phone, walked home with a spring in my step.
San Francisco had done what I needed it to do.
* * *
This can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/04/03/storytime-fear-loathing-and-sm-sluthood-insan-francisco/
* * *
* * *
* * *
S&M:
[theory] BDSM As A Sexual Orientation, and Complications of the
Orientation Model
The first version of this post was written in 2009. I updated it slightly and reposted it in
2012. The online version includes an evolving set of relevant links at the end.
* * *
BDSM As A Sexual Orientation, and Complications of the Orientation Model
There's a hilarious sticker that you can buy online at a website called TopPun.com. It
shows a list with "Homosexual Agenda" written at the top. The list items are: "1. Spend
time with family, 2. Be treated equally, 3. Buy milk." (You can also buy a keychain
version.)
I love that because it so perfectly highlights how preposterous all those right-wing
accusations about "the gay agenda" are. Actually, gay people just want to live their lives
like everyone else; the to-do list for most gay people looks a lot like most other people's.
In a way, that sticker also highlights some problems with the very concept of sexual
orientations -- the way we sort ourselves into groups based on sexuality and its apparent
innateness. Why do people have to insist on being so different from each other? A
question that sometimes gets raised in BDSM contexts: is BDSM a "sexual orientation"?
And I have such mixed feelings about that question. I feel intense BDSM as an incredibly
important aspect of my sexuality, perhaps an innate one, but I don't want us to fall into
the same traps that beset homosexuality.
I remember the first moment it occurred to me to consider BDSM an orientation -- the
first time I used that word. I believe I was writing up my coming-out story at the time; I
was discussing the way I freaked out when I came into BDSM, and I wrote: In
retrospect, it seems surreal that I reacted so badly to my BDSM orientation.
I remember that I felt vaguely electrified at what I was saying, a little scared... but also
comforted. At the time, I hadn't had much contact with other sex theorists, and I thought I
was saying something radical. I was scared that my words might appear too radical to be
taken seriously. Also, since our culture mostly discusses the idea of "orientation" in
regards to gay/ lesbian /bi /transgender /queer, it seemed to me that -- if I dared refer to it
as "my BDSM orientation" -- then a comparison with LGBTQ was implied in my
statement.
Would the world believe that my BDSM desires could be as "real," as "deep-rooted," as
"unavoidable" as the sexual orientation of a gay/lesbian/bi/transgender/queer person?
Would I offend GLBTQ people by implying that my sexual needs are as "real," "deeprooted"
and "unavoidable" as theirs?
I later found out that some LGBTQ people do get offended by it, and others don't.
Sometime you end up with ridiculous arguments like this one from a comments thread on
an incredibly BDSM-phobic blog: one person says, "As a lesbian, I would like to say a
sincere fuck you to people comparing BDSM to homosexuality," to which another person
replies, "As a queer person myself, I would like to say a sincere fuck you to people who
claim that I ought to see my BDSM and my queerness differently." As for me, Clarisse,
I'll be frank with you -- I've come to the conclusion that I don't have a dog in that fight,
and I'm staying out of it. I'm straight as the day is long, but I've also been invited to speak
about BDSM at queer conventions and to write about BDSM on queer blogs. So I'll hang
out with the people who are cool with me, and everyone else can kick me out of their
LGBTQ circles as much as they want.
But I used to feel a lot more worried about how I'd be perceived for talking about BDSM
as an orientation. Still, as weird as the concept of "BDSM as an orientation" felt when I
first thought of it, it also felt right. When I looked back at my memories and previous
actions, it was quite obvious that I have always had these needs, desires and fantasies.
Acknowledging this, and applying the word "orientation" to BDSM, helped me come to
terms with my BDSM identity.
The "BDSM orientation" idea cleared a mental path for me to think of BDSM as a inbuilt
part of myself, like my bone structure or eye color. BDSM became something that it was
desirable to accept, come to terms with... even embrace. It was a hugely liberating way
of thinking about it: if I thought of BDSM as an orientation, that meant I didn't have
to worry about or fight it anymore.
Since then, I've been so buried in sexuality theory and I've talked to so many BDSM
people that -- well, now the idea of a "BDSM orientation" seems kinda boring. I am
reminded that it's a radical concept only when I talk to people who don't think about these
things all the time. I think that the idea of BDSM as an orientation occurs naturally to
people who think a lot about BDSM sexuality, because so many kinksters either know
we're BDSM people all along, or instantly recognize BDSM once we find it. Here's a
quotation from an article about a BDSM-related legal case that quotes sexologist Charles
Moser at the end, as he very eloquently describes how BDSM can be considered a sexual
orientation:
When I talk to someone who is identifying as BDSM and ask them have you always felt
this way, and they almost always report that 'This has been the way I was all along. I
didn't realize it. I thought I was interested in more traditional male/female relationships
but now I realize that I really like the power and control aspects of relationship.'
... They are very clear often that, 'my relationships which were vanilla were not fulfilling.
I always felt like there was something missing. Now that I'm doing BDSM, I am fulfilled.
This feels really right to me. This really gets me to my core. It's who I am.'
... And so in the same way as someone who is homosexual, they couldn't really change --
they somehow felt fulfilled in the same-sex relationship -- similarly in a BDSM
relationship or scenario, they similarly feel the same factors, and in my mind, that allows
me to classify people who fit that as a sexual orientation. I cannot change someone who's
into BDSM to not be BDSM.
That's how I feel. Absolutely.
And yet I disagree with Moser on one key point: not all BDSM people are like this. I
know that people exist who do BDSM, who don't feel it the same way I do. They don't
feel that it's been with them all along. It's not deep-rooted for them. It's not unavoidable,
it's not necessary, it doesn't go to their core. They can change from being into BDSM to
not doing BDSM, because it's not built-in; it's just something they do sometimes, for fun.
There are also plenty of people who have equally strong feelings about their BDSM
sexuality, but who have different BDSM preferences from mine. And that's totally okay
with me! I will always say that I've got no problem with whatever people want to do, as
long as it's kept among consenting adults.
But what does the existence of people like that mean for BDSM as an orientation? Are
they somehow less "entitled" to practice BDSM, because it's not as deep-rooted or
important to them as it is for, say, me? No, that can't be true. I'm not going to claim that
my feelings are "more real" than theirs, or somehow more important, just because BDSM
goes straight to my core but not to theirs. They've got as much right as I do to practice
these activities, as long as they do it consensually.
So, where does that leave us? It means that BDSM is an orientation for some people, but
not for others. I'm fine with that. Does that mean we're done here? Well, no....
... because if BDSM is an orientation for some people but not others, then we're in a bit of
a weird place when it comes to societal recognition. In the case I cited above, Charles
Moser is claiming that we BDSMers can't change ourselves and that therefore, we don't
deserve to be stigmatized for our sexuality.
On the surface, this might seem reasonable, but actually, whether or not people can alter
their sexual needs, there's no reason people shouldn't be able to do what they want
with other consenting adults. If any of us phrase the argument as: "I can't change
myself, so please don't hate me!" then we are implicitly saying, "If I could change myself,
I would... but I can't, so please have pity on me!" In other words, we are implicitly
saying: "BDSMers can't 'fix' our sexual needs -- it's not 'our fault' -- so please don't hate
us."
And when we say that, we are accepting and validating the way our culture tries to shame
our sexuality. We are fundamentally agreeing with the opposition and begging for an
exception, rather than trying to change the rule. We are calling BDSM a "fault," rather
than stating that freely exercising sexuality is our "right." When we make BDSM into
an orientation, we are often casting BDSM sexuality as something that we would
"fix" if we could. But BDSM is not broken in the first place!
Also, using the orientation argument leaves the entire segment of the population that
doesn't feel BDSM as an orientation standing out in the cold. If we go with the
orientation model, and say that it's okay for BDSM-identified people to practice BDSM
only because we feel it as a deep-rooted orientation... then we are implying that
it's not okay for people to practice BDSM if they don't feel it as a deep-rooted
orientation.
Something like this has happened in some gay/lesbian communities: people who have sex
with folks of the same gender, but don't identify as strictly gay or lesbian, have
sometimes been stigmatized within gay/lesbian communities or even disallowed from
gay/lesbian gatherings. I understand that there are historical reasons that kind of thing
happened, and analyzing the phenomenon would take up a whole post. I'm pretty sure
books have been written about it. But the point is that when it did happen, it left bisexual
people -- as well as others who don't fit neatly within the "gay/lesbian orientation" -- out
in the cold. And I don't want to support that with BDSM.
So I've tended to avoid that kind of language. I think it is important to move away from "I
can't help having these needs," and towards "It's fundamentally unimportant whether we
can change our sexual desires; the only really important thing is whether or not we
practice them consensually."
But...
there's always a but...
I'll admit that I feel anxiety about abandoning the "orientation model." I still haven't taken
the word "orientation" out of my BDSM overview lecture, because it is useful for
convincing people that BDSM is okay. Many people, at this point, have accepted the
LGBTQ orientation as something that should not be stigmatized. The word "orientation"
can really help them understand what BDSM means to us and why it's not okay to
stigmatize that, either.
Furthermore, there are obviously people out there (like Charles Moser) who are seeking
to protect BDSM legally, as a sexual orientation. They want to make BDSM a protected
class, so that we can't get fired or have our kids taken away or suffer other consequences
for being into BDSM anymore. If talking about BDSM as a sexual orientation means I
can worry less about those potential consequences, then is it worth it? Maybe.
And, of course, I don't want to forget how much the idea of an "orientation" comforted
me when I was first coming into BDSM. It made me feel so much better to recognize
BDSM as an inbuilt part of myself. I don't want to take that comfort away from anyone
else.
So, when I try to campaign for general sexual freedom and acceptance -- "orientation" or
no "orientation" -- I imagine that I'll still end up using the word sometimes. But I'll
always try to be conscious of it, and I'll always try to speak in ways that support this
statement:
It's fundamentally unimportant whether we can change our sexual desires; the only
really important thing is whether or not we practice them consensually.
* * *
This can be found on the Internet at:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2012/04/09/classic-repost-bdsm-as-a-sexual-orientationand-complications-of-the-orientation-model/
* * *
* * *
* * *
S&M:
[theory] BDSM "versus" Sex
This was originally published in two parts in 2011. I named the first part "Divide and
Conquer," and the second part "How Does It Feel?" But as often happens when I split up
my long posts, people were already talking about points that I addressed in the second
post while commenting on the first post -- before the second post was published.
(Unfortunately, my commenters are at least as smart as I am, and they notice when I
leave things out.) I've often struggled with length problems as a blogger. If I could write
posts that are typical blog length, like 250-500 words, then I'd probably be a lot more
successful. But I just can't seem to write short, and since splitting up long posts is a bad
idea too, I constantly feel frustrated by blogging... let alone platforms like Twitter! If you
have clever thoughts for how I can train myself to be a better short-form writer, email
me. Seriously.
* * *
BDSM "versus" Sex
Every once in a while, someone will ask me a question about something BDSM-related
that I feel "done with"; I feel like I did all my thinking about those topics, years ago. But
it's still useful to get those questions today, because it forces me to try and understand
where my head was at, three to seven years ago. It forces me to calibrate my inner
processes. I often think of these questions as the "simple" ones, or the "101" questions,
because they are so often addressed in typical conversation among BDSMers. Then
again, lots of people don't have access to a BDSM community, or aren't interested in their
local BDSM community for whatever reason. Therefore, it's useful for me to cover those
"simple" questions on my blog anyway.
Plus, just because a question is simple doesn't mean the question is not interesting.
One such question is the "BDSM versus sex" question. Is BDSM always sex? Is it always
sexual? A lot of people see BDSM as something that "always" includes sex, or is "always
sexual in some way." In the documentary "BDSM: It's Not What You Think!", one
famous BDSM writer is quoted saying something like: "I would say that eros is always
involved in BDSM, even if the participants aren't doing anything that would look sexual
to non-BDSMers."
But a lot of other people see BDSM, and the BDSM urge, as something that doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with sex -- that is separate from sex.
I see two sides to this question: the political side, and the "how does it feel?" side. Both
sides are intertwined; when it comes to sex, politics can't help shaping our experiences
(and vice versa). I acknowledge this. And yet even when I try to account for that,
there is still something deeply different about the way my body feels my BDSM
urges, as opposed to how my body feels sexual urges. I don't think that those bodily
differences could ever quite go away, no matter how my mental angle on those processes
changed.
* * *
The Political Side of BDSM versus Sex
"BDSM versus sex" could be viewed as a facet of that constant and irritating question --
"What is sex, anyway?" I've always found that the more you look at the line between
"what is sex" and "what is not sex," the more blurred the line becomes.
For example, recall that ridiculous national debate that happened across America when
Bill Clinton told us that he hadn't had sex with Monica -- and then admitted to getting a
blowjob from her. Is oral sex sex? Maybe oral sex isn't sex! Flutter, flutter, argue, argue.
It is my experience that (cisgendered, heterosexual) women are often more likely to claim
that oral sex is not sex, while (cis, het) men are more likely to claim that oral sex is sex. I
suspect this is because women face steeper social penalties for having sex (no one wants
to be labeled a "slut"), so we are typically more motivated to claim that sex acts "don't
count" as sex... whereas men are usually congratulated for having sex (more notches on
the bedpost!), so men are typically more motivated to claim that sex acts "count" as sex.
(Unless they're Bill Clinton.)
So we already have this weird ongoing debate, about what "qualifies" as sex. And you
throw in fetishes such as BDSM, and everyone gets confused all over again. A cultural
example of this confusion came up in 2009, when a bunch of professional dominatrixes
got arrested in New York City... for being dominatrixes... which everyone previously
believed was legal. Flutter, flutter, argue, argue, and it turns out that "prostitution" (which
is illegal in New York) is defined as "sexual conduct for money."
But what does "sexual conduct" mean? At least one previous court had set the
precedent that BDSM-for-pay is not the same as "sexual conduct for money"... and
yet, in 2009, the Manhattan District Attorney's office decided that "sexual conduct"
means "anything that is arousing to the participants"... and then decided that this
suddenly meant they ought to go arrest dominatrixes. It's not clear why the Manhattan
DA did not, then, also begin arresting strippers. And what about random vanilla couples
on a standard date-type thing, where the woman makes eyes at the man over dinner, and
the man pays for the meal? Sounds like "sexual conduct for money" to me. Which could
totally be prostitution, folks, so watch your backs.
In his piece "Is There Such A Thing As Kinky Sex?", Dr. Marty Klein says that:
If practicing kinky sex makes you "other," not one of "us," if it has non-sexual
implications, if it means you're defective or dangerous -- who wants that? And so as
"kinky sex" and its practitioners are demonized, everyone is concerned -- am I one of
"those people"? It makes people fear their fantasies or curiosity, which then acquire too
much power. It leads to secrecy between partners, as people withhold information about
their preferences or experiences.
... I'd like to destroy the idea of binary contrast -- that kinky and non-kinky sex are
clearly different. Instead, I suggest that kinky and vanilla sex are parts of a continuum,
the wide range of human eroticism. We all slide side to side along that continuum during
our lives, sometimes in a single week. We don't need to fear our fantasies, curiosity, or
(consensual) sexual preferences. They don't make us bad or different, just human. Some
people like being emotional outlaws. They'll always find a way to get the frisson of
otherness. But most people don't want to live that way. So ending kink's status as
dangerous and wrong, and its practitioners as "other," is the most liberating thing we
can do -- for everyone.
That's certainly reasonable from a political standpoint. I've made similar arguments.
(Some folks, such as the brilliant male submissive writer maymay, also argue against the
common idea that "kink" is limited to "BDSM"; they prefer an expansive definition of
"kink" that denotes a vaster cornucopia of sexuality.)
Plus, I even suspect that a lot of the distinctions made by BDSMers ourselves are
based far more on stigma than sense. For example, when I was younger, I went through
a period where I couldn't stand to have the word "submissive" applied to myself. I
insisted that I was into BDSM solely for the physical sensation, and swore I would never
ever do something solely submission-oriented (such as wearing a collar). It was like I
could only handle BDSM as long as I distanced myself from the power elements; the
power elements carried too much stigma in my head for me to acknowledge them... yet.
I also used to carefully separate "BDSM" from "sex" in my head. Part of me felt like, "If
my desire for pain and power is sexual, then it's weird. If it's not sexual, then it's less
weird." (It looks strange when I type it, now, but I guess that's how sexual stigma works:
it rarely holds up against the clear light of day.) It took me a while to integrate sexuality
into my BDSM practice. In contrast, I once met a couple who told me that it took them a
long time to do BDSM that wasn't part of sex. In their heads, the thought was more like:
"If the desire for pain and power is sexual, then it's not weird. But if it's not sexual, then
it's really weird."
I've heard of plenty of dungeons where sex is not allowed -- sometimes for legal reasons,
but sometimes because there is actually a social standard against it: people are like,
"Dude, let's not get our nice pure BDSM all dirty by including sex." (Note: My
experience is primarily with dungeons owned by "lifestyle" BDSMers -- "lifestyle" being
a clumsy word that attempts to denote those of us who are motivated to do BDSM for
reasons other than money. While there is some overlap between "lifestyle" BDSM and
professional BDSM, the overlap can be surprisingly rare, and professional BDSM is often
banned at lifestyle BDSM parties. Lifestyle dungeons are often non-profit organizations,
and often function more like community centers than moneymaking venues. I understand
that some professional dungeons have a "no sex" rule out of a desire to protect the
boundaries of dominatrixes who work there, who may not wish to be asked to engage in
sex.)
There are also plenty of cultural groups who do things that look suspiciously like
BDSM... who insist that they have nothing to do with BDSM. For example, I've heard of
spanking clubs whose members get really mad if you dare bring BDSM up in their
presence.
And then there's groups like Taken In Hand, a quasi-conservative organization. Actual
testimonial from the Taken In Hand site:
There are lots of websites for people in the BDSM, D/s, DD (domestic discipline) and
spanking communities. There are websites for people who belong to religions that
advocate male-head-of-household marriage. There are even websites for Christians who
are interested in BDSM. But there are very few websites for people who are interested in
male-led intimate relationships but who are not interested in all that the above
communities associate with this kind of relationship (jargon, clothes, etc.) Some of us
don't even like thinking of this as a lifestyle.
Well, my friend, you know what... you can refuse to call yourself BDSM all you want,
and you can reject our "jargon" all you want, and you can "dislike" thinking of this
"lifestyle" until the end of time... and you have every right to insist that we have nothing
to do with you. But when your site has posts that include comments like "When my
husband behaves in a dominant manner I basically swoon," or have titles like "Don't
forget your whip," well... I'm just saying.
Also, since you mention rejecting BDSM "clothes"? I'll just say that I can be an
astoundingly badass domme in a t-shirt. And I have done so. Multiple times.
Personally, I am particularly frustrated by the stigmatizing idea that BDSM has nothing
to do with love. Sometimes I encounter this idea that BDSM has to be separated from sex
because BDSM has nothing to do with sex, whereas sex supposedly "should" be about
love. The truth is that both BDSM and sex are very different for different people,
emotions-wise. Although many people experiment with "casual BDSM," the same way
many people experiment with "casual sex," a stereotype that BDSMers cannot find love
in the act is wrong and absurd.
So yeah. Nowadays, many of these "BDSM versus sex" reactions strike me as being born
out of pure, irrational stigma. As Dr. Klein noted, these reactions are usually born of the
terrible human urge to exclude: to find ways to differentiate ourselves from "those
people." Humans apparently love to think things like: "I'm not like those people. It
doesn't matter if I, for example, write extensive rape fantasy fiction! That couldn't
possibly be BDSM! Because I'm not a BDSMer! Because BDSM is dirty."
But we shouldn't necessarily blame people for this instinct to reject and categorize: the
instinct is one that comes from being scared and oppressed... because the social penalties
for "getting it wrong" are high. Remember, those New York City dominatrixes thought
they were "safe" from the law as long as BDSM didn't count as sex. But as soon as
someone decided BDSM "counted as" sex, those dominatrixes were arrested.
It's just one more example of how sexual stigma for "different kinds of sex" is constantly
intertwined. No type of consensual sexuality can express itself freely until people agree
that "among consenting adults, there is no 'should'." The Romans, those ancient
imperialists, used to say: "Divide and conquer." When consensual sexualities are scared
of each other, we will continue to be conquered. As long as "vanilla" people are afraid
of "BDSM"... as long as "BDSMers" are afraid of being seen as "sexual"... as long
as the social penalties for being a "slut" or a "whore" are incredibly steep... as long
as sex workers are stigmatized and criminalized... everyone will be bound by these
oppressive standards.
* * *
The Embodied Side of BDSM versus Sex
Although Part 1 was all about how the divide between "BDSM" and "sex" is often
nonsensical, or purely political, or socially constructed... that doesn't mean that the
divide does not exist. I once had a conversation about ignoring social constructs with a
wise friend, who noted dryly that: "One-way streets are a social construct. That doesn't
mean we should ignore them." Just because the outside world influences our sexuality,
does not mean that our sexual preferences are invalid.
Some polyamorous BDSMers have very different rules about having sex with outsiders,
as opposed to doing BDSM with outsiders. For example, during the time when I was
considering a transition to polyamory, I myself had a couple relationships where we were
sexually monogamous -- yet my partners agreed that I could do BDSM with people who
weren't my partner. Those particular partners felt jealous and threatened by the idea
of me having sex with another man, but they didn't mind if I did BDSM with
another man. Maybe the feelings of those partners only arose because they categorized
"BDSM" and "sex" into weirdly different socially-constructed ways... but those
partners' feelings were nonetheless real, and their feelings deserved respect.
And there are also unmistakable ways that BDSM feels different from sex. There is
something, bodily, that is just plain different about BDSM, as opposed to sex. I often
find myself thinking of "BDSM feelings" and "sexual feelings" as flowing down two
parallel channels in my head... sometimes these channels intersect, but sometimes they're
far apart. The BDSM urge strikes me as deeply different, separate, from the sex urge. It
can be fun to combine BDSM and sex, but there are definitely times when I want BDSM
that feel very unlike most times when I want sex.
The biggest political reason why it's difficult to discuss this is the way in which we
currently conceptualize sexuality through "orientations": we have built a cultural
"orientation model" focused on the idea that "acceptable" sexuality is "built-in," or
"innate." Some BDSMers consider BDSM an "orientation" -- and I, myself, once found
that thinking of BDSM as an orientation was extremely helpful in coming to terms with
my BDSM desires. But one thing I don't like about the orientation model now is that it
makes us sound like we're apologizing. "Poor little me! It's not my fault I'm straight! Or a
domme! Whatever!" Why would any of these things be faults in the first place? Our
bodies are our own, our experiences are our own, and our consent is our own to give.
The orientation model is one of the cultural factors that makes it hard to discuss sensory,
sensual experiences without defaulting to sexuality. As commenter saurus pointed out on
the Feministe version of part 1 of this post:
Sometimes I think that we have compulsions, needs or "fetishes" that aren't sexual, but
lumping them in with sexuality is sometimes the most convenient or socially manageable
way to deal with them or get those needs met. They might even physically arouse us for a
variety of reasons, but that might be a side effect instead of the act's inherent nature.
Which is not to say that every act can be cleanly cleaved into "sexual" and "non-sexual"
-- of course not. But I think we lack a language around these needs that doesn't use
sexuality. I see a lot of groundbreaking work coming out of the asexual and disability
justice communities in this regard (which is just to say that I find the folks in these
groups are churning out some incredible ways to "queer" conventional dominant ideas
about sexuality; not that they never have sex or whatever).
I think one answer to that is to just open up the definition of sexuality to include these
things, but as someone who identifies vehemently not as "sex positive" but as "sex nonjudgmental,"
I know I don't personally want all my shit to be lumped in with sexuality. It
just makes me picture some sex judgmental person insisting that "oh, that's totally
sexual."
I, Clarisse, can certainly attest that it's common for people to have BDSM encounters that
are "just" BDSM -- "no sex involved." For example -- an encounter where one partner
whips the other, or gets whipped, and there's no genital contact or even discussion of
genitals. And I'd like to stress that when I have encounters like that, they can be very
satisfying without involving sex. The release -- the high -- I get from a heavy BDSM
encounter can be its own reward.
I've also had BDSM encounters where I got turned on...
... but I didn't feel turned on until later, or afterwards, or until my partner did something
specific to draw out my desire. For example -- I remember that in one intense BDSM
encounter as a domme, I wound up the encounter and pulled away from my partner. We
had both been sitting down; I stood up and took off the metal claws I'd been using to rip
him up. (Secretly, the claws were banjo picks. Do-It-Yourself BDSM is awesome.)
Then I leaned over my partner to pick something up. I had thought we were pretty much
done, but he seized me as I leaned over, and he pulled me close and kissed my neck, and I
literally gasped in shock. My sexual desire spiked so hard... I practically melted into his
arms. And yet if you'd asked me, moments before, whether I was turned on... I would
have said "no."
One way to think about it might be that sometimes, BDSM "primes" me so that I'm
more receptive to sexual energy. It's not that BDSM is exactly a sexual turn-on in itself;
sometimes it is, but that's actually surprisingly rare. Yet BDSM often... gets my blood
flowing?... and seems to "open the floodgates," so sexual hormones can storm through
my body.
And just in case this wasn't complex enough for you... on the other hand, I've had BDSM
encounters where my partner tried to take it sexual, and I wasn't interested. It's almost
like there's a BDSM cycle that I often get into, and once the cycle is sufficiently
advanced, I can't easily shift out of it.
Sometimes, when I'm near the "peak" of the BDSM cycle, then being interrupted for any
reason -- sex, or anything else -- is absolutely horrible. I'd rather be left on the edge of
orgasm, burning with sexual desire, than be hurt until I almost cry. The emotion becomes
a stubborn lump in my throat; becomes balled up in my chest. At times like that, it almost
feels hard to breathe.
A while back, a reporter named Mac McClelland who worked in Haiti made a splash by
writing an article about how she used "violent sex" to ease her Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder. I briefly reported on the article for Feministe, but at the time, I didn't share
many of my thoughts about what she wrote. One thing I did say was that the reporter
didn't use any BDSM terminology -- at least not that I spotted. She didn't seem to
conceptualize her desire for "violent sex" as a BDSM thing at all. Interestingly, a
Feministe commenter named Jadey, who has experience with kink, also didn't
conceptualize the reporter's article that way. Jadey wrote:
I don't think she's bad or wrong, and I don't think her method of coping with her PTSD is
bad or wrong.... [Yet] I've got a kink/BDSM background, but that's not what she's
describing here. She's talking about something far different, and I can't understand the
experience she describes with Isaac. It is... incomprehensible.
I want to stress here that I, Clarisse Thorn, have never been diagnosed with Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder. (And I've undergone plenty of analysis, so I'm sure that if I
had PTSD, someone would have noticed by now.) And just in case it needs to be said
again, I'll also stress that I have no intention of telling anyone else how to define their
own experiences. And just in case it needs to be said again, there is a big difference
between consenting BDSM and abuse.
But unlike Jadey, when I read the original "violent sex" article, the reporter's description
of her encounter sounded a lot like some of my preferences... indeed, it sounded like
some of the BDSM encounters I've had. For example, the reporter writes:
"Okay," my partner said. "I love you, okay?" I said, I know, okay. And with that he was
on me, forcing my arms to my sides, then pinning them over my head, sliding a hand up
under my shirt when I couldn't stop him. The control I'd lost made my torso scream with
anxiety; I cried out desperately as I kicked myself free.... When I got out from under him
and started to scramble away, he simply caught me by a leg or an upper arm or my hair
and dragged me back. By the time he pinned me by my neck with one forearm so I was
forced to use both hands to free up space between his elbow and my windpipe, I'd largely
exhausted myself.
And just like that, I'd lost. It's what I was looking for, of course. But my body -- my hardfighting,
adrenaline-drenched body -- reacted by exploding into terrible panic.... I did
not enjoy it in the way a person getting screwed normally would. But as it became clear
that I could endure it, I started to take deeper breaths. And my mind stayed there, stayed
present even when it became painful.... My body felt devastated but relieved; I'd lost, but
survived. After he climbed off me, he gathered me up in his arms. I broke into a thousand
pieces on his chest, sobbing so hard that my ribs felt like they were coming loose.
... Isaac pulled my hair away from my wet face, repeating over and over and over
something that he probably believed but that I had to relearn. "You are so strong," he
said. "You are so strong. You are so strong."
Sounds extremely familiar to me.
Now, it's not like I have BDSM encounters like that all the time; indeed, experiences of
that type are relatively rare for me. But the reporter's description doesn't sound "far
different" from what I've experienced. Certainly not "incomprehensible." There's only
one big difference, actually: I've never had such an intense BDSM experience in which