Your Questions Answered

From Sofia:

i have questions!

How did you decide – what made you decide – to start blogging?

What is your favorite kink-based memory?

Well, the blogging part is easy: I was one of those little girls with a diary — you know, the one with the “Genuine Gold-Tone Lock”?   Dear diary…  As I got older I got cooler notebooks and called them journals.  When blogging came to be, it was a pretty natural transition from paper to pixel.  I have always written to make sense of my own experience.   I guess one of the things that’s related to your question is: “Why blog about sex?”   Blogging about sex isn’t exactly like blogging about knitting: it has risks, mainly because we live in a society where sex is a private matter.

Nonetheless, there was a time, around 1992, when putting any personal details at all about our lives — what we had for lunch, what we thought about the ballgame — was considered really weird.   Now everybody does it and we call it “Facebook.”

I am not proposing that it’s going to become normal to talk about sex publicly — at least not as easily and swiftly as living the rest of our lives online has become.  But I do think that we are better off as individuals and as a society if we are able to speak freely about our sex lives, even if they are very unconventional, to people who consent to listen, without anybody worrying if they’ll be kicked out of the Parent Teacher Association.  Sex is a serious subject, and we deserve to be able to talk about it openly if we choose to.

Now, what is my favorite kink-based memory?  My goodness.  I’m not being coy when I say I really, truly don’t know.  I am so lucky that there are so many wonderful moments.   For me, many of the wonderful moments have involved moments where my partners demonstrate that they love the parts of me that I cannot bring myself to love.

From fiona:

As a switch, do you crave one side more than the other? Do you find one more fulfilling than the other – I guess?

Also…What’s something that you fantasized about but haven’t yet explored? Do you think you ever will?

To me, kink is a way to connect with a partner; topping or bottoming is really just a means to that end.

That doesn’t mean that they’re the same, however.  One of them is much more difficult for me.   Topping is really much more natural to me; it’s closer to my day-to-day persona; I can do it, perhaps, with more flair.  Bottoming is much further from my day-to-day personality.  It’s harder and scarier and riskier.

Now, some of you reading might think, “Well that means bottoming is better, right?  It’s emotionally deeper, the payoff must be bigger.”  Nope.  Our experiences are as deep as we make them.  When I top, what I have to guard against is “performing,” which is something I do all the time in my work.  People don’t know how I feel unless I tell them.  But that’s no way to run an intimate relationship.  When I top, my big challenge is to turn off that performance and tune into what I really, truly want, and instead of doing what every sane person ever would do, namely, hide it, share it with Holly.

For me, topping is immediate, visceral, undeniable.  I can’t pull back from it once I get into it.  With topping?  I could pull back any time I wanted.  But I have to recognize that Holly can’t, and I have to honor that by being emotionally present and being just as open and real as she is.

In bottoming and topping, I’d say that I just have different work to do.

Also…What’s something that you fantasized about but haven’t yet explored? Do you think you ever will?

You know, I’m someone who spent about 35 years with her sexuality bottled up tight, and then let it all out.  At this point, unless I think up some new ones, I have no sexual fantasies that I haven’t already experienced except for the ones that are illegal, unethical, or require the intervention of science fiction.

You know what I think about that, now that I’m on the other side of it?  That I’m free to explore now.  I can encounter a new sexual experience and take it or leave it.  I’m not being chased and pursued by the ghosts of my sexuality that were going to haunt me until I satisfied their otherworldly demands, yanno?  We’re friends now, me and my sexuality.  We’re not at war anymore.

The experience of acting out my sexual fantasies was interesting.   One of two things happened upon acting out a sexual fantasy:

For some fantasies, all that was hot about it was the taboo.  Once we’d done it, the taboo was broken, and it wasn’t hot anymore.  (For me, this included pretty much all things anal, which I used to have excruciatingly embarrassing and hot sexual fantasies about, but is now totally absent from my fantasy life, because I tried it and thought, “Meh.”  Some people say that you should worry about “ruining” a sexual fantasy that way, but that’s bullshit.  Sexual fantasy is like the subway: there will be another one along in five minutes).
For other fantasies, they were like the magical gift that just keeps unfolding; they were hot and stayed hot or got hotter.  Those became a regular part of our sexual repertoire.

But I’m sure I’ll have new fantasies, and we’ll see where those lead, right?

From LSAM:

How has being a switch added to your experience as both a s-type and D-type?

Well, as a D-type, I have a huge advantage because I understand what it’s like to be the submissive.  I get the emotional intensity, the weird and unexpected bursting into tears after an orgasm, the fact that one toy one day feels great and the next day you just can’t tolerate it.  I get all those things because I’ve been there.

As a submissive, it’s made me more patient and realistic.  Like a lot of s-types, I sprung all my wants on my husband like a kid with a 143 item Christmas list.  What I understand now that I didn’t understand then is that dominance is not a microwave dish.  It takes time for people to grow into the kind of dominant they will become.  I should have been more patient; I had a lot of magical thinking going on, that somehow dominance was just like throwing a switch or something, and that Bryce would magically become a kind of InstaDom.  I also know that initially I was looking for a kind of dominance that was so confident and perfect that it would make submitting effortless, instead of being sometimes scary, frustrating, or sad.  In short, I wanted to transfer all the emotional risk of having a D/s relationship to my husband, which I now realize is 1) totally unfair and 2) complete bullshit on my part.

Sorry you folks had to wait so long.  My work is very “bursty” — I’ll be incredibly busy for awhile, and then I’ll have some slack.  My blog reflects that, of course!  :)

Feel free to ask more questions anytime  :)

Just finished reading your book, Discipline, and it really had a profound effect on me. You can read more about how on my blog (where I’ve pimped your book a few times) http://drinkskinksandlife.tumblr.com/

The biggest impact was when you talked about Behavior Modification Doms. After years of lurking in the lifestyle and never seeing anyone like me it was like someone turned on a light in a dark room. I cannot express the relief and joy it gives me to know I am not alone. Thank you.

So can I ask you a question?  Does that mean you’re a behavior modification dominant (for those who haven’t read the book, a dominant who is interested in “training” a submissive over a long period of time)?  (Nevermind, I just went and read some stuff from your blog.  You are one!  So listen, I think you should read this:  Raven Kaldera and Josh Tenpenny on “Real Service”

In any case, I’m really thrilled that the book gave you some ideas that have helped you out in your own life.  That makes me really happy  I’ll be reading your blog!