BDSM: Is It Sex... Or Is It Confusion?

by Xanadu Xero

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A part of all Sensation Play is, of course, sheerly sexual. For those drawn to it only by that, the Libertine Glitterati, here’s your quickie:

Q: When is it “Adventure” and not “Abuse”?
A: When you daydream about it, swooning. Duh.

Now, for the rest of us, the epicurean, slow-hand, hedo(nist)heads who make a lush life, don’t ‘find’ or buy it… (Barry White voice:) I will unfold the petals of that flower.

*The Myth About Dominance*

The myth about dominance… is that it is established most effectively by struggle and violence, bruising the term “dominant” with a sinister smack.

That is incorrect.

“In reality, the leader of a social group – canine, human or mixed,” writes Pat Miller, a dog trainer for thirty-five years, “is the one who controls the others’ access to resources they want.” And yet savagery usually occurs, even in wolf groups, only between territorial strangers. As for leadership, “This is ideally done with benevolence rather than violence.”*

Half of us bipeds – the penis bearing half - admit they’re dogs. I say that shows the kind of guts that the rest of us should stockpile. And, lest the clit comporting flinch at my riposte, ladies, remember why dogs are ‘man’s best friend’ - they communicate, profoundly, without words.

Men think women talk too much (WHAT?) and yearn for us to share their less verbal style. And chicks inevitably grow up wanting a Disney Prince archetype we don’t ‘have’ to talk to, who, psychically, buys just the right gifts, reads our eyes and knows our soul.

But really, aren’t those two dreams the same thing, Venus and Mars style? Aren’t both sexes just saying that we crave to be known and accepted in a place of trust for everything we are – flawed, refined, lovely and unlovely, both in 3-D life and on subconscious levels too?

"Without a real urge to submit, there is no way to truly feel what a submissive feels." --Unknown

There are things in the realm of human experience that the English language won’t design words for, or can’t. The term “bondage”, for instance, was plucked from a context of spiritual death, and it’s uphill to try and express its consequences, psychically, spiritually and emotionally, beyond the generic “sub space.” What is in there? What can be?

This is where trust gets so erotic. When we trust our partner, we can forge a Sexual Temporary Autonomous Zone (STAZ) – turf in and outside our brains that “eludes formal structures of control.,, releasing one’s mind from the mechanisms (of society) that have been imposed upon it.”**

In other words, a ‘place’ where Anything Goes, but with a twist: no fear. Complete abandon without fear is pretty damn spectacular. That is what separates a healthy “urge to submit” from an unsound one.

Once dancing with my boyfriend I tripped backwards, dorky, flailing towards craggy concrete. I remember thinking, “I wonder what he’ll do?” What he did was dive to wrap his arms around my spine and head and take the blow himself.

That, compadres, money shot a freaking wad of rainbows into our sex life. My defenses began to chillax and twitter sweetly. Now, two years later, those defenses are ghosts. We have been on some piebald, off-road sexual safaris, but I know that, literally and figuratively, he will always have my back.

Limits and tastes vary with BDSM/Sensation Play, like anything else. The first time I was flogged (and by a master, may I say) I was deep into the concept of ‘subservience’, but really, the percussive leather felt like a warm, breezy rain. It didn’t register as ‘pain’ to me. Another person might have crumbled, and still another might have sought more force.

My first flogging practice as a domme was on a buff ex-Marine Ken Doll twenty years my junior who told me to “go full out.” With one lash he was on the floor, fetal position, howling. While I will admit to a highly unevolved split second ping of “Wow! I got this rooster to collapse!” I was completely remiss.

As the ‘top’ I was responsible for his experience. I should have learned before any interaction what “full out” meant to him, and worked from his mindset, not mine. If he had yearned to be floor-bound, wailing, and I itched to put him there, that would have been cool, but I didn’t know. Ignorance is wrong – unless it’s consensual. And every scene needs to have a ‘safe’ word that pulls the brakes.

We are animals; ape-adjacent, driven by forces we don’t understand which can blend in our primal mind – violence to lust, for example, and vice versa. But we’re also humans with heart, and the power of reason. BDSM can be a luscious way to merge Our Two Selves and satisfy both.

Plus, as any wanton adventurer knows… Once you’ve been a pickle, you can never be a cucumber again.


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* “Forget Being The Dominant Leader Of Your Canine Pack”
by Pat Miller, Your Dog Magazine, January, 2008

** “Temporary Autonomous Zone”, definition from Wikipedia