Respect

Hands off, head/eyes down, shut up. Three little rules, so much power.

Language Barrier

So if my previous posts weren't any indication, I'm absolutely in love with the idea of operant conditioning in various scenes. Operant conditioning can lead to the control of nearly any animal on the planet, including humans, and any will is apt to crumble and break under such training.

Now, usually this would be done with open communication of demands to the sub. Basically various nonverbal cues are pretty strong and consistent, but verbal cues are more precise. If you're required to acquire permission to service your Sir's boots before doing so, but he grabs your neck and forces you to the floor, usually it would be a verbal cue granting the permission.

As an extra mindfuck, I'd love to be dominated by someone who doesn't speak English during the scene. All of the sudden, that same situation suddenly goes an entirely new route. You find yourself on the floor, boots in your face, and Sir says something. Do you assume he's instructing you to lick them? Is he telling you to be still? Is it some off-handed comment as to how worthless you are?

And suddenly we have it: damned if you do, damned if you don't. Depending on how broad the commands range, you could pick up a decent chunk of the language. Suck it, Rosetta Stone.

A Few Random Pics

Beginning to get settled in to Chicago. Still have to go get the rest of my stuff, but it's definitely good to be here. While I continue to get settled, some random fun.

Interesting Predicament

I'm not really into pup play and have no idea if this position is meant as a part of pup training, but I've wanted to try this position for YEARS. Head stuck in place, back has to stay arched, balls completely vulnerable. Anything that needs 3 pulleys to execute is bound to be fun.

Intense CBT

Been in similar situations before. It's Hell at the time but once you realize you're seriously fucked, man oh man is it a ride.

The Difference Between Liking and Wanting

In a culture so laden with advertising and sex, body image issues are an ever-present concern. Most people have, at some point or another, been on a diet as a result. Usually people complain about how much they hate the food and wish they could just grab a slice of cheesecake or bowl of icecream, but keep eating the sub-par food to lose weight.

I've been exploring BDSM for nearly half my life (and bondage for well over half), and one of the most frustrating things I've ever come across is people's general inability to distinguish between an act and a dynamic. Masochism is defined as "gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others," so some confusion is at least understandable.

Although I identify as almost entirely submissive, I have a wildly sadistic side that comes out fairly frequently. As a result I'm able to run scenarios through my head from both perspectives to gain insight into how things might affect me. One of my favorite things to do is use this duality to "shoot myself in the foot" by telling potential Doms about things I'll know will genuinely unpleasant to me at the time it happens.

This is where the annoyance comes in. Because of the prevalence of masochism, I get accused of being a pushy bottom who's only trying to make a scene more enjoyable for himself, as though I'm sneaking things I will secretly enjoy into a scene for my own benefit. In these instances it was presented as though it were a treat which should be withheld to prevent me from enjoying the scene too much. If the only possibility for pain were masochism, corporal punishment would be nonexistent.

I speak of this frustration as a sub, but being able to distinguish between liking something and wanting it to occur is paramount for both Doms and subs. Essentially, think of it as a diet: just because you want a more fit physique doesn't mean you enjoy the food you have to eat to get there. A sub who wishes to communicate ideas to a Dom so as to put themselves in greater peril is not necessarily doing so to get themselves off faster. Something self-sacrificing to benefits the D/s dynamic, which benefits BOTH parties and should be encouraged rather than looked down upon.

I say a sub who can publish a top-10 list of things that will piss them off or make them absolutely miserable mid-scene has more balls than one who just wants a simple scene where they aren't pushed.

Foot Worship Follow-up

Just stumbled upon this video on Xtube. Totally what I should be spending my time doing instead of packing.

My Favorite Mindfuck

As people who know a fair amount about me are aware, I trained dogs professionally for a short while. During this time I became very familiar with the principles of operant conditioning. For those less familiar, these are the principles seen in Pavlov's famous findings where dogs would salivate upon hearing a bell which was rung before feeding, even when no food was present.

When I lived in Chicago, I spent a full year living in a studio off of the red line - when I say "off of," I mean my window was less than 50 feet from the track. Because the building was nothing but studios and the walls were terribly thin, noise during play was always a fairly large concern. I had a friend who was into some rather brutal CBT and could not only easily push me to my "reasonable" limit and beyond, but still want more even with me there. I was hoping to try and experience as close to legitimate panic as possible while inescapably bound, but I'd get too noisy during this level of abuse.

Eventually, in order to mitigate possibly having my neighbors complain, I told him that any time the train passed by he could wail on me as harshly as he wanted since the rumble would mask my howls. "Could" quickly turned to "would," and it was set up so EVERY time the train passed he'd wail on my balls until I was screaming.

Now, back to Pavlov's dogs. Much as the anticipation of food made the dogs salivate, sure enough the far-off rumble of the train became somewhat of a trigger. Once he got me to the point where I'd panic, after a few repetitions all it took was hearing the train in the distance to make me break into a cold sweat and instinctively try to protect my balls.

Ever since moving out of the studio it always saddened me that I can't duplicate the scene again - somehow using some form of a random noise generator just doesn't seem as thrilling. The conditioned response ought to be identical, so anyone looking to duplicate it may have luck with a fade-in track of some sort on random in iTunes or similar.