the boy, rook

Guy Fawkes Day – Do Something Subversive

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…

Happy Guy Fawkes Day! Traditionally a holiday in England to remember the failed plot to blow up parliament. The original intent was probably more along the lines of cautioning the populace against foolhardy attempts at rebellion, sedition, and treason; today it’s mostly an excuse to get drunk in a field with a great big bonfire.

On this side of the pond, though, I like to think of Guy Fawkes Day differently: Do Something Subversive.  No treason or attempts at overthrowing the government, please, and don’t do anything stupid. But do stand up for something important, do go against societal norms, do something that makes people think or feel slightly uncomfortable, or do something that makes you uncomfortable.

Take a naughty photo of yourself or write down a crazy fantasy (and send it my way, I’ll put it up). Go to your local Occupy ____ movement and bring them food, or pick up a sign and protest greed. Leave your big-name bank and join a credit union or small local friendly bank (it’s not that hard to do). Hell, donate food or volunteer at a soup kitchen, come out of a closet, go get your mail dressed in your finest kinky wares. Whatever it is, do something unusual for you and for those you live amongst. It’s better than just going with whatever daily flow we all get ourselves stuck in.

Shame, Kink, and Privacy

Leatherati has had some interesting articles lately on kink shame; and I’ve seen a (somewhat obnoxious) video floating around espousing the basic tenets of coming out as kinky to friends or family. And then yesterday rauber wrote a personal post about his own tussle with privacy over his kinky interests. So it all got me to thinking about my own perspective on kink, privacy, and shame.

Ever since I accepted that I was gay, I’ve not felt ashamed of myself. That didn’t mean I instantly came out of the closet, though. I have a life-long policy of not debating fundamentalists, or really even listening to them, so I didn’t outright tell my family not for fear or shame, but because I didn’t want to deal with their judgmental ignorance. But that was a mistake, because my being gay isn’t a phase, or a choice, or a passing interest. It’s my identity. Who I love is who I am. And those I loved deserved to know that. Today, I don’t exactly leave a glitter trail wherever I go, but I don’t shy away from describing my husband. This is a part of my identity, and I’m not ashamed of it.

But the fact is, I don’t apply the same standard to my kink. Yes, being a kinkster is a part of who I am, but I don’t feel the same need to announce it to everyone who passes by. Kink, leather, submission or BDSM do not make up the whole of my identity. What I do – in the bedroom, dungeon, conference, hotel — is not who I am. For most people, it’s none of their business. I don’t ask my family how they like to have sex, and I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business how I like to have sex. But if I was ever asked, or if the concept of kink and BDSM came up with friends (because it just never would with family … it just wouldn’t), I would defend it and describe it for those who are uninformed. Because I do believe that the kinky community is misunderstood and often maligned. And I would freely admit my interest, in context, because I’m not ashamed of it, I just enjoy my privacy.

Scene Names

In his article on the topic, Loren Berthelsen brings up a lot of concepts in a very short article. How do we deal with events, say, if going to IML and being asked why you’re traveling to Chicago. Do we just say “a convention” or do we describe exactly what IML is. And for that matter, what is IML? I think for those of us who travel to events like that, we are choosing to shed some of our right to privacy and have that responsibility to educate those who might be interested. But there’s a difference between being open and educational and ramming it down people’s throats. Just as those of us who wrestle with dual gay-Christian identities have to disassociate our love from our sex for the sex-obsessed fundamentalists, we kinksters need to be able to describe the community and enthusiast aspects of our events without leading people to being that kink-cons are just great big orgies (even if they are great big orgies … it’s all about proper messaging). READ MORE

When Your Ex Starts Doing Porn

You know what’s weird?

When you’re clicking through your daily porn feed and see a picture, thinking to yourself, “Huh, that guy looks like my ex-boyfriend D—,” and on closer inspection, realize that it is, in fact, your ex-boyfriend tied to that table and getting poked, prodded and fucked.

You know what’s even weirder?

When your ex has chosen your real life, unusually-spelled first name as his porn pseudonym. If you Google my first name you aren’t going to find that many people. An artist here, a eastern European airplane engine manufacturer there, a nonprofit doing good things over yonder. You find me, and now if you click a page or two deeper, you find my ex tied up and hanging from the rafters.

Supposedly, D— and I were each other’s first boyfriends. We met on a website for gay Christians. We lived about 11 hours apart by car. I was in college, he working in a shop owned by his aunt and uncle. We hit it off. I drove out to see him, he came and visited once, it all went well. I may have even tried a little bit of kinky play with him at the time – a little candle wax, if anything – but my memory is fuzzy. By all accounts we were a good match. About 6-8 months into it, he broke up. And to this day, I don’t exactly know why.

I got some half-hearted reason why it wasn’t working for him. We talked on and off after that, until he ultimately disappeared altogether. When I moved cross-country I had to drive through his town, so I dropped in on his office to try and get some truth out of him, a little bit of closure. It was fruitless, but it was closure. The next time I heard from him was about 10 months later, when he called to say he tested HIV+ and everyone else he’d been with said they didn’t and so that just left me to tell and ask, thus implying I’d been the source. A test later that day proved I clearly wasn’t.

Over the years, I pieced stuff together and in fact, I’m still piecing bits of the truth together. Today, I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, he ever told me was the truth. I may have been his first boyfriend but not his first playmate (I discovered recently on his blog he’d had a kinky encounter 2-3 years before we met). After I dropped in on his office, most of what he said was derailed by friends who called me to see if I knew where he was, because he’d stopped talking to them months prior. Updates to social networking profiles, pictures on forums, posts here and there, boyfriends’ blogs … the reality is I don’t think I have any idea who I was dating. But at the same time, I don’t think he knew either. It’s one thing to be finding yourself, another to weave a web of lies and half-truths. Maybe he dumped me because he ran out of stories to tell, or maybe it was just because I was fat, or maybe it’s because he felt he couldn’t admit what he was into because of our gay Christian backgrounds.

So here we are. Both kinky. Both into largely the same stuff. Me writing erotica and deep thoughts about my kinky self, him on the road to a porn career. I don’t wish him any ill will, no more than I would a stranger since that’s all he really ever was. Whether anything he ever was or said was true, he seems to be finding himself now and enjoying life, so good on ya, D—. Best of luck.

But as far as using my name? What the fuck is that about? There is no way in hell that was happenstance, you don’t choose my name out of a hat. Is it him trying stick it to me in some way? Is he trying to get my attention, assuming I’m watching search results? Am I still so always on his mind? Gimme a break.  It wouldn’t be hard to find out I’m a kinkster, one glance at my social profiles would be clear, so maybe he knows too. But why use my name? That’s just … weird. A touch insulting, maybe, a bit off-putting, a little crossing the line. It doesn’t directly affect me, it might just make personal brand management a little bit tougher. It’s mostly just … weird.

Boy Becoming

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away at the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. 
– Michelangelo

They say that if a shark stops swimming it’ll die. I say that if a person isn’t constantly improving himself, or working toward the next phase of his becoming (whatever that is), he might as well die.

The problem is, going through transitionary periods, from one chapter in life to another, can really suck. That’s especially true if it’s a long period, or if things happen along the way that throw one off course or are otherwise discouraging. I’m learning that the key is to recognize your transition, embrace it, and continuing to press forward toward the goal.

This past weekend my husband and I hung out with some new friends. It was the first time we’d seen their house … and it was amazing. Big, beautiful, perfectly designed … our friends have life together in a way I didn’t even imagine. They’re successful, they’re established, well off, with good jobs, 2 kids, a dog and a yard. We were impressed, genuinely happy for them, but for the next couple of days we were hit with these feelings of jealousy that we really couldn’t explain. It wasn’t so much that we actually coveted their things (though maybe their house), but that we envision our lives being pulled together in just such a way and we recognized we aren’t there yet.

We have a picture of our life as we want it, and we have a ways to go. Our jealousy was rooted in the desire to make ourselves what we envision – my husband the writer, me the business owner. The experience was a jolt, a kick in the pants, to stay focused and continue our journey of becoming.

The story goes that when Michelangelo completed his David sculpture, he wasn’t asked how he could make something so beautiful out of a slab of simple marble. His response was basically that he studied the slab, saw where the statue would be, and simply chipped away at all that wasn’t David.

These days, this year especially, I feel like a half-exposed David still stuck in a slab of marble. The next me, the new me, the next chapter of my life is taking shape and forming. I’m chipping away at what isn’t me. In some ways literally – through my fitness endeavors – and in other ways I’m forming the life and lifestyle I want in terms of my business, work, sex and social life. It just takes time. David took four years to emerge from his marble.

Yeah I was jealous of my friends’ stability; just as I am often jealous of other kinksters’ ability to own and thrive in their leathers and ropes. But I remind myself, and try to focus on, the fact that I’m a boy becoming, I’m in transition, I’m on the move, and I’m working toward what and who I want to be. And as long as I’m working toward that goal, then I’m not dying.

New Year, Now What?

So I’ve been absent – from pretty much everything – for the last few months. Except for Twitter and my porno-tumbler-feed (which is pretty much on auto-pilot), I’ve just been too busy to blog, to sexplore, to anything fun or kinky. Between getting used to life with our dog, and digging through a nasty backlog of work and projects that are all way behind schedule, it’s just been a lot going on. And in general I think my sex drive has been lower. Bla bla bla, lots of excuses, so little time, all of that jazz. The end result has been little blogging here, and just raw pictures there. And it’s probably going to stay that way, in general, because I don’t wan this blog to just become all photos and porn. Those will stay at the Tumblr, and even if it means few(er) posts here, I want this blog to stay mostly cerebral (with some happy time inspirational photos of course).

So what’s ahead for 2011? Puh-lenty. And I fear that with all that’s going on I just won’t have a lot of time for kinky sexploration. Among other things …

Work, work, work: work’s not letting up, which is a good thing because I need the business, and it can also be good because some of it I will have to travel for. On the down side, it means stress, time away from home/family (which I’d rather spend with them than some kinky stranger), and the places I normally travel to for work are boring-as-shit for kinky play.

Weight loss: I’m ramping up my weight loss efforts again, which is a further time constraint because I spend 1-2 hours a day at the gym. But it’s also something I really enjoy doing, actually, and I really want to make a go of it this time and see some real, better results. I won’t talk about this again, probably, because I normally don’t except at a different, anonymous blog, but

Getting married: My boyfriend and I are getting married in April, which means a TON of work in the next three months, some of it in the next two weeks, even. We’ve already been behind the curve in getting things ready for it, so there’s a lot to do to make up that lost time. And then of course the actual ceremony and honeymoon (Europe – woot).

Honeymoon: A week and a half in Europe – our favorite place to travel. Thinking of the Ice Hotel, perhaps.

Cross-country move: Frankly, the boyfriend and I are tired of New York City. We’re ready to move to the mountains – and plan on going to Colorado (Denver / Boulder) this May or June. I have no idea what to expect of the kinky community out there, but it should otherwise be an improvement for our lives and I’m looking forward to it.

So that’s what’s on tap for the first half of the year. After that? who knows! If I could, I would love to squeeze in some play and sexploration in there in the next few months, but I just dunno. I don’t wanna wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of thing, and I can’t do special travel just for sex, but hey, if the right situation comes along, I’m there! In the meantime, I want to continue thinking, blogging, talking, so don’t be shy! (even if I am… )

Ask Me Anything

Hey, lookitthat – my first two questions from Tumblr and Formspring Ask Me Anything.

Anonymous on Formspring asked “Hey I am based in London and saw your blog. I feel we are at the same stage of discovering the BDSM world. I just wanted to say you are luck to have a supportive boyfriend! So if I can ask, what do you think of watersport? x”

Hi Glad to hear from someone else on the journey, especially from London – one my favorite cities in all the world. It’s been a while since I’ve been back there and I’m missing it, and there are a lot more kinksters there than I ever thought there were, so that’s all the more reason to go! And my boyfriend is amazing – and I count myself lucky a thousand times over. He even tried to Dom me a little the other night, just because he knows its what I like, but more on that later.

Watersports, basically, is degrading, humiliating, kinky, and fun. For some it helps put them in the right headspace as a lowly sub/slave/boy, for others it’s a total turn on. I’ve chatted with a guy or two that loves getting pissed on – that’s all they want, and that’s their scene – nothing elaborate, just getting pissed on. I kind of joke that what I don’t really “get” about w/s is not the kink or turn-on factor, but that it makes for a pretty short session. I mean, how much can a person actually pee in any one go?

That said, I think used creatively watersports can be a hot addition to an overall scene, session or weekend. Having a party with a bunch of Doms? Put your sub out on the deck kneeling in a wash tub to serve as the toilet for everyone. Wanna push a boy in his service even when you’re not around, make him collect his urine all day, every day, between sessions. Whether he’s at work or out and about, he should carry a water bottle and fill it. Then the Dom use the urine in the next weekend session – as the only thing the boy can use to wash or drink or whatever (encouraging the boy to stay hydrated lest his pee get gross).

The possibilities for raunch are endless, I would imagine. It just depends what you’re into at the time. For me, I enjoy the idea of water sports as part of a greater scene or session, not necessarily on its own. I’ve laid in the tub so a Dom could piss on me at the end of a session and it was warm and smelled a little but wasn’t something particularly exciting on its own. Depends on whether you’ve got a good piss top I guess. And as with anything, one should be smart about playing with bodily fluids; while generally considered safe and relatively sterile, urine is not 100% clean. Just throwin’ that out there.

Great. Now all I can think about is getting tied up, kneeling, and serving as a toilet for a hot Dom or seven. Thanks a lot

By the way please feel free to email me, Mr. Anonymous from London. Love to chat and get to know others on this journey especially those with sexy accents.

Anonymous on Tumblr asked, “what makes you the most horny?”

Wow that’s a loaded question. I think if you take a look around my Tumblr raw porno feed or the blog, you’ll get a quick sense of what makes me the most horny. But here’s a few ideas…

• Almost any kind of power exchange, where I not only give up power or control, but that it is wrested away from me. Sometimes with gear. Sometimes not.
• A hot, muscled Master, perhaps with a light dusting of hair, in a leather harness will just about make me cum right then and there. Like this guy. Or him.  And this guy.
• Creativity and Complexity in a scene or setup. More than just “You’ll suck my big cock.” I crave a Master who can use my mind as much as my body. Dungeons, bondage, long scenes.
• Bondage is hot, and needn’t involve sex to be sexual or sensual or meaningful. Hardware, rope, shackles, mummification – I long to spend some time as an object.
• Pain is not something that’s particularly a turn on by itself, but the idea of pushing myself or being pushed to experience new and deeper sensations absolutely it.

That should give some sense of what makes me the most horny. I’d say it’s a pretty good summary of the things that do it best for me … considering I jacked off in the middle of writing it and finding the linkable pictures.

It comes in cycles

So I put up a new blog, write a few posts, and then disappear for a while. Le sigh.

I’ve actually been pretty busy with work, and when I get busy with a project or set of projects that actually interest me, they tend to take all my time up because I don’t want to work on anything else. That’s fine for the project, its not fine for the two dozen other projects and responsibilities I have going at any one time. Oh well. That’s my feeble excuse for nothing being around the blog much.

But really, I’ve long noticed that my sex drive works in cycles. For a few weeks it’ll be really high, and all I can think about is getting tied up, flogged, beaten, collared, fucked, and otherwise abused. Then the cycle will drop and I’ll have very little interest in porn, jacking off, hooking up, or anything. It’s not just dirty sex – even regular sex at home is this way. I dunno what it is.

But in the dearth of blogging I haven’t completely been sexless. I had a really fun couple of evenings on a business trip to Nashville where I got tied up for the first time, tortured with wax for the first time (by someone else) in forever, gagged on a cock and got better at sucking one, and got milked something fierce – no small feat for my super-tight and anxious asshole.

What was nice about that guy – and I’ll do a proper recounting at some point – is that he’s a nice guy. Sure he’s crazy, and has an animalistic sex drive, and scared me a little, but he’s also nice and actually wanted to teach me stuff, not just get his own rocks off. I’ve met another guy recently who’s similar – we didn’t even play at all – and it’s just a good feeling to know there are sane brotherly types out there to learn from.

Anyway, back to work, now. I’ll try and be better about posting.

Quick Update: I thought about this post a little more today and I wanted to clarify that it’s only my attention that waxes and wanes, not my identity. More and more every day I understand my inclination as a sub, as a boy, and the role that part of my identity plays.  It’s a part of me, not just some fly-by-night kink that I play with on occasion. My sex drive just cycles at times, kink and vanilla included. I have a lot of different interests and projects and obsessions, they can’t all get the same attention at the same time or I’d never get anything done.

The boyfriend

I had a really good conversation with my better half this evening.

I am officially free to do any goddamn perverse thing demanded of me), and free to submit as required.  The only catch is condoms, and if I am incapacitated, my Dom/Master/Sir may need to call/text my partner to say I’m okay.

A Question for Myself

Physically, I can take pretty much anything. I can mentally block or accept pain (I think), or I can compartmentalize anything really weird, if it ever came up. But I think when it comes to submission, real submission, a conversation with a (really hot) Dom tonight made me wonder …

Could I say, “Please punish me with a spanking, Sir.” in front of the waiter?

…

I’m starting to think this could be a really wild ride.

A Little Personal History: Chat Rooms & Self-Abuse

Eventually I convinced the parents to get Internet access, and soon enough I discovered porn. This was a way to see what men looked like, to learn what I wasn’t learning about sexuality. Perhaps not the most realistic environment to learn about sex in, but it did the job. Eventually I discovered Internet Relay Chat – IRC, a system of chat rooms separate from the Web, and accessible with the right software, but a whole world of any interest (sex and otherwise). Eventually I found #gaydads4sons … it was basically a chat room for the Dom/sub crowd. Along with the chat rooms where I could download all the porn I wanted, I was hooked. I logged on every night.

I chatted with anyone who was older. I upgraded my age a bit, tried different personas, became a master of cybersex. The mental stimulation, the fantasy, the imaginative sessions – it was a whole new world. I learned a lot about kink and BDSM and fetish in those days. Eventually, I did more than just cyber – I started actually doing what I was told.

I didn’t have any sex toys, of course. But I found all sorts of things around the house that could be perverted into kinky good times. Tools from the garage, food from the fridge, shoelaces, rubber bands, clothespins, binder clips. This is when I discovered a fondness for candles and wax. (It’s also when I discovered how awful Ben-gay on the penis can be.) I was pushing my own limits. I was getting as kinky as a teenager from a repressed religious household could get. I dragged the computer outside and risked getting caught. I tried phone sex. My first anal experience was with the plastic plunger handle (it was even ribbed). I tied shoestring around my balls and then to each angle, so if I spread my feet wider it wound tighter around my sack.

At the time, I was living in two worlds. At night, when everyone else had gone to bed, I stayed up late, logged on, and got off on what seemed like debased and vile activities. I kept all of this to myself, I never mentioned it, never tried anything with anyone, never considered that this would be anything other than a phase.

But when I think back over those days, I realize I was a braver teen than I ever have been an adult. I told myself as a kid when I grew up and got a credit card, I’d subscribe to the porn sites. I even said I’d submit to a Master or play in real life. But it took me years to even get butt plugs … I only bought rope and clothespins a few months ago (and still haven’t used them). I’d like to find that wonder and willingness I once had now that I’m independent, self-aware, and more understanding of myself and what’s going on.

A Little Personal History: Learning to Masturbate

Have you ever had those kinds of moments where you think back through your life and realize that your affinity for Ken dolls, Wesley Crusher and NSYNC were all clear signs of being queer as a three dollar bill at age 7? Well, I have that same thing when it come to BDSM and kink. In. Learning to explore this part of my life, I think i should take the time to realize just how deeply ingrained this is in my life. And it all started way back as a kid, before I could even cum, and before I really understood what masturbation was.

For starters, I grew up in a Christian household (something which probably leads to a lot of my tardiness in embracing myself). I was taught the science and mechanics of reproduction, but as the oldest kid and only son with a father who wasn’t around much and few friends, I didn’t really get the street smarts on sex … well, ever. So when I started to jack off, I didn’t know what it was. I wasn’t even old enough to cum yet, but I knew that it felt damned good to rub my cock on the bed, under my underwear band, whatever.

But the real point of this memory is what my fantasies were at the time. I had never seen porn, i had never seen a real cock, I’d seen almost no sex scenes in movies. But in my head, in my fantasies, I was being kidnapped and tortured for information, or being sold as a slave, or otherwise wrested from my normal life and having my life, liberty, control and will taken away. It wasn’t that i was being forced to have sex, but it was definitely losing power. I was always at risk of losing my penis or being shocked with electricity or otherwise subjected to pain unless i gave into their demands. Of course I never would.

No other fantasy would do, nothing else stirred my loins. I was a torture/pain/submission fanatic at age 10.

Soon I thought I would try acting out the fantasies in real life. With our neighborhood friends my sister and I occasionally played “school” or “house” or any other mundane daily life scenario that kids play. One day, I convinced my playmates to play “torture chamber.” Those of us who were prisoners — and of course I was one of them — were to hold onto the headboard as if we weeded chained to a rack or wall. Meanwhile our torturers would tickle our bare feet until … well we didn’t get very far after we realized we had no plot to our story, and no sexual understanding to realize what could someday come next.

And yet, I was braver as a pre-pubescent child than I have been as a professional, self-aware, out of the closet gay man.

For the life of me i can’t figure out why I ever started down this path. I cant recall any particular thing that triggered these thoughts at first. If I think about it some, I can see how my need for control and my need to always perform at my best has been with me ever since I was a kid. We moved around a lot, and I was slow to make friends, and I had pants who expected good grades and better behavior. So I was good at being in control. Is it possible that my subconscious was rebelling against that even as a kid?

In any case, this is where it all started – in my bedroom, at night, before I even knew what I was doing.