The Switch Is Not A Myth

I don’t have a hell of a lot of experience with CBT; although I always have nefarious intentions, it’s something we never seem to get around to.

However, the other night T. suggested it, and I was certainly up for the challenge. He laid on his back, and I tied his wrists to his ankles (right wrist to right ankle, left to left); he had thoughtfully tied his knees so that they were attached to the bed and spread wide open. (Having a bottom who’s into self-bondage can be SUCH a help.) He wore his hood as well, and a wide collar, and we were off to the races.

I have some skinny black cord, which I tied in a modified karada around his cock, finishing it by making a secure loop around his balls. When that was finished, I had a lot of cord left, so I brought it up towards T.’s head and ran it through the loop on his collar and then tied it off. That way, if he arched his back or threw his head back, etc., he was just tightening up the cord on his cock and balls.

I love predicament bondage.

Then I set about with the torture part of CBT, flogging his cock with a small rubber flogger (which, let me tell you, stings like crazy), hitting it with a paint stirrer, running a Wartenburg wheel over it, etc.

Then I remembered I have a set of vibrating nipple clamps in my toybag. I didn’t attach them to T.’s nipples. I just clamped them to different parts of the cord around his cock and balls. They’re bulky (for nipple clamps) and heavy-ish (ditto), so at first all I did was lift them up and let them fall, repeatedly.

Then I turned them on.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t realize that they were vibrating nipple clamps when I attached them to the cord. (I doubt he was thinking very clearly — or in any linear fashion — at that point.) So suffice it to say that when I turned them on, it was one HELL of a surprise.

I played with that for a while, just increasing and decreasing the vibrations (the control is a slider, so there’s gradations of intensity, rather than just a couple of fixed settings). And then I added other things back in while the clamps were vibrating — the rubber flogger, the Wartenburg wheel, etc., all the while increasing and decreasing the vibrations. Sometimes just turning them all the way off.

I’d say that T. enjoyed it. Actually, that’s an understatement.

We’ll definitely be doing that again. Soonish rather than laterish.

So, last night’s party. I got my ass beaten well and thoroughly. And I was stubborn and didn’t want to call yellow to get T. to tone it down, so I’m really fucking sore today, and I have massive sub drop.

It was pretty basic beating: me, bent over a bench, and T. just pounding on my ass, upper back, the backs of my thighs, and, oh, MY ASS some more. He alternated various floggers (thuddy deerskin, sting-y owie rubber) with a riding crop and his own evil hands (in leather gloves). He warmed me up, but it was one of those nights where my ass just couldn’t take a lot of pain.

[I have a weird, weird ass. Most other subs/bottoms I know are able to take *more* pain as they warm up and get into the beating, rather than *less* pain. Not me. It’s like my ass has a pre-set amount of pain it can take, and then it’s finished.]

I tend to not be extremely vocal when I’m bottoming, even when I’m getting beaten. I’ll yelp once in a while, or make some other noise of approval/discomfort, but in general I’m a pretty quiet bottom.

Not last night. Because everything just *hurt,* I kept actually saying “Ow,” repeatedly. And loudly. More like yelling. And I got kind of irritated with T., because he knows how I bottom, and knows that I don’t get vocal, so I assumed that when he realized how vocal I was being, he’d take that as a cue to either (1) dial back how hard he was hitting, or (2) move to a different target, rather than hitting the same spot over and over and over. But he didn’t (at least, not as quickly as I would have liked).

I couldn’t tell if he was *trying* to get me to call yellow, or not. (And I’m well aware that “Ow” is not a safeword.)

I’m a big believer in safewords (I wrote about this a few entries back), but I *don’t* consider safewords to be an excuse for the top to ignore all other signs of distress. I consider safewords to be a failsafe, a last resort. But if you’re my top, and I’m reacting in a different way to a type of play we’ve done countless times before, maybe you should stop and think about WHY THAT IS.

We played for about 45 minutes, and I did call yellow once, when T. just wouldn’t stop with the really hard strokes to my ass, and I asked him to please leave my ass alone for a while. And he acquiesced, but I was still annoyed that he wasn’t reading my reactions as quickly and clearly as I thought he should. I was starting to think he *was* aware that I was reacting in an unusual manner (for me), but was choosing to ignore it. (He wasn’t. Choosing to ignore it, that is.)

I was completely endorphin-stupid when we were finished, and I ate all the cake in the WORLD. I’m starving today — T. already made us a huge brunch with cheese-o-riffic eggs, potatoes, turkey bacon (for me), english muffins, strawberries, and coffee; still, I feel like I could eat anything that isn’t actively decomposing. And I have big time sub drop. Stupid endorphins.

T. and I talked this morning about the “Hey, did you notice that I was reacting in a way I *never had before*? Then why didn’t you DO SOMETHING about it?” issue. And he did say that, yeah, he noticed that I was reacting in an atypical manner, but he didn’t think it was cause for alarm.

And I said no, not cause for alarm per se, but damn close enough to make me think about ending the scene, which ruins the fun for me AND you, buddy. So he said he’d pay closer attention to my reaction in the future, and adjust accordingly (like alternating really hard strokes with some less-hard ones, instead of all hard, all the time).

Man, my ass is SORE.

On edit: I’m afraid that I made T. sound like a dick in this entry, and that’s not at all what I mean. A lot of my irritation was because *I* thought he should have picked up on the nuances of my reactions with telepathic clarity. And that’s not fair on my part. Also, I was really reluctant to call yellow, because I feel like a big wimp whenever I call yellow. Again, that’s not fair to T., when it’s an issue of *my* stubborn pride.

He also wasn’t just whomping on one area of my ass over and over and over again for long stretches of time; it just felt like it to my ass. Frankly, all it takes is more than one hard stroke in a row to the same area, and that’s enough to qualify (to my ass) as “over and over.” He *did* move to different targets, and *did* alternate how hard/soft he was hitting; it just didn’t seem like it happened quickly enough to make my ass happy.

My upper back can take a hell of a lot more abuse than my ass can, which, again, is freaking weird.

Anyway. T. wasn’t being a dick; he was being a top. He wasn’t being telepathic, but then, that wasn’t part of the scene.

One of the local groups is having a play party tonight.

T. has informed me that he’s feeling toppy.

::shiver::

Full report later.

[edit] I think I’ll do some yoga, so that I can move all my parts tomorrow….

Bitchy Jones has a recent post describing the stereotypical asshat male dom (it’s pretty accurate, IMO). Here is her take on the attitude that asshat male doms have about switches:

“there is nothing worse than…

“But, really, switches! That lovely M/f couple with him all puffy chest and her knowing her place and then, OMG, he says he switches. Ew. Ew!. EW! Switches are all wrong because being submissive (if you are a woman) or dominant (if you are a man) is something you ARE, not something you try on for fun. Goddamnit. When will people understand. This is not about sex!”

I would accuse Bitchy of shortsighted stereotyping, but the thing is, I encounter that attitude All. The. Fucking. Time. And not just from male doms, but from female subs, female doms, male subs — at some point, my existence as a switch has been met with incredulity by people in pretty much any role other than switch.

That, in and of itself, pisses me off, because *I* don’t doubt others’ self-proclaimed roles, and I’m not known for being (1) a liar or (b) schizophrenic, so I haven’t given others any reason to doubt *me*.

But what pisses me off more, what this entry is about, is the assumption that, because I switch roles when it comes to BDSM, I also switch how I interact with the world outside the dungeon. Uh, no. Who I am is who I am.

An example: I was at a meeting of the local BDSM group, and we were splitting into small groups to get some administrative crap done. It was like herding cats, and, because I’m bossy and anal and would have made an excellent dictator of a small island nation, I took charge and directed the groups to where they should sit, made sure everyone had pens and paper, etc.

The president of the group (who happens to be a male dom) snarkily commented, “Well, I see which way *you’re* switching today!”

Uh, no. My whole life, I’ve been bossy and pushy and anal-retentive and really good at organizing things and people. I’ve never been shy and retiring or too timid to speak up, EVER. Just because I’m being outspoken doesn’t mean that I’m “being toppy.” If I *were* taciturn, that wouldn’t mean I was “being submissive.”

Seriously, that pisses me off more and more just thinking about it. I switch when it comes to kinky shit. That’s it. How hard is that for people to grasp?

It’s the same line of reasoning that gets trotted out to sneer at submissives who speak their mind — just because someone identifies as a submissive, sexually (and let’s not forget that this is really what it’s all about, okay — SEX), doesn’t mean that she’s a timid shrinking violet who can’t speak up in a social situation. The other side of that coin, of course, is that just because someone identifies as a dom definitely doesn’t mean he’s a good leader. I’m sick and fucking tired of seeing doms put in leadership positions of BDSM groups, just because they’re doms — yup, it happens all the time — only to have them step down from the leadership position because it turns out that they’re crap at actually, you know, LEADING.

The role a person chooses when it comes to BDSM has nothing to do with how he or she acts in the rest of his or her life. It *can* match up — see also, timid submissives, loud-mouthed doms — but it doesn’t have to, and, frankly, is insulting when people assume it does.

Because where does that leave the lowly switch, the spork of the BDSM world? Getting pummeled with asinine assumptions about things that have NOTHING to do with our switchiness, that’s where.

T. and I went to a local BDSM group’s party for New Year’s Eve. It was a small group, but still ended up being a lot of fun. (Which is, I should say, uncommon for me; it’s been my track record that New Year’s Eve ends up sucking, or at least being disappointing. With all the hype, how could it *not* be at least a little disappointing? In the past 5 years, 2 of those New Year’s Eves I’ve just stayed home and been asleep before midnight, and I was perfectly happy. But this year’s was low-key kinky fun, with some sparkling wine and Dick Clark at midnight.)

For a change, I was the bottom this time, and T. busted out his Christmas gift from me (one of them) — Twisted Monk’s “White Linen” hemp rope (made from hemp, looks and feels linen-ish) — and, after I asked nicely, performed some face/head bondage (that picture is NOT of me; it’s just an illustration for anyone unfamiliar with face bondage).

The White Linen hemp is REALLY nice rope, folks. It’s soft like well-washed cotton line or magician’s rope (which is cotton), so it feels SO nice on skin, and doesn’t have any roughness. (Actually, I kind of like hemp’s small amount of roughness on my wrists, arms, legs, ankles, etc., but not on my face. I have sensitive skin, and I didn’t want to explain an intricate pattern of rope burn/rash on my face to my co-workers on January 2!)

It has virtually zero “burn” when it’s dragged at high speed across bare skin, which, again, is stellar for face bondage. And, because it actually IS hemp, it holds knots like all other hemp rope does (i.e., very well). It’s good stuff.

(No, I am in no way affiliated with Twisted Monk; I’m just a satisfied and rope-intoxicated customer.)

If you’ve never been the recipient of face/head bondage, I highly recommend it. It’s very intimate, as you might suspect, which leads to some amazing energy between the top and bottom; at least, it did with T. and me. I haven’t yet tried to perform face bondage, so I don’t know what it’s like from the top’s POV, but I can tell you how it *seemed* to affect T.

He was practically buzzing with power, if that makes any sense. It was clear that T. was fully aware of just how powerful putting rope on someone’s head can be. And as the bottom, let me be clear: it’s VERY powerful. It’s intimate and hypnotic, and the feel of the rope is soft and soothing, yet I was really aware of the fact that, yeah, my HEAD was restrained, and T. had the rope in his hands.

Enjoying the feel of the ropes, and the amazing intimacy and vulnerability and awareness of how powerful T. felt all combined to make the experience one huge rush for me. I’ve heard the term “ropespace” used before, and I think I finally get it now.

Happy New Year, indeed.