ABCs Of Kink

Expanding Experiences

August 30, 2019 by ABCs Of Kink

There’s a period of time between when one hears of something adventurous, and the realization that they’re ready to jump in and experience that particular adventure itself. This period of time is different for different people or situations and it doesn’t always look like a neat line from “not ready” to “ready”. Depending on the adventure being considered and the person’s history with that particular subject, the decision to engage might be almost immediate, it may take decades of consideration and even a period of start-and-stop failure to get there, it may include periods of trying the thing out followed by periods of disinterest (or negative reactions that need to be sorted out) and then rejoining later on, or never… and anything around and in between.

This period of time is an important part of any person’s processing, and I don’t think we give enough credit to it when we talk about trying new things. This period of time offers a person the opportunity to face any baggage (past or present), pre-conceived notions, fears, or other judgements they have about the activity. Allowing one’s level of interest to grow and unfold organically can be the difference between a healthy, unhealthy, positive, or negative experience. It can increase or decrease resilience during and after one’s experimentation. Today I’m exploring this concept within the framework of sexy and kinky play opportunities, as a vital part of how one advocates for themselves.

The world of the adult playground is enormous, illusive, and exciting! It may also feel really overwhelming. No matter what you’ve tried in your lifetime, there’s always more out there to consider. Fantasies are wonderful, but they are not the same thing as desires.

Everyone experiences desire. Desires are those things we generally want to have or experience in our lifetimes. Desires can be things we fantasize about, however some desires we definitely don’t fantasize about at all. I desire to eat healthy, however I don’t fantasize about all the good food in my kitchen and how I’m going to prep it (usually).

Alternately, turning an established fantasy into a desire you endeavor to fulfill can be fraught with real world problems, which alter the nature of what you thought you wanted in the first place. It’s important to be attentive to the details pertaining to what you’re asking for, to have a better chance of enjoying the experience.

For most people there’s overlap in the realms of fantasy and desire. For some people, especially those who don’t fantasize frequently (or ever), there might be none. Just because someone both desires and fantasizes about a thing doesn’t mean they’re ready to make it happen. A person who fantasies about impractical and otherworldly things may have a hard time finding their way into engaging those fantasies, however much they’d like to, while someone with an illegal or unethical fantasy may find it easy to potentially create the situation they have in mind, but choose not to. In both of these scenarios role play can be a wonderful tool for actualizing your fantasies in an ethical and non-harmful manner. Of course role play means you’re bringing other people into your scenario, so articulation of what you want must become even more clear.

People fantasize about things they would never want to have happen to them and things that have happened which they wouldn’t want to relive. Our minds are complex. Fantasy serves as part of our internal processing of the world around us, our reactions to it, and the experiences we have.

Fantasizing can be used as a tool to more clearly sketch in the details of an experience you’d like to have, and it’s definitely good at telling you what about a scenario you’re actually into vs. what things you aren’t. Fantasy can help make a situation feel safer or more familiar and less awkward if you choose to play it out. Fantasizing about a scenario repeatedly can help one alter the details to an extent which feels right for further consideration in play.

Fantasies have context, even when they seem not to. For instance, if one fantasizes about a faceless lover, the person they desire may seem without context—meaning anyone with a mask might fill the fantasy part during play. However, upon replay of the scenario and closer observation, one might realize that the fantasy always leaves the fantasizer feeling a particular way, or the sensation of this faceless lover’s body is specific, perhaps the way the faceless person moves is key, how rough they are, whether or not they listen or have their own agenda, what their anatomy is like, or any other number of useful details may be derived from paying attention to fantasy details. In this way fantasy provides rehearsal, an opportunity to provide a clearer picture about what one actually wants and is attracted to.

When trying to play out a fantasy in real life, it’s important to talk about which aspects of the activity and environment matter to you. Think about the mood, think about how you want to feel after sceneing, think about what points you want to make sure you hit during the scene, and what potential actions or situations would take you out of it or interrupt your feeling of safety and enjoyment. It’s as important to talk about what you want as it is to discuss what you don’t want, in order for your scene to have a better chance of working out well for everyone involved.

It’s common when someone’s nervous to charge into an activity, leaning on some preconceived notion of how it’s supposed happen without having articulated any real specifics to the other people involved. This makes anyone involved more likely to make mistakes or unknowingly hit a trigger. Sloppy engagement leaves everyone involved having to play together through a reactive place. Working with people who are reacting instead of being present with their desires and needs can work for some people some of the time, but it’s not a good model. It can be disastrous, and there are better ways to engage.

Being present and prepared are tools I cannot advocate for enough. Presentness is the only way I know to read how emotionally, mentally, or physically “signed on” someone is to the activities they say they want—outside of them using words. Even being completely present and reading body language like an expert isn’t a standard which can be held higher than a person’s own recounting of their experience though. There’s no way to be in someone else’s brain and body, no matter how close to them you feel you are. For this reason, if you’re concerned about mitigating potential fallouts, it’s important to be present and care about consent, responsible negotiation, and check-ins with your play partners.

Consent is the buzzword of the day! I’m sure you have many ideas about why it’s important. I want to sidestep the obvious conversations about consent though, and take a moment to talk about how important it is to be aware of your own personal consent practices, as well as being sensitive to others’. Do you feel comfortable saying “no” to the person you’re negotiating with? If you don’t, then your consent isn’t going to do what it needs to do in the long run by helping to keep you safe. I often say to my partners and clients, “I can’t trust your yes until I can hear and trust your no”.

Practice saying no to yourself and to your partners regularly. Keep that muscle strong and vocal. Practice saying no to new people you meet. It’s never too early to let someone know what you mean, rather than what you think they’d like to hear. Practicing saying no will help you navigate uneasy desires with more clarity when they pop up. It can be hard to say no to something you desire when it’s being offered with red flags waving alongside. If saying no is something you feel comfortable saying, and negotiating a different set of circumstances is something you feel confident about doing, you’re in a great position to get what you want from a scenario. If you aren’t confident, chances are you may get yourself into a disappointing scene, or worse.

Consent concerning other people is also, of course, a very important concept to get comfortable with if you’re not already. Once you’ve gotten clear with yourself, consider the consent model, “FRIES”, to keep yourself in the clear with play partners. FRIES:

Freely Given: When consent is freely given it’s given without manipulation, coercion, threat of potential punishment or gain, and it’s given soberly. Evaluate and ask whether you’re negotiating with someone under the influence of anything in order to gain meaningful consent.
Reversible: Consent can be reversed or revoked at any time, and it must be honored if it is. Whether something dangerous has happened nearby, or a person is simply not enjoying the activity anymore, no still means no even if the answer was yes a moment ago.
Informed: Consent isn’t consent if it isn’t informed. This covers things like disclosing STI status, general health risks, activity related risks, the skill level of the person topping a risky activity, etc. Sometimes we engage in activities that aren’t “safe”. Being informed about the risks involved in play is the difference between signing onto something consensually and being manipulated into it unethically.
Enthusiastic: When a person kinda says, “Sure”, that’s not enthusiastic consent. Moving back to the notion of exercising our “no” muscles, one cannot accurately read whether a tepid “yes” is a result of them feeling unsafe to say, “no”, or not. If you’re unsure about whether your partner is really truly excited about engaging in an activity, ask again (if that’s appropriate) or decide to wait until you’re being asked with enthusiasm for that activity.
Specific: Consenting to a kiss is not consent to grope. Be specific about what you want and what you expect from a scene with another person. This is where negotiation shines! You don’t have consent for activities you haven’t negotiated prior to playing. And, as a general rule, if you’d like to add an activity to the roster mid-scene, keep that idea for next time. It’s better to have a next time to look forward to, than harm someone as a result of assuming they’ll be ok with more (or different) than they asked for.

Responsible negotiation encompasses more than simply agreeing to do a thing that’s being asked. To responsibly negotiate it’s generally agreed that one should not be under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or other intoxicants. It’s not good form to renegotiate in the middle of a scene, especially once someone has reached any level of sub-space, Dom-space, or heightened emotional/mental/physical experience which releases any number of natural chemicals into the bloodstream, potentially causing a person to make choices they wouldn’t outside of the heightened feelings of the moment. Responsible negotiation asks that people really think for a minute about what they might like during a scene and go over all the options in order to achieve meaningful consent. It also helps people look at a scene differently and synch expectations to a greater degree. If I think sexy cuddle-time obviously ends in genital stimulation, but my partner likes to naked cuddle with no sex involved, we are potentially consenting to two different scenes! It’s important to say all the words.

Check-ins are a wonderful way to make sure you and your partner(s) are still on the same page as your scene unfolds. Sure, you have consent to do the thing and you’ve negotiated how to do it. Checking in allows you to see if the plan is working out or if any adjustments might be needed in order to have a better time. It’s also a great way for D-types to make sure Domspace (the flipside of subspace) isn’t clouding their judgement. Doms and Tops get spacey too, a reality rarely mentioned when the wonderful world of sub-space is discussed. I can definitely say there have been times I’ve looked back on a scene I was topping or Dominating and remember the feeling as if I was drunk—even with no substance use having occurred before play. Intimacy, connection, power, sensual, and sexual activities are powerful rituals which should be acknowledged as such. Not everyone has the same ability to “keep their head” when in these states take over. Check-ins really help.

Aftercare is usually part of negotiation, and it’s an important thing to consider before stepping into play. Aftercare is how you unwind from playing, how you get your needs from the fallout of coming down fulfilled. People talk a lot about subs and bottoms needing aftercare, but not usually Doms and tops. I think everyone involved in play needs to consider what they do and don’t need after engaging in play. Aftercare can be anything and nothing. It can look like service or clean up help or cuddling or having some food and drink. It can look like being alone or not having to talk to anyone for a while. It can look like a check-in the next day or a couple days later, and it can look like payment while walking into the sunset as someone else comes over to clean up the mess and cuddle your bottom. There’s no right way to do aftercare, and it’s best to negotiate it. Sometimes people need radically different things which might have to be creatively worked out.

So, next time an idea you’ve been dreaming about feels like something you want to make happen, consider the details as fully as you can. Do a great job negotiating, gaining consent, building check-ins into the scene, and working out aftercare. We’re on this magnificent planet to connect, as much as we’re here to experience our autonomous lives. Take care of yourself, and take care of each other.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please help me pay rent: join Patreon, offer Support or email me directly. Thank you

Consider

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: consent practice, do Doms need aftercare, exploring your fantasies, FRIES consent model, how to go to a play party, how to learn new kinks, how to mean yes, kink negotiation, playing with new people

Meet Me by the Seesaw

August 28, 2019 by ABCs Of Kink

Nothing beats service that is offered with love and joy

I am happy today. I’m engaged in a number of things which I love. As I write this I’m training a submissive who has been in service to me for a while, I’m writing for my blog (hi!), and preparing to teach a student about Dominance later on. That my sub brought vegan croissants and I’ve taught them how to properly make my coffee certainly adds to my joy as well. Together we’ve created space for joy, deep connection, work to get done, and play. A simple life is often the most excellent one.

Last week was tough. My sub was suffering from the collision of a number of vital life issues which happened to explode at the same time. This (reasonably) thoroughly ungrounded them in the week leading up to our service date. They arrived without having done work I required, and in no headspace to attend to the tasks and adventures I had constructed for us to share that day.

We got the most vital work out of the way, and I redirected the remainder of our time together toward acknowledging and working through what was going on. We spoke at length about their situation and how it could be managed and resolved most easily and stably. Amidst an onslaught of apologies and self-flagellation (something I accept and acknowledge once or twice, but suffer not as a tool of attention seeking or derailment), we found space to talk about what was going on. They spoke to the complicated feelings and triggered fears that were a part of why these problems had such an emotional and destabilizing impact. We built—dreamed even—on how to move into a better place. By the end of our time together they were in much better shape, and ready to face the trials of their upcoming week positively, feeling centered again.

I’m happy to say they came to me this week doing much better, with solutions to their issues in play and moving onward. I do not wish ill on others in any way, but I do take pleasure from being a rock to those I care for. It feels great to be a useful partner, navigating my loved ones out from under their anxieties, and into a place of openness and re-found pleasure.

Mornings like this one make me feel as though all’s right in the world. I wish I was able to command them more frequently… all in good in time.

I wrote a mantra for this sub which I have them recite each time I collar them for service. One of the lines is, “…To follow and to serve Creature Sir most excellently”. Last week for homework they were to write an essay on what this line means to them, to break it down concept by concept, and to speak to the idea as a whole. I was not disappointed with their offering when I read their thoughts on the subject today.

Understanding the reasons why we do a thing or need is a gift. The gift of knowing can be an uneasy one, gratifying, eye-opening, worrisome, pleasurable, and/or a million other things. By understanding our personal motivations, we’re given the gift of choice. Choice to engage further or to end engagement, choice to renegotiate or to stay the course, choice to embrace a moment or to struggle onward, choice to get creative, choice to solve for whatever issues we haven’t fully figured out yet. For myself as Dominant and for those who are switching or submissive, that we come to the seesaw of D/s with an idea of what makes power exchange a positive or important form of play for us as individuals, is to be present at the fulcrum of autonomy and community with dignity, grace, with an ability to ask for exactly what it is we need and desire.

The fulcrum of a seesaw is the point from which all hinges and from where all movement comes. All balances out, clicks into place, or falls apart at this point. The fulcrum is a place where we have the ability to transform and expand. The mundane can become a nourishing and spectacular thing. Any idea or action has opportunity to slow down and be enjoyed deeply when true balance is struck here.

How does one negotiate good balance in D/s? I believe first and foremost we must be willing to listen to our own desires. We must be courageous enough to say what they are, and we must do the internal work of strengthening our abilities to trust and to disengage from untrustworthy partners and situations. We must listen to one another, and we must dedicate ourselves to being beholden to something, anything, which our exchange agreement rests upon.

What do you desire, really truly deeply down inside? Do you dare cultivate a life which includes those things? Can you find partners who you trust will help you, guide you, co-create with you along the way?

Meet me by the seesaw. I love to listen, I love to connect, I love to teach, and I love to instigate.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please help me pay rent: join Patreon, offer Support or email me directly. Thank you

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: bigger than BDSM, coffee service, D/s, love languages, power exchange in relationships, seesaw, service as love language, trans domme, why people need to serve

Survive: With a Little Help From My Friends

August 23, 2019 by ABCs Of Kink

From “NO SHAME”, my character “Rico” in the middles of his gender changing striptease. Photo by Jennifer Bennett

With help from a friend I bought a very cheap vehicle a few months back. It’s been sitting in my driveway since. Due to technicalities (the seller failed to register the vehicle himself before selling it to me and failed to pay state tax on the sale), I’ve been unable to register it properly after multiple tries. I’ve been problem solving the logistics of this puzzle, dealing with red tape, and not driving… I recently figured out one part of the plan forward, and I’ve met more and more complications the entire way there and back. The current ring of hell I’m in informs me it’s going to cost almost $3,000 to fix the body of this vehicle to pass inspection. I don’t really have that amount of money to spend without feeling incredibly unsafe financially. My choice is between having a vehicle or not having a vehicle though, and I need a vehicle so that I can work and make money more easily and more frequently. At this point to afford a vehicle I need to have a vehicle. I’m hoping that having a vehicle won’t cost me more than I’m able to gain from its use. It’s not yet clear that this is a winnable battle… I can’t help but feel dismayed (angered even) that if I had capitol to begin with I could have bought a less problematic vehicle and wouldn’t be struggling as hard with simply making it go, both literally and legally.

It’s very hard pulling oneself out of poverty—something I am not sure I believe can effectively be done by almost anyone, though success stories are inspirational if insincerely depictive of reasonable paths forward for most actual people living with complex daily realities within a system which thrives on oppression of the masses in order to keep itself buoyant and disproportionately rewarding to those who already struggle less.

Today I want to talk about the value we place on the work people do, and why there’s such an intense disparity in the types of labor we automatically value monetarily over those we expect to gain for free. I want to talk about the economy, especially on this day we’re waking up to news that one of the Koch brothers has died. I want to talk about the reality that it takes about 20 years without anything major going wrong in your life (divorce, accident, emergency healthcare expenses, family problems, work issues, housing issues, credit problems, and so on…) in order to build enough stability and wealth to escape poverty. I want to talk about how as a female, an artist, a visibly trans person, and someone with a background in art, sexuality education, and kink education I struggle to make meaningful income (even as a sex worker which should be my career path of ease), yet since the shitshow that is FOSTA/SESTA changed the landscape of P2P advertisement online, and made more vocal the sex industry’s workers, politicians (even the liberal ones) won’t discuss meaningful legislation concerning decriminalization of sex work. Sex work is women’s work, trans people’s work, people of color work, immigrant work, and poor people’s work. What’s not to get behind on all of that, so-called-liberals? Supporting the choices of people who suffer the most financial and social burdens in society is not the same thing as letting go of legislation that punishes perpetrators of violent crimes (ie: sex work and sex trafficking are not the same things and can be legislated separately with incredible ease and convenience).

Speaking of sex work, I want to talk about how I’m too masculine to find work with the vast majority of straight men, and I’m too feminine to find work with most gay men, and I want to talk about how those are the demographics of people with disposable income who are seeking out professional Dominance (and sex workers in general). I want to talk about how many men who “like my pics” want to hound me for attention and whatever else it is that they want until I mention that my time and attentions are available at a price, at which point they get feral and abusive, decrying sex work as an abomination and insult to their human needs. I’m pretty sure it’s an abomination and insult to treat me like a sex toy without my consent to begin with… but whatever, I’ve got a pussy and a beard (and also a sweet bearded pussy), am I right?

I want to talk about how the world of advertisement has brainwashed people, especially in this Western civilization of ours, to the extent that we have a hard time being attracted to anything actually natural or authentic, even though in the middle class white people’s market we sell the shit out of appropriated products and services touting how valuable holding onto authenticity and being true to oneself ultimately is…

I want to talk about how in many of my communities I’m valued for my knowledge, the support role I play with people going through identity crisis’ or working through shame, and for bringing an inclusive creative voice to the table, yet deriving actual dollars from the things people love to gain from me not only feels “wrong” socially, but is often pushed against (especially by white men, the largest demographic of people with disposable income who also benefit from reading this blog, learning from my thoughts and experiences, and who most readily seek me out for intellectual and emotional support, situational understanding, to bounce ideas off of, and educational tips). I find it interesting how many women and transpeople have commented to me that they read my blog and learn a lot from it and are happy to support my Patreon campaign (even at a low level) to help keep me going, vs. how many cis men tell me the same things and have never taken a step to directly support me in any meaningful way—other than telling me they personally directly profit off of my voice, struggles, and resultant skills. To me this typifies the ideas of privilege and entitlement, and directly reenacts and reinforces the devaluation of women and queers, especially non-cis people, which we accept as common practice within the patriarchy today.

At least my struggles are white ones. None of this holds a candle to what people of color, especially black and brown people struggle with in the USA—especially those who share a number of marginalized identities alongside their race or ethnicities.

I want to talk about how many of my “friends” have quickly fallen away when I haven’t been interested in fucking them or being romantic, or who have become distant or unwilling to converse about the state of our relationship since I started taking testosterone and passing less fem.

I want to talk about how complete strangers who I’m interacting with feel the need to repeatedly ask me for my “real” name, insisting that the one I’ve offered can’t be what my friends and family call me when I introduce myself as Creature—thank the gods most of my friends and family actually do call me by my preferred name (and I thank them too). I want to talk about how at one of my favorite cafes the staff refuses to call out my name when they’ve made my drink and it’s ready for pick-up, even though they call out everyone else’s name—even those names they stumble over, mispronounce, and otherwise butcher. Who would have thought that choosing a name which is appropriate to oneself yet slightly unconventional (though certainly not unheard of) would shake to the core and upset grownup people so completely?

Talk about fragility—I’m living this reality, y’all just have to pronounce my easy-to-say name every now and again.

Today I sent this message to a random stranger who hit me up a few days ago asking about my art on Fetlife, and who then proceeded to not share anything about himself with me while expecting a conversation with me to continue, hoping for visitation while he’s in town over the next couple weeks, and intent on intimate time including cuddles and smoking weed (none of which I offered him when I summed up which mediums in art I utilize regularly):

“Ok… well, I’m a pretty busy individual. If you’re interested in being my friend you’ll have to pique my interest. I know literally nothing about you except that a we’re both on Fetlife and you like my pictures and to craft. FL is full of people who want things from me, and usually it’s men who act the most entitled to my time, attentions, and other skills or offerings. If you want something from me you’ll have to offer something of yourself in order to gain my notice and have me take you seriously. If you don’t want to do that work, I am hirable for various types of session work.
It’s up to you. I’m not being rude, just letting you know what my perspective looks like.”

I wish I didn’t have to write things like this to people (usually men) exceedingly regularly…

Recently I was playing online with a man who primarily was flirting with me because his fiancé wanted to be cucked and he had finally decided he would go for it. He told me he liked me, and he was fun to connect with over text. He was also very directive about what “needed to happen” within our flirtations, most of which I didn’t understand as it seemed to have little to do with how a conversation usually unfolds between people getting to know one another. I generally went along with it, asking questions along the way, though also made mention that I was uninterested in following someone else’s script, and that while I was open to suggestions and of course his own desires being made clear, I needed things to unfold in an organic and honest way which felt good and interesting to me too. I explained the concept of couple’s privilege when unicorning, a concept he had never considered (and didn’t really move on to respect).

The closer we got to having a planned video date, the weirder he got—insisting that he was into me and our flirtations, but picking bizarre fights or defining my texts by his emotional insecurities rather than asking questions or accepting my reasoning for saying the things I was saying (and instead continued to insist I was doing something to him, which was completely a product of his projections and fears). When I asked if all of the friction from his end of the conversation was due to, perhaps, feeling disinterested in me or the dynamic we were engaged in, or maybe that he didn’t necessarily want to do the things he had been asking for during our video meeting (probably due to his fiancé’s fantasy narrative), his response was to get agro with me and all of a sudden cancel everything blaming his disinterest on the fact that I’m a professional Dom (something he’d known since the beginning of our interactions a couple weeks prior and had no issue with when we discussed it at the time). God forbid a guy take responsibility for his feelings and actions without making it about something completely “out of his control” and on someone else entirely… WHY ARE SO MANY MEN (people, I guess, though I come across it with masculine folk most frequently) LIKE THIS?!?!?!!!

95% of phone calls I receive are fraud, telemarketers, or from old phone services I can’t figure out how to get off of.

I don’t know where I’m going because I’m spending a lot of energy striving to survive being in this world right now. Am I bitter? No, not really, but it’s an effort not to be. Maybe I need to be a different person to excel? I don’t know that I can accomplish that. Maybe I just need to be effected less by the way the world works and what happens to me because of that—but try telling that to less-marginalized people as you try to take any form of stability away from them, and just see where it gets you… why should my situation be different simply because I will not buy what the man is trying to sell me? I am effected. That’s a fact. I’m trying to play along as well as I can with the pieces that I have, while not letting things I find violent to my sensibilities take me out.

Self advocacy is survival.

To carve out space in the world is a struggle, and it’s a lonely operation. It’s an endeavor which will grind you into dust. Dust is our final form anyhow, so why shouldn’t life be meant for the joy of creation instead of a struggle to survive systems which by and large aren’t holistically meaningful to the majority of actual people in community?

“What’s even the point”, I find myself asking more and more the older I get.

This system works for no one, it seems.

Certainly not for me or many of my friends.

I’m experiencing a complete loss as to how to function these days. I know I’m horrible at advertisement, at reaching out during my most adverse moments, that I struggle to connect with people when I fear I’m a burden, that my skills and insights aren’t the usual ones, that I can’t honestly say what value I have on most days—except the good ones where I feel on top of the world and proud of what I’ve fought for and can offer in this lifetime. I wish there were more good days.

I recently asked for joy in my life. I asked for this during an erotic hypnosis class. So far this week I’m feeling resilient in a way I haven’t in a while. I’m grateful, even though my list of frustrations and financial fears is long and unrelenting. I could use some help, Friends. Universe. I’m keeping it together, but I feel very uncertain about what’s in store.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

This writing takes time, research, and consideration. It is my art.
Please help me pay rent: join Patreon, offer Support or email me directly. Thank you

Filed Under: Brain on Download Blog Tagged With: how to afford coming out of poverty, hypnosis works, impact of sexism on finances, poverty in america, sex work is women's work, types of labor and financial gain