CALICO LANE

Like Bad Man, I’d like to avoid being thought of as the typical barbarian male, but I’ll admit when I finished reading the original post, I had a similar question in mind. Not so much “did you come”, but “why is that enjoyable” or “why would you choose to do that”. I guess, for me, I can understand and have experienced slight pain increasing the intensity of arousal. In contrast, what you described in nylons and duct tape seems qualitatively different. I think what drove that home for me was when you wrote “but during, I would rather be somewhere (oh, God, anywhere) else.”

I think I have a hard time understanding both how the anticipation and the remembrance of the event pays for the experience, even setting aside my confusion over how the anticipation and memory would be exciting instead of terrifying or disturbing. The closest I think I can come to similar experiences in my own life is feeling proud I got through something that was tough for me, but I think that’s a very poor analogue to what you’re describing. (I also don’t enjoy roller coasters, most scary movies, or anything else that people seem to enjoy for the rush, so that may be why I have such a difficult time understanding.)

I don’t know if it’s possible to, or if you’d want to, help me understand that, but any info you could pass along would be appreciated.

(Last side note: I hope I managed to phrase everything in as non-judgmental a way as possible as I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I think that my incomprehension is anyone’s problem other than my own. I’m just hoping to get help to understand a bit better.)

-BP

This is a super-awesome question, and you are the very model of tact! Your disclaimer makes me afraid I come off like a neo-feminist ball-kicking bitch. It’s true, I have kicked a few testicles in my day, but their owners all asked for it very nicely.

I like a little playful smacking around as much as the next person, but you’re right, I would hazard to say that was different. It’s not really about the pain — the pain is just a tool. We were trying to create a situation where he could really, actually force me. How to stage nonconsent without actual harm or violation? Pain.

I do it because I like it. But I don’t know why I like it.

Years ago, I remember trying to explain BDSM to my sister as an erotic fascination with fantasy. She said “That’s all very well and good, but why the fuck do you have to act it out?” I still haven’t figured that out. I use words like “fascination” and “compulsion”. I say I’m “just wired that way” and I’m a “fetishist”. Then again, no one has ever asked me why I want to put a penis in my vagina — that seems to be a pretty normal fascination and compulsion. Maybe BDSM doesn’t need examination, either.

We had a mutual fantasy. Standing in the way of that fantasy were the small problems of autonomy and consent. No problem: with enough pain, we could create that fantasy briefly as a lived reality.

How do I reconcile the foreknowledge? Consensual nonconsent is an unsolvable, crazy dichotomy. I know that at the moment it happens, it is going to suck and I am going to hate it. I know when it happens, I will lose perspective and I will lose presence of mind. It’s scary and it’s real. Every time. But it has to be or it’s not worth doing. Unlike the prick of a injection or an ear piercing, that I experience this as unbearable is part and parcel of its appeal.

And that turns me on. The whole thing turns me on.

When I think about it beforehand it’s like video, coming in starts and stops. I am heady with the anticipation of that rush when I realize I am fucked and he is going to keep on going. That moment is a little like coming. But when I try to picture how much it will really hurt in my head, the video cuts to static. I can’t visualize it. It’s like the falling dream where I always wake up just before I get dashed on the rocks. Humans aren’t meant to remember pain very well.

I don’t know why this stuff turns me on. I just know it does. And aside from my vague concerns about the patriarchy, I also know I spend an inordinate amount of time, energy and money chasing it. I used to think that if I figured out why I wanted it, I wouldn’t need to do it anymore. If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know.

There’s a really prevalent (and I think male, and thus heterocentric) expectation that sex is all about orgasm. Sex is something a woman might want for herself, but that she does for her man (Cosmo language usage intentional): it isn’t over when she comes (although she’d better if she ever wants him to stop pumping away, because he’s a feminist, damn it), it’s over when the man comes.

Outlining this did give me rather unpleasant flashbacks to laying on my back in a frat house, staring at the ceiling and wondering whether I needed to refill the gas tank in my car. I mean… wow, like, I’m seriously squicked.

I got on the topic when Fet left a comment on my last smut post, asking whether I came, and why or why not:

… Apparently you enjoyed the experience, even without orgasming – so one would infer that orgasm was not integral to the experience.

At this point it deserved a little more than a “well, duh”, so I went off on memory lane.  I don’t blame him (her? it?) for squicking me. It just hasn’t been long enough since I was 19.

Nowadays, I much prefer to live in my bubble of openmindedness, where we define sex almost as broadly as the NYPD.

I feel a Figleaf quote coming on. Here, he quotes Em and Lo of Daily Bedpost:

“We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Sex is not intercourse. So stop using the two words interchangeably! When we as a society do this over and over again, it gets into the collective unconscious and starts limiting how we imagine the possibilities of pleasure, especially for women. A majority of women (that’s more women than not!) don’t climax from intercourse, so why rush to get there when you can spend time on more rewarding acts? But make no mistake: it’s not like you gentlemen out there can’t enjoy the variety that comes from taking intercourse off its pedestal–hey, if the destination is orgasm, how could anyone complain about the journey there? (Indeed, how could anyone NOT call that “sex”?!)”

Read the quote in context here.

Nicely, if heteronormatively**, said. I always like to go a bit further, though, and stress that “sex,” however you define it, also doesn’t automatically end with male ejaculation.

This is not, by the way, to buy into the idea that orgasms are just “harder” for women, or that women “need” foreplay. After all the “fore” in foreplay is short for the same old “before intercourse to male ejaculation” Em, Lo, all other right-thinking people, and I are trying to nudge out of first place.

Instead, as Em and Lo hint, if the point of sex was male ejaculation then “Jizz in My Pants” would be an instructional video and we could all go home.

Once I stopped snickering I noticed that I even like his footnote.

**Focusing on heterosexuality is just fine in this context, because for reasons that don’t actually have as much to do with *sex* as it does with notions of *reproduction*, heterosexual sex seems to be a lot more consistently… even *institutionally*!… and *unnecessarily* dysfunctional.

I know it can be hard to imagine choosing to have a sexual experience without orgasm. But I bet most people do at some point. Have you ever had sex that was so intense that you forgot to come? Or couldn‘t come? Didn’t want it to end, so you stopped yourself from coming? Were too tired from your glorious exertions, too distracted by your partner, or too contented to bother?

Orgasms are great. But I can have orgasms anytime (and frequently do.) There’s other stuff to do, too!

One last Figleaf quote, since he posted something topical only four hours ago:

Oh, and finally, there are any number of people in kink who don’t care for or even actively dislike, say, being beaten black and blue while it’s happening, who nevertheless get off hard in anticipation, on recollection, or both.

Very cute.  I’m a fan of both.

Last night I went to see Cinekink’s screening of Graphic Sexual Horror, the Insex documentary by Barbara Bell and Anna Lorentzon. If you get the chance to see it, jump! It was well-done. It left me feeling both profoundly conflicted and aroused: a feeling, after several years of shooting with PD, with which I am familiar.

I’ve worked on both his current softer sites, Hardtied and Infernal Restraints. I never worked for Insex. The documentary took its name from the disclaimer on the site’s splash page: WARNING! GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR.

I did follow Insex avidly, from discovering it through its close. I had never seen anything like it. It was bizarre and terrifying and revolting and absolutely riveting.

I didn’t masturbate to it. I mean, it didn’t look like sex. I don’t know if I could have honestly told you that it turned me on.

Everyone comes to bondage porn for different reasons, but 912 still has the best story. When I met 912, she was PD’s girlfriend and videographer. I was more than a little scared of her and the screaming fights I seemed to provoke between her and PD. I was certain she’d walk in during one of PD’s “inspirational” moments with me in the barn, fling her HD camera to the ground, and rip off my head with her bare hands.

Over breadsticks at some dim and greasy Pizza Hut, I asked 912 how she got into modeling. In the film, she tells that story. She’d contacted Insex asking for a private session with PD. Naturally, she was confused and shocked when, after her shoot, they cut her a check! I had never heard such an innocent confession of desire. I do not understand your jealousy, I thought, but … that? I understand that.

I wrote Insex, too. How could I not? And I was emailing with Cyd about modeling at the time that their payment processors pulled out and the site shut down.

I wonder sometimes how I would have turned out if I had shot for Insex. I know I would have done a great many things. Maybe if I had done those things, it would have broken me — but now I never will.

Money was the theme running throughout the documentary. Can consent really exist where there is money, and so much of it? Where does responsibility lie? Many of the girls had drug habits to support. PD dated and played with his models and even, according to some, made work contingent on it. If he respected safewords, he has interesting interpretations of boundaries. Money made Insex lavish, careless, unprofessional and greedy; and then when the money was gone, they had to follow.

I usually embrace the money-and-consent problem. I like the feeling of having endured. Coerce me, baby! I want permission! Until I sort out my issues and get New Age-y with my desires, the money is a great excuse to have fun.

Of course, when people ask me why I don’t do vanilla porn, I tell them I don’t just do porn for the money. I want to do porn that interests me. I love sex; but this, this was irresistible. Maybe the people who ask me that question have never wanted something that much.

For better or worse, the old cast and crew of Insex populate the porn world I know. Matt Williams, Cyd, Angelene, Lorelei Lee — all familiar faces. It was fun to see them all interviewed after years of post-Insex gossip. Apparently, Claire Adams has always been possessed of that unearthly composure. And I was perversely cheered to see a young Princess Donna, threatened with a cattle prod, interrupt a live feed to hiss, “That is a hard limit!” Oh, Princess, how times have changed.

One of PD’s employees was there with his girlfriend. When I left I hugged him and said, “I’ll give you guys a call when I grow the balls again.”

I always need it. It’s just a matter of time.

When I asked people about Maitresse Madeleine, they told me she was a beautiful woman. With emphasis: beautiful. Almost reverent.

And she is. She is possibly the most physically perfect person I have ever had sex with. Spending time with her gave me a touch of the Bitchy Jones-ing.

Speaking of, Bitchy is nominated for a Bloggie, and I understand that’s a pretty big deal. As a long-time reader of hers, I identify with her message — it sucks seeing your sexuality appropriated and misunderstood — but not with who she chooses to blame. As readers here might guess, I think the problems with sex work are reflective of larger problems, not their cause.

These days, it seems like Bitchy and I are both going through tough times. But you know what would cheer me up? Seeing sex (and BDSM, and feminism) get some open and honest exposure. So go vote. You can vote on many of my other favorite blogs, while you’re there: I like Apartment Therapy, Jezebel, and Dooce.

I had a lot of fun working with Madeleine. She’s smart, sassy, and self-possessed. (Next step, we put the heels on the one girl and the strap-on on the other. I’m just saying … the day that Kink hires a curvy butch girl, I will be alllll up in her business.)

The photos I liked the most were comparatively tame:

If portraits aren’t enough, you can find all the raunchy, vocal, face-slapping femdom action right here.

Would you believe I was almost too shy to post the cocksucking shot? But the tears in the eyes are a nice touch.

As always, I do the objectifying on my blog, so please let’s refrain from turning the comments into Hot or Not.

Next up in my closet-cleaning is The Pleasure’s All Mine: The Memoir of a Professional Submissive by Joan Kelly. (Original review on Sugarbutch; my comment is reposted here.)

What I wanted from it: an insightful, hot and/or eye-opening look into the business and experiences of a professional submissive.

What I got: a personal memoir of a girl drawn to sexual submission, who finds that commercial channels will provide her opportunity and motive (cash!) for the sexual thrills that she’s too timid and ignorant to seek recreationally.

And let’s not start on the business end. Joan Kelly has … interesting boundaries. She falls for and tries to date her first client at a commercial dungeon? One of her (more disturbing) clients just “decides” that ass-fucking is on her pro-subbing menu? It’s very Pretty Woman. But not all sex workers are Cinderellas waiting for our Prince Save-a-Ho. I would hesitate to give this book to a new or curious submissive or hopeful sex worker. What’s hot and ends well makes for a good story, but it’s a poor business model.

I really wanted the promised solution to the problems inherent in professional submission: as the book back reads, “the difficulty of remaining self-possessed, all the while surrendering to the sexual will of others”. Not so much.

If I sound too critical of Marnie/Joan, it’s because she scares me a little. I’m glad it worked for her. Things worked out for me, too, and God knows, I’ve never been a model sex worker. But if I can’t read about excellence, at least I want funny and well-examined failure. I wanted more self-possession, more introspection, more direction, more… ownership of her sexuality and desires and her work.

In a lot of little ways, the messages of this book frustrated me. Yes — I wish that women didn’t find it easier to fuck/play for cash than to assert their own desires as worthwhile. I wish that men didn’t find it easier to pay for sex/play than to make themselves interested in, and nonjudgmental to, the women who want it. And maybe if there wasn’t such stigma, women like Joan could let themselves think more about what they do, and go about their business in a safer, more intelligent, dare I say more defensible way.

If you’re going to promise subversiveness, try harder.

If you want my copy of The Pleasure’s All Mine, it’s free to the first taker to comment and claim it. Email me your address at misscalico (at) gmail (dot) com. Bonus points for telling me why you want it: I like to know!

Like any day I fly cross-country to work for Kink, Wednesday was a loss.

I shot hot, hot porn on Thursday. I found myself in a padded cell with one-way glass to the observation room. When Lochai closed the door on me I thought I was going to come right then. This time the bondage didn’t kill me; the forced orgasms almost did. I squirted on the padded floor of the padded room. I fell in love with a fucking machine. I might have proposed marriage to Tomcat. Oh, you’ll have to see the update… it was fun.

My evening was a blur: dinner, drinks. An old coworker from the Hidden Chamber bumped into me on the street, but after two glasses of wine with her I retired to the Armory and passed out.

Friday’s shoot was long. Afterward, Maitresse Madeleine and I dolled up and took the city by storm. We had sushi, burlesque, drinking, dancing and a long trail of admirers in our wake.

Saturday I woke up a bit the worse for the whiskey. When I’d recovered sufficiently, my San Francisco boy arrived and took me to my hotel. He fucked me and fucked me and god, it was so good. Often my San Francisco boy confuses me: how can anyone bring me so much pleasure? Orgasms are easy. What I get from him is joy in being alive; it’s gratitude. Gratitude that he can be so fucking sexy, and inspire such uncontrollable arousal in me. Gratitude for his energy and enthusiasm and easy affection. For his long, slender fingers and his pierced tongue and his beautiful just-too-big cock.

I haven’t posted about the last time I saw him, but I wrote about it; I’ll post that, too.

On Sunday it was back to the Armory. Lochai and I, who met as fine art photographer and fetish model, had never managed to shoot art. I hadn’t brought clothes (oh, fuck it…) or more than one pair of high heels (leave ‘em…) and so he tied me up in a corner of a set. The lighting was high contrast, falling into shadow. My hair came up strawberry blond, mingling with the brick and the soft wood floor.

Do you want to be beaten? he said, and I said Possibly, by which I meant Oh, yes, fuck, please. He tied my hands to a ring and pulled it overhead. He caned me. He whipped clothespins off my breasts. I never let people hurt my breasts, but I didn’t need him to know that.

I’m trying to be a little more laid-back when I bottom. It works… sometimes. One thing I hated about pro-domming was meeting the odd submissive who showed me how not to be admirable, how not to be sexually attractive. I want to be more like the submissives I lust after and admire. That means trust. It means talking, too, but I will get there.

I did want more. I wanted him to ask me to take more for him. I wanted him to keep going because I was reaching the point where it didn’t hurt, where he would hit me harder and I would moan and beg for more, more pain, beg him for all sorts of things. But he seemed to be winding down, and so I didn’t ask for any of this.

I don’t want to mark you too much, he said. I worry about your work.

Right, I said. I shivered a little and he petted me. Yes. He was right. I was already buzzed, bruised, deliriously happy. It was smart to be done.

I dressed and we took a tour of the place (unreal!), and then I went back to my hotel. I realized it was the first time I’d been alone all weekend. I sat on the bed and burst into tears.

Was this what the experts call “sub drop”? Or just my perennial guilt trip about play winning over work? This really wasn’t going to do. I tried the usual Band-aids: put on a sweatshirt, drank some water, and turned on the TV. Then I called a good friend for coffee and she sent me back with a burrito.

Living in Manhattan has reacquainted me with the joy of the take-out bag. I’ve spent many mornings lately staggering home from the club, clutching a squashy foil packet from the bodega. I can taste it, the anticipation, every step of those ten post-subway blocks: the roll, the tender egg and cheese, the crunch of thick-cut bacon sweet with grease.

As a New England girl, I don’t understand why rice goes in a burrito. It’s served alongside a burrito, drowned with lard-rich refried beans and melted cheese. Tex-Mex — what else? But these are Mission burritos, and Mission burritos have rice. I ordered mine with black beans, rice and all.

When I am in New York and crave these burritos — and I do — I think about the peachskin wrapping of the freshly steamed tortilla, waiting to part under my teeth. This one did not disappoint. It was soft and yielding and toothsome. I ate it in bed. I decided that I could make it back home.

I talk a lot about limits: please-do’s and do’s, but mostly the don’t-do’s. On a good shoot, I like most of the activities and none exceed my limits. On a mediocre shoot, I’m bored, but at least I can perform well.

I’d never had a bad shoot before.

Much of this responsibility as a model is mine. I need to select the shoot accordingly and to articulate my limits once there. But much of it is also theirs. A good top understands that not all the models are kinky, and not all kinky models are into all kinks. He or she is considerate, concerned, and proactive.

I am often told I take too much of the responsibility upon myself. Harrumph.

On my first bad shoot, I learned the difference between “Your limits are absolute and you can always use your safeword”, and “I’ll use my best judgement as to what’s good for you, and I suppose you can use your safeword. If you must. Although you’re neurotic and overreacting if you ever think you need to.”

To their credit they always came running, but … lord!

I am not a submissive and I am not seeking a submissive experience on my shoot. I seek professional encounters free of manipulation. Of course I can do X or Z — there are few things I think I could not do, and I do not count branding or sewing my pussy shut in that category — but if I don’t want to, that has to be okay. No one gets an all-access pass to my body.

In the end, the top didn’t cross my stated limit. Why did I stress out so much? Why was I so messed up about having encountered the possibility? Why did I break down and cry for hours? What was my stupid feminist consent problem?

And all for something harmless, but that I didn’t want it. I felt like a pouty child.

I kept telling myself, reasonably or not, that the bad experience was my own failure to keep my shit together. If only I were more trusting, more flexible, a better model, more … submissive. After all, no physical harm was going to come to me. I am never (well, rarely) worried about harm. I am worried about — about — I don’t even know. Hurt? Violation? Intangibles?

Shh. Shut up. I know better. You’ll like it. I can’t tell you why, but these words are antithetical to everything I am. They make my teeth grind and every hair on my body stand on end.

It bothers you because you let it, the Lawyer used to say when I’d argue issues of principle. Why do you let it? Who are you doing this for? And I see his point, although he certainly never meant it to apply to this. I’ve no interest in martyrdom. But I cannot let people define me because it’s easy or comfortable — not in terms of principles, and not in terms of my sexual tastes or range. I have to hold on to something. Don’t I?

I was pretty fucked up by the time I got back to New York.

The Lawyer gave me his copy of a slightly mawkish self-help book called “Controlling People“. I think it had been gifted to him as a hint. I read “Controlling People” cover to cover while we chatted and he massaged my feet with baby oil. This sort of behavior from him melts me, makes me feel bad for my ambivalence about dating a dominant man in the first place.

“Do you want to have sex?” he asked me later.

I looked at him.

“First time I’ve asked you.” (Your agency, let me loan you it.)

I considered. Getting off would feel good, but I was still too broken upset for the process. “I don’t know if I want to be touched,” I told him.

“I can always jerk off.”

I perked up. “Ooh, can I watch?”

He looked just surprised enough at the request to turn me on, and then suddenly I was interested after all. We piled into the bedroom. An episode of mutual masturbation ensued, and then fucking (of course), and then he was jerking off with his fingers in my ass. Or maybe it was the other way around. I lost track.

When I went to the shower to clean myself off, I found that my cunt was so wet it formed viscous strings, clinging to my fingers. I don’t always enjoy the anal sex we have while we’re having it — but I get wetter for it than anything else. And as much as I believe I hate something, my body acts otherwise.

Yeah, I don’t know who to trust.

____________________________

Before you comment: This post is about a single problem, not the whole of my experiences with these folks. Let’s all be grown-ups. Any names will be deleted.

As always, if you are a model who needs a reference or is considering working with someone I’ve worked with, please email me. It’s misscalico (at) gmail (dot) com. If I am reluctant to throw dirt here, please know I am happy in equal measure to discuss it with you, honestly and privately. I want everyone to be safe and informed, and we know how I love to give (un)solicited advice!

I almost resolved for New Year’s to sort out my sexual issues, but I’d have nothing to blog about.

Confession time (not that this isn’t always confessional time): what am I preoccupied with these days? The three-month’s-old scars on my thighs. I’m supposed to be talking about the lighthearted tribulations of sex work and the hotness in my bed, but the tags that keep coming up are feminism, consent and shame. Dominance was a real latecomer to the party (I guess I figured it went without saying?). I don’t have a submission tag that’s not appended with “or the lack thereof”.

I don’t want to glamorize pathology here. Mostly because I do not want this to be pathological. A while back I remember seeing some fetish club opening under the name “Paraphilia” and being horrified. Why? Why would you call it that?

I don’t always recommend people do as I write — not because I’m lucky or I’m superspecial, but because I don’t always know if I was smart or justified. I say people should always accept the risks of what their choices, but man, I am not ready to croak just yet.

Conversely, I don’t want to make myself sound like I’m so-oo scary because I do all this shit that I’m “mature” and “advanced” enough to handle. This does join the other 15 entries under my “young and confused” tag. I am usually only scary to myself.

My adventures in bed pale next to what I see in the “scene”. For every challenge I have, someone else is hanging from meathooks. Not that I think severity makes mine less important, as I certainly wouldn’t think that makes someone else’s less important, but — Oh, no, wait, I do think that makes mine less important.

And while we’re rating things that shouldn’t be rated, I think I do perceive what I do as scarier and more extreme than it is because of its immediacy and my insecurities. Sometimes I wish there was a scorekeeper that tells you when you’ve “leveled up” and are permitted to worry about your sanity.

Sex work hasn’t hurt me, but it doesn’t help much. Working as a pro-domme doesn’t give you many healthy role models for submission and masochism. You see people at their worst, their most desperate and self-loathing.

I’ve always been scared that everything bad that happens in my life happens because of my masochism. A jackass I once slept with said cruelly, You’re only happy when you’re miserable, and it has haunted me ever since. While I protest my agency, my autonomy, and my judgement, I worry that I really am an intentional victim. That I seek out controlling, jealous and emotionally abusive boyfriends. That when things go wrong in my life it’s because I’m a broken and fucked-up pervert. That I live to lose.

It’s really my deepest fear. Well, right up there with cattle prods, those slimy weeds in the bottom of ponds, and dying alone in the gutter with stray cats.

Which brings us to the basis of everything I write here. I know S&M is fantasy. It is fiction. It is adult game-playing and exploration. I know it can be healthy, even joyous, sexual expression. I know that no effort of mine can make it real.

But … still with the issues.

I’m not quite where I’d like to be.