Iris

Reading John Dryden the other day, I was reminded that I am not the first person in history to have had a deeply dysfunctional relationship.  And that is some consolation.

Fair Iris I love and hourly I die,

But not for a lip nor a languishing eye:

She’s fickle and false, and there I agree;

For I am as false and as fickle as she:

We neither believe what either can say;

And, neither believing, we neither betray.

‘Tis civil to swear and say things, of course;

We mean not the taking for better or worse.

When present we love, when absent agree;

I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me:

The legend of love no couple can find

So easy to part, or so equally join’d.

 

Bad, Stupid, and Completely Misguided

The other day, Dev over at Devastating Yet Inconsequential talked about some stuff that had come up in recent scenes with her boyfriend.  She expresses her own thoughts better than I could express them, so I’ll quote her:

Writing this post is very fraught for me.  I’m in territory that actually feels too personal for a blog post, but this is still the best medium I know of for really working out my thoughts, and the context I include so that other people can understand me often turns out to help me understand myself later.  I worry that this post will make me and/or Joscelin look bad, or really stupid, or completely misguided, even though, from my perspective, we have always had more or less sound reasons for our actions.  So I am going to try to write it.

And she did.

I wish I were as brave as many bloggers whose work I read.  I have, it seems, finally gotten over my challenges in producing smut.  If any smut were happening in my life, I’d be happy to tell of it (schedule permitting, of course.  One by-product of a long distance relationship is that when you do get smutty, you pretty much want to concentrate on it, and jam it in, as it were.)

As for putting pen to the personal, I’ve been able to produce a good amount of personal junk.  I am good at whining about my state of misery.  Or at least, my whines are prolific, if not original and full of flair.

Writing about things with Robbie is harder–increasingly so.  There is so very much to say, and so little I feel I can say online.  He regularly and repeatedly denies it, but I regularly and repeatedly have the impression when I write something here about him, he gets woefully upset.  There have been specific times when something I’ve written here has sparked a problem between us, and other times when I think it has just increased our pre-existing level of frustrating, miscommunication, and disappointment.  And it has always been the case that while writing helps me work out my own thoughts, Robbie gets lost in my verbiage.  (I wrote “gets lost in his own verbiage”–a Freudian slip, since his long missives often confuse me, too.)

The main point here, if I’ve not reiterated it to the nails-on-blackboard point, is that I understand the urge to protect yourself and your partner in writing.  The thing is, the same impulse is a high-priced ticket to a fan-fucking-tastic case of writer’s block.

So today I’m going to venture into the world of things that make me look bad, stupid, and completely misguided, and admit that there is a blogger out there–a really popular and well-loved one–whom I hate.  I mean, hate with a red-hot, cinnamon-stick passion.  I mean, hate so much I would consider e-stalking the person, if it weren’t so immoral, vile, and pathetic.  I mean, hate so much that I have to exert my utmost self-control not to write evil comments on this person’s blog.  I mean, hate in a way that makes you wonder whether you’re really a nice person after all, because, dammit, nice people don’t have feelings like this.

I have only a hazy idea of why I hate this woman–for it would be difficult to hide the fact that her femininity is part of why I dislike her.  I know I am jealous of her sexual and writerly powers, while, at the same time, feeling certain that I am sexually and authorially superior to her.  Whatever insight, soul, gentleness, passion she has–I am convinced I have more.  Whatever wit, deviance, education she possesses, I know I am cleverer, more twisted, more brilliant.

She has a better body than I do, undoubtedly.  She has more readers, demonstrably.  She has more people commenting on her work, evidently.  If you are reading this, you are almost definitely not she.

For a long time, I thought I hated her because I hated her kink, and that her turn-ons represented something that I could never embrace.  Then, for an equally lengthy period, I thought that I hated her because I craved her kink, and because I couldn’t bring myself to embrace what I most deeply wanted.

Having ventured, sexually, into some of the deeper waters that this woman has explored, I feel confidant in saying that it’s not whipping or punishment or spanking or control or orgies or waterplay or rope or bondage or 50s-style marriage or breast torture or infidelity that I fear.

But something about her just irritates the fuck out of  me.  If I wrote more about this person, she might be more identifiable, and so I’ll try to bring my rant of distaste to a close.

The problem is that my story has no moral, and stories without endings leave me nervous.  I certainly have not learned to love this person.  I have not reconciled myself to her, nor become indifferent.  I still stop just shy of stalking her, internetically, and still wonder, every time I feel the upsurge of anger when reading her words, exactly what my problem is.

I think I have to admit, though, that if I can fall in love with a stranger over the medium of the internet, as I did with Robbie, then I can fall in hate with one.  And that is a very unsettling thought.

Images by Manuel Vason, stumbled upon thanks to ponyXpress.

 

Against Emotional Masochism; or, In Which I Steal Other People’s Ideas, Quite a Lot

I just read a synapse-stretching post by Matisse. In it, she answers a reader’s letter. Usually I very much dislike it when she does this, because her general attitude is a riff on one or more of the following: *sigh*-*you dimwit*-*I don’t know and I don’t care*-*how can you not know*-*how can you not know that I don’t care*-*sigh*. But since my own overwhelming response to the internet lately has been profound irritation, and since in this case, her bafflement seems quite justified, I repost her comment here.

Her reader asked her to explain his kink to him. Trouble is, his kink seemed to be to get nothing from friendships with women to whom he was attracted but who were not at all interested in him. I can identify. For years I went through long patches of platonic “relationships” in which I imagined myself in love and went to great lengths for the other person, and my other half mostly ignored me and my needs. It takes a lot of hard work and far more talking than I would ever have expected to do in any relationship, but Robbie meets my needs. MINE.

And I do try to meet his . . . though there is always more to do, I know.

Here’s Matisse:

You’re only 25, so nip this in the bud now and learn how to have real relationships, because whether you’re vanilla or kinky or somewhere in between, being attracted to unavailability is a recipe for frustration and unhappiness.

There are many different motivations to be a submissive, and I’m not one to say “Your motives are valid – but you over there, yours are not.” But I think a spell of good talk therapy would teach you a lot about yourself that you need to know, and then you can make a better decision about whether you really want to be controlled by another person.

There are many different motivations for being submissive. Exorcising and reveling in “bad” feelings that we shouldn’t enjoy–degradation, humiliation, pain–these all are routes to an emotional and erotic thrill that comes from (almost) being harmed. They can be cathartic, allowing those strong feelings, and the reactions to them, to take place in a safe and loving place.

But too often I read things written by women who sound like emotional masochists. As if they feel lucky that the Doms they are with grace them with their presence, their sexuality, the right to share them with other women, the right to be *nothing* to them. Literally nothing. I want to scream and hit the screen when I read this. That kind of weakness, that kind of submission, does not impress me, and I want to deny that I am submissive at all. Of course, that’s not the right reaction either. I read a wonderful thing Bitchy Jones wrote the other day about truly owning your own desires. (Well, actually it was about cock, but part of it was about desire, too.):

. . . understanding and acting on your desires can never be weak. And saying that it does doesn’t actually have anything to do with real feminism. Or any kind of equality. Having desire and acting on it is strength. Knowing your desires is to know yourself, is strength, fulfilling your desires is to acknowledge your strength.

It may well be–and must be, given the way the world works–that there are equal numbers of male submissives who lack this confidence. And I dare say that there are Doms out there (I know one or two) who have their own insecurities, their own soft spots and vulnerable places, the missing scales in their dragon-armor.

I’m not thinking of anyone or specifically when I say this. I’ve been glad to watch over the past two years and see internet and real life acquaintances grow, see Robbie and I get more comfortable and confident with each other and our own desires. But I am glad to read people say repetitively and outright what Robbie used to tell me often at the start of our relationship: “Unrequited love’s a bore.” Amen to that, baby.

Moderately assertive pics from le Chagrin and Darker Sights and Sounds, respectively.

 

When WordPress is a Sadist, I’m a Bitch

WordPress is seriously pissing me off.

And not in the “you-bastard-I-can’t-believe-you-did-this-and-it-feels-this-good” kind of way.

The site made changes to its global dashboard a couple of weeks ago, which was basically fine and no big deal, until it was. While my home computer seemed to handle the changeover fairly well, my laptop is older and more frail, and it is the only computer I have available when I visit Robbie. In the face of WordPress’s changes, my laptop threw up its hands and refused to talk to WordPress.com in any intelligible fashion. The last post, which was supposed to be a light, blowsy, off-the-cuff bit of fluff, has taken me four, count them F-O-U-R (4) four days to finish.

Meanwhile, I am bitchy and itchy and witchy from wanting to be writing and expressing my damn self. Chiefly, I’d like to be expressing the joy, glee, and satisfaction in my heart (yeah, right) for the wild, crazy, kinky, best-evah sex Robbie and I have been having the last few days.

Writing is its own kind of release for me and has been for many years. Writing is how I process my life and understand my feelings. It’s how I figure out what I want. Most of all though it’s the main things–like good conversation and a sound night’s sleep, cuddles with animals or loving words–that I count on to keep me on an even keel. And without a decent keyboard and a blank page or screen–I’m nasty.

So, three hours into my afternoon-quiet-time, I should be well on my way towards describing Saturday’s Japanese girl-serving-sake-before-sucking-toe scene, and what I learned from it. But no. I’m typing, then erasing, then re-typing <a><span><strong> into my .html editor, without actually knowing what that means. And that’s so not even nearly sexy I can’t stand it.

(Heh. Yay. I snuck this little post in while I was updating my version of Java. Take that, WordPrat. Now I’m logging off to go greet Robbie with a perky beer and perkier nipples.)

The “you-bastard-I-can’t-believe-you-did-this-and-it-feels-this-good” picture from the work of Norbert Marshall, via kinkerbelle.

And the kick-boxing beauty from the always intriguing portfolio of T-Omex.

Edit: *$%(#$&!!! The links in the post below STILL aren’t working, I’m still fed up, and I’m still going to go attend to my Master. So there. Pictures and links for this post sometime after I get or give head.

 

Sex toy reviews

Merry Sex Toy Christmas!

The Sexmas sex toy gift lists are out now. Reading them, you’d think the sexy people of the world have nothing more pressing than the need for a $130 vibrator.

This year, I’m (mostly) being restrained, and buying him things besides the handcuffs and njoy wand we invested in last year. For one thing, we’re pacing ourselves. For another, there are plenty of vanilla things we want and need.

Most of all, though, I’m realizing that when it comes right down to it, we get the most enjoyment out of our bodies and our minds. Aside from our amazing collar and cuffs, a few sets of clips, and his gorgeous riding crop, most of the things we enjoy are either cheap pervertibles (clothespins, leashes, things-what-he-uses to whack my ass) or are attached to us 24-7.

Exhibit A: we own four “real” vibrators between the two of us, and none of them does a darn thing for me. (Okay, one of them does. But only when he takes the time to really work at it, and me.) Leaving out the rabbit vibe that he can make sing when he wants to . . . that’s $110 vibrating dollars, so far next-to-useless on me, and not for want of giving it a good college try.

I’m not sure why none of it appeals. It’s partly, I think, that we’re too lazy to get the toys out (because we’re both so compulsive about storing and cleaning them.) And partly because, with toys, they really have to work, and you never know what will do the job.

Take those four vibes. Not a one of them is a patch on the $20 Brookstone “face massager” I got almost ten years ago as a birthday present. I’d love to “upgrade” it to something that looks a little less industrial. But the wondrous thing about this little massager (besides the fat, satisfying curve of the version I have) is the pitch of the vibrations . . . they are slow, low, deep frequency, a seductive hum. Virtually every other vibrator I’ve known shocks my clit into total sensory overload, an upleasant numbing-out, within seconds.

Why is it so hard to find something similar, except cute? I don’t get it. They’ve started to advertise sex toys so much more clearly. They’ll tell me all about the materials, the color, the size, the specs, the designer . . . why can’t they just tell me what the damn thing feels like?! Is that really so hard?

And while I’m on my rant here (I mean, ’tis the season to rant–I hate the holidays), no one talks about this in reviews, either. I know. I’ve been reading reviews for months, searching for something that says “really low thrum vibe.” Can’t find it. So if anyone knows anything out there with about the vibratory intensity of a washing machine–except a little bit smaller–let me know. I’ll tell Santa.

Edit: I see that the ever-innovative Babeland gives vibes “intensity ratings.” Ohhhhhhhhh-kay. I’d use their rating if I hadn’t read what they had to say about how to get the most out of your power-vibe: “If you have a strong vibe, like the Hitachi Magic Wand, you can put a cloth, blanket or hand in between your clit and the vibe to diffuse the stimulation.”

I did know that–I’ve wanked through panties before. But come on. A blanket? Ooh, sexy. “Hey babe, want to watch me rub a giant white-and-blue wand all over my blanketed lower torso? Yeah, you know you do! Oh yeah baby, I’m hot, you know it.”

Edit 2: Okay, I think I can tell Santa myself. I just hope he has more money than I do . . . $37.99 for a pocket rocket?

Then again, it is pink . . .