Flexible and inflexible kink

It seems to me that kink tends to run in clusters. People are into pain, not so much a certain kind of pain; they're usually a bit flexible about how the pain is created. Or people are into dominating, but how they want to dominate, they can be kind of flexible about.

I think that's because the kink is connecting to some sort of emotional need, even though most people don't seem to know what the need it is. Other things connect to the same need. People have favorite methods, but they can be flexible about the method as long as it connects to the right need.

An example of the flexibility I have in mind is that I was never particularly interested in pain. Then I started meeting women who were, who were deeply enthusiastic about the sensation just because it was an extreme sensation, and I am certainly into that. I suppose I'm still not into pain as pain, but I am pretty enthusiastic about making someone shudder ecstatically with a growl and an arm twist or a violet wand. That same thought, though, would be sickening and repellent with a woman who wasn't clear about enjoying it.

Or from the other side, I was never interested in receiving pain. It doesn't do anything for me in itself. But I can easily imagine tying it into my submissive need to show/prove my desire for her, say by a game where I stuck needles through my own skin for touches from my lover.

Then there's other stuff where I'm not flexible. I have very hard limits on verbal humiliation; only very specific kinds are OK. A lot of kinds that I've heard don't connect with my "lift my partner up" emotional need, so it feels to me like the emotional abuse that it is on the surface. Or orgasm denial; that's basically my nightmare made real. Both of those things are liked by many other people when they're playing submissive, but they don't serve my emotional needs.

Not as much of a hard sell as I thought.

Um, apparently the abstinent Christian kinky switch thing is not quite the problem I thought. My eHarmony and OKCupid and FetLife profiles all mention it up front, and I spent basically all day yesterday in various forms of Internet communication with six different women who had contacted me. The most exciting one by a lot at this point in our knowledge of each other is in Louisiana, quite far away, though. (If you read this, A., Hi!)

And someone else contacted me as I was typing this. This is very weird for me. Not what I thought would happen. Am I overselling myself? I'm trying to be honest but my profiles don't list all my flaws, like my struggles with laziness and depression.

Wicked Faire

I'm just back from Wicked Faire. I felt like I was at home at last. It was pretty awesome. I tried a violet wand on my arm and attended a couple of seminars on basic rope bondage, as well as some Western martial arts seminars, music, etc.

The Pretty Librarian said she'd like to go along after I'd reserved a room, so I gave her the bed and took the floor (I insisted). I brought my massage table, but just as I was getting people lined up to use it Saturday night she got a really bad migraine and sent me a text message that ended "hlp?" Aww, poor thing. So I spent about 10:00pm to 12:45 in our darkened room finding her gatorade and cold compresses and holding her hand and telling her what I'd seen that day so far and after she started feeling somewhat better giving her shoulder, neck and light scalp massage. I was kneeling by the head of the massage table to work on her shoulders while she made appreciative noises, and it was quite dark but not so dark that I couldn't see her dark-painted lips against her pale skin, just a foot or two from mine. It wouldn't have been the time to try something if I was going to, her still being in pain from the headache, but keeping my thoughts in line there was DIFFICULT. Hadn't been planning on all the handholding in the dark etc. I did kiss her goodnight on top of the head when she was feeling better and snuggled back into bed but that's within my boundaries anyway. She sighed happily. Big things in the life of an abstinent sexblogger.

I don't actually have much of a foot fetish.

I don't actually have much of a foot fetish. I thought I did because I'm so attracted to footjobs. But it's not actually that I have a lot of inherent interest in feet; it's that I have a much easier time imagining a woman touching me with her feet than the rest of her. I also have a thing for women who are wearing gloves for the same reason; I can more easily imagine a gloved than ungloved handjob.

This hangup I have that women don't want sex with me is one that is not matched by what women actually say. I know a couple of attractive women locally that have said they would be enthusiastic if I just weren't abstinent. I wonder if I will ever really get over the hangup other than with the woman I marry?

Lecturer

O dear internet, who could I whinge to if not thee?

One woman who previously had some potential gets a nickname here, the Lecturer.

Sunday night I got an extensive lecture via OKCupid IM about what's wrong with my attitude towards porn. Tonight I got an extensive lecture via OKCupid IM about how the idea I would not object if my wife circulated nude photos of herself for men to masturbate to*, plus the fact I like to come in a woman's face**, means I don't value women. Failing to object to the photos means I want a whore not a wife (her words). Basically apparently if I treat her like she has her own mind and may make her own decisions means I don't value her (like I would a valuable object). Longtime readers know that my real problem is that I don't value women. Right.

This is definitely not going to work with the Lecturer. She is arrogant and doesn't know it because she believes her opinions come from the clear word of the Bible, without her interpreting them.



*Actually this isn't really true, now that I have more time to think about it, I would object.

**For those who are not longtime readers I'm really into having my face smeared with a woman's juice in an analgous way. And the Lecturer knew that but forgot or ignored it or something.

Sad

My ex came over to lend me her sewing machine for some costume work and we chatted for a while. I found I still really miss her and I think I saw in her eyes that she misses me; I think both of us got a tiny bit misty though the conversation didn't acknowledge it at all. It's so hard sometimes.

eHarmony and OKCupid

I'm sick again. Spent a couple of nights up late and hung out with someone who had it. I guess if I'm going to be sick it's best that it be while I'm unemployed.

I don't think eHarmony has much to offer for weird people like me; I've gotten a ton of "matches" and no communication. I haven't offered much communication either, I don't feel like I know anything about my "matches". eHarmony makes it really tough to be up-front and open; they rely on their matching algorithm and provide very limited space for your own words. They base communication on a special structured format that starts out with sending multiple-choice questionnaires. Might be nice for someone who has really serious trouble talking about themselves.

OKCupid is much more promising and flexible; they afford you lots of space to say things in your own words. They base matching on a huge, varied database of multiple-choice questions. You answer the question, say what answers would be acceptable in your partner, and say how important the question is in matching (could be "irrelevant"). You can also skip questions if you feel the multiple choice format just doesn't match the way you'd like to answer it. You've got to spend a good long while on answering them for better results. I found some women I sent messages to (no replies yet) and one who found my profile and contacted me. (Yay, there is possibility there!)

Mostly I've been messing around with those and FetLife recently.

News

So, I decided it's time to start looking; at least find out more about who's out there. I signed up for eHarmony and FetLife. My FetLife profile (Mousie762) talks a lot about God, and my eHarmony profile talks about sex and kink. I'm looking for a good match not a quick match.

FetLife has a bunch of very active Christian groups that I've been spending lots of time talking with.

Me and the woman I met at Dorian's, who I will call the Pretty Librarian, do not have a future together, and we've discussed that. Some fundamental incompatibilities. And I've explained about the abstinent until married thing. But we're both having fun with dating. I went to a dance with her, and afterward we went back to her place and watched a movie. Her feet hurt from the shoes she was wearing and so I rubbed them during the movie. No, I don't have so much of a foot fetish that this gets me hot; more that I like massage and like having something to do with my hands during a movie. Then, though it was pretty late and she asked if I wanted to crash there to avoid tired driving, I went home.

If the stereotypes that women don't want sex were true, that sex is something women do for the sake of the other stuff, I would be an awesome date; not only don't I push but I'm not even buying dinner and holding doors and chatting and complimenting for the sake of maybe sex sometime. However, being an awesome date for women who don't want sex could be a negative selection process for what I eventually want.

I seem to seriously compartmentalize my sexuality. It is really repressed now, and generally with people who I'm not starting to think about marrying. And I think I better keep it that way to stay sane during the abstinent dating process; for example I turn my head if anyone goes to kiss me so it lands on my cheek. Is it a sin for me to kiss women passionately who I'm not going to marry? Of course not. Will letting myself get away with whatever isn't a sin to me, make me crazy for what is a sin to me? In this particular situation, yeah.

Also it's a matter of defense-in-depth or safety margins; a failure of willpower means "Oh dear I kissed her" rather than "Oh shit I boned her." There's a whole lot more getting back under control time available between kiss and sex than between heavy petting and sex.

I have to plan this stuff, it's not easy.

Married Kink and 1 Cor 7:3-5

(This is edited from a post of mine to the Christian BDSM Bible Study group at FetLife.)

All this I'm going to apply to "in the bedroom" kink, because that's the only kind I know anything about. How to apply it to a relationship with power exchange, I don't presume to say.

1 Cor 7:3-5, NIV (in context)

3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

This passage seems to have kink implications as well as implications for sexual frequency. The way I read it, it implies that both the husband and wife should strive to fulfill the other's kinks and their desired sexual frequency; they yield authority over their own bodies. But, on the other hand, neither the husband nor the wife may demand it of the other (except of course where the demand is itself part of the consensual relationship). The possessor of the body yields it, the spouse may not make the partner feel bad by pushing for it. Especially in light of Ephesians 5:28-30 (in context)

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church- 30 for we are members of his body.

And, of course, in light of Matthew 22:37-40 (in context) and all the other myriad passages about love:

37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

To a Christian, GIVING love is central. Demanding it is nothing like giving it, and violates the spirit of the injunctions to love your enemies and turn the other cheek. All the commandments are aimed at each of us, almost none have anything to do with us trying to influence other's morality; and when they do it tends to be an injunction not to.

I often see claims that Christians in BDSM are supposed to do mdom/fsub only. Another implication of 1 Cor 7:4 is that husbands may be submissive as well, at least in the bedroom; the husband yields authority over his body to his wife "in the same way" as the wife to her husband.

Pretty icestorm

View from my porch (with respect to Tam.)

OK, so, initiating divorce more frequently is a good thing?

I'm going to try not to be too sarcastic here. This is not a snark blog. I'm kind of hoping the people who read me as Mousie never find out how sarcastic I can be.

Hugo Schwyzer, in a column at "The Good Men Project", notes that women initiate divorce more often than men (about 2/3 of the time) and looks for what's wrong with men. He concludes that

Too many of us think that a “real man” keeps his promises—even when those promises are making him miserable.

OK, um, that's kind of what differentiates a promise from a tentative statement. Or, say, a lie, a fraud, false pretenses. I don't think it's exactly a "real man" thing in the sense that a "real woman" doesn't likewise keep her promises. Or a real small furry creature from Alpha Centauri, for that matter. It's a promise, like a person might make, not a MAN-promise.

Schwyzer identifies himself as feminist, but I can't see that it's really in women's best interests that more men initiate divorces. The first one to initiate takes the choice away. I can't see why one would look at "Group A keeps promises longer than Group B" and say "Therefore Group A should be more like Group B", except if one says, "Group A and B are different and where they are, Group B are inevitably better."

He goes on in the concluding paragraph,

Good marriages need more than a grim resolve not to leave no matter how bad things get. Men are more likely to forget that than women.

Based on what? The rest of the article gives no reason to suspect men don't try as hard or harder than women to make the marriage work. Still he comes up with this implication that men are doing nothing but sitting there not initiating divorces. The promises in most wedding vows include language about trying to make the marriage work, and in my experience there's no reason to suspect that the same people who stick with the marriage for a long time because of the promise don't try harder to make it work because of the promise.

I don't want to imply that initiating a divorce is always bad; some people were actually married to someone who really was just sitting there not initiating, or in one case I know the guy who didn't initiate had actually moved in with another woman. Sometimes initiating is definitely the right thing to do.

In general though, maybe if men initiate fewer divorces because they want to keep their promises, that's actually a good thing. We can't always be the villains. I'm really not inclined to advice from "The Good Men Project" after this; it's rather a condescending name to begin with. I think I'll stick with my Bible.