Review: Power Play

28Sep11

The kind folks at LoveHoney sent me this anthology of BDSM stories for review a while back –  Power Play: 20 BDSM Erotic Stories.

Edited by Miranda Forbes, the book includes stories of a vast range of dynamics, couples, scenarios and kinks. While I admired the inclusiveness of the book, it didn’t get me very far in the fapping stakes; which is, after all, what erotica is for.

Too many different dynamics which were too different from my own kink failed to hit the spot and left me wanting more. Might be a good read for someone exploring BDSM as an idea… but for a fussy kinkster like me, it didn’t curl my toes.

Read my review on Lovehoney.

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inked

25Sep11

Insomnia + bed + semi-nakedness + arty boyfriend + pen = I get drawn on.

I love the feeling of pen on my skin, it reminded me of being in school and drawing on my hand or arm or leg.

 

It was ticklish, and sometimes sore when the sharp nib of the pen dug into my tender skin.

But I didn’t mind D idly doodling on me while we listened to the thump of the nightclub music next door.

Here’s the swirly pattern I ended up with. Isn’t it arty? Of course, the boy is not just artistic, but nerdy too…

… and that’s how I ended up with dick butt scrawled on my leg.

Filed under: funsies, snapshots   |  3 Comments

e[lust] #29

13Sep11

Welcome to e[lust] - Your source for sexual intelligence and inspirations of lust from the smartest & sexiest bloggers! Whether you’re looking for hot steamy smut, thought-provoking opinions or expert information, you’re going to find it here. Want to be included in e[lust] #30? Start with the rules, check out the schedule and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!

~ This Week’s Top Three Posts ~

Evidence To The Contrary – If anyone out there ever tries to tell you that internet relationships and friendships are not real, point them in my direction and I will happily set them straight on the matter because I have proof, in fact I am proof, that they know not what they speak of.

Open Marriages Don’t Work….- The only way I would agree with that statement is if you add: …..if you’re marriage already has problems. But even that part is not universally true.

Love in the Age of Broadband - What happened to our ability to keep it casual? Why would we attach ourselves to someone who is (often) hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away? And, more to the point, why would we attach ourselves to someone we have never met?

~ e[lust] Editress ~

Ask Lilly – Open and Polyamorous: Why be married at all?

~ Featured Post (Lilly’s Pick) ~

My apologies, everyone, since submissions closed I’ve been 100% consumed with personal family tragedy (the flooding in Central PA) so I didn’t have time to read most of the entries this time or find a photo. The html code might contain a lot of blank lines for some of you, I didn’t have time to “clean” it up, either, just throw up what I have.

All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy!

Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships

Ask Aunty Dee: Dental Dams
born this way…
Clit Truth
Condoms and Size
Lies & Infidelities
Misguided Dominance
Poly Language
Return to Decadence
Step Inside My Head
Who was the first person you told..
When Bad Things Happen To Good People – Warning Bells

Sex News, Interviews, Politics & Humor

To Be Out Or Not To Be Out
Want Sado-Erotic Horror Movies? Yes please! Films by Matthew Saliba
What I’ve Learned From E[Lust]

Kink & Fetish

A Much Needed Distraction
Another drink?
Caged
Facing Fear
Negotiation Win

Erotic Writing

As Long As It Lasts
Asking For It
Anticipation
Blow Job
Campfire
Debra’s Gift
Feral
Fantasy
June’s Caning
Please, Please, Please, Sir
Showers and Strawberries
slick
The Visitor
The Play Fight

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welcome to the jungle

31Aug11

I’ve been watching the unfolding drama around Sinead O’Connor’s recent venture into the world of online dating with interest. It started out harmlessly enough… a column in the Independent about how she missed male company (and sex!) and was inviting emails from potential suitors in order to possibly meet someone.

Quite sweet and charming, it was all in good fun… until of course, she mentioned that she likes anal sex. And so the media circus began. Oh isn’t she so outrageous and daring and edgy, is she mad altogether talking about that, she’s a slut, she shouldn’t say such things when there are people being abused in the world (I didn’t quite understand this one myself), etc etc etc. Radio slots and newspaper columns were devoted to the discussion of the idea that an Irish mother of a certain age likes anal. ANAL! Imagine! *blesses self*.

It was around this time that I noticed she was on Twitter and followed her. I admired her bravery and wit in dealing with the whole thing. She wasn’t taking anything too seriously, just reveling in her sexuality and all the newfound attention. Great, I thought, perhaps she might open peoples’ minds a bit.

But then it started to go to shit, if you’ll pardon the pun. Inundated with messages from married men and “fetish freaks” (ahem) she started to tweet about the negative attention she was getting — people calling her insane for saying she liked anal — and declared Ireland as anti-sex; vowing to address this in a Late Late Show appearance this coming Friday.

The appearance has now been cancelled (for reasons you can read on her site), but there was something about the whole charade that had been bothering me. I thought, perhaps, it was some measure of jealousy… I mean, here all us sex bloggers are, typing away fervently about things much more depraved than anal or a bit of light spanking, and yer wan just has to say the words “back door” and the Irish media fall over themselves to denounce her.

Perhaps it was irritation at the idea that Ireland being sex-negative is somehow some sort of revelation, uncovered by Sinead herself, the pioneer of bumsex, when we’ve known this for years. But it was when I read her explanation of why she cancelled her Late Late Show appearance that I realised what had been bugging me.

She cancelled because she found that the researcher was very hostile towards her and her back-door revelation, and considered her to be insane because of it. And this obviously hit a very vulnerable space in her, as the whole “Sinead O’Connor is crazy” shtick has at this stage practically been added to the Constitution.

And I thought… welcome to my world. If I were to tell the world that I let me boyfriend make all the decisions in our relationship —  and more than that, that I let him physically beat me if I disobey him, or that I wear a collar to signify his ownership of me… Well, I’d be called insane by a lot of people. I’d probably lose my job, my family, and some friends.  I would be regarded as a “fetish freak” as Sinead herself so kindly put it. That’s not even mentioning what would happen to my partner.

In the few weeks I’ve been on Fetlife, I’ve met others whose entire lives would be ruined if people were to find out what their (entirely legal, safe, sane and consensual) sexual preferences were. It’s not that nobody in Ireland is talking about kinky sex, or that nobody in Ireland is having kinky sex — we’re doing an awful lot of both, online and offline. There is a massive kink community in Ireland that seems to be going from strength to strength.

There are tons of fantastic ambassadors for sexuality in this country who are working every day to make a place for kinky people in our society. Sinead O’Connor is by no means the first person to ever discover, talk about, or be persecuted for her like of unconventional sex. The reason you don’t hear about it because the ramifications are so dire for so many people that they don’t dare speak about it.

It galls me that someone who is in a position of such safety — in that she relies on her strong, eccentric personality and opinions to make a living, and is well known for it — is shying away from addressing this on national TV because someone’s going to imply that she might be nuts for liking what she likes. That’s the very worst that will happen here… no loss of income or family support, no social stigmatisation (or at least, no more than she’s already suffered.)

Far from compassion at someone in a similar situation, I’m furious that she came out, all guns blazing to fight sexual repression in Ireland… and then just gave up at the first sign of said repression.

We NEED to start a discussion about sexual freedoms in this country, and this was a perfect opportunity. Instead, it’s been thrown away in the face of the exact oppression she was complaining about to begin with.

I don’t think Sinead O’Connor owes us anything or is obliged to lead the charge by any means… but if you’re  going to declare yourself a rebel leader, you’d better understand what it is you’re fighting against — in this case, hundreds of years of religious conditioning and masses of ignorance, prejudice, malice and fear. It’s going to take a lot more than “I like anal” to combat that.

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Review: Leatherbeaten Pretty Plain Collar

25Aug11

I need a collar, collar, collar that’s what I neeeed (hey hey)… or I did, and then I bought this one. We ordered it from LoveHoney on Friday night, and it had arrived by Tuesday morning — and that was with the bog-standard free delivery to Ireland. Very impressive, as per usual! And a very impressive product, too, given the price…

collared (twice!)

Although I already have an everyday collar (you can see I’m wearing it as well in the picture above), it’s silver and delicate and can’t really be *used*, only worn and admired. So we decided to give a ‘play’ collar a go to see if we enjoyed it, and boy did we enjoy it.

Leatherbeaten Pretty Plain Collar

First things first though – what’s it made of? The collar itself is leather with a suede-like lining so it’s easy to wear. The leather’s supple and pliable so it’s nice and comfortable. The ring at the front is made of metal and feels sturdy enough, though we haven’t hooked anything to it as of yet.

Front ring, with stubby fingers for scale...

The back buckle is metal as well. On first inspection I acutally thought it was plastic, but while I was taking the pics for this post I realised it was metal! That’ll just go to show you how comfortable it was to wear… it’s very smooth metal, rounded edges, didn’t dig in or scrape or irritate my skin in any way.

inside back buckle, with suede-y lining

outside back buckle

This particular collar is the ‘large’ size one, and though I don’t know if this is the same on the smaller one, the way the collar buckles is quite ingenious. Both ends of the collar have holes in them, and both ends feed into the buckle to hook over a central clasp. This gives much more versatility as regards size and allows for smaller adjustments; as well as allowing the front ring to stay centred no matter which hook you fasten it on.

clever open-ended buckle

Even though I’ve been wearing Sir’s collar for over a year now, putting this collar on was a very different experience. There was a definite change in mental state as soon as it went on for me, and I think for Sir as well… it cemented our roles, brought us into the moment, and made it a lot easier to just play. I sometimes find it difficult to lose myself in the moment if I’m trying to remember that I have to remind him to take the bins out in the morning… so this helped me go from girlfriend mode to Pet mode seamlessly.

As for how it held up to a proper play session, I was pleasantly surprised. It stayed fastened no matter how hard he yanked on it, and even when it was cinched tight it didn’t pinch or dig in or hurt my skin… it was just a feeling of overall pressure on my neck.

The verdict? In his words, “hot as fuck”. When asked to elaborate: “hot as fuck on my girly”. And I tend to agree!

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Inspiration

23Aug11

Ever-helpful WordPress has started to give prompts to help you blog. Today’s topic: What do you worry about?

Oh WordPress, how little you know me. What do I worry about? What DON’T I worry about.

I am a chronic worrier. You name it, I’ve worried about it. If I haven’t worried about it before, I’ll probably start worrying about it now that you mention it. There’s just one exception to this trait of mine, and it’s somehow my health. I guess enough people do the “worrying” (read: assumptions and judgement) about that for me that I can let it go.

Here’s a list, in descending order of things I worry about. Because I love lists, and hey, maybe this will be cathartic or some shit.

1. Money

Money money money money. I hate money. If money ceased to exist tomorrow I would be so happy. It is the number one source of stress in my life, and I don’t even look after it any more. Sir does all that now (so that I can worry less) and I still worry. I worry that what he thinks is enough for us to live on isn’t actually enough to live on. I worry that even though we have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, very little debt and a very nice life; we’re doin it rong. What about savings? How are we ever going to afford, like, stuff? You know, the stuff grown-ups have like houses and cars and shit? And lastly, can we get take-away tonight because we forgot to buy groceries again?

2. Relationships

I love my boyfriend so much that it frequently terrifies me. What. the. fuck. am I going to do if I mess this up? I genuinely don’t know how I would deal with that. I can’t even picture it because my brain doesn’t have the power to imagine something that I think might actually destroy me. That’s the BIG worry, which doesn’t worry me all that frequently. I know Sir loves me, and by god if he’s stuck it out this far I don’t think he’s going anywhere. But that big worry has lots of little worries feeding into it. Tribuworries if you will (hahaha, I crack myself up.) How is our dynamic affecting our relationship long-term? If the dynamic breaks, do we break? Are we being D/s enough right now? Am I not being subby enough? Am I nagging? I hate nagging, so tell me if I’m nagging. I’m nagging you about nagging now, aren’t I? Oh god.

3. Career

See this post in all its whiny glory.

4. Family

If you take the above three aspects of my life, combine their failings, and view them through the eyes of some well-meaning, but ultimately fairly conservative religious country-dwellers — that’s what I worry about with my family. That I am disappointing them on several fronts. I didn’t do things the usual way, or even the right way, and thankfully they have been so supportive of me. But for some reason, though they’ve never expressed any judgement of my life or my choices (apart from constantly hounding me to move home move home movehomemovehomemovehome), I live in perpetual fear of being a massive failure in their eyes. Or rather, I live in fear of them *realising* that I am already a massive failure by conventional measures of success. Aaaaany day now, I’m sure.

5. Depression

This is the one aspect of my health that I give a crap about. It could also be why I don’t set much stock in the omgdeathfat bullshit that flies around my head day in and day out — let me work on getting out of bed in the morning and then we’ll see about eating anything, never mind going for a run and having a healthy snack afterwards. When reaching a basic level of happiness seems so unattainable as to be farcical, when you can’t even really remember what happiness actually really *feels* like anymore, the concept of physical health is irrelevant to the point of absurdity. And while I’m much luckier than some in that when my life is good, I’m good; I fret about the bad days coming. Because I can’t cope with the bad days — for some reason, I’m not built for it. I dread the process of crumbling, of regressing to that dark place where nothing matters to me and the only solution is to take some meds that may help me get up in the morning, but completely inhibit my ability to care.

It’s slightly ironic, then, that one of the things I worry about is losing my ability to worry. No matter what, I’d rather be my anxious, neurotic, slightly demented self than a shadow of it.

Filed under: musings, ranty   |  6 Comments

return to decadence

19Aug11

Six months on anti-depressants will really fuck over your sex life.

Not only did my libido disappear, but the boy was taking care of me a lot. Lots of minding and gentleness and patience. You can imagine that didn’t leave much room for hot and dirty D/s sexytimes.

Since I came off the meds, I’ve slowly been climbing back into my submissiveness. I don’t think it ever left me. It was always there, even at my lowest, but it felt like it was a far away. Unreachable. I wanted to go there and wrap myself up in my submission to help me through the shit, but I wasn’t able to.

Now I’m back and I’m wearing my sexuality again. It feels amazing. But I found that it wasn’t just me who’d become a bit lost along the way. Our interactions — in the bedroom and outside of it — had become insipid and fluffy. Loving, absolutely; but lacking the fire that fuels us.

We needed to reconnect. But being the silly sub I am, I got it into my head that the lack of D/s meant that he’d just been doing it for me all along, that he was glad that dynamic was fading away. I got upset. I withdrew. I cried.

But as he always does, he coaxed my fears out and eased them. We talked about our wants, told our secrets, and thought about ways to strengthen our dynamic.

And then he fucked me. Hard and raw with a fist in my hair and horrible pinchy things in sensitive places. It did more to repair us than all the talk in the world. He’s my Sir again… and I’m myself again.

Filed under: musings, sexy   |  16 Comments

thank you please

18Aug11

So yesterday’s post got more views than this little blog has ever had before, ever. Was it something I said?! Being the attention whore/subby mc subberson I am, all the hits have given me the push I needed to want to write more, so expect to see more head contents all over yore computer screen soon.

Thanks for reading, everyone, whoever you are… and I hope you’ll stick around

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how will I know?

16Aug11

Question for my lovely readers: how did you figure out what you wanted to be when you grew up?

I find myself, yet again, in a gloomy puddle about my career. I don’t know what I want to DO with my life. I’m not really sure I ever did. I had some vague notions in secondary school about teaching and journalism, but I never had my sights set on anything specific.

So off I went to college with my vague notions, and proceeded to be quite shit at it. I’m smart enough, but without the constant feedback of teachers invested in my results (and, embarrassingly, the praise for being a good student) I found myself not really caring. The only person I had to do well for was myself… and I didn’t value my own approval highly enough to make the effort.

So I did terribly in my coursework but quite well in my exams, repeated a few times and eventually had a complete meltdown in the run-up to my finals where I stayed in bed for a couple of months trying to pretend it wasn’t actually happening. My then-boyfriend (that poor bloke) could clearly see something was wrong and made an appointment with the counsellor for me. The minute I got onto campus I had a panic attack and had to be physically dragged to his office where I couldn’t speak for crying.

I was persuaded by him and the student advisors to sit my finals anyway and give them by best shot, despite having missed months of coursework and not having a balls notion about most of the subjects. I passed one course but failed the other.

As luck would have it, I had a job offer for after college anyhow. Of course by “luck” I mean I could avoid the whole failed-my-degree thing and just go and do the job instead, which suited me and my denial perfectly thankyouverymuch. After coming clean to my parents about my depression and my exams, they moved me home for a couple of months to have a break. And then I started my job.

And after that job, I was offered another job. And after *that* job, I got another job. People continued to employ me to write, which astounded me. I felt like a fraud for the most part, having people pay me to do something that comes as naturally to me as speech, if not more naturally. But of course, the recession struck (bam!) and that was the end of the writing jobs for me.

I’m a good writer, yes, but a passionate one. My writing comes from my heart, not my head; and so I have trouble motivating myself to write about things that don’t capture my interest and fuel my soul. Sounds awfully romantic, I know, but in reality translates to “makes a shit journalist”. (Not to mention a shit blogger.)

Almost two years and a string of jobs I was (excuse my ego) vastly overskilled for later, I am… lost. I don’t like what I’m doing. I don’t know if I can go back to writing after such a long break. And I’m fucked if I know what else I’d like to do instead.

Along with this lost feeling comes a whole heap of shame, guilt and self-flagellation. There are thousands upon thousands of people who would have killed for the opportunity to attend university and wouldn’t have fucked it up like I did. There are thousands more who’d have had the tenacity to make themselves invaluable enough to hang onto a job during the recession – I count my bevy of extremely talented journalist and writer friends amongst these. And still there are hundreds who’d give anything to have the job I have right now.

But instead, here I sit, unsatisfied, unmotivated, unhappy. Uninspired. And all because I can’t decide what I want to do. I think about this time ten years ago, when I was waiting for my Leaving Cert results. I was pretty much guaranteed to get my course, having exceeded the points I needed in my mocks and every other school exam I’d taken. I was confident in myself and my abilities. It never even crossed my mind that ten years later, I’d be looking back and pining for that self-confident schoolgirl and those easy schooldays.

Of course, it wasn’t all gold stars back then. I remember one teacher giving me a spate of B/As (“but that’s not a real grade, Miss!”) on a series of essays… something wasn’t *quite* there, she would say, and do her best to help me improve. My best friend (who, of course, always got her A) would laugh at my frustration but spur me on to do better next time. It used to infuriate me, not reaching that elusive A. It wounded me that there was something I was doing wrong, but couldn’t seem to fix.

I think in some ways, I might still be searching for that A, everywhere in my life. I want to be top of the class, always. The best girlfriend, the best daughter, the best friend, the best employee. And when I can’t, I blame myself, even though it’s not my fault, or it’s something that can’t be changed. And because it can’t be changed, because I CAN’T even with the best will in the world, reach that A, I feel crap about myself. I’ve never liked doing things I’m not good at. And it’s this need for perfection – not even a need, a basic requirement – that has me feeling so utterly lost. I’m not good enough at anything, or so my head tells me. If I was just brilliant at ONE thing, I’d do that thing, and I’d love it. I know this is not true for everyone, if anyone. But neither do I know how to shake the conviction that unless I’m doing something perfectly, I’m doing it badly.

Typically now, I can’t even remember what my final Leaving Cert grade was in that class. One thing has stuck with me though. The teacher, my favourite to this day, was talking to us about what we thought our careers would be. We all told her our plans, and she told us – the most interesting people I know are those who are in their mid-forties and are still trying to decide what they want to be when they grow up.

So at least if I’m not successful, I still have a crack at being interesting.

Filed under: musings   |  11 Comments

Friend me?

16Aug11

I’m on Fetlife now! I’ve no idea why it took me so long to join. I do have vague memories of thinking I wasn’t kinky enough to be on Fetlife, that I didn’t *really* have a fetish, that I was just playing at being kinky.

But then, isn’t it all a game, really? For us, it is. Even though deep down I’m submissive, the dynamic we have and the role I take is something I have to actively perform. Perhaps that’sbecause I need to also be able to suppress it for regular activities?

Someone asked me recently about my relationship. We were talking about the way we managemoney together — I (currently) earn (most of) it, he controls it — and how our domestic D/slife differs from a simple splitting of responsibilities.

And I said, that’s a good question. It’s one I don’t really know the answer to, but it’ssomething to do with giving over control. Surrendering my grasp on the tiny details. Doing that allows me to relax and focus on making myself — and my Sir — happy.

In any case, it’s working for us. My new med-free brain has been reintroduced to my libido, and they seem to be getting on ok. It’s in the spirit of reconnecting with my sex drive (andmy Sir) that I joined Fetlife. I love reading about the relationships of others, and of course,the hotness doesn’t hurt.

Only thing is, I’ve got no friends on there! Come keep me company, someone?

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