Debauchery and submission

I caught my breath as Sally ran through the master bedroom’s door and, without taking time to explain, bundled me away from making the bed, into the dressing room cupboard and slammed the door. I stumbled back amongst the hat boxes and glove racks that filled the small, musty space. Scrambling to my feet, I pushed an eye up to the crack between the ill-fitting double doors, just in time to see both the housekeeper and the Master of the house follow Sally into the room. 

There had been rumours, of course. The other members of staff frequently whispered amongst themselves of debauchery and submission, without realising they were being overheard. Six months of working in this house, of being neither seen nor heard as I discharged my duties, had made me an expert at overhearing things, and yet I had discovered nothing concrete to substantiate such gossip. 
I suppose I have a rather strange job; it’s a bit like being an actor and a bit like being a domestic, but mostly I’m part of a complex tourist attraction. Each day, my colleagues and I dress in Victorian costume and work our way around a period manor house. 

As a chamber maid, my place is in the bedrooms. I dart between all 25 chambers, making and unmaking beds which are never slept in, stoking naked fireplaces, dusting, sweeping and generally doing all those domestic chores associated with Victorian maids. I’m allowed to answer questions from the tourists, but otherwise I have to keep myself to myself, lower my eyes when my betters pass by, and try and remain invisible in their presence. I had dismissed the rumours of sexual deviancy as the product of boredom from some of our senior staff members’ lurid imaginations; fantasies concocted to liven up a slow tourism day. Until now. 

Mrs Lawson grabbed Sally’s wrist and pulled her towards the Master. His face was solemn, and a stern furrow appeared on his brow as he peered into the eyes of the scullery maid. ‘Mrs Lawson informs me that you’ve been found wandering about above stairs again, young lady. That is not your place, is it?’ 

 ‘No, sir.’ Sally’s voice had taken on a meekness that was so convincing I wondered if it was genuine. I tried to quieten my breathing so I could hear what they were saying. 

‘You know the punishment, don’t you?’ 

Sally nodded at the Master again and I watched as, on a signal from Mrs Lawson, Sally undid her apron and took off her cap and shoes. The housekeeper then leant forward and yanked off my colleague’s black working dress, so that she stood shivering in some far-from-Victorian underwear. 

Mrs Lawson’s eyebrows rose. ‘And what exactly are those, young lady?’ her voice was harsh, but the high points of colour that had appeared on her face showed how much she was enjoying the situation as she observed Sally in her black stockings, matching bra and knickers. 

Sally said nothing, but hung her head in humble submission, as the Master of the house placed a large hand on the back of her neck, gripping it firmly. 

‘You have the collar, Mrs Lawson?’ 

‘Indeed, sir,’ the housekeeper produced a short black leather collar from her capacious apron pocket, and swiftly secured it around the maid’s pale neck. Then, rummaging further, she pulled out a thin lead and clipped it to the small silver loop that was positioned at the front of the collar. 

My throat felt as if it had dried closed; I could hardly swallow as I watched, afraid of being discovered, but at the same time wishing the gap I was peering through was bigger, so I could see more. 

I was unable to hear what the Master was saying now; he’d lowered his voice, almost to a whisper as he pulled on the lead which hung between her breasts. Then, in one swift, brutal movement, he grabbed the front of her bra and pulled it off, snapping the strap beyond repair. Her tits spilled out, revealing themselves to be even bigger than they’d first appeared. I moistened my lips. I could almost taste them and, enviously, I watched as the Master, yanking on the lead, bought Sally closer to him, before bowing down and engulfing a hard, nut-brown nipple between his lips. 

Sally had been a friend ever since I’d joined the house’s workforce, and unbeknownst to her, I’d had a massive crush on her from the first time I’d admired her in her pristine white apron and mop cap. To see her receive another’s erotic attentions was agony to my jealous body. I pressed my eye harder to the crack and strained my ears so I could hear the muted mewls my eyes told me were emanating from her lipstick-free mouth. 

Mrs Lawson, who’d been watching the scene before her with obvious satisfaction, stepped forward and, once she had received approval from her superior, bent to Sally’s other breast. I could imagine so well how wonderful that would feel, the tingling attention, the sharp tang of want that each nip, each kiss, would send hurtling between her legs as both tits were stimulated at once. 

I was aware of my own growing arousal. It had been simmering at the back of my mind ever since Sally had thrown me into the cupboard. Now it was controlling me, and I couldn’t help wondering if my friend had engineered things so I could observe her. A second’s panic shot through me, and I pulled away from the door. What if Sally told them I was here? What would they do to me if they found me? Then I sort of hoped they would find me. My breasts chaffed against my bra and stiffly starched uniform, as I wondered how I’d cope in Sally’s position. 

My fantasy was cut short by a sharp scream, and I was drawn back to the real life drama in the adjoining room. The maid’s knickers had, in my few second’s lapse of concentration, been removed, and she was now on all fours. Mrs Lawson held a short white cane, which she had presumably kept in her apron pocket, and was rhythmically tanning Sally’s backside as the Master pulled the lead, making the girl walk after him like an obedient bitch on heat. 

I was able to view them from every angle, as they moved in circles around the room, Sally yelping as the cane struck her neat backside. Our Master’s eyes blazed, his dick bulging beneath his suit trousers, while the housekeeper revelled in her administration of pain. 

Without registering what I was doing, I slipped off my apron and slid a hand into my knickers as I watched. My juices stuck to my fingertips as I imagined Sally’s liquid dripping from her damp pussy. For despite her calls of anguish, the maid’s face glowed with desire, and there was no doubt in my mind that this scenario had been played out, and enjoyed, many times before…. 

Kay Jaybee – Through the Gap 

Whips do not have to be about pain and punishment

the first thing to know about whips is that they don’t need to hurt at all. Soft doeskin and glove-leather whips can be purely sensual, or can thump like a firm massage, or warm up skin to make it rosy and sensitive with no pain. Dossie recalls:

When I first came out into S/M, I had very negative feelings about whips. I am an abuse survivor, and the idea of being hit made me a little sick to my stomach; my fantasies were about bondage , intense sensation and nonconsent. I remember at my first Janus meeting tremulously asking the assembled scary-looking leatherpeople if I could be into S/M if I didn’t want to get hit. They gave me good support, and agreed that I could. My first experience with a whip, more than a year later, was actually with a belt, administered by a top who understood how scared I was – and was I surprised! This didn’t feel bad, it didn’t feel like punishment, it felt nothing like the abuse I had known – it did feel intensely warm, sensual and deeply sexual.

So whips do not have to be about pain and punishment. They can be sensual and sexual in and of themselves, and they don’t need to hurt unless you want them to.

Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy – The New Bottoming book

“Forced” Feminization: Is It Really Forced?

Forced Feminization is a part of bondage, dominance, and submissive culture.  Despite the word ‘forced’ this practice is not meant to be coerced, compelled, or involuntary in any way.  It’s always important to keep in mind that while living out this fantasy, it is just a fantasy.  Participation should always be voluntary, and boundaries established before the outset of play.  This is why it’s imperative to have an understanding partner that you trust to respect those boundaries. This kink will often involve some aspect of submission and gender role reversal.  The male participant, likely you, assumes a more submissive role, possibly to the point of relinquishing all control over the situation.  When role playing, the submissive could be told, or “forced”, to undertake tasks typically seen as feminine, or be dressed in feminine clothing.  The style of clothing or make up could be seen as hyper feminine; tasks could be perceived as emasculating.  For example, being asked to clean in a maid’s uniform with a frilly petticoat and high heels. There are a lot of theories about why you might be interested in sissification or being forced femme.  I think a lot of the reason for enjoying this fantasy is the pressure society puts on men to take control, be in charge, and to be dominant.  Not wanting to conform to these expectations or finding the pressure of taking them on to be too stressful can lead to being aroused by throwing them to the wind.  Being able to relieve ourselves of these responsibilities in the bedroom can be enticing and enthralling.  Having a partner with whom we feel comfortable enough to reveal our vulnerabilities and expose them nakedly is part of the turn on.  The forced part of this fantasy alleviates any feelings of guilt from being turned on by taking on a feminine role – Dr. Zweizung   

Starting out in kink

There is a common misconception that to become a practitioner of BDSM you need lots of expensive equipment. You don’t. Some rope, the odd cane or riding crop and you’re ready to go. 

Imaginative use of furniture will add spice to all your fun and games. 

Oh, yes, you do also need a consensual partner with a similar taste in kink. Someone who’ll share their champagne with you. 

But do remember boys & girls to keep all your pleasures Safe, Sane and Consensual.

my masochistic and submissive needs

For some people, the identity they feel as a bottom feels like their primary identity. They understand themselves better as a submissive or a slave and seek to manifest that sense of self in all aspects of their lives: they tend to seek out relationships with dominant people in which they can live in their chosen role full-time. People living in full-time Dominant / Submissive relationships have created many clever ways to satisfy the needs of healthy living in a role-defined lifestyle 

Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy – The New Bottoming Book 

Whipped, chained, exposed and humiliated…

[The illustrated story of O – Doris Kloster]

Dominique Aury, writing as “Pauline Reage” wrote the classic “Story of O” in 1954….Bestseller hardly covers it. “Story of O” has sold millions of copies, and hasn’t been out of print in more than 40 years. It has influenced numerous erotic fictions, been made into two (wretched) films and given shape to countless fantasy lives. 

But it’s a difficult book to think about right now, its structure and assumptions somehow out of tune with our times. O, a young fashion photographer, goes with her lover to a mysterious chateau, where she’s whipped, chained, exposed and humiliated, all in the supplest, most finely poised sentences imaginable. Elegantly choreographed and costumed, “Story of O” seems a bit of a period piece now — like 1950s haute couture in a world of latex and piercings. 

But it’s the novel’s pre-feminism that makes it seem so foreign to us. The chateau is run entirely by and for the pleasure of men: No male submissives or female dominants need apply (though in the character of Anne-Marie, there’s a suggestion that some of the middle management is female). Sexual power and privilege in “Story of O” are rigid, systematic, almost metaphysically encoded — O is like a supplicant joining a religious order. But what seems most out of sync with our time is “Story of O’s” utter lack of that therapeutic quality that pervades so much contemporary porn: that remarkable insistence that this stuff is good for you, bringing with it self-knowledge, autonomy and the ability to love. 

O doesn’t have to learn to love – if she learns anything, it’s her utter need to be dominated by love. And she certainly doesn’t have to learn to live, since the novel ends with her death or abandonment by her lover, convincing us that the two eventualities are equivalent. Time away from a lover – a master – is dead time for O. In popular contemporary pornographies, on the other hand, time away from the lover is almost a convention, an opportunity for healthy soul-searching before the books’ happy –  even wholesome – endings. Beauty and her prince cuddle in the saddle in Anne Rice’s “Sleeping Beauty” trilogy. Pat Califia’s lesbian biker girls ride off clean and sober at the end of “Doc and Fluff.” Even John Preston’s eponymous leatherman, Mr. Benson, goes a little sappy on us. 

It’s easy to smile at these simplified happy endings – supermarket romance laced with the banalities of consciousness raising. But they also represent an achievement: a faith that it’s possible to integrate daily life and supportive relationships with the extreme demands of the sexual imagination. And even if the stories get a little preachy at times, there’s still a cheerful community spirit to them, as well as a nice dose of irreverence and a willingness to laugh at oneself. Contemporary sex radicalism’s public conversation is in some way reminiscent of an earlier, equally pornographic era, the recklessly public and talky Enlightenment. Think of the Marquis de Sade’s whacked out speeches on sex, power and “nature;” think of his dramatic dialogue “Philosophy in the Bedroom” as the proceedings of a group self-help session, perhaps with a hot tub nearby. 

But is it possible to assimilate “Story of O’s” lonely, pristine quest toward self-negation into this clamorous, self-actualizing, “sex positive” culture? 

The answer to this question lies in the mysterious facts of the novel’s genesis, first described by Jean de St. Jorris in a 1994 New Yorker article. As the obituary said, Aury did write the book in order to keep her lover, the critic and literateur Jean Paulhan. She’d become his mistress during the Nazi occupation, when both of them, unknown to each other, worked for the same underground resistance journal. Their love affair, which spanned three decades, continued to follow wartime rules of silence and clandestineness — the secret meetings, the meticulous planning. Though Paulhan never considered leaving his wife, who had Parkinson’s disease, he expected her to accommodate to the affair, just as he expected Aury to fill in the lonely Sundays and vacation times. I think of the famous photograph of François Mitterrand’s funeral, wife and mistress both in attendance, and what a fearsome investment of female tact and anxiety such an arrangement must entail. 

For Aury, the anxiety came to a head in the early 1950s. She was in her middle 40s, and she began to fear that Paulhan might leave her for a younger woman. “I wasn’t young, I wasn’t pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons,” she said. (“And he was fuckin’ 70 at the time,” my husband marvelled, not quite managing to conceal his admiration.) 

“I could also write the kind of stories you like,” she told him one day. Paulhan admired the work of de Sade; he’d written the introduction to an important edition of his work. When he had voiced his doubt that a woman could write compelling S/M, Aury said she knew that she could. The fantasy lay buried in the half-forgotten depths of her dreams, conceived before she had ever met Paulhan, before she had ever known sex or love. “Story of O” is in no way a humble entreaty by a woman terrified of abandonment. It was clearly meant to overwhelm. Revealing a fierce, complete and unsparing sexual imagination, it was every bit as much a dare as a love offering. 

And it’s in this way that the novel transcends the circumstances of its creation – the history, the manners. Foreign to our own manners and circumstances, it’s as much a dare to us as it was to Paulhan – an invitation to rediscover a dimly remembered place in the imagination. In an essay called “A Girl in Love,” Aury remembers “those oft repeated reveries, those slow musings just before falling asleep, always the same ones, which the purest and wildest love always sanctioned, or rather always demanded, the most frightful surrender, in which childish images of chains and whips added to constraint the symbols of constraint.” 

At the bottom of Aury’s elegant and urbane pornography lies the fantasy life of an impressionable child – the sort who listens carefully to the overheated perorations of an overzealous religious school teacher, who pores endlessly over the lurid imagery of a comic book or an illustrated saint’s life. Because pornography’s power doesn’t reside in the extremity of its images and motifs, but in their naivety and redundancy – in the pornographer’s need to employ the symbols of constraint, and to spell out the abstractions of power and passion in the most primitive terms possible. 

Pornography is not only shocking – it’s embarrassing, a return to a time when we hadn’t yet learned to defend ourselves against the outrages of our imaginations. But Aury wasn’t embarrassed. She almost, I think, saw the humour of the thing (“Return to the Chateau,” “Story of O’s” muddled and largely unsuccessful sequel, contains a few wildly self-parodic passages). But she didn’t seem to see the need (as I do, for example, in my porn) to use irony to bridge the gap between the outer and inner lives. Vastly literate, circumspect, living a life of quietly constrained passion, she was as unshaken by the same raging desire within her as Emily Brontë. 

And so this is my tribute, recognition, thanks, to Aury for showing me, and others, the way into the chateau. Or the ways – in the first pages of the novel O enters the chateau twice, once blindfolded, once not – take your pick, it doesn’t matter. Just as it doesn’t matter how we stumble in, stupidly, haphazardly, purposefully, sex-positively – the door will open to disclose our own half-forgotten, naively imagined visions waiting there for us. Just as Aury’s imagination waited for her to write this most serendipitous of masterpieces, this most inevitable of visions. 

Molly Weatherfield –   When Dominique Aury died an unflinching notion of sexuality went with her 

BDSM can actually be therapeutic

In her article, “Erotica and Pornography, A Clear and Present Difference,” feminist activist Gloria Steinem reasoned that, “any depiction of sex in which there is clear force…[i]t may be very blatant with weapons of torture or bondage… tell[s] us the lie that pain and humiliation (ours or someone else’s) are really the same as pleasure” (Warner 97). Like many of the other anti-pornography activists of the Sex Wars in the ’70s, Steinem connected sadomasochism and other similar sexual practices to actual violence against women (Warner 97). 

While it is true that BDSM often includes play that involves consensual non-consent, like rape play, all circumstances are agreed upon by all parties in the scene. Although the bottom may seem to give up any choice in the situation, he or she will always have the right to say the safeword and bring the scene to a halt. The bottom is “responsible for knowing [his or her] limits and making sure [the] top knows [those limits], for communicating clearly, explaining what [he or she] want[s]… A responsible bottom figures out what [he or she] wants, and what [his or her] limits are, and communicates this information to [his or her] top” (Eason and Hardy). 

Some may argue that BDSM can actually be therapeutic for rape victims. As a rape victim myself, playing in kink as a submissive has helped me let go a lot of the sexual issues I had that had stemmed from the abuse I once endured. According to one professional dominatrix, “You’re taking the power back. Even as a submissive, you’re taking the power back because it’s still under your terms. You’re choosing the person who’s dominating you and you’re choosing to give over the power, and you’re hopefully doing it in a controlled, good way” (Lindemann 8). 

In my own experience, acknowledging what happened to me was difficult until I was able to revisit that trauma in a way in which I was in control. I do still have limits that come from that bad experience — I can’t be completely restrained or blindfolded otherwise I have a panic attack — but actually facing it has helped me move on. 

I consider myself both a feminist and a kinkster; neither is mutually exclusive. Some may say it’s a contradiction, that I’m still being oppressed. If I partner with only other women, does it make it less so? 

Erica: Perky Antagonist  – Sexual Freedom or Women Oppressing Women? 

the floaty subspace that pain can take you to…

Jason: ‘I’m more masochistic than submissive, so it’s about pain more than humiliation. It’s hard to explain. It’s the intimate interaction with the Domme, the sense of giving up all control to her, it’s the extreme sensations she causes and the beautiful clarity of focus that comes from the need to master them. It’s the floaty subspace that pain can take you to, it’s the sense of having been challenged and survived. It’s all those things and more.

Violet Fenn – Why do people visit a dominatrix? These men explain the appeal

You can do what you like to me

I’m an impatient person. I don’t want you to try to fuck me – to tease me gently and have me panting and gasping. I want you to put your dick inside me. I want you to push it into my cunt before you’ve barely got my knickers down. To a certain extent, I want you to act like you don’t care how I want it. That’s one of the reasons I love being tied up…

But the problem is that you might not actually want to fuck me like that. Although I like to imagine that you want it quick and hard and angry, you might want to do things more slowly – take your time over taking me. How do we solve this dilemma? Well, you need to shut me up. You need to stop me from bucking and writhing and sitting on your dick when I’m tired of the foreplay. In short: you need to tie me down.

Some people say the best thing about being restrained is the feeling of being restricted – the tightness of the rope around your wrists, ankles, chest – a tightness that, like the tightness of a corset, restricts your breathing slightly and makes you mildly panicky in a way that makes your cunt wet. They’re right, of course – that stuff is hot. But I think the best thing about being restrained is that it makes me shut up – stop thinking – stop needing you to fuck me in a certain way. When I’m tied up I know I’m getting fucked and I know that you can make me wait for it.

You can do what you like to me. I can’t roll over or touch myself – I can’t touch you. I can’t writhe into a different position so your cock hits me in just the right spot. It’s deliciously frustrating, and at the same time I know that for you it’s deliciously satisfying. You can tie me exactly how you like, so I’m barely a person with my own desires and decisions – I’m a neatly-tied and packaged present for you.

Girl on the net, On being restrained: what’s hot about being tied-up

But remember boys & girls to keep your pleasures Safe, Sane and Consensual at all times.

Inflicted with love

The things I want to do to you are so utterly wild that I don’t have the words to explain them.

She said, ‘I’m going to show you just how much pain can fit inside a person…’

She was not gentle with me.  Her need and desire were so all embracing that I nearly faded into the background as she did what she did to me…

I was far more relaxed that I thought I would be, and loved it more than I thought I would. The power exchange was a turn-on, to switch up from being an active participant in sex, to being restrained into a passive recipient of sex, it was amazing.

Why do I like being spanked? I really don’t know. It’s just how I am built.

Sometimes I need it to escalate during times of stress to actually feel something, other than the tension in my shoulders and chest and the burdens I carry around. Sometimes it’s just foreplay to remind me that the sting is going to be offset by the sweet thrust and rhythm once strap-on cock meets pussy.

Sometimes I just want to be dominated and surrender to whacks that aren’t controlled by me. Their pace or velocity is chosen by another. I like ceding that control. I am not one of those girls who likes it sweet and tender during sex. I love to make out. My goodness I love to make out. I love to be eaten out; I can thank a special boyfriend for my first orgasm from his oral skills.

But during sex I am not your love me tender, love me sweet kind of girl…

Make Me Purr