This morning I woke up at my usual time, after an evening of feeling ill.  I got on my computer and began on what I needed to get done for work, and I get a message from downstairs “do you want a bagel?” I responded, “Not really, maybe half”.

A few minutes later a plate arrives on my desk, a whole everything bagel slathered in butter and cinnamon sugar.  I just looked at it, kind of horrified, beginning to get a sense of the full extent of my nausea.  Reading my mind he asks, “How does it make you feel to look at it?”  I didn’t need to answer, and really I was too sick to get any words out.

I attempted to continue working, and eventually convinced myself to take a few bites.  I came downstairs with butter on my fingers feigning a bounce in my step, and after being asked to describe how my attempt to eat breakfast made me feel . . . I called out of work.

In any other relationship the morning would have gone differently.  Perhaps my partner would not have noticed I was ill, perhaps I would have called out independently and have felt guilty about it.  Maybe I would have been chased after with a thermometer and a bottle of Tylenol.  Only to be declared well enough to go to work.

This morning though, the dynamic came into play.  A visceral argument in the form of food I could not eat.  Placed in front of me by a partner who thought I was being ridiculous, and was determined to get me to admit it.

This event alone does not make us a power exchange dynamic, though it points to some of the most beautiful things about living in one.  How it comes to form in the most mundane activities.  After calling out I said, “I’m glad I decided to not go into today,” and I got the response, “You never were.”

Swinging is a term that relates to sex.  Typically with sex partners who have sex with other people.  Swingers actually have their own scene.  It’s large, has it’s own events, it’s own clubs.  Some of which are nicer than many of the BDSM venues.  There are VIP membership only swinger venues, house parties, and open venues.

BDSM on the other hand is, Bondage Discipline Sadism and Masochism.  It relates to parties doing these acts on one another.  Often in combination.  There tends to be an erotic component, though not always.  Many folks in BDSM are in relationships, and at times multiple relationships.  Play parties also tend to be fairly open.  People often play with strangers, usually at least one of the parties in the scene has another partner.

Though this doesn’t equal swinging as play does not equal sex.  Rather the central feature in play relates to the tenants of BDSM.  It revolves around the giving of pain, and power exchange.  While people in BDSM often have multiple play partners, this by default does not mean that they have sex with each of them, nor does it mean that there is any sort of sexual stimulation involved.

However, there are folks who are into BDSM and are also swingers.

Swinging also isn’t polyamory.  Polyamory is about multiple intimate relationships.  Polyamorous individuals often do have sex with each of their partners, though it is not the primary reason for the relationship.  Rather, polyamory bases itself on the other aspects of relationships.  Love, intimacy, and communication.

However, polyamorous individuals may have sex just for the sake of having sex, and may also identify with swinging.  Many people involved in BDSM also identify as poly.

Why are these definitions important?  It kind of upsets the flow of at the bondage party when someone approaches your primary partner and attempts to demand them to have sex with someone.  With some twisted understanding that kind of behavior is appropriate.  Often times at bdsm parties I and/or my partner have been approached as if we were there to have sex.  Rather than being there to beat the crap out of each other, as well as our closest friends.

However, when I’m at swinger venues this behavior doesn’t bother me, and there is an immediate understanding that is why many other people are there.  The nature of our play tends to be more sexual and exhibitionist.  I also do not go up to people and ask of I can hit them, light them on fire, or stab them with needles.  Though when I’m at a BDSM party I’d like that same level of respect from the swingers in attendance.  Because it’s perfectly ok to demand that I beat the shit out of someone, just don’t demand me to sleep with them.

There is a lot written about sub space, as well as top space.  Both I find very enjoyable, and they are both unique.  However, they aren’t my favorite, and my kind of fun I often don’t see explictly written.

While I enjoy the intense connection from my sadistic little actions to my partners writhing, moaning, screaming reactions.  The intense detail, how I can track the response, on the best days predict them.  How I also enjoy feeling helpless, totally letting pain in, the meditative state managing surrender.  There is something else.

My favorite partnerships are switch/switch.  And not in the way where we say, “You’re on the bottom tonight.”  In the way where it’s a continous war zone.  So much of my tolerance of submission comes from not focusing on my decisions and actions.  In many ways I give those up entirely.

There is nothing like the terror of knowing I am no where near the headspace for pain.  Nothing more humilating than knowing I am clawing for control I am not going to get in that moment.  That my contentedness with my wickedness is going to be taken in an instant.

Yesterday my partner got a new tattoo while bored at work, quite conveniently on his ass.  During play he joked I hadn’t hit it yet, and he had his guard down just enough for me to get a really hard smack in.  As he was wailing I was laughing my ass off, smiling, feeling proud, of both of us.  Feeling a bit of the smugness of, “Oh, I made you do that.”

However as the screaming and the writhing started to die down I felt the dread of my moment of fulfillment ending.  I was in a freefall grasping for that serenity of submission which I knew I was going to need for the next strike, though not wanting to let go of my brief moment of control.  My eyes darted around, I felt my muscles tense and untense, testing the environment for where it was going to come from, and, “SLAM!”

“I’m not going to be the only one who can’t sit down,”  I hear distantly outside my screaming obscenities.

It’s the clawing confusion of am I going to let this in, or keep fighting.  Figuring out how to work around being held down and hurt.  Using consenting to being on better behavior as an excuse to be very bad the very next instant.  It’s mindset onto itself.  With my emotions seething, my thoughts scattered all over the place, the haphazard awareness of details, the very raw nature of the pain, the anger and the love.  It’s mindblowing.

My boyfriend and I had a vanilla moment, I felt my mind slip out from under me.  It was a peculiar dissociative episode as I have no trauma related to vanilla intimacy, there were no flashbacks or any other signs of stress.  My mind clicked off simply because I wasn’t into it.

It would make me sad, except it would mean mourning something I never lost.  I’ve always been into violent, and at the very least rough sex.  There’s room in my heart for soft tender moments, though always afterward.  Breathing out and processing what was shared.

How strange is it that this is my orientation?

It was a confusing and disconcerting shutdown as we really like each other and are extremely attracted to one another.  However, once we were back to beating the shit out of one another everything was right in the world again.

It felt right, and fell right in line with everything that has felt right in the past.

It was a new moment in recognizing this as a part of my identity.  That when it comes to what I want it involves violence, force, or being under command.  Anything else and I’m liable to feel like a very straight southern bapist man who suddenly realizes his not the only one in the bedroom with a penis.

However, not all my past relationships were BDSM.  Yet, all of my favored experiences had a certain chemistry.  Confident men determined to get what they want.  Boys I argue with and make me cry a lot of the time.  Except my marriage which only started out feisty, all my long term relationships had a BDSM orientation.  It allowed for the electricity of those other encounters, without the tears afterwards.

It amuses me that my wires are so crossed that it took me until this past year to realize I was different.  As my sexuality has always included this.  So from the very beginning I was drawn to partners who share my penchant for violence, force, pain and blood.  That most of  first, and all my memorable experiences with sex have involved aspects of BDSM.

While I have always felt affinity with the scene it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve been able to recognize the depth of it.  Those dark waters explain so much.

I said to an old friend last night, “Who would have ever thought I’d turn out to be a pyro?”  I was the kid who was afraid to move their finger through the candle flame.  In March 2004 I saw my first fire performance, and I was so entranced I just had to learn it.  Though I remained tentative around flame.  Always taking every precaution possible, and for years never touched it.

Yet on Friday after my performance I was nervous.  I felt like I hadn’t done anything particularly special.  The whole time there wasn’t a moment of danger or anything that was unexpected.  Fire is now a friend.  I understand it, every moment I’m working from it.  Moving through flame, contact with flame, holding it in my mouth, and eating it.  It’s a subject I know and am comfortable with.  Being scared of it is a memory.

It took remembering my old fear to recognize what I gave to the audience.  Remembering the work of countless moments with fire.  It’s a relationship I’ve been building for over five years.  At this point is so familiar, and filled with so much joy and love.  My last thought is that it is unusual.

I love replacing fear with understanding.  The confrontation is the best part for me.  The moment when the relationship begins to change.  What I admire about folks in the scene is their lack of fear and total regard for what they do.

When I tell people I have an aversion to needles, some folks say maybe it’s not your thing.  Though I think of it much like fire, full of old fears, I view it as a stranger.  It is simply something I need to get to know.  I want to understand it, I want to be familiar with the sensation, to form a relationship with it.

For me, it’s spiritual.  It’s a closeness to the soul.  Everytime I surpass a limit I learn, I get closer to myself, and to that which I’ve confronted.  I succeed when I am in full awareness of it, ceasing to filter myself within the moment.  It’s a journey that’s endless.  That’s part of the joy, there will always be something new to experience.

When other people are included on this journey, for whatever length of time we are allowed to share the path we get to also forge this connection with each other.  People who have lent themselves to scenes with me, even simply lent themselves as witnesses, I feel that connection with.  A shared knowledge of what we are.

There is a kitten on my desk, I brought him home from work about a week ago in a little cardboard box.  He has brought the house a lot of joy, and has already done a lot to balance out our two other cats.  We spent much of the weekend chasing the kitten around.  I’ve taken to throwing the kitten into the air, as he likes flipping around in the air, while my partner tussles with him.

Yesterday we put the kitten in the still empty curio cabinet, and got this lovely shot:

The kitten then proceeded to claw the “U” key out of my laptop, the key still isn’t completely back in place, though thankfully wasn’t damaged.

This past Thursday was our first BDSM movie night.  I got tied to a banister and slapped around with a fly swatter.  Afterwards I enjoyed a cigarette:

It was an awesome time.  I love integrating kink with catching up with friends and normal “hanging out” activities.  I love watching these amazing things we do be integrated into our day to day interactions with each other.  It’s a beautiful thing.  I’m looking forward to more movie nights, and similar gatherings.  Where kink is 100% accepted, but not neccessary and perhaps not even the focus of the event.  As it is who we are that makes us do what we do, and through enjoying one another’s company we can truly appreciate one another.

That being said, I am totally looking forward to the all night kink carnival extravaganza this weekend.  There is a place for that too.

I spent the past two days finishing with unpacking.  Throughout moving, family crises, and all else that has been going on for the past year I can’t get over how damn happy and thankful I am.  How hopeful I am for an even brighter future.

I came home today and went up to my studio.  Read up on fetlife, uploaded photos, listened to a Lochai interview.  Got some time in with my cat, making sure she knows she is still loved with all the kitten adventures.  Listening to the sounds of drug dealin ice cream trucks, birds, and city noise.  I really can’t imagine life being all that much better than this, and realizing it doesn’t really need to be.

Last summer I got into a long standing arguement with a dominant over whether or not recovery was an ongoing process, or is it possible to be recovered.  As to remain in recovery focuses on continual progress and growth, though it is also a bit disempowering as it states that one is not “better”, and most likely never will be.

The undercurrent of the past year has been rebuilding my life into something where I feel comfortable and safe.  While I had physical safety in my marriage, for the present and future; I often felt like I went unheard.  To not be heard I have learned is the biggest threat to me feeling any sense of safety at all.

Fast forward to today where I am well respected at my job, have amazing friends and an amazing partner who accept me.  I’m living in a space that is comfortable, and familiar.  A space that also allows me to do the things I want to be able to do in life.  From being able to easily pick up that one thing I need from the store, to being able to sit quietly and type.

Am I safe?  Tricky question, though in terms of the world around me I couldn’t imagine it being any better.  In terms of my overall sense of self, it’s also about the same.  However, unlike my friend I do not believe this process is complete.

So much memory is still dug into the very bottom of my mind.  The very strong palpitable emotions still rise to the surface namelessly.  Occasionally fragments break off and I get little flashes of the past back.  Often nothing bad at all, but almost always from something forgotten.

The path is still before me, and it always will be.  Though I know more about it, and am more prepared for the journey.  While there will still be rough patches, and very old things may rise up with the same terror of so many years ago; I am in a different place.

The question of whether or not I’m “better”, is ridiculous though.  As I was never broken.  At times I had issues, and symptoms that have derailed my life, and while I still cope with those symptoms today, I doubt anyone looking at me from the outside would take any notice.

My life is full, and functional.  I’m on target, perhaps beyond, for my age.  Overall I’m happy.  I have more good days then bad days.  All those things that we seek as fulfillment in life I’ve got.  How I have gotten to these things, and how I weave my life to be able to maintain them is just a little different.

What trauma gave me is awful perspective.  And as deep and dark as it can be, it is just as much light.  It is so deep that to recover I have to not be afraid of the depth and attempt to understand it.  The result is a unique wisdom, one I cherish, and am often credited for.

And I prefer wisdom, over being “better”.