Well, this sucks

So I found a lump in my breast a few weeks ago. The short version is, it felt like a cyst, my doctor concurred and sent me for an ultrasound to be sure. The ultrasound showed something hinky so she referred me to a surgeon. The surgeon referred me to get a mammogram (or as I like to call it, a mammojammogram because squish!) and then an ultrasound-guided biopsy. But the mammojammogram showed some other hinky stuff that the ultrasound wouldn't pick up, so now I have to re-confer with the surgeon and will probably need surgery just to get the stinking biopsy.

Fuck.

There's still a good chance that it will turn out to be nothing, but there is a small chance that it will be something. And if the something is bad enough, a mastectomy might be in order, which raises an interesting questions: to reconstruct, or not to reconstruct?

 

 

I had always thought (and if you have boobs, this particular what if has probably crossed your mind at some point) that if it came down to it, I wouldn't do the reconstruction, but would instead have some awesome  tattoo work done over the scar. Now that I am actually close to facing this question for real, I'm not so sure. I won't get an implant - I just get the heebie-jeebies at the thought of some foreign object implanted in my body, so no. But if they could do a suck-fat-from-elsewhere-and-inject-it sort of procedure, I might consider that. I think the asymmetry would bother me more than I had previously thought.

I'm queer in a genderfluid sort of way, and lately have been trending towards the androgenous-to-masculine side of the spectrum. I've had a few issues with dysphoria, but my boobs have never been the cause. They're not large enough to really get in the way, and I can generally ignore them - I've never felt compelled to bind. And to be honest, I'm pretty fond of them looks-wise (though I've never like them to be played with much). Images of trans and queer folks across the spectrum can resonate with me, but images like this resonate the most. I think that comes closest to my self-image, although the physical reality is of course quite different, as I have innie parts and not outie. So I'm pretty concerned that the uni-boob look would actually cause a fair amount of dysphoria for me.

And then there's this. Right now, I have a body that basically conforms to how society thinks bodies should look, except, perhaps, for the extensive tattoos and the queerness (which I can play up or down depending on my preference and/or circumstances).  The point in both those cases is that not conforming is a decision that is my choice. A major physical change like this would take that choice out of my hands. And that non-chosen non-conformity also potentially complicates the whole finding a partner thing - which is difficult enough with all the "right" parts in place.

So that's where I am - not really any closer to a decision, just working out the various issues in my head. And hoping I won't actually have to make the decision after all.

To the Dungeon!

I took a trip to my local dungeon on Saturday for a Kink 101 event. Having nothing to really compare it to, it seemed like a fairly functional space but very much a work in progress. All of the furniture and some of the play equipment looked a bit shabby and worn, and the place could use a coat of paint and new flooring. It shares space in sort of a business/industrial park with a photography studio, so it has more of an office/warehouse-type feel than a club-type feel.  I thought that was kind of odd, but I hadn't really known what to expect so, whatever.

The people were all lovely and welcoming, but damn was it disorganized. I showed up an hour and a half before the event was supposed to start in order to help set up (so my broke ass wouldn't have to pay for it). The event organizers didn't show up until at least an hour after that, and then it took forever for things to get started. The presenters wound up having to take it upon themselves to start and figure out who would do what when. So I'm actually glad I volunteered because I would have been really aggravated if I had paid for it.

I caught demos on needle play, rope bondage, and a bit of caning. Needle play is probably something I could do, since I'm comfortable handling hypodermics and used to do so quite a lot at a former job. It's not something I'd really do for my own pleasure, though I did have fun watching the demo top have so much fun eliciting noises from her demo bottom (all the while claiming she was not at all sadistic!).  For the rope session I got to tie a chest harness, which turned out kind of half-assed but I had fun doing it nonetheless. I won't remember how to do it after just one time through, but it was good to just get a feel for it. It just reinforced the desire to find someone I can practice on - a lot. The caning didn't really do anything for me, so I cut out of that one early and went home, skipping the open play option.

As frustrating as it was due to the organizational issues, I'm glad I went. The experience confirmed a few things that I had suspected. First, that I love to play with rope! Rope rope rope! Fun fun fun! I would play with rope every day if I could. I really need to hook up with some local riggers and get into some workshops or something. Rope!

Second thing is that I have absolutely no desire to play in public, or outside of an established relationship. The intimacy involved is just not something I can conjure up with a stranger, nor is it something I care to let others in on. I suppose if I attended an event or play party with a partner I might feel differently - never say never and all that. Although I will say this with utter certainty - I will never bottom. But that's fodder for another post.

Guess who?

Do submissive men hate women?

That was my attempt at an over-the-top, sensationalist headline to introduce a piece on psychological research. It’s a time honored tradition, in which people writing about said research blow the findings out of proportion in the title, and don’t reveal until the second or third paragraph what the researcher’s findings actually were. So, do submissive men hate women? Let’s find out.

I recently came across this journal article by Will Damon while looking for something different but related. The study it’s based on is not recent – it was published back in 2003. Here’s the gist of it:

Damon hypothesized that dominant, heterosexual men with a BDSM bent would score lower in measures of self-esteem and higher in measures of sexism than men who identified as submissive. What he found was exactly the reverse – subs scored significantly lower in self-esteem and higher in sexism than either doms or switches*.

Huh.

Interestingly, the study measured both “hostile sexism” – the overt, male supremacy, female sex object stuff – as well as “benevolent sexism” – the women are pure, fragile snowflakes in need of male protection stuff. I assume (though I don’t know) that would include some of the “women are inherently better” reverse sexism seen in female supremacy circles. If that’s the case, I might have expected to see that measure be somewhat higher in the sub group, but they actually were higher in both sexism measures (the difference was a bit more extreme on the benevolent measure, though). It should, of course, be noted that while these differences across groups were statistically significant, their scores weren’t that much higher than doms – meaning that doms were still pretty sexist. Combined sexism scores for doms = 3.23, switches = 3.53, and subs = 3.91, so not a huge spread. Here’s where a comparison to a non-BDSM control group would have been interesting and useful, but the study didn’t include that.

The self-esteem issue wasn’t so surprising to me. Damon based his hypothesis about doms potentially having low self-esteem on previous research that showed prejudice against minorities and women in non-traditional roles correlated with low self-esteem, as did spousal abuse – which only makes sense if you think doms dom because they want to keep women “in their place” or because they want to be abusive. This particular study didn’t support the idea that doms choose their role as a compensatory mechanism. Of course, certain individuals might be motivated by low self-esteem, but it’s not true of doms as a group. One reason Damon proposes for subs being lower in this measure is that doms are in a role which aligns with traditional masculinity, while subs are in a role which conflicts with it.  I think that’s probably right – it takes a considerable psychological toll to be going against the grain of societal expectations, and the rejection people experience when they do that can be a big hit on self-esteem.

So, the important question for me when faced with research like this is, so what? How are the findings practically useful? The first thing that comes to mind is the difficulty some subs have in finding a partner – either long-term or just for play. The message here is: Boys, check your sexism and realize that you are not a worm. 

Of course, difficulty finding “the one” could be due to any number of reasons, from having a small local pool from which to find a compatible partner, to general social awkwardness, to a hundred other reasons. But if you’re in that position, making sure you’re not a sexist douche or bringing a crushing load of self-esteem issues with you should be high on the list of things to work on. That shit’s not sexy. For myself, I won’t be bothered with a partner who doesn’t identify as a feminist or feminist ally – I have no energy or inclination to argue about my basic humanity. And I’m not qualified to be a therapist. So work on your stuff, please. It’s way easier to attract a suitable partner when they can focus on the positive things you can bring to the relationship, instead of the negatives they would have to deal with to be with you.

The other thing that comes to mind is the need to do away with strict adherence to, and policing of, gender binaries. But geez, that's a doctoral dissertation in itself.

*The usual caveats about this type of research apply. The sample size was relatively small (although for a study of this type, not terribly small: 143 doms, 101 subs, and 98 switches). All were given self-report surveys which were designed to measure self-esteem and sexism, but only a small sub-sample participated in follow-up interviews which were more in-depth. Also, there was no non-BDSM “control” group for comparison. So generalizing to the larger BDSM community may or may not be warranted.

Welcome to Fundom!

I've spent the better part of this year trying to figure out where I fit: gender-wise, sexuality-wise, DS-wise. I'll eventually write about the gender stuff - a lot of Dev's recent post resonated with me (a lot!) and I'm still ruminating on that. But this post is about my view of DS, and where - or if - I fit within the realm of femdom.

It's been interesting because I'm coming at this pretty cold and relatively late in life. While I have always had a sense of the pop culture view of dominant women (a dim view indeed) and the stereotypical dominatrix, I haven't been involved in the BDSM scene at all. Those views are pretty much what kept me from exploring my dominant side sooner. I remember in my very early twenties I started thinking about maybe sort of looking into being a "Mistress" and developing a dominant style (at least in the bedroom), but was put off by the stereotypical latex-clad, stiletto-sporting wank fodder that didn't represent my sexuality at all. So I just kind of dropped it - leading to some very unfulfilling sex and relationships (a story for another time).

Fast forward umpteen years. When I first started poking around the online community this year, I saw quite a bit that made me cautious to identify with DS and femdom, but also quite a bit that resonated with me enough to feel I was nearing home. On the home side, there's been reading through the archives at Male Submission Art, the glory that is Tumblr, and the writings of real flesh-and-blood dominants like Dev, and Ferns, and Stabbity, and Professor Chaos and Fizz.

On the caution side, I've read a lot from others who have much more experience than I do in the BDSM community, and I'll have to rely on their assessment of  the privileging of doms, and the devaluing of submissive men that abounds. I don't doubt that these are real systemic issues within the community. It does, after all, exist within a larger overarching culture that is sexist and misogynistic, so I wouldn't expect the BDSM community to be magically immune to all of that crap. So yeah, color me absolutely unsurprised that traditionally "masculine" coded things like dominance are privileged, and that those who don't neatly fit the gender binary are marginalized and penalized.

Others have written about seemingly prevalent assumptions about dominance, and the various things that are wrong with femdom. I've read plenty of pieces disparaging the "true domme" "true sub" "one true way of DS" bullshit. But the thing is, I've never actually read any article/blog post or talked to anyone that seriously supported those claims to "truth." And I'm left wondering, who exactly are all these folks arguing with?

Maybe I'm just a young whipper snapper who has no memory of how things used to be with all the rules protocols, and formal hierarchies. Maybe it's just a reflection of the enlightened little corner of the DS Internet community that I've stumbled into (see blogroll to the right). Maybe the folks writing these pieces are distilling and aggregating the essence of a hundred different experiences they've had in person and online with "One Truers" and others who embody whatever aspect of DS or femdom they're critiquing. I don't know. I just know that I have no direct experience of these One Truers and others, and it's almost like I'm hearing a completely one-sided argument when I read these pieces. I tend to agree with them, but I have yet to come across somebody actually arguing the other side (e.g., taking the position that there is a right way/wrong way to do DS, dommes should be ice queens, subs can't have a sense of self-worth/take care of their own needs, etc.). Those people probably exist, but are they really that prominent, wielding any kind of influence in the community? Or are they just nobs on the Internet?

If I tried to take an anti-Truer position myself I'd just feel like I was addressing some boogey strawdom that only exists in some vague, theoretical sense. So instead of negatively defining my sense of what it means to be dominant by describing what it isn't or critiquing various femdom stereotypes to determine what it shouldn't be or how those don't fit for me, I'd rather frame it in a positive way. In that spirit...

For me, dominance is:

• Responsible control
• Drawn from strength, tempered with flexibility
• Facilitative (i.e., "holding the space"*)
• Creative
• Intimate
• Nurturing
• Loving
• Playful
• And above all, FUN

All the rest is details that vary according to taste - the sprinkles on the hot fudge sundae. It doesn't matter what color they are, or if the nuts and the cherry on top are absent - those things don't make it any less of a delicious summer treat as long as the core components of ice cream and hot fudge are there. That's my incredibly stupid and inartful way of saying it's not what you do but how you do it that makes DS, and nothing is inherently dominant or inherently submissive**. Giving a bj can be a dominant act, being served dinner can be a submissive act, and just because I don't like whipping or degrading someone doesn't mean I'm not a "true" dominant or whatever.
 
So forget femdom and all its baggage! It's a mythical beast as far as I'm concerned, anyway. From now on, I'm identifying as a practitioner of fundom, where the only rule is: if you're not having (enthusiastic, consensual) fun, ur doin it wrong.


* Kitty Stryker talks a little about "building a container" here, and I hope to write more about this conception of dominant-as-vessel in the future.

**Ok - maybe not nothing...I find it difficult to conceive how a kowtow could be done in a dominant way. Prove me wrong!

Some thoughts on humiliation

Oh yeah, I have a blog

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? My tale of woe is brief and uninteresting but I’ll mention it anyway. First I was sick, then traveling on family business, all while suffering a terrible case of writer’s block. The block mysteriously lifted just when the motherboard on my computer got fried (yeah, yeah…surge protectors…lesson learned!). So now I can finally write about humiliation. Not a topic near and dear to my heart, actually, but one that has some interesting facets I’ve been mulling over lately. 

Two weeks ago I went to my fist happy hour/munch thing – my first “Scene” event of any kind. Being an incurable introvert, I really fucking hate meet-and-greet shit like that. Walking into a room full of complete strangers and being expected to chat with them is kind of torture to me, and I am not a masochist. But I do want to get to know people, make some friends/connections, find a nice little subbie boy I can call my own – so ya gotta do what ya gotta do I suppose. I met some nice people and everyone was very welcoming, and while I still felt completely out of place and awkward, it wasn’t unbearably terrible.

Anyway, what really enticed me out of my fortress of solitude was that there was going to be an educational presentation on the psychology of humiliation, and I’m all about the learning. Also, I was interested in the topic precisely because I tend to be put off by the thought of it – especially some of its more extreme manifestations – and I like to poke at the places where I find resistance in myself, because that’s where all of the most interesting things live.

The talk was led by Sea, who’s a good presenter and a lovely person as well. There were really two bits that he brought up that helped to clarify my thinking on this. The first was that “humiliation” is a broad category of play that exists on a continuum from embarrassment to humiliation to degradation.  The picture in my head was always that humiliation play really consisted of the more extreme forms of humiliation verging into degradation, so having a broader definition of this makes me realize this isn’t as hard a limit for me as I thought. A little bit of embarrassment or “light” humiliation to get the cheeks and ears flaming red can be a turn on, no doubt about it. I’d still draw the line at the harder stuff: seriously belittling/berating, public humiliation, watersports – that sort of thing. The next bit helped me understand why.

The second distinction Sea made was between DS humiliation and SM humiliation. DS of course is all about power and showing who’s in charge. Lots of stuff I like (kneeling, kowtowing, throat grabbing, etc.) actually fall under this, so already I’m realizing I’m more into humiliation play than I thought at first. The SM side contains the added element of emotional tension which results from loss of self-esteem or esteem in the eyes of others.

The SM humiliation is where my hard limits lie. I like to think that I’m just not sadistic enough to enjoy that, but that would be a conceit and, alas, not true. I think a big part of what’s behind my aversion is that I know I could go there, and I think it’s a pretty ugly place psychology speaking. Ugly is, of course, a huge judgment, but that’s what it feels like to me – a big, ugly, fangy monster dripping with venom and bile that lurks in a very deep, underground place. 

I have tapped into that place before in a non-DS context, and it scared the hell out of me.  First, because it’s a very powerful and primal place – that kind of raw power in your hands being directed at another person can be terrifying. But also there’s the fear of not being able to come back from it once I’ve gone there. I would need to know that I could maintain my own balance and control when I’m in that mind frame, and that I could stuff the monster back in its pit when playtime was over. I think that’s pretty advanced stuff, and that kind of comfort level would only come for me (if at all) in the context of a safe and trust-ridden long term relationship. I think it takes a certain amount of skill on the part of the sub to be able to draw this out (safely) as well, and I kind of get Maymay’s point about pushing a dom’s limits a little better now.

So the moral to the story is that this remains a hard limit. However, I could see that perhaps changing under the right alignment of stars and with the right partner.

The End.

Hopefully I’ll be updating this thing more often from now on. Also, I’ve signed up for Nanowrimo and will be writing smutty smut, so as it’s polished up I’ll probably post it here. Also also, if you haven’t checked it out yet I do have a Tumblr that gets updated with pretty pictures just about daily.

Adventures with Craigslist #1: Does what it says on the tin

So I was over on Craigslist looking to see if any submissive guys actually use the local site and if so, curious to see the quality of said ads (for the interested: only a very small handful, mostly multiple posters, ranging from the one-liner "sub for domme, must be local" to a 5-page diatribe about how he wants to serve the right woman).

Of course, searches for "submissive" or "dominant" bring up mostly male dom ads. Against my better judgment, I clicked on a few. There was one guy talking the "sensual dom" talk, the rest were somewhere between "leave your entire social support network and move to Vegas" and "come and be my football wench every Sunday, serving up sandwiches and bj's at halftime." Yawn.

Then I clicked on this seemingly innocuous one because, well, "stuff" (not linking because it will be gone in a day or two):


"Require younger submissive for...stuff"

And here's what greeted me:

"naturally dominant seeking naturally submissive for play leading to potential relationship. play could include light bondage dom-sub to more hard-core bdsm. curious girls welcome, limits somewhat respected."

Did you pick out the important bit in there? I bet you did.

"...limits somewhat respected."

Helpful (and hopefully unnecessary) translation:

"If I don't agree with your limits, I will totally rape and/or sexually assault you."

Well, thanks for the warning, Sparky. I considered flagging the post, but that might lead him to re-post without the whole "I might rape you" caveat.* And actually, I wish all potential rapists would be as up front about their intentions. That would be so incredibly helpful!

"SWM looking for hot chick to live out misogynist fantasies. Has a toxic sense of entitlement, no respect for other people's boundaries, and is totally lacking in empathy. Loves camping and red wine. No fatties!"

Yeah, so I trust nobody is stupid enough to play with this guy. People generally are what they say they are. As Maya Angelou said, “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”





*Ugh - poking around since I wrote this draft, I see he has posted again without the rape caveat.  I guess advertising the fact that he might be a rapist actually didn't bring all the girlies to the yard. Shocking. Of course, now I'm worried someone will actually answer him.