Yes, My Lady: Strategic BDSM

I want to encourage practitioners of bondage and discipline (BD), dominance and submission (DS), fetishism, and sadomasochism (SM) to think about why you engage in sex acts called BD, DS, fetishism and SM. If you are new to sadomasochistic, queer practices and the BDSM community, don't fret, this discussion stills apply to you. However, I have found in My ten years of domination and submission that the people in most need of examination of their acts are seasoned players. It has been My experience that while most novices thoroughly ponder and explore as much as the "why" as "how" of BDSM, many experienced players lose interest in the exploration of why they practice BDSM somewhere along the journey. Be it from repetition or burnout, they forget or lose interest that BDSM is a constant journey, not a destination.



Strategic BDSM asks an unusually clear and direct question about BD, DS, SM, and fetishism: Why? BDSM, or more appropriately the desire behind BDSM, is typically regarded by practitioners as instinctual, often unconscious, a force from the id and libido. However, as a lifestyle Switch and Professional Dominant, I do not operate this way. I prefer My sexual acts to lead, not be led by some blind force such as the id or libido. I think incessantly about BDSM: before, during, and after, especially after. I strive to examine why BDSM is powerful, what values I am projecting to make BDSM powerful, and why other players believe BDSM to be powerful. I not only strive to keep BDSM's power intact, but I also strive to use BDSM's power.



The most important thing we can produce while examining and engaging in BDSM is knowledge about BDSM's potential and effects. BDSM, after all, is one of the most imaginative ways of harnessing and putting to work the energy and power of sex. Mine is sex with a purpose, sex with direction: strategic BDSM.



Describing the attendance of Mike's first public play party, "Playing, no, the playspace, was like this big magnet. It was like the scenes had some form of control over me, but it was this weird kind of control -- I didn't feel violated, just pulled. I wanted to go away with something tangible, but the scene offered nothing material. I didn't want my yearning to end. I could see and feel the players' energy. I didn't play that night, I promised myself I wouldn't, but I got to see, no, to experience, something that I never have before."



Dialogue, critique, sharing of discoveries, and the passing on of BDSM history require a public forum. One-to-one communication behind closed bedroom or dungeon doors is the least effective method of disseminating information, building skills, or sharing ideas. Hence, a great deal of strategic BDSM is happening right here, right now, between you, the reader, and Me, the author: public BDSM. We must continue to use the resources such as the Internet to discover and promote the powerful influence of BDSM when it goes beyond closed doors. You will learn how to be, where and how to play in chatrooms, through hotlines, guides, invitations, advertisements, listings, and web pages, passed hand-to-mouth. For the seasoned player, these interactions constantly change you, renegotiating who you are and how you play.



Strategic BDSM does not offer writing about BDSM so much as it shows writing as sex--the cause for censorship among social convention and many US lawmakers. Those who support the censorship of sex, BDSM, and public displays of such acts, view writing about BDSM as sex, as something dangerous if expressed publicly. You may not wish to accept how others define your BDSM, but as this column will show you, you are playing with a force that often knows its own power by how threatened people are by it.



Public BDSM, like public sex, is often dismissed and censored as a perversion with shallow, selfish motives. To leave the analysis there belies the great anxiety, the sex panic, public BDSM arouses in our culture, which fears the body, power, and sex. We would lose the important analysis of how class, race, gender, and privilege inflect the definition, maintenance, and even challenge of social boundaries of proper/improper.



Ours is a pleasure that requires a collective space. The presence of a willing and knowing audience makes our relationships and us visible to others. Public BDSM spaces maneuver players into something other than our other public identities. The public playspace, the dungeon, the alley, the leather bar, the sex club, Folsom Street Fair, is an asset, an accumulation of techniques and scenarios. We are all apprentices to the space. Our fetishes, our toys are fields of possibilities among bodies, hands, and holes.



BDSM does not make us whole but we make each other the scene on which the practices particular to our BDSM spaces are enacted. Many look for sex and BDSM to be the expression of their fullest being. I question, Is pleasure a sign of your privacy and self-possession? Or rather, Is privacy and self-possession a sign of your pleasure? The public BDSM space will expose and see you and your values. Do not think you can use the space of BDSM without being changed by it.



I become different every time I engage in public BDSM. By doing, I make future BDSM encounters possible. I would like to think that I mark the space as much as the space alters me, but I know better. My Western upbringing attempts to push the individual as all-powerful and all knowing. It is through public BDSM that I learn better.



Public display of private realities disseminates information and facilitates change. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Public BDSM is community building and social reimagining. Like private BDSM, public BDSM is thrilling and depressing, paradoxical and contradictory. Like this column, boundaries are blurred and definitions are messy in public BDSM. Strategic BDSM is about questioning, thinking, and exploring. I will not provide you definitive answers or pronouncements. Rather than resolve, I hope to deepen the journey of BDSM, and, in so doing, inspire more exploration, thought, and discussion. And more BDSM.

Yes, My Lady: Depriving Senses

This holiday season, I was so busy that all I wished for was a quiet moment when things could calm down. On the 20th of December, I traveled to New York City to visit friends, some of my leather family, and some extended family. I also traveled to New York to serve as Visiting Mistress at L'oeil Cache, Manhattan's premiere dungeon and playspace, holding five fully-equipped, beautifully designed, different rooms. I managed to catch a terrible cold in the midst of the freezing temperatures. However, the cold could not stop Me, as I managed to shop, eat, visit Rockefeller Center, play, see a production, and still have time for My clients! On December 28th, I returned to San Francisco only to find boxes of gifts waiting at the post office, UPS, and Federal Express. Furthermore, My San Francisco clients just could not wait for the holidays to be over, as My phone has been ringing non-stop. Take Me away! When I had a moment to rest, what I realized I needed was a scene to take My senses away. I wanted Sensory Deprivation.



Sensory deprivation can be used to achieve different effects -- it can induce a quiet, meditative state, like being in a flotation tank, or it can make people feel frightened and lonely, like being in a punishment cell in prison. It can be refreshing and pleasant for a short time. However, after several hours, it can have strong effects.



When the mind is deprived of input, it begins to invent tasks to work on. I was in sensory deprivation for about 10 hours, and I went through the entire Elton John Greatest Hits Album. If it goes on too long, a person can begin hallucinating. However, this is exactly the effect I wanted. I trusted My dear slave to place Me in our body bag, wrapped in tight rope bondage. We placed ear plugs in My ears, a breathing gag in My mouth, eye-shades over My eyes, and a nose-plug over My nose. I needed the world to go away...to be deprived of touch, taste, hearing, smell, and sight.



The deprivation of touch



Leather mitts are often used to limit the sense of touch, but here's how to do it on the cheap. Everybody has pantyhose -- whoops, I should say, everybody either has pantyhose or has some sissy slut with pantyhose.



I suggest you pull out a pair of black pantyhose and cut off the legs and feet. Give your slave one of the pieces to hold in her/his hand, and then put one of the cut-off feet over the same hand, using duct tape to fasten it in place. Use lots of duct tape and cover the entire hand and wrist. The piece that your slave is holding in her/his hand will keep her/his hand more comfortable. A really savvy bottom will use her/his teeth to get the tape off, so you may need to gag her/him or fasten her/his hand where s/he can't reach them!



The deprivation of taste



You can deprive someone of the ability to taste for a short time by giving her/him something really hot to eat. Otherwise, it's quite delicious to deprive your victim of things that taste good -- for instance, you can feed somebody bland food for a week. Alternatively, you could eat a really nice meal and throw your bottom's entire portion into a blender -- so s/he is eating the same thing you are, but it comes out all brown and disgusting!



The deprivation of hearing



You can mask someone's sense of hearing in a few different ways. You can put a Walkman on your bottom, and put it between stations so that s/he is just hearing white noise. I like to use earplugs -- I like the ones that come in a little carrying case because then I can give them to the bottom as a present. Or, you can make your bottom listen to things she finds unpleasant, like the Barney song. I like Rage Against the Machine: I play with people that don't.



The deprivation of smell



It is difficult to deprive somebody of smell, but you can put Vicks VapoRub on your bottom and s/he will not know what is coming next. If you want to be a nice Top, you can give your bottom something pleasant to smell: an orange or an orange with cloves. Smell triggers many memories for people.



The deprivation of sight



A blindfold is one of the first toys people play with -- blindfolds are a novice Top's best friend. The Top may be fumbling with the equipment, unable to get the knots right, convinced She is ruining the scene. At the same time, the blindfold bottom may be thinking, "Oh, this timing is so great."



Blindfolding someone can also be a punishment. The bottom misses the reassurance of eye contact, and does not know what is going on around her/him. On the other hand, it may be a reward because it reduces distraction. It certainly increases a sense of vulnerability in the bottom.



I recommend that bottoms get their own blindfolds -- you may cry in them, and it is nicer to know that you are only rubbing against your own old tears.



As I came out of hibernation...out of My body bag, My womb, My dear slave stepped forward to try on her latex hood with laces in the back. The front has two layers: the inside is a mask, with cutouts for the eyes, nose and mouth, and the outer layer can be zipped closed to cover her face tightly. I stroked the outside of My slave's head, and then zipped the front closed. Could My slave breathe? Yes, she could breathe through the zipper. I kept My hand on her shoulder and said, "I am staying close because you could get disoriented. I will not leave it on too long, either, because it's hot in here."