WYSIWYG

Last weekend I was doing things around the apartment and I put on Unspeakable Axe's Masocast, the kinkster's answer to the Charlie Rose show. Axe is a very engaging and funny interviewer. His shows illuminate the Scene in creative ways that I've not run across in any other venue. As well, I just cranked up the volume and did stuff while he chatted away. Other times when I'd listened, I'd stolen moments here and there, worried that my wife would come in and I'd get "busted". But now, as I approach a year of separation, I just let it rip.

I listened to two or three shows, but was most engaged by the talk with Stephen Elliot. Retired Domme suggested I read Elliot's book, "My Girlfriend Comes To The City And Beats Me Up". Lazy pleasure reader that I am, I've only gotten through a few of the erotic vingettes. He is an accomplished and talented writer who is open and out about being submissive to dominant women. He, Axe, and Alex talked about his writing, his life, and his politics. In his introduction to "My Girlfriend" Stephen writes;

"We can't wait for the approval of others; we must force them to accept us. We will never have political power until we let the politicians know we are not ashamed."

In theory I completely agree, but reality makes it a very complicated proposition. Alex questioned Stephen quite closely about this idea and while she obviously agreed with him, she recognized that many people have a lot to lose by being "out". She's quite out herself, but she defended those of us who still fly beneath the radar. She wondered if society was really ready to open its arms to those courageous enough proclaim their kink.

I think if everyone who had ever seen a prodomme, worked responsibly in the sex industry, played kinky games in the bedroom, or bought bdsm toys took to the streets, put their fists in the air, and chanted loud, proud, and in unison; "We love our kink and your laws stink" - it would be impossible to dismiss us as a marginal, twisted, lurkingly dangerous sub-culture.

I feel like I'm pretty out. I've lost my marriage over my kink, most friends who really know me, at least know I like my women dommy, and in the Scene if you know my first name and what I do for a living, which is most everyone I know; you can immediately find my law firm's website.

But I'm not really out in the way Stephen Elliot is or in the way it takes to force political change. I'm afraid that lawyers who refer me business would stop and I'd starve. Judges and prosecutors I fret, would look at me differently. I'm terrified that clients, who want a tough guy trial lawyer, would not understand I'm a fearless knight for my Queen, but would scoff that I'm a wimpy, sniveling milquetoast. Which, of course I am - but only if she demands it.

Writing is a powerful tool. I've toyed with trying to write a fictional account of my relationship with She-Who-Visits and getting it pubished in my own name. Of course it would be a smash best seller, and like Elliot's "Adderall Diaries", a famous actor would buy it, want to play me, and I'd become a legend in more than just my own mind.

Stephen Elliot says "My Girlfriend" is "not a memoir, but it's damn close. And I'm OK with that. And I'm okay with you knowing that."

I wonder - would I be okay with my whole world knowing that?

How Would Broken Find The Bone?

I've been reading back posts from Alisa's Kink in Exile blog. She's an excellent writer, very insightful, funny, worldly wise, and since I'm having lunch with her next week during her road trip East, I'm shamelessly sucking up to her. Anyway, she wrote a piece about a year and a half ago called "You're Not Alone" in which she talked about not really ever feeling by her lonesome with her kinkiness because she had the Internet. She asked the following questions:

"For those of you who were kinky before the internet what did it look like? When and how did you get the language to talk about it and with whom did you talk about it? How did being kinky feel before you had the words or the context to describe it?"

I was very kinky before the Internet. I had my first pro session in about 1977 and was haunting bdsm magazine stores well before that. Screw Magazine ads were my source of contact with dommes. Letters to P.O. boxes were the email or Googletalk of the day. It all seemed very underground, clandestine and dangerous. I remember not really believing that dommes existed. Forget language to discuss kink, I really did very little talking about it. Up until this past year the only people who ever knew I was kinky were my former wife, long-term girlfriend, wife, shrink and all the prodommes I saw over the years. Being kinky felt isolated, lonely, volatile, uncontrollable, unstable, hot blooded and delicious. But I ended up feeling ashamed. I was a freak and a pervert because I was all alone.

In another post entitled "On Being and Doing" Alisa reminisced about kink, community and her exile as a relief worker in a remote area of Southeast Asia.

"I had the benefit of coming out in a college town, and of having patient mentors and a supportive community. And of course I have been lucky enough to play with some amazing people who never cease to challenge and inspire me.

So what happens when you divorce kink from community? From context and availability? One of the questions that I kept asking myself when I moved from my supportive college town to a rural rice farming community is 'am I still kinky?'"

Over the past year I've become intensely proud to be a member of a misunderstood minority - a card carrying constituent of an "outlaw" community. For me, kink divorced from community meant lost and isolated. I think Alisa is right that with the internet came a better chance at connection and social contact. In their best incarnations places like The Hang, Fetlife and the blog rounds I've made feel like the good high school experience I never had. It has been so liberating to be part of something, to develop language to talk about it, and to make friends. Lots more understanding and support.

Then again ...

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon?
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into?
How would broken find the bone?

I Want the World To Know ... or at least a select few.

So I've been telling some people that I'm kinky. More than just joking how I really like Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. Er ... actually it's Julie Newmar I'm hopelessly horn doggie over. But really, I've been truly sharing for the first time in my life that I'm a perv with a select few friends. I don't tell 'em everything as there's the ubiquitous "ick factor" with some stuff. But I've been telling them more than enough that they get I'm a submissive man who wants to be with a dominant woman.

Generally, this process has been going very well and I'm feeling liberated and supported. But I had lunch this week with a vanilla woman friend who I've been randy over for some time. She of the Mahwah Kiss. She's definitely a "top" in the street. Smart, bossy, sexy, and hot. Anyway, I tell her I'm having problems in my marriage and she says, "I don't want to pry but what's going on? In other words, I'm prying." So I tell her in a nutshell the main issue is we don't have sex. Upon hearing this, my oh-so-hot friend goes off and says, "Come on, men need sex!! That's part of the marriage vow. You get a vagina to play with."

Okay ... but not wanting to misrepresent myself or my situation I say there's a bit more to it. Like? Well, I say, I've got some pretty kinky sexual tastes. Like? Well, I say, I like to bottom to a woman top. And she says ... "That's not so kinky ... you want to be on the bottom and have her on top?"

Now, I had been totally admiring her high heels, tight black skirt, form fitting wrap blouse and most of all, the tell tale gathering of her black stockings at her ankles which bespoke the real deal instead of the less enticing pantyhose. So I was a little taken aback at her complete naïveté. "Well, it's a little more involved.", I confessed. "I like the dominatrix thing." I blurted.

"You mean like whips and crops?", she so innocently inquires.

And just like that my sexual attraction quotient dropped like the Dow Jones Industrials Average. We chatted a little more about it. She was cool but so not interested. "Whatever turns you on." "As long as it doesn't involve children and animals." Sheesh!!

I gotta figure out a better litmus test to avoid the canned analysis about how it's all due to my domineering mom and the sexualization of losing TV privileges. But on the total upside, I really thought for the first time that I was looking for someone who truly shared my interest in kink instead of trying to chase and mold a "vanilla-top-on-the-street-bottom-in-the-sheets" kinda girl into my perfect domme. That's really been my lifelong mistake.

So even though it's a bit of a cliched anthem, I leave you with this, dear reader. Don't 'cha think her gloves are waaay dommy?