Oh, for God’s sake!

Er… let me rephrase that.

Hit & Run, the blog side of the libertarian publication Reason, just posted an interesting article on the Folsom Street Fair, or more specifically, the advertising for the FSF – the well-known San Francisco gay/kink/leatherfolk festival. Apparently some Christian groups have taken issue with one of the advertising posters in which mostly half-dressed men are seated Last Supper-like about a table.

A comment from the Christian NewsWire includes this amusing tirade:

HUNTINGTON, Conn., Sept. 25 /Christian Newswire/ — Once again, San Francisco prepares for the perverted Folsom Street Fair where homosexuals, sadomasochists and others gather for public displays of nudity, beatings, group sex and public masturbation — PART TAX PAYER FUNDED — with police just standing by and watching.

Further down we read:

Stephen Bennett, president of SBM and a former homosexual said, “This is the most vile, vulgar and disgusting public display of filth I have ever seen in my life. There is no doubt a double standard when Christians and Christianity are mocked by homosexuals and degenerates in such a blatant, vile and sick way. Where is the media outrage over this event? We Christians will no longer tolerate this abuse nor be silent.

Now, a slight crush on Maymay notwithstanding, I’m not gay. But personally, I’d love to be able to check out this event, which I understand has been a major event in the city for years. Granted, it’s not the typical agricultural fair that we see here in New England (and uncharacteristically, I’m going to resist the obvious jokes about pony-players and livestock) but I fail to see what the big deal is – it’s an event for mature, consenting adults. In fact, I learned something in perusing the FSF web site:

Beneficiaries

Each year FSE returns all proceeds (including gate donations and beverage sales) from the Folsom Street Fair ^tm, Up Your Alley Fair and Magnitude^® to qualified local charities.

A list of charities follows, most of which are local concerns.

I’ve just spent a half hour reading various online discussions about the morality of parodying the Last Supper with gay leathermen, and I’m only scratching the surface. Frankly, I’m amazed that so many people have jumped on this minor news item. What’s more amazing to me, though, is how people like Stephen Bennett never learn that such vociferous objections almost always result in more people learning about the very thing that they’re looking to stop from happening.

Captive Ring doesn’t mean what you think

Something like 3/4 of my blog hits have something to do with chastity, which continues to amaze me because it seems that it’s so little about what I actually write about. Not that I could really describe what the hell I do write about, since that seems to be all over the map. Anyway, I did want to mention that chastity play with Mrs. Edge has been rather infrequent in the last year since I got my frenum pierced, ironically enough in order to enhance the security of the CB3000 that we use.

I discovered that the original 5/8″ wide barbell was just a bit too wide for comfort, and the balls would pinch my sensitive skin during moments of arousal. This eventually led to the idea of getting a slightly smaller barbell, so I swapped over to a 1/2″ which was a little better, but still gave me problems with comfort. I’ve had to modify the device several times to accommodate the barbell, ending up with actually cutting out a section from the underside of the of the plastic cage, and rebuilding it with acrylic bars so as to allow the balls on the ends of the barbell to nestle in the spaces between the bars. This made for a much better fit, and not long afterward we decided to make another attempt at wearing the device for some time. After a little over a week we removed the cage to discover that I was developing an infection around the piercing.

Our guess was that lotion and/or sweat was getting trapped around the balls, and the snug fit of the cage didn’t allow me enough room to flush around the piercing properly. A few more minor adjustments and we tried it again. It seemed to work for almost a week, but once again I seemed to develop an irritation. After that we started to discuss whether it would be worth it to keep trying, or to just remove the barbell and let the hole close up.

Those of you who are not male chastity enthusiasts are probably thinking “Hell, just take the damn thing off every few days and wash. What’s the problem?” The problem is fitting the concept to the reality: chastity (for many of us) becomes hotter the closer the device gets to the “set it and forget it” ideal. Removing the device a few times a week is the pin-prick near the balloon of “You’re totally under my control” fantasy that both partners usually enjoy. It’s all the more frustrating to us because, pre-piercing, these issues never surfaced.

Yes, we’re frustrated in our frustration.

Anyway, I was thinking about this the other day and had a thought: if the balls trap lotion, sweat, germs, etc., then maybe I could try a piercing that was less prone to collecting such irritants. So, last night around 10:30 pm, I stopped at the local piercing and tattoo shop on my way home from a formal event. Owing to the lateness of the hour, or perhaps it being a school night, the shop didn’t have the gaggle of teenagers hanging around like at my previous visit. Of course, most tattoo parlors probably don’t get many drop-ins wearing a tuxedo, so I attracted a certain amount of attention as soon as I walked in the door.

The guy behind the window was not the person I’d met before. He was in the middle of tattooing an arm, so I waited for a few minutes for my turn. I’d gone in looking for a 10 gauge, 1/2″ diameter captive segment ring. My thought was that such a ring could easily spin through the hole, and be less likely to attract and hold irritants. He had one slightly smaller – 7/16″ (approx 11 mm) which I thought might be even better. We traded stories for a few minutes, and I promised to come back when I had a cool tattoo design worked out. Yes, that’s right – I’ve got an idea for a tatt, but I’m not sure on what part of my body I want it yet.

Mrs. Edge was going to bed by the time I got home, so I got some jeweler’s pliers from my toolbox and popped open the segment. The edges seemed a bit sharp, so I polished the edges down and cleaned it in peroxide and then alcohol. I took a hot shower, removed the barbell… and spent 20 minutes trying to get the friggin’ ring in the hole, with no success. I got out of the shower and replaced the barbell, then put a generous amount of Aquaphor – just enough to make the ring slip through my fingers. Upon comparing the ring to the barbell, I noticed that the ring was slightly larger in diameter, so I put the barbell back in (again!) and pushed the ring along behind the barbell, which kept the hole from closing. I managed to squeak it through, and used the pliers to pop the segment back in.

The feeling was a bit strange at first; I’ve had the barbell for over a year now, and no longer notice it. The ring moved around a bit, and I could feel it against my skin (even today I can feel it brushing against my underwear). I cleaned up and went to bed, where for some reason I slept badly. Mrs. Edge didn’t notice it during the early morning snuggles, and I didn’t call attention to it, simply because I can never resist the opportunity to have a little fun.

My next concern will be seeing how well the ring does under deep hydraulic testing conditions, aka: penetrative intercourse. I’m concerned that the ring will try to swing back and forth, door-knocker style, which might pull on my tender skin. Or hers. If that works out okay, then we’ll once again try the CB3k. But it’s possible that I might have to give up on the frenum if Mrs. Edge decides that she’d rather get back into serious playtime.

What’s that? Pictures? Umm… I can’t find my camera. But I’ll post some soon, I promise. After all, I just went through all that boot-camp weight-training cardio-vascular lean diet exercise thing, so I might as well show off a bit, right?

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If you found this interesting, you might also be interested in some of my other real-life experiences which are listed in the True Tales page.

And revolution in the air…

… or maybe it’s just something in the water?

Even though I coined the term “fauxdomination” as a joke, the concept itself is serious; women around the blogosphere (and can’t we find a less kludgier word that that, please?) are becoming more conscious of breaking free of the traditional (read: stereotypical) models of women in tight, uncomfortable outfits brandishing whips with tight, uncomfortable faces.

I, of course, have nothing against the outfits, myself, but I’m willing to go along with the spirit of the thing. For now.

But that’s not what I’m here to write about. Goddess knows there are enough women and men writing about this that nobody needs my “me too” cluttering up the bandwidth. No, I’m writing because it seems that there is another breakaway in the kink community that is almost as interesting. Are you ready for this?

Non-subs wearing chastity devices.

I know, boggles the mind, doesn’t it? I mean, why the hell would anyone agree to lock away their genitals – especially men – if they are not of the submissive persuasion?

But wait, it gets better.

Some people, specifically men, who enjoy wearing chastity devices – ready for this? – aren’t the least bit interested in being sissified, feminized, cross-dressing cuckolds!

I know, I know. What is the world coming to, when chastity device and orgasm denial enthusiasts act just like regular, old vanilla folk?

Yes, of course there’s a backstory to this. A few weeks ago the Yahoo group CB-3000 (which is probably the best run chastity group out of the two dozen or so Yahoo groups devoted to the subject) had a series of posts by men who were concerned with what they saw as the co-opting of chastity play by men who expressed desires to be “sissified“, turned into ladies maids. Further, some men didn’t appreciate the growing stereotype that male chastity is being equated to a desire to have one’s partner go off to have sex with other men.

This led to a particularly long thread in which a number of people “delurked” to express their views, and frankly, I was rather proud of the manner in which this did not devolve into a flame war. Message boards being noted for the tendency to have several heated flame wars running simultaneously, most of the members managed to voice opinions without becoming too insulting or too unintelligible. Among the more interesting comments was this by a more dominant oriented wearer:

How does a woman hold a key, tease or deny, and yet enjoy his strength? Where can she discuss chastity from an erotic standpoint without have to wade through endless articles by gyno-supremacists, scowling femdoms, and others of that ilk? Oh, and does this sound like stereotyping? You bet, and it’s a stereotype that exists for a reason. Two words: Elise Sutton (among a zillion others).

Wow, shades of Bitchy Jones and the rest of the Fauxdoministas.

It was also good to see several women weighing in with similar opinions on the chastity/submissiveness concept. One particularly insightful woman wrote, in part:

Within our love, he willing and voluntarily embraces the cage surrounding his manhood and I equally embrace all the romantic, sensual, sexual and spiritual delights his chastity fosters. For us, chastity is not about controlling or punishing my husband, but rather as a means to keep his focus on me alone, be attentive to my desires and preserve his energy for the ultimate and always explosive release in our mutual bliss. And, as an aside to other comments in this thread, when we join in oneness, he comes to me as a man and I welcome his manly splendor with all of my womanhood.

Further on, in words I wished I could have used myself, she cautions the men who live wild, fantasy lives – but only in their own minds – with a suggestion of employing patience and perception:

It really is a matter of perception. The lock still clicks close, your manhood is secured from your selfish pleasures, but you travel together toward mutual fun, mutual desires and mutual passions. Rather than becoming a humble, worthless slave, align your chastity desires with the desires of your keyholder. Become a famous artist/writer whose creativity only flows when you are locked by your loving agent, a knight in shining armor off to slay a dragon (or paint the guest room) for your fair maiden, a trainer at the health spa safely secured from temptation of the beautiful patron he lovingly massages or the star player who can only score when kept horny by the teasing cheerleader.

This, really, is much closer to the relationship that I have with Mrs. Edge. We acknowledge the interplay of control – she enjoys having it, and I enjoy giving it up. But there’s no punishment involved; she doesn’t take off points or give me “extra days” when I leave the toilet seat up or forget to pick up milk on the way home, and I don’t get “early” or “extra” releases if I send her flowers or wash her car. She doesn’t want me sharing her Victoria’s Secret lingerie. And she doesn’t want me to shave my body hair to look more feminine; me being of a hirsute nature we probably couldn’t afford the razor blades anyway. And she certainly doesn’t want me to prattle on about my useless penis; Mrs. Edge happens to enjoy my penis, and she doesn’t see any paradox in both wanting to enjoy using it, and wanting to keep me from using it.

The more salient point, though, is that orgasm denial is play, and chastity devices simply enhance that play, much in the way that those nice double-wrapped leather manacles enhance bondage play. The desire to have some fun – sexual, sensual, or otherwise, in the context of giving up some control, is based in the excitement of risk, and the desire to test one’s self against those control factors. You may not have control over when the lock is coming off, but you do have control over how you’re going to react to it. It’s the reaction to the situation that causes the feelings of exhilaration. Nothing inherently domish or subish – or even kinky – about that.

Breaking the vicious cycle

Yeah, yet another new look. Some people change their hair style. Or hair color. Or wardrobe. Being a guy, I’ve got fewer options, so I tweak the blog template.

I know, I know – kink related blogs are supposed to have black backgrounds with light text. What can I say? I’m “edgy” – my blog title says it all.

Oh, wait – no, it doesn’t. It says I’m “wedgy.”

Dang!

Stalag 69

Here’s something that might interest a certain book expert:

From the New York Times article:

Israel’s Unexpected Spinoff From a Holocaust Trial

I initially ran across this today on the Reason Magazine blog, and there are links to several other related articles. More interestingly, some videos about the books can be found here.

This brings to mind some of the porn that I used to run across as a kid, and how it inevitably seemed that anything to do with pain, cruelty, whipping, humiliation, etc., was most assuredly nothing to do with normal, healthy relationships.

Oh, wait – isn’t Eileen bemoaning the very same thing?

It’s interesting how these books from the early 1960s managed to carry just about all the stereotypical images of femdom porn – Tight uniforms, women soldiers, shiny leather boots, and sadomasochistic tortures. One of the videos (subtitled in English) shows one of the publishers saying that they turned the American fighter pilots “into wimps.”

Just make sure that you-know-who isn’t watching over your shoulder when you view them.

I S.U.Q.

Bitchy Jones being, well, Bitchy Jones, is ranting about something (yes, really) on which she’s touched on in the past: Submissive men who are too worried about being properly subby to be sexy. She touches briefly on a quiz that she ran into on Ms Rika’s website, which outlines some of stereotyped ways for men to demonstrate their submissiveness, especially to women partners who aren’t totally with the program.

Now, I know that Beej is all about the hot, down’n'dirty, sweaty, panting, heaving, muscular, stubbly, lust-driven sexy-sex part of submission. You know, the manly, macho submissive thing. I’m down with that, really. I’ll dig trenches, climb mountains, and row across rivers.

Yeah, I know that the really macho guys would swim, but I’m not a good swimmer. Besides, the rowing would be good for my abs.

I happen to like the Ms. Rika site; it’s not a “You worthless, pathetic worm!”kind of domination, nor is the site overrun with R/rules for P/proper C/capitalization. It strikes me as the kind of site that (mostly) vanilla guys frequent when they’re looking for ideas to trick finagle gently suggest domination to their (very) vanilla partners. I realize that this smacks of “stealth submission” but maybe we need to revisit that concept.

Here are the questions on The Sub Utility Quotient found on Ms. Rika’s pages:

Score: 2 points for tasks done regularly, 1 point for task not desired or not applicable, and 0 points for tasks not done regularly.

Housework:
1. Cook all meals and clean up afterwards.
2. Prepare a weekly menu and review it with your partner
3. Do the shopping for the food, track food usage, and keep the
kitchen stocked.
4. Clean the bathrooms (with brushes and cleanser, not your tongue)
5. Make the beds (including the pillows).
6. Do the laundry, iron, fold and put away.
7. Dust and vacuum and yes, do the windows too
8. Put out potpourris, candles, or oils with her favorite scents so that the house is always fragrant.
9. Feed, bathe, and groom the pets.
10. Take the children to school (or bring them to the bus stop).
11. Do home repairs within your capabilities.
12. Take the garbage pails to the curb on garbage nights.
13. Clean the pails after the garbage has been collected.
14. Package the recycling, wrap the newspapers and bring them to the curb on recycling days.
15. Prepare the monthly bills and payments for review and prepare all checks for the domme’s signature.

Yardwork** :
16. Mow, edge, and trim the yard regularly.
17. Take care of the garden beds and trim the trees.
18. Make certain the lawn and flower beds are watered regularly.
19. Care for the pool and spa.
20. Keep the patio, drive, and garage swept and clean,
including cobwebs.
21. Remove the leaves from the gutters.
**(these items may be marked as 2 points each if the work is done by a lawn service AND the sub manages the relationship (i.e., payment, negotiations, appointment management, etc)

Nightly Activities:
22. Bring late night snacks while his partner watches TV.
23. Give up the remote! LOL!
24. Go on the Internet and research the Dish schedule (or TV Guide) and print out items which are of interest to the domme.
25. Get on the Internet and read the papers and her magazines to create the equivalent of an executive clipping service… articles of interest with key points highlighted.
26. Take down her bed (including the pillows).
27. Sit on the toilet seat before she needs to go in (in the winter it gets kind of cold).
28. Take her cell phone from her bag and put it on the charger (and then put it back in her bag, turned on, in the morning).
29. Draw the blinds and shades (and open them in the morning).
30. Put toothpaste on her toothbrush.
31. Fill her glass with water.
32. Bring her slippers.
33. Brush her hair.
34. Lay out the clothes she selects and press as appropriate.
35. Light scented candles, and put them out after she is asleep.
36. MASSAGE her back until she falls asleep (every night)

In the Car:
37. Keep a pager or cell phone so you can be called to pick her up at a moments notice.
38. Ask her if she’d prefer to drive!
39. If not, drive her wherever she needs to go and wait for her to
come out.
40. Arrive at the front of the building within 10 seconds of her first step outside the door, 5 if the weather is not good. Keep an umbrella handy and escort her to the car if it’s raining.
41. Keep her favorite magazines and CDs in the car.
42. Never, ever criticize her driving or suggest a “quicker way” (unless she requests it).
43. Wash the car regularly inside and out.
44. Preheat and de-ice the car on cold mornings.

Around the House:
45. Pee sitting down so that the toilet seat is never up and you don’t
leave “droplets”.
46. Prepare her bath (and the kid’s baths, if appropriate) and run the water until it’s warm for her showers.
47. Paint her toenails.
48. Pick up her shoes from the front hallway and carry them to her closet, inspect them and polish them as need be (with real polish, not saliva).
49. Keep her favorite magazines, books and CD’s ready in her favorite sitting areas.
50. Answer the phone and make phone calls for her (such as ordering items she’s marked in a catalogue).

How’d you do?

Okay, some of it’s a bit “nancy boy,” no question about it. Mrs. Edge would, fearing brain damage, rush me to the hospital if she saw me refilling the potpourri. If she found some of her favorite music in my car, she’d assume that I was turning gay. No friggin’ way will I lay out her clothes, either – I already have enough problems trying to answer the “Does this skirt make my butt look big?” questions. And if I make the bed with her still in it one more time, I’m going to be in serious trouble.

I’ve tried doing her flower beds around the house. The end result of that was needing to replace 3/4 of the foundation plantings. Hey, it’s not my fault that so many “decorative” plants look just like weeds, and vice versa.

But this “quiz” raises another issue. How much of this is simply something that we do for our partners, not as a “submissive” act, but simply out of consideration for someone that we love? Running down this list, I do quite a bit of these things – more successfully than I am at weeding, I might add.

I always warm up and scrape off Mrs. Edge’s car in the winter. I’ve even been known to leave work early and swing by her place to scrape off her car before she leaves the office. Okay, I’ve only been known to do it a half dozen times, but still…

We switch driving, I usually clean the bathrooms, and we split other chores. I tend to do more cooking, and she tends to do more laundry (admittedly my laundry skills are only marginally better than my gardening skills). She gets the kids off for school, but that’s because I leave earlier. And as we have an auxiliary hot water heater installed under the bathroom, she’s got hot water in five seconds. I don’t polish her nails because she and the Edgelette trade this on their occasional “girl’s night.” Or they go down the street to have them done. Mrs. Edge controls the TV remote, but that’s because I don’t watch tv, especially when I could be blogging. I do take her cell phone and charge it, but that’s because I’m somehow the head of IT at the Edge household, and cell phones and PDAs fall under my umbrella.

And speaking of umbrellas, I usually have two in my car, and I usually drive her up to the entrance of a store and drop her off in the rain. I don’t put toothpaste on her toothbrush – sorry, that’s just weird. And we don’t do the late night snack thing because we’re both doing some serious training, but I do get her a glass of water when I’m heading in that direction, and will make her coffee if she asks.

Oh, and for cryin’ out loud, is it that difficult to lift the friggin’ toilet seat?

The point here is that except for a handful of items, these are mostly things that we already do for each other, simply because doing nice things for each other is one of the lubricants of a good relationship. Certainly, the list of things that Mrs. Edge does for me is at least this long, and overlaps in some areas. I don’t bring the laundry basket up the stairs because it’s some kind of “stealth submission” and certainly she doesn’t wash my socks because she, herself, is a secret submissive.

Look, we could all poke fun at some of the items on this list. Potpourri? Nightly back massages? Running a bath? We all have our little likes and dislikes and habits that, taken outside of the context of our relationship would look odd. And notice that this list had nothing about chastity devices, orgasm denial, lingerie, dressing up in sissy maid clothes, or finding other male partners. Hell, it didn’t mention anything about plain, old vanilla sex. Lists like this are not outlines for submissive behavior, they are outlines for (what our society considers to be) romantic behavior.

That said, I want to also point out that the reason we see so many lists like this is because there are apparently quite a few guys out there who, for whatever reasons, seem to stop “dating” their partners. They stop opening doors, and bringing thoughtful gifts (which could be flowers or vibrators, so let’s not judge), and showing some of the consideration that they exhibited when the relationship was new. These lists, I think, serve as reminders to men who are clueless as to why they are getting less sexual attention. And to those who forget that a D/s relationship is not all about the D/s; it’s also about the relationship.

Next up: Sun rises in East

And coming on the heels of a recent story about what women look for in manly attractiveness comes this Associated Press hot breaking science news story:

Earth-Shattering Study: Men Like Good-Looking Women

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

WASHINGTON — Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks.Researchers led by Todd’s report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, “following Darwin’s principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different.”And guys won’t be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about partners than they are.

“Just because people say they’re looking for a particular set of characteristics in a mate, someone like themselves, doesn’t mean that is what they’ll end up choosing,” Peter M. Todd, of the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington, said in a telephone interview.

Their study involved 26 men and 20 women in Munich, Germany.

Participants ranged in age from 26 to their early 40s and took part in “speed dating,” short meetings of three to seven minutes in which people chat, then move on to meet another dater.

Afterward, participants check off the people they’d like to meet again, and dates can be arranged between pairs who select one another.

Speed dating let researchers look at a lot of mate choices in a short time, Todd said.

In the study, participants were asked before the session to fill out a questionnaire about what they were looking for in a mate, listing such categories as wealth and status, family commitment, physical appearance, healthiness and attractiveness.

After the session, the researchers compared what the participants said they were looking for with the people they actually chose to ask for another date.

Men’s choices did not reflect their stated preferences, the researchers concluded. Instead, men appeared to base their decisions mostly on the women’s physical attractiveness.

The men also appeared to be much less choosy. Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold, Todd said.

Women’s actual choices, like men’s, did not reflect their stated preferences, but they made more discriminating choices, the researchers found.

The scientists said women were aware of the importance of their own attractiveness to men, and adjusted their expectations to select the more desirable guys.

“Women made offers to men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women’s self-rated attractiveness. They didn’t greatly overshoot their attractiveness,” Todd said, “because part of the goal for women is to choose men who would stay with them.”

But, he added, “they didn’t go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level.”

So, it turns out, the women’s attractiveness influenced the choices of both the men and the women.

Next on the agenda: Science confirms that it always rains right after you wash your car.