Lip/Suck

Over on Maybemaimed, my friend maymay is ranting about the shallowness of some people who use Halloween as a mini-Mardi Gras.

Have at it, May. Me, I’m about to get all bitchyjones about something much bigger.

TV. That is, night-time adult dramas. More specifically, those night time adult dramas that fall all over themselves in trying to attract more jaded viewers by “breaking new ground.”

In the last few years, television shows have attracted viewers with their teasing promises of kinky sex; in the last couple of years alone I can think of a handful that have gone over to use some BDSM theme – mostly that of female domination. CSI & ER come to mind; CSI made one a recurring character, and of course Desperate Housewives built half a season around the concept. Dominatrix characters have made spot appearances in several other shows, and I find that I’m having mixed feelings about this: while I appreciate the eye candy, I’m becoming increasingly irritated by the inane and stereotypical story lines. Tuesday night’s episode of Nip/Tuck was just the latest example.

After being teased for weeks about the appearance of the delicious Tia Carrere as a dominatrix with the ridiculously hackneyed name of “Mistress Dark Pain” in the new season’s first episode, what the viewers were treated to was a few scenes with Ms. Carrere dressed in normal business clothes, and a scene with her dressed in black (the traditional dominatrix color, you know) lacy things that could easily be found in the back of a Victoria’s Secret shop. Her dialog was right out of femdom wanker porn, and one scene in which she casually dropped off a sub/bottom who was in need of medical attention simply validated the undeserved impression that the general public has come to believe about people who need “that kind of thing.”

Naturally, this particular sub was a high-powered executive – the head of a media production company – who needed to be dominated as a form of therapy because his job required him to be totally in control. A session with Mistress Dark Pain gave him release from his daily need to be in charge.

Oh for fuck’s sake! We all know that the reason why anyone is submissive is because they have a high-powered job as an oil, manufacturing, or finance magnate, right? It’s all that whatchacallit – compensation, you know?

It goes without saying that Christian – the smarmy good-looking one – was intrigued by Ms. Pain, and Sean – the prissy weenie – was totally put off by the entire thing (somehow he learned nothing after the last 5 seasons) and used words like “sick”, “perverted” or “sicko” when discussing the topic.

Nice.

Thanks, Nip/Tuck, for being even more stereotypical than “One Night at McCool’s” and even less helpful than “Desperate Housewives.”

I’m trying to imagine a tv show or a movie that shows, for example, a male bottom who is smart, funny, strong-willed, and who works at a regular old job. One who isn’t a CEO for some multi-national conglomerate, and who does not keep a dominatrix-slash-mistress in a Manhattan penthouse. And maybe, just maybe, he can be paired up with a regular woman who enjoys spanking or even knife play, but who isn’t a deranged psychotic bitch or who is completely indifferent to his emotional needs, or who dumps the guy as soon as he stops paying her car loan.

Naw. Never mind. That kind of scenario would be way too fantastic for most people to believe.

Men are from Mars Earth, Women are from Venus Earth.

I’m referring back to the post from a couple of weeks ago in which Dee from Sexywhispers threatened offered to interview me. Because she asked such very good questions, the kind to which I wanted to devote more than a couple of tossed-off sentences, I’ve decided to take them on individually. Here’s the second one.

2–Where do most men go wrong with women? And, where do must women miss the mark with men??

I’m going to start off by saying that this begs the question of whether things go wrong in the first place. The way I look at it, 99% of relationships fail – and a good thing, too. That is, almost none of us marry our first crush, our high-school sweetheart, the playmate next door. Most of us, married or otherwise, have had dozens, perhaps hundreds of relationships ranging from dates to “steadies” to “Friends with benefits” to co-habiting to. . . you get the idea. My point is that we have multiple relationships because it is in them – and through them – that we are able to learn about ourselves and about how to get along with other people.

That said, it was probably not helpful as far as her question was concerned, so I’m going to answer what I think she was asking.

Once you are in a relationship, or indeed, are teetering on the edge of one, where do men get it wrong? In thinking that women are men with boobs. Likewise, women get it wrong in trying to make men into one of their girlfriends.

Using the analogy that we’re from different planets is amusing, but ultimately not very helpful. The central issue (as I see it, which naturally, is the correct way) is that we are all socialized to communicate differently. Not just men vs. women, but all of us. Indeed, there are hundreds of books in the Self-Help shelves that stress the importance of communication, some of which seem to help some people some of the time.

Books and talk-show gurus take especial pains to describe how we could or should communicate better so as to get our points across to our loved ones, mates, spouses, family, friends, cow-orkers, and colleagues. I have a different take on this. I am more and more convinced that we spend most of our time trying to avoid good communication; that is, we become more adept at masking what we’re really feeling, and we become more skilled in manipulating than in expressing what we truly would like to do. That’s not to say that this is a totally bad thing – in commercial transactions we don’t want to appear vulnerable, but in intimate relations it’s counterproductive.

Some of us learn that we need to pick just the right time and choose just the right words in order to get our desire across to a partner. We justify it by assuring ourselves that it’s necessary in order to get what we want, but is this really communicating? I’m becoming convinced that what we are teaching ourselves to do is to use these kinds of justifications as a way to avoid dealing with our own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy and fear. Truly, we laud a person’s use of tact and diplomacy; but what is that, except communicating in a way that allows the other person to avoid confronting their own fears and insecurities?

And what does this have to do with “getting it wrong” in a relationship? Men and women (and I’m talking in general here) have different perspectives because of cultural and societal pressures, but it’s very difficult for either of them to start off a relationship expressing their feelings of vulnerability. Every “I want” carries a risk that your partner will not only deny, but will make you feel uncomfortable for even asking. Personally, every time I suggest something that I’d like something that’s not “vanilla,” I worry that Mrs. Edge will not only say “No,” but that she’ll say “Eeewwww, no friggin’ way! What are you, some kid of sicko?” And indeed, there were times when she reacted either negatively or ambiguously, so that I became very insecure about expressing myself sexually with her. On her part, Mrs. Edge has made efforts to be more affectionate, and at times has done so in such an indirect, roundabout manner that I’ve completely missed the signals. In her mind, though, I was avoiding her, making her feel inadequate.

Sure, you could chalk that up to me just being a typical, insensitive guy. But really, how much better for both of us if we could simply ask for what we want without worrying how it reflects on us as a person, or without all the perceived prejudices and judgments which make us feel more insecure?

Where we all get it wrong, therefore, is not with each other, but in being so overly protective of our own psyches that we fail to allow ourselves to grow – emotionally, intimately, spiritually. We get it wrong by giving to others the power to make us feel inadequate, and then resenting them for having that power. We get it wrong when we make assumptions about the state of mind of our partners and about what they’re thinking, when we should be more focused on what we want and how to express it more clearly. We get it wrong when we become more concerned with the manipulation and machinations of communication than in actually getting out of our own comfort zones and risking the hurt.

And we especially get it wrong when we believe what the other insecure, fearful people tell us about how to have a relationship, instead of taking the opportunity to learn and grow.

HNT

Nothing as sexy or exciting as last week. Just my hairy, muscular arm at the keyboard. I’m sitting in the room that I’m finally reclaiming as my office. Ahhh…

Please ignore the pile of un-gotten-to mail at the top of the picture.

Edit: Added ‘puter porn.

Sexy second shot shows left side of keyboard with scroll wheel.

Oddly, people normally want to see pictures of my CB3000, not my MX3000.

HNT – Say “Aahhh…”

Suzy tells me that I should have more pictures. Cat tells me that I should post some HNT shots.

What the hell.

I had a doctor’s appointment today, and of course everything was fine. Hell, I’ve been working out all summer and taking those wonder drugs for high blood pressure and cholesterol – if things weren’t fine, somebody was going to hear about it.

Anyway, since I had to disrobe anyway for my checkup, here I am disrobing.

Yeah, that whiteness on my upper chest is not from the lighting – it’s ‘cos I’ve got grey hair there, too.

Oh yeah – sorry that it’s not really Thursday. I’m not very good at the timeliness thing.

Out with the old…

Okay, I give up.

Back in the beginning of August 2006, I bit the proverbial bullet and had a 3/32″ thick, 5/8″ long metal lightning rod implanted in the sensitive area of my. . .

Oh hell, you can’t have read this blog for a week without hearing about my piercing, right? So let’s just get on with it, shall we?

I removed it.

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

I got it because we – Mrs. Edge and I – thought it would be a way to enhance the security of the CB3000 by figuring out some way to attach the device to the piercing. But along with that, we thought it might add some neat sensations for her (and for me) for those (all too rare) occasions when I was not wearing the cage.

Also, I have to admit, the entire idea of it was simply too cool to pass up. I mean, most of my friends don’t even have pierced ears.

Case in point: At a garden party last year, one of our friends was bemoaning the kinds of people who have tattoos and piercings in their eyebrows, lips, and places she “didn’t want to know about.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied, “I never really think about that, as long as they seem to be decent people.”

She went on to talk about how crazy it was to pierce various body parts, after which she asked me “I mean, you don’t have a piercing, do you?”

“Sure I do,” I responded. She paused for a moment and backpedaled “Oh, an ear piercing isn’t so bad.”

I put my hand up to my ear and said, “Oh, I forgot about that. I guess I have two piercings!”

She waited about 3/4 of a second for the punch line, and then, hearing none, choked and dropped her drink on the walkway.

Plastic wine glass: $2. Glass of Cabernet: $4. Look on snobby guest’s face when they think about your penis: Priceless.

Yes, there are certain types of parties to which I get get invited, I suspect, only to give the other guests something to talk about.

Unfortunately, even for me the “coolness” factor can’t outweigh the “getting laid” factor, not for very long. After almost 15 months, the barbell still made certain positions uncomfortable for one or both of us, even after I switched to a smaller one. Worse, often trying something new or different would pull or pinch the piercing enough so that it would need some healing time, and unfortunately it’s just not in a spot where healing can be facilitated by, say, cool, dry air during the day. And no, wearing a kilt to work would not foster confidence among the troops.

But we would have been willing to put up with the little inconvenience if the piercing would have worked as an anchor for the chastity device. Unfortunately, even that didn’t work out very well, either – except in the sense that it kept me from having sex because of several infections caused by the inability to clean the piercing properly.

The problem seems to be this: we tend to think of a penis as being, more or less, a sausage. And for all practical purposes, it is; it’s a bunch of meat stuffed into some skin. However, there is a difference that I hadn’t taken into consideration; I am, in the local parlance, a “grower” instead of a “shower” (that’s pronounced with a long “o”. To rhyme with “grower, of course. I’m just saying). That is, when I’m soft and wearing the cage, I’ve got all sorts of bits that are squished into unnatural positions, and the loose bits of flesh get folded over and create nooks and niches and the like. The upshot is that it was difficult to reach the bits specifically around the piercing that needed to be cleaned thoroughly (the other bits were generally fine with a good spray from the shower).

I had hoped that by switching to the captive segment ring it would obviate the need to clean the area between the 1/4″ balls and the frenum, but unfortunately the ring developed other problems for me. The final straw came the other day when, after less than two days in the cage, I developed a sore spot from the ring at the edge of the pierced hole. After voicing my frustration to Mrs. Edge, we realized we needed to make a decision. She told me that since the piercing never really panned out in terms of enhancing her pleasure, and since it prevented me from wearing the device for any length of time, that she would be fine with me just removing it. We asked ourselves “Which thing gives more pleasure or enjoyment: the piercing or being able to use the chastity device?” Anyone who reads this know which way Mrs. Edge voted, and unfortunately, I had to agree with her.

Damn.

It took about 20 minutes to remove it, mainly because I was so afraid of slipping with the jeweler’s pliers and piercing myself in another area. So now my jewelry box contains several tie pins, some spare brass buttons, some cufflinks and shirt studs, and three reminders of the year that tested my mettle.

Oh, go ahead and groan – who wouldn’t have used a bad pun like that if they had the chance, I ask you?

Anyway, the hole took almost no time to close up, and it should be healed very soon. I was reminded that several people suggested that a Prince Albert style piercing might be better, but nobody could explain why. Hopefully this will help anyone who happens to do a Google search on, say “chastity piercings.” And who knows, perhaps next year I might be brave enough to try a PA of my own; maybe for my 50th birthday?

That would be just in time for the next round of garden parties, too.

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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.

Hair today…

Okay, partly as a result of the anonymous comments about my piercing and buff pics, I’m about I’m about to go all bitchyjones on some of you people.

But first, I’m going to get esoteric for a moment.

Symbols are important to us because they help to transmit ideas in a language that’s easy to understand. Assuming, of course, that we’re all in agreement of what those symbols actually mean. Some symbols have agreement simply because they have been in use for so long: a red octagon, or a red circle with a diagonal line through it are obvious examples. Clothing can express ideas in symbolic terms; when you see a movie with women dressed in short, tight skirts that are fifteen years out of fashion, you understand that the director means for them to be prostitutes – and let’s not forget that we see such visuals in “the red light district” of a city.

Other symbols might be short, bobbed haircuts on middle-aged women that scream “soccer mom” (or in my neighborhood, “midget football mom”). Men at the beach wearing skimpy Speedos are assumed to be either foreign or gay. When I see people in their mid-20s wearing collars, I wonder if they are sporting the conventional symbol of ownership. And I’m often reminded of the old Dave Berg cartoon in Mad Magazine in which he compared the “uniform” of ROTC students with the “uniform” of the campus hippies.

But sometimes we ascribe far too much to symbols; there are no “inherent” meanings in any of them, merely the ones that we ascribe to them by common use or convention. Sometimes our assumptions say more about us than it does about the symbol.

For those who noticed my piercing pictures, yes, I shave. That is, I shave my genital area.

I’ve been shaving that area for the past 30 years, more or less – about the same time that I started receiving regular oral sex. It’s comfortable for me, and it’s convenient for my partner. I happen to like the smooth feel, and since I often go “commando” during the warmer weather, it keeps hair from getting caught in buttons and zippers. And when I began wearing a chastity device regularly, shaving became necessary to prevent the little gasps! during the day as a few stray hairs would snag and pull. And Mrs. Edge happens to like the feel of it.

Shaving. Comfort and convenience. It’s that simple.

Shaving is not an inherently submissive act, nor does it have anything to do with distinguishing submissive males.

Yes, I did have a reason for bringing this up, thank you for asking. Just as I mentioned a little while ago there was a discussion on one of the groups about the concept of domination & submission vis a vis chastity and orgasm denial, I’ve also had the dubious pleasure of having to defend the practice of genital shaving from those who would seek to ascribe to it some kind of mark of submission or ownership. Some of the reasoning for doing so in these groups defies my understanding. One of the more egregious examples was a person who claimed that genital shaving “reduced a person to his pre-pubescent state,” which was especially fitting because, being locked in a chastity device rendered one’s genitals useless, just as they were before puberty.

How’s that again? Shaving is supposed to remind me of my submissive status because everybody knows that subs or slaves don’t get to have sex with their partners/owners.

Beej? Did you get all that?

I’m irritated because this is yet one more example of a small group in the already-small fetish sub-culture co-opting yet one more thing to make the rest of us look like out-of-control juveniles who can barely think with our dicks. I’m so tired of reading about the feminized, sissy subs who are forced to shave and wear frilly panties to show their submissive status while some big, hairy stud has sex with their wives – not that I want to read them, mind you, but lately it seems that they’ve taken over the chastity and orgasm denial groups.

And while I’m on a rant here, I just spotted a conversation in which a woman was asking for advice about having her husband (who is in a chastity device) become more adept at using a strap-on to give her pleasure. Somebody who must not actually have ever had a relationship put in his two cents: “You should cuckold him with another man or a male slave.”

How the hell does anyone miss the point that widely and still manage to feed themselves on a daily basis?

Look, all I want to do is make my cock and balls feel smooth, without anyone ascribing some kind of significance to it. I want to wear a chastity device simply because Mrs. Edge and I find it arousing, and not because either of us have any desire to bring more people into our relationship, let alone in order to make me feel humiliated or unworthy.

*inhales*

*holds*

*exhales*

I really didn’t mean to get all bitchyjones about this, but sometimes you’ve just got to let it out.

Not a meme – 1

I’m referring back to the post from a couple of weeks ago in which Dee from Sexywhispers threatened offered to interview me. Because she asked such very good questions, the kind to which I wanted to devote more than a couple of tossed-off sentences, I’ve decided to take them on individually. Here’s the first one.

1–What are your favorite fetishes?

I know what you’re thinking. “Tom’s going to write about chastity devices.”

As if.

I enjoy chastity devices and orgasm denial. But ultimately, I consider that to be an offshoot of my favorite kink: bondage. Seriously, I used to have pre-pubescent fantasies about being restrained on shiny steel tables by aliens, who were almost always very attractive by human standards, with tight, revealing clothing. Or sometimes being held captive by vampire women, desirous of bending me to their will. Or being trapped by the tentacles of strange creatures, who used them to hold me down and to prod and explore various parts of my body. Or. . . well, you get the idea. I blame all those hours spent as a youngster reading horror and sci-fi stories, not to mention occasional forays to peek at my father’s collection of Playboy.

Ah, how I yearn for the days of my youth, when tentacle porn was new and exciting.

Also at the, er, top of my list are those things that are now called “fetish wear.” I love the sight of women wearing high-heeled thigh boots, snug vinyl corsets, tight leather catsuits, shiny spandex of black, red, silver, blue.

Bitchy Jones’ tirades about the ridiculousnessosity of fetish fashion notwithstanding, I love looking at the form-enhancing (and when it’s tight, it’s all form-enhancing) leather and latex outfits that one never sees outside of Skin Two magazine or perhaps pro-domme advertising photos. I’ve had partners of all shapes and sizes, and I can’t think of any of them who could not have enhanced a romantic by the proper application of a corset, bustier, or some other item of apparel.

Go ahead and flame me, but my two favorite colors on a woman (and sometimes on a man) are “tight” and “shiny.”

And speaking of tight and shiny, when I think about bondage I’m usually thinking “hard” and “fast.” Shibari (which I learned one evening, much to my embarrassment, is not an Italian liqueur) is beautiful to look at, and when properly done enhances the, uh, bondagee; but when I’m thinking about serious bondage I want something that works now! and keeps you from moving. Leather and steel manacles from the Stockroom or Extreme Restraints are usually on my birthday list (not that I ever get them) because these are serious restraints. The playtime velcro “luv cuffs” sold at adult novelty stores are probably effective, but I want something that screams “You’re not going anywhere until I say so, you son of a bitch!”

Interestingly, we don’t indulge in this very often because Mrs. Edge is, by her admission, a bit lazy in that area. Her perspective on the top/bottom thing is that all that is too much work to begin with, not to mention that once I’m restrained then I can’t do anything. She wants me to be able to move all my parts, the better enabled I be to satisfy her.

Women. The crazy ideas they get.

“So Tom,” you’re asking your monitor right about now, “what’s the deal with the chastity and orgasm denial? You’ve got hundreds of visitors coming through here every day and they’re not all here to see those pictures that you keep promising to post.”

Okay, okay, I really wasn’t going to end a post on fetishes without mentioning chastity. I mean, c’mon – in the last year this blog has become one of the most popular sites on the net for chastity surfers; I couldn’t let my fans down.

Chastity devices are, in some respects, a kind of bondage for me. Snug fitting and as escape-proof as possible, they place restrictions on what kinds of pleasure I can give myself, and turn that control over to my key-holding wife. As in bondage, I don’t want to imagine that it’s escape-proof, I want to know that no matter what, I’m not going to be able to pull out of the device to wank. I want to feel the frustration, to be driven to distraction with unquenchable lust. That’s part of the reason why I’ve been trying out various piercings for the last year; I want to be able to use the very comfortable CB3000, but to know that not just 75% or 85% of the control is out of my hands, but that it’s 100% up to somebody else.

The captive segment ring in my frenum has needed a little time to heal, mainly from stretching out the original hole, and last night I tried it out, just for an hour or so. I didn’t have any discomfort, so sometime in the next few weeks we’ll probably give it another try. I’ve already modified the cage to make things easier to clean, and we’re hoping that by the holidays we’ll be back where we were a couple of years ago.

One more note on fetishes: whoever discovers where they come from will probably become fantastically wealthy; barely a week goes by on some discussion board without a newbie who appears, wondering where his or her particular fetish came from and why it exists. I have no idea where mind came from. I’ve read that some of them are simply “there,” hardwired into the brain and only waiting to be discovered. Yet the chastity kink didn’t happen that way for me. That is, I’ve had the bondage fantasies as long as I can remember, but it took maybe a year or more between the time I “discovered” that there were male devices, and the time when the idea seemed to become exciting and erotic to me.

Next interview question: Where do men and women get it wrong?

Picture credits:

Some unknown shot I grabbed off of the web years ago, apparently a scan from some magazine. Anybody know anything about this?

Suze Randall – one of my favorite fetish photographers.

Extreme Restraints – one of their new version of manacles.

Preliminaries

Yeah, okay – I found my camera, but I’m going to be busy this weekend.

For your viewing enjoyment, and simply because you asked nicely, I posted something for you.

If you look in my TMI tab and scroll down, there is a link.

Don’t click it at work. Or when little kids or excitable folks are around, please.

Ceci n’est pas une meme

Nope, this is not a meme. This is what you call an interview. Of sorts.

Diana of Whispers Media and the blog Sexywhispers tossed out a few questions for me that are a lot like the “7 random questions” kind of blog memes that periodically make the rounds, except that taken in a different context, they are just the kind of questions that can easily turn from two sentence answers into complete posts. And for lack of anything better to do with my time (and yours) that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.

Later.

However, I’m going to post the questions here, not for meming purposes, but just to allow whoever is interested to cogitate on their own possible answers to them.

Question:

1–What are your favorite fetishes?

2–Where do most men go wrong with women? And, where do must women miss the mark with men?

3–Explain a time when you hurt a woman and regretted it. (Please don’t say you have regretted it every time!)

4–What has changed in your sexual perception over the last 10 years? 20 years?

5–What caused the biggest sexual change of attitude in your life?

Bonus:

What is the one thing that about a woman that lights your fire instantly?

These are some good questions, and I really need a little time in order to give them the attention that they deserve.