People are funny.
I socialize in some online forums in which my profile page links to this blog. Some people check it out, but as far as I can tell, most don’t. We’re all so busy with our own lives that we rarely have time to investigate the interests and writings of others, and that’s fine. I don’t check out all the other profiles, either.
Anyway, it may or may not surprise you to learn that I flirt a little with my online friends. Harmless banter, since a) I have no intention (or desire) of carrying on an online affair, b) I’m not going to do so in public, and c) I’m certainly not going to do it with somebody who lives 2,500 miles away (and in case Mrs. Edge is reading, it’s really just “a” — the other two are invalid).
Apparently, though, somebody checked my profile, perused this blog, and remarked upon some of my virtual eyelid batting with something to the effect of “How can you flirt like that? Aren’t you locked up?”
Wow. I didn’t realize that slapping a hunk of plastic on my junk made me a non-sexual being. It’s only my cock that’s under control, not my sexuality.
Well, maybe that’s not entirely correct. Apparently, the idea of enforced (i.e., using a device) chastity evokes feelings of humiliation and emasculation, as I learned last year. And along similar lines, there was some discussion over at Thumper’s and Maymay’s about the idea that chastity — or more specifically, orgasm denial — enhances one’s submission (i.e., feelings thereof).
Personally, I’ve been reading so much about what people consider to be “submission” and “submissiveness” that I have decided to disassociate myself from the term altogether; virtually nothing of what I’ve been reading seems to apply to me, so instead of trying to defend my own submissiveness, or more correctly, those certain feelings that I get that I used to associate with submissiveness, I’m just going to move on to some other scale and call it something else. Or maybe I won’t call it anything; I’ll just feel them and describe what I can.
Above case in point — being locked up does not make me feel less manly, less assertive, less randy, or less anything. It makes me feel … more. When I’m locked up for long periods, I still desire to have sex — penetrative sex –and so I still try to ply my manly charms with Mrs. Edge, even though I know I will have to use her strap-on. Why? Because, hearing her moan, feeling her scratch my back, listening to her satisfied sighs — you know, fucking her — makes me feel hot, randy, manly, almost animalistically lustful. And again, that’s what Mrs. Edge enjoys. I’m not being punished, and she doesn’t see me as emasculated. She sees a sexual being — a man — over which she has some control. That makes her hot. And seeing her hot makes me hot. It’s not the denial, it’s the mutual satisfaction.
It’s amusing to see that the selling points for male chastity devices tend to focus on either making your man more “romantic”, or on making him do more household chores. Thumper’s reprint of the old xkcd comic shows that stereotype holds even in the vanilla world — women seem to want manly housemaids. But is this actually true, or is it a stereotype that plays on the idea that sex is something that men want, and women parcel out according to whim?
Look, Mrs. Edge and I both work full time — more than full time, actually. We’d love to have more maid service around here because by the end of the week we just want to collapse on the sofa. But seriously? She can go to the Korean salon down the street to get her nails done anytime, and since our work, child care, and social schedules dictate who will cook or clean, having “maid service” from me isn’t a particularly big turn on for her. And frankly, it’s not an especially big turn on for me, either. I mean, I do those things, but they don’t give me any sense of sexual satisfaction — I’m just happy to do them (usually, when it’s not interfering with anything else I happen to be doing) because it seems to increase the overall level of happiness in the relationship. But I don’t sit around daydreaming of her ordering me to pick up her dry cleaning, nor do I get aroused when I see her “expressing her dominance by masterfully directing me” and a handful of others in preparing a dinner for a charity event. I mean, to me, those are just chores. I do them because those are the kinds of things that you do when you have a relationship. Seriously, I’m not even aroused as I write this.
So, obviously there’s something wrong with me, at least with regard to my submissive kink for being controlled. I get up early to make coffee, and bring her a cup when it’s done. But that doesn’t give me a hard-on, nor do I drip with sexual excitement; I do it because I get up earlier to work out, and I like my coffee when I’m done. I run the vacuum around the house once in a while — but I don’t do it in her panties, nor with any hope that doing a nice job will reward me with even more chores; I do it because it needs to get done. I clean the bathrooms, but that’s because she’s doing the laundry. On weeks when I’m not working late, I cook more often. During the warm weather, I clean less often — but that’s because I’m usually outside cutting brush, taking trash to the dump, and doing other yard work.
The other day we were bickering about doing some kitchen chore at the church, when, frustrated, I said “You’re not the boss of me!“
And that sound you suddenly hear is the click-clacking of keyboards as a dozen writers of FLR blogs remove my name from their blogroll.
