I mention this because at last week’s AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and Adult Novelty Expo, the Millers (or more correctly, AL Enterprises) was there to show off their now well-known line of chastity devices. I missed it this year, since the budget here at Edge of Vanilla Labs didn’t seem to allow for “travel” in the research category; fortunately, the Las Vegas Review Journal had a few things to say:

In equally positive news, depending on your perspective, Las Vegas-based AL Enterprises is marketing a male chastity device that retails for $150. (Answer to obvious question: plastic tubes in various sizes, locking rings and padlocks.)

“It puts control of the couple’s sexuality into the key-holder’s hands,” said Nikki Yates, co-corporate director.

I really like the matter-of-fact reporting, as opposed to some of  the “WTF is this?” reporting seen last year.

They have a really nice looking booth, by the way.

They touched on something that I’ve wondered about, though: The sales numbers.

About 80 percent of the company’s customers are couples, she said. About 95 percent of the devices are purchased by men, but usually because the man’s partner thinks it’s a good idea.

AL works with five distributors, in addition to direct sales through its website, cb-6000.com.

I’m curious as to how they get those kinds of numbers. If 95% per cent of buyers are male, how do they know that 80% are married or partnered? I don’t remember seeing any survey on their website.

But wait – how many are they selling? The answer is still elusive.

Christi Morrell, co-corporate director, said the 13-year-old company’s sales increase 12 percent to 15 percent each year.

“The economy hasn’t affected us,” Yates said, adding that buyers at AVN seem more receptive to different products than in previous years.

I have noticed, though, that compared to 5 or 6 years ago, it’s fairly easy to find online porn (pictures or videos) with a man in a chastity device. They are still primarily in BDSM situations, but during a  long afternoon   few minutes on Youporn, Redtube, Xhamster, etc., it doesn’t take much effort find male subs wearing chastity devices for their cruel mistresses. When you think of some of the other things that have transitioned into more mainstream media (vibrators, dildos, fetish gear, etc.) then maybe it’s not such a stretch to imagine plastic and steel devices being hinted at by consumers hoping for the cutting edge of fetish fashion.

For those of you who doubt the feasibility, consider the cable-only channel Showtime has been airing a “reality program” called “Gigolos.” I haven’t seen it (I don’t have extended cable), but there is an episode from last year that you can find by doing a Google search on “Cock cage episode.” Seriously.

Here’s an interesting tidbit that you’ll find: Jimmy is asked to wear a cock cage, and the longer he wears it, the more he’s paid by a dominatrix.This episode aired last year.

Hah hah hah hah! Oh gosh, that’s so funny. Because, you know, with so many guys out there who seem to be begging to wear these devices, one of our gigolos manages to find the one domme in Las Fucking Vegas who can’t find a man to wear one for free, let alone who would pay her to hold a key.

There was a video of this part of the episode a few weeks ago, but it was apparently hosted on a Megaupload affiliate. But what I saw was a 20-something guy who was locked into a Curve. Of all the devices to portray, they picked the Curve. That’s right, a cable TV show featured a dominatrix who is paying a guy to wear what is arguably the bulkiest, ugliest,  most obtrusive, and least convenient chastity device on the market.

But that’s okay, because hey, it’s a chastity device on TV. Next year, maybe one will be on a more raunchy network show like Two and a Half Men, and a year later will pop up as a side plot on House. And when, one day your work friends are talking about the “kinky cock cage” that they saw on Big Bang Theory, you can give your hipster smirk and tell them that you  knew about those things before they went mainstream.

Not hers, of course.

She’s long been aware of the idea that some of my orgasms aren’t actually pleasurable, and over the years has, at times, been quite taken with the notion that she has some power over that. Generally this has taken the form of getting me aroused enough (usually after several weeks) to ejaculate while I’m still locked into my chastity device, but she has occasionally experimented with “forcing” me to release by using a vibrator on the device, or sometimes pressing the Hitachi directly on me. Both situations give me a sensation of slightly reduced arousal, which paradoxically seems to make me even more aroused the next day. I suspect that this is because after several weeks of arousal, my body is expecting to have an actual, mind-blowing orgasm; but when my brain checks in the next day, it sees that the tubes haven’t been properly cleaned. Or something.

Anyway, we haven’t been doing the chastity thing much this year, and since we have both been in pretty stressful job positions lately, our intimate life has suffered a bit. So, a few months ago I was suggesting some ways to spice things up a little, and among some of the ideas I floated were ruined orgasms when I’m not locked up. She didn’t explore the issue, and we went on to discuss other things; I figured she had forgotten about it. Until December, that is.

One night, we were laying in bed reading (we usually sleep nude), and she reached over and began stroking me. This is always a welcome surprise, so I asked her to use some lube or cream, and if she would consider finishing me that way. She grabbed a bottle of hand lotion and continued to stroke and tease me, until I was writhing on the bed and lightly (very lightly — damn kids around) moaning. As soon as I was ready to come, my hips lifted off the bed in expectation, and and she stopped stroking as I felt her grip tighten firmly around my shaft. My hips bucked a few times, and my moans turned into a groan of surprised frustration. And then it was over.

Ruin ALL the orgasms!

“You’re frowning,” she said, looking at my face. Yeah, no kidding, I thought. She went to get a towel, and when she came back she said “I don’t think that I did it right. You’ve got come on you.” Yes, some had leaked out after she let go, which is to be expected. I cleaned up, thanked her, and we drifted off to sleep with murmurs of needing more practice. The next morning I was quite hard, and woke her up for a little action. Despite being aroused, I didn’t feel the need to come, so I left her to go back to sleep for a few hours.

A couple of weeks later, we were in the same situation; she was stroking me, and I asked her if she wanted to practice a little more. She thought it was a good idea, so we grabbed some lube, and within a few minutes she had me very aroused. While she stroked me, I tried to explain that instead of just wrapping her fingers around me, that she might have better control pressing her thumb along the underside, closer to the base of my shaft. Knowing that the urethra passes closer to that area, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Mrs. Edge knows what I like, and after a little while I had to stop talking. Well, it was more like she had gotten me to the point where I was just babbling, anyway. And once again, just as I arched my hips I felt her squeeze, and her thumb bore down HARD. I felt my hands scrabbling at the sheets as my PC muscles tried to contract. I let out a small groan of frustration, and a few moments later it was all over. When she finally relaxed her grip, just a few drops leaked out.

“How was that?” she asked me. I had a hard time answering, in part because I was in some odd state of mind. The immediate need to come was gone, but nothing felt right; as far as my body was concerned, it wasn’t over over. On her part, she was again a bit disappointed to have allowed a few drops to leak out, and I had to assure her that with everything that goes through the plumbing, a few drops was perfectly normal.

We’ve now been practicing a bit more often; I’ve been agreeing to refrain from orgasm during intercourse so she can practice on me right afterward. And like so many things with regard to sex, this is something that sounds so freaking hot when you’re aroused, but then seems like a really stupid idea when it comes to actually doing it. I mean, I don’t  know about you, but I like orgasms. I love the explosive release, and the warm satisfaction immediately afterward. What the hell is the idea of leading all the way up to that, and stopping just short?

Goddam brain is paying tricks on me.

When I can step outside of myself to watch, though, I enjoy seeing Mrs. Edge move from a more passive form of ruined orgasms (that is, the involuntary releases that I’ve had) to a more active role. Her intentional ruining is, to me, exciting to think about (at least, beforehand), and she, herself gets excited about “practicing” (as she calls it). I know that she enjoys feeling me orgasm completely when I’m inside her, but this new-found hobby is also giving her a nice thrill, and allows her to gently explore her feelings about control. So, as long as she’s willing, how could I possibly pass that up?

From the article BDSM: It’s not as transgressive as you think:

“The fantasy of the scene as a safe space of private desire justifies and reinforces certain social inequalities,” she argues. The truth, she says, is that S/M “depends for its erotic power on precisely these real-world relations, within which it is given form and content.”

This is something that I rarely see discussed anymore. Is the BDSM scene simply just one more way that “privileged” people play? Perhaps. Weiss states:

“On the one hand, SM is figured as outlaw: as transgressive of normative sexual values,” Weiss writes. “On the other hand, SM is dependent on social norms: practitioners draw on social hierarchies to produce SM scenes.” The mostly-white, mostly-middle-class community is itself an example of real-world social inequality: ”These [sexual] experiments are more possible and more accessible to those with class, race and gender privilege: heterosexual men playing with sexism, white bodies at a charity slave auction, professional information technology (IT) workers with several rooms filled with custom-made bondage toys.”

And speaking of toys:

Not everyone in the S/M scene can afford to buy all this stuff. In the same way that whiteness is normative, it’s in the center, there is this normative professional-class person who has the money and leisure time to devote to S/M practice, and that is the ideal for consumer capitalism.

S/M is not alone in this. This is just a way that communities based around sexualities work in the U.S. today. But S/M is also a really great example of this, and you can see what that does to the community. People have debates about toys: Are they destroying social connections, did it used to be more authentic? And how now you can just buy your S/M identity, and that creates a lot of anxiety for people.

Much more at the Salon article, and for those interested, here’s a link to the book “Techniques of Pleasure.”

A quick synopsis:

[Weiss] describes a scene devoted to a form of erotic play organized around technique, rules and regulations, consumerism, and self-mastery. Challenging the notion that SM is inherently transgressive, Weiss links the development of commodity-oriented sexual communities and the expanding market for sex toys to the eroticization of gendered, racialized, and national inequalities. She analyzes the politics of BDSM’s spectacular performances, including those that dramatize heterosexual male dominance, slave auctions, and US imperialism, and contends that the SM scene is not a “safe space” separate from real-world inequality. It depends, like all sexual desire, on social hierarchies.

And if you stop by the Salon article, take some time to read the lengthy list of comments.

From the Broward County / Palm Beach New Times:

Sex in South Florida: Our Survey Finds That We Sure Like Our Kinks

The survey is clear about one thing: People around [Palm Beach]  like sex. They like a lot of it, and they like it with numerous partners. A healthy chunk of them are into kink — not just whips and chains. Responses to an open-ended question about fetishes included spanking, watersports (Google it, if you dare), and everything in between.

What? That’s normal, right? Well, maybe not:

Compared to nationwide surveys, our readers are randy. A Kinsey Institute survey found that just 3 percent of women and 17 percent of men had 21 or more lifetime partners. That means we have ten times the national average of people who have had multiple partners.

Seriously? But… it’s Florida.What gives?

Then again, sex seems to be in the air around these parts, says Jakob Pastoetter, clinical associate professor at the Orlando-based American Academy of Clinical Sexologists. He says it might be all the sunshine. “It makes you feel good. It makes you feel relaxed,” Pastoetter said. “You trust people more in sunshine than in the fog.” It also doesn’t hurt, he says, that we tend to wear a lot less clothes down here.

[...]

Our survey doesn’t just show that the number of people someone has slept with really isn’t a big thing. It shows that freakiness isn’t a big deal either.

An overwhelming 77 percent majority has said yes to sex in public. More than half said they’ve had sex with more than one person at the same time.

For a mainstream-ish newspaper, this was pretty interesting reading. But what about the kinky stuff?

About 11 percent of readers are swingers, and more than a third have a fetish, though their idea of what a fetish is varies greatly. Some respondents listed things like accents, punks, and redheads. Others got into specifics when describing what makes them lose their minds in the bedroom (or dungeon), including paddles, male chastity, stockings, and doctors and latex. Feet got a lot of mention, as did dominance and submission. More-obscure activities named were bukkake and something called ball stretching. Seven people mentioned watersports.

“Something called ‘ball stretching.’” For some reason I found that amusing. Oh yeah, and there’s that male chastity thing again. Next thing you know, they’ll have them on the Home Shopping Channel.

In South Florida, fetishes have grown big enough to spawn several subcultures. Some consider fetish a lifestyle and have an entire social circle built around it. A woman who identifies herself publicly as Dominant Amanda told New Times that almost every type of fetish has its own subgroup here. They get along, she said, but certain fetish communities, like spanking, for example, don’t typically associate with everyone else. She said swingers don’t come around too often either.

Not unlike Fetlife.

Ahem.

But here’s an interesting insight on the fetish community:

Barbara Winter, a Boca Raton-based psychotherapist specializing in sexuality, sees everybody from prostitutes to sex addicts. Once in a while, someone with a fetish will make an appointment with her and never show up, she says, adding that this might be due to growing acceptance of it. “They probably don’t want to give it up,” she says. “It’s probably working for them.” The fact that there’s a whole community out there that’s in the same boat can’t hurt.

A short, but interesting article. Head on over to the New Times and check out the rest of it.

Just a gratuitous fetish-themed picture.

]]> http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/sexy-south-florida/feed/ 7 Tom Allen Laundry room fetish http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/baby-its-rapey-outside/ http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/baby-its-rapey-outside/#comments Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:03:22 +0000 Tom Allen http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/?p=2051 ]]> It’s mid-December, and approaching winter here in New England, which means that the local radio stations are into playing a month-long orgy of  “holiday music,” which means Christmas carols, Christmas-themed tunes, and a handful of “seasonal” (i.e., winter themed) songs. Personally, I get tired of them after about, oh, 20 minutes, but I manage to tolerate them for a few weeks. But even though I can turn off the radio, I still run across news and blog items about how much a partridge in a pear tree costs, humorous sketches about Santa Claus, and similar items that are not funny for the eleven other months of the year.

Lately, in some of the web forums on which I’ve been lurking, I’ve been running across discussions — apparently having gone on for the last couple of years — about the inherent creepiness or date rapey-ness of the old song “Baby, it’s cold outside.”

A date rape song from the 1930s? Seriously?

[Note: I am not going to offend your intelligence by interjecting at various points disclaimers about the prevalence or immorality of date - or any kind of - rape.  Let's assume that we're all adults, and that we can agree on that point.]

Maybe we’ve gone collectively insane, or maybe my advanced age and privileged social status have given me a different perspective, but this is definitely going in the “What the freakin’ hell?” category.

For those of you who don’t have cow-orkers blasting the “lite” station on their radios or iPods, and have somehow missed one of the few enjoyable winter songs written, it’s a low-key duet about a woman who is considering an overnight stay at her swain’s house. The man’s half of the duo sings some enchanting, seductive phrases which intersect and rhyme with the woman’s part; the woman herself appears to be voicing concerns about what other people would say or think about her if she stayed. One of the points at issue is that partway into the song (after she asks for “half a drink more”) she says: “Say, what’s in this drink?”

And that’s it.

You don’t remember the lyrics? They’re all over the place, but I used this version for reference.

First, in the context of time this song was written, that was a pretty innocuous expression. People from the 1930s still remembered the Prohibition years, and as anyone who has watched the old movies from that era  (Marx Brothers come to mind, as do the Nick & Nora “Thin Man” series, and almost anything with Mae West or WC Fields) could attest, characters often said such things, reflecting the quality of the alcohol available at the time. We probably don’t have anything analogous to it now, because you can buy brand-name liquor at the grocery store. Yes, they had “Mickey’s” that were often slipped into a drink, but the rest of that verse, plus the next one, don’t give any indication that this is a possibility.

Secondly, the male character (sometimes referred to as the “wolf”) is not being pushy or even overly seductive. The funny part about the lyrics is that woman’s character (sometimes called the “mouse”) is actually talking herself into ignoring the societal conventions of the time, and is desirous of staying.

I just learned that Zooey “Trillian” Deschanel and M. Ward have a gender-swapped version of this which is supposed to be less creepy. This would have been funnier if the gender-reversed version hadn’t already been done… back in the 1940s by Red Skelton and Betty Garret in “Neptune’s Daughter.” That version, played for laughs simply because it was a role-reversal, actually does come across as being a bit date-rapey, when taken in the context of being seen 60 plus years after it was made.

If you’re looking at just the lyrics — the way the song was actually written — it’s pretty easy to see how the woman’s side of the duo is thinking about what people will say, the possible talk about her reputation, and how she’ll have to explain her actions later on (and even as recently as the 1960s and 1970s, women in media often were seen to have the same concerns as this woman in 1936). There’s nothing that I can see that gives any signal that she feels unsafe, or pressured, or that her partner is forcing unwanted attentions upon her. Various other duets, seen on variety shows from the 1960s onward, generally seem to have highlighted the playful side of these lyrics; that is, the give-and-take of friendly, desired seduction.

There’s a Bob Dylan song from the late 60s or early 70s, called “The Talking John Birch Society Blues,” and I remember it mainly because of a verse near the end, in which the main character, on a mission to root out Communism from our society, discovers that “there are red stripes on the American flag.” In other words, I sometimes wonder if in our collective mania to find something by which we may delight in our feelings of having been offended, we aren’t making things up because in our society, we’ve already run out so many things that are actually offensive.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go marvel at a discussion group in which the members — all of them adults — just discovered that the song “I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus” (and I swear that I am not making this up) is not about adultery.

]]> http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/baby-its-rapey-outside/feed/ 16 Tom Allen http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/because-you-cant-look-under-the-mattress-anymore/ http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/because-you-cant-look-under-the-mattress-anymore/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:40:06 +0000 Tom Allen http://vanillaedge.wordpress.com/?p=2034 ]]> … to find your partner’s porn, that is.

Well, not that anybody has kept porn under the mattress in the last decade, anyhow. Computer-savvy partners now keep it in sub-sub-sub folders like “D:\windows\system_64\applications\manager\binaries\antivirus\infected\deleted\asian-t-girl-boobies\” or similarly buried directories.

Which is why snoopy wives and girlfriends now have to resort to spyware to find their partner’s fap stash.According to the marketing information on the “Find His Porn” website:

“Technology has advanced to the point where traditional ways for women to keep track of their guys just don’t work anymore.”

You get an RFID device to “keep track” of your pets. You get a cell phone and a Facebook account to “keep track” of your kids. But if you feel a need to “keep track” of your guy, then you need a good, long discussion about your relationship — and ladies? I’m talking to you here — and you’d better be prepared for hearing some things that you may not like.

“Porn has gone virtual – which means no more adult DVD’s or dirty magazines that you will find lying around. Everything he looks at is right there on your computer, only problem is it’s not easy to find. Aren’t you curious what he’s up to? You are not alone. Most women are curious and until now there was little that could be done. Now all you have to do is try Find His Porn today and see exactly what he’s watching.”

Yeah, aren’t you curious as to what he’s looking at? Well, aren’t you?

Okay, okay, I get it. Yes, some guys actually do have a problem with porn; they are addicted to looking at pictures, and some of them masturbate so much that they barely have enough energy for you later on. That’s why you need to lock them up in a chastity device, so they will only be able to…

Hold on, wait,  sorry — That’s the current motto of the chastity nuts on the internet, and is not in any way reflective of real life. Or, at least, real mature, adult life.

And yes, some women become very insecure about the porn that their partners might be looking at because they are constantly comparing themselves, and I think that there is some merit to discussing this. If you are a size 4 woman with B-cup boobs, and your partner is ogling a copy of Big’Uns in the basement behind the furnace, then it’s natural for you to wonder if your partner is thinking about someone else, someone you can’t possibly emulate. 

But these are issues that mature adults should be able to discuss, and come to some kind of agreement or compromise. I’ve heard from real-life woman friends who have bemoaned their husband’s “porn addiction,” only to discover later that hubby’s “porn” was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar, or a Playboy Playmate poster; the latter is especially ironic considering that the tv show “The Girls Next Door”(about “Playmates” living in the various Playboy mansions) is watched mainly by women.

Look, sometimes relationships turn weird simply because people fail to treat each other like adults. I once had a partner that used to think it was her job to “catch” me doing things wrong, whether is was cleaning the bathroom, tracking dirt on the floor, or replacing the toilet paper the wrong way on the roll. Each time she “caught” me doing something that was perfectly normal for me (which wasn’t porn, by the way), but that she didn’t like, we had a huge argument. I spent a couple of miserable years learning to hide things, until one day I suddenly realized what I was doing (i.e., acting like a teenager), and just stopped hiding, and began insisting  that if she had a problem, she was welcome to talk to me like an adult, but until then, I’d continue to do things my way.

The relationship lasted about a month after that, which taught me that some people actually do want to play out their child/parent models, or at least, can’t seem to think in other ways. So, if this is you, then by all means buy the porn sniffers. But don’t be surprised when he starts password protecting his accounts, and finds other ways to hide things from you.

Because I’ve got the links set up in categories (and because I link to so many awesome writers), I know that many of my readers use my blogroll as a link aggregate. So, for those of you who may have recently discovered Edge of Vanilla (or for those of you who haven’t taken the opportunity to explore much beyond my own posts), I wanted to take some time to show some love to the people that have inspired and entertained me. So, in no particular order, here’s an introduction to some more of my favourites.

Nemo is another blogger that I know from other venues. His blog is called Tease, Denial, & CBT, reflecting some of his particular interests, which appear to be Sexual Teasing, Orgasm Denial, and Computer Based Training.  Nemo’s posts are a mix of idle musings and captioned pictures (which seem to feature attractive women, sexual teasing, but not much in the way of Computer Based Training, as far as I can tell). Nemo, himself, appears to be happily married to…

Mistress Ivey, who writes a wonderful “How To” manual on Becoming a Mistress. Ms. Ivey’s blog should be required reading for any couple who are just starting to explore chastity or even basic BDSM. She approaches her topics (generally sexual teasing, male chastity, orgasm denial, and ruined orgasms) with sly humor and good information. Her articles are always well-written, and are aimed at newbie or vanilla-ish women.

I can’t remember how I ran across Amai, but how can you not follow someone refers to what she enjoys as “Fundom”? Dommesticity is still a fairly new blog, but Amai has filled it with interesting perspectives on the nature of dominance, submission, and the range of sexualities that revolve around them.

Delving into Deviance is written by Dev, a woman who is not an expert. She admits as much, so that wasn’t a dig. Dev writes on kink from a slightly different perspective: don’t go there looking for erotica; instead, go there to have your own perspectives on kink broadened a bit.

For yet another foray into the meta-philosophy of kink, spend a few minutes at Lab Coats & Lingerie. The co-authors, Fizz and Professor Chaos, are self-identified as “queer, fat, poly, dominant, switchy, and agender,” and “pansexual, dominant, disabled, and femme.” You can just imagine what kinds of topics their blog covers.

Like him or loathe him, you can’t deny that Maymay puts a huge effort into arguing for what he believes to be sexual social justice and equality. He has a number of projects, but he writes mainly at Maybe Mainmed. You can’t read one of May’s posts quickly; there’s a lot to them, so much so that you might start off agreeing with him, and then find yourself disagreeing by the end of the article.

Selena and Dymion (mainly Dymion) write the erotic blog Domination, Submission, and Love in Life & Dreams. Just stop reading this right now, and click the link already; I’m not going to tell you twice. Okay, are you back yet? See what I mean?

I have a thing for older women, so rounding out this installment is DDD (short for Dick Dyke Dick), whose name reflects her transition from het to lesbian and to het. DDD is a woman of a certain age who writes with abandon, and blatantly shows off her ridiculously well-maintained body several times a week.

Once again, I hope that you, my dear readers, will take the opportunity to look at some of my own favorite reads, and perhaps leave a comment there to spread the love. Meanwhile, I’ll be back at EoV Labs working on the next installment.

Because I’ve got the links set up in categories (and because I link to so many awesome writers), I know that many of my readers use my blogroll as a link aggregate. So, for those of you who may have recently discovered Edge of Vanilla (or for those of you who haven’t taken the opportunity to explore much beyond my own posts), I wanted to take some time to show some love to some of the people that have inspired and entertained me. So, in no particular order, here’s an introduction.

Domme Chronicles. I wasn’t going to include Ferns on this list, figuring that if you weren’t already smart enough to be reading her, then you don’t deserve to have me mention it. Ferns is one of those bloggers that I actually wish she could live next door so she could drop by for a glass of wine in the evenings and ramble on about life, the universe, and everything. A self-described “‘Dominant Woman,” Ferns writes about domination without letting one forget that she is, first, a woman. The close-knit community of commenters shows that she doesn’t have a sex blog; rather, it’s a blog for sexy, thinking people.

The Pleasure Principle is a fairly new discovery. You know who Hedone is. She’s the sassy girl who sat in the back of the class making zingers at the teacher — but who didn’t get detention. She’s the co-worker who makes the off-color comments in meetings — that make the stuffy boss crack up. She’s the very kinky girl that you did take home to mother — and your mother loved her. Hedone writes about her adventures, mainly with a lucky guy known as Kinky Gent, and frankly, I’m glad that she doesn’t live next door, because she’d probably egg Mrs. Edge on to to some things that would even scare me.

I get a lot of out-clicks to A Reluctant Bitch, probably because (given the nature of most of my links) one imagines her as someone who is slowly becoming a dominatrix. I hope that readers aren’t disappointed to discover that Jz is really an attractive, independent woman who has discovered a passion for being bound — by ropes, but not by convention.

If you’re here because of a search on male chastity, then you’ve also discovered Denying Thumper. Thumper is one of the few — very few — “chastity blogs” that has managed to stay fresh and interesting. I don’t always agree with him; hell, I don’t even always understand him. But there’s no question that Thumper is writing from a special, deep place, and you simply can’t doubt his honesty and emotional openness.

The name of the author of Tales of a Domme, for me, conjures up the vision of a house where the flogger might be in the broom closet, the strap-on harness is holding a loose cabinet door, and the husband is in long term chastity only because she lost the keys. I’m sure that Dishevelled Domina isn’t really that disheveled, but it’s amusing to imagine. Her blog is fairly new, but she’s an excellent writer.

After spending an eternity leaving insightful comments all over blogland, I was very glad that Stabbity finally decided to start blogging on her own. First of all, just her name alone kicks ass. But that wasn’t enough for her. Oh no. Now, whenever I think of Stabbity, I envision Demi Moore’s character GI Jane. Why? Because in my mind, you’ve gotta have some serious brass balls to call your blog Not Just Bitchy, a reference to the sadly AWOL blogger Bitchy Jones. Stabbity, however, does manage to pick up where Bitchy left off. In fact, I’m betting that within a week of this, she’ll have a post up to the effect of “Yeah, thanks for the sentiment, Tom, but how is correlating bravery to male appendages supposed to be a fucking compliment to me? Stop being part of the goddam problem!”

Rounding out this installment of bloggers is Celtic Queen and Celtic Queen’s Sub, both of whom I’ve gotten to know not from blogging, but from the Chastity Forums. Over the last five or six years, I’ve run across literally dozens of “pink blogs,” that is, blogs written by men hoping (usually without much luck) to convince their wives into a FLR. This couple lives that way,  and apparently rather successfully.

I hope that you, Gentle Reader, take the opportunity to peruse the aforementioned blogs, and perhaps to even leave a comment or three on the ones that you enjoy. Meanwhile, I’ll be making up a list of some more favorites.

From the City Weekly (Utah):

Doris Miller: Penis Padlocks

Carbon County natives Doris and Frank Miller run a booming business manufacturing the CB-6000 line of male-chastity devices. These high-tech, clear-plastic penis padlocks assure the keyholder that the wearer’s genitalia remain safely under wraps during unsupervised periods. A.L. Enterprises, Inc. recently moved from Price to Las Vegas’ freer business climate, but its patent notices still liven up the business pages of Utah dailies. City Weekly asked Doris about the male-chastity biz.

You can read the article online, but apropos of Kink In Exile’s recent question, here’s Doris’ take on the typical customer:

Our revolutionary line of products is marketable to the fetish enthusiast, as well as couples looking to increase their intimacy and sense of adventure. (italics mine -TA) The target customer is diverse. The product appeals to men and women alike. The misconception is that the male-chastity device is only purchased to correct a wayward husband. In reality, the majority of customers purchasing a male-chastity device fall into two main groups: either fetish devotees, or couples interested in expanding their sexual experiences with “chastity play.” Chastity play can bring the spark and excitement back into an otherwise stagnant relationship. Customers who use our products in cases of infidelity find chastity play helps bring trust back into the relationship.

It’s an interesting article, but as I said, a bit of a puff piece, and not really as in-depth as one that was written up a few years ago. For some more background, have a look at Lust Under Lock and Key.

I’m reading some of the blogs linked off Keyheld, “an aggregate for blogs in which male chastity and orgasm denial are the main focus.”  It seems like a lot of these male bloggers are married, many with families, most with otherwise uncomplicated-by-the-risque lives.  My question is, how does orgasm control get into such unexpected and otherwise normal-seeming unions?

Having been immersed in the chastity culture for so long, it’s sometimes surprising for me to hear other kinksters ask about it. Even more surprising is that KiE puts the cart before the horse in her assumption:

I’m curious if these guys (and gals) filtered for “kinky” in partner selection and if not, how they managed to find a match in what I’d expect to be a niche field.

So to help her out, I think it would be great to see comments (either here or over there), especially from some of more vanilla-ish guys as to how they settled on chastity or orgasm control as a personal kink. Naturally, anyone too shy to leave a comment is welcome to email me and I can post it anonymously if you’d like.

Kink in Exile is a great blog, by the way, especially for those of you who prefer intelligent insight with your kinkiness.

And just for some motivation, I’m posting a picture of a completely stereotypical fantasy.