New rule

Belle doesn’t have than many rules for me, if you think about it.

  1. I can only come when she tells me to and if she tells me to I have to.
  2. I must to wear a chastity device whenever she says.
  3. I must never play with the penis without permission.
  4. If I have sex with someone else, I have to be locked up.

That’s about it, really. Everything I do and how I act flows from those. But today I asked that there be a new rule.

  1. I’m not allowed to tell her how I feel about coming (whether I want it or not) while we’re having sex unless she asks me.

This is a follow on from my previous post on talking about it while fucking her. As I said then, there’s no reason for me to say anything about it (really ever, but especially when the penis is inside her) other than for the part of my reptile brain that’s never accepted her control over my orgasm to try and manipulate her. I’ve been telling myself this new rule was a rule I was imposing on myself all week but this morning, in the passion of feeling her pussy and hearing her moan, I realized that a rule I never say to anyone is a rule I can’t be held accountable for.

On the surface, and when compared to the others, this new rule may seem like a little thing but I think it’s really huge. If I say what I want with regard to coming (either for or against), especially in the heat of the moment, then how committed am I to rule number one? You’d think, what with me being the big shot chastity blogger and all, that I wouldn’t need this rule, but in reality I’m always playing an angle with her. I guess that’s human nature, but when I can play an angle that means I have some modicum of flexibility and leverage and, truly, when it comes to my orgasm I don’t want any. I say that in the face of never letting go of that tenuous little thread.

The reptile part of my brain thinks she’ll always assume I want to come. That it will be obvious by my actions and how turned on I am and that I’ll be able to communicate my desire physically. The higher part of my brain (the bunny) clutches it’s little furry paws in hope that she doesn’t really think about it. That it doesn’t really matter.

So I asked this be a new rule this morning after I got her off. I was still locked up because she said she’s thankful for my chastity and this is Thanksgiving, after all. And I’m thankful for it, too. And her. Especially her. Once I proposed it and she quickly acceded to it, I could actually feel the control she has over that aspect of me ratchet down. That tiny wiggle space closed tight. The tenuous thread was cut. And it left me feeling warm and loved.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Pieces on the board

Chaste Cyclist (of the great eponymous blog) said in response to my last post:

Even though it has only been about 9 months for us, I feel myself drifting ever closer to these same feelings. The other evening when she called me upstairs I found myself wanting to be out of the Steelheart but knew better to ask. I simply wanted to pleasure her…and that is what I got. I have stopped asking to get out.

And it made me have a thought about one of the primary differences between enforced chastity (in which a device is used) and the other kind (in which the man is restricted in how he enjoys his penis but is not in a device). This is just sort of a random thought that started out as a comment in reply to his but I decided to make a post out of.

I don’t claim that one way of doing chastity is better than the other. I’ve seen device-less types claim theirs is superior because being able to employ willpower over a physical restraint shows greater submission blah blah bullshit bullshit. They can think what they want. I simply prefer to say we all get to do things as we like to do them and there’s no one right way to approach anything of a sexual nature. As long as everyone’s on board and happy, you win.

But, it may be the case that those of us in enforced chastity are ending up (or may end up) in a very different place than our device-less comrades. For me over the time I’ve been locked up, I’ve learned to progressively demote the penis as a central actor in our sex. In doing so, I’ve been able to be more completely focused on her pleasure. If the penis is not a factor in our sex (and truly we can have amazing sex without the key ever showing up) then the focus of the sex and its outcome is purely about her getting off as spectacularly as possible. The further out of mind the penis is, the better to have sex that is as partner-centric as possible.

I know for myself, when the penis is out, everything changes. It’s an entirely different act for me, even if most of it is functionally the same. Emotionally and hormonally, my focus is divided. Belle let me out this morning and the entire time I had my fingers in her snatch and was kissing her mouth and nipples, I was thinking about what came after. I was imagining the penis in her. I was resisting the urge to climb up and take her before she was done. After she came, I basically did just that. She never told me I could, but I slowly moved in that direction until she guided the penis in with her hand. It was an amazing fuck for both of us, don’t get me wrong, and of course I didn’t come (URRRRGH) but since I was free and hard and she was naked and writhing the drive to be inside her was crowding away in my mind.

Again, I’m not making a judgement call. I’m making an observation. Having a locked up penis makes a man much more focused as a lover. Personally, that’s a satisfying state of being for me. If the goal of chastity is to create in the locked parter a state of focus, an effective way of doing that is to demote his penis to a secondary or even tertiary player. Take the piece off the board, so to speak. Nothing does that better than a tight tube keeping his hard-on in check.

Counting the stages and keeping my mouth shut

About a week ago, I tweeted…

Which pretty much sums up how it works most of the time. I can get to the point where I want to come so badly that I start at the second stage and only find my way to stage three about four hours later, but most days not. We can call them the three stages of denial.

But maybe there’s a fourth. See, Stage 1 there, “I hope she doesn’t let me come,” doesn’t even activate until she hands me the key to the Steelheart. It’s like the penis is a tiny Dr. Evil frozen away in its orbiting Bob’s Big Boy. Out of sight, out of mind. So really, the first question is whether the penis even gets out.

This morning, Belle didn’t let it out. It’s usually the case that the little Dr. Evil defrosts on Saturday mornings we’re not doing anything in particular. It gets let out, I get her off, then I stick it in, but she decided to leave it be today. On the one hand, I like getting out. A lot. More than I crave orgasm at any given moment, I crave sensation from the penis. Feeling her hand on it, feeling it hard and free, pressed against her, rubbing against her skin, sliding into her hot wetness. Just feeling. The Steelheart provides both no sensation in that when I touch it and grab it and claw at it all my hand feels is perfectly smooth, numb hardness that never changes but then, on the inside, it’s high pressure. Intense, consistent, unyielding resistance to my excitement. So yeah, having an erection that can be touched and feels good is something I look forward to.

But I also don’t think I deserve to be unlocked. Being locked is the default. Being unlocked is the exception. Not a treat or a reward or whatever. I hate it when I expect to be unlocked. I’d rather assume it’s not going to happen and be pleasantly surprised when it does than the opposite. Of course, when she wants it out, it should come out. It’s entirely up to her. I just don’t want her considering me and my cravings in that decision. I don’t want her to be nice to me just because.

So when I wrote that tweet last week, it was after we fucked and I didn’t get to come. Which, being solidly in Stage 3, was a relief. But when I was in her and sliding the penis in and out and losing myself to the amazing feeling of that the intensity of Stage 2 made me say to her how badly I wanted to come. I immediately felt bad for saying it. After, I apologized.

The thing is, there’s no reason for me to tell her. None. Because it doesn’t fucking matter. If I say anything about coming, one way or the other, I’m trying to influence her and that’s bullshit. Especially when the fucking penis is inside her at the time. If she wants me to, she’ll tell me. Otherwise, it’s business as usual. Maybe I want to, maybe I don’t. Who cares. That’s the deal. I don’t come until I do and I don’t whine.

Maybe a part of me just wants her to know, “OMG, I’m so being denied right now!” but, of course, she knows that. But another part of me, the part that sits way down my brain stem and acts more than it thinks, is trying to put its finger on the scale of her decision. Maybe she’s considering it and by saying something it’ll cause her to lean towards letting it happen. I hate that part of me. That I can’t always keep it stifled. I’ve spent a long time learning how to keep it as far away as possible from the button that makes me come. Now I just need to learn to keep it from my mouth.

Orgasm denial and enforced chastity all boils down to managing conflicting urges and desires. I want to fuck you but don’t let me out, GAH coming would be awesome, I better not tell her. WHY DID YOU TELL HER!? Lock me back up, no keep me out, be nice to me, BE MEAN TO ME. Seriously, it’s stuff like this that makes me think being a top would be exhausting work. Subs are annoyingly complicated. We’re lucky anyone puts up with us.

Mile marker

A reader calling themselves “Dev” said just over a month ago in a comment

Thumper, I have a question for you, but I’m worried it will just piss you off. Hence I am leaving it in comments so that you don’t feel like you have to reply at all. But, have you considered that maybe you’re really not OK with the dent? I mean have you really given yourself space, allowed yourself to consider whether it’s OK for you? (I don’t mean medically, but personally.)

I think sometimes people don’t allow themselves to go down certain mental roads (like bisexuality, for some people) because they’ve assumed a priori that those roads are not OK or lead to bad places. Like a kid in college who might be too afraid to really ask themselves, do I really want to be a doctor or is it just my parents’ idea? Sometimes our persistent feelings are trying to tell us something that we should listen to.

I’m not saying that’s what’s going on here. I just want to nudge you to be sure you are giving your own thoughts and feelings proper respect and listening.

I never went back and answered that though I thought about it several times. Since I’m in the mood to write, I’ll do it now.

For those of you unfamiliar with “the dent,” I mean come on. Try and keep up, will you? The first mention of it is here. Then I whined about it when I was depressed, last time in the post linked to above in which Dev commented.

I will admit that there were times when I wasn’t OK with it. I mean, obviously, because I kept bringing it up and I didn’t need to. I could have totally never mentioned it to any of you people and who’d be the wiser? But I feel that people read my blog and perhaps even try and model some of their behavior on what I write about and it almost felt like if I didn’t say that wearing a chastity device can do something like that to a penis (even if you have to wear it for a really long time), I’d be breaking some kind of covenant. I said in my second post that I’d always tell the truth and that includes avoiding lies of omission.

There is something I’ve never said about the dent. It happens to be right at a point where the shaft of the penis had a bit of a natural bend in it to begin with. I recall when I was a teenager I though I bent it by jacking off too much with my right hand (which is hilarious — like it’s a Gumby penis or something). Even to this day, when I’m allowed to jack off (feh, right) I am conscious of which hand I’m using because of that natural bend. Then, at some point, I made a video of me putting on one of the devices I’ve made that kind of video for. I can’t recall which one at the moment and don’t feel like seeing which it was. In any event, I was just out of the shower and my skin wasn’t totally dry and had that kind of clingy thing going on that skin can have when it’s very slightly damp. As I pulled the penis through the ring, was a bit too forceful and I gave the shaft a bruise. I remember it being very slightly visible on the video and much more visible moments later. I actually watched the bruise form and darken. That bruise, as I recall, was about where the dent is today. Right about where the natural bend is. In fact, the bruise was on the right side and bend is on the left side.

I say all this because I think now that it’s entirely possible the dent isn’t from wearing a too tight A-ring all by itself. It could be because I wore a device when the penis was bruised and that didn’t allow it to heal properly. Honestly, I don’t know for sure. But it’s possible.

As my depression deepened, my issues with the dent started to become almost obsessive. My mind worried on it in those times when I was just starting to go to sleep or when the tight pressurized tube woke me up in the early morning. I imagined that it was getting worse and worse and would eventually impact my ability to use it. I can say without hesitation that there’s no sign the dent has changed at all, for better or worse. Whatever caused it, it appears to be stable.

All that being said, I’m not answering Dev’s question. She asked, “have you really given yourself space, allowed yourself to consider whether it’s OK for you?” I think now that yes, I have. And it is. Really.

As I said the other day, “being a locked man isn’t something I do, it’s what I am.” I feel that all the way down. At the very, very bottom, though, lives a tiny little serpent of doubt. And my depression and anxiety feeds that little snake until it becomes like Jafar at the end of Aladdin and then all it does it try and stoke my insecurities and issues and blow them up into things that keep me up at night.

I won’t go so far as to say I’m not a little insecure about the dent. Just a little. As crazy as it sounds, I worry about what someone might say someday if they see or feel it. Someone besides Belle who’s already said she likes it. That is crazy. Like it’ll ever happen. And even if it does somehow, like I said, being locked isn’t what I do, it’s what I am. In what universe is someone in the same room as the unlocked erection who isn’t aware of that? None.

I tend to think of it more now like a tattoo. Or perhaps the scar left over from a cesarean operation. It’s a mile marker on the journey that is my life. It’s not the same as it was but, honestly, had I known it was a possibility, I don’t think I would have changed anything about how it got there. Except maybe take my time pulling the stupid penis through the A-ring that day.

Objectifying hedonist

I don’t know what to call the guy I talk to about my brain. As in, is he a therapist? Psychologist? I don’t really know the difference. I should ask him, I guess. “Shrink” seems a serviceable catch-all.

As I pointed out before, his blog name here is Obi Wan and, now that I know him a little better, I’m guessing he’d like that very much. He’s the kind of guy who, when he says something, says it with a knowing authority. I find that interesting since we’re talking about emotions and such that to me feel very squishy and without hard edges. Definitive statements about things that seem less so aside, I do like him. He doesn’t fuck around and says exactly what he thinks. Plus, he’s totally hep to kink and power dynamics and all that. I suspect he’s a top in real life, but we don’t talk about that (except that he volunteered that he was straight to help make a point once). When he talks about submissives, it like a primatologist would of bonobos.

In the last few sessions, he’s made some statements about me that feel mostly correct. One is that he believes me to be a hedonist. The classic definition of hedonist is “pleasure seeker” but I think in my case it’s “new experience seeker.” I’m motivated by novel even extreme stimuli, both sexually and professionally. I said to him that I often struggle with not having accomplished enough in my life. The classic “he’s not applying himself” thing I’ve heard since the fifth grade. He says back that to an outside observer I appear to have accomplished quite bit. But regardless, I am not motivated by accomplishment. I am not in the game to rack up trophies, real or imagined, but to create a space in which I can satisfy my craving for new things to ponder over or do or discover. I struggle with thinking I’m supposed to have accomplishments of a certain stature at this point in my life even though I personally don’t put much value into them for myself.

Part of my recent issues with depression could very well have been caused by the fact that I’m in a bit of a rut in that regard. Professionally, I haven’t felt very necessary and that train of new things has been sitting in the station. I have taken this new insight to drive a fairly significant change in my company and it’s done wonders to improve my mood and motivation to come in every day. It makes me feel like I have a purpose and, if my luck holds out, will lead to future accomplishments I’m likely to discount.

The other thing that came up recently is that I objectify men. Like, in the typical way woman are supposedly always being objectified by men. Obi-wan thinks that to me, men are sex objects. That’s opposed to women who I find infinitely more fascinating. We came to this diagnosis in a rather round about way. We were talking about subbing to a dominant partner and how I would be more willing to give a female partner a lot more leeway in that regard than a male partner. That I kinda don’t want to know more about the Dom than what is inherent in the D/s dynamic. The more mysterious and unknown he is and the more our relationship is focused on the D/s, the better (presumably since I’ve only had the one D/s thing with a guy). This has also been the case even when I was having “normal” sex with men. Frodo has seen this in action more than most.

So this begs the question, can I have a friendship along with a sexual relationship with a man? I have significant friendship with Frodo that’s lasted both through our sexual adventures and three decades. I can only wonder if having sex with him in the future (if it happens) will change that. It’s not like it’s likely to happen very often if it does. And, of course, I haven’t been able to integrate friendship with Drew into a sexual relationship, D/s or not.

Sometimes, my bisexuality feels like a superpower. Like I can see through walls or something. Using that analogy, having a meaningful relationship with a man I’m also having sex with is my lead. A hard block that defeats my special ability. The way my emotions seems to short circuit when male friendship and sex mix doesn’t feel very super. If feels kind of broken. Not the kind of broken that can be fixed, either. Like trying to get bowling balls to fire out of a baseball pitching machine. Impossible. 

I suppose I could focus on how depressing that all sounds and wonder if getting into something with a guy is even morally defensible, but I’d rather think about it as a valuable revelation. My time with Drew had some immensely rewarding aspects and I learned a lot about myself. Like, next time I need to be even clearer about what I’m capable of and where my boundaries are. 

Gymboree

I’m probably done going to the personal trainer I’ve been seeing for…man, almost four years. The reasons are several but can be boiled down thusly:

  • His motivation strategy basically involves a bunch of macho bullshit I can’t stand.
  • The routines have become repetitive and dull (mostly because it’s a decidedly average gym space).
  • I don’t feel like I’m being “trained.” More like I’m paying him to be my gym buddy (set up my weights, spot me, etc.).

Note that Belle sees him too and will continue to do so since while I’m over him she certainly isn’t and in fact would like him to be over her, literally (which is why he’s called her gym boyfriend at our house).

I’ve found another local gym with trainers and have an appointment with a younger hot one this afternoon to see how it works out. He’s a lot more expensive than the old guy, but there are more options at that gym like classes and what they call “supervised workouts” where someone just helps out with spotting and such so I might be able to craft a solution that is equal to or maybe even a little less than what I’m paying now.

The gym is only a year old and is really nice with all kinds of cool shit and no typical  bullshit gym machines. It also has a proper locker room with a few showers. Since I’ll likely have a much less regular gym schedule than I have now, it’s probable that I’ll be getting there from work or whatever and won’t always be able to come in my gym clothes like I do now. Which means changing in the locker room and perhaps even needing to shower, depending on the time, and, of course, I have this extra interesting shiny tube where a guy’s dick usually is. I brought that all up to Belle last night and she was like, “Yeah? So?”

I mean, of course. Just like when I started going to see a trainer in the first place. She doesn’t want me to be out of the device. Ever. Not unless it’s on her terms. Going to the gym is not on her terms so I will apparently have no clemency in that regard. On the one hand, little fluttery butterflies of nervousness, but on the other, a tube-filling sense of security in that this is not a game this is us and I need to deal with it.

So I’ll deal with it. I’ll look for times that mean I don’t need to shower or can arrive changed and if that’s not possible I’ll figure out a way to change that minimizes the chances another guy will see it. I don’t want to flaunt the Steelheart. I don’t believe in that. But I am conceptually OK with someone seeing it (or evidence of it) inadvertently through just living my live. I don’t advertise but I’m also not going to be ashamed.

HNThumper LXX: Further faux clit action

In the shower this morning and, yet again, I found myself fingering the wet ‘n soapy penis in the Steelheart like it was a clit. Like last time, I was thoroughly enjoying myself when I realized I was breaking the “no playing with it” rule. Sigh. And after just saying how Belle can trust me.

In any event, I captured the following image of my hot, forbidden, faux clit action.

Continue reading “HNThumper LXX: Further faux clit action”

Theater and artifice

I saw an image on Tumblr recently that was of some guy wearing a clear Holy Trainer 2 with one of those numbered tags like Belle uses to keep track of my emergency key though its lock. The little plastic tag was the only thing “locking” the device onto the guy. Someone had reposted the image and added a comment to the effect of put a real lock on there and then we’ll see how hard it is to wear.

Trust and enforced male chastity is a funny thing. Some men (myself included) go to great lengths to find themselves in a device from which they can’t escape. I had the penis pierced almost entirely because I wanted to be locked in a device that couldn’t possibly be removed. I advocated for Belle to get a steel device and I even designed and had manufactured a new way of fixing my PA inside the tube so that escape was impossible without the key. But then I get to carry around a key to the Steelheart secured only with a little plastic number tab that nobody but me keeps a record of (meaning I could swap out the number whenever I wanted since I know where Belle keeps them and no-one would be the wiser). Belle was even going to just leave her unsecured key here at the house when she went on the overseas trip she’s on now.

Most men, it seems to me, who get their dicks locked up want it that way. They’re complicit in their chastity and, like me, even though they don’t need high security, they crave it anyway. I’d argue that if you let someone lock you up and then you cheat by backing out or stealing the key or whatever, that you really shouldn’t be locked up in the first place. Enforced chastity is a promise you make to your keyholder that supersedes whatever device they use on you. The device is a physical representation of that promise. A deterrent to protect you from weak moments, not the enforcer of your keyholder’s will. You, as the one being locked up, are the ultimate enforcer of their will. Your keyholder’s desire to keep you chaste resides within you, not the lock.

Of course, chastity doesn’t require a device. Perhaps it’s the case that unenforced chastity is the ultimate expression of submitting to one’s dominant parter, but that misses the appeal of a device. There’s something important in the physical talisman you carry with you. The one they put on you. There’s the sacrifice you make by putting up with the thing all day long, every day they choose to leave you in it. There’s the discomfort (sometimes greater than others depending on the device) you endure when aroused. Wearing the device, accepting its control, enduring it — those are also valuable acts of submission.

Belle totally trusts me regarding my chastity. She knows that even if I could, I would not cheat. Sometimes she leaves her key out in the open for days where I left it for her, even when she’s not around, because she knows I would never use it to let myself out without her permission. After all these years of wearing a device and all those possible orgasms and solo jack off sessions that will never be and the profound changes living like this has had on me, mentally and physically, being a locked man isn’t something I do, it’s what I am.

That do vs. am thing can be a source of comfort. Last night, I was really turned on and trying to sleep. My mind was trying to go through doors I wouldn’t let it because once past them, it’d be engaged all night long and I’d never get rest. After struggling with this for a while, I laid on my back and put my hand on the warm, hard steel between my legs and stroked the smooth surface of the unfeeling tube with my thumb. I told myself, This is who you are. And it helped. It calmed me down. It didn’t take the horniness away, but it put it in perspective. I’m not the way I am because of some external force. I am this way because it’s what I want to be. For her, for me, for us. Enforced chastity, orgasm denial, submission are fundamental to me. I can’t imagine anymore not being locked up. I can’t imagine having an orgasm whenever I want one. I am too far past all that now.

So if a little plastic tab is all you have between you and your dick, so be it. Enforced male chastity starts in your heart and your head, not your penis. A locked cock is a symptom of being a chaste, not the cause. Get that in your head — understand that anything beyond a simple plastic barrier is theater and artifice — and everything else follows.

Further elucidation

I said:

In short, I’m not in a place right now where I can submit to Drew. It’s as simple as that. My sexual relationship with him is founded on submission and if I can’t get myself there, I can’t do it.

So, why can’t I do it? And why does there have to be submission?

I’ll start when the second first. I am submissive. It’s not just a thing I do (though I get, for some people, it is that). Someone might say, “Gah! Why so complicated?” To which I would reply, are you new here? Which is a joke, but seriously, because it’s who I am now. With Drew, it was the very reason we had a relationship in the first place. So he could dominate and I could submit. When I said it was the foundation, that’s what I meant.

When you’re submissive, you sometimes need to find that angle that gets you into subspace. Sometimes, the Dom/me can do something to help you get there, but even so, a lot of it is internal and sometimes feels like you’re drawing a curtain in front of the things that might keep it from happening. It’s not hard with Belle since my submission and her control over my sex are deeply intertwined in our relationship now. But with Drew, I found it was getting harder and harder for me to find the submissive vector that pulled the curtain. Not because of anything mechanical or tactical he was doing wrong. I think it was because I came to know him too well.

If I had to find a starting point for when that started to be an issue, it was specing out and ordering him his Steelheart. I wear the Steelheart. I’m not with someone who does. But he was always very open about what was going on there and I had to try and just let those things roll over me and then get them out of my mind. Our recent trip to Montreal to order him his Steelwerks device was more of the same. Then there was the way he reached out to me when Axel found his set of boy toys and the emotions and conflict that brought up in him. I was really glad to be able to talk him through that and be his friend, but it finally put too much stuff on the side of the scale I needed to balance out to find my sub side with him.

Drew always wanted to be friends. I thought that was a good idea and was my instinct, as well. Turns out, if we did anything wrong, it was that we got too close. We became too intimate with one another’s private lives. The space in which I constructed my submission to him was filled with other things. Like his insecurities and hopes and issues and strengths and weaknesses and other sundry life drama.

That’s entirely unfair. I know it is. But it’s how it works with me. At least, how it works with me regarding Drew. Perhaps how it’ll work with any man. My feelings for men don’t follow the  same pathways as my feelings for women, after all. I can’t know that how it works with a guy on the side is how it’d work with a woman. It may be that anyone I enter into a D/s relationship with external to my marriage will need to maintain a certain distance to last.

To be clear, he did nothing wrong. I don’t think I did, either. It’s just where things have ended up, at least for the time being.