An interesting little exchange on Twitter about Tom’s chastity/denial matrix. I was trying to formulate a response but found the Twitter construct limiting so I’m doing it here. The exchange was this, in response to a tweet of mine about the matrix and asking people where they’d put themselves on it:
While I don’t think of chastity and denial as a punishment, I also don’t strictly speaking think of it as a life choice. I mean, yes, of course it’s a choice. I have a choice as to whether I’m locked up and denied. I entered into this arrangement with Belle and, theoretically, could get out of it if I needed or wanted to.
That said, I feel that accepting chastity and denial is more than a simple choice. I feel, deeply, that I am meant to be locked up and denied. That it is my natural state. It’s how I am supposed to be. Some of us are meant to have orgasms and some of us are meant to cause them.
So, no, I’m not being punished. Because I have done nothing wrong and there is nothing wrong with me. But access to the contents of the device and the pleasure of orgasm are being enforced and subjected upon me. Left to my own devices, I would eventually succumb to desire and give myself an orgasm. My nature and my evolutionary programming are at odds that way.
Tom left a comment on my reblog of his post saying that too often chastity and denial are conflated as the same thing. Some men are denied but not locked up. Some are locked up but are allowed to come fairly regularly. And that’s totally true. Tom suggests it all falls under the umbrella of “erotic orgasm denial,” and that works, but I do find myself wishing we had a word that was exclusively for the part of the Venn diagram where one is both locked and denied. I have no idea what that word might be. Some people use “chaste” but that’s not at all right since it’s a synonym with celibate and chastity and denial lead to more and better sex, not less. Certainly not none.
In reality, being denied but not locked would make me a non-functional adult. I would not be able to concentrate on anything at all after a few weeks. The device makes the denial not just possible, but also doable. I’ve read some blogs where the sub or the Dom consider devices a crutch or not “real” denial. Because the sub isn’t in control of it, their keyholder is. Of course, there is no One True Way. But for me, deviceless denial is a non-starter.
Also, I like the gear. I’m a nerd. I like stuff. I like to think about stuff. I like to compare them and consider their plusses and minuses and how they might be made better. I’d miss if the device was absent because I like it as an object. And, as I’ve written about a lot lately, I’ve grown to think of the device as part of me. It’s not separate from my sexual existence. It is my sexual existence. Like I said above, I was meant for this.
Also also, I’m into the compression. I’m into bondage. I’m a masochist. I like the feeling of having a locked penis and especially when it’s locked and trying to get hard.
So anyway, to circle back, it’s not about punishment. But it is about discipline. And it is about control and order and security. And I crave all those things down deep in my core.