Category: Life with Belle

Stuff that really happened to Thumper and/or Belle Fille

#PussyFree

I have been thinking quite a lot about the prospect of never getting to fuck Belle again. I mean, I thought about it a lot before I knew I may never get to again, but that was when I thought I might get to every time we had sex. Maybe that would be the time she produced the key and let me out and I’d get to slip it in. I didn’t think about it so much in between those times because why should I? But lately, I’ve been thinking it about often, usually just as I’m going to sleep (or trying to).

On the socials, the way men in my situation refer to not being allowed to ever fuck their female keyholders is #pussyfree. I never really paid a lot of attention to it before because, of course, that wasn’t me. I may have been #pussyfree at that moment, but like rain in Death Valley, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Except now I’m led to believe sooner may be never and later may be forever. So suddenly #pussyfree has a whole new meaning. That hashtag is me.

And it’s more than just never being allowed to enjoy Belle’s pussy again. Some guys who are pussy free are cucks who, while not being allowed to fuck their wives, aren’t locked in chastity (at all or not permanently) and still get to jack off. But Belle doesn’t let me do that. Ever. So, not only will I never get to feel pussy with the contents again, unless something changes, I won’t be able to feel my own hand there again, either.

And if I don’t get to feel pussy or my own hand again, then…well, I won’t come again. So I’m not just #pussyfree, it’s becoming clear that I’m going to be #orgasmfree.

I have wanted this at certain points in the development of our chastity journey, but I never really thought we’d get here. I never thought she would get here. And I’m not going to lie and say I’m upset at the prospect of never coming again. Of never feeling a pleasurable sensation with the contents again. I’m not upset. I will miss it, surely. I have been missing it. But I understand why it has to be this way.

That said, it’s one thing to fantasize or imagine the eventuality and another to find one’s self living it. There’s a finality that I don’t think I had previously really appreciated. A finality but also a bit of a relief. Belle has lifted from me the need to concern myself with my own orgasm ever again. I don’t need to spend any time wondering if the next time I get her off if I’ll get a chance for myself, too. Because I won’t. Not that time, not the time after that, or the one after that. Not any time. No need to worry my pretty little head about it.

The ache in my balls. The gnawing craving. The fluttery urge I get when I touch her wet pussy. They’re not just the common companions I’ve grown accustomed to. They’re now permanent fixtures. Really and truly, not a thing I’m doing but what I am.

The finality of that is clarifying, now that I’ve worked it out. Any energy that might have been wasted thinking about the orgasm I might get and did I really want the thing I so badly craved and should I feel good or guilty for getting it if I got it because maybe probably I wouldn’t but maybe I would and then how would that feel and shouldn’t I just try and enjoy it even though maybe I didn’t want it after all? All out the window. How I am now — right now — is how I am. All I’ll ever be.

Got it. OK. Let’s go.

Addicted

I continue to be extraordinarily horny. Really, ever since that massage.

The night of the massage I bet I didn’t sleep two hours. I did fall asleep, but pressure from the device woke me up and then kept me up. I just couldn’t get visions out of my head. And every time I almost did — BAM — another sexy thought. It was torture.

The next morning, I basically devoured Belle. I was on top of her and moaning as soon as my fingers touched her wet pussy and I cried out when she came. And that energy has been with me ever since. Night before last I also couldn’t sleep and maybe got 2-3 hours. It’s been crazy.

But the thing is, I want this. Not just because it’s my nature to be a horned up denied sub left to stew in his own juices by his Domme wife, but because I think there’s something to the idea that the chemistry at work in a denied man’s brain is literally addictive.

When I’m allowed to come, there’s a distinct vibe drop. If I’m allowed to come twice in a few days (lol), it’s a total wipeout. And I feel…nothing. A void. I hate it. The lack of whatever’s churning around in me while denied is miserable. It’s like the color drains away from the world. I’m ornerier and sadder and no fun to be around. It’s legitimately like withdrawals.

I’m not a physiologist or anything, but it really does feel like an addiction. Not to a sensation, like when I was a teenager and into my 20s and jacking off daily (sometimes more). It’s to the feeling of being turned on to distraction.

Belle knows this about me. She texted me after she read the last post and told me point blank that I was “a real pain in the ass” when she lets me out and I come. And, since I’m “pretty good at satisfying her” in other ways, she still doesn’t know when or if I’ll get out for that reason again.

I think about how guys who are introduced to chastity find they want more and longer lock-ups. About how they invariably start to hope and even lobby against coming. I was that guy. I guess I still am that guy. But, in my experience, nearly all locked-up guys get that way. And it’s not like, oh I dunno, mountain biking or something where there’s a thing they’re doing that’s fun and enjoyable to do again and again. Chastity and denial are about the things those who’re locked up aren’t doing. It’s how denial and being locked up feels that powers our craving for it.

Long term chastity and denial are some kind of bizarre emotional inverted Möbius strip. A self-referential loop. A thing M.C. Escher would draw. A condition that makes no logical sense and doesn’t seem to be physically possible, but it does and it is.

And I guess I’m just lucky as fuck that I’m married to a woman who understands that.

290

The other day I wrote:

“I have absolutely no memory of the last time she wanted to use the contents. I’ve been thinking hard about it and have no clue.”

And since I’m just laying here in the middle of the night horny as fuck and unable to sleep, I was thinking about this again. About how it’s been so long since she let me out and inside her and feel that amazing, incredible, sensation of hard penis sliding into wet pussy.

And then it hit me. I do know when it was. Or, I should say, I can figure it out. Pretty easily, actually.

I keep track of when I’m locked up and what I’m lock in. I’ve been doing it for years. Here’s how 2022 netted out:

Not only does the app I use tell me totals like that, I can go back and look at what I was locked in (or not) on any given day of the year.

Combine that with the fact that Belle is very consistent about when she lets me fuck her. She wants sex on weekend mornings, almost exclusively. But it’s 100% the case that when I get to fuck her, it’s a weekend morning. No exceptions. On the occasional weeknight when she wants me to get her off, that’s what we do. I get her off. I’m never, ever out at those times. Just weekend mornings.

So, all I have to do is find a weekend morning when I’m unlocked for a couple hours. Since I’m supposed to go right back into chastity after she lets me inside her, it leaves a gap in my lock-up that looks like that.

The first one I found was January 1, 2022. That was a Saturday and my log for that week looks like this:

Steelheart, Steelheart, Steelheart with a 3 hour 16 minute opening at about 9:00 AM and then Steelheart again. That’s me getting to fuck and then probably clean the device. And I actually remember that now.

I kept looking and found this:

March 20, about 7:30 AM, for 2 hours 31 minutes. A Sunday. Fits the pattern. I don’t remember that one.

I looked for the next one…and didn’t find it. No other unlocked gap on a weekend morning for the whole rest of the year.

The last time I was allowed to fuck my wife was 290 days ago. The last time I was allowed an orgasm. The last time I was allowed to feel pleasurable sensation with an erection.

Two hundred ninety days.

Me from 15 years ago — pre-chastity me — would not be able to wrap his head around that at all. It would be literally impossible to imagine, let alone imagine that I’d be OK with it. Me from a period not too long after we started using chastity in our relationship would be very conflicted. He’d think it was simultaneously hot as fuck but he’d be mourning the idea of not being able to come. Ever.

The me that’s writing this post is not conflicted. At all. While I do have strong urges to feel pleasure with the contents, I’m also very self-aware of the fact that I’m ultimately happier not being allowed to. That I’m a better husband and sub to Belle being denied that pleasure. That craving it, even to distraction, is better than getting it.

And, of course, this is what she wants. Where I am right now is 100% her decision. She has decided she’s not interested in my penetrating her. She’s satisfied with my fingers and mouth and her vibrator. Either she genuinely prefers those types of stimulation now or she’s weighed the cost/benefit of letting me fuck her and decided I won’t.

Of course, I do want to. Badly. My balls ache with the memory of what that feels like. Of what shooting a load into her is like. But I understand what I am. And I’ve freely given to her absolute control over my ability to experience those things.

I asked her if she was ever going to let me inside her again and she said, “I don’t know.” I don’t know, either, but 290 days is a long time to not need or want something. Unless a drastic change happens, it’s starting to feel like 290 days is just the start. That chance I got to be inside her and use the contents for the purpose it was meant for that I can’t even remember at this point…might really and truly be the last time she’ll ever let me do that.

I’m at peace with that if it’s the case. Like I’ve said before and repeat to myself all the time, this is what I am not something I do. And what I am is a man who needs to be focused on the pleasure of others, exclusively. To receive pleasure through theirs. And if that’s all I ever am again…

So be it.

Mexican rubdown

Belle decided that today, our last full vacation day in Cabo, that we’d have a 90 minute couples massage at our villa. I think couples massages are kinda creepy but I think massages are amazing and it’s been ages since I had one so I happily went along. Of course, I take the device off beforehand. While I wish I could leave it on, I don’t want to subject my masseuse to my kink.

At the appointed hour, the masseuses along with their concierge arrived at the house. Our bedroom is massive and had ample space for both of them and their massage tables. It has huge sliding doors that overlook the ocean and allow the sea breezes to blow in. It’s just lovely. They set up in there while I chugged my Malibu Bay Breeze.

Usually, masseuses tell me they want to start face down. This time, they wanted us face up. They left the room allowing us time to undress and get on the table. It was the first time in months that Belle had a chance to see the contents and I was super self-conscious about it. The sheet was pretty thin so while I waited for them to come back in, I just had to accept that the outline of the penis was visible. I laid there pondering what a weird little thing it is as they came back in the room.

Drawing from my many previous massage experiences, I expected not to be on my back for long. They do some upper chest and neck work and I usually roll over for the good stuff. But that’s not what happened this time. I’ve never actually had a massage like this before (little did I know). I was on my back for the majority of it. That wasn’t really an issue as long as she was working my neck, shoulders, chest, and arms, but then she moved to my legs.

Now…hmm. I have had, er, invigorating massages in the past. Whenever they start working my glutes, I get turned on. You just can’t touch my ass without getting me worked up. This little woman did more than that. She exposed my entire left leg. Her sheet discipline was loose. Usually, I’m used to them being fastidious and tidy with how they tuck the sheet to ensure modestly. This woman just sort of laid it places and then, if it got moved, she left it. She was not very concerned with my modesty. My first clue that something new was happening.

So anyway, my whole entire left leg was exposed to the top of my hip bone. She started from my calves and worked her hands up — way up — my inner thigh. She missed the penis by a centimeter. Then she did it again. And again. And try as I might to think of England, I could feel…stirrings. One hand was on my inner thigh while the other was rubbing the side of my ass. I tried so hard. Willed the penis to behave. But, honestly, it’s been months and months and months since I was last allowed an orgasm. In retrospect, what happened next was inevitable.

I could feel the penis chubbing out. It was probably 60-70% plump. I was mortified. That flimsy sheet wasn’t leaving anything to the imagination. But then she lifted my leg and folded it over my other leg to expose my thigh and glute more. And, in doing so, she pressed the growing erection between my thighs. Then she pushed down and proceeded to rub my ass.

That was it. I’d gone round the bend. I could feel the pressure and the sensation and knew I was, for the first time in my life while getting a massage, sporting a full, rock hard erection. And as soon as she let go of my leg, it was going to be perfectly evident. Not only did she put my leg back down, she turned the fucking thing out so my inner thigh was facing up. And the sheet was just loosely laying over my aching shaft, barely covering it. I didn’t look, but I could feel how the boner was up and in the air. I was tenting that fucking sheet, no doubt. It was probably bobbing with my heartbeat.

And here’s where I lost all sense of embarrassment. She proceeded, with this explicit display right in front of her, to run her hands up and down my inner thigh. Again, missing my ballsack by a hair’s breadth. And in doing so, the sheet kept moving and shifting so much so that I could feel the breeze on my balls which she had to be able to see. Not only was I clearly, clearly turned on, but she did nothing whatsoever to minimize what was causing it or even to try and hide it. So I was like, well, she knows what’s going on. She can see it. She might literally be able to see it. So I’m not going to be freaked out. She’s a professional.

Presumably, she doesn’t usually work on clients who haven’t come let alone been touched sexually in half a year very often. Maybe she doesn’t usually have to deal with such desperate, horned up men. But that’s what I am. And as long as she was clearly OK with me being almost painfully boned up, I was going to be OK with it, too.

She finished my left leg and went to my right one and it was was all exactly the same. I was hard as fuck and that damned sheet didn’t do a thing to hide it.

Eventually, she had me roll over. I positioned myself so the penis was pointing down. I figured that was better than if I had it pointing up and was laying on it the whole time. I don’t know if that was a good decision. She went right back to my legs and thighs and glutes. At this point, had I been alone with her, I would have thought she was angling for me to ask for a happy ending because she was just rubbing my ass. Not like the massages I’ve had before where they work one cheek at a time and assiduously avoid the cleft between. No, she was running her fingers right up my crack. Not so far that she touched my hole, but like Moses, she was parting those fuckers. So the penis, which was pointing down, got so fucking hard. So much so that it had to be visible between my legs and, as I said, her sheet discipline was nonexistent. My whole lower torso was exposed so she was clearly seeing the underside of the head of the penis peeking out.

She moved to my upper body, and again, I’m used to the sheet being placed just under my hip but above my crack. Nope. She had my whole ass hanging out. And she considered it an extension of my back. Her hands kept going to it and running across and over it and at this point I was starting to feel like I was getting too turned on. So when she started pressing on my hips, I legitimately started to think she’d make me come.

I’ve never had an experience like that. Ever. I was 110% convinced by the end that she was trying to turn me on. Maybe that’s just part of her schtick or maybe when she saw how my desperate horniness was manifesting itself, she decided to really lay it on. I don’t know. But making me hot and bothered was her objective by the end. No doubt.

Aside from all that, she was an incredibly skilled masseuse. Even if I hadn’t been near tears from horniness by the end, it would rank as a top three massage for me.

They left the room and I slipped my swim trucks back on. I tried to make it so Belle wouldn’t see that I was still pretty chubbed out. Walking around immediately after, the mesh liner was rubbing against the head of the penis and I was beside myself with distraction. As soon as I could, I went to our bathroom to put the Orion back on.

That was a challenge. The penis was looking very available and I was alone with it and it didn’t want to go back into the black plastic at all and, if I’m honest, I didn’t want it back in there either. But I was good and put it back in. As I was tightening the screws into place, I saw that I was leaking semen from the hollow PA pin. Even now as I’m writing this, I can feel the pressure in my prostate and gnawing desire to…do something.

I’m just…I’m so fucking horny right now. So goddamned horny. Jesus fuck. UUUUUNF.

The hand-to-pants paradigm

Guys, no matter their age, orientation, relationship status, or hair color all have one thing in common. They stick their hands in their pants. Maybe they do it in front of the TV. Maybe they do it only when they’re alone. Maybe they do it on Zoom calls. Usually, they do it absentmindedly. But they all do it. It’s a habit they begin to develop as very small boys, I guess. A fascination with this little tube of meat that sticks out of their body and makes them feel things. This hands-down-the-pants thing isn’t necessarily sexual. In fact, I’d say it’s mostly not. It’s just a thing we do. A place to keep our hand. A way to make a connection with ourselves.

Guys permanently locked in chastity aren’t any different. I often have my hand in my pants. I even find myself doing it in front of people, though I tend to not stick it too far down there in those times. Just feeling the top of my pubes is enough. But I’ll really get in there when on the couch in front of the TV or in bed looking at my phone. Of course, what I feel is not what most men feel. For me, it’s something hard and without sensation of its own. Lately, it’s been the feeling of textured black plastic. I run my finger over the protrusion where the shaft tube meets the base ring or along the edge of the flared head shield or I simply cup the whole unit along with my balls.

I get the same “reward” for doing that as a normal guy. Still make that connection with myself. Because on my body, “my penis” is whatever hard container is locked onto me at that moment. Currently, it’s the Evotion Orion (and it’s been that for the past 33 plus days and, I suspect, it’ll be that for the foreseeable future). But I was thinking this morning, as I was feeling it in my shorts while laying in bed waiting for Belle to wake up, that I’d no more consider the contents of the Orion as “my penis” any more than I’d consider the nasal bones and cartilage in my head as my “my nose.” My nose is what anyone can see in the middle of my face. And the penis on my body is the same. It’s this penis-shaped mass of 3D-printed plastic with the hollow titanium tube sticking out the end. That’s it.

I mean, I know there’s a real penis inside there. Of course I do. But I feel dissociated from it in a real way. And I find that the most effective way to learn to live with a constant background radiation of horniness is to stop thinking of it as a distinct thing. It’s not productive for a permanently locked man to obsess over what he’s not allowed to do or the various functions the contents could perform in the past. For example, I don’t think about what it’s like to pee without being locked. I only think about it as a locked man. The way it’s changed and the different hygiene techniques required. I just do it in a way that accepts it not as a second nature, but my nature.

Similarly, it’s just not productive to think about what unfettered erections can do. I don’t have one of those anymore so indulging myself by focusing on what I can’t do is not just counterproductive, it’s downright corrosive to my well-being. I should (and do) focus on what I can do, even if that list doesn’t include stroking, fucking, or orgasm. In fact, that is the entire point of being kept in chastity. Focusing on what can and should be done to and for the person holding the key. Period.

That’s my advice to guys struggling with being in long-term or permanent lock-up. Focus on what being that way gives you, not on what it takes away. Focus on them and their pleasure and yours will follow. Accept how that changes you. How the constant horniness empowers and motivates you. How it makes you feel whole. Embrace it. Celebrate it. For a lot of us, it’s our calling.

Also, just go ahead and stick your hand down your pants. You know you want to.

Dreaming of paradise

I’m sitting at gate G10 at MSP waiting for my thrice-delayed, once gate reassigned holiday flight out of the frozen wastes of Minnesota in the middle of what’s being described as an historic, category 3 hurricane-equivalent winter storm. In order keep my mind off the fact that I absolutely, positively must get out of here today, I’m writing this post.

Since we’re approaching the end of a month that coincides with the end of a year, I’m thinking about numbers. Specifically, the numbers that count the hours I’ve been locked in any of the various devices Belle uses to restrict my access to erections. It looks like 2022 will end with about 95 hours of unlocked time for me. That’s a 57% decrease from 2021 which was itself a 46% decrease from 2020 and the first time I’ve been under 100 hours in that unprotected state.

The other morning Belle and I were in bed naked and I was enjoying feeling her warm softness next to me when she reached down and cupped her hand over the Evotion Orion I’ve been wearing since it showed up. I cupped my hand over hers. My hand, her hand, the Orion, the contents. I’m not sure there’s a more intimate embrace a denied man can have with his keyholder. It’s, of course, frustrating, but also leaves me with a profound sense of being cared for. And about.

“How do you like this one?” She asked me.

“It’s fine,” I said, “Comfortable. Does what it’s supposed to do. What do you think of it?”

“I like it. It’s so…small.” Ball squeeze.

I moved my leg in between hers and just the suggestion of what lay between them started to make the contents swell and press against its confinement.

“Are…you ever going to want what’s inside again?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She replied casually. “That’s not really your concern, is it?”

“No…no it’s not.”

I have absolutely no memory of the last time she wanted to use the contents. I’ve been thinking hard about it and have no clue. It wasn’t when we were on our anniversary trip back in October or after that. Wasn’t around my birthday in September. Wasn’t when we were on our summer road trip. Events like that used to be when she’d want it, but I recall specifically that she did not. It seems like it had to have been sometime since about midyear, but it’s been so long I can’t tell you. And I have no reason to believe that our annual year-end trip to warmer climes won’t be equally pussy-free for parts of me.

The other night I had a dream the details of which I cannot remember except that at one point I was naked, about to have sex with Belle, and not in a device. But the penis I had was…useless. It was hard as a rock but its shaft was nonexistent. Just a head. Basically, my dream cock was a micropenis. Totally unsuited to any kind of penetrative purpose. Not even enough to get a thumb and forefinger around to jack it off. But Belle was fine with that. I remember she smiled at me. Expected it. I was surprised but she was not.

My identity has so totally evolved into a non-penetrative male that even my dreams have been edited to reflect that fact. That hasn’t happened by accident. My inclination to want to be kept locked has led Belle to do so more and more and even adjust how she prefers me to pleasure her. We’ve both been transformed by essentially permanent chastity.

I have been thinking a lot about the micropenis in my dream. The idea of being physically incapable of the kind of pleasure most men enjoy is powerfully evocative to me. Even though, when I’m running my fingers over Belle’s wet clit and feeling it pulse with her orgasm, I never want more to be balls-deep inside her. But living a reality where “balls-deep” is like an inch and it’s not even possible for me to feel insertion (as opposed to simply being denied the right) is…woof. Makes me really tight.

And, if you think about it, that’s fucking crazy. Chastity and denial have totally rewired and resculpted what being sexual and male are for me in ways I could not have even conceived before we started down this path.

I am supposed to want to feel myself inside her — badly — but rarely, if ever, get to. And my dream revealed that my subconscious knows that maybe better than I do.

While I’ve been writing this, my flight’s been delayed at least a half dozen times, but boarding has begun. Whew!

Looking forward to getting Belle off in paradise for a week!

Leaving the nest

I’ve decided to leave Twitter.

Elon Musk has made the site more hostile to queer and trans people, women, and people of color by amplifying the messages of those hostile to diversity and reinstating homophobic, transphobic, antisemetic, misogynistic, and white supremacist accounts. While the content moderation practices of pre-Elon Twitter were far from perfect, they at least represented an effort to do what was right and consistent. Elon is a troll looking to empower and encourage those like him, period full stop. He is actively destroying a thing I love.

As a content creator who has used Twitter, at least in part, to promote my content, I am providing a very small molecule of value to the platform by putting there the stuff some people are using it to find. By participating on that platform, I’m giving people a reason to use it. Any value I create for Twitter is now value I’m creating for Elon Musk directly. I cannot, in good conscience, do that.

I was hoping a clear Twitter alternative would emerge prior to coming to this conclusion which, it has been growing increasingly clear, was reaching the point of inevitability. I’m on Mastodon and Hive but I don’t really think either of these seem like a good solution at present. Hive is a nice little app with (apparently) pretty reasonable rules regarding NSFW content, but it doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of adoption from the Twitterati and, even so, its performance has been suffering and it’s run by two people (literally). Mastodon is giving me strong mid-2000s web forum vibes with each instance being run by one or a handful of moderators. In essence, each Mastodon server is tiny little version of Elon’s Twitter with each being run by someone who sees themselves as a benevolent dictator.

I will be posting new blog links on Mastodon and Hive going forward and even Tumblr (where they’ve always been going). I was considering using Twitter only for links back to posts here but, again, that creates value for Elon Musk, if even just an infinitesimal amount. So I’m going to stop doing that, too. This will be the last link I send there.

I will miss engaging with the community I’ve found on Twitter. A lot. I hope if you’re there and reading this you’ll either engage with me here or on one of those other platforms.

The one about Elon

Reader kbrown2017 left this comment to my previous post about Twitter.

I’m sure you worked hard at promoting your lifestyle, but name calling and unsupported rant undermines your entire argument, you know Einstein was hated, and Tesla way ahead of his time and hated, now the accomplishments of Elon dwarfs anything you or I have done, or most of us free men have been able to accomplish, leaves them open for criticism. If Elon eliminates liberal bias and restricts free expression good for him. Even Trump has had his ups and downs and in spite of the hate being generated towards him he still sticks to his same principles, I guess wishy washy non producers will always be jealous the producers and their accomplishments. Is there a hotel Thumper?

I feel like I could just drop this meme and move along…

…but I won’t.

I’m not sure how my post about Twitter could be called a “rant.” I have seen rants. I have, indeed, ranted. What I posted the other day didn’t even qualify as a screed, imo. And also, the charge of “name calling” wrt to Elon is pretty hilarious considering he quite regularly calls people names on Twitter. This is the same guy who called a diver trying to rescue children trapped in a cave a pedophile.

I will establish my bonafides regarding Elon. I have been a fan of the guy in the past. Back when he seemed more a Steve Jobs-like figure who wasn’t ever going to win a congeniality contest but was nonetheless inspiring teams to do incredible things. Space X, in particular, is probably the most exciting American company of its generation. You have to go back to the founding of Google to find one as interesting and innovative. It’s a small list, for sure. This is compounded by the fact that most normal people don’t even realize how profoundly Space X is going to impact for the better life on this planet in the next handful of years.

I have a more realistic view of Tesla. They’ve clearly done a lot to advance the acceptability of electric vehicles, have made advancements in things like battery technology, and have an impressive charging network, but the reality is their core product sucks. It’s a company that’s had the field quite literally to themselves and they’ve capitalized on it, but the landscape is changing. There are a lot of really good EVs being made by companies who know how to manufacture a quality product. And, of course, Elon is out there destroying his personal brand among consumers on a daily basis which is traded on a 1:1 basis with Tesla’s. Every person he turns off by his wasteful destruction of Twitter or his infantile shitposting on that platform is one less person who will ever buy one of his products.

The Jobs comparison I think is really interesting. I have often thought that Elon is like Steve but without the NeXT life lesson. For those who don’t know, Jobs was chucked out of Apple, the company he cofounded in a garage, because he was such a know-it-all insufferable dick. He went on to found a computer company called NeXT which made an incredible, beautiful, technologically advanced product that was a near total failure. It taught Steve the lesson of hubris and humility. So, when he came back to Apple, he was a significantly more effective and productive leader. He got a second chance to change the world and he did not waste it.

Elon has not had that lesson taught to him yet. I’m not 100% sure it can be taught to him. Tesla could be to Elon what Apple was to Steve when he left in 1985. His destructive and rash impulses could lead to a destruction of Tesla’s market value which, in turn, could lead to the unthinkable concept of a Tesla without Elon. That’s as unthinkable today as an Apple without Jobs was back in the 80s. And, in both cases, it would be entirely their own faults.

I don’t think Twitter will be Elon’s NeXT. He and too many people around him are already blaming literally anyone else for its issues: the woke mob, insufficiently hardcore engineers, meddling libtard senators. When Twitter crashes and burns and takes a giant chunk of Elon’s fortunes with it, he will simply be unable to see his role in the debacle. He will see it as something the world did to him rather than the obvious truth of it being the other way around.

It is perplexing to me that no matter how many times Elon does or says something totally wrong, foolish, mean, or simply stupid how vociferously his weird fanboys defend him. Even in the few days since I wrote that last post, Twitter has continued to crumble, as a service and a company, but clearly the issue is those of us who criticize him being blinded by our jealousy of his genius and success to see the brilliance of his ways.

I am not jealous of his success. I saw him speak at SXSW several years ago and he related, almost with pride, how little time he spent with his children because of how much he worked. I simply would never choose to make that trade. Even if it could make me 1,000 times richer than I am today, I would not. If anything, I pity him. His life is so clearly devoid of love and empathy and kindness. He is more “successful” because of it, but his priorities are twisted. He’s not a person to look up to. Not in his current form. Neither was Steve in 1984. But he was in 2004. Maybe Elon will be in 2042.

But I doubt it.

Kbrown2017 could have left well enough alone with commenting on Elon. But they had to say this, too.

Even Trump has had his ups and downs and in spite of the hate being generated towards him he still sticks to his same principles, I guess wishy washy non producers will always be jealous the producers and their accomplishments.

Donald Trump is a grifter and a conman who’s cheated and lied and defrauded his way to a fortune that’s smaller than the one he inherited had he simply stuck it into S&P 500 index funds when his dad died. He’s a multiple-time loser and a traitor to his country and oath who tried to overthrow the government of the United States. A violent coup attempt that led to the deaths of five Americans. He energizes and inspires racists and Christian nationalists to action, openly and enthusiastically. His only principles are to himself. To his own aggrandizement. To his motherfucking ego. There is no “accomplishment” there. He is not the creator of anything worthy of preservation. He is a monster who would burn the world if he thought it’d make him a buck or keep his sorry orange ass out of jail for a month longer.

I am happy to have a debate about the relative value of Elon Musk to the human race with someone who thinks he’s great. It’s a nuanced and interesting topic. But Donald Trump? No. Indefensible. On any objective level. Anyone who would defend both these men in the same breath is not a person who’s comfortable with commonly accepted concepts of right and wrong.

The one about Twitter

I originally joined Twitter in July 2006, about two weeks after its introduction at that year’s SXSW made quite the sensation. I wasn’t at South By that year but heard about it while listening to Leo Laporte’s post-The Screen Savers podcast. My Twitter user number (which used to be assigned sequentially and were pretty easy to find but now aren’t either of those things) is under 3,000.

Back then, Twitter wasn’t an app. There barely were apps. The iPhone wouldn’t come out for another year, and even then, the only apps it ran were the ones it came with. (Fun fact: the first independent app you could run on an iPhone, even before the App Store, was a third-party Twitter app.) You Tweeted by sending an SMS message to Twitter. My first tweet was sent using a Palm Treo and, of course, had a misspelling (no grammar dommes back then). You saw your friend’s tweets by going to twttr.com because vowels were for squares (see also, Flickr, Tumblr, et. al.). It was all so rudimentary and cool and new. Like most tech in the mid-2000s.

Anyway, yeah, I’m an old school Twitterer.

I made my Thumper Twitter account in February 2009 when I realized there were kinky people there talking about being kinky (and posting dirty pictures of themselves and others because Twitter has always been sex positive). That account’s user number is 20,823,289. Before its recent troubles, there were about 300 million active Twitter user accounts (and way, way more than that inactive). So even my kinky Twitter account, which I still think of as “new,” was ahead of the curve.

I don’t say any of this for some kind of nerd street cred. I say it to establish myself as someone who is motherfucking invested in the platform. I honestly love Twitter. I love it so much that I signed all my accounts up for Twitter Blue as soon as it came out for no other reason than I wanted to support the company and help make sure Twitter never went anywhere. I have subsequently unsubscribed all my accounts from Blue, and not because the price went from $3 to $5 to $8.

My OG muggle account is really about consumption. It has less than 700 followers even after all the years it’s been around, but I’ve invested time to curate lists of people in all my key muggle interest areas: news, politics, tech, Marvel/Star Wars, spaceflight, baseball, etc. I do tweet, but the same half dozen or so people are the only ones who ever like or reply to what I say. They may be the only people who even see it. I dunno. The real point of it is to stay informed. And it’s a totally unique and irreplaceable resource. Even after all this time, nothing like it exists (yet).

My kinky account is totally different. It’s all about community. It’s about affirmation and encouragement and kinship. It’s about learning that your weird little kink isn’t a) weird, or b) little. Slipping into Thumper Twitter is like when Norm walks into Cheers. I feel camaraderie and have friends. Real people whose lives I’m invested in. When Tumblr imploded, I mourned the passing of a horny friend. But Twitter is family. If it goes…I’ll be bereft.

And I sense that it is going. My muggle feed isn’t as filled out as out it used to be. My Thumper account, which usually picks up a handful of followers every day, is decidedly losing them now. Presumably, both these things are related. Presumably, people are leaving the platform. When things like Twitter collapse, it happens little by little and then all at once. We’re in the little by little stage. How far away from all at once?

I will probably be able to eventually recreate something close to my muggle consumption model Twitter experience, but I’m terrified about the Thumper side. The side that is filled with adults being explicit with one another, not just for the sexy funtime value, but also for the aforementioned community. Whatever comes after Twitter needs to also be sex positive and permissive of individual expression of sexuality. And as we’ve seen with Tumblr (and the puritanical, paternalistic app store policies of Apple and Google), platforms that foster that kind of community are vanishing or being extinguished. For whatever reason, the mid-2000 allowed for places like Twitter and Tumblr to be created. The 2020s not so much.

And yeah, I know about Mastodon and FetLife. FetLife is not the same thing at all. Mastodon has promise, but it’s unclear to me that it’s the One That Was Promised. But we’re rapidly approaching a moment in time where Twitter might just stop working due to layoffs and its owner being a colossal dick to its remaining employees. Twitter is old and complicated and creaky and at some point something no one currently working there even knows about is going to break and take the thing down for an hour or a day or a week…or forever. And the supreme irony is the place I’d go to find out where everyone else is going is fucking Twitter.

What’s happening to it right now makes me indescribably sad. It’s all so fucking wasteful and nonsensical and stupid and unfair. A petulant manchild who thinks he knows more than everyone else due to the size of his financial portfolio is destroying it in real time right in front of us because he can and is too proud to admit he needs help or listen to others who know more than he does. He’s going to piss away enough money to make significant dents in things like hunger and housing and public health on a global level in a fit of pique.

Fuck Elon Musk. Fuck the asshole techbro kiss-asses who surround and encourage him. Fuck a society that venerates people like him. But long live Twitter. Somewhere. Somehow.

Evotion evolution

I mentioned the other day that we were going to start exercising more key discipline. Specifically, my “emergency” key would be secured with a numbered tab and hers would be inaccessible to me. Either hidden or secured some other way so that I couldn’t get to it easily/ethically.

I got her this lock box from Amazon which I thought would allow her to keep the key in her nightstand as usual, easily unlocked with her phone or a code, but she decided to hide it somewhere in the house. Now it’s not only secured from me, it’s also stashed away, I know not where. So the other day, when I asked for her key to change out of the Evotion 8 and into something else, she…was disinclined to acquiesce to my request.

Turns out, she likes the Evotion 8 and didn’t really feel like getting the key (and potentially giving away its location) and didn’t really see the need for me to be in anything else at the moment, my desire for a change notwithstanding. And it’s like…damn. OK. That’s how it is.

I have become very accustomed to being able to pick and choose which device I’m in depending on my whims. And now when I look at the Evo, I think about how it’s there without regard to my feelings on the matter. And yeah, that’s way hotter.

Speaking of Evotion, I had planned on ordering an Orion. The 8 is one of my absolute favorite devices and I was very curious about the Orion’s simplified design. I reached out to Yvonne at Evotion to see if they had my 8’s measurements on file to use as a starting point, and she offered to comp me the device because, you know, internet personality and all. I am paying for the hollow titanium PA pin, so it ends up we’re about splitting the cost. I mention this because I rarely review devices I haven’t paid for and I think it’s important for you to know when I’m talking about something I got for free (or deeply discounted). In any event, the device is in the works and I hope to have it sometime around the start of December. It’s going to look a lot like this one but with a hollow PA pin.

The thing I really appreciate about Evotion’s designs is how they’re a) plastic (for when plastic is called for), b) custom printed to bespoke measurements, and (uniquely, I think) c) have optional integrated PA security. Whenever I’m in a Holy Trainer or Cobra or other plastic device, it just doesn’t feel the same. PA security is very important to me and changes the emotional experience of being locked up, I find. And AFAIK, Evotion’s are the only bespoke plastic PA-secured devices out there.

Look for my review of the Orion sometime around the end of the year. Assuming Belle lets me take the 8 off. Ever.