Tent logic

Exquisitedragon commented on my post about being an idiot in a tent. Part of what he said was…

These days, since we’re in the middle of some very long term denial (200+days) I’m not going to fall off the end of that without her pushing all the buttons to do so! It’s been so long and it’s her prize to take. I’m not crazy enough to go and change that.

And it occurred to me that if Belle was operating under a similar model (as in, denying me for a specific amount of time or to a specific date) there’s no way I would have cheated like that. I just know it. But why?

This may be due to some lingering attachment I have to my orgasm. Like, if there’s a hard goal, then I cannot do anything but respect it. But when if and how I come is seemingly random (from my point of view), respecting my lack of control over that event is more difficult. It doesn’t happen or not according to any observable process so what does it matter if I squirt a little on the side? What harm is that?

The flip side of this, and I think one of the main reasons Belle denies me as she does, is because in the past if she decided to move the date up because that’s what suited her or if I accidentally came too soon, I’d get all mental about it. Plus, of course, she’s come to the realization that denying me orgasm when she really wants to feel me come is also denying herself which is a bit of a paradox.

Bottom line, I need to fully own and respect that I don’t EVER come without permission, no exceptions, no wiggle room, no doubt. That the timing is not mine to decide EVER. That the method in which it happens is not up to me EVER. That I will ALWAYS get caught if I try.

This is my pledge to her: Forever and always, my orgasm belongs to you completely.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

Mrs. Fever had a typically insightful comment to my last post regarding the issues of objectification in open relationships and it’s made me think. Belle, in particular, appreciates hearing her point of view. In any event, you should read it if you haven’t.

Objectifiction is tricky. Some of us want to be objectified, but that’s not my point. I think it’s well neigh impossible for us as sexual beings to avoid all instances of objectifying the objects of our desire. I mean, we call them “the objects of our desire,” right? If you’re checking out porn for the purpose of relieving sexual tension (I’m told that’s what some people do with it), then you are going to objectify. It’s inevitable. There are even times when you’re with a significant parter that you might slip into the mode where you’re objectifying them. What I’m saying is, I think it’s a natural human thing to do. But, I also get why someone wouldn’t want to be objectified. To be reduced to an action and have all the dimension stripped away sounds icky. 

I think this is more an issue with men than women, though I could be wrong. In any event, I’ve found myself both objectifying Belle and TOG over the past several days but also being very cognizant that they’re both real people with real emotions and motivations that have nothing to do with what makes the penis swell inside its steel containment. The second night after Belle revealed the extent to which she’s been communicating with TOG, my furtively fertile imagination simply would not stop imagining their time together. As the fantasy got into high spin, the scenes started to condense until the moment that looped through my mind over and over was a tight shot of his cock buried balls-deep in her, flexing in orgasm as he shot his load into her. It was pure pornography. It was the distillment of the cuckold fantasy. The literal money shot. And it wasn’t necessarily about Belle and TOG. It was about the concept of Belle and TOG and their actions in the context of our marriage. So, I totally get what Mrs. Fever is coming from. In the light of the day, I can still feel the significance of that image in my mind but I also feel a little guilty for it. Because I also know that those two are both complete human beings doing something that’s about them and not me but part of me wants to make it all about me.

The mistake a lot of people seem to make when they try and draw their partners into a D/s arrangement is wanting them to live up to the fantasy expectation they bring with them (perhaps that’s a problem with all relationships, come to think of it). I told Belle this morning that even though we’re perilously close to making real pretty much the most potent fantasy left in my head, I do not want it to happen at the expense of either her or TOG. She needs to think about her own emotional health and his and if shit happens and it doesn’t make sense for them to proceed, I’d rather that then know it was a bad experience but he still fucked her. Basically, I don’t want my kinks or desires to influence how their relationship develops. Even if that means it develops in a way that doesn’t satisfy my fantasy, either at all or completely. As in all other things, reality is better than fantasy because it’s real. At the end of the day, I love her and only her happiness is my goal. Also, I don’t want my fantasy to be part of fucking up what sounds like a nice young man.

In other news (yes, there are other things going on between us!), Belle thinks that during this period of my submissive “reset” that I stay locked up. That could be for a while. I think she’s right. I think what I need more than anything right now it to be woken up every morning with the Steelheart squeezing the the fuck out of the penis. That, to me when I’m in the state of mind I’m in now, is comfort and love. To be sure, I want to fuck her more now than I have in a long, long time. But I need to feel that and not have it satisfied. 

I feel bad for sort of unilaterally checking out of our dynamic like I did. I know why I did it, but it was unfair of me to do it without communicating. I asked her to not let me get away with it again. If I refuse chastity, I need to be able to explain why. And I also asked her to make me do it anyway. The most toxic thing to my submission is implied indifference. She wasn’t being indifferent, but I was.

I have, I until recently, thought of D/s as an overlay to our base romantic relationship. I think that was true, but it’s been overlayed for so long I’m not sure there’s any difference anymore. I find that I’m simply incapable of getting excited about sex that doesn’t have a power exchange component. That when I’m not actively giving up power, then I’m not really being sexual. It’s like the D/s is less an overlay than it has been laminated onto our base relationship. They’re now inseparable and there’s no going back. Not ever. With that in mind, I should not be allowed to pretend otherwise.

To help keep me centered on my subness, I have asked Belle to help me come up with some kind of active demonstration of my submission to her. She is much more the Goddess than the Mistress and doesn’t get off on making me actively submit, but I feel as though I need just a small token of that to keep myself from feeling disconnected. Some little submissive touchstone I can moor myself to. We’ve had versions of this in the past. For a while, I wasn’t allowed to sleep naked without her permission to do so. I would have to ask permission to get into bed with her as a reminder that it was her bed not mine. I suppose someone would point out that wearing a steel chastity device all the time seems like the ultimate “submissive touchstone” but that’s so much a part of me now it’s hard to see it any other way. So, I don’t know. Not sure what it should be and Belle doesn’t either. Ideas?

I have news regarding Drew to pass along, but this post is long enough and it really should have its own. That will have to wait just a little longer (also, it needs to perhaps gel a bit further). Oh, mysterious!

The other guy

A couple of months ago on a Saturday or Sunday morning, Belle laughed and told me she had received a random friend request from some guy in England. They had no mutual friends and she had no idea who he was but, on a lark, she accepted the request. Shortly thereafter, they struck up a conversation along the lines of, “Who’s this?” and “I dunno, who’s this?” He said he didn’t remember requesting to be her friend and maybe meant to friend someone else with the same last name (her maiden name) and he had been at the pub and, well, you know how things happen. 

Their exchange continued beyond that day. He told her he thought she was hot. Things got more flirty from there. At some point, he sent her a picture of himself naked but with his hand covering his junk. I really don’t know the sequence of events since I was in my funk and not really picking up the little hints she was dropping, but I totally picked up the hints tonight. And then I carted them off with a wheelbarrow.

We were in bed and I asked her what was up with this guy. She said he was going to be in the United States this summer and she was planning on meeting him in NYC in August and maybe again in September. This made me squirm into her. I have been unbelievably, surreally horny all day and all I could think about even before having this conversation was her pussy and making it come. I reached my hand into her pajamas and slipped a finger into her ready wetness.

She told me he’s twenty-seven. She told him she’s in an open relationship. He told her he’s got thick 7.5″ cock. What she called a “proper cock.” She told me he likes to talk dirty. That he’s confident. That he intends to fuck her with that cock in New York. He described the ways and the positions in which he intends to fuck her silly. He says he will give her the fuck of her life. The kind of fuck she’s never had from me. The kind she can’t get from me. He says it’s his goal for her to prefer him to me in bed. All he knows about me, besides that I’m married to her, is that he’s much bigger than me. That’s it. But he’s naturally assumed a position over me even before meeting her. He may not know the word or understand the dynamic, but he’s already made me a cuckold.

All the time she was saying these things to me, my finger slipped in and out and over her slick clit. The penis was pushing against the Looker 02 as strongly as I’ve ever felt it. Choking on the device’s insert. It was painful. She got wetter and wetter telling me how he was equipped to give her a real fuck and that he’d undoubtedly last much longer than me and fill her in ways I couldn’t and that yes indeed she expected he could deliver on his promise all I could do was whine and finger her pussy and think how it would feel after he was done with her. How it would feel to her as it stretched her open like I can’t and touched her in places I’ll never reach. How he’d be able to go again and again and never get caught up in his own head and just fuck. And how badly — how honestly achingly badly — I want that for her. 

Equal parts of me are hopeful and afraid that he will do what he says and deliver on his promises. That she will be fucked like never before and that she’ll prefer him to me that way. It is both terrifying and exhilarating to comprehend. But more than anything, I want it for her. I want her to come home from her visit with him fucked so hard she couldn’t have sex with me even if she wanted to. For when the time comes that she’d let me touch her pussy again, or even enter it, I’d want to know that not only am I not the only one to enjoy it but that she enjoyed him more. Was craving to feel him there again, not me.

I cannot explain this. How it goes against everything we’re taught and conditioned to believe and expect in a relationship but how it absolutely fills me with ecstatic excitement, for her and me.

I can’t say I ever really believed something like this would happen. That she’d never really do anything with anyone else. And a lot can happen between now and summer. Who knows. Regardless, what I know now is that I’m not only not hurt or bothered by the prospect, I’m enthusiastically hopeful for her success. The only thing that makes me wary is I don’t know this guy. I don’t want her to be hurt. I don’t want her to be treated poorly. That’s my only concern. 

I also used I think that if something like this did eventually happen that I’d want to be part of it. But that doesn’t matter to me. Of course, I am part of it since she’s my wife and I’m her sub, but I won’t be physically part of it. Chances are I’ll never set eyes on this guy. If she sees him and fucks him it’ll be a thousand miles away, out of sight and entirely out of my control. And, it turns out, I’m really OK with that. What I want is for her to have a great time. I want her to feel free to do whatever she wants with him and enjoy the space she has to maximize her pleasure. To dote and spoil him and leave him wanting more. I realize that in that way, I’m not part of it. And I don’t need to be. 

As I sucked her tits and rubbed her snatch and felt her hips grind and heard the moans deep in her throat, I realized she probably wasn’t thinking about me. That she was already in some New York hotel room with the fat cock and her orgasm was already his. I wanted to fuck her so badly then. More than I have in I don’t know how long. But of course, no. No way. So my stifled erection was pinched and squeezed and choked and the device leaked useless natural lube while my heart pounded in my head. 

Oh, fucking hell. 

On the bounce

It’s kind of surprising to me how quickly and ferociously my sex drive has come back. Like I said yesterday, it started to peek its little head out of the box I was keeping it in (all blinky and tentative like a baby bear leaving the den for the first time in the Spring) on about Saturday and then seemed to exponentially grow until Sunday when I was sporadically super horny on the flight back (what percentage of guys going into those little bathrooms on planes do you think are jacking off?). Monday it was on point to the extent that I could just find the will power to get a device on. Last night was a bit of a challenge falling asleep since laying on my stomach pushed the Looker 02 into me in a delicious and distracting way and laying on my back inevitably led to my fingers poking through the bars of the device’s cage and feeling the hard shaft of the insert buried inside me. Today, I’m walking around with a ball of vibrating horniness in my chest and sneaking time with Tumblr whenever possible to stare slack-mouthed and in kind of a daze. But the thing is, nothing else has changed. It’s like all I had to do was give myself permission to feel sexual again. 

During the time I was in my funk (which, based on the dates of my posting here was more like a month and a half at least), Belle did let me come several times. Maybe three or four times. But I was all kinds of messed up. The one morning we had sex on the trip, after I got her off, I was desperately hoping she’d not let me come. I fucked her for about a minute or so (usually about as long as I can last anymore) before slowing down to keep it from happening and then she told me I could. I started back up again but quickly lost my erection. It’s been like that lately. Like the penis and the brain aren’t working in tandem in any way. She let me masturbate to completion, but even then I felt weird about it. Almost guilty. Or maybe not guilty. More like disappointed. But how would she know? It’s not like there’s instructions printed on the side of my box and I am the rules say I’m not to tell her what I want with regard to orgasm. It’s supposed to be entirely up to her. 

It’s a telling indication of my rapid change of heart that a week ago my relationship with my own orgasm left me feeling blue but today writing those last few sentences strains the cage I’m wearing. Playing with the things we do in our dynamic — the way we force the higher brain to disconnect, override, and otherwise fiddle with urges and processes that are instinctual and natural — is not to be done lightly. But now that we have, I will never be the same again. Our dynamic isn’t an overlay on top of my sexuality anymore. It’s replaced my sexuality. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing and not one whose significance I think I really understood until recently. 

B.Y.O.D.

D/s is weird. Weird in that from the outside and to the uninitiated, it looks like the D side of the slash is in control but from the inside it’s clear that’s not true. It’s the lower-case consonant that sets the parameters of the dynamic (limits, boundaries, etc.) and, therefore, the rules the D has to follow. So no, the D’s power is not limitless. They call the shots and the sub wants them to, but the shots they call are enumerated by the sub. But it’s not always the case that the sub’s Dominant is all that interested in calling shots regardless of which are available to them.  

Some of us came to understanding our submissive nature later in life after pairing up with an unsuspecting partner. That can be catastrophic if the partner is not in any way cool with their other half’s inclinations to submission and unable to indulge them. Of course, that’s not me. I have a great spouse who’s willing to make all kinds of accommodations, but she’s not sexually dominant. She’s not naturally motivated by or wired for it. Seems to me guys in my boat (S.S. Subby McSubface) have two options. They can hope and wish and push for their wives to be active dominents or they can accept their wives’ more passive dominance. I think of it as the Mistress vs. the Goddess

Before I go any further, the usual caveats about this being from my point of view and not in all ways encompassing of the infinite diversity of human sexuality apply, etc blah blah.

The basic difference between the Mistress and Goddess, in my mind, it that Mistresses demand submission and Goddesses accept (and perhaps even expect) it. Some women (and men, but that’s not what I’m talking about) get off on playing within those boundaries established by the sub and pushing buttons and seeing how far they can go. Call them sadists or whatever, but they’re wired to find pleasure in how the sub responds to them. But my thinking is most women aren’t wired like that and while they may come to appreciate the benefits of having a submissive husband, they just aren’t going to ever be the kind of parter who will be forceful in asserting their dominent position. In those cases (more or less the case I’m in), the sub needs to find a way to project their submission onto their partner in kind of the same way religious devotees worship a theoretical deity. They need to construct in their minds a suitable target for their submission taking advantage of the topography of their surroundings. I know I’ve done this with Belle. At least she’s a tangible person who can interact with me and not some invisible sky friend throwing lightning bolts down from the sky or killing my crops with drought. 

I say all this because recently our D/s dynamic kind of sputtered out. Sometime around the beginning of March I started to feel it slip away to such an extent that I found no pleasure in wearing a device (though I did for a little while only because it was expected). Then, she let me out just before leaving for a trip and forgot to tell me to go back in and I didn’t remind her or put it back on by myself. When she got back, I said I didn’t want to wear it and she didn’t push it. This kind of thing has happened before for short periods, but the big difference is, other than when she initiated, I also pretty much lost all interest in sex, too. I tried to look at porn but I just couldn’t. Like, it wasn’t just uninteresting to me, it kind of annoyed and even disgusted me. I never touched the penis and never even thought about it. Not sure I even had an erection outside of the nocturnal kind and/or when Belle wanted me to. 

So, what the fuck, right? In unpacking this with the therapist Obi Wan, I came to understand that I was kind of like a religious person whose faith had been shaken. Not because of anything overt that Belle had done, but because of life. She’s been very busy at work and traveling and, I’d say, in a grumpier mood than usual. Any one of these things or even the combination of them over a short period I could deal with, but this was sustained for weeks and longer. Long hours at work followed by more work when she got home followed being absent and then perhaps flavored with my own issues led to a general collapse of the dynamic’s infrastructure. Even in the best of times, I need it to be bigger and more elaborate than she needs it to be so I’m by necessity “holding up” more than one half of it. When the footings on her side got a little crumbly, I couldn’t do it anymore and it fell down. 

But my submission and our rules are too ingrained to disappear completely. Instead of unilaterally disengaging and doing my own thing sexually, which is what happened years ago and led to all kinds of issues in our marriage, I simply shut down. If I can’t get a hard on looking at porn I can’t jack off and come without permission and that means I never have to deal with the reality of what that would have meant. My sex isn’t just mine anymore and acting like it was would have been too much to deal with so I just packed it all up in a box and put it on a shelf. But my sexuality is a big part of who I am so this left me dispondant. 

I never really said only of this to Belle. I didn’t want to be perceived as being unsupportive of her and what she needed to do with her job. So I just let it all happen. In general, Obi Wan thinks I don’t do enough to ensure my needs are being taken care of in the relationship. He thinks I tend to avoid conflict with Belle. He’s probably right. Of course, “ensure my needs are being taken care of” is an interesting concept for a sub, but it makes sense when the D/s dynamic as seen as an overlay to the foundational relationship. My needs are, to a certain extent, for my needs not to be taken care of, but only in the dynamic. Down in the foundational relationship, I was feeling neglected and maybe a bit taken for granted.

Again, Belle didn’t do this on purpose. She wasn’t being a terrible spouse. But I didn’t say what I was thinking because I was afraid it would cause her to think I was not being supportive to her needs and I didn’t want to get into a fight about it. 

Last week, we were away on a family vacation. Except for one night, it was close quarters for ten days. I hoped and expected that the trip would be when I turned a corner on all this. Not sure if it’s because of my expectations, but by the end of the trip I found myself a lot more interested in the penis that I had been for nearly a month. To the enxtent that yesterday I put the Looker 02 on. Porn was all of a sudden super hot and had I not locked it up I would have been pulling on it. This is not to say I or we are out of the woods or there won’t be some backsliding. Belle’s still busy. No reason to think that will change. Maybe this is just a little bit of sunlight breaking though some clouds or maybe a high pressure system is settling in. No idea. 

Obi Wan thinks Belle and I should see a therapist together. He even gave me some names of kink-aware people he knows (he doesn’t really do couples). I don’t know if we’ll take it that far or if we’ll figure it out but ourselves. Time will tell. 

Pussy first

Belle and I are in Hawaii for Christmas. I’ve never been here before since previously I was a Caribbean snob (and might still be; jury’s out). We’re staying in a redonculous house sitting on a lava rock-encrusted beach. Crashing waves, lively tide pools, and sizzling sunsets galore. Oh, and the occasional gecko slinking by.

When we travel together, Belle’s less stringent with the device. I’ve been free since we left home Sunday morning and remain that way today. I brought the Steelheart in case she wants me in it, but so far no. I find it a challenge to stay focused on my position when I’m not locked up. To not act needily neglected because there’s nothing locked on me. The feeling of the penis moving around in my board shorts or the PA jewelry sliding through the piercing can be quite distracting and that leads to me letting my eye off the proverbial ball. In turn, that can lead to unexpected moodiness and me being too pushy in bed.

To help remind me I don’t control the penis (or feeling like she’s somehow forgotten that), I’m wearing the aluminum cock ring whenever I’m not locked. It’s light and comfy and, when the penis isn’t surging, it’s hardly there but, when the penis is, it’s just tight enough to be very there. In a way, it’s more maddening than the Steelheart because it makes the penis harder and fatter and more sensitive when it’s turgid but that enhanced state is also an effective reminder of possession and control. Even though it ratchets up the feelings of stimulation when the penis is hard, it also keeps me centered.

There’s the old trope that men are simple and woman are complicated. Seems to me this mirrors our respective anatomy. Penises are all outward and obvious. When they’re hard, you know what’s going on. Pussies, though, are less obvious. To take their barometer (without sticking your finger in) one usually needs to gather a variety of inputs from a woman’s body and then divine what she’s thinking or wants. Our culture places an urgent priority on hard cocks. Once one appears, it needs to be attended to until it’s no longer that way.

But for me and our dynamic, that’s not the case at all. The penis, when it’s out, will often be hard when we’re close and intimate. Belle’s not nearly as likely to fall into the cultural bias trap that it needs attention when it’s like that, but it still occasionally happens. I’m totally invested in the idea that a hard penis between us means nothing more than when it’s a hard steel tube between us. Still, it’s all too easy for my reptile brain to overpower my rabbity sensibilities and make me pushy in those situations which, in turn, can lead her to letting me do things she may not really feel like doing.

To help alleviate that, our new rule is when we’re in bed and being close, rather than me intimating her desires through a filter of perception that’s biased towards pushing parts of me into her or waiting for her to say, “Thumper, get me off,” I’ll know she wants to take things further if she touches the penis. Until she gives it a touch (in a way that’s more than obviously incitental or accidental contact), I’ll assume she’s content with hugging and kissing and my hand caressing her ass or whatever. This morning, she never touched it so we never moved beyond simple affectionate snuggling and petting even though the penis was achingly hard and eventually leaking. She felt no pressure from me and I knew exactly where she was and what she wanted.

Because penises are obvious and pussies are secretive, penises tend to get top billing in sexual situations. Our entire dynamic is about reversing that paradigm in the extreme. The pussy is all powerful and penis is not. I’d say the pussy is first and penis second, but it may not even be second. Even if she wants me to get her off, that doesn’t mean anything involving it will follow. In a way, FLR femdom-type dynamics are all about reversing the concept of penis entitlement. The pussy is entitled to whatever it wants. The penis is entitled to nothing more than the pussy is willing to give it.

Anyway, this “no sex until I touch the penis” rule made this morning exactly what she wanted. Intimate and sweet and warm and tender with no pressure other than the hard grip of the metal ring around the straining erection. But that’s not her concern in any way. She snuggled in and was very happy. And so was I.

Demonstrations

Over on the Twitter, a friend asked me the following (slightly edited) via direct message:

In many posts you often describe Belle as sniggering or finding your struggle amusing (or trivial?) What I feel like I know of the relationship you have an incredibly loving bond. My question: is her resolve so clear that your whimpers just don’t faze her (kind of impressive?) or is there a sympathy or empathy there that we don’t hear much of? My hardwired vanilla sensitivities battle my “you know what the game is” sensibilities.

Belle has her own “hardwired vanilla sensibilities” and as much as I’ve grown in our dynamic and learned what it means to truly submit and let go of my control over our sexual relationship, she’s learned how to tailor her actions and attitude. Is she sympathetic? Empathetic? Probably. Does she find my struggles amusing? Definitely. I know there was a time when her conditioned “vanilla” response would kick in and she’d feel guilty about what I was going through. We’re way past that now. She doesn’t have a guilty fibre in her being over what she puts me through. If so, she does a good job hiding it.

Our dynamic is like that of a sadist and a masochist. To an outsider, the things the sadist does to their partner the masochist can seem truly awful. Abusive. But the masochist’s wiring is such that the pathways that carry pain and pleasure are mixed and crossover so what would be abuse in one setting is actually an expression of love. Of giving one partner what they need to feel fulfilled. If they’re a true sadist, they get the same kind of pleasure from inflicting the pain. So it’s a symbiotic kind of thing.

Belle’s no sadist. At least, not a physical one. She has developed a mean sadistic streak regarding my denial and chastity. Part of that is based in the knowledge that it feeds my masochistic needs. Part is that she knows there’s a tangible benefit to her by keeping me denied. A little part of her actually likes making me suffer.

So as much as this weekend hurt and caused me mental pain, inflicting it on me (and continuing to do so) is, in my estimation, a demonstration of her love for me. And enduring the pain is part of my demonstration of love for her. Yes, I desperately wanted to come. More than I have in a really long time. But after the moment was over, what I wanted and continue to want more is for her not to factor my desires into the algebra of her dominance over me. When I come again, I want it to be completely on her terms and only as a result of her needs and desires.

The longer I wait, the more it pains me and the desire gnaws at me, the more I’m demonstrating my love to her and, I know, by making me go through it, she’s demonstrating her’s back.

Sleepytown trolly

“I’m going to help you sleep tonight.”

I’ve been struggling with sleep for the past few days. A bought of denial-induced insomnia.

“How?”

“By letting you give me an orgasm.”

Unf. “I don’t think that’ll help me sleep.”

“What would?”

“You letting me come.”

Snort. “That’s not going to happen.”

Whimper.

“You don’t want to come anyway.”

Whine.

“Say it. ‘Belle Fille, I don’t want you to let me come.'”

Whimper again. Squirm.

“SAY IT.”

Quietly, “I don’t want to you to let me come, Belle Fille.” It was truth, but being forced to say it was like a high heel grinding my inner sub into a tight, hard corner. The kind of space where it’s most content.

“Of course you don’t. You want to get me off and then, because my orgasm is your orgasm, you’ll get sleepy after and fall asleep.”

I had my doubts. Especially when she started talking about her “boyfriend” and how he’d never say anything like that to her. That he and his big cock always came. All I could do was whimper into her nipple as she said these things and I fingered her clit and thought about this mythical alpha male who’d likely laugh at the locked penis and the way she kept me.

“I’m going to make you work for this one, Thumpie. I’m going to enjoy myself.”

URRRRRGH.

It did take a while. She got wetter and I kept sucking and fingering but I never felt her start to get close. Eventually, she took over her own tits and was tweaking and twisting her nipples while I watched and kept my finger on her snatch, rubbing and flicking and penetrating in all the ways I know, through hours and hours of practice like a musician knows his instrument, she liked best. Even that wasn’t enough for her and she got her vibrator and gave it to me but quickly took it back leaving me nothing more than a spectator to her self-pleasuring.

She came, slowly and deeply, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel her pussy clench against my fingers or her back arch or any of the waves of ecstasy that go with her orgasm. I didn’t share it. I heard it and saw it, but I didn’t know it like I usually do. It didn’t go through me. I was just the fluffler that got her into position.

Of course, I don’t begrudge her anything. We have sex so she can come, always, and however she wants. We never have sex so I can come. Whatever we do, if it’s what she wanted, is what we should have done and I don’t have a right to take issue with any of it. She’s right that even though I may crave my own orgasm I never want her to give it to me. I don’t need any orgasms. I only get them when she wants to feel me come in her. Even that can feel more about her than me.

She was left drained by her effort and its successful culmination and I was left pretty much as I was before. Tired but not sleepy and now that much more wired and trying to push images of her and another man out of my mind. She fell asleep quickly and I tried but couldn’t connect with it. I kept thinking and tossing and feeling separation angst (I have some trips coming up) all the while trying to keep sexual images and thoughts as far away as possible.

At about 11:30, I got up and took the last Tylenol PM in the house. I don’t like taking it but I could feel the kind of panic in me that usually unspools into zero hours of sleep. Then I went in the living room and read more of the book I’m getting through. By 12:30, the pill was taking over and I was yawning. I sent back to the bedroom, stripped, crawled in next to her, and tried to get on the road to Sleepytown.

Eventually, I did.

Why in the hell?

This post is written as a primer of sorts for those just discovering an interest in male chastity or for someone who’s just been introduced to the subject by their partner. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Please feel free to add your POV in the comments.

I suppose the vast majority of the uninitiated (ie, muggles) would have no idea why any man would want to subject himself to enforced male chastity (which I’ll call EMC for this post because that’s a lot of letters to keep typing out) or, conversely, why any woman would want to do it to her man. They might also wonder about all kinds of other kinks like D/s and masochism and bondage but I don’t think I’m qualified to try and suss out the motivations of those of us who are wired to enjoy those things. But, I think I can try and break chastity apart to help see the value of it in a relationship.

Of course, I’m a guy and I’m married to a woman who I’ve been with for more than 15 years and that’s the aperture through which I see chastity and can write most intimately about it. Additionally, I think chastity play comes in lots of variations and flavors and the way we do it and how it works for us isn’t necessarily the way that will work for everyone else. I’m not saying it is. But I am saying that my experience talking to others on the subject and reading other blogs, etc., has made me understand there is a broad similarity to our stories that suggests a common foundation for relationships like ours.

111004_getitVenn diagrams are those charts that have two or more overlapping circles that represent different things. Where the circles intersect show how these things, when combined, make a third thing. If I were smarter or more talented at such activities, I’m sure I could make one for EMC, but I’m not so I’ll hope you know the concept and just move on. In any event, EMC can combine several kinks and motivations together into one package: Dominance and submission (D/s), sadism and/or masochism (S/M), and bondage (put it all together — what’s that spell!? — BDSM). But, I don’t think the main practical, real-world benefit of EMC is necessarily kinky at all. And I don’t think it needs to be practiced that way or considered as kink.

At the very heart of EMC is the concept of orgasm control (OC because we’re making acronyms today). OC is what you get when you decide, as a man, to stop rubbing one out whenever you get a shadow of an urge to do so and let the energy and desire build until it can be put to a practical purpose. I think of OC as fundamentally an internal thing and not part of a D/s power exchange dynamic (in which case, it’d be orgasm denial, but I’ll get to that later).

Why would a guy want that? To what end? Aren’t orgasms wonderful and best enjoyed like peanuts at a ballgame — frequently and in plentiful numbers? I have so many thoughts about this, but I’ll try and boil it down. First off, yes, orgasms are wonderful. We are literally designed to crave them. In a way, we’ve been created through evolutionary forces to become addicted to the hit of chemicals that flood our brains when we have them because in many cases that means we’ve spread our seed and satisfied life’s mandate to multiply. And when we’re young (teenage years through the twenties and thirties, depending), men can’t get enough of them. I recall jacking off so often at one point my dick became raw from the friction, but I kept doing it anyway because OH MY GOD I had to. On top of the evolutionary forces at work, our culture conditions men to value their sexual release over most other things and to revel in our ability to do so. There is a lot of pressure, both physical and social, behind frequent orgasms to be sure.

But, as we grow older our ability to squirt as often as we once did usually declines. The reserve of sexual energy we carry around with us starts to ebb and the time between feeling the need to come stretches out. I think of this energy (and I can’t think of anything else to call it) as a natural resource with a purpose and function in the confines of our relationships. Jacking off is great, but most guys want to follow their biological imperative to procreate and put that stuff into a warm, wet, living hole. But, as it happens for people in long-term monogamous relationships, there are a great deal of factors that work against a rewarding sex life as time goes along (repetition, kids, jobs, health issues, etc.). We develop grooves in our patterns that become the opposite of sexy and motivating and that leads men to follow the path of least resistance (i.e., jacking off to porn).

Note that I am not making any kind of argument or judgment against porn. I actually quite like it and think enjoying it is perfectly natural and not something we should be ashamed of. I also tend to reject most claims of “porn addiction.” If a guy ends up spilling over porn too much, then he’s wasting this energy I mentioned that would otherwise be used in his relationship. It’s self-perpetuating in that wasting his energy though an interest in fantasy can lead to a lack of interest in the reality of his partner causing her to become resentful or angry or hurt (or all of those things) which in turn only reinforce his porn consumption habit (and is therefore labeled “addiction” far more often than it should, IMO). In any event, as that energy resource becomes more scarce and life and familiarity conspire against a fun, sexy relationship, using it up on porn reduces his interest in trying to recapture the spark between he and his partner.

Of course, relationships (typically) contain two people and he alone is not responsible for maintaining it. Usually, there’s plenty of blame (if you want to use that word) to go around. The reason I fixate on him and his orgasm is I think it can, through OC, be used to bring a sexual relationship back into shape.

So, long way to go, but here we are at the doorstep of what OC can mean in its simplest and most direct form. If a man chooses to only have orgasms when he’s with his partner, then he’ll quickly learn to think of her again as the source of his sexual pleasure. It’s not an automatic thing and she needs to be fully invested in the idea and prepared to take on the responsibility of playing her part, but when done correctly they can both find themselves back into a state not too dissimilar from when they were first together. He’ll naturally become more interested in what she’s thinking and feeling and invested in her happiness and she’ll see and appreciate that. It can help knock a lot of frost off and get the gears turning again.

In no way is this kinky. Zero level kink. I’ve found in my marriage that Belle sees it as a demonstration of my commitment to her and our relationship. That’d I’d give up my “right” to come as often and wherever I like and save it all for her. Sure, for us there are a lot of kinky things layered on top, but at its core, this is what EMC is about.

Some people who grok this concept think it’s some kind of magical palliative that will fix whatever ails a relationship. That’s not at all true. All relationships need a foundation of communication and trust to succeed. Orgasm control (or orgasm denial — getting there) or chastity are stacked on top of those elemental aspects which must be present. But, if the basic necessities of a reasonably healthy relationship are working, then I’ve found focusing one’s orgasms on one’s partner can draw the two more closely together than perhaps they’ve ever been.

All that said, this is a post on my blog and therefore it cannot end at the simple control of orgasm. Truth is, a lot of men (most, perhaps) who are into this idea are also into wanting to take it further. From self-control of orgasms to no control over them. That’s when it turns into orgasm denial (OD). The “denial” part can be scary and confusing, but what it really means is the man isn’t able to come when he wants or feels like it, even during or after having sex. Women are often socialized in our culture to think this idea is massively cruel and will feel guilt at not letting him orgasm each and every time the opportunity presents itself, but for those men wired a certain way, this only amps up the impact of OC and is something they actually crave. There’s no rule as to how long he should be denied orgasm. Some women let their men come once a week or once a month. Some longer. Far longer. Some never. But realize, few if any start out that way.

For us, it was pretty much that I’d come every other time we had sex. Then it got longer. Once a week or so. I found the longer I was made to wait, the longer I wanted to go. I started to crave the crave, so to speak. I would rather want to come and feel that desire build inside me than actually do it. And once Belle let go of any socialized guilt and became more confident in the control I happily transferred to her and, most importantly, learned that I was a better partner to her when I wasn’t coming, my denial became second nature. I now have no expectation of orgasm when we have sex. She usually makes me wait many weeks, even months. When I do get to, it’s because she wants to feel me do it inside her much more than she actually wants me to come. As crazy as this might sound to someone just starting out, we’re both much happier this way.

And yeah, technically, OD is kinky. It’s a form of D/s. Power exchange. I get off on not having control as I’m a natural submissive and Belle gets off on having that control over me, though she’s far from a Domme and would never describe herself that way. A lot of couples end up like this. Women who never fantasized about dominating their partner even once find a way to do it that works for them. They back into a dominating position as they see the benefits of investing the time and effort into it has on their partner and their relationship. Because of this, Tom Allen has described OD/EMC as a “gateway kink.” That’s entirely true, in my experience.

Beyond denial is the practice of enforced male chastity. That is, using a locked physical device to maintain control over not only a man’s orgasm but also his ability to access his body as he has his whole life and even his ability to achieve an erection. Not every couple gets to this stage. Some women are simply squicked out by the whole thing. Some men can’t handle the physical demands of being locked up, even for a little while. Some woman think he’s not truly being denied unless he’s also demonstrating sufficient willpower to keep his hands off himself unless she says it’s OK. All that is valid.

On the other hand, some men get off on the added layer of control the device represents. They get off on how they need to modify their lives to accommodate it and how it’s always with them and always, in every scenario and situation, reminding them of the control their partner has over them. It ticks the bondage box really well and can even be made to fill a need for masochism. Finally, I think penis restriction is, in itself, a distinct fetish that EMC uniquely satisfies. For whatever reason, there are a lot of men that get off on being locked up. More, it seems, all the time. The profusion of devices at pretty much any price point in recent years has either fuelled that interest or is a direct result of it. Probably a bit of both.

The desire for a device by either the man being locked up or the partner holding his key can also be practical. In our relationship, Belle doesn’t even allow me to play with myself. I want to abide by that rule and try very hard to do so when I’m not locked up (which isn’t that often), but it’s hard. She knows I won’t come without permission and thinks I’ll avoid self-stimulation most of the time, but if I’m locked up, she can know for a fact I’m following her rules. Chastity devices allow an additional layer of deterrence to be added to a couple’s dynamic and some of us (like me) need that.

In summary, the one thing I want to leave with someone newly exposed to the idea of EMC is that it should not be viewed as weird. There should be no shame felt for wanting it. Human sexuality is ridiculously and wonderfully complicated and manifests in many ways. I believe there to be millions of men interested in some aspect of what I’ve described here with a sizable chunk actually practicing it in some way with their partners (or alone). The more you get into the subject, the more you realize that “kinky” is a highly subjective term. Most people are interested in something they or someone else would think is kinky. The sooner you let go of any fear of exploring sex beyond the traditional way it’s portrayed in a lot of media, let go of concern of judgement, and realize we’re all sexual beings of some kind with needs and desires as unique as we are, the sooner you’ll find satisfaction and happiness. Sometimes, in ways you never, ever expected.

Confidence game

Pursuant to my last post, Belle got home from her trip pretty horny. She was still on SoCal time so didn’t feel like going to sleep at her usual hour, though I also wasn’t sure she wanted to have sex. She knew I was pretty turned on because it was a day starting with a consonant but I just laid there and let her pet my head and back for a while and didn’t push it. Then she told me to close the door.

By the time I was back to the bed, she was naked. She told me I wasn’t getting out and I probably whimpered. As soon as I touched her snatch, I found her to be soaking wet. Not kind of turned on and ready to go wet. Fucking dripping wet. As if we’d been messing around for an hour instead of just starting. I moaned into the nipple in my mouth and sank my fingers into her heat.

Really, all I can say if UNF. I wanted her badly but I wasn’t getting out. The Steelheart bit down hard as my fingers and mouth made her squirm and moan and whisper dirty little things into the top of my head.

She came awfully hard. I wanted to bite her nipple I was so turned on. She could tell. She knew how bad I was. She just told me it was good for me. It was the best thing for me. Though I wouldn’t admit it, it was what I wanted.

There is nothing sexier in the whole fucking world than confidence.