File Under TMI Unless You're Interested In Fugue States During Orgasm

The picture book I made for RTT's birthday finally arrived today. It's very cool although I see I misspelled the word "fortunately"…

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And last night I was invited to a meeting of the local BDSM club. Of course, I went. Not because I have any particular interest in "the lifestyle" as the fans call it, but because like Kurt Vonnegut says, "Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

Usually these meeting revolve around demonstrations. A guest lecturer will explain how to drip liquid candle wax on someone's back without making second degree burns, or how to pierce a frenulum without leaving permanent scars.

Last night was a lifestyle Q&A session.

I wanted to hear their answers to questions like, WHY are you into wearing a collar and barking like a dog? WHAT does that make you feel?

Instead the questions were a more generic Oprah-style interrogation. What are the essential components for a good dom/sub relationship? (Trust. Communication.) Does a good sub have to give his/her Fetlife password to their Dom? (Yes.)

There was a subtext throughout the answers: We are normal just like you!

It always perplexes me when marginalized people are willing to trade what makes them special for this wistful dream of being one of the herd.

I suspect that my own sexuality is about as far away from BDSM as you can get. Partly because it's conventional. But also partly because I use sex as a way to dissociate.

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Of course, I have no idea what drives people to embrace bondage and discipline. Bossing people around and making them do embarrassing things seems like it could be a lot of fun, but I think it's basically unprincipled. I mean, even if a person wants to be a slave, slavery is unethical.

And being bossed around by someone else doesn't seem like it would be any fun at all.

I have some intellectual insights into the nature of masochism but I'm not sure how accurate they are. Thye're mostly derived from the experiences of a close friend I had in high school who was a cutter. Are cutting and masochism related? Maybe. But maybe not.

Cutting in those days was a lot more taboo and closeted than it is today. When I found out about it, it scared the shit out of me. Why? I would ask her.

And she would try to explain: It's kind of like I'm incapable of feeling anything unless I cut myself. Cutting is the only way I can feel. Otherwise I'm numb. Like my head is this thought balloon that's about to float away from my body and disappear into the stratosphere. But when I cut myself, then I'm back on Planet Earth again. In the land of the living. Feeling.

Hey! You know. If Freud could deduce penis envy from a single patient, code name Dora, then I can deduce a theory of masochism as the antidote to dissociation from the experiences of a single high school friend.

(This was the same friend with whom I used to practice French kissing so we'd know how to do it when boys finally asked us out. And of course since we practiced French kissing, we naturally had to practice playing with breasts, frottage, mutual masturbation and all those fun things. Since we were both misfits, our respective parents thought it was very healthy that we were spending so much time together! But I digress…)

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Personally, I like to dissociate.

And what I like best about sex is its dissociative component. When I'm really into it, I get flashes of seeing the world through my partner's eyes or floating somewhere just below the ceiling watching our two beautiful bodies wrestle and heave on the bed below. Sometimes I get these lush rushes of pure imagery – the cities of the old Silk Road in all their 9th century splendor. Sometimes I remember past lives or read novels that I've never written, but should have. The best sex catapults me into time outside of time. Maybe this is a residue of having taken all that LSD once upon a time, dunno.

Somewhere in The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing writes about seeing landscapes when she's making love. This is about as close to a description of what good sex is all about to moi as I have ever come across.

I have to think there are other people who have this same sexual response.

But maybe not.

This is one of the reasons why it was very convenient being with one partner for almost 20 years. I knew his responses so well, knew how to ride them so I'd exceed escape velocity and trip off into my own world, which was infinitely more compelling than pushing nerve endings to the limit. If it comes to that, my vibrator is still my best friend.

But anyway, I suspect this response is about as antithetical to BDSM as one can get.