Muses

Master recently asked me if I considered my kinky "personas" as separate characters, and/or if I pretend to be specific fictional characters when I'm sceneing. I had to think about it for a bit because it's not really something I consciously consider when I slip into my Dom or sub roles. But I realized I do at least have characters that are "points of inspiration" for me, though I don't necessarily pretend to be them, specifically.

My muse for domming is Number Six from Battlestar Galactica. She is the type of woman that I try to be when I'm domming: sultry, sexy, and seductive; someone who knows exactly what she wants, and has no hesitations about using others to get it; a person who relies more on force of personality and psychological manipulation than physical force.

When I imagine my "Domme self," I imagine a woman who looks like her (though not necessarily as blonde as her, as my hair is nothing like that). I like to imagine myself in slinky dresses and elegant jewelry (things which are sadly underrepresented in my actual wardrobe), and with high heels that I can somehow walk in effortlessly. The femme fatale, if you will. It's funny because I'm normally nowhere near that femme in my everyday appearance, nor do I particularly want to be. But my conception of domming is inextricably linked with high femme, for whatever reason.

My muse for subbing - and this one is a little more embarrassing to admit - is Merle from Escaflowne. The feline aspect is obvious, however, there are other reasons why my kitten persona is similar to hers. She is fiercely loyal to her Lord, but not in a simpering way; she has a lot of fight and mischievousness in her. She's bubbly, talkative, eager to please, and doesn't care too much for fancy-shmancy attire or surroundings.

I'm not sure if I imagine my kitten persona as looking similar to Merle, besides the catlike features; my mental self-image is much murkier in that regard, for some reason. I do imagine myself as being considerably shorter and smaller than everyone else, like Merle is. I'm not sure how old Merle is supposed to be, as there are "adult" catpeople who are bigger and more grown-up-looking in the show, but age difference doesn't really factor in as part of my persona (the childishness implied in "kitten" notwithstanding).

Alter Egos

Yikes, I hadn't realized I'd neglected this blog for quite so long. Well, no need to dwell on it - I doubt more than a handful of people noticed anyway - so on to the subject at hand.

In my experience, having "kinky alter egos" is a pretty common thing. For example, when we're sceneing my boyfriend becomes Master and I become kitten. Many of my other partners have names for their alter egos as well, at least the dominant ones. (For a long time I was almost exclusively submissive, so their own subbiness didn't get much practice with me.)

But I've noticed an interesting difference between me and a few of my partners in terms of how we relate to our kinky sides. They refer to their alter egos in the third person, almost as if they are separate people. "Lupa is very mad at you," my friend will growl sweetly, hinting at what will come later that evening. Even more interestingly, Ume's alter ego Jack comes up in places other than the bedroom; he says that he finds Jack useful when playing poker and he must find the right balance of being a cutthroat risk-taker and a prudent observer of people's behavior. Jack is certainly a useful persona; he's earned his rent check (and then some) many times that way.

I didn't think much of this until recently, when playing with Lupa and Ume. I recently worked up the courage to express my Domme side around Ume, to the great delight of us both. (Domming a man who's significantly bigger than me has been a fantasy of mine for a little while.) While Lupa and I had fun tormenting him, he suddenly asked, "Do you have a name you want me to call you?"

I paused. "You know, I haven't actually thought of that," I admitted.

"Is what I've been calling you so far okay?" he asked, having been calling me Mistress up until that point.

"Oh yes!" I said, and we continued with our fun. It certainly made me feel in charge, and I don't call Master anything other than Master, so Mistress was sufficient for me.

Later, Lupa asked Ume if it'd be possible to "talk out" Jack. I was curious; though he'd taken a dominant role in our playsessions before, I had never noticed a distinct persona, like I do when Master is Master. So we started bantering, references to gambling and luck being prominent in our innuendo. As Ume explained the difference between himself and Jack, I could see the shift in his body language and in his speech patterns as he began to settle into Jack's mindset. However, I was still in a Dommy mood myself, and I couldn't bring myself to be properly "afraid," even though I could see that hungry gleam in his eye. Instead, I kept teasing him - being a real brat. "So," Ume finally asked me, "how are you going to make good on our bet?"

"Well," I said with a grin as I lounged on the bed, "I guess you can just tell me what to do, and I'll fulfill your request to the best of my ability."

He looked me up and down once, again with that predatory gleam. "Good," he said. He pinned me down to the bed and kissed me - and I immediately could tell that this was Jack. Whereas normally Ume's kisses are incredibly gentle - I'd even call them tentative - this kiss was forceful, hungry, and confident. He knew what he wanted, and he knew he could take it. And, like flipping a switch (HA HA I MADE A FUNNY) I was suddenly in full-on submissive mode.

This was the first session where I've switched from Domme to sub like that (and where my partner has done the same), so I think that's why it got me thinking about alter egos. I certainly have different behaviors, speech patterns, etc. when I'm kitten (instead of everyday me), but I don't really think of "kitten" as separate from "me." But then again, "I" would be fucking pissed off if someone called me a slut or a cocksucker, where as "kitten" loves it. Would it be helpful for me to think of my submissive (and my dominant) personality as separate personas? Or would that lead to unhealthy compartmentalization? I don't know. I'll have to think about it more.

Death by Snu-Snu!

Recently I've found myself entranced with the idea of Amazonian women. I think I know what triggered it; I got hooked on the excellent webcomic Drowtales, where Drow women are the dominant gender and typically portrayed as larger and stronger than Drow men, and I also have been reading the excellent comic series Secret Six by Gail Simone, which features Knockout (technically an alien) and several literal Amazons, including the most famous example, Wonder Woman.

As is the case with almost any superhero that's been around for seventy (!!!) years, Wonder Woman's been portrayed in many different ways over the years, and I find myself drawn to a specific version of her: 6+ feet tall (officially she's supposed to be 5'11", but more recent artists have drawn her at about the same height as Superman, who's 6'3"), clearly muscular, and in many ways more of a warrior than either Bats or Supes - namely, in that she is willing to kill if necessary. Her access to magical items, and her resistance to magic, arguably make her even more powerful than Superman; she's probably the only person who could kill him in a straight-up fight (and has come close to doing so)!

I'm not sure if I want to be one of these Amazons or if I want to be with one. I think it's a little of both; the idea of being in the mere presence of such a powerful and commanding person gives me the chills, and at the same time I like to imagine what it would be like to wield that kind of strength and martial prowess. I guess that's the switch in me, wanting to at once dominate and be dominated - for in any of my daydreams and fantasies involving an Amazon, she is never the one being dominated. Amazons, by their very nature, cannot be dominated by anyone (except maybe another Amazon).

Thanks to DnD, I can express my desires to an extent; I recently created a female paladin of St. Cuthbert who's 6'1" and expresses a lot of the traits I associate with the Amazon character: quiet competence, protectiveness (particularly towards other women), and devotion to noble ideals that she tries to temper with pragmatism (though she doesn't always succeed, and sometimes gets too zealous). In fact, right now all the female PCs in this DnD campaign are tanks and heavy hitters, while all the male PCs are squishy rogues and spellcasters! I'm having a lot of fun with it. :)

Another feature of Amazon stories that I like is the exploration of matriarchal societies. Drowtales in particular does a good job of imagining what a militant matriarchal society would be like, though occasionally I can't help but think, "That attitude makes sense only if the character were raised in a patriarchy! Which s/he wasn't!" Maybe this is just a hint that I should try my hand at writing my own.

Kinky geek, geeky kink

This weekend I had a surprise visit from Master, who convinced me to go on a spontaneous road trip to see Tapeti. While at first I wasn't keen on driving that far only to spend a day there, it was definitely worth it.

We came up with a new position! Well, it's more like a variation on an existing one. Master fucks me from behind, while Tapeti is beneath me, and she wraps her legs around my waist. Then Master can grab her legs and use them as leverage to fuck me. We all loved it; next time we're together, Tapeti and I will have to switch places to see what that's like.

I also got some nice, good spankings in, as well as some domination. Master got pretty creative - I liked it a lot. ^_^ He tied me up with some LAN cables and whipped me for a bit with one (without the hard ends that you plug into things), though that was too harsh for me, generally. I think I'd need a lot more preparation to enjoy it.

He also made me live-blog having sex with him, kind of. We were snuggling, and I wanted to have sexy-time, but he insisted that I update this blog. I protested a bit, but it was no use, so I got my laptop and started typing. As I struggled to come up with something to write about, he knelt next to me and started touching himself. Naturally, I was distracted by this, but he ordered me to keep typing - even when he grabbed my head and made me start sucking him off, and then when he started fucking me. He ordered me to type what I was thinking and feeling while he did it.

I'm not going to post exactly what I typed; it was too racy and embarrassing even for this sex blog, and it'd be mostly incomprehensible anyway since my spelling, understandably, went flying out the window. Master read it out loud to me afterward, though, which added another layer of domination to it, since he was reading my very thoughts - and it was a little bit embarrassing, but not in the bad way.

However, I think it'd be fun to find more creative ways to involve technology with kink. Live blogging sex is one way; I think doing something with video games would also be interesting (and not just the kink games you can find online). Maybe whoever wins a round in a video game gets to be the top for that evening? That's almost too easy, though; I'm sure there are more creative ways to go about video game kinkiness. Then again, I'm a huge geek, so of course I would find that fun.

Sizing up

Master gave Tapeti a collar over the weekend - a cute pink one with silver threading. It didn't come with any stipulations; she isn't beholden to him or me at all, and she can wear it (or not wear it) as she pleases. She was mighty pleased with it!

However, I got the impression that Lupa was a little sad that she did not get a collar. She has known Master and me longer than Tapeti has, but it's harder for us to feel... relationship-y towards her. I think it's for a couple reasons.

While Tapeti is a hardcore sub/bottom, Lupa is a super-switch, and neither Master nor I know quite what to make of that. Though sometimes I can be a little bit of a brat towards Master, and though I do like to assert myself over other people, switching roles frequently - sometimes multiple times in the same scene, as Lupa does - just confuses me. It's hard for me to completely reorient my headspace at the drop of a hat; it reminds me of one time when I was asked to play two of my characters - mother and son - at the same time in a tabletop game. Trying to hop between two mindsets was too much for me, and eventually I needed the GM to take over one of them. (As an aside, I think that's why I'm not a very successful GM, too.)

So I don't know where I stand with Lupa - is she dominant over me? She often co-tops with Master, and finds great glee in tormenting me. I'm more sexually experienced than her, though, and that leads to me often taking the initiative with her and "leading" the encounter - not to mention that she is incredibly physically sensitive, so it's pretty easy for me to subdue her with a few bites and caresses. But, on the other hand, she gets cranky if she doesn't get the opportunity to tie someone up! I can only imagine how difficult it is for Master to get a bead on her.

Tapeti, by comparison, is pretty straightforward. She is submissive. Very, very submissive. Much more so than I am, so by default I'm above her in the "pecking order" of our little kinky menagerie. The chain of command is clear: Master > Me > Tapeti. With everything so clear-cut, it's easier for us to integrate her into our relationship.

I'd feel worse for Lupa, except that she's explicitly told me that she prefers being able to act as she pleases, without the ties of an official "relationship." She definitely values her independence; I don't think she's been in a monogamous relationship her entire life.

It's funny - for a wolf, Lupa sure resists clear-cut hierarchies. She sure is an odd one. But I love her anyways.

Yum!

In Master's absence I've been tentatively exploring my dominant side a bit more. I still have a hard time feeling truly comfortable expressing dominance - especially towards men (damn our patriarchal society!) - but I've been getting a feel for what kind of dominance turns me on.

Enter Male Submission Art. So many pretty men! :D The blog-keeper's commentary on each post is nice, too. From what I gather he's a submissive man himself, and I don't think I've read/followed many blogs that feature male subs. While theoretically that shouldn't make a difference - a sub is a sub - the fact is that our gendered society makes the experience of submission different for men and women, I think. Or at least it's different from my perspective.

Because men are expected to dominate and women are expected to submit, the most obvious difference is that male submission has an element of transgression beyond what female submission has. Of course, this doesn't mean that female submission is bad for reifying the gender binary or whatever; however, it does mean we have to approach it and process it differently.

Maestro

A while ago - before I went to visit Master - I had a very interesting experience with Lupa and a guy I'll call Finnian. He's a friend of ours, two years younger than Lupa and me, and he has a bit of a romantic history with Lupa, though the two have never been together officially.

Anyway, since the beginning of this year I've caught myself eying Finnian like a cat eying a plump squirrel. He's a good friend, he's funny, and he's attractive to boot - and I've been rather hungry now that Master's gone. But I know that Lupa still likes him (kind of; she's got mixed feelings) and he still likes her (probably), so I haven't done much more than watch him and chatter my teeth with anticipation.

However, there is one thing that Finnian and I both love to do, and that's torment Lupa. One night, Lupa was miserable from studying for a particularly vicious test, so Finnian and I took it upon ourselves to distract her. Our teasing and biting and licking escalated pretty quickly, but because we were in the living room we couldn't progress beyond a certain point without fear of it getting very awkward should a roommate happen to come in. But it was pretty obvious we all wanted to go further.

Master has been telling me I need to be more assertive. And Lupa and I had been joking for weeks about doing a "Twin Cougar Strike" on Finnian (a play on the name of an attack power in Dungeons & Dragons (yeah, we're super nerds)). This, I realized, was the perfect opportunity.

"Do you wanna go upstairs?" I whispered in Lupa's ear. After much incomprehensible flailing, Lupa nodded, so I helped her to her feet (her legs were already a little wobbly at this point). Then I turned to Finnian. "[Lupa] and I are going upstairs to have randy lesbian sex," I said, sounding much calmer than I felt. "You're welcome to come, if you'd like."

"Sure," Finnian said after a pause. "Might learn a thing or two."

So yeah. It was funny, because while I definitely participated, it felt a lot like I was orchestrating Lupa and Finnian's actions. Which was just fine - I like being a voyeur - but it was strange. It was much more intellectual, more "heady" than I usually am during sex. Sometimes I'd even be so explicit as to tell Finnian, "Do this," so he'd know precisely what Lupa liked, and a couple times I even manhandled the two into a better position for sexin'.

I don't think I'd call what I did "dominating," though, because I wasn't imposing my will on either of them. I was guiding them, giving them suggestions, that kind of thing. Mostly because both of them are pretty inexperienced compared to me. (And lordy do I feel weird saying that. Me? Experienced?!) Finnian was actually the least experienced of us, which was both fun and frustrating. It was fun because we got to experiment with what he liked, but it was frustrating because even he didn't know what he liked, so he couldn't just tell us. And his technique could use a little improvement, but that can only come with more practice! :)

Since then, I've wanted to be intimate with Finnian again - without Lupa. I'm not sure why I have that particular desire; I think it's a possession/dominance thing. "He's mine, see, I can do what I want with him." Which is petty, to be sure, and besides there's still the fact that there's more chemistry between those two than between him and me. Soooo it's probably not going to happen, but try telling my Id that.