Thanksgiving

Last year, I thanked everyone who helped me take my first steps into the local community and my first steps into personal growth and acceptance. Most of those people are still a part of my increasingly wonderful life, and I am still incredibly grateful to them all. The community here, my chosen family within the community, all are exceptional people who make my life joyful, interesting and entertaining. I am a writer, introverted, anti-social, quiet, and more at home in nature than a city. But I have found something incredible here. I have found acceptance and love, growth and exploration, and a life more full than I ever expected to have. My dream office is a furnished attic with pillows and a big circular window, a papasan and some bean bags. Used to be, I’d imagine myself spending most of my time up there, writing in seclusion and quiet. I still want that attic office, but now it is imagined for my private writing time each day, when I take an hour or two to myself amidst a life so full.

Thank you to my parents, for loving me and not asking too many questions.
Thank you to my hubby, for loving me and taking this journey with me.

Thank you to him and his wife, for making me a part of their lives.
Thank you to lover, for everything you gave to and shared with me.

Thank you to the crew, for being my chosen family, with all the joy and struggles of any family.

Thank you to the clubs and the patrons, for letting us do those things we do.
Thank you to the groups who organize the parties and the events, for providing a safe place to learn and explore and share with so many people.
Thank you to the munch, for giving so many a place to meet and enjoy each other with no pressure.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What are you thankful for?

Stress Free Service

Life is hectic. People are busy and stressed and full of work and responsibility. The holidays bring on schedule changes and family gatherings and bigger loads at work as the year comes to a close. There is a often a lot of preparation for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and all the other holidays that fall this time of year. Dinners to plan and prepare, gifts to get, parties to plan and attend, even a convention or two. All this on top of an already busy schedule that was bursting at the seams. Add to that, if you will, new relationships, new jobs, job searches, and so many shiny distractions that a ferret would look like a Tasmanian devil trying to capture it all.

So, what’s a submissive to do? The wants and needs are all still there. He wants me to have a backbone, to ask for what I want or need. To speak up and communicate. I want to be as stress free as possible and not demand things he cannot provide. I want to let him know I still want things, want him, but I don’t want him to feel bad when we run out of time, or don’t have the space to follow through. Yes, I would like more follow through than we’ve had lately, but I understand that it takes work, time and patience to get what we want.

At the end of a long day, I don’t need him to summon extra energy to play with me when he’s exhausted. I don’t need him to suddenly let go of all the stress and focus solely on me. I would just like to serve him, quietly and without demands. Relieve some of the stress, in whatever small ways I can, which in turn, makes me feel better. Because, in the end, if we are less stressed, we’ll be able to make time and space for the other things we want to do.

My old editing job gave me my final payment today. I got myself the beginnings of my own boot black kit. Just one of the stress free services I intend to offer him.

Only one more week to get a copy according to the publisher’s website: Daily Flashes of Erotica #1.

Big Week, Lots of Links and Labels

As I posted yesterday, my first professionally published piece is available for sale. Also yesterday, Elysium Avenue reblogged my Consensual Non-Consent post.

Last week, after making my post here about drop, I found a new blog called Fearless Press and posted a few comments on a couple posts dealing with labels: The Beginning and What Did You Call Me? I last posted on labels in June of 2009. So, that’s the topic I want to make my own post on today. Labels in the kink community.

Most of my dealings with labels lately have been in reference to defining relationships as opposed to defining self. Who am I to my partner and what does that mean to us? The difficulty, as pointed out by Amethyst Wonder’s post is “that like most language, labels don’t mean the exact same thing in different people’s minds.” This is why communication is so important in relationships, to define the labels for yourselves. None of my relationships can be explained by a single word and truly be understood. We have to decide and discuss what it means to us personally, and to our other partners, as well.

Personal labels have become even more situational as I have grown and expanded my horizons in the kink community. They have become a way to explain what I’m doing, instead of who I am. I label as service top at the club where I do violet wand scenes. I label as a rope slut when talking about my love for and experience with rope. I label as a pain slut when I talk about physically intense scenes. I am all of these things, but none of them define me completely.

Submissive is the label I use most often, because it is the word I associate with my overall kinky nature. However, my submissiveness manifests in different ways with my different partners. I often find myself explaining these differences, the word is not a simple definition, but a starting place for discussion. I do not let other people tell me how a submissive should act, or that it is wrong to show different kinds of submission or different levels of submission to different partners.

Mako Allen commented that “Lao-tzu had it right. When you stop worrying about the kind of kinky person you should be, you can fully embrace the kinky person you actually are.” I enjoy what I do far too much to worry about what others think I should do. I also enjoy teaching and sharing, so labels give me a framework to start from. Then I expand that out, to share the richness of my life and my journey, to those who ask and are willing to listen.

Daily Flashes of Erotica Quarterly #1 Now Available

From the Pill Hill Press Website:

Daily Flashes of Erotica Quarterly #1 (January -March 2011)
(On Sale Through Thanksgiving — Cover Price $9.99)
Published by DFE Quarterly, an Imprint of Pill Hill Press
ISBN-13: 978-1617060199

Featuring daily doses of adult flash fiction, DAILY FLASHES OF EROTICA QUARTERLY is published four times per year. As a daily flash fiction calendar anthology, a 1500 word or less short story is featured for every day of the calendar year (January – March 2011). This is a fun and steamy anthology designed for busy adult readers.
Buy Now from Pill Hill Press for $9.99 (plus shipping)

If you are doing more shopping today, or want cheaper shipping:
Buy from Barnes & Noble for $8.99 (plus shipping)
Or
Buy from Amazon for 9.99 (plus shipping)

I am not an affiliate of any of these sites and do not earn a penny off your purchase of this book. However, Inspired by the Storm is February 6th, and for those of you who know me, I’d be happy to sign your copy. It looks like this is a very limited run, so don’t wait if you want one.

Mental vs. Physical Drop

Today I want to talk about drop.

About a year ago, I posted about Altered States and said that Pain Space “is the one that leads to drop most often.” A month or so later, after a post specifically about Sub Drop I commented that “I rarely have sub drop anymore over purely the physical parts of scenes, which used to happen after any Really Intense scene. Now it really does take a negative emotional trigger for me to drop.”

Earlier this week, I was talking to Lover (yes, he keeps that name for now, I’ll post about labels again soon) about drop from mental scenes as opposed to physical scenes. He was baffled that a relatively painless evening could cause faster and more massive drop than a very physically taxing scene. At first, I thought maybe it had to do with being a girl, I blame girly hormones for a lot of things. But then I thought maybe it was a disconnect in understanding between people who really enjoy pain and people who don’t. Let me explore my thoughts out loud.

My first year in the local community, I would have drop after big physical scenes, either just from the chemical drop after the high endorphins of the scene, or from a negative comment about how harsh the scene was, or just from being so worn out by the physically taxing nature of the scene. I did not do a lot of mental play during that first exploration, certainly not to the extent of some of the play I’ve done this year. I also was not a self-described pain slut in the beginning. I knew I liked some very specific types of pain(intense sensation), but have since discovered that while there are some types of implements I am not fond of, I will put up with them for the experience of the pain(intense sensation). Since I have come to grips with my enjoyment of pain, I have far less drop from physical scenes. If someone comments negatively on it, I am better able to laugh it off and explain how much I enjoyed it.

It is the mental side of things that I now find causes harder drop. Mental scars and bruises are a lot harder to see and are more intense than physical ones. I’m remembering a scene that I don’t think I have posted about before. There was crying from the pain during part of it, but the harder crying was caused by words. That is the case more often than not this past year. Yes, pain can trigger tears, but words and mental control strike deeper chords. While you can see the bruises and marks on the skin, sometimes you don’t know what all happened in your mind. A day later, a stray word, or a random thought, could bubble to the surface and bam, that’s it, you’re dropping from something that you did not consciously process at the time. The mind is a far trickier landscape than the body.

I think I strayed off my two theories quite a bit, let me see if I can bring it back around. On blaming it on being a girl – I’m not sure that holds any water at all. I think I had it at an angle of being more vulnerable mentally than the men I play with, but I think that is quite possibly a false basis for the claim. On being about enjoying pain versus not enjoying pain – I think this holds a bit more truth. Pain is easier for me to process now that I am more accepting of my enjoyment of it. It was not always that way, so I can understand how, for people not at ease with pain, why it would be harder to process and thus be a potential for more drop than more mental play they might be more at ease with.

What are your thoughts? What causes more drop for you? How do you deal with it? s