Blogging from A - Z Challenge: April 2 B

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B is for Bondage

I confess, I have shared in a small amount of Bondage play. It’s tricky to work it into a marriage, especially with kids; its takes a lot of setting up and the commitment level is high. To make it really work there is research into both roles required and a level of intellectual and emotional freedom that is difficult to replicate when you have kids you are accountable for. I’m not saying its impossible, just that its a lot more work and fairly low on the priority list. 

However, the small amount of play I did indulge in was thrilling. It is a very creative form of intimacy that has varied outcomes to determine success. 
What I mean by that is, orgasm is not always the primary goal of bondage, and therefore it can be very erotic, with little pressure to feel anything. Often the external constraints are symbols to assist with “letting go” on the inside, as if the subject has a chance to feel safe, and therefore doesn't need to carry any barriers within. This was my experience, and It ended up teaching me a great deal about myself. 

For one of my favorite experiences, sensory deprivation was included, so I was unable to move, see or hear anything, left in the dark alone with the most terrifying monster of all - me. Pushed to the very edges of distress, it was when I chose to let go of my discomforts and accept that my situation was out of my hands, that I experienced the strongest results. I experienced indescribable feelings of warmth, safety, security and visions of journey’s I took that are as vivid to me now as they were then. 

It was an experience that I recommend, although I was in the hands of a person who knew very well what they were doing. Perhaps if you and your partner are feeling like a new sort of sexual adventure this year, you can consider having a bondage expert tie you together. One can only guess at the astonishing experiences that might come out of that idea. 

George Bataille

B is for Bataille

I only intended to do one post per letter of the alphabet, but it’s difficult to go past ‘B’ without adding a Georges Bataille quote, one of the original men of intellectual eros. I love the two quotes below, one from the start of the chapter and the other from the end of the same chapter. I like the idea that eroticism is silence, and I like the idea that it is close to sanctity in terms of intensity. 

Some very nice food for thought here. 

Appropriately, these two quotes are from Eroticism, part two, Chapter six:

“Erotic experience will commit us to silence. 

This is not true of an experience possibly very close to it, the experience of sanctity. The emotions felt in that experience can be expressed in a speech or form the subject of a sermon. Yet erotic experience is possibly close to sanctity.

I do not mean that eroticism and sanctity are of the same nature, and anyway that subject falls outside my scope. All I mean is that both experiences have an extreme intensity. When I speak of sanctity I am referring to the life that the presence of a sacred reality within us informs, a reality that may completely overwhelm us. Just now I shall be content to look at the emotion of sanctity on the one hand and at the emotion of eroticism on the other, in so far as each has extreme intensity. My meaning is that with these two emotions, one brings us closer to other men and the other cuts us off from them and leaves us in solitude.”

“Eroticism is silence, I have said; it is solitude. But not for people whose very presence in the world is a pure denial of silence, a chattering, a neglect of potential solitude.”

The desire for kink

I went to a book launch last week, that I will do a review on soon. It is a book called 'Kink' and it is an exploration of kinky sex that goes on around the Sydney area.

I'll talk more about this another time, but one thing the writer said intrigued me. She said BDSM ranges in severity. There are those who want to be treated as the object and to have seduction forced upon them, and then there are those who want to be nailed to a crucifix.

I thought this was a very interesting point, because what I find fascinating about writing erotic romance is the way it is revealing more and more about female sexuality. There are some modern day surprises - like the fondness for male on male erotica. I have to confess, I have always had a 'thing' for male on male porn, and it is a strong fantasy of mine, but to see that so many other women shared this fondness was liberating.

Another of the most popular styles of erotica is the BDSM fantasy. That women love BDSM has been a source of fascination for everyone, from the Marquis de Sade himself all the way through to Freud.

However, I suggest that it is not necessarily the masochistic or sadistic side of BDSM that women love. Rather its the role place and to be the object of obsession or intense focus. Women are very drawn to the idea of a man being so obsessed with them, he needs to tie them up and dominate them completely to his will. It is the idea of inspiring this response in a thinking, free male, that is so enticing to women.

For women, power is a difficult issue. We are not necessarily comfortable with exerting power over others. this is changing, however it is still very exciting to imagine that without trying you can render someone to the state of obsession, simply by existing.

When I used to engage in BDSM myself (more on this in later posts) I always found the role of the submissive to be an intensely powerful role. it is not as simple as having someone 'own' you. It is also about 'accidentally' owning them in a different way.