BDSM, Hot Wax, and Siegfried Kracauer
So this column, in the abstract, is about the healing that comes from a place of hurt, but this column, the one you are about to read, is about diving into the hurt and mucking around with it; it’s best to leave now if you don’t want to read my thoughts on being tied up, power play, hot wax, and nipple clamps.
BDSM is a scary set of acronyms for a survivor to be throwing around, but power and sensation play are integral parts of my fantasy life, and I’ve come to find that incorporating elements of that into my sex life, when I want it and how I want it, can be enormously empowering.
I do believe there’s one thing everyone can learn from BDSM, and that’s that explicit consent is sexy. Every separate time you engage in play, you’re expected to discuss your desires and your limits with your partner, as well as how to signal if you change your mind halfway through, which you’ve probably heard described as a “safe word.” Safe words can be good even for people who don’t like to play with non-consent and power—I talked to a survivor who found it hard to say “No,” because the word no longer meant anything to her, but who could pull out “giraffe” when she was feeling uncomfortable.
Some people like to have two tiers of safe words: one might be “yellow” for “slow down, be gentle, let me catch my breath and think about this” and the second might be “red” for “step away from the submissive.” (Some people like semaphore flags. Or Morse Code.)
One of my lovers and I played a game to come up with our safe word; we went through all of our favorite intellectuals and tried to see if we could make sexy in-scene noises that would sound enough like their name that it might be confusing. (Ahhh-doh-no and err-eee-dahhh! were quickly disqualified.)
The intellectual whose name was hardest to accidentally utter in a pleasured context became our safe word. (We finally picked Siegfried Kracauer, because I don’t make guttural cracking noises during sex.)
Right? So this stuff can be totally fun but it wasn’t easy to figure this out. The first time I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my sex life and how it might connect to my survivor life, the first book I picked up was The Courage to Heal (1988), which says the following:
“But for women who are working to heal beyond their conditioning to abuse, participating in SM—sex that involves pain, humiliation, or a situation in which one person wields power over the other—makes no sense. It would be like an alcoholic trying to heal from alcoholism by drinking only in special environments created for that purpose.”
…although some of the other sex advice in The Courage to Heal was pretty darn helpful, this made me cringe. Being tied down (my primary BDSM activity at the time) didn’t feel like recapitulating my abuse. It just didn’t. But how was I supposed to argue with the only words I had ever read on the subject?
I’m lucky that I was asking these questions in 2007, by which time there was another great resource out there: Staci Haines’ The Survivor’s Guide to Sex, which devotes an entire chapter to BDSM and power related fantasies and does so in a marvelously even-handed manner.
Staci writes: “Some survivors who are into S/M consciously work with their history of abuse in their scenes. This can be done in a number of ways. You can explore sexual acts and positions in which you were abused. You may find it powerful to reenact abuse scenes and write new endings for them.”
Still, she realizes that it isn’t always healthy: “The most often debated question is whether S/M players are ‘acting out’ prior abuse. My answer is both yes and no, depending… I found that survivors can and do use S/M as a way to dissociate and to unsuccessfully process the abuse. Of course, survivors check out during vanilla sex, too, and use vanilla sex as a way to escape feelings.”
Staci is, as always, right on point. BDSM is like sex itself; it’s all about how you use it. Let me describe a healthy submissive scene for me.
(Although, point: people often forget that BDSM also involves women topping men and the entire queer community topping each other (and I’m a switch). It’s not always a male-female oppression-perpetuating act. Actually, one of my dreams is to remake The Night Porter so that after the war, the characters work through their unresolved issues by having the woman top the SS guard. Clearly that would be a superior film.)
First I negotiate with my partner. I want to play with non-consent—I want you to be a little bit rough with me—I want to struggle when you tie me down. I don’t want you to call me names—I don’t like being called names. We both want to try hot wax but I’m a little bit scared—please go slow and wait to see how I react.
I love this part: in BDSM, I have to explicitly acknowledge the power context of our sex act, and spelling out that power so precisely makes me feel empowered. You’re actually in a lot of control when you’re submissive, if you and your top are doing it right; you’re the one who gets to set all the boundaries and you’re the one with the power to cut it off at any moment.
Then we come up with an absurd scenario and launch in; like I’ve said before, the Cold War makes me hot, so let’s pretend we’re spies and there are state secrets which you know you can get to if you just drip hot wax on me. (I really like spies, as a non-consent scenario, because of the equal power it sort of implies, you know? it’s better for me than doctor/patient or whatever.)
I like the part where I get to pretend I don’t actually want it; somehow it’s freeing for me, and my usual performance neuroses shut off, putting me in a place where I only have to react to the sensations.
Being tied down is useful for similar reasons. I’ve talked about being disembodied before, feeling like I was watching my body rather than living in it. Back when I could check out from “vanilla” sex easily, S/M kept me far more embodied and present in the moment. I couldn’t be disembodied when I was tied down and wholly focused on my partner. I didn’t have to worry about where my hands are or whether I sound like a porn star or what my feet look like—I could just trust my body to do the right thing to get me through this, and in a non-consent tie-me-down-and-tickle-me-up fantasy, that’s giggling and screaming and enjoying myself.
So now I’m tied down and you haven’t found the state secrets hidden inside my clothing; is it possible that they are written on my body and can only be uncovered through the strategic application of hot wax? Indeed.
I love playing with sensations which I might find painful otherwise; it’s fun to work up from rubbing fur over your submissive to clamping their nipples and breaking out the Wartenberg wheel, because as you become sexually aroused, your body releases endorphins which increase your pain threshold.
At the end of a scene, I like to be given a moment to relax, and then touched tenderly and reminded how much my top does care. I need to be checked in with; what worked for me? What didn’t? Were there any points when I felt seriously uncomfortable? What are we going to do next time?
Am I feeling embodied in my body, confident in myself, close to my partner, and welcoming of the pleasure in my life? Then hooray. We’re doing BDSM right.
(And goodness gracious I write too much. Have a happy and safe weekend.)
Love,
Dr. Strokes
Print
Email
#1: 10/31/2008 at 11:40 a.m.
that's hot.
— Iusuallydon'tlikeBDSM | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#2: 10/31/2008 at 12:33 p.m.
On a slightly related note, when they have "Family Nights" at the Eastern State Penitentiary haunted house, they tell children that they can say "monster be good" as a safeword to make the monster stop scaring them. Kind of similar, though hopefully not TOO similar since I don't think they're pouring any hot wax on the children (or having sex with them, for that matter)...
— Peter '11 | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#3: 10/31/2008 at 5:49 p.m.
I almost got into a fist-fight with one of those monsters two years ago. I have no idea why...I think the Amish guys outside put something in their cider.
My favorite safe-word is dirigible.
— Argos | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#4: 11/1/2008 at 5:34 p.m.
Wow, Dr. Strokes. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything in BDSM anymore but what struck me the most about this column was just how different people's tastes, even within the subset of people into BDSM, can be. For me, a non-consent scenario is all about unequal power--if there's equal power, that kinda means that I shouldn't be losing my control and if I'm in that position I must have been defeated somehow--like, why wasn't I good enough to outsmart the other spy? It's more comforting to me to be in a scenario where I'm "supposed" to not be in control. Similarly, I don't see the fun in somebody dripping hot wax on me to reveal state secrets written on my body, unless the other person seems to be taking pleasure out of it... which I guess they could be, but theoretically they're doing it because it's their job and thus aren't really "in control" of when they start, stop, or linger for a little bit.
But, in the end, the basic things still apply--I like not being in control and being able to pretend I'm not enjoying it, because then I don't have to worry about if I'm doing something wrong. In a way, the only way I can "let loose" is when I'm not in control, and thus not responsible for anything. I can definitely enjoy being in charge too, but I can't really get turned on by it because I'm focused on doing everything right. I mostly enjoy it vicariously through my partner. When I'm not in charge, I can focus on the feelings running through my body and do whatever feels right.
Thanks for another excellent column Dr. Strokes!
— FFL | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#5: 11/3/2008 at 12:41 p.m.
Hm... not many comments. I wonder if it's the lack of interest/willingness to discuss the topic, or if it's just because of the timing of publication (Friday, Halloween).
— FFL | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#6: 11/5/2008 at 3:07 p.m.
FFL--
Also my own laziness in commenting back... and it was right before the election. Hopefully good sex has picked up this week, now that Obama has won?
About the unequal power--I guess what I was trying to say is that I prefer situations in which I've definitely been defeated, rather than situations in which I'm already at a disadvantage. It's way hotter for me when somebody TAKES control. Plus I like naked wrestling. So yep, different tastes. *grin*
I do really like what you say about being able to only "let loose" when you have nothing to be responsible about--we agree on that part. As far as topping, I don't prefer it because it is less physically pleasurable, but I can really get turned on by it when I know exactly how to torture my partner and have confidence in what I'm doing.
— Dr. Strokes | Staff
#7: 11/5/2008 at 7:04 p.m.
Dr. Strokes, that last part of your recent comment resonated with me and so I have a question for you. I'm a switch, too, and while I think topping is more my thing psychologically (as in, it turns me on like whoa), I sometimes get frustrated because I also crave really intense physical sensations in scene and that generally doesn't come with. How to navigate (and ideally realize) kinky desires that don't map well onto the pain/power grid?
Also, thumbs up for naked wrestling and for this excellent column. I recommend (to you and other interested readers) a fabulous porno called Trans Entities where, on top of having super hot kinky queer sex, the actors talk a lot about all sorts of fascinating stuff and one of them talks also about hir experience as a survivor and kinky person.
Keep up the great work!
— M | Unregistered, Non-Swarthmore
#8: 11/5/2008 at 7:37 p.m.
What M said.
— S | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#9: 11/5/2008 at 9:08 p.m.
Naked wrestling is a pursuit of the righteous.
— Argos | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#10: 11/5/2008 at 11:37 p.m.
I LOOOOVE naked wrestling, but I haven't had a partner that stands a chance against me in a year and a half, so either I end up on top (which is hot but doesn't quite get to me the way being on the bottom does), or I have to throw the fight, which isn't the most fun way to start off a scene. So I'm left with voluntary submission scenes, where I'm already at a disadvantage or allow myself to be at a disadvantage. That way, I really don't have to worry about anything, including whether I should be struggling or not. Giving yourself up voluntarily can be just as hot as struggling and being overpowered, albeit in a different way.
M, if your bottom can struggle a bit, ze might be able to do some "damage" with hir fingernails if that is intense enough/not too intense for you. Of course you can always order hir to give you those pain sensations. Other than that, I can't really suggest anything, I don't know much about the pain scene.
PS: when did Ze and hir beat out Xe and all the other contenders for the gender-neutral pronoun?
— FFL | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#11: 11/6/2008 at 12:27 a.m.
M-- FFL is on the right track--I have had some fun ordering bottoms to give me those really intense sensations. Try strapping your bottom to a chair, lashing down their chest and their legs (I'm really into knots, admittedly) but leaving their arms/hands free, and see how that works?
Bottoms can really bite/pinch/slap/use implements well when they know how much worse you can give back. Lots of "oh, you think you can go there? I don't think you can go there, wanna bet?"
It takes some practice to get used to, though.
Also Trans Entities sounds fun. I heart recommendations.
FFL-- True about giving yourself up voluntarily. I guess sometimes it's nice to be a woman without much arm strength who is overpowerable by nearly all their partners. Woo!
And re: gender neutrality, I'm a proponent of the singular "they," hardcore, or tey/tem. Anything with Zs feels too much like science fiction.
— Dr. Strokes | Staff
#12: 11/7/2008 at 1:32 a.m.
Yeah, being relatively strong and very masculine-bodied is unfortunate when one is a submissive into gender exploration. I'm quite a tragic figure.
— FFL | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#13: 11/7/2008 at 10:33 a.m.
FFL-- that's not tragic! it's hottt.
— Dr. Strokes | Staff