Monthly Archives: July 2014

bdsm, life, rant

Desperate is the Death of Sexy

Sex is a funny thing.  When you’re not getting it, it seems like the best thing in the world.  When you get plenty of it, it’s still pretty fucking wonderful, and when you are having as much as you want, with one partner or ten, people can usually tell.  I’m not sure exactly why, but people who are regularly having sex – not just any sex, but good sex – tend to stand out.

Actually – I’m pretty sure I do know why… it’s all about confidence.

There are several ways to describe the unconfident person, and desperate is often an accurate description.

Desperate is the Death of Sexy.

The intra-sentence capitalization there is a bit hokey, perhaps, but the emphasis is warranted.

Nothing moves you from ‘dark and mysterious’ to ‘lonely and pathetic’ faster than the simple realization on the part of the observer that you are not, in fact, mysterious, but that you are, instead, merely pathetic and some of my more timid friends are in awe of my ability to stay in the ‘dark and mysterious’ camp without having to resort to the ‘douchebag’ camp tactics.

I’m here to tell you that it is entirely possible to be both kind and sexy.  Contrary to the current conventional wisdom, you do not have to be an asshole to get girls to like you.  In fact, you just have to not be a pushover and you have to ask for what you want.  I’m not the most attractive man in the world, but I have no trouble whatsoever in finding sex partners because I am confident, intelligent, kind, and patient.  And by patient, I don’t mean that you stalk the poor woman for four months and hope that she’ll relent and have pity sex with you – the fact that that ever works is a serious detriment to us all, but that’s another rant entirely…

Somewhere in the twentieth century, Western society started to view women as people.  This is an amazing and long overdue accomplishment.  Someday, perhaps we will get to the point where we view women as equals as well, but that is something that I’ve harped on to various degrees in previous posts and won’t get into again here.

Anyway – the reason for mentioning the above is that prior to about a hundred and fifty years or so ago, there wasn’t much of a concept in Western society of consent as being important to the act of having sex.   Women were quite literally the property of their fathers or husbands and it was up to those men to decide when the women in question were allowed to have sex and with whom.   Women were viewed either as assets or liabilities, but never as people.  They were something to be sold away or bargained with.  And once the woman in question was of ‘breeding age’ she would be disposed of by her father and taken possession of by her husband who would then gain exclusive access to her, sexually and in every other way as well.

Fucking barbarian viewpoints if you ask me…

Anyway… somehow we managed to pull our asses out of such depravity and recognize that women have a right to control access to their own bodies.  This gave them the right to say ‘no’ and they often did, because out-of-wedlock children are still viewed with a stigma attached, it’s a very difficult thing for a woman to raise children on her own, and for the first time women were being given a choice about whether or not this was something they wanted to do.

When the birth control pill hit the streets we had a brief period where sex was viewed as something that could be experienced for pleasure alone and without all of the consequences that were commonly part of that equation before.  Women were actually, finally, and for the first time ever, able to choose to have sex for the sake of pleasure alone – something that men have enjoyed since the dawn of time.  The era of ‘free love’ was born and because the impetus was on women to go on the pill – a choice which they alone were empowered to make, reversing the power dynamic on a fundamental human drive for the first time ever – they became the de-facto gatekeepers of sex.

This put the choices that led to ‘consequence free’ sex into the hands of women alone.  Of course, this isn’t completely true – condoms have been around for much longer than the pill – but they require some forethought and for some reason which I cannot understand, are anathema to a lot of people’s enjoyment of sex.

So – the common belief evolved that men always want sex and that it is up to the woman to decide when and where this occurs because the preparation for this is her responsibility.   This is a naive viewpoint, but let’s let it slide for now…

This is a pretty new paradigm shift, but it is at least a couple of generations old now, and pretty firmly entrenched.  When the AIDS epidemic killed ‘free love,’ the changes to the way society views women and sex were already firmly in place, so sex became a lot scarier, and women started to say ‘no’ more often.  This is relaxing a bit now that HIV is treatable, and thus no longer a death sentence, and because infection rates have dropped in most of the world other than sub-Saharan Africa, but it is something that still plagues the minds of those in their 30’s and low 40’s.

So, now women had multiple good reasons to say, ‘no’ more often, and for the first time, the fact that they were saying ‘no’ mattered.

Guys in my generation were raised to respect this.

This is a good thing.

But society is a very poor teacher.  In order for the message to carry through all facets of society, it must be delivered as bluntly as possible and the consequences for failing to meet with expectations must be severe.  The end result was that the message, as delivered, was somewhat emasculating.  It came with the worldview that said, basically, “you can have sex with a woman only if she ‘gives it up to you.’”

This is a dangerous and harmful idea.

Firstly – this makes the assumption, once again, that men want sex with anyone and all of the time.  Secondly – this makes the assumption that women are reluctant to have sex in general, and that you will only succeed in getting into her panties by performing some kind of heroic act for which she is so grateful that she decides to go against her normal nature and allow you to have sex with her.  Implicit in this assumption is that women don’t want to be having sex normally.  And lastly, this also includes the assumption that sex is a taboo topic that should not be discussed openly, and that hurts everyone involved.  My general rule in life is that if I can’t talk about it openly, I should probably not be doing it.

Women like sex every bit as much as men.  Especially with patient, kind, and confident men.  Their tastes with the actual experiences differ considerably from woman to woman, but this is true of men as well.  Some women like to be called dirty names, some are totally turned off by the very thought of that.  Some women like to have their hair pulled or their asses slapped, but others respond only to gentle touch.  It behooves one to learn about what she likes before you start trying to push her into unknown territory.

In my experience, once you earn a woman’s trust (and I’m sure the same goes for men) she’ll be willing to at least try anything you ask her to do.  So if you have a particular kink that she doesn’t share, be patient, be kind, and be confident.  She’ll probably come around, and if she doesn’t you can address that once you know that you’ve at least given it the best possible chance for success.  But if you lose your cool, or you whine at not getting what you want, you can be guaranteed that she won’t even consider it.  She’ll lose respect for you, and if you ever even got into her panties, you probably never will again.  Once the respect is gone, it is extremely difficult to get back.. not impossible, but difficult, and the longer it goes on that way, the harder that climb back uphill becomes.

So – gentlemen of the interwebs – this is my advice to you:  Be calm, be sure, ask for what you want, and respect what she likes.  If you can do those things, you have a much better chance of not only getting what you want, but of getting it often and with enthusiasm.  It doesn’t really matter what you look like, how much money you make, or really any other of the myriad of criteria that society tells you are important.  Of course, it never hurts to be a billionaire Adonis type, but even if you are one, you’re going to get much less actual action if you act like a whiney toad than if you hold your head high, believe that you are valuable, and ask for what you want.

Desperation is the Death of Sexy, and I’m determined to bring Sexy back.

Was this a rant? I’m not sure.

Either way, I am Rant.

Rant off.

bdsm, question

Question: What is ‘subdrop’?

29 Comments

A reader recently pointed out to me in email that in my Finding subspace post, I talk about subdrop but don’t define it.  I even go so far as to say that it will be the subject of a future post, but then there is no such post – yet.

Well, I’ll tackle the questions here then : What is subdrop?  How would I know if it was happening to me?  What causes it?  How can I avoid it?

First – What is subdrop?

As with everything in the BDSM world, these are terms that mean different things to different people in different circles and experience levels.  I don’t know where the term ‘subdrop’ originated, but when I was first introduced to it, it was within the context and from the point of view of someone in the Los Angeles BDSM scene at the end of the 1990s.

The Los Angeles scene at that time was defined by extremes.  Play was very rough, people’s egos were very large, status was very important, and drugs and alcohol were prevalent in order to make things even more extreme.  I suspect it’s much the same way now, but I have no firsthand knowledge.  I’m always a bit fascinated by how the scene differs from city to city, but that’s a topic for another day…

Personally, I think that mixing drugs and alcohol with BDSM scenes is extremely dangerous.  Having a drink or two to cut the edge off things is generally regarded as safe, but that is a hazy line to try to draw, especially since alcohol reduces inhibitions.  It makes you exactly the opposite of what you should be when you are impaired.  It makes you bold when you should be meek, it makes you sure when you should question, and it makes you take risks when you should be cautious.  When you couple those reduced inhibitions with cocaine, which was very prevalent in the scene in the late 90’s and you get some really bad things happening.

Tops would not realize how much force they were using because they didn’t feel normal, subs would take more than they should because they were impaired, or in the worst cases, subs would become non-responsive and Tops would fail to note the signs and assume that no reaction meant they should redouble their efforts.

I’m not aware of any permanent injuries taking place, but there were several people that just disappeared from the community after a bad scene.

But I digress… the point of this was that the definition for subdrop was given to me in the context of the ‘come down’ from a cocaine high.

I was never a heavy user of cocaine.  I steadfastly avoided drugs for the most part in that part of my life.  I am too much of a control freak to do otherwise, but while I did not enjoy the high as much as I was told I would, I certainly got to experience the crash.

I’ve also experienced subdrop myself, and I can say that there are a great many similarities.

So – this is my personal definition of subdrop, based on my own experiences and through the filters which I have developed in which to see these things.

Subdrop is the state of physical, emotional, and psychological withdrawal from an intense interaction with another person.

My definition is simple enough to allow for more than the typical ‘in scene’ views of subdrop, but also requires that there be at least two personalities involved.

I think it’s entirely possible for a submissive to experience subdrop simply from being away from her Dom, whether there was a recent scene or not.  She comes to depend on that personality – that buoying force that helps to keep her on an even keel, and when that is missing, it’s very possible to fall down into the dark places where one feels unsupported, into chaos even.

Subdrop can have many symptoms – in extreme cases it can even involve flu-like symptoms.  The ability of the body to heal itself or make itself sick is well established through literally hundreds of years of study on the placebo effect.  This is not limited to merely taking a sugar pill and feeling better when you have a headache.. there are much more intense reactions that are possible and that happen all of the time.

Subdrop is almost always accompanied by some amount of depression, lethargy, and anxiety.  One person might feel nauseated, another might get headaches, it can be very much like short term withdrawal, and in a sense, it is.

Subdrop can surprise you as well.  The expectation of someone new who has heard about it but not experienced it will be that it is something that is going to hit right away, once the the scene is over, but this is not necessarily always the case.  Sometimes you can still be riding the high out of the scene and even into the next day or two and then subdrop will kick in and pull your feet out from under you.  No amount of aftercare immediately following your scene can prepare you for that.

My partner just remarked to me after reading the first draft of this post that I might want to mention the above situation with delayed onset subdrop, and that when she tops someone new she always mentions to them that she will be checking in and available over the next 72 hours in case they have any issues.  I think this is an excellent practice, and I wish I’d thought to mention it myself.  She is a very wise and experienced partner, and I’m very lucky to have her.

In a BDSM scene, or in a D/s relationship, we establish extremely intense relationships that play exceedingly hard on our emotional and psychological state.  While I’m not aware of any research that has been done on subdrop specifically, it has been shown through other studies on psychological reactions that a person can induce a dopamine response in their own brain from nothing other than thought.  I am, unfortunately, thinking mostly about a study on religious fervor and how really believing in something can make you feel the presence of God.

I’m an atheist, but I did once have faith – true faith – and I know that the intensity of some of the experiences that I have had through BDSM are every bit as intense if not more so because they are accompanied by physical activities.  One has to wonder if the self-mutilation that is often incurred in ‘primitive’ religions is not due to same kind of physical/psychological fervor.

In any case, the intensity of the things that we do and the drug-like effects of being in subspace combine to make for a very powerful intoxicant.  Is it any surprise, then, that these deleterious effects may follow once the stimulus is removed?  Of course, one must not put too much stock into apparent patterns without understanding the scientific processes beneath, and I’m afraid that not much study has been done there (yet… perhaps I should ask for volunteers? For Science!) so we run the risk of magical thinking.

So – with a little bit of hand waving and pseudoscience I’ve arrested the issues of what subdrop is, why I think it happens (this is the pseudoscience bit.. I shall endeavor to provide more rigor in a future post), how you can identify if it is happening to you, but not yet what you can do to prevent it.

The problem there is, I don’t actually think you can.

You can mitigate the problems that are caused by it.  You can be sure to administer appropriate aftercare, and that has the largest benefit in my experience.  Going through withdrawal with a sitter is so much easier than by yourself – the psychological impact alone is massive – but you still have to go through it.  The best thing you can do is plan for it.  Like with any drug, know that there is going to be a hangover effect and plan to deal with it.  Plan for aftercare – whatever that means to you – and plan to be down and out for a bit.  Drink plenty of water, cry if you need to, sit with your emotions if you have to, but resist the urge to wallow.

Take care of yourself.

If you are topping someone, set aside time to take care of your bottom.

If you are in a D/s relationship and you have to be away from your partner for an extended period, plan to spend extra time with them before and after the schism.

If you are a bottom, realize that your top may actually need aftercare as well.

Be mindful, be compassionate, be self aware and subdrop is not such a big deal, and it might not even affect you at all.

Let me know if you have questions, I’m happy to answer.

This was meant to educate, I hope you find it useful.

This was not a rant, but I am still Rant.

Rant off.

 

Postscript: For the first time, I’m going to ask you, my readers, for feedback.  I don’t necessarily want to know what you think about this post (though I welcome that feedback as well) but I want to collect subdrop experiences.  Have you experienced subdrop?  What did it feel like?  How did it happen?  Did you engage in proper aftercare?  Please let me know either in the comments, or through the Contact Me page, or email me at [email protected].

If I get enough responses to be statistically significant, I will publish the results in a later post and perhaps we can get some real data on the subject.