The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex (76 page)

I like it when someone else uses the vibrator on me. It’s a power thing. When I’m controlling the vibrator, I have the power to slow down when I think it is too much for me or if I want to savor the sensations. But if someone else is controlling it, then I am at their mercy. I like having my partner see what makes me go wild.

Submissive scenarios can also be a pleasant relief to individuals who have plenty of responsibility in their daily professional lives and yearn for the opportunity to relinquish control in their personal lives.

My most rewarding experience of power play was with a guy who tended to get really stressed about his work and would go crazy trying to overanalyze everything. When he really started freaking out, I’d tie his arms and legs to the bed, blindfold him, and just toy with him for hours until he could clear his mind and get a fresh start on whatever had been bothering him.

The popular misconception that S/M is somehow sexist or demeaning to women has its roots in the presumption that the dominant in any S/M scene will necessarily be that individual who has the greatest economic and social power. Yet, there’s no direct correlation between an individual’s actual socioeconomic status and her or his preference in sexual role-playing—many wealthy, powerful executives of both genders quite fancy a spanking in their off hours. Furthermore, this “S/M is demeaning” model implies that the submissive is viewed as the partner of lesser value, which isn’t the case. After all, as we’ve said before, it takes two to tango—we’d hate to see anxiety over political correctness inhibiting any of our readers’ pleasure in taking a spin around the dance floor.

As a man committed to feminism and equality, it took me a long time to discover that I might want to try playing with power dynamics in sex, but now that I have, it is a major turn on for me. I like to be bossy and forceful, and, after careful negotiation, my partner and I regularly incorporate forced-sex fantasies into our sexual repertoire. The emotions that can be brought out during this kind of play are strong, and experimenting with them seems to be a way of taking sex to a deeper level.

A few years ago I started doing some exploration into my submissive side. There are so many areas of my life that I have to keep under control that I was looking for one area where I could relinquish control and just do as I’m told. Unfortunately, hubby doesn’t understand this. He was raised by a raving feminist so equality is very important to him. He thinks that if I do something just because he’s ordered me to, then I’m not enjoying it as much as he is. I’ve tried to explain that there’s just as much enjoyment in the submission as in the act, but he hasn’t bought into that yet. I’m still working on him.

The classic contradiction of being a submissive is that while you are ostensibly subservient to your dominant, in fact you remain the center of attention, which implies that you are very valuable. This promotes a pampered, childlike security that counterbalances the vulnerability involved in expressing your craving for subordination. In childhood, we all experience a painful sense of powerlessness. Willingly relinquishing control as an adult can give you a paradoxical sense of power—after embracing weakness and dependency, you can come out of the experience reassured of your strength and autonomy.

Who’s on Top?

What, specifically, is the appeal of taking a dominant role? The appeal is that you’re on top!—your partner has entrusted you to run the show. You control what happens and who gets off when. You also have the responsibility for your partner’s safety and enjoyment. Ideally, you shouldn’t do unto your submissive anything that hasn’t at one time or another been done unto you. You may want to focus on your partner’s pleasure.

S/M is something I’m doing with my current partner. I find tying her up and having her “at my mercy” while I’m playing with her nipples, pussy, etc. is very erotic and also quite fun.

I tied her up and went down on her for an hour or so—she was so swollen and sensitive. Then I used her vibrator directly on her clit and gave her at least ten orgasms.

You may want to focus on your own pleasure.

My partner goes down on me while I whip her with a crop. Her pain is commensurate to my pleasure.

I strap a dildo onto my partner and order him to lie back while I ride him. He’s not allowed to move, to touch me, or to touch himself. It makes him crazy to have my breasts right over his face, and my ass bouncing right over his cock without his being able to touch me.

Just as being a submissive frees you to yield control and embrace vulnerability, being a dominant frees you to both take control and embrace authority. The dominant can explore feelings frowned upon in our society—selfishness, cruelty, superiority, and lust for power—and can act these out in the context of pleasing a partner. Your partner’s trust can be highly intoxicating, and the experience of tapping into your own “dark side” can be quite liberating as well.

The flip side of this freedom is the responsibility for maintaining complete focus on your partner, ensuring that his or her physical or emotional limits are not transgressed, and being the one who’s taking care of the situation. It can take courage, especially for the novice dominant, to muster up the self-confidence and panache necessary to carry off a scene. Willingness to assume this responsibility and to expend the energy involved in sustaining a scene is a gift from the dominant to the submissive.

I really like S/M role-playing games. I’m a top. I find pleasure in creating a scene for my lover. It’s a custom-made gift created with the deepest of love.

In return, the dominant may acquire a newfound sense of confidence:

When I was growing up, women were taught to be passive, to keep sex from happening so we wouldn’t get pregnant. It was an interesting challenge for me to learn to initiate sex and direct the action. What I found was that when I started exploring dominance in the bedroom, it gave me a great deal more confidence in everyday life.

What about Pain?

While it’s true that S/M is not fundamentally about pain, it’s equally true that some S/M activities—such as whipping or applying nipple clamps—may sound pretty darn uncomfortable. It’s more accurate, though, to describe these activities as producing sensation than producing pain. Think about it. If you were from another planet and you walked into an aerobics class, you might be astonished to learn that the students had paid to undergo this torture. We live on the beautiful California coastline, and every weekend the coastal highway is filled with bicyclists pedaling their way to the top of each hill with grim expressions that hardly seem to denote recreational bliss. Yet, if quizzed by an alien, both the aerobics students and the bicyclists would likely say that they were proud to have worked their way up to this level of exertion, and that actually their physical activities serve to pump intoxicating levels of endorphins through their bloodstreams. Even when physical exertion is painful, there’s a big subjective difference between pain that you’re controlling and training yourself to surmount and pain that you didn’t expect or request.

Similarly, if you were to walk in on a scene of a man being flogged, you might assume that he was in great pain, but he would probably describe himself as being in an altered state of heightened sensation. Sexual arousal affects how we perceive pain. You’ve doubtlessly had the experience of enjoying certain types of stimulation during sex—hair-pulling, nipple-biting, scratching—which you wouldn’t enjoy in the slightest once your arousal had subsided. It’s a bit arbitrary to coo proudly over the scratches and bites you’ve received during passionate lovemaking and then pass judgment on the crop marks somebody else received during his or her passionate lovemaking.

I have always incorporated elements of S/M into my sexual experiences. I remember a boy kissing me at a party when I was 14. I wasn’t really that interested in him until he started clawing my back with his nails. He made me bleed and I wound up dating him for years.

I love to be on the receiving end of domination. Not that I can’t enjoy sex without it, but it takes things to another level. Pain brings things into focus, heightens my senses and reactions, and underlines the intimacy of the experience. Anticipation does the same thing. For power play to work, though, it definitely requires a few things. Trust is one, probably the biggest. And it has to be a mutual activity.

It’s also worth noting that individuals with neurological disabilities that dull their perception of physical stimulation sometimes experience pleasure exclusively from the intense sensation provided by certain S/M activities. And some able-bodied individuals who pursue intense sensation do so as an almost meditative discipline, a way of triumphing over and transcending the flesh.

What about Fetishes?

Certain objects, materials, or body parts can trigger sexual desire in individuals who fetishize them. Clothing fetishes are probably the most common, and many people harbor fetishes for uniforms or lingerie, or for materials such as leather or latex. A fetish can be mild (the object or material helps enhance a sexual scene) or extreme (the object or material is essential to sexual arousal).

Power and uniforms turn me on a lot. My favorite thing to do is to make a partner take off my boots—which are laced up to my knees—and give me head the whole time she’s working on the boots.

We are mentioning the topic here, as folks with fetishes sometimes become part of their local S/M communities principally to have a chance to dress up in and be close to the material or clothing they love. The point is, don’t assume that because somebody loves leather, she or he necessarily enjoys S/M play. Likewise, someone who enjoys S/M doesn’t necessarily love leather. Dressing up in fetish clothing, be it lacy lingerie or studded leather, is one of the most universal ways of being sexually adventurous, but while costuming may be part of an S/M scene, it doesn’t serve as a signpost.

I joined the Outcasts, the lesbian S/M group, so I could meet women who’d appreciate my wardrobe. Now I’m thinking of starting a group called the Outfits, especially for girls who like to dress up.

What’s the Appeal of S/M?

It’s Exciting

Few things are as dampening to sexual excitement as predictability. Eroticism thrives on drama, particularly the drama of surmounting obstacles, whether these obstacles are long distances, family ties, or religious proscriptions. In his groundbreaking book
The Erotic Mind,
psychotherapist Jack Morin suggests that the equation for unforgettable sex is “attraction + obstacles = excitement.” He lists four “cornerstones” or common contributors to sexual arousal: longing and anticipation, violating prohibitions, searching for power, and overcoming ambivalence.

Half the thrill of sexually engaging with a new partner is the thrill of the unknown: the myriad possibilities of seduction, the opportunity to present whatever side of yourself you choose, the mystery of your new partner’s responses. Hot sex requires an “other” to react against, and sustaining your identities as separate individuals is crucial to sustaining a sexual spark. Many long-term couples know that the key to keeping their sex lives fresh is to take neither each other nor each other’s availability for granted. The common experience of having passionate sex after a big fight is just one example of how asserting differences or raising a temporary obstacle can stoke the sexual fires.

S/M play incorporates these erotic “cornerstones,” and can reintroduce the thrill of the unknown into even the most familiar of relationships. Preparing for an S/M scene involves building anticipation, exploring taboos and prohibitions, negotiating power, and defining limits of physical and emotional resistance. S/M combines the drama and unpredictability of seduction with the security of prearranged boundaries. The heightened mutual awareness you must bring to an S/M encounter is what makes S/M play so much more memorable for its practitioners than vanilla sex.

It’s Dramatic

S/M involves accessing your imaginative, playful side. In preparing for S/M play, you are essentially preparing for erotic theater—you choose to incorporate whatever dramatic tension, aspects of your fantasies, props, or costumes you find most arousing. Role-playing, as anyone who ever played cops and robbers as a kid can testify, is both fun and liberating. You are freed to express parts of yourself that you don’t express in daily life, and you can play-act frightening or dangerous situations while remaining completely safe. The use of the word “scene” to describe an S/M encounter is in keeping with this theatrical metaphor.

It’s Safe

S/M play is safer sex, in the same way that playing with sex toys is safer sex. Both these sexual variations deemphasize genital intercourse or the exchange of bodily fluids and emphasize a full-body approach to sex. The S/M community has been active in advocating safer sex through its organizations and classes and in upholding safer sex guidelines at parties, events, and workshops. The one creed linking the vast variety of S/M activities is that all S/M play must be “safe, sane, and consensual.” According to this maxim, no one should embark on an S/M scene without clear communication of each party’s physical and emotional limits plus a certain level of mutual trust. Excessive drug or alcohol consumption, which could impair a dominant’s judgment while blunting a submissive’s awareness of having exceeded physical limits, is also discouraged.

It’s Inclusive

The S/M community is somewhat unique in including and incorporating individuals of different ages, backgrounds, and sexualities. While there are and always will be specific organizations for gays, lesbians, or heterosexuals involved in S/M, the community as a whole tends to be inclusive on the basis of a shared interest in power play. It’s also worth noting that the S/M community puts a high premium on experienced practitioners, and that this is one sexual subculture in which age and maturity can be seen as a turn-on, rather than a turn-off. How refreshing.