One for the family photo album

Iniquity is the essence of sexy. Inequality is the essence of despotism.
(I said that.)



Every relationship is about power. One person is always going to be the stronger one, the richer one, the more attractive one, the better endowed one, the more creative one, the leader, the harder worker, the more responsible one, the more honest one. In most relationships this creates a power teeter-totter where one partner's good qualities balance out the other's. While your mate is thinking, "I can't believe this rich, beautiful, cool person loves me," you are in turn thinking, "I can't believe this funny, smart, caring person loves me." Or at least, "I can't believe she wants to fuck me." And that is so goddamn hot.



A few days ago I stumbled across an ad posted by a domme, as in a dominatrix, looking for a submissive.

As a young person the only sort of nuance in my intellectual stance on sadomasochism came about when I was trying to decide what was more laughable: being a sadist, being a masochist or being a switch.

But now I am older. I answered the personal ad.



I don't know if we will ever actually meet. But, here is what is great about S&M. I have the opportunity to have a relationship with a woman who is attractive and creative, who knows what she wants and who communicates her needs very very clearly. (Yes!). When I don't fulfill her needs, instead of internalizing problems and waiting for the right moment to bring things up, she hits me, hard, and I know to do better next time. (Yes, Mistress!). In turn, she is looking for me to be willing to do whatever she asks simply because it turns me on to satisfy her. Sweet deal, if you ask me.

S&M or no, if I like someone enough to have sex with them there is a 100% chance that I am willing to do just about anything they need or want me to. All you have to do is ask. But that is just me.

There are a couple of key exceptions. I will not do anything that is physically unhealthy (cutting, burning and fecal-oral contact in particular). I will not do anything that has the potential of harming either of us psychologically.

Besides that, if you want me to call you 'master' and ride a horse naked while shaving my big toe and kissing a baseball bat, you got it. Know in turn that I may ask you to wear a red hat and smoke a cigarette in an old-fashioned, long filter while alternating between reciting poetry and kissing the back of my neck.

I digress, back to the leather stuff.

I am trying to understand the societal hang up about BDSM. I think it stems from confusing symptoms with a disease. The disease is abuse of power. The symptoms are at times bondage, corporal punishment and humiliation. But, if a person happily subjects themselves to being tied up, beaten and degraded as a testament to their willingness to satisfy another person, that is a completely different situation. There is no abuse of power in that type of relationship, in fact all of the power resides in the bottom.

It strikes me as ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, that as a society we can justify the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of other human beings for oil, but that we can't stomach the idea of sadomasochism. We will allow our young men to play disgusting, ultra-realistic video games where they can beat women to death while raping them, but we won't let them be openly sexually expressive towards their girlfriends or boyfriends.



I wish that for a week there was a world-wide reprieve during which no one was allowed to speak or think about morality. (Ethics and civil law are still okay.) I have an inkling that at the end of that week the world would be a very different place. A better place.

I have been criticized recently, by a person I am quite close to, for being capable of "meaningless" sex. I guess there is something morally abhorrent about the idea of meaningless, ie love-less, ie sex-for-sex's sake, sex.

I just don't believe in meaningless sex. I think being able to be intimate with someone is never meaningless. It may be fleeting. It may be imperfect. It may even be harmful, but it is not meaningless. Most of the time, in my experience, adult consensual sex is quite nice. It is compulsory sexual relationships that scare me.



Dammit, If I can't have the person of my dreams, if there isn't a long-hauler out there for me (and there might not be), then I am going to find joy and compassion and human contact where it comes. Love is great but elusive. Power is great and omnipresent. So tie me to the bedpost.



The images in this post are the work of Jenny Holzer, one of my art heroes.