Happy Halloween!

Thanks to the whole Romney/Obama debate and the revelation that the Republican candidate plans on cutting PBS and the following "Romney Wants to Shoot Big Bird!" headlines, Big Bird costume sales are up 500% according to reliable news sources.

The thing I love most about Halloween is what women decide to wear. It's not enough to be a nurse or a nun or a cop. Every costume has to have the word "slutty" in front of it. Slutty nun. Slutty cop. Slutty Darth Vader. So it should come as no surprise that there's a slutty Big Bird. Big Bird? Slutty? How so? Well, a quick internet search reveals the result:

Not bad. It's a bit of a stretch, but not bad. But as Google does, other search results are revealed. And that's where things get weird. Slutty Ernie and Bert? Really??? Not only is it a stretch that these nerdy lovers could ever aspire to be slutty, but girls???

Yet, here they are:

Now, regardless of how ridiculous these costumes may be, in each and every case all I want to do is take them over my knee and spank the fuck outta them. Perfect treat for Halloween, if you asked me.

Black and Blue is Live!

I'm very pleased to announce that Lizzie and my new side-by-side perspective blog, Black and Blue, is live. We'll write side-by-side spanking/kink fiction, dual perspective scene descriptions, joint musings on lifestyle philosophies and more.

We hope you'll check it out and enjoy. 

"I'll Have What She's Having."

This sounds like my kind of bar. Do they have Gentleman's Night?

Long Lost Lair

Over the course of my divorce I pretty much stayed away from my nearby (and favorite) dungeon, Lair de Sade. Though I wouldn't call this my home away from home I would say I had some friends there and definitely had some of the best scenes ever there with Erica, Lizzie and others. Regardless of how much Erica despised the place, there was an odd melancholy I felt not having gone for so long.

Divorce complete, I'm back. I've been to the Lair at least four times in the last month and a half, enjoying scenes with Lizzie there, hanging out with old friends and making new ones. 

I'm glad I'm feeling like I can get back into the lifestyle again. My self-imposed exile from the scene done, Shadow Lane's Labor Day party was my return after a year, and getting back into the Lair is a real shot in the arm.

Happy (Early) Halloween!

I was gonna save this little pictorial of hot women zombies (an odd fetish for someone, I'm sure) until Halloween, but I just happened to pick up on a bit of a rant Erica was carrying on about online yesterday about "what's up with men and zombies, anyway???" So Erica, this pictorial is for you.

Happy Halloween!

'Nuff Said

Life, Interrupted Part II

Lizzie, in her natural state (red).

My ex (who obviously wasn't my ex at the time) told me she was interested in going to this spanking party she heard about called Shadow Lane. This happened a little over three years ago. I wasn't quite sure why we'd be going to a spanking party. We, after all, we haughty BDSMers. Dark, brooding and serious. What's with all this brattiness? I didn't have a clue what to make of it, but if it broadened my own play opportunities (which weren't panning out so well at the time) I was interested.

I read the SL website's party suggestions and got my free membership and immediately posted a notice that my ex and I would be in attendance and we'd be interested in meeting up with other like-minded couples to play. I got one response from a young lady who was married (at the time). Her name was Lizzie. We chatted a bit online before the Memorial Day/St. Paddle's Day-themed event and coordinated a meet-up to see if the four of us were compatible. (By the way, if you Google "Shadow Lane St. Paddle's Day" the very first thing that comes up is Erica's MySpace photos from that 2009 event.)

We met up and, well, let's just say the four of us weren't able to find a way to play. We tried, but things just didn't mesh. It got to be the last day of the party and we were all up in Danny Chrighton's room, as I recall. People were flopped all over the two beds and sitting on the floor, hanging out and having a good time. I knew the only chance I'd get to play with Lizzie at this party was if I just went and played with her, rather than hoping we could get the four of us together. So I asked. She said yes. 

Nervously (well, at least I was nervous), we went back to my room, I pulled out a chair and we had a short but nice OTK scene (my second real OTK spanking experience after the first one I had the night before when Erica grabbed me by the hand, took me into the next room at a suite party and changed my life). There was an instant chemistry.

We went on to play again at FMS' Beach Party that year, the one in which I infamously asked Lizzie to put on a bustier and plaid school girl skirt and come to my room for a private scene—and gave her the wrong room number by accident! UGH!

A few months later we began to chat online. Our style, interests and philosophies of play was quite similar. We shared similar vanilla likes and dislikes. We hit it off. Soon, mutual friend and play partner Jada, Lizzie and I were inseparable at play parties. 

(One of the truly amazing and surprising gifts of the lifestyle have been the amazing friendships I've forged with like-minded people.)

Lizzie got divorced over a year and a half ago and over the last year my relationship with LIzzie has grown stronger, our interests broadened and our experiences more significant. We fell in love. Today, my amazing play partner and I share a significant relationship. We have a dynamic of love, mutual respect, kindness, sincerity and openness. She recently relocated from her home in rural (or, as I tease, super-rural) Kansas to Los Angeles to live with me. We maintain our open relationship, but it's an open relationship anchored in a domestic partnership. This is a huge—and I hate to use the term for fear of sounding like some kind of MBA wonk— paradigm shift in my life. 

I'm not only having my cake and eating it, too, I've got the whole friggin' bakery. (And yes, Erica, I realize that's another food reference.)

Hopefully this will shed some light on our forthcoming Black & Blue blog and fill in the remaining blanks on what has transpired over the last year, as first described in Part I.

Almost Live! Black & Blue

As teased a few weeks back, Lizzie and I are starting a joint blog, called Black & Blue. The goal with this new blog is to offer two perspectives to every post. In fact, thanks to Lizzie's HTML skills, we have an unique side-by-side posting format. The tagline for the blog: "There are two sides to every scene."

If you've been a longtime reader, you know this isn't anything new. Erica and I did this as we reported on our play together at the Lair. Lizzie and I tried it as well, but in co-writing fiction in a "my chapter-your chapter" format. 

Black & Blue will have the usual random posts, but will primarily focus on Features.

Here's a list of some of the features you'll find on the blog:

Flash Photo Fiction: A short story told with a few photos and a limited number of words.

Two Sides to Every Scene: A scene as told from both perspectives.

To Each His/Her Own: Looking at a specific aspect of kink and the lifestyle from our own distinct perspectives.

Our Story: Various methods of joint storytelling. Fictional stories from dual perspectives, alternating paragraphs/chapters, textual roleplay, etc.

Into the Looking Glass: A self-reflection by one person, with comments from the other.

Photo Finish: One photo to finish up one (or two) dual storylines written to go with the picture.

None of this means our inidivual blogs will go away. Far from it. You'll keep getting (mostly) regular musings from me here and (occasional) posts from Lizzie at her blog.

When I started this blog over three years ago my goal was simple: to offer a male/top's view into the lifestyle. So many blogs are offered from the woman's perspective and I thought it would be unique to "pull the lid off" the top's thoughts—at least my own.

I hope the perspective and voice of Black and Blue will offer a similarly distinctive viewpoint (or viewpoints as the case may be). And we hope you'll enjoy reading our posts regularly. 

Look for Black & Blue to go live in a few days!

Arrogant Mistakes

(NOTE: This does not have anything to do with my recent announcement of my divorce. One did not lead to the other. One was not the result of the other. Just to dispel any thoughts before you begin...) 

My choice to pursue aspects of my lifestyle have had their rewards—wonderful friends, a new, amazing partner—but also some negatives as well. I've made mistakes. Terrible mistakes. I've hurt my play partner with wayward strikes (and always, always, always feel terrible). I've played when my head was in a negative place, much to the danger and injury of a play partner. (That was a painful lesson never to be repeated.) But worst of all, I arrogantly felt I could easily navigate the waters of poly (or at least scene) relationships. 

"This'll be easy," I thought. "You just pay attention to everyone in the relationship and everything will be fine." But everything wasn't fine. In more than one attempt. 

Relationships develop in their own ways, which can lead to an imbalance in the way those various relationships grow. A partner creates their own expectations, which may or may not meet with the other's. An early scene relationship fell to this. Thankfully, we were able to talk through the issue and remain good friends. Thank god.

But another relationship didn't end so well. Mistakes, misunderstandings and lies—from both parties—led to distrust, dysfunction, hurt feelings and worse. The hardest part of all was that I allowed myself to let this continue, convinced that fixing the problem would be harder than just continuing as it was. My own arrogance in believing that I had the skill and the experience to make this work simply wasn't the case. My inability to be honest just made it worse. Like I said, there were mistakes on both sides, dysfunction that led to dysfunction, but the sad reality was that I truly loved this person. And I tainted it. Then ruined it.

I mention this because I've tried, from the very beginning, to be honest with these posts—to share the good and the bad of my experiences. These were painful ones. One was terrible. I hurt more than the relationship, I hurt people I cared about and loved in the process. 

I know simply writing this doesn't make any of it better. I beat myself up every day (now that's a laugh—coming from a sadist), but I regret my actions, regret my behavior and sincerely hope that someday this person I cared for so deeply will forgive me for my stupidity, my callousness, my misjudgment and most of all, my arrogance. And more than anything, I'm happy that the other person already has.

Kink Advice

Just because I have a blog doesn't make me an expert. I certainly don't feel like one. I've got a lot to learn. Still, Fellow Kinksters will occasionally write to ask me questions, get opinions, seek advice.

Recently, a reader send me an email and asked:

I know how I feel and what I crave, but I don't know how to go about relaying this to my better half.

We've been together for 22 years, we were both teenagers when we got together. It was obviousthat we both enjoyed some aspects of the D/s lifestyle, even though we knew nothing about D/s. We were into "vanilla kink" and brought spanking into our relationship about 8 years later. But it was only part of foreplay and it never hurt. Our sex life has always been great. But I just feel an almost hollowness inside because this is something I crave...or at the least crave the experience to see if it's truly me. With him, we take one step forward and then four steps back. I've tried to explain it to him from my point of view and how it should make him feel and how he should want this, and I know I'm all wrong for that.

I seriously pondered my response because, in some ways, it followed my own journey into the lifestyle. I wrote back, then reread my correspondance and thought it was worth sharing. So with her permission, here's what I sent her. If it strikes a chord or sounds familiar to you, I'd love your comments. It might help this Fellow Kinkster seeking advice.

I've heard (and experienced) your story before, and it's not unusual.

I had sadistic and fucked-up sexual fantasies when I was a teenager. I was a pastor's son, so I found my fantasies literally one step away from becoming a serial killer. I had no clue such a thing could be consenting. I was fearful I would grow up to be a rapist. So I put it all away. Buried it. Flash forward some 25 years and my wife came out to me and told me she discovered she was a masochist and had had it buried her whole life and now that the kids were older was discovering this about herself. She wanted to explore it with me. I freaked. And I didn't know why I freaked. I was open to try "kinky" stuff, but as you say, vanilla kink. I certainly looked at my share of kinky porn, but nothing "extreme." But my reaction to this scared me. So I sought out a kink-aware professional in the therapy community and started to see her to get a grip on my wife's newfound lifestyle choice. This led to opening up my own memories that I had buried so deeply, then coming to grips with my own sadism.

I don't believe people can be "coaxed along." I've seen (and heard of) too many relationships were one person was born this way and the other went through the motions to please the person they loved. I can assure you it's none too satisfying for either partner. In the end, one of three things happen:

1. the kinky one buries their predilections
2. the kinky one goes out and "cheats" to get what they need, behind the backs of their partners
3. the kinky one sits their partner down and says, "It has nothing to do with you, but I can't get what I need from you in this regard" and then explains to their partner that they need to go outside of the relationship to get it. That can be quite devastating for the recipient of that message to hear and can lead to the ultimate destruction of the relationship. Other times, that person is secure enough on their own to let it happen—sometimes with visual "supervision" to ensure the partner's safety.

If you feel the call of what you know is true to what's inside of you, only #3 can really give you peace, even if it involves the most risk. Too many couples find themselves in the first or second scenario and in neither case can those be satisfying, meaningful and without their inherent angst, frustration or damage to the relationship.

So what say you?