Slutever Page 12

  Although, I do love a good spanking (so long as the spanker has enough natural authority to be convincing). I’ve spent a considerable amount of time wondering why I like being spanked so much, and the answer I always come back to—which is so obvious that it’s cheesy—is that growing up, being spanked was a punishment I got for being “bad,” and I have always gotten off on the idea that I’m doing something I’m not supposed to do. (It’s not a very sophisticated motivation, I know.) But that’s pretty much the extent of my sadomasochistic appetite. (Oh wait, I actually do sometimes like being tied up. But that’s not a BDSM thing. That’s just a being-lazy thing.)

  Despite not wanting to sleep in a cage at the foot of someone’s bed, after becoming a sort-of-domme, I became increasingly interested in why other people like this stuff. And looking back, this newfound curiosity was a major turning point in my writing career. Up until then, my writing on Slutever was primarily oversharey rants about my own sex life and relationships. But the kink world made me realize how interested I was in the sexual behavior of others, and the psychology surrounding fringe or extreme sex practices. And quite plainly, my involvement in BDSM led me to have some of the most entertaining moments in my life. Like the time I went to a fetish wedding at the famous New York dungeon Pandora’s Box, and watched the bride, a molecular biologist, walk down the aisle in a white latex wedding dress and be tied to a Saint Andrew’s cross (one of those giant X-shaped crosses you see in most dungeons, named after the diagonal cross that Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred on). Then, rather than having a ring put on her finger, she had her dress pulled over her head and her clit pierced with a diamond in front of roughly fifty people. I mean, not many people can say they’ve done that. In a sense, BDSM made me into a pervy voyeur. Sex became more than just sex—it was a spectacle, a tool for provocation, and a way of connecting with people, even if I wasn’t fucking them.

  Over the years, I’ve met dommes who approach BDSM similarly to the way I do: Kink doesn’t necessarily get them wet, but it stimulates them in a different way—it’s more an arousal of the ego than the clit, so to speak. Daisy was quick to admit that she didn’t always find domming sexually arousing, but that emasculating men made her feel high, powerful, capable, and in control. It was an adrenaline rush, and it increased her confidence. About domination she once told me, “It’s better than a fucking orgasm. It’s female supremacy at its finest.” She also was known to say, “I blow my load during every session—intellectually.”

  Of course, there are plenty of dominatrixes out there who are naturally dominant, and their dominance crosses over into their personal sex lives. But in my experience, the vast majority of dommes will tell you—in a sort of “Okay, but don’t tell anyone I said this” way—that with their off-the-clock partners, they prefer to be the one being spanked than to be the person doing the spanking. Or they prefer to just chill the fuck out and have lazy boring sex where no one goes home with a black eye.

  Before Daisy, I had been naive about the world of kink. Like most people, my idea of BDSM basically went like: “Oh yeah, those freaks in basements who pay lesbians to pierce their dicks because they hate their dads”…or something. Not entirely false, but also pretty far from accurate.

  Sure, in a lot of ways, the reality of BDSM is true to its clichés: Yes, it does involve a lot of girls with dyed black hair and short bangs hitting people with paddles. Yes, there are a lot of high-powered Wall Street guys who like to indulge in cock-and-ball torture after a long day of making money. (Although, we should acknowledge that perhaps a reason more rich and powerful people seek out dommes is because they can afford to.) Yes, if you spend any time in New York’s BDSM dungeons, you’re likely to run into a lot of Hasidic Jews. Stereotypes are often rooted in reality. But those stereotypes only scratch the surface of what BDSM is about.

  One of the biggest illusions about D/s relationships is the dominant partner is the one who has “the power.” Not so much, actually. While the dominant is superficially in control, the sub is the one who ultimately calls the shots, because they’re agreeing to be subservient. The domme is the one who’s responsible for keeping the sub interested in the game, because as soon as the sub gets bored, the game’s over. This, of course, is what makes BDSM consensual domination (otherwise you’re legit just raping someone).

  One of my favorite parts of the job was getting a glimpse into the more unique and extreme fantasies that clients would come to Daisy with. Whips and chains are just the tip of the iceberg. For example, a common request from clients was “breath play,” which includes choking, smothering, and face-sitting. Face-sitting is when you sit on a guy’s face and smother him with your ass. It’s also called “queening” because when you do it you look like a queen sitting on a human throne (glamorous). Infantilization was a big request, which involves putting a guy in diapers and spanking him and pretending to breast-feed him and yelling at him when he pees his pants, et cetera. Animal transformation is also pretty trendy, which is essentially making a guy act like a dog or a cow or whatever. Another big fantasy for subs is to feel owned. On multiple occasions I watched Daisy pretend to purchase a man from a fake “catalog of slaves” (in reality, a Macy’s catalog).

  One of the most common requests that Daisy got from clients was “forced-bi,” which, as I mentioned earlier, is forcing a straight dude to suck cock. Daisy was famous for her forced-bi scenes because she was able to produce multiple “studs” at the drop of a hat. Studs are guys who come in on sessions for free and get their dicks sucked by the subs. And Daisy’s studs typically weren’t gay—they tended to be straight, bi-curious, or heteroflexible, and wanted to be a stud either for kicks or because they loved Daisy and wanted to serve her. It was amazing how many men Daisy had on call, who would serve her simply for the pleasure of it. These types of subs are often called “lifestyle slaves”—men whose fantasy is to continually service a woman, but who don’t necessarily pay to do a proper BDSM session with her. They’re unpaid interns, basically. Daisy’s many lifestyle slaves would do everything from driving her to the airport, to taking out her air conditioner, to writing her emails. Her most devoted intern had been on call for her 24/7 for years, lived his life in a chastity belt that only she had the key to, and slept with his phone on just in case she called needing something. Now, whenever I find myself thinking My life is kinda weird, I remind myself about that guy.

  Sometimes Daisy’s clients called on her to help act out the sexual abuse they’d experienced as children. While she sometimes found it a little disturbing, if she felt it could help them recover from an experience, then she was all for it. This is not uncommon. For some people, BDSM is about reenacting trauma from your childhood, but in a controlled environment, which becomes a form of therapy. Daisy would often talk about how BDSM was actually very therapeutic for her, too, which in turn made her understanding and compassionate with people who came to her to work through their issues.

  A couple of years ago, I interviewed Bobbi Starr, a porn star who has done a lot of kink and fetish work with the porn site Kink.com. Bobbi told me: “I have friends who do pro-domme sessions that say the job is one third dominatrix, one third business, and one third therapist. People will walk into their dungeon and say, ‘I have this and this going on in my life, and I need you to beat it out of me.’” This could not be more true to my experience. In almost every session with Daisy, the submissive would have a moment of catharsis in which they would speak unedited about their life, fears, and fantasies. It was clear that Daisy was seeing a part of these people that wasn’t seen by the rest of the world. It’s rare to witness such radical honesty. It always felt like a special and privileged experience to watch someone in such a vulnerable state. In other words, the domme is not just the person with the whip, she’s also an escape. Maybe God is a babe in latex after all.

  For a lot of people, BDSM is about getting outside of yourself, and when it’s good, it can be an out-of-body experience. Often, for a submiss
ive, this moment of transcendence is known as “subspace.” Subspace is sort of like an orgasm for a BDSM sub. It’s basically a very intense mental and/or emotional response to something of an extreme nature that’s being done to you, whether you’re being beaten, humiliated, pissed on, et cetera. Since subspace is different for everyone, it’s a little ambiguous to describe. But I guess you could think of it as the BDSM equivalent of having a breakthrough moment in talk therapy. Like I once saw a guy completely break down into tears while being waterboarded by Daisy (yes, “sensual waterboarding” is a thing—Google it). And once they achieve subspace, usually all a sub can think about is getting back there.

  In her enlightening book on sex-positive culture, Real Live Nude Girl (1997), Dr. Carol Queen, sociologist, sexologist, and self-described whore, writes about achieving subspace from her personal perspective as someone who craves pain. She describes masochism as being “a deeply embodied starving for something—pleasure, catharsis, self-knowledge, adrenaline and endorphins, intensity, altered physical and emotional states. There are other ways to get there: The way I bottom tends to send me on emotional, not necessarily physical, journeys, though it’s always most intense when my sexual body is involved. The notion that masochists like pain mistakes, I think, a more complex reality: They like the places pain can take them.”

  I think a lot of people hear these stories and think, What the fuck is wrong with these people? And I get it. I’m not a saint, either. I admit that on more than one occasion I found myself thinking, These people are freaks. And worse, freaks with bad style. But as time went by, and I became closer with certain people in the BDSM scene, I grew to admire in people some of the same qualities that I was judgmental of in the beginning. Ultimately, I came to respect people who weren’t ashamed of what they wanted sexually and who had the confidence to go out and get it, even if it was something that most people would consider gross or embarrassing. I respected their embracing of taboo pleasures and seeking of a community of like-minded pervs with whom to share the intimate parts of their lives—their fantasies, their orgasms, their vulnerabilities, even their mucus. That takes a lot of guts. I mean, most people can’t even muster up the courage to talk to someone in a bar. And if paying a random girl from the internet to abduct and torture you enables you to be a better, more sane human being, then who am I to judge?

  Honestly, I can relate to the paradoxical motivations of many of the masochists I met back in my dungeon days. The term “masochism,” coined in the nineteenth century, was named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian novelist who is best known for the infamous novella Venus in Furs (1870), in which he wrote about his own fantasies and fetishes, especially for dominant women wearing fur. In her book Lesbian Choices (1995), Claudia Card writes: “In Sacher-Masoch’s novels, the masochist is a man who seeks, receives and enjoys punishment and humiliation from a woman who willingly dishes them out; the man becomes ever more attracted to her as a result. This is paradoxical. Masochism, unlike sadism, sounds like a self-contradictory concept: how can one enjoy one’s own pain or suffering if one’s pain or suffering is, by definition, a sensation or other experience that one does not enjoy? How can one want to suffer, if suffering is, by definition, not getting what one wants? That some apparently do want and enjoy it is the paradox of masochism.”

  While all this BDSM exploration was unfolding in my life, I was still in a relationship with Max. Although our relationship started off pretty normal, in hindsight—and through therapy and an array of embarrassing self-discovery techniques—I can admit that I was in an abusive relationship. I had a boyfriend who would constantly put me down, who would call me stupid, tell me I was fat, tell me my writing sucked, tell me I was “aging badly” (lol, I was twenty-five)…basically every cliché of what you could say to a person to make them feel like shit. And bizarrely, I took it. And even more bizarrely, the more he insulted me, the more I wanted his approval. I felt that if I could just be a bit more successful, more eloquent at a dinner party, skinnier, whatever, he would finally be like, “Wow, you are amazing—I never noticed!” I fed on the rare moments of affection from him, and clung to them in the darkest times. And so I can empathize with the masochistic motivation that, despite all the pain, you keep coming back, until at a point, you almost crave the pain, because at least the person you care about is paying attention to you. I can relate to wanting to be out of control.

  I know our relationship sounds horrible and unhealthy, but in an attempt at my defense and to understand the masochist, I think a lot of relationships cycle in and out of similar power dynamics (although, hopefully to a lesser degree). It’s rare for a relationship to be evenly balanced. All relationships have a power structure, and it’s usually clear who has the reins. In some, the power dynamic is more subtle, a constant ebb and flow of leverage. In others, the scales are not so even. Usually, at any given time, one partner is more into the other, in turn giving the desired “the power,” and turning the desirer into a needy, submissive mess who’s eager to please. This, clearly, turns the desired off (there’s literally nothing less attractive than someone doing exactly what you want, right?), which results in the desirer becoming even more desperate. Until, that is, the desirer hits a breaking point, and is like, “Peace, I can’t take this anymore.” This then obviously triggers the desired to be like, “No, don’t go!” and thus the power balance evens out again. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

  Basically, anyone who believes that sex is a peaceful expression of love is ill informed. Sex is primal. It’s hunting. It’s aggression. It’s a constant struggle for control. It’s about testing boundaries and regressing to a more animal state. We can look at sadomasochism as just being a more intense, more intentional, and ideally more therapeutic version of that (except with more latex).

  Thankfully, I eventually got to a place with Max where I couldn’t take it anymore. Like I said earlier: The sub is the one who ultimately calls the shots, because as soon as they’re over it, the game no longer exists. The difference between our relationship and a consensual BDSM relationship, however, is that while I tolerated the pain, I hadn’t explicitly asked for it. And that is the heart of what separates an abusive relationship from a kinky one. What I think is largely missing from the mainstream conversation around BDSM is that, at their core, these practices are about love, trust, respect, and mutual enjoyment. BDSM isn’t about ropes or whips—it’s about using the power structures that are inherent in our lives, relationships, careers, and fantasies, and supercharging them in a controlled environment, to reach a state that’s somewhere between God and an orgasm.

  CHAPTER 4

  AMORAL TALE

  Good Girl, Bad Influence (and Vice Versa)

  It all started so innocently…

  I awoke one hungover morning, reluctantly opened my eyes, and dragged my overheated laptop back to its home on my chest. Like I do every morning. It was a strange period: Max and I had just broken up. I’d just quit working with Daisy after nearly getting myself killed, and that was a huge cut to my income. Essentially, I was jobless, single, and broke, and dangerously close to my twenty-seventh birthday, which was one that felt significant to me. Twenty-seven, I told myself, was truly adult. It’s the age at which you can no longer use inexperience and youthful stupidity as excuses for being bad at life. It was the age at which my mother gave birth to me, for Christ’s sake. And what did I have to show for myself, other than a box full of jizz-soaked dog collars and a moderately impressive but not yet monetized online following of aspiring sluts?

  That morning, like every morning, I opened my Slutever email account to see what epistolary gems I’d received during the night. Generally, this address is made use of exclusively by trolls, who send me emails with such poetic subject lines as “Why u b such a whore?” and “Yet another uninspiring female who ‘writes’ (with her tits).” And then occasionally I’ll get an email from a confused nineteen-year-old girl that almost always includes one of the following two questions
: “I can’t come during sex—is my vagina broken?!” or “Does shaving my pussy make me a bad feminist?” (Answers: “Probably not” and “I hope not.”) But this day was different. There, in my inbox, was an email with the intriguing subject line “help a hooker out.” It read as follows:

  So, straight to the point. I’m a call girl. Not full time, full time. But it’s my livelihood, and I do it because I like it. It’s an adrenaline rush, an ego rub-down, and a lot more interesting than data entry. But at the same time, it’s kind of ostracizing. My parents know, and are more or less cool with it (I pay their rent too), but it’s made any hope of a relationship kind of sticky. I meet cool guys, but never know when to drop the bomb on them. Is it weird if I’m in the bar and he goes “So what do you do?” and I’m like “Fuck strangers and sell my tampons, mostly”? Do I go all vague and mysterious, and tell him once I really like him? Do I tell him before I sleep with him? What’s the ideal protocol? I’m too lazy to do the whole double-life thing, and I kind of miss falling asleep next to someone I like.

  In my years of giving out questionable advice to internet randoms, I’d never been asked this. I was stumped by what felt like a deeply nuanced moral dilemma. I mulled it over for a few minutes, then responded: I’m sorry, I have no idea how to help you. But do you want to get lunch?