Tuesday Advice: The Simplicity Edition

Sometimes I get the tough questions. Sometimes I get the easy ones. I’ll be grateful and consider today a vacation in honor of Thanksgiving week.

Dear Delilah,

Not sure if you’ve answered this or not but someone asked me the other day what kind of kinky things he can do with his gf without leaving marks (it’s a poly thing; her primary doesn’t want to see marks). Spanking is a favorite, but she bruises very easily…

Your “friend” (I’m kidding; I’m sure it’s actually your friend and not you. Really. And you’re not the girlfriend either. I mean it!) can do pah-LEN-ty of kinky things without leaving marks. You can tie someone up, down or sideways without leaving marks, though if you’re using rope, you might get some rope marks if you’re not careful. (I’m hesitant to call these “ligature marks” as some are fond of doing, since a cursory Intarwebs search indicates that that terminology refers only to strangulation.) You can interrogate someone all you want and leave no marks at all. You can collar someone, have them kneel at your feet, have them serve or service you in all kinds of ways. Hypnotizing people doesn’t leave marks, nor does peeing on them, trampling them with bare feet, dressing them up like a schoolgirl and fucking them senseless…Some of the most fun kinky stuff there is only leaves marks on the soul. 🙂

But spanking? That’s an easy one, too.

First off, if she bruises very easily, as you say, she may want to get some levels checked – vitamins B12, C, or K, or folic acid seem to be the most frequent culprits. She should also make sure (again, only if there’s a real concern) that she doesn’t have a clotting disorder like von Willebrand’s disease or something more serious. Most of the time, though, easy bruising is just a characteristic, nothing harmful.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about how your friend can get a spanking with minimal marking.

The things that tend to cause marks most easily are 1) heavy items like batons, metal toys, and fists, which can cause deep bruising, and 2) thin, light items like canes and singletails, which invariably leave red welts if you strike with any force at all and bruise awfully if used with a lot of force. The best way, then, to avoid marks is to use lighter items with a larger surface area: open palm, light paddles, and softer floggers.

Unless you are freakishly strong (like some Daddys I know whom I won’t name here, ahem), it’s difficult to get marks that last for more than a few minutes with a bare hand – it just hurts the hand too much. So sticking to hand-spanking is one way to go. Build up slowly to bring the blood to the surface of the skin (it looks great when it’s all pink anyway, doesn’t it?), and you can keep better track of how much damage you’re doing.

If you use paddles, again, start lightly. Flexible leather paddles are good for this, as are wooden paddles without too much heft – particularly round ones. Avoid straps and fraternity style paddles that have squared-off edges.

Spanking scenes can have a very high mental component, too, so your friend might try using a lot of verbal play in addition to the strikes, to intensify the experience.

With floggers, make sure the tails aren’t braided, and go for something softer like deerskin or conditioned suede (be aware that suede can be really rough!). Again, build up slowly. I bruise very easily myself, but the marks I’ve gotten from my hardest floggings went away within a couple hours.

After a spanking, ice her bum. You can do this with her still across your lap, which has a sweet aftercareish thing about it, or you can have her sit on a bowl of ice, which can be humiliating in that good way. Icing will help reduce the incidence of bruising.

Some people like to use arnica cream to heal bruises more quickly. I have heard only anecdotal evidence of its effectiveness; Miss Calico’s description of her experiment is entertaining but isn’t much of a vote of confidence for the stuff.

Most important, though, is that she Not Panic. If she ends up with a bruise or two, well, she bruises easily, right? I have bruises with some frequency where I have no idea where they came from. I currently have a bite-shaped bruise on my thigh that I remember vividly, but sometimes I get bruises – usually on my hips, or butt, or thigh – that are inexplicable except that perhaps I ran lightly into the wall when I was stumbling to the bathroom at 3 am. Point is, there are steps you can take to avoid marks, but if you’re playing with striking, there’s no guarantees. If she doesn’t get panicky over some marks and doesn’t flaunt them to her partner, either, hopefully she won’t run into trouble. If her partner’s going to freak out about it regardless, then they may want to consider that there’s some other control issue going on aside from whether she’s allowed to have marks or not.

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Help me out here.

So, I’m working again on adding social networking links to my posts. Since I’m currently having WordPress host this blog, and plug-ins aren’t allowed, this is a manual proposition. (Kinky.)

Anyway, I’ve got Fetspank up there (Maymay, is there any way to make the link display your URL and post title? I’m dyin’, here), and I’m slowly adding buttons for StumbleUpon, Reddit, Fark (which has an adult section), Digg, and Facebook.

Are there other adult places – or even better, kinky/queer spaces – that have this kind of linking action? I checked out Fleshbot, but was actually kind of turned off by the front page and its gyrate-y images – not to mention the choices I have at the top: Straight, or Gay? How simple life must be for you.

Anyway, I don’t think it has that functionality anyway. Anyplace else?

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Tuesday Advice: How GGG do I have to be?

All right folks, it’s looking official: Monday Advice is moving to Tuesdays, due to my need to deliver a different article on Mondays. I apologize for missing last week; please have patience as I adjust to changes!

All of that said: please, send me questions! I’m running a bit low again. I’ll have one for next week, but after that I’ll need some more. Seriously, folks – don’t you have problems??

This week’s question asks: what happens when you’re kinky, but not like that?

My partner is into something I am not. I need help finding a way to be responsive in it. To be clear, this is not an issue of boundaries, or feeling safe, or anything like that. It simply doesn’t turn me on, and as a result, in the moment often strikes me as stagey, silly, or absurd (as kink to the non-invested often appears), and so I do struggle with inappropriate reactions (i.e., laughter, although I have not been so insensitive as to do so out loud.) Sex is not merely an exchange of “I’ll do this thing I don’t dig if you’ll do X,” I know, but as we are talking about something that neither harms nor bothers me, I’d rather find a way to make this satisfying than to toss it out of our repertoire.

First of all, gentle reader, I’m happy to see that you’re GGG – as Dan Savage would have it, Good (as in good in bed), Giving (generous to your partner), and Game (up for anything – within reason). You’re already most of the way to making this okay, since you know that you’re willing to do this for your partner since s/he likes it so much and it isn’t really bothering you. One of the realities of good sex is that sometimes, we agree to do something that we might not be that into because our partner loves it, and in exchange, they do something for us. One hopes that this is not the totality of a sex life – if it is, then you’re probably sexually incompatible – but as people are, well, different from one another, sometimes you’re going to have to make allowances.

That said, if the activity in question not only isn’t working for you but puts you at risk for laughing at your partner, that could go poorly. So how do you make something seem hot to you when objectively, it isn’t?

There are a few answers to this. The first is about the power of submission. Are you submissively inclined toward your partner, or would you like to be? If the two of you are playing with power dynamics in addition to whatever sensation play you might be doing, it may be worthwhile to experiment with putting you in a submissive headspace before you begin this activity. Often, an attitude of submission in a scene can make it easier – and much more enjoyable – to take something the dominant is doing that’s not your favorite. This phenomenon can take many forms: you may feel that you’re doing this in service to the dominant, which gives some people a thrill; you may feel silly and embarrassed (which you already seem to) and let that be sexy. Or you can think of this act as another way that your partner “owns” and uses you – in that good way.

If that stuff doesn’t do it for you, you can talk to your partner about letting the inherent silliness of whatever it is you’re doing come out: have a scene where you laugh together, where you brat him a bit and he puts you back in line. One day when you’re not in the middle of a scene, let him know that you find whatever-this-is kind of silly, but that you want to make it fun for both of you. Stagey-ness can be a lot of fun: if it feels over the top, take it all the way over.

The other option, which may not be the best but can work, is to simply transform the experience in your head. It’s not quite “lie back and think of England,” but when he starts doing this thing that doesn’t get you off, think about something that does. Focus on the hotness of your partner, or think about something else you two do that really turns your crank. People often feel guilty about fantasizing about something – or someone – else during sex, but the fact is that everybody does it, and so long as you’re not always thinking about something else while your partner’s banging away at you in whatever way, there’s no harm in it.

In general, though, I recommend that you make it about the thread between the two of you and not just about the act. It’ll be a lot more fun for both of you – and you may even find a new piece of the sexual repertoire that works for you.

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Monday Tuesday Advice

Ever since my alter-ego took on a new writing assignment, I’ve been having some trouble getting the advice out on Mondays. I’m considering changing the day of the week I do it. But for now, I give you Monday Advice on Tuesday.

Dear Delilah,
My partner N and I have been together for well over a decade. We’ve had ups and downs in our sex life over that time, and we’re currently working hard on getting to a place with it that makes both of us happy. We have tried various kinky activities in the past, and they were fun but never became a large part of our sexual repertoire. However, we both have other partners, and I have been exploring my kinky side with mine in a way I never have with N. I know that N is unhappy that there are things I am “sharing” with others which I am not doing with her. I know that every couple has ways in which they aren’t completely sexually compatible, but what can I do about the things that I want to do with other people but just am not interested in doing with N? I’m GGG, but there are things that just isn’t sufficient for.
– Sad in the City

Dear Sad,

This is a somewhat tricky situation, but if it weren’t, I imagine you wouldn’t have written. My first response, though, is to ask you a question: what things are you willing to do with N? It can be very difficult, in poly relationships, to feel that there are things that you and your primary partner simply don’t share – especially sexual things. But it can also be very difficult to be as kinky as you want to be with the person you share your life with, especially if you’re trying in all other ways to have a relationship of equals. When you do kinky sex with someone regularly – especially if the power only flows in one direction – the question of who does the laundry and who pays the bills becomes even more charged than it usually is. Not to mention that sometimes, you just don’t see your partner in those terms. And sometimes, especially if you’ve been with someone for a long time, you’ve discovered your kinkier side with someone else.

I can’t count how many clients I had when I was a professional domme who couldn’t ever imagine approaching their wives about their kinky desires. For the most part, these were women these men had chosen to marry before they knew about their kinks, or they were caught up in some virgin/whore dichotomy and chose these women to marry and raise kids with, and went to women like me for the other stuff. In your case, though, it sounds like you’ve given kink with your primary a fair shake, and it just hasn’t worked for you. In that brilliant way that poly people do, you’ve found appropriate outlets for your desires elsewhere.

But now your primary is unhappy. Why? Because she perceives that you’re having all the great sex with someone else, not with her. So the question becomes not what to do about those things you don’t want to do with her, but what about those things you do want to do?

It’s impossible to make a happy sex life out of things you’re not doing. But there are many, many things to do in sex. It can be a huge trap to focus on the things you’re not doing together – especially if you both are doing those things with other partners. The thing to do is focus on what you’re already doing together, what you could be doing together that you know works but aren’t doing for some reason, and what else you could try that might work.

Comparisons, as one of Shakespeare’s fools said, are odorous. Experienced polyamorous people know the dangers of comparing oneself to one’s partner’s other partners; that way lies madness. Comparing the sex you’re having is no exception – in fact, it’s probably the cardinal application of the general rule. The thing to do is address the sex you’re having in that relationship, and find the ways of having it that are good for both of you. This might involve some experimentation, and maybe bringing back some of the things you did in the past that you found “fun.” It may involve trying some new things, or falling back on old standbys that you know work well.

I’m a pretty kinky person, but I know that with one of my partners, the most profound and satisfying thing we can do is fuck in missionary position. The way we connect energetically takes care of the rest. With another partner, sometimes he gets full satisfaction just from going down on me – which I don’t enjoy all that much with anyone else. It doesn’t matter to me that I’m not swinging from the chandeliers with either of those partners, and it doesn’t seem to bother them, either. It can take time to get to the point where you’re not constantly thinking about how you must be falling short compared to your partner’s other partners, with whom your partner clearly has a much more fulfilling and exciting sex life (read sarcasm here). But it is possible.

The trick is to connect, without expectations. Undress each other. Look at each other. Get into bed together and just touch each other for a while. Revel in the feel and familiarity of each other’s skin. Even if you don’t have the most exciting sex ever, you’ll be rebuilding the closeness that brought you together in the first place.

Next, make a point of it. Have boring sex, once a week at the least. Make special time for it. As you go on, keep trying new things, or old things, one at a time. Really explore each other. Sometimes, poly couples can fall into the complacency trap: because all the exciting sex is coming from outside the primary relationship, it’s easy just to share the non-sexual, day-to-day life with one’s familiar, primary partner and let the sex life fizzle. Before you know it, you’re just like best friends who are roommates. Add scheduling craziness to this and the pattern becomes nigh-unbreakable.

So schedule it in. Mark the time for each other in your calendars. Keep to it, and start finding the things that make your sex together special, rather than concentrating on what’s missing.

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