Thoughts on Protocols

Daddy and I have been getting involved with the Melbourne Leather Alliance, a group who have been attempting to bring back an inclusive Leather Scene to Melbourne. While my work hours mean that I haven't been able to get to their dinners each month, The discussions each month are often followed up by conversations on Fetlife. This month, there was some discussion into the kinds of protocols that we'd like to institute as a group, I wrote some thoughts on the subject that I think I'd like to expand.

So, I had a thought about the kinds of activities I'd like to see ritualised, and came up with a few broad categories:

Social Niceties
By social niceties, I'm talking about greetings, introductions, terms of address, etc. Every group has a set of social niceties, and these tend to get used wherever and whenever the group meets. I think these are actually some of the more important rituals, because they very clearly build up a sense of identity in a group - How you say goodbye and hello, how you introduce yourself to someone, if these things are different to how the rest of the world does it, you get a sense very quickly as to who's part of the group or not. Also, in my view, having these rules of social interaction get me into a subby mindset a lot quickly than other rituals.

And in Leather, the amount of heirarchy that's involved means that these sort of rituals can get a little more complex and interesting. How a dominant greets a sub should probably be different to how they greet another dominant, which should also be different to how they greet a Master, or other honoured elder. Being able to acknowledge a person's place in the heirarchy should be a big part of our social niceties, because while we expect respect for all in our community, we don't have the illusion of equal power - some people are lower on the chain, some are higher, and that's both alright and wanted. We wouldn't be getting into Leather if we didn't want to play with the heirarchies.

Some rituals and protocols I'd love to engage with in this category:

• Both dominants and submissives should behave with politeness and respect to all individuals present. Politics is no excuse - all present should be treated with dignity, honesty and respect.
• Submissives address all dominants as Sir/Madam/Master/Mistress (ie by Title)
• Dominants choose how they address submissives, but negotiate with peers as to how they are addressed.
• Master/Mistresses should probably be referred to as "Master/Mistress X" by all - after all, they've usually earned the title.
• Switches should probably be treated as dominants unless their own dominant is present at the event, or unless they specifically request to be addressed as a submissive.
• Those under a dominant who have their own submissives are an interesting question. I think it should probably be up to the head dominant present as to how they should be addressed.
• When a family is greeted at an event, greeting the dominants should be considered as greeting the entire family, although subs may still be greeted separately if so desired.
• Someone new to the scene should be introduced by their own name, if they are not already in a relationship with someone else. If they already have a submissive, they should be accepted as dominant.
• A Dominant should be able to allow a submissive to be proxy for them, and act as representative, for things such as business and social interaction. I'm not sure how one would signify this, however.

Consent Rituals
In a group like Leather, where we do a lot of things that are not nice, and we do a lot of things that can get people in a lot of trouble, I think it's pretty obvious that you need solid, dependable rituals that let everyone know exactly what's permitted at which time. In this, I also include things like touching another Dominant's submissive, Rules for withdrawing consent, etc. As someone who has consent issues, having these sorts of extremely strict consent rituals is quite important.

This, by the by, also covers the general assorted manners and etiquette around play, including things like asking before joining in on someone else's scene, whether it's acceptable to talk to a submissive (certainly, I think that submissives should have ways of letting people know they can't be talked to that are accepted by all! Subs need to have the ability to defend themselves against other breaking their protocols), how doms and subs can quickly identify who belongs to whom etc. Basically how to avoid stepping on people's toes and continue having a good time with the minimum of fuss.

Some rituals and protocols I'd love to engage with in this category:

• If you are not in a relationship with a submissive, permission must be explicitly granted by their dominant, or if no dominant, the submissive themselves, before any touching or play occurs. Permissions requested and granted should be specific, and only valid for that session.
• If a dominant is present with a submissive, the dominant should be consulted before speaking with the submissive. Any permissions granted at that point should be considered holding for the night unless the dominant specifies otherwise.
• If a sub is not allowed to speak to another person without their dominant's permission, but the dominant is not present to grant that permission, they should look the speaker in the eye and point to their collar to indicate that they are not able to speak.
• Safewords should always be negotiated before any play, and strictly adhered to. (obvious, but should be noted)
• A submissive may never be punished by anyone other than their own dominant. A dominant may delegate the punishment to another, but the decision to punish, and the form that this takes, should never be assumed by anyone except the dominant.

Event Rituals
By this, I'm talking about the big, heavy rituals, things like a Master's covering, like collarings, like debuting a submissive in their first event as a dominant, etc. These rituals probably don't happen a great deal of the time, so they're probably quite elaborate, full of symbology, and probably heavily overthought and overproduced, which is always nice from time to time. They should mark big events, and should be built to include as large a group as is feasible.

Some big rituals would be:

• The collaring of a sub to a dominant
• The graduation of a dominant to Master
• The graduation of a submissive to a dominant
• The awarding of leathers
• Introduction of a new member to the scene
• The joining of a sub/dominant to another's house (not necessarily the same as the rituals above)

Activity Specific Rituals
By these, I'm talking about the small and large rituals that come into play in specific circumnstances. The most obvious train of thought here are dinner and dining rituals. How the table is meant to be presented, the order of seating and serving, whether subs sit at the table or must sit at a separate table, whether they're allowed to serve themselves before the dominant table has finished eating, etc. Another similar ritual might be for sharing transport - whether submissives must sit with their dominants, or whether the subs and doms sit together in their own sections, etc. The sorts of protocols that don't come up every time you meet, but come up often enough that you want to have clear protocols for when they do happen.

Some rituals and protocols I'd love to engage with in this category:

• Dominants should always be presented with food first.
• Submissives should be seated next to their dominant
• Tables and chairs should be arranged as such that one may rise at any time to leave the table, as submissives should be expected to assist their dominant's dining at any time.
• Submissives may not be allowed to eat before all dominants present have begun eating. A Dominant can release a submissive from this expectation, but this should be common at a large dinner where there are many dominants and submissive
• It is the submissive's duty to ensure the table is lain appropriately for the dinner setting
• During transport, front/window seats should be allocated to dominants before submissives. Exceptions to this exist for medical reasons or to accomodate partners, but should not be for comfort reasons.
• It is the submissive's duty to ensure that the transport is clean before they disembark, as it shows great disrespect to mess up another person's transport.

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Another thing that's come up in my head is how you negotiate individual protocols with group protocols. Even if we were already in a tight, coherant group we'd still have to ask ourselves whether we make it a formal rule that group protocols supercede individual protocols, at least at high- or medium- protocol events. I think that there should be a sort of ship's law rule applying here - one should not be expected to drop their own personal rituals in their own home, but should adhere as close as is comfortable to group protocols in public spaces or at other people's homes.

There's also a question as to guests from other leather groups. In this case, I think a diplomatic approach should be taken - we shouldn't interfere with another leather group's protocols and rituals if at all possible. On the same token, it should be the responsibility of the guest to maintain clarity with the group, even if their protocols are different.

Seeking Self: Procrastination

What causes you to procrastinate? How do you think you could avoid it?

I have had many theories about this in the past.

I have often believed that I need a certain level of pressure in order to get something done. If there's no impetus, nothing that's urgently requiring me to do something, then chances are excellent I won't do it. This, I reasoned, explained why I had such issues doing school work and writing uni assignments any earlier than a day or two before they were due. It wasn't necessarily that I wasn't working on them, because I still read textbooks, and looked at extra reading, went to tutorials and went to lectures, but the writing itself? No, that was something that didn't need to be done right now.

Of course, leaving things to the last minute caused no certain level of stress, but those rare times where I did try to get things done weeks earlier, when the assignment was given, I found that my brain just didn't work like it did in the last few days - When I knew it had to be done right now, or else, my brain seemed to suddenly focus. There was no such thing as writer's block, because if I was stuck somewhere, well, there was plenty of other places to start working on, and I had no choice but to write - If I didn't get it done, then I'd lose marks and that just would not do.

When I look back on that line of reasoning though, it seems very self serving - a clear attempt to justify the current patterns of behaviour. Even those times where it almost lead to ruin (a note to people: you can organise a masquerade ball in less than a week. If you have an organising genius on your side. Thus, I don't advise it), I'd still believe that this is just the way I work.

Knowing what I know of myself now, I think there is a certain level of truth to the above, but the issue is a somewhat broader one - I lack a lot of self-motivation, so I gain motivation from external sources, one of which happens to be deadlines. These days, I also gain motivation from my Daddy imposing schedules and requirements on me. My work keeps me motivated by having my work behaviour constantly monitored - I know that if I slack off on the job, people will notice.

What I really need to do is identify ways of building self-motivation, so that I'm motivated to do things because I want to do them, not because there's some external problem that's going to happen if I don't. Certainly, it would make things like organising events and appointments a whole lot easier if I could do them not at the last minute. I have experimented in the past with self-imposed deadlines and schedules, but the results never end up being terribly promising - since I know there's no penalty for failure, I fail with abandon.

For the moment, I rely pretty heavily on external motivation, to the point that I suspect Daddy may feel a little put upon by how much I seem to rely on him to regulate my behaviour and keep me on the straight and narrow. If I knew of a way of building internal motivation... well, okay, let's be honest. The only way I'm going to build self-motivation is if some external force shoves it into me. I don't think that's going to do in the long term.

Flying High

So, me and Daddy went to Chains for the first time in a while. We'd been lured there by the promise of free entry, and with promises of a suspension frame, we decided why not?

I'm so glad we did, because I got to do something with Daddy that we haven't done together in literally years - I got to be suspended!

And well you may be asking - how could it be that the boy of a suspension top, probably one of the better known in Melbourne, hadn't been suspended in so long? Well, to be honest, a lot of it was just being at the bottom of the queue. Daddy gets requests from a lot of people to be suspended at events, and because we don't have a suspension frame at home, the only place we can do suspensions are at events. So, there just haven't been a lot of opportunities to do suspensions. Also, to be honest, I'm not a spectacularly impressive bottom, being such a pansy - I can't often stay up in the air for particularly long.

But last night, we'd made the spot-decision to rock up, Daddy had nothing on his plate, we had a suspension frame that hadn't had a suspension yet, Daddy had plans and ideas he wanted to experiment with, and we were both ready and rearing for play. Everything aligned just right.

So Daddy decided to experiment with a sort of side-suspension, with my left arm and leg tied together, and my right arm and leg kept straight. It kindof felt like I was superman, and it wasn't just my blue leather pants and red rope that had me feeling that way! It's been so long since I was suspended, I'd forgotten how wonderful that feeling of being off the ground feels like. I'd been craving it for so long! I only wish the frame was larger - I would have loved to have been really spun around with some inertia, like an airplane on a string. I think that would have been absolutely sensation, if, admittedly, a little nauseating.

Now that I think about it, I may be longing for the feeling I remember from riding on swings in the playground when I was young - the feeling of gravity and momentum fighting you, and you feeling every shift in direction. With the location we had, that kind of thing could be been dangerous, but it'd still be fun to try it someday, I think!

After the suspension, Daddy and I played together with some ropework, while talking to a few newbies. First, just a simple decorative tie, and then I got to have some fun when Daddy decided to practice blindfolded ropework. I'll admit, I greatly enjoy when Daddy decides to do blind ropework, and a lot of that is because Daddy has to touch me a lot more when he doesn't have his eyes to guide him. A lot of people are really impressed and amazed at the work Daddy does blindfolded, and I'm honestly not surprised - he does really good work just by touch alone. I look forward to being his practice bunny a bit more!

In all, it was a wonderful night. We've often complained that we don't always get a lot of play together, and I've always loved playing in public (it's the exhibitionist in me - I love being shown off!), and last night really hit the spot, right in the bullseye. I really hope this is the beginning of a trend, because I want to do a lot more play like that!

Year 4

So, Last weekend was officially me and Daddy's fourth anniversary as partners. We haven't been a Daddy/boy couple for nearly as long, but as partners together? We're now into our fourth year, which is extremely novel for me, since until now, the biggest anniversary I've ever managed to celebrate was 4 years.

In that four years, I have grown so much, both as a Boy and as a person more generally. When we met, I was still working on an Honours thesis, hoping to get into a PhD and live a life of Academia. I was still hurting from a very painful year, I was living in share housing, and I was still very little.

And now? I've long since abandoned the dream of a university life, I've instead moved towards banking as a job, I'm happier than I've ever been in my life, I'm collared to my Daddy, now for over a year, I'm living with my Daddy instead of with others, and I'm slowly, but surely, starting to rebuild that thing called a social life.

Of course, those are only the smallest changes - in four years I have made huge numbers of changes (I've effectively moved once a year in that time, for example), but in a lot of ways, the result is what stands, and from where I'm standing, I can only see my life improving, with me and my Daddy continuing to get what we want and what we need. There'll be changes, there always are, but we've seemed to be pretty good at dealing with the changes as they've come, and I don't see any reason why that will stop.

Here's to hoping that in another four years, thing will be even better!

What I bring to the Table.

This afternoon, me and Daddy were taking a trip out to see my parents, and we started talking about a topic I'd been musing about for the last few days, on and off - the curious imbalance between literature for leaders, and literature for followers, in particular how there's very little out there about how to be a good follower. It's an interesting question that I'm sure I'll come back to, maybe in a separate blog, but as we talked about what makes a good follower, we came to the topic of what that follower brings to the table - often a good follower has a large breadth on knowledge, and can bring many disparate knowledges to the table.

And so, I figured, what better time to write a post about what sort of things I can bring to my Daddy and other prospective players? What can I do for you? Among the skills I have:

• I can fix computers. I know how to troubleshoot both Hardware and Software problems, and get computers back to working state.
• I'm quite good at arithmetic, and enjoy working with numbers. I have no formal qualifications, but I'm capable of balancing books and doing quicksums in my head, even with fairly complex figures.
• I know a lot about banking, and money. I know a great deal about how the banking system works, and even have a AFSL Tier 2 Qualification, which means I can give advice about your banking.
• I have a fantastic phone manner. I can man phones for people and leave the caller feeling great at the end of the call. I can perform important calls for people, should they be unable to do so.
• I am proficient at simple massage. I can help relieve tension and help pain to an extent. I'm no expert, but I can do it, and I enjoy it!
• I can cook. My repetoire of by-heart recipes is minimal, but I am more than capable of following recipes, and I can usually make a good meal first time.
• I have a good knowledge of civics and general political matters, as well as general history. If you have a question about why the world works a certain way, I can usually give you an answer!

Seeking Self: Orientation

Go into depth of detail about your orientation, both sexual and D/s. Has it changed over the years? Do you feel it will change again?

So, let's start with the Short Version: I'm a bisexual switch, with a big bias towards submission, and a reasonable bias towards liking men.

Right, with that out of the way, let's expand that a bit more.

First, on the sexual orientation. For as long as I can remember having sexual feelings, I've had feelings for both men and women. My earliest attempts at acting on those feelings generally targeted women, because that's what society told me was the thing to do, but honestly, I've had desires for men for most of that time as well.

I do occasionally wonder as to whether I'm bisexual or gay, just considering the bias can be pretty strong at times. But I don't think it's a lack of desire for women at all that leads the bias. More likely the bias is due to the fact that I don't have a lot of sexual experience with women, and thus I'm always a bit anxious when the idea of girl-sex comes up.

I get a feeling that my sexual orientation has been pretty constant - the changing factor is how I act upon my orientation. I can't honestly forsee my sexuality changing in the foreseeable future - It's been such a constant force I don't think it'll change on it's own.

Second on my BDSM orientation. When I think back to even childhood fantasies, I remember wanting to be a pet, to be taken care of. I think I've always had a major preference for submission, and indeed, it wasn't until I was dating a person who preferred submission that my ability to be a Dom came out (although, frankly, I shudder at the sorts of things I did then, not knowing any better). I certainly feel a whole lot more comfortable being a submissive in a relationship, although that may be partly because I'm in a happy relationship right now.

I have dommed other people since being with Daddy, and played as a top, and I do feel there's a definite drive in me to be dominant on an occasional basis. I'm not sure if it's enough to get a full-time subby under me (so to speak), but I do think having a regular play-partner, at least, would be a good thing for my dommy side.

Again, I get the feeling that a lot of the comfort of being in a submissive role is because I know it well, I don't have to worry about failing in the role. Being a dominant, on the other hand, is a bit scarier. My skills are not nearly as sharp on that end. To anyone else, of course, this would be a clear cue to practice those skills, to get into as many dominant situations as possible and work on being a better dom. Instead, I just stick to what I know.

I do think that my BDSM orientation has changed a little, but not terribly - I think I've probably had switchy tendencies for most of my life, I've just mostly been trained into submissive roles by the world around me. I didn't really think much about being Dominant until I started engaging in BDSM, and only then did I realize that I had that potential. Will it change again? I think more likely I'll just get more comfortable in the dominant side of my orientation, and then I'll be much more comfortable switching on a more regular basis.

Coming down from a year in chastity

So, Daddy told me that, after I went to bed on New Years, the conversation in the room turned to what my reaction would be now that I could actually cum whenever I want. The thought was that I would either go absolutely nuts and masturbate whenever I could, or I'd just continue along the way I had been going.

Well, after a week, the answer is somewhere between those two extremes.

It's true - there's no longer that pressing urge to do something, anything in the morning. In fact, to be honest, it's something of a welcome relief. The desire to masturbate, now that I can, has now lessened quite dramatically.

But that doesn't mean I ain't doin' it. In the last week since I've been allowed to come, I have orgasmed roughly once a day, in the morning, with the exception of this morning, where the combination of a rough night's sleep, gym, and getting ready for work just didn't give me the time.

But then, that's an interesting change - That pressure had meant that I was at least touching myself every morning, regardless, even if I probably didn't have the time for it. Now? It really is just an optional extra. It's something that I really wasn't expecting. And every morning that I have masturbated, I really have given serious thought to not bothering, which was certainly never my previous attitude.

So, yeah. It's not exactly either option. But I kinda like this new mode, personally.

Matters Most Annoying

A few weeks back I mentioned about a couple of new toys that I'd managed to acquire for myself, and me and Daddy decided that we'd give them a go on New Years Eve.

The results were... disappointing. The paddle actually broke on it's first usage. And we weren't even going that hard (because I'm a pansy and couldn't actually take any real punishment), so it's almost certainly not because we went past it's rating. No, the damn thing snapped within the handle.

Sadly, it's way too late to send it back to Cane IAC for a refund, seeing as I ordered it a good 6 months ago. I am, however, going to see about cutting open the handle and seeing if a liberal application of superglue might at least salvage the paddle so I can keep using it.

The cane was used a bit as well, but admittedly we didn't use it nearly as much, so alas I cannot yet give a roadworthy score for the cane. But the paddle breaking on the first play was really rather frustrating, and has definitely taken the shine off the apple, which is sad because I was kinda looking at ordering other things from them. I may end up instead taking the option of getting some friends of mine to do some experimenting to make something similar that's more durable...

Seeking Self: Fear

What are you afraid of?

Let's go through them from smallest to biggest.

I am afraid of the 1950s. Okay, maybe fear is a little too strong for it. More correctly, the sort of perfect, 1950s sitcom atmosphere creeps me the hell out. It's one of the easiest ways to put me on edge in any media, especially because these days noone plays it straight. 1950s households always hold some terrible secret these days. So, yeah, 1950s kink really creeps me out a lot.

I'm afraid of bugs. Specifically, bugs that I have designated "dangerous bugs" - insects and arachnids that can bite, sting, or swarm me. It's probably not a stupid fear, but as things tend to go, I take it pretty far - I don't make distinction between harmless and harmful species of spiders and bees/wasps, etc.

I'm afraid more generally of Armageddon. It's not exactly a fear that I worry about a lot, but hey, you never said that these had to be fears you deal with everyday!

I'm afraid I'll never amount to much. That I'll end up one of those people who coulda been something, but never had the guts to do what they had to.

I'm afraid of losing the people I love. There was a while where when Daddy talked about suicidal thoughts to me, he then had to talk me down because I was convinced that that meant that he was going to kill himself and leave me alone. I'm a bit better with this one these days, but it's still a fear that's within me.

I'm also afraid of people not liking me. It's one of those particularly common fears that a lot of people seem to have, but in a lot of ways it's one of my more influential fears. On the one hand, it makes me work really hard to be as congenial as possible, to push myself to become a person who is capable of liking and being liked by a very large number of people. On the other hand, though, it leaves me a wreck when someone decides to attack me, it often makes me incapable of showing my emotions right there and then, etc. Decidedly a double-edged sword there.

And I think that's enough for tonight.

And So the Year Ends...

And all of a sudden, it's 2011.

This holds some special resonance for me, because 2010 is the year that me and Daddy decided would be the year Orgasm Denial. One entire year without a waking orgasm. From the 31st of December, 2009 to 1st of January 2011.

There were probably a few good reasons why, about a minute or two after the countdown, I practically dragged my Daddy to his bedroom. The almost month-long teasing that had totally reignited my sex drive probably had something to do with it. Also, possibly, Daddy's constant smug face all through the night. And yes, the fact that I'd gone through a year was probably a large factor as well.

Let me just say, it was completely worth the wait - apparently enough that I had people at the still-running party clapping when I finally left the room. The only thing that I'm more surprised at was how tidy it was at the end - I was expecting to be an absolute geyser, but apparently not. Regardless, it was still a hell of an orgasm, after an entire year, especially as Daddy did all the things I love him to do to me.

So, now that I've gone through an entire year of denial, what are my thoughts?

Firstly, in my case, the first and last couple of months were by far the worst. After a while, my sex drive started to behave itself a bit more, and it was much easier to get through the fact that I wasn't getting any. Which, I'm guessing, seems more than a bit odd to people around me who I've talked to about this. But it's true - after a while, it just sorta stops being on your radar. Proof of human capacity to adapt to pretty much any circumnstance.

Secondly, I think that if Daddy would have wanted to make things more difficult for me, ironically the best thing he could have done is kept me in a Chastity Device. We did try a cage for a while, but problems presented themselves pretty quickly, so we had to abandon it. But, I'll certainly say that a chastity device does two jobs very well - it makes it impossible to even play with yourself without pain, and it makes you very, very aware of your genitals. If we do this again, I may make sure we have a better chastity device, to see how well I go then.

Thirdly, it did actually make a welcome change from sex being the be-all end-all of play with Daddy. To be fair, both of our sex drives dropped pretty heavily in the last year or so, as well as having situational problems to boot, so we haven't had nearly as much play in the last year than we'd like. But being in chastity actually made it a lot more bearable, to be honest. If Daddy's not up for anything, that's okay, because you're really under orders not to be up for much yourself!

A final thought, I guess this finally does make me "hardcore" at something - there aren't a lot of subbies who can claim to have survived a year without orgasm, so for once, I actually have a boasting point!