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| alexandraa |
I visited Informed Consent today, as you can see. I feel divorced from it nowadays. There seem so many young people on here now, playing games with power exchange and SM. In a way how lucky they are and in another way I think - how frightening that young people, still learning about life and relationships, would meddle with power exchange. Keep it to SM play I want to tell them.
But then I suppose we never stop learning about life and relationships do we? I am sure there is not a point on the horizon with a label that states, beyond this point, age 45 years and 7 months, 3 days, all things are known and understood. Life is new everyday if you want it to be, sometimes even if you don't want it to be.
I look back over the years, eek, years, where I have been involved in the BDSM scene, probably about 9 years now going on for 10 maybe, since my first tentative steps to visit the Roissy Workshop in Leeds, which long, long, ago used to be tied into the old Leeds Munch.
I dragged my partner at the time with me, in the hope he'd get into BDSM a little more. However it wasn't to be for him. He didn't mind a bit of bedroom fun and spanking but couldn't really care less about all the bits of equipment and techniques. I however had always dreamed of SM combined with sex from my earliest teen fantasies. I think I read Story of O when I was about 15 or 16 and became utterly hooked with the idea, yet never found a partner to practice with. Well not till much much later.
Finally the internet came about and I split up from my husband, and I started finding all these strange web sites and, good lord, something that was calling itself Roissy, straight out of my erotic fantasies. For those who haven't read Story of O, Roissy was a kind of slave training centre of excellence haha! Pure porn and SM fantasy of course but it did it for me when I was 16.
Twenty years later I wanted to experience everything. I was so full of it. So excited about discovering this world of impact sex weapons, well I suppose for some people they are not so related to sex, but for me it was all about sex. Floggers, canes, crops, tawses and ropes in all kinds of shapes sizes and materials. And people, people who wanted to do this kind of thing to each other.
I lurched around that first venue, losing my virginity, from one piece of equipment to another finding amazingly willing men to introduce me to a flogger, a cane, a spanking. How exciting, how interesting. I was blown away, hooked, lined and sinkered within the space of 10 minutes. I feel jealous of the young people who discover that now at 18 or 20 years old. Maybe that's why I shy away from IC now. It makes me feel old.
I never thought I would find SM for real. I thought I was a bit odd, an outsider, bit of a fruitloop, that I would want someone to hit me with something, cause me pain and then fuck me. It seemed that was not the case, turned out there were plenty of willing men if you looked in the right place.
And now look at all these people discovering it. The internet has changed the world in more ways than one.
I fell in with a crowd of people, most of whom were fairly new to it too, and we all went a bit nuts I think, stumbling from fetish fair and munches across the country to impromptu play parties at any excuse. I miss that SM exploration, that freedom and excitement, but time has meant I have become jaded with such events, and also experienced now in aspects of impact play, I find no attraction at the thought of playing with strangers. We did have great fun though. Very much a time and place thing.
I don't feel IC is the place for me anymore. I feel old and out of it. Yet I still want sado-masochism in my life. The desire for that has never faded. It seems I came into it all seeking SM, found more than I expected, I found power exchange too, and all these years later I am still interested in SM.
The depth of power exchange Colbeh and I explored in our early years seems odd now, to look back at it. I don't like reading people on IC idolising it and making it the holy grail. It's so intense I think it's doomed to fail for most. Relationships are about balance and compromise and additionally power exchange requires honesty, commitment and a depth of communication that are very demanding to all concerned.
It's interesting the young people and others new to BDSM, should set power exchange as the holy grail and not simply go for the quick win SM fun. I suppose SM is a tad hollow without a depth of relationship to couch it in though....
| 27 Feb 10, 4:30 PM Insistor UK(PL), 7 yrs |
I empathise. BDSM is as surprising, predictable, exciting, tedious, alluring, repellent, rewarding and disappointing as any other aspect of life. The let downs may be greater because it's the place we dare to take our dreams. BDSM: Boring, Dumb, Sad, Motherfuckers. Edited 27 Feb 10, 4:31 PM by Insistor | |
| 27 Feb 10, 4:36 PM Achilleus UK(M), 2 yrs |
A really interesting piece! Putting aside your own feelings of age (you are not old hunni) I do disagree with a small part of your writing. I think there is almost an obsession in the current BDSM world with SM, it is viewed as a little bit cool and edgy by the wannabe mainstream of society. The number of newbies who arrive, fresh faced, floggers in hand, with anne summers handcuff sets disappoints me. A couple of years ago I organised small workshops specifically to introduce newbies to the wider range of fun out there. Pony play, wax play, cutting, sutures etc and those demonstrations would have moved onto breath play, mummification, age play and all of the delicious things two consenting adults can do to one another. If you read some of the current IC threads you will find very little mention of edgy topics. Recently a basic age play topic deteriorated into paedo taunts by people who simply do not appreciate the range that BDSM covers. There is a refreshing chloroform thread running at the moment but that is the exception rather than the rule here.
Welcome back to IC, please don't be jealous of the youngsters who have a great resource at their fingertips. For all of the resources available they still seem to need help discovering what BDSM is all about... | |
| 27 Feb 10, 4:47 PM Prunesquallor UK(RG), 6 yrs |
What worries me more is that there are very few people here who were on IC when I first joined. It seems that there is a pretty significant turnover on this site. I can't help wondering whether that means there is an equal turnover in BDSM itself; I really hope not. I hope that even if you don't find anything here that engages you, you will continue to pop in from time to time. I am sure I'm not the only one to enjoy reading anything you care to write. | |
| 27 Feb 10, 5:32 PM not_just_another 2 yrs |
I was wondering what irked me about this, I understand the concern about wannabe's et al however I really wish there had been all this knowledge available when I was a teenager. S&M can just be a fun thing but power exchange may really be what quite a few younger people want. They may go the S&M route and find themselves emotionally damaged at the very least - just by going and having random 'play' and feeling cheap because deep down they wanted the power exchange more than the SM... aged 17 I had a taste of the exchange with no S&M - would have preferred to follow that route than the purely physical. It's like anything really, those who wish for a bit of excitement will eventually move onto something else, those who want/need this as part of their lives will still be around as long as you yourself. We all find our way eventually and it's never via the same route. How are younger people going to find what they want without the means to find it. There's room for all ages surely but, just like sitting crossed legged on the floor, it's easier when younger (to attract partners - thats a confusing sentence I realise but I know what I mean). A lot of suitors doesn't mean quality, just volume. Getting older brings a lot of other good stuff without the hassle also of career/family finding (usually). I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone much younger than myself, or much older. I can't be alone in that and I'm sure quite a few men feel the same too. Life experience is priceless. The thought of being back in my 20's gives me the horror shudders. Edited 27 Feb 10, 5:35 PM by not_just_another | |
| 27 Feb 10, 10:57 PM alexandraa UK(NW), 8 yrs |
Thank you. To be fair, it wasn't a balanced piece given I don't read IC that much anymore, just dip in and out, and it seemed today every thread I clicked on was written by someone 20 years younger than I and into power exchange. Nothing wrong with that in itself just got me thinking. How would my life have panned out if I had explored BDSM when I was 20. Ifs buts and maybes, we are where we are and that, is a happy place actually.
Be careful what you wish for Edited 27 Feb 10, 11:01 PM by alexandraa | |
| 27 Feb 10, 11:06 PM alexandraa UK(NW), 8 yrs |
Thank you so much. As for people who used to be... I think we are all still there, in the main at least, and at "it" in our own ways, just doing it less publically. Perhaps that first flush drives us to want to talk and debate, and then over time we settle into something else. Just as I still blog, but blog about my everyday life now rather than the sexual and BDSM aspects of it. Be careful what you wish for | |
| 27 Feb 10, 11:08 PM alexandraa UK(NW), 8 yrs |
Sigh.... damn right.... Lucky lucky lucky people....
Be careful what you wish for | |
| 2 Mar 10, 9:57 PM bladedancer_S UK, 6 yrs  |
Great blog Alex, and I know exactly where you are coming from. Typically, I arrived on the internet just after everyone had had the most fantastic time, and everyone told me how good it had been before I discovered it. Only that was about 10 years ago...I guess the same thing will happen again and again, although some things just aren't there anymore, the same friends, although I keep in touch with some, the same mix, the same places, the mad round of munches, Nemesis, being part of the Northern scene. Well, to be fair, the Northern scene and possibly Nem is still there, but I'm in the south now. On the other hand, one of the happiest times I've had was when I discovered there is no such thing as BDSM, at least in the sense it was often presented to me. There are just combinations of people, who do, or do not, certain loosely related things. Enjoyment of pain here, control there, sexual domination here, TPE there. Sometimes as couples, sometimes as singles with a lot of different people, sometimes in poly relationships. The important thing for me was to find the person with whom I could share the stuff that was important to me, and approximately want to do the same things. I say approximately, because most of my experience has been as a sub, and for me, it was important for someone who was prepared to take me that bit further than I was convinced I wanted to go. And like all good things, both Sam and I have changed, evolved, and what we are now is different to what we were 8, 9 years ago. But there you go, we did something different tonight, and I guess that's the most the important thing. |
