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My infrequent ramblings, started cause I can't sleep with covid lol
9 months ago. June 23, 2023 at 5:31 PM

This has come up a few times in conversations, I think, due to a stigma, but I wanted to talk about it and clarify. The subject is about relaying your intentions to a recipient, how to do it, and when is the most appropriate time. 

 

To start, the stigma comes in where vaguely claiming your intentions leads people to believe you're rushing things: I've had similar comments where asking someone if they are interested in something comes off as 'too heavy-handed' before, and I've since been working to improve my verbiage and relaying my intentions, as it is not my intent to move too quickly or overwhelm anyone when we first begin talking. 

 

The point of this entry is this: I believe that when you are interested in another person, you should establish your intent with that person sooner than later if not in the beginning. I believe this because I believe it respects everyone's time and intelligence. There is plenty of time to learn more about each other if the initial interest is there, and if it isn't, then you both know right away. It respects intelligence because there are no hidden agendas when everything is laid out in front, and there is plenty of time to vet and make sure that that is truly the case.

 

People who would disagree argue that you should wait, take your time and learn more about each other and talk about a dynamic when you are more comfortable. That makes perfect sense where the dynamic is possible, but it isn't always the case. How much time do you interact, on a faint hope they return your feelings, without knowing whether or not it was ever feasible or not? This is especially prevalent online where distance is more commonly a factor

 

And the other issue I have with waiting is that you are keeping your intention a secret from your prospective partner. It is intellectually dishonest to lead them to believe your interactions are benign in nature when you want something more serious with them. Worse still, there is always a risk of being emotionally manipulated the closer you let someone become.

 

Being upfront from the beginning can help avoid these issues, but it isn't foolproof: you will still need to take appropriate time to vet and make sure that they were not lying and that you are good and comfortable with them. Establishing your intent is not rushing: it is not an ultimatum, and it is certainly not a call to relocate this instant. It is respecting yours and that person's time and intelligence to find out from the get-go if they are open to your arrangement. That is the key word: openness, to be open to an idea that is subject to change. Circumstances happen and change people's actual ability or willingness to engage in their arrangements, but intent isn't prophecy either: just because you intend on something, even with a mutual partner, does not mean you can always make good on your intentions, and that's okay. At least you've still established that intent in the beginning, vetting several others that did not share your interests/goals in a lifestyle dynamic, and being honest about what you want with somebody should serve you well in finding someone who shares your ideas and with whom you do move forward with a lifestyle dynamic.

1 year ago. January 4, 2023 at 1:25 PM

I have seen this issue with many sites and have discussed the issues that happen here in chat. That harassment online, especially if you are woman, is out of control. Sub females in chat have mentioned having to keep up with 40+. 60+, even 100+ messages a day, and most of these messages have been disrespectful, belligerent, and/or dick pics. It's gotten so bad that I have actually seen two friends declare that they may leave the site over it and their profiles are no longer here.

 

These sites are built on engagement: users being able to chat and talk about kink in safe environment and maybe look for a lifestyle dynamic in the meantime. Most of the time, the engagement consists of many men vying for the attention of few women, and the effect is only more drastic with d/s. Most of those messages were already inappropriate, but when you add in the entitlement of a haughty, poorly educated dom, you get another layer of disrespect. 

Imagine getting hundreds of these messages. It would get exhausting sifting through the sea of dick picks and crappy "on your knees" one-liners. If you're one of these people, just know you're not unique, and your attempt isn't clever, and you are entirely the problem here. Getting so many of those disheartening messages is probably demotivating to continue through anymore. This makes it harder for people who may write a genuine message as it gets lost in the noise or otherwise loses its effect when the recipient's mood is ruined by the time they find it. This, in turn, makes it demotivating to even send messages to people because why contribute to the stress? Why try when your message is going to be lost in the sea of other harassing messages?

Of course the harassment and abuse wears down on recipients too, particularly sub females. Eventually the harassment becomes too much that they leave the site. This of course lowers engagement, as now there are even less people of that orientation to talk to. My friends are examples of that: they left and before leaving, they cited the abusive messages they had been receiving.

 

Also unique is the issue with gifting premiums. When a use has a premium, they can be messaged by anyone. This basically enables an user to gift a premium to another user and open the floodgates to all kinds of messages. Having premium itself is a double edged sword as it allows you to connect with more potential matches, but it also enables anyone to message you, opening you to way, way more messages and harassing messages to sift through. Gifting premiums enables people to be given this burden unwillingly.

 

The worse part is I don't know what the fix for this is. thecage tries to put some safeguards in place like blocking/muting individuals from messaging/chatting, but it's not a perfect system.  To feel you need to block/mute somebody, they had to have already sent you an inappropriate message most likely, whilst shutting off your inbox or locking your PM on chat blots out everybody from contacting you, including potential matches. The only way to ensure you do not receive abusive messages is to turn off the feature for everyone, which doesn't seem ideal if you are looking: it's all or nothing.

 

It is truly unfortunate that the harassment has come to this point, that users receive a wave of these messages and are worn down until they finally leave the site. It is unfortunate that people in chat receive unsolicited PMs and and deal with the same belligerent horndogs. Mostly it is unfortunate that this is the experience or introduction for many into the BDSM lifestyle and that, coupled with this being a larger internet issue all sites suffer from thus having no perfect sanctuary, can be enough to stunt their growth or drive these folks out of the lifestyle altogether.

1 year ago. December 12, 2022 at 1:29 PM

So I asked about this at the end of my last blog post. Unfortunately, it didn't gain much traction.

 

The long story short is I need a cane. Not just looks, but it has to function as one to help me with pain walking after a long time, but also why not ask for some flare and bdsm on top of it? Ideally, I'd like to find someone that can make me a functional cane that I can detach into a thinner discreet BDSM cane kept inside of the blunter functional cane "scabbard," likely resulting in two separate implements 

 

Open to other ideas within the realm of possibility. Someone pitched the idea of adding a prod to it lol But the hope of this post is to find crafters that I could discuss with

1 year ago. December 10, 2022 at 3:52 AM

I had an enlightening conversation today about the nature of online sites, such as this one. My friend had good points about the whole of the "online kink dating" scene.

I want to start by praising some of the good that I have seen thecage provide compared to other places. When I joined thecage, I quickly learned that they do not mess around with unbridled harassment or fake/bot profiles. Namely I find the phone verification feature to reject VoIP numbers and impressive and much needed addition to sites as these to cut down on the ease of scammers making accounts and flooding targets for money, sex, trafficking, and whatever other dangerous people you can come across online. In addition to this, I appreciate the features to lock your DMs and mute individuals, giving you full array of control over your messages in chat but also having the same features on your inbox via your preferences. So at other sites where you would have to endure the harassment and abusive, provocative messages and unsolicited dick pics, thecage provides means to limit such messages. Of course, these protections aren't without trade-offs: it's a small community as the result, but a genuine one. I have not once had an issue with someone messaging me sweet nothings and empty promises to serve if I "sent money for gas" or requests for "tributes" or other such crap. Of course there will always be selfish, manipulative, and even belligerent people, but every site has this issue, it's a larger problem with dating sites in general.

 

But because the community is smaller, I think that to really find a lifestyle dynamic, the only option is to be open to long distance and eventual relocation. This has worked for a few folks here, and I still hear of people doing it, but it also obviously a huge, permanent commitment on someone's end to pick up and eventually leave their lives to move somewhere else. What's more is there are also some folks I've chatted with that would not move somewhere for a relationship because of the risk that relationship falls through, that it would have to be a multifaceted reason to justify moving: better situation, climate, friends/entertainment, "better fit," work, etc. It's valid of course, but it will ultimately boil down to individual decisions whether or not someone feels relocating somewhere is worth exploring or not. 

 

But she has a great point: for most, the online community is probably just an aside, chat with other like minded folks while waiting for the next munch or big event locally to go out to. Of course, that's going to depend on your area too. I've been in some big cities with established communities and hefty membership fees. I've also been rural nowhere where there's next to no one into the scene. I think in that sense, I am lucky to find myself in Florida, though I haven't been able to get out too much yet. I've been very busy this year.

 

If you follow my blogs and my profile updates, you may have some idea of this year in synopsis. I moved out of a temp living situation into my first house. I did had a slave arrangement fall through a week prior, and rolled my ankle on move in on the levee step Infront of my garage lol I had to plan to budget my housing expenses, HOA dues, furnishing, appliances, lighting, all of it. I had to figure out returning to work, moving my things out of storage after 2 years and setting up my bedding, workplace, gym, entertainment center, finally built that PC I wanted, etc. I also had to keep up with family obligations like traveling to weddings and seeing people as well as disaster prepping for the Hurricane Ian, a month bout with covid, and all of it culminating in a spinal injury just as I was beginning to settle down, branch out, and planned to attend a rigging event in Sarasota lol

 

So onto the nature of this injury, why it ties into the solitary and search, I may have had an abnormally narrow disc canal and the going theory is the act of setting up my storm shutters alone exasperated the condition to the point of early stage degenerative disc disease, resulting in a herniated disc (bulging, slipped) and spinal stenosis (pinching of the nerve) in the L5 region, the lowest most part of the spine. In essence, I have a bulging disc pressing right into my spinal cord. I am turning 30 this year, but as my physician has put it, my back is now 60 lol.

 

Not too worried about it, the goal is to avoid surgery by doing physical therapy, and honestly the lifestyle change, body transformation, and weight loss were all things I was working towards for years. I started building out my home gym in 2020 like so many others lol but I paid to work with a personal trainer since 2018 and $2k with a nutrition/health coach on nutrition and cooking lessons for a couple months since August. Of course, having a live in slave would have cut down on several of these costs and laborious tasks, but I found ways avenues to do it all myself anyway eventually. It was exciting to get back to it as the winter months came the garage would be cool enough to lift in again and with the coaching I had an array of healthy, anti-inflammatory dishes to cook. Then in kink, I was networking and going to start working with actual professionals. Everything was moving in the right direction, and still will. The nurses seem confident I can return to my baseline at my age, just have to do pt, keep losing weight, lengthen my spine, and follow up. So you know, now I HAVE to be all fit and sexy all the time and maybe get a dapper cane I can double as an implement. lol darn.

 

And you know, it has not escaped me the challenges of living alone and doing these things, but I think it's better than the alternatives. I have a nice home with amenities I can enjoy. My brother wants me to sell and move closer to family. Fair, given this isn't the first incident lol I did wind up in a  hospital prior for pneumonia, everyone thought it was covid. But it took me 2 years to finally get settled here and just...live lol moving costs thousands, and to give all that up? To limit myself to only living near family? Nah.

 

But in the aspects of the lifestyle, I also felt a brief consideration to ramp up my search for that slave dynamic and end these incidents hopefully. To which my friend echoed my feelings on the matter: that I shouldn't compromise just to find a sub.

 

So here I was, hobbled by the injury, drugged out of my mind, talking to her about these thoughts about acknowledging my limits and mortality to not be able to do everything by myself and achieve my life goals, a reflection I've already had, it is not a pride issue that I do these things with no help lol but at the same time, I'm relating my thoughts that I don't want to settle for anything less than what I want out of life, that I don't want to compromise just to find a sub in the immediate because of all that is happening. She, an experienced member of this lifestyle and communities here, echoed the same ideals: to never compromise just to get a sub.

 

So maybe the answer hasn't been online and what I've really needed is the time to get out into the local communities, and maybe something does stumble on me online lol who knows? But I think the bigger takeaway here is to not settle for what you can and in the process giving up on what you want. Even if it means doing it by myself, it's better than compromising with simply what's available or giving up any shred of my autonomy.

 

As a final note, if any of you folks know of a good quality crafter, I would be interested in looking at a discreet sword cane that can be converted into thin (cane) and thick (scabbard) implements. Yes, I will take caning classes 

1 year ago. November 4, 2022 at 6:31 AM

Exactly as it says in the title. There is a misconception of what CNC is, that's r*** play or fantasies, that it's highly controversial, etc. Well it's not, it shouldn't be, and I'm here to explain what CNC is and what it actually means.

 

Let me preface this by first addressing r*** play: r*** play is not real. Play is consensual, else it is no longer play and is r***. Consent is not some absolute binding agreement to do what you want without the other person being able to do anything about it. Consent is also not something that is given at the start and cannot be rescinded later. Consent is fluid: it can be given at one moment and rescinded the next. When you take away someone's power to rescind their consent, that's assault. Someone choosing to not rescind their consent is different from someone who did not have the choice.

 

What people often mistake for their r*** play fantasies is actually CNC, except it's not r*** because you have you power to consent and rescind consent at all times. CNC, consensual non-consent, is the idea of giving implied consent, that is it prior consent you give your dom to *initiate* a scene without prior notice. The key here is that the scene can only be initiated. You may be surprised by the start of a scene, but you always have power to revoke your consent during it. If you say stop, it stops.That is the essence of CNC.

 

Some examples I've heard/done are surprising your mate as they walk through a doorway, tying someone up in their sleep, ambushing/overpowering your mate, etc. You can even get into more extreme means like extending the CNC play to outside the home (establishing kidnapping scenes), permission to do things while your partner is asleep/non conscious and thereby not able to give consent but gave it prior, or a bidirectional play dynamic with CNC such as primal play. What's important here is two proponents: first is that consent to initiate a scene was given prior to the scene being initiated, and the second being consent to that scene has not been revoked during that scene. 

 

So you see it isn't r*** play because you always have consent in the situation. You always have power to rescind consent and stop the scene. What CNC aims to do is provide more spontaneous playstyle that better mimics how domination would happen in a real life scenario. Furthermore, I personally do not believe in r*** play because if you want it to stop and you can't stop it, that is no longer play to me. Play is your consent to engage in bdsm activities willingly. And as such, I would say no one should ever engage in "r*** play." Do CNC instead and keep your power to not consent.

 

And I understand that some people want that feeling where they don't have the control and can't do anything about it, but at a certain point, the fantasies need to be dialed back so play can stay safe. You don't have to use your out if you don't want to, you can even pretend it's not there outside of an emergency, but having that choice to stop is what makes it consensual play.

 

But also do not just jump into scene with someone who says they're into CNC. CNC takes a firm understanding of what it means to consent, and many people do not have that. I look to certain laws that tried to say you could not rescind consent to sex after starting as examples that people not only do not understand the full picture of consent but are also not educated to. As always, it comes down to whether you can trust your play partner to respect you when you want to stop, pause, talk, not do something, etc and especially so when you are made vulnerable around them. And of course for some people just the initiation alone can be enough to trigger a traumatic episode, so CNC is definitely not for everyone, but I'm sure you know your relationship and partner(s) well enough to decide whether it'd be worth exploring or not 

 

Play safe, and I hope this has helped to clear up some of the misconceptions around consent and CNC 

1 year ago. October 8, 2022 at 11:25 AM

Classic belief, it is easiest described as 'good things come in groups of three.' It's a classic literary device that says that a trio makes your writing sound more engaging and satisfying, and from that it permeates into many other faucets in life. There are rules of three in writing, rules of three in wilderness survival, and there's even rules of three in kink.

The obvious trio is dominant, submissive, or both (switch), but I want to discuss two other patterns of three I observe. First is the types of service a sub provides, I believe, all boil down to 3 categories: domestic, sexual, and financial, each provides parts of you.

Domestic services are your labor, your chores, your maids, butlers and errand boys/girls. They handle tasks around the house as well as providing for their dominant whatever they need in a platonic fashion. Domestic provides your labor.

Next is sexual, which includes any kind of foreplay or physical play that causes arousal or deals with genitalia, such as pain, degradation, role play, chastity devices, body worship, etc. Sexual provides your body.

Finally is financial which speaks for itself, but it's handling the funds of your submissive. This could be as a single household income or as generous"pay pigs" giving their patronage. Financial provides your possessions.

This is usually how I break down services when establishing with someone what I do and do not need or want with them, but I recently thought of another rule of three to discuss, and that is centered around the value you provide to a dominant.

The first one is easy to name, it's ego. We've all seen the dom/domme who has some aspect of their rules for the sake of satisfying their ego. I am not saying it's wrong necessarily, but for some people giving some tasks, the purpose is to solely validate their power over their sub.

Next one I call entertainment. To me this about fun. Ego boosts can be fun for people too, but not everything fun has to be about boosting your ego: fun is a larger umbrella that captures all kinds of activities. There is definitely a clear difference between doing something for your ego and doing it for fun's sake.

The last one I haven't found a good word yet. Practicality? Usefulness? This is about providing some value that reduces your dominant's own burden/labors. It's more than being useful since being entertaining or ego boosting can also be considered useful. The value provided is practical in that is it is more tangible than the other two. A clean house is more easy to ascertain its cause and effect than your dom/domme smiling.

What are your thoughts on the rule of three? Personally I find them useful. I've used the rule of three subconsciously, before ever even studying the psychology behind it or discovering that it was a formal, defined phenomenon. I think breaking down d/s services and values in this way helps to explain what I myself look for depending on the relationship I have with that sub. For example I may be open to engaging with domestic and financial services with some people, and sexual with the right people, and the values most services would provide to me would be my entertainment and the practical value. Of course nuance can't be represented in three categories and there may be crossover, and of course most people are not fully dominant or fully submissive in every way and most exist on a spectrum, but I think the rule of three is a means to intelligently condense places of interests into a format that makes it digestible when you first start talking with someone.

Thoughts?