PTSD or something else?

I'm beginning to be a bit concerned about Delightful Date. Ever since the nose/chair incident over a week ago, he's shown zero interest in sex.

This isn't to say that I haven't heard from him, but our chats/emails have been about books, jobs, weather. In short, topics shared with people with which you share no intimacy. The only thing discussed that wasn't an acceptable dinner party topic was my nose and its recovery.

I can't help but think that the nose incident has affected him in some way. Sort of a D/s version of post-traumatic stress. I suppose it's a bit of a blow when a dominant unexpectedly loses control of things, especially when a) it's never happened before, and b) the submissive ends up with a bloody nose. But, if it has, I don't think there's anything I do about it.

Why I hate the circus

Sometimes my commute takes me past the American Airlines Arena near downtown Dallas. Recently the Arena has put up their annual Barnum & Bailey circus advertisements, which pisses me off.

At the risk of sounding like an anarchist bunny-hugger (not that I mind; I've been called worse), I have long hated the idea that animals were created simply so we could coerce them into doing stupid-ass tricks. I keep hoping that the city council will grow a spine and outlaw circus animals like other cities have. People like Cirque du Soleil more anyway - just try getting a ticket.

For anyone who wants proof that animals were not meant to stand on our heads for our entertainment, I invite them to watch this video from archive.org. It's news footage without any annoying sound effects, audience interviews or PETA spin. Not only does the elephant stomp her trainer to death in front of the audience (the circus employee she attacks looks dead, but actually survives), the local police are eventually forced to put a total of 86 bullets into the poor beast to kill her. Cops don't carry elephant rifles.

Watching this elephant slowly die on film as the cops keep pumping bullets into her is sickening. Can anyone really think that chancing a repeat performance in their own town is a good idea? The elephant could have just as easily turned on the crowd and taken out a few kids.

Last but not least, the elephant Tyke featured in the video was owned by a John Cuneo, Jr. The Feds finally put him out of the circus elephant business once and for all in 2007, and his inventory of 16 animals went to several sanctuaries.

Toys for grownups takes an odd turn

A friend of mine, Mr. Doctor - a movie buff - has been throwing "movie nights" for the last few years. He often purchases 50-60 tickets at a time for movie premieres, giving them all away to co-workers and friends and never allowing anyone to reimburse him. Although not a religious attendee, I occasionally accepted a ticket. (However, when he left Mrs. Doctor a couple of months ago, that all changed, but that's another boring blog entry.)

Anyway, the usual suspects decided that a thank-you gift was in store for our host. After some research, this was purchased and presented:

Assembled, the statue is almost five feet high. Almost life-sized.

Although, in my opinion, it was a particularly amusing waste of money, I really don't think I could handle having it in my house. I can just see myself staggering around at 3:00 am in a post-nightmare state of anxiety, running into Leia here. I'd probably attack her with a hammer and shatter $800 worth of movie memorabilia.

Yet another attempt to explain the kink gene

48 hours later, my nose is fine except that it's a bit puffy. Combined with a slight carpet burn/scrape underneath the right nostril, it's just enough for people at work to notice, and to ask me what happened. Usually it's the same old cliche: "Been in a fight? What's the other person look like?" Argh.

But since I'm a terrible liar, and viewed as an eccentric anyway, I've been telling people what really happened Sunday afternoon. And of course, I get the usual reactions. Thankfully, most people just giggle nervously. But I still get the occasional look of fear/disgust/loathing, poorly disguised.

The episode got me to thinking once again how I could possibly explain my harmless little bondage fetish to non-enthusiasts. Like I've said before, it's like trying to explain the Pantone colour system to the colour-blind. But I decided that if I couldn't explain, there was probably someone on the Net who could. I eventually found what I think is a reasonable explanation for both my own kink and DD's dominant complement - his yin to my yang.

Peter Acworth is the owner of a Web site that's become a combined empire/money machine. It's called Kink.com. Mr.Acworth has been so successful that he was able to buy a historic San Francisco building as his combination headquarters/film studio.

While I've never watched a single video available there - mainly because I prefer the real thing, and I'm not interested in anything nearly as extreme as what you'll see at Kink.com - Mr. Acworth offered a short but accurate description of his audience and himself. Something everyone can understand. Or at least I hope so.

This is an excerpt from a combined article/interview with Acworth at the San Francisco publication 7x7:

It might sound surprising—or perhaps a little naïve—that many doms report such selfless, relational experiences during BDSM scenes, but it’s nevertheless true. What seems to turn them on is not primarily the ego gratification of being temporarily all-powerful, but watching the submissive's arousal and feeling completely responsible for bringing her pleasure. The dom strategizes and adjusts his actions to the sub’s response.

The sub, on the other hand, experiences abandon. “In daily life, things are always expected of you,” Acworth explains. “You’re expected to be something. When you’re tied up, you just can’t. It gives you a total release from responsibility. There are no decisions to make, and you can simply enjoy it and be in the moment.”

Other interesting facts about Acworth include the fact that he's pretty damned smart. At the time he set up kink.com, Acworth had already earned a mathematics degree from Cambridge, a master’s from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris, and was working toward a Ph.D. in finance at Columbia University. But halfway through the Ph.D. studies, he read an article about an Internet porn site run by a English fireman. The fireman had a porn site cottage industry going, and had made 1/4 million pounds without a lot of effort before he was, alas, busted.

Ultimately, my decision to exercise my kink gene is that afterwards there's no depression. Instead, there's a feeling of catharsis and renewed energy that lasts for hours, sometimes days. It clears my mind and recharges me. I don't understand why our meetings have this effect on both of us (DD describes similar, although not identical feelings to mine). But we stopped worrying about it a long time ago.

Sunday bloody Sunday

Since both of us were busy last Saturday - I went to work in the morning, then headed to Ft Worth later to have dinner with my ex-Marine friends - Delightful Date suggested we get together Sunday afternoon. This suited me especially well; although I enjoy our late-night assignations, mid-afternoon misbehavior is even better in some ways.

Things began in particularly naughty fashion after my arrival. In the months after our initial meeting, our relationship hasn't become boring; it's been quite the opposite. Both of us have been on quite an erotic learning curve.

Knowing my preference for blindfolds - the absence of one sense heightens the others, especially if you're a filthy pervert like me - DD began by blindfolding me. He then took his time, removing my dress, eventually adding wrist and ankle cuffs while occasionally doing other things that modesty prevents my describing here.

By this time I had reached what D/s enthusiasts call subspace.

Eventually I ended up sitting backwards in a chair. My position was similar to the infamous Christine Keeler photograph except that I was wearing slightly more than she was. The chair was/is extremely similar as well, come to think of it. DD then decided to restrain me by cuffing my right wrist to my right ankle, then the left to left. I was perfectly still, waiting, enormously turned on. What would he do next? The suspense was making me squirm in anticipation.

It turns out he didn't have to do anything. The chair suddenly tipped over backwards and I landed face-first.

The next few seconds were strange, dreamlike. I realized my nose was bleeding heavily, but it didn't hurt. All I felt was numbness. I kept hearing a horrified DD whispering he was sorry, so sorry, over and over as he released me. I could feel the blindfold being removed and saw DD looking down at me, a stricken look on his face before he ran for washcloths and ice.

Eventually we surveyed the damage and realized that my nose wasn't broken, it was just not very happy. Thankfully DD lives in a place with carpeting - if we'd been at my place, I'd have landed with a splat on hardwood floor.

The evening ended on a pleasant note. We ended up curling up like two overfed cats, dozing the evening away. Nothing brings two people together like a bloody nose.