I am mulling a kinkcept (TM) that I've been simmering for a while now. This has to do wit the idea that there are folks within the BDSM community who, while they may be adept technically at their game when it comes to being dominant or sadistic, really bottom out (sorry!) when it comes to delving deeper into the whys and wherefores of their kink.

I likened it to the Mickey Mouse sequence "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in "Fantasia" where the young apprentice unleashes powers greater than he can manage. This isn't necessarily harmful, but it can be. It isn't limited to one "type" of dominance, but it seems to fall into certain pattern.

Like I said this is thought is in the final stages of being presentable. I have an "in" to how I want to talk about it and I'd love thoughts and questions here....it helps me refract the boiling lights and darks of my thoughts into something palatable for others.

And I hate editing.

Thanks my peoples for your help and the mirrors you hold up for me!

love

Mo

Hi Mollena.

As an Ordeal Path Shaman, you make a point that a lot of my clients miss out on. I have lots of training that makes me a good priest if you're looking for a spiritual SM experience, but that doesn't promise every single person I play with - secular, sacred, or somewhere in between - the most mind blowing spiritual experience they've ever had. It may do nothing.

My experience has shown me that everyone has a different "lock" in their head. I have a lot of keys, and in a ritual I can whip out a certain amount of keys that work on most people I've worked with, but your lock might be a combination lock, or a puzzle lock, or a keypad, or something completely different.

Some of this can be worked through if whomever is looking for the spiritual experience and the guide negotiate for quite some time, perhaps playing a little here and there before the big day, hoping to learn the right twists and turns gets the client to where they want to go. I rarely get that sort of opportunity. By the time someone comes to me for an ordeal, they're impatient and ready to go. It's usually me putting on the reigns, hoping that every second more I can get in the negotiation process is a shred more information that I can use to unlock their head.

The other side, that also agrees with what you've said, is that SM isn't the right path for every single person to open themselves up spiritually. Rumi says, "...there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." For some people, sex and intense sensation doesn't read "spiritual" to them; they may seek out aesceticism (fasting, simplicity, charity), or rhythm (trancing to drums, traditional shamanic journeys, etc), or the creation of art as the way to unlock their head in the way they need.

So yes, you're on the right track here. Even experienced priests can't always get people where they need to go. On the other hand, sometimes a scene that I've negotiated specfically as a "Del gets off doing what Del likes to do" sort of scene, can accidentally trigger a deeply spiritual scene for my partner. I never know.

This keyed into a lot of ideas swirling around in my own head.

I'm not sure if there's a coherent argument in here... There probably is somewhere, but here are some of my scattered ponderings on and around the issue.

I think the dominant savant model can apply to people who make deep connections in their play regardless of whether all that crazy woo woo stuff is involved. Any perceived deep connection can take the place of woo here.

In sexualized and charged spaces, we tend to bring filtered versions of ourselves. This is not a bad thing, mind you, nor is it something that always happens consciously. So someone can present a facade of togetherness and control in one environment better than he or (insert pronoun here) can in the mundane world. Similarly, there are others who, like you said, thrive in a BSDM environment, but are utter crap at relationships, nurturing spiritual connections, etc.

If the only interaction you have with people is in kink contexts, then it's hard to see the other facets of their personalities. And if that's the only venue in which you interact with people, that's fine, so long as you remain conscious of the fact that doing a super hot and intense scene with someone does not mean you know them.

There are a few people I can think of off the top of my head with whom I've had really intense, beautiful, and cathartic scenes... For a while, I'd trumpet these scenes to others "Oh So-and-so! Yeah. He's awesome. We've played. Maybe I can introduce you!"

And then the realization two-by-four clocked me on the head. I don't really know these people. I don't know what they're like at home, or what their mental map looks like outside the fleeting context of our scene. But I still enjoy playing with these people, but no longer am I going to assume that a hot scene will immediately grant me a certain level of personal access.

And that's really hard. I can bottom to most people, no problem. I can do silly, I can do pain slut, I can do happy rope space without requiring deep spiritual connections with my partner. If they happen, great! If not, meh.

A lot of the play I like to do as a *submissive*, however, requires me to strip myself physically and emotionally bare. To trust my partner to take me to those dark places and bring me back in one piece. Deep mind fucks, hard core humiliation play, anything where I let someone stomp around in my brain require intimacy and deep, meaningful connection. When I play on that level, I find it impossible *not* to develop some connection with the person I play with.

I can't just put that away and have it all be fine. It's just too intimate. I give the other person way too much of myself. Telling me to do that kind of play without getting attached is like telling me to keep an ice cube in my mouth without letting it melt. On the plus side, since I know this about myself, I'm very careful about whom I explore that kind of play with.

I have had the misfortune of going that deep with someone who could not maintain that intimacy... Who, for whatever reason swam in that pool, and then hurried the fuck to get out as if a shark had bit him... The realization that we were speaking different languages and that his idea of intimacy did not coincide with mine was devastating. In retrospect, there was no way I could have known without going those places, and I don't regret a single second of the good stuff we did have, but emotional anguish is kind of a recreational hazard.

I accept this now. I still seek out those connections knowing full well that I may get hurt again, but to paraphrase Osho, you cannot love or enter into reality if you are not courageous.

I totally agree that you have to do your homework, and always be ready to manage expectations as needed.

Does that make sense?

(Yeesh and I have had people pound me verbally because i refuse to play with just any old Dom that wields a pair a cuffs and a flogger.) What you are saying makes perfect sense to me. Play is fun and great and wonderful but to get to those different spaces in my head where I get an "aha!" moment about WHY i do what I do takes a lot more of a connection than "Hey you are hot let's party." In order to get that connection I have to have tons of communication, lots of interaction outside the scene (who wants to go fishing?) and some sort of working understanding of your life when it doesnt involve kink and sex. No I dont want to meet your wife but I do want to understand why she is vanilla and you are kinky but she lets you play outside the marriage. And why do you stay with her? No I dont want an invite to your company picnic but I do want to understand why you have the career you have and what makes you stay in it if you dont love it.
Little things like this give me insight into people and establishes my connection with them. One of the "rules" I suppose you could call it for playing with me that Master and i set forth is that we have to get to know you as a person before we wander off to let you use me any old way you want. In other words what are you like when there is no kink or sex involved?

One man Master and I met online seemed great at first and was respectful and sweet at all times. Then I got sick and dropped out of sight for a while. When I came back the first thing he said to me was "Hello my lil slut. I still want you." Well, thats against the rules. See nobody calls me slut except my Master (without Masters permission anyway). That was clearly stated to this man when he tried pulling the same thing once before and I patiently explained that this was unacceptable but gave him the benefit of the doubt as we were very new into the getting to know each other stage and things can slip peoples minds. So my reason for sharing this is that I learned that if this man would break clearly stated rules that he may not abide my safeword. Or maybe he breaks the rules in other areas of his life as well so I have no reason to believe that he will respect any other rules that Master and I have discussed and agreed are the best for us.

One thing i have come to understand for the relationship I am in now is that there are places in my brain that I would love to pick up and examine intensely but my Master is not going to go there no way no how not for me not for anybody. Those sections will have to remain closed for now. At least until i have permission to going exploring there anyway. Can I live with that? Yep, I can if i want to remain in the relationship I am in for any length of time. (Which i do cus he is awesome in so many other ways.)

Master allows me to play with another Dom who has full control of my pain level. Never thought I was a pain slut and would have (and did on several occasions) sworn to high heaven that I am not a pain slut. Yet when we play with Sir, he gets in my head in a way that that's what I WANT to be for him. And it took a very long time of talking and getting to know him and who he is and why he does the things he does both inside and outside the scene before i felt safe enough to give him that much control of my body even with my Master right there. Master would never whip me as hard as I need it or want it because he also loves me as his girlfriend and partner and is scared spitless of really hurting me. However, I adore Sir and he's a terrific friend outside the scene as well as in it. I couldnt play with him at the level of intensity that I do if he wasnt.
Does any of this make sense as to what you were saying Mollena?