Sometimes, when I’m on my own, I do a simple form of self bondage: I put on a corset. One of those rigid, steel-boned ones that I can do up so tight it takes my breath away. One that I can feel squashing my tits into my chest and which – when I try to sit down – digs into my hips and makes me feel trapped.

(more…)

“I’m going to give you six whacks with this,” he says, and then he does. As he does, I have to count them. I know not why – tradition dictates it. As if dominant men are notoriously bad at simple arithmetic and if I don’t count them he’ll beat me forever. Maybe I’ll forget to count them.

Thwack. Hot stings and tingling, delicious arousal. I’m already part way to moaning out loud and begging him to fuck me. The counting is a bit of a distraction, if I’m honest, but needs must.

“One.”

I settle back in, focusing on the warmth of the first stinging smack against my naked arse. Ready for a second, a third. Wanting him to give up control and just beat me like he doesn’t care how many.

“What do you say?”

“I… umm… I said it – ‘one.'” I resolve to speak up a bit next time, to avoid having this awkward break in the proceedings.

“But what do you say?”

Oh Christ, he wants me to thank him. Try not to sound too stroppy…

“Thank you.”

Phew. Back to the beating. Any minute now the next stroke will come down and it’ll knock this irritation away, putting me back into the place where I can just whimper and gasp and love it.

“Thank you what?”

Oh for the love of Christ.

Sir

“Thank you Sir” works in very specific scenarios for me – ones in which we’re role-playing that he’s my boss, or my teacher, or anyone in a position of authority (if you’re reading this, guys who might be likely to beat me at some point in the future, I have never yet had angry military commander berating me – a junior member of his troop – while spanking me over the desk with a riding crop. Just FYI). In an authority scenario, ‘Sir’ sounds reasonably natural, and I could – at a push – see me using ‘sir’ with a regular dominant who’d decided he wanted me to address him as such.

But in my lounge? When I’ve got my jeans around my ankles and you’re still half in your work clothes? It doesn’t feel right. I’ll call you ‘Sir’ if you want me to, and beg “please, Sir, can I have some more?” as you’re flogging the backs of my thighs and working me into an stinging ball of lust, but it only serves to highlight that what we’re doing is play. If I use a formal term, I’m highlighting the fact that we’re not really taking this seriously.

Daddy

I’ve never gone with ‘Daddy’, although I’ll admit to a slight kick of envy for those couples who use this word during play. Something about purring ‘Daddy’ at my partner during a particularly intense session makes me melt with desire. I strongly suspect this is something that’s been conditioned via porn (both visual and written) in which the word is often used as a neat, sharp shortcut to establish in the mind of the reader that this is a dominant relationship. He orders: she obeys.

But saying it out loud? To my partner? My partner who brings me Marks and Spencer sweets after work and calls me a twat when I tell him the worst of my jokes? No matter how horny he is, I think he’d struggle to suspend disbelief for long enough to be convinced I really meant it.

Mister/Mr Surname

In my opinion, this is an underused term of BDSM endearment. I used to do a lot of school role play (what can I say? I just love knee socks and the smell of chalk) and I could not get enough of the delight of using the formal names of some of my best friends. In the evening, when we were sipping wine and chatting, a guy might be ‘Mark’, but in the schoolroom when he stood in front of me and asked me what on earth I thought I was doing, he was Mr Smith. I’d talk about them to other ‘girls’ just for the pleasure of rolling their new names around my tongue. Mr Smith told me this. Mr Smith gave us homework. Mr. Mister. Amazing.

Again, though, the whole thing collapses in on itself when it’s my regular partner, because he’ll never be a Mister to me. A ‘Mr Smith’ would sound like a sarcastic hint that we should get married someday, or a means of expressing my displeasure – it would never naturally indicate submission.

Name

That’s the one. The name. When asking ‘what should I call my Dom?’ the question itself feels nonsensical. Because I’ve never had a Dom, much as the sex-focused part of my brain would have liked one. Thing is, the sex part of my brain doesn’t always have the control – it’d be knackered and withered within a week if I let it run as rampant as it wants to go.

I’ve known deliciously dominant guys, and guys for whom holding a whip is a fun Friday-night activity but not something they’re deeply drawn towards. I’ve played with men who speak to me in German, and beat me with rigid and unrelenting authority. Men who have laughed when I’ve asked to be restrained and railed sarcastically at me as they hitch my skirt up and bend me over their knee. I’ve known guys whose feet I’ve wanted to fall at, naked and sobbing and begging them to hurt me in ways I’ve not imagined yet.

I really want to call them ‘Daddy’, or ‘Sir’. I am envious of the people in relationships where they can subdivide their play and make it – to my mind – more intense and all-encompassing. Where play is a deeper experience than the kind of casual tennis-match style of my own BDSM.

But ultimately, I’ve never ended up in the kind of relationship where it’d feel natural to call someone ‘Sir’ or ‘Daddy’ – even when he’s got his cock in the back of my throat and is taking swipes at my arse with a riding crop. When we’re in the pub, he’s [Name], and when we’re sitting on the sofa playing Fable 3 and arguing about whether we should have sex with the hairdresser, he’s [Name]. Beating me feels like an extension of the other stuff we do: different category, same tone.

What’s in a name? Everything.

When I do the washing up, I sing. It makes the chores less painful, and it means that for ten minutes or so, I can flush out the bit of my brain that won’t usually shut up: the bit that tells me I have a million things to do and that I shouldn’t be wasting time on showtunes.

Sometimes I can hit the high notes, and sometimes I wail off-key. The quality of the singing is not important: it’s about the fun.

And so, when my partner opens the kitchen door and pops in to put the kettle on, I need him to do something which goes against all of his immediate gut instincts at the time: I need him to not make me stop singing. No ‘cut it out’ gestures, raised eyebrows or putting his fingers in his ears: I need an absence of mockery or distaste. To not just to tolerate my fun, but to love it. He knows how to be the best boyfriend – he doesn’t have to sing along, or tell me I’m good enough to go on Xfactor (I’d be one of the people they feature in the ‘you’re having a laugh’ section early on in the show), because it’s not about the singing. He just has to love the things that make me happy, even if they make me look like a dick.

I appreciate that, when I’m halfway through the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, that is no mean feat.

Sing like no one’s listening

It’s really important though, because if you can love my enthusiastic singing, you can love all the other bits of me that might be annoying or tricky or unphotogenic. The way I snore and talk in my sleep, the panicked way I run through the station to make sure we’re ten minutes early for a train, the way I come home late at night and fling my shoes across the room before lying face-down on the carpet.

The way I fuck.

If you want me to fuck you like I really really want to, I need to be comfortable that you’re going to embrace it. No ‘euurgh’s or ‘what the fuck?’s or ‘I don’t think you’re doing that right’s. Embracing and loving the weird things as well as the standard ‘suck dick, sit on cock, orgasm, high five‘ things.

Sometimes men ask me how they can find a woman who is kinky and imaginative and open to lots of new things in bed. I have a much much longer post coming on this at some point, but my initial gut reaction is to tell them this:

You may already know one, but it’s possible she doesn’t want to tell you about her passions. Maybe she wants to sing loudly in the kitchen. Maybe she wants to dance at that wedding. Maybe she wants to get naked and hump you with enthusiastic passion in the middle of the living room floor. But she’ll struggle to do any of these things if she’s heard you laugh too loudly when she’s fucked something up.

A long time ago someone asked me if he should tell his girlfriend that she was bad at giving blowjobs. No – God no. Never. Because saying ‘you’re bad at this’ is the exact opposite of encouraging. We get told all the time that certain things are ‘not good enough’ – as well-meaning friends and relatives take metaphorical red pens to half of our lives. Don’t tell someone what they’re doing wrong – tell them how to do it right.

‘I love it when you do X’ will always be more effective than ‘you’re bad at Y.’ Because if you hurt someone over Y, they’re unlikely to try Z.

How to be the best boyfriend (partner, lover, whatever)

So, what’s the most important quality in a partner?

I think it’s enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for me and what I do, even when I do it wrong. Enthusiasm for trying again, and failing again, and laughing together on the sofa. Being as comfortable with someone’s quirks as you are with their successes. Let me sing in the kitchen, lie face-down on the carpet when I’m drunk, and whisper my weirdest fantasies in your ear.

Syrupy e-cards encourage us to ‘dance like no one’s watching’, but we know that someone usually is. If you want someone to really open up about their deepest fantasies, their most exciting secrets, and all the fun they’ve dreamed of having, you need to smile even through their fuck-ups. Don’t wince, or groan, or imply that someone’s failure means they should never have tried, or that their fun is less important than the way they come across: enjoy the times when they let themselves go, and do something for the sheer, sparkling fun of it.

No matter how bad I am at it, make sure I always want to sing.