Those of you who know me know I love comedy almost as much as I love dick. Anyone with the ability to make me laugh gets bonus attractiveness points and most likely a large slice of my heart. So I’m delighted to welcome this week’s guest blogger. RB is a stand-up comic who struggles with one of the eternal dilemmas: how do you keep a straight face when something sexy also makes you want to burst out laughing? Sex and stand up comedy wouldn’t have struck me as a natural pairing – I’m a notoriously miserable twat when it comes to laughter during sex, and as a general rule if you giggle when I’m naked I will burst into horribly unattractive tears and order you out of the bedroom. But thinking about some of the stranger things we do in pursuit of orgasm, I have to admit RB’s got a point: sometimes we are hilarious creatures.
Sex and stand up comedy
*SLAP*
‘Oh…FUCK.’
‘When I spank you, what do you say…?’
‘Um…’
‘Well, little slut?’
‘I don’t know, what DO I say?! This is sex, not Mastermind!”
And we collapse into giggles, in a sweaty, semi-clothed heap, and the moment’s gone.
When I first became interested in BDSM recently, I thought the greatest conflict it would present would be with my feminism. How, after all, could you campaign for sexual autonomy and equality, then be completely dominated in the bedroom, and called all sorts of names you’d seethe with anger at in the outside world?
Obviously, I realised quickly that it chimes perfectly with feminism; you can do whatever you damn well please in the bedroom with a consenting and understanding partner, whether it be being beaten with a riding crop, pissing on someone (I’ve heard that’s a thing…), or straightforward missionary in the dark.
No, the biggest conflict I’m experiencing; being a sub and being a smart-arse.
I’ve been performing stand-up comedy for over a year. I’m a fledgling but I’m pretty damn good. I also perform spoken word poetry and improv – I feel I could, just about, call myself a ‘comic’ without sounding like a massive arse. It’s my life; I love it, I’m good at it, and I want to make it into a living someday. But with this, my personality has shifted into one of ‘tiny loud clown’; I take very little seriously and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make people laugh (including strangers). If I can find an acceptable opportunity to take the piss, I’ll take it. So, how on earth am I meant to react when a man pulls me onto his knee and slaps my arse, again and again, whispering very low, ‘fucking jailbait.’
A handful of people that I’ve spoken to have assumed I’m a domme, and I can understand why. I’m loud and confident to the point of hyperactivity (off-set by the occasional depressive episode where I stay in bed for two days, cry and cannon ball Pringles tubes). I’m very argumentative and opinionated, and I talk about sex, in and out of stand-up, with a frequency and volume which amuses and alarms people in equal measure.
But, BUT, this is the thing. Performing is exhausting. Commanding an audience’s attention can take all your nerve, courage and confidence; and I do an awful lot of it. When I get to the bedroom with someone; to relinquish control, to hand over the keys, is such a relief. It’s like taking your shoes off at the end of the day. I can relax. I’m in someone else’s hands. And oh, what capable hands they can be. As refreshing as it can be for a loud little idiot like me to quiet down and obey orders, it’s equally fun to watch a soft-spoken, polite, unassuming person take the command they might not otherwise have in their everyday life; to watch them transform into a beast who’s going to fucking have you – use you and bite you and turn you into a panting wreck.
‘God, you’re so fucking wet, you little slut. You want me to untie you? You want me to fuck you? You want to feel my cock inside you, do you?’
‘…yes.’
‘Yes, WHAT…?’
‘Yes, sir. Oh, fuck, FUCK…’
Keeping in character is tricky. Sex is never like the movies. There are knees slamming into faces, narrow beds to fall off, crap knots, sneezing. Having to move out of a kneeling position during a spanking because you desperately need to blow your nose. Hearing the word ‘balls’ and bursting out laughing. Just realising the absurdity of the entire situation and failing to take it seriously. I’m a beginner, and I’m still stumbling through a sea of spankings and commands and filthy hard limit lists, and I’m still going to get the giggles. Occasionally I worry that I won’t be able to stop; I’ll degenerate into a pile of hysterical laughter, those fits that make your stomach ache and tears leak out of your eyes, and I’ll totally undermine the person that I’m with.
But, when you’re on your knees with your wrists tied in front of you, and he’s behind you, fucking you in short, hard strokes; slapping your arse with an open palm, chuckling darkly as you gasp at the sound, and the quick burst of pain, calling you a ‘filthy…little…BITCH.’ and you feel as if you might either come or go absolutely fucking mad…
…it’s hard to make a joke. Or make any noise at all, except to moan, and to swear, and to scream.
12 Comments
…what the fuck happened to all your comments?
What do you mean?
Yes! I can soooo relate to this. I love my partner to dominate, but being a gobby feminist smartarse I also often make it hard for him. Sometimes he punishes me for breaking rules, making smart comments or for giggling as I escape from poorly tied cuffs / ropes. It soon shuts me up and I love this!
Other times my ‘master’ sees the funny side and we both collapse laughing. I love this too! Sex is a game and it’s meant to be fun. If you can laugh once in a while it opens up the door to experimentation. Which is the best fun of all.
Relate to this so much from the other side: it’s always a great moment when the laughter takes over after some sassy comment from an uppity bottom :-) Always bring it back to the point eventually, of course, but it’s supposed to be fun one way or another, right?
“I’ll degenerate into a pile of hysterical laughter, those fits that make your stomach ache and tears leak out of your eyes” See, I can’t see that as undermining, because I feel having the power to reduce a person to that state (Domly arrogance/assumptions to the front, there) is almost as awesome as the rest of it. I have had occasion to just stand and watch with a slightly amused smile on my face as I waited for someone to get control of themselves after such a fit of laughter. Then with a simple remark (e.g. “There. Better now?”) set it all off again…
The apparently feminist “you can do whatever you damn well please in the bedroom with a consenting and understanding partner” that I read again and again and again from sub women does strike me as a bit of a cop out. Now, of course it’s true that you should enjoy whatever the fuck you want without guilt or judgement, but no one ever seems to ask why these things are done in the first place i.e the highly misogynist language.
I don’t think its a cop out at all. My wife is a successful professional woman, she is the primary breadwinner in our household and is very forthright in her views on equality etc, she kept her own name when we wed as well. It is probably fair to say that if you analysed our relationship in everyday life she would be the dominant one and I would be the more submissive, although I wouldn’t personally use those words in that context.
However when it comes to the bedroom she loves nothing more than to be bent to my will and called a whore. Its total role-play, – make believe. I don’t really think she is a whore, in fact I’m even friends with an actual professional whore in real life it I’ve never had a problem with it. When a child plays cowboys and indians with their friends at school, they don’t really give credibility to the notion that they are re-inacting a period of ethnic cleansing, nor do we as parents. We let them have fun pretending, which is exactly the same when I dominate my wife.
Besides, the real power is with her – If she said stop, that would be it – vanilla sex life from then on, no questions asked. It is her choice to be submissive and her desire to be treated in that way – why? It just turns her (and me) on, and that is all there is too it.
I do hear what you are saying however. The implication seems to be that people wouldn’t have these desires if there wasn’t a misogynistic culture to start with and yes, this might be a symptom of that, if not – possibly an attempt to some how take control of the problem. But it isn’t causing misogyny and nor is it perpetuating it, if anything its those of us whom are enlightened about the problems with misogyny who play about with it, safe in the knowledge that by swimming in its filth while in control of its dangers we are breaking down its boundaries and contradictions.
I agree with much of what codex says, and I’ll also chip in a brief thing I’ve written on this before http://www.girlonthenet.com/2012/01/15/on-degradation-and-respect/
I’m not really sure what you’re pissed off about though – the fact that much of our fantasy springs from uncomfortable places, or the fact that we enjoy these fantasies, or….? If you can elaborate a bit I’ll have more of a think about it.
I was just making the vague point that WHY these things are enjoyed is never asked or explored. “I like what I like” seems to be the extent of it. Which is fine, but it’s a sentiment made under the presumption that sex takes place in a societal vacuum. WHich of course it doesn’t. That’s all I’m saying really.
Ah, I see. OK. I don’t think they’re never explored – it’s something I try to explore a fair bit. Not just what is hot but why it’s hot – often the answer does just seem to be ‘because I like it’, but I agree that much of what we like may well stem from the fact that things are taboo, or that society has certain expectations of us. Thing is though, even if we can say that perhaps X is sexy because we’ve been brought up to believe Y, the fact that we recognise that won’t stop X being sexy – it might make us more aware of our sexuality but even if your rational mind can say ‘I only like getting spanked because I believe Y’ that rational realisation will no more make me not like getting spanked than the rational realisation that ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’ will stop me being emotionally affected by a break up. I’ll try to have more of a think about this and write something a bit more in-depth – it’s an interesting point.
I looked in to why people sexualise things a little bit and from my limited understanding a lot of the time we sexualise certain topics in order to protect ourselves from them. If that is true, by recognising that misogyny is a bad thing we can loosen its power by playing around with its precepts in a safe environment. Now, I don’t think that by calling your wife a dirty slut is going to change women’s lives exactly but personally it does reinforce our own values to each other in a sort of pseudo-ironic role-play, and in that respect its a hugely affirming shared experience to us as a couple.
The topic of taboo is interesting. Since breaking a taboo is a psychologically dangerous thing to do I think its a simple matter of thrill seeking – your body will respond to breaking a taboo chemically and emotionally and if you find those physical responses make sex more interesting you will pursue them, resulting in the formation of sexual preferences. Some people will be satisfied with that for a sustained period of time, while some will require a degree of ‘upping the ante’ in order to maintain the thrill. I think breaking a taboo such as being outrageously misogynistic is a mixture of these two things, – creating a responsive thrill based on perceived danger and simultaneously making that danger safe with a trusted partner knowingly sharing in a shared opinion of the real world. (that you don’t mean it really and misogyny is really horrible)
To summarise, its hot because you both know whats really happening and are sharing something unsaid. Psychologically you are creating an environment of trust, shared values, mutual secrets and safety. Physically the rest is just physical tricks, be it restraint, sensory deprivation, anticipation etc etc etc.
(just as an aside – as I’m aware the above is a fairly cold way of analysing sex, when it comes down to it, I’m fucking feral. ;-)
So glad I’m not the only smartass newbie sub out there…I was starting to think maybe I wasn’t cut out to be one but now I can relax and enjoy my Daddy & my Sir knowing that its okay to get silly with them. Thank you!!
Again, warmest thanks for living my truth, and articulating it so beautifully.