Solitude, why I need it

I do my best thinking, soul searching alone in the early morning, sometimes when I'm not quite awake. The solitude is a strange, lonely comfort when sorting through things. It doesn't judge, doesn't demand time, attention, it just is; as I should be. Within these all the brief moments I'm allowed to be vulnerable, weak, paranoid, scared, helpless, strong, whatever emotions I've bottled up since the last foray into solitude come to light.

I naturally tend to dote on the darker side of life - it calls to me often, singing its siren song, luring me to the jagged rocks where I would crash. Day-to-day life doesn't grant the luxury of that. Yes, it's a luxury. A luxury to be able to be pulled towards your fear. Not dwell in it, but be forced to see it up close and personal. Fear is strong, but becomes much weaker when it's seen in the light. So for me, being pulled towards it, whether against my will or willingly, is necessary and powerful. In those moments I find catharsis, tears, anger, despair, longing, regret, worry, depression, and anxiety. All of those feelings have power, over you, me, those around us - a power to stop some people, to propel others, and to paralyze some.  It's a choice whether I stay there, whether the sirens hold me against the rocks, where the storm of fear wreaks havoc on me. Sometimes I choose to stay for a while, sometimes I need that - need to feel those things so I can remember what they are, remember that once I strapped myself to those rocks and allowed the waves to crush me day after day, and that I'm not that person anymore. Revisiting the rocks is necessary so I never forget.
Equally important is leaving the rocks. Truly leaving them, knowing you won't need to be there for long. All things in life are temporary. Death has finality, but the living can choose to move on. Many of us kill ourselves, our spirits, on a daily basis, coming back for more, a grotesque groundhog day reliving our pains and fears all the time. We don't have to. We can choose a different course. Each day, each moment is an opportunity to not follow the sirens. I would say not hear, but we always hear them, we can simply choose not to follow. Make a different choice. It's like a muscle, we have to build it up and in the beginning we're too weak to do much, but in time, it get stronger.

It's only Twitter

I get it, it's ONLY Twitter, but how many times has Twitter kept each and every one of us sane? It's not "only" Twitter then, it's your lifeline. How many married people have found solace from a crumbling and unsatisfying marriage? How many sad and lonely people have found friendship and camaraderie? How many people have fucked someone from Twitter? Fallen in love from afar? Had their heart broken? Yet one is supposed to be comforted by it "only" being "Twitter" when we feel hurt by it. 

So Twitter is perfectly valid when it incites emotions that are positive, but it becomes illegitimate when they're hurtful feelings? I just want to get the rules right, because god forbid I do Twitter wrong.

I guess it's only Twitter when someone else is having a good time, and that good time has offended and/or hurt someone. Gotcha.

To diminish one's emotions is to rob us of the human experience. Overreacting and feeling butthurt is a critical component of living life. You know what's also a critical component of living life? Moving on from that hurt, from little hurts and big hurts and broken hearts and paper cuts to the heart, that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to learn and evolve and not stay stuck in those moments of pain, even when they take our breath away.

So yes, it's Twitter, but it's not only Twitter, it's a part of our lives, and our emotional reactions are valid, even when they're unreasonable. How can we learn from it if we dismiss it as "only Twitter?"

Connection, chemistry, emotion

This conversation happened on Twitter the other day, which got me thinking about connection, chemistry and emotion. We all have felt them (I hope) and they're required for an emotionally intimate relationship to take place, but what happens when it's one-sided, or when it's faked, maliciously or not? Or, in the scenario presented by this gentleman, that both parties desire it, but it's not there?

I've tried willing myself to love someone the way they do me, I've even lied to myself and my partner with the premise "fake it 'til you make it," all to disastrous results. And then when I do fall in love it's with someone 3,000 miles away, so yeah, things don't always work out how we wish.

The greater question is, how do we deal with this situation when it arises? The easy answer is be honest, but if we're really being honest, sometimes that's difficult to do if that means hurting someone else. As cold-hearted as many believe me to be, I am not, and it is extremely difficult for me to knowingly hurt someone. Let me clarify, it USED to be difficult for me, but now I know that the small pain at the beginning is a kindness to them, as opposed to lying to them, leading them on and then destroying their hearts. In a previous blog I had written a post on the song "Nothing" by The Script, not because I was writing from the perspective of the singer, but from the woman who said nothing in return to his reclamation of his affections and love for her. Sometimes nothing is the best gift you can give someone, so they can move on with their lives, away from something that doesn't have the chemistry for both parties.I find that when I focus on what's the overall long-term good, I can manage to do what might be impossible otherwise. 

If you happen to be the person who has the feelings but they're not returned, you have options, either you can pine away in an unhealthy manner with a wish and a hope that something will change (not recommended), you can sever all ties, or you can choose to be their friend if you can handle it. Not easy, I get that, but life is not known for being easy street. 

Then there's the situation my sweet Nancy and I are in, the one for which she's gotten so much support because it's clearly so unhealthy. Sorry.... I'm being bitter. For those not in the know (because this is old news to she and I), she's in love with me, I am not in love with her, I have a boyfriend that I do love, she's my best friend and I am hers, and she's my sub. Complicated, huh? It hasn't been easy for either of us, but though the chemistry wasn't there for me, which dictated her kind of love, I do love her, very much, and didn't want her to be out of my life. I gave her every option and plenty of time to decide, and it was an incredibly painful time in both of our lives, and it still is painful from time to time. It gets easier as time goes on, and I still work to focus on the bigger picture so we can maintain healthy boundaries and a healthy relationship, which sometimes means I don't do certain things that she would like. It would have been wrong and overall more hurtful to both of us if I had lied and tried to fake the kind of romantic relationship she desired.

Connection, chemistry and emotion, any one of them can exist in each and every relationship we have. Think about it. We have to feel connection and emotion with our friends, or else we wouldn't want to be around them, care for them, root for them, boo their villains, it's just the emotion stops short of where chemistry takes us over the hump. These essences are all around us, all around those with whom we surround ourselves, if we're willing to look.

Podcast - Dominance & submission

On @The_Love_Bite, @ServiceSlut and I discuss how Dominance and submission can be situational and relational, as well as how there is a sliding scale of this relational D/s, and how we've experienced it in our own lives.

http://www.skidrowstudios.com/the-love-bite/2012-11-25/10808/the-love-bite-11252012-dominance-submission

Podcast - Healthy Boundaries in D/s

ServiceSlut and I talk about the importance of emotional boundaries in D/s. We share many deep, personal experiences to highlight how we've come to understand, or not understand our own boundaries.

http://www.skidrowstudios.com/podcasts/thelovebite_120902_150000_SRS001.mp3

Podcast - the psychology of BDSM

We discuss the psychology of BDSM from us as nonprofessionals


http://www.skidrowstudios.com/podcasts/thelovebite_120708_150000_SRS001.mp3

Psychology of BDSM

BDSM gets a bad rap by most vanilla folks, which is probably why we stay sequestered in our own comfortable world surrounded by fellow kinksters. Who wants to be negatively judged all the time, for something many of us feel are a part of who and what we are, and do it as safely and sanely as possible with extensive negotiation and consent? Even the most fervent humiliation whore that I know doesn't want that. Just like any group that's deemed socially unacceptable, we simply want to do our thing in peace. 


The societal opinion of BDSM plummets even further when we delve into the psychological profession. Seriously, these people think and work to quantify everything that's bad about kinksters. 


Let's start with Sexual Sadism. Honestly, you'd think any Dominant was a molester, rapist and murderer all wrapped up in one after reading this stuff. "Sexual sadism refers to the derivation of sexual pleasure from the infliction of pain, suffering and/or humiliation upon another person. The pain and suffering of the victim, which may be both physical and psychological, is pivotal to the sexual arousal and pleasure."  The ICD-10 (World Health Organization, 1992) defines sadism as "preference for sexual activity that involves bondage or infliction of pain or humiliation." - Stephen J. Hucker, MB, BS, FRCP(C), FRCPsych 


It's interesting how psych (I accidentally misspelled that "psycho") professionals parsec things for their benefit and to support their preexisting theorems about things. Did you notice in that definition that there was no mention of consent? That's because the consent component is for Sexual Sadism Disorder. "A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent and intense sexual arousal from the physical or psychological suffering of another individual, as manifested by fantasies, urges or behaviors. B. The individual has acted on these sexual urges with a NONCONSENTING (caps by me for emphasis) individual, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning." So one can be a sexual sadist (which they still categorize as a paraphilia, so bad), but that doesn't necessarily mean one suffers from the associated disorder. The disorder has several components that make it difficult to quantify, such as "intense sexual arousal" and "marked distress or impairment," which make it completely subjective. (How psychology is considered a science is beyond me, it lacks reliability, as one can hunt for their conclusion based on prejudices and often there is no quantifiable repeatability. Please note I LOVE psychology, I just view it as a nonscience science.) The point being that I personally don't get an "intense sexual arousal" from my play in BDSM, nor has it had a "marked distress or impairment" in my life. There are certain kinds of play that naturally illicit sexual arousal, but no means can you take something as vast and varied as BDSM and make blanket statements such a this. Additionally, the mere thought/fantasy of these acts can result in a diagnosis of Sexual Sadism Disorder. This makes me think of various religious overtones, original sin, inherited sin, etc... If one doesn't act on the thought, it's merely a thought. How many of us have actually thought about hurting someone? You know, that boss you can't stand, the coworker that drives you crazy, your spouse? Let's be honest, the thought is real, but we resist it so for all intensive purposes we're still "good" according to many societal standards.


I stumbled upon a fantastic study. "Psychological Functioning of BDSM Practitioners" by Pamela H. Connolly, PhD. It's by no means an exhaustive study, as the participant numbers are low, but there are several items that caught my attention, debunking many of the current psychological beliefs. To summarize (as best as someone as verbose as me can), the current beliefs from sources such as Freud, Kinsey, and others that have less famous names are that people that participate in BDSM have a higher rate of: depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, pathology, narcissism, and paranoia. Whoa. Lock us all up. Now. Clearly we're batshit fucking crazy. No wonder there's such a fear about being affiliated with BDSM amongst psychological professionals. The Connolly study debunked much of the previous assertions; however, it highlighted several other components that seem logical to me as a BDSM practitioner and observer of human nature.


First off, there's no significant difference in levels of depression, anxiety, OCD, PTDS, pathology or paranoia. Those that identified themselves as mostly submissive ranked higher on the Beck Anxiety Inventory, though when asking these questions telling participants to not focus on their BDSM activities, these individuals were no more anxious than preexisting norms. The difference is that submissive's behaviors can appear to be anxiety, e.g. when a submissive (in the BDSM world, not specifically a submissive personality type) is "playing" their actions come off as anxiety because their behavior exhibits components of fear. In my opinion, this is a conditioned response to play where the bottom (or submissive) gets to safely enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear within the safe confines of pre-negotiated play, where they know they'll be safe from actual harm. It's a rather intelligent way to have your cake and eat it too; social Darwinism. Additionally, this reactive, cultivated behavior can enable a bit of trauma therapy, thus limiting the actual psychological impact the false anxiety produces (which is controversial at best). The overall point being, these individuals don't suffer from anxiety at the rate any greater than the larger populace. 


Another area where there was a statistically significant difference was histrionicism and narcissism in Dominants. So... well yeah those might be applicable. I do believe that this is also cultivated and sometimes Pavlovian, as the specific areas of histrionicism are highly appealing in a Dominant. Histrionic specifically means "of or pertaining to actors," whereas Histrionic Personality Disorder specifies that this kind of flamboyant public exhibitionism extends to the use of seduction for dramatic effect, manipulation and/or attention. So basically, twitter. These behaviors are highly regarded by Dominants, submissives, celebrities, politicians, and most anyone in a position of power. Though attaching it to a preconceived negative idea that BDSM naturally equates to sexual sadism means that when a Dominant exhibits histrionic behavior they're bad. The reality of the situation is that most A Type personalities have a load of histrionic behaviors, this doesn't make them innately bad nor evil. 


It's the judgement that's affiliated with those four little letters: BDSM that create all this unnecessary negativity and angst for some. There is more communication, negotiation and awareness in BDSM than there is in the vanilla world, the "normal" world. This increased communication can only be psychologically positive, so it's trite and an overgeneralized simplification to categorize all kinksters with a negative brush. 


We, the kinksters (in my opinion, which since it's my fucking blog it's all my opinion) are as sane as anyone else is in this crazy, messed up world. Our actions are over-scrutinized, which naturally will lead to a discovery of identifying behaviors that prove or disprove any given theory. Left to our own devices we'd continue our kinky paths continuing our subculture's evolution. We're not crazy, we're evolved, more deeply connected dually to the animalism and intellectualism that make up human beings. Our expanded understanding grants many kinksters a greater ability to become psychologically whole.




I am not a psychologist, nor in the field of psychology. These opinions are my own based on research I've read and my own personal observation. It's definitively non clinical, except for studies cited.