Mostly About Gender
» My Inner Life
I couldn’t quite get into the novel I was rereading this afternoon. Certain suspicions were nibbling at the back of my mind. What evaluations have my regular (semi-regular?) readers formed of me?
Two particular strains suggested themselves:
- I’m too good to be true
- I’m downright peculiar
“Good” in the sense that maybe I paint too self-flattering a portrait of myself. Especially as I’ve tended to write less about my more commonplace appetites as a masochistic man. Beautiful as those hungers are you can only say so much about them.
Even with the most honest intent possible when writing of yourself you inevitably create an artificial image. Not that I don’t intend to be as transparent as is within my power (honestly isn’t always easy, there are the problems of understanding yourself and transmitting that clearly). My focus on emotional health and clarity within D/s tends to focus on – forgive me – my strengths.
Were you to meet me in “meat space” - as old time hackers referred to life off the internet - you’d have a good chance to learn all my failings and flaws. (And I’ve cataloged my weaknesses on my more general site.)
I remain an idealistic as I was as a boy when thinking of intimate relationships. While this certainly puts me in the “nice guy” category there’s a real penalty: I’ve burnt myself badly in love. But I want unconditional romantic affection badly enough to continue to be willing to risk more injury. That is putting it mildly: I’ve thrown away years of my life recovering from love gone sour: foolish fondness for the wrong person or stupidity on my part …
So while the “nice guy” has by no means proven wise he is does exist.
That I’m often unsympathetic to certain strands of ‘Femdom’ traditions and theories is why I suggested that some of what you read here might strike you as odd.
It all has to do with gender.
As a boy I grew up – why I’m not sure – with very old fashioned chivalrous notions about women. I always gave up my bus seat, opened doors. In my late teens a female friend rebuked me for going out of my way for opening a door for her.
Until that moment I’d never given much thought to sexism. My momma was bright and worked. Most of my teachers were women. Not understanding that teaching was a typical choice for women at the time it just left me with an image of women as knowledgeable (well, depended on the teacher – I’m sure you know what I mean).
It had never occurred to me that women were more subjective, less capable of analytical thought. And while I opened those doors I never thought a woman needed my protection.
Women were just people.
Shape and biomechanics aside I saw no difference between male and female.
Now we come to the really quirky part.
While I’d lusted after girls (and boys) I decided that I was gay (not bisexual) and spent my late youth and earliest manhood as a gay man. There was no place in my life for heterosexual dating rituals. My friendships with females weren’t complicated by strategies for screwing them. (Which I suspect gives ordinary male/female relationships much of their distinct warp and woof.)
All that energy and calculation went into boys. Preferably feminine boys. I was a very sexist young queer. I got to be tall, hairy and strong and pamper pretty nelly twinks. (Not crossdressers nor was I interested in ‘feminizing’ the young men. I liked my sissy boys to be wholly boys.)
Then came the night. I’d been hanging out with a girl who had become one of my closest friends. Eternally blind to the idea that a female might have erotic significance in my life I’d never suspected her desire.
A little wine, some Thai sticks and I found myself inside her. The orgasm was as surprising as pleasurable. I’d made love to a woman and it was just as much fun as with a boy.
In my five years with her I did take the lead. Not because I was the man. She wanted a partner who would make life more interesting so we did as I suggested: for example, that we move from San Francisco to Manhattan. (In deciding I was being pleasing.)
Did I have any kinky thoughts? A few. I’d had them since I was a kid. But I was always so happy with my vanilla sex life that I’d never exerted myself to experience BDSM.
The relationship ended. We both made mistakes but I blamed myself (and still do: as the more mature of us I should’ve found a means for overcoming our problems).
My guilt partly steered me toward woman worship. My fantasy life became obsessed with cunnilingus and that somehow led toward images of adoring a woman. Eventually the whole panoply of F/m erotica swam into my ken.
Still I tend to think of women as just folks.
The women who’ve been my friends have tended to be educated, confident, compassionate. Just like my male friends.
There are two women whose friendship I value the most. One is a lawyer, she wears dresses and makeup. The other often works in construction and wears jeans and t-shirts. Neither conform to some silly feminine stereotype. They certainly don’t think they were born on the planet Venus.
So you people with your generalizations about heterosexuality. Your quaint and questionable strictures that female domination and male submission must be practiced according to some abstract rules stike me as being mighty peculiar.
For me womanhood is a form of beauty like a rose or sunset.
No need for half baked sociology or pop ethnology.
Share your feelings, opinions with me. What my hopefully not unfriendly reader do you think about all this?
Comments
Years ago, I never would have noticed her. She was not there then, because I was not ready for her. She came when I was restless, frustrated, bored with my self-imposed bondage of thought.
The mind has to mature in order to break free of our perceived societal restrictions. That’s when we find new pleasures, and new people to show us the way.
Scripted rules and regulations are not a part of our F/m relationship. The scenario is in her head and I surrender to it. Our understanding has matured to the point that we often abandon the physical restraints. Our imagination is much more powerful. She leads; I follow.
Years from now, perhaps this too will bore me, and if that day comes, another person will guide me to new pleasures.
The universe will send that person to me when my mind is ready to accept the opportunity.
Posted by: Jardonn | July 28, 2006 2:56 PM
Have you ever written about the beginning of your relationship with her?
Posted by: Richard | July 28, 2006 3:34 PM
It was in a pool hall. She was with another fellow, a casual acquaintance with whom I had played a few games of Rotation during an earlier visit.
My attention was drawn to her as someone who seemed a bit too sophisticated to hang out in a pool hall. Definitely someone on a higher level than the man she was with.
We never spoke that night. There was no introduction and soon my focus was completely on my table and my game.
A week later on the same night of the week, she came to the pool hall alone and watched me play. I was pursued and became her escort for the evening.
More later…
Posted by: Jardonn | July 28, 2006 10:50 PM
Thanks.
I’d meant to express my respect for your implicit acceptance that relationships aren’t always forever (even if we want them to be) and that life some times requires change.
Posted by: Richard | July 29, 2006 4:30 PM
Thank you for the comment, Richard.
I suppose that when I said I was pursued, it might be interpreted as unusual, but in my case, at least in the months leading up to this event, it was the norm.
Because my subconscious was yearning for something new and exciting, I gave off an air of indifference. This indifference presented a challenge for anyone who might find me attractive. It is also what attracted her to me.
She faithfully watched, as I was soundly and repeatedly beaten in games of 9-ball. In between two games, she brought me a can of soda identical to the one I had just emptied, and our conversation began.
Her sympathetic ears listened to me explain that I was much more skilled in games that required accuracy with clusters of balls, as opposed to singular, long-distance balls. It was and is the truth – not an attempt to machismo myself. By reminding me that she had seen me triumphant the week before, I never again felt the need to justify my shortcomings for her.
The eventual invitation was for me to join her in watching a movie at her apartment. I accepted with a mild enthusiasm, hoping that at the very least, this evening would pave the way for sex in the near future; at the most, sex that very night. Standard sex, no matter how mundane, is still preferable to no sex at all.
As you can tell, my mind was oblivious to the possibility of building a relationship with her or anyone else.
We did not watch the film in a normal way, but rather one particular scene. It was a movie of the old American west made in the 1950’s, and the scene was of an Army soldier who had been captured by Indians. (I know it’s Native Americans, but for movies of the old west, I’m sorry, it’s Indians.)
This soldier had been stripped of his shirt and was laying on the ground near the Indian village. He was tied to a long pole that rested below his shoulder blades. The appearance was that of a man on the cross before ascension, except that his still-booted ankles were roped and staked to the ground about two feet apart.
He was exposed to the sun, his body drenched in sweat, mouth and lips parched. He groaned with each exhale of breath.
Cut to night time. The bound soldier, body glistening from the light of a nearby campfire, is joined by another pale skin, who is dressed in buck skin. He holds a canteen of water, but rather than giving the soldier a drink, he uses the water to further torment. While the man stands above his victim, he tilts the canteen to pour a small trickle onto the soldier’s chest, then asks him to tell of the Army’s intentions.
Cut to a close-up of the soldier. His nipple takes nearly 10 percent of the screen and beads of water hang in his sweat-matted chest hairs. He flexes. He strains his arms against the pole beneath him and utters words of defiance. “I’ll never tell you, you damned renegade.” Then, he desperately strains his neck in a vain attempt to reach the beads of water on his chest.
The scene continues for another 30 seconds, as the interrogator continues to antagonize with questions and water. He then leaves the soldier to suffer through the night, and this is when she hit the rewind button. She replayed the scene, using freeze-frame to explain her reasons.
Clearly, she was introducing me to a stimulation unknown to me, and surely you know that the sex to come would be far from mundane.
More later…
Posted by: Jardonn | July 30, 2006 6:24 AM
Just wanted to get some info about that film. The title was Oregon Trail, released in 1959. It starred Fred MacMurray, who as I now recall was later staked to the ground right next to the soldier. The man who interrogated them was John Carradine.
Anyway, that was my introduction to role-playing with a female dom.
Posted by: Jardonn | July 31, 2006 2:31 PM