Fem Dom Calls

Darlings,
With permission of the author, the inestimable Jack Rinella, I am posting his column here for you to review, read and peruse. The man is a genius, plain and simple, and has always impressed me with his knowledge and his views of the BDSM culture. Moving forward, I will post his column here weekly for those of you interested in reading it.
I could never hope to be as well spoken as Mr. Rinella but I do aspire to be as knowledgeable.

 Enjoy!

for Issue number 34
Sunday, July 27, 2008

Curious Questions
By Jack Rinella

Christine is an experienced journalist, an author, and an excellent editor. She’s also a colleague who teaches where I do and has edited several of my books. In this case, as is my preference, I go for talent, not necessarily familiarity. Therefore Christine’s not in our scene, but as with most people doesn’t discriminate when it comes to doing business.

So it fell upon her to give a final editing to my “Dictionary of Scene-Friendly Terms.” She has returned the finished work and done her usual admirable job. If you find errors in the first edition, blame me, not her.

One of the delightful benefits of having her read the book is that she makes an occasional comment, not necessarily of an editorial nature, but just out of curiosity. As such, she brings a starkly different point of view. I find those remarks not only interesting but informative, in that they show how difficult it is for “the vanillas” to understand what we do and why. If we are ever to gain mainstream acceptance, understanding will have to proceed it.

So, Christine asks “How is a cross-dresser different from a transvestite?” Patrick and I don’t have a clear understanding of the linguistic differences being alluded to here, though we do agree on this: A cross-dresser wears the clothes of the opposite sex as a fetish, doing so on occasion and getting sexual satisfaction from it. A transvestite wears clothing of the opposite sex most of the time as an expression of their general sexuality. A female impersonator dresses in his/her role as a performer or entertainer. Now I’m not sure we have that right, but it sounds right to us. Perhaps those who wear clothes of the opposite sex ought to chime in here.

That answer, too, has been compounded by the more recent phenomenon of transexuality, wherein one changes not only the clothes but the body through the use of hormones and/or surgery.

“Was a tawse‚ really used in schools?” she asks. The Dictionary has an appendix of the names of whips and one of them is a tawse, defined as “A Scottish school whip with multiple straps (called fingers) used in schools. Can be two to six fingers or straps.” Yes, how quickly we forget that it wasn’t so long ago that corporal punishment was used in school as an incentive to correct behavior.

Which leads her to say “Dare I ask how one discerns the difference between appropriate punishment and abuse?” The short answer, of course, is negotiated consent. What the schools administered is called corporal punishment and though we used to call it that, more recently it is called impact play. Punishment may be called that when it’s not, such as in role-playing a naughty school girl.

D/s relationships, on the other hand, usually have some kind of negotiated form of punishment, where the dominant partner asserts his or her right to punish infractions of his rules and the submissive partner agrees to give him or her that right. For further information and a much longer treatment, find a copy of my “Becoming a slave.”

In another query, Christine asks: “When and how can a person tell that someone is interested in Leather but not in SM? Is it a costume choice then, or is there more to it? Or are they just bikers?” This was in reference to the entry on “Leatherman” taken from Race Bannon’s excellent book, “Learning the Ropes.” In part, he wrote “A Leatherman may, or may not, be interested in SM.”

For some the biker/cowboy attire is the attraction and the fetish, not sadomasochistic activity. I remember a delightful scene with a Leatherman who brought me home with him. The night was spent smelling, tasting, and feeling leather while we had delicious vanilla sex.

In response to an entry about masters, quoting Devon and Miller’s “Screw the Roses Send Me the Thorns” ,Christine asks “What distinguishes a master with ego from one without it?” Now there’s a hard one. I guess it’s a matter of attitude. In fact when you think about great BDSM, most of what counts (as long as one’s technique is passable) is what occurs between one’s ears. Mindlessness, selfishness, ego-centricity, pride, and haughtiness have no place in the best scenes. That said, we’re still left wondering about the devoted worship of a master by an abject and groveling sex slave. It really is difficult to answer all these questions concisely and clearly, isn’t it?

About another entry she says “This sentence is ambiguous. Do people pair up at a play party but not at an orgy?” In spite of appearances there is a lot about our alt.sex subculture that is fairly traditional, especially as it applies to public play. I’ve noticed, for instance, that the pansexual scene, though filled with hopeful singles, is much more attuned to couples and there is little public demonstration of affection or overt sex. In answer to her question, I guess I would clarify the sentence by noting that activity at a play party is generally restricted to one-on-one, though occasionally one will see two people topping one bottom.

The play at orgies, on the other hand, is much more free-flowing with frequent movement of the participants from one person to another. As an example I’ve never seen a daisy chain in a pansexual dungeon. What’s a “daisy chain?” A line of men connected by anuses and pricks, such that you anally fuck the man in front of you while getting fucked by the man at your rear. My first experience of this was in 1977, but honestly I cheated and only let the guy in back of my put his cock in my ass crack, not my fuck hole. OK — too much information.

Here’s a good one: “How can there be monogamy in a polyamorous relationship?” When you examine polyamorous relationships you find that it is a grouping of people with a wide variety of relationships among them. One can almost draw a diagram of all the couplings involved. So some couplings are platonic, some sexual in several ways, and some of the members are monogamous with one partner, who may be non-monogamous in return.

And lastly, “What makes a toy vanilla?” Many toys start out in life as having nothing kinky about them. Think spatula, for instance. However one can often pervert the object‚s original use (scraping frosting out of a bowl) into one that involves a fetish (using it in impact play). The answer, then, is that it was “born” vanilla and made spicy by a creative kinkster.

You can order your own copy of “The Dictionary” on my website at www.leatherviews.com/jackswriting/dictionary.htm. You can also hear this week’s podcast at leatherviews.libsyn.com. It features San Francisco-based kinky therapist David Ortmann.

Have a great week. You can leave me email at mrjackr@leathermail.com or visit my website where you can subscribe to this column and receive it weekly. Copyright 2008 by Jack Rinella, all rights reserved.

I do love Jack’s writings … and hope that all of you do as well … However, if any of you would prefer that I not post these columns, please let me know.