Saturday night I played with a guy who, while incredibly cute and fun, was way too respectful. This is a ridiculous thing to criticize when you're engaging in violent sex acts with strangers (gosh, it sounds terrible when I put it like that!), but it reached awkward proportions.
"Is it okay if I touch your back? I don't wanna make any assumptions here. Alright, is it okay if I touch the back of your arms? If that's a limit I understand."
I felt like such a ho that my answer was constantly "yes." Wait... am I not supposed to want my back touched? Did he expect me to say no? Is that some people's limit? Do they have a good reason for that?
I suppose this attitude is infinitely preferable to making assumptions about what you can do with a stranger's body. Far, far be it from me to think anything like "a Dominant doesn't need to ask permission." And yet. There's gotta be a better way.
If it were me, I think I'd start out with "can I fuck you in the ass?" and work backwards. That avoids the ho-feeling and shows self-confidence. Much more polite.
in my exerpience... which i grant is not universal... people who are that "polite" aren't really into being a Top...
ReplyDeleteThat's precisely what I was thinking. Perhaps the next time (assuming you ever will) see him again, you start with your question. He might be into that.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like an awfully peculiar place to start the permissions, particularly if it was a known where y'all were headed. If there's going to be any kind of penetration going on, hand-on-arm seems like no-brainer, Top or no.
ReplyDeleteDenelian - Good tops are certainly polite, but when someone is over-solicitous, it makes me think they're either inexperienced or insecure.
ReplyDeleteScott - Righto. Will do.
Nash - There wasn't any penetration (possibly because he was terrified to even ask), but I feel like agreeing to play with someone still gives them implied free reign over anywhere but the swimsuit area.
There are reasonable number of disabled people and sufferers of chronic pain who practice BDSM. The back and arms can be common sites of pain and disability, and if he has experience in that department it might explain his hesitation.
ReplyDeleteJust to put a more charitable spin on things.
I see- my misunderstanding of the specific scene. Mea culpa.
ReplyDeleteThat being the case, I tend to agree. Lad was probably either inexperienced or unclear on the nature of being the dom. Or just chickenshit. Take your pick. ;)
Anonymous - Those were just examples, I mean he was asking about everything including many things no one would conceivably be offended by. I feel like asking "do you have any specific things I need to be aware of" covers disability issues more gracefully.
ReplyDeleteI've run into that kind of thing myself, though not in a kink context.
ReplyDeleteNot long ago, I'd have figured this dude had been traumatized by either a) applying his own obsessive-compulsive tendencies to feminist-derived principles of consent, or b) an encounter with a partner/potential partner with OC tendencies - a "Thou Shalt Get Explicit Consent For Each And Every Act" approach.
Taking about it in email convo with JFP suggested another theory: such behavior may be an attempt to make boundary-setting more trouble than it's worth. It's a suspiciously good fit with the Nice Guy(tm) argument that the principles of explicit consent are unrealistic and set the bar too high - in most instances where I've seen those arguments, a hypothetical scenario very similar to what you've described (again, usually less the kink) is often presented to illustrate the unfeasibility.
Either way. Mr Oversolicitous obviously doesn't know you very well - those who've been reading here for any length of time at all have figured out that "enthusiastic consent" is practically your middle name.
Sunflower
Sunflower:
ReplyDeleteY'mean it's not?
Holly? Your middle name's not "enthusiastic consent"?
Sunflower -- you're saying it's a passive-aggressive attempt at surpassing boundaries? I guess I can see how that might work in some cases, but Holly didn't give me the sense that this guy was so calculating. Or maybe she didn't explode with "Just stop asking!" the way he'd hoped.
ReplyDeleteDo you know how long he'd been topping? That might be a good thing to ask your future play partners. If someone is new, they may be very nervous and afraid of going too far. Perhaps a more experienced person would be a better match for you?
ReplyDeleteOr, maybe this guy was just nuts, or not really into it. Without more info, it's hard to say.
He may also have been experienced, but really into you, and gone sort of spastic out of nervousness. Perhaps he wants to see you again and didn't want to scare you off...
Bruno - not that it is, just that it might be - but, yup. IME, a lot of p-a types don't seem calculating - partly because a lot of them aren't, with the implications of conscious deliberation that implies; it's largely subconscious, and from their POV it's often a survival mechanism, not (consciously) a manipulation technique.
ReplyDeleteI did phrase it in a way that implied conscious calculation, though, which I shouldn't have, except that it's really hard to explain otherwise.
Sunflower