Different Loving

by William Brame

  —-j-

  Some are drawn primarily to the physicality of whipping. For them, it is not a spiritual trial but a physical challenge.

  My favorite thing of all is flogging. Both receiving and giving. It’s very physical to give the flogging, and receiving it is very cool, crisp—it’s a great, refreshing feeling. When giving, I put my martial-arts [skills] into it and really throw my hip in. That’s a very satisfying feeling. You wear yourself out.

  —ADIDA

  SAFETY

  D&Sers often demonstrate safe whipping techniques at support group meetings so that novices or less experienced dominants can learn to avoid inflicting real damage. Safety demonstrations are a key element in the D&S community’s educational outreach. Learning the appropriate use of every implement takes time and ever-increasing skill. Some dominants experiment with new equipment by testing it on themselves first, striking their thighs or arms to evaluate the weight and sting of each implement before using it on their submissives. Others claim that the best training is to “work from the bottom up” by submitting, to gain firsthand knowledge of the bottom’s range of physical and emotional feeling.

  A dominant who is not in control of self first is not only not a very smart partner to choose, but is also somebody who won’t enjoy this stuff anywhere to the fullness of [his] capacity. That’s one of the reasons I believe good tops statt on the bottom.

  —MITCH KESSLER

  In conversations with practitioners, a recurring complaint was that rash newcomers and those who do not grasp the subtleties of slowly arousing erotic tension are likely to cause harm.

  When I first entered into formal submission, I was back-shy. I had a bad experience where someone used a riding crop incorrectly across my shoulders, and as a consequence, whenever something touched my back, I would flinch and tense up.

  —LAURA ANTONIO

  Inflicting damage, even accidentally, is viewed with repugnance in D&S circles. Trust is the key component of all heavy play: The submissive trusts that the dominant knows how to use the equipment, knows when to stop, and does not cause undesirable pain. When affirmed, such trust deepens the couple’s bond; abuses destroy relationships. The trust, however, goes both ways: The submissive has to know that the dominant will respect his limits, and the dominant has to know that the submissive will communicate what he is feeling.

  I’m not a top with an agenda: “I’m going to beat your ass, then I’m going to make you kiss my boots, and you will call me master.” No. That’s throwing half of the experience away. Here’s a new person. What’s going to work with them, on them, for them?

  —MITCH KESSLER

  I am a responsible bottom. I don’t want to feel pain! I want to feel pleasure-pain. So I let [my top] know when it becomes pain, so he can make it less intense or switch to another part of the body, or switch implements.

  —JEAN L.

  Once the area being whipped is sufficiently stimulated, the dominant may select a more severe piece of equipment, again gradually building the intensity. This allows the submissive to stretch his pain limits and accept a higher degree of stimulation. As the severity of the blows increases, ensuring that none miss their mark is vital: Bad aim can cause serious harm.

  The rule of thumb is that any area close to sensitive organs must be avoided. Thus, buttocks and upper thighs are preferred; the upper back, though popular, requires a conservative approach. Whipping skin to the point of cutting into the epidermis is known but uncommon, particularly in the era of AIDS and concerns about the dangers of disease transmission through open wounds. Serious injury or infection from whipping is virtually unknown in the D&S communities, where individuals educate themselves fully on the inherent risks.

  Finally, many interviewees emphasized the importance of sobriety. Alcohol or drugs impair a dominant’s judgment and physical abilities, and most players refuse to submit to anyone who is not in complete control of her or his faculties.

  IMPLEMENTS

  Virtually anything can be used to whip.

  When I first started playing in private, my lover and I were using a rubber flyswatter, a rice paddle, stuff from the kitchen.

  —MITCH KESSLER

  In the D&S communities people typically either make their own equipment or purchase equipment expressly fabricated with safety and sensuality in mind.

  I have a number of whips that were made specifically for my height and weight and the way that I balance.

  —LAURA ANTONIO

  D&S couples often designate particular equipment for specific punishment scenarios or, conversely, for specific reward scenarios. For those who enjoy the ritualistic aspects of punishment, these designations may be crucial to their enjoyment.

  Listed below are the major sorts of implements used by D&Sers in whippings. Over time most have seen scores of design innovations.

  Birch: The slender, supple branch of the birch tree is popular among traditionalists and is used, singly or in a bunch, for stinging whippings.

  Bullwhip: This tired cliché of sadomasochism is actually rarely used, because, unless the person wielding a bullwhip has seriously practiced technique, it will cause serious injury. A bullwhip consists of a single braided leather shaft, roughly six feet long at a minimum, and narrowing to a lash at one end. Some D&Sers may carry a bullwhip because they enjoy its shock value, others like to make it crack during scenes, but very few dominants will risk its use for whippings.

  Cat-o’-Nine-Tails: Familiarly known as a “cat,” this tool has a sturdy handle from which dangle “tails” (thongs) of varying lengths and densities. Materials include silk, deerskin, nylon, leather laces, and rubber. Real felines may have nine lives, but the contemporary versions of these whips seldom have nine thongs.

  Crop, or Riding Crop: Used in horse training, the crop has a long sturdy handle that holds a flexible, narrow shaft usually covered in braided nylon or leather.

  Devil’s Hand: So called because it has several broad fingers, the devil’s hand is a leather paddle.

  Dressage Whip: Normally used to train horses in precision movement, this whip features a long, flexible shaft and a lash usually made of leather or nylon.

  Feathered Bat: This type of paddle has a handle and a single shaft. The shaft is covered in lightweight leather flaps that resemble feathers.

  Flexible Cane: Canes come in a plethora of styles and materials, from natural (bamboo) to synthetic (fiberglass), and may have a curved handle like a walking cane or may simply be a rod. For safe usage, a cane must be fairly flexible.

  Penis Whip: A small cat with short handle and lashes. It is used for close whipping of limited areas, such as genitalia or nipples.

  Quirt: This variation on a riding crop is tipped with a leather tongue.

  Rope: This material is generally considered too mundane to serve as an implement for whipping. In bygone days, however, hemp rope—unraveled and stiffened in saltwater—was used to punish miscreants aboard sailing vessels.

  Rubber Flogger: Rubber is a material of choice among many floggers, because of its high impact and the fetishistic interest in rubber. It is designed like a cat but has solid rubber tubes in place of lashes.

  Scourge: This would be an identical twin to the cat save for additional embellishments: The tips of the lashes may be weighted with lead or beads, or the lashes may be knotted.

  Stopper: This leather paddle originated in equestrian sport to deliver a light blow while startling the horse with a loud noise. Two long and heavy pieces of leather are sewn together at the handle. One piece of leather strikes the other upon impact.

  Strap, or Belt: The original leather straps used for school discipline in Victorian times are now collectors’ items. Modern replicas vary. Some people use leather belts instead of straps, but the advantage of the strap is that it has no attached hardware and therefore poses less risk of accidental injury.

  Tawse: This leather paddle is made of a solid piece of heavy leather which is slit longitudinally at least once or mo
re so that the implement leaves thin marks on the skin at each split.

  INTERVIEWS

  MITCH KESSLER

  I’m bisexual. I’m switchable. Most of my primary relationships have been with women. There’s an attraction to particular men and somewhere way down the list of importance, a general potential for attraction to men, but it’s not as strong or as clear as my attraction for women. I’m more bisexual in S&M play, which I see as less intimate than genital sex.

  My original reasons for getting involved in the New York S&M scene had more to do with the belief that the people who I would meet in that scene—very specifically at the Eulenspiegel Society—were somehow more intelligent, more articulate, better read, and morally superior to the people that I might meet in a bowling league. I’d say this belief is about three-quarters true. It has stood a certain amount of reality testing.

  The friend who introduced me to the Scene and taught me my manners and a few other things, comments that the wonderful thing about S&M is it makes sex so complicated. I like complicated, complex sex. As far as I’m concerned, three quarters of an hour is a quickie. I also like group sex, and in many ways, the S&M that I’m into substitutes for that. I call D&S S&M largely because it’s the older term that I’m involved in reclaiming. I really like to underscore the essential health and nonviolence of S&M. Whether you call it S&M, D&S, B&D, [or] fantasy roleplaying, it comes down to consent and sensuality, and play between lovers. This is essentially a normal set of feelings acted on by fundamentally normal, functional people.

  People think that the sadomasochist can only receive gratification through [S&M]. I have not met many people of whom that was true; I have met a great many for whom this is part of what they do. My perspective is [that people shouldn’t] be frightened by the word. If you pick up a flyswatter and paddle your lover’s backside, this does not mean that in five years you’re going to be dressing in black leather and pleasuring your lover with a cattle prod. People find their own levels. This is about pleasure and about communications. This is about all that good stuff that genital sex is supposed to be about. It’s just another way of getting there.

  [Someone once asked the] question: If, by some bizarre situation, the choice was giving up S&M or leaving the country, what would you do? Nobody could really answer that honestly, including me. If this avenue of expression were completely cut off, it would be a serious deprivation, but having been through the experience of readjusting to safer sex, I figure I could handle it. My initial reasons for getting into overt S&M play had to do with old age—the thought that this is a form of sexuality I don’t have to give up. I remember a renowned dominant in New York who had a progressive nervous disorder which eventually took his life. All the time I knew him he was confined to a wheelchair. But he was able to function as a dominant psychologically and physically from that position. This means a lot in terms of the self-esteem that comes from sexuality.

  There was a very long period when I internalized social norms concerning S&M, believing it had to do with bad things and funny clothes. It was not part of me, except [for] that little element of what a sophisticate would recognize. [For example,] a girlfriend who couldn’t wait for her pubic hair to grow back so I could “forcibly” shave it off her, which would be followed by extremely hot sex. [Or] another who had such powerful orgasms that she “had” to have her wrists restrained with ropes. I did not think of any of this as having a name. These were just things about my partner that I came to enjoy and didn’t think about it twice.

  S&M has been very, very good to me. Because I am open, I have gotten a lot of public recognition from people who I want recognition from. It has done a great deal for taking the surreptitious power games of ordinary life and stripping away the camouflage. The whole idea of articulated consent has been very useful in relationships, whether in momentary relationships with a salesperson or a long-term love affair. [I now know] at a gut level that there is such a thing as consent to domination as well as a will to power. Also realizing that there is nothing inherently shameful in submitting has made it possible to yield an argument point more quickly than I might have before I got into this. I never practiced the skills of negotiation as effectively before doing S&M. If you can negotiate a sexual scene and say, “What exactly do you mean by that? What do you expect? What will you give in return?” you can negotiate anything. There’s a lot of empowerment on a lot of levels; a lot of clarity that I wasn’t able to get at through the psychoanalytic models. [And there is] increased self-esteem, increased self-assurance. And one other thing: Prior to getting involved in [S&M], I had a serious premature ejaculation problem, which vanished almost immediately when I started taking pain.

  I’m dominant rather than submissive, largely because sensually, as well as psychologically, I have an aggressive and dominant personality. I am proud, willful, even touchy, with very, very strong will to power in my makeup. It is hard for me to give myself over to somebody else, and it’s a lot easier to do it in the context of the rituals of S&M than, say, the rituals of the corporate world. It’s easier for me to call somebody “sir” because I’m getting sexual pleasure from him than to call him “sir” because he signs my paycheck.

  In terms of S&M, I guess my favorite is whip work, actually, flogging, flogger work. Let’s talk a little bit about equipment. A whip allows you to reach out eight [to] ten feet. A cat is between 24 and 27 inches long. Twenty-seven inches long is a show whip for public. A bedroom cat might be 18 inches long. I’m getting fonder of the Western-style flogger, which is a big, bushy bundle of soft leather. It’s a lot of thump, not a lot of bite, and people respond to this sensually rather easily. The real payoff is the sensual response of the partner. I get the most success with soft whips, but then, close on comes flexible paddles and doubled-over straps. “Pigs in the barn” is what I call it—imparting a rosy color to the shoulders or to the ass. [There’s so much] sensuality involved in that: the wriggling, the [submissive’s] enjoyment, the visual of watching the color change, the tactile of feeling the heat this produces, the kinesthetics of the swing and the hit, the verbal interchange that goes on. And under it all a feeling of power and of mastery of myself, of the situation, and of this person. That’s something we [often] skip when we talk about this: The first mastery is of self.

  These days, getting a beating is not one of the things I like best. I don’t expect to be able to get as good as I am capable of giving. People travel great distances to be beaten by me because I’m very tuned into the responses of my partner. If they don’t finish in a state of real gratitude and real subjection, I didn’t do well. There aren’t many people who can do that for me. There are people who are just plain able to absorb huge amounts of hitting. I cannot. If I am hit with the cane once, I will scream; I’m not playacting. To me, that is nothing but pain. A top can’t just whale away at me and expect to get anything but my saying, “Cut that shit out.” So I guess one of the reasons I like top rather than bottom is that it’s a question of expectations. I don’t expect to enjoy being topped as much as I expect to enjoy and give enjoyment when I top.

  [Still] I’d rather bottom to the ideal top [than top the ideal bottom]. Bottoming is a direct sensual experience. The top is responsible for pleasuring me; all I have to do is experience it. Getting away from the hypothetical, the reality of my life is that I am lovers with a woman who is just about as good on top as I am and is very close to my idea of the ideal bottom when she wants to [be]. We have an egalitarian relationship outside of this and a switchable one in the context of S&M. We go through phases of fighting for top and fighting for bottom. Each of us wants more time being dominated or doing the dominating than is actually working out. This is not a complaint. It’s a humorous observation about the give-and-take of a long-term relationship.

  Somebody tried to buy the first whip I made off my hand in the middle of a scene. I made a few and sold them, and for a while I made whips out of nylon cord, because another hobby of mine is sailing. I spent a l
ot of time waiting for the wind and practicing knots. I used my marlin spike skills. I also remembered that getting hit with a coil of line could be a very moving experience—it could move you right overboard. So I started working with stuff based on looped nylon with turk’s heads, and a French whip handle, which is still my basic look—the Sir Adam whip look. Then a friend wanted me to make a whip for him from deerskin. That was the first leather that I worked. Deerskin is a particularly difficult material to work with, because it stretches when you cut it. That took away my fear of working leather.

  By this time I had something of a following. I put together a mail-order catalogue, placed a few ads, and did a number of things that people really liked. My central approach to building an implement of affection is [that] it’s supposed to feel a certain way. It’s supposed to be extremely sensual. When I make something out of cabretta leather, you can hit somebody with that anywhere but the eyeball. My first love in equipment building is for stuff at the sensual end, the mild equipment. I sell my equipment categorized by strength—mild, medium, and severe; some stuff is also marked sensual or atrocious. My lover’s my partner in this business. One of our jokes is that part of the payoff, along with the money, is the ability to make so many people so happy. That is how I see what I do.

  There’s always something new to try, but in terms of having a specific goal I’m finding that, in general, my [real] interactions are a lot better than my imagination. I assume [that] my life will go on: I’m going to meet people, to love people, to play with people. I got into this never dreaming that this is something that I could actually like. I’m very fortunate; I don’t feel deprivations in my life. I am with the lover I want to be with. I have no desire to change. I was once asked whether I’m more into men or women. My answer was, “I’m more into her.” That is simply how it is. There isn’t an unfulfilled desire or fantasy. Oh, I guess I’d like to neck with Sigourney Weaver. And—I even expressed it to him, but he wouldn’t go along with it—I want to horsewhip Howard Stern.