How Primal Are You?
0 to 15:
You are way too civilized for your own good. You not only always use utensils when you eat, but you probably even know what all those different-sized forks at the hoity-toity restaurants are used for. You’d rather commune with a day spa, than with nature. Your pets are secretly plotting to have you for dinner. You seriously need to get out more.
16 to 30:
Believe it or not, this makes you pretty normal. Imagine that! You do share some characteristics with Primals but, overall, you scored well within the normative range for most of the other people who take this test. You may be pervy, just not primally pervy.
31 to 42:
You lean heavily Primal. You give in to your animalistic impulses and instincts more often than not, but you still maintain a solid foundation of civility and reason which tempers your Primal urges. There's never a dull moment in a relationship with you, and your partners will often have the marks to prove it. Rawrr!
43 or higher:
You are definitely a Primal. You live for the hunt, and thrill to the chase. You can sense weakness or fear from across the room. You evaluate everyone you meet as predator or prey, and you don't mind a bit if the process gets a little messy or bloody. You are guided almost entirely by your instincts and senses, even when they run counter to reason and propriety. You are fiercely loyal to your pack, and to your friends. You’re an animal!
It’s entirely possible that some of these characteristics will strike a chord within your psyche even if you’re not a Primal. Everyone has some animal instincts, even if they are conveniently tucked out of sight, beneath a civilized veneer. The difference is, while the rest of us are working to deny or conceal those characteristics, Primals embrace them.
Semi-legal Mumbo-jumbo Disclaimer: In the unlikely event that you take this test a little too seriously, my high-priced attorneys have advised me that I am morally obligated to publicly shame you as a gullible twit. This test is provided for entertainment purposes only.
Primal Preferences
Now that we’ve gotten a glimpse of what a Primal looks like, it should be significantly easier to draw some conclusions which can help us to more accurately define what it is that makes a person a Primal and take a look at what goes on inside of a Primal’s head. The psycho-social pieces of the Primal puzzle are important because, for most Primals, this isn’t a role that they play or a costume that they can put on or take off at will. It is who they are. This is not just about how they act; it is about how they think, how they relate, and how they love.
Let’s examine what I’ve come to call the Primal preferences. They are simply a series of generalities, to be sure, but they can be incredibly useful in understanding what makes a Primal tick. As always, the use of the male pronoun “he” should not be interpreted as a bias for one gender over any other. It is a simply a sad acknowledgment of one of the most frustrating limitations of the English language, the aggravating lack of a gender-neutral singular pronoun.
The first Primal preference, which cuts right to the heart of the entire Domination/submission culture, is the unique way in which Primals make a determination of dominance. It is a process that invariably occurs each time the Primal encounters someone new. In fact, for some Primals it can be an on-going process, even with their romantic partners and long-time acquaintances. Establishing dominance is almost always an ad hoc, unscripted, and unpredictable thing which can be as simple and innocuous as a momentary glance, or as violent as a Wrestlemania cage-match.
This initial and instinctive determination of pecking-order occurs without any conscious thought on the part of the Primal. He doesn’t care about whether or not you want to be evaluated, nor does he much care about how you evaluate yourself. All he cares about is how you measure up in relation to himself. This fact, alone, can be quite disconcerting to those in the D/s lifestyle who have assigned to themselves the traditional role of Dominant or submissive. You may consider yourself a Dominant, but the Primal’s instincts may tell him something completely different about you, at least in relation to himself. Imagine, for a moment, what thoughts might run through a Dominant’s head if a Primal were to tell him, “I know you call yourself a Dominant, but as far as I am concerned, you are a submissive.” Is it any wonder that Primals are widely misunderstood in the lifestyle?
The next Primal preference that sets them apart from others in the D/s lifestyle is their instinctive use of, and respect for, power and strength. When it comes to demonstrating your worthiness to a Primal, it isn’t going to be enough to talk about your dominance; you’re going to be expected to demonstrate it. That demonstration may not necessarily involve a physical contest of strength, endurance and tolerance for pain, but you probably shouldn’t be too surprised if it does.
Another Primal preference is their reliance upon predator-prey behaviors. A Primal categorizes all others as either predator or prey, and treats them appropriately. He carefully observes, stalks, tracks, hunts, chases, and takes down his prey and relishes every moment of it. If he classifies you as a predator yourself, you can expect a Primal to steer a wide path around you, preferring to seek out prey, instead.
The Primal preference that is probably most familiar to non-Primals is the affinity for the sort of love-play that results in biting, scratching, nibbling, licking, nuzzling, or a desire to be pet or stroked. This kind of activity is certainly not exclusive to Primals by any stretch of the imagination, but it is far more prevalent among them than it is in the general population. By the way, the technical term for becoming sexually aroused by biting is odaxelagnia.
Depending upon the situation and his frame of mind, a Primal will often demonstrate a marked reduction, and sometimes even a complete loss, of inhibitions. This situational lack of self-consciousness may be exhibited in a wide variety of behaviors, to include such things as a general disdain for clothing, the emulation of animal sounds such as barking, howling or growling, and rambunctious play. Quite often, their behavior is mischaracterized by others as childlike, when in actuality, it is far more accurate to describe it as animalistic.
Another of the Primal preferences which often confounds and frustrates their non-Primal partners is what is sometimes characterized as a general apathy about sexual skills and techniques. A Primal trusts and embraces his instincts in most things, and typically does so in his sexual technique as well. Expect your lovemaking with a Primal to be driven by stream-of-consciousness desires and raw, animal impulses. We’re talking on-the-front-lawn or on-the-kitchen-table-covered-in-birthday-cake kind of sex, here. In a nutshell, sex with a Primal may not always be pretty, but it’s definitely never boring.
Primals, like many of our four-footed friends, endeavor to process the world through all five of their senses equally. Where the average human relies primarily on sight and sound, a Primal will often call upon his other senses to distinguish a scent, differentiate a taste, or pinpoint a texture. Sniffing or tasting a person, place, or thing to learn more about it is a perfectly normal mode of investigation for a Primal. Once a Primal has codified you in this fashion, any change in your body chemistry is readily apparent to him. A person’s monthly hormonal cycles, menstruation, sexual pheromones, medications, hydration levels, hygiene, diet, and even diseases may be an open book for a Primal to read. In additional to receiving and processing information to a greater extent through scent, taste and touch, a Primal is also far more likely to transmit information through those same senses. It is relatively common, for example, for a Primal to mark his or her home, property, and even friends and partners with a distinctive scent.
Another preference particular to Primals would be their attachment to the notion of feeding, rather than simply eating and drinking. The connotations attached to feeding suggest a more primitive and instinctive activity that can be applied to more than just food. In the modern pop culture parlance of vampire lore, feeding takes on a sensuously daring and primal ambience all its own which incorporates it
self nicely into the Primal subculture.
Primals typically form tight-knit social groups which they refer to as packs, and they often place their allegiance to the pack higher than their loyalty to even their biological families. Not all Primals are quite so pack oriented; it often depends upon what sort of animal they identify with, and which of those animal characteristics they emulate. Even when they are members of a pack, different animal characteristics can lead to different sorts of behaviors. Canines, for example, often hunt as a pack. Felines, on the other hand, may belong to a pride, but prefer to hunt alone. Within a pack, hierarchies of dominance and submission are typically more-or-less fixed, with an alpha individual (or sometimes an alpha couple) leading the pack. Other members of the pack are sometimes referred to as betas or omegas.
When it comes to mating strategies, it’s difficult to predict what a Primal’s preference may be. He may show a preference for monogamy, polyamory, strategies based on specific animal species, or no strategy at all. Primals certainly appear to have a higher likelihood of being polyamorous than monogamous, but there is little hard data to support that notion. Some identify so strongly with their specific animals, that they will adopt that animal’s mating strategies, as well. A wolf would therefore employ a strategy of monogamy, whereas a lion might feel compelled to build a pride of five or six mates. It’s also entirely possible that for some Primals, surrendering to their animal instincts means not really having a strategy at all, but simply doing what instinctively feels right at the moment.
What comes as a surprise to many who may not be familiar with Primals is the fact that they typically do not identify or connect themselves with the Furry subculture. Furries, for the benefit of anyone who may have been living in a cave for the past few decades, are people who role-play anthropomorphic animal characters with human characteristics. A furry may look like a dog, or cat, or fox, or skunk, but he walks and talks and acts just like a human being in most respects. In other words, a furry is, in practically every way that counts, the exact opposite of a Primal. A Primal is a human who instinctively thinks, acts, and perceives the word in an animalistic way. He considers his Primalism a core personality trait, rather than a role, and will often view himself as a human-animal hybrid, or humanimal. A furry, by contrast, is a role-player who is part of a fandom, rather than a lifestyle. His fascination is with looking the part of an animal, while maintaining most or all of the characteristics of humanity.
Another subtle distinction between Primals and Furries concerns the social circles, events and gatherings that are typical to each. Primals are generally considered to be part of the D/s lifestyle, primarily due to their preoccupation with Dominance and submission, even if their expression of it is considered non-traditional. Their involvement in the BDSM lifestyle is generally dependent upon the degree to which they also subscribe to BDSM related kinks and fetishes. When Primals meet it is, almost by necessity, a face-to-face meeting. When they gather in large numbers, it is usually at fetish events and BDSM conventions.
Conversely, Furries are generally considered to be a subset of the science fiction, fantasy, gaming and comic book fandoms. Since it is far more practical to be a giant, walking, talking kitty-cat wearing human clothes in an online virtual environment, the internet is the most common venue for personal encounters. When Furries gather in large numbers, it is usually at cosplay events and comic book conventions.
One might be tempted to assume that Primals, with their fascination for biting, scratching, and fighting for dominance are, at their core, sadomasochistic. That would probably be a mistake. A true sadist enjoys inflicting pain upon others, regardless of their feelings on the matter. A true masochist enjoys the sensations of pain, regardless of whom or what the source of that pain might be. There are, of course, an infinite number of gradations between an extremely hard-core sadist or masochist versus someone who is nominally one. But the common denominator for all sadists and masochists alike is simply the enjoyment of pain for pain’s sake.
Sadomasochism is not a phenomenon that occurs naturally in the animal world with any real frequency. Animals typically hunt, kill, or fight for purely utilitarian purposes. True, a cat may toy with a mouse before killing it, but that behavior is probably a lot more like playing with your food before eating it, than it is an expression of sadism. Primals, too, see pain as a necessary and utilitarian part of their mating rituals and for determining dominance. This is not to say that Primals can’t also be sadists or masochists. We’re simply saying that Primals shouldn’t be considered sadomasochistic just because they enjoy biting and scratching during sex.
Each of these so-called Primal preferences is a gross generalization which may or may not necessarily apply to any specific Primal you may know. Whenever we are dealing with animalistic instincts, we have to be prepared to acknowledge that the instincts of a cat are going to differ significantly from those of a dog, or a monkey, or a penguin. And yes, a Primal may identify with just about any kind of animal imaginable.
There are a lot of questions about Primals which defy any attempt to make generalizations or come to any useful conclusions. Those questions must be answered by each Primal individually, and I would venture to guess that no two answers would be alike. Questions like these, perhaps:
· Are you, as a result of your instinctive way of evaluating the world, inherently amoral?
· If there were no limits to what you could do, how far would you go to alter your physical appearance to resemble your inner animal?
· Do you, as a Primal, prefer other Primals or non-Primals as your potential mates, and why?
· Is the credibility or authenticity of another Primal ever in question to you, and if so, why?
Perhaps my readers can, post-publication, provide some inspired answers to these and the countless other unspoken questions that naturally come to mind when pondering the many mysteries of humanimal relationships.
In the meantime, let’s shift our focus to another practical aspect of interacting with a Primal. Before entering into an actual relationship with a Primal, you might get the idea that you want to play with one. In this lifestyle, that usually means a scene. A scene with a Primal... Now, there’s a scary thought.
Primal Scenes
A primal scene is not something you see every day. That has a lot to do with the fact that there’s very little that a primal does that is preplanned. A scene, almost by definition, is something that is planned ahead of time. There will, of course, occasionally be those times when Primals have made plans to do a scene completely unrelated to their primalism and serendipity nudges them off-script. When it does happen, it is rarely predictable, and may even be as alarming to spectators as it is fascinating to them. By the way, the phrase “primal scene” can mean very different things to different people. Among psychologists, it is a term which refers to witnessing or imagining your parents having sex; something you just might want to keep in mind if you ever decide to discuss this topic with your shrink.
Typically, in the BDSM world, a Primal scene simply happens without a lot of forethought. What may start as a bit of cautious sniffing and circling can quickly escalate to a scenario where instinct supersedes reason and judgment, and life leaps from mundane to extraordinarily interesting in about 2.6 seconds flat.
Mellissa W., a twenty-six-year-old woman from Kansas, considered herself a traditional submissive before she became involved with a Dominant who seemed to play a lot rougher than she had been accustomed to with her previous lovers. That, in itself wasn’t too unusual. What surprised her was her immediate and instinctive reaction to it; a reaction that opened up a part of herself that she had never suspected was there.
“We had always been playful and even a little rough at times, but I always figured it was just fun and games. One night I was walking past him and Derek surprised me by grabbing my boob, and I don’t know why, but I snatched his hand and bit into the meaty part at the base of his thumb really, really hard. He screamed bloody murd
er, grabbed me and picked me up, and literally threw me like a sack of potatoes across the room onto the bed. As soon as I realized I wasn’t going to die, I was just completely filled with this primal all-consuming rage. I just sprang off the bed like some kind of wild animal, throwing my entire weight on him and knocking him to the floor, while hitting and biting and scratching.
We fought and wrestled and rolled around on the floor snarling at each other like pit bulls until we were completely spent. Even then, he somehow managed to pin me down until I stopped struggling. Then we just looked at each other silently for a minute, and suddenly we couldn’t stop laughing. Then we had what I can only describe as the most incredible sex, ever. We should have done this a long, long time ago.”
Sometimes, a person may be fully aware of their primal nature, yet still be unsure about how it can be expressed as part of a public scene. After all, it is something that is often misunderstood, even within the BDSM lifestyle, and can sometimes lead to potentially embarrassing or even dangerous situations.
Kevin P., a thirty-year-old living in Florida, described to me the first time he’d allowed his primal side to come out at a public gathering:
“I was at one of our group’s monthly play parties, held at the spacious home of one of our group members, watching a couple of friends do a knife play scene. Across from me, I noticed Nora, one of the newer members of the group staring directly at me. Once I noticed her, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her. We had chatted briefly at the last get-together, but it was just your typical small-talk. This was something completely different. We probably said more in those few minutes of silently staring at each other than any conversation, no matter how deep, ever could.
I walked around the group of people gathered to watch another couple doing a scene. Her gaze never left me as I slowly circled around the group and around her as well. I stopped between the kitchen and the living room. Then it was her turn to circle me, I guess. She started to move past me, and as she did, she put her face right up to my shirt and sniffed me, then moved on past me a few steps and stopped, as if she were daring me to follow her. I moved past her towards the door that led outside to the patio, and opened it. She stepped thru, and I followed out onto the patio, where a few people were enjoying their cigarettes.
Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook Page 9
