The Ultimate Guide to Kink

by Tristan Taormino

  And for those who might take up the mask of the evil villain, think how liberating it would be to revel in those wicked thoughts—thoughts that all of us have entertained. It is not acceptable, in our current social climate, to judge people based on their appearance, to want to take them down, dehumanize them, plunder their body, feed off their fear, consume their energy. But through taboo role play you can. You can let this demon out to play, and acknowledge that these thoughts and feelings do not, in fact, make you a monster. They make you human. You can view yourself with more compassion, knowing that this wickedness is not the totality of your being, even when you indulge your terrifying fantasy.

  The first time I negotiated and participated in a scene that explicitly included race-based abuse, my main fear wasn’t for my safety. It was for the safety of my partner, who was my friend. I wasn’t certain how I would react, whether this would be okay, and mostly, whether I would fly off the handle and try to rip his face off. The scene progressed from casual physical dominance to verbal humiliation, racially tinged verbal abuse, and finally a complete onslaught of overwhelming physical force, invasive sexual aggression, and scathing racial slurs. I panicked for a moment, lost and unsure of why I was here, why I’d permitted this terrible thing to happen. I stared up at him with shock and real fear mingling uneasily in my gut. He eyed me with a lustful disgust that froze my skin. Then he leaned in and asked me,

  “Are you wet?”

  My mouth dropped in shock. There was no way I—

  “Because everyone knows how you nigger cunts love to have the shit kicked out of you. And you know I’ll have you begging to take my white cock in your mouth, up your ass—anywhere I want it. Won’t you.”

  I started sobbing, confused and crushed and unable to fight anymore. He shoved me harder against the wall, one hand sliding down over my belly and stopping just short of my pussy. I remembered to resist again but this only evoked a tightening of his hand on my throat.

  “Let’s just see, shall we? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you aren’t dripping wet and ready to beg me for it. But I doubt it.”

  I was certain I wasn’t physically aroused at all. I was enraged, terrified, scared, yes, but it was impossible that—

  A sharp inhalation of breath into my lungs was the counterpoint to a contemptuous exhalation of breath from his as his fingers slid effortlessly inside me, twisting with a punishing roughness that blurred my vision as I kicked my feet against him. The look in his eyes was fearsomely cold, and for a moment I was not at all sure where my friend had gone.

  “Go on, come like the dirty groveling black bitch you are.”

  And, gods help me, I did. Shocked, overwhelmed, and completely undone. I orgasmed violently as he stared at me impassively.

  In the aftermath of the scene, I was truly shocked at how I had reacted in the midst of what seemed like an impossible situation. Several days later, when I could finally talk to my friend again, I told him about the moment when he seemed really into it. He smiled “Well, weren’t you?”

  Indeed.

  Is it wiring? Are those of us who crave dark play simply different? Or are we just whistling in the dark as we play with our demons, courageous enough to exploit them for our own pleasure and pain? Ultimately it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have the freedom to make choices—that I have the ability to make a decision to live according to my desires, even if they terrify me.

  I encourage you, you with unsettling dreams who find your minds slipping into crevasses when you contemplate devious scenarios: let go of judgment. Get dirty and see who you are on the other side of that darkness. The answer might surprise you.

  Endnotes

  1 As in my previous chapter, I deliberately use the plural pronouns they, them, and their to refer to singular persons of any gender, in place of “he or she,” “him or her,” “his or her.” Although this is nonstandard grammatical usage, the traditional forms reflect a gender binary to which I do not subscribe.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE DARK SIDE

  JACK RINELLA

  Nearly a year ago, a guy from New York cruised me online, seeking to be imprisoned in my dungeon for the rest of his life. He sought degradation, abuse, humiliation, and (to put it mildly) escape from his current reality. In the ensuing months, he and I maintained a sporadic but ongoing dialogue via email.

  His communications by email, chat, and phone intrigued me, and I sought to understand where the guy was coming from and how serious his search was. I found him erratic and ambivalent, and he demonstrated cyclical behavior that told me something was wrong. I finally figured out that he was a drug addict who engaged in episodes of physical abuse every four to six weeks.

  His mode of operation was to deny his feelings for about a month, until he could no longer resist them. At that point he would get some recreational drugs to boost his courage, find a man or two to abuse him badly, and then slink home. When the drugs had worn off, he forsook such activity until the cravings slowly reentered his mind and he repeated the cycle.

  By the time I had figured this out, my curiosity was at a high point, and I wanted to know more about others like him who wished to be so degraded. To be honest, the controlling and sadistic sides of me were aroused as well. What would it be like, I wondered, to own a subhuman creature like this?

  I spent many months researching the profiles of men on various online kink networking sites who sought to serve the darkness. Though they used a wide variety of terms, they all wanted one thing: to become objects of degradation and intense control. Their posts included the words dark, satanic, objectification, filth, permanent, mutilation, scat, worship, and incarceration. These posts are examples of what I mean: Sick twisted filthy sewer bottom, ashtray, doormat, gutter rat, barn hand and kennel keeper seeks a perverted sewer top.

  Filthy, perverted, twisted, brutal, sadistic, nasty, top, dom, master needed for sewer pig, gutter rat.

  Looking for noose Master, gloved hands or maybe garrote and KO Master. Also into racial play and religious play.

  There was, too, another aspect to my curiosity. In recent years I have been struck by the increasing presence of edge play in our BDSM subculture. Everywhere I turn, I see, hear about, or read about another seminar featuring blood play, highly risky behavior, and taboo-breaking practices of all kinds—public fetish behavior that would have been frowned upon 10 years ago has become almost commonplace.

  I wondered what it means that our community is becoming increasingly more inclusive of the darker kinds of play. Where does it lead? Where does it end? I found that I couldn’t resist exploring these questions, knowing that there were aspects of myself that sought the same darkness, even as the PC Jack resisted such an admission.

  So I posted a new and relatively anonymous bio from an invented (though not really far from reality) persona called the Dark Lord: Experienced Lord and Master seeks additional property. I seek to be obeyed and worshipped. My primary fetish is control, which I exercise both sexually and sadistically.

  I have an exceptionally high libido and the primary objective of my search is to find men who will be used to satisfy my every sexual desire, without limit or hesitation. I seek to transform you into another toy for my pleasure and sexual gratification.

  About you: You seek a relationship where you will experience slavery to the utmost, becoming the subhuman property of your Lord and Master.

  You know you were born to suck and get fucked regularly and thoroughly. My semen is your food; my piss your drink.

  You desire to be subjugated, degraded, dominated, humiliated, and violated so that you thoroughly realize your authentic low-caste self.

  You have the courage to experience this abject state, if only for a weekend.

  You want to confirm [or deny] through actual experience your inner conviction that you were born for life in this abject state and nothing else will satisfy you until you are completely controlled by your Lord and Master.

  You will obey and surrender. Resi
stance on your part will be met by punishment.

  I approach this process as one of testing your suitability to serve me. Show yourself serious and worthy of my attention or go chat with some other poser. Serious applicants may begin the interview process with a message to the Dark Lord that includes an email address, a chat ID, and a phone number. COMPLETE DISCRETION IS ASSURED.

  This enslavement may include: Anal penetration and violation, Ashtray slavery, Ass fucking, Begging & pleading, Behavior modification, Bacchanalian celebration, Blasphemy, Bloodletting, Branding, Breath control, Chastity, Chores, Clamps, Cock and ball torture, Cock sucking, Confinement, Crucifixion, Cum control, Cutting, Degradation, Dehumanization, Demasculinization, Deprivation, Dionysian initiation, Domestic service, Encasement, Enforced exercise, Face fucking, Filth, Flogging, Groveling, Hobbling, Humbling, Humiliation, Idolatry, Inferiority, Isolation, Light deprivation, Long-term bondage, Marking, Milking, Nakedness, Obedience, Objectification, Oral invasion, Orgies, Ownership, Pain, Phallic worship, Piercing, Pimping, Piss, Praise and adoration, Predicament bondage, Prescribed dieting, Public display, Punching, Punishment, Raunch, Restraints, Rimming, Scheduling, Sex magic, Service, Shit, Silence, Slapping, Slavery to the Dark Lord, Smoke, Snot, Spit, Subjugation, Submission, Surrender, Suspension, Sweat, Tantric training, Total Control, Violation, Whipping, and Worship of the Dark Lord.

  Over six months, I received numerous hits on my profile and a large number of “cruises,” where members signaled interest in serving me. To those who did so, I wrote back asking if they were interested in “serving my dark desires.” Many replied yes and were invited to apply.

  Applying became the standard for evaluating their interest. I asked for their email address, chat ID, and phone number so I could contact them off-site. About 120 men responded with contact information, and it is on my communications with these men that I base the following reflections. (If you were one of these men, let me assure you that my interest was, and still is, genuine. It was more than just a research project.)

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  Over the ensuing months, I found myself in the position of explaining what I, the Dark Lord, meant by several of the terms in my profile. Among them were words we often use but that have troubling implications in our Judaic-Christian society. Let me begin by trying to shed some light on what I mean by some of these terms.

  The Dark Side

  Dark: Lacking or having very little light; gloomy; dismal; sullen or threatening; difficult to understand; obscure; concealed or secret; mysterious; lacking enlightenment or culture; exhibiting or stemming from evil characteristics; sinister; absence of light.1

  For numerous social, religious, and historical reasons the polarity of Light and Dark is often equated with the polarity of Good and Evil. Therefore the “Dark Lord” is immediately identified with Satan, as is the Dark Side.

  In nature, both light and dark are neutral phenomena. Only when we enter the realm of morality and theology does the imputation of evil to darkness begin to cause serious problems. If indeed God is everywhere, then God is in the darkness as well as the light. Is Satan really the opposite of God? Is Satan “outside” of God? I doubt it.

  In much of the correspondence the Dark Lord received, there were inquiries into satanic worship. My response was to refer the applicant to Elaine Pagels’s excellent book The Origin of Satan. This renowned Gnostic scholar shows that Satan is the creation of Hebrew/Christian intolerance of others. I came to the conclusion that I was not a satanist insofar as I refused to worship a creature that I did not believe existed as the caricature depicted in my childhood.

  Similarly, I was asked about blasphemy and eternal damnation. It became obvious that most applicants had a strong belief in basic Judaic-Christian paradigms, especially the ones that condemned them to Hell. Over and over again, I saw that both the fantasy and the discussion were in fact based in religion, and unfortunately based on unclear—and unconscious—beliefs.

  I also noticed that many terms (some of which I used in my profile above) were relative, interpreted according to the applicants’ religious perspective. What is blasphemy, for instance, to one devotee is holiness to another. Muslims think that Hindus are blasphemous idolaters. I don’t get the idea that Hindus agree with them.

  Worship

  Intrinsic in the consideration of darkness is one’s spiritual beliefs and understanding of good and evil. Though we don’t often state it, an altered state is often akin to a Gnostic revelation. Gnosis is, after all, a theological belief that deity is present in and operates in the human selfhood. The Dark Lord made it clear in his list of stipulations that he wanted to be worshipped, to literally become the slave’s god.

  Obedience, then, was seen as obedience to god. The Dark Lord’s authority, for the slave, would become pervasive, even complete. The gulf between the exalted Lord and the degraded slave would become—what? Infinite? Where does this god trip lead? What does the extreme nature of this polarity create in terms of the power exchange?

  These questions might seem preposterous, but they are not out of order to those who are seriously involved in master/slave relationships. On occasion, a slave has admitted to worshipping his or her master or a master has admitted to having a godlike relationship with his or her slave.

  It is easy to dismiss such practices by saying, “Oh, they don’t really mean God with a capital G.” But it is clear that for some, “the Lord” is not Jehovah, Jesus, or Allah, or any of the other gods of traditional worship.

  The Unconscious

  When we look at the polarity of light and dark in terms of the known and the unknown, we find ourselves in the realm of what is conscious and what is unconscious. It is not an unfamiliar analogy; we are all cognizant of the phrase “the heart of darkness,” popularized by a novel of that title by Joseph Conrad. What evil, after all, lurks in the heart of man?

  It is obvious that even as players flout some taboos, other taboos remain that are too kinky for most of us and that, therefore, we will not violate.

  My reading of Jungian psychology has given me some ideas about what it is that we do in the BDSM community. As I see it, the intent of BDSM is to transport both the bottom and the top to an altered state of consciousness, though it certainly can mean other things to other players. There are many terms for the mind trip: an out-of-body experience, “going deep,” for the bottom, subspace, for the top, top space. Whatever name you give it, it is an often-sought but rarely achieved trip of extraordinary bliss, joy, and peace. In scholarly literature it has been referred to as an altered state of consciousness (ASC).

  Though most players are satisfied with (dare I say it?) “conventional” fetishes such as flogging, whipping, and fisting as a way to enter an altered state, the Dark Lord’s applicants expressed a desire to progress to more intensive activities, such as blood play, extreme pain, degradation, and scat.

  It is obvious that even as players flout some taboos, other taboos remain that are too kinky for most of us and that, therefore, we will not violate. The Dark Lord’s exploration raises the question “Where do we draw the line?”

  Yet are there really any lines to cross in the mind? What darkness lurks in the depth of one’s unconscious self? How do we integrate that darkness in our lives to become whole persons? Or do we do so at all?

  Limits

  The most difficult part of my exploration of the Dark Lord was the question of limits. In light of the extreme nature of some of these desires, what were my own limits? How far was I willing to go? Would I, for instance, allow a partner to worship Satan, eat my shit, or languish in darkness while chained to a cold stone wall in my dungeon?

  I believe that one of the most important benefits of BDSM is that it creates a space and a community where we can safely explore the deep longings of our soul, where we can be the sissy maid or slave or pirate or top or lady we long to be.

  How do you answer these questions when faced with an email such as this: “SIR, it knows it was predisposed
for a life of slavery under your control. It knows it is ready to surrender its worthless pathetic self in submission and obedience to your will, helping it to obtain deeper actualization of its true slave nature as it satisfies your every command. Its innermost need is to submit 100% of its mind, body, soul, and spirit/ego. It is ready!”

  I believe that one of the most important benefits of BDSM is that it creates a space and a community where we can safely explore the deep longings of our soul, where we can be the sissy maid or slave or pirate or top or lady we long to be. Is it so unlikely that the same subculture could allow us to be the shit-slave toilet, the degraded object, or the worthless subhuman?

  As we say, “It’s only kinky when you don’t do it.” How can we label something as “too extreme” when what we do every day is labeled just that way by mainstream society?

  In the end I did come up with limits: I wouldn’t do anything that was illegal. I would not spread disease or inflict physical harm that would necessitate a doctor’s care. I would not allow an applicant to become financially dependent upon me.

  Those limits were generally acceptable to most applicants, though several of them refused to continue the conversation when they figured out that the Dark Lord would require them to pay room and board and to have health insurance. “I’m the Dark Lord,” I wrote more than once, “not a jail keeper or a sugar daddy.”