Doing It! - Going Beyond the Sexual Revolution (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior Book 13)

by Lawrence Block

  This was a very exciting idea to me. When we got home he had me take off all my clothing. Then using clothesline and some electrical extension cords he tied me hand and foot. He arranged me spread-eagled on the bed and tied my hands and feet to the four bed posts. Then he told me to try to get loose. I struggled but found it impossible to move at all. At this point he took off his clothes. I saw that he was very excited himself. I asked him what he was going to do and he said that he could do anything he wanted to me because I could not resist him. This realization was equally exciting to me as well.

  At first he made me perform fellatio upon him. I had done this occasionally but never enjoyed it and he did not ask for it often. Now the sensation of being tied up and helpless made it possible for me to “let myself go” so that for the first time I learned to really enjoy the sensation of having a penis in my mouth. To the point that I was disappointed when he took it away, as I really wanted to have him finish in my mouth, which I had never before allowed him to do. But he withdrew it before this could happen. Then he called me several filthy names and told me he was going to rape me, and we had intercourse. It was enormously exciting for me and I had an orgasm unlike any I had had in the past. His own orgasm was also extremely powerful.

  Afterward we talked a great deal about what had happened for us. We were concerned at first that it might be perverted but decided that it was our own business what we did alone in the privacy of our own bedroom and that no one else would ever have to know about it.

  From that point on, bondage became a part of our lives together. We do not use it all the time as we still make love in the usual fashion most of the time. But when we are feeling particularly sexy one of us will tie the other up and we will work out some sort of fantasy as it comes into our minds. We have both found that we are much less inhibited in a bondage situation. Acts which we have been “uptight” about in the past become enjoyable in such a situation. As in the case of fellatio, which I learned to love simply by performing it under those circumstances. And in a variety of other things as well.

  When my husband is tied up I will force him to perform cunnilingus upon me, or I will get him very excited with my hands and mouth but not permit him to have an orgasm, keeping him excited for long periods of time in this manner. We have also experimented with something suggested in a book, namely pressing ice cubes against the base of his scrotum just as his orgasm is upon him. This has a fantastic effect in heightening his orgasm. We have tried to use ice in this way upon me but it has not worked out. Except humorously, or at least it seems humorous now—once while tied up I had an ice cube inserted into me, and the sensation was horrible but we could not get the ice cube out. He could not reach it and I could not maneuver because of being securely tied up. By the time I got untied it had melted. Needless to say that was an experience we have never been anxious to repeat!

  We have also found that some spanking adds to our excitement in sexual relations. Namely when we are having coitus, even if I am not tied up, my husband will begin to slap me on the buttocks as I approach orgasm, slapping me harder and harder as I approach my climax. This can heighten orgasm pleasure to a great degree.

  No one in the world knows about us. As far as any of our relatives or friends are concerned we are just your average American married couple. What we do in the privacy of our bedroom remains our own business.

  We are grateful for your column as it gives us a means of sharing our experience with others without revealing our identity. I am sure there are thousands of other couples like us who could get more fun out of life if they only gave it a try, but who like us for so many years never thought of it, or did not have the nerve to tell each other of our thoughts on the subject . . .

  Sincerely,

  Nadine

  The ice cube experience doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? At least ice cubes melt, so that ultimately there’s no removal problem. Not so with the extraordinary variety of objects physicians are routinely called upon to remove from female interiors. The variety is almost as ingenious as the variety of explanations for the presence of those objects.

  The liberating effect of bondage is an interesting paradox. It stems from ambivalent feelings toward specific sex acts or even toward sex in general. One has been conditioned to regard a certain act—oral-genital contact, for example—as unclean, unnatural, perverse, or otherwise improper. In a bondage situation, one can pretend that one “has no choice” but to perform the forbidden act. Thus the ordinary inhibitions need not apply, and the “victim” can learn to enjoy his or her “punishment.” Sometimes, as in Nadine’s case, the act thus learned will remain enjoyable in a non-bondage situation. In other cases the specific act can only be enjoyed when one is bound.

  I’ve known of quite a few cases where homosexual acts are sought in bondage situations but rejected utterly in other circumstances. I reported such a case in Women Who Swing Both Ways. The subject of that study was introduced to bisexuality through a threesome involving herself, her husband, and a prostitute. She was tied up while her husband had relations with the girl, then was “forced” to perform bisexual acts herself with the prostitute. She reports:

  “To this day I can only completely enjoy bi experiences when there is some element of B-and-D present. This is strange in that it does not necessarily have to be me who is tied up. It is similarly exciting if the other girl is bound. It is the whole bondage and discipline syndrome which is so difficult to explain to someone who does not understand it.”

  Here’s another letter on the same theme:

  Dear JWW,

  I’ve been reading your column in Swank since its first appearance. From the beginning I’ve had the urge to write you but kept putting it off. I would tell myself I did not have the time or that my problem would not be interesting to anybody, etc. But it is just reluctance to put thoughts on paper as that seems to make them more real.

  My problem is a desire to be spanked by a woman, to be her slave. I have been married to a perfectly normal woman for almost fourteen years and we have always had a perfectly satisfactory sex life. For years I have had slight fantasies on the subject of female domination. Of being mistreated by a woman and subsequently having sexual relations with her. I believe the roots of this are to be found in my childhood. I received spankings over my mother’s knee and seem to remember them as erotic experiences, although I do not recall that I had a climax in that manner or anything of that sort . . .

  Since beginning married life the fantasies have been around from time to time, the desire to be a woman’s slave, kiss her feet, lick between her toes, etc. etc. etc, you can use your own imagination . . . Also to be spanked by a woman, tied up, made to serve her in various ways. But these fantasies did not get in the way of my life. I would think of them sometimes while having sex with my wife. Also at other times as well. That was all I did—think about them with no thought of actually doing any of this. I would imagine that sometime I might meet such a dominant woman in the course of traveling and then my dreams might become reality, but never seriously thought of taking steps to bring this about.

  Now, after as I said, almost fourteen years of marriage, I find these fantasies emerging and getting stronger all the time until I can hardly think of anything else. I find I am not always able to make love to my wife because of this. I will have an erection and will lose it while making love or will not be able to get one in the first place. This is not always the case but I would say it has been like this more than half the time during the past months, say three or four months.

  The question is—what am I going to do about all of this? There is no one to whom I can go with this problem. I would feel like a fool telling anyone about it and can hardly bring myself to write to you on the subject. But I feel I must because I am afraid to go on this way. Is there an answer? Can a doctor help? What is to be done about it?

  Chester

  Chester certainly has a problem, and it’s probably not going to go away by itself. It mi
ght seem to disappear. Sexual hang-ups sometimes do; one ignores and represses them for years until they cease to be troublesome, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still in existence, lousing up your life in subtler ways.

  Aside from repression, which Chester has been trying all his life and which obviously isn’t working too well lately, there are several things he can try.

  (1) Psychotherapy. He can go to a psychiatrist and try to find a way to work things out. Through one or another form of therapy he can try to get at the root of the problem and hopefully do something about it. This doesn’t always work but neither does it always fail. It’s likely to be better than nothing in any case, if only because it will make Chester somewhat more aware of where he is and how he got there and what his alternatives are.

  (2) Extramarital sex. Instead of a psychiatrist, Chester can go to a prostitute. (Indeed, the two are not mutually exclusive, and not a few psychiatrists would advise him to try acting out his fantasies with a prostitute.) And a hooker would be no more apt to despise Chester for his sexual desires than would a shrink. Prostitutes do a large proportion of business with masochists, and many of them specialize in this type of clientele. Masochists are apt to pay more and require treatment which prostitutes find generally undemanding. For many prostitutes, the beating and humiliation of a masochist is pleasurable beyond the monetary rewards; it is an outlet for their own hostilities toward the male sex, and thus their roles as dominatrices are not entirely a matter of acting.

  (3) Marital sex. This would certainly look to be the best long-term solution. If Chester can establish this ideal fantasy relationship with his own wife, his entire problem will cease to exist as such. Whether he is a pervert or not will be academic.

  Of course, it’s easier for me to write this than for Chester to go ahead and do it. Otherwise he could have done it years ago. He is obviously ashamed of his desires and convinced that his wife would lose respect and love for him if she were aware of them. There are ways, though, that he can bring up the subject gradually. He can say that he has read about certain acts and would like to try them to see what they are like. There are any number of ways to lead up to something like this without coming out directly with an admission of presumably unacceptable desires.

  And he may find out that his wife has been itching to paddle his behind for as long as he has been wanting her to—this sudden realization of mutually unstated desires happens quite frequently, perhaps because an undisclosed motive underlay the original choice of partners, perhaps because of the relationship that has evolved between the partners over the years. There are few things more tragic than two married people never trying something they both would like to try, simply because neither one has the nerve to bring the subject up.

  • • •

  DEP’T OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS:

  Most of you are no doubt familiar with the array of sex aids on the market. Artificial penises and vaginas abound. When these first turned up a few years ago, the sellers called themselves medical supply firms and peddled their wares as prosthetic devices for men and women who were physically unable to use the penis or vagina God had given them. Of course ninety-nine percent of those sold were for masturbatory purposes of one sort or another, and lately the medical hype has mostly disappeared.

  Now the world has taken a giant step forward with the invention of the artificial anus. A recent ad offers a choice of male or female artificial anuses, the difference being that the female version has a smaller opening and less hair.

  Far out! Be the first on your block to have an artificial asshole—and keep those cards and letters coming!

  Chapter Seven

  It has been, by all objective standards, a reasonably good month. The correspondence has been good of late, but you people have been gravitating toward a certain type of letter. “Dear John Warren Wells,” says letter after letter, “I want to get into the New Morality but I don’t know how to go about it.” A logical lament, and one I can understand, but one that can be remedied by reading. Just pick up the correspondence magazines we keep talking about, available generally in the adult bookstores in your downtown area. Do that, and the ball is in your court. What you do thereafter is up to you.

  I just received a letter from Dean, the rubber freak who discussed his propensities in a recent column. In my letter to him, I recommended a particular swingers’ magazine and suggested he get in touch with the people running it. He seems to have done rather better than I had in mind, as I just got a letter from him indicating that he has accepted a position as art director of the magazine in question. And the art work, happily enough, is excellent—as one would hope it would be.

  A surprising number of swingers’ magazines are run by people with a rather messianic attitude about things. If you think about it, the attitude is not that unlikely. One does not get into this area from an utterly square viewpoint. The person who generally gets into the business is a person with an interest in swinging, a person more often than not who has been frustrated by the mercenary attitude of other media. Certainly there is a very obvious profit potential in these publications; ads are published for a nominal charge, and the magazines charge a dollar a letter to forward correspondence to advertisers; thus advertisements can draw far more dollar income than one could expect in normal media.

  Nevertheless, a surprising number of swinger publishers are highly idealistic about the whole thing. They feel that they are participating in the wave of the future, and they want to contribute to a better tomorrow, and all of this may sound pretty corny in print but seems to be pretty much in line with their very real beliefs. I wouldn’t want to advise you to start bedecking your car with a SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SWINGER PUBLISHER sticker on the bumper, but the sentiment would by no means be entirely misplaced. In a world of bad guys, they come fairly close to being the good guys.

  Dear Mr. Wells,

  I’ve never written this kind of a letter before, and I’m really quite embarrassed about it all, but I happened to pick up a copy of Swank from my boss’s desk and read your column and you seemed so understanding that I thought perhaps you could help out a damsel in distress. Actually, I was so impressed, that I went out and bought a copy of Tricks of the Trade—it was most helpful. You see, my problem is that my fiancé is really turned on by oral intercourse, and even though I’ve been around quite a bit and had several affairs, I’ve never quite mastered the art of it. Believe me, I’ve tried almost everything, but something always goes wrong. The first time I bit him by mistake (my dentist tells me I have an over-bite), and he almost killed me—at least it let me off the hook for a while. The next time I choked and spat everything over his chest and his mother’s couch. But I really love him and want to please him. I decided to try the whipped cream bit—at least I thought to myself I could enjoy it more. But it totally blew his mind, and have you ever licked cream with come in it? I hope I’m not giving you the wrong impression—it’s not that I don’t enjoy it, it’s just that I’m so clumsy, I just can’t seem to get my act together, as they say. And there’s no one you can really talk to about this kind of thing, is there? I mean I just couldn’t go to my mother (who wears long-sleeved nighties with button-up necks) and say, well, you know. So what is a girl to do? A lesbian tried to pick me up on Jane Street the other day, and I wondered if perhaps she could help me but somehow I just couldn’t face it—I mean, whatever would my fiancé say if he ever found out? And anyway, making love to a woman isn’t the same thing at all, is it?

  You see, it’s not only a question of not biting or choking or what have you, it’s also a question of timing. I mean if I’m TOO good, then I’m left high and dry, as it were. So somewhere there’s got to be a happy medium, and I would appreciate anything you could do for me in the way of advice—a really good manual or perhaps you could put me in touch with someone who could teach me the art, or perhaps I could even have an interview with you, though that makes me a bit nervous.

  Looking forward to hearing from you.
/>   Sincerely,

  W.S.

  (P.S. I would appreciate your withholding my name)

  Don’t worry about a thing, W.S. I’m withholding your name. I’m also tempted to withhold your address and answer this inquiry in the flesh, as it were.

  Actually, the problem posed by this letter is by no means an unusual one. More than any other form of sexual congress (and there’s a lovely phrase; I defy any of you to cite anything less sexual than Congress), oral sex demands a certain technical expertise that doesn’t “come naturally.”

  This question was raised when I was putting together Tricks of the Trade; one lady of the evening suggested that hopeful women might practice on a carrot. Whether or not this would be of value I’m in no position to judge. But it is indisputable that oral sex requires a regimen of technical prowess that, in the majority of cases, has to be learned. The art of fellatio is an acquired taste, as it were, and women desiring to be proficient at it have to play the game bit by bit and see what works. The various problems—to avoid gagging, to keep from biting, etc., are ultimately all learned techniques.

  Certainly a woman can learn them, and can find the entire experience manifestly enjoyable. Many women, for example, are able to achieve orgasm by performing fellatio, without any direct contact with their own private parts, but simply as a result of the oral stimulation of caressing the penis.

  I would agree that experience with lesbians would be of little assistance in learning to fellate a male lover, enjoyable as it might be for W.S. in other respects. It is true, however, that female homosexuals are reputed to be exceptionally good lovers for both males and females in oral terms, and several acquaintances of mine make it a point occasionally to pick up a lesbian for mutual oral gratification.