Please tell us a little bit about yourself β How would you describe your everyday vanilla life?
My life is rather dull since I retired from truck driving and my wife died, but I spend a great feal of time on the Fetlife website, reading posts from other members and interacting with friends on the site. I write a little bit myself and follow my interests in history, ancient cultures, archeology and anthropology. More specifically, my interests are greatly based around Matriarchal societies, religious beliefs and practices, highlighted by any information alluding to rites, rituals and what we might term as sexual practices in regards to cultural goddess worship.
When did you first realize you were into bondage?
At quite a young age. My grandfather on my mother's side had run away to sea as a boy of fourteen and sailed on square rigged ships until he was twenty and put ashore due to injuries from falling from the rigging and landing on the deck of the ship. He started teaching me to tie knots before I was old enough to talk. Rope and knots held a fascination for me ever since and all three of my sisters suffered for it. Somehow it just seemed natural to me to tie females up. My interests only expanded when I discovered my father's collection of porn magazines at the age of seven. In sixth grade I was caught doodling pictures of naked women tied up in vulnerable positions out of my boredom in Mr. Erickson's history class, paddled in front of the class and then sent, along with my drawings, to the office. I sat through questions I answered inadequately, as well as a stern lecture, but was told my artwork was very good, while waiting for my mom to come pick me up. The lectures, paddlingβs and three days of being expelled from school didn't change my interests or outlooks and, if anything, only seemed to intensify them.
How you best describe yourself and why? Your choices are: Dominant, Submissive, Switch or Fuzzy Rainbow Unicorn.
No question about it: I am a natural born Dominant. I'm tall, big and strong, so I appear a bit intimidating anyway. However I think what attracts peoples' attention to me is how soft spoken I am. If you want to hear what I'm saying, you have to listen to me. So everyone bends to my opinions or else they end up proving to themselves I was right in the first place. I don't demand respect, I earn it and I lead by example. I am perfectly willing to throw myself into any task and will perform more than what are my duties to my fullest ability, almost always doing more and working harder than those around me, while also using intelligence over brute strength. I think what gains me the most respect is the amount of knowledge I've gained and accumulated in my active pursuits of satisfying my varied interests and the fact that I'm not stingy with my knowledge, nor do I push it onto anyone, but I share it freely without being condescending. I've run my own businesses most of my life.
Do you feel that your desire for bondage is more physical or emotional? (please elaborate)
Itβs more emotional for me. I can enjoy purely vanilla sexual encounters without feeling a need to restrain and tease or torment my partner to bring us both pleasure. Nevertheless, at the same time I feel that if I could break through the stigma the idea of BDSM implies to my vanilla partner and very gradually introduce increasing levels of control and force over them, I could bring them to pleasures they have no concept of, based on their cocoon of sheltered experiences. In knowing this, I feel almost compelled to chance shocking them out of their presumptions, just so I can share the pleasures with them. Itβs a mental dilemma for me, almost an itch I feel inwardly, but one I've yet to act upon without my female partner expressing more than a passing interest in the first place.
Were lovers accepting of your interest in bondage?
A large number have been, yes. I can't give you any kind of percentage because, honestly, there isn't any way I can remember all of them without instances melding together. I can't remember many names, and faces have blurred with time. I have always made it a practice to try to delve into a lover's fantasies, learn what goes on in their mind, before ever trying to take things to a physical level. Many topics of conversation lead me fairly naturally into asking leading questions that will expose a few secrets. Once I've opened the conversation up to secret desires, it isn't very hard to keep gathering more and more information. Most people, and many women especially, find my ability to listen, my easygoing nature and discreet, but sincere interest, comforting to open up and relate to. As a result, this has given me platforms from which to introduce ideas about what they may find exciting if we were to try them out. Having experience and the ability to explain things clearly and with confidence has overcome many a skeptical neophyte's qualms and allowed the ladies to relax and trust me enough to take them to heights they never imagined possible. Itβs all about fun, really, and if everyone involved isn't thoroughly enjoying themselves without regrets, then I'm not doing it right. It is my responsibility to ensure she and I discuss everything I want to do and she understands all the details of my ideas for her. Not only understands, but agrees to them and has the desire and curiosity to go through with my depicted scenario. The buck stops here, with me completely, in ensuring her emotional and physical health and well-being are top priority, first and foremost. If I didn't or don't earn that trust, I fail totally as a dominant.
Please briefly describe your first bondage experience.
Well, I won't go into my childish efforts with my sisters, as there was little to no awareness of the stimulating aspects of them, so let's start with a sixteen-year-old boy going on a date with a sixteen-year-old girl. She, as it turned out, while I made out with her and we were kissing with my hand resting just below her chin as my thumb and fingers held her jaw, decided she wanted my hand around her throat. The longer we kissed the more often she broke the kiss to tell me, "More firmly, grip harder." I complied and was soon as good as choking her. The more I made her struggle for air, the more passionate she became.
That was our first date and it left us both frustrated and breathless, as well as giving her red finger marks on her neck. She had to be home by ten and I got her there just in time. Before she climbed out of the car she kissed me again and I suggested we go out on a weekend evening when she could stay out until eleven. I told her I could bring some rope if she wanted me to restrain her. She eagerly said yes and told me to pick her up at seven on Friday evening.
I was a virgin until that Friday night, but it turned out she wasn't. Still, even though not a virgin, apparently no guy had ever made her orgasm before. I did, more times than I could keep track ofβ¦I will never forget that night as still being one of my most exciting nights of discovery.
What was your best bondage experience?
A certain young lady I was quite enamored with was very adventurous and told me she wanted to experience three men having their way with her at the same time. We had been living together for about two years at this point and I had slowly been inuring her to more and more pain while she was fully restrained, gagged, blindfolded and with full earphones playing loud rock music so she couldn't hear.
A few weeks after she told me her desire to have multiple men at once, long enough that I thought the idea wouldn't be something she was expecting, I had made arrangements to have two male friends come to the house after I had her restrained on her knees with them spread wide and her derrière in the air, her head, breasts and shoulders on the bed with her arms tied at her sides. What followed was a night of sheer debauchery wherein she discovered a penchant for multiple men at the same time. I didn't mind her indulgence, but as a consequence I no longer saw her as reliable marriage relationship material, so the night doomed us as a devoted couple. However, it was one of the most fantastically successful, creative and surprising nights I've been involved in over the years. I've never seen a woman enjoy herself more. She was always a tigress in bed, but she eventually wore all three of us out.
What is the most creative safeword you have ever used?
Back in my late twenties to mid forties, I dated a lot of college girls, so we would come up with some very clever safe words. The one I liked best was "eunoia". You have to realize what a total tease I am to begin with, but in my mind eunoia sounded very much like 'annoy ya', so when the girl I was tormenting neared an orgasm I'd begin asking her, "Do I annoy ya? Babe! Do I annoy ya? Tell me if I annoy ya! What do you think? Do you like this, or do I annoy ya?"
She clenched her jaws and grit her teeth and yes, I knew my repetitive questions did indeed annoy her, but she wouldn't crack and admit it any more than she'd break and use her safe word. When the session was over and I released her and started cleaning the toys and implements of mass seduction up, she came up behind me and cracked me across the back of my head. I turned to her, laughing, already knowing she was going to give me what for about my verbal torment. And yes, she let me have it, but we were both laughing too hard for any real anger to be involved. It led to some great cuddling and even more laughing and giggling as aftercare. She never suggested we use the word eunoia as a safe word again though.
What do you feel is most important about the experience of bondage?
Number one concern for all involved, communication! Open, honest, in depth communication. Also knowing that half, or more of communicating is listening. Not kind of listening, while your mind is busy conceptualizing your own ideas. No! Put all that aside for later and really pay attention and hear what the other person or people are telling whoever IS listening. It could save someone from sub-drop or even save a life. What we do has inherent dangers we dare not gloss over or be inattentive to and somebody's future life as well as your own, could be very negatively impacted by less than total attention or a moment's carelessness.
Every step taken in the course of setting up an individual(s) in a bondage scene must be negotiated with the people involved and fully agreed upon. Should your lack of attention to someone else's concerns cause you to do something which wasn't included in the negotiations, then you come off as less than honest and an arrogant egotist with concern only for your own immediate gratification. That will get you drummed out of the BDSM community faster than you can say Jack Spry, so don't be that guy.
The next issue of importance is experience. If you want to try something you've never done before from the topping position, know what you're doing beforehand. Learn everything you can about it, get personal instruction if you need it, try it on your own often enough you are proficient at it and can see every potential problem with doing it on a live subject, Otherwise don't do it. Just forget about it until you have obtained the instructions you need from a qualified individual.
My next important concern is aftercare. No, not everyone wants it. Many think they don't need it. They are too tough and made of sterner stuff. Fine, that is until the bottom drops out on them and they are an emotional mess, can't think what could possibly be wrong nor why they can't stop crying. In this respect, aftercare is extremely significant, because what they are experiencing is sub-drop and proactive aftercare can prevent sub-drop.
Sub-drop can have long term, very life wrecking effects on some people and must be dealt with, often with professional psychological help and at the least having close, comforting and very protective friends checking in on the sufferer quite often, making sure they eat, are looking after themselves and are active, not just curled up, crying and feeling worthless and wanting to die.
What is the best advice you would give to someone just starting out with BDSM?
Hold your enthusiasm in check and don't jump into trying to do things you've never experienced before. Even what you may think of as very light bondage may do permanent damage to nerves, tissue and muscles.
As I said, what we do is dangerous in many respects, and should be done under the watchfulness of experienced practitioners. This means, seek out and go to BDSM events, munches and demonstrations in your area. Be friendly, honest about your inexperience and open to listening to advice,
Steer clear of anyone who wants to navigate you away from all the other folks at the event and beware, there are predators within the BDSM community who use it as a meat market for snapping up newcomers they can use and abuse, only to abandon them when they've done their damage to you. Ask! Never be afraid to ask other people about someone showing undue interest in you. Vetting is as important in bondage as it is in job interviews, if not more so. It could prevent your rape or be worth your life.
Stick with the other new people and participate in classes, get involved in discussions, not to express opinions, but to ask questions. Learn all you can from as many people as you can. Each person has their own methods and means of doing things for their own good reasons. Each person you listen to will add to your perceptions and perspective and thus will have value to you and add to your knowledge base.
The vast majority of us in BDSM are excellent, very friendly folks who are more than happy to lend a hand, teach their methods, tell why they take the precautions they take and give individual, detailed answers to any and all questions. The only dumb questions are the ones you never ask. We all know that because every single one of us started out new to all of this and definitely remembers feeling at sea and insecure about all there is to know.
Last and not least is, be cautious about throwing money away on toys, implements and accoutrements before you have solid ideas and priorities about what your needs are for you and your partner in your chosen play scenes at home. Home is where you'll do most of your playing after all, so pick things you will actually use on a regular basis. A great deal of the gear available can be quite expensive so create a budget for bondage and set a little aside each paycheck to save up for the higher priced items. Don't spend like a millionaire if you aren't one.
What is your favorite gear, toy or lingerie item from sub-shop.com and why?
I'll have to say they are the collar, wrist and ankle restraints and I say so because they now have a great deal of personal significance and emotion behind them.
What is the one sensual fantasy you havenβt lived out yet that you are excited to try?
For obvious reasons, I always got shot down on this idea, told it had all the potential realization a lead balloon's chances of success have, but here goes. You have to know right up front, neither my wife nor I had ever skydived before. I always wanted to take Brenda skydiving, naked, with only her wearing a parachute, and have us make wild and passionate love during the free fall after jumping from the plane. As you might have guessed, that never had a snowball's chance in hell of happening.
Whatβs your favorite knock-knock joke?
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Boo.
Boo who?
Don't cry. Its just a dumb joke.
What is Eskimo ice?
Fish, fat, berries, nuts and possibly grains all mixed together as a food.