Recently I told a close friend of mine about my proclivities. At first she simply listened with intrigue in her voice, but a few days later she called me up--she was worried about me. She was worried that I could be putting myself in danger; she was worried that I was unhealthy in my desires. She wanted to know why I felt a need to be submissive--why I enjoyed being pushed to my limits. She wanted to know if there was anything in my past, my childhood, that could be the source of my kinks.
I loved the fact that she asked me tons of questions and pushed me to explain myself. I love the fact that she made me think about the origins of my personality. I love the fact that she gave me a venue to talk about what I had been thinking about for a while:
Nothing made me this way,
I have always been submissive
I have always enjoyed aggressive romance.
When I was a child one of my teddy bears dominated one of my other bears into sex. I had fantasies of being forced to have sex from the time I had any notion towards sex. Throughout high school, I was thought of as a good girl, but in truth I could be cajoled to do almost anything...almost--as long as a boy had an aura of command about him. As soon as I became romantic with a boy, I would become exceedingly demure. My friends and I loved to play with handcuffs and once I found myself cuffed to my boyfriends bed just as the rest of our friends were clearing out. I cannot even begin to describe how disappointed I was when he uncuffed me.
Then, a handful of years ago I had a boyfriend who gave me a wee swat on the bum while we were fooling around. I gasped in an over dramatic way and he loved it. And I loved the fact that he loved it. It never went any further than that but it certainly planted a seed within me. I asked my next boyfriend if he would spank me. He said no. And then I was with a man who was a dirty, dirty boy--it both scared and titillated me. And yet another dirty, dirty boy--this one very dominant. I was entranced by his demeanor and the excitement of it all. That summer I moved, but before I did, I bought a book of spanking stories. Randomly, I opened the book to a story about a woman who was utterly beaten while hanging on a St. Andrew's cross. When I had finished the story my first reaction was, "Wow! I don;t think I could ever take that. I am so impressed." Sure, it occurred to me that most people would have found the story upsettingly violent--I found it to be something to strive for.
I have since had the opportunity to play with a few people. I currently have two amazing partners, including Spiritually Playful. I have had my limits pushed to places I never thought possible. I have been blessed with chances to truly bask in sub-space.
And I have come to see that nothing made me this way. I have always been submissive. I have always fantasized about aggressive romance.
Showing posts with label bondage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bondage. Show all posts
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Freedom of mind, body, soul . . .
I began my attempt to be well read starting when I was ten. At summer camp we traded a copy of a sexy book back and forth, chapter by chapter, top bunk to bottom bunk and back. I was hypnotized by the relationship dynamics as much as by the sexual experience and conversations. By eleven the beginning of my education and my life long pursuit of all knowledge concerning relationship dynamics was complete (not!). I found a copy of Robert Rimmer's The Harrad Experiment! I found it liberating at eleven to think that multiple couples could bond, maintain multiple, open, long-term relationships and create a tribal house in which all members contributed to the household and relationship responsibilities. Sure it is Utopian and from the 70s, thus only dealing with the heterosexual aspect of relationships. But for me it provided hope for the advancement of the human spirit, human desires, and human sexuality. It is impossible to say I've read everything, but I've certainly read as much about relationships and sex as I could possible get my hands on and my mind wrapped around. It allowed me to believe that there was always more that I could learn and always someone who might be able to teach me. At some point I saw the movie 9 1/2 weeks and was mesmerized by the images it showed and the power exchange within the relationship. Again there are things to love and things to hate about this film, but the images advanced my knowledge of the potential for my inner desires. Later I watched Sex, Lies and Video Tape and The Secretary which also helped to provide images I longed to see and illustrate the desires I longed to fulfill.
Later, a partner of mine gifted me with two books that would change my life. Exit to Eden by Anne Rice as Anne Rampling and The Story of O by Pauline Reage. These books are both great and awful. I both love and hate aspects of each of these books. But beyond that they began to open another aspect of my inner desires. I desire to tie a partner up with her consent, a desire to be completely in control. Some years passed as I continued reading and understanding my inner desires.
A few years later, at almost thirty, I took my own life in hand the moment I felt free enough to purchase my first pair of leather bondage cuffs and Laura Antoniou's (still as Sara Adamson back then) first three Market Place novels. That summer, standing in the middle of the Boston Leather Flea Market, I felt the shackles of my fears and reservations fall from my mind and psyche. I still only had three people who knew of my dominant tendencies, two who let me actually bind them to a bed, but I had hopes for more adventures as I continued to explore my own relationship boundaries in my search for partners with similar desires.
At this time, while I was exploring my wild side, I was also a few years away from becoming a rabbi. I wasn't sure a loving partner existed who would accept and share both my inner desires and my belief in open relationships. I wasn't involved in any scene and didn't know enough people who lived like I wanted to live. And I was positive that my lifestyle couldn't, wouldn't mesh with my desire to be the best rabbi I could become. But as much as I wanted to be a great rabbi is as much as I wanted to be a great Dom in multiple, long term relationships with partners I respected and loved who enjoyed having me tie them up and fulfill a long list of both of our desires.
Fast forward ten years. I have a primary loving partner who enjoys being bound to a bed and spanked once in a while who supports me in all I am and all I do. I have three very different partners I love who all come to me for my skills with ropes, cuffs, floggers and other fascinating toys and devices. One of them I have been with only one year less than I've been with my primary partner. I also happen to be an amazing rabbi, with an amazing job.
A few springs ago, a best friend, colleague and one of my current partners began a conversation that changed both our lives. She told me that she thinks she loves being tied up and being at the will of a strong, dominant partner. "Funny thing," I say. "I happen to love tying people up and fulfilling their desires and mine in a consensual safe environment." (The funnier part of this is that she says to me this year "I knew ten years ago you liked tying people up. I found your cuffs once under your bed." What she was doing looking under my bed is an EVEN LONGER story!).
Our friendship and relationship blossomed until we were talking this year, after an amazing scene together, about writing with a third like-minded friend from our perspectives as both rabbis and sexual beings active in the BDSM lifestyle. We figured that based on the number of rabbis we had already discovered who were into the scene that there had to be even more rabbis we didn't know about with no voice who think they are alone in their desires and calling.
This is the short of my story. It isn't every detail, but it is enough of them. I am a very spiritual and sexual person. I always have been and always will be. I love who I am and who I become each day. I love my family, I love my partners and I love being a rabbi. I think my greater understanding of love, relationships (especially open relationships) and sex gives me a healthy head start in helping couples and families as they deal with their own relationship issues or prepare for their life together in marriage.
I hope my words here help build a stronger Jewish community and a stronger bond(age) to its sexual identity. I also hope the three of us create a greater understanding of the fact that we aren't alone in our calling as rabbis who desire to push their sexual lives as far as they can go in healthy, safe and consensual environments and experiences.
Cain yehi ratzon - May this be God's will,
1LeatherRabbi@gmail.com
Later, a partner of mine gifted me with two books that would change my life. Exit to Eden by Anne Rice as Anne Rampling and The Story of O by Pauline Reage. These books are both great and awful. I both love and hate aspects of each of these books. But beyond that they began to open another aspect of my inner desires. I desire to tie a partner up with her consent, a desire to be completely in control. Some years passed as I continued reading and understanding my inner desires.
A few years later, at almost thirty, I took my own life in hand the moment I felt free enough to purchase my first pair of leather bondage cuffs and Laura Antoniou's (still as Sara Adamson back then) first three Market Place novels. That summer, standing in the middle of the Boston Leather Flea Market, I felt the shackles of my fears and reservations fall from my mind and psyche. I still only had three people who knew of my dominant tendencies, two who let me actually bind them to a bed, but I had hopes for more adventures as I continued to explore my own relationship boundaries in my search for partners with similar desires.
At this time, while I was exploring my wild side, I was also a few years away from becoming a rabbi. I wasn't sure a loving partner existed who would accept and share both my inner desires and my belief in open relationships. I wasn't involved in any scene and didn't know enough people who lived like I wanted to live. And I was positive that my lifestyle couldn't, wouldn't mesh with my desire to be the best rabbi I could become. But as much as I wanted to be a great rabbi is as much as I wanted to be a great Dom in multiple, long term relationships with partners I respected and loved who enjoyed having me tie them up and fulfill a long list of both of our desires.
Fast forward ten years. I have a primary loving partner who enjoys being bound to a bed and spanked once in a while who supports me in all I am and all I do. I have three very different partners I love who all come to me for my skills with ropes, cuffs, floggers and other fascinating toys and devices. One of them I have been with only one year less than I've been with my primary partner. I also happen to be an amazing rabbi, with an amazing job.
A few springs ago, a best friend, colleague and one of my current partners began a conversation that changed both our lives. She told me that she thinks she loves being tied up and being at the will of a strong, dominant partner. "Funny thing," I say. "I happen to love tying people up and fulfilling their desires and mine in a consensual safe environment." (The funnier part of this is that she says to me this year "I knew ten years ago you liked tying people up. I found your cuffs once under your bed." What she was doing looking under my bed is an EVEN LONGER story!).
Our friendship and relationship blossomed until we were talking this year, after an amazing scene together, about writing with a third like-minded friend from our perspectives as both rabbis and sexual beings active in the BDSM lifestyle. We figured that based on the number of rabbis we had already discovered who were into the scene that there had to be even more rabbis we didn't know about with no voice who think they are alone in their desires and calling.
This is the short of my story. It isn't every detail, but it is enough of them. I am a very spiritual and sexual person. I always have been and always will be. I love who I am and who I become each day. I love my family, I love my partners and I love being a rabbi. I think my greater understanding of love, relationships (especially open relationships) and sex gives me a healthy head start in helping couples and families as they deal with their own relationship issues or prepare for their life together in marriage.
I hope my words here help build a stronger Jewish community and a stronger bond(age) to its sexual identity. I also hope the three of us create a greater understanding of the fact that we aren't alone in our calling as rabbis who desire to push their sexual lives as far as they can go in healthy, safe and consensual environments and experiences.
Cain yehi ratzon - May this be God's will,
1LeatherRabbi@gmail.com
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Just How Hard Wired are We?
At what point does a person know that he is submissive? or Dominant? At what point does a person know that she likes to be tied up? or likes to spank bad boys and girls? Are sexual proclivities hard wired into us or do we learn them from our parents, siblings, friends, lovers? Is BDSM nature or nurture?
On the one hand, there are so many fetishes that, by their very nature, must be the product of nurture, such as electro shock based fetishes, Hello Kitty fetishes, or car fetishes--none of these could have existed until such time as we invented (or in the case of electricity, harnessed) them. In the scope of human existence, they are flashes in the pan--and flashes do not imprint themselves upon our DNA...our psyche, absolutely, but not our very genome.
So, while the particulars of a fetish may rely on the world/culture/family we grow up in, what about the archetype of the fetish? Could a person, theoretically, have an inherent fetish for shock type stimuli, totems, or big powerful inanimate objects--things that have always been present throughout human existence? Could a person be born submissive? Dominant? Masochistic? Sadistic? Could a person have in hers or his genetic make-up a need to serve? A need to portray an animal? A need to humiliate another?
As is generally true of any nature vs. nurture argument, I imagine the answer will be neither one nor the other, but rather...both.
We come into this world with aspects of our dispositions already hard wired; I, for example, failed my first Apgar test because, no matter what the doctor did to me, I didn't cry (anyone here see a future stubborn masochist?) Nevertheless, how my hard wired disposition blossomed into the happy sub who writes this today has everything to do with how I have been nurtured, for better or for worse, throughout my life.
So, why this question right now? I have a teenage kid who I am watching express her overwhelming desire to be dominated (sans any of the language of the BDSM culture). I cannot help but wonder is this desire imprinted upon her DNA or is it the result of events in her life that have left her feeling distrustful of her own ability to make decisions?
Once I opened my eyes to my true self, I knew that so much of this had been with me from the very beginning. But is that necessarily true for everyone else?
What about your fetish, nature or nurture?
On the one hand, there are so many fetishes that, by their very nature, must be the product of nurture, such as electro shock based fetishes, Hello Kitty fetishes, or car fetishes--none of these could have existed until such time as we invented (or in the case of electricity, harnessed) them. In the scope of human existence, they are flashes in the pan--and flashes do not imprint themselves upon our DNA...our psyche, absolutely, but not our very genome.
So, while the particulars of a fetish may rely on the world/culture/family we grow up in, what about the archetype of the fetish? Could a person, theoretically, have an inherent fetish for shock type stimuli, totems, or big powerful inanimate objects--things that have always been present throughout human existence? Could a person be born submissive? Dominant? Masochistic? Sadistic? Could a person have in hers or his genetic make-up a need to serve? A need to portray an animal? A need to humiliate another?
As is generally true of any nature vs. nurture argument, I imagine the answer will be neither one nor the other, but rather...both.
We come into this world with aspects of our dispositions already hard wired; I, for example, failed my first Apgar test because, no matter what the doctor did to me, I didn't cry (anyone here see a future stubborn masochist?) Nevertheless, how my hard wired disposition blossomed into the happy sub who writes this today has everything to do with how I have been nurtured, for better or for worse, throughout my life.
So, why this question right now? I have a teenage kid who I am watching express her overwhelming desire to be dominated (sans any of the language of the BDSM culture). I cannot help but wonder is this desire imprinted upon her DNA or is it the result of events in her life that have left her feeling distrustful of her own ability to make decisions?
Once I opened my eyes to my true self, I knew that so much of this had been with me from the very beginning. But is that necessarily true for everyone else?
What about your fetish, nature or nurture?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
An introduction . . .
After ten years of personal and sexual soul searching two friends and I discovered that we had a lot more in common than just our profession. So after some discussions we decided to create this blog to create a safe space for us, and those like us, to write, discuss, describe our lives and how we choose to live them in a healthy and loving manner with a bit of leather and a lot of healthy bondage thrown in for fun. We hope you join on this adventure in words.
1Leatherrabbi@gmail.com
1Leatherrabbi@gmail.com
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