Rawr.

The Pedant just spent two nights here and it was very good.

I want to be a person who just effortlessly controls her sub, but I’m not there yet. Or maybe it’s just that a lot of the time, I don’t have any specific idea of what I wanna do with The Pedant, so when he suggests stuff or starts doing stuff, I go with it (but feel less in control than I’d like to). When I do have a strong idea of what I want, and state it, The Pedant has never said no to me even if he’d suggested something different. So, he does submit to me. He just…initiates a lot of stuff and makes a lot of suggestions. And sometimes his suggestion is not the thing I’d planned, but it sounds fun anyway and I assume it’s what he wants so I do it anyway. Which is not a terrible thing – it’s not like I’m doing stuff I hate for him, it’s not like he’s pressuring me for anything, he’s just suggesting stuff and I’m deciding to go along with it. But I wish I were more consistently able to just casually be like “nah we’re doing this other thing now.” And I wish I could stop second-guessing myself.

He continues phrasing things as “I know you like it when I do X for you” (and then starts doing X, whatever X may be, unless I tell him I wanna do something else instead) and I’m still pretty sure at least some of that is him wanting whatever X is but couching it as a thing he’s doing for me. He still insists that ass play feels just neutral to him and he can’t see the point of it, for instance, and will always pretend like it’s something he’s doing entirely for my benefit, even though nowadays he starts moaning and bucking the moment I lightly caress his back door during foreplay. But maybe sometimes he really is phrasing things that way because he’s offering a thing he knows I like, and nothing more.

Sometimes he’ll text me spelling out a specific scene we could do, and my gut reaction is to bristle because it feels too much like he’s steering the ship, but in retrospect he does seem to mean all of those ideas as suggestions for me – to help me get the responses and effects out of him that he knows I want. Like, a while back I discovered that I like edging him while he straddles me (instead of him lying on the bed and me above him like we usually do). I have both my hands free and I get a lovely view. And then it occurred to me that I could add my strap-on to the equation, which would allow me to be touching him in even more ways at once. I said this idea out loud but didn’t do it at the time. And later, The Pedant texted me that he thought it would be better for me to use a butt plug instead of my strap-on because it’s more comfortable for him when a penetrative toy is motionless inside him. But he quickly added that if I want to see him impaled on my silicone cock he would do that for me, too.

Anyway. When he first came over we were going to touch up my hair (he likes re-shaving the shaved parts of my head, and he’s good at it, too) buttttt as usual we got distracted making out. He just goes all lithe and liquid and whimpery in my hands so easily. I can never resist following whatever path gives him the best responses, which usually of course leads to him coming.

On this particular occasion he ended up naked and standing next to my bed, swaying slightly as if hypnotized, as I walked around him exploring his body in whatever ways I wanted. I asked him if he would put on this pair of black-and-purple striped furry knee socks I have* and to my surprise he did it with no hesitation except asking “I presume these are clean?” He’s always balked at the idea of wearing anything “girly” and these socks are most definitely women’s socks.

So he put them on and I ogled him and ran my hands up his legs and then we made out some more and at some point I was caressing his ballsack and letting my fingertips press/stroke his asshole at the same time and he started gasping and whimpering so hard that I decided I needed to explore his back end some more.

He remained standing, facing the bed. I sat on the edge of the bed in front of him, put on a glove, lubed it up, and gently nudged my index finger inside him to the hilt as I continued teasing his cock and nipples with my other hand. Oh god, the sounds he made. Electrifying.

Either he purposely wanted to get his nipples within striking distance of my mouth, or the socks simply slid on the wood floor (probably a bit of both), but he ended up straddling my knees with his legs bent pretty much into 90 degree angles. It was pointlessly awkward and acrobatic, but it amused me to see him contort like that in pursuit of his own pleasure, so I didn’t reposition him; I simply braced my feet more firmly against the floor in case he lost his balance and ended up in my lap.

In his tortuous half-squat his nipples were within my reach, so I teased them with my tongue while running my free hand over the quivering, rigid muscles of his thighs. I know he doesn’t like thrusting in his ass, just a bit of pressure, so I formed the finger that was inside him into kind of a hook and was gently tugging toward myself. I swiped pre-cum from the tip of his cock with my other index finger and fed it to him. He was practically howling as I started idly stroking his cock, and once I started working it in earnest he came pretty quickly, groaning with release and donut-glazing my chest in hot, gooey spurts. 😀

Then he somehow managed to get out of that hellsquat position and crawl onto the bed, looking completely wiped out – more like someone who’d just been through a harrowing but transformative near-death experience than someone who’d just had an orgasm. I de-gloved my ass-hand and lay down next to him and he linked his fingers through mine and pressed the back of my hand against his heart and dozed off.

I…did not doze off. But I lay there for a long while all curled against him, listening to him breathe. Eventually I got bored and gently disentangled myself and went and did other things.

More later, probably.

 

*I have a thing for stripey socks on men. Especially thigh-highs, but knee-high will do.

 

“Consent is sexy!”

I keep seeing posts on social media that assume getting consent for sex acts is awful and boring and suggest ways to make it “sexy” instead.

The whole “consent is sexy!” premise kind of bothers me. I do actually think consent is sexy, in the sense that a person who feels safe with me and wants to do sexual stuff will be moaning and squirming and touching me back and a person who doesn’t want to be doing sexual stuff will just lie there like a meat puppet. (I hope I don’t have to explain why my consenting to a sex act is sexier for me than if it happened against my will.)

But the way this whole “consent is sexy!” thing is presented doesn’t seem like they’re saying that. It seems like the people saying it are talking about the process of getting consent, and it seems like they secretly believe this process is a chore but they feel bad for believing that so they’re overcompensating.

Also, the suggestions for making consent “sexy” usually horrify me.

Generally it’s like they’re trying to retrofit dirty talk to do double duty. “Getting consent doesn’t have to be cold and intrusive, you guys! You can say things like ‘yeah, you like that, don’t you?'”

Okay, look. First off, if you’re saying “yeah, you like that, don’t you?” it means you’re already doing the thing. You should be getting consent before doing the thing, or at least right as you begin to do it. Second, everything about that phrase implies someone who’s confident you do like it and they’re expecting you to say so. Could you even imagine how things would awkwardly screech to a halt if the response to ‘yeah, you like that, don’t you?'” was “No”?

I mean, I think that’s partly why a lot of people don’t yell or put up a fuss when they’re being sexually assaulted: the perpetrator usually acts as though what’s happening is perfectly fine, and it makes you doubt yourself. It would be easy to yell “stop it!” at someone who said “GRRRR! I’M GOING TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT YOU NOW” and grabbed you by the whatever. If, on the other hand, your assailant is acting like everything’s normal and awesome, it’s like pre-emptive gaslighting – you could yell “TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!” but you’d feel like a crazy, oversensitive asshole. The person was just being friendly (/romantic/affectionate/whatever) after all.

It’s that sort of peer pressure – that expectation that everything was fine – that kept me from saying anything a bunch of different times that someone was being sketchy with me. And this  idea of gaining consent via dirty talk feels like that same kind of coercion to me. It doesn’t really leave any room for someone to genuinely say “I’m not enjoying myself right now, please stop.”

My point here is twofold:

1. Yeah, the process of gaining consent could probably be seximafied, but I disagree with most of the suggestions I’ve seen re:  how to do that.
2. Just fucking asking about shit in a normal tone, without trying to seximafy it, has honestly not been a buzzkill at all, in my experience. When I was making out with that 23yo that things didn’t work out with, I said “Hey, choking y/n?” in-between kisses and he was like “OMG YES” so I started choking him a little bit and said “tell me if it’s too much.” Others have said no to choking and I was like “cool” and we kept on kissing. Nobody has ever had their ardor cooled by me checking in with them to make sure they were comfortable. Nobody has ever said “OMG we were having fun and you ruined it with all your questions!” and flounced off. ASKING FOR CONSENT DIRECTLY IS NOT A BIG DEAL.

 

Moar furniture

I found another dresser out in the garbage area of the building last night. It’s lower quality than the others we’ve found – parts of it are made of particleboard, not solid wood. But it’s in pretty good condition and I like how tall and narrow it is – I think I might put it in my walk-in closet and use it for all my modelling props. Even if I opt to have it in the bedroom proper it has a small footprint and won’t overwhelm the room, so that’s cool. It’s horrible beige though so I’ll want to repaint it.

When I alerted The Dandy last night to this possible find and we were on our way down with the dolly to investigate further, I said “Don’t judge me if it turns out not to be that great. It’s half-buried under a bunch of stuff and also it’s too dark out to properly look at it.”

The Dandy didn’t answer, but gave me a warm and genuine smile that let me know it was absolutely okay and I didn’t have to worry. That if we ended up not wanting the dresser, he wouldn’t feel angry at me for wasting his time.

And that one brief exchange made me realize both how flinchy I am from previous relationships and how lovely and easygoing The Dandy is.

 

Me: I heard you talking while you were in the shower just now. Who were you talking to?

Dandy: Nobody.

Me: Oh. So, just thinking out loud? About what?

Dandy: Me? Nah. I wasn’t talking to myself. I’m definitely not losing my mind.

Me: …Ah. So that’s how this is gonna go. [Kisses him and leaves the room]

Sex. :D

The Dandy and I had sex today, at my initiation. And it was gooood.

When the penetrative part was done, I grabbed my vibrator (yeah, I wish The Dandy would initiate getting me off, but he doesn’t, and as I told him yesterday, as long as he willingly participates when I start something up that’s my baseline of acceptable sexual behaviour) and to my surprise The Dandy took it from me and applied it to my crotch area. I’m not sure he’s ever, ever done that of his own accord.

My body – as you may know – hasn’t been working as well as it used to on the orgasm front, so coming from someone else’s efforts is hard lately. And coming even from my own ministrations has been hard around The Dandy because I’m so convinced he secretly (or not-so-secretly) finds it boring. But him taking the reins like that after I told him I wanted him to be more attentive to my pleasure means he loves me and wants me to be happy. Like maybe he IS bored but he’s sucking it up for me. And that thought allowed me to loosen up enough to get off, resoundingly. Like, shrieking and shuddering and then bursting into tears.

During the PIV part he seemed more attentive, too – petting me with more finesse than usual and making frequent eye contact.

Oh and I meant to mention before, his orgasms are back! He doesn’t always orgasm per se – sometimes it’s just ejaculation. Actually for a long stretch there it was just ejaculation, as far as I could tell. Which made me suspect he was feeling emotionally distant.

But he orgasmed tonight, and several other times recently. We seem to be back on track. 🙂

Moar talk

So I parked myself in The Dandy’s bedroom doorway and (because I’m not good at gracefully starting conversations, and because if I said “we need to talk” he probably would’ve panicked) I launched straight into “Can you continue to assume that if we’re doing sexual stuff I’ll probably want an orgasm?”

“Yes,” The Dandy said.

“And if I reach for my toys will you understand that I probably expect you to help me out?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll follow whatever directions I give and seem cheerful and helpful about it?”

“Yes.” The Dandy’s face during all of this was open and friendly.

“Okay. That meets my minimum requirements.” I came forward, kissed him, moved around his computer chair to sit on his bed. I started talking some more about things, and I can’t exactly remember what I said or what order things happened in. I think I got to thinking out loud along the lines of, wouldn’t The Dandy feel sad if I never initiated getting him off. But then I realized, maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he doesn’t care about this stuff as much as me. I just don’t know. He said “I care, but apparently not as much as you do.”

I pointed out that I asked him once, long ago, whether he’d be fine with it if a hot woman picked him up at a nightclub, went home with him…and then humped his leg until she orgasmed and then fell asleep without offering to get him off in return. His answer at the time to whether he’d be fine with that was “Not twice…” So apparently these things do matter to him at least a little bit.

And I told him that, okay, maybe he doesn’t mind feeling neglected in bed as much as I do, but partly that’s because he’s a dude and ALL OF SEXUALITY generally revolves around what he wants and likes. So he won’t have had dozens of partners in his life who acted like his orgasm was an unnecessary “extra” thing, or who never ever got him off unless he specifically asked (sometimes not even then). But I have.

I asked him to imagine – really try to imagine – what it would feel like if I initiated sexual stuff by basically pointing at my junk like “yo, my genitals want attention” and then after he got me off, I wouldn’t mention anything about giving him a turn. I’d be amenable enough to watching or helping him if he started jerking off, but I’d never, ever put my hand on his penis of my own accord; he’d have to put it there himself. Imagine if that was his entire sex life. (This description is a direct flip of how things are between The Dandy and I now, if that’s not clear.)

The Dandy started being belligerently silent and it was pissing me off but then I realized, oh…this is not his usual belligerent silence (where actually he’s just afraid because I’m mad at him, and he doesn’t know what to say); this is almost certainly the automatic defensive reaction that comes up when someone is forced to confront their privilege. So I didn’t badger him to answer me about what my hypothetical scenario would feel like or to admit that he’s being kind of a douche or anything. I’m just hoping he’ll let what I’ve said rattle around in his head a while and begin – eventually – to understand my point of view.

At some point in the convo I also snarked about him giving me that hateful look the other night when I asked him to reposition himself so he had a better angle on what he was doing. He protested that he didn’t mean anything personal, he just felt really tired at the time and was half-asleep. “You weren’t too tired to accept that blowjob, though,” I pointed out. “And that’s kinda bullshit.” I went on to say that being too tired to get me off once in a while would be sorta okay if he were, um, providing a higher level of service to me, generally. But it’s not like he’s taking initiative or offering me “freebie” orgasms without asking anything in return or focusing on my pleasure really well even at the best of times. I brought up (I think it was then but it may have been at some other point in the conversation) that sometimes when he’s having a bath I’ll come in and give him a handjob just ’cause I like watching him come, and also because I know he takes baths to relax so I figure I’ll help him relax even more. I make an effort to give him pleasure just because he likes it – not as barter for anything else – and I make an effort to be good at it. And maybe he really doesn’t care about that and wouldn’t miss it if I stopped doing it, I dunno. But for the record I do put in actual effort and thought into making him feel good. And I want to feel like others are doing that for me.

I concluded with: “The reason I came in here to say this, btw, is that I wanna have sex but not until we got our expectations hammered out. Ummmm not that you’re necessarily in the mood right now, even, but I’m putting it out there.”

The Dandy smiled at me, I guess just to show me he understands I don’t hate him or whatever.

“Oh,” I said, “And just as a point of interest, because it seems like other people don’t work like this so maybe I’m just weird: if I say I want sex or an orgasm, that doesn’t actually go away on its own for me. I mean other people seem kind of up-and-down, like ‘yeah no I was in the mood earlier but it kinda faded away since then’ but for me that doesn’t happen. The interest keeps on being there until it’s satisfied. Maybe these days I’m not so much, like, ‘arrrrrgh I’m gonna die if I don’t get laid,’ but still. The want is there, nudging me in the brain, all the time.”

“So, you don’t lose interest in sex thirty seconds after saying you want it?” The Dandy joked.

“I don’t lose interest days after I said I wanted it,” I said, carefully trying to keep my tone from being too pointed and hinty (but I was totally mentioning it because I said days ago that I wanted sex and it still hasn’t happened).

By that point the ranty/critiquing/negotiating part of our convo was definitely done, and The Dandy and I went on to chat in a relaxed fashion about what he should make for lunch and all kinds of other things, interspersed with hugs and kisses and no undertone of weirdness or resentment from him. I’m glad he doesn’t get so freaked out by our relationship talks anymore, and we can integrate them into our normal life pretty well. I worry, though, that he’s able to be so relaxed and stuff now because he’s not actually taking me seriously. His stiffness before is because he was afraid I’d break up with him. Now he seems to understand that I really want us to be permanent and it’ll take a fair bit for me to leave him – so does he figure that’s a get-out-of-jail-free card?

If we can strike a balance where it’s understood that we want to be together and that when I bring up relationship issues it’s in the spirit of us collaborating on fixing a thing rather than a me-against-him breakup threat kind of deal, that would be good. Like, if I could bring up a thing that’s bothering me and he’s not freaked out or defensive but he puts forth a sincere effort to fix the issue even though he knows I”m nowhere near wanting to leave him, that’d be great. We may have reached that point now, even, but it’s too soon to tell.

*sigh*

I asked The Dandy if he remembers that we had a talk while he was drunk (I don’t know how drunk someone has to be to forget things) and he said yes. But he didn’t say anything further.

I mentioned that I had asked him if he thought things would change or not and he was taking a long time to answer and I was waiting and waiting and then I realized he’d fallen asleep and it was kinda funny. He laughed along with me but still opted not to address the issue or continue the conversation. Which I guess means he doesn’t wanna talk about it, but instead of seeming quiet and withdrawn like he usually is when I’m trying to discuss relationship issues, he seemed absolutely relaxed and was talking to me about other things and cracking jokes and stuff.

So I don’t know if that means he’s genuinely too much of a dumbass to understand that I want a resolution to the conversation, or if he thinks my saying “I guess things aren’t gonna change” is an “out” for him and nothing more is required, or what.

And, okay, me saying I guess he won’t change is kind of an “out”? But I want to hear him say the words. I want to hear him say “this is not a thing I can/will do for you.”

That’s been my big frustration in relationships – that I’ll tell my partner what I need from him and he never does it but also doesn’t tell me he’s never gonna do it so I can stop hoping. People who overpromise or mislead because they don’t know their own limitations (or are too selfish to be honest and risk losing me) piss me right the fuck off. I’m not perfect at knowing what I’m capable of – maybe nobody is – but I’m damn sure better at it than most people. If The Dandy told me, for instance, that in order to be happy with me, he’d need me to keep the kitchen spotless all the time, well, I wouldn’t want to lose him but I also know with absolute certainty that I am not going to be able to live up to that request. And I would tell him so. I’d tell him that with my fluctuating energy levels and highly inconsistent work schedule I can’t promise a perpetually tidy kitchen, but that I would try my very best to clean it up every couple of days at least. And I’d let him decide if this was a dealbreaker for him or not. I expect the same level of honesty from him when I’m the one asking for stuff.

Ugh, it’s bugging me that The Dandy isn’t finishing our conversation from the other night. Because the thing is I wanna have sex with him but I definitely want to clarify what I expect of him in bed first.

Maybe he doesn’t wanna talk about this right now but I think I’m gonna try.