Intimate Intercourse: #DaddyDomLyfe (Part 2)

Kate Sloan

Hi again! Welcome back to Intimate Intercourse, a series where I interview my boyfriend/Sir/daddy, who goes by Super Sleepy Dude, about various topics related to sex and kink. This week we’re discussing Daddy Dom/little girl kink! This is part 2 of a 3-part interview; you can read part 1 here. In this instalment, we discuss protocol, lifestyle domming, negotiating DD/lg exclusivity in polyamory, and kinky headspaces. Enjoy! Content warning for this post: ageplay, mentions of food and fatphobia.

Kate Sloan: Okay. This is kind of veering away from talking about identity, but – I feel like part of how our DD/lg dynamic manifests in the real world for us is you ordering stuff for me at restaurants, and picking my outfits for me sometimes, and helping me with my productivity, and helping me remember to take my iron pill every day, and stuff like that, that’s like, life maintenance stuff – which, I always kinda thought I wouldn’t be able to find someone who was into doing that stuff for me, ‘cause to me, that sounds stressful, to have to manage that stuff for someone else.

Super Sleepy: Yeah, I think, to a lot of people, that sounds stressful, because it’s a lot of responsibility, and if you fuck up, you’re not just fucking up sex or kink; you’re fucking up, potentially, someone’s life. And also, to other people, it just sounds boring. It’s neither of those things to me. It’s not stressful, because the protocols are set up in a way where we can both be successful at them; that’s how we constructed the relationship and the protocols. And it’s not boring, because seeing my little girl succeed and shine and grow is one of the most satisfying things. So yeah, that is definitely a big part of how our DD/lg stuff works. And I think it could work outside of that context – like, if we were just in a different type of D/s dynamic, we could still do all that stuff – but it feels even more like I am nurturing you because it is within that context.

KS: [giggling] Yeah. So, I think when we had been dating for like a month and a half – maybe not even that long – we had a conversation about DD/lg exclusivity.

SS: Ooh, yeah. Mhm.

KS: We decided I wasn’t gonna have any other daddies and you weren’t gonna have any other little girls. That came up ‘cause you were listening to an old podcast of mine.

SS: Yeah. I think I was on a plane, and I was listening to a Dildorks episode where you kind of casually mentioned that you had talked about that with another partner, and I wanted to ask you whether you had thought about that with us.

KS: And I had, but I had not been brave enough to bring it up.

SS: [growly voice] Secrets!!

KS: Well, we’d only been dating for like a month and a half!

SS: [laughing] I know. I know.

KS: And then you did kind of a weird thing – which, I understand in retrospect why you did it, but it freaked me out so much in the moment! You told me about listening to that podcast, and then you were like, “Is that still something that you want?” but you did not indicate at all if you wanted it.

SS: Yeah. I just left the question to you.

KS: So I think I gave a very non-committal response. I think I basically was like, “I mean, yeah, but also, if you didn’t want that, I could live without it, but yeah, I do want that.” And then you were like, “Yeah, I want that too.”

SS: Yeah. I had thought about it a bunch before asking about it, because I figured that if I brought it up, that would be the conversation that we were gonna have. And while I didn’t know exactly what that would look like, when I thought about it, I definitely wanted it.

KS: Why did you want it?

SS: It feels safer to me. Nurturing somebody and being in this kind of parental, guiding role is a lot of effort and emotional work. Even though it doesn’t feel like work, it’s a lot of emotional output. I don’t think I could do it for multiple people at once, and I kind of want to see that commitment mirrored on the other side. I want to know that the person I’m doing it for and with is on the same page, ideally.

KS: I think we are.

SS: Yeah, I think so too. And also, would it be confusing for you to have multiple daddies? Like, how would you deal with conflicts in terms of the guidance you were getting from these different people? Just seems like it might be kind of hard.

KS: Yeah, I don’t know, ‘cause I’ve never really been in that position before. I’ve never even really had more than one dom at a time, so I don’t know. I guess that would have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. But I agree with something you said to me a while ago: that if I did have more than one dom, they would probably basically have to be in charge of different things.

SS: Right. Otherwise it just gets to a point where you’re getting conflicting information, and then you’re gonna feel really bad if you’re disappointing somebody.

KS: Yup. I would be interested to talk to other poly submissives about how they deal with that.

SS: Yeah, for sure.

KS: So, you were calling me diminutive names before we were even playing with DD/lg stuff more explicitly.

SS: [dommy voice] Oh yeah? Was I?

KS: Yeah! What do you get out of calling me names like “little one” and “princess”? Why do you like that?

SS: ‘Cause when I look at you and when I fuck you and when I cuddle you, that’s how you feel to me. You feel little and precious and beautiful and special, and I want the names that I use for you to reflect that.

KS: [giggling] It’s so nice. I feel like you actually see me the way I feel like I am, when I’m in that headspace, which is really affirming.

SS: Yeah.

KS: I have a lot of guilt about that, because I feel like, on some level, it comes from a place of internalized fatphobia – about growing up chubby and wanting to literally be seen as, and called, small. But I think it’s more about the feeling of powerlessness.

SS: Yeah, I don’t think about it in that dimension. I don’t think about your body being thinner, or whatever, than it is. I think about it more in terms of the power differential, but also the knowledge differential, I guess. Like, “daddy’s gonna show you how your body works,” or “daddy’s gonna show you how to eat oysters for the first time,” or…

KS: [giggling]

SS: Like that. Like, I’m gonna show you things about the world and about yourself, and that makes you little, because you haven’t experienced those things yet. Even if that’s not technically true – like if we’re roleplaying that – it’s still really hot to me.

KS: Yeah, me too. How is it different to relate to someone who is in little space versus them just being in subspace?

SS: Oh my god, so interesting. Oh, wow. It’s not dissimilar. There’s the case when somebody is in little space, there’s the case when they’re in subspace, and then there’s the case when they’re in both.

KS: Right.

SS: A subspacey person is still presenting as an adult, and you want to be very clear with them, because they’re spacey, but you don’t need to inhabit a role where you are older and more nurturing towards them. And when they’re in little space but not in subspace, you don’t need to do the things that you would do for somebody who is in subspace, necessarily, but you want to play into the fact that they are small and full of wonder and they want to be shown things and they’re curious and they’re playful, and you’re the adult in the situation, so you still get the final say on everything. They can ask for things, but it’s your scene. And then when they’re in little space and subspace, that’s the most fun, ‘cause they’ve got that childlike wonder and they’re also really spacey and easy to move around and steer where you want them, and it’s such an altered state that it’s really fun to play with.

KS: Do you feel differences between topspace, dom space, and “daddy space”?

SS: Topspace and dom space, to me, are pretty synonymous. I don’t really feel that much of a difference. Maybe I haven’t topped non-dominantly enough to know. Daddy space… The main difference I feel is when they’re not the same thing. So, when I’m in a not-explicitly-sexual scenario with you, like at a restaurant, or holding your hand while we cross the street, or watching you perform from the audience as your daddy, that feels a lot different to me than topspace. I’m not actively topping, I’m not doing a thing, but I still have this pride and this sense of protectiveness and care and carefulness that permeates my whole brain.

KS: Aww. That’s so cute.

SS: Yeah. And, again, when they’re combined, it’s a lot.

KS: Do you think your voice changes?

SS: Do you think so?

KS: [giggling] Well, I’m trying to think about whether your “dom voice” is different from your “daddy voice.” I do think there is a difference, and I think it’s a tenderness.

SS: Yeah, I think so too. I can totally picture me saying things in both of those voices, and I think when I’m doing stuff as your daddy, versus just as your Sir, it’s more condescending and it’s more tender at the same time.

KS: Yep. I like it.

SS: [daddy voice] You do like it, little one, don’t you? I know what you like, babygirl…

KS: [subby giggling] Hey!

SS: Hey!

KS: Heyyy!

SS: Hey! You don’t wanna get little right now?

KS: Well, I only have two more questions.

SS: Okay.

Check back on Friday for the last instalment of this interview, in which we’ll be talking about ethical concerns around DD/lg, advice for burgeoning daddy doms, literal versus non-literal ageplay dynamics, and being a submissive daddy!

Intimate Intercourse: #DaddyDomLyfe (Part 1)

Kate Sloan

Hello! Intimate Intercourse is a series where I interview my boyfriend/Sir/daddy, who goes by Super Sleepy Dude, about various topics related to sex and kink. Previously we’ve talked about phone sex; this time we’re discussing Daddy Dom/little girl kink! I’ve split this interview up into 3 parts, which will go up over the course of this week. This first part is about how my darlin’ discovered DD/lg and his daddy identity, and how we feel about me calling him that. We hope you enjoy it! Content note for this post: Daddy dom/little girl roleplay (of course), hypnosis, adult baby/diaper-lover roleplay.

Kate Sloan: Daaaaddyyyy.

Super Sleepy: Yes, babygirl?

KS: We’re gonna talk about DD/lg!

SS: DD/lg. Life is good.

KS: Are you excited?

SS: I’m ready.

KS: That’s not what I asked!

SS: I am excited!

KS: Okay. When did you first hear about DD/lg as a concept, and how did you feel about it?

SS: I think I first heard about it on Tumblr, probably through my exploration of the hypnosis community there. I started following a lot of hypnokink blogs and some of those ended up having various intersections with other kinks, DD/lg being one of them. I felt, not squicked out by it, really, but like, “Oh, that’s not really for me. I’ll just skip over that.” I didn’t quite understand the distinction between DD/lg and like, adult baby/diaper stuff. What is the acronym for that?

KS: AB/DL.

SS: AB/DL, yeah. I think at some point, after realizing that I didn’t know that, I looked up the difference and I started to understand it better.

KS: How are people combining DD/lg with hypnosis? ‘Cause I know how we do that, but I didn’t know it was, like, a thing in the fandom.

SS: Yeah, definitely a thing! The things that I’ve seen are mostly related to putting people more into “little space” with hypnosis. So, if somebody doesn’t go into little space as naturally or as quickly as you do, for instance…

KS: [laughing]

SS: …you can trance them and make them littler, or get them to the degree of littleness that you want, with trance as a tool to do that. And you can do that on a scale of literalness, where if you want to be more literal about it, you can affect their vocabulary and the way they talk and the way they act and the way they move, and if you want it to be less literal, you can affect fewer of those factors.

KS: Daddy Dom/literal girl.

SS: [laughing] Mhm!

KS: Okay, so, when we first first started dating, you told me that you didn’t think you were “a daddy, per se.”

SS: Yeah, I did say that.

KS: Yeah. What did you mean by that?

SS: I think that in my time looking at this stuff and reading about it, I had a very archetypal image of what a daddy is – maybe informed by leather daddies, maybe informed by images I’d seen on Tumblr, or both. But I didn’t feel like this significantly older caretaker, because we’re, you know, not that far apart in age, and I viewed that as a really important component of that kink.

KS: Right. What changed, that made you say “Try it” one time when I said that I wanted to call you that?

SS: I don’t think that anything changed, really. I think I’m just open to being wrong about stuff, especially stuff that I might like, because I’ve liked a lot of things that I wasn’t sure I would like before I tried them. So, to me, it was like, I don’t feel like I’m a daddy, but maybe it’ll feel really good, or maybe it won’t, and it’ll be fine, because I didn’t feel like you would be upset or not want to continue trying other stuff if it didn’t feel good. I wasn’t that scared about that.

KS: Yeah. How did it feel when I first called you that?

SS: I’d want to go back to what I said, ‘cause now I’m gonna view it through the lens that it definitely felt amazing, ‘cause it feels really really good now. But if I think back, I remember, early on, there was some stuff about ownership, and it was tied up in that. When you started calling me “daddy,” it was rare, and it was special, and it felt like I had this important place in your life even though we didn’t know each other that well and we were just starting to date. I was quickly very into that feeling.

KS: [giggling] No chill at all.

SS: Yeah.

KS: And then you started to get more into it as we did it more. We kind of joke a lot about how you are clearly a daddy, and that there were all these signs, but you didn’t know. What are some things about yourself that you’ve realized are “daddy qualities” that you didn’t notice before?

SS: Oh god, so many things. So, you’ve pointed out that on our first date, I wanted to order for you, and I wanted to share food with you, and I wanted to solve your problems, in that you wanted to make out with me and needed a place to do that, and I wanted to take care of you and handle that. And I sort of showed up in kind of businessy attire and shiny shoes, and all of that surface-level stuff, for sure, is very “daddy.” Like, I’m into fancy watches and suits and the stuff you see in black-and-white photos on Tumblr or whatever. But on a deeper level, I really really have always deeply wanted to take care of my partners. Regardless of the kink dynamics at play, I just want to take care of the people that I’m close to – friends and partners – and I want to take care of them in a way that is deeply aware of what they need, and focused on what will make them feel safe and comfortable. I didn’t really realize that not everybody felt that to the same degree that I do, but looking around, the more I think about this identity and this kink, I don’t think I realized how maybe rare that feeling is. Like, I want to provide for and take care of the person that I’m with – and on a different level, be egalitarian and equal, but in some way, kind of protect them.

KS: Interesting. You texted me a while ago, a picture of the two times that you wrote on my arm, and you were like, “This was when I was coming into my daddy-dom identity and this was when I was feeling more confident about it.”

SS: Yeah.

KS: What happened to get you to that point? Or how does that feel different?

SS: The thing that I got a lot more comfortable with is the word. You’ve written a lot about the word, and about getting comfortable with calling partners that yourself. It’s a very weighty word. It has a lot of cultural significance and psychological significance to hear someone call you “daddy” when you’re not a literal father, or even if you were, in a different context. So when we first started dating, you would call me “Sir” most of the time, and then occasionally you would call me “daddy,” and it would be sort of extra-intense and special. And then over a period of a few months, I started feeling more connected to that word than any other word. I felt more like that was my role, rather than just being your dominant or your Sir or your boyfriend. All those things are still true, but being your daddy felt so real and undeniably true, I guess. And so, when you talk about the arm photos, it’s like… The first time, I definitely felt like your daddy, but I wasn’t gonna write it on you, because that would be like making it too real, and I was still a little bit afraid of the word. And then later, that’s just the first thing I went to, because you are my little girl and I’m your daddy.

KS: [giggling] Yeah.

SS: Yeah.

KS: Aww, cute.

SS: How do you feel about it?

KS: I think that often, when we first started dating, when I would call you that, it would be in moments of extreme arousal or feeling very subspacey and very vulnerable and very dependent on you, and it would come out almost involuntarily at that point. I think that the longer we’ve dated, the easier and quicker it’s been for me to get into subspace and little space when we’re together, or when we’re talking, and so it comes more naturally. But also I think that when I first started calling you that, I was really nervous all the time that you didn’t really like it, and that you were just kind of humoring me and letting me call you that ‘cause you knew that I liked it, and so I didn’t do it very much.

SS: Yeah. I never really felt that way. I never felt like I was “letting” you do it, except for the first time, when I wasn’t sure, and then after that, I never felt that way.

KS: Yeah. I’ve had a couple of past partners who I felt like they were doing that, and I can’t really confirm that that was for sure what was going on, but I got that sense from them. There was one point several months ago when I expressed that to you, that I was nervous that you weren’t into it, and you were like, “We can explore it as deeply as you want, and you can feel it as much as you want, and you can call me it as much as you want,” and that made me feel a lot better about it.

SS: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

KS: And then I felt even better about it when you told me you felt more like my daddy than my Sir, because then I felt like I could call you that all the time.

SS: You can! I love it.

KS: But does it lose its intensity when I call you that all the time?

SS: No. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. I still remember very vividly the first time you said “I love you, daddy” to me. I’m pretty sure I cried. I still feel that same deep pull of really strong emotion every time you say those words to me, because it’s so much responsibility and trust and care – to not just be telling somebody that you love them but also to be telling them you love them in that way, in that dependent, small, “I trust you with everything because it’s your job to take care of me” way, you know? Yeah. That never loses its potency or immediacy or intensity to me.

To be continued on Wednesday, when we’ll discuss protocol, lifestyle domming, negotiating DD/lg exclusivity in polyamory, and kinky headspaces!

A Year of Independent Living

Kate Sloan

A year ago today, I moved into the little west-Toronto nook that’s now my home. A terse duo of Russian men packed all my worldly possessions into a truck outside my parents’ house, and then my mom, brother, and I hopped in a car and followed them across town to my new place. We watched as they hauled my mattress upstairs, my dresser, my desk. And then, all of a sudden, I lived in a new location. My first move since my parents vacated our little Degrassi Street house when I was a baby.

Depressed people like me often move through life more slowly than our neurotypical peers. When just staying afloat and staying alive takes massive energy, it can be difficult to put additional energy into propelling yourself forward – so you can feel “stuck” as you watch your more emotionally balanced friends chase after new homes, new careers, new relationships. This is largely why it took me until age 25 to move out of my parents’ home and into my own: the financial and emotional stability necessary for this move were hard-won for me, and I wanted to make sure both were firmly in place before I took the leap. (The immense privilege of my parents’ support until that time is one I don’t overlook and can never really repay them for. What a gift. I was, and am, so lucky.)

A couple months after landing my current dayjob, I spotted a post on Facebook about a room availability in an apartment. It was within my budget, located in a neighborhood I loved, and my potential roommate would be a cool sex-positive and 420-friendly friend-of-a-friend. I reached out to her to ask if I could come see the place, and on one Friday afternoon that August, I did. She showed me the room, and I was instantly enamored: it was huge (for a downtown Toronto bedroom), had ample natural light (important for combating my seasonal depression), and had two closets (oh, the sex toy storage possibilities!). We discussed details, and I told her I’d have to run it by my parents, but I knew in my heart that my answer was already yes. I wanted this big, bright apartment to be my new home.

Weirdly, the day of that viewing was also the day my last boyfriend broke up with me. He’d been cold and distant for a couple days, and wanted me to come over so we could talk – which, naturally, spiked my anxiety like whoa. His apartment was walking distance from the one I’d just been to see, so I ambled in his direction after the viewing. “It’s weird to have looked at the new place right before doing this,” I texted my best friend. “I’m all jazzed and energetic on my way to the guillotine.”

Indeed, when I got there, he broke up with me on the spot, and sent me home with an armful of items I’d been keeping at his house: a vape, a paddle, a vibrator. I cried behind my sunglasses on the seemingly endless streetcar ride, all the way across town, thinking about how I was alone, and I had so much to do before the move, and I was alone, and I was alone, and I was so so so alone.

But the truth was, I wasn’t alone. A friend invited me over to her place, made me a gin and tonic (which I sobbed into), and sat with me quietly reading a book while I finished some dayjob work. When I had steadied myself enough to form complete sentences, I told her about the apartment – how perfect it was, how excited I was to move there, even though the brick blanket of breakup depression had already settled on my bones.

My pal vowed to help me with my packing over the coming weeks, because she – a fellow depression-sufferer – knew how grief and malaise can weigh on you in a very real way, making it feel impossible to even move through the motions of your day. Over the 3 weeks that remained before moving day, she came over to my parents’ house a few times, and spent hours with me in my hot attic bedroom, deciding which clothes, books, and sex toys to take with me and which to leave behind. She listened to me cry and rant about my ex as we picked through the detritus of my entire life. It was a catharsis, an excavation, a salvaging.

And so everything got packed, and the Russian men came to take my stuff away, and I became – by at least this one measure – an independent adult. My mom, an ever-hovering maternal firecracker, wanted to make my bed for me with the sheets and shams we’d hauled over from my old room – but I told her no, I wanted to do it myself. I appreciated her love and care, on levels so deep I couldn’t even verbalize my feelings, but I wanted this new place to be mine. I felt invigorated by the knowledge that depression could not defeat me, not even when I’d been faced with a task as dauntingly huge as moving across the city in the wake of a breakup.

That first night, my friend Brent happened to be playing a show at a bar downtown, and I went. A random dude in the audience recognized me from Instagram, bought me shots of whiskey, and made out with me in front of the stage. I cheered and clapped and cried as Brent performed his set. At the end of the night, drunk on attention and booze, I left the bar in my little leather jacket and wandered back to my new home-that-didn’t-yet-feel-like-home. On the way, I stopped off for some tipsy McDonald’s. This would become a tradition of mine on mellow, merry nights.

The first few months in my new place were resolutely lonely. There were days when I felt paralyzed by anxiety, unsure where in the neighborhood to get food or coffee, so I just stayed in bed writing and crying. There were nights when I desperately wanted to go to a comedy show, but feared going alone, so I’d get high and go out or stay sober and stay in. I texted my family whenever the loneliness felt overwhelming, and visited them at least once a week, sleeping on the den couch because the centerpiece of my old bedroom was now just a bare boxspring. I defied my introverted nature to make plans with friends as often as I could, aching to fill the void left by my old home and my dissolved relationship. It frequently didn’t feel like enough, and I spent many nights numbing out with weed and Netflix, wondering if I’d made a massive mistake – or perhaps a series of them.

But, over time, it got easier. On days when I felt strong enough to confront my anxieties, I marched into heretofore-unexplored cafés, diners, grocery stores, and bookshops, laying claim to happy new haunts. I refamiliarized myself with the reality that no one actually thinks it’s that weird if you go see an improv show by yourself. I blasted jazz through my speakers while sipping wine and writing, imbuing my new home with my old rhythms. I wrote in my journal that my ex felt “like a dark spectre looming over my life, a half-imagined ghost of what could have been, hazy at the edges and fading day by day.” I made out with a cute boy from OkCupid in a dark alley after a couple of beers. I flirted with Twitter crushes and Facebook friends-of-friends. I kept on visiting my family once a week, less because I needed them and more because I loved them.

It’s been a year now since I moved in here, and I have rituals and routines in my neighborhood now that make me feel grounded and safe. I’m not lonely anymore, most of the time: I have good friends, and a boyfriend who I get to see about once a month. Waking up beside him in my bed, in this bright and spacious bedroom, always makes me reflect on how wonderful it is to have found places – and people – that feel, at last, like home.

Monthly Faves: Lube, Taboos, & Booze

Kate Sloan

Hi hello hi! I was depressed for a lot of this month, but I still managed to find moments of sweetness, safety and sensuality through sex. Here are some of my August faves.

Sex toys

• My partner attended a fisting workshop (aww, how romantic) and the instructors suggested using a large dildo as an intermediary while working up to a fist. We experimented with one of the biggest dildos I own, the Vixen Creations Randy, and it did indeed help a lot – though I still haven’t been able to take my partner’s entire (enormous) fist. We’re getting there, though!

• Still swooning over the Eroscillator practically every day. It’s an enduring romance.

• I know I’ve mentioned The Butters a lot lately, but I used it more this month than I’ve perhaps ever used it before, so it bears repeating. Peepshow Toys were nice enough to send tons of jars of The Butters with me to Woodhull, and I distributed most of them but kept a couple for myself. My partner managed to almost-fist me (see above) and give me a full-body massage using this lube, plus I used on him for handjobs and prostate play and a pegging sesh, and we still had tons left over. It’s so good.

Fantasy fodder

• (Content note for incest roleplay in this one.) Reasons I love my partner #57294729: we were out for dinner one night this month and I casually mentioned that I’d been having some idle fantasies about him roleplaying as my older brother, and he was instantly interested. Obviously DD/lg is a staple of our relationship, but we’d never ventured into other familial roleplays. Something about the brother/sister dynamic suddenly appealed to me, though: I liked that there would be an element of caring and caretaking, as with a daddy/daughter dynamic, but that an older brother could be a little meaner, cruder, more selfish. We tried it in a phone-sex roleplay later in the month and it was… very very good. I love how open-minded my darlin’ is.

• I’m also, more generally, thinking about D/s dynamics that can incorporate some element of bullying, coercion, and humiliation without a) forcing me to inhabit a kink role that doesn’t feel good for me or b) going so far as to be actually upsetting. My partner and I are toying with the idea of doing some kind of school-bully roleplay, but we both have shitty past experiences with mean kids (I mean, who doesn’t, honestly) so we’re going to proceed with caution, if at all. In any case, it’s fun to fantasize about!

• I keep thinking about a time earlier this month when I combined two of my favorite things: high sex and facesitting. I don’t do nearly enough of this and need to do more. The combination of intoxication with that position made me feel like I was riding off into the sunset on a tsunami of pleasure… My partner remarked afterward, with a blushing and wet face, that he had, um, enjoyed himself thoroughly.

Sexcetera

• Early this month I attended the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit, and it was a blast as per usual! It was lovely to speak alongside brilliant educators, spend time with pals I only get to see once a year, and introduce my partner to this wonderful world I inhabit. Thanks to everyone I met there!

• Local sexy storytelling event Tell Me Something Good was a highlight of my month, as it usually is whenever it happens. This month’s theme was butt stuff, so I got up and told a story about a giant butt plug, an act of true friendship, and a surplus of Uberlube. My brother even accompanied me to the event, because I was having a particularly abysmal mental health day and wanted to see friendly faces. I appreciate having family who are chill about me being a Weird Sex Person.

• This month we recorded and released the 100th episode of The Dildorks! So excited and proud to have created a thing that’s lasted this long and been this well-received. Thanks and love, as always, to my co-host/best pal Bex, who is truly the mac to my cheese.

Femme stuff

• Uncharacteristically, I’m enjoying subtle pink and nude lipsticks lately. They have a timeless sophistication that sometimes just turns my crank more than an eye-catching red or fuchsia. “Chai” by Bite Beauty and “Pink in the Afternoon” by Revlon are two current go-to’s.

• I discovered West Third Brand fragrances through IndieScents, and I’m so glad! They make a lot of gorgeous scents, like Vintage Leather (maybe my current favorite leather fragrance?) and Leather Rose (a slightly more feminine take on leather). Next I want to try Old Bourbon, Smoked Sandalwood, and XXX.

• Hair accessories that match your outfit are always in style, IMO. I have some rhinestoned heart barrettes that I bought like 10 years ago at a dollar store in Chinatown and they are still the perfect topper for practically any ensemble.

Media

• I visited a small café/bookstore near D.C. with my love, and spotted Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts on the shelf. I remarked that it was on my wishlist, and m’dude bought it for me, because he’s an angel. Him buying me Maggie Nelson books is a romantic tradition of ours now, I guess. I tore through this one in a matter of days; it’s about Nelson’s romance with her genderfluid partner Harry Dodge, and is full of sharp thoughts about gender, queerness, and family. I cried, let’s just say, many times.

• The first Adventure Zone graphic novel came out recently and I was overcome with emotion when I first held my preordered copy in my hands. TAZ has been an enormously important piece of media for me over the years, and I’m so glad the boyz are doing so well and continuing to make great art in podcast form.

• Mitski has a new album out, Be the Cowboy, and it’s a crash course in plucking the ol’ heartstrings through melodies and lyrics. Listen to “Nobody” – you gotta love a disco banger that starts with the line, “My god, I’m so lonely…”

Little things

Turquoise and pink luggage. Meeting Jessica Drake (she’s so nice, and introduced herself as a fan of mine! Whattt!). Kinky balcony makeouts. This amazing brunch place Sir took me to near Alexandria (how does he always find the best places to take me?! Answer: Foursquare). Sir writing on me and telling me to look at it whenever I felt anxious at the airport. A visit to the Distillery to hear Anais sing. Seeing Goodbye Honolulu play (with an unexpected cameo from Spock). Sex-blogger movie night. Getting totally absorbed in a writing project. Gossiping with Suz over drinks. A big-ass rainbow. Watching the behind-the-scenes DVD of the cast recording of The Producers with my mom (after rejecting multiple other options). Generous, kind, articulate interviewees. Powering through Deadline Day with the help of coffee and a donut. Sir copyediting me in Google Docs (swoon-o-rama). Sushi and drinks with Max, my favorite bruddy. Planning a trip to Boston with my love. Staying up late writing while listening to jazz and the rain. Getting all dressed up for a drinks-date at Civil Liberties, where they make brilliant cocktails based on vague orders like “something summery” or “something cucumber-y” or “something with ginger and cinnamon” (that last one was maybe the best cocktail I’ve ever had). Instagram flirting. Competent nerds. Hope.

Down in the Well: Safety in Submission

Kate Sloan

There was a time – I tell you late one night, in one of our verbose phone chats – when I felt safe more-or-less all the time. When the harshest hero’s quest I ever had to face was a 9AM improv class or the first day at a new job.

And then my 19th birthday came, and my 20th, and my 21st, and somewhere in there, my brain chemistry got muddled like a botched cocktail. I became afraid all the time. Afraid of onlookers’ judgments (which never actually materialized), of strange men with knives (who never actually appeared), of calamitous catastrophes (which never actually took place).

“Social anxiety disorder,” a psychologist pronounced, finally, when I was 24. But that still didn’t feel big enough, all-encompassing enough. My fear flooded my brain and permeated my veins. It was with me always, like a clingy friend who can’t take a hint. It fused to my personality to make a new version of me, one saddled with neuroses I never dreamed I’d succumb to. All I could do was try to move forward into this new life of fear.

I don’t recall the first time someone laid on top of me after a spanking, but I do recall the immediate relief. Like a weighted blanket with a heartbeat, their mass pressed me into the mattress and seemed to say: You’re okay. I was guarded on all sides by flesh and memory foam. An old feeling came back to me that I’d forgotten: safety.

You do this to me now, sometimes, because once I asked you to. You do it unprompted, and somehow always at the right times. Your lanky boy-body sinks into me from above, cradling me from neck to ankles, as I sob and breathe and let the pain dissipate. Sometimes you whisper, You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe, but these rumblings are redundancies; my safety is implied. I can feel it in your weight, your steady breath, the very fact that you’re still here.

The silly thing is, I am safe, most of the time – I just don’t feel it. I’m deeply privileged to have never experienced violence on the basis of my race, sexual orientation, or gender. I’ve received death threats, sure – what outspoken woman or LGBTQ person on the internet hasn’t, at this point? – but they’ve all stopped cold at my computer screen. No one is after me with a gun or a knife. No one wants my people dead, except the occasional radical incel in the news or skinheaded antisemite on a street corner. To be in this position is to have won the genetic lottery a million times over.

Like many people with mental illnesses that affect their grip on the truth, I don’t know how to reconcile my reality with my ruminations. I cannot even imagine what it must be like to both feel and be unsafe, if I can barely handle the feeling part.

One night, you push me – as you often do – into catharsis through consensual pain.

It’s one of my very favorite things, and also I hate it. The slaps hammer my face or my ass, harder and faster until my brain can hardly process them. Bad thoughts bubble to the surface. I deserve this. I am trash. No one loves me. No one has ever loved me. Or sometimes my mind is just blank. I like that better.

It is difficult to explain, to anyone who does not also partake of this perversion, that sometimes this sadness is what I want. That to consent to misery and fear somehow makes those feelings more palatable than when they just rain down unbidden. The depths of my submissive sadness are like the bottom of a well – dark, musty, hopeless – but sometimes I want that well. If I’m going to end up there anyway, it feels better to climb down with conviction than to fall in or be pushed.

On this night, it feels like the tears will never end. Like I am sad because I am sadness and sadness is me. Like sadness is the way of my heart, has always been, will always be. The question flickers across my mind: Am I safe? I truly don’t know.

“You’re safe,” you say, as if you heard my thoughts somehow. I cry harder, but not for much longer, because with these words, you’ve tossed a rickety rope ladder down into my well.

Being a masochistic submissive, I date my fair share of sadistic dominants, many of whom are turned on by tears and other signs of distress. Though most have been consent-conscious and good-hearted, in many cases their arousal pushed them to push me. Unlike some submissives, I do not feel sexy when tears are streaming down my face. I feel inconsolable: sad to the point of sickness. It always passes, and then I am often ready for hot mouths and hard cocks – but not before.

You know this. You wait. You give me gentle kisses and ample assurances. And if it is important, then, to blast the panic from my brain with an orgasm, you are well-equipped to do that too.

We attend a session together about anarchist D/s at a sex conference, and I cry more than I was expecting to. Which, let’s be real: I was expecting to cry a fair bit.

One panelist describes how care and love can look different in power-play dynamics than they do for vanilla folks, but they are still care and love. Case in point: their dom sometimes locks them in a closet to mitigate their panic attacks. I scribble furiously in my notebook: You’re safe in that small, contained space, and you don’t have to come out until someone else makes the choice for you. It would be reductive to say I sigh with relief. My whole body relaxes with a profound and transformative yes.

“You can use the world-building tools of D/s to create a safe space for someone who never feels safe,” the panelist continues. They glance over at their dom and earn a nod of approval. “It’s like: ‘I’m in charge here, so you have to believe what I say, and what I’m saying is that you are safe, because I said so.'”

You grab my thigh with your big warm hand, and I know you’re feeling what I’m feeling. Our eyes dart toward one another’s in silent recognition. Hot tears spill down my cheeks and onto my frazzled notes. Crying in public is one of my biggest fears, but I don’t feel scared now. Your steely blue eyes are holding mine like a wooden ship, like a dustjacket, like a pair of strong arms.

Later, in our hotel room, we wander into the closet, as if magnetically tugged. You shut the slatted door behind us. I breathe in the scent of your suit jacket hanging there, and, closer: you. The man I desperately love.

I think, as you begin to push me against a folded ironing board and kiss me hard, that we’ve messed up this thing we were trying to try. The idea was for you to leave me in the closet alone, see what it did to my anxiety. But, as per usual, you’ve joined me in my darkness. You don’t want me to be scared or to feel scared, to feel alone or to be alone. Your hand on my face makes it clear that I’m not.

There is a big metal safe in this closet, with a combination lock and a sense of heavy justice. But though I’m afraid of everything, I don’t want to lock myself away, because that would mean I’d have to stop touching you.

It is terrifying to rely on a person – any person – for one’s sense of safety, because that person could leave at any time. I learned this all too well last summer when my daddy dom – a role I had thought meant something along the lines of unconditional love and acceptance – dropped me in a flash. Once I had collected the shards of my broken heart off the floor, I vowed never to trust anyone that much again, never to rely on anyone that much again. These are not new or unique promises to make after a heartbreak, but we keep making them again and again because they feel that salient, that necessary.

However, in re-integrating into the world, I’ve come to see that no one is truly independent, nor is that necessarily a state to aspire to. For my sense of safety, I rely not only on you but on my friends, my family, even the characters in shows I watch on bad depression nights. “Needing others is perceived [in modern Western culture] as a weakness,” Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor write in their book On Kindness. “Dependence is scorned even in intimate relationships, as though dependence were incompatible with self-reliance rather than the only thing that makes it possible.”

You speak often of how you want our D/s dynamic to be a mentorship of sorts, prodding me toward my goals and shoring up my self-esteem. You are teaching me, little by little, to feel safe; to recognize and accept when I am safe. My body and brain are practicing this sensation under your watchful dominance. It is quite unlike any education I have ever endured.

BDSM is an infinite imaginative space, one that allows for off-the-wall roleplays and absurd scenarios. You can be a rock star, a pirate, an alien. But the situation I reach for most often in kink – the one that turns me on most potently, in my head and down my skirt – is simply that I am loved and I am safe.

This is telling. This is embarrassing, perhaps. And I don’t want to stop.