I know that a lot of people worry about being “discovered” as practitioners of the dark arts of enforced chastity and female led relationships. I wonder if we aren’t expending too much energy on this concern. No one I know talks about their sex life. Some people do discuss personal sexual experiences with good friends, however I am sure there are limits.
How many people tell friends they had anal sex last night? For that matter, how many report tying or being tied to the bed? If they do talk about it, I’m sure the context is mutual vulnerability where the revelations are two way. In my experience, this kind of conversation is started at gatherings of like-minded people. A BDSM play party is certainly a safe place to discuss bondage, discipline, even enforced chastity; not so much at lunch with coworkers in the company cafeteria.
Let’s face it, there is very little chance we know people who use chastity devices or practice domestic discipline. While both may have gained popularity thanks to the Internet, the number of people who do this are in the thousands at most. Even if enforced chastity and domestic discipline were widely accepted, discussing personal experiences would still not be part of polite discourse.
Mrs. Lion presented the hypothetical situation that one of her coworkers recognized herself from a post here. Chances are good, that coworker could deduce Mrs. Lion’s real name. That sort of discovery is one of the *big* fears bloggers and other writers on the Net express. I suppose it’s similar to a coworker finding nude photos on the Web. “OMG, it’s you!”
So what? They stopped burning people at the stake some time ago. Maybe some people with Puritan values would be outraged, but most would at worst, laugh. The penalty for discovery is embarrassment.
“You mean you let your wife spank you?” <snicker>
“You actually spank your husband?”<gasp>
“You wear a lock on your cock? Really? Can I see?”
It isn’t all that different from, “You let him put it in your ass?”
The vulnerability comes from revealing something that others keep secret: sexual practices. I’ve always figured that if someone identifies me as an author in this blog, he will keep quiet about it. After all, the only way he could have discovered me is to be a reader. Doesn’t that strongly imply he has interest in the stuff I do? Actually, I would welcome being asked if I’m the guy who… It would start a very interesting conversation and perhaps be the beginning of a real-life community.
I think your Huffington Post interview was far riskier than your blog as voices are distinctive. Someone might have listened in and recognized either one of you.
Sorry for such a delayed response to this post…
I would really like to have some sort of relationship with another couple – or even a small community – that practices male chastity. We (my wife and I) are thoroughly integrated into the local kink community, and in fact are sort of bastions in it in our area at least. However, we’re generally known as a “traditional” (for the kink world) male-dom couple, and this is a presentation that we – especially my wife – feel comfortable with. Personally, I’m somewhat more fluid about this; one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed about the kink community, especially the older pre-FetLife newsgroup era, is the staunch frankness that people have about presenting frankly as they really are. Beside, I’m caring much less about other peoples’ opinions as I age, anyway. For now, though, we’re sort of on the down-low…
I thought we had a chance to open up to another couple that are reasonably close friends of ours. Theirs is a strongly fem-dom relationship, certainly adequately kinky, “she” and my wife are quite close, and I like them both. “He” is a little tougher to get emotionally close to, but it may yet happen. It would be very nice to have an open and close friendship where the chastity play was just a regular part of life, and could be casually discussed and kidded about in normal conversation, just as pony play is now (I said they were adequately kinky :-).
“Go Ask Alice” had a semi-regular munch for chastity enthusiasts, but the couple of times I attended it was mostly populated with fantasy-laden guys interested in the hardware. The one time I took my wife was a bit of a disaster – one of our friends, who is more of a bastion than we (he created the ASB newsgroup) was there, and my wife tucked tail and hid (this was early on in our chastity play). Alice has since abandoned the munch.
Obviously, talk of chastity play isn’t going to fly in any “polite” society group any time soon; we (my wife and I, and also this blog) are lucky enough to be in a rarefied group for whom kinky lifestyles *are* the norm. However, male chastity continues to become more widely known: articles are appearing on Fox, ABC, Dan Savage (not too surprising), Huffington Post (congrats, Lions!), and even in Money magazine concerning a co-venture between a toolmaker and a sex-toy company. Maybe chastity is on its way to becoming like talk of oral sex was in the 60’s – BDSM in general certainly is…
Thanks for the reply. Before I met Mrs. Lion, I was a bastion in a very large BDSM community. I was identified as a lifestyle dominant. After a decade with a 24/7 slave, we parted and I “retired” from the scene. I took Mrs. Lion to a large, national event. She wasn’t comfortable. We attended some workshops and she got to meet some of my community friends.
Once we moved west, we attended a couple of local meetings and events. The sexualized activities felt more like swinging to us than the leather activities I knew in the East. I would love to find friends who share our lifestyle. I had hoped this blog might attract some local folks who could turn into friends. So far it hasn’t happened.
In terms of mainstream acceptance of kink, particularly enforced chastity, I think things are slowly moving in the right direction. We both enjoyed being interviewed by the Huffington Post. Last spring I was interviewed by a major magazine. So far, the interview hasn’t appeared. The writer claims it isn’t dead. We shall see.
I am proud that our blog is as popular as it is. Maybe those elusive real-life friends will stumble over us.
Okay, I have to ask this: Why the interest in meeting other couples?
Maybe it’s because my current crop of friends don’t even tell dirty jokes (and I try once in a while, but now I’m just labeled as a pervert), but I have no interest in comparing notes with anyone in person.
My background has been as an active member of the leather community. I enjoyed relaxing dinners with other kinky people. We didn’t focus on the kinks, but we also didn’t avoid them. We could ask and answer questions and get feedback from people who shared our interest. Enforced male chastity is exotic, even in the world of kink. It would be very good to connect with others. However, I hate munches. I have gone to a few and regretted it each time. Munches in my experience are real-life versions of fetlife or whatever other online “communities” the people belong to. I don’t want to be regaled with stories of what people type to one another.