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In: Blogging, Lion's Journal

Our preparations for my surgery continue. I ordered Dragon voice recognition software that will allow me to handle email as well as continue to write my posts. Of course, those post-surgical posts may be less than coherent and contain voice-recognition contextual errors. If it works, you will hear from me fairly soon after the operation.

I have no illusions that the world will stop spinning on its axis if I don’t post. I’m not even sure that anyone will care. I like putting my little message in a bottle and throwing it into the Internet ocean. I imagine that some people read our posts the way they used to read columns in the newspapers. My post goes in the morning paper for the commute to work and Mrs. Lion’s is for reading on the way home.

I am a native New Yorker, so I see daily commutes as reading times. I used to take Metro North railroad to and from the office each day. The trip was about an hour. It was just enough time to read the paper. I’m an Internet columnist who writes daily. Even if no one else cares, I would feel badly if I missed a day or more.

Mrs. Fever writes a blog about a variety of sexual topics. Recently, she wrote about being a sex blogger. Her post, “So You Want To Be A Sex Blogger” was a tongue-in-cheek look at some reasons people would want to write a sex blog. It got me thinking about what I think I’m doing.

Blogging has always struck me as a masturbatory exercise. After all, a blog is self publishing with no filter for quality, facts, even grammar and spelling. It’s a free-for-all that permits anyone to put their thoughts out for the world to read; maybe, more correctly, ignore. Blogging birthed “fake news”.

I’m swimming in this filter-free ocean. Almost all blogs on topics similar to ours are embarrassingly bad expressions of misinformation. I lament the state of our education system when I read the way English is abused in the blogosphere. More often than not, bloggers don’t understand that “to” and “too” are used differently. How many times have you seen, “I did this to (meaning also),” when the word “too” is required.

It isn’t that I’m a grammatical nitpicker. Maybe I am. But when you write for public consumption, it’s the same as dressing to go to a nice restaurant. It’s rude to show up in cutoffs and flip-flops. They may let you in, but you are still being disrespectful and inappropriate.

It seems to me that there are two important criteria to meet before writing for the public: First, be sure that what you represent as fact is correct. Thanks to the US President there is enough fake news in the world. Second, take care with your writing. You don’t have to create immortal prose, but at least use your spell checker and understand basic grammar.

My point is that while anyone can write a blog, it doesn’t mean everyone should. I think that if you like to write and for whatever reason want others to read what you say, then take the time to craft your words and use the language correctly. Or don’t. Your words will last forever. Wow, immortality is a few mouse clicks away.

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In: Blogging, Mrs Lion Comments

“For more than fifteen years I have explored the idea of enforced male chastity. My exploration started on the Web in the mid 90’s. My first discovery was altairboy’s site. At the time it was filled with how-to guides for homemade male chastity devices, fictional accounts of enforced chastity scenarios, and posts by people who spent their time devising ways to escape from various devices. Still, the idea of Mrs. Lion controlling my favorite toy was a very arousing idea. How odd is that? Giving someone the ability to prevent me from enjoying sex is exciting.”

Those were Lion’s first words here on the blog, three years ago today. Unbeknownst to me, he started a blog about male chastity. He may have told me in passing, but I didn’t really know until a reader asked him a question that seemed more up my alley than his. I didn’t contribute my first words until March 26, 2014. For a while I wrote sporadically. Something Lion wrote about needed to be addressed from my point of view. A reader asked Lion to ask me a question. Finally, I jumped into the every day cycle on May 16, 2014. Kicking and screaming, as I recall. After all, what did I have to write about on a daily basis?

Sometimes it is a struggle to come up with ideas. I largely report the news. When did Lion have his orgasm, how many times did I edge him, we tried something new last night, etc. When one of us is sick or Lion has sore spots, I have a hard time with a post. I’m the play by play person. If there’s no play, there’s no idea. Lion can complain about not having any idea for a post, go into his office and emerge with an elaborate post. I guess he’s the color guy, if you want to stick to sports analogies. He can pull something out of his past and he’s off and running. It’s not as easy for me.

I don’t think either of us imagined we’d still be doing enforced chastity for over three years. There’s no way I would have told you we’d still be writing the blog. But you know what? I think we’re still doing enforced chastity for over three years because of the blog. It helps with communication. I know it sometimes doesn’t look like we talk to each other at all. One of us, usually me, runs off and gets all bent out of shape about something we misunderstood. It took me a long time to figure out that, when Lion writes a post about a particular way of doing things, he doesn’t mean that I’m doing it wrong. I still think that at first, but I don’t get bent out of shape. Much.

I’m looking forward to the next three years of blogging. Maybe, at some point, I’ll be able to pull posts out of thin air like Lion does. Maybe I’ll be the color guy. It doesn’t really matter. As long as we continue to communicate.

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In: Blogging, Lion's Journal

Trolls live on the Internet. Every so often one crawls out from under the bridge and comes our way. Lucky us! Most recently a troll decided Mrs. Lion and I needed to offer personal advice to him. Well, no not advice. More about that in a bit.

One day a brief contact us email arrived asking if the email came through. I acknowledged it. Won’t do that again. The next day a 1,000 word email arrived critiquing our grammar and writing style. He liked it. But he wasn’t sure we were real. He wanted us to prove we are. That email went into the trash too.

The next day another endless email arrived apologizing for doubting our existence. You can’t imagine how relieved we were to learn that. Another problem solved. But wait! The next day another long missive asking for some sort of advice. I deleted it without reading it. This was followed by a comment here complaining we didn’t offer advice. Comment deleted.

Guess what happened next? That’s right. Another email of 1,000 words that opened with the “just tell me you don’t want to talk with me and I will go away.” Really? Do you see anything wrong with that?  Seems to me it doesn’t take 1,000 words to say that. That’s not all. Next came another comment with the same message. Deleted. Then another email. There is a pattern here.

We’ve seen stuff like this before, though not so persistent. It’s usually a single, lonely, overweight guy who wants help with his jerk off fantasies. Please! Some people believe that since we write a blog, we are also always available for free private advice and support. At least for trolls.

For the record, if we get questions that are obviously easy to find answers for on the blog, we will probably not respond. If we are busy, we may not have time to respond either. Writing a post a day is pretty time consuming.

Having said that, I love the comments we get that aren’t fantasies or troll questions. The conversations we have with our readers are some of the most important rewards we get for all this work.

I needed to get this off my chest. Keep reading and please keep commenting. No trolls welcome.

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In: Blogging, Mrs Lion Comments

Two and a half years. That’s how long Lion has been locked in his chastity device. I don’t always pay attention to the numbers on the right side of the screen that tell how long ago Lion had his orgasm and how long he has to wait for another one. It caught my eye this morning. Two years and six months locked up. Of course it hasn’t been non-stop. But still. That’s a long time.

So much has changed and so much has stayed the same. He’s had a few jobs in that time. I’ve had one. We’ve lived in the same house. We’ve traveled to many different places in our camper. We’ve done “just” enforced chastity. We added female led relationship. I was in charge. Then I was really in charge. The biggest thing that’s stayed the same is that we love each other. I don’t think any of this would have been possible if we didn’t.

Enforced chastity wasn’t some hail Mary pass to save our marriage. We weren’t in any danger of splitting up. But we had certainly backed off in the sex department. It’s true, we could have sat down and talked about sex and what our challenges were, but I don’t think either of us wanted to be that vulnerable. I think it would have led to hurt feelings. What do you mean, I always do that? What do you mean, I never do that? Somehow, the cage and this blog have been very therapeutic.

I’ve always found it easier to express my feelings by writing rather than face to face. First, I think, there’s no one staring at you and you can’t see the look on their face. If they laugh at you or think you’re crazy, you are insulated by the fact that you are not right in front of them when they read it. Second, they can’t interrupt. You have your time to get it all out there without someone saying, “Yes, but, what about blah, blah, and blah?” Or worse yet, “This is ridiculous!”

Now I’m not saying either of us would do that to the other intentionally. I tend to try to take it all in before I form an opinion. I think that bothers Lion because I don’t have an immediate response to things. Lion, on the other hand, tends to be a steamroller. He has an opinion almost immediately and if he thinks he’s right, he’s coming right up the middle so watch out. Part of the reason for the rule about interrupting is to try to curb that. And I’m also not saying these traits are good or bad or only apply to sexual issues. It’s just the way we are.

The blog allows me to get my thoughts out without interruption. It also allows me to digest Lion’s thoughts so I can form an opinion. I am grateful to Lion for starting this blog. It has helped us tremendously. I hope it has helped you as well.