Giving So Much
Max of bondagelessons.com, someone I met at Shibaricon last year and had far too brief a conversation with, recently did two podcast interviews for Dr. Richard Wagner’s show, “Dr. Dick’s Sex Advice”. You can grab the two episodes here (Part One, Part Two) and I highly recommend that you do. Max has obviously thought a lot about everything that he says, and I have to say I enjoy very much listening to someone articulate so clearly something that I believe but haven’t found words for yet.
Some key things from the two episodes that rang very true for me. The idea that after all this time, BDSM is no longer something that Max does, but something that he is. Not to say that I’m quite at that point yet, but the more I find myself both enjoying and recognizing a small degree of skill in “getting my hands bloody in somebody’s head” (another quote from a podcast I enjoy, this time courtesy of Flagg on Power in Practice), the closer I get to that place. He talks a bit about whether a Top needs to have been a bottom, a philosophy I realize many believe to be true but is not my experience nor anything I feel pulled towards. He talks about the difference between adrenaline and endorphin play for bottoms, which resonated with me quite strongly, and how BDSM experiences might or might not include a sexual component.
He also talks about the difference in the return from a scene a Top gets, and how it can very much differ from the return a bottom gets. This was key for me. I find I will often Top from a somewhat distant or removed place, especially as what I’m doing to someone requires a very heightened amount of focus. I am forced, in those moments, to be a concentrated as possible on the actions and influence I’m directing towards the bottom. This can sometimes come across as being somewhat robotic or cold. I often describe my dominant energy or drives as being cold, while the more sadistic or sexual drives are more hot. In this framework, cold equals control. That focus on control means I can’t absolutely sink into the moment and lose myself in what I’m doing – so much danger in that.
Max follows this up with the idea that once he’s brought his bottom to a place of safety & completion, only then is it his turn to get lost in the rush, to give up a bit of that left-brain focus and get a little bit wide-pupiled. This is important, he says, to avoid any resentment on the part of the Top: the bottom gets to have all the fun, why don’t I get any fun?
There’s a lot of truth in this. It’s easy I think to just focus so much on what I’m doing to someone and giving them as deliberate an experience as possible that I don’t concentrate on my completion – because that completion is totally unnecessary. I get FED so much from what I’m doing – from the very fact THAT I’m doing – that the push to finish, to get myself off… it’s just not there. It’s not the point, in that moment. In my experience, however, that’s not the main focus of the resentment. That mindset, when not communicated clearly (and even sometimes when communicated clearly), can result in a sense of dissatisfaction from a bottom; a sense, in fact, that THEY should be doing more for ME.
As if in the simple gift of their body for no small amount of time – blood and bone, nerves and brain – they haven’t already given so much.
