Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy (15 page)

These sets of communicative skills are fundamental to success in the larger SM community. Communication during an SM scene can reinforce or threaten the power dynamic. SM participants make choices regarding their communi- cation that contribute to the accomplishment of their experiences of power and powerlessness.

Whether before play, during play, or outside of play, these practices set the stage for a power differential to be experienced by players without adopting alternate personae. Strategies toward this end extend beyond play-centered discourse and structure, however. The related processes of adopting, present-

ing, policing, and continuously evaluating SM identification labels is a pow- erful means of preserving the illusion of a power imbalance between tops and bottoms.

IDENTIFICATION LABELS

The final strategy for accomplishing power performances in Caeden lies in the use of identification labels. Identification labels parallel the hermeneutics of play. Like the distinction between SM and D/s, some use top and bottom as the broad- est categories (as I am), but others reserve them to indicate the absence of a D/s dynamic. In simplest form, “dominant” and “submissive” refer to people who play, or seek to play, with explicit power differences in their scenes, while “tops” and “bottoms” may or may not be “playing with power.” The terms “sadist” and “masochist,” objectionable to some because of their clinical meanings, are rare as stand-alone labels, but are sometimes used to augment an identity (e.g., “a dominant sadist”). Most frequently, they are situational and essentialist, as when one person “brings out the sadist” in another, or a submissive considering playing with pain admits he “has a bit of masochist” in him.

Nonetheless the labels are meaningful to community members. On the prac- tical level, they facilitate the acquisition of play partners. Most of the members of the Caeden community are either single or in polyamorous relationships,
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making networking for play an important component of the social scene. Mis- leading labels can be at the root of unproductive flirting, messy or unclear scene negotiations, and, ultimately, bad scenes. Bad scenes, in turn, have the potential to breed bad reputations in the scene, and bad reputations in Caeden can be extremely detrimental to a person who wants to engage in SM play.
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In addition to these unpleasant experiences for the individuals directly involved in them, all of these things can drive visitors and new members out of the community, which is of much concern among the core members of the scene in Caeden.

In this pansexual SM community, more people identify as dominants and submissives than as tops and bottoms. These identifications carry different sets of assumptions and behaviors even outside of scene. The labels of “dominant” and “submissive” are accompanied by informal but continually policed codes of conduct.

When I began my fieldwork, I intended to bottom rather than top.
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My options for play were thus limited to people who topped, and I therefore needed to identify as something in order to play. Because the question in the com- munity was most commonly phrased, “Are you a dominant or a submissive?” I identified myself as the latter (and as a researcher). While I was so identified,

I observed several instances of policing submissive identity, a practice that I interpreted (and continue to interpret) as profoundly misogynistic, particularly since they have been most often initiated by dominant-identified men.

The most ubiquitous example posits assertiveness as inconsistent with sub- mission. Once, when I articulated a point in a heated conceptual debate, a member of the group asked me whether I was sure I was a submissive. Another time I asked a companion (a top-identified man) to order my coffee while I went to the restroom, prompting another person at the table to exclaim, “Hey, I thought you were a sub!”

On still another occasion, I went to retrieve my coat from a booth at the club. Catherine was sitting between it and me. When I asked her to let me by so that I could reach it, Hugh (a dominant-identified man) suggested that I crawl under the table for it.

While discussing a scene I had done, both Russ (dominant-identified) and Elliot (switch-identified) were baffled by my approach to play. Russ asked me, “Don’t you want to please your top?” Elliot was surprised when he realized that my objective in playing with him was not to make him “happy.”

Realizing that “submissive” carried with it a slew of meanings and mes- sages I had not intended, I abandoned the “submissive” identification within three weeks. By then, I was angry about my interactions with many dominant- identified men and deeply troubled by the misogynistic overtones. Interest- ingly, I was also impatient to begin topping, for the sole purpose of claiming an identification as a switch, thereby ending these particular frustrations.
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The differences between these identifications are not merely semantic. They shape interaction both within SM scenes and outside them, in the community at large. In some circles, there are different protocols for speaking to submis- sives than to dominants, and it is common for dominants to ask one another’s permission to speak to “their” submissives. Other lines are drawn less formally, but jokes intended to humiliate, objectify, or silence submissives are norma- tive. One night, early in my fieldwork, I finally met the partner of a woman I’d known for several weeks. Sheila, a submissive woman, had been talking to me about her dominant partner, Pete, since we had met, and when I suddenly realized who Pete was, I said, “Oh! Sheila’s Pete!” Pete was visibly perturbed and growled his correction: “It’s Pete’s Sheila,
not
Sheila’s Pete.”

SM participants are not merely pretending to be relatively powerful or pow- erless; they are not donning and stripping these identities as one might change costumes. Rather they are actively constructing experiences in which they can
feel
relatively powerful or powerless, not through their own performances, in

the theatrical sense, but through the cooperative performances, in the Goffma- nian sense, of all community members.

Most players seek to construct inequality
in
play through front stage perfor- mances of dominance and submission before, during, and after a scene, even while decision-making is in the hands of the submissive. Others attempt to construct inequality
through
play, demanding a demonstration of dominance and submission on the body. As I will explore further in chapter 6, these iden- tities (and SM play styles) dovetail with different discourses of pain in the community, in order to construct and achieve authentic experiences of power imbalances.

These identities are not alter egos, but experiences constructed of, by, for, and with selves. The members of the community must work to maintain empow- ered and disempowered contexts in order for SM to be experienced as trans- formative. Through play they create, represent, and live selves that are more and less effectual, more and less responsible, and more and less encumbered. SM provides a space for the creation and reinvention of selves more fixed than fleeting identities, and for most, these selves are more nuanced and far-reaching than specifically sexual selves.

Consensual sadomasochism (SM) is a complex and poorly understood social phenomenon. In popular culture, it is commonly represented and understood as either harmless bedroom “kink” or a side sexual interest of serial killers in crime thrillers. Although many SM participants do frame their “play” as hav- ing an erotic aspect, the conceptualization of SM as “kinky sex” has obscured a more nuanced understanding of this community and their activities. Unlike most sexual activity, participation in public SM relies on particular public spaces and involves an appreciable learning curve, financial expenditures, and a social network. In the public community built around SM play, SM is better understood as a highly immersive recreational pursuit.

Fringe Benefits
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Chapter 4

Fringe Benefits

The Rewards of SM Play

For the first time, I had the chance to wander around the dungeon at leisure. It really was beautifully done—high-quality equipment and great lighting, bright but not institutional. Strands of decorative lights cordoned off “Singletail Alley,” where there was ample room for throwing eight-foot whips. An elaborate rope-pulley-cage was set up on one end of the room.

It was packed, and with a lot of well-known people; a lot of serious players. We’d all heard for months about who would be there, and of course I knew the program lineup. Most of them were from elsewhere in the country, and I hadn’t met them. It was intimidating—not the crowd in front of which I usually played. I was hopelessly exhausted anyway, and had made no plans for the night.

While I was taking in the scenes, Trey meandered over to me. We chatted for a bit and then he said, “Okay, I’m going to wander around . . . or maybe I’ll just come back here and put stripes on you.”

He grinned and walked off, but returned just a few minutes later.

“So I have a bag full of floggers and whips and things. Wanna go do something with them?”

It was the first time he asked me directly to play. Usually, he just threw out feelers and danced around them, waiting to be sure I was interested. I was flattered and touched. Bone tired as I was, I was happy to accept his invitation.

There was little available play space anywhere, except right in the middle of the room, on a St. Andrew’s cross. Dead center; there would be no avoiding the spotlight there. Unwilling to begin in full view of well over a hundred people, I told Trey I’d be facing the large wooden cross. Trey emptied his toy bag and laid out the floggers he’d brought with him. I counted nine of them. They’re large, about

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two to three feet long, with soft wide leather falls. I untied my backless velvet top, slipped it off, and turned toward the cross. I placed my hands on either side of me, slightly above my head.

He began with Florentine—one flogger in each hand—which I had never seen him do. The floggers landed on my back in rapid succession, dusting my shoulders with the falls and massaging my muscles as he picked up steam. I turned my head to see him; I wouldn’t have thought that he’d be so dexterous with them, but he was deft and fast and very impressive.

After a few minutes—maybe fifteen—he checked in with me. Still facing the cross, I said I was good.

The next thing I felt was an enormous thud across my upper back. My face almost smashed into the cross. The blow didn’t hurt, but it did make my teeth rattle. I had never felt anything quite like it. In one sense, it felt familiar to me; it was not an uncommon stroke. But that much weight and that much force across my shoulders was a new experience.

I turned to look at him. He had taken all nine of his floggers in his hands, and hit me with them in one blow. Trey is over six feet tall and nearly two hundred pounds. The floggers alone must have weighed thirty pounds.

Kirby and Tammy were standing on the other side of the cross, directly in front of us. Kirby was staring at me wide-eyed. Tammy was looking away, though whether this was out of politeness or indifference I wasn’t sure.

I closed my eyes as Trey landed another heavy thump across my upper back. I looked at him again, in time to see him in a batter’s stance. I turned my head back to the cross before the next blow landed with a mind-numbing thud, somehow feeling incredibly hard and soft at the same time.

He hit me this way about once every couple of seconds. It was a powerful feeling. It felt like someone was beating me up . . . but “pain” doesn’t describe it. And yet I felt a little bit afraid each time he was about to do it again. The act of absorbing the blows was all-encompassing. There was nothing else but the feeling of being hit . . . the weight and the warmth and the softness of the floggers . . . the movement of my body into the cross . . . my breath escaping me in whatever the hell sounds I was making, sounds that felt as if they started somewhere very deep.

At some point, about midway through the scene, Trey switched to a singletail. Each time the whip landed, it burned me—a tiny precise sharp hotness that lasted just a half-second short of unbearable. He threw it fast, slicing my skin with one blow after the other, diagonal down the left shoulder, then the right, then the left—then a shot across the middle of my back. It fucking hurt.

A pause. Then his voice: “How’re you doing?” He was beside me, holding out a bottle of water. I nodded, panting, and drank readily, feeling like a boxer in between rounds. I wiped my mouth with the back of my arm and handed him the bottle. He took a swig, set the bottle down, and returned to his spot about six feet behind me to continue.

At one point, I hit the cross with my right hand several times, not particularly hard, but hard enough to sting my palms. I needed an outlet of some sort—I needed to direct some of what I was feeling elsewhere . . . to somehow send the stimulation outside of my body.

A while later, he asked if I was ready to turn around. Having lost all self- consciousness by then, and suddenly interested in protecting my burning back, I turned around and dropped my arms along the cross at my sides, wrapping my hands around each plank.