Sex, Love, and BDSM; Dating notes from an Englishman in New York

(Mis)-Adventures in latex part 1 - Wishes don’t always come true...

2022-02-14T14:11:00.005-08:00

So while I’m not someone who would identify as a ‘rubber boi’, my attraction to latex outfits is something that has grown in me as I’ve delved deeper into the world of kink. There’s something about their glossy-impermeability and tight-fitting sensuality... it seems to separate the wearer from the humdrum world of social norms, encapsulating them in a skin of erotic possibility...

However, while I had often looked lustily upon latex clad models on fetlife and elsewhere - I had never seriously considered buying a latex body suit for myself. Why? Because that shit is expensive, and all my random ‘get rich’ schemes have yet to bear sap(...yes that was a really terrible pun, you can think about it until you get it but I promise it wont be worth it.)

Anyway, one fateful day a bold purveyor of materialistic possibility burst into my facebook news feed. This canny agent of sales promised to provide all kinds of bizarre items carefully tailored to my web of cookies, and all for incredibly low prices!

One such item was a latex body suit for 14 pounds. Well go on then!

As I awaited the many days between its order and arrival I grew increasingly excited at the erotic possibilities my new latex body might offer: orgiastic dreams of self abandonment to the erotic desires of my partners and our open minded friends. I would plumb new oceans of my sexuality, clad in this streamlined costume I could dive more fully into an exploration of my submissive side.

You can imagine my disappointment then when the suit finally arrived and it actually looked like this:

The suit turned out to be more fit for puddles of embarrassment than oceans of sexuality. Firstly the material was clearly not latex (despite the product title), but just had some thin shiny material on the outside and a layer of spandex like netting on the inside. Every proportion seemed weird: The hands were made for someone who’s fingers were all identical in length. This meant they were simultaneously too big for my little fingers and too small for my big fingers.

The material had no real stretch to it and so was tight and uncomfortable, plus the outfit also seemed devoid of a neck, instead the torso just ran up into the hood making me look like some kind of neck-less frog person.

Finally there was the matter of the ‘sheath’ that I have covered with sunglasses in the above picture for everyone's benefit. It was generous in some respects, but the opening to get all your various bits into it was seemingly only wide enough for either your meat or veg to fit through at one time…

Anyway, that was that disappointment. I wore this outfit once for a girlfriend, primarily so that she could have a laugh and provide some positive sum return on that fourteen pounds. Now the outfit sits at the back of my wardrobe in case one day there will ever be a party where the dress code is ‘awkward frog person’ and it seems appropriate.

And so I learned my lesson about interacting with this particular online purveyor of dreams. The problem was I now really wanted a latex bodysuit! More reputable sites promised to sell one to me for a few hundred pounds, but how was I to know they would fit? Or just be a more expensive repeat of my earlier mistakes...

Somewhere in the dark pits of my infernal brain a DIY idea was forming: latex as a solid material might be hard to work with and require actual skills to fashion into a garment, but liquid latex was a thing... could I maybe somehow mould this fantastical substance into the suit of my dreams?

Well you can find out in my next post: Here!

(Mis-)Adventures in Latex part 2: Make your own perfectly* fitted latex body suit for less than $40 / £ 30 !

2022-02-14T14:11:00.004-08:00

*Ok, lets say 'perfectly' is a loose term here...

So though a series of dubious fantasies and ideas, as described here, I decided to make my own latex bodysuit! Below is a 'how to' describing how I did it and how you can do it too! :)

You will need:

One ‘Morph-suit’ that fits you well (mine was 9% spandex- 91% polyester apparently, in case that matters)

1.5 L black liquid latex

Cling film

Talcum powder

A brush

A very understanding friend

Some plastic sheeting to stand on.

Plus if you want to customise the zippage: An extra long, double ended zip, and Needle and thread (or ideally a sewing machine!)

Warnings:

Don’t do this if you’re allergic to latex… or morph suits… or cling film… or talcum powder...or if it generally sounds like a bad idea to you, because it probably is.

Also fresh liquid latex smells super rough so do it in a well ventilated area. Plus don’t do it on a hot day because being wrapped in all that cling film and latex would clearly be a bad idea.

Step one: Test your Morph suit!

Huzzah it fits! (And I need to clean my mirror)

Add zips to taste:

I sewed my new zip in by hand and god it took forever. I watched the whole of the ‘Irishman’ and only got half way through the sewing, although I am also terrible at sewing and kept knotting the thread in annoying ways. Although I did remember to stretch the spandex as I was sewing around the butt area which gave it a pleasing curve and meant it wasn’t too tight around the crotch when I finally finished and tried it on:

Ladies...

Step two: cling film yo-self!

If done properly this should hopefully avoid some very painful annealing of body hair and liquid latex or permanent entrapment within painted morph suit. It is a good idea to have an assistant at this point to help cling film you, paint you with latex, and laugh at you mercilessly.

This project may in fact be entirely impossible without an assistant, I haven’t tried! Please do share any attempts in the comments though…

^Bottom half of me cling filmed and entering morph suit. Aubergines not required.

Step three: Get latexy

The first thing you discover when using liquid latex is that it smells god damned awful, or at least it does when you use the cheap black stuff I found on ebay. There may be less stinky alternatives but at a considerably higher price. Do all the latex painting in a well ventilated space, (or ideally a garden if your neighbours are understanding), and generally position your head as far away from the area being painted as possible!

For this latexing step I recommend you or your assistant uses a sacrificial paintbrush. Just dip in a pot of liquid latex and slather it on. Make sure the morph suit is as tight against the cling film as possible otherwise latex will pool behind it and be lumpier.

^Somewhere around this point we realised that my plan might actually work!

Step four: get more latexy

The spandex will soak up the liquid latex a bit so you’re going to need a couple of coats of this awful smelling liquid to get a proper latex effect. We did three coats and even then it was still a somewhat uneven surface that resulted, and not as shine-able as a proper latex suit, but the photos below will give you an idea how it might turn out.

Step five: Stand around like a muppet

Liquid latex takes time to dry, stand around for at least half an hour to make sure your suit wont re-form as a solid lump of lame after you peel it off. Also when peeling it off add talcum powder to every inner surface to stop the latex sticking to itself.

Step five B: Repeat two to five for the top half of your morph suit you were too lazy to do first time around

I cling filmed myself up to the neck this time, you really don’t want this stuff any closer to your face than that... Three coats later and a bit of drying this is what it looked like:

^ Rubber boooooi!

Step six??: Find a stand-in for your head...

Find a melon or semi deflated ball or something the size of your head… Or don’t. I didn’t. I stopped at this point because I already had a separate latex hood and I was over all the latexing. Whatever you do don’t try and paint the suit with your head inside it, you’d probably pass out from the fumes.

Step Seven: Shine yourself!

All latex needs to be shined and there are various options, I went for a Silicone spray:

(Also attached a bit of string to the zip so I could zip myself up more easily)

Ok, so the texture isn’t perfect and maybe there are a few wrinkles and making it was a total faff. However, I’ve had a few good times while wearing it at least so I declare this lock down project a success!

Special thanks to my anonymous assistant. And thanks to you for reading this far, good luck if you choose to try and walk in my rubbery footsteps and do let me know how it turns out!

Hearts in Lockdown

2020-06-20T03:04:00.001-07:00

Below is something a bit different to the normal kinda thing I post on this blog, but thought I’d share it here anyway in case it might resonate.

Hearts in Lockdown

Two meters is a bigger distance than you’d think. Six months ago it was just a length on a tape measure, a line in my mind’s eye, but now it’s a chasm, a wall, and a prison all at the same time.

It’s strange how disconnected I’ve felt lately; free of anchors or safety rails. Falling is a common metaphor applied to things we don’t quite have the language for. This is not the worst kind of falling, not that horrifying tumbling vertigo that sometimes plunges me back into wakefulness just before sleep can take me. Still, I feel something is happening that I don’t have control over but ought to be able to catch myself from. If only I knew which way to lurch and grasp. I am falling into myself. It is a little like collapsing into bed or slumping into the sofa, in that it is safe, it is familiar. My own company.

It is a solitude, but it is more than that, it is a detachment from the gravitational pull of other people. I had been getting used to them as well; nearly hit a two year relationship record before all of this, but no. Not my choice but there we go; snip snip, cut the cords and spin free.

Many people view it as unhealthy the way I bury my feelings, but it is a well learned survival response. The wound hurts more if you look at it, so cover it up, no need to poke it, things heal faster that way. I’m not pretending it didn’t happen, how could I? Just pouring that thick layer of protective cement.

Maybe I was built for this new world? This abstract bunker built of facemasks and computer screens. Is this a world where I can forgo compromise? Escape the weight of other people’s unpredictable feelings and expectations...

No. I don’t know what this falling is, but there is something horrible in it; a pressure that makes me want to scream with all my lungs, except there is no air in them. My eternally tapping fingers have slowed; new connections lie neglected and my support network feels unplugged.

I have been on some dates; socially distanced walks with new faces. I’ve exchanged smiles and conversation, watched others float past on their own life rafts as we all cling on in the storm. On one of these tentative meetings we went for a walk along the River Windrush . A bug flew into my mouth and I tried to explain it was a fly not the plague, as I coughed and sucked urgently at my water bottle.

Later our hands accidentally touched when passing through a kissing gate and we both withdrew in sudden horror. It’s hard to find ‘chemistry’ when infectious biology occupies most of your thoughts. I had hoped the rules might shield my occasional awkwardness, but they have amplified it instead. I don’t know what I’m doing. Dating decisions carry impossible weight; do you dive in hard and risk combustion, or keep your distance and watch other hearts bounce away?

Bounce, swipe, bounce, swipe, bounce.

It’s not you it’s me. It’s not me, it’s the implosion of Western civilization, oh and that pesky virus too. My eyes are hungry, but my lips are sealed tight. Sorry if I’m a ghost right now; there’s a danger in your eyes and in your shape.

This fall might take some breaking, but for now I’ll stay limp, work on what I can. This brutal time will pass. One day we will embrace old friends and kiss new lovers without fearful risk assessment. One day we will lean close, breathe each other in, and hear the life pulsing in our chests. One day we’ll love fearlessly, fully and more recklessly than we ever loved before.

We’ve had a precious reminder of what really matters.

I can’t wait to live freely again.

The Night Before Christmas - An Erotic Poem

2019-12-18T13:32:00.000-08:00

This poem can now also be found here on literotica, please give it some stars! *Fair Warning* This poem involves the consensual exploration of a home invasion fantasy as well as several references to Santa's balls...

The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, nothing good on TV
So I went on to tinder, feeling kind of horn-y
My kinky companion was up for some fun
I sent him a message to tell him he’d won
“Christmas present wanted, I live all alone
No one for company but my cat and my phone

I want you to dress in the robes of St Nick
I’ve been very naughty, so don’t make it quick
There’s a window unlocked in the room at the back
And it is big enough for both you and your sack
I’m off to sleep now in my sexy silk nighty
Oh and by the way, I can get a bit fighty!”

A mince pie and brandy were left on the table
Along with a note: ‘Fuck me hard if you’re able!’
Well imagine my surprise when later that night
I was rudely awakened by hands grasping tight
My mouth was covered and a beard scratched my ear
‘Santa’s here slut, and you’re going to pay dear’

I struggled beneath him, but I couldn’t get free
His breath was mince pies, with a hint of sherry
I was gagged by the stocking that I’d hung with such pride
Wrists tied with ribbon as I lay on my side
My night dress was lifted and my body left bare
Face pushed into the pillows, a firm hand held my hair

The first strike to my bottom made me stifle a moan
Spanked by a man who’d invaded my home
By the tenth I was writhing, all tingling and sore
If not for the stocking I’d have been begging for more
Thirty strikes later he decided to rise
Then I felt hot wax dance on my thighs

It seemed like forever that Santa toyed with me there
Gifting pain and pleasure with a well-practiced flair
‘You’re such a bad girl you deserve nothing but coal
But open your legs now and I’ll choose a hole’
The candy-cane in my butt was a mean surprise
A wide one at that, it brought tears to my eyes

Removing his belt, trousers fell to the floor
‘Here’s Santa’s chimney, now take it you whore!’
His cock drove me wild and I churned and I shuddered
‘I’ll ruin you slut’ was all that he muttered
Pulling me to my knees he pounded and pounded
Slapping like applause his testicles sounded

A Christmas eve orgasm is always quite nice
I had many that night and disturbed all the mice
Exhausted and broken my hands finally untied
Santa reclaimed his trousers and away he did ride
But before you should ask ‘was this only a dream?’
I awoke the next morning to signs of who’d been

A candy cane sat in a drained brandy glass
And I knew it was real from the pain in my arse
Beside me hung a stocking so full and so swollen
Coal was its contents and my innocence was stolen
And yet I was astonished to check tinder and find
‘Sorry I can’t make it, I hope you don’t mind’

Thus read the brief message from my kinky friend
That beard did seem very real... Happy Christmas, The End.

'So... This is Awkward' second edition

2019-10-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

The second edition of my first book is live!

Link here:
http://mybook.to/So_This_is_awkward

Back in 2013 when I first started writing 'So... This is Awkward' it was safe to say I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I just knew that I had some thoughts and stories that I needed to share. After a lot of typing and half baked editing I flung my self-published book at the world and, with the exception of a few nice reviews, the world mostly ignored it. Then back in 2017 I re-read my book and I decided I was quite glad that it had only been seen by a few hundred people!

I was embarrassed by the writing, rather than the embarrassing sexual confessions, so I took the book down and I have been trying to fix it ever since.

Since I wrote 'So... This is Awkward' my passion for both reading and writing has expanded massively, and, with the help of my friendly neighbourhood writers group, my writing skills have improved too.

Hopefully this is reflected in the second edition of this book. I'm not launching it with any fanfare or publicity right now because I may still decide to tweak it a little, and I don't have time to do all the social media engagement I ought to at the moment!

I still have various projects in the works, including 'SPANKED' the card game, which is very close to being release-ready so keep following me for updates; there's so much more to come!

The long tease...

2018-01-06T14:38:00.003-08:00

I know I'm terrible, it's been five months since my last post where I promised a new edition of my book and an exciting new card game too. I am sorry I'm so slow, but things really have progressed! I have completed a heavily re-worked draft of my book 'So... This is Awkward', which is currently awaiting feedback from some trusted sources. In the meantime I have taken the old book down from Amazon as there were some bits in it I was really unhappy with on re-reading. Anyway hopefully its fixed now and will be re-released soon!

Things have also progressed on the 'SPANKED!' BDSM card game front too. After some testing and tweaking I should be ready to release a free 'print-your-own' -beta version soon, and setup a kick-starter (or similar) too. In the meantime please follow me for updates, and enjoy an alternative game cover image (above) that I just finished drawing!

Hugs and Spankings
Harry

What has become of Timothy?

2017-07-22T02:54:00.002-07:00

‘What has become of Timothy Tuttlesmith?’ You may be asking,

‘He hasn’t posted in ages. Perhaps he has come a cropper while engaged in some ill-advised sexual activity? Or finally been arrested for his last post about kidnapping someone...?' You may be wondering.

FEAR NOT!

I am merely plotting in the background, like the devious fiend I am, and working on a number of projects that shall eventually burst forth to dominate all who stand in their way (and consent to it of course).

In no particular order these projects are:

1 - Changing my pseudonym!

While I have an enduring affection for the name Timothy Tuttlesmith it has proven to be quite marmite-y, except more widely hated. I did want my pseudonym to project a certain amount of ‘English whimsy’, but choosing a name that makes me sound simultaneously like a toddler and a mad aristocrat might have been overkill. Therefore after much maddening deliberation (I have a list of about 100 slightly less terrible names) I have settled on a new, less controversial, pseudonym, and I shall henceforth be referring to myself as:

Harry Newhouse

(I was tempted by Harry Windsor, but decided it was probably best not to pick that kind of fight with the Royal family… Plus I’m not even ginger.)

I’m currently renaming and restructuring my social media accordingly, so apologies if it all gets a bit confusing, but if you haven’t already please feel free to add me on any of the following profiles:

Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
G+
Fetlife (more explicit)

2 - Designing an erotic BDSM strategy card game!

This has been my big project over the last six months. It probably only took a couple of days to make the first ‘experimental’ version of the game once I had the idea, most of the time has been spent drawing about fifty illustrations for the main game cards. Below is a teaser picture of the cards, and I’ll be writing a new post soon with more details about the game. Plus I plan to release a free, unillustrated, version to download and print at home, and then maybe make a kickstarter to try and get funding. Please follow me and watch this space for more info!

3 - Editing my book to release a second edition.

So I hadn’t properly looked at my book for almost three years, then I picked it up and found myself quite embarrassed. Not by the lurid details of my sex life of course, but rather the erratic and sometimes terrible sentences I had used to describe them!

Getting my book as I want it may take a little while, so watch this space, but I hope to have something to show for it by the end of the summer.

4 - Writing new things!

As usual I have more ideas for stories than I have time to write them, but I am working on a couple of factual and a couple of fictional stories, that I hope will all be sexy as hell!

5 - Having kinky sex!

Because life is short and sex is fun. If you want to see for yourself follow me on fetlife for my NSFW media, (which might get taken down on other platforms!)

That's all for now

Sending you all hugs and spankings

Harry (/ The kinkster formerly known as Timothy)

The Time I Kidnapped a Stranger

2016-11-26T03:26:00.000-08:00

Q: What's the wildest thing I've ever done?

Well, of all the tales of my sexual misadventures the one that elevates eyebrows most rapidly is probably my story about abducting someone I’d just met. I tied them up in the back of my car, drove them to my flat, and then kept them captive overnight for the purposes of torture and sexual violation.

Before the police are dispatched to commit me to a similar fate I should point out that this kidnapping was entirely consensual. In fact it was probably more her idea than mine. The kidnapping also did not take place in some darkened alley, isolated moorland, or other quiet spot chosen so that no one could hear my victim scream. Instead it took place in a Waitrose car park near Cirencester in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Any screams of resistance would have quickly got the attention of a wide selection of bemused shoppers.

Alice (my ‘victim’) had instructed me on the best place to park; an isolated corner near the recycling bins. Well at least it had looked isolated on google street view, but those pictures had been taken in summer when the trees were all leafy. It was March when I reversed my car between those white lines, and as I looked out through my windscreen the spot seemed desperately exposed.

‘Oh well’ I thought, as I switched off the engine, ‘Here goes nothing!’

I locked my car behind me and wandered out towards the hulking glass lego brick of Waitrose. The plan was to have a pre-kidnapping chat over coffee first, just so we could assess each other for any dangerous levels of insanity. Alice and I had been talking for a couple of weeks now, including on the phone, and we had already reassured each other that we sounded sane at least. From the slightly philosophical slant to Alice’s okcupid profile I was initially worried that she might turn out to be a dreamy hippy with her head lost in the clouds. However, our chats had reassured me that she was intelligent, switched on, and prepared to ask deeper questions about life, even if they didn't have easy answers.

‘I’m on my way’ messaged Alice as I crossed the car park. I sat myself on a bench near the entrance to Waitrose, watching the automatic glass doors slide back and forth as empty shopping trolleys rattled outwards, weighted with cornucopiae of luxuries and essentials drawn from across the earth. One was pushed by a dead-eyed woman who appeared to be in her late thirties. It also contained her sproglet, who writhed in his cage-like trolley-seat and wailed. This woman’s expression did not suggest amazement at the wondrous achievements of globalisation contained her cart, but rather a quiet wish that the end times would come sooner rather than later.

A man sat down next to me, hunched between too large shopping bags. He began staring at his phone. I adjusted my overcoat and tried not to look conspicuous given that I felt overdressed for afternoon shopping, nor holding any shopping bags or other shopping related paraphernalia.

Then Alice appeared bounding down the nearby steps, her mouth stretched into a grin and barely a hint of nerves showing in her sparkling green eyes. I was relieved to see that she looked like she did in her profile pictures. Her long mousey hair bobbed gently with each step. Her figure was verging on the petite, and a warm looking cardigan hugged her chest. Her short skirt gave way above the knees to black tights encasing a pair of thoroughly graspable legs.

All in all she looked quite kidnappable.

We got a coffee in the Waitrose cafe. I think it was safe to say we were the only couple there on a ‘first date’. It’s possible I am underestimating the sex lives of the various grey haired senior citizens who shared that space with us. Perhaps they were just shielding their tindering behind copies of the Daily Telegraph or were rubbing walking sticks slowly against each other’s thighs when no one was looking… thankfully I wasn’t paying close enough attention.

Alice was cheerful and inquisitive and after brief small talk about jobs, science and what it was like to be temporarily living with her parents, the conversation quickly turned to the business at hand...

“So do you know lots about rope stuff?” She asked, a little too loudly.

“Ha, yes I’ve picked up a few things, don’t yet know how to do advanced things like suspension, but I can tie a few harnesses and other fun predicaments.”

Discussion of ropes and BDSM continued at a lowish volume, but I remained concerned that some of our neighbours might have their hearing aids turned up to high.

“Yeah, I think some people are kind of conflicted about the whole being feminist and into submission thing” said Alice “But I guess I am here so I can't be that conflicted.”

“Yeah, but I think be submission can be perfectly feminist so long as you’re making independent choices about what you want to explore.” I said.

“Yeah?” said Alice.

“Sure, I think if what feminism is trying to achieve is genuine equality for women, including freedom of choice, then why shouldn’t a woman feel free to choose what sexual experiences she wants to have?”

“I suppose the choice thing makes sense, though I'm not always sure everyone's choosing for the right reasons.”

“Do you really need a reason if it’s what works for you though? I mean, I think it’s also fair for someone to find the idea of a man dominating a woman to be offensive, even if it’s consensual, because there’s such an awful history of male violence against women that some people might see BDSM as somehow trivialising it.” I rambled “So, I try to be careful who I tell about this stuff, I’m not sure being a man who dominates women is an identity one should wear too openly out of respect for that. But behind closed doors if you want to be tied up and I want to tie you up then, equality wise, isn’t everyone a winner?”

“Yeah, I might be more offended by it if it didn’t also turn me on? I don't know.”

“Mmm. In some ways you could think of the submissive as actually the consumer, or person being serviced, and the person 'in control' as the service provider. It’s a shared experience but the sub doesn’t really have to take any initiative, it’s mostly the top’s responsibility to make the plans and learn the skills needed. The trick is controlling the submissive's experience and pleasure while simultaneously making it seem like you’re actually using them for your pleasure.”`

Alice nodded while sipping her coffee. Supermarket noises drifted into the cafe: the rattle of trolleys, the sporadic beeps of the checkouts, the hum of chiller cabinets. These sounds combined into kind of low roar, like the background echos at a public swimming pool.

“Have you finished your tea?” asked Alice

“Yup” I replied

“Good. Well I’m ready to go when you are!” she said

“Cool, let’s make a move then!” I said, caught slightly off guard and wondering to myself if I would ever truly be ready for what we had planned.

“So a hot scenario might be.. We meet and have a drink, we leave and you can order me into the boot of your car, take me to your flat where you can do whatever you like but I'd love it if you could spank me and hit me with a belt or similar…”

This was Alice’s message a few days before our meeting.

One slight problem with this plan was that my car was tiny and didn’t have a boot. Or at least it didn’t have a boot large enough to fit someone in without them suffering severe discomfort or permanent spinal reconfiguration. My solution was to put the back seats down...

“In you get!” I said. I held Alice’s arm and gave her a gentle push, but she didn’t need any encouragement as she clambered in through my back doors, giggling.

Easiest kidnapping ever.

I followed her in and produced some rope from the footwell. I started to tie around her wrists, but kept looking up to scan the car park and check no one was coming to arrest me. My car really wasn’t designed for discrete kidnappings. I should invest in a white van someday, or something with tinted windows. Anyway, as I was cinching the final knot to hold together her wrists I looked up to scan around again.

“Shit!” I said out loud

“What?” asked Alice

“Someone’s coming!”

Slowly but surely a dark haired lady was pushing a heavily laden shopping trolley towards the one SUV that was parked near us. This women appeared to be in her later years but was clearly fit enough to push a fully laden trolley to the most isolated corner of the car park. The side door of my car was still open so we couldn’t both hide without looking suspicious.

“You hide and I’ll try and look natural.” I said to Alice as the old lady approached.

Alice lay flat in the back of my car with various bits of rope strewn around her while I slid out of the back door and then leaned against the car casually, opening my phone and staring it intensely. Through the corner of my eye I watched as the lady slowly reached her car and opened the boot. Alice watched me from where she lay half-bound, grinning and stifling her laughter. Firstly, and with time defying languidity, the old lady lifted a bag of vegetables into her boot… then some bottles of lemonade… then a collection of soup tins…

My focus remained fixedly on my phone screen.

...then some toilet paper… then some cereal boxes… then a bag of chilled goods…

I checked my emails and paced up and down a little, because standing still had become too awkward for me.

...then a bag of potatoes… then some bottles of red wine…

There was no way I didn’t look suspicious was there? All the lady had to do was wander over into the next parking space and peer into my back windows. Fortunately she was occupied moving an infinite number of individual items into her boot. This inefficiency an unexpected outcome of the new plastic bag tax.

…then a multipack of crisps…and finally her trolley was empty!

“Ok she’s just taking back her trolley” I relayed to Alice who was getting bored and was trying to poke her head up from behind the front seats to get a look at what was happening.

“Quick get down she’s coming back again!”

“I think she saw me...” Alice said as the lady’s car pulled away.

“Better get you out of here before she calls the cops!” I joked, a little nervously

Now we were alone again I removed Alice’s boots and tied her feet together as well. I tied the ropes holding her hands to the metal runners of the front passenger seat.

“For the full experience shall I tape up your mouth?" I asked "Or do you want to be able to talk during the journey?”

“Up to you.” Replied Alice

“Tape it is!”

I wrapped non-adhesive bondage tape around her mouth and head; around and around, covering the bottom of her face almost completely.

“Can you say ‘stop the car’?” I asked

“Tttrrmmmpp ddd aaaarr” was the noise that emerged

“Ok, good enough.” I said, deciding that any distressed noises she tried to make would be reason enough to pull over.

Now I had a stranger tied up and gagged in the back of my car. At this point any cars pulling up beside me or any pedestrians walking by could have easily glanced in, seen that I had a girl tied up in my car, and been rightfully alarmed. In anticipation of this problem I had brought a sheet with which to cover my victim. Unfortunately once my hostage was sheet-enshrouded it made it look like I was transporting a dead body in the back of my car instead of a live one.

Not a dead body. I promise.

Still, I decided the sheet-covered-dead-body-look drew less attention than the tied-up-and-gagged-hostage look, so I left her like that, got in the driver’s seat, and told my sat-nav to guide me back to Oxford.

“What have you gotten yourself into?” I said to my sheet covered hostage.

She quietly tugged on her ropes. I calmly drove my car.

It is an odd sensation driving a car with a person tied up in the back of it. Driving is an activity that benefits a certain amount of calm concentration, and I like to think I did a good job of focusing on the task at hand. We pulled away from Waitrose and I navigated the series of roundabouts that took us out of Cirencester and into the rolling English countryside. Despite my professional focus on not crashing or running anyone over, there was still a voice in the back of my head that was silently screaming “OMFG there’s a girl tied up in the back of your car! How the shit did this happen!”

Once on a straight stretch of road I decided some kidnappy banter was in order.

“Well someone’s in trouble now!” I said “What am I going to do with you I wonder?”

These was silence from under the sheet, so I continued “You’re going to be my little slut to play with. I’m sure you’ll make a great little fuck-toy when I get you back to mine. Once I’ve beaten you into shape a bit that is!”

The continued silence from the boot made my words feel creepier than they usually do. I’d found gagging her really sexy at the time, but the resultant quietness made it hard to gauge if my banter was going down well, or if Alice might be developing terrifying doubts while left alone under a sheet with her thoughts.

“...So much trouble!” I trailed off

We drove along in silence for quite a while as I focused on roundabouts and slip roads and overtaking lorries on the dual carriageway. A bit of me started to worry that Alice might have fallen asleep and I feared she might react with horror on reawakening to find herself tied up in the back of a stranger's car.

“You ok back there?” I asked
“Mrrmmm”

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if that was meant to be a ‘mhmm’ or a ‘hmm?’...

“You ok? Not fallen asleep?”

“Mmm mmnh” came the response followed by further silence.

The journey mostly passed without incident. I made sure I stuck to the 50 mile an hour limit while passing the Swindon police station, as it would have been a very bad time to get pulled over for speeding. I was fairly sure the only law I was actually breaking was that my passenger wasn’t wearing a proper seatbelt, but it was still a situation that could take quite a lot of explaining.

Eventually I reached the Oxford bypass, almost back to my lair. Unexpectedly the sat-nav on my phone told me to take the next exit. I had not been using this sat nav for long and I had yet to develop a healthy skepticism over its advice. Rather than thinking ‘No that’s not the way to my flat’, I instead thought ‘Oh, this must be a new shortcut!’ and I obeyed the infernal machine. I quickly found myself in the quiet suburbs of North Hinksey going in entirely the wrong direction. Then I remembered I had just told my sat nav to take me to ‘Oxford’ and not to my actual address. “Crap, just need to turn around” I muttered to myself. North Hinksey seemed surprisingly busy with traffic so I pulled off into a cul-de-sac and attempted a three point turn. The road was really quite narrow and that was when a local pushing a wheel-barrow started approaching along the pavement.

With a bit of kerb scraping, and a burst of acceleration that I didn’t know my tiny car was capable of, I zoomed away from the peaceful village of suspicious onlookers and rejoined the Oxford bypass. A few minutes later I reversed into a parking space in front of my flat, heart beating at a confused pace. My parking space was also not as private as I would have liked it to be; this kidnapping lark was a tricky business! God knows how anyone kidnaps anyone in real life. I unlocked the front door then opened my boot. I did not want to take the risk of trying to carry a tied up Alice into my flat; getting dropped on the floor was not on her list of kinks, so I untied her feet while keeping her under the sheet. Next I untied the rope that I had fastened to the front seat, then hurriedly led her across the driveway by her bound hands and through my front door.

I locked the door behind us while she hovered in my hallway, hands tied and not knowing what to do with herself. I led her up the stairs and into my bedroom, pulling her along by the rope around her wrists. I could feel her wet cunt through her tights as I forced her onto my bed, leaning over her I muttered into her ear “You’re mine now slut.”

I took my time undressing her, untying and re-tying her limbs. I tied her spread-eagled and face down on my bed, ass exposed; I had promised her the belt and the belt she would get! I stood over her, still fully clothed, and felt my belt gleefully sliding through the loops of my jeans. Folding it in half I left it resting across my hostage's shoulder blades and ran my hands down her back and up the slope of her delightfully smooth ass. I made the first spank a hard one and she gasped, the solitary red hand-print stood out well against her white skin, and it invited more….

Alice took her spanking like the perfect pain slut she aspired to be. My hands beat down on her ass until it was wrapped in that familiar red glow, a newly primed canvas, ready for painting with the heavy brush strokes of my belt? No. First I thought it could use some further texturing with my flogger. The pale skin of her back and shoulders was quickly patterned with a multitude of thin red lines, which spelled out words the most primitive of languages... a code that read: ‘Mine!’

My flogger did it’s stingy work until, having satisfied myself with the sounds of her whimpers, I finally retrieved my belt from where Alice had let it slip to. I let the leathery folded end of it slip gently over Alice’s body, watching as her blushing skin twitched in fear of its touch. I flipped the belt up into my other hand, aimed, and swiped it down cruelly. Rewarded with my favourite slapping noise and its accompanying groan. I beat her furiously with my belt until bruises started to show; every good meal should be well tenderised before consumption after all.

I removed my trousers and my hard cock forced its way out of my pants. I crouched in front of where she lay, arms tied out either side of me, and taking hold of her hair I lifted her face off my sheets. After slapping her cheeks a little I ran my thumb down to her lips and she began sucking it eagerly. Still grasping her hair I pulled her head backwards and her jaw downwards, and then slowly I inserted my cock into her mouth, which she took in even more hungrily than my thumb.

Alice wriggled against her ropes, frustrated by her powerlessness as I fucked her face and my balls danced against her chin. My spare hand found my belt to lash her with from this new angle, just to add injury to insult. After I’d had my fun with her mouth I let her head sink back into the sheets. I ran my hands down over her abused body to find her soaking-wet cunt. Sheathing myself appropriately I eased myself onto the bed between her splayed legs and watched the rope digging into her ankles as she continued to struggle.

“Do you want me to fuck you slut?” I asked, still toying with her.
“Yes!” She groaned
“Yes Sir!” I spanked her again, a motion that was now almost automatic.
“Yes Sir! Please fuck me Sir!” She said
I placed my right hand firmly on her shoulder as I entered her, slowly at first, pushing deep.
“Do you like being my little fuck toy?” I whispered in her ear
“Yes sir” she said, teeth clenching as I begin to fuck her harder.

I grasped her by the hair again and used her just as I knew she wanted to be used.

It has been remarked by some that it takes me a long time to cum, but I never know what baseline I am compared to. I can’t remember how long I took with Alice, perhaps the hours of building excitement foreshortened the main performance, but I still remember being very sweaty by the end of it.

Well I say the end of it…

“What? You don’t think I’m done with do you?” I said to her as she lay there bound and exhausted. From my bag of tricks I produced a long white object with a bulbous end and a power cord… I plugged it into the wall and switched it on. Alice whimpered as she heard the sound of my magic wand vibrating frantically…

“The night is young! And there’s nowhere for you to go after all!”

The End

How I built my hardpoint

2016-09-24T03:37:00.001-07:00

So I have been tinkering around with bondage for a few years now; mostly tying pretty girls to my bed, or tying them to themselves, or, if I’m really lucky, tying them to other pretty girls. However I wanted to expand my bondage in a more vertical dimension, which meant having a secure overhead ‘hardpoint’ to tie to.

At this point I'm not knowledgeable enough to attempt full suspension type bondage, and I know this can be dangerous and requires badass rope skills, but I have some other, less extreme, schemes in mind that made this project seem worthwhile!

Anyway this is the story of my hard-point building adventure, presented in the form of instructions for repeating my feat... if you wish to be so foolish. (They don’t teach you this shit on blue peter after all!)

*DISCLAIMER- This is probably a bad idea. Don’t do it.*

How to build the Tuttlesmith Hard-point

You will need:

A sturdy and secure beam in your attic that is positioned conveniently above your bed:

(Failing that you can install something that spans a bunch of ceiling trusses like this. Using individual weak-ass ceiling trusses is a definite no no!)

You will also need: Something to drill holes in your ceiling with. Some straps designed to withstand at least double a human’s weight, which can be dangled through those holes, (I went for some hammock supporting straps from amazon). And finally something to cover over the holes with.
(Amazon better appreciate the free advertising!)

Step one: Put down something to catch the dust...

A rubber sex sheet is not necessary for this, but if it’s the nearest thing to hand then it seems like a viable option...

Step two: Figure out where to drill the holes!

Safety note: when bumbling around in an attic it is important to remember not to fall through the ceiling. Take care locating sturdy wooden ceiling trusses to stand on and don’t put all your weight on one truss. (Ideally put down boards to spread your weight). Make sure you can maintain your balance when wielding random tools. Peel back any insulation to access the ceiling panels but wear gloves and a dust mask as fibreglass is itchy bad.

Locate (/build) super strong beam. Wrap straps around this beam and let them hang down to figure out where they hit the plasterboard below. Check there is no electrical wiring or other sensitive stuff anywhere nearby where you plan to drill that could make you dead, then drill little wee holes to act as markers in the ceiling. (I wanted to drill up from below with the big circular drill instead of down from above as there’s a greater chance it will make a mess when exiting the panelling than entering)

Step three: BIG DRILLIN TIME!

Go back to bedroom and locate guide holes made above ^.

Equip electric drill with circular whizzy thing (matching the diameter of your hole disguises)… Test the drill trigger, watch it buzz, and feel afraid.

Before driving a powerful electric drilly thing into plasterboard above your head it is wise to appreciate that bits of plaster will probably fly everywhere including into your eyes if you are unable to resist looking up at the carnage you are creating. Therefore some kind of eye protection is advised…

I mean a creepy gas mask is definitely unnecessary, but you’d be surprised the number of things that baby comes in useful for...

(Other uses for creepy gas mask include but are not limited to: Cutting onions. Freaking out your house mate. Spraying anti-mold spray into high places above your head. And even surviving nuclear/chemical/biological terrorist attacks.)

Find a safe place to stand (use a ladder if ceiling is high… Standing on the bed like I did is probably not ideal, but if you’re a reckless mo-fo like me just try not to slip on any oily patches on your rubber sex sheet…) Also always keep the ‘safety’ switch toggled on the drill until you’re ready to use it!

Locate big central drill bit into little guide drill hole.

Say “Here goes nothing!”

Pull the trigger and drive that sucker home. (Careful now)

Plasterboard may resist and drill head may stop spinning. Grit teeth and continue to wreck your ceiling by pulling the drill out a little and then pushing it back in again…

Say “Oh jesus what the fuck am I doing!” out loud and plasterboard rains down around you, spraying everywhere and far exceeding the spread on your rubber sheeting.

Feel relief as you finally breach the ceiling that was much thicker and tougher than you expected.

Marvel at the amount of mess you have made in such a short time:

If the first hole wasn’t too traumatic, carry on and drill another one!

Step four: HIDE THE EVIDENCE

Insert desk cable organiser things into the holes you have made and hope your parents never ask you “Why do you have two weird disks in your ceiling?” (Covering hard point holes with fake fire alarms may be an alternative but two fire alarms above my bed seemed excessive…)

Step five: Get it all dangling...

Return to attic. Loop straps around big beam to get an appropriate length and dangle through the holes.

Discover you looped one strap around once more than you did the other: Return to attic and readjust so that it doesn't look stupid.

Continue to not fall through the ceiling.

Step six: Tidy

Replace hole disguises (with some difficulty). Get vacuum out and try to deal with the massive amounts of mess you have made.

Step seven: Sleep

Go to bed and go to sleep while enjoying the self-satisfaction of having achieved something combined with a quiet unease as to whether you have just significantly decreased the value of your property.

Step eight: Awake

At about 3am get hit in the face by a falling white plastic hole-disguiser that decided it didn’t like being in your ceiling that much after all.

The next morning drill several holes in it in revenge (using a small hand drill, and your knees carefully deployed in a vice like manner). Repeat for non-offending plastic hole-disguiser. Push them both back into the ceiling.

Return to the bloody attic with a hammer and nails.

Go to hammer the first nail into offending hole-disguise and watch in annoyance as the hole-disguise falls back through the hole. Realise that using a hammer and nails is quite hard when balancing on attic ceiling trusses.

Go back down the ladder, put hole-disguise back in hole, go back up ladder. Nail that mutha-fucker in there properly this time.

Repeat for second hole-disguise (Including the going-up-and-down-ladder bit because yes you accidentally knocked that one through the hole as well).

Add some glue around the sides of the hole disguisers just to make sure they're not going to fall out and hit you in the face again. Then put the insulation back as you found it. Get out of the damned attic before your knees give out on you from all the crouching. Go back into the damned attic because you left your drill up there.

Continue to not fall through the ceiling.

And finally…

Profit!

(Rope bunny acquired separately; sadly they do not magically appear as soon as you build a hard-point!)

Scrumping

2016-03-05T03:54:00.001-08:00

Below is a teaser of my first attempt at writing some straight up erotica. It's been through many revisions over the years and a few different ebook covers. I first posted this story I extended it and put it on Amazon as a 99c ebook, but then Amazon took it down without any notice or explanation... It may have been down for ages, as I'm afraid I have not been paying much attention to Harry's creative ambitions lately, but I found out the other day this book somehow become the subject of a podcast. It was strangely terrifying to hear your work reviewed in that way, but it was good to hear the book bringing laughs to strangers. Their ringing endorsement that it was 'fine' and that it delivered what it set out to deliver has motivated to put out an improved second edition on Smashwords, complete with new cover art. Enjoy responsibly.

Disclaimer
This work is not an aspirational tale, its purpose is to arouse and drag you into the story. The behaviour of the characters does not meet good standards for consent and communication and the author does not endorse their reckless actions and manipulations. He does, however, hope that they turn you on.

This story contains elements of threat and dubious consent.

Scrumping

It was September in Massachusetts and the warmth of late summer sun had tempted Laura out of her house and onto her bicycle. The first flushes of autumn colour were showing in the trees and something in her heart floated up and lifted her feet forward as they turned the pedals. It was a Sunday; worrying about work could wait until tomorrow and for now, she could do whatever she pleased. The soft air blew over her face and her auburn hair danced in her slipstream as she rolled onwards, out into the shining world.

Laura’s dress was a poor choice for biking; too short, fragile, and liable to stain. Nevertheless, she loved it. The white fabric with red polka dots matched her freckles to a tee. As the warm breeze found its way through its thin fabric and teased her skin, her knuckles tightened on its swept back handlebars. She knew her bike made her look like a terrible cliché with its wicker basket and light-blue paint job, but that just made her even more obsessed with it. She rang her bell as a nervous chipmunk watched her pass from the roadside.

Leaving behind her regular neighbourhood, her aimless pedalling began to take her on an unfamiliar route, running past thick fields of maize and the occasional brick-red barn. Next, the road dove into colourful woodland that stretched away on either side of her like an endless rusted blanket.

After free-wheeling downhill for a while, the woodland broke into lines of overgrown apple trees weighed down with lucious and reddening fruit. The sight of this bountiful orchard made Laura salivate slightly. She stopped and looked around, a mild perspiration cooling her forehead. Seeing no one she reached up and picked an apple from a low hanging branch. Sugary juice ran down her chin as the skin broke beneath her teeth and it tasted so sweet and refreshing eaten there in the mid afternoon sun. She felt there could not have been any apple more delicious than the one clasped in her palm.

‘I should make an apple pie!’

The idea came to Laura as she took a last bite and flung away the core. She had never actually made an apple pie before, but there were so many delicious apples here that they practically commanded her to pick as many as she could fit in her basket. Detaching its wicker frame she hid her bike in some bushes near the road and plunged deeper into the orchard. She wanted to gather the fruit out of sight, just in case anyone should drive by and stop to ask her awkward questions. Some voice in her head kept declaring that this was kind of like stealing, but she brushed it aside.

‘There are so many apples!’ she thought ‘They’ll probably just fall on the ground and go to waste anyway!’

A thin path between the grass led her in between gnarled trunks and laden branches. Laura wasn’t quite sure what impulse drove her deeper and deeper into that old orchard; there were apples everywhere, all in easy reach, and yet something pushed her on, an indistinct thrill making her heart beat faster. Ahead of her one particular tree stood out, bathed in autumn sunlight and overflowing with well-reddened fruit that beckoned with an enticing shine...

*

Laura snapped another firm and smooth apple from its delicate stem. Her basket was almost full to its brim.

‘I should go’ She realised, having picked enough for five or six pies, and then she spied the most perfect apple of them all. It was a modestly sized fruit with a smooth unbroken skin, spring green and lustrous red, and it was dangling just above her head.

Laura reached upwards to pluck it...

“Those aren’t yours,” said a stern voice behind her.

Laura jumped, losing her grip on the basket and sending her loot rolling all over the grass.

“Hiiii!” she said, turning, her voice high pitched and failing to disguise her guilt.

Standing a few metres away was a young man. His jeans were well worn, with holes that weren’t a fashion statement, and his dark maroon T-shirt did little to hide his muscular body. Despite his obvious youth, there was a rugged hardness to his features; a thick stubble encased his lower jaw and hard eyebrows hung like cliffs over his brown and brooding eyes. He stared at Laura silently while she squirmed, skewering her with disapproval that could have bored through granite. After brushing some tangled hair out of her face she fondled it nervously….

“There were just so many gorgeous looking apples here!” she said, trying to fill the silence “I thought no one would mind if I picked a few before they fell down and went to waste…”

The man stared fixedly at her while Laura’s eyes darted between him and the surrounding orchard, looking for an excuse or an escape, her hands flapping like a fish caught in a net.

“I was going to make apple pie, I could make you some! Do you like apple pie?” she stammered.

“Nope” came the curt reply.

“Who doesn’t like apple pie? Oh well! I’m really sorry if these are yours! I can pay you for them? Or I can give them back?” Laura’s eyes were wide and shining as she waited for the verdict. The man scratched his head, face still locked in a steely frown. He glanced down and took a slow step forward.

“You think cos you’re pretty you can just do whatever you want and get away with it don’t you?”

Laura stepped backwards and felt her wicker basket press against the back of her legs. “You think I’m pretty?” she replied, face lighting up with a nervous smile.

“I think you’re a lot of things,” he replied. His eyes traced her body down... and up... then locked on her eyes once more. He seemed to relish the incriminating silence; the only sounds around them were the insects humming amidst the quiet seclusion of the apple trees.

“I’m going to give you two choices,” said the man, apparently reaching a decision. “Option one; you can skidaddle like a cowardly little crook, and then I better never see your ass here in my orchard again…”

Laura inhaled sharply; there was something about the way he'd lingered over the word 'ass'.

“...or option two: you take the punishment you deserve, then you can walk away with as many apples as you can carry.”

The word ‘punishment’ hit Laura’s adrenaline-stretched mind like a comet. She couldn’t describe what exactly she was feeling, nor order her thoughts fast enough to make sense of them. Her eyes involuntarily flicked over the stranger’s body.

“I don’t know what kind of girl you think I am… but you’re wrong,” she mumbled

“All I know is you’re the kind who likes to take what isn’t hers," he said, almost smirking at her predicament. "If the punishment gets too much you can stop me whenever you like, and leave without any apples. Stick it out and you can walk away knowing you earned them fair and square.”

Laura went to say something, but the words didn't come. Conflict moved across her features.

“Or you can skulk away like a little failed thief,” he continued, “and I hope the shame will keep you awake all night… ”

“Okay…” she muttered

"What was that?"

Laura’s greeny-blue eyes finally held his gaze. “Okay fine! Punish me!” she said, her eye’s rolling in defiance.

“Good choice.” said the man. A smile crept into the edge of his mouth, then he fixed his face in a freshly serious expression. “Now I’m gonna be rough with you, because that’s what you deserve. You may get scared, but I’m a man of my word and if you take all the punishment you’ve got coming then you’ll walk out of here carrying a full basket. If you tell me to stop though, I’ll stop, but you’ll walk away with nothing.”

Fixed to the spot Laura processed his words. She felt a weight leave her hand as the man snatched away the last apple she had picked and gave it a cursory wipe on his shirt.

“Now open your mouth.” he said.

Slowly Laura dropped her lower jaw, still not entirely sure what the hell she was doing. The man shoved the apple in there until it flattened her tongue and caught behind her teeth.“Now keep it there” he instructed. She could feel the heat coming off his body as he moved closer. His eyes were still locked on hers as he reached around behind her head and grabbed a thick fistful of her hair. She didn’t resist as his other hand slowly gathered up her two thin wrists and pressed them behind her back. She could feel the skin of his hands bore the hardness of a man who worked with them for a living.

“Now walk.”

A strange calm fell over Laura as the stranger forced her down the thin path that led deeper into the orchard. Adrenaline still buzzed all her senses, but something within her throbbed in confused excitement as she let the firm hands holding her wrists push her along.

There was a rock-like quality to this man. Maybe it was his confidence, or his sternness, but it inspired fear and trust in equal measure. Although she did not know his name she did not completely think of him as a stranger either. In her mind, she had named him “the apple-man”, which was a title that demanded reverence despite its absurdity.

Her saliva collected around the apple wedged in her mouth, making swallowing feel strange and awkward, though she did it regularly to prevent herself drooling. A tumbled-down barn appeared through the trees surrounded by the detritus of rural life; piles of wood for the fire, an axe planted in a heavy log, and a long deceased tractor rusting silently amongst tangled weeds. Laura paused for a moment, trying to take in the scene, but the stranger pushed her forward roughly, making her worried she would lose her balance.

He forced Laura through the open doorway of the barn and the darkness enveloped her. Inside, there was a rich smell of fermenting apples, tempered with the musty odour of sawdust and linseed oil. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see a large cider press occupying one corner of the barn and a number of wooden barrels stacked against the walls. The apple man walked her to a spot where a large barrel lay on its side, wedged in place by various small boxes and a big wooden post that reached up into the barn’s cavernous ceiling. He positioned her in front of this barrel, then released her hair and reached up to grab one of several coils of rope that were hanging from the rafters.

Looking back at him, Laura knew that this might be her last chance to run. She wanted to ask what he was going to do to her. But with her tongue trapped beneath the apple, all she could manage was something that sounded like “Ommgn omm uomm...”

She gave up trying to speak. The idea of spitting out the apple to do so didn't pass consideration; it might break her thrilling enchantment, and she was transfixed by the man as he ran two parallel strands of rope through his hands and deftly produced a single loop.

“Arms out in front of you”

Wordlessly she presented her arms, palms clasped together. He passed his loop of rope over them, tightened it, and began to wrap the strands around her wrists so they coiled up her arms, python-like. She tensed against the hard, scratchy fibres. After some further twists and threading of the rope between her wrists the apple man tightened the cords and tied a final knot. Laura wriggled her hands to prove to herself they really were tied, that this wasn't all a strange and thrilling illusion. The ropes held fast; too tight to wriggle free.

In the cool of the barn, Laura could feel her cool sweat on her bare arms, and yet her body was running hot with a fire that she was trying desperately not to acknowledge.

By pulling the rope that trailed from Laura’s wrists, the apple-man guided her forward so she was facing the barrel. Placing his hand in the small of her back he pushed her onto it. Her body had nowhere to go but downwards onto the uncomfortable looking wood. The dark oak staves felt very solid under her elbows as she draped herself over them. She suspected the barrel was full of cider from the way it held firm underneath her, and her thoughts were briefly a confused mixture of thirsts.

Her attention was drawn back to her wrists as the apple man pulled the ropes tight and began securing them to the sturdy oak post in front of her. Her arms were stretched out, all chance of escape was being cut off, but Laura made no move to resist. She almost welcomed the certainty of the hard wood and the tight rope, but her heart beat fast in her chest nevertheless. The apple-man produced yet more rope from the rafters and, bending down, he slipped its strands around one of her ankles. A strange sensation of total exposure crept up her legs and across her back. It was almost like a tingling, but rooted somewhere deeper. She noticed the wetness in her underwear and bit down on the apple to stifle a moan.

The apple man tied her second ankle and pulled on the rope to spread her legs apart. With all her limbs bound that tingling feeling of helpless exposure intensified and Laura realised she was trembling slightly. She tugged against her new restraints, trying to move right, left, backwards, forwards, but thwarted in every direction.

“Struggle all you like,” said the apple man calmly, “there’s no escaping your punishment now.”

Find the rest of this short-story on Smashwords here

Control in all things?

2016-01-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

Hello all, sorry I have been quiet, life getting in the way and all. Here is something I started writing a while ago, but it got rather lost in the machine.

Control in all things?

To be ‘in control’ is a deep rooted fantasy for many, and BDSM is just one dimension in which it can be expressed. For those of us with dominant proclivities having control over another living and lusting person can be almost intoxicating. However, I once heard someone say “Oh, I exercise control in all things [Miss Steele]...” with a confidence that suggested he actually believed this ridiculous assertion. Admittedly the person I’m referring to is a fictional billionaire, but those words still made me want to slap him while yelling ‘Control this!’

I’m sure there are many reasons why people get into the dominant side of BDSM; for me it’s more of a fun hobby than an obsession. However, if I had started exploring the dominant side of kink because I wanted to bring more order and control to my love life then I think I would have been sorely disappointed.

Do you really need to delude yourself that you are in complete control of your life to classify yourself as ‘dominant’? Regardless of how much of an awesome top, master, or dom you are you will never be 100% in control of anything, let alone ‘all things’, and that’s not defeatism, it’s just the nature of our universe. Even if you’re a billionaire with powers and freedoms that most of us could only dream of, you will still grow old and die, and you are still at the mercy of the random events around you. However hard you try to achieve perfection you will make mistakes, you will overlook things, and people will disobey and disappoint you. Events in your life will rarely be dictated by you; the world is just too big and complex for any one human to put a collar around it.

Despite this, popular culture is saturated with images of people with inhuman powers of self-determination. Super heroes and super villains all constantly do battle on our TV screens, blessed or cursed with incredible strength, impossible endurance, amazing intelligence, or even just unbelievable amounts of luck. In our entertainment we have come to expect grand clashes between a small handful of individuals with massively inflated potency; their shoulders weighted with crushing responsibility as they battle to save the world, or the universe, or some other ends of gigantic significance.

We, however, are only human, and there is an danger in idolizing the impossible if we harm ourselves by pursuing it. Our western culture is ruthlessly individualistic and seems to be becoming more so. It’s every man and woman for themselves in a battle to distinguish ourselves from each other and to exceed each other by being ‘the best’ at whatever we do. We are also expected to be as independent and self-reliant as we each can be. It is a philosophy that I think is crushing us, and I have seen plenty of intelligent and beautiful people struggling the yoke of insecurity that this culture creates.

My personal philosophy runs along these lines: you are a tiny and near inconsequential spec in a vast and uncompromising universe, but you do matter, you are special, and you can make a difference. It’s just not all on you. Your sphere of responsibility may seem pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but if you deal with yours and I deal with mine then together we can do some pretty amazing things.

Casting oneself in the role of ‘dominant’ can be isolating in both life and love. Perhaps sometimes that isolation is attractive, I know it often is for me. However, the taller you build your pedestal the further you have to fall, and there may not always be someone there to catch you. If you consider yourself dominant you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help and to learn from others. Try to be open with friends and lovers about your personal demons, even if you feel this runs against your very nature somehow.

One of our greatest strengths as a species is our ability to work together; together we built the pyramids, split the atom, and sent men to the moon. Sure BDSM isn’t quite the same level of rocket science, but there can be a lot of complicated things involved both practically and ethically speaking. If we all can have the humility to learn from each other, rather than each of us inventing the wheel on our own, we may all get a lot further and have a lot more fun along the way.

Alone we should aim to control what we can and let go of what we can’t. To dominate someone is a major responsibility, and the more control you want to exercise over your submissive’s life the more responsibility and attention it will demand. Maybe god like control in all things is the purest form of fantasy, both infinitely desirable and infinitely impossible. However, if you strive too hard for it those forces may rip your mind apart like a star caught in a black hole.

As a popular prayer puts is:

“Dear [higher power of your choice]. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Which, of course, is a lot easier said than done.

Book released in paperback!

2015-10-20T15:31:00.000-07:00

A paperback version of my first book 'So... This is Awkward' is now available. Get it from createspace HERE. (It should also be available on Amazon soon, but I get a smaller cut of the monies if you buy it there...)

To celebrate this release I have set up up a 'kindle countdown deal' meaning the ebook version will be 99c on Amazon.com and 99p on Amazon.co.uk as of Wednesday morning (just in case you're not sure about investing in solid pages).

Finally here is a picture of my lovely book in the hands of a lovely girl...
...Am I doing advertising right yet?!

Paperback release on Wednesday!

2015-10-17T02:27:00.002-07:00

Exciting news!
On Wednesday I will be publishing a paperback edition of my book 'So... This is Awkward' and it will be available via Amazon and Createsapce.

Here are some pictures of my proof copy:

How to find the kinky person of your dreams on the internet.

2015-09-26T03:13:00.000-07:00

The Lovely Belle originally hosted this as guest post on her awesome blog 'Not Just sex' back in 2015, but the page seems to have gone down. I've put my saved version of it below:

Our culture is a strange thing; someone writes a clunky piece of twilight fan fiction one day, then everyone is clamouring to talk about BDSM the next. For those of you not in the know, or mercifully protected from the 50 shades phenomenon, BDSM stands for ‘Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, & Masochism’, (Dominance & Submission can also be thrown in there thanks to some cunning letter redundancy).

BDSM covers a range of practices that have been around for centuries, but mostly confined to the shadows of sinful deviancy for much of our recent history. Now it seems they are back with a vengeance, except that these days we have the internet, and with it comes the thrilling/terrifying possibility of being able to easily find people that want to actually act out our darkest fantasies with us.

What’s that? You don’t have any dark fantasies? Sure, whatever you say!

Being new to kink can certainly be daunting, and questions such as; ‘Will I get murdered?’ ‘Will I accidentally hurt someone?’ ‘Will I have my organs stolen?’ are all very healthy questions and asking them should definitely be encouraged.

I’ve been exploring kink through the medium of online dating for just over two and a half years now. It’s been a pretty wild ride and I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some great play partners along the way. I’ve definitely learnt quite a lot from dating in New York, so here are my tips I’ve picked up from personal experience as well as things I’ve read here and there. Some of these tips may sound a little generic, but sometimes it’s worth stating the obvious. Hopefully most of this advice is written in a way that should be relevant across gender divides and the spectrum of dominance and submission.

1 - Be smart and safe

Some people may well get a kick out of risk and they may get turned on by the idea of putting themselves out on a limb by going over to some strangers apartment to be tied up and abused. While their excitement is perhaps understandable on some level it is obviously not smart to risk life and limb just for a kinky thrill, especially not without taking precautions. There really are monsters out there, so don’t throw away all the kinky fun times you could have in the future for one reckless evening with a psycho.

If you’re feeling moderately brave and live somewhere metropolitan the best way to meet people is probably through your local kink community. You can usually find out about relaxed socials called ‘munches’ through fetlife (which is like facebook for kinky people), and these events can be a good way to suss out potential partners and make friends before going along to more intense play parties etc. Engaging with these BDSM communities is probably the best way to learn and meet strangers with compatible interests. However, it can seem intimidating and downright weird to a lot of people so it’s definitely not for everyone. Also don’t assume that just because you met someone through a BDSM community that they are safe and ‘vetted’, I’ve read plenty of horror stories on fetlife about consent violators who hang out in these communities and get away with abuses. Sometimes they may even occupy positions of authority and trust, so don’t be ashamed to ask around in the community about someone before you trust them yourself.

Perhaps munches don’t sound like your thing and you only want to confide your kinky secrets in one person. Fair enough, looks like your best bet online dating then. As with all online dating, it’s best to meet somewhere public first where you can chat and figure out if your date is the right kind of crazy. (Hint; if they resemble Christian Grey in that they seem shallow, stalky, obsessive, and generally too used to getting what they want, then get out of there!)

When interacting with someone keep an eye out for ‘red flags’ and if your date says something that worries you then get them to clarify. Don’t be afraid to take your time getting to know someone before exploring your kink together. Admittedly there is often a certain thrill in a first meeting that can be lost once you part ways, it can be good to ride out that first date energy. However, if you’re reluctant, and your date tries to manipulate you or make you feel guilty for not giving them the kinky sex they want, then that is a blazing a red flag. It’s your body and no one is entitled to it just because they came out for a meeting and you had some conversations that turned them on.

Finally, if you’re unable to resist a mad urge to dash over to a stranger's place for some kinky fun, at least tell someone trustworthy where you are going and who you are going to see! If possible set up a “safe call” where you promise to check in with someone after a certain amount of time, and tell your date that you’re going to do this. Sure kinky sex is great, but it’s obviously not worth risking your life for.

2 - Be true to yourself

Something to remember when diving down the BDSM rabbit hole is not to let anyone tell you what you are and what you are not.

It seems odd to have to point this out, but ironically for a non-conformist subculture there can be a lot of pressure to conform to certain expectations. “True dominants don’t go down on girls”, “Real submissives should only speak when spoken to”, “Switches are just indecisive”, this kind of bullshit floats around kink like wasps around jam. I am of the general opinion that personality labels are effectively pointless, but even if they do have value people who say things like ‘true doms should do this’ and ‘true subs should do that’ are either arrogant tools trying to assert themselves, or worse; they are trying to manipulate you into matching their own selfish fantasies.

It’s also important to remember that BDSM is not a competition; some people may enjoy more extreme things, some people may prefer to keep things light, and as you get to know someone you’ll learn to calibrate their limits and pleasures. Just because someone can take more pain than you or administers a more brutal spanking does not make them “better at kink” than you are. It might just make them more familiar with awkward trips to A&E.

Everyone has their different pain and pleasure thresholds that can vary dramatically day by day. If dominating someone it’s important to be able to read someone’s responses in order to gauge how much pain to inflict. It also shouldn’t feel like you’ll get ‘points’ based on the sizes of the bruises you leave behind. Maybe by saying this I’m singling myself out as not a ‘true dom’ to some, but I can live with that, and I’m definitely not saying that leaving bruises can’t be fun…

Self confidence can be an incredibly attractive and sexy quality in itself, regardless of how you identify, so try to get comfortable in your own skin and inside your own head, although I know this can be hard. Let the judgement of ignorant people wash over you; you’re the only person who has to live your life so make it the life you want to live!

3 - Be patient

As the saying goes “there are plenty of fish in the sea”. However, there are also plenty of other unpleasant creatures in there too, which, if caught, are best thrown back in as swiftly as possible. Real life isn’t a hollywood romcom; it’s a cruel and chaotic world we live in and the loves of our lives aren’t always going to fall into our laps. I think it can help to accept this and not take it too personally when things don’t go your way.

Sometimes online dating can feel like a never ending search for “the one”, but it’s like that for most of us. You are not alone, and even if you don’t find the one that shouldn’t stop you from having some fun along the way. Try to appreciate the people you get to know, even if not all of the chemistry you need is there to make it last.

It is also wise to be patient when trying different things in the bedroom. A lot of BDSM activities can carry real risks and require certain skills to perform safely. These skills can take time to learn and shouldn’t be rushed into just because you saw someone do it on kink.com and it looked hot.

4 - Be Honest and Ethical

Trust is one of the most important elements that reinforces all human relationships, but it is particularly important when BDSM is involved. If you let someone tie you up you are trusting them with a lot more than just your feelings. Similarly if you tie someone up you’re trusting them to tell you when they want to be untied, which might not sound like such a big deal, but gets kind of scary from a consent perspective.

Lies undermine that vital trust, even small ones. We may all tell little ones here and there to preserve people's feelings, but if we start to establish a pattern of deceit we are more than likely going to hurt everyone more in the long run. Being consistently honest takes courage, and sometimes saying nothing can seem the easiest way to avoid either lying or telling a painful truth. However, remaining silent can also be a hurtful, especially if it drags out an already painful situation.

As for the ethical side of things; it’s not rocket science! Treat others in the same way as you would want to be treated. Being a dom isn’t a licence to be an arsehole and being a sub isn’t a licence to abdicate all personal responsibility. We may all be different in our tastes, but we are equal in our rights and agency, (or at least we should be, backwards ideas notwithstanding). It’s safe to assume that if you’re treating someone in a selfish way that’s going to be detrimental to someone else's life, then you are not being ethical, even if they have clearly consented to being treated in that way.

At the end of the day we all have to live on this planet, and while like me you may not believe in karma in the spiritual sense, if you treat one person badly they are then more likely to treat someone else badly, and so on and so on, until it comes back to hurt all of us one way or another.

*

Well I think that’s my top tips done. The internet is overflowing with advice on how to do particular BDSM things so take your time and have a good long browse! Also keep an eye out for local classes organised by your kink community as they can be a fun way to learn and meet people at the same time.

Oh, one final suggestion. Don’t forget to Be Bad :)

New drawing

2015-08-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Apologies for this blog's continued inactivity, there should be some guest pieces for other blogs in the pipeline that I'll post here when they get published.

In the meantime though I have been doing some more drawing; this one is of a scene at the very start of my book and features a girl called Piper who's on her knees and about to be in all kinds of trouble...

... read the start of my book for free here!

Paperback Cover reveal

2015-08-04T10:07:00.001-07:00

Book cover design has gone off to createspace. Now I await my proofs!

#book #indie #selfpublished #dating #BDSM #Kink #NewYork

Back cover for my book!

2015-07-11T10:21:00.003-07:00

So I've finished drawing a back cover for my book! Now I just need to write a good blurb to put on it and do battle with createspace... In the meantime though I'm running my FINAL FREE EBOOK PROMOTION THIS WEEKEND! Download it here, then tell EVERYBODY, (and please leave me a nice review! Turns out this self publishing thing is hard!)

The Hook (Guest post for Charlie In The Pool)

2015-07-11T04:42:00.001-07:00

Charlie kindly hosted me for a guest post last week over on her blog 'Charlie in the pool'

It is titled 'The hook' and you can read it HERE

(And if you're wondering what that picture is of then click to find out!)

Who are you calling fucked up?!

2015-06-20T03:02:00.000-07:00

“That sounds kind of fucked up…” They say
‘What exactly do they mean by ‘fucked up’?’ we wonder, while often capitulating with a “Yeah, I guess...”

Kinksters of the world, capitulate no more!
‘That’s kind of fucked up’ is a simple expression, and it’s one that I’ve also used on plenty of occasions myself to describe people in a non-hostile, but slightly disapproving way. Chances are that if, like me, you enjoy BDSM, you’ve been described as ‘fucked up’ at sometime or another, although maybe not always to your face.
We kinksters seem to accept this as par for the course, the price for being true to our sexuality. However, I find it increasingly irks me, especially when it ends a conversation rather than starts one. It hints at some nebulous negative opinion, a summary judgement that is too ill defined to latch onto and wrestle. Arguing with the ‘fucked up’ label can feel like trying to bail water with a sieve, as whatever is meant by it can shift and morph depending on what arguments you throw at it.

This is my attempt to trap that phrase in a box and hit it with sticks.

Frankly, describing BDSM as ‘fucked up’ is a lazy derogation that informs on nothing except the announcer’s prejudice. Perhaps it’s understandable as a gut reaction, but unforgivable as a conclusion.

“That sounds kind of self destructive”, or “That sounds kind of sociopathic”, or “That sounds kind of dangerous”, or “That sounds like the result of childhood trauma”, are all understandable reactions to BDSM, even if I believe they are inaccurate. However, these specific reactions can be engaged with. (Here is my general counter as to why I think people like BDSM, I will try to counter the idea that it is dangerous and self destructive in a future post).

In contrast those who utilise the ‘it’s just kind of fucked up’ comment at the end of a BDSM conversation are in a way admitting defeat, but simultaneously refusing to concede. Calling someone ‘fucked up’ is hurtful and it is a label those of us who enjoy BDSM shouldn’t let pass so easily, especially as it is often used in the absence of any genuine argument or rationalization. The implication of calling someone fucked up is that the subject is somehow deficient and should labelled as broken without anyone having identified the actual fault.

Fuck that.

Deviant does not equal defective.

To assume someone is ‘damaged goods’ because they don’t fit socially accepted norms is just some juvenile school yard shit. This ignorant pack mentality is a powerful force, and to keep it at bay you can't be silent, you have to oppose it. Whether it’s directed at LGBTQ people, religious minorities, transgender people, or those with deviant sexual tastes, the persecution of nonconformity always seems to creep in, often manipulated by the powerful, but sometimes for no better reason than that people are afraid of difference.

I’ll ask a final question; who is more fucked up; someone who accepts their sexual desires for what they are? Or someone who denies their desires because they’re afraid what other people will think of them?

The person who accepts their deviant sexual desires, and explores them in a safe and ethical way, seems to me to be the winner in the game of ‘least fucked up’. Whether or not you argue that those desires are the result of some internal fault, or are actually just a common quirk of our shared biology, it’s surely safer to recognise them than pretend they’re not there. Like learning your driving a manual car instead of an automatic; once you acknowledge you need to use the gear stick occasionally it’s going to be much easier to get where you want to go to, or you can keep pretending you're in a n automatic and wonder why the engine is making so much noise.

Many secretly kinky people may refuse to acknowledge their non-vanilla fantasies because they’re afraid of what people will think. (Even though I’m not ashamed of my own tastes I don’t just hide behind a pseudonym because it sounds funny!) The fear of social exclusion is totally understandable, it has been conditioned into us by a culture that has condemned sexual deviancy for centuries. I’d guess this condemnation can be traced to the frequently batshit preachings of the abrahamic religions, but I probably can’t blame religion for everything. This is the 21st century though; we’ve split the atom, decoded the human genome, and seen to the edge of the observable universe. I think there’s only one hell left to believe in, and it’s is the hell that can exist inside a person’s head. It would seem easier for someone to end up there by denying their nature rather than accepting it.

A drawing of a butt!

2015-06-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

#spanking #ruler #ass #punishment #eroticart #drawing #pencilsketch #art
I've been drawing again! Here's a new picture inspired by the story 'Harder!'

Storm in the distance - Guest Post on Bangs & Whimpers!

2015-05-29T13:21:00.003-07:00

This was originally a Guest Blog Post on Bangs & Whimpers http://bangsandwhimpers.com/guest-banger-timmytuttles/ but sadly that site seems to have gone down now. Here it is anyway:

Storm in the distance

Her face is contorted as it presses against the warm glass of my apartment window. I squeeze her there naked and exposed and she squeezes me back as I move inside her. My air conditioning unit blows cold air up through our legs, buzzing and whirring with a sense of unbalanced desperation, but It still can’t keep up with the heat we’re making.

As soon as I’d got her home I’d made her strip down to her bright white underwear then put both her hands on the window sill. Her ass is still warm and reddened from the spanking, and now her hands are pressed against the glass as she tries to resist the force of me thrusting into her. I wrap my arms around her, pressing her limbs and body together into a single ball of warm flesh that’s mine for the taking.

In front of us the lights of the city are coming on. New York’s buildings are a black jumble of blunt and pointy teeth, gnawing on the backdrop of orange twilight. A million windows silently watching.

I bite her back, and then whisper in her ear;

“I want the whole world to see what a disgraceful slut you are!”

I watch the reflection of her face compressed sideways against that hard pane. Her expression is rich with emotion as it leaves a greasy smear on the glass, an etching of unidentified feelings.

The noises she makes almost resemble crying, but I’ve learnt her sounds now and the whimpers no longer give me pause. Her list of likes, dislikes, and curiosities is printed in my mind, and my moderated brutality always brings her back for more.

In the distance the Empire State is bathed in red as the floodlights in it’s crown begin warming up for the night. We sweat and fuck below; our salute to the city.
*

I wake suddenly in the night with a feeling that something is wrong, but my toy and lover is sleeping quietly beside me, the edge of my thin white sheet just resting below her breasts. It is getting warm and muggy in my apartment, but if I switch the air con back on it will keep us awake with its habitual rumbling.

I still have the feeling some stimulus has woken me, but, save for the breathing of the girl beside me, everything here is quiet and still. Then suddenly a flash of electricity lights up my curtains, illuminating my room with a burst of bright blue. I wait for the accompanying thunder, but it never arrives and after a while there is another silent flash. The lightning storm must be too far away to hear, discharging its electric tendrils high up over New Jersey and the thunder absorbed by the city's noises and humid air. An Apocalyptic effect, perhaps the end is closer than I thought?

More electric blue flickers over the body lying in bed with me and her nipples seize my attention as they flash, crisp and focused, out of that fuzzy darkness. She moves a little as she lies there sleeping.

‘What is she dreaming?’ I wonder. And yet I know I'll never know what it’s really like inside that sleeping head.

Book launched!

2015-05-02T03:17:00.000-07:00

I've published my book on Amazon! I know, it took me long enough, but now all 92 thousand words of it are out there for you to read for less than the price of a cocktail / pint / real book made of paper!

Please download it and leave nice reviews! At the moment I'm doing this all by myself so if you decide this book is worth reading I need your help getting it out there. Tell your friends! Tell your elderly relatives! Tell your pets! Tell random strangers on public transport!

This is it:

Synopsis:

This is a true story about one Englishman’s ride on the New York dating roller-coaster, including the romantic highs, the quiet lows, and the unfortunate periods of dizziness and nausea.

The book follows Dr Timothy Tuttlesmith’s evolution from inexperienced Oxford graduate to BDSM savvy New Yorker. Online dating is the catalyst of his downfall, as while using an experimental dating profile he makes the surprising discovery that quite a lot of girls want to be tied up and spanked… He also discovers that he quite enjoys tying them up and spanking them. Here Timmy re-tells the comedy highlights of his kinky dating shenanigans, including all the naughty sexy bits, but presented in an honest and non-idealised fashion. He attempts to tackle the myths and stigma that surround the subject and portrays kinky people as what they are; a diverse and interesting mix of perfectly sane individuals (for the most part anyway...)

Timmy is also looking for romantic connections and not just sexcapades with submissive girls who like to be dominated. However, to have any hope of finding love, he must first navigate the complicated politics of New York dating. His stories provide a catalogue of his dating faux-pas, only some of which he can blame on being English. These anecdotes also present snapshots of the various fascinating female characters that he is fortunate enough to encounter along the way. Dating fuels explorations of the weird and wonderful world that is New York; a metropolis that stands as a testament to the power of the American dream. While he investigates the city’s different neighbourhoods he begins to feel at home strolling along NY’s many sidewalks, and in this city the girl of his dreams always seems to hover just around the next corner.

However, as time goes by, our protagonist also experiences some of the emotional pitfalls of modern dating and he begins to fear that the nature of human connection is changing in ways beyond anyone’s control. Strolling amongst the city’s bright lights Timmy finds himself wondering where exactly he is trying to get to on his journey, which has already brought him a very long way from home.

*

Please share, if this book is successful I plan to publish a paper version, and maybe work on a sequel, but one thing at a time! Anyway, hopefully I will now have some more breathing room to work on writing blog posts, draw, and tidy up what's on here already.

Watch this space!

Timmy xoxox

I'm still alive

2015-04-19T09:50:00.002-07:00

I know. I have not posted anything here for ages, I am forever penitent! My book is sooo nearly ready though, just trying to get a final edit done (turns out I really suck at spotting my own bad grammar and typos...)

However in the meantime I have drawn a sexy picture, inspired by my 'disturbing the neighbours' chapter, so I thought I'd post it for you viewing pleasure!

(The way you can tell that this is art and not porn is because of how I drew it with pencils...)

How wrong is it to like 50 shades of grey?

2015-02-15T04:00:00.001-08:00

Can you criticise something effectively without ever having read it? Normally I would say no, but fortunately with 50 shades of grey enough people seem to have read it and written about it already that I can observe a clear consensus that the trilogy is an abysmally written pile of tripe about emotionally unstable and one-dimensional characters, which feeds off of our blind obsession with wealth and materialism, and worst of all potentially glorifies domestic violence, (although that last claim is more heavily debated).

Maybe you think I should actually read it/watch it before reiterating these claims, but I think that would be kind of like pressing a button that says “get punched in the balls” while surrounded by hundreds of people hunched in the foetal position and yelling not to press it.

Some people might object to this negative characterization of their beloved 50 shades, they may even feel personally affronted. However my reading of articles and blog posts both defending and bashing 50 shades has only led me to conclude that the BOOK is bad, whether or not it is bad to like it is another matter entirely and that’s what I’m going to pontificate on here….

50 Shades of Grey seems to have stoked a general furnace of controversy, not just from the traditional ‘down with this sort of thing’ wet blanket brigade, but also from otherwise liberal feminists and particularly the BDSM community itself. As someone who enjoys BDSM I can confirm that it is really quite galling to have your sexual tastes represented to the world by a book about the manipulation of a boring sounding chick called ‘Anastasia’, by an apparently insecure child called ‘Christian’ (Ok I watched the trailer, and him saying “I exercise control in all things” makes it abundantly clear that this is not a man who has made his peace with the chaos of the universe).

To put yourself in my shoes (i.e. the shoes of a kinky guy who likes to cause women consensual pain), imagine you really like bird watching while wearing a spiderman outfit (I know, a weird hobby but hopefully inoffensive…) Then someone writes a book about a fictional character who’s obsessed with bird watching while wearing a spiderman outfit but who also rapes people.

I mean you can’t help but resent whoever writes a book that creates an ugly paradigm right in your own backyard. It also doesn’t help when they make a shit tonne of money out of it and you’re left despairing for humanity.

One question in my mind is kind of like a chicken v egg problem which goes: Was 50 Shades of grey successful because a swathe of women are really turned on by fantasies about abusive behaviour? OR are a swathe of women so sex starved that a book containing edgy erotica has subtly tricked them into getting turned on by these fantasies? I mean it must be the former surely? How else could literary effluent sell so many copies? Maybe there is an element of the later too though; BDSM can be seen as such a taboo subject that it is easy for those in the spotlight to come along and say ‘Look at THIS! This is how this works! Do it this way or you’re doing it wrong!’, while the rest of us can only look on aghast. Getting into BSDM after reading 50 shades of grey is kind of like finding out that you’re interested in genetics after watching an X-men film; it’s all very well and good but someone really needs to sit you down and explain ‘Most gene mutations don’t actually give you superpowers!’ before you start guzzling radioactive waste.

Now I pass no judgement on 50 shades fans; there is not a thing wrong with getting a kick out of dodgy erotica or being into BDSM, and fuck anybody who tells you otherwise. In my opinion desires to both dominate and submit are driven by perfectly natural instincts that get shaped by society and our upbringings into our own personal kinks and fetishes and there is nothing defective, shameful, or ‘fucked up’ about being turned on by bondage, pain, and power exchange, (I’ve written out some of my thoughts on why people like BDSM here). However the danger comes when people go and pursue these fantasies without due regard for their safety and sanity. It’s not fucked up to have submissive fantasies but it is kind of fucked up, or at least incredibly ill advised, to follow them into an inescapable, violent, and manipulative situation just because it turns you on.

Perhaps the dangerous thing about 50 shades of grey is that it appears to blur the lines between erotic fantasy and regular storytelling. It creates an absurd universe containing non-human characters that act in outlandish ways. The risk follows that readers may be fooled into believing that there is something to be learnt about real life from this, as if somehow reading about the interactions and behaviours of the 50 shades non-people can tell them something about how real people in their lives work, and consequently how they should behave towards them. 50 shades may also give the impression to the impressionable that if you want to ‘get your kink on’ the best way to do it is to seek out a sociopathic billionaire to trap you in a web of manipulation and abuse… I’m 98% sure this is not the smartest way to get ones kink on. As an alternative one could write a book about a girl who signs up to fetlife, goes to a local munch, makes some great friends, and eventually finds a play partner who’s the right level of D to her S and S to her M. Sure maybe that book wouldn’t be as thrilling, but at least whoever wrote it could sleep at night without worrying how many naive unfortunates are currently lifeless in trunks of limousines thanks to them.

I wouldn’t suggest for one moment that a book should be banned or repressed, however stupid it is (although a warning label might not go amiss). Like a fart in an elevator, 50 shades of grey has happened, and now we all just have to deal with it. On the plus side the odour has sparked a conversation, and it seems like some kind of social progress has come out of it, it’s just a shame that the smell in here still shows no sign of going away.

What one Englishman learnt from two years of online dating in New York

2014-12-24T04:16:00.000-08:00

Hello!

How about that online dating eh?

From the number of recent UK newspaper articles I’ve been reading on the subject I think the English are finally coming around the idea. There maybe some remnants of stigma attached, but it seems like meeting people through the internet is quickly becoming mainstream. However, back in 2012 when I was still working on my PhD in Oxford I told a friend that I’d probably start doing a bunch of online dating when I moved to New York later that year. Her response was: “But you’re not THAT weird?”…

She may have underestimated me.

One thing's for sure; after two years in New York and eighty five first dates I am definitely a lot weirder.

From that number you might assume that I am either not very good at dating or that I am some kind of commitment-phobic man-whore. I like to think I am neither of those things, but I’ll admit the possibility that I am both, (should you wish to delve into tangled depths of my twisted psyche I have written a book for you to laugh at and judge me with). However, regardless of my personal deficiencies you can’t go on 85 first dates without learning a few things, and so here I thought I’d share some of my observations with you…

Lesson 1 - Sexism bitches!

Sexism is very much alive and well in America and it affects the very basis of the dating ecosystem. Men usually have to act as the active parties to get anywhere and women usually act as the gatekeepers. If you want evidence for this you simply have to look at the number of messages women receive versus men on online dating sites. Furthermore the overbearing dating paradigm seems to be that men are encouraged to appear wealthy and dominant, in order to achieve dating ‘success’ (or at least the numerical, notching bedpost, type success), while girls encouraged to be attractive and submissive.

I consider myself a feminist and I am in no way endorsing this model, in fact I’m not sure which gender is more disadvantaged by it, but I’ll accept that it’s probably primarily the patriarchy’s fault that things have gotten into this state. I’m not saying that everyone follows this paradigm, many don't, but we’re social creatures and whether we like it or not we are influenced by the movements of the shoal around us, so it can be helpful to recognise the market forces of the dating economy we all find ourselves trapped in.

Now it is very tempting to rant about the shittyness of dating culture and how I would like it to magically change, but I might quickly start sounding like King Canute attempting to command the tide, so instead I’ll move on to the matter of surviving in it...

The fact is that if you’re a guy you’re probably going to have to put in a lot of effort into sending messages and getting noticed. Much of this effort will end up fruitless and you will spend a lot of time sighing over an empty inbox. If you’re a girl on the other hand you’re going to have to deal with a lot of shit being thrown at you, (hopefully just metaphorically), and also learn to quickly weed out the deceptive and manipulative ass-hats from the other varieties.

Are we feeling dehumanised yet? I’m afraid it gets worse, but then you don’t want to die alone do you?

Anyway my advice to those sending out the messages is not to take it personally when no one replies to you, it’s just the nature of the game. To improve your chances pick your target audience and try and make yourself stand out to them; it’s a marketing exercise at the end of the day. Still it’s best to remember that you don’t want to be advertising oranges when all you have to sell are lemons; accept yourself as you are, be honest and emphasise your genuine good features.

On the other side of things my advice to those of you suffocated by your clogged inboxes is less well informed. From a personal standpoint I’d suggest not being afraid to be honest with people about what you’re looking for, whether or not you’re interested in someone, or if you're just unsure. If a guy isn’t mature enough to give you the space you need, or handles rejection poorly, then that can confirm for you that you've made the right choice. We men have plenty of insecure thoughts rolling around inside our meaty heads though, and communicating our specific fuck-ups to us can be helpful.

Either way when entering the online dating arena be prepared for all kinds of failures and assaults to your ego, it’s a jungle out there so don’t go wandering in expecting it to be a walk in the park. The irony is that when trying to survive in the dating rainforest it can be tempting to abandon a certain amount of empathy and compassion to achieve ‘success’. However at the end of the day I think empathy and compassion are what we all need to make actual relationships work, so if you want to ever really escape the jungle then don’t let go of them, however much they seem to slow you down!

Lesson 2 - Girls like sex too!

Shocking idea huh? From the way courtship and seduction has historically been talked about anyone would think that sex is the horrible ordeal for girls, one they have to be persuaded to go through in exchange for marriage or some other righteous reward. Hopefully in this day and age most people have realised that this is hogwash and that sex can and should be a mutually gratifying experience. However what I didn’t realise until I moved to New York is that a large number of women will actually date primarily out of a desire to find good sex [1], and that for them finding a relationship is a secondary ambition, or even superfluous.

To women the requirements for ‘good sex’ can be significantly more stringent than they are for men, so when I say that girls are looking for good sex; they are not out looking for five minutes of awkward humping followed by ten minutes of soothing your ego. Looking for sex might seem like a buyers market to a woman, but it’s also a market where it’s difficult to predict whether a guy is going to be good in bed, or bad in bed, or a serial killer, so if you’re a guy don’t get over excited by the revelation that there are girls out there looking for casual sex, it’s unlikely that a message along the lines of ‘Hey babe, wanna fuck?’ is going to cut the mustard. Projecting confidence, intelligence, and generally not sounding too much like a murderous rapist is generally recommended.

Another thing I have learned from my New York dating spree is that apparently the presence and number of female orgasms is not an infallible metric of the quality of the sex. Some girls cum easily, some cum with difficulty, and some hardly ever cum at all. Not cumming does not mean that someone didn’t enjoy sex, I know, as a man I didn't believe if first either, but it really is true. I am also told that women experience great variability in the intensity of their orgasms and may in fact experience multiple types of orgasm, (although at present the science of orgasm defining still seems somewhat vague...)

Unfortunately for someone attempting to induce one or ten of these climaxes it seems to me that spotting when a girl achieves orgasm can also be remarkably difficult. Don’t get me wrong, it can also be really fucking obvious; if everything contracts incredibly tightly and she drenches your sheets, then that’s a pretty good sign. However everyone is different; one individual might make incredibly animalistic and orgasmic noises while she digs her nails into you so hard that they draw blood, but they still might just be having a lot of orgasm free fun. Conversely a girl might murmur quietly among the pillows and perhaps after a while her inner thigh will start to twitch a little, and so you look up and ask her if she’s close, and then find out she’s climaxed multiple times already, (but that doesn’t mean you should stop!)

So what does all this mean for someone attempting to be good at sex? I guess my advice would be ‘keep calm and carry on’... (advice that is applicable to many many things)... Is that helpful? Maybe don’t over-think sex and get desperately focused on trying to give a girl X many orgasms as quickly as possible. If you’re treating sex as a task with goals and strategies and accounts to be kept that may inhibit some of the spontaneous greatness of it. Probably the worst thing you can do if you’re sleeping with someone who has difficulty achieving orgasm is to make a big deal out of giving her one; that kind of psychological pressure is only going to make it harder and encourage her to fake it. If someone feels like they have to lie about that sort of thing that’s definitely going to make it harder to improve the sex life in the future. Communication and all that.

So apart from ‘keeping calm and carrying on’ what else had New York taught me about doing sex good? I would not claim that two years of dating has turned me into some kind of ‘sexpert’, and for me the word ‘sexpert’ inspires a kind of gag reflex. In fact maybe I’m just shit at sex and no one has had the heart to tell me yet, but personally I don’t think having good sex is that hard. Just be open minded and non-judgemental, and learn to read your partner and respond appropriately. Oh and maybe try to stay in the game for a respectable length of time! [2]

The problem is that society has invented so much bizarre stigma around sex that it fuels our our collective self-consciousness, which I think disconnects us from each other. Maybe it’s all some ancient and complex plot formulated to keep the masses dissatisfied, frustrated and ‘motivated’, and maybe this frustration helps drive our pointless materialist culture of status symbol consumption… but I digress.

Most people like sex and everyone needs to get over this. Obviously there are dangers to it, especially if it becomes an obsessive pursuit, but perhaps people have problems putting sex in its proper place because its conventional place has been THAT TERRIBLE THING YOU SHOULD NEVER EVER DO (except when you’re married, then it’s fine for some reason). We seem to be getting over some of the stigma around sex these days but our attitudes are very much in flux. Sometimes sex seems like THAT AMAZING THING YOU SHOULD DO ALL THE TIME AND IS ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS AND IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT A LOT YOU ARE WORTHLESS AND MIGHT AS WELL DIE. I think that as well as accepting sex we need to chill the fuck out about it. Yes, sex is bloody great, but at the end of it all you are left with are the memories, moist sheets, and, depending on your due diligence, the chance of offspring or an STD. Similarly a lot of emphasis seems to be put on sex as the maker or breaker or human connection, as if there’s something magic about it that cements the bond between two people and if it’s not mind blowing all the time a relationship isn’t meant to be. This also seems unrealistic; sex is just a part of a much bigger picture and unlike a lot of things that might cause incompatibility between two people at least sex is something that can be improved upon and isn't always dependant on personality.

So what are specific sex skills you can improve on reading this at home? Well the best person to ask is probably the person you’re sexing, and for almost 100% of you that is not me.

*

Both genders seem to lose their shit about sex. I managed to turn this to my advantage when dating in New York as I set up a profile offering girls kinky fun times and it was surprisingly successful. Kink is another thing that people seem to lose their shit about and all kinds of myths and fantasies completely distort the often very sane, safe, and consensual things that people actually do. A lot of folks also seem to think that having kinky fantasies is somehow ‘fucked up’ and that it reflects some deficit in the psychology of whoever has them. I believe this is total bullshit and I met a massive variety of personalities through my kink profile that I couldn’t even come close to grouping let alone labelling as one thing or another, but you can read my book and judge for yourself.

So yeah, a big thing I learned from New York is that a lot of different girls will have kinky sex with you if you just ask nicely… Well maybe not overly ‘nicely’, but if you ask them in an assured and confident way that doesn’t creep them out and make you sound like a manipulative uber jerk or serial killer. (Maybe the serial killer/uber jerk routine sometimes works as well but I didn’t want to go down that road.) Oh and having an English accent helps too.

Does New York dating sound pretty great to you now? Kinky sex here there and everywhere? Well it definitely has its moments. However the biggest lesson I learned from from dating in New York was not how to smoothly get a girl into bed, or how best to tie her arms together, or even how to sext, or flog, or spank, or fuck. I spend most of my book trying to subtly establish in this lesson in the background through various rambles and tales of dating haps and mishaps, but if you’re not a fan of subtlety and just want me to spit-it-the-fuck-out-already the lesson is this:

“Man cannot live on kinky sex alone.”

Lesson 3 - Wistful observations about the changing nature of human connection

The third and final lesson I wish to impart here took somewhat longer to crystallize, and I’m still not sure I’ve quite got a firm grip on it. The first bit of the lesson might simply be: ‘life isn’t all about sex’, but the second bit of the lesson regarding what else it is about is where things get tricky, (especially when trying not to resort to any sentimental hokum that I so despise.)

These days I’ve noticed the newspapers like referring to ‘Hook-up culture’ as if it is somehow clearly distinguishable from ‘Dating culture’ and ‘Not-wanting-to-die-alone culture’. Different people in the dating scene are undoubtedly looking for a wide range of different things, but I think it’s false to proclaim that there just two sets of people and one lot are just out to get laid and the other lot are out to find life partners; there’s a whole wide spectrum between those two extremes. It does seem like there is a genuine shift towards ‘living life in the moment’ these days, and when this is combined with expectations of quick and easy gratification, as well as an abundance of choice by meeting new people online, of course things are going to get crazy.

I’m not sure if anyone is in a position to say if modern dating culture is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but I think there are specific downsides that should be highlighted. One risk is that with the abundance of choice we can end up making lots of weak and transient connections with people but when things get tough, and we need a genuine partner or firm friend to fall back on for emotional support, then we can find ourselves all at sea.

On the flip side it is so much easier to find someone with compatible interests to you when you can go on a dating site where people list their interests up front. With all this choice no one should really feel stuck in a relationship they definitely don’t want to be in because they’re worried they won’t be able to find someone else. However, maybe this diverse free-market of potential dates encourages a kind of dating prescriptivism, perhaps more so amongst women, who as I’ve mentioned tend to act as the gatekeepers in this dating economy (at least to begin with). ‘I want my partner to be this, this and this’ reads someone's dating shopping list. To me constructing a fictional ideal to measure partners by seems likely to serve as a kind of dream-catcher for future happiness. Is having completely compatible interests with your partner always positive? How are we going to grow as individuals if we only date people who think the same as us and do the same things as us?

If you date more people it should make it statistically more likely you will find ‘THE ONE’, or at least the ‘The ONE of SEVERAL optimal matches out of the very limited percentage of the worlds population you will encounter in your life’. Anyway if we assume ‘true love’ is a genuine thing then maybe dating around a lot does increase our chances of finding it...

But then how does one know when one is really in love? Maybe there is such a thing as ‘love at first sight’ but personally I’ve never experienced it. For me it has always been something that’s grown with getting to know someone. Sometimes you can feel the attraction growing faster with certain people, but rarely have I had long enough for that attraction to grow into a mad infatuation that I’ve called ‘love’ for lack of better word (or psychiatric diagnosis). With a culture of casual dating it might be that we don’t give love a chance to grow in any given relationship. Perhaps though that’s because we’re scared of love in the first place? Does dating lots of people actually increase your chances of accidentally skipping over a connection with the potential to develop into true love, because we're blind sided by all the ‘chemistry’ of short term attraction? Also what’s the optimal number of times you should date someone before you can safely write them off as not ‘the one’? Does one 1st date conversation in a bar actually tell you anything meaningful about who someone really is and if you can really rule them out as your soul mate?

‘Fuck knows’ is my answer to all those questions. However I think they need to be asked. We live in a world so advanced that fantasy and reality seem within a hair's breadth of each other and when the later doesn’t quite match up to the former some people decide that their reality isn’t quite good enough. If we want to actually be happy I think we need to appreciate that fantasy and reality will always be separate. It also helps to recognise the intricate, unpredictable, and flawed beauty of reality that fantasy can never match. Reality might not always work out as we hope it will, but it sure as shit is a lot more interesting.

That’s the approach I’m aiming for anyway. I’m not sure if it is shared by many people in the New York dating scene though. New York can be amazing (I certainly have had plenty of kinky sex), but sometimes this city makes me feel like a ghost. Strangely in this multitude of people it almost seems like human connection is just a mirage, or an illusion, conjured to manipulate people into buying or selling some part of themselves. I have had so many great dates where conversation flowed and laughs and smiles were present in abundance. Then after our lips parted and my date was whisked away in a taxi or subway car it was as if a spell was broken, and again and again I was cast into a purgatory of silence and unanswered text messages. Maybe it’s just my nature as a scientist that I can’t stand absent data or unresolved questions, but those silences were the one truly awful part of my New York dating experience that really tore me apart. If someone told me they were just not into me it might sting for a minute if I was into them, but I can pick myself up and dust myself off, ‘I am a grown up’ as they say. With silence though your imagination is free to roam and probe at the darkest corners of your identity, it tears at your ego and claws around inside your self consciousness. Your imagination finds the absurd weak spots in your character and exploits them, making you assume painful personal deficiencies or specific foolish mistakes are the reason you have been left in limbo.

It is also possible that an absurdly large number of my dates were eaten by bears, or suffered other unfortunate accidents, and that’s why they never responded to my texts. However the odds of that seem small, so instead I am just left with my unanswered questions and a sense of broken connection.

I think online dating is the thin end of the wedge in this ‘the age of loneliness’; it exposes the ugly and shallow side of our natures all too easily, and highlights the diminished empathy we feel towards strangers and the low value that we place on the connections we make with people. However, I don’t think ‘hookup culture’ is the root cause. I believe that you can value people highly while still sleeping with a lot of them, and I hope my New York adventures don’t contradict this notion. Instead though I think it’s the crushing rise of ‘individualism’ that’s truly forcing us apart, and other commentators have already described this better that I could.

But what great ‘dating lesson’ am I striving towards with waffle about individualism? I suppose what I’m trying to say is that we should all try to assign greater value to the connections we make in our lives, whether it’s a romantic connection with a random date we meet though the internet, or a friendly connection with a work colleague, or just the person behind the counter selling us our bread and milk. Humans are social creatures at the end of the day and it’s the connections we make with each other that hold the keys to our happiness. Yes, that may well sound like the sentimental hokum I was trying very hard to avoid, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also true.

As for how to best apply this philosophy to dating without accidentally coming on too strong is still something I’m trying to figure out. Maybe over-valuing connections has sabotaged me from time to time, but then perhaps I’m over thinking things again, and maybe the best dating advice is simply this:

Find someone that makes you happy, tell them they make you happy, and if you make them happy too, try not to let them slip away.

Oh and spank them occasionally if that’s what they’re into!

_________

Footnotes

[1] If you think that this is bad and that sexually liberated women are somehow bad people or deserving of shame, then I get the feeling we’re not going to get on.

[2] There are sexual dysfunctions, but there are drugs and treatments for a lot of the common ones and I don’t think people should see using them as any more shameful than using aspirin when you have a headache. But still... OH THE SHAME!