Three Eight Three: Receptivity

I've always liked the idea of S/M. I've always liked the aesthetics of S/M. I've liked those two things much more than the praxis. I know that S/M is supposed to be "the intellectuals' kink", but I've never much gotten anything from reading manifestos or essays about the politics or theory of S/M. All those articles in the 1980s and early 1990s that tried to ground S/M in critical theory or tried to present it as something political never did anything for me. Yes, by the way, I am distinguishing idea from theory.

I've always liked S/M because it's sex that lends itself to creating stories. I've liked it because it's about role play and crafting and wearing masks. People have told me all my life that sex is something where you lose yourself (and lose your self) in what you're doing. But that's never worked for me. Sex has always been something in which I couldn't lose myself. I've always remained far too self-conscious during sex. It's hard (and just maybe impossible) to experience pleasure if you're aware of everything you're doing, or if you're busy critiquing what you're doing.

Last weekend I found a You Tube channel called Kink With Kitra. It's a very well-done channel, and I'll offer it up as a recommendation. Kitra is a professional domme. She seems to own a dungeon in L.A. or Las Vegas, and her You Tube channel is in interview/podcast format. She also films fetish videos. She has guests on-- people she's known and worked with --and they talk about the world of S/M.  

I'd like very much to say that Kitra is very articulate and thoughtful and fun. I'd like to say that, but it's a hard thing to say these days. Saying that someone in sex work is articulate is too much like saying a person of colour is articulate-- it can be taken to mean that you're surprised that anyone like that is capable of using language well. 

Nonetheless, I have enjoyed listening to what Kitra and her friends and colleagues have had to say. Her interviews have given me things to think about.

One of her guests was a fetish/kink actress called Sonny McKinley. I'd never heard of Ms. McKinley before, and I'd never seen any of her videos. She and Kitra had worked together before, and they had a lot of rapport. Good discussion and some fun stories.

One of the things they agreed on is that being a bottom allows you, whether male or female, to be receptive-- to receive sensation and experience. They both recalled hearing that from male clients who were switches-- tops who were experiencing or experimenting with being bottoms. For once, these men told them, they could just feel something. They didn't have to worry about anything other than feeling. They could experience unmediated and immediate pleasure.

There's something very arresting in that. I'm almost invariably the older partner in a relationship, and while I don't expect to have more power in the relationship, I am expected to be the one setting up stories and providing the script for what's happening. And that's fine. I'm an academic and a writer. It's expected that I can craft a storyline, and I'm glad to do it for a partner. Doing that makes me feel like I have a skill, and that I can be proud of using it to thrill my young companions. 

But I've never taken physical pleasure in it. I've almost never taken physical pleasure in anything. I have no idea what physical pleasure means, and I can't recall ever having a girl do anything for (or to) me as a gift (or grant) of pleasure. 

Kitra and Ms. McKinley talked about the idea of receptivity, and how it defies and subverts conventional gender roles. They talked about men needed to be able to receive pleasure-- to be open to sexual sensations. I understood what they were talking about, of course-- strap-ons and penetration --but the idea of receptivity goes beyond that. It goes (or, I think, should go) to being able to receive pleasure, of having sensation wash over you without self-awareness getting in the way. 

Immediate and unmediated pleasure is something that's always eluded me. I know better than to think that being a bottom for a while would help. It wouldn't. I'd end up trying to top from below in a very precise way-- meaning that I'd still be trying to craft scripts and worrying not about whether the scripted activities "worked" but rather about if they could be presented as something wicked, elegant, stylish, literary-- whether they'd be things that would make good stories. 

I don't have anything in the actual way of fetishes-- I don't have any needs or longings to which I can just surrender volition and control. I have kinks, but a kink is something crafted, something that takes conscious thought. I've never been given pleasure as a gift, and I'm very much unable to feel it on my own. I wouldn't understand pleasure  if someone did take the time to offer it to me. I have no ability to be receptive to anything. I don't experience the world like that.