Kink Influences

If you know me, it's no secret that I've been kinky effectively since I could walk. Previously, I've just accepted this as my reality and left it at that but recently I've begun thinking about my influences and how they shaped who I am and what I like. Today I'm going to share a few of my influences and what I liked about them.

Xenia Onatopp

Have you watched Golden Eye? It was my favorite movie for years, starting with the first time I ever watched it when I was probably 4 or 5. I'm not sure why my parents even let me watch James Bond movies but they did and I was enthralled. I didn't really give a shit about the violence in fact I barely noticed it, what I did notice was Xenia Onatopp killing people with her thighs and Natalya Simonova's super sexy accent. In fact I liked Xenia so much that I used to put other kids in scissor grips with my legs because I thought it was awesome to have that much control over someone. (Several of my middle school friends will attest to this.) I believe I also begged my mom to let me take a Russian class almost immediately after I saw Golden Eye. 

Strangely enough, the connection between my obsession with scissor grips/breath control and sexual excitement only recently surfaced for me. I have no idea why it took so long for me to become aware of it because it's extremely obvious now.

I think it was the display of power that I was so attracted to; Xenia lures men into a place where they think they're safe and in control (typically, they would be right as men are often the dominant players in sexual interactions) and then she absolutely turns the tables on them when not only are they least expecting it but they've let their guard down. I love the trickery and seduction that is put into such an interaction and I love that she gets off on it even more. In retrospect, I think what really stood out to me about Xenia was that she was a woman; Previously I had only seen men get off on taking control and power.

Xena the Warrior Princess

Okay so, Xena is really campy, I'll admit that. However, that doesn't make Xena any less powerful in her world; She kicks ass with reckless abandon, travels on her own, saves men and women from bad guys and seduces men to get what she wants. (Obviously, there is going to be a theme of women using their sexuality to control men here and that says a lot about me.) GO AHEAD, tell me that isn't empowering?! Sure, she's a sex object but she chooses to be a sex object because wearing leather is badass and being sexy while you kill demons is fucking cool. I think she only gets saved by a man once or twice and then she almost immediately turns the tables and saves them from an even worse fate. I'm sure I could find many flaws in Xena and probably rip her power to shreds but when I first saw her, that was not what I was thinking about. Honestly, I was too busy being in awe of her kicking ass and taking names in a metal push up bra at the tender age of 6.

Birdy the Mighty

This one is a little obscure, so I'll explain who Birdy is.

Birdy the Mighty is an anime about a spandex clad alien super heroine federal space officer from outer space who accidentally kills a teenage boy and then is forced to share a body with him. (And let the lulz ensue.) The show follows Birdy fighting crime (aka fucked up aliens) and protecting the boy in many instances (some of which she's naked in) and teaching the boy to be a better person. Although I'm pretty sure after the first two episodes it gets really shitty and awful... Those are absolutely not part of my scope of memory though as I didn't discover them until about a year ago.

So anyways, Birdy is another powerful female character (at least she was in the first couple of episodes) who is oozing sexuality. Although she doesn't really directly use it in the show, it's more of a tool to draw in the viewer. 

Some Crazy Furry Porn I Found Online

I wish I could remember the name of the artist of the crazy furry porn my best friend and I found on Neopets when we were 10 or 11. Unfortunately, I haven't really looked at it since then and the only things I remember were that the artist always drew wolves and she called her boyfriend "Dirtbag" and often drew him all tied up and tortured.  

Quite honestly, half wolf half people tied up and experiencing CBT blew me the fuck away when I was 10. (Not that I knew any 10 year olds who wouldn't be blown away by it...) Really though, the weird part was just that they were wolves. No, seriously. Something about the BDSM elements just clicked with me; I remember thinking "Well of course he's tied up. That's what you do to boys when they're bad and messing with their penises." Boy oh boy what the fuck does that say about me? I'm not sure I want to know..

What This Shit Says About Me

First and foremost, I'm fucking weird.
I think I must have found bondage pictures some where when I was a kid because I was forever trying to figure out how to tie up a Barbie with a hog tie (it's really hard, guys) and when I finally became aware that BDSM was a thing people did, I already knew two and single column ties as well as diamond harnesses and chest harnesses. I'm confident that my preoccupation with power and control is largely influenced by the media I've talked about in this post but there's some information that I just really have no idea where it came from. What I do know is that my biggest fetish is absolutely power exchange and everything that I'm interested in seems to become vastly more interesting when I realize that there's a power element. Given the influences that I have, that absolutely makes sense.

So I guess the moral of the story is if you don't want your children to grow up to be kinksters, don't let them look at BDSM furry porn on the internet. Or Animal Planet, that was bad for me too.

The Hidden Benefits of Good Toys

You might think I'm thick for stating this but I'll do it anyways; Quality really is worth it.
Unfortunately, quality is not cut and dry; Some expensive things suck and some cheap things are awesome.

For example, I'll compare two kinds of handcuffs: $10 Thumb Cuffs and $45 Deluxe Steel Handcuffs.

The "Deluxe" cuffs I bought in my youth when I was tormenting a boyfriend, unfortunately... They were crap. I spent a little chunk of change on them and  I only used them once or twice because they didn't feel good, they weren't fun to use and they weren't really that versatile.
The thumb cuffs on the other hand... I use whenever I have a chance; They just rock. They're simple but sturdy, versatile and I connect with them. That's really my point with this whole post- Good toys are toys you connect with. If it feels like you have to fight the toy to use it, it's not a good toy for you.

The bold statement above became really apparent to me over the weekend when I was comparing my single tail to my partner's- Mine is made from inexpensive leather, has thick strands, is probably only 8 plait and packs a whollup to my arm when I use it on someone. I knew I had to fight that whip to use it and that was part of the fun with it; If I wanted to beat someone, I had to really put some effort into it. Sadly though, I don't actually like this whip very much. It doesn't like to be accurate, it doesn't bend much and it feels like it almost gets stuck in particular configurations. All of this wasn't really that apparent to me until I used my partner's 20 plait signal whip...

Oh. My. God. This Whip is AMAZING. 

I don't often feel like I should just shell out half a grand for a new toy, especially not one I already have an inferior version of. Sure, it would be nicer, easier to use, probably meaner and I'm sure it will make me dinner too but meh. Don't spend money if you don't need to, right? 

Fuck me, though. This whip is incredible.

The craftsmanship alone makes it like a piece of goddamn art; It has tiny leather strips that wind back and forth, crisscrossing and locking together to make a solid column of dead animal parts designed solely for the purpose of inflicting pain. Every inch of it curls and unfurls gently as I run it through my fingers... It feels soft but solid to the touch and unlike anything I've touched before. It's just some how... Different and that intrigues me. It's innocent yet so devious- Some qualities I share with it. 

Lifting it to strike feels like an effortlessly fluid motion and the follow through of throwing it out in a clean strike continues that trend.  It feels like the leather is now a part of me; Each strike lands exactly where I want it to and with exactly the correct amount of force. This toy and I are dancing together across the ass of my bottom and it's beautiful, we're creating a piece of art together and there's nothing that prevents it from obeying me exactly. Goddamn. This is how this relationship is supposed to be, isn't it? 

I Make Bad Decisions

Sometimes, I make really bad choices about what I should and shouldn't do; Building things from scratch, that I know nothing about, is often one of those things. Sure, I generally learn a hell of a lot, gain some new skills and get to experience the triumph of having built an entire bathroom almost exclusively by myself which are some pretty damn awesome rewards. Unfortunately what I never seem to take into account before simply deciding to accomplish enormous projects is that I will spend an awful lot of time staring menacingly at something that has not only just wasted my time and energy but that I could have easily paid someone else to deal with in a manner that takes up less time, energy and sanity.

That basically means that I could have spent a lot more time sleeping instead of doing this.

Anyways, moving along.
In the past I've spent  wasted a lot of my time on things that didn't matter and that I didn't learn anything from. Which in retrospect makes me feel like an amazing fuck up and a spectacular failure because I absolutely should have know better than do such things as renew my World of Warcraft subscription (because I totally wasn't going to waste all my time playing video games, I had grown as a person!) or to date someone I hated. However, those choices were mine to make and although they weren't good ones and I didn't even learn anything from them they made me who I am today; A person who still makes decisions without thinking them through someti- Crap!

Well okay. So I might still make mistakes with the same false logic but I would like to think that I'm maturing and making worthwhile mistakes these days.  So maybe my choice to code a website, build a business, or rebuild a house wasn't that well thought out but at least I enjoyed (most) of the time spent on the project and as a bonus I gained a lot of really useful knowledge out of it. Such as the fact that regular drills are not the appropriate tool for drilling concrete.

At the end of the day, if I've accomplished one thing and learned something new and potentially useful I'm happy with that and it feels like a successful day.  Sure, I'm probably not going to discover something new and incredibly exciting for anyone but me and I might not even learn anything that will ever be useful again and that's okay. Want to know why? It's because the caliber of the decisions I'm making has drastically changed which means I'm learning and I'm growing on a fundamental level as a result of it. And that my friends, is something that I'm very proud of.