8/21/2011 2:08:58 PM: My sweet rapture received a great  job offer in Texas, and must leave.  It was best for her future, and so I let her go.  A shame it should end so soon :   'Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'   Thomas Grey, 'Elegy written in country churchyard.'   So, I'll start with simple play-partners again, and see how it goes.

8/15/2011 6:16:00 PM: Happily training/with raptureofthemind now, so not looking -though we do play with other couples and single sub girls.

7/11/2011 9:32:57 AM: quiz results: I think accurate   You Scored as Sadist (((Note: This quiz is not totally comprehensive because of the length such a quiz would be. I kept it sex-based because I felt that psychological profiles and motivations were too complicated and vary too greatly among people that practice BDSM.))) You like to hurt people and find it arousing. It isn't a problem as long as you find someone who likes what you deal. Sadist   96% Dominant   86% Experimental   79% Exhibitionist / Voyeur   75% Switch   39% Bondage   32% Degradation Lover   32% Masochist   25% Submissive   14% Vanilla   14%

5/23/2011 3:05:10 PM: Updating my collarme entries - nine months after my last slave and I know my head is on straight about that situation.  I wasn't returning to the community until I was certain, and there was time.  Too many ill people out there already, and I am 100% real, 100% serious.  Don't waste my time if you are not.  I'm open to friendships of all sorts, and I can do casual attachments either as trials, for fun or if we both clearly understand that's all it will be.  But I'd put a priority on a woman who would be a life-partner -someone who is supportive, submissive when I wish her to be, but an intellectual, physical and emotional equal outside of our private sphere.   Here is an essay I wrote some time ago for an online BDSM zine:     Dominants and Identity By AJB               Forgive my navel-gazing.  I typically do not write these types of articles for Trufetish, introspective and philosophic writings on the nature of what I do, thinking my audience is better served by how-to features and definition pieces.  But my deadline is fast approaching, and I’ve wracked my brain for a new aspect of play to write about.  Perhaps next month I will write on forced orgasm/orgasm denial, gunplay, or CAC (carotid artery constriction, or choking).  Like any decently written piece of journalism, they will all take some planning, research and interviews, to supplement my own experiences and knowledge.  Tonight, in the most Rousseauean sense, I’ll look into my character and pull some of my thoughts, unclean or not, onto the page.  For I often think about what makes a Master, what others believe a Master is, and what an oddball Dominant I am, and I would like to articulate this here.  It’s not to magnify my own ego or to communicate to anyone, as if there is a reader out there who gives a nut, who I am.  It is more to dispel a few silly and often self-serving myths that pervade the lifestyle like turds in a birdbath, odious, fetid, obscene, and obvious to anyone looking with clear sight.  But hell, in a community where blindfolds are a fetish I shouldn’t be surprised many of our visions are occluded.             “I am a True Master.”  I never hear this turgid sentence without thinking how loud the Ass brays despite its lowly station.  I am astonished that donkey-ears do not sprout from the crown of such pomposity.  Let me iterate here: there is no accreditation for Masterdom – no national board, no degree or certificate, no secret society to confer or knight, no course of study, trial by arms, rite of passage or quantitative measurement that bestows such a title.  There is personal and interpersonal recognition, and recognition within your local or perhaps even the national community, but even on these levels it’s highly objective.  You can call yourself a Master, and fall far short of what many in the lifestyle might consider the qualities of a Master.  Or, even worse, like a lout you can pronounce who you deem is a Master and who is not – and I know plenty of Dominants who, in a pathetic attempt to magnify themselves before whatever bottom they are using at the moment, play that game – most curiously, no one is a true Master but themselves.  If you cannot see through this ruse as a bottom, rather than brand the insignia of your Master on your ass, brand naive on your forehead.             The association of Dominance with personal qualities that are frankly dysfunctional in an adult social world – arrogance, aloofness, haughtiness, emotional detachment, inappropriate or unwanted aggressiveness, a tendency towards manipulation or Machiavellian intrigue, lack of conscience – irks me to no end.  A certain amount of “posturing” is sadly necessary in our lifestyle, mostly to meet the expectations of misguided bottoms drawn to these characteristics through their emotional masochism. Go without it, and you are doomed to a lonely existence.  But a person who is constantly an asshole, in my book, is no more than an asshole.  We all know the type.  Not surprisingly, this type of Dominant is most likely to utter the sentence that opened the preceding paragraph – because behind any great degree of bluster always lies insecurity.  It’s a psychological trait most historically recognized by Shakespeare, whose Hamlet remarked to Gertrude, “I think the Lady doth protest too much.”              I believe you can be a nice guy and a Dominant.  In fact, being a gentleman should be one of the aspects of a Master, because being a gentleman in our modern culture requires a lot of worldliness and culture that is lost, refinement, and a degree of self-control.  And that final quality may be the most common word I see associated with being a Master – control.  Not the hysterical need for control of the neurotic, with its attendant anal-retentive qualities.  I am speaking of a quiet and solid self-possession, a certainty and a confidence that you act rightly in the world and make decisions that are wise and the best for all parties involved.  It requires that you listen more than you demand, because if you assume you make good decisions for all involved without confirming through inquiry and reason, you are no more than a dictator.             Besides this quality of self-control, you should be able to earn the respect of others capable of respect and well educated in the lifestyle.  How can you achieve recognition of your peers legitimately?  For the sophisticated in the lifestyle, the sexiest tool is the mind, and an ability to learn and grow in the lifestyle demonstrates you have that vital organ.  Reading in the lifestyle is a private but valuable resource, and I suggest the following books as a start:  Screw the Roses, Give Me the Thorns, by Phillip Miller and Molly Devon; S&M 101: A Realistic Introduction, by Jay Wiseman; Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission by Gloria Brame, William Brame and Jon Jacobs; and The Loving Dominant, by John and Libby Warren.  This is only a partial list of the wonderful literature out there on the lifestyle.  Having learned the lesson of a lifelong academian, I certainly know that one must put theory into practice, so developing your skill set and some variety in those skills, whether it is bondage, role-play, impact play, whips and floggers, power play mind games, edge play, is crucial to being a Master.  No Dominant need be master of all skills, but a real Master has at least one area he enjoys and can participate with a partner to a decent degree of safety and pleasure. Although the intimacy of playing with a committed partner will improve your skills, we learn best and discover new possibilities by observing and interacting with others. Some involvement in your local scene, whether participation in lifestyle support groups (like SPICE here in South Florida) attendance at play parties, participation in seminars or learning experience in your area, friendships with others in the lifestyle in part for the purpose of mutual learning, or informal/formal “apprenticeships” with experienced Masters or Mistresses are all ways to obtain experience and education. Above all, I think a real Master knows his own limitations, and will not hurt a bottom by reaching beyond his/her skill set.  I believe you should not get to play with the toys that you break, and this goes for whether you harm someone physically or psychologically!             In the end, I’m secure in my identity as a Dominant.  I am a Master to one who serves me, who feels I deserve that title of respect – I have received it before and will receive it again, when I next find someone whom I’d even feel comfortable calling me that.  Because it entails some responsibility, a level of personal commitment, and a readiness with a given person at a given time. It may be a short scene with someone I respect whom I can release at the end, or it might be a lifelong commitment to a partner whose devotion would be rewarded with all of me, the Dominant me, the kind me, the vulnerable me, the knowledgeable me, the noble and heroic me, the powerful me.  If self-control is essential to the character of the Master, is not dignity more valuable than arrogance, serenity more than fury, and benevolence more than cruelty?  

8/23/2010 12:42:09 PM: Someone hacked into my account and changed the settings - I had not been on collarme in a long time - needless to say they reversed my interests. I suspect a certain spiteful and crazy ex, who is quite the cyber-stalker. Coming out of that harrowing experience I'm just looking for new friendships now, with potential for future intensity.