brett471

Male Dominant, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Male Submissive, 50, Houston, Texas

Male Dominant, 21, Omaha, Nebraska

A long summer away from home, with sporadic Internet access, dodgy phone connections, and much too much work. After three months living out of a suitcase it will be wonderful to get home. The time on the road, with little in the way of romantic opportunity, has given me time to contemplate the lifestyle and the various desires that bubble up into my erotic imagination. If anything, the break has whetted my appetite and given me a tremendous need to renew old relationships, perhaps forge new ones. One telltale sign of these growing needs is my dream life. More and more I find my erotic dreams laced with D/s images and scenes. I hope when I return in a couple weeks and unpack my bags, life will become very interesting once again.

As I get older, I'm intrigued by the variety one encounters in the first sexual experience. Two people get together, never having seen one another's bodies, never having prompted erotic responses, and somehow we mesh. How did I know she wanted me to do that? How did she know to touch me there? Unspoken desires emerge like the first buds of spring, unbidden, spontaneous, natural. I'm not by nature a superstitious person, but the unconscious connections I've established time and again makes me wonder whether something beyond the perceptual world exists....

I wonder if anyone else shares my frustration...You meet someone, retire to a private chat, and that person lacks even the most rudimentary linguistic skills. Responses range fro "Um" and "ok" to "idk" and "whatever." Is it shyness? Ambivalence? Fear? Uncertainty? I have no problem with Web vernacular, i.e., acronyms, lack of punctuation and capitalization, but even text patois provides some possibility of communication. Fortunately the CollarMe crowd can still use language!

I have many friends who are librarians, and they all have the same interest: classifying books according to accurate definitions. It doesn't make sense if someone catalogues Fielding's "The History of Tom Jones" under 18th-century history--it just confuses. So I have to ask: when someone lists in their profile "Online Romance" but is really looking for a local, real-life encounter, what purpose does that serve? I'll complain about crazy Nigerians scammers later....:-)

What are the generic (i.e. related to genre) expectations of an initial on-line contact? I just had a six-line conversation with someone I met on Collarme, and it was a disaster. Clearly our individual goals were out of sync. What she expected and what I expected didn't mesh, and the interruption was abrupt. Am I out of the loop in hoping for a little banter, a little verbal play? Perhaps so, because I'm very upset at what happened. Alas, I've lost my confidence for the time being.....

Hmmm, I wonder if other people have the same problems with vid that I do. Certain explorations are enhanced by both visual and audio feedback, and when reasonable home broadband arrived a few years ago, I hoped that soon I'd be able to watch and chat with my on-line sub. Alas, the potential far outruns the reality. Depending on how Comcast is feeling on any particular day, the vid quality varies from tolerable to non-existent, and the audio not much better. It's enough to make a fellow invest in a T-1 line!

Ah, Halloween looms, my favorite holiday. The perverse and the taboo and the forbidden excite those who seek to venture into the darker side of their psyche. Okay, that just sounds weird--too goth. But I do enjoy Halloween, because the night gives us the opportunty to play around with fantasies. I have a friend who loves to dress his house with all manner of spooky apparitions: bobbing heads, flapping bats, skulls with glowing eyes, moaning and groaning sounds. I prefer more demented pleasures. While the children trick-or-treat, I'm looking forward to sex in a park, in a graveyard, with a variety of bonds and straps....mwahahaha.

It's been a difficult couple of months, alas. I've met a couple of potential partners, but in both cases the sex got in the way. Emotional connections are central to my conception of the lifestyle, though the emotional, spiritual, and physical are tightly intertwined. How can I touch a submissive's mind and body at the same time? Is it even possible? Okay, vanilla is out, but perhaps chocolate? I guess I forget the whipped cream..... Submission requires a great deal of trust, and perhaps I didn't have the patience to help build it.

Emotional and physical relationships...is there a dichotomy? Can we touch one another on-line and IRL? Is it possible to connect in more than one medium? Do text and sex contradict? Can we find a point where both meet? Perhaps the only answer is experience....

What does a RL relationship offer that an on-line one can't? What does an on-line relationship offer that a RL one can't? Is it possible to meet someone in the lifestyle where the best of both worlds meet? I'll leave it to your own imagination what each mode of exchange, sharing, and communication appeals to you, and whether or not a blend of the two can be managed. Over the past few years I've been exploring my own feelings and desires, learning from partners, teaching them, I've found a distinct disconnect between the virtual and the real. Some of those I've met insisted on staying virtual, others move rapidly to RL. The only occasion where we both found a common ground involved a mixture of video and Second Life. In the former, we both were able to see and hear and, to a limited extent, feel, each other's needs. In the latter, interaction between our avatars (built upon our own self-images) managed to bridge at a certain level the geographical distance. Life is compromise. Perhaps a mixture of vid, Second Life, and old-fashioned telephone enables us to jump the gap and create a synthetic world where the miles are replaced by sincerity and technology. In the 21st century, perhaps this is the future of love.

Does the moon affect our emotions and desires? Might the swings we feel in our life and our relationships be due in part to external forces? I wonder.... This is purely anecdotal, but recently I've observed a seeming correlation between what I want/need with a lover and the phases of the moon. During a new moon, when little light reflects off the satellite onto our evening scape, I am, to put it bluntly, horny. I can't get enough of sex and pleasure, from the time I wake up until I finally drift off to sleep in the wee hours. You might call it the rut days. When the moon is full or near full, all I can think about is romance and pleasing my partner, long walks and longer kisses. Of course, sex is a part of it, but only as a culmination of play and tease and flirt and staying so long in a restaurant that the owner has to usher us out. Has anyone else experienced this? Should I consult my local psychiatrist for bi-polar medication?? lol.....

I've been musing recently about my experiences with D/s relationships. For the most part, they begin with excitement, anticipation, no small amount of erotic energy, and perhaps most importantly, hope. Somewhere along the line, though, the emotional mood shifts from excitement to anxiety to anger. The crux of the change always centers around jealousy and an implicit expectation of a vanilla relationship. Let me give you a couple of examples..... I met a sub on-line a couple of years ago and we initiated an IM/phone/cam partnership that began with incredible intensity. She was married with children and made it clear from the outset that I could not travel to visit her. This was fine, for I'm happy as long as the parameters are agreed upon from the start. Alas, slowly but surely her needs moved from the rewards of a D/s relationship to one based on a possessive vanilla suburb life juxtaposed with an utter inability to carry it out. She at once wanted me in her life and didn't. Needless to say, it didn't end happily. On another occasion I met via Craigslist a woman with who I shared both virtual and real-life encounters. When we were together, we both enjoyed a variety of activities; on the phone, our imaginations took flight. Unfortunately she too gradually morphed into a person less interested in D/s and more in setting up house and tending the garden (see Rousseau's Candide for that reference). On a third occasion I met (again via Craigslist) a student from a university at which I do not teach. She was ambivalent about her sexuality and her interest in D/s. We talked, met, talked, planned meetings, cancelled the meetings, talked more. Here the drama overwhelmed the relationship and things collapsed before too long. I know that all failed relationships depend both parties, and I've been searching my mind and soul to understand my part in the fiascos. What I haven't come to grips with is my partners' mind and soul. There isn't a conclusion to this entry, just a bafflement prompting introspection prodding thought.

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