Fetish Friday #9: Submission, Part 1

You know this is going to be the first of many Fetish Fridays that deal with submission in one for or another. Because I am not only a hardcore submissive, I am fascinated by what the term means to different people. Today, I'm focusing on Mr. Stephen Elliott, because:

a) he likes to send me amazing pictures of himself. And
b) his writing is slyly seductive.

His words circle in your head for days, spiraling, coiling.

But first, I will take you on a brief tour of what I discovered on the wonderful world we call the internet when I went trolling around last night. Male Submission Art is a site that showcases "beautiful imagery where men and other male-identified people are submissive subjects. We aim to challenge stereotypes of the 'pathetic' submissive man." I thought if this site got together with Erotic Cover Watch the universe might explode.

Next, I found a personal ad that sent a delicious shiver through me. God, and he's local—and cheap.

Fetish Fish had a brief write-up about fem domme—but didn't give me the specific terminology for the fetish. Which is what I was after. And typing in "submission" on wikipedia.org was a total failure. I mean, yeah, there's masochism, but I was looking for something else. I don't know why. Something with a little more flair. Something deliciously decadent to capture the whole slippery mess of desires neatly in a bundle.

Finally, I wrote to Stephen Elliott to ask if he had any photos he'd let me post (because the man has been known to tease me with pictures I'm not allowed to show you all). He shot me back these two...





...which lingered in my mind all night. So I stopped my search, and decided fuck what the fetish is called. Let's just get on with it. Or, maybe, get it on. Along with the snapshots, here's a taste of his story from the collection Pleasure Bound.

Once More Beneath The Exit Sign
Stephen Elliott

She had been miserable in Chicago where the streets were so cold and her feet hurt from walking the city. She said they'd been to the library and the museum, the Art Institute, and Clark and Division. They'd taken a train to Addison and seen Wrigley Field. I was from Chicago and I held my tongue because I thought they had missed everything.

Later that day, in my room which is just a yellow space I rent in someone else's apartment and is filled with everything I own in the whole world because I own so little, before the box full of sex toys was all the way out from under the bed and maybe there was just one or two gloves on the floor, she told me she didn't think it could work. And we broke up. But then she changed her mind. In the morning she broke up with me again, and again changed her mind. We never left the bed.

On the third day we didn't break up. She caned me, then tied me spread eagle to the bed and got on top of me. "Don't come," she said. And then we laid in bed talking about how much we loved each other and the various things we had done together. It was a list that included Nashville and honkey-tonk bars and packed lunch on cliffs overlooking the San Francisco Bay. We'd been to readings and parades and movies and shopped for organic produce at an Asian grocery in Berkeley. We always held hands. We'd been dancing and we danced together well. We spent hours on the phone agreeing on the political issues of the day. Beneath it was this: we were sexually compatible. She liked to hurt people and I liked to be hurt. She liked it when I cried and I wanted to cry all the time.

She turned me over and tied my arms forward and my legs spread and a rope around my ankles and thighs to keep my knees bent and greased her strap-on and slid it inside of me and fucked me violently. "I'm not going to go easy," she said. "I want to hear you."

When we were done she said, "I did all the things you like today."

"You did," I told her. She asked me why I thought she did these things and I said because she loved me and I told her I loved her too.

We went out that night. The only time in four days we left the bed. But not for long. We went to a noodle house with small round tables and I looked at other couples on dates or just eating dinner. Everyone was in pairs; no one was eating alone. There were couples who had just met, trying to impress each other, still a long way from that moment of truth, still hiding their core, afraid of what the other might think when he or she saw them whole. Older couples were there, people who had been together many years and stopped talking altogether. Each person in each couple was unique with their special needs. I wondered what those needs were and if they were being met. A famous analyst was once asked, "What would you call an interpersonal relationship where infantile wishes, and defenses against those wishes, get expressed in such a way that the persons within that relationship don't see each other for what they objectively are but, rather, view each other in terms of their infantile needs and their infantile conflicts? What would you call that?" he replied, "I'd call that life."

*****

To see the view from the top, I am stepping into Mathilde Madden's impossible to fill shoes. I want to confess that when her first story submission to me fell into my inbox, I was ready to hop a plane to the UK and wait outside her door like a panting little puppy. (And I don't even like to fly.) I also need to tell you that choosing my favorite excerpt from this story was nearly impossible. I wanted to run the whole damn thing. This piece appeared in H Is for Hardcore. In fact, it kicks off the whole fucking book.

Me, When I'm With You
by Mathilde Madden

Sometimes, I'm so in the moment, so in control or at least in some semblance of control and you say something like that, something soft, and it's all I can do not to come crashing down. When you say that, with your voice all gentle and pretty, I want to hug you. I could drop right out of role any second. Crash. Bang. I can feel it. This is getting serious. Who's driving this thing? I need to find an end game. And fast.

I sit up and scrabble around among the debris on the floor for the key to your handcuffs. It takes me a couple of moments but I find it. I beckon you over, and you step forward, bringing your wrists from behind your neck so I can reach them.

I unfasten the cuffs and say, “Turn round. Put your hands behind your back.”

You turn around slowly with one slight moment for a pause and a quizzical expression. Your cock bobs as you move. It's so hard and angry looking. It looks painful. It's got to be really sensitive. Sensitive like I can’t even imagine. I reach up and recuff your big wrists behind your back.

“Turn back around.”

You turn back to face me, cock still vicious angry.

I say, “Get on your knees now.”

You go down, big man. One knee then the other. When you kneel, it dismantles me. Every time. It's like I have to wait and let myself crumble then put myself back together and carry on.

Now I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with you kneeling in front of me and my pussy is just burning. What I'd really like to do is grab you by the hair and pull you tight between my legs. I'd like to do this so sudden and fast that you don’t really have time to catch your breath. So fast it hurts you enough that you make a confused little yelp and that you aren’t sure what is happening for a long moment before you realize your world is made of me.

I don't do it.

I deserve a fucking medal.

*****

And there you have it. Submission according to Alison Tyler. Part 1. What do you think? Am I onto something here?

XXX,
Alison

P.S. When I first started using ETSY, there were only a handful of kinky, dirty, or fetish-related items for sale. Now, when I typed in submissive, 53 decadent objects popped up. I love progress.