Euphemisms

When you're kinky, sex and play become this kind of huge metaphorical amusement park, filled with mind-bending rides, laugh-soaked shows, and breath-catching thrills. Some of the rides are short, quick, and heart-pounding; some are long, slow, and relaxing; some you go on once or twice, and decide you'll never do again; and some are so amazing, you want to go on over and over and over. Each ride is different. Each one is unique in its own small way.

When you're kinky and have children, you still want to visit the amusement park pretty often. But you don't want your kids to know you're looking forward to a trip to the amusement park, and you certainly don't want them knowing which ride you're looking forward to the most.

So, if you're like us, you start making up names for the rides. Names that sound innocuous, but hold a much deeper meaning between the two of you. Names that can be placed into an innocent statement, but signify something else entirely, something much more kinky.

Like, let's say, oh, Doctor Who. If you're a long-time reader (or a twitter follower), you know I LOVE Doctor Who. You might also know Husband does not love Doctor Who (he once called my obsession with the show "retardis"). So when Husband says he wants some "Doctor Who," he is not talking about the TV show. He is talking about a specific sex position, a mode of play we enjoy. (How the position got this name is a story in and of itself.)

Now, Husband also likes beer. He doesn't indulge all that often, but when he does, he does not ask me to get him a beer. He gets up and pours it himself, mainly because he has a specific set of glasses he uses, and a specific way of pouring the beer into the glass, one that I can never seem to get right.
So when Husband says he wants me to "get him a bottle of beer," I know he's not talking about drinking a beer...well, he's not only talking about drinking a beer. He's talking about another sex position, another mode of play. (Again, how this position got this moniker is a story unto itself--although, if you think about it long enough, you could probably figure out what he's doing with the beer bottle.)

We have all sorts of names for all sorts of kinky ways of play. Besides "Doctor Who" and "Drink a Beer," we have "La Jolla," "Get the Butter" (which does NOT involve butter, thank god, butter does NOT a good lubricant make, no matter what Marlon Brando would have you believe) (just FYI), "You Won't Be Able to Reach Your Phone," "I'll Mess Up Your Hair," "You'll Be Typing Standing Up," "Go Food Shopping in the Vegetable Aisle," and others.

In this way, Husband and I can have all sorts of conversations in front of the kids that sound completely reasonable and chaste, because only he and I understand the deeper context. Conversations like the one we had last night in the car, which went kinda like this:
Husband: So you have anything going on tonight?
Me: No...why?
Husband (smirking): I'm thinking I should have a beer.
Me (refusing to play along): Go ahead. Have a beer. Just don't drive anywhere afterwards.
Husband (frowning): You know what I meant.
Me (trying not to grin): Yeah, I know.
Child Sitting in the Back: What did you mean, dad? You're gonna get blitzed?
Husband: No, I am not going to get blitzed. And what kind of word is that?
There is a pause now, as Husband is a tad annoyed.
Husband: Maybe while I'm drinking my beer, you should watch some Doctor Who.
Child Sitting in the Back: Oh! There's a new Doctor Who?
Me, turning to Child Sitting in the Back: No, no new Doctor Whos until Thanksgiving.
Child Sitting in the Back: But then you've already seen them all.
Me: Yup, I've seen them all. But I don't mind watching some of the episodes twice. You want to watch with me, kiddo?
Child Sitting in the Back: Naw, I have better things to watch. But thanks for asking.
Me (doing some of my own smirking): Sure.
Husband is now gnashing his teeth together.
Husband: When's our next trip to La Jolla?
Child Sitting in the Back: End of summer, dad.
Husband (murmuring under his breath): Not for your mother.
Child Sitting in Back: What?
Husband: Nothing. Nothing. (Turning to me): Wife, do we have enough vegetables at home?
Me (afraid now): I...think so?
Husband: Are you sure? Cause it's never a bad thing to have a well-stocked vegetable drawer. Maybe you should go to the supermarket later, and buy some.
Me: But...but we have vegetables.
Child Sitting in Back: We're out of the cucumbers, mom.
Husband (triumphant): There you go, Wife. You need to buy cucumbers. So why don't you go to the supermarket later, and get some cucumbers? And while you're at it, get some other vegetables, too.
Me: Fine. Fine! I get it.
Child Sitting in the Back: What do you get, mom?
Me: Nothing, kiddo.
Husband: You're mom's just a little afraid I'm going to mess up her hair before she goes to the supermarket.
Child Sitting in the Back: Why would you do that, dad?
Husband: Cause I can't help it. (He reaches his hand around my head to pull me closer, giving me an innocent head-hug.) You're mom's hair is so beautiful, I need to touch it all the time.
Child Sitting in the Back: Well, you can just fix your hair, can't you mom?
Me: Yes, kiddo. I can just fix my hair. But I would rather your father KEEP HIS HANDS OUT OF IT.
Husband: Are you sure, wife? Are you sure? Cause I don't think so. I don't think so at all.
Me: I think so!
Him: How's that chair doing in your office? Still good? It's nice to sit in, isn't it?
Me (panicking): Uh, I meant, I TOTALLY THINK SO. Yes.
Him (thoroughly satisfied now, in the most irritating way): That's what I thought.

Do the kids get some idea we're talking about things over their heads? I'm sure they do. But they won't know exactly what we're talking about. They'll wonder, but they'll never know. And this way, Husband can convey his information to me and get his point across without having to wait until we're alone. He can make me wait and worry and freak the fuck out even longer.
He doesn't have to wait to implement a good mindfuck.

Integrity

This weekend there was a pretty big local event here, the NorthwestLeather Conference, or NWLC. It’s sponsored by smOdyssey, a group of which I have just recently become a member. I did not attend the conference. However, there was a separate event yesterday being held in a private room of the hotel, open to everyone, registered conference attendee or no. Husband and I came to that. 

I had the opportunity to walk around the hotel a bit, say hi to some of my friends, and see what all the fuss was about. I’ll tell you right now—next year, I’m buying at least a Saturday day pass to this thing. The conference schedule looked amazing, and I’m sorry I missed so many amazing classes (not to mention a kickass party Saturday night).

Of course, not being a registered attendee yesterday, I was unable to enter many of the rooms and suites set aside for the conference. One of the rooms I really, really wanted to check out was the vendor space. Literally every single one of my friends who entered that blocked off room came out with something amazing! I couldn’t even ask them to take pictures for me, because photography was not allowed.

I asked at the register table if I could have permission to go into the vendor space. They said no, not without a pass. I asked if there was a special pass I could buy, just for the vendor space, and they said no—I would have to buy the whole day pass. Seeing as how Husband was already on his way to pick me up from the hotel, I declined.

Outside the vendor room, standing with a circle of friends, I bemoaned my unhappiness (and jealousy) of my friends buying such cool stuff.  More than a few of them offered to give me their passes from around their necks so I could go into the vendor space. I refused.

“Just put it on and go in,” they said. “Nobody will know the difference.”

“But I asked if I could go in, and they said no,” I explained.

“They told you you need a pass. Take mine for a few minutes. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s not right. They told me I need to pay.”

“That’s silly. Here, just take it,” they said.

I still refused.

“It’s not right,” I kept saying. “I’m not doing it.”

After I made it clear I was against doing it because of the principle of the thing, one man, a friend of mine, said to me, “you would do it if your Husband told you to.”

I thought about it...for about a tenth of a second. “He never would,” I stated. “He is my Dom, and he would never ask me to go against something I thought was wrong. It’s one of the reasons why he’s my Dom.”

“He would never ask her to go against her integrity,” another friend interjected. 

This woman, someone well-known and well-respected in the scene, had managed to say succinctly what I had not been able to, and the rest of the arguments finally stopped.

The whole episode got me thinking, though. Would I have taken someone else’s pass and used it for my advantage if Husband had told me to? Probably. I would have assumed he must have a good reason to tell me to do such a thing. Given that he knows I would be morally against it, and given that he respects my sense of ethics, I would trust he would not order me to do such a thing unless he was privy to information I was not, information he would later share with me to assuage my guilt.

But, the truth is…Husband would never ask me to do something like that. In fact, he would be angry with me for going against my better judgment, and giving into peer pressure.

He expects me to hold myself to certain beliefs; that is one of the reasons why he chose me as his wife. I hold to these beliefs, with or without his say-so, and he expects me to continue to do so; that is one of the reasons why I chose him as my Husband.

My Dom would never ask me to go against my core ethical beliefs, because I would never allow someone to be my Dom who could do so.

If your Dom, Master, Top, Whathaveyou, if this person is asking you to engage in behavior you find immoral, unethical, or basically goes against your better judgment, that is a major red flag. This person should no longer have that kind of influence over you. A D/M should never ask you to behave badly in a way you’ll later regret; a D/M should always expect the best of you, so you can be the best person you can be, proud of who you are, happy in your own skin.

Now, do I think it’s a stupid rule that NWLC doesn’t allow non-conference-attendees to check out the vendors' space? Absolutely, yes. I think the vendors would probably benefit from more people—aka, more potential customers—checking out their wares. I think, in the future, the conference should think about selling cheap badges that would let people at least see what's for sale.

But my opinion on the wisdom of the rule doesn’t change what I was told. I was told I could not go in, so I did not.

When I came home, I told Husband what had happened, and what I did. He was pleased. He always likes to hear when I conduct myself well. It makes him proud.

His pride in me is the best reward there is.

To My Sister: Do Not Read This Post. I'm Serious. Don't Read It. [Blood Play]

Social media always leaves me with the feeling other couples find new ways to spice up their sex life by reading magazine articles while looking at the accompanying pictures, usually the stick-figure or cartoon variety. (See: Cosmo magazine.) I also get the feeling it's never the men who are looking for new things to try in the bedroom, but it's somehow the woman's sole responsibility; as if to say, women need to push things up a notch if they want to keep their man's attention occupied, otherwise their men won't be looking to magazine articles for help, they'll be looking to other women. 

The sexist attitude inherent in our culture is a topic for another day. 

Husband and I don't work that way. Yes, sometimes we find inspiration through tumblr or Fetlife. But more often than not, we learn our way through real life conversations, interactions--

And often, by accident.

The other night, we were enjoying a rare evening when all the stars happened to align in our favor: the oldest two boys were out, the youngest was fast asleep, and we basically had the house to ourselves. Kinky sex was on the horizon, but how that would play out, exactly what we would do with our time? That was still an exciting mystery. 

Husband decided he wanted to watch the end of a movie he had started a couple days before. Assuming it would take at least half an hour for him to watch it, and having no interest in watching it with him, I decided to go downstairs and watch one of my own shows on the kids' TV. 

Now, the way our house is set up, the family room has the biggest TV in the house, but the kids also have a pretty nice TV downstairs, facing an old futon. This futon actually used to be our couch, back when we used to live in a small apartment. This was pre-kids. 

Husband and I had many fun times on that futon. 

About ten minutes into my own show, Husband came downstairs to find me.

"I thought you wanted to finish watching your movie," I said.

"I decided I could find better entertainment down here," he replied.

He sat down next to me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me over his lap. 

The TV show was forgotten; play had begun.

Here's something you might not know about a futon: the angle of it, the deep slope of the seat, makes it perfect for the-woman-on-top position. She can really snuggle into the man's thighs, push in deep, and grab onto the back of the wooden frame for support. 

So when it was time, a while later, for the real fun to begin, it made sense that Husband wanted me to straddle his lap.

But here's something about me: when I'm in deep surrender mode, I can't deal with that kind of power. It feels wrong. My hips don't want to move; they want to be grabbed, squeezed, and restrained, not allowed to move about freely and do whatever they want. I can't come that way. 

So Husband quickly turned me over, pulled me on all fours, and took me from behind. It was a tight fit for me. I was all scrunched up there, my ass poking out, my face squashed against the futon. Every time Husband bucked into me, I had to hold my breath; my mouth and nose would press into the black velvet cotton futon cover, making it impossible for me to draw air.

It was awesome.

When we were done, I rested my face into the crook of my arm, giving myself a minute to recover before I tried to stand up. Husband, smiling, took a step around to have a look at me. But when he saw me, his smile faded. 

"There's blood on your arm," he said, pointing. "And on your face. What happened?"

I looked down at my arm, confirmed there was indeed blood, and felt my face. "I think you were pushing me into the futon so hard, I got a bloody nose," I said, touching my nostrils. 

"Wow," he said. Then--to my utter surprise--his smile widened. "Wow." 

He bent down and again, to my complete surprise, began to smear the blood from my nose all over my face. "Wow," he repeated, grinning.

I grinned back. "What, do I look cool?"

"Yeah," he said with glee. "Like a woman who just got fucked so hard, she got a nosebleed."

"I wanna see."

I quickly got up and ran to the bathroom. Red streaks lined my cheeks, chin, and forehead. 

I began to laugh. "Oh my god," I said. "Oh my god, I'm a mess."

"A hot mess."

"Should I wash it off right now?" I was asking a rhetorical question...or thought I was, until Husband took a serious minute to think about it.

"I guess so," he said. "The kids might come home early. But it's really cool." His eyes were fixated on my face as he admired his art. "We need to do this again."

"What, have sex on the futon?"

"Have sex hard enough to make your nose bleed," he said. As he turned away to put his clothes back on, he said once again, "Wow. Wow, that's hot."

Does this mean were dipping our toes into blood play now, or some kind of extra level impact play? I don't know yet. It's too early to tell. You know I hate making conjectures about these sort of things, when I have absolutely nothing to base myself upon.

And besides, not knowing is part of the fun. Open mind+no predictions=no limits to the fun.

But I love how we surprise ourselves with what we can still do, the new levels of play we can still find, even after all these years. 

It takes a certain level of self-assurance to do what we BDSMers do. We have to strip away all the restrictions and expectations society puts on us, just so we can be ourselves. Another couple might have been alarmed by the blood; the man would have been ashamed by his behavior, while the woman would have grown alarmed and furious. She might have questioned what kind of man he was, giving his wife a nosebleed (if only by accident), while he would have been put in a position of having to beg for forgiveness. 

But we laughed...and entertained the idea of doing it again. 

Now, have no doubt, if my nose had been really hurt, we would have dealt with the injury accordingly. Husband would have treated me in the appropriate manner, helping me to feel better. He also would have made a mental note to himself for next time.

But even then, this whole episode still would have been put into proper perspective. Husband did not mean to hurt me...this time. It would have been a case of rough sex gone wrong. 

In our case, it was rough sex gone right. Next time, when Husband has every intent to hurt me, it will be with my absolute consent.

This is what BDSM does: It takes away the guilt for having the kind of sex you really want. All there needs to be is the beauty of consent between two adults, the love of trust, and if you're lucky, the trust of love.

It's All Good

So like every pair of parents who fear the long arm of social services, Husband and I try to shield our kids from the worst of our kinkiness. This is relatively easy with the 7-year-old, who anyway lives in his own little world of legos, rocks, and Minecraft. Power Rangers sometimes gets mixed in, but rarely,  and only for a half an hour or two on Saturday morning. 

The two older boys are getting harder to fool; but at the same time, we're feeling less guilty about exposing them to it.

I just realized...I never told you guys what happened over Passover, did I? No, I don't think I did. All I can say is, I blame the two cups of diluted wine Husband thought it okay to let them drink for the seder. I thought this a very very bad idea, and as you'll see, I was proven right.
Wine has a way of loosening tongues, people.

So we were having our seder, partaking of our cups of wine and our meal, and then it was time to search for the afikoman. If you're not familiar with a Jewish seder, the afikoman is the piece of matzah that serves as the dessert for after the meal.
(This only furthers my belief Jews invented sarcasm, by the way.)
The meal cannot continue until the afikoman is eaten. (We might have invented sadism, too.)
There is a tradition among most Jewish families that the afikoman gets hidden, either by the parents or the children, and the other party must find it. Depending on who's doing the finding, a round of bartering and blackmail ensues, until an agreement is reached and the meal can continue. In our family, Husband and I hide the afikoman, and our kids have to find it--but once they do, we have to pay them to give it back.

So the kids start looking around for the afikoman, using a well-organized system, I have to tell you, and Husband and I start following them around, laughing our heads off at their feeble attempts. We take this game seriously, you know. We're not the kind of parents to just hide stuff in the most obvious places, and let's be honest here, we've had some experience hiding stuff from our kids.

In other words, we weren't going to make it impossible for them, but we weren't going to make it easy, either.

But when my 12-year-old got to the wide padded rocking chair in our bedroom, I thought the game was up. Surely, I thought, he would lift up the seat cushion, and find the afikoman. But to my surprise, he didn't.
A few minutes later, they all gave up the game, and I showed them where it was by pulling the afikoman away from under the rocking chair's seat cushion.
"It was right here," I said to the 12-year-old. "You didn't look."
"I didn't want to touch that rocking chair," he said, scrunching up his face.
"Why?" I asked, confused.
"Because I know what you two do in that rocking chair," he answered me. "I hear it creaking at night. I'm not touching that thing."
I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me, my horror was so great. And then--then I did the only thing I could think of to save myself. I lied through my teeth.
"I promise you, son, absolutely nothing inappropriate happens in that rocking chair," I said.
At this point the 15-year-old chimed in. "Yeah, brother, those creaking noises are coming from the bed," he said. "Can't you tell the difference?"
At this point I just wanted to die of shame. "You can...you can hear us?" I squeaked.
"Of course we can," the 12-year-old answered. "You guys aren't exactly quiet, you know."
"Yeah, but it's ok mom," the 15-year-old tried to comfort me. "It sounds like you guys have fun. Just the screaming gets loud."
I sat down in the rocking chair and curled up my knees to my chest, muttering 'oh god, oh god.' But Husband...Husband's reaction was a little different.
"So you guys know anyway?" He said, a pleased grin spreading across his face. "You mean, from now on, we can just put a sock on the doorknob or something and you'll leave us alone?"
"HUSBAND." I shouted. "That is...that is..."
"This is great," he said.
"THIS IS NOT GREAT," now going from wanting to die to wanting to kill him. "We are never having sex again."
"Yes," he said, "we are."
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," I continued my rocking and muttering. "We are awful parents. Awful."
"We are not awful parents," Husband scoffed. "So what if they know sometimes when we're having sex?"
"Yeah, mom," my 12-year-old said. "It's not like it's all the time."
I looked up with pleading eyes. "It's not?"
"No," he said. "Most of the time now, when I hear you guys in your room, I just start listening to my music with my headphones on. Why do you think I spent so much of my own money on those headphones, anyway?"

So the ship has sailed. Our oldest two boys know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that THEIR PARENTS HAVE SEX. And--what's worse--WE KNOW THEY KNOW. And THEY KNOW WE KNOW THEY KNOW.
Ad infinitum, hallelujah, amen.