Big Ed's Place

So… if you could fulfill all your fantasies, would you?

In the comments on my Submission 24/7 post, FG said, “the quickest way to ruin a fantasy is to think about it rationally,” which is of course a variant on my opening question. That’s the problem with moving fantasies from an ideal to reality. Rational thought kicks in, or should kick in, along the way. But that doesn’t prevent the speculation about what it’d be like to seriously go after it…

I can think of two people who’ve gone after their fantasies, at least in the sexual sense. One is Mr. Acworth from kink.com (see my review of The Upper Floor). The other is, of course, Hugh Hefner.

Now I admit that I haven’t studied Hefner or Playboy closely. I did investigate their stock several years ago and decided it was a bad buy because Hugh wouldn’t let anyone run the magazine other than the way he wanted, and that approach was clearly no longer competitive. It might have been in the 50′s and 60′s, but the sensibility was out of touch with the Maxim crowd. I did hear about parties/orgies at the Playboy mansion and also unsubstantiated rumors that a girl couldn’t become a Playmate without sleeping with Hefner.

Then, a tell-all came out recently. The author alleges that Hef still has Viagra-assisted sex with 10-12 women twice a week in what can only be viewed as an assembly line (each woman rides him for a couple of minutes). They’re all paid quite well for this coupling. I haven’t seen anything that vouches for whether this is true or not, but I could imagine it being true. It sounds exciting at first, until I start really thinking about it and the reality sets in. It honestly doesn’t sound very much fun after the first couple of times as the novelty would wear out and it would be just a chore.

But what strikes a chord is that it sounds like Hef is “living the life” that he wanted. The company can go down the drain because the magazine and company really only exist to let him have that life. He got the sexual life he set out to have.

But is that the life I’d want to live?

If I’m honest, I’m living most of the life I want to live. This came up for me recently because a friend asked the question that’s formed the basis of many time travel stories–”if you could go back and do it all over again, knowing what you know now, would you?”

I have to answer “no.” Yes, I’d probably have gotten laid a helluva lot more often, and possibly been richer (since I’d know who to bet on in major sporting events), but the rational thought makes me consider all the things I’d be giving up (my wife and son for starters) and all the real practical issues involved. Sure, I could seduce the-one-that-got-away, but what if she’d turned out to be crazy, or had an STD, or a handful of other problems I didn’t know about because I didn’t end up with her? The most beautiful woman I ever bedded turned out to have serious depression, after all.

Instead, I have to consider that perhaps I’m already “living the life”…

Wow.

That could pretty much be my review, except that I really need to provide details. Suffice it to say, I’m impressed.

The Upper Floor is a site dedicated to putting, on camera, an attempt to have a bdsm community that can live the 24/7 dream I posited was just an ideal. It’s the brainchild of Peter Acworth, the owner of Kink.com and other websites under the kink.com umbrella. Mr. Acworth (sorry, I just can’t bring myself to refer to him by his first name. It feels wrong) made a ton of money with kink.com, bought The Armory in San Francisco, and decided to see if he could create a community where bdsm principles really were in place 24/7. The results are… mind-blowing.

The site mostly consists of videos of bdsm scenes and parties that have taken place on The Upper Floor. These videos include edited movies, raw footage, stills, and live feeds. The scenes include slave training and other exercises. A couple of examples are below (click on them to expand). There are also discussion forums and extensive posts on the bdsm community.

First, I should say that I’m impressed with the professionalism of the site. I’d heard through the grapevine that kink.com paid its performers far better than the mainstream porn industry. They also treat them well, to the point of putting the explicit rights for models and rules for directors on the site. That means that every viewer becomes a de facto enforcer–”was this submissive treated right?”, “Did the director stick to the rules?”, etc.. Yes, stuff could have happened off camera–except for the live feeds. I really like this level of accountability.

I also think the video quality is delightfully high. No complaints at all there. Additionally, The Upper Floor has been decorated with an Edwardian theme and it really brings a sense of the mood to the events and parties. I can very easily imagine enjoying a drink or a conversation while casually watching a whipping occurring nearby. The videos are beautiful.

As for the scenes depicted–they struck me as truly representative of the bdsm community. Not everyone is a gorgeous model, but that doesn’t prevent them from being a great player. I included a photo of a guy below who won’t exactly be appearing in any Playgirls anytime soon, but he fits right into the scene here. The energy crackles as I remember it in the dungeons–far more casual and constant than the overacting one often sees in vanilla community depictions of bdsm. The sex is also real. Oral, anal, and vaginal sex are all out in the open and depicted in their glory as they happen, with very little of the artifice of much of today’s porn.

It feels authentic. More importanty, it feels honest.

So like I said–wow. I’m impressed with The Upper Floor and am enjoying poking around and learning more.

You can check out The Upper Floor yourself by following the link here.

I got next to no writing done this past week. I made no progress on Deep Dish, though I did revise the synposis. I’m still not happy with that–it reads like a “just the facts ma’am” police report without flavor. I think it’s going to take a couple more passes before I’m either happy or I give up. I did spend some time doing the groundwork for a review, which will hopefully show up soon, but we’ll see. Basically, I had a hard time bringing myself to touch the keyboard.

Now some of my malaise is clearly that I’m a little burned out right now. I’m tired of stealing time here and there and always being tense if I can’t find it. That’s a problem that will cure over time. Part of it too is that my side projects–the ebook, some more art for Deep Dish–are stalled. These are beyond my ability to address right now, as I’m waiting for other people. I often get cranky waiting, and this is one of those times. I want to get insistent and pushy and say “hey buster, you promised you’d have it done by now,” but I know that rarely brings results.

Life has also gotten busier in that we are starting a major home project. We’re finishing our basement and this past week has been spent working with the General Contractor to try to finalize the floor plan. That requires some creativity on my part and is consuming a lot of those idle times where I let my mind wander and it comes back with cool concepts or details that I just have to address. I.e., those idle times that fuel my writing.

So… lost week. We’ll see what the next one brings.

In my experience in the bsdm world, most people just “play.” Bdsm may be an occasional or frequent part of their sex life, but it doesn’t define their life. This is consistent with how most people live their lives. Sex may be important or unimportant, but it is not the majority of their life.

There are, of course, exceptions where sex is the majority of a person’s life. Sex workers and addicts immediately come to mind. I’ve found very few people who aspire to either of those roles or lifestyles—a few natural courtesans and tantrikas but that’s about it. For most people, career, family or other hobbies are much more defining than what they do in the bedroom. Most people don’t aspire for sex to be more than “play” regardless of how kinky it may be.

However, in the bdsm world, there seem to be a notable exception, which is the 24/7 sub (someone who is a submissive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). They’re sometimes called a “lifestyle” submissive and they spend their days serving their master, much as happens in the movie Secretary. I’d originally taken this to be just another fantasy like harem fantasies—fun to enjoy in the daydream, but unworkable in reality.

Aside—yes, I know there are real harems in the world these days. However, I have yet to hear of a real one that wasn’t either a case of women being held against their will or women being paid a whole lot of money to participate. The former I find repulsive and the latter is beyond the financial reach of 99% of men, even in the wealthy West.

So I was surprised when I met my first 24/7 submissive in our bdsm club. She lived with her Master and Mistress and served their needs around the clock without question. In exchange, she was a member of the household. She turned out to be happy to discuss her life at length. Later, I watched her break up with that Master and Mistress and be collared to another Master and his wife. That latter relationship lasted a few years before it too broke up, but by then I’d left the club.

For her, the lifestyle was in part because she just couldn’t manage life on her own. Despite being in her 30’s, she couldn’t manage her money, be reliable in meeting appointments, or even do basic household chores without screwing it up. I never understood why that was true, but she fundamentally needed someone to take care of her and tell her what to do on a day by day basis.

Such day to day direction gave her life structure and helped her relax and be happy. As such, she was more than willing to do whatever her Master ordered, be it sexual or not. I saw her first Master make some very wild orders too—including loaning her out to other Dom’s from time to time. Since I never played with her myself, I don’t know what her limits were, but from her public play and the stories she told, I imagine they were pretty far out there.

One example—she was blindfolded and taken to a party. She knew there were about 20 people there and it was in a private home and she could recognize some of the voices, but that was it. She was ordered to strip naked, then bound to a chair with her hands free. Then she was told she had to masturbate to ten orgasms before she would be released, which was a lot because she was not multi-orgasmic. As she tried to come, she could hear the party going on around her as if she wasn’t there, with barely a comment about her show. When she finally managed her last orgasm after many hours of masturbating while tied up, she was untied and taken home. Her blindfold was never removed at the party and she never found out who had watched her play with her clit. She told me that despite the orgasms, it was more an ordeal than pleasurable but she did it because her Master had ordered her to.

Now I don’t know if she was a good example of those who become submissives 24/7 or not. While I met a few other submissives who said they were 24/7 at play parties, I didn’t really get a chance to know them well enough to know what that meant.

That said, I did meet another submissive who almost lived the 24/7 lifestyle. She was fully capable of living on her own and a generally well-adjusted person (at least as well-adjusted as any of us are). She lived with her Mistress and their rule was simple–the Mistress could give her an order at any time while they were both home and she had to obey it. They had a code she could use if she didn’t want to obey it for some reason, so she wasn’t as deep of a submissive as the first woman. So sometimes she’d be told to go clean the sink and would say, “Is my mistress sure?” and then get a different order. Sometimes she’d be told, “Service me. Now.” and she’d immediately drop to her knees and begin licking her mistress to an orgasm.

So what would it be like to truly live the lifestyle? I suspect I’d personally be exhausted if I had a sex slave 24/7 because I know how much energy taking care of a toddler requires. Is it something that perfectly sound submissives, without the problems of the one woman I knew well, would sign up for? I lack sufficient data. Nonetheless, of the common ‘big sexual fantasies,’ it does seem to be one that does happen from time to time.

Well, the good news is that I finished the detailed outline for Deep Dish. I’ve nailed 64 pages exactly. I didn’t manage any script work, so that stands at 28 pages done.

The bad news is I finished it early in the week after furiously stealing time and working on it Sunday and Monday, and then smacked into a wall. I just couldn’t bring myself to work on it later in the week. I toyed with switching over to another story (Unmasked still being at the top of the queue), but I just couldn’t bring myself to write.

I did try a couple of times at lunch. But there just wasn’t the energy there. I truly felt bruised.

Now I have been writing hard, for me, the past couple of months. I’ve been pushing it and so maybe a breather is a good idea. I also suspect this is Mile 22 for this story.

We’ll see. I’m not sure what it will take to get back into the saddle, but I know it won’t be too long. It’s just a matter of figuring it out.

So in last week’s musing, I wondered what elevated a well done photograph or a story to Art. Specifically, I wondered if I was creating Art or promoting it when I found it. Those aren’t easy questions to answer.

The first problem is, of course, defining Art. I’ve already defined it (here) as “a way of connecting to others. It’s a short cut to the heart and mind.”

Well, that’s certainly nice and ambiguous. After all, Porn is a way of connecting to others. It’s a short cut to the genitals. And when we get more involved than just the genitals, we start arguing whether the work is erotica or porn, which is a perpetual argument in writing circles. I happen to like Poison Ivan’s (from Ruthie’s Club) definition, which is that one term is pejorative and the other isn’t and that’s their primary distinction.

But the pejorative implications do tell us something about Art vs. Porn. “Art” is supposed to be something… better. Better in quality or in connection or in craftsmanship. I think there’s also a snob/cost cultural element as well, where once again I call on an analogy to cuisine. Artistry in cooking does not need to be confined to the $200/person restaurants. There are plenty of diners and taco stands and neighborhood restaurants that are “better.” They’ve managed to infuse their food with something that connects with a person’s pleasure centers in the mouth, nose, and belly. There’s plenty of art in those environments.

Aside–the flip side of “90% of everything is crap” is that 10% of everything is likely to be good. Anyone who makes a broad generalization (“disco sucks,” “French films are stupid,” etc.) about a category is demonstrating their prejudices and lack of an open mind to possibility. At least for me, the quest for the 10% makes my life more enjoyable.

Going one step further with the diner anthology, there’s even the possibility of quality at an artistic level in the every day. Malcolm Gladwell makes the case for Heinz Ketchup as being as good as ketchup gets. I imagine that there are times a places it makes that shortcut and becomes an epiphany to the taster. Why not call it Art then?

Of course, that makes me wonder–why not have the perfect cum shot? Or the perfect sentence describing a blowjob?

So the definitions are problematic. So are the tastes of the audience. Roger Ebert makes that point when he declares there’s no such thing as a perfect movie (here). Even the films generally proclaimed as the greatest have their detractors. I think that’s true of all art forms. There’s someone who is blown away, and there’s someone else who just doesn’t get it.

Ebert also makes another point, too, which is that good criticism needs to explain why. That’s what I’ve tried to do with my reviews on this site–give you more than the “loved it!” or “hated it!” so that you can draw our own evaluations.

But that doesn’t answer the original questions. Am I creating Art? Am I promoting it when I find it?

I don’t think I can honestly answer the first question. Authors are their own worst critics because they know what they intended to put on the page, making it hard to see what actually is on the page. At best I can tell when I’ve poured my heart and soul into a work (which isn’t every story) and only hope that the craftsmanship kept pace. In some cases, such as The Ugly One, I think that’s come across, based on readers’ comments. In others, it’s hard to tell.

As for promoting it, I think I could do a better job. I’ve slowed down on reviews for a myriad of reasons and one of which is that I’m finding little that just zings me the way Art should. That won’t prevent me from doing some negative reviews or mediocre reviews, but I hope I can pick it up some. That said, the number one reason I’ve slowed down is available time. Nonetheless, we’ll see what I can pull together. Maybe pointing to stuff I find that rises above the crass will help.

Unfortunately, the reviews will still be “I know it when I see it.” I haven’t adequately answered the question of what elevates porn to art. So here’s my current thinking:

a) If Art is a shortcut to the heart and soul, there has to be something with heart and soul in the original work. That doesn’t mean shock and surprise don’t have their place, or pure arousal, but they’re not sufficient. They’re just carriers for something deeper. So Goatse and Two Girls One Cup type stuff don’t qualify, nor their lesser counterparts. Neither does stroke fiction, regardless of the story codes.

b) There has to be attention to detail. If someone’s pouring their soul into a work, they have to care enough to get the little things right. Typos, basic grammar, and so on for a written work. Simple elements of composition like lighting for photos. I’ve found that it’s usually the attention to detail that defines quality.

c) It has to have some persistence. By this I mean that I think about it or remember it later, when it’s not in front of me. That’s a good sign that it got through to me.

There are probably more criteria, but that’s what comes to the mind immediately. Any thoughts on what else is required, readers?

It’s been a rough week for having time to write. I’ve been trying to steal a few hours here and a few there, but it just hasn’t happened. I’ve also realized that writing in 20 minute spurts, while better than nothing, is very challenging. It’s hard to get into and maintain the flow.

The saving grace has been that I’m still porting my laptop to work to use during lunch. Again I worked on the Deep Dish script, and I’m now so close to being done that it’s aggravating. I finished scripting one more page (making 1-28 ready to go) and managed to get the detailed outlining done through page 59, which means I added 8 pages. That’s good progress, but since I’m aiming to finish at 64 total pages, I’m now only 5 away. That’s probably 2 hours of work, if I continue to split it up, and possibly less if I can do it in one shot.

It’s just so close…

I am confident I’ll make my page count correctly. It’s just a matter of finding the time.

Now I should say that I’ve been active on non-writing stuff. The splashscreen for this site started getting unstable and an upgrade was a disaster. So I’ve removed it entirely while I look for a replacement. I’ve also been working on the ebook and poking around the internet for some future reviewable sites (more on this later). It’s sometimes amazing to me how long these can take, but such is life.

Anyway, I hope to report next week that I’ve finished the detailed outline on Deep Dish. There’s still a lot left to do in that project, but it’ll still be a major milestone for me. One more week…

So I’ve recently stumbled (tumbled?) across Tumblr sex blogs, which are essentially photoblogs much like Nick Scipio’s Picture of the Day. Lots and lots and lots of photos, with very little commentary. The majority of the tumblr sites I’ve come across are essentially collections of porn and nude pictures put up by various individuals as their favorites. They can be amusing and sometimes interesting, but it didn’t take long for all the pictures to blur together, at least for me. And then it didn’t take long for all the tumblrs to look the same either, at least the ones I was coming across. Sure, they had slightly different themes, but they often swiped pictures from each other. Furthermore, they tended to get pictures from the same sources. Many of the pictures still had the watermarks or other labels from their original sources and I constantly kept seeing ones I’d seen before.

So this got me musing about several subjects–the first of which was copyrights. Given the rather large number of images tagged with copyrights by professional sites (Met-Art being one of them I saw frequently), I wondered how many were actually used with permission, as all of the ones in my gallery are. Similarly, I saw some that I knew were from professional sites (because I’d seen the originals), and they lacked the labels of where they came from, which means they certainly weren’t promo shots where permission had been given. I wondered if the tumblr site owners cared about copyrights or were just grabbing the pictures because ‘if it’s on the internet, it must be free to use.’

Now there’s easily a longer rant on copyrights and piracy, but that’s for another time.

For my second musing was for the pictures that were obviously amateur snaps. A few of the sites actively solicited amateur photos and clearly got some contributions. But, as I said, then those pictures started being copied by other tumblrs, and then by other tumblrs, and so on. I couldn’t help wondering if the original submitters had really understood how widely their quickie private snapshot could be distributed. I also couldn’t help wondering how many of them would get recognized by people who knew them. I certainly had to look more than once at a couple where the woman’s face (rarely obscured) appeared familiar.

And of course I couldn’t help note that few of the tumblrs contained the legal language about models being over 18. After all, how could they check?

But what struck me more was how, after a while, even the photos really did look all the same. The professional shots were clearly professional, with full color, busty models with makeup and flowing hair, and similar poses. The amateur shots had similar lack of composition, natural lighting, and not quite-so-perfect bodies, though often the poses were the same as the pros.

Aside–I must say, pussy spread shots get old really really fast. I think in part because there’s just not a range of emotional content that can be conveyed when a model’s legs are spread so wide.

And when I realized how similar the poses were in so many photos, it got me wondering–is this the definition of “sexy”? And if so, how did we get here? Why is a woman lying on her back on the bed with a pouty smile and spread legs sexy? What happened to the other emotions or moods? Heck, the reason I picked my model for Lisa was that she looked playful (and there are better pictures of Nadine and Sabrina laughing at Erotic Destinations, but I didn’t have permission to use them). I think ‘what is sexy’ has far more answers than the bulk of the tumblrs I’ve discovered.

Which also led to my final Tumblr musing–what would it take for a photo to take me breath away? Or to really make me think? Or to inspire a greater rush of desire than “oh, she’s hot” does?

And I realized that this was ultimately the question of Art. I can’t say whether it’s being jaded or more sophisticated, but simple sexy shots of naked women or people having sex don’t do much for me anymore. Maybe if I can fantasize about the activity in the photo, I can get a sexual rush, but that’s no different than a stroke story. I want more, at least most of the time now.

And realizing that spins me into all sorts of other musings. Am I creating Art? Am I showcasing and promoting Art when I find it? The former is tough because a writer is their own worst critic (can’t see what they’ve actually done objectively) and the latter is tough because my tastes may not match yours. 90% of everything might be crap, but I suspect there are long arguments about what clears the hurdle and what does not.

And what should I be doing with these revelations? I don’t see myself throwing my personal picture collection on the web in a tumblr blog for sure. I want something… classier. Which I hope is what this site is.

Time to go get tea (Earl Grey, hot) and let the musings continue…

It’s been a rough week. In addition to the usual busyness, we’re starting a few new projects that are distracting. One is a major renovation of part of our home and this week involved interviewing contractors. The second is we’ve started trying to potty-train our toddler. It is surprising to me how much energy these take. They’re not hard, but wow–I’m exhausted after a half hour of sitting in the bathroom reading to my son.

Additionally, the ebook/POD project has been progressing nicely. The Ugly One, with new art, should be available in both options within a week or two. I’m excited about it, but it’s been a lot of learning, and a fair amount of “so why did that happen?” The unending learning curve continues…

But I did find a bit of time to work on Deep Dish. I scripted two more pages (1-27 now done) and outlined three more pages (28-51 now done). I managed to get back on-road, which took a fair amount of thought. So now it’s mostly just a matter of finding the time…

Recently, I attended a technical conference that I first attended 15 years ago. A lot of ghosts came flowing back, and not all of them were pleasant.

The first time I attended this conference, I happened to call the up-until-then-love-of-my-life, who I will call “Alicia” for simplicity. We’d broken up 2 years earlier, she’d move to Europe to pursue another romantic relationship, but that had ended badly and she was back at her parents’ house. That was about a 3 hour drive from the conference.

We had a very pleasant phone conversation and tried to figure out how we could meet in person. Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out the logistics. It was clear then that we were both entertaining ideas of getting back together. Six months later when we did meet, though, the window for reconciliation had closed. Would we have gotten back together if we’d been able to meet that night? I sometimes think we would have, but of course there’s no way to know. It’s just my memory of the conversation and what life was like for both of us at the time.

So… why didn’t we get together if we both wanted to? Because the technology didn’t exist. We knew we’d have to meet in the middle in order for both of us to make our next-day obligations and we couldn’t figure out the logistics. Sure, there was a map that showed a town halfway between us, but we knew nothing about what was in that town that might be suitable, and we had no idea how we’d get in touch when we arrived.

Two problems that are completely irrelevant in the age of the internet and cell phones.

Today it’s yelp followed by mapquest and we’d have a place. Then cell phones to ensure we connected. No problem, no missed connection.

Now my life has turned out pretty well and I don’t begrudge the lost connection. I wouldn’t have met my wife, after all, and she’s a much better match for me than “Alicia” was. So I don’t have a lot of regrets about the lack of technology then, but it does make me wonder…

…and while there are obvious analogs in writing (certain stories could only exist in certain times or the available technology would render much of the plot moot), I’ve also started wondering how the technology changes affect our memories.

Ya see, memory is often more emotional than rational. We often have clearer memories about things that triggered strong emotions than those that were just intellectual. So what created those states?

I clearly remember the frustration of not knowing how to connect with “Alicia”. I remember how overwhelming it was when we finally quit trying. And I remember the angst when I realized later that the window for getting together had closed.

Similarly, I remember times in my youth of giddy nervousness, waiting for the phone to ring. I didn’t dare go out because I didn’t want to miss a specific call. I got cranky when my dad got on the line. Of course, answering machines and call waiting made those issues moot long before cell phones. Do kids have that anxiety today? And how does it color their romances?

Which calls into question some of my own memories. I remember all the drama of teen romance. How would the drama have been different if I’d had better technology? I don’t know. But I do suspect I’d remember those times quite differently.

I don’t have answers, of course. It’s just one more reminder of the fungibility of the human memory.