The things that turn me on and the roots of arousal

NB..kindly note the disclaimer at the bottom the page. Non-consent is not cool.

Mistress asked me the other day about the things that excite me sexually, and it got me to thinking about the roots of arousal.  Her question sparked some serious introspection.  Arousal might be subtitled “submission”, but there is a clear essence to it which merits explanation.

There is nothing for me more arousing than love.  But not every type of love I feel is arousing—for example the love I feel for my dog.  But love is a precondition for arousal.  In particular, a kind of “love overload”.  It comes with a juicy feeling inside that is overwhelming, that a rush of endorphins incapacitates me and makes my body shout “tilt”.  It comes with a total loss of control.  Feeling deeply about someone, loving them, trusting them so much as if life itself lay in the balance, that is what pushes me over the edge.  

As someone who has total control over their life, and that orders and organises things, including my own feelings, driven in part as a self-protection mechanism and a coping strategy for ADD, arousal represents relief—when I no longer need to be myself, and I can trust that someone will catch me.  And I cannot deny that my essential nature is playful.  My id is female and she likes to play.

In my vanilla relationships, this “tilt” feeling might appear briefly during intercourse, or at other sensual moments.  Without arousal, this kind of love emotion appears fairly often with my SO or my children, just as a powerful flood.  I love the people in my life so intensely that it disarms me.  It might be triggered by something we are doing or talking about, or when I feel that the purity of my love for them is challenged.  It could be something as small as my SO telling me that I didn’t notice how pretty she looks, and that she finds that upsetting—in other words, challenging my love, my loyalty, putting it into question.  The flood of emotion that comes is invariably accompanied by tears and a gentle ferocity.

What I am discovering is that D/s allows for these love feelings to rumble out in a more sustained and controlled way.  That it can be brought to the surface and held there.  It is a very particular feeling, one of total and utter helplessness, that I am so disarmed by emotion and love that I am just open like a flower, totally and utterly vulnerable, totally and utterly helpless in love, like a baby.  But there is also a yearning, a burning desire to express it, to feel it, to show it, to surrender to it.  I believe that this is the essence of my submission.

Kink is an enabler, but not the dish itself.  It just opens a door, but what is across the threshold is submissive, helpless, joyful, ecstatic love.

While I have always had an active fantasy life, I’ve never really acted on any of it.  I am as vanilla and pure as white driven snow in what I have done, even if my thoughts are at times quite kinky and perverse.  And I love my innocence.  

I consider myself deeply fortunate to have found a Domme with whom I can explore this erotic love landscape in the thought that there will never need to be be another Domme.  That I can lose my innocence with one particular, beautiful person.  I am not a butterfly, but intensely loyal.  That I am able to invest the ideals of romantic love (as they meant it during the Renaissance) in a Domme who inspires me in so many ways as a person, not as a dispenser of kink, is a precondition to how deep or far I will be able to go.

Yes, I have self-played with diapers…and that can be wonderful, but it is a distraction.  It’s not the diapers that turn me on, it’s the presence of Female Power, and that diapers are a symbolic flipside to Maternal Power—loving, comforting, caregiving, but also controlling, and most importantly, holding and nourishing.  After all a baby is utterly dependent on its Mother for life itself.  Coming close to feeling that kind of love is the most emotional landscape I know.  

And though I am not a woman, this type of love also infuses how I give love to others.  It also explains in part why I am so fiercely protective of those in my life who I love, regardless of whether they are sexual relations, and why I am so fiercely protective of my friends and friendships, my children, and the person for whom I would lay down my life for, my wife.

Fetishism is a solo affair.  I am not a fetishist.  I need a partner.  There is something about the interplay with another person, especially when it is teasing, lightly teasing me in a direction that my heart wishes to travel, that has an almost hypnotic effect on my libido.  I also love the laughing, playful nature of this kind of eroticism, that we not take ourselves too seriously, and just have fun.  It helps fend off the arrival of guilt or shame as well.  I don’t really recognise the term “fetish” in relation to my predilections because it isn’t the object or ritual that brings arousal, it is the dynamic and the feeling which it produces.  I like to explore, and it is the journey of exploration with another person that excites me, not the tools and trappings and rituals, or context.  There is a common thread though.  In putting thoughts to word in answer to Mistress’s question, I have discovered that the common thread is “eroticised helplessness.”  Even just teasing the edges of that feeling are highly triggering:  

• “I can’t help it”
• “I don’t get to choose”
• “She’s making me do it” (especially when it is something I want/like to do anyway)
• “Because she said so”—I am reminded of a Domme who said, “I whip you because I am a sadist, I don’t need a reason.  I just want to.”

One of my first posts was a BDSM kink test.  It was interesting, because plenty of it I had never even heard of, but I found it pretty accurate.  What follows are a list of objects or situations.  No one thing matters…it is that any of these topics act as a means of opening the door to that helpless feeling I equate with love, when the loss of control is what is erotic.  But there could be a million such things.

• Diapers: might as well start here.  It isn’t the diapers it is what they signify.  Being put back in diapers means a state of dependence and helplessness.  Using them is not for me, it is how they trigger me, being regressed, losing rights.  Not having a choice in it.  Not being able to make decisions.  Mommy decides.  Wow.
• Baby bottle or pacifier: the playful tease in Her hands with a nipple on the lips.  Made to crawl behind her in an attempt to suck it, and finally being allowed to crawl into her lap.  Being bottle fed and tucked into bed.  Being fed a potion she has concocted to cast a spell.  Mommy comforts and controls.  Powerful.
• Cages: being caged at the foot of her bed…I think that I am discovering the “primal” concept…but to be kept in Her possession in this way.  Very erotic.
• Chastity…I like the idea but have found cages are both uncomfortable but also call too much attention to the genitals…which as a non-binary person is a struggle.  But there are other “lighter” ways to achieve the same feeling with string, etc.  In all cases, though, it is that the darn thing isn’t mine anymore.  But when Mistress told me the other day that some cages are well-made and not uncomfortable, suddenly I want to be locked up (in other words, the desire and suggestion of Mistress will create arousal pathways through me).
• Leashes and collars…I have written about this before.  There is no more electrically charged feeling than the jerking of a leash when you try to stay in sync with a leash holder.  Wherever and whenever she pulls you is an erotically charged jolt that says, the power resides with the holder of the leash.
• Bondage…there are few things that leave you more helpless than this.  I imagine that this combined with psychological control is intoxicating.  I have never done it.  This was my highest score on the BDSM test, “rope bunny.”
• Whipping and spanking…I had always been curious about this but had never done it until Mistress introduced it to me.  We are discovering that pain is enjoyable too.  I wasn’t expecting this, but I begged her to hurt me when she was tanning my hide.

Those just happen to be things I have thought of and had fantasies about.  But the pattern applies to things I have also never fantasised about, but could easily find as intense:

• Nurse/medical play.  Needles are a bit of a red line phobia for me, but I can imagine that I would find it intensely erotic to be given “shots” by a nurse because she said I needed them…or because they contained some magic potion that would enslave me forever to the person administering them…
• Pupply play…I’m not sure about the mittens and the hood, but the concept of eating from a dog bowl and being made to bark and so on might be worth lots of fun and laughs,
• Breeding and electro play…I once read a story of a teen visiting his farm girl cousin and she talked to him about milking the bulls when they were walking around in the barn, and she convinces him to climb into a harness.  And then she has this electro-stim wand that they use on the bulls to milk them and she inserts it and you know what happens.  She also threatens to castrate him and he shouts “please” as she takes him over the edge with the electro device.  Pretty exciting.
• Breath play.  The first time I heard this term was from Mistress and I thought she meant that she would breathe on me!  I was thinking of how that might be erotic and fun.  But now that I know she could use this to scare me and control me I am quite intrigued.  Trust plays big here.  Very exciting.
• Pegging: I know there are some violent and domineering ways of doing this.  For me this is lovemaking.  I would love to spread my legs and open up like a flower and be penetrated, but in a sensual and gentle manner that leaves me whimpering with desire.   But only when I really, really deserve it, because this is so special and intimate to me.
• Fisting: same as above, so totally intimate, but also the feeling that She could rip my guts out, that my life is literally in her hands.  Wow.
• Primal play…this is something I only heard about recently…but as I think of how my id behaves, like a shy doe, this is a powerful thread.  She (my id) doesn’t come out to play unless she feels safe.  There is a nervousness, a skittishness, and a fragility that a Mistress who might prowl along as a Tigress and growl in my ear before she bites and scratches and devours me is going to drive me wild.  In my dreams I am often a soft little bunny rabbit and Mistress is a bird of prey—we know how this ends!  Bunny rabbit parfait!

I would be really curious to know if any other submissives out there find that any of this resonates with them—maybe not the specific triggers, but the emotional aspects.  What pushes you over the edge?  And Dommes, especially pro-Dommes, what do you see in your subs and slaves that act as triggers?  How do you guide them to these places, steep them in them, and then bring them back after?  How does that work for you?  And do you relish seeing them there?  If yes, what is it about it that you enjoy most?

* Important Disclaimers about Consent

Kink-shaming is rotten.  Let’s not be judgemental.  We all have turn-ons and tun-offs.  I believe that there is no wrong sexual kink or predilection with one key caveat.  Consent.  Any sexual or erotic encounter that does not possess total consent is evil.  Let me explain.  A minor cannot give consent.  Someone under the influence cannot give consent.  Animals cannot give consent.  If you can’t work within those boundaries, please seek help.  Any situation that is missing consent is abusive at best, pure evil at worst.