How Reading Erotica Influenced My Early Sexuality.

The first erotic story I ever read was perfect. Prior to finding and reading this story, I had been writing my own erotica but given the very limited time I had available in those years of schooling, I couldn’t be responsible for the entirety of my own porn. I stole a few dirty magazines but those did very little for me, I mostly actually read the articles. I watched a few clips, pictures and videos but I didn’t like the sounds everyone was making. Finally, I chanced upon literotica as we all do eventually. The first story I read had a man and a woman, he had told her to remain still in the corner of a basement, unshackled but within the confines of a circular range, but she repeatedly kept breaching that boundary. She mostly did it for a good reason — she needed to pee, she needed to get a snack or water — and each time she did it, he would beat her with his belt, reinforce that she must ask permission and bring her back.

Finally, she became frustrated with not being allowed to move around freely and deliberately departed her corner without permission to irk him. He beat her again and while he beat her, he said to her: “I will take this belt to you every single night if I have to but I will teach you to behave exactly as I demand.”

Fuck.

I am fairly certain I paraphrased that in real-time. It wasn’t a very well-written story, there were gaping holes in the plot, it was rushed, the constraints of the characters weren’t laid out very well, there were dozens of unanswered questions but it did something for me. It would be years before I understood exactly why and how that specific story captured the essence of what I wanted, but it was only a few days until I realised something else. I read other erotic stories, I cast a wide-ish net, but it was still a net of controlling sadomasochism because while many things have changed about me in the last 20-years, my sexual desires have remained exactly the same, so cool and weird how permanent those seem to be. There were some common themes to all bdsm erotica that I seemed to encounter and they were oddly moralistic —

Daddy/Master was beating her because she went out at night and put herself in danger. Or she failed to follow instructions that were put in place “for her own good.” Instructions that usually pertained to working hard, studying well, working well, self-care, exercise routines and things of such nature. Or she was too overtly sexual out in public and had to be violently reminded that her body belonged to a single person (usually man, but what the hell, I’ll edit the past to suit my sensibilities). Usually there was also dialogue that indicated that the person administering the beating didn’t like doing that to her either, they only did it because it was “for her own good.”

Those stories kept turning me off instead of turning me on even though they contained the requisite violence and power dynamics I thought I was seeking. It just seemed like BDSM postured itself as subversive but it seemed to want to teach me all of the same lessons as my teachers, parents and society, it just did so more effectively because it took a sexual path that would be gratifying to the student. It made me feel icky. That first story, though, didn’t make me feel that way. He beat her, not because she was out at night or not taking care of herself, he beat her because she violated the condition of an arbitrary and completely benign construct. Don’t step out of this literal circle I drew on the floor for no reason other than my desire to make you cower to my will. I did not understand what about that story worked for me, but it was this. I like the individualised aspects of control, the kind that are not informed by the morality or ethics of the person controlling me, that kind that do not attempt to get me to adhere to the socially-informed principles of my partner. I don’t want anything to do with a social idea of good or bad behaviour, good or bad is entirely situational in this construct. It’s bad to step out of the circle, it’s good to stay in and that doesn’t mean anything. It just means she wants to obey and he wants to be obeyed. Obedience is a sex-toy just like a pair of handcuffs.

Even today the elements of control in my sexual relationships that work for me the most are individualised by the sexuality and desires of the people involved. My partner can expect that I will be silent as he beats me, that I will hold my own breath until he allows me to breathe, that I will apologise for everything that goes wrong around me even, especially, when it is not my fault because those rituals and desires came up between us, but I cannot stand any instructions on when I should eat, how much time I should spend on work or how I should handle my relationships. Submissive or not, i reserve the right to be radically and completely myself. In relationships, outside of the sexual realm, it is natural to have influence over your partners and in that influence I am comfortable with suggestions that I may be working too much or should learn to relax, but within a sexual dynamic, in the form of an authoritative and non-optional instruction, I cannot cede the space to be subject to be imposition of only eight hours a day of work. If that needs to happen, I will make it happen, but it has to be my decision. If you need me to not breathe and take that demand as seriously as a matter of life and death, I will. Outside of that, I need to retain a lot of choice.

That is somewhat dichotomous, I must admit, especially given the second part of the aforementioned erotic story that really worked for me. The — I will take this belt to you every day — bit.

It gave me a headache the first time I read that sentence and I spent days playing it in my head over and over again. It, still, to this day, turns me on instantly. It’s not the bit about the belt, it’s every day that works for me. I’m a creature of routine and habit, but in this case, more than that, I am firmly of the belief that my sexuality is a pervasive, constant, daily element of my existence and I don’t want to experience it in an incident-based format. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that if that is what works for you, but for me, intermittent “play sessions” are sort of like peaks in the graph of sexual engagement and you go up to them in the period of play, and then you go a while as it slowly wears off and then you replenish it by doing it again. Peak-decline-peak-decline. I much prefer to be slowly boiled to death. Each time I engage my sexuality in this format, I feel pressured to celebrate it, to make it as elaborate as possible because this is the incident in which I am allowed to do so. It’s like festivals, you know? You have to wear red on Christmas and decorate your house. You have to buy new things, clean your house and celebrate light on Diwali. I mean, what if I want a damn candle every day?

I do.

I want to live inside the construct. The reason pick-up play and casual encounters work less and less for me as I get older is simply that the locus of my pleasure has shifted completely to the mindspace of the encounter and it is difficult to create a mindspace as detailed as one I would enjoy in a casual, two-hour setting (and while I used to be able to do this, for a long time, it doesn’t work anymore because the specifications I need have become impossible to create in so little time). Every damn day is a novel, today is an introduction at best. The thing about consistency and narrative is that you don’t ever get to be a clean slate, you’re always carrying things from yesterday, from two years ago, from a month ago. There are subplots that are active between you and anything can happen because you are limited by the pleasures of genitals and bodies. You could beat my unmarked skin and that would be great, but when you beat my bruises, you’re beating more of me than is physically before you right now. I like that.

I like every day because as odd as it may seem for a person so adamant about retaining agency and choice, I am actually unresistant to change. You don’t change a person’s behaviour, at least not in a way that would be effective for me, by telling them why they should behave like a good girl or presenting a set of rules that have to be followed immediately. No, you change a person’s behaviour, this person’s anyway, by consistently applying slow and escalating pressure, creating conditions that incentivize them behaving a certain way, assuaging their compunctions and committing to that goal in a manner that is truly consistent. For instance, every time I would scream out loud, for years, my partner wouldn’t say anything to me, he would just hit me harder and faster until I realised that not screaming was the better option and now I don’t scream at all. That only happens for me in a consistent, every damn day, set up. And that is what I want.

I do want to be changed, not in the manner of ideology, but in behaviour. In some ways it can be said that eroding your reflexes to pain or discomfort is much more significant than accepting the condition of a bed-time, and maybe it is, but it is what I enjoy. My sexuality exists for my pleasure and that alone. I am not trying to learn a fuck. I am not trying to become a better person. I don’t come here seeking therapy or trauma resolution. I come here seeking recreation, entertainment and pleasure.

And that’s what I want.

I want every day because my sexuality is not a celebration, it’s who I am. Erotica helped me figure that out. In words, I will always find exactly who I am.