Playing “Hard”

Last Saturday was the AEL play party, and I really needed that! My slave and I try to go every month, but sometimes life just gets in the way, and it has felt like forever since we have been able to go. So I was excitedly getting ready, as my beginning to get sick slave was doing her best to keep up with me. The party was everything that I had wanted, people were so amazing, friendly, warm and welcoming, and the room was open for us to play about ten or so.

We went in, and I undressed her, I love undressing her, and we began a clothespin scene. I had a feeling that it was going to be intense and emotional, so I was prepared for that, and sure enough it did. All of the things that my slave had been holding in started to be released as the pain of the clothespins made their way around her inner thighs, breasts, and the underside of her arms.

But it was when I started taking them off that the catharsis began.

Every time she tried to hold in her tears I would remove one or two more, pushing her to cry, to let it out. Between the pain I would touch her and talk to her softly, letting her now that I was here, and that I was waiting for her to be ready.

It was everything that I wanted in the scene, heady, emotional, intense, cathartic…

Afterwards I got her semi dressed and we headed towards the cool down room. My slave was completely gone, the sub space and tears had her glazed over and made her spacey. I was so heavily in Domme space that I felt like I had just been rode hard and put up wet, I was completely glazed over myself and flying high from our emotional exchange. We walked thorough a room with some people talking and I guided her into the cool down room and onto the bed to lie down.

That’s when I overheard it…

“What did they do?”

“Just a few clothespins…”

And I thought “WHAT?”

But that’s exactly what it must have looked like, the head trip that my slave and I had gone on, the intensity of the emotional response that she had to the pain as I pushed her hard, all boiled down to one visual - just a few clothespins.

Later the next day I was talking to S, and he was talking about his scene, they had done some bondage, and then he had laid her onto the bed and together they had gone on a mind trip through his use of hypnosis. It was intense and emotional for them, but to the outside world, they had just done a little bondage.

So it got me to thinking about this concept of playing hard. There are a few things in the social world of BDSM that serve to create a hierarchy. Some of them are- the types of play that a person does (the edgier the play the closer to the top of the “hierarchy”), how many they have trained or mentored, how long they have been playing (the longer someone has been playing the closer to the top of the hierarchy), and how hard they play (the harder the more prestige).

Some people think that a Dominant is only skilled if they are playing with extreme sadism and there is a lot of flourish and showmanship involved. However, there are a lot of different ways to play hard, sometimes it can be a physical toll, and sometimes it is an emotional and physiological one.

There are bottoms that can be beaten all day long, but get into their head and they are unable to handle even the smallest of words, thoughts, and suggestions. Then there are bottoms that can take those words and fly high and strong, but are unable to take excesses of pain. Then there are those that enjoy both. However, it takes a skilled top or Dominant to know what the bottom can handle and when, and use that to get the bottom right where they want them.

So it may look to the outside world like just a simple scene, but if it takes you were you want and need to go, then that is all that matters. Even if those that are watching don’t really get it…..