Thursday, December 13, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Restarting
It’s been a
long while since I’ve posted a blog (March 26, 2012 ). Much of that had to do with being
so busy last Spring; during June and July, I was away in California Australia
I’m telling
myself that it’s time to start again.
This
re-start, I think, ought to be different. The world has changed a great deal
since I began my weekly columns in Gay Chicago Magazine in 1992. Then it
appeared in print, weekly. Gradually I gained some email readership. Eventually
I had more than 4,000 readers.
Bogs have
generally replaced columns. Though many columnists are still writing, I see
that they are also blogging.
Blogs tend,
I see, to be shorter, more personal and more frequent. I like that idea.
Here then
are today’s thoughts.
Slightly
more than two years ago I posted a profile describing myself as the
DarkLordinChicago, a whole new persona for me. I sought to embrace what I felt
were extreme, intense and dark side aspects of my hidden self. It was a mixture
of lust, curiosity and a quest to become both more authentic and more whole.
The
questions that such a quest raises are myriad and not very easily explained in
the context of the 21st century. How does one deal, essentially, with evil,
with selfishness, with dark desire?
I see the
general “theater of kink” as an attempt
to explore and express that which each of holds deeply (and usually quite
hidden) within ourselves. It is that desire to explore and express that keeps
me involved in the world of kink.
That said,
I am quick to remember that “the world of kink” ought to be fun. Let the
psychology, the sociology and the theology of all of what it is that we do take
second place to happiness, self-fulfillment, contentment and honest fellowship.
Have a
great day.
Jack
Buying one
of my books helps to pay for the cost of this email. Please visit my website to
make a purchase.
I am in the
process of changing my delivery options. Please go to http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/mQyjG
and sign up to receive my weekly email via my blog site.
You
can send me email at mrjackr@leathermail.com or visit my website at http://www.LeatherViews.com. You can
also subscribe to my blog at LeatherMusings.blogspot.com. Copyright 2012 by
Jack Rinella, all rights reserved.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
The Urge
It’s true: Once upon at time, a long, long time ago, I was a newbie.
Just like everyone else, I had to muster up my courage to enter the dark, dangerous-appearing, and hard-to-find world of kink. In those days (early 1980’s) that meant finding a Leatherman’s bar, such as the Gold Coast (Chicago New York New Orleans
I was married, with two young children, and did my best to repress my gay self. I didn’t believe I had a gay self, much less a kinky self and, as most others did and some still do, I resisted the urge. Over and over again I said “No” to the compulsion for cock, for man to man sex, for satisfaction of the lusts that burned inside my soul.
As much as I tried, I failed to stay faithful, monogamous, heterosexual. At the full of the moon, my body would rage, pushing me to find an adult bookstore, a gay bar, a guy who would satisfy and silence my libido.
I’ve changed a great deal since then and there is no longer any need for repression, no more guilt, and no more sneaking around. Haven’t even been in an adult bookstore in years.
For many, of course, the struggle still remains.
As you may have read, since November of 2010, I have been cruising hook-up sites as the “Dark Lord,” “Seeking those who wish to surrender without limit.”
My online profile continues: “Experienced Lord and Master seeks additional property. I seek to be obeyed and worshipped. My primary fetish is control which I exercise both sexually and sadistically. I have an exceptionally high libido and the primary objective of my search is to find men who will be used to satisfy my every sexual desire, without limit or hesitation. I seek to transform you into another toy for my pleasure and sexual gratification.”
Seventeen months later, more than 200 men have approached me, the vast majority of them going so far as to send me their phone numbers. I have learned much about these men and their desires and one of the most constant of their shared characteristics is the urge to surrender, to be under another’s control.
“Urge” is a good word to use, but there are many others: lust, desire, compulsion, obsession, craving, need, irresistible push. They share the feelings that this is their birth-need, their destiny, their inevitable fate. For them, as with my 37-year-old self of some 28 years ago, “Resistance is futile.”
Let me give three examples:
The first is from an experienced Gay man in California
DarkLordinChicago: Back again, I see.
CalPig: Yes Sir, like a fly to honey.
DarkLordinChicago: So fly to O'Hare and I'll take it from there
CalPig: Yes Sir, on a future vacation.
Tuesday
DarkLordinChicago: Back again!
Wednesday
CalPig: Yes Sir, thinking ...
DarkLordinChicago: Ah. Now all I need is thought in action
CalPig: Yes, indeed. Putting thought into action is always the challenge, isn't it? Chattel slavery is most extreme, and therefore I am drawn to the idea. In reality I know what is possible, and being drawn to Superior power is most attractive.
Friday
DarkLordinChicago: Drawn but afraid?
CalPig: Yes, strongly drawn and afraid Sir.
The “urge” fights against the fear. Over and over again those two emotions struggle within a person’s heart. “Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t,” my mother would say.
There are, I would think, many reasons for this being so. First off, the status quo is always more comfortable than any anticipated change.
Secondly, there is a great fear of the unknown. “What does this mean? How will this end? Am I crazy? How will this work? Can it work?” are all challenges to the idea of fulfilling one’s fantasies, especially the dark, taboo, and outside the “normal” ones.
There’s also a fear of failure, that this idea just can’t work.
Mostly, though, it is the unknown.
As ChicagoObject wrote: "Was just re-reading your 'contract' and it always makes me feel like I am being drawn to the edge of a precipice."
I know it is hardly credible to say so, but ChicagoObject and I have been negotiating for nearly all of the last17 months.
For him, there is no “sight” to the bottom of that precipice. He feels blind as to what could happen, anxious to pin me down to every detail, while fearing that there is more to it than he can handle, more than he can learn and more than he can sanely survive.
Still he relentlessly pursues me.
An applicant whom I’ll call NYsubmissive says the same: “I’ve had homo-erotic fantasies and desires since my preteen years. These are becoming more frequent and stronger with age to the point of occasionally being obsessive and even disrupting my daily routine.
I will admit that the idea of total objectification builds in my mind and drives me crazy for days on end, but then becomes too scary and unreasonable. When I give in to the temptation to jerk off, it leaves, then slowly builds again, etc...”
That is the typical pattern. It is an emotional roller coaster of desire and repression, of embracing the fantasy and then running from it.
I should warn you about my “pop psychology” but it seems to me that this urge is, in fact, a critical part of what Carl Jung calls the “individuation” process. The following quote is summarized from http://www.schuelers.com/ChaosPsyche/part_1_27.htm
“Jung calls the main task that we face during the second half of our life the individuation process, an open-ended process of psychological maturity. It is a process of maturation in which the psyche ages or matures in much the same manner as the physical body. The general guidelines are summarized as consisting of four parts:
“1. Becoming conscious of the shadow. The shadow is our dark side, containing those things that we have repressed or ignored for one reason or another. It usually manifests to us in dreams as an archetypal figure who is dark and ominous. Just as the persona [conscious self or ego] is that part of us that we want to present to the world, so the shadow contains those things that we want to hide from the world, and from ourselves. This dark side of ourselves must be confronted and accepted, at least in part, as the first step in the individuation process.
“2. Becoming conscious of our feminine and masculine sides. The individuation process is, above everything else, a process of wholeness. This includes sexual completeness.
“3. Becoming conscious of the archetypal spirit. The individuation process is primarily one of uniting opposites. In the first step, we unite good and evil and try to see ourselves as capable of both. Eastern religions often symbolize this with the lotus, which has its roots below in the dirty mud and its flower in the clean air above. In the second, we see ourselves as containing both masculine and feminine characteristics. Now we must unite matter and spirit, form and formlessness, body and psyche.
“4. Becoming conscious of the Self. Jung called this final step self-realization- “We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization” (Jung, 1977, p. 173).
“Jung’s (1978) individuation is similar, if not identical, to the self-actualization of Maslow (1968; 1971).”
The ego, fearing its destruction, resists the process of individuation, not wanting to surrender its control over to the unconscious Self. This inner struggle is manifest in the urge/fear interplay that my candidates feel. Rather than being destroyed, the process is meant to align ego and Self in a harmonious and productive relationship. Rather than being simply an inner conflict, It is a reasonable manifestation of the maturation of the psyche, a process that leads to wholeness, to the living a more authentic life.
In this context authenticity implies that one surrenders to the Self within, eschews, in some way, the pressures of society to conform, and embraces one’s uniqueness and individuality. Did you think that all we did in our dungeons was “play.” Now you see why my Old Guard forebears called it “work.”
As I wrote to NYsubmissive: “The task is to discern whether the impulse is authentic to your inner self or merely a jerk off fantasy. Only you can tell for certain. Discussion and experimentation can give you clues and ideas to reflect on.”
BDSM, as we practice it, provides us with safe, sane, and consensual environment in which to explore the urges we feel. Jung would note that not all unconscious desires need be fully lived, that ritual and theater can provide the psyche with soul-satisfying experience without destruction.
It is this ability to “explore” and “experiment” that teaches us what is authentic about us, what should be accepted and included in our lives, and what is mere never-to-be-real fantasy.
A blog is hardly the place to explore Jungian psychology and the maturation of the psyche, but here we are, struggling to let that fantasy come out, afraid of what it means for our lives.
Have a great week. Jack
* * * * *
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Sunday, February 19, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Journaling
It's probably no surprise that I'm in favor of keeping a diary, since I can look back on nearly 20 years of writing and see how doing so has enhanced my life. I use the words journal and diary interchangeably and would agree with Webster's definition: "A personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept on a regular basis; a diary."
That said, I have a diary near my bed. There I keep records of dreams and ideas particularly related to my spiritual or "inner" life. On my computer you will find numerous documents that collectively qualify as parts of my journal: my bogs, my manuscripts for books in progress, emails and transcribed text messages, and random writings.
As many of you know, for the past year I have been seeking a man willing to become an "object" for my pleasure and service. I have kept rather complete records of my conversations with these men, essentially a diary of enthrallment. I also encourage my applicants to dairy about our conversations and meetings in order to better decide if we are a fit and to help them learn more about themselves.
This just one of the many examples of what I do with diaries. I've come up with five reasons why I journal: Documentation, Remembrance, Long-term view, Reflection, Clarity, and Career.
Documentation.
Without documenting events, thoughts, and feelings, they quickly fade out of view. Therefore keeping a record of them insures a kind of permanence that allows us to experience the rest of the benefits that I have listed here.
The prime reason for keeping a journal is that it chronicles my feelings and thoughts on a given day so I that I can compare the feelings on given topic over the course of time. Very often our feelings determine our decisions. Since our feelings vary like the movement of a roller-coaster, keeping track of them over a period of time (such as a month) gives us a much more balanced and over-all view of how we really feel about a topic. It is, or can be, an important help in decision-making.
Another benefit to journaling is that our thoughts are preserved for posterity. As I child I never learned what my grandfathers believed. In fact, even though I was often around my maternal grandfather and he taught me how to garden, we never talked about important matters. As for my Dad's father, I was in the middle of a pack of 17 grandchildren, hardly noticed and seldom spoken to. My collected journals, therefore, will be a way for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to get to know me. That said, they won't read them until they're over 21 years of age.
Remembrance.
I once heard that the best memory in the world can't keep track of things as well as writing in pencil on a piece of paper. Write it down and it may well last a lot longer than your brain. It is as simple as that. Unfortunately we can't reflect on a topic if we don't remember the details surrounding it. The written or typed word is among the most secure memory we have.
You see, if you forget what was said, meant, intended or agreed upon, when it's written you can look it up. If not, you're out of luck.
Long-term view.
Things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. In either case, when we are in the middle of an event it looks a great deal differently than when we look back on it at a later date. For example, I am quick to panic about my cash flow. When I remember that I have survived previous cash-flow debacles (and Patrick is quick to remind me of this) the immediate crisis pales greatly.
Reflection.
One of the most human of activities is reflection: "Mental concentration; Careful consideration; To think seriously; To express seriously considered thoughts." I will admit that we may not actually do much of it, but it is an important part of good decision making. Not only that, but reflection is the best path to wisdom. That, in itself, is the best reason to journal, since reflecting is a very important part of the journaling process.
Please note the last paragraph carefully. Though diaries hold the memory of events and thoughts, their most important usage is as a way to foster, encourage, and preserve reflections. I find that the value of a journal is not in the moment that a passage is written but rather in the cumulative fact of reflections written of the course of time. The journal becomes an important dialogue with oneself, leading to increaed self-knowledge.
Clarity.
That, then, brings me to another result of a good journal: clarity. What we write over the course of months speaks loudly to us about our true feelings, the real facts, and ways to resolve all sorts of issues.
In order for this to work, we have to use a dairy as an aid to our thought process, such as by creating lists of pros and cons or keeping quotes that are meaningful to us.
Career
Now you're liable to think that since you're not a writer, keeping a journal has nothing to do with your job. Well, think again, as everyone has to write something at some time or another. Writing itself will make you a better writer, since practice makes perfect. Of course it helps if someone reads what you write once in a while and gives you constructive criticism to help you improve.
So What does it entail?
Journaling is a lot easier to do than we usually think. All you have to is keep at it at a regular pace. I often suggest writing about 100 words, four or five times a week. Got nothing to write about? Then comment on the weather or the news. Write about what's happened in your life, or how you feel today, or what you've dreamt or wished for. Write about your hopes and fears.
Don't edit yourself while you are writing. Leave that for later. Just writing anything is better than not writing at all. Use pen and paper or a word processing program. Keep at it. Even if you stop for a while, then go back to it later. Something is better than nothing.
Here are two websites for help and ideas: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/07/journaling/ and http://stress.about.com/od/generaltechniques/p/profilejournal.htm.
Good luck and have a great week. Jack
* * * * *
My new novel, The Dionysian Alliance, is getting noticed. Here is a link to Erotic Awaking, a pod cast by Dan and Dawn. If you don't want to hear the spanking part (it is good) then fast forward to the 39 minute spot on the slider: http://www.erotiwakening.com/archive/ea166-a-spanking-a-spanking/ . There you will find an interview they did with me about the book.
A reader sent me this mini-review: "Hi Jack -- To let you know I just completed reading The Dionysian Alliance. Enjoyed it very much. I liked the clear development of characters, the visual descriptions of the locations, and the nice anticipatory flow of the story. It's pretty evident you did a lot of research to produce it, and soul-searching as to how to blend the book's many elements and themes. Thanks for a great read. -- Jerry in Taos NM"
Buying one of my books helps to pay for the cost of this email. Please visit my website to make a purchase at http://www.LeatherViews.com.
You can send me email at mrjackr@leathermail.com or visit my website at http://www.LeatherViews.com. You can also subscribe to my blog at LeatherMusings.blogspot.com. Copyright 2011 by Jack Rinella, all rights reserved.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
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