Do you… Kink? And What is Locktober/Chastity About?

Sort of answer the first, with the second. But suffice to say I think I’d be classified as “kinky” and I can vouch for Charmer holding that banner as well. Weird thought, interesting label, but it got me thinking about that. Well, that and a series of posts about Chastity (think diamonds) and so much more.

@taomlin (Tom Allen) posted to an interesting discussion (kicked off by @Ferns__ (Ferns) about chastity “lifestyle” and whether there is such a thing, or if Chastity is a tool – that ranges from a sex toy to a relationship tool (more in a second). It’s a great thread – and you just HAVE to see the fashion statements and dangly bits.

Apparently “Chastity is one of the trendiest fetishes or kinks for gay men at the moment”
This Is What It’s Like to Wear a Chastity Cage in Public https://t.co/ujuzt1StTY

— Ferns (@Ferns__) September 30, 2019

But Tom chimed in with thoughts about Dumbo. (This is SO not where you thought this post was going, eh?

I don’t disagree with that. Chastity devices are a Dumbo’s crow feather, and if some people use them to facilitate a relationship change that’s great.

For some of us, tho, it’s just a fun kink to add some spice. That’s not denial, it’s just not a “lifestyle”.

— Tom Allen (@taomlin) October 1, 2019

It’s this distinction of lifestyle, and tools.

Really had me thinking about what it’s meant for us. We’re many years in of pretty much embracing the whole chastity device thing, but Tom is right – it’s not something you actively form your life around (although, going to a concert or checking into a flight might be…challenging with metal detectors depending on your device of choice).

For us, it was something more profound, particularly looking back, than I could have ever imagined. It’s profound because it gave us an excuse and a reason to explore things we’d never realized we were both interested in.

This is the part where I insert the standard “Your mileage may vary. Some restrictions apply. Not valid where prohibited by law. You. Do. You.” language.

When the cage is on, and the other person has the keys, you have to ask. TALK about what you’re interested in. We’ve always been huge about talking through things, considering stuff, working out life. But this gave us an excuse to play – to play with ideas, to talk about things we’d seen. It forced the issue. We both were interested, and at last we had the *ahem* courage… to try the cage. Ya know, ‘cuz it looked kinda cool.

So we did.

And it wasn’t a “BOOM!” type of wow (other than I found out pretty damn quickly I liked bondage, even at the cage level), but more of a – hey, that’s fun. I wonder what else there is? What else would we consider?

It led to quizzes. Surveys. Kink-matching sites. Pictures (Oh, the pictures… <3) and talking. Finding out things we’d never thought about talking about or doing that we were open to finding out if we were interested in doing. Do they work for us like they do others?

Some do, some don’t. But damn, it’s fun to explore.

All of a sudden all sorts of things happened over IM (“What the HELL is this device???”) and pictures and emails… then our private blog where, even to this day, we write back and forth consistently. Talking about kink, our time, sexy time, and life. Years of exploring.

Chastity (specifically the cage) was the tipping point for us. It opened us up to ideas and exploring. Twitter. Impact play.

I mean really. Impact play. Can I get a “hell yeah!?”

But that’s not all because I’m locked in a stainless steel tube. It’s because it kicked off this phase of sexy play that said “hey, um, there’s this whole other world out there that people used to think was weird, some still do, but, well, check it out… cuz…not so much” and we loved it.

Much has changed in our lives.

We have found we like far more kinky stuff than we don’t. We have found that if we’re not sure, we’ll try anything to find out if we like it. We have found out that sometimes it’s cool to help others think through stuff, just explaining our own experiences. We have this blog. So many different things, public and private, have opened in our lives because the walls came down like bad theatre curtains. (Sorry, my analogies are wearing thin).

We found out we have significant D/s streaks, particularly around/with each other. We found out how we define and apply orgasm denial vs. control may be different from others, and that’s completely cool. It’s led us to redefine us more in line with our at-home personalities (FLR, D/s) and have seen the real benefits in that support system.

We’ve (ok, She’s) created games.

All of it goes back to this silly, $10, leather-strap with a ring, chastity cage that we started with. We know precisely when, where, what was going on in life, all of it.

Chastity lifestyle? Eh, probably not. But for us, it’s very much still a thing (locktober and beyond, for the record) and as a toy, a tool and, most of all, a symbol, it’s been a fundamental piece of life.

The Wicked Wednesday prompt was essentially “do you kink?” and then the tweets above – what a great group to be associated with, another benefit.

Happy locktober!