I was trying to write a post about lust and couldn’t get myself in the headspace. Maybe it was because I’d actually written the post already in an Upper West Side cafe, even though I don’t write well in restaurants. But I overcame the melodramatic young girl talking nonstop and eating her hot chocolate with a spoon next to me and the white noise that didn’t cover her voice enough rushing through my earbuds and the nearly-unbearable ache in my Vespa-wrecked wrist and wrote the goddam thing only to have my iPad crash and destroy it all. Maybe, later, it was because I kept feeling like I really wanted to masturbate but thought that might create even more of a block if all my sexual energy was let loose. So I didn’t masturbate. But then I got hungry and the church people across the street got preachy and I put down my laptop and went in to the kitchen. And now it’s even later but I …. it’s not that I can’t drum up lust. But I can’t merge it with the kink it needs to write it.
So I went in search of kink. Brain-jarring kink.
And (re)discovered Domina Stern.
There was a time when Mira Stern posted on Max Fisch. I kinda stalked her there. She was so, SO smart and talked about BDSM in really extraordinary ways that I wasn’t reading anywhere else. When she announced she was going to be visiting New York, I sent her an email, asking her for coffee or, perhaps, a double session with me. She said yes.
It’s not that I agree with everything she says. But I love that she’s thinking about BDSM critically. What we do. Why we do it (and not because your mother loved you too hard or our fathers didn’t love us quite enough). She thinks about consent and permission. What “tribute” can also mean. She talks about truth in advertising, ripoff art, and bondage. She makes me think about humiliation in a way that makes me wish I could do it, if only so I could experience it the way she does. She THINKS. And I love it.
All this thinking may mean that my post on lust will get postponed. But at least you’ve got plenty of links to read now…
When I used to cruise Niteflirt to cozy up in OCD fashion to a potential evening of phone sex, I used to run across Mira’s ads. She always facinated me.
Her description of her humiliation fetish was some of the best writing I’ve read on the subject. I felt like I was looking at a mirror image and it made me feel good that my desire could also fullfill such an eloquently described need.
Thanks for posting her links!
I just got this trackback, and I can’t BE more flattered. I understand all too well the feeling of needing one’s own personal not-for-public-consumption lust kick started into action after a winter, even a nice one!
Troy, you do me a serious solid with this thoughtful post. Thanks for hooking us up with the best of me, not some silly rantypants stuff, of which there is plenty.
One of my scant regrets is being so long a stranger. I am thrilled to see you flourishing, studio and all.
@advo
I think there’s a certain man to whom Mira Stern speaks and then how can he not come when she calls? Then again, I think for some men there is a weird phenomenon of keeping that ideal at arm’s length. When your dreams come true, what’s there left to dream about? (I should ask Axe about this…. 🙂 )
@Mira
My pleasure! And THANK YOU for being out there, shining like obsidian in the wild, dark night.