Exhaustion and a Wild Lion
Lion and I have been exhausted. I had a change in medication and he’s worried about his job situation. Neither makes for good sleeping. Not that we sleep all that well when things are fine, but any added things are a problem. So it wasn’t really a surprise when I went to unlock Lion and he said he might be too tired to play. I suggested we try and if it didn’t work we could snuggle. Well, we wound up snuggling and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep while we were snuggling. Yup. We’re both exhausted.
When it came time to lock Lion up I decided he could stay wild. He assumed I meant for the night. There’s too much going on in the morning and I barely get myself out the door in time to make it to work. I meant he can stay wild until tonight. First he was happy and then he wondered why I wanted him wild. There he goes again. Why ask why? He thought maybe I was tired of his being locked up. I’m not sure why his mind jumps to that. I just wanted to give him a cage-free day. Like the chickens who lay our eggs. Sheesh! Does everything have to have a well thought out reason?
Last night, by the time we finished dinner and I washed the dishes, I was so hot and tired I decided we’d put off our new Jeopardy game until tonight. Lion got a lot of answers right and bemoaned the fact that we weren’t playing. Tonight he’ll probably have an off night and get zapped a lot. Then he pointed out a flaw in my rules. Nothing happens if he doesn’t answer a question at all. Theoretically he could remain silent the entire game and not get zapped at all. Hmmm…. I told him if he did it then there would have to be a new rule put into place. But I don’t think he can remain silent the entire game. It’s not really in his nature. He even answers in his sleep.
Second Thoughts Again And Again
My last few posts have been introspective. It’s not that I need to rationalize enforced chastity or our FLR. It’s more that I want some insight into how these essentially sexual practices have such a profound effect on our marriage. As you probably know, I’m not the type to just accept the good news and go with the flow. I want to understand the why as well as the what.
A long time ago I read that all love ends in sadness; either by death or divorce. This is indisputably true. Some could take this as a reason to avoid love. After all, isn’t it better to miss out on love than to suffer the indescribable pain of loss? I cast my vote on the side of love. My life is infinitely better because my dear lioness shares it with me. The odds are good that I will die first. So it will be she who suffers the pain of loss. I will be gone.
I feel selfish because the love we share will eventually cause her horrible pain. I’ll just slip into blissful darkness. She will have to manage a new life alone. Of course, there is nothing we can do about this. Because it is inevitable there is little reason to dwell on it. But thinking about the end does offer me some instruction about my present.
When I was a teenager, my father died suddenly. He left behind a long list of things he wanted to experience but hadn’t because he needed to take care of other, more immediate things. I resolved never to let that happen to me. I would experience things as they came up. That way, at the end of my life there would be little left undone.
That philosophy has served me well. It has moved me in wrong directions at times. But eventually I find my way back to the life I want. This can make me appear impulsive. To an outsider I appear to plunge into new things with all four paws. But as Mrs. Lion knows, that’s not the case at all. When something comes up that catches my interest, I find out everything I can about it. My research is quiet. I don’t usually share these forays into new knowledge. At some point I will either decide that I don’t want to pursue it or I will resolve to give it a try.
That’s what happened with enforced chastity. I spent well over a decade learning and writing about it. It always seemed hot, but I couldn’t see myself losing sexual control. Finally, that little voice inside my head said, “You’ll regret it if you don’t try it.”
I usually listen to that little voice. The few times I didn’t, I’ve regretted. More about some of them another time. So, I asked Mrs. Lion to lock me up. Neither of us expected this to last very long. We both figured my independent personality would grow tired of surrender and the cage would come off. To my complete surprise that didn’t happen.
There have been plenty of times I question my own sanity for wearing this thing. I get grumpy about my inability to get off if I want. At least once a week I wonder if Mrs. Lion really cares if we do this or not. That worry is the worst. I hate the idea of having her go through something she doesn’t want just to make me happy. I know she watches TV shows that I like and she doesn’t. She sometimes goes to restaurants that I love that do nothing for her. I am deeply grateful for those sacrifices. But I couldn’t stand putting her through our power exchange just because it is something I like.
Checking things off my bucket list carries a certain amount of guilt. These are things I want to do. Are they things that Mrs. Lion doesn’t want to do? One reason I want her in charge (FLR) is that I hope she will make sure her wants are front and center. I would much rather miss out on something than roll over her wishes.
That concern is what moved me to ask for our FLR. It wasn’t out of a need to give up control in general. It is out of a much more significant need: to be sure that my sweet lioness is being heard and is having her wishes granted.
I recognize that this is a rather extreme way to accomplish this. But in our case I think it gives us the best chance of achieving the balance that will make us both happiest.
Son of Jeopardy
A few months ago we played a game with Jeopardy. Every incorrect answer Lion got, I put a clothespin on his balls. It was a slow process. I’d pause the show, put a clothespin on and unpause. We decided we needed to find a new game. We liked the idea of playing along with Jeopardy but there had to be a better way.
The other day I was thinking about it again. Tonight I decided the Jeopardy game will return tomorrow. This time Lion will be wearing his shock collar. For every incorrect guess, he’ll get zapped. The only thing I can’t reconcile is what to do if he gets a correct answer. I could remove a clothespin. I can’t unzap him. With the clothespins I put one on even if he had no answer. To be fair, I’ll only zap him for incorrect answers. I’m hoping that by not penalizing him for non-answers it will mitigate not being able to reward him for correct answers. I know it’s not apples to apples but it’s the best I can do.
Right now (I’m writing this Tuesday night), Lion is enduring the medium nJoy butt plug. It went in easily. I’m not sure how long he’ll have it in, but I do know he’ll have some fun later. An edged Lion is a happy Lion. And edged he shall be.
Last night I figured out Lion’s scheduled dates through next March. He’ll be pleased to know he’ll continue to have orgasms beyond June. I don’t think he has a wait time longer than 14 days but I can always make him wait longer. As you know, we’re not concerned with long wait times. I just try to vary the length. Lion doesn’t like short waits. He doesn’t like long waits. There’s a sweet spot in the middle that he likes. But Lion can’t always have what he wants.
Changing The Rules
As Mrs. Lion will tell you, I tend to worry a subject to death until I find the answers I am seeking. Most recently, I have been trying to understand exactly why enforced chastity is so compelling to the men who practice it. I know, I know, the mythology surrounding enforced chastity is that it is a female-initiated practice to “control” male sexual proclivities. The evidence clearly shows that isn’t the case at all. The male partner discovers and initiates the practice and more often than not, he has to convince a skeptical partner to hold his key. That certainly was the case for Mrs. Lion and I.
Digging a little deeper, I decided that in my case what attracted me to enforced chastity was the “bondage” and loss of control wearing a chastity device would give me. As I’ve recently written, I was also very attracted to the fact that I would no longer be expected to initiate sex. That assumption turned out to be incorrect. One of Mrs. Lion’s first rules was for me to initiate. It didn’t work, but it provided us with a lot of information we would have never gotten without forcing me to try.
I don’t think I am that different from other guys who are turned on by enforced chastity. But these initial turn on’s don’t feel like they would be enough to support the level of involvement that we have now. There must be more; much more. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.
Yesterday, in a comment, Mrs. Fever made an interesting observation about inconsistencies in the perceived male role:
“I think societal expectations influence us all on levels we’ve yet to fully comprehend, but I think the “men take charge” stereotype is still pervasive, and in interpersonal relationships between the sexes, it leads to confusion. Especially when so many mixed messages are having to be deciphered, in terms of what it means to Be A Man. (Be cautious but adventurous, take the lead but listen to her, discipline the children but be soft-hearted, work hard but be home often, be a meat & potatoes man but make sure you’re a gourmet cook, etc, etc, ad infinitum.)”
Her suggestion that sexual initiation is just a part of a much bigger issue makes a lot of sense to me. In the 1960’s and 70’s there was a seismic shift in how we think about traditional male roles. At the same time, women began questioning what their mothers taught them. It seems that the entire social infrastructure of male/female relationships was brought into question. The assumption was that this would free both sexes to define and follow their own views of how relationships should work.
This seems perfect; a world where everyone can be exactly who he or she wants to be. What wasn’t considered was how much work this would be. It turned out that in addition to all the thinking and redefining, a lot of stress would result from the ambiguity of expectations men and women would have of themselves or their partners.
When it comes to sex, things get much worse. Many of us tend to blame ourselves when things don’t go right. “He’s not really attracted to me,” is one assumption a woman can make when her partner isn’t ravishing her. “What am I doing wrong?” is the male equivalent of that. This all translates to one simple state: anxiety. There are lots of assumptions but no questions or answers.
Enter enforced male chastity. This practice is anything but ambiguous. Sexual control is physically taken from the caged male. His sexual pleasure requires the active help of his partner. At the very least she has to unlock him and let him play with himself. How she reacts to her sexual power varies widely of course. Mrs. Lion needed a lot of time to decide how she would use it.
Some women buy in to the male fantasies of a cruel dominatrix who requires the poor, caged male to provide her with endless orgasms while he remains sexually unsatisfied locked in his cage. Most guys will encourage this fantasy since they truly love giving orgasms to their partners. Now that they are free of the need to initiate, they can just enjoy giving pleasure without the anxiety of starting the action.
I think that all this sexual activity hides what may be the real basis that makes enforced chastity a viable lifestyle change for a couple. In our case, I think the root cause of the positive changes we have made is the requirement that we clearly define our roles. We both learned to communicate about very scary, fundamental feelings in order to manage my sexual surrender. We were unable to run away when the going got tough because my penis remained locked securely out of my reach.
Even if we stopped communicating for a while, we both knew we had to work things out. That cage and its key carry a lot of emotional weight. I’m sure that without this physical reminder, we would have lapsed back into being less communicative about the hard stuff.
While we are still not fully aware of why it works, the cage on my penis has also opened other emotional doors for us. We’ve both become accustomed to talking and writing about things that matter to us. Even though it is often very difficult to manage, we have worked toward very specific role definitions for one another. We agree on what is expected and then work to make that a reality.
It turns out that it isn’t very important if our agreement is realistic or not. A lot of what we try is abandoned after a while. The important thing is that we are learning not to let sleeping dogs, or lions in this case, lie. We work for clarity. More importantly, we communicate about our feelings and our progress and adjust things to better fitr who we are.
Even if what we are doing has nothing at all to do with sex, that ever-present cage is an unmistakable reminder that we have to keep talking and keep working on clarity. Who’d of guessed that would happen just by locking up my penis?
