I'm mostly writing this whole series of entries to 1. remember shit, and 2. prove to everyone that i'm not an emotionless wash bucket and that this shit scares me. My play has shifted to the place that usually falls on most peoples hard limits list, and this isn't a story about "you must be this kinky to ride." I can do this kind of play because i have the right kind of trust and support system and fucked up people who love to push me.
Anyway. Processing. Right.
The drowning scene was hard for me, as one might imagine. I had a very difficult time processing it, but not for the reasons you might expect. It took me days to get through. From Monday morning to about thursday after Winter Fire i was still working though things. As of now (Sunday 2/23 and Monday 2/24) when i am writing this, i am in a really good place about it and have found acceptance of a lot of the issues i was dealing with.
When my sadist first mentioned that he wanted to drown me, my immediate reaction was to safe word out of the entire situation because, who the fuck wants to be drowned? I didn't. Fuck that shit. It took over a year of suggestion for me to actually get around to consenting and then actually discussing safety and details (part of our process for setting up scenes of this nature). This scene was a Very Big Deal. We do a lot of edge play, i'm afraid a lot, fear play is a lot of what we do.. But this was the first time i felt truly vulnerable and that was a big, big distinction from what i usually feel. Fear and vulnerability are two very different things.
Like most people, i have a built-in fear of death by drowning. That's one of the factory installed fears that i actually have. That along with loud noise issues. I'm missing quite a few of the other ones (snakes, spiders, etc). Death by drowning is in the top 3 ways-to-die that i'm afraid of (1 is actually losing control of my vehicle, which has happened to me twice, bizarrely enough).
I've been non-consensually drowned before, which i had actually forgotten about until the Saturday of Winter Fire, i didn't tell my sadist about this until AFTER our scene. Now, before you start yelling about triggers and bad touch and horrible things, it was NOT a problem for me. My not consensual drowning had taken place in a swimming pool. I still go swimming, i love swimming to this day. I'd pushed the incident out of my mind for years, this happened over a decade ago. I didn't mention it to him because for me it was not relevant and all throughout our negotiation process i had FORGOTTEN it. I actually brought it up because we're planning another CNC scene and was asking me about my past history with other things which could possibly be triggering. THEN it dawned on me that i should probably tell him about that.
Scene negotiation is a complex process that is almost impossible to perfect. Sadist and i are going to do another drowning scene, but i did specifically request that he NOT drown me in a pool, since next time we actually have that as an option, as this scene will be happening at camp. And to all of you perverts that would like to watch (and i'm pretty sure there are at least half a dozen of you), you may. All i ask is that you keep a respectful distance and don't interfere with the scene or my immediate aftercare.
For scenes that are very intense edge-play related, i ask my partner what they want out of me. For this scene, his want was to see me in a state of absolute panic. Alright, that is a response i am completely capable of providing. Step 1 accomplished. He almost always asks me the same question, or a similar one such as why do i want to do this. I know i told him something that unsettled him. On a list of 10 reasons as to why i would want to do a drowning scene, 1-8 "i want to do this for you". 9 was because i was curious about it and 10 was because the fear turned me on. I also let him know these 10 reasons were not weighed equally. He does have the privilege to have me agree to do a lot of things i may not do with others, that comes from spending years building trust and picking the pieces back up when we're done playing with them. My deep rooted want to please my partners also has a lot to do with it. I knew he wanted to do a scene like this, after all, we'd been talking about it for long enough, and that kind of submission fuels a lot what i do.
Another question i asked him off the cuff while we were doing precare was "will drowning me turn you on?" And to my shock the answer was no. This type of play doesn't take him to a place where he feels sexual. Ok, we talked through it some more and i finally understood it is more of a serial killer/cold mindset. He wants a victim and wants that victim to suffer. I like suffering, it's a big thing for me. There was never a point where i ever thought i would get anything even remotely sexual out of this scene. This was something i would do, for him, to suffer and work through and try something new and scary.
I wasn't even out of the tub, he hadn't even let go of me after we ended the scene when i told him i wanted him to drown me again. Not tonight, not now, but in another scene entirely. During the scene i loathed myself for how absolutely turned on i was. THAT was the thing that fucked me up the most, how much the scene turned me on.
Knowing what i know about myself and how i play, it really does make a lot of sense. Drowning is ALL about face stuff. Face touching, holding, breath play, violence, intimacy, etc. All of them relate back to my core set of kinks. When we first discussed the scene, i knew i would either love it or hate it (and then add it back to my hard limits list). Drowning the way we did it is extremely intimate. There is a lot of body contact, and i personally find face touching to be more intimate than kissing, or possibly even sex.
I knew i would need a lot of aftercare. I'm a very touch sensitive person, and for me, the person i'm playing with has to be the person who does my aftercare. I can modify this on a scene by scene basis for certain people, but a good 98% of the time, you break it, you fix it. I asked him for overnight physical aftercare and we made the arrangements. I did have a thought in the back of my mind that i may wake up with some kind of night terror, but it was fleeting. I knew i wouldn't sleep well, and i wanted him there when i woke up. I was very very worried that the scene would put me in a bad place. I know i'd eventually make it out of it, but having a grounding force around who understood what i went through would make the process a lot easier and i was right.
It took me over a day to figure out why i was so bothered by everything. I had to acknowledge that i like, enjoy and am turned on by a number of fucked up things, things that at one point were hard limits for me. Things that are hard limits for a lot of my other partners. USUALLY i can work myself over the hump. This scene wasn't the first time i had had thoughts like that. CNC has triggered this type of thinking before, so has degradation. This time however, i really needed his help to get out of the negative/scared mindset. We chatted a lot, by phone or text and that was very helpful. Eventually we'd make a breakthrough on why i was feeling a certain way, or he'd give the validation to feel the way i did. Sometimes i just need to hear (from someone else) "It's ok if you like this really messed up shit, it works for us and we're going about it the right way."
Eventually we came to the realization that i LIKE being the victim, i LIKE being prey, and THAT was why the scene took me to the place it did. Once i was able to accept that, i became much more comfortable with the whole situation. That was the turning point from the sneaky hate spiral to a level of comfortable albeit reserved acceptance.
Hello, my name is indey and i like REALLY fucked up shit, lets get weird.
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I am very happy to talk about this experience as a whole if you have any questions, please comment or email me. :)
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