I lust for the unknown. I have used the opposite sex as a game I entertain my loneliness with. I, like others, need to get out of my mind and only belong to what my body is capable of.

People do this by playing a role that doesn’t define their behaviour, but kept hidden for themselves to be practised behind closed doors.

Finding the Climax

There is a constant search for a climax in life. We live in a fast-paced society of hedonists where we are all looking for the quickest fix for pleasure. We are not sure where to find it and how to go about it. However, we know we were given functional parts to reach such climax.

The search of this climatically heightened state has nothing at all to do with the lessons life brings us. It has to do with finding different partners to increase sexual pleasure. I speak from the observer’s point of view and experiences of my own.

I watch as others enjoy what I wish to follow through with. Films don’t do justice to what real life has to offer. My first experience of witnessing different sexual behaviour was at an alternative venue that Primrose Hill is known for.

CCHQ

Its name is Classic Corner Headquarters, better known as CCHQ. Catering to a broad variety of identities, all are welcome. They believe in drag. Their best customers are proud homosexuals, and once a month they indulge in sexual foreplay and entertainment in their dungeon upstairs.

I happened to visit CCHQ on a particular night when three women and a man-boy stood behind the bars. The front woman wore a black plastic corset that made her cleavage speak to the audience. Alongside her was her human puppet attached to her by chains and a choker on his bare flesh and leathered legs. The third screamed death as she held tight to her selection of whips and spanking tools.

This practice they were about to begin is known as BDSM which is shorthand for the three main subdivisions of the culture: 

• B&D (bondage and discipline), 
• D&S (dominance and submission) and 
• S&M (sadism and masochism or slave and master).

BDSM

All the women had roles in the process. The large busted woman pushed a volunteer against the wall with force. She made sure none of his limbs had mobility before setting up her tools in order of low to high pain threshold. The man before her squealed with excitement and anguish; his senses alive, and the audience can feel it. The proximity of pain versus pleasure is so tightly woven that he will reach the most unexpected climax.

The smaller, but more domineering, woman laid men on the bed for spankings a headmaster of yore would never have contemplated. The men let out heavy sighs and breathed with excruciating sounds, creating erections that eventually made it difficult to lie on their stomachs.

Pain & Pleasure

In the corner, the act I was most drawn to was a large series of needles that are supposed to increase the pain and pleasure stimuli simultaneously. As each needle went into a man’s exposed arm, the more I stared. His face said what I couldn’t, it was pure pleasure.

Sadists have a desire to inflict suffering and masochists want to receive suffering. The interest in domination and submission includes the fantasy of role playing. The appeal that I get watching this act helps me get out of myself and watch sex as a performance.

Get over the Guilt

What is the obsession with morbid and grotesque sexual fantasies?

It’s as if we are taking part in the juxtaposition of safety versus death. Individuals want to experience something that does not belong to them. We are able to watch it as an intrigue, without putting ourselves in danger. I am removed enough to be safe, but still removed from the process.

There is guilt for thinking or acting on these sexual fantasies, which have great consequences. These include emotional and physical damage, as well as detachment of the act of sex having any form of meaning or connection to another human being. Thus, our only intention is the climax – the orgasm that lasts for seconds, but changes how we feel about a moment.

We want to be forgiven for what we fantasise about, yet we are ashamed. I express my intrigue, but feel dirty for feeling this way.

Choke

‘We are not born evil sinners, or perfect knock-offs of God. The world tells us whether we are heroes or victims, but we can decide for ourselves,’ wrote Chuck Paluhniuk in Choke.

Contemporary films deal with sexual explorations that most people attach disgrace to. The film adaptation of Paluhniak’s novel is based on a man who is a sex addict who intentionally chokes on food in restaurants to attain the attention of a stranger who will engage with him, thus becoming his rescuer.

Choking on Sex

His obsession with making himself choke heightens his sexual pleasure. He needs to feel deep pain in order to achieve his pleasure. I think it may be due to not having a maternal figure present as she is in a clinic with memory loss. He acts out to gain acknowledgement and is turned on by women who only want his body.

I relate to this mindset in a way of my own. I too want acknowledgement, something I can’t seem to give myself. I want a man to look at me. I want him to rip off my clothes and touch my skin and breathe in my ears and make me his.

I forget about what I want and fade off into something I’m not. I don’t want to belong to myself in this moment. I only wish to escape. I want him to look at me because I can’t. I can’t look, because I don’t appeal to me. I am not attracted to me. If he looks, I won’t have to.

Sex, the Universal Language

‘Sex, like music, is a universal language. We want to use it to introduce character, evoke emotion, and propel the plot,’ said John Cameron Mitchell in Shortbus.

This film focuses on a sexually diverse ensemble of emotionally challenged characters trying to connect. The characters converge in an artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell, the film attempts to ‘employ sex in new cinematic ways,’ and it includes a variety of explicit scenes of sexuality.

Play Safe

I like to be desired and enjoy experimenting with my sexuality as long as I feel safe. What I have learned is that my safety differs to others people’s concepts of safety. If any act performed within sexual fantasies can lead to harm or death, then I don’t want my exit from earth to end that way.