Just a quick note (wow, 3rd post today!): I stumbled upon Catalina's blog, and I think we should all help her and her daughter. One of the major points of my blog is that there is nothing wrong with BDSM, kinks, fetishes, whatever, as long as they are consensual. They might not be for everyone, of course, but why be shocked about it? And more importantly, why consider it wrong? Who's to say what's wrong and what's not? It's this sort of intolerance that causes the most harm, not the behaviours that are supposedly "bad".  Whatever happened to "Live and let live"? And to bring a child into this stupid, useless, "moral" battle? I don't know, maybe I'm the one who's not seeing clearly here, but seems to me that's a lot more evil than fun, kinky and consensual activities. Humph. _________________________ Edit: Catalina has met her deadline, hurray! But, as she says, the war is not over: "The raffle continues, as it is scheduled to end on Sunday (8/17/08) at 10pm, but from this point forward, all proceeds will be going to the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom as a contribution from the community that has stood together and won this battle.  This is our way of supporting the war that has been waged in the land of the free against personal and sexual freedom." So, there is still time to contribute, if you are so inclined.

Tom has thoughtfully tagged me for a meme on Gratitude, which is great because I was a meme virgin. And as he said, and I'm sure it's the case for most people, I don't take nearly enough time to appreciate the good things life throws at me. I tried to find the rules for this meme, but it seems like all I have to do is list any number of things I'm grateful for, in no particular order. Sounds easy enough, but in truth, I do have to give it some thought, otherwise I'll just write the usual things like "my friends" and "my family". I AM grateful for them, very much so, but I think the goal of this game is to go a little deeper than that, no? 1-I'm grateful Boy Toy and I didn't die in a car accident, on our trip. Really! For some reason, my fucked up brain started thinking about car accidents and such, a few days before we left. I did my best to get this out of my head and I started the trip cheerful enough. We weren't gone an hour, however, when it came kinda close. We were on a four-lane highway (two in each direction, divided by a little patch of land) and there was plenty of traffic, going fast. This idiot in his minivan is in the exit lane and his fucking trailer unhooks. The thing, which is one of those two-wheels contraptions, smoothly and slowly crosses both lanes and ends up in the ditch, like in a dream or in a movie. No one hits it. And it was a fucking miracle... Boy Toy had to break - hard - and he had the reflex to pull over on the side of the road, at the same time. If he hadn't done that, I think the car behind us (who at this point hadn't seen the trailer yet) would have rammed us. Anyway, no one got hurt, there was no accident, but I was shaking for 10 minutes after that. Fuck. 2-I'm grateful I met Boy Toy, and I'm grateful it was at this time in my life. Earlier on, I think I would have been way too innocent for him. I think I would have been too scared. I think I wouldn't have ended up with him. As it is, I knew him for a year before I decided I wanted to sleep with him. This is because we have a bit of an age difference (he's 14 years older). But I'm very grateful I made this decision. 3-I'm grateful FOR Boy Toy. I'm sure I've grown more in the year I've been with him than in the last 10. And this, on many levels. Sexually, of course. This blog will tell you all about it. But not just sexually. His maturity, his way of seeing life, have greatly influenced me. He's a great Boy Toy and a great boyfriend, who cares very much for me and spoils me. Also, well, he's hot. 4-I'm grateful for the relationship I have with my family. There's so much fucked up shit in this world. My family could all be dead, or there could be incest, or we could all not speak to each other anymore. But no. They're great and I love them, and I can talk to them (just not about kink!). It doesn't matter that I live far away from them, I always feel right at home when I'm with them. When I see them, it's like I've been there with them all along. And not just my close family, but my cousins, aunts and uncles too. When I saw them last week, for my vacation, everyone greeted me with a warm hug. How cute is that? 5-I'm grateful to live in the time and place I live in. I love what modern technologies bring us. I love that I'm free. I love that I can be kinky and write about it on the Internet! Enough said ;) 6-My friends. :P By the way, I never celebrate Thanksgiving. It's true! It's just not something my family ever celebrated. ------------------------------------------- Edit: I forgot to tag someone... and I just won't, because I'm still pretty new at this and I just don't have that many blogging friends yet :P

Ok, I think I'm all caught up on my sleep now. Don't get me wrong, the vacation was relaxing and restful. We had our own little cottage by the sea, and we aren't one of those couples that think they must do everything there is to do because they're on vacation. We avoided the touristy stuff, and explored the area whenever we felt like it, often by just picking a spot on the map or turning on random roads. Many of my family had rented cottages in the area too and would drop by to say hi, or we'd have supper with them. Boy Toy was great during this whole time and I love him all the more for it! No, the only tiring part was the traveling part, because we pushed and did it all in one shot rather than stop at a hotel and sleep. This is because I let Boy Toy rule, here. He was driving, so I felt it was his decision. A rather stupid one, we both agreed after. Driving all day and night isn't the safest thing to do! But we made it, all in one piece. And the whole vacation was like this, really. No domination, no kink. Just two equal people. We did end up having sex, by the way. Twice, on the same day. Hmmmmm :)  Nothing kinky, though. The only little trace of our naughty lifestyle was that we followed our cigarette contract, mostly. That's right, we have a contract regarding his cigarette smoking. This was the first contract between Boy Toy and I, and I wanted to tell you all about it... As my relationship with Boy Toy grew, I continued my “education” from conversations with him or from reading stuff online. Within a few months, we had talked about contracts. If you’re familiar with BDSM, you surely know about them. For my less kinky readers, in BDSM, a contract is “an agreement, usually written, between the dominant and submissive. It is the formal act of consent to the power exchange.” (thank you Wikipedia) But for me, contracts were pretty scary. They are a big deal, the BDSM equivalent to a marriage commitment in some cases. Besides, everything that wasn’t just plain vanilla sex was new to me. And in truth, I’m more playful than Dom. Ok, I like it when Boy Toy does as I say, it’s kinky and exciting. Lots of fun. But as soon as he seems the slightest bit unhappy about something, I tend to back down, even now. It’s something I’m working on… But I digress. I wanted to tell you about my first contract with Boy Toy. The full-on lifestyle contract between slave and master was way too much for me. It still is. But I do have a few contracts with Boy Toy. I use them to correct specific things that bother me in our relationship. It’s a fun, kinky way to deal with issues, and I’ve found that in some cases, it works. I don’t think I can get away with using contracts to resolve all our problems, but for little things, it’s often worth a try. My first contract with Boy Toy was about smoking. He is a smoker, and I’m not. I deal with it, but I would MUCH rather he didn’t smoke. And he kept talking about quitting. So I decided to help him. I decided that he would give me complete control over his smoking habit. I would decide how many cigarettes he smokes in a day, and if he failed, I would punish him. I found a contract online and modified it to fit my purpose. Made up rules, decided what the punishment for failure would be. Then I emailed it to Boy Toy and told him to print and sign it. Boy Toy never got around to printing it (to be fair, the printer he has and the way it’s set up is complicated and a lot of trouble to use). He made me wait so long that, frustrated, I printed it myself, from work. To teach him a lesson, though, I added a few rules and made it stricter. This is the final version of the contract, which we both signed in November of 2007:

Contract regarding cigarette smoking

We the undersigned parties recognize and accept the submission of boy toy to Owner, in regards to the number of cigarettes boy toy will smoke every day. This will continue for an undetermined period of time, until Owner believes boy toy is ready for the next step towards becoming a non-smoker. It is agreed that during this period, boy toy will be under Owner’s direction and control when it comes to smoking, and that he will be subject to the following conditions: • Boy toy will be allowed to smoke no more than 8 cigarettes in a day. • When in Owner’s presence, if alone with her, boy toy will smoke his cigarettes kneeling in front of Owner, and thank her for letting him smoke. • If boy toy smokes one cigarette more than the allotted 8 a day, he will not be allowed to give Owner oral sex for a period of 5 days. • If, during this 5 days period, boy toy smokes another cigarette more than the allotted 8 a day, he will have to wear a cage [this refers to a chastity device] for 10 days. • If boy toy goes over his limit yet again during this period, his punishment will be left to Owner’s discretion. • Boy toy will keep good count of how many cigarettes he smokes, and will never lie about it. • Lying about how many cigarettes have been smoked will result in a period of 10 days without being allowed to give oral sex, and wearing a cage. Boy toy willingly submits himself to the above described conditions, commits himself to the ultimate goal of becoming a non-smoker, and accepts his Owner’s directions when it comes to smoking cigarettes. The original number of cigarettes per day was 10, but his failure to print the contract got me to change it to 8. I had decided on 10 after asking him how many he normally smoked (15 at the most, he said). I wanted my limit to be less than what he usually smokes, but enough that if he spread his cigarettes throughout the day, he might make it without much difficulty. I have never been a smoker, so I realize that the difficulty of quitting isn't anything I can imagine. I know this stuff is addictive, so I try to be easy on him, yet still retain my control. Sometimes, when he is especially stressed, I allow him a few extra cigarettes. As for the "no oral sex" part, it's because he really loves going down on me. To be frank, though, he doesn't do it often enough for this part of the contract to be that effective. Maybe I should change this punishment? Before we signed the contract, I made sure Boy Toy understood it was important to me he takes it seriously. That if he started lying about how many cigarettes he had smoken, it would really undermine the trust I have in him. So we both gave it some thought before finally signing it. Since then, I’ve made some amendments to the contract: Boy Toy is now allowed 6 cigarettes a day during the week, and 8 a day during weekends, and when he smokes kneeling in front of me, he must do it naked. Lately, I’ve started asking that he spreads his legs, too, and little taps on the insides of his thighs to make him assume the correct position get him wet. I also forbid him from hiding his boy parts with his hands while in this position, and this totally makes him blush. This new position is great, it makes him feel even more submissive towards me. Everytime we're alone together, this is how he smokes his cigarettes. Except while we were on vacation, I figured I'd give him a break. I’m considering diminishing his number of cigarettes soon, but it’s a tough decision to make because it means I won’t get to see him kneeling naked in front of me as much, and I’ll also have to deal with his withdrawal. Any suggestions?