PS074 - Rage, Submission and Manhood with MonsignorX
LeePS074-MonsignorX
On the podcast this week, Lee is joined by MonsignorX to speak about the way embracing and experiencing his anger helped him find a path of peace. From Asatru faith to being a beast on a chain, he takes us on a tour through open relationships, daily devotional practices, connecting with your lover’s lover, and how our shadow can be our deepest ally towards finding our light.
Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d9915
Passion And Soul Podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-and-soul-podcast-by-lee-harrington/id840372122
RSS Feed: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/660e243b2f834f0017de9181
MonsignorX Information:
Fetlife: https://fetlife.com/users/321984
Links, Events, People and Books Mentioned:
Podcast featuring Unspeakable Axe: http://passionandsoul.libsyn.com/ps029-authentic-submission-service-and-self
Masocast with Unspeakable Axe: http://www.masocast.com/
“Rune Theory and Practice” by Galina Krassakova: http://www.amazon.com/Runes-Theory-Practice-Galina-Krasskova/dp/1601630859/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pass-20
Heimdallr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimdallr
Freyja: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreyjaHermóðr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herm%C3%B3%C3%B0r
“How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnagie: http://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Worrying-Start-Living/dp/0671733354/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pass-20
Berserker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker
Master/Slave Conference: http://masterslaveconference.org/
Venus in Furs play review: http://www.anchoragepress.com/arts-entertainment-theatre/power-steering
Knight to Queen dynamic: http://devotionalsex.com/ref_realwomen.html
Angrboða: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angrbo%C3%B0a
Lilith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith
Open relationships and polyamory podcast: http://passionandsoul.libsyn.com/ps002-open-relationships-0
Conscious monogamy and polyamory podcast: http://passionandsoul.com/audio/podcast-063
Southpaw Movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798684/
Free Spirit Gathering: http://www.freespiritgathering.org/
Black Rose, DC: http://www.br.org/Podcast featuring Asrik: http://passionandsoul.libsyn.com/ps011-asrik
Lee’s Upcoming Events/Appearances:
http://passionandsoul.com/appearances/
Lee Harrington Contact Information:
http://www.FetLife.com/passionandsoul
http://twitter.com/#!/PassionAndSoul
https://www.facebook.com/lee.harringon
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Dan and dawn:
BDSM and non-standard relationships, power exchange and polyamory, sacred sexuality and fetishes, as well as Simply Fun Kink. You're listening to the Erotic Awakening Podcast Network.Announcer:
Welcome to the Passion and Soul Podcast, an exploration of personal and interpersonal desire, faith and connection.Your host, international sexuality and spirituality author and educator, Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com will take you on a sultry and intellectual journey through the soul of intimate experience. Take a moment and breathe deep, and get ready for an adventure.This podcast is a chance to glimpse into the ever-increasing diverse world of alternative life. The Passion and Soul Podcast is intended for mature audiences. If you are offended by adult topics, or prohibited by law, we recommend you stop listening right now.
Lee:
Hello fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to the Passion and Soul podcast with Lee Harrington of passionandsoul.com.For folks who didn't get a chance to listen to it a number of - about, gosh, almost two years ago - I had a chance to speak with Unspeakable Axe, who runs the Masocast, is it the Masocast? Who runs a delightful podcast that I will include in the show notes. He and I got to have a great conversation about male submission in media, and how he's done that dance in life and in keeping a public persona, and personal life, and a lot of other really great stuff.
About a month or two ago, I was at an event and started having conversations with someone around male submission. And realized that I hadn't gotten a chance to dive further into the topic because for folks who don't know at home, I'm transsexual, and I had a chance to really explore that topic of what does being a submissive male look like - once I started transitioning from female to male, and ran into a whole lot of bumps myself.
And so between the conversation with someone else about how does male submission in culture work, and how can one still be a strong person in their submission, I started thinking about who I could have on the show who I had found to be really eloquent, and really keyed into their own personal journey and identity with this work. And I had someone come to mind just a moment later, and I am so delighted he was able to join us on the show.
MonsignorX considers himself to be a bisexual switch, male philosopher, an internal mystic with strong interests in rage work, male submission, ethics, ordeal, helping the abused, strength, and vulnerability. He follows a Norse path influenced by classical philosophy, pragmatism, and scholarship, but also salted heavily with intense physical and emotional elements. He feels most strongly tied to the Norse deities Heimdallr, Freyja, and Hermóðr in a devotional sense.
Most recently, he has been drawn more to poetry, storytelling, and workshops that help others to find their voices, and just working to help those folks in general - especially submissives who have been having trouble finding a strong and functional path, where their needs are really met and their strengths are recognized.
And thank you so much for joining us, MonsignorX.
MonsignorX:
Thank you very much for having me.Lee:
And I hope I didn't butcher any of the names too much when it comes to deities. Sometimes I stumble with Norse pronunciation.MonsignorX:
It's not a primary language for most of us, it's fine.Lee:
Though it is funny, I had a chance to, a couple of years ago - gosh, a decade ago? I don't know - to go with a gentleman who's based in Massachusetts to a rune study circle, where every month they were taking two runes from both the Elder and Younger Futhark. For folks who don't know, the runes are both a linguistical set, magical set, and communication set on lots of different levels within Norse culture.And it was really fascinating hearing these old men sitting around, most of them were in their 60s, 70s, talking about the idea of how growing up in America, they were still enriched by these “classical frameworks.” It was really beautiful, and I'm curious how you were drawn towards that direction in your faith work.
MonsignorX:
Years ago, I - how many years ago now? Quite a few, it is certainly more than 10, probably closer to 15. My wife and I had gone to an event, and there's some friends of ours that we knew. And this friend of mine who I've been practicing with for years had a horn, and talked a little bit about what he was doing. And I eventually sat down and asked him some more questions and he explained how - he called himself Asatru at the time, I think still does.And he kind of explained everything about what he did, the best way you can in 15 minutes. And I kind of looked and I said, well, that's pretty much how I lived for my life, except for all the God and mystical stuff. (Lee laughs) And there was a running joke in my group for a little while that I was an Asatru, because I had a very atheist bent at the time.
Lee:
Oh my god, that’s hilarious. (laughs)MonsignorX:
The ethics and the belief, and the way they approach things is like, well, this is exactly what I'm already doing with my life anyway, so I don't have to change my practice. I just had to spend more time kind of understanding the myth and the rituals, which are - for at least from my point of view - extraordinarily simple most of the time. And then it just kind of grew from there. And I kind of remained very much more on the atheist side for a long time, until, let's just say, deity chose to make itself clearer.Lee:
What does that mean to you?MonsignorX:
I am not - I know a lot of people who believe the gods talk to me directly. In most cases, in almost every case, that's not true for me. I don't hear deity or anything like that, but I can tell you, flat out, that there was a time some years ago when things were very difficult in my romantic life, without getting terribly specific. And I did a set of blóts that's a kind of honoring that's usually done with alcohol these days. It actually originally came from the word blood, but that's not usually practical anymore.And I did a blót specifically, ultimately a set of blóts to Freyja, trying to ask for, sort of, help in solving this. And I can say that the specific set of relationships that I was trying to preserve, sadly did not manage to be preserved. And my friend who got me into this, who talked to me much later said, well, that's because she gave you what you asked for, not necessarily what you wanted.
But I can say that my life is incredibly enriched. I have incredibly strong and amazing relationships in my life, and I can point to that beginning of those prayers. And I've had one or two very scary connections with sort of the darker sides of Norse deities, which kind of led to me looking at ordeals.
Lee:
What does an ordeal mean to you?MonsignorX:
Huh, that's an excellent question. I would say an ordeal is something where you surrender control of your circumstances, to someone or someones, that there is a chance that whatever it is you're trying to do, you cannot succeed in that thing. That you could fail - not that you could die, in general, but that you could certainly not succeed in what you intended to do. And at some point you just have to absolutely accept: this is completely beyond your control.What an ordeal is for a person can vary incredibly. For me, my intense ordeal was essentially being chained in a basement while my entire family watched two guys beat me bloody. Until I got to a sort of rage epiphany, if you will? And kind of made peace with the anger in my life. But for other people, it can be standing naked in front of a crowd of people, because a lot of it depends on what demons you're - for lack of a better term, you're wrestling with.
Lee:
Yeah.MonsignorX:
So, what for me is easy, being naked in front of a group of people, I do that all the time. But for other people, that's scarier than the other things, it just depends on the person.Lee:
Oh, I think of folks that I know that their first major ordeal was standing in front of a group of people and talking. about their truths. That like, you know, beat them bloody and make them cry, have them do whatever - Okay, that's Thursday, right?MonsignorX:
Yes. There's something in one of Dale Carnegie’s old books that talks about an airborne ranger soldier with exactly that. He said, you know, “four of us couldn't have taken him down, but he was terrified to talk to us.” So that's a common thing.Lee:
Yeah. What did you gain? I mean, because you talked about that idea of reaching that rage epiphany.MonsignorX:
Yes.Lee:
What was that? I mean, can you tell me more about that?MonsignorX:
I can try.Lee:
Because I don't know if I've heard that terminology before.MonsignorX:
Well, I think I created an entire practice out of it. What I came up with, I call the path of fire, which is accepting that rage and anger is a part of us. Rather than deny, I think in a lot of, I'd say I could argue it's Western culture, but I think it's at least American culture. Both men and women in different ways are taught to suppress, any time they're angry, in different ways. And I understand why that happens in some cases, especially with young men, if you let them get there, just get really angry, they're going to hurt somebody - but it ends up being almost denial.And as a friend of mine, possibly the same one you were talking about earlier had said, if there's a monster in your basement and you don't find a way to deal with it, eventually it gets out. And when it gets out, it does a lot of harm, often frequently to the things in your house, which usually include the people you care about. And so for me, what it was, was accepting that this is a part of me.
I kind of - if you want an image, if my rage was fire, that ordeal let me walk into it and accept that it's a part of me. And I can accept that that's a part of myself. And, you know, let it run through me without letting it run my life, for lack of a better way of putting it. And I am actually a much calmer person, for pursuing a path devoted to anger and rage, than I ever was before I started doing it. I have people, frequently, when I start talking, they're saying, how can you talk about anger? You're the calmest guy I know. I said, well, you didn't know me before. (Lee laughs)
Lee:
Wow! What are some tools, other than this ordeal experience you had, that kind of kickstarted this awareness? What are some of the practices you use in your daily life?MonsignorX:
I don't think they're terribly different from any other spiritual person at a macro level. I was advised by one of the people who was involved that I was going to start having - and this is true for a lot of people who have done any kind of ordeal. You start having flashes and other things afterwards because you're going to have emotional reactions. His advice was: if you don't come up with some kind of daily practice, this is going to drive you nuts.So, I just started, kind of, meditation and prayer and at my workplace, they happen to have a meditation room. This is one of the things I kind of - I didn't expect to be talking about this, but this is I think a good thing to… I ended up, when you go to meditation rooms at a large corporation, the people most likely to use them are Muslims. Because they need to pray, depending on which variation they're following, five times a day, and so there's mats in there. So you end up watching Muslims pray a lot more than you would expect, and clearly their practice works for them.
So over time, I kind of cribbed a little bit. I mean, I don't obviously use Muslim prayers or anything, but that sort of regular practice, and coming up with a set of regular things you say every time. You can add in, you know, obviously at the end, I'll say specific prayers to whatever things I want. But there's a specific set of rhythmic things that I do, to three deities and one of the Odin, as part of my regular practice, that I've done in such a way that I can even do them when I'm running or moving. Because one of the other things I do heavily is boxing and running.
And I've set them up in such a way that I have short forms that I can chant when I'm running, and that sort of thing. Because for me, it's still a very physical approach. But regular prayer and meditation, a lot of deep breathing.
I mean, obviously, what I would say to anybody pursuing this stuff is have a therapist too. I mean, I had one, so I didn't do this entirely by myself.
Lee:
Mm-hmm.MonsignorX:
And then it was just sort of a lot of writing, and just - the more you think on something, I think the more your mind starts to work with it. And I started to see that in things, in other people. And I have a relatively, you know, it's the only practice I really have, the only calling I feel is a strong need to help people who are working with anger and rage, if they ask me.And that's, you know, I have friends who do all sorts of things, who are shamans and everything else. But no, I'm pretty much just a rage priest. That's the only thing I do.
Lee:
(laughs) And it's funny that you say “that's the only thing I do,” because for me, that's work that I don't know if I would have the skill set to do in the same way. And so there is, there is powerful Work there, there's powerful mojo, whatever you want to call it, right?MonsignorX:
Well, what I would say is some people like yourself and others, what you guys do would scare me, and this I understand very well. So I'm comfortable with it and I'm okay with being very good at one thing.Lee:
I remember when there was a spirit worker that I knew, who has since passed, and there was a group of us who got together and it was a discussion. It was a bitch fest, is how we refer to it, a bitch fest of redes and bans. Redes being things you have to do, and bans being things you can't do, in your spiritual practice.MonsignorX:
Mm-hmm.Lee:
And one of the people was talking about how they can't eat certain types of foods. Somebody else was talking about how every day they have to do certain chants or prayers, or else they end up with migraines all day long, that there's all these different things. And somebody was talking about the idea of, I think they were talking about food restrictions. And this lovely lady said, in a very thick Portuguese accent, “oh, I am so sorry for you. I can't do that. It's so bad.”And one of her friends just turned to her and said, “but you aren't allowed to have sex and haven't been allowed to for 20 years.” And she said, “yes, but that's not so bad.” (MonsignorX laughs) And everybody else in the room was like, “oh, my god!” And she's like, “yes, but I can eat what I want.”
MonsignorX:
Yeah, that would be a nonstarter for me, I’m afraid. Yes.Lee:
Right? It's funny. Now, for you, this rage work, does that tie into and this idea of practice, those two elements, do those tie into your notions and experiences in submission?MonsignorX:
They can. When I said my entire family was present, my Owner and my other dominant were certainly present. And I actually had built into the ritual for it, a sort of “chaining of the beast” that they and my wife were all part of.And so mostly with my Owner, we occasionally do that and she enjoys kind of bringing that side out of me, and then being able to control it - that's something that she finds very interesting. How did she put it? “Nobody looks tough walking a Chihuahua” is her favorite line. She wants to know the thing on the end of her leash has teeth, otherwise what the heck is the fun in it?
So we do that, and we have done some pretty heavy sort of rage scenes because I remember teaching a class a couple of months ago, and somebody - I was talking about rage and berserk stuff as part of a larger thing. And somebody at the end said, now I know what you guys were doing in the club, because apparently it just didn't make sense to them. (Lee laughs) They couldn't understand what was going on and once they heard that, so yeah, I would say in the context certainly with my owner we do that.
I can sometimes have a darker side to it, and some people who really enjoy watching me play with my Owner or Ma'am and want to get some taste, I react very well to people, and I don't put on airs and I'm very genuine. And that's very attractive to some people, and I've had some people misread that. Just because my Owner gets this out of me doesn't mean you're going to.
I'm very devoted and we've been working together for six years, so I have occasionally had somebody hurt me in a way that - maybe she can get away with that but you can't - then I turn back and start growling at them so I've had that.
But it also gives you an appreciation. One of the things I think I feared about anger was losing control. When we're taught to repress our anger it's because we're supposed to think that anger is a bad or negative thing. It's not, it's just, sort of, part of who we are. If it's out of control, then that's something you have to deal with, but it's not that you're angry that's the problem. It's how you deal with it that's the problem.
And so, you know, what I - no, I just lost my train of thought. Damn it. I hate when I do that.
Lee:
That idea that not when you're, that you’re angry isn't the problem. It's that, you know, it's that how you deal with it in both your, you know, in your life, in your submission, in all of those things is what I was, one of the threads I was hearing.MonsignorX:
Yes. And so for me, there were, I had this horrifying, deep-seated fear that those I love would fear me, because they saw my rage, and I would hurt them. And I'm very devoted to protecting the people I love and giving them what they need, and pleasing them. And so if I think you're afraid of me, that really bothers me at a visceral level.And so I think I, because I must have had some early lesson that anger was a very bad thing, I repressed it - to the level that I didn't want the people I cared about to see that side of me. And, you know, eventually these things explode. And what going through the ordeal and doing all the anger work did for me is, I no longer - I don't fear that side of myself, and I can control it.
One of the things my Owner really wanted - my Owner is a switch, and periodically wants to be used roughly and hurt. And I couldn't do it, because I was terrified of that side of myself. And part of doing this kind of work allowed me to say, okay, I don't have to fear that. And if this is what she wants, it's the thing that she wants. And, you know, I'm hers, I'm supposed to give her what she wants. And so I'm much more comfortable not just with her, but switching in general, because I'm not afraid, as I was before, of “I'll lose it and hurt somebody” because that's not going to happen.
Lee:
Yeah. Now, one of the words that I'm hearing you use is hers, right? That idea of a possessive term.MonsignorX:
Yes.Lee:
How did you come into that kind of relationship, or - both the desire for that kind of relationship, as well as pursuing it?MonsignorX:
I think she knew when she met me, she wanted that. It took her a long time. (laughs) It probably took two years to get me to that point. For a variety of reasons, I had a bad experience or two previous to her meeting me.And she kind of came from a very - on the East Coast, there's a group that runs the Master/slave Conference and some other related things. And she'd come up with, through their process, and had been a slave of somebody else before she met me.
And so she had a very specific view, sort of very Leather influenced view of these things. And just the word “slave” bothered me. I don't like the word, I don't like its connotation, I don't like some of the things in there. I don't know why, for me, calling me her property works, slave doesn't, but that worked that way.
But I think she said from, oh, probably the third date we were on. She knew that to her, this had the D/s component. I was pretty much the first male she played with in any context that she actually really enjoyed the power of it. And only the second person she'd ever felt any kind of desire to have a power over somebody with. But like I said, it probably took a good two years before, let's see, I knew… 2010, 2011… I first put on any kind of really formal collar, and did any kind of contract thing, in like 2012. So it was about two years before I could come to terms with what that meant. Plus I had some other things of my own to work on, including some of the rage stuff.
Lee:
Did you have desires for any form of submission to women previously, either service, submission, or anything in that genre?MonsignorX:
Yeah, I think I've probably been, at some level, a male submissive since I was 15, and I'm much older than that now. But finding out ways to manifest that in ways that were socially acceptable, especially at the time and place that I grew up, were not easy.I dated a number of women who were flat out, you know, if I brought it up - one of them even used the word disgusting. So you learn very quickly to hide that because, you know, you still want women in your life, you still want to have sex, you still want to have girlfriends. So, you know, if they say that's disgusting, you just don't ever talk about it again.
And it wasn't until first when I met my wife, and then later met some other people, that I found people who were willing to accept that side of me. But it's still difficult, particularly, I think, for heterosexual men, because the examples - the kind of the pornography examples we have are all these very stilted…
I mean, if you look at any classic female dominant stuff, going all the way back to Venus in Furs, it has this very cold, kind of distant woman, either in leather or latex, or if you go way back, furs. Who is torturing this guy, while saying he's a horrible person, and he's saying he's a horrible person and how pathetic he is.
I can see why that works if I pay you to do that to me, because what you as the woman are getting out of that is I'm paying you. It's not terribly useful for a relationship. And it's sort of the myth and sort of the porn everybody sees and they think that's what it's supposed to be like.
And it never worked for me. I hated it. I hated the idea I was supposed to be pathetic. I'm an ex-military guy, I was raised in certain ways, and it took me years to find, no, you can actually do both. We would never call Marine Master Sergeant “weak” just because he obeyed orders of somebody above him. That's not the way it works.
The fact that somebody chooses - is in service to somebody else does not make them weak, by any stretch of the imagination. And the simplest example that I use in some of the classes I teach, the simplest dynamic, that even a purely vanilla person will understand, is what a lot of people call the Knight to Queen dynamic. The brave stalwart hero that's in service to a woman, we get that. We get that it doesn't make the guy weak.
But somehow in a lot of the stuff you see in male submission, especially in the porn, it doesn't quite work that way. And a mutual friend of ours has said, and I use this all the time, “don't bottom to porn.” (Lee laughs)
When he said that, he was actually talking about masters, but it applies in either direction. Porn is something people use to get off, it's not an example of how you should actually be living anything in your life.
Lee:
Yeah, I was always fascinated by the idea in a lot of pornography, whether I was in front of the camera, behind it, or just watching - that, I think, female dominant partners were expected to just be either psychopaths or sociopaths.MonsignorX:
Yes.Lee:
If you look at the tropes, you're like - those things are all clinically insane.MonsignorX:
Yeah, and there's a much greater power. I was just discussing this with my Owner at dinner. I seem to have a type that I attract these days, and it's women that want me bleeding, screaming at their feet. But if you were to come up at any point and try to cause me any harm, they will kill you. Now, they’re not actually going to that. But it's that very much, I want him, I want to possess him, I want him to hurt for me, but nobody else better hurt him or I'm going to hurt them badly.That very protective sort of, it doesn't have to be motherly, but if you want that, it's more the mother of, in the Norse pantheon, Angrboða, or if you prefer, Lilith. It's that very dark female element of, “I love him, he's mine, and I can hurt him, but you better not touch him.” With variations, I mean. People can share and all, but...
Lee:
And you've brought up having multiple people in your life, and I think, I just wanted to clarify, when you were talking about being whipped in front of your entire family, you were discussing family of choice, all over 18, I believe, yes?MonsignorX:
Yes, sorry.Lee:
No, no, no, it's okay. There are some listeners who are coming from just the pagan side of things, or, you know, who want to - I just want to double-check, or if not with these communities at all.And I'm hearing you talk about that idea of your wife, but I think your Owner is a different woman?
MonsignorX:
That's correct, yes. I have a wife, I have an Owner, who I refer to as Daddy a lot of the time, and I have another female dominant, who I refer to as Ma’am or Mommy, depending on the context.Lee:
Yeah, how do you, in what way, because it sounds like you do either bottoming, or service, or submission in some flavor to multiple people, how do you personally dance those issues? Are they issues?MonsignorX:
Yeah, well we, first of all, all the people in my life get along very well. Oddly enough, one of the things - going back briefly for ordeals that people don't think about is, ordeals are an experience not just for the person who is the ordeal dancer, or whatever you want to call them. They're also a shared experience for everybody who witnessed them. And in some ways, it made everybody in my life much closer, just for being there.And they get along, I mean, not that they didn't get along before, but they get along very well. And we don't have jealousy or issues. I mean, you know, you have the classic problems of time management. (Lee laughs) And I know you've done some poly shows, so thank the gods for Google Calendar, is what I usually say.
Lee:
Oh, yeah.MonsignorX:
Because that's the thing that lets you cover all that. And that's, you know, those are tricky, and obviously, I have a wife and a family. So, you know, that is my primary responsibility. And my partners know that, it's actually a specific line in my contract too, that always comes first.
But when you said, how do I handle the difference? So Daddy, you know, came up through a very sort of Leather kind of feel, and her energy very much feels male. One of the running jokes is often I'm the girl in the relationship, because she very much takes that sort of role in some things. Not in a way that makes me any less, but it's just that, you know, just sort of the position she takes. And while she's certainly still female, she's, you know, she wears a dress maybe twice a year.
And Ma’am or Mommy is much more feminine, and tends to very much - so as a simple example of a difference that Daddy likes to call code switching, Ma’am or Mommy really loves all the classic “gentleman” things. She loves me getting the doors for her, she loves me driving for her, she loves me fetching stuff for her. This all works for her and it's great. If I tried to open a door like a gentleman for Daddy, it's going to piss her off.
But one thing I figured out on my own, that works just fine for her is if I do it like I like I'm treating her like a general, like I'm a general's aide, I'm a lesser officer to her. And so I go to, like, attention and parade rest before I open the door, she's fine with it. And that's something I worked out on my own because she didn't know that was going to work for her either.
And so a couple, like, a month ago, we ended up all three of us together and I was driving them around. And so I would have to open the back door one way, and the front door another way, and Daddy was calling it code switching. And, you know, I've done it enough that it just came naturally and it satisfied both of them, so they were fine.
Lee:
And so you were able to learn different protocols, or different systems of orders, for different people you were with.MonsignorX:
Yeah, it was organic, in that they didn't - neither of them are particularly high protocol people. It's just a question of what pleases them, and I'm very big on what pleases the people I'm with.Lee:
Well, and in some ways, for folks who aren't in polyamorous relationships, it sounds not unlike learning that one of your friends adores horror films, and the other one hates them.MonsignorX:
It's exactly like that. Yeah, so you know that you can't take them both to the same movie. It's exactly the same.Lee:
Yeah. And it's not that you don't like one of them when Horror Fest 37 is happening.MonsignorX:
Right.Lee:
But it just means that one person is going to enjoy them, and the other one, you know what, next week, you guys will all go out for watching the laugh-a-minute movie that just came out instead.MonsignorX:
And none of my partners would ever see a boxing movie with me. (Lee laughs) I'm actually going to try to see Southpaw tomorrow night with my wife's Master, because I've been teaching him boxing and that interests him.Lee:
That's glorious.MonsignorX:
Yeah. But we get along, we all get along pretty well.Lee:
That's glorious. I love that idea that - one of the terms that I've heard is, gosh, your “outlaws,” or your extended poly families, or your paramour, is the other one that I've heard. That you're doing that through having a guys' night out boxing movie evening. That’s glorious.MonsignorX:
So I have a larger extended family. Not everybody is sleeping with each other. He's got a partner that - she just comes and does social stuff with us. I guess if people who aren't poly assume that we're all having sex with each other, that's not actually how it works.The other thing that sometimes confuses people that we've had to explain at a couple of different levels is authority, in these kinds of relationships doesn't transfer to other people, either. Unless - there are some specific situations.
It's gotten to the point where if I'm really tense, my wife will just ask me if she should call Daddy, or even throw me under Daddy's bus occasionally just because, over time, she became comfortable with the idea: this works for him, he's happy, and I want him happy.And occasionally, there have been an occasional case where, I, for whatever reason, just nothing was going right and I was incredibly tense. And there were several people there, including my Owner and some friends, and I kind of stormed off. In these situations, the last straw, even though the thing that set you off is silly and absolutely unimportant, you go storming off because basically - her Master had come down to say, this thing broke on the door. It was one of those stupid plastic hooks you actually glue to doors, so it's not important, but it was the sixth thing that had gone wrong in the last half hour, hour, whatever it was. And I just lost it and go storming upstairs.
And apparently, in front of everybody, they had this conversation. Daddy said, “would you like me to calm him down?” My wife said, “sure, please do.” And so I come back downstairs and there's a pillow on the floor, and everybody's looking at me. She orders me to the floor, and basically grabs my hair or whatever else she did, to get me centered and back in a place where I wasn't being a pain to all my guests.
And everything was fine after that, nobody was bothered by it. I actually checked later, because I was a little worried that one or two people who weren't used to seeing those things would have been bothered by it, but they weren't.
Lee:
And was it that she had read the room previously, and knew the people involved?MonsignorX:
Yeah.Lee:
So that she could tell whether people would be okay with that?MonsignorX:
All of this occurred while I was upstairs. (laughs)Lee:
Ahh.MonsignorX:
She had cleared everything with everybody, and I didn't know that at the time, obviously. I wasn’t there.Lee:
And you had the established relationship to have that be something okay between the two of you.MonsignorX:
Yes. Absolutely.Lee:
It is interesting, though, because there are some people who don't necessarily dance in the same power exchange circles, or who really enjoy power exchange in the bedroom only - that might find that a little jarring.MonsignorX:
Yes. I would say that while I have done some pretty hardcore stuff, the power exchange sort of Master or slave, whatever you want to call it, heavy D/s stuff, is sometimes creepier to people and hard to understand. I have learned there are certain conversations you don't have with certain people. You end up hanging around with more people with a strong edge for that, because it is just easier to not have to hide it. It's not that I can't, I'm comfortable with a lot of different groups. But there are points where - if that's a part of who you are, you don't always necessarily want to have to cover it.Lee:
Right. Yeah, and that idea of “like attracting like” and that kind of glomming together in the groups where you can have that part of yourself expressed.MonsignorX:
Yes, where everybody thinks it's hot, or cute, or it's just normal. The other thing is if you're around people with long-standing dynamics, people who are used to going to a club are expecting a clear beginning, middle and end to a scene. And if you're a long standing dynamic, it's not like that.I mean, you can go from talking about movies, to getting in the hot tub, and suddenly your Owner pushes your head under the water for a while, and then come back up and go back to talking about movies, or whatever it was, because it just becomes very organic.
And I was at a beach house thing with a bunch of people in various kinds of dynamics, and there were these two new younger people who weren't used to it. And they were almost blind to what was going on around them, because they thought they would come and see a lot of discrete scenes, and that's not what they saw. In fact, they didn't even perceive what they were seeing, but everybody else there knew that they'd seen a whole bunch of dynamics manifesting throughout the entire weekend. But the younger people who had no experience of it just didn't notice it.
Lee:
Yeah. I think that happens in a lot of cultures. You were talking before about, in Norse ritual work, that it's pretty simple.MonsignorX:
Yes.Lee:
Right. And so people might not know that pouring out that little bit of a drink before you even start, even if you don't say anything, you just did a whole thing.MonsignorX:
Yes. Yes.Lee:
People might not even notice.MonsignorX:
There was a point, some several years ago when I remember I was at - it was technically a D/s class, I was there with my Owner, and I got a call that a relative of mine had died. And she saw me get a glass, put some whiskey or whatever in it, head outside, say something and pour some of the whiskey out, and immediately knew something was wrong. I wouldn't have done that if - but nobody else in the house even noticed I did it.But yeah, blóts, the most common basic thing is, you take a drink, you make the toast, whatever it is, and you pour out a bit of it to the gods, and that's the end of it. And it can be done, you know, I've carried a flask in a pocket, like at Free Spirit, and done entire rituals, as you would put it, where nobody even saw them.
Lee:
And for people who don't know, Free Spirit Gathering is an all-ages pagan festival that takes place out on the East Coast, in the Maryland area, at Ramblewood.MonsignorX:
Yes.Lee:
And it has a wide diversity of attendees, it's really fascinating.MonsignorX:
Yeah, there's a lot of different religious groups and types of groups that go there, yeah.Lee:
Yeah. How did - you talk about going to clubs and whatnot, how did you end up finding your way into a BDSM or kink exploration, hands-on, like in a public venue, public spaces?MonsignorX:
Well, one of the lucky things is, if you live in the DC area, at the moment, there are three of them, and hopefully eventually there will be back to four, between Baltimore, and DC, and Frederick.But gosh, I think the first thing… I remember going to some club years ago, with a previous partner, in Baltimore that's been closed for years. And then we did some stuff that Black Rose ran, and went to several of their - at least one or two of their - they used to have these long weekend things, where they had entire hotels booked out.
Lee:
Mm-hmm.MonsignorX:
And then I don't remember it back that far, that there were that many clubs that we were going to otherwise, but they had nights and stuff you could go to.And I never had much of a nudity taboo, or any kind of - I guess I didn't know I was a bit of an exhibitionist, but that just doesn't bother me quite as much. Especially once you kind of put me under, I'm not necessarily paying attention? It took a while to get to that, but at this point, if I take my glasses off, and I'm particularly with a partner that I have a strong bond with, I can go pretty deep and just not notice what's going on around me.
Lee:
It's funny you bring up the “glasses off” piece. My partner also has vision adventures, and so taking off her glasses, “she's like, I don't need a blindfold, right? Like, take off my glasses and I'm pretty much, I have to trust you because I'm not going to see the thing.”MonsignorX:
I can get around, but I'm going to have trouble making out faces and such.Lee:
Ah, okay.MonsignorX:
Now sometimes if it is bothering - I mean, if she can tell I'm looking around, then yes, she might blindfold me. Or being who she is, her thing will be, well, “clearly I'm not occupying your attention enough” and she'll just hit me harder until I stop, (Lee laughs) which has happened in a couple of cases.I was actually at a private party in a sling, where her - and, this is another confusing part when I was going to get to before and forgot, my Owner has an Owner. There's not a transitory authority, but he doesn't have a right over me, but she does use him occasionally to torment me. And they were both doing something, and other people in the room knew me well enough that they decided to have a debate about Norse faith practices while I was being worked over, just to distract me.
And when it became obvious that I was paying attention to them, that's when she said, “well, clearly we're not getting enough of your attention.” And they had done it deliberately to get me hurt more.
Lee:
Ahhh.MonsignorX:
I have wonderful friends.Lee:
You know what, collaboration, and helping the people get inspired, right?MonsignorX:
Mm-hmm.Lee:
Actually, friendship was the reason that I found the kink community years ago, or decided I was kinky. I was a kiddo and I read a porn. And the porn had this story in it, about a woman getting swept away for her birthday, and all these things happening to her, by a whole group of people. And at the end, she said, you know, “my friends in the local kinky community helped make this happen. I'm so grateful for them.”And I went, you know what? It wasn't even about the sex. I was like, I want friends who will make my dreams come true, even dreams I didn't know I had.
MonsignorX:
When you have that, when you have people in your life like that, and I have a group of people - the larger group of people that we tend to go to camps with and stuff - it's wonderful because you're going back to being able to be yourself. You can absolutely be yourself with them. They're not going to be bothered by even the most intense dynamic stuff you want. They may cheer you on. It's a wonderful thing to have.Lee:
And actually, it was really interesting, I was talking to a woman who I know predominantly online - that she's mostly involved with stuff online, on the Internet, because of a diversity of things that are happening in her life at large, when it comes to what's happening offline, as it were.And for her, the fact that she has huge amounts of support from even just the handful of people she knows well through the Internet, has changed so much for her, because there's that moment where, whether it's “I'm not going to be judged by even one person.”
MonsignorX:
Right.Lee:
That moment of not feeling alone can also make a huge difference.MonsignorX:
Yeah. Any of us who are kinky have had some experience where it's very clear, all the people around us in the vanilla world wouldn't understand anything that we want or are going through. So just having a group of people you're with who get why this is something you have to do, because other people in your life either would say, “oh, that's disgusting” or “what the hell is wrong with you,” or “I need to stage an intervention to stop you.”That's one of my running jokes I occasionally make, is the me from like six or seven years ago would probably be trying to stage an intervention now. Even though I've been kinky longer than that, I do some very intense things, and they're fine for me. But for some people, they would be too much.
Lee:
Yeah, that's interesting. That idea of past self and current self talking to each other.MonsignorX:
Yeah, I'm happy where I am. You were talking to somebody in one of your previous shows about not getting too wrapped up in who you were. I can't remember who it was now, maybe it was Asrik. It was something to the effect of: if you hadn't gone through all the things you went through before where you're standing, then you wouldn't even know to perceive the things that are going on or have these great experiences. You couldn't have had them 20 years ago, which I regret sometimes. “Oh my God, think of all the amazing things I could have done.” (Lee laughs) “If 15 years ago I could have figured this out, except I wasn't the same person.”Lee:
No.MonsignorX:
Going back to what we talked about at the beginning, I was a very angry guy, even though I concealed it. And I probably couldn't have let my guard down. Part of going back to the beginning conversation about all the anger work is, now I can let my guard down. Now I'm not constantly defensive, and I can let these terrible, and wonderful, and horrible things happen to me, and just experience them.I could not have probably done that 20 years ago, especially if I hadn't had… In order for it to have happened, I would have had to have an almost god-like person to have been able to read exactly what was in my head. I just don't believe that person would actually exist.
Lee:
Yeah, that idea of building internal capacity, whether it's for submission, or for connection, or for just self-acceptance, let alone self-embracing.MonsignorX:
Self-acceptance is a huge part of what I had to go… I think a lot of people, I think a lot of male submissive people, wrestle with because we're told we're always supposed to be strong, we're always supposed to be macho, et cetera. And in many cases, we have a very un-nuanced view of manhood, without trying to sound like an old guy, because I'm about to reference movies that were actually made before I was born anyway.But if you look at some of the heroes of movies in the ‘40s or ‘50s, and I'm a huge fan of Gor and other stuff, these guys were tough, but they weren't superhuman, and they suffered. And ever since the ‘80s, in action movies, it's like men never suffer. You only cry if somebody shoots your dog or something really extreme or something stupid like that.
We've almost been denied the right to be people, and the expectations are so high that you don't know how to just let go. I'm not trying to say that women have it easier, I'm not trying to say that at all. I'm just saying the challenges are somewhat different, especially for a heterosexual guy, who's got his own hangups about what that means about him as a man. It can be very difficult to get to that point, and women have been raised with the same cultural expectations, so it can be difficult for them to cope with the fact that the man is not strong in this moment. If he's sobbing and crying, well, what is he to me now?
The good ones figure out, well, he's being weak just like I would be in the same situation. Once I've taken him down there and shown that to him, I can bring him back and put him back together. That's part of him being mine, or as my Owner likes to say, and others say,” if I don't put the toys back where I found them, and put all the things back the way I found them, I won't be allowed to play with them again.”
Lee:
(laugh) Oh, that's hilarious, I love it.MonsignorX:
Eventually I have to go home and she doesn't want… Somehow, at some point, my family would say, what the hell is going on? So it's one of those running things. But I think it's very challenging for a certain kind of men.I reached a point in my life where I realized there's one truth. The thing is, me telling most men this won't help them, because you have to get to a point where you can actually understand it. And the truth is, manhood is what you make of it. Being a man is what you decide it's going to be. But I had to get through almost 50 years of time to figure that out. If you tried to tell me that when I was 20, it wouldn't have made any difference. Because we are wired to worry about what other people think of us.
Particularly for men, there's a strong expectation that you're supposed to be X, Y and Z. And if you're not meeting that test, you're not in the box anymore. You're not a man anymore. I reached a point where I just don't care, it's not a problem. But a lot of younger guys get very worried. If you read stuff on lists for female dominant/male submissive type stuff, sometimes they'll have their own parties just because the submissive men feel like dominant men treat them poorly. I don't know how true that is? I kind of remember the fears of it, but the way I manifest, I'm told flat out, I manifest as a very kind of alpha guy. And I have dominant, Master friends, but not one of them would ever try to pull crap on me. It would never even occur to them.
And if somebody ever did come up and try to play that game, the snarky part of me would just say, “dude, I can take more of a punch, and I'm pretty sure I get more sex than you do.” (Lee laughs)
But most people can't do that. I mean, I went through a lot to reach that, and everybody's got to kind of get their own way to find it.
Lee:
Yeah. I am so glad you were able to come on the show today. I am incredibly grateful of all of the different places we've gone, from that idea of manhood, and rage work, and berserkerism, and submission, through faith, and exploration, and personal identity. Thank you, thank you so much.MonsignorX:
You're most welcome. I enjoyed it.Lee:
Yum. For folks who are looking to find you, Monsignor, they can find you on FetLife, yes?MonsignorX:
Yes, yes. I am MonsignorX on FetLife.Lee:
Wonderful. And I'll include that in the show notes.And for folks who don't know, if you go over to the website, passionandsoul.com, click on the podcast button and you'll be able to just click there for all of the show notes, including how to find myself and MonsignorX, and all of the different events, spaces, you know, artists, and all that kind of stuff that we have mentioned today, all of the books, etc. So we'll be putting that together and getting it on up for you. I am so delighted that we were able to do this, and I look forward to the next time we talk.
MonsignorX:
Me too. Hopefully we'll see each other again soon.[music outro]
Lee:
And until next time, stay cool, have fun, embrace your journey, and be authentically you.
