Complex Desires
I have complex desires.I've had people say this to me a lot over the years, but most of the time what they mean is “I like women who wear boots” or “dominance turns me on.” The fact that so many folks think that this means “I have complex desires” or worse yet “my desires are so complex that no one would ever be into them” is heart breaking.Having a paraphilia, or partialism (also known as a fetish) isn't all that uncommon. A lot of folks like heels or hips or blue jeans or chocolate sauce. Okay, so some of them are a tad more obscure- the glistening ripe grapefruit sailing through the air and hitting her silken skin with the wet sploosh noise in RubyFruit Jungle for example might not be for everyone. But at the end of the day- love, compassion, empathy, slow introduction... and almost anything can be negotiable in the bedroom for the open hearted.But sometimes, we run into complex desires.Tonight I was talking to The Mad Social Scientist, Brent. Brent is one of my best friends, and someone dear to my heart, and we were discussing desire. With his explicit permission and amusement (and who knows, maybe finding him a few dates through the world wide web) I share with you a complex desire (with some of my own thoughts thrown in).“In order to be sexually aroused, truly and at the core, I need to own the person. I need to make them into art. And then, I want to fuck that art.”The desire for ownership is total. Brent can not borrow, rent, lease. They must be his. To mold a person, create them, make them the most amazing thing they can be and see them in all of their flaws, beauty, potential, passion, and greatness. The person needs to be someone worth owning, in his eyes. What is the valuable to him may not be valuable to you, or you, the owned, may not yet see that thing in you he sees burning bright as a gem a-fire in your spirit. For what is the value of spending time and energy into owning something that has no value, in the eyes of the owner?The desire to create art is total. Brent is an engineer and a visionary, and he wants to take a canvas, a brush, some paints and make something awe inspiring- for himself or for an audience beyond. The art must in fact be art, not just pretty petty puffs that anyone can dream up. Why spend energy on a mass-produced pop poster when a Picasso is possible? The art must be what he perceives as art, not anyone else's aesthetic- and oh there is an aesthetic. Grace of curves and ballet boots en pointe, gleaming reds and whites, contorted poses and strained expressions of pain and passion. Taking the body somewhere it never thought it could go, and seeing it shine there. Watching eyes open wide as his art is revealed, watching and taking in all of his hard work- even if he was the visionary, not the brush that danced across his canvas.The desire to use is total. Once it is his and it is art, is must be consumed. Rutted with. Fucked and filled and taken to the depths of his desires.Some people he has met want to be his and be fucked and used. This is not enough.Some people he has met want to be owned and be art. This is not enough.Some people want to be art and be used. This is not enough.To own, to create, to use. In that order. With keen eye to creation and a big picture that is happy to spend literally years to build up potential to its height and make it what his vision demands. To train a woman for years until she can (literally, I have seen it) walk for miles en-pointe and be bound, walking through the shopping mall, all eyes on his prize. To create spectacles, art, beauty... and have them be his to use. To cultivate until someone believes themselves to be as amazing as his eyes see them.This is a complex desire.In fact, these sorts of complex desires come with complications in their implementation. When we engage in Dominance and submission as performance art, our partner is not often the focus of the scene. We are engaging in a power exchange with our audience, with our submissive partner or bottom as a tool for the art we are orchestrating. In negotiating with our human tool in advance, we set them up to be part of us, the Dominant partner, not to be part of the audience that is being played upon. They dominate the audience with us, even when they are physically bottoming to an experience.Brent is an Artist, and the humans he engages with in these exchanges are his tools. Brush, canvas, paint. The relationship between Artist and Tools is a different one than the Artist and his Audience. The brush does not debate its feelings on what it is painting while it is painting. The canvas rarely screams out that it is not a canvas in the midst of being painted. If screams erupt it is part of the art, a rending of fabric and wood, splinters flying as the piece is laid to waste in a performance never to be repeated again. Sometimes, performance art is at its finest this way.But when the desire becomes a show, a spectacle... Does the other part of this dynamic, the audience, get a safeword?I have sat with this a fair amount as of late. In New Orleans last year I did a show called “Oleg's Lament” for the Palimpsest tour. I started on the main stage covered in ink with torn clothes, and was taken in. I was taken “back to the apartment” of a young woman, who tended to Oleg, and Oleg ripped her clothes off, bound her, ripped pill bottles from her hand as she tried to pop pills and forget the pain. Oleg used her, left her broken, scarred yet again by the harsh and beautiful world she was part of.The stage for the suspension and mock-rape was at the back of the space, when all other shows had been main stage or nearby. Folks who were uncertain on if they wanted to be at the show at all with its adult content were hiding in the back. And there I was, raping a woman over their heads.I spent over an hour that night providing aftercare to the audience of the show. Talking about the symbolism, for those who had not yet read Catherynne Valente's novel. That the land of fae is a terrible place, not just a beautiful one. That humans can be even worse, in times of desperation for love, family, and needing hope.But at kink spaces, and art spaces, we as audience do not always get such aftercare. Especially when individuals with complex desires do not think through their actions... or care.Some folks lay out signs saying that the scene will be extreme and folks were welcome to go to other rooms. Some play at events that had multiple rooms. Some set their orchestrations to play in the very back room of a space.And yet- and yet folks stay and watch what they are uncomfortable with. They watch canvases scream and cry and go beyond their pain limits and dance beyond there, where safewords were not respected and suffering holds sway. Watch until they go outside and vomit.These tales, of course, have other perspectives. This glimpse is just one.So why did folks stay? This issue could make sense if it was at a one-room event where no one could leave, or if it was done in an area unavoidable (such as blood letting scenes I have born witness to outside of the dining area of an event so that no one could avoid seeing it). But in this case, why stay? Why be offended when you can go in another room or leave?Some choose to stay for the opportunity to be offended.Some stay to see the spectacle.Some choose art and story over suffering of their own heart.There are likely other reasons as well, but it is worth considering.Is it the right of those of us with complex desires to subject them upon others?Is it the right of those of us offended by complex desires to deny them space to dance?I am not certain of either case. I know that in some spaces I have attend I have found myself stuck like a train wreck, my mind unable to turn away. Other times I have been at spaces where I have found myself unable to bottom because spectacle-driven individuals have come before and created an atmosphere where there is a presumption of acceptability of audience interaction in humiliation, degradation or objectification scenarios. I have born witness to a great many things, and turned away from others.I have become jaded to some of these things. Spirograph you say? Out of a woman inverted hanging from a tree? While we tap her femoral artery and have her spray blood across canvases and keds shoes? Sure- sounds like a great Thursday night (it may have been a Friday, can't recall... but it was in Maryland). Yeah, perhaps I have become jaded.And yet, I still turn away. I choose not to watch certain things. Some because it triggers desires in me that I am uncomfortable facing. Some because of the players involved and my feelings towards them. In some instances it has been because it simply made me ill or not okay with what was going on.Sometimes I have reported things that were against event rules to the dungeon monitors. Other times I have discussed with the participants later my concerns. Sometimes, I admit, I just bitched about it but never got off my ass to be a decent civil human and talk to the humans involved. I try to get better every day.But there is a difference between physical or emotional safety concerns for participants and viewers, and just wanting to bitch because I did not like it. I try to own which one it is.Brent is not the only person with complex desires.Other folks have them as well.Desires for specific combinations, long term creations, escalations. High production scenes. Investment sex. Passion that requires high output. Spectacle Longings. Subtle fantasies that require finesse to put together.You, oh complex desire humans, are not alone.