By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com 
www.sensuoussadie.com 

Back in the olden days when the BDSM online community consisted of alt.personals.bondage, I had Dominants coming out of my ears and one posted ad could keep me in dinners for a month. Part of this was because I was single, submissive, and female; attributes in high demand. The other part was that I was a relative novice myself and enjoyed the variety of Dominants from the quirky to the bombastic. I admit there were times when I’d rather have been curled up at home with a Robert Parker mystery than listening to some guy spout drivel over porcini tortellini. But generally the dating experience was reasonably entertaining, netting me one or two partners as well as some good friends.

Choosing between all those Dominants was a bit like the restaurant scene here in Burlington . Lots of chain stores like the Olive Garden, but also plenty of family-owned eateries. A Dominant is a Dominant is as a Restaurant is a Restaurant; different but all able to satisfy the basic needs.

One day I started fantasizing about those chicken satay appetizers from Five Spice Café, a wonderful Asian restaurant in downtown Burlington . Even though I still liked Italian, Vietnamese, and Indian food, they simply could not satisfy my need for chunks of tender chicken draped in peanut sauce. The same thing happened with dating Dominants. After a while my taste became more focused, and I no longer bothered with dating novices, sensation-only players, and anyone outside the Burlington area. It turns out that I’m an impatient and unwilling teacher, relationship oriented, and all too aware few will travel over an hour just for my company. There’s just as many players out there these days, but far fewer that are a good match, far harder to order up a good Dominant than a takeout box of chicken satay.

Now that I’ve gotten a bit known for my writing, I figured it would be much easier to find partners. A prospective Dominant can peruse my website and get the down and dirty on me pretty quick. Not to mention that I know just about everyone in the Northern Vermont community and they all know me. Maybe that celebrity factor is scaring them off or maybe it’s the knowledge that I might just write about their sexual proclivities, but I’m dating less now that we have several BDSM groups than when we didn’t. The funniest part is that I’ve scored three Submissives since our community came to be, but only one Dominant, who was not a good match. Then there’s the spirituality aspect which I so long to explore, a special interest as unusual as if I were an “enema Dominant” or perhaps a Submissive who was only interested in wallpapering pantries while dressed in a chartreuse dashiki.

A BDSM author friend of mine told me that he gets a lot of “celebrity fuckers” when he travels. I do sometimes get the sense that someone’s attracted to me for the glam factor, which is flattering I admit. I have myself suffered from stars in my eyes when meeting well-known scene players for the first time. Somehow I thought they’d be something so much more than I am. But it turns out they they’re pretty much like the rest of us, maybe driven by their own particular passion in the BDSM arena, but just as full of crabby moments and questionable character traits. In fact, maybe more negative character traits as the whole glam/celebrity aspect often affects people for the worse. Power corrupts and all that.

Sometimes I wonder if I could just go back to dating vanilla guys, with whom things are so much easier. Well, maybe not easy, but at least overt. We all know the drill: first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the…. (fill in the blank). You meet a guy you like, you date. There’s no demands that I not wear underwear that evening, or queries about my sex life before the main dish even arrives. No questions about whether I’m “really” submissive. In the vanilla world all that stuff can wait a few months until the sex kicks in.

I imagine my vanilla date picking me up and gazing about while I gather my coat and keys. Mine is a home that clearly belongs to someone with a strong sexual identity. No, there aren’t real handcuffs dangling from the wardrobe knobs, but there is the handcuff keychain attached to my spare set of keys. No, there aren’t floggers draping the walls, at least downstairs, but there is that red corset embellishing the bedroom door. No, there aren’t any “plant hooks” above the dining room table, but the photos of me along the stairwell express an inexplicable sexual aroma. Then there’s the copy of The Loving Dominant on the bookshelf, the dominatrix cartoon on the refrigerator, and a pile of unfinished columns by my computer.

Would a pre-date pornsweep manage to disappear all these items? How closely do people look anyway? He might miss the bathroom door and wander into my bedroom where there actually are floggers hanging on the wall, not to mention suspension cuffs and a painting of Isis cradling Osiris in her arms. His submission to her is unmistakable. What about all these things then?


I see myself explaining to my vanilla date how I spend my time, somehow avoiding the writing, editing, interviewing, and exploring of the BDSM lifestyle. There’d be the untraditional nature of my relationships which would probably give him the wrong idea. I might avoid discussing my experiences in becoming friends with writers, editors, and other interesting scene personalities. That would leave my work, my pets, and a few other hobby oddities. But then something always slips out. I may be able to dissemble at work, but do I want to make that much effort over Asian noodles?

I’m afraid that I will die with dreams still unfulfilled, not “thoroughly used up” as George Bernard Shaw wrote that he wished to be. I dream of a Dominant who doesn’t need me to lead him, of a subspace deeper than skin deep, of sex and passion and pain so delirious that I’m lost for a while, far from the construct of my life. Does this even exist, or do I yearn for something impossible, improbable? Am I doomed to live on what I’ve had so far, interesting, but barely slaking my thirst?

On this summer night, crickets flirt outside my bedroom window, and inside my cats chase each other across the carpet. I am lost, not knowing where and when, or even if he is. If I never find him, would this have been enough, a main dish just barely tasted? Will it be enough hoping that he will, but never actually having felt him claim me? Is it possible to go back in time and be happy with Italian, Vietnamese, and Indian dinners? Or is there only forward to the next level with someone whom I cannot yet imagine? Perhaps he is imagining me even now, and moving ever, perceptibly closer.

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Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex, and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene (http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html). She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn , Vermont 's first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com  or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing in most venues.

Copyright 2003 Sadie Sez Publications