core/dump

Less than 4 days have passed since I put a big ass dragon on my arm. The dragon itself is a variation on the concept known as the Leviathan. Why did I choose this art? Because it describes my views on power well… when it is all going right it is below the surfaces gliding freely and effortlessly. When it has to breech the surface, it does so unflinchingly. This is relevant because this is one of those times. Much sooner than I would have expected that power has had to remind us all that there can be no compromise on some things. I will look it all straight in the eye.

As many of you know Kimiko has been in my continuous service for much more than a decade. In addition to this I have also considered her my property for much of that. Last but by no means least Kimiko is family, and she is one of my girls. She has been my friend and my confidant. Of those three relationships (property, servant and Daddy’s girl) that existed at least in theory when I woke up this morning only one remains.

I stopped considering Kimiko my property earlier this afternoon when it became clear to me that she no longer could replace her own judgment with my own. There were limits to how far Kimiko would follow an order that I would not accept.

Later in the day, we spent time trying to decide if she could remain in my service. There is more flexibility in service than there is in ownership so this might have been possible. The opportunity to remain in my service at this time collapsed a little while ago when it became clear that Kimiko has violated the honor of this house by having an affair.

Why blog about this? I speak and educate often on topics related to “extreme dominance”. This is not really a term I use myself but it is one others use to describe my ideas. The core concept of which I speak is the uncrossable line. What do you do when faced with a “this far and no further” choice. My stance on this is what people often mean when they call me “extreme”. Many have listened to me speak on these things… and some have told me that they are following my example. They have often asked me how  should someone react in a situation like this.

Here then is my answer and my action: When pushed, you will either hold fast to your ideals or you will not. I will and I have. 

There will be people looking at this situation (the BDSM community is small, this will no doubt make the rounds) who will wonder how this relates to another topic I speak on – poaching. I have said in the past that the sanctity of a collar is only as important to me as my relationship with the dominant who owns it. I owe no one the privilege of recognizing their domain unless they have earned that from me. In all the world there are only a very small handful of people who are not in my household who I would never cross because they are my pack and a scattering of others who I consider allies and thus protected by what amounts to “treaty”.

Everyone else is to some extent fair game. This reality is harsh, honest and unpopular but frankly trying to stay popular is the least of my issues this evening.

In my own turn I do not blame the poacher who was on my land. They owed me no loyalty. They owed me no allegiance of any kind. My property was, by my standards, fair game for them. Had the situations been reversed I would have not hesitated a moment to take something from them if I wanted it. They have earned my enmity by acting against my interests – but that enmity is not motivated by anger or a feeling of betrayal. They owed me nothing, and so I am not angry or betrayed by them.

The sanctity of my domain is solely my responsibility and I will make no appeal to the good nature of others to protect it nor will I place any claim of brotherhood or kinship on those who are not my allies or friends. This incident will not change that. So there we are. My ownership will accept no boundaries – and thus it is ended. My house will accept no betrayal, and thus her service is ended. Exactly as I always held it had to be.

However Daddy endures. In a recent episode of Power in Practice we spoke of what “Daddy" was to us. In that I mentioned that Daddy is there for me because Daddy can love when Ownership cannot. Daddy can forgive what Ownership cannot. Daddy can endure and survive. Daddy is our safety net. Daddy is our salvation.

I love Kimiko and have for a long time. I don’t see that changing in the future. She will hopefully remain here with me and we will work on the fears and confusion that brought her to make these horribly misguided decisions. When and if she has grown and changed enough then maybe we work back into the rest of it. In the meantime she will do her chores, we will be together and that will be enough.

I would like to thank Kimiko’s sister and my other baby girl Tatsumi for her understanding and support today. She is awesome.

A recent email discussion on Fetlife brought up this quotation again…

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine" - John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, page 676 by Ayn Rand

I have discussed it from the dominant and submissive perspectives. If you haven’t seen them you may want to check out the posts.

• Ask not…
• …live my life for another

The other day the comment system here at core / dump let me know that there was a new comment on an old, old post. It was my old pal “Master Eso” who must have been out there Googling himself or something. Anyway, he dropped a note just to let me know that in all the intervening years he managed to still be a humorless prig.

Now this is only worth a mention because of a recent post on FetLife, from which I will quote myself…

“Oh hell… everyone I know in BDSM who is even a little bit interesting has a 5 to 1 ratio of people who would say bad things about them vs. people who would give a good "reference". – me

That about covers it.

I just posted this on a fetish website where the usual panicked discussions were going on about censoring discussion of certain fetishes. Predictably, while not one of the fetishes in question involved child molestation it showed up as the scary monster under the bed as it always does when someone wants you to back down from your support of free thought.

Here was my reply…

(ed note: I made a few minor textual changes on re-read to remove some course language and clarify one sentence… this post will be on the web forever and neither a misunderstanding or an obscenity is needed to make my point)

Here is where the rubber of freedom hits the road of panic and the desire of some to criminalize the thoughts of others.

I will be very, very clear. I absolutely object to any attempt to criminalize thoughts and fantasies regardless of their content. That includes molesting kids, murdering nuns, killing baby seals, blowing up a tall building or bringing down a nation.

Criminalizing actions that specifically violate the rights of others? That I support. As applied to the panic button topic of child molestation that means I reject the criminalization of art, communication or erotica about the topic but I absolutely support the criminalization of an adult having sex with a child.

See the line? Crimes are things that happen in REALITY. Things that happen in fantasy I do not support criminalizing.

The supreme court I might add is not at all convinced that criminalizing fantasy is a good idea either. Many of the challenges to the overly broad and repeatedly struck down "Child Online Protection Act" are on just this issue.

One of the interesting things about this discussion (and in fact any discussion involving the defense of freedom even in unpopular extremes) is that it almost always follows a pattern…

• An extreme topic is chosen (child molestation, terrorism, racism or whatever it doesn’t matter really)

• The assertion is made that anyone who thinks such a thing is dangerous and sick

• Anyone who defends freedom of thought on principle is cast as clearly either lying or being a secret member of the evil group in question and thus suspect

Overall? That means few people will stand up and defend free thought. They are intimidated and afraid of being cast as a molester, terrorist or whatever. To hell with that crap.

My answer, point blank, is that yes. I fully support and defend the rights of law abiding humans who have never acted on the fantasy to sit around at night masturbating to thoughts of having sex with the underage. I also fully support the rights of someone to sit in their house at night dreaming about bombing an airport. I fully support the freedom of someone to sit around at night dreaming about raping that hot actress on TV. THINK about what you want… hell, even get together with others and talk about how hot it all is. Draw pictures, write video games. Whatever.

When you cross the line from fantasy to reality I will come down on you like a f_cking hammer. Till then? What happens in your head is your own business.

Not only do I consider that an essential component of freedom on an ethical level - but as a practical one it is a critical line as well. As soon as the government starts criminalizing thought things get very bad very fast. We have seen that with many of the current thought crime laws (they call it "hate crime legislation" these days) and the havoc it has wrought on any concept of justice in the court system.

Welcome to part 5 of this series. If you are looking for a way back to the beginning you can go to the Introduction which has a table of contents or just to the the previous section.

The value of consistency in punishment is one that comes up fairly often in its own right. So I think it deserves a small section all its own.

Generally speaking consistency in the application of punishment is crucial in the creation or maintenance of a conditioned response. By its nature conditioning is based on consistent application of reward or punishment. Once the response is conditioned it is possible to become more inconsistent without significantly degrading the response.

For disciplinary situations complete consistency may be less crucial. In circumstances where a pattern of behavior is being changed though disciplinary methods sometimes it is useful to forego punishment or reprimand. This is often considered mercy or leniency and is in itself a powerful form of manipulation.

In all cases it is important that the submissive realize that a failure to apply punishment was a decision on the part of the dominant, not that the dominant either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the infraction.

An experiment

An example of a command is “drop’. When the command to “drop” is heard the submissive should instantly assume a kneeling position. This is not something they should think about or question, it is intended as an instant and unconditional response. Feel free to try this one on your own, but be cautious.

You could try to instill this response into your submissive with a reward system. Giving them praise or a kiss when she drops at your command. Remember though, it must be an instant reaction to count. Once you think they have it, begin adding distractions to the situation. Slip the command into a conversation or while you are giving other commands. Try it while she is holding a cup of water.

In the vast majority of cases you will notice that the response time becomes much longer as distractions are added. For responses of this level of complexity it seems that the reward is not sufficiently connected to the action to form a strong bond; unlike the above example of an orgasm which is a simple instantaneous act.

Now try it with punishment. Take some time to issue the command to “drop” when you are close to your submissive. When you issue the command if there is any hesitation at all then apply the punishment. I find that a riding crop is a fine tool for this purpose.

In a short time you will probably see that the negative reinforcement has had a much stronger associative effect than the reward did. It is not always true but my experience has shown it often is.

Conclusion

My goal with this article is to provide some information and a potentially useful framework to those within the community who feel that training, conditioning and punishment may be useful in their relationship. Hopefully I have done that.

These methods have been used in one form or another for as long as humans have had social interactions and they clearly have a powerful potential to shape the actions of the submissive that is being trained.

I feel also that they have an important role in combating some of the current trends in BDSM. I am speaking specifically about the trend to demand less and less of those who chose to serve. Generally the justification for the lowering of those standards and demands is that it is not possible to act to a high standard all the time, that it is too difficult or something that is possible only in fictional novels.

I will submit for your consideration that high standards of behavior are extremely difficult when training and discipline are removed. That it is the removal of conditioning and training in an attempt to civilize BDSM that is resulting in the conclusion that they are unattainable.

For my house I know that it would simply not be possible to display what I consider correct responses if one had only their conscious mind to rely on. There are details of body positioning, tone of voice and a thousand other details that need to be constantly adhered to; they would take up so much time consciously obeying that there would be no capacity left to do anything useful!

As training and discipline make more and more of those responses and patterns automatic, the amount of conscious effort needed to comply drops until eventually what was a seemingly impossible set of standards becomes second nature.

Welcome to part 4 of this series. If you are looking for a way back to the beginning you can go to the Introduction which has a table of contents or just to the the previous section.

Punishment is simply the negative consequence of a response. In that sense it does not necessarily have a purpose or goal; however the most common use of punishment in BDSM is as a component of the training or disciplining of the submissive.

The purpose training is to alter the responses of the submissive so that they more closely match the desires of the dominant. The range of areas where such responses might be controlled is limited only by the scope of the relationship itself. It can include everything from the smallest physical act to the overall philosophical view the submissive applies to moral decisions.

The applicability of punishment in training, and the type of punishment you use will depend largely on whether the change falls into the broad categories of conditioning or discipline.

It is my experience that in cases non-physical responses it is useful for the punishment to emphasize the mental/emotional/moral aspects of the transgression. In this circumstance the punishment should also be accompanied by an expression of disapproval or reprimand. A physical component to this punishment may well be useful to bring home the reprimand or to focus the submissive on the issue at hand but the physical alone will rarely bring about the change you desire.

The flip side of the coin would be a failure on the part of the submissive to exhibit the desired conditioned response. As conditioned responses generally bypass the conscious mind and are rarely affected by things like motivation, dedication or discipline it is not often useful to emphasize reprimand or judgment in association with this type of failure.

In short, when you need to talk to the mind you need more than the physical. When you need to talk to the body the physical is often the most direct method.

Reward is the opposite of punishment and may be used in conjunction with it. A reward is a positive consequence that is earned by the submissive when the proper response is manifested. Reward is often particularly effective at the bonding of responses to stimulus when there was no previous connection at all to that stimulus.

We see the use of reward most clearly in the training of animals. Since it is impossible to explain the responses you want, punishment doesn’t always make sense – especially since most dog training is in the realm of discipline, not conditioning. The mechanism then is to invoke a series of responses and reward the one we desire when it happens.

If you want to teach a dog to give you it’s paw on command how do you do it? You say “paw” and then reward when (and if) the dog hands the paw to you. It would be impossible to train them by saying “paw” and then punishing them when they do anything other than hand you their paw. All that would happen is the association of the word “paw” with punishment. Bad idea. The thing is, it isn’t possible to explain what you want to a dog. Thus, the odds of incorrect responses is very high. With humans it is different. You can explain, so it does become practical to punish a human for non compliance with an order.

Combinations of reward and punishment are even better.

An example of punishment: As a martial arts instructor one of the things I must teach is the proper method of positioning ones body to be able to defend against an incoming blow. Of this, one of the hardest things to instill in adults and children alike is that they must keep their hands up to be effective with our style. If they drop their hands then they will be vulnerable and they will be hit in the face.

• I can explain this to them.
• I can show this to them.
• I can praise them for keeping their hands up (reward)

After all that, a large portion of those people will still drop their hands during a sparring session because they feel faster or more nimble in that position.

• Are these adults immature? No.
• Are they stupid? No.
• Do they lack respect for me as their teacher? No.
• Do they lack respect for our Sensei? No.
• Do they lack dedication? No.

What is the cause of the problem then? Simple; they are dealing with a complex and often unfamiliar situation that is overwhelming their conscious minds ability to process. The result of this is that their mind is "farming out" responsibility for some of their responses to deeper reflexes or instincts to free up conscious attention to handle the problems of defense and response. In other words, they have had to allow some things to go on "auto pilot".

Sometimes, the problem is different. They may already have reflexes or neural pathways that encode a different response to this problem. Maybe it is a response ingrained by a previous Sensei or style. In this case, under the stress and complexities of combat they may simply not have the available concentration to over-ride the reflex and do everything else needed of them.

In my experience, a large portion of these students will not alter that response until they get hit in the face a few times (punishment) by their opponent. This punishment drastically raises the priority of altering that response or forming a new one and they will assign much more conscious brain power to making that change.

Rewarding them for keeping their hands up does not fix this problem nearly as efficiently as the negative re-enforcement of being hit in the face for keeping their hands down. We are trying to create a reflex in the body so that the hands will stay up even when the mind is staggered, distracted or confused. We want to talk, as it were, to the body so we need to speak the language the body understands.

Alternately, for responses requiring complex rational thought reward is much better. Rewarding a submissive for the correct choice of language in a complex social situation is a good idea. Punishing them for the language choice probably won’t help. Interestingly the closely related area of tone is the inverse. Since tone and body language is rarely consciously controlled it is effective to punish inappropriate tone or body language.

On to part 5, The Importance of Consistency…

Welcome to part 3 of this series. If you are looking for a way back to the beginning you can go to the Introduction which has a table of contents or just to the the previous section.

While the internals of the human mind are still beyond our complete understanding several factors have combined to allow me to model its behavior with some accuracy for these purposes. This model is the synthesis of what has been learned from studying the physical structure of the brain and those who are trying to duplicate its functions for use in robotic systems that need to learn and adapt with a lot of NLP thrown in. Below is the model of human responses I use in my training programs, for simple reference I tend to think of this as the “Black-Box” model.

In the Black-Box model of response behavior I consider that humans tend to encode repetitive tasks or conclusions into their “hardware” and that from the point of view of the conscious mind the inner workings of these become opaque.  In engineering such a system is known as a “Black Box” indicating that its internal workings are unknown and must be deduced from outside observation.

The human brain appears to be a large network of neurons that are free to form connections to each other in three dimensions. There is some evidence that as we learn these connections between the cells of our brain become physically thicker and stronger in some directions and not so in others, forming a map of our knowledge.

Actions that are in accordance with these more efficient connections are literally faster than unfamiliar or unused pathways. Eventually these preferred reactions become so efficient that they sort of become automatic. It would take a deliberate effort of will to suppress that reaction. This is one of the core benefits of practicing something. I use the blanket term reflexes for this result.

Any situation or stimulus that doesn’t have a reflex or is too complex to be encoded as a reflex is processed by the conscious mind. While the conscious mind has an incredible ability to make decisions about handling novel or unknown situations it is slow compared to reflexes and there is a limit to how much it can handle at one time.

The ability to create reflexes over time is one of the great strengths of the human mind. It allows us to function more efficiently and represents an important aspect of learning. These created reflexes are slower than the ones that are deeply written into the human body they are still much faster than conscious decision making.

Think of it this way… the more you do something the more engrained those pathways in your mind become. The more deeply those pathways are engrained the less you have to “think” about using them.

An example is the act of catching a ball. When you first tried it you were slow and clumsy. You got hit with it or dropped the ball often. Your brain had to attempt to solve complex spatial relations calculations in real time and simultaneously control your arm and body to make the catch. Your conscious mind was not up to the task because it is slow, very slow considering the speeds of the world we live in.

Over time you got better at it as more and more of the processing was being encoded into your brains physical structure by the process of learning. As those items were thus encoded they became a subroutine or reflex that your conscious mind could call upon. These reflexes run much, much faster than your conscious mind. The more that gets encoded the more your brain has left to handle the rest of the problem.

In the end, the entire process of catching a ball became automated. Once that happens you can catch balls all day while using your conscious mind to do a multitude of other tasks like listening to music or holding a conversation - or making decisions about where to throw the ball once you catch it to win a game. It goes further; once you have that reflex then it becomes generalized. Not only can you catch a baseball but your body will quickly react to catch a wide range of "semi ball like objects".

An example is the act of Driving a car. Another example many of us can relate too. It seemed complex and overwhelming in the beginning but later on it is easy. When the conditions on the road become significantly different than what we are used to, like when it is snowing or raining, the reflexes gradually lose their ability to help us and driving becomes a difficult task again.

It is easy to see how these concepts apply to reflexes that involve physical actions, but is the same true for more complex decisions? It seems that it is though the experimental verification is somewhat lacking.

In my experience, complex decisions and moral/ethical concepts go through a similar process of imprinting or learning. I know that for myself when I was younger I spent quite a lot of time weighing  my actions in the context of my developing morals and ethics. Over time I spend much less time on such things as those responses I would find morally objectionable simply do not occur to me on the conscious level as possibilities for action.

For these complex types of decisions and situations then discipline is the more applicable strategy. Whether internally or externally imposed discipline can be used to imprint complex responses into the brain. These responses are slower than reflexes and more subject to conscious modification or control but significantly more flexible and still provide an efficiency increase over completely conscious processing.

An example is chess: When learning to play chess one finds quickly at the lower skill levels that it is a bad idea to leave your King exposed to the front. As the number of games lost to this situation mounts many players develop a distinct reluctance to make any move that will expose their King to the front because of this. We may say that this player is “disciplined” in that they do not make casual mistakes leaving their King open when tired or distracted.

The interesting part of this is that there are many situations where it is perfectly safe and advantageous to make such a move. As ones skill increases they may know this intellectually but they often will retain a sense of unease at the prospect. This unease is not beyond conscious control the way a reflex generally but the power of the imprint remains noticeable.

There are many possible situations where this type of discipline can be useful in training the submissive to serve optimally. It can be used to instill instincts and tendencies that can improve performance and attitude. Discipline can be instilled to combat a natural tendency to laziness or to overcome an innate shyness for example. Most importantly discipline can be used to help the submissive control inappropriate emotional responses.

Just like conditioned reflexes, discipline helps the mind create automatic or semi-automatic responses that can leave the conscious mind clear to make decisions. Self discipline to control panic can go a long way to helping someone respond appropriately in a dangerous situation.

On to part 4, Punishment and Reward…

Welcome to part 3 of this series. If you are looking for a way back to the beginning you can go to the Introduction which has a table of contents or just to the the previous section.

In this section we will examine the debate within the BDSM community on the topic of whether training (and by extension punishment) is needed at all. The opposition to training solidifies around several lines of argument that come up over and over. Below I present them, and my responses.

 Proposal: “perfect obedience”: The idea is that the submissive in a relationship naturally has as their goal obedience to their dominants wants and desires. Thus, they will always endeavor to obey and if at any time they fail in that task it is an innocent mistake or momentary weakness. Such a submissive does not, they may claim, need to be “treated like a child” to achieve the goals of the dominant.

Response: For many relationships this will be true. The requirements of the dominant are not such that reflexes need to be created or any specific discipline achieved. The requirements all fall within the realm of volitional responses that do not need to happen quickly or with any high degree of consistency. If that is the case then punishment and for that matter training have little place in the relationship.

Proposal: “Self Punishment”: This is the idea that a submissive who has knowingly failed their dominant will feel remorse about that failing and that this is “punishment enough”.

Response: While the self punishment of the submissive is a real phenomena and the submissive in question will no doubt feel significant anguish in their failure this is not always a useful means of correcting the response. It is fairly common for humans to misinterpret the cause of their own failure or the exact nature of that failure. Any change in the responses of the submissive resulting from a mistaken or misplaced self punishment would then not be in line with the desired response.

Let’s face it – many humans do things every day they feel bad about later. Feelings of later remorse are lousy motivators most of the time.

Proposal “My dominant should want me as I am and not change me!”: This is another common refrain that shows up in several forms.

Response: It is clear that in the majority of relationships there is no training desired or required. The reasons for this may simply be that the dominant has no specific responses in mind or that they are in line with the responses already present in the submissive.

In either case this is a perfectly acceptable relationship dynamic. It does not however negate that there are other possible valid relationship dynamics that may require the substantial alteration of the responses of the submissive.

One common rebuttal when this is pointed out is to question why the dominant would have entered a relationship with a submissive that required substantial alteration. The answer is simple and clear; this submissive offered value that exceeded the cost of their training (not speaking specifically monetarily, though that may be one situation).

In short not everyone does need to introduce training, punishment or conditioning to their relationship. The majority of folks never have a set of needs and standards that require this level of response. However those of us that do are not treating our people as morons, children or weaklings.

On to part 3, The debate!

A long time ago I wrote the first drafts of this essay. I was recently cleaning it up in order to post a link to it somewhere and I was no longer happy with the basic structure of the presentation. It felt a bit stilted to me. This is the first major re-write in more than 5 years.

The topic of punishment is a common one in BDSM community discussions. People debate all aspects of it from the definition of the term itself to whether or not it has any place at all in a relationship. Clearly I am one of those who think that punishment does have it’s place so this will be a discussion of how and why I feel that way.

The community debate rally’s around several lines of argument that come up over and over. Before we look at those it makes some sense to get our definitions and terms clarified.

Definitions

• Punishment (noun): Suffering, pain, or loss that serves as retribution.
• Reward (noun): A desirable or pleasurable stimulus or outcome.
• Correction (noun): Punishment intended to improve or rehabilitate. Correction is punishment with a specific goal.
• Response (noun): The reaction of an individual to a given situation or stimulus.
• Conditioning (noun): The process by which a subject comes to associate a desired response with a specific stimulus. The primary tools of conditioning are punishment and reward.
• Reflex (adjective): An automatic or involuntary response to a stimulus. In this discussion we will lump those literal reflexes of the human animal in with acquired reflexes and what some call “pattern generators”.
• Discipline (noun): Actions designed to produce a specific pattern of thought or decision making. Alternately discipline is used to refer to the result of such training.
• Training (verb): To discipline or condition another to conform to a set of desired responses.

With these definitions in mind, we can go on to look at the debate within the community about whether any of this is needed at all.

• Part 2, The Debate!
• Part 3, How people respond and act
• Part 4, Punishment and Reward
• Part 5, The importance of consistency

note: It is important for you to be aware that I have no special training in any formal sense about these topics. I hold no doctorate degree in psychology or neurobiology; I am not a therapist nor am I an education professional. What I present here is the result of my research and my experience as a trainer and a teacher over the years.

I love my friends. In this case, it’s Kat who had the best line of the day.

Kathryn Tact says (11:03 PM): Tell me I’m being an insane girl and to fucking stop.

Soulhuntre  says (11:03 PM): Stop.

Kathryn Tact says (11:04 PM): I’ve been trying to, and I haven’t yet hit on something that is helping me stop.

Soulhuntre says (11:04 PM): Hmm.

Soulhuntre says (11:04 PM): Stop, you ignorant whore?

Kathryn Tact says (11:04 PM): Now you sound like my therapist.

Awesome.

I have had a number of people about cell popping … and frankly I have decided the name is not at all useful. "Cell popping" is descriptive, but simply doesn’t convey any useful information.

I started describing and referring to it as "microbranding" and most people went "ah, I get it" right away. So that’s the term I plan on using from now on.

Just FYI

You never know when you will run into a brand new twisted hobby.  Yesterday was the first time I head of the practice gaining popularity under the name “cell popping”. Others apparently refer to it as “Devil’s Fire”. The new name comes, so I am told, from the sizzling / popping noise it makes. You can buy kits (that you probably don’t need) and look at some pictures of the results at the page of “Artistic Domme” who is popularizing the practice.

Simply put what you do is the following*…

1. Heat a needle or other sharp, metal instrument
2. Use the pointed tip, not the flat or sides, to touch the skin. You do not need to go deep. It will cause a small, round burn. You may hear a pop or sizzle noise.
3. Reheat.
4. Repeat often enough to form a design or pattern if desired.

This falls under the heading of “temporary” body modification. Since the metal being used is relatively small it heats up and cools down much faster than most brands would. It has less heat to dump into the surrounding skin and tissue making it somewhat more forgiving than a brand would be as well regarding strike length and so on.

My reading so far (mostly in the “cell popping: group on FetLife) indicates it tends to heal on many without a scar in about 14 days. However as everyone is different do your own experiments before doing a large design!!!

I definitely plan on playing with this. Interestingly, I will be at a fetish club this evening. Hmm….

* note: under no circumstances is this post intended to be a tutorial**! Use your head people!

** note: That being said, you now know about as much as I do, and I’m damn sure going to try it

Someone asked about the earliest thing we could remember that let us know we were “kinky”…

“As far back as I can remember my thoughts about the girls I was attracted to were those of control, possession or ownership first - sex came a distant second or third.

Beg for me, crawl for me, worship me, bleed for me… offer to die for me. Short of all that? Beg me for food and water through the crack under the door

It has always been thus in my head.” – soulhuntre, about 8 hours ago

So there you are

The below is an additional post I put up in the discussion I referred to before.

(name deleted) - I do understand what you are saying. I simply disagree with not only your core premise but your conclusions. Once again, while it is a tragedy that someone is having trouble finding work, I am unclear by what moral right they somehow gain a claim on what is mine because of this.

I have in the past and will continue in the future to help those who have problems directly and indirectly. I do so because I CHOOSE to do it. I do it freely. However the moment someone claims they have the right to confiscate what I have to service those who have not, I will fight to keep it.

I will not revisit your claims of a globe spanning conspiracy to control and manipulate the poor of the world in any detail, because there is still no evidence of either a motive, means or method.

(other name deleted) - Greed is, to quote a movie, good. Greed unbounded by ethics is clearly a problem. However the core desire to want more than you have, to want better than you have, to wish to improve your situation is not only good but admirable and noble.

Your point about common utilities and services is valid insofar as this - it makes sense for those things to be funded by payments from all who use them. The usual form of this is a tax. However where we go wrong is when you decide that it is somehow right to take disproportionately from me simply because you decide that I can afford it. Whether I am spending my money on food, hookers or burning it to make smoke signals does not in any way effect your lack of a right to demand to take what is mine.

The very moment a society decides that it will only let me keep what it thinks I am entitled to it attempt to make me it’s slave - and I refuse to accept its right to do so.

As for the argument (common to you and name deleted) that somehow the wealthy are a self perpetuating class of folks and that the poor cannot rise to join them the reality is starkly different. The vast, vast majority of millionaires in this country are self made, first generation. Does opportunity play a part? Sure… fate is funny like that. However so does skill, drive, determination, discipline and many other factors.

However, let’s look at the issue of inheritance and legacy. If I have earned my money I am not at all sure why I should not be allowed to use it to raise the standard of living for anyone I damn well please including my future family members. Why should it be a stain on them that they had a ancestor who was both capable and willing to amass some wealth for their benefit. Once again I wonder… what about that somehow makes them less human and less morally entitled to the ownership of their own property?

You both keep attempting to make the same basic arguments.

• That the poor have it hard
• That the poor face additional impediments to raising there station than those who were born with more resources do

You keep stressing those points as if somehow I do not understand or agree with them. That this lack of understanding or agreement somehow is the basis for my believe in the rights of individuals to be free from the confiscation of their property. You seem to feel that if I could but understand these points I would agree.

I don’t. It still doesn’t make moral sense to forcibly confiscate from those that own something to satisfy the needs of others.

I do know what it is like to be poor. I do know what it is like in the slums. It doesn’t change a damn thing. I am all for trying to help those folks - hell, I will even voluntarily contribute (and I do, just like millions and millions of others who can afford to do) to help them. But they have no right to demand anything I own.

Let us picture two men… one is starving, the other is clearly not and getting ready to eat his 5th sandwich of the afternoon. The starving man has absolutely no innate right to so much as a crumb from the other man, not a single one. In short your need does not give you the innate right to take from others. Now, would I give the starving man my sandwich? Of course, and I have. Would I think badly of a man who would not share under those circumstances? Of course, and I have. I would support helping the starving man right up until a mob came up and attempted to steal the food from the richer man to give to the poor. Then I would defend him because once the mob decides they can ignore your right to property then nothing will stop them from confiscating anything they wish.

You are incorrect about what separates us from animals by the way. What separates men from them, and the fundamental right from which all others flow is a simple one. You must be free from the tyranny of your fellow men… they must not be allowed to take what they desire from you by force. Owning something (money, food, property) is not the flaw in a system of freedom - it is the basis for it. Until I am free from the predations of others I have no rights at all.

I am happy to share - and I do. The fundamental basis for sharing however is that it is voluntary, not forced. Forced sharing is theft and slavery.

You may live the "life of" a slave in your opinion - but you are not a slave. You have to work hard to provide for yourself and those you have responsibility for just like 99% of the planet - that is not slavery. I do not lack sympathy for your plight, however nothing in it gives you the right to demand the ability to confiscate (via the government, backed up by the physical force of the police) to take what I have earned.

Ask for help and I will gladly try and provide it. Hell, give me a PayPal address and I will send you enough money for a meal or two before the end of the day. I have an old computer that is too slow for my needs but might suit yours… I will even pay to ship it to you. If someone else has a spare hard drive we can get you a working machine. I am HAPPY to try and help.

What I will NOT do, what I will NOT tolerate is a morality that says your need trumps my rights. As a free man in a free society I will always try and improve the lives I can. As a forced slave in the grip of a mob that demands my property I will refuse.” – Soulhuntre about 5 hours ago

Enjoy!

It’s been a little while since I came across a thread on the net that managed to wrap up a healthy dose of common conspiracy and new age concepts into one thread. Due to privacy issues with the community it is on I can neither show you the original post nor identify the person who started it.

What I can do is summarize. In short, the thread combined the following assertions:

• The BDSM tendencies of many people are the result of government mind control experiments similar to (or the same as, it isn’t clear) the old MK-Ultra program.
• Movies and television shows contain subliminal mind control messages making you want to buy stuff and remain dormant.
• Disney is in on it.
• Remember, if you don’t believe in government mind control that just means you are already a zombie!
• This mind control program is a globe spanning, multi-national conspiracy. While the “Jews” have not yet been blamed, I am sure it is only a matter of time.
• Predictably, the primary proponent of these theories has a history of personality disorder symptoms – all to be blamed on government experimentation.
• Government lotteries are simply a tool to keep “the poor” stupid and docile.
• Something called the Baha’i Faith is the true path to enlightenment and happiness as well as the antidote to the previously mentioned globe spanning conspiracy.
• Student loans are a tool of the vast globe spanning conspiracy to turn you into a slave by tricking you into a college degree that won’t make you any money. or something.
• Socialism is good.
• Karma is a real thing, enforced by universal energies.

Anyway, I am going to record my responses here for future reference. Eventually this will be useful for both a Herdwatching post and my upcoming book.

“No offense… but the globe spanning conspiracy theories that spring up around stuff like MK-Ultra is usually just paranoid ranting backed by confirmation bias and cherry picking. The source site also tends to buy into the old Illuminati conspiracy stuff as well… so I woudln’t really take too much of what it says seriously. We are well into "the government is listening in through my fillings" territory here.

While certainly projects like MK-Ultra have existed and do exist - one of the things they have shown is that deep, lasting control over innate human behavior is very, very hard and the pressure required often results in a mind that is only barely functional.

The web is full of stories from people who think they are the target of government plots - from black helicopter abduction to a guy who is positive the newscasters on the BBC can see him in his living room. They often have what they feel is compelling evidence but when you see it through a lens that is at all objective it becomes sadly clear that they have managed to work themselves up into a state where they reject anything that doesn’t fit their theory and fold and bend anythign else until it does fit.

In short? No. I have seen absolutely no evidence that the government is performing widespread mind control experiments. Not only that there is no evidence that even suggests a practicl technology for this to occour.” – Soulhuntre, about 13 hours ago

and…

“The word brainwashing simply does not mean what you think it means. Nor do those things have the power you think they do… even in the places where they might conceivably be tried.

Even in countries with totalitarian style control over the media the population is far from homogeneous and far from brainwashed. In a nation like the US or many other Western nations the free flow of information makes literal brainwashing impossible.

As for the rest of it - the "poor" don’t revolt because there is nothing to revolt against, and no advantage to doing so. What do you think "the poor" would revolt in favor of? To establish socialism? To demand communism? Anyone with eyes has seen the nightmares those systems lead to. Anarchy? Does anyone really think that is the best idea?

money ($) is far from the source of corruption - it is the counterbalance to it. Monetary systems are what allow free men to trade with each other and benefit each other in mutual productive trade. A system that did not have a legal tender in place is a system that breeds slavery, corruption and abuse of all kinds.

Those tax return incentives absolutely are a feel good measure by politicians - but the issue of tax imbalance is not what you think. The wealthiest taxpayers pay the overwhelming amount of money in the United States, for example. A look at the released preview data for the latest tax report shows us that the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

The idea that the "rich" are soaking "the poor" is factually untrue. The idea then that they have to (let’s let aside that they couldn’t in the current system) brainwash us to accept this doesn’t make any sense.

One of the things we see again and again with websites like the one cited who support these types of conspiracy theories is the belief that they have somehow "seen the truth". It must be a powerful temptation to believe oneself the voice of reason in the face of a global conspiracy. It must be a powerful ego boost to believe that as one of a select group you (generic you) see behind the veil while all the sheep lay dormant.

It’s the same thing whether the conspiracy is the Illuminati, some 9/11 theory, alien abduction, the "new world order", black helicopters or the government using mind control beams. The same theories, the same tactics, the same draw to the faithful.

The thing is - it simply isn’t true. We are not a world of moronic easily led sheep kept docile by a cabal of secret masters polluting out minds” – Soulhuntre, about 5 hours ago

and (discussing student loans now)…

“You made an agreement to pay back that money. I am curious as to how you consider yourself to have been forced. You are no more a slave to your student loans than I am to my car payment. It is unfortunate you used that money int he service of a low paying career… but again that is not anything you were forced to do.

In effect someone loaned you money you did not have but wanted the use of… they did not force you to take it. It is surprising you would be somehow feeling ill used because they might want it back.

I know plenty of people who manage to live within their means… including myself. Those who cannot are not the victims of a government plot but rather their own mistakes or maybe even individual misfortune.

If "the media" was capable of "driving the masses" you would see a far less divided, far more predictable and far less contentious world than we have.

Again… I can see how tempting and seductive it is to believe that people who don’t see the world the way we want them to are under the control of some evil force. It simply isn’t true. Not only is there no evidence for it (hard or soft) but there is no evidence (hard or theoretical) behind the mechanism that are postulated for enacting such control.” – Soulhuntre, about 3 hours ago

and (contending that I will “just argue” no matter what they say)…

“When your premise is that there is a vast multinational conspiracy using mind control techniques to force people to take out loans and potentially become involved in BDSM I would have to say yes, I probably will argue.

(asserting that Americans are not taught to think or handle money well) - and yet millions and millions of us do exactly that. In fact the vast majority of people I know manage to live within their means quite nicely. If this is a mind control system, it’s deeply broken.

[snip]

(telling me to go look up the Baha’i Faith ) - I did the first time you mentioned it. There isn’t very much there that is any different. Another faith with no objective evidence that claims to be able to unify all the people of all the other faiths. As a bonus, it preaches that workign for the good of society is effectively a form of worship. If your worried about mind control, you might want to start right there. Any faith or belief system that tells you you have a duty to work for the good of others is preaching slavery. Any faith or belief system that professes the moral right to confiscate the result of your labor and give it to someone else is advocating that you sacrifice yourself on the altar of society.

(calling for “free” health care) - there is, of course, no such thing. Since health care requires resources both physical, intellectual and effort it has a very definite cost. What you actually want is for someone else to pay for it.

(proclaiming a fondness for socialism) - this is not at all a surprise

To bring this back onto your topic - no, I don’t thing that BDSM is populated by those who have been driven to it by a vast government mind control conspiracy” – Soulhuntre about 2 hours ago

and (asserting that we are responsible for “the weak”)…

“since this is the core moral argument you make and support my question is simple - why? What claim does someone else have on my effort, my resources or my time? In what manner and by what authority was I born a slave to the needs of another human being?

I earn the money I have with my own effort and my own talents. Whether I earn 100$ or $100,000,000 nothing about this reality changes - it is mine. By what right does anyone gain the ability to demand or expect that I turn something I own over to others?

If I am a millionaire do I suddenly LOSE the right to keep what I create? Is there something shameful about success that means I now unlike others no longer have the freedom to benefit from my skills but I must work for the benefit of others?

Because that is the moral road your beliefs lead to. They demand that those with the ability to earn and create labor as slaves to those who have neither. That the more someone can earn the less rights they have.

And that’s just crazy to me.” – Soulhuntre, about 33 minutes ago

For now, that is all.