Josh: We like a lot of role-playing stuff in sex. We like Master and slave stuff and playing with personas. I don’t even know that there’s a distinct borderline between our sexual activity and having fun that’s sort of related to sexuality,
Karen: I love role-playing. I enjoy playing, period. I’m an exhibitionist and I will find any excuse to be one. One aspect of that is my different personas: slave, who is well-behaved, into submission and serving Master; my cat persona, Cwumpet; Kimmie, the professional; Ami ...
Josh: Ami, who’s into, “I want to be tied up, I want you to do me, do me.”
Karen: Yeah, Ami’s a do-me. Ami is definitely a do-me.
Josh: slave’ll sit there and wait patiently till you deign to pay her attention. Ami will ...
Karen: ... hop in your face and tell you to do it. But Ami doesn’t really like pain. Ami likes bondage; she’s a bondage nymph. slave likes pain. slave serves Master by taking the pain. I believe slave likes pain; I don’t. Actually, I’m not sure if slave enjoys pain, if she enjoys suffering or serving Master, or if it’s a combination of all three. I’ll have to ask her some time.
Josh: My personas tend to be less developed. Master likes to top. He’s a very real space in my head, and he’s a very different guy than I am. There’s The Magus, the one who did magic, when I did magic seriously. There’s The British Gentleman. He’s very patrician, very proper.
Karen: I think of him as pompous ... Master is a very well-controlled, warm, loving, sensitive person. He controls the universe around him and demands respect.
Josh: Control is certainly what he’s about. Control and power. I think the key is he’s incrediblyand I’m falling into third person, because I’m not in that space nowfocused. He’s the one who picked up chi when I was studying martial arts. He’s the one who really understands how to focus that type of energy and direct it into a point. Master can look at people and take their minds right there, move their minds. The energy is so focused that it goes through them, through conscious processing right into their back brain. When I’m not Master, I can’t do that. He can do it pretty consistently. He’s an amazing guy.
Master likes to possess people. The chief thing that he wants out of the universe is control. The key thing he wants out of women is to possess them. He’s been around a long time, so he’s got a lot of technique. He knows bondage, he knows wax, he knows caning and he knows whipping. What all those techniques are about is creating a state in her mind where she is, simultaneously, totally out of control and totally possessed by him. What he’s looking for is a state where she’s orgasming helplessly, out of control, and at the same time completely filled with a sense that he’s the one creating this, that he’s possessed her.
Karen: Yeah. He possesses slave, coolly and calmly. Absolutely. Master is the Master of Endorphins.
Endorphins make you high. They make you feel sexy. They make you have an energy rush. They take you right to the edge of the cliff. Sometimes endorphins take you so high that your pain tolerance goes up and you can take more.
Josh: Bottoming is an endorphin rush. When you get hurt, your body releases endorphins, the body’s natural opiates. If you get injured, you can use the power of the pain to move a huge rock or run back to your village or whatever. It’s a survival mechanism. If you get hurt a littleand let’s face it, none of the stuff we do in S/M games comes under the heading of really major league pain and injuryyour body produces endorphins and you get a little high. When you get hurt a little more, it produces more endorphins.
It’s a timing question. If you hurt too fast too hard, the pain builds up faster than the natural opiate, and instead of getting high you just feel, “Ouch, that hurts, I’m out of this scene.” But if the timing is right, every increase of pain drives the endorphin level higher and you can take the pain.
On the other hand, topping is mostly an adrenalin high, but it’s an endorphin high as well. When you’re doing things to a slave, there is a feedback loop where as they get higher, you get higherthey get higher, you get higherbecause you’re feeling along with the bottom. You’re doing it to them, but you’re also doing it to yourself. (It works the other way around, too. In being done you’re also the doer. You’re partially in your own head and partially in your partner’s head simultaneously. It’s very weird.) Part of topping is a huge rush from a release of aggression. It’s a predator rush. I know just how the lion feels when he jumps the jumbuck. It’s a predator rush that’s excitement and aggression, all mixed up with sexual energy.
from an interview with Karen and Josh
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