Monday, March 7

Dark fantasies and landmines

A while back I wrote about how difficult I find it to articulate or communicate my dark fantasies to other people. There was one fantasy I was struggling with at the time that prompted that post. In the end I did manage to write a context for it through a short story and I followed that up with random facts and examples of the violations that person would commit. For his part HH did his own research and between us we came up with the scene. On my last visit we attempted to play it.

It's a scene I've wanted to play for a long time. And one of the first we discussed in our initial emails. Back then I spoke a lot about authority figures as below:
"For me any authority figure works well, especially a male authority figure. To some extent I naturally believe in authority, rules and legitimate power: headmasters, prefects, policemen, master of the house, rugby coach, tutor, father, guardian etc. And because of that I'll try to behave, respect their rules and accept punishment if I fall short."
Eventually I admitted that Catholic priests came under that umbrella too. One that fell into the abuse of power category, which was even more appealing as a fantasy. It was difficult to admit that I had such fantasies, both from the point of view of being an Irish Catholic myself, and also because of the stories of abuse that have shocked our country.

Each of us in our roleplay takes parts of real life happenings as inspiration, through what we've read or heard. Our fantasises feed (consciously or unconsciously) on such material. But it doesn't mean we condone what happened, or that we would wish for such things to happen to us, without our consent. Just as consensual 'rape', i.e. the illusion of being raped bears no relation to the real horror of actual rape. I no more approve of the children beaten at school under the guise of discipline than I do of the priest who abused the children in his care. Yet a school girl caning scene is probably more palatable than a priest abusing the same girl. But our fantasies are OK, aren't they? Each to their own and all that, right?

I'm actually trying to convince myself, as much as any of you here. Because I do struggle with it. And despite wanting to play a priest scene  it's taken this long for me to attempt it. The publication of the Ryan report made me hate myself for having such fantasies in the first place and it's taken almost two years for me to consider it again.

In advance I was worried about my ability to go through with it, but wanted to try. HH was supportive, leaving the decision up to me. He had his cassock, I my 1960's short dress and brogues. As the housekeeper's daughter I was caught reading an inappropriate book from his shelves and we took it from there. From the start I found it hard to let go. HH was scarily convincing as a priest and although I went through the right motions of fear and shame, I was very conscious of my every move.

And then the landmine hit. HH asked me to say a certain prayer. As I struggled to remember it my Grandmother floated into my head. She had taught it to me. She was the last person I said it with. It's a prayer that she says for me regularly, a prayer to keep me safe. I went numb and HH spotted it immediately. End of scene.

He took me upstairs and consoled me as first I babbled incoherently and then sobbed loudly about how I was walking all over my Grandmother, one of the most important people in my life. How I felt like I was throwing everything she believed in back at her by making a mockery of her religion. I felt so distraught it shocked me. How could I not have seen this coming?

It took a long time (and much hugging from HH) for me to calm down about it. To forgive myself for treating my Grandmother so disrespectfully. And to accept it was OK that I couldn't do that scene, to come to terms with the fact some things run deeper than we can appreciate.

It doesn't mean I won't do any more dark fantasies though, just not this particular one. And although I'll be no more capable of preventing another landmine from hitting, at least I'll won't be as shocked by it.

7 comments:

Scarlett De Winter said...

Religion is a scary thing to play with, and I think being Catholic is a very specific one. It's a religion which does sort of thrive on the idea of guilt, and I think you're brought up Catholic like we both were, guilt can be a very interesting and difficult concept to cope with.

Have you ever read Brideshead Revisited? I feel like Waugh really understands how Catholicism tends to grip you with concepts of "good" and "bad" from when you're a child. Which is interesting within itself considering that Waugh converted as an adult.

I wouldn't do a Catholic scene. I find the idea of being abused by authority figures hot, I call my boyfriend "Daddy" with delight, it comes so naturally that I accidentally called my real father by my pretend father's real name the other day. But for me it's too close to home, and it still scares me. Every time I say "Oh God" in the throws of an orgasm I genuinely fear that I'm going to go to hell. I'm too afraid of the concequences and the deep rooted family conections to want to invoke it in my kink.

When we were asked to enact a satanic orgy at Lowewood the other day I couldn't do it. I still find anything to do with religion unappealing in that sense. Being sacrilegious is basically my only rock solid limit.

Funny old religion isn't it? I know that wasn't exactly the point of the post, but it really got me thinking.

Abel1234 said...

This is a brave, amazingly powerful post - not just in terms of describing your struggle in this particular scene, but in linking it to the bigger picture.

You manage in a couple of lines to perfectly describe something I've been struggling to articulate for a very long time:

"Each of us in our roleplay takes parts of real life happenings as inspiration, through what we've read or heard. Our fantasises feed (consciously or unconsciously) on such material. But it doesn't mean we condone what happened, or that we would wish for such things to happen to us, without our consent."

That's just expresses the dilemma at the heart of some roleplay - and why it is, fundamentally, OK - so well.

Thank you, as always, for sharing in such an amazing way xxx

Master Retep said...

This stuff we do, if its anything deeper than stag party spank-o-grams, is always going to involve digging into scary bits of our psyche. Regardless of whether we can identify the triggers, I believe they are there in all of us, and probably from our formative years.

I remember us all posting about the Ryan Report when both of us were fairly new to this blogging thing, and I certainly felt uncomfortable even admitting to myself where the reality and fantasy might intersect on my particular Venn diagram.

I know you well enough to be certain that you did not, nor would you ever, treat your Grandmother with disrespect. What happened was a dramatically unfortunate case of unintended consequence. If nothing else, your remarkably open description is a most lucid education for the rest of us to be aware of the risk of the undetected landmine.

Thank you for your honesty.

Martha said...

Beautifully honest account, as much so as that of your interrogation, as I think it's one of the hardest things to write about the scene that didn't work, and the emotional triggers behind that.

I'm not religious, so those triggers aren't there for me. Yet I've had priest fantasies going back to my teenage years, way before I'd worked out my kink enough to understand them. It wasn't about the religion, it was all about being under the power of an authority figure. Real life shows us examples and our amazing imaginations do the rest!

But for all that, you cannot deny your past. I'm so glad HH immediately saw what had happened and gave you the comfort you needed. You tried this, it didn't work for you, and now you know - you'd have always wondered if you hadn't explored it. Big hugs though xxx

Kaelah said...

Thank you very much for sharing this very personal and difficult experience and the thoughts that went along with it, Emma Jane! I hope that writing about the scene helped you to feel better.

I often have the problem of being reminded of real life horror by spanking scenarios. That's why I can't eroticise many scenarios which are hot for others, especially those that have to do with abuse of power. Of course I know that there isn't anything morally wrong about fantasies which involve abuse or a lack of consent and that any spanking which isn't between consenting adults is morally wrong, no matter whether the spanker is a caring person or not! But this isn't a moral thing, it's about my gut feeling. I need caring scenarios or at least scenarios in which the spanker just carries out his/her duty, otherwise my brain switches directly from kinky fantasies to real life horror and I'm becoming very sad. The more severe a scene is, the more care and consent I need in the scenario. This isn't only true for my own play but for example for storylines in spanking videos as well. Interestingly, even in my darkest and most intimate fantasy scenario, a master-slave scenario, I've created a fictional world in which having slaves is okay and in which a master has the right to expect obedience from his slaves. That is of course nonsense, but it's just how my brain works...

In my opinion there are always landmines in our spanking play, though, even in the less dark scenes. To my mind this is very difficult for the top as well. I am fascinated by the way HH dealt with the situation! I don't know whether I would be able to react so fast in a similar situation and to focus completely on calming down the bottom because I guess there must be a lot of questions in the top's mind as well: What went wrong? Should I have seen it coming? Have I harmed the bottom? How much will the experience affect the bottom in the long run? I'm glad that HH reacted so wonderfully and I hope that neither of you has any regrets about this scene. And I don't think that you treated your grandmother disrespectfully, Emma Jane!

EmmaJane said...

@Scarlett, 'I wouldn't do a religious scene' - I think that was partly why I was so upset, not just that it hadn't worked out, but that I even dared to do it. How dare I think it had no hold on me. I think you're one of the few people who truly understands the power Catholicism holds, thank you :)

@Abel, thanks for being supportive as always x

@MR 'I know you well enough to be certain that you did not, nor would you ever, treat your Grandmother with disrespect.' Thank you, I really need reassurance on that :)

@Martha, thank you lovely, youre right I would always have wondered if I hadn't tried it

@Kaelah I love how you describe how your brain works and what you can and cannot do. And yes HH's reaction was all it needed to be. He knows me well enough to understand that I have to cry and process before we could talk. Of course he had his doubts too, did he do or say the wrong thing? But was patient enough until I was calmer to seek his own reassurance which I duly gave :)

dublin.paolo said...

Hi EJ,

It has been awhile since I’ve dropped by your blog (my loss of course). I emphasize with you on this experience Miss, it truly sounds like you hit a proverbial ‘raw nerve’ with the prayer….but who was to know before hand? These things can happen I suppose, sure it isn’t a minefield we are walking through when we delve into our deepest fantasies?

The ‘Priest’ fantasy I understand, I know it is not something we should probably be putting in print up here in Blog-Land, considering what has gone on in our country, but I think we both understand where we are coming from here with this fantasy. Priests in Ireland were right up there as far as authority figures went, above teachers, above guardians, above fathers even, they were held in such high esteem it is incredible how far from grace they fell.

I hope writing about this experience has helped you over the shock of it all, dark fantasies are exactly that….Dark! I will not try to console you here, (I’m sure you don’t need it now), but what I will say is….that I know exactly where you were coming from with this fantasy in the first place…I have had them, but, I was not as brave as you in acting on them.

I suppose we all have our own personal likes and dislikes. And I agree, sometimes it is difficult to convey some of these darker thoughts to another person, but I am guessing that your partner HH is well used to working these things through with you.

Great to see you are still blogging EJ, I will be back lol