From: STella@thelema.uucp (STella)
Subject: Re: socks
Organization: Idiosyncratic Anarchic Order
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 92 21:40:32 GMT

In article <BztrKy.Aqv@news.cso.uiuc.edu> levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:
>(In this article, sTella described rough treatment of cats, which she
>said her cats enjoyed.)

Did I?  I don't think I can _KNOW_ what anyone, even another
English-speaking person, does.  But the ones that play ACT as if they
enjoy it.

>sTella, I agree with you that *some* cats can enjoy rough treatment.
>I know I had one that did. 

>But others most definitely do not. And I hope, if you play rough
>with your cats, that you are very, very sensitive as to when they
>want this and when they don't.

That's why they have a physical safeword as well as a certain
complaining tone that will stop my arbitrary harassment -- no matter
how much I want to try a new idea, if nobody stays in sight when I
holler "arbitrary harassment", I DON'T PLAY.  No matter how close to
setting up the latest hassle I am, if the kittyvictim whinges in a
certain tone, they're off the hook.  Later, I'll find a victim.  But
maybe they're all tired out from a hard night of dancing on the
peoples' bladders and breathing catbreath into their reluctanly-waking
faces.  Another day, I'll get the earrings onto their ears, or the
Wiseman robe onto his pudgy body, and take the pictures.  When their
timing and mine coincide.

Though I've not been into the SM scene for most of my life (always
felt it, never knew that I wasn't the only one till I was about 22),
it meshed, completely, with things I've felt forever, and one of the
key points of being a practicing sadist is that if your playmate
consents, you can do things that would otherwise be highly illegal (if
a stranger on the street hit me with a whip, I would possibly break
hir arm and certainly press charges for assault; when a friend in
playspace does it, I'll ask for more and harder more often than not).
And this is so much a part of how I feel the world should wag that
when I have to coerce a cat (say it's Rhiannon, who HATES water, and
has mostly had cornstarch baths when she needs anything, and she's
gotten into something that MUST come off NOW) it's HARD for me.  I
KNOW that I'm acting for her good, I know that it must be done, but
when she hisses her safeword and tries to escape, it hurts not to let
her.  I even have a phrase, "It's inevitable", which I use when the
cats do NOT have a safeword, so they know that the rules under which
we play "arbitrary harassment" do not pertain, and if they struggle,
all that will happen is that I'll bleed and they'll still get
[bathed|pilled|injected|de-dingleberried].  And if they whine, I'll
get sore ears, and they'll get a sore throat.

>This is a sore point with me; because when I was young, I had two
>cats, and a SO who adored the cats. My SO was a person who liked
>very intense stimuli himself (for example, he liked very spicy
>foods, and he liked beer with whiskey in it); and even though
>he loved the cats, he didn't really understand that one of them didn't
>like the rough treatment he thought of as affectionate and 
>appropriate. 

Yep, can be a problem.  But if you ever hear me talking about roughing
Hillary, you'll find that I'm scooping her up and holding her on her
back to rub her tummy against the fur.  That's as much as SHE chooses
to accept.  Any more and it's not fun for her.  Gandalf, on the other
hand, I firmly believe will accept being dressed in little leather
pawcuffs by the time I'm ready to have a taping.  EACH of my cats are
individuals, and I know each of them.

And each of them has hir own individual ways of topping ME, too.
Kit'n Hook will, unless prevented, lick my skin till it's red and
seeping (took restraints to find that out -- I hated it after the
first five minutes, but I was curious how long he'd keep going.  I
safeworded when he got to the capillaries, I think he was headed for
the bone); Hillary has a penetrating call that I'll do all kinda
ridiculous things to silence (Yes, mistress, will you PLEASE shut up
now?); Gandalf mercilessly wakes me by standing on my chest and
catdancing (he's about 18 pounds, and his feet are tiny when two are
on either side of the bladder, one is on a nipple, and the other is on
my breastbone.  Plus he drools); Merlin must have a spare nose and
keep it in the freezer so he can always get an icey one ready when the
people expose ribskin in their sleep; and Rhiannon, I'm certain, would
love for bed-charging to be an Olympic event, complete with judges and
little bitty 9.9 cards for rating the quality of the cringe the
sleeper makes as she BOUNDS up onto the bed, stomps on a belly, and
SPRINGS off my solar plexus to charge back out of the room.

Cats are individuals, and I do know that.  But four of my five
individuals like fairly rough play pitch OR catch as long as it's wjr
or me doing it; with people they don't love and trust, they're less
inclined to bottom, but still quite willing to top.  (I understand
that; there are folks I'll only top, too.)

STella@xanadu.com	1016 E. El Camino Real, #302, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
STella%thelema.uucp@dec.com	Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian!