What has become of Timothy?

‘What has become of Timothy Tuttlesmith?’ You may be asking,

‘He hasn’t posted in ages. Perhaps he has come a cropper while engaged in some ill-advised sexual activity? Or finally been arrested for his last post about kidnapping someone...?' You may be wondering.

FEAR NOT!

I am merely plotting in the background, like the devious fiend I am, and working on a number of projects that shall eventually burst forth to dominate all who stand in their way (and consent to it of course). 

In no particular order these projects are:

1 - Changing my pseudonym!

While I have an enduring affection for the name Timothy Tuttlesmith it has proven to be quite marmite-y, except more widely hated. I did want my pseudonym to project a certain amount of ‘English whimsy’, but choosing a name that makes me sound simultaneously like a toddler and a mad aristocrat might have been overkill. Therefore after much maddening deliberation (I have a list of about 100 slightly less terrible names) I have settled on a new, less controversial, pseudonym, and I shall henceforth be referring to myself as:

Harry Newhouse

(I was tempted by Harry Windsor, but decided it was probably best not to pick that kind of fight with the Royal family… Plus I’m not even ginger.)

I’m currently renaming and restructuring my social media accordingly, so apologies if it all gets a bit confusing, but if you haven’t already please feel free to add me on any of the following profiles:

Twitter 
Instagram 
Facebook 
G+
Fetlife (more explicit)

2 - Designing an erotic BDSM strategy card game!

This has been my big project over the last six months. It probably only took a couple of days to make the first ‘experimental’ version of the game once I had the idea, most of the time has been spent drawing about fifty illustrations for the main game cards. Below is a teaser picture of the cards, and I’ll be writing a new post soon with more details about the game. Plus I plan to release a free, unillustrated, version to download and print at home, and then maybe make a kickstarter to try and get funding. Please follow me and watch this space for more info!

3 - Editing my book to release a second edition.

So I hadn’t properly looked at my book for almost three years, then I picked it up and found myself quite embarrassed. Not by the lurid details of my sex life of course, but rather the erratic and sometimes terrible sentences I had used to describe them!

Getting my book as I want it may take a little while, so watch this space, but I hope to have something to show for it by the end of the summer.

4 - Writing new things!

As usual I have more ideas for stories than I have time to write them, but I am working on a couple of factual and a couple of fictional stories, that I hope will all be sexy as hell!

5 - Having kinky sex!

Because life is short and sex is fun. If you want to see for yourself follow me on fetlife for my NSFW media, (which might get taken down on other platforms!)

That's all for now

Sending you all hugs and spankings

Harry (/ The kinkster formerly known as Timothy)

How I built my hardpoint

So I have been tinkering around with bondage for a few years now; mostly tying pretty girls to my bed, or tying them to themselves, or, if I’m really lucky, tying them to other pretty girls. However I wanted to expand my bondage in a more vertical dimension, which meant having a secure overhead ‘hardpoint’ to tie to.


At this point I'm not knowledgeable enough to attempt full suspension type bondage, and I know this can be dangerous and requires badass rope skills, but I have some other, less extreme, schemes in mind that made this project seem worthwhile!


Anyway this is the story of my hard-point building adventure, presented in the form of instructions for repeating my feat... if you wish to be so foolish. (They don’t teach you this shit on blue peter after all!)

*DISCLAIMER- This is probably a bad idea. Don’t do it.*

How to build the Tuttlesmith Hard-point

You will need:

A sturdy and secure beam in your attic that is positioned conveniently above your bed:

(Failing that you can install something that spans a bunch of ceiling trusses like this. Using individual weak-ass ceiling trusses is a definite no no!)

You will also need: Something to drill holes in your ceiling with. Some straps designed to withstand at least double a human’s weight, which can be dangled through those holes, (I went for some hammock supporting straps from amazon). And finally something to cover over the holes with.
(Amazon better appreciate the free advertising!)

Step one: Put down something to catch the dust...

A rubber sex sheet is not necessary for this, but if it’s the nearest thing to hand then it seems like a viable option...

Step two: Figure out where to drill the holes!

Safety note: when bumbling around in an attic it is important to remember not to fall through the ceiling. Take care locating sturdy wooden ceiling trusses to stand on and don’t put all your weight on one truss. (Ideally put down boards to spread your weight). Make sure you can maintain your balance when wielding random tools. Peel back any insulation to access the ceiling panels but wear gloves and a dust mask as fibreglass is itchy bad.

Locate (/build) super strong beam. Wrap straps around this beam and let them hang down to figure out where they hit the plasterboard below. Check there is no electrical wiring or other sensitive stuff anywhere nearby where you plan to drill that could make you dead, then drill little wee holes to act as markers in the ceiling. (I wanted to drill up from below with the big circular drill instead of down from above as there’s a greater chance it will make a mess when exiting the panelling than entering)

Step three: BIG DRILLIN TIME!

Go back to bedroom and locate guide holes made above ^.

Equip electric drill with circular whizzy thing (matching the diameter of your hole disguises)… Test the drill trigger, watch it buzz, and feel afraid.

Before driving a powerful electric drilly thing into plasterboard above your head it is wise to appreciate that bits of plaster will probably fly everywhere including into your eyes if you are unable to resist looking up at the carnage you are creating. Therefore some kind of eye protection is advised…

I mean a creepy gas mask is definitely unnecessary, but you’d be surprised the number of things that baby comes in useful for...

 (Other uses for creepy gas mask include but are not limited to: Cutting onions. Freaking out your house mate. Spraying anti-mold spray into high places above your head. And even surviving nuclear/chemical/biological terrorist attacks.)

Find a safe place to stand (use a ladder if ceiling is high… Standing on the bed like I did is probably not ideal, but if you’re a reckless mo-fo like me just try not to slip on any oily patches on your rubber sex sheet…) Also always keep the ‘safety’ switch toggled on the drill until you’re ready to use it!

Locate big central drill bit into little guide drill hole.

Say “Here goes nothing!”

Pull the trigger and drive that sucker home. (Careful now)

Plasterboard may resist and drill head may stop spinning. Grit teeth and continue to wreck your ceiling by pulling the drill out a little and then pushing it back in again…

Say “Oh jesus what the fuck am I doing!” out loud and plasterboard rains down around you, spraying everywhere and far exceeding the spread on your rubber sheeting.

Feel relief as you finally breach the ceiling that was much thicker and tougher than you expected.

Marvel at the amount of mess you have made in such a short time:

If the first hole wasn’t too traumatic, carry on and drill another one!

Step four: HIDE THE EVIDENCE

Insert desk cable organiser things into the holes you have made and hope your parents never ask you “Why do you have two weird disks in your ceiling?” (Covering  hard point holes with fake fire alarms may be an alternative but two fire alarms above my bed seemed excessive…)

Step five: Get it all dangling...

Return to attic. Loop straps around big beam to get an appropriate length and dangle through the holes.

  

Discover you looped one strap around once more than you did the other: Return to attic and readjust so that it doesn't look stupid.

Continue to not fall through the ceiling.

Step six: Tidy

Replace hole disguises (with some difficulty). Get vacuum out and try to deal with the massive amounts of mess you have made.

Step seven: Sleep

Go to bed and go to sleep while enjoying the self-satisfaction of having achieved something combined with a quiet unease as to whether you have just significantly decreased the value of your property.

Step eight: Awake

At about 3am get hit in the face by a falling white plastic hole-disguiser that decided it didn’t like being in your ceiling that much after all.

The next morning drill several holes in it in revenge (using a small hand drill, and your knees carefully deployed in a vice like manner). Repeat for non-offending plastic hole-disguiser. Push them both back into the ceiling.

Return to the bloody attic with a hammer and nails.

Go to hammer the first nail into offending hole-disguise and watch in annoyance as the hole-disguise falls back through the hole. Realise that using a hammer and nails is quite hard when balancing on attic ceiling trusses.

Go back down the ladder, put hole-disguise back in hole, go back up ladder. Nail that mutha-fucker in there properly this time.

Repeat for second hole-disguise (Including the going-up-and-down-ladder bit because yes you accidentally knocked that one through the hole as well).

Add some glue around the sides of the hole disguisers just to make sure they're not going to fall out and hit you in the face again. Then put the insulation back as you found it. Get out of the damned attic before your knees give out on you from all the crouching. Go back into the damned attic because you left your drill up there.

Continue to not fall through the ceiling.

And finally…

      

Profit!

(Rope bunny acquired separately; sadly they do not magically appear as soon as you build a hard-point!)

Book released in paperback!

A paperback version of my first book 'So... This is Awkward' is now available. Get it from createspace HERE. (It should also be available on Amazon soon, but I get a smaller cut of the monies if you buy it there...)

To celebrate this release I have set up up a 'kindle countdown deal' meaning the ebook version will be 99c on Amazon.com and 99p on Amazon.co.uk as of Wednesday morning (just in case you're not sure about investing in solid pages).

Finally here is a picture of my lovely book in the hands of a lovely girl...
...Am I doing advertising right yet?!

New drawing

Apologies for this blog's continued inactivity, there should be some guest pieces for other blogs in the pipeline that I'll post here when they get published.

In the meantime though I have been doing some more drawing; this one is of a scene at the very start of my book and features a girl called Piper who's on her knees and about to be in all kinds of trouble...

... read the start of my book for free here!

Who are you calling fucked up?!

“That sounds kind of fucked up…” They say
‘What exactly do they mean by ‘fucked up’?’ we wonder, while often capitulating with a “Yeah, I guess...”

Kinksters of the world, capitulate no more!
‘That’s kind of fucked up’ is a simple expression, and it’s one that I’ve also used on plenty of occasions myself to describe people in a non-hostile, but slightly disapproving way. Chances are that if, like me, you enjoy BDSM, you’ve been described as ‘fucked up’ at sometime or another, although maybe not always to your face.
We kinksters seem to accept this as par for the course, the price for being true to our sexuality. However, I find it increasingly irks me, especially when it ends a conversation rather than starts one. It hints at some nebulous negative opinion, a summary judgement that is too ill defined to latch onto and wrestle. Arguing with the ‘fucked up’ label can feel like trying to bail water with a sieve, as whatever is meant by it can shift and morph depending on what arguments you throw at it.

This is my attempt to trap that phrase in a box and hit it with sticks.

Frankly, describing BDSM as ‘fucked up’ is a lazy derogation that informs on nothing except the announcer’s prejudice. Perhaps it’s understandable as a gut reaction, but unforgivable as a conclusion.

“That sounds kind of self destructive”, or “That sounds kind of sociopathic”, or “That sounds kind of dangerous”, or “That sounds like the result of childhood trauma”, are all understandable reactions to BDSM, even if I believe they are inaccurate. However, these specific reactions can be engaged with. (Here is my general counter as to why I think people like BDSM, I will try to counter the idea that it is dangerous and self destructive in a future post).

In contrast those who utilise the ‘it’s just kind of fucked up’ comment at the end of a BDSM conversation are in a way admitting defeat, but simultaneously refusing to concede. Calling someone ‘fucked up’ is hurtful and it is a label those of us who enjoy BDSM shouldn’t let pass so easily, especially as it is often used in the absence of any genuine argument or rationalization. The implication of calling someone fucked up is that the subject is somehow deficient and should labelled as broken without anyone having identified the actual fault.

Fuck that.

Deviant does not equal defective.

To assume someone is ‘damaged goods’ because they don’t fit socially accepted norms is just some juvenile school yard shit. This ignorant pack mentality is a powerful force, and to keep it at bay you can't be silent, you have to oppose it. Whether it’s directed at LGBTQ people, religious minorities, transgender people, or those with deviant sexual tastes, the persecution of nonconformity always seems to creep in, often manipulated by the powerful, but sometimes for no better reason than that people are afraid of difference.

I’ll ask a final question; who is more fucked up; someone who accepts their sexual desires for what they are? Or someone who denies their desires because they’re afraid what other people will think of them?

The person who accepts their deviant sexual desires, and explores them in a safe and ethical way, seems to me to be the winner in the game of ‘least fucked up’. Whether or not you argue that those desires are the result of some internal fault, or are actually just a common quirk of our shared biology, it’s surely safer to recognise them than pretend they’re not there. Like learning your driving a manual car instead of an automatic; once you acknowledge you need to use the gear stick occasionally it’s going to be much easier to get where you want to go to, or you can keep pretending you're in a n automatic and wonder why the engine is making so much noise.

Many secretly kinky people may refuse to acknowledge their non-vanilla fantasies because they’re afraid of what people will think. (Even though I’m not ashamed of my own tastes I don’t just hide behind a pseudonym because it sounds funny!) The fear of social exclusion is totally understandable, it has been conditioned into us by a culture that has condemned sexual deviancy for centuries. I’d guess this condemnation can be traced to the frequently batshit preachings of the abrahamic religions, but I probably can’t blame religion for everything. This is the 21st century though; we’ve split the atom, decoded the human genome, and seen to the edge of the observable universe. I think there’s only one hell left to believe in, and it’s is the hell that can exist inside a person’s head. It would seem easier for someone to end up there by denying their nature rather than accepting it.

Why do people like BDSM?

#BDSM #Psychology #psychiatry #science #whybdsm #SnM #S&M #kink #kinky

I guess it's about time I addressed the elephant in the room.

Why do weirdos like me get turned on by BDSM^[1]?

The simple answer is, “Because it’s fun!”

However, I can understand that many people could find the idea of getting restrained, punished, and ordered around to be horrifying. They could also perhaps perceive the person doing the restraining and hurting as not just ‘un-fun’ but somewhat sociopathically deranged.

While I can’t speak for everyone out there, my experience has been that that good consensual kink and genuine abuse are as separate from each other as oil and water. In fact the communication and empowerment fostered by the former should help people recognise and call out the later, though unfortunately that is not always how it goes.

It might also be worth pointing out ‘for the record’ that, since I started exploring my dominant side, I have not felt the slightest bit inclined towards actually assaulting anybody. For me, a girl’s consent to tie her up and cause her pain is the lynchpin that makes any given scenario erotic. There is something in the exchange of power and trust involved that is crucial to the eroticism of BDSM, at least for me. When it comes to taking charge I get aroused by how a partner responds to me doing twisted things to them, not by the violent acts themselves. I often imagine myself in a partner’s position as I’m ‘abusing’ them, and, since I know I would enjoy being on the receiving end myself, empathy allows me to enjoy both sides of the coin at the same time.

I think the critical thing to appreciate is that BDSM is a game, it’s not meant to be ‘real’. Though it’s possible that the more realistic the game seems, the better it can be. (Just like the best films and TV shows are often the ones that are the most believable). Watching horror films is considered a socially acceptable, mainstream activity, but in these films viewers are bombarded with unpleasant visual and auditory stimuli. Yet millions of us still pay to see films like this, perhaps because we get to explore these extreme situations while remaining safe in the knowledge that they’re not really happening to us. BDSM on the other hand provides a more immersive experience, with physical sensations thrown in as well.

While I think of BDSM as exploring a fantasy rather than living out a reality, from what I’ve seen on the interwebs it can sometimes be hard to see where the boundary lies. Also, depending on who you play the game with, it could be a lot more dangerous than going to the cinema.

I have heard a number of psychological theories that frame kinky interests as some kind of learned deficit. For example; an interest in bondage might come from not being wrapped tightly enough as a child, or that getting excited by pain and degradation might be a result of childhood sexual abuse, or even that people who explore kink may be compensating for perceived sexual inadequacy. However, most of these theories seem to be based on little more than the tendencies of certain psychiatrists to make up stuff because they think it sounds good^[2]. In fact, a recent study suggested that people who practice BDSM in either dominant or submissive role may be more mentally stable than the average member of the general population^[3]. Some of the more up to date literature suggests that many psychologists are now ascribing the attraction people have towards dominance and submission as being based on sexual arousal by hierarchical status[4]; the idea being that our evolutionary ancestors evolved to pursue sex with more dominant individuals who could secure the best food, protect them from predators, etc etc. This idea sounds like it could have some merit, but it’s an idea that still makes me a tad uncomfortable as a card carrying lefty who thinks social hierarchies are generally a bad thing, even if I’m happy to play sex games based around them.

I definitely don’t think this hierarchy idea tells the whole story either, so as scientist who likes BDSM I am qualifying myself to make up my own bullshit hypotheses on the subject. They run along these lines:

BDSM practices are not ‘learned dysfunctions’ but are nuanced expressions of the powerful dichotomy of fear and excitement that lies at the heart of almost all human sexuality. Perhaps the sexualisation of specific BDSM practices are due to classical Pavlovian conditioning^[5], or a case of ‘Monkey see monkey do’. I know my tastes have evolved with exposure to different images and situations, and when I first used to search for bondage porn on the internet, the more sadomasochistic elements sometimes seriously put me off^[6]. However, as I became desensitised to the ‘grossness’, I also began to get turned on by the more hard-core fantasies as well.

Apparently the seeds of our sexual interests are planted during childhood. The idea that early sexual abuse conditions people to like BDSM is an extreme version of this conditioning idea, and to some extent it makes sense that a victim of abuse could learn to associate feelings of helplessness etc with arousal. However, I personally have no memory of being sexually abused, (despite going to a primary school run by catholic nuns^[7]), and out of all the kinky people I’ve talked about this with none have described any specific abuse they can trace their sexual ideas back to.

I’ve also talked to many people who have told me that they only recently got interested in BDSM because it sounded like a fun thing to try out. Apparently it wasn’t something they fantasized about at all during adolescence. I suspect that even the most minor childhood experiences of power exchange can sow the seeds of kink that may then sprout later in life. Thinking back to my own childhood, vague memories surface of playing a game when we got hold of some rope and tied some girls to a tree. After we pretended to hold them hostage for a little while they got bored, escaped and did the same to us (I think we let them, because fair is fair!) I think we also got told off for playing this game by some adult authority figure, which probably only served to heighten the illicit thrill. Perhaps a mildly violent subtext to cute childhood games is all BDSM fantasies need to take root.

However, we find ourselves with a chicken and egg scenario: was I tying girls to a tree because I was excited by it? Or by doing the tying did I learn to associate that activity with proto-sexual excitement? I don’t really know anything about how kids develop sexual thoughts. Some parenting sites tell me it starts surprisingly early… but, to be honest, I don’t want to think about that too much. However, why should tying a girl to a tree cultivate my erotic development while doing something like homework with a girl do nothing? Kids do homework with each other all the time but I feel safe saying that BDSM interests are a lot more prevalent than homework fetishes.

This brings me to my core idea; where the roots of BDSM interests tap into the molten heart of what makes our sexuality function. Sex is kind of scary, especially when you’ve not done it before. Even without all of the complex social stigma and bizarre rules that various human cultures have invented to confuse the situation and generally discourage sex as a practice, sex can still be fucking scary. Both parties are exposing themselves to another conscious entity over whom they have no direct control. Also, for coordination purposes, it often falls to one party to lead. This makes trust and power exchange a key part of any consensual sex, even if the sex is gentle and tender, and you don’t bite their nipples even once.

When first thinking about exploring sex with another individual, nervous fear and erotic excitement are likely intertwined, perhaps along with more complex ideas of surrender or taking control. It seems quite natural that we can learn to associate arousal with these abstractions, and when the idea of sex in of itself becomes more mundane, BDSM may help to reconnect with this sense or erotic trepidation.

It would seem possible that the human neuronal wiring for sexual arousal could be somehow linked with our ‘fight or flight’ circuitry on a genetic level. Social behaviour in mammals is far from universal but sex has to be, otherwise that particular species of mammal won’t be around for long. Back when our solitary ancestor encountered our other solitary ancestor in a dark forest, its brain’s first two thoughts were probably; ‘Do I run away from it?’ or ‘Do I fight it?’... Thankfully for us, this creature then thought; ‘I don’t think I need to run away from it... or fight it... perhaps I should have sex with it?’ Our DNA has been through millions of generations of these nervous animal encounters. It might make sense for the ‘Fight?/Flight?/Sex?’ decision processes to be linked on a biochemical level. Those animals that thought “Fight?-no, Flight?-no… meh whatever,” missed a lot of opportunities to make offspring, and the horny critters that kept considering “Sex? Sex? Sex?” in the absence of a fight or flight stimulus might have wasted a lot of time humping inanimate objects.

It would seem unsurprising then if the childhood games that most feed our sexual development often involve a careful balance of fear, aggression and excitement^[8]. More complex fantasies might then evolve out of these games, no doubt fed by all the crude and bizarre sexualisation we encounter in advertising and elsewhere. Thus it is easy to end up as one kinky adult.

Also if you’re aggressively told as a kid that doing certain things is really bad, or you find your sexual feelings stigmatised, that probably feeds into it as well. However, I’m not really sure how to fit this thought into the rest of my vague theory, so I’m just going to tack it on the end here and leave you with a conclusion! (You can tell it’s a conclusion because I’m underlining ‘conclusion’ at the top, like we do in real science sometimes.)

Conclusion

BDSM is a fun game. At least it is fun for many people who have learnt to find it fun somehow. There may be a lot of non-traumatic ways one can learn to find it fun. I’ve even put forward some muddled reasoning as to how the simplistic blueprints may be in our very DNA. DNA may also have nothing to do with it, but this wouldn’t change the fact that BDSM is fun[9]. Maybe you should try it sometime! (Or don’t. That’s fine too.)

---

^[1]And from my highly biased sample of the New York dating population there seems to be quite a lot of weirdos like me.

^[2] Someone let Freud get away with it once, and look what happened.

^[3] Of course there are always going to be significant selection biases to contend with when surveying people about stigmatized sexual behaviour. I don’t claim that this study is correct, just that it exists. Reference is: Wismeijer & Van Assen, “Psychological Characteristics of BDSM Practitioners” - The Journal of Sexual Medicine (2013) Volume 10, Issue 8, pages 1943–1952

[4] Jozifkova, E. “Consensual Sadomasochistic Sex (BDSM): The Roots, the Risks, and the Distinctions Between BDSM and Violence” Current Psychiatry Reports (2013) 15:392

^[5] In Pavlov’s most famous experiment he would ring a bell every time he gave a dog food and eventually the dog would reflexively salivate at the sound of the bell even when there was no food around.

^[6] To begin with, I would fantasise more about being tied up myself. I just preferred looking at attractive girls getting tied up and dominated by other girls (and so keep weird looking male genitalia out of it!).

^[7] I’ve noticed a lot of kinky Catholics out there though. Just sayin!

^[8] Maybe the upfront kids who just play ‘Doctor’s and Nurses’ (i.e. poking bits of each other’s anatomy to see what happens) go on to develop vanilla tastes, while the more shy kids who disguise their interests behind power games and tying other kids to trees turn into kinksters.

[9] Regardless of this many people may find the very idea of BDSM offensive for potentially legitimate reasons, but if you are one of those people maybe you shouldn’t have opened this book?