Editor’s note: The Hatchet’s new “In the Buff” sex column is written under a pseudonym. Tweet questions or comments at him, @Hatchet_Sex, or email [email protected]
There’s something vaguely primal – and sensual – about having your hands tied to the frame of the bed, the weight of your partner holding your legs apart. Being worked over by someone aggressively emboldened by your own submission, you build a bond of trust.
A normal hookup can be disappointingly guarded. Both parties, afraid to scare the other off or cross an unspoken line, can make it more like a business transaction than a sexual bond.
Nobody wants that. And I think this campus is thirsty for something better.
It’s up to a group of kinky kiddos among us to save GW from its sexual staleness. Scanning the posts of “GWU Secrets” – our wannabe “Post Secret” Facebook group – it’s clear that this campus has an appetite for occasional (or incessant) bondage, discipline and sadomasochism.
Regular columnists analyze campus culture to work out problems and propose solutions. As The Hatchet’s new sex columnist – I’m a gay male undergraduate and a bottom, by the way – I have a similar charge. And it’s clear to me that we need to do more to satiate our kinks.
At a school with more than 400 student groups, not one of them is related to kinky sex. Other universities have already beat us to the punch. Harvard has one called “Harvard College Munch.” Iowa State University students founded a club dedicated to bondage back in 2003, funded by the student government, no less.
Columbia, Tufts, MIT and Yale all boast some kind of kinky club, though some of these orgs exist in a quiet, unthreatening, gray zone lacking official recognition.
So I ask: Why don’t we have a student organization for those of us devoted to or curious about BDSM?
My guess is because half the student body thinks it will run for U.S. Senate in 2032, while the other half is hoping for an internship next semester that requires a security clearance. We wouldn’t want the potential boss man to know we actually like being whipped and treated like a slave.
GW, despite having stellar progressive policies toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, lacks a real sexual counterculture. Productions of “Hair” aside, GW fits a heteronormative mold that eschews the more deviant kinds of sexual behavior found in BDSM.
But there’s another problem – good old fashioned social stigma.
Even the handsomest, smoothest male suggesting bondage to a potential hookup could result in terrifying consequences for our kinky hero. It doesn’t matter if he would only act on this urge if it was consensual – the optics of his failed suggestion can be damning.
Women, on the other hand, would likely experience a different hesitation. A public reveal could mean slut shaming and character assassinations.
But the potential for backlash shouldn’t keep us vanilla. Trust me, it could be some of the best sex you’ll ever have.
He was taller than me, more muscular and liked to goad me into wrestling with him. He would jab my ribs until I launched myself at him in a futile effort to overpower him. One night, he decided he’d had enough of my troublesome hands and threatened to tie them to the bedposts. I tried to call his bluff. To my surprise, seconds later, my wrists were knotted above my head.
My body had never been as responsive. I’d never seen a top as engaged (or been as focused on the bottom) as that night. With his firm grip on my neck, and the tender but forceful way he took control, it easily became the best sex I’d ever had.
When you hand over total control of your body, you’ve granted the other person a level of trust unrivaled in other romantic interactions. It makes your orgasm that much better.
But my own dabbling in BDSM isn’t a story I’d relate to my friends the same way I’d share the story of a normal hookup. It just seems to run against unspoken social rules. I’m not ashamed, but somehow it’s just different.
Having officially recognized clubs help ease stigma and draw marginalized groups out of the shadows. GW may not have the climate for BDSM – but a club could help change that. And we all deserve to discover our kinks.
Raise high,
Calvin
