You can listen to this musing here or read it below.
Nature is, per default, sensual. It stimulates, in endless variations, as the warm moisture marinates my being, impossible to escape. Living on the beach in a tropical rainforest constantly caresses my nervous system. But, as the hairless monkey that I am, my window of tolerance is limited. So those hours every day when the sun is setting, and the river washes my sweat away, everything becomes immensely pleasurable when nature stimulates my nerve endings in just the right way.
In the city, the input is more monotone: air-conditioning, wind-blocking walls, shading roofs, and the constant flowing LED lights. Here it doesn’t matter if it’s night or day. Rainy or hot. It’s always the same. The stimuli are always inside my window of tolerance and preferably so regulated that I don’t even notice it. The message is clear; I should focus on doing rather than sensing. Of course, there are some sensuous experiences in the city, but they are well regulated as leisure and culture. Available when I have time for them when I’m ready for my reward.
Living integrated into nature, I notice that nature is not so kinky. Or I am not so kinky when in nature. Instead, I’m busy being sensuous with everything around me. It’s almost like softly making love with the warm ocean winds, surrendering to their presence. So when I was writing about how dominants should learn how to be served by their submissives, I now realize that it’s was a call to be more sensual with themselves. Just like nature is forcing me to.
So I wonder if kink is the mind being lost in a maze of passion, losing itself deeper and deeper, in a search for something that feels more than the monotone cityscape. I often encounter kinky fantasies spinning out of control. They start small and innocent, like “I want to be spanked, ” but become more intricate and bizarre, like “being adopt into a cruel cult of erotic torture”. It’s like the lack of sensual stimuli is making the mind run wild, without any connection to real-world around. So people only being kinky on the internet forums tends to be the most far out there. But this is not entirely true because experiencing kink also widens the window of tolerance for perversion. So I want more, so I venture deeper into my maze of passion.
It reminds me of trying to meditate in nature while all the leaves are rattling, the wind soft touching my skin and sticks underneath my knees constantly trigger my nervous system. Even worse is practising BDSM in nature, with all the mosquitoes, stingy pine corns and intruding moisture. But, of course, it makes a beautiful picture because it’s not how we are used to seeing kink. Nature makes it more exotic. However, in the end, BDSM is a meditation for me. So it requires the stillness of a held space, well inside my window of tolerance, isolated away from the sensuous nature.
One of the essential skills that I teach is learning how to listen. The more one can attend to details, the smaller the acts of domination can become. How gently curving the neck, if just a fraction of an inch and the acceptance of that gesture, can communicate the entire control exchange. I have a deep fascination with studying submissive and dominant gestures. Or, in other words, how we perceive ourselves. This idea of bondage is not painful but just slightly modifies the posture. Like a neck corset that keeps the spine straight, making it impossible to turn the head, survey the surroundings, telling the body to focus on the task at hand, therefore, trusting in the surroundings. A gentle message saying; you are not responsible for being in control right now.
There is a river just outside the village. The tide pushes its water in and out of the ocean in and out every day and every night. I love floating down that river, either being carried into the jungle or out to the sea while watching the stary night sky above me. Surrendering to the sensuous experience all around me. Everything is calm, and I can relax, melt and let go. I’m curious if my window of tolerance will increase or decline over time. Looking at the other hippies that have lived here for years, their window of tolerance is very small. Maybe because their nervous system is very calm, and there is no need to tolerate much. Is this what they call paradise?
I think back upon reading Sade and his feverish fantasies about overwhelming the nervous system, I believe, in order to break free from the mind-numbing society around him. Of course, there is little to no need to break free in nature because there is little bondage. But I know eventually, my restlessness will send me off on an adventure. Or can I forever stay softly surrendered to this sensuous nature?