I recall a friend telling me about her first sadomasochistic experience: she was at a party with a lover and were just about to kiss when someone else grabbed them by the hair and pulled their heads apart. They both longed so hard for that forbidden kiss as a rush of rejection and neediness pulsated through their bodies. Eventually, they were allowed to kiss, and magic happened – the climax. This spontaneous mini session ended, and they went right back to dancing. Learning to spot these vibrating limits is a skill, and there’s a beauty to recognising how paradoxical it is that it’s a gift not to give someone what they want.
Rejection is a theme I often return to in my work because it’s the ultimate form of selfishness. It is such a primal fear to state a boundary and then being excluded, alienated, or banished. Sadomasochistic denial play touches upon the same theme without the risk of losing everything. It’s a potent power dynamic to explore In combination with a slut’s vulnerable eros of being needy and greedy.
My first encounter with ‘rejection play’ was at Schwelle 7 more than ten years ago and the emotional impact has stayed with me until today. I was made to submit to a master and become his dog, a well trained and well loved one. And then to be abandoned by that same master. He took as much distance as his heart allowed as I, whimpering, with sad eyes and defeated body language would beg him to come back. I felt such freedom in allowing myself to dare be so dependent on another person. To be needy instead of solid, independent. Since that first experience on the edge between rejection and denial, I have met innumerable people who also love to be in that zone. Most of them have been emotionally strong and dominant types in their everyday lives.
Rejection Inside The Safer Frame
I think a key in rejection play is always allowing the other to return, metaphorically speaking. It’s the same as playing with shame and humiliation and loving all the things they deem unlovable and usually try to hide. Coming back to love – that’s the key. It can happen during aftercare but also continuously during a play, like circling in and out, a little bit deeper each time. Rejection always stays within the frame of play.
Often, the act of rejection looks to the outside like teasing and denial. This tactic works best with men because even as they ache for climactic release, they know that doing so will drain their oozing pool of desire. Of course, both men and women can learn to become multiorgasmic, but the way I see it, it only moves the climax into another level of abstraction. There is always an eventual return to normal. Another example might be cuckolding and cuckqueaning, when the submissive witnesses the dominant having sex while being rejected from participating.
I think that in intimate relationships, there is an impulse to move closer and closer, to go deeper and deeper, to somehow seek completeness. Yet if we are unconscious about our relationship with rejection, we risk eventually hitting a boundary – there will always be some limit to hit – and that can be a painful experience. This represents a failure in non-verbal communication. Rejection can be included in play without it feeling life-threatening.
Never Being Allow To Get There
I often think about sadomasochism as one neverending foreplay. The constant longing for completion through orgasm or climax is ironically also what ends the fantasy and dream, along with the session. The goal is to stay on the edge where everything is vibrating and continually shifting. For example, after some flogging, the body will release enough endorphins for the receiver to endure or enjoy a harsher whipping. Similarly, one can handle greater vulnerability once one feels safer. When someone knows that they are held lovingly in their desperation, when they can relax knowing that another is in control of their desire, then they can then fully give into the experience.
Most of the time in sadomasochistic play, the submissive’s boundaries are in focus, but in comparison, rejection play allows the dominant to be picky and concentrate on their needs. For the submissive, there is deep relaxation once there’s acceptance that someone else controls their desire and lets them know when something is wrong. The act of rejection need not be loud or theatrical but can be something subtle, possibly even something not understood by onlookers but only by the two parties involved. There can be an elegance to the act. What is needed is to be deeply attentive and in tune with each other.
