Boy training

A commenter on this post made an excellent suggestion that someone tackle the lazies of the male persuasion. Honestly, i just love getting suggestions for posts, and couldn't pass this one up.

Without further ado:

I feel for the most part that this entire site, despite its nomenclature of "transformher", has been dedicated to the ways a man can become a better man. I speak frequently about the need for restraint. I celebrate the virtue and necessity of patience. I subscribe to the notion that what is done here, what i speak of is more than just about sex, but about finding an inner peace and connection with my partner.

But ultimately, the matter that sits at the core of my entire psyche is the unceasing creation of beauty. I know this word automatically has feminine inferences woven into it. Rare is it that someone would say "that man is beautiful" and even if they do, it is something that causes you to take express notice. Additionally, for my sake, beauty is not just physical attractiveness. In fact, we limit the power and prevalence of beauty if we only use physical characteristics as its ingredients.

How does one contribute beauty to the world? With the list of things i chose to highlight in my other post, you'd think offering something beautiful was arduous (you mean i have to wear high heels in order to contribute positively to the world?). Actually, it's quite simple. Just care. That's all you need to do. Care about other people, care about your loved ones, but most importantly, care about yourself.

I'm surrounded by men who have no problem oggling some cute thing fluttering by in her little mini skirt and wedges, all the while their potbellies pour onto the table from where they stuff their mouths with the worst, nutrient-deficient, fat-laden food on the planet. They demand that their women look a specific way - tiny, thin, attractive - yet they give no thought to how they themselves look. They dress like the clothes they own were as inconvenient a formality as the wrapper on their greasy cheeseburger. They take no pride in their appearance, whether it is how little attention they pay to their grooming habits (i have seen some collosally awful haircuts that men seem to care very little about) or how homogenized they've made their outfits (can anyone tell the difference between what a guy wore on Monday to what he wore on a Thursday?).

Let me provide a little background information to round out the context to where i'm coming from. I was raised on a ranch. My father did not wear bespoke clothing. His regular outfit was a plaid button down and some heavily-worn jeans. And that suited his vocation. However, whenever he found himself attending some public function, he made a point to be dressed as nicely and handsomely as possible. He never once was found at a social event not dressing or looking his best. Doing so spoke about the welfare of his family, but also provided other folks with a charming, dashing gentleman to occupy their visual sampling. He knew that there was a bigger purpose than all of us. And i remember giving him a great deal of grief as a boy on Sundays, when i couldn't understand his insistence that i wear my navy suit to "dumb ole church". His simple answer was stolen straight out of a J.D. Salinger story (a fact i didn't learn until years later, on my own, reading "Franny and Zooey").

"Do it for the Fat Lady."

As men, we ask a lot of our women. We ask them to be seductive co-eds. We ask them to be blushing brides. We ask them to be strong, pregnant ladies. We ask them to be diligent partners, and impeccable mothers to our children. All of this is fine and warranted, only if we ask of ourselves on magnitudes much, much higher. We are not under the same pressure that women are to look, act and dress a certain way.

But if i could slow things down, for just a moment, let me speak solely to my very, small male audience.

Do better.

Do and be better. Don't let fatigue allow you to let things slide. Don't let laziness be your calling card. Don't let busyness interrupt your ability to offer more.

If you need encouragement from a bigger force, know for certain that the world benefits when you take the time to care and acknowledge that your contribution on this day is to a much larger and spiritually fulfilling effort.

Medium well done

The media

In some ways, it's responsible for framing my approach to my kink (some might even say it's responsible for the formation of it - fine, i'll allow that). Whether it's from viewing Popeye cartoons at a young age that involved Bluto kidnapping the hapless Olive, only to offer us brief scenes of her torture, then interrupted by the hero's spinach-laden rescue or the climactic finale of Young Sherlock Holmes where the adolescent gumshoe, in the nick of time, saves a mummified damsel from her waxy entombment - my introduction to the abduction of the female as a way to interact and commute with her came from this artificial construction.

I didn't know what i was seeing. In my real life, i wasn't seeing actual evidence of any kinky proclivities from the flesh and blood around me. There is no doubt that the media i encountered had a major impact on my sexuality. A certain image stimulated a part of my brain that up until that point was just agitated, an itch i couldn't scratch. But once it saw this image of a beautiful girl bound tightly by rope - ahhhhhh, relief! Suddenly, a visceral connection is made between my internal, secretive appetites and those broadcast through a wider medium of others. When i would encounter these familiar scenarios as a teen (again not in real life, but usually through a magazine or film), my mind made a pleasant association with the image before me, further reinforcing the hope that this kink of mine may someday be savored.

Because i am an animal with appetites, once i learned that there was a source for the kind of sustenance my lust required - the media - very soon, that was where i directed a great deal of my time and energy. But here is where it gets skewed. Since i was not producing any media (except for the written word, which is mostly all you encounter here), i was merely a consumer of what was available (still to this day, they have not made the erotic movie that i'd deign to make if i had the proper funds). Over time, the unabashed consumer will find their appetites and desires altered, reformed to fit the flow of consumable materials. So to was the case for me. I found myself aroused by things i never expected to be stimulated by, and after awhile, it became difficult to clearly delineate what were my own native impulses from those implanted by the media i voraciously consumed.

When i finally decided to create this site, i realized i was making an active step to participate in the very realm that forged my own internal desires. I contribute to it here by sharing my words and posting photos/videos that illustrate my point of view - but that's just it, they are just my points of view. I am just one (highly opinionated) man with a particular bent on the world that occupies a rather small corner of the kinky blogosphere. I cannot compete with the onslaught of images and stories that other high-profiled, commercially-focused and well-financed put out - nor do i ever intend to try to compete with this, but i recognize that i occupy a spot in the constant, unending stream. Even though, recently, me and my girl embarked on the exciting endeavor of actually creating media (photos specifically) of a professional nature (already, we've made it into a few publications), our transmission is a mere trifle compared to the largest and loudest voices out there.

It should also be stated that i continue to view SM media constantly, repeatedly, and emphatically. It is a daily treat for me - one in which i'm able to shut down when i realize i've wasted too much time plundering through the digital channels. One thing to note, however, is that the media is persistent and non-stop. We're under a constant barrage of imagery and motion that attempt to reinforce and stimulate deeply held fascinations of the opposite sex and the erotic theatre (for largely profitable enterprises), and it's up to us to decide what we're willing to let influence our psychology, and what we're willing to toss into the trash.

Help Wanted

The Lustful Quality is spinning off - yet again. I've got a super, secret project i'm working on and need some assistance.

Consider this a call for the first ever TransformHer internship. Throughout the existence of this site, i've never really asked much from my readers. But, now i'm appealing to you directly. I am limited in my html/graphic design skills, and need someone who has some free time and interest in helping me with this project. I have concept ideas in my head, artwork that i've produced and other things already, i just need the right skills to set it in motion.

So, if there are any of you interested, please submit an e-mail (to: dominantdeity (at) gmail) and a brief description of your skillset (don't think i need to see resumes).

Kitty's Response

One of the things I love about my man is his frankness, but sometimes it comes out the wrong way. In our relationship, I'm generally in charge of pleasantries like sending thank-you notes, remembering to bring a bottle of wine to a dinner party or offering drinks to guests the moment they enter our home. It's not that Deity is not thoughtful--I assure you, he is an incredibly generous person. But sometimes, his strong opinions trump his empathy and sensitivity.

Obviously, his last post was far from "rather benign" as he claimed in one of his responses to comments. It touched a nerve with many of you, and if I didn't know him better, it would have riled me too. For starters, he's not a woman. He doesn't walk through the world actually wearing the false eyelashes he so adores, and yes, they do take some getting used to, not to mention lots of practice. He doesn't wear a corset, walk in heels or put on makeup every morning, so from an outsider's perspective, his instructions and assertions as to how to do these things begs the question, "Where do you get off?" We do argue about this from time to time--I'm huffing and puffing up a few flights of stairs, he teases me, I shoot back with little patience that he's not the one with his ribcage forcibly compressed four and a half inches.

I explained this to him when discussing the responses to his post, and once I pointed out how his writing can read from a female perspective, he understood that, generally, women bristle at being told how to be feminine by a man, and explained that this was not his intention. He said, "But all I'm saying is do it the right way." I said, "What's the right way?" He answered, "Whatever looks best on you. Whatever you're happy with. I just don't like sloppiness."

And that's what I think is missing from his post. Ultimately, he doesn't mean that everyone should go for a 1950s look or wear false eyelashes, a corset and heels every day. (I certainly don't. I think I would be blind and have tendonitis if I did.) What he is really railing against is women who take no pride in their personal appearance, and who forget that part of the reason for taking care of yourself is so that you feel good.

If your heels give you great pain and are making you walk uncomfortably, take them off; they're clearly not working for you. If you're not adept at putting on makeup and don't care to wear it, or practice at it, then don't. It's not you. When undressing, it is a little more fun to do this simple task in a way that makes you feel good--whether you're working it slowly or are more of a bodice-ripper type. If you're going to do something, anything, it's worth putting some effort into it to do it well and bring you happiness. As for the corset part, I think it is part of his fantasy that he knows how to do this better than me. He doesn't, because I know when it feels right, and I have years of practice. But for most people, someone else--their partner?--is the one lacing them on the special occasion that calls for a corset. (You can probably guess that that was the section which had me stop and take a deep breath for patience).

Of all the generalized, blanket statements Deity makes explicitly in his post, the implicit one that is clear to me as someone who knows him well, is that this all comes back to his belief that men and women alike should strive every day to add some beauty to the world. I feel safe saying that most people are at their best when they feel their best, and are making purposeful choices about themselves and how they act, and I know Deity agrees with me. This is the point that is lost when we, as women, read his post and hear yet another man telling us how to act. Too many women have heard that for most of their lives. By no means do I intend to suggest that those who were offended have no right to feel offended, I only wish to offer that there may have been a miscommunication. Deity's been writing this blog for years, and this one post is but an aberration from his otherwise articulate writings.

(Another point: Try not to take him so seriously. He gets off on being cheeky. Case in point: His blogger name is meant as a joke.)

--Kitty du Vert