Chatroom play

January 24, 2010

Chatroom play

A reader left a comment on one of my other posts, asking about the chatroom and how it works to play or scene in it: "How does someone 'massage' your neck in a chat room? Or for that matter, cuddle, or frankly, DO anything? i've never been in any chatrooms, so i just plain don't know how it works." i think this is a really legitimate question and one a lot of people probably don't understand either, so i'm going to attempt to answer it here.

First, a bit of history. i was initially sent to 2 specific chatrooms on the Bondage.com site as part of my training with Sir. The idea was that i would get to chat with other subs, be able to share experiences and ask them questions and use them as a support base because at that point i didn't know any subs in real-life and was feeling a bit isolated. The other main reason i was sent there was to gain experience of different Doms, find out the range of viewpoints and approaches that they had, practice meeting their needs and 'serving' them in the manner that they required, and thus widen my experience and knowledge ready for when Sir would introduce me to some of his Dom friends and acquaintances in real-life, so i had more of a clue what to do. And i think there was a third reason - to give me more confidence in myself, because back then i had this notion that i wasn't a 'proper' submissive, that i didn't do things in the right way, that everyone else in the lifestyle was better than me and would probably laugh at me if they saw what i was doing, so Sir made me go in there and 'scene' in front of others to get their reactions (which were all positive, btw, and really did give me a lot of confidence). So that's why i ended up in a 'scening' room rather than just a normal chatroom - there's both kinds on Bondage.com, plus a range of rooms in between, but the one i've stuck with (#Pain&Humiliation) actively encourages scening in channel. Otherwise, had it been my own choice, i probably would have gone with a more conventional BDSM chatroom and stayed well away from the scening rooms, or maybe only visited those where i would be allowed to watch and not expected to join in. (Some more info for you: being a sub in #P&H automatically gets you 'voiced' which implies that you are ready and willing to serve any Dom who calls upon you. The only reasons you are allowed to 'devoice' and thus mark yourself unavailable to serve are that you are already being used by a Dom, or that you are afk. But in reality it is possible to put restrictions on your service, especially if you are owned because then many Doms specifiy non-sexual use of their subs only, and it is also possible to refuse a scene with someone - gracefully!).

When i first went into the scening channels i was a bit like "how does this work then?" too. It just seemed weird to me that all these people were sitting at their computers, unable to even see each other let alone touch, but yet they were pretending to do all of these actions with and to each other, including being flogged, clamped, fucked, etc. Even kneeling next to someone's feet or cuddling up with a fellow sub seemed odd to me at first because they were just words on the screen and not reflected in reality. But what i have come to realise is that playing and scening in a chatroom does work for me - it's nowhere near as good as real-life play with my Master of course, but when done properly with a Dom who knows what He is doing many of the emotions and feelings are the same. i think it's because D/s is such a mental thing that it's possible to tap into that side of it even when the person isn't actually there with you, and it does entail a form of submission to agree to serve someone online, and submit yourself to whatever they wish to do to you. Of course, it would also be possible to just sit there typing out whatever the other person seemed to require of you and not enter into the emotions or spirit of the scene at all, but i think those types of scenes are easy to distinguish from the ones where the Dom and sub both properly enter into their roles and live the scene. i can tell the difference anyway, and i know there have been occasions in the past where i haven't been in the mood for it so just done the automatic typing thing and it's shown through in me doing a rubbish scene.

i'm not sure any of this will make sense to someone who hasn't spent time in a scening chatroom, and i know there have been people who have come into the room, sat there watching for a while and then basically said "what the hell are you idiots doing?" and left. i guess it just doesn't work for everyone, but that's fair enough and the fact that it does work for some is enough of a basis to respect and allow it to continue i feel. Also, there is a kind of comfort in going into the chatroom when you've had a bad day and receiving a hug from a friend in there, who takes the time to try to comfort you in actions as well as words. Even though you can't actually feel the hug or the neck massage or the hair brushing or whatever, you can imagine it and that really does help to relax you. And it's the simple fact of someone taking time for you, demonstrating their care and concern for you, that makes you feel better. Not sure that will make sense either, but i guess it also comes down to an attention thing - most subs i think crave attention, we lap it up, even if we are shy. And it's so much easier to get attention online because you are safe there - nobody can really see you, so you feel more comfortable cuddling naked with a fellow sub than you would in real-life. Of course real-life attention from my Sir, or a real-life cuddle etc. is so much more satisfying than an online one, but the online ones do matter and do make a difference just the same. Again, hard to explain if you haven't been there, and again it probably wouldn't work for everyone, but that's my experience and i think the experience of many of the regulars in the chatroom who keep coming back for more.

So there you have it - my answer to domesticdaisy's question. Please feel free to ask if anyone wants to know more!

libby

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