Did Sam Harris just play a hoax on the listeners of his podcast?

The interior of the church La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Episode 178 of the podcast of Sam Harris, “Making Sense”, is titled The Reality Illusion and is just short of 3 hours long. In it, Sam Harris and his wife Annaka interview Donald Hoffman, a professor at the University of California at Irvine. Hoffman starts by making the argument that our minds evolved to hide reality from us, so that the real nature of reality is completely different from what we experience. Depending on how far you want to take this, it is either obvious or an appeal to radical skepticism. It would be obvious because our senses clearly do not show the real world as made of atoms, photons and the like. They make a model of the world that we can use to do things in the world and to predict the outcome of those actions. In that our minds are quite successful, thank you very much! Radical skepticism is the idea that we cannot be sure about anything that we think we know. Ironically, even though skepticism is considered the enemy of religion, radical skepticism is an argument for religious belief because, since we cannot know anything, we may as well believe in religion. Clearly, the success of science is a good argument against radical skepticism.

But is in the second part of Hoffman’s argument when things get really weird. After much hand waving, he basically says that this reality that we cannot perceive (because our senses lie to us) is composed of “conscious agents” that have an effect on the world. He sustains, with Annaka enthusiastic agreement, that consciousness is the fundamental reality. Why? Well, because we don’t understand consciousness, so we may as well make it the fundament of reality. Since consciousness is already there in the world, we do not need to explain what it is. This is a classic example of the “argument from ignorance” fallacy. Too bad that all the training that Sam and Annaka have on critical thinking does not let them recognize that. The idea that consciousness, or mind, is fundamental to reality is an old one, and it is called panpsychism. It’s a weird, mystical idea that clashes against modern materialism, more correctly called physicalism (everything follows the laws of physics) or naturalism (the laws of nature are necessary and sufficient to explain reality). However, what Hoffman is saying is much crazier than panpsychism. He is saying that the world is full of “conscious agents” that we cannot perceive. To me, this sounds like saying that he believes in angels, or ghosts. Because, what is a “conscious agent”? “Conscious” means that it has a mind like our own. “Agent” means that it does stuff in the world. This contradicts the principle of causality, stating that every natural phenomenon has to have a natural cause. Which is a basic axiom of science, without which all magical beliefs are possible. But this does not bother Hoffman because… guess what? He doesn’t believe in causality! Nor does he believe in space-time. These are illusions created by our minds, which cannot perceive the real reality… With all its angels, ghosts, leprechauns, elves, “conscious agents”… whatever you want to call these spiritual, invisible, inaudible, untouchable beings.

What evidence does Professor Hoffman have for the existence of these beings? Well, he has a mathematical model. In the 3 hour-long podcast, he does not even hint of how this mathematical model is supposed to work. Because, you see, mathematics is just too hard to explain to the common person. At Annaka’s instance, he did admit that he introduces consciousness into the model at the onset. So, consciousness in, consciousness out. Garbage in, garbage out. That’s how mathematical models work. They are a great tool of science, but if they become disconnected from the actual results of experiments they can lead to all kinds of wild conclusions. Like believing in angels.

The reasoning used by Hoffman, and to a certain extent, Annaka, is too similar to the reasoning of quacks to be the product of honest, serious minds trained in critical thinking. That’s why I think this has to be a hoax. I am rushing to call it before Sam Harris tells us what fools we have been in believing it. In fact, it is quite similar to the famous Sokal hoax. Physicist Alan Sokal published an article in Social Text, a postmodernist journal, saying that physical reality is a social and linguistic construct. This is very similar to the title of this podcast episode: The Reality Illusion, isn’t it? Ever since the Sokal hoax, several copycat hoaxes have been attempted, with limited success. So perhaps Sam Harris got into his mind to do a better one.

But, wait, Donald Hoffman has written a book about all this: The Case Against Reality. The book is for sale at Amazon. Maybe the book itself is a hoax? Judging from the description of the book, it seems that is about the initial, less outrageous claims of Hoffman. So maybe only the second part of his claim, his mystical “conscious agents”, is the hoax.

The truly terrifying idea would be that this is not a hoax, that Sam and Annaka Harris swallowed this crackpot theory hook, line and sinker. That would be a real shame, because I really like Sam Harris and his podcast, even though I strongly disagree with his ideas about free will (he says it’s an illusion) and consciousness (he has a glorified view of it as the one and only uncontroversial truth). His pushback against religion (kind of forgotten now) and political correctness are much needed. As a life-long meditator, I also sympathize with his effort to popularize meditation and mindfulness. I just hope that he does not go too far into mysticism and magical thinking. That one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism would fall prey to superstition would be tremendously ironical, and a real shame.

How to avoid hurting the one we love

Obscured by clouds. La Pedriza, Madrid, Spain (2018). Photo by Hermes Solenzol. 

It is quite ironic that the person who loves you more is also the person who is able to hurt you most deeply. Romantic relationships entail a great deal of suffering. And everybody thinks that this is unavoidable, that suffering is just the price you pay for love. But I think that it doesn’t have to be this way, that if we hurt the person we love it’s because we must be doing something wrong. It seems that when we reach a certain degree of intimacy we start allowing ourselves some behaviors that bring conflict and emotional damage. Then, perhaps what we should do is to learn to recognize those behaviors and ways to avoid them. We should learn healthier ways to love.

“Abuse” is a strong word. We neatly divide the world between abusers, who deserve our scorn and even jail time; victims, who must be protected and healed, and the rest of us, nice people who are neither abusers or victims. This classification works quite well when it comes to physical abuse, because physical damage is relatively easy to identify. Unwanted sexual contact is a bit more tricky, because social norms in some borderline cases are in a state of flux, but in most cases the line between consent and non-consent is quite clear. However, when it comes to emotional abuse there are no such clear boundaries. Whether a particular act is abusive or not depends on context, intention, how often is repeated, and how resilient or vulnerable is the person that receives it. Perhaps this explains why we hurt the person we love so often, sometimes intentionally, sometimes inadvertently. When it comes to emotional damage we all can be small-scale abusers and victims. Of course, there are real psychological abusers: those who cause emotional damage in an intentional or habitual way with the objective of bringing the other person under their control. Emotional abuse could be defined as any behavior that causes psychological damage, produces dependence, and decreases the self-esteem of the target person. It is based on breaking the psychological balance of a person using three key emotions, fear, guilt and shame.

Here is a list of some behaviors involved in emotional abuse:

1. Coercion is a demand that can’t be refused without bringing about serious negative consequences. One clear example is coerced sex; imposed, for example, under the threat of a fight. But coercion can be used to obtain many other things: going to a party, socializing with some particular people, choosing a vacation spot, how to decorate the house, or when to have children.

2. Threats are one of the most direct forms of coercion. They evoke fear to get what we want. In a couple, one of the most frequent threats is breaking up. This usually happen as a result of an unbalance of power, because one person values the relationship more than the other. It could be that she is more in love or that the relationship brings on advantages that he doesn’t want to lose. Sometimes, the impending threat of the break-up becomes an unspoken but powerful coercion. Other times this threat is just a bluff.

3. Frightening. Threats are just one way of using fear to control a person. Emotional manipulation can be increased in an environment of high anxiety created by actions like screaming, throwing things, breaking things, risking safety or breaking the law. The simple presence of fear creates an environment of oppression.

4. Blackmail is a form of coercion that consist in threatening to do something that the other person doesn’t want us to do if he does not comply with our demands. One familiar form of blackmail is the threat of telling about something. One clear example is “outing”: revealing that somebody is gay, bisexual, into BDSM, polyamorous, or any other form of sexuality not approved by society.

5. Emotional blackmail consists in using fear, obligation or guilt (abbreviated by the acronym FOG) with the goal of pressuring another person to do what we want. There are four types of emotional blackmail. The first consists in the threat of punishment. A classic example in couples is the withdrawal of sex or affection. The second type is self-punishment: the threat of harming oneself. An extreme but all-too-familiar case is the threat of suicide. A milder case is that sulking attitude when we don’t get what we want. The third type of emotional blackmail consists in engaging in acts of self-sacrifice with the goal of evoking guilt. These include all those acts of service that are done not out of goodwill or love, but to get something in exchange. The fourth type is perhaps the most difficult to recognize, because it consists in offering a price in exchange for getting what we want. A classic example is offering candy to a child in exchange for a kiss. In a couple, offering sex as a price may seem like a good idea at first, but in fact this is not very different from withdrawing sex when we don’t get what we want. It leads to the creation of a manipulative environment in which we don’t know why things are done.

6. Breaking boundaries. We all have things that we don’t want to do or want done to ourselves: those are our boundaries. In a healthy relationship each person defines what his boundaries are and respects the boundaries of the other. Problems arise either when boundaries are not clearly defined or when they are known but are broken nevertheless.

7. Sabotage. This includes instances of not respecting the work, family and social obligations of our lover. The most typical case is when a couple’s brawl leaves us so upset that we cannot focus on work. In this case the sabotage is involuntary and indirect. A step up from that is when somebody has so little respect for their partner that he gives no consideration to her work schedule or the time he needs to devote to family and friends. Time and attention can be misappropriated, for example, by forcing dates or phone conversations at inopportune times. In the more extreme cases of abuse, the abuser directly interferes with the work or social environment of the victim with the clear goal of undermining them. I know a case of a husband who called her wife’s boss to tell him the she was quitting the job, which of course was not her intention.

8. Lack of communication. Good communication is vital in any healthy relationship. It is hard even in the best situations, so it becomes nearly impossible when somebody sabotages it as part of a manipulative strategy. One example of this is the “silent treatment” (refusing to talk) or its modern version: ghosting in social media. Another is doing the opposite: talking continuously to create a “wall of words” that prevents the other person from talking.

9. Lying. Of course, the worst form of lack of communication is not telling the truth. Lying could be considered as a way of taking power away from somebody, because misinformation prevents that person from making the best decisions. Lying is considered the main offense in infidelity, but any form of lying or dishonesty is harmful in a relationship because it undermines trust.

10. Gaslighting is an extreme form of psychological abuse consisting in the systematic manipulation of the information that is provided to a person. The goal is to weave of a web of lies, half-truths, secrets and deceptions that creates a distorted view of reality. This is often done with the goal of hiding a situation of generalized abuse. Gaslighting greatly harms the self-esteem and may cause the victim to question her own sanity. The name comes from the play Gas Light and its movie adaptations.

11. Keeping secrets. The question of whether is okay to keep secrets from our partner is a delicate one. On the one hand, everybody has a right to his own privacy - some things are so intimate that we want to keep them from absolutely anybody. On the other hand, hiding some things that our partner has the right to know could be considered lying by omission. The most clear examples are STIs and adultery.

12. Invading privacy is the other side of that coin. Everybody has a right to reveal things about themselves only if they want to, when they want to, and how they want to. Even when we reveal something to one person, we have the right that this is not revealed to other persons without our consent. And even if there is something that we should not keep secret, that does not make it okay to use coercion to force us to reveal it. A modern instance of violation of privacy is to search a cell phone or a computer without the permission of the owner.

13. Complaints and criticisms. Complaining is normal. If something is not going well in the relationship it is essential for good communication to talk about it. But there are many ways to say something. When complaints and criticisms are made with the intention of evoking shame and guilt we enter the territory of emotional mistreatment. Problems should be presented at the right occasion, preferably with enough time to discuss them without feeling rushed. There should be no intention of hurting and offending. Quantity matters: a long list of reproaches is overwhelming and offensive. We should also pay attention to two bad habits related to this. The first is to be easily offended, so that whoever talks to us is kept on edge, having to constantly self-censor. The other is to present oneself as the victim, a common strategy of psychological abusers.

14. Shaming. Even more than guilt, shame is the emotion that damages most the self-esteem. Consider, for example, all the cases of homosexual teenagers that are driven to suicide by shaming from their parents, their teachers, their classmates or religious authorities. One of the most common instances of emotional abuse are degrading comments and continuous criticism. A extreme case of shaming is cyber-bullying: the harassment and public shaming of individuals in social networks. Another form of shaming is to berate people not for what they do but for who they are, like their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or culture. Here we enter on the territory of bigotry and intolerance.

15. Not apologizing. We all make mistakes, so we all should be ready to apologize when we hurt another person. A timely apology could mean the difference between a fight that is satisfactorily resolved and another that leaves scars for a lifetime. It could also mean the difference between a mistake done without malice or an act of deliberate abuse. When a person in a couple apologizes all the time and the other never does it, that is a sign that something is gone really wrong.

16. Not forgiving. Not accepting an apology can undermine the dignity of the person offering it and thus can be hurtful and aggressive. Of course, not everything could or should be forgiven. In fact, in many instances of abuse there is a pathological form or forgiveness based on co-dependency: the victim constantly forgives the abuser, even making far-fetched excuses for the abuse. A necessary condition for forgiveness should be that the deed to be forgiven has ended. We can’t forgive somebody who persists in the misbehavior. On the other hand, not granting forgiveness that has been earned can become emotional abuse when this is used to perpetuates guilt as a form of control. Maybe the right thing to do when something cannot be forgiven is to terminate the relationship, rather than to continue it in the climate of power unbalance brought by the feeling of guilt. A variant of this problem is when an apology is accepted but used later on, over and over, to remind the person of his past guilt. This is not true forgiveness, which means that the issue is closed and we have moved on.

17. Passive-aggressive behavior is an expression of hostility based on not doing things that we are supposed to do. It includes some of the problems that I mention above, like lack of communication, withdrawing affection, not apologizing, and not forgiving. But there are many other ways of being passive aggressive, sometimes hard to identify. Even over-politeness or extreme compliance can be forms of passive-aggression. By the same token, it is easy to accuse a well-meaning person of being passive-aggressive and it is very difficult to defend ourselves against such an accusation.

18. Social isolation. A common technique to create emotional dependence in religious cults is to separate a new follower from his family and friends. This way the victim loses the frame of reference that would allow her to escape indoctrination. A similar situation can take place in a couple when a person is separated from her friends and social environment, usually because of jealousy.

19. Social pressure. I may also happen that one of the individuals in a couple becomes completely surrounded by the friends and family of the other. Then, when problems arise in the couple, these people will have a biased attitude about them. Social pressure can also come from cultural norms that favor a type of person or a form of relationship. One clear example is sexism when society condones a man’s control over a woman’s behavior. Another case is when one person wants some kind of sexual freedom, like being kinky or polyamorous, and another person prevents it with the help of cultural norms and societal repression. We call this slut-shaming: harassing people because their sexual behavior infringes cultural norms.

I must confess that I have done some of the things in this list, but I also I had some of them done to me. Perhaps you think that you don’t do them just because you are a woman, or a feminist, or gay. Well, think again, you may be in denial. After all, even hard-core psychological abusers don’t see themselves as such. Is all too easy to rationalize emotional abuse as self-defense, standing up for ourselves, or even being funny. Most of us have been in a couple’s quarrel in which we have tried to scare or hurt the person that we love. If we need to fight, at least fight fairly, without being manipulative or cruel. We should raise our ethical standards and educate ourselves in all these different forms of emotional abuse. It should not be considered normal, even in its mildest forms. It leaves scars that undermine the relationship, setting the foundation for future fights, and even turning the relationship into something toxic. Moreover, when we engage in these behaviors we contribute to normalize them, making them harder to identify in cases of serious psychological abuse.

One of the worse things about psychological abuse is that it’s so hard to identify. There is a gradation between what is socially accepted behavior in a couple (but still wrong) and psychological abuse. Where our own behavior falls in that gradient depends not only on what our intentions are but on how vulnerable is the other person. It is easy to hurt somebody by mistake. Emotional mistreatment often becomes mutual in a couple. This may lead to a toxic relationship where victim and abuser are not always easy to identify. So we should be mindful that, even if we are being mistreated, this does not justify retaliating with emotional abuse of our own.

We all should examine carefully our behavior towards our loved one and carefully expunge any element of emotional abuse. When somebody opens their heart to us, this makes them extremely vulnerable. We should not betray their trust by using this vulnerability to hurt them or to exploit them. Even if we do it unconsciously, there is no excuse. If we want to be loved, we have to learn to love. And this consists in making the other person happy. Love should not hurt.

Spicing up your scene with hot peppers

One of the nicest things about a spanking is the afterglow: the warm feeling in your buns after the job is done; the way they become exquisitely sensitive to the touch of the hand or the rub of the underwear; how it reminds you of your punishment when you are fucked doggie-style and his belly bangs against your bottom as his cock dives deep inside you. Surely, many spankees long for a way to make the afterglow last longer or even to make it more intense.

Well, such a method exist. It is based on the creative use of hot peppers or their active ingredient, a chemical called capsaicin. In this article I am going to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the science behind the wonderful effects of capsaicin. Then I am going to explain how to use hot peppers to enhance that afterglow feeling to such a level that it may make your spankee regret that you ever read this article.

The science of hot peppers and capsaicin

capsaicin molecule

Ever wondered why hot peppers are hot? Not all spicy food produces this burning sensation: garlic, onions, horseradish and wasabi also elicit a strong, sometimes unpleasant “spicy” sensation, but not of the burning kind. The burning sensation of hot peppers is caused by a single chemical, a molecule called capsaicin. Research started in the 90s unraveled why capsaicin makes you feel like you are burning without being actually burnt. Capsaicin, it turns out, binds to a protein called TRPV1 (transient receptor potential vanilloid 1, if you want to know) that is also activated by high temperatures. TRPV1 is present in a population of C-fibers, the nerves that transmit pain from the skin and other organs to the spinal cord. C-fibers with TRPV1 transmit burning pain, so when capsaicin activates TRPV1 it also feels like burning. Garlic, horseradish and wasabi activates a similar protein called TRPA1, which when activated also elicits pain but not a burning sensation. Yet another protein of the same family, TRPM8, is the receptor for menthol and produces the sensation of cold. That’s why menthol feels cool. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Now let’s go back to BDSM. You are being spanked and every slaps that lands on your bottom feels hot. After the spanking is over your buns stay warm for a while. Why? Does this has anything to do with TRPV1? Yes, it does. The impacts of the spanking cause a bit of damage in the dermis, the bottom layer of the skin, causing its cells to release some of the metabolites stored inside them, like ATP and glutamate. These activate receptors in the C-fibers (the pain nerves) which in turn release two neuropeptides, substance P and CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide, if you need to know), which make the capillaries swell with blood. This is why your bottom turns that nice red. It’s a process called inflammation, characterized by three things: pain, swelling and heat. Some of the released chemicals cause a bit of activation TRPV1, which is responsible for the heat component of the inflammation.

Hot peppers burn in your mouth, because mucosa skin is rich in TRPV1, but do not produce much burning in regular skin. However, if the skin is inflamed that’s a different story: the TRPV1 receptors are already primed by the inflammatory soup of chemicals released from the damaged cells, and capsaicin drives them through the roof. So, if you apply capsaicin to a well-spanked bottom, instead of a nice warm afterglow it will start feeling burning hot. Not only that, the skin will become very sensitive to touch, so a simple caress or the rub of underwear will now feel painfully hot. This is something similar to what happens with sunburn, another form of inflammation. The technical term for when the sensation of touch turns to pain is allodynia.

Is capsaicin dangerous?

By now, you are probably thinking: “do I really want to do this to my bottom?” Well, we do regularly eat capsaicin in the form of hot peppers, some people even in fairly large amounts, so if we are not concerned with putting it inside our bodies why should we be concerned with putting it on our skin? Needless to say, capsaicin makes your skin feels as it is burning, but it does not actually burn you. That is, it produces no tissue damage. Capsaicin is also sold over-the-counter as pain medication to treat arthritis, tendinitis and muscle pain. In comes in touch applicators containing a solution of up to 0.15% capsaicin.

The Scoville Scale of spiciness of chili peppers

However, capsaicin has also been weaponized in the form of pepper sprays like Mace, which contain from 0.18% to 3% capsaicin. It acts by producing a blinding inflammation of the eyes, burning in the skin, and coughing and difficulty breathing. In people with asthma, this can be deadly. Therefore, just handling capsaicin in a scene can pose a risk for both the top and the bottom. One thing to keep in mind is that capsaicin is not soluble in water and is very soluble in the fats of the skin, so it is almost impossible to wash away. Soap will not do the trick. It is soluble in alcohol, but you cannot apply alcohol to your eyes and I would not recommend putting it in your genitals. You could use a lotion rich in fat, but do not expect a complete wash-off.

What concerns me more about using capsaicin in the scene is that over time it can actually kill or blunt those C-fibers that contain TRPV1. This may be why capsaicin is used as a pain-killer. The end result could be that you develop an iron-butt: buttocks that can endure a good amount of abuse without much pain. You need to decide if this is something you want.

How to use capsaicin in the scene

You have a choice between using hot peppers or a capsaicin solution that you buy at the pharmacy (0.025% is a good dose if you want to start easy). Capsaicin solutions are easier to handle. Peppers are more natural, sexier and artsy. Personally, I prefer the peppers, so I will give instructions for their use, which can be easily adapted for capsaicin solutions.

What you need: a knife, a cutting board, disposable plastic gloves, cleaning wipes and paper towels. And, of course, chili peppers. I recommend green jalapeños, chile de árbol, or similar. Watch out for Thai peppers or habaneros, they are too hot!

Give the bottom a nice spanking on the bare buttocks. Keep in mind that the intensity of the burning sensation will depend as much on the strength of the spanking as the amount of capsaicin. Since the dose of capsaicin is difficult to adjust, especially if you use hot peppers, it is better to pay attention to the spanking. Which means, keep it light. In your first try don’t go beyond a nice uniform pink color on the butt. A five to ten minute spanking with medium intensity should be enough.

Put on the gloves. Using the knife and the cutting board, cut the peppers lengthwise. Get rid of the seeds, which have the larger amount of capsaicin and tend to get everywhere. Then, using your gloved hands, gently rub the peppers over the pink part of the skin. If you want to do this scientifically, you could use one buttock as the test (it gets the peppers) and the other as the control (no pepper). Be careful not to come close to the anus or the genitals (although the effect of capsaicin there is not as bad as you may expect, in my experience). Wait a couple of minutes, then use the cleaning wipes and paper towels to eliminate the remaining of the pepper juice from the skin. Leave your bottom to roast while you put away everything. Wear gloves throughout the process and wash your hands afterward, for good measure. But remember: anything that touches those buttocks may get capsaicin on it. Capsaicin has a nasty tendency to travel from the butt to your hands, and from there to your eyes.

The results

The bottom will become increasingly hot after five minutes or so. If the treatment is mild (light spanking, low dose of capsaicin), it will feel like an enhanced afterglow. With a strong treatment (hard spanking, lots of capsaicin), it will be definitely painful. The effects can last as long as 24 hours, peaking around 1-2 hours and then gradually decreasing. The worst (or best) part is the sensitivity to touch (allodynia), with some delightfully humiliating consequences. You can make the bottom feels being spanked just by putting a hand on the buns. Sitting may be extremely uncomfortable or impossible. So it will be wearing pants or underwear, a loosely-fitting skirt is advisable. All of this will probably turn-on your subject, making her excited and horny. You should plan for a sub-space lasting many hours and take advantage of all the wonderful side effects. For example, fucking her doggy-style will add a jolt of searing pain at the end of every thrust. (I have tried to keep all this gender-neutral; of course, a man can also be fucked doggie-style).

Let me emphasize that this is a one-way journey. Once the capsaicin has been applied, it is futile to try to wash it off. If the effects are too strong to endure, have her lay on her stomach and cool her bottom with a bag of ice. Aloe or other soothing lotion may help, but keep in mind that every time you touch those burning buns to apply it, it is going to hurt. Better to stay with her in the scene and enjoy the ride.

Why choking is not safe

If you are into choking, the bad news is that this is the least safe BDSM activity, it is responsible for the most numbers of death. The good news is that most of those deaths occur when people do it alone. Still, even if you do it as a couple, I strongly advise against it.

Choking, breath play or, more technically, erotic asphyxiation or asphyxiophilia, is used to refer to two very different types of actions. The first involves cutting the air supply to the lungs by choking or blocking the nose and the mouth. The second involves cutting blow flow to the brain, which is usually done by pressing on the carotid arteries. Spoiler alert: the second is much more dangerous than the first.

Choking

Straightforward choking, what we see in movies and TV, consists in pressing the neck to constrict the windpipe (trachea) to keep air from reaching the lungs. The trachea is a very delicate structure made of cartilage, a tissue similar to bone that also makes our joints. This makes the trachea semi-rigid, so applying pressure on it can deform it permanently. Around the trachea are also the vocal cords and the esophagus. Therefore, this form of choking can produce long-term damage affecting breathing, talking and swallowing. It should never be done, unless it is just fake choking not involving any real pressure on the neck and that does not block breathing.

Of course, it is possible to interrupt the breathing of a bottom partner by other means. One popular one consists of sticking a cock deep into her mouth and then pinching the nose. This has the additional advantage of giving pleasure to the cock-owner and eliciting some interesting gagging reactions in the bottom. However, one thing I don’t understand is why in this type of situation the top is not concerned about having his cock bitten. Sure, any well-behaved submissive will never bite the cock that feeds her, but the body will do all kinds of weird stuff in a life-or-death situation. And breathing is our most basic drive. 

OK, so we rule the cock as an instrument of asphyxiation, but there are still many other ways to stop a person from breathing, like putting a pillow or a bag over his nose and mouth. And, yes, this is safer than any of the other possibilities that I am examining. The body as a whole can store a good amount of oxygen. There are three main reservoirs: the air still present in your lungs, the hemoglobin  in red blood cells and myoglobin in the muscles. Myoglobin is a protein similar to hemoglobin that is also able to bind oxygen. Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) have large amounts of myoglobin in their muscles that help them hold their breath for long periods of time. Free-divers learn to take advantage of these three reservoirs by different techniques to hold their breath underwater. I can comfortably free-dive for close to one minute, even while moving a lot. I once held my breath for 4 minutes, out of the water and relaxing. The world record in breath-holding is 22 minutes and 22 seconds, after hyperventilating in pure oxygen. But don’t get any ideas. As I said, this is done by trained people able to slow down their heartbeat and using sophisticated techniques to store as much oxygen in their bodies as possible. Importantly, the “air starving” drive that makes you want to breathe is not triggered by the lack of oxygen in your blood but by an excess of CO2. This can lead to dangerous situations (common in free-diving) in which you don’t feel like you need to breathe but are actually about to lose consciousness because there is not enough oxygen reaching your brain. So, if you want to engage in other types of breath play involving hyperventilating and then holding your breath (as I did as a teenager), you may want to learn a thing or two about the physiology involved.

Because of all this, even if asphyxiated to the point of loss of consciousness, most people will resume breathing and regain consciousness without any major consequences. However, this is only when said loss of consciousness doesn’t last more than a few seconds. Any longer than that and you risk having to perform CPR on a person who is unconscious and does not breathe on his own, as it happens with most drowning victims. After all, the centers that control breathing are themselves in the brain, so if the brain is not working they may stop functioning as well. And if the breath is stopped for several minutes there is a real possibility of brain damage.

Carotid occlusion

The carotid arteries form the main supply of blood to the brain. They run quite superficially on both sides of the neck. Cutting them, as we see in Games of Thrones and other gory TV series, will irreversibly lead to death in a matter of seconds. To stay conscious and alive the brain needs a continuous supply of oxygen and glucose from the blood. Neurons are the most finicky cells of the body: if they don’t get their oxygen they immediately throw a temper tantrum and die. Temper tantrum is quite an appropriate figure of speech because a neuron that is starving for oxygen will begin firing a lot of action potentials and releasing its neurotransmitters. The main excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain is the amino acid glutamate, which is also an abundant metabolite. When a neuron dies all of its glutamate is released into its surrounding medium, activating glutamate receptors in its nearby neurons. Too much activation of these glutamate receptors can kill those neurons, too, setting off a chain reaction that produces a wave of cell death spreading through the brain. This is what produces most of the brain damage during a stroke, which happens when a capillary inside the brain is blocked by a blood clot. So, why doesn’t this “wave of death” eventually kill the whole brain? Because there are cells in the brain (astrocytes, microglia and epithelial cells in the capillaries) that are in charge of preventing damage by absorbing glutamate and other neurotoxic substances. Still, considerable harm can be done before these cells manage to bring the situation under control. And, once neurons die, it is almost impossible to replace them.

What does all this have to do with choking? When you block the carotids to induce loss of consciousness and increase pleasure, you are starving neurons of oxygen and may be killing some of them. Keep in mind that you could have a substantial loss of neurons in your brain and not notice anything, because we are not conscious of most of what goes on in our brain. This happens to victims of concussion, who may suffer considerable brain damage without knowing it. The point is: you don’t know what is actually going on in your brain when you drive it close to unconsciousness, just because it is so much fun! Neurons could be dying while you party.

Let me explain why carotid occlusion is much more dangerous than other forms of asphyxiation. The key fact is that when you hold your breath, or when somebody blocks your breathing, there is a big reservoir of oxygen your body can use to stay alive. However, your brain does not have a similar store of oxygen. When you block the carotids, that’s it, your brain starts to run out of oxygen right away. That’s why people die much faster when their necks are cut than when they are strangled. There may be other complications of carotid occlusion, like cholesterol plaques being released from inside the carotids to cause strokes in the brain. But, even if you think you had a safe experience, there may be brain damage that you did not notice. As it happens with concussions (traumatic brain injury), injuries accumulate over time until all of a sudden the symptoms manifest themselves. And then is too damn late to do anything about it.

Sub Spaces

There is a lot of interest in the BDSM community on the “sub space”, a blissful state that it is said to be achieved through the use of skillful techniques of impact play, or rope play, or perhaps through masterful Dominance and unwavering submission. It is also assumed that sub space is mediated through the release of endorphins. In the past, I have pointed out that some of these beliefs are supported more by myths than by actual scientific evidence. Still, it is undeniable that bottoms and submissives achieve some remarkable altered states of consciousness, often followed by negative emotional states called “sub drop”. I would like to propose here that there is not just one sub space but several ones with distinctive, sometimes even opposing, characteristics. It is important to emphasize, however, that there is almost no scientific research done on masochists, and very little on the endorphin high and other altered states of consciousness produced by extreme exercise or pain. Therefore, what I am going to say here is highly speculative. It is based on my knowledge of pain neurophysiology and by drawing parallels between the effects of drugs and observations of the behavior of bottoms and submissives during scenes. I propose that there are at least three different states that can be considered “sub states”. I will point out their similarities with emotional states and with the effects of some drugs.

Adrenergic sub space. The most natural response to pain is the fight/flight response. In it, there is an activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis that leads to a large release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands into the blood. This increases the heart rate, switches blood circulation from the viscera to the periphery, and promotes muscular activity. At the same time, inside the central nervous system there is a parallel activation of pathways that use noradrenaline as a neurotransmitter. Among them is a pathway that projects from the adrenergic nuclei of the brain stem (locus coeruleus, A5 and A7) to the spinal cord, where it intersects inhibit incoming pain signals in the peripheral nerves producing analgesia. Other noradrenergic projections go to the cerebral cortex, activating it and increasing alertness. In practice, when the bottom goes into this state she screams, struggles, stomps and laughs, while her pain thresholds go up. This sub state is characterized by analgesia, mild euphoria and high interaction with the Top. It is important to note that while the fight/flight response is considered a stress reaction, this is not necessarily bad. Some forms of stress (called ‘eustress’) are healthy and sought by many people in the form of roller-coasters, scary movies and exciting sports. I consider BDSM a form of eustress. A certain amount of eustress may be necessary for good health and can counter the nefarious effects of distress (bad stress). The adrenergic sub space is similar to the effect of stimulant drugs like cocaine and amphetamines, which act by increasing the availability of noradrenaline and dopamine at some key brain areas.

Endorphin sub space. This sub space also produces analgesia, but in almost all other aspects is the opposite of the adrenergic sub space. In it, the heart rate goes down, and activity and alertness decrease. The relevant release of endorphins takes place not into the blood but in some brain areas. The pain inhibition is driven by a pathway connecting the periaqueductal gray area in the middle of the brain with the nucleus raphe in the brain stem and then down to the spinal cord to block incoming pain signals. There are reciprocal inhibitory connections in the brain stem between the nucleus raphe and the noradrenergic nuclei (coeruleus, A5 and A7), so that when the endorphin system gets activated the adrenergic system gets inhibited, and the converse. This is because, while the adrenergic system mediates fight/flight, the endorphin system is related to freezing behavior, in which the animal becomes immobile in order to avoid been detected by a predator. Repeated freezing behavior and certain patterns of endorphin release have been shown to lead to learned helplessness, a dysfunctional state that decreases learning, reduces immune activity and produces several other negative responses. Therefore, endorphin release is far from being the panacea that it is cracked up to be. This is not to say that that endorphin release is bad. However, a when a bottom continuously goes into this state, the long-term effects may not be good. In practice, a bottom in the endorphin sub space becomes dreamy, in an emotional mist, stops screaming and struggling, and is less alert of his surroundings. He will respond to questioning by pleading for the beating to go on - what some people call the “forever place”. The endorphin sub space is similar to the effect of opiate drugs like morphine or heroin because endorphins activate the same receptors as these drugs, the mu and delta opioid receptors. Endorphins also produce the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, which is at the end of what is called “the pleasure pathway” that mediates motivation and is activated by addictive drugs.

Serotonin sub space. This the sub space that is properly-named as such because, while the adrenergic and endorphin sub spaces are produced by pain and other sadomasochistic types of stimulation, this sub space is induced by the Dominance/submission (D/s) interaction even in the absence of pain. Surrender, obedience, service, mind-fucking and other strong intimate interactions with the Dominant  likely lead to the release in the brain of oxytocin and vasopressin, neuropeptides that mediate bonding. The similarity of this state with that produced by the drug MDMA (ecstasy), which also increases bonding, intimacy and affection, makes me suspect that this sub space is predominantly driven by serotonin release in the brain. Serotonin produces positive mood and counters depression. However, it produces mixed effects on pain because some serotonin receptors in the spinal cord increase while other decrease pain. The same goes for dopamine, which can increase or decrease pain depending on the emotional state of the individual.

Whereas the adrenergic and endorphin sub spaces are incompatible, it is quite possible that the serotonin sub space can combine with them to produce mixed effects. It is also clear that the noradrenergic, dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmitter systems vary a lot between individuals. That is why it is so difficult to fine-tune antidepressant drugs to each person. Therefore, sub space is going to vary a lot from individual to individual. A flogging technique that is blissful to one bottom may be hellish to another. An accomplished Top is not one who has perfected techniques so that they are going to work with anybody, but one who has learned to accurately read the body language of the bottom and knows how to adjust the scene accordingly.

Let me finish by addressing the issue of sub drop. There are at least two types of sub drop: one that happens right after a scene and another that occurs about two days afterward. The first one is likely the coming down from the fight/flight adrenergic reaction. After a strong activation of the sympathetic system (the one that releases adrenaline into the blood), the parasympathetic system kicks in, decreasing the heart rate and cutting blood circulation to the periphery. The result is that the bottom feels cold, tired and emotionally exhausted. A blanket, lots of cuddles and emotional support are the best solution. The second sub drop is similar to the one produced by MDMA and may be the result of the serotonergic or even the endorphin sub space. It is much harder to address, because the scene is long over and the Top may not be available for emotional support. It may even last several days. The only way to address it is to be ready for it and have some kind of emotional support system (friends, chocolate, a good movie, etc.) in place.

The take-home message is that things in the scene are not as simple as going into sub space and come out of it a happier person. The human brain is something incredibly complicated that we are just beginning to understand. By inflicting lots of pain, or messing with strong emotions like shame, guilt and submission, we are giving our minds some extreme challenges. It is hard to predict what is going to happen. The best course of action is to go slowly, pay a lot of attention to your body, and find the path that is best for you.

The octopus fisherman

[Trigger Warning: Childhood sexual abuse]

I woke up earlier than usual. Little sunbeams filtered through tiny cracks in the blinds, announcing a beautiful summer day. I slid down from my top bunk and, not wanting to wake up my brothers, dressed up quietly. Just my swimsuit, a T-shirt and beach slippers.

I was thirteen.

The sun was still low over the pine trees. The bay was calm, an incipient breeze changing its color from silver to deep blue. It was going to be a hot day. Nobody was up yet, so I decided to go for a stroll.

I wandered through fields of cabbage and corn till I came to the rocks on the shore. Not far on the water, in his wooden boat brightly painted white, brown and blue, was the octopus fisherman.
Octopus is a delicacy in Galicia, sort of a national dish. It is served boiled on thick wooden plates, seasoned with olive oil, coarse salt and spicy paprika. I loved to eat it but was also fascinated by the animal itself. I had learned to catch it. With my mask, snorkel and fins, I would swim over the sandy bottom looking for odd objects: an old rubber boot, a pot, a tire. Then I would dive down and check inside for octopus. More often than not I would find one, which then I would wrestle to the shore, kill and proudly present it to my mother to cook for lunch.

The old fisherman used completely different methods to catch octopus. He would never get in the water; like most Galician fishermen, he probably didn’t even know how to swim. He carried long poles with a hook at the end. When he spotted an octopus in the bottom he would quickly get one on his poles, hook the octopus and haul it into his boat. Sometimes the octopus would get into a crack in the rocks and stubbornly held to it with all the considerable strength of its tentacles and suction cups. Then a fight would ensue, the fisherman pulling with his pole this way and that and the octopus holding on for dear life.

* * *

One day I witnessed one of these struggles while lying lazily on a towel on the beach. The fisherman fought for over half an hour and still couldn’t get the octopus. I grabbed my mask, snorkel and fin and got in the water, wanting to take a closer look at the struggle. There was a large rock on the bottom and the hook of the fisherman’s pole keep going under it. There must be an octopus under there. I asked him if he needed help, but he just muttered something incomprehensible in Galician. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I took a deep breath and dove toward the rock. Bracing with my knees on the bottom it was a simple matter for me to turn over the rock. The octopus came out and took off swimming at full speed, opening and closing its tentacles, looking like a little ghost. I went back to the surface for air. “Now I’ve done it!” I thought, “I have lost this poor fisherman his catch.” Desperately, I swam on the surface following the octopus, which was heading for deep water. I dove again. If the octopus were as smart as some people think it is, it would have just keep on swimming and I would have not been able to catch it. Instead, it opened its tentacles on the bottom and waited for me. I grabbed it and head back to the surface. It was a big one. It wrapped its tentacles around my arm all the way to my neck, pulling hard to slide between my fingers. I knew it just wanted to get away, but I started to get scared. Then I looked up and saw the fisherman in his boat. He grabbed the octopus and peeled it off me.

“I’m glad I could get that octopus for you,” I told him after I climbed into his boat.

“That’s your octopus, not mine,” he said. “Take it home and ask your mom to cook it.”

* * *

I used to ride with the octopus fisherman in his boat, watching him peer into the water to see an octopus where I could see just rocks. Another way he had to catch his prey was to drag a line to which he had attached a small rock with a crab and hooks tied on top. The octopus would try to get the crab and get hooked. He taught me the names of all the beaches in the bay and a lot of things about the sea. At the end of the morning, he would pull his boat to the beach and the beachgoers would gather around and bid for his catch.

So when that morning he called me and rowed his boat backward to the rocks to let me in, I didn’t think twice. I went and sat of the prow as he rowed back out on the bay.

I was starting to ask something about octopus when something really weird happened. The fisherman pulled the oars in and came to where I was. Then he started touching me over my skimpy swimsuit. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Whoa, you have a big one!” he said.

That was completely ridiculous. I haven’t reached puberty yet, I had the penis of a child. It didn’t even care if it was big or small.

“Do you want to touch mine?”

I couldn’t imagine anything more repulsive than to touch that old man’s cock.

“No! Stop! Leave me alone!”

“Do you want to go to shore?” He said in Galician. But he wouldn’t stop touching me.
Go to shore and do what? Go to a hiding place so he could continue touching me? Anybody looking out from the beach could have seen us. But there was nobody.

“Stop! Stop, or I’ll jump in the water!”

He took a step back, considering what I had said. Then he started again.

I quickly took off my T-shirt and my slippers and dove head first in the sea. The water was cold. I come to the surface and looked at him. He could row his boat much faster than I could swim. Would he fish me out of the water like I was an octopus? But he just stood there, looking at me with apparent indifference. I swam in a perfect crawl straight to the beach.

I wanted to slip quietly back into my room and change, but my mother saw me walking in, barefoot and wet.

“You have been swimming already?”

“Yeah, the water is nice,” I muttered and went upstairs.

* * *

What was that old man thinking? How could he dare? He was just a poor man, my father was a local authority. If I told, I could get him into a lot of trouble. He would probably wind up in jail. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that free spirit in jail. For me, he symbolized the freedom and wildness of the sea. Even what he had done to me represented that wild freedom. Those were still the dark years of the Franco dictatorship. I didn’t know anything about sex, nobody had told me. Obscure desires had started to awaken inside me, like the strange excitement I felt when I watched my classmates getting a spanking. I didn’t understand any of that. It scared me. The priests told us something about it, but it was always unclear. It was shrouded in secrecy and sin. Perhaps the old fisherman could explain it to me, the same way that he explained the way of the octopus. But not if he was going to touch me like that again.

It slowly dawned on me that I could never ride in the old fisherman’s boat again.

* * *

Later on that day I saw the fisherman pulling his boat on the beach. He had a system to pull his boat out over the tide line. He lay the oars over the sand, then put a round log across them. Then he rolled the boat over the oars using the round log as a wheel. He repeated the process until the boat was on the white dry sand. Some beachgoers always helped him, although he was perfectly capable to do it on his own.

While the bid over the catch started, I quietly grabbed my slippers and T-shirt from the boat and walked away.

* * *

He must have done other boys. One day, I was walking on a beach that could only be reached by hiking through thorny gorse and blackberry bushes, or from the sea. Then I saw him, walking out of a shack with a teenage boy. I pretended that I didn’t see them.

The locals never talked much about him. He had no wife, no children, no family that I knew of. He seemed content and self-sufficient. He looked as old as the world, with his short white hair and his wrinkly face, but there was no way to know how old he really was. Perhaps he didn’t know himself. I saw him once dancing at a local fiesta, alone. He jumped and pranced with a vitality and abandon that I almost envied.

* * *

I may have been already in college when I heard that the octopus fisherman was dying. Stomach cancer, they said. I made discreet inquiries and found the way to his place. It was an old stone house surrounded by an unkempt garden, but there were peach trees and fig trees and plum trees, the fruit still green in the early summer days. I knocked on the door, called, then walked in.

The inside of the house was just a large single room, with a high ceiling, a wooden floor and walls of naked granite. There was a large bed in the middle. The old fisherman was laying on it, his belly swollen.

I sat by him and asked him how he was. He knew he was dying. I asked him if he was afraid of death. He said he was afraid of the pain. We must have said other things, but that’s all I remember. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention the incident in the boat.

A few days later my father told that the octopus fisherman had died. He asked me if I wanted to go to his funeral. I said no. I had already said my goodbyes to the old man.

Hi-Tech Sex

© Hermes Solenzol, 2016

“¡Honey, I’m ho-ome!”

Michel let out the customary American husband greeting complete with its appropriate singsong tone when he stepped into his Beverly Hills mansion. Ashley loved his little game of pretending to be the husband in a TV program that she watched as a child. He announced his arrival and she ran to greet him with a welcome kiss at the door.

But not today, apparently. The only one to appear was Kurby, who proceeded to dance crazily around him and to put his front paws on his suit.

Where the heck was Ashley? Michel climbed the stairs to the bedroom followed closely by Kurby, who kept jumping all around him despite his efforts to ignore him. A wave of heat struck him when he opened the bedroom door. The fireplace was on and there were candles everywhere: on the chest of drawers, on the bedside tables, over the closet and, dangerously, on top of the 48-inch flat screen TV. Michel threw his jacket on the bed and looked for the remote to turn off the fireplace. He blew out the candles over the TV and put them on the chest of drawers.

“What are you doing, honey?”

Ashley came out of the bathroom wearing a pink night gown and her favorite slippers: fluffy bunnies complete with glass eyes and long ears. She was petite, with dangerous curves, short blond hair and sparkling blue eyes.

“Hey! Don’t turn off the candles!” she protested.

“Only these ones, chérie… They are going to get wax inside the TV, don’t you see?”

“And the fire! Why have you turned off the fireplace?”

“It’s too hot.”

“But it’s November! Next week is Thanksgiving and Christmas is just around the corner. What’s wrong with turning on the fireplace in the Fall?”

“Yeah, it’s Fall all right, but the Santa Anas are blowing. Have you been outside? It’s steaming hot!”

“I was just trying to create a nice ambiance for you… And then you come and spoil everything!” she whined.

Michel put his arm around her waist and brought her close to him.

“Oh, chérie, I really appreciate it! Does this mean that you have forgiven and we are going to make love again?”

“Yes, but…”

Michel didn’t let her finish. He pushed her to the bed until she fell on her back on it. He lifted up the pink night gown to uncover her perfect thighs and her pretty purple lace panties.

“Stop, Michel… Stop! … We need to talk first.”

Michel stopped and looked into her eyes.

“Yes, chérie?

Ashley sat up and patted the bed to make him sit beside her. Kurby, who had been running nervously around the room, took advantage of the opportunity to hump her leg. Michel tried to get him off her, but Kurby scared him off by fainting a bite and continued his task.

“Oh, that darned dog!”

“Don’t say that, Michel. He’s very affectionate, that’s all.”

“But, chérie, you can’t let him do that. It’s obscene! Didn’t we agree that you were going to take him to have him fixed?”

“Yeah, but this morning Tiffany gave me a better idea, so I took him to see Amanda.”

Without stopping his humping, Kurby insinuated his snout under Ashley’s night gown. That was too much, even for her. She peeled him off her leg, took him to the bedroom door and threw him out.

“And who the heck is Amanda?”

“She is a psychic animal psychologist who is able to make direct contact with the mind of pets. Many movie stars go to see her.”

“¡Oh, la-la, la-la, la-la! And did Amanda get in contact with the mind of Kurby?”

“Yes… Well, not exactly… She got his horoscope and read his cards. She saw that, indeed, Kurby has a strong sexual compulsion. The cards showed that it’s a serious problem that can cause him an untimely death. So we can’t have him fixed. That would kill him.”

“But then what are we going to do? You aren’t planning to…?”

“Of course not, Michel! We’ll have to get him some bitches to keep him satisfied.”

“Breed him, you mean? But who is going to want pups from Kurby? He isn’t even pure breed.”

“Of course he is! Kurby is a cockapoo, a design dog, one hundred per cent poodle and one hundred per cent Cocker Spaniel. My mother paid a small fortune for him.

“Ashley, a dog can’t be a hundred per cent one thing and a hundred per cent another…”

Ashley gave him that skeptical look that he knew so well. It was impossible to argue math with her.

“OK, let’s leave Kurby alone for the time being. What about us?”

“Of, yes, us… I also talked to Amanda about that.”

“With Amanda? But wasn’t she an animal psychologist?”

“She’s a people psychologist as well… Quite good, in fact. Since she is clairvoyant, she understands immediately what’s going on. I talked with her for almost two hours.”

“You didn’t tell her…”

“About Brittany? Of course I told her about Brittany! That’s the key issue, isn’t it?”

“But chérie, I’ve asked you to forgive me a thousand times. I haven’t seen Brittany for months!”

“Of course you don’t see her! She dumped you, didn’t she? Do you think I don’t know? Tiffany is a good friend of one of her best friends. She dumped you because you didn’t do the cunnilingus right. She seduced you because she thought that, being French, you’d be good at it. The slut!”

“Well, what did Amanda say? Did she tell you to make love with me? Because I imagine there has to be a reason for this”, he gestured to the candles burning all over the place.

“Yeah, that… You aren’t letting me explain, Michel… She said that I was right in trusting my intuition and not allow you to penetrate me, because the key of the problem is that we have a relationship that is too coitocentric… That’s the word she used: “coitocentric”. It means that penetration is a way for you to express your aggression and your will to dominate me. But that desire that you men feel to dominate is impossible to satisfy. You become addicted to it. You want more and more, so you need other women to…”

“But that’s not true, chérie! Making love is not expressing my desire to dominate, or my aggression, but the love I feel for you… Brittany was just a mistake. I let temptation get the best of me. It happens to a lot of people, but it won’t happen again, I swear. I love only you! You are the love of my life!”

“Then, if that’s true, you’ll have to respect my feelings about it… You’ll have to help me heal this wound.”

“And what do I have to do?”

Ashley gave him one of her most charming smiles, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Amanda had the most wonderful idea! You’ll see, let me show you…”

Ashley went to the chest of drawers and came back with two white cardboard boxes. She sat back on the bed with one of them on her knee. On the box was a picture of what looked like a sophisticated vibrator .

“A vibrator?”

“Yes. From now on we are going to practice hi-tech sex, healthy and clean. No more penetrations… Which, you have to agree, are quite disgusting, with all that yucky mucus and secretions.”

“¡Mais tu es devenue complètement folle!”

“Don’t talk to me in French, Michel. You know that I don’t understand it. Speak in English, we are in America.”

“Mais, chérie, you always said that my accent is what you like the most about me… and that is very romantic when I talk to you in French.”

“Yeah, but not now, Michel. We are talking about something serious and I need to understand what you say.”

“Well, I just said that you have gone completely nuts. How are we going to make love with a vibrator? That’s completely artificial, fake, inhuman… How can you compare that with the intimacy of body to body contact, feeling our muscles tense and relax, being inside each other… All those mucus and secretions you mentioned are not disgusting, they are natural…”

“Oh, yeah? Who would have known, seeing how you react when you do that cunnilingus thing!”

“That was just that one time, chérie… I’ve explained it to you a thousand times. It was just that dinner didn’t seat to well with me.”

“Is that what you tell Brittany?”

Michel sighed.

“Why can’t we have a decent conversation without you bringing up Brittany?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but you are not listening. You said I was crazy without even letting me explain what this things does.”

“All right! What does it do?”

“It’s not just a vibrator, Michel, it’s much more sophisticated than that. It’s called the iCum and it’s able to unleash the most powerful orgasms.

“Really? How?”

“Oh, Michel, don’t ask me to explain how it works, you know how bad I am about technology! Amanda explained it to me with all sort of detail, but I can’t remember a thing. Look, here it explains everything…”

Ashley opened the box and brought out a thick instruction book. Michel browsed through it. It was so thick because it contained information in over a dozen different languages. The instructions in English were just four pages:

You are holding in your hand a technological marvel that will bring about a new Sexual Revolution! The iCum-F is the key to expand your sexual capacity beyond your wildest dreams! Don’t let appearances fool you, the iCum-F is not a simple vibrator! It is an instrument combining sophisticated sensors to measure your level of clitoral arousal with a whole gamut of stimulators able to recruit all and each one of the nerve fibers of the feminine sexual organ. Of course, the iCum-F is able to reproduce any type of vibration known to date. But there is much, much more! Or team of scientists discovered that mechanical vibration is not the most effective way to stimulate the clitoris. The real key to pleasure is electrical stimulation, which the iCum can modulate in both frequency and intensity to bring you to ecstasy. At the same time that it stimulates your nerve fibers, the iCum-F measures the impedance of the clitoral mucosa to assess your degree of arousal. In that function it is assisted by a laser pulse-oximeter able to measure at the same time your heart beat, blood oxygen, blood flow and arterial pressure. All this gets integrated in the brain of the iCum-F, a tiny computer that…

“Are you planning to spend the entire evening reading that?”

“No, no, of course!” said Michel closing the booklet. “You are right: it’s much more advanced than a simple vibrator.”

“See? You don’t trust me. Sometimes I feel like you think I’m dumb.”

“Please don’t say that, chérie! How could I think that of you! What’s in the other box?”

Ashely gave him a mischievous smile.

“The other box is for you, Michel. You wouldn’t think that I only cared about my own pleasure, would you?”

Ashely opened the other box and brought out a cylinder larger than the iCum-F.

“This is the iCum-M, for men. See? You put your ding-a-ling through this opening over here. At the end there is a device that stimulates the gland pretty much the same way that the iCum-F stimulates the clit. But there are a bunch of other things… Amanda explained them to me, but right now I can remember all the details.”

“Well, let’s take a look…”

Michel found the instruction booklet and started to read it.

“Hey, don’t start reading again!” said Ashley grabbing the manual from him. “Where do you think we are, in a library?”

“But we have to find out how this works,” protested Michel turning the iCum-M in his hands. “Can we open it? Because if I cum inside it would need to be cleaned, right?”

“Oh yes, that I can explain… See? That’s why we have these…”

Ashley took a plastic bag out of the iCum-M box. She open it and extracted a rubber disk from it.

“These are disposable inserts for your iCum-M, made of natural rubber. When you use it, you throw it away and the next time you put in a new one.”

“I see… disposable vaginas,” he said laughing at his own joke.

“Don’t be silly! As you can see, it’s quite an hygienic system. No more changing the sheets after making love.”

“And how much did you pay for these toys?”

“Nine hundred and ninety nine dollars… Plus taxes, of course.”

“Jesus! Both?”

“No, each one… Come on, Michel, you’re the one who always says that money doesn’t matter! What can be more important than our sex life?”

“But this is not about our sex life. These thingies are just to masturbate, which is different.”

“No, they are not for masturbating, they are for making love. Because you wouldn’t use your iCum when you are not with me, would you?”

The way Ashley was frowning, there was only one possible answer.

‘Of course not… But, chérie, even if we use the iCums at the same time, that wouldn’t be the same thing as making love…”

Ashley threw him on the bed and got on top of him, playfully.

“I know what you want, you dummy! You will be able to touch me everywhere: my ass, my tits, whatever you want… But instead of putting your cock inside me, you put it inside the iCum. It will treat it right, you’ll see.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic…”

Ashley kissed him in the lips furiously.

“Come on! Don’t be so negative! Let’s try…”

After a frustrating delay because of some difficulties with putting the vagina insert in the iCum-M, they finally got it going. Michel started manhandling Ashley but, when she saw that he wasn’t going to take the lead, she pulled down her panties and rushed to apply her iCum-F to her clit. Michel just laid there, looking at her expression of ecstasy without knowing what to do. Finally, he grabbed his iCum-M, lubricated it and gingerly put his penis inside.

The device clamped around his cock like a vise, starting undulating motions up and down the shaft. It wasn’t unpleasant, just a bit threatening to feel trapped that way. But then the really good stuff got started. An exquisite electric discharge zapped his frenulum, followed by soft vibrations and delicious discharges of static. He thought that he would cum right away and again tried to take his penis out of the iCum, but the darned thing wasn’t going to let him go. Nevertheless, the intense stimulation stopped and was replaced by a soft massage up and down his shaft. Then it started all over again.

“¡Ah, chérie, c’est vraiment magnifique!”

But Ashely, lying at his side, wasn’t listening. She shook spasmodically in what looked like the most intense orgasm of her life.

***

“Honey, I’m ho-ome!”

Ashley heard the singsong greeting with which Michel announced his arrival. Long ago she had grown bored with playing that stupid game of pretending to be a 50s housewife but she didn’t want to spoil it for Michel, who obviously enjoyed it so much. Luckily, there was always Kurby to welcome him home when she was busy… Like she was right now. She listened, expecting to hear the sound of paws running over the wooden floor, but there was nothing… Where was that stupid dog? I’d had to be her who greeted Michel.

She left the two iCums on the bed with the bags of “vaginas”, as she and Michel had started to call them in jest. She looked at herself in the mirror to check her makeup, adjusted the strap on her nightgown over her shoulder and left the bedroom.

She had been waiting for him anxiously. They had gone three days without having sex and it was starting to get to her nerves. Michel’s parents had come from Paris to spend Christmas with them and she had to take her mother-in-law, who didn’t speak a word of English, shopping in Rodeo Drive. She didn’t speak any French, either, so she had no idea on how they were going to communicate, but Michel had insisted in leaving the two of them alone because shopping was a woman thing. After some tension resulting from her failure to convey to Madame Nicole how expensive those stores in Beverly Hills could be, her own mother had offered to take her.

On top of that, today, December 26, when everybody in their right mind took the day off, Michel had decided that he absolutely had to go to work.

The temptation of using the iCum by herself had been almost irresistible, but she had promised Michel that she’d only use it with him. To do otherwise would be like cheating on him. Or so she had told herself, and that way she had been able to keep the darned thing in its box all day long.

“Oh, darling, I missed you so much!” She screamed in his ear as she jumped on him to hug him with arms and legs. “Let’s go into the bedroom, I can’t stand it one more second!”

“Ah, chérie, neither can I! But, please, get me a bottle of Perrier from the fridge while I change. I’m so thirsty! We have the Santa Anas again.

Ashley was going upstairs with the bottle of Perrier when she heard Michel let out a bloodcurdling scream from the bedroom.

“Arrrg! My vaginas! Kurby has eaten my vaginas!”

When she opened the bedroom door she witnessed a devastating debacle: the bag of inserts for the iCum-M was laying on the bed, bitten into pieces. The “vaginas” were spread all over the bedroom floor. While she looked, Kurby grabbed one between his teeth. Holding the other end between his paws, he pulled until the insert tore with a loud “plop” .

“Kurby, bad dog! Very bad dog! Look what you have done!”

Kurby just wagged his tailed and looked back at her, excited with his new game. When she ran to him to grab him, Kurby grabbed the last intact insert between his teeth and, dodging her, ran out the door.

“OK, this is it!” shouted Michel, enraged. “I want that dog out of my house! I want him gone by tomorrow!”

“Calm down, Michel. You know very well that we can’t kick Kurby out. My mother is in love with him ever since she bought him for us. If we kick him out, the next day they’ll kick you out of your job.”

“Oh, God! Why did I ever let your parents hire me! What are we going to do now?”

Michel sat on the bed and buried his face in his hands. Ashley sat beside him and started massaging his shoulders.

“Come on! Come on! Don’t worry, there’s got to be an insert that you can use.

They spent the next half an hour going through the vaginas, inspecting them one by one. Kurby had been quite thorough, there wasn’t a single one left intact.

“OK, don’t worry, on Monday I’ll go see Amanda and I’ll get you a new bag of inserts.”

“On Monday? But today is Friday!”

“It’s all I can do. Amanda goes away on weekends to her house in Palm Springs.”

Michel looked dubiously at his iCum-M.

“You know, maybe it can be used without an insert. It shouldn’t be too hard to clean it afterward.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Michel…”

But Michel was already taking off his pants. The moment he was naked, he jumped on her and started touching her everywhere. She became instantly aroused, not because of his clumsy caresses and squeezes, but because the moment to use her beloved iCum-F was so close at hand. Pretty soon she could wait no more. She peeled off her panties and grabbed the iCum-F from the bedside table.

The first delicious pulsations starting teasing her clit. Through half-closed eyelids she saw Michel cautiously introducing his fully erected cock in his iCum-M. Exquisite electric discharges made her close her eyes. A dreadful scream from Michel made her open them again.

“Arrrg! Ouch! Ayayayay! How do you stop this thing? Ashley, please, turn it off!”

Michel was fighting like a madman to get his penis out of the device, which seemed equally determined not to let it go.

“You can’t turn it off, it’s automatic,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Then get the batteries out… Do something, for God sake!”

‘It has no batteries. It gets charged through the USB, you know that… I was going to tell you that without the insert the electric discharges could get a tad too intense.”

“No shit! And now you tell me? Ouch!”

Luckily, his torment didn’t last too long. His poor tortured cock didn’t take long to lose its erection as a result of the harsh treatment it was receiving, and so it could break free of the vise that was trapping it.

They looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

“Michel, please, I can’t wait anymore…” she pleaded.

 His anxious look made her fear the worse. She started praying for him not to say it.

“I know, chérie, I know… Go ahead and do it. I’ll just sit here and watch you cum. That’s pleasure enough for me.”

She let out a sigh of relief and hugged him.

“That’s what I expected of you, my love. You’ve always behaved like a perfect French gentleman. I love you so much!”

“¡Mais bien sûr, chérie!”

Ashely closed her eyes again and surrendered to the exquisite sensations that the iCum-F was giving her. She was so turned on! She was vaguely aware of the presence of Michel next to her, caressing her breasts, her belly, the inside of her thighs, but all of that was nothing compared to the strict discipline of pleasure that the iCum was delivering to her pussy, taking her to ever higher peaks… to let her fall from there at the last second. Vibrations and discharges ebbed to almost nothing just when she was about to reach her climax.

The third time it happened she realized that something had gone terribly wrong.

“What’s going on, Michel?” she moaned. “It stops just when I’m about to reach orgasm!”

“I don’t know… Well, it could be that… don’t you remember? The last time we used the iCums we decided to change the mode. We set them on “edging”.

“And what on Earth is “edging”?

“It’s keeping you close to orgasm without letting you get all the way there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

“No, chérie. You asked for it because you said that we were finishing too soon.”

“You were finishing too soon, you dummy, not me! Why the fuck did you have to touch my iCum!”

“Don’t worry, chérie, it would just take a minute to reprogram it,” he said meekly.

“I’ll do it! I don’t trust you anymore!”

She got out of bed, got the USB cable from the bedside table drawer and used it to plug her iCum to her laptop.

“This stupid thing takes longer and longer to boot! You need to buy me a new laptop, I’ve told you a thousand times!”

Michel tried to massage her shoulders. She shook him off with an angry motion.

A message showed up in her screen:

New hardware 

Looking for drivers…

The window closed. A new one came up, larger and with black background.

“Nooo!” she screamed in frustration.

Michel squatted at her side to be able to read the screen. They both stared at the new message in disbelief:

System update

Please wait

Downloading…

At the bottom of the screen there was a black bar with a tiny green notch at the left. Over it, it said “1%”. After a while, the green bar grew a bit and the number changed to “2%”.

Unable to move, they kept staring at the screen as the green bar continued to move at glacial speed towards 100%.