Crow Secrets
Welcome to another edition of
The Crow Academy Newsletter.
Greetings Fellow Fetishists, Dedicated Dominants, and Sincere Submissives.
As usual I would like to welcome all the new Subscribers to the Crow Academy List.
First the very, very Good News:
The first book from The Crow Academy is FINISHED. 😀
It is Now Available as an Ebook on Amazon and in Apple iBooks as well.
The name of the First Book from The Crow Academy?
IGNITING THE FIRE: The Art Of Romantic Submission
Photos by Ken Marcus & Perry Gallagher
The Ebook edition holds all the content and all the photos, but stay tuned for an even BIGGER product launch. Coming Soon:
++The Gorgeous, Full-Color, Hardback, Coffee Table Edition++
(where every single page is a Work Of Art)
Stay Tuned for Details…..
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In other Good News, both the www.CrowAcademy.com and www.ArcaneAdvice.com websites and the resources therein are being optimized to function extremely well on Smartphones as we speak!
Looks like Santa has a Crow on his shoulder this year, and Xmas will be full of all kinds of New Fun. 😉
Regarding Classes and Seminars in Your Area
The demand for Crow Academy Classes and Seminars is growing rapidly.
Naturally we cannot be everywhere at once. We are therefore adding a new field to the Sign-Up form where we ask people who are interested specifically in Crow Academy Classes and Seminars to indicate the Nearest Big City in relation to where they (you) live. When a given location shows enough interest The Crow Academy will then arrange to hold classes and seminars in that area.
HOWEVER, this does not mean you have to wait.
We invite you to organize your local BDSM community and friends to write into The Crow Academy expressing interest as a group. If the interest is strong enough in your area / in the nearest big city and the instructors requirements are met, you will probably be attending a Crow Academy Class or Seminar in your area Soon!
THE MANY FORMS OF INTIMACY
I wish to offer a gift to the readers of The Crow Academy Newsletter, namely a lesson never before published and presented here FIRST for you to read to before I share it with the rest of the world.
Enjoy.
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I received an intriguing letter from a submissive whose Dominant felt they had “failed” when the sub asked the Dom if they could have Vanilla sex. Her intention was simple: Aside from all the wonderful BDSM sex and Bondage sex and D/s that occurred within these sexual experiences, she simply wanted to Make Love.
It has long been the attitude of The Crow Academy that we never condemn Vanilla, but rather offer a hand to teach any Vanilla interested in learning about BDSM and D/s. Our world is NOT intrinsically “better” (though it may well be so for us personally) but rather just very different in a variety of personal ways. That said, when it comes to the sexual side of all the BDSM practices, I encourage D/s couples everywhere to never, ever become two-dimensional about their love life. The Kama Sutra is one of the greatest books on sex ever written, and it is 99% Vanilla (the other 1% is pro-biting and pro-scratching). Being able to simply hold your loved one close regardless of their or your role in the relationship and express a pure appreciation of each other is a necessary element to balance even the most hardcore 24/7 D/s.
That a Dom should feel bad about Vanilla sex being requested is at the least a misunderstanding of what is being requested, at at worst walking dangerously close to falling into 2-dimensional, hyper-intellectualized roles which will eventually deflate into lifelessness for want of Natural Connection.
In my reply to the sender of this letter I go deeper into this phenomenon and offer a few ways out of this maze.
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If your Dom is a “purist” about BDSM sex then it’s one thing to say, “I only enjoy sex with bondage” etc. I know a handful of people like that and they just make it clear to their partners during the initial negotiations.
But for him to feel as though he has “failed”… that’s another issue.
It sounds like he has some erroneous preconceptions in his mind that because he chose to live the BDSM Lifestyle that if he “waivers from the path” at all then he thinks he is being judged as being less than a great Dom (and that “judgment” is in all likelihood 100% in his own mind – q.v. Freud’s Super-Ego). The truth is that every evolved Dom will develop their Own Style to a greater or lesser degree, and as long as they adhere to SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual) or RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink), etc, they can enjoy BDSM however it suits them, hopefully finding a sub who enjoys that Dom’s Style. Therefore if a Dom DESIRES to be 100% hardcore all the time they can make it their Positive, Self-Affirmed Style. Same goes if they want to only participate in Love Bondage practices a few times a week and their Style is more about Domestic Service, etc, as there are a thousand ways for a Dom’s Style to develop. Nonetheless, in all cases these have the element of the Dom Knowing Themself Deeper, and seeking to Evolve into a higher version of the Dom they are becoming, happier and more assured in their own Style. It is NEVER about them acting on a completely false premise regarding absolutes.
It seems like someone (read: some amateur / bone-head) told him that if he ever did anything Vanilla then he is “not a real Dom” – that’s just as much bullshit as someone saying to a sub, “if you don’t let me walk all over you like a doormat then you are not a real sub.”
It sounds like he has some growing to do, and some greater Self-Acceptance to attain. He needs to realize that when the two of your are enjoying each other, what matters is that the two of you are happy (albeit in a lovely intense BDSM way…. or in the occasional Vanilla way like watching a movie together). The idea that it must be “ALL BDSM ALL THE TIME!!” is nonsense. Does he make you always wear cuffs and a ballgag in the supermarket and in the movie theater? I doubt it. So no matter how hardcore we get, there will ALWAYS be some Vanilla elements.
(*that said, on rare occasions I have had a lot of fun lightly binding and gagging a submissive in the very back row of a movie theater, heheheh*) 😉
I personally love love love Bondage Sex, but I also love sex in general, as well as Romance, Tantra, and Connecting with my partner. Am I less of a Dom because sometimes I want to make love to my partner and be Romantic? Ha! I don’t think anyone who knows me would ever say such a thing. 😉
He needs to understand that it’s about CONNECTING. If BDSM gets him there better than anything else that’s fine and an element of him Knowing Himself. But there is no one watching him and judging him negatively just because he might choose to be gentle or soft. In fact, his ability to be gentle and soft as needed only means his repertoire is Greater.
If you have never heard of the Qabalah, also called The Tree Of Life, it is an ancient Egyptian / Sumerian system that dictated various levels of “being and enlightenment.” To be brief, the icon most commonly used shows three vertical pillars with various “paths” running symmetrically between them. The middle pillar represents Balance, the left pillar is called Severity and the right pillar is called Mercy. I have always believed and taught that excellent Domination is like the two outer pillars of the Qabalah – on one side you have the Pillar Of Severity (Hard BDSM Toys, Strictness, Discipline, etc) and on the other side you have the Pillar Of Mercy (Soft practices, fur gloves, feathers, Gentleness, Romance). Its the alchemical interplay of Severity and Mercy that creates the finest BDSM Dance.
This is a Balance that we teach at The Crow Academy, that the best BDSM is never all Strictness and Intensity, nor is it all Softness and Romance. It is the movement between these and conscientious interplay of these elements by way of an Artistic Vision for the D/s Relationship that creates the greatest Beauty for both the Dom and the sub mutually. This is why Fine D/s is very much an Art Form to be forever perfected and improved upon.
Your Dom needs to get over the erroneous concept that he is being judged as negative if he ever strays from the Pillar Of Severity. He will, in fact, become a BETTER DOM THAN EVER when he learns to balance his intentions with practices from the Pillar Of Mercy, performed by his Dominant hand upon you naturally. He needs to see this as a happy challenge and part of his personal evolution. He needs to lighten up and stop being so hard on himself.
Perhaps he may have been told by the same bone-headed advisor that the slave must be taught to absolutely love what the Master wants in all ways at all times. Also bullshit. The slave might DO what the Master wants at all times, but she will ALWAYS have her own preferences, likes, dislikes, etc. At a certain point a Dom learns what the submissive’s proclivities are, lays down the law as to what is mandatory whether the sub prefers it or not (this must be part of the initial negotiation — q.v. Hard Limits for the Dom — and thereafter these fall into the realm of Consensual Non-Consent on the part of the sub), and thereafter a Fine Dom allows for the sub’s natural inclinations to arise while working with these to create the more evolved, healthy relationship framework. Law, Acknowledgement, Integration, Mutual Evolution.
I think he may also feel that if you requested vanilla sex that he did not “do his job” in making you love BDSM sex as much as he does. But that would be like trying to make someone only love chicken when there is fish to be enjoyed as well. You cannot force a person’s taste. True, he can certainly make a rule that “chicken” (BDSM sex) will be the normal food in the house, but that would need to be a proclamation from his side declared because his vision for the Relationship indicated that this was indeed the best course of action. Regardless, the sub might still want fish, enjoy fish, and ask permission to have fish on special occasions, to which the Dom may consider it anything from a gift of love to the slave, to a nice break form the ordinary conditions, to a pleasant stretching of their own repertoire. Integration of the submissive’s needs like this is the opposite of the 2-dimensional Dom saying, “I will transform your taste buds so that, like me, you only ever want chicken…ever,” to which I say have fun with that uphill battle. Now please don’t get me wrong – if both the Dom and the sub equally want to eat only chicken then more power to them! But in your situation this is obviously not the case.
It largely comes down to whether or not he is acting because he is expressing his Style, or is he acting because someone else taught him some very erroneous and misleading preconceptions about shaping the submissive’s inner world against the sub’s own nature. The former is fine and declared from strength; the latter is in fact nothing more than setting oneself up for disappointment and failure. One of my biggest personal lessons in my own evolution as a Dom was that even if I had the best intentions in the world for a given submissive, if they lacked a proclivity I considered de facto for a “proper slave” it was simply sometimes the case that I had to accept that all the training in the world was not going to change that lacking proclivity, nor take the submissive past their own “peak” in regards to that element. The result was my own better understanding that every submissive and slave is different, and that the more I was able to embrace what made a given submissive Unique, the more I could design a curriculum in which the submissive could excel. One slave was an amazing driver and terrible in the garden so I allowed her to become my chauffeur, while a different slave had an absolute green thumb but whose driving made me nervous as hell so I allowed her to tend to the garden. This extends easily to something as commonplace as the need for more raw physical intimacy, which most people do indeed need. In the above example it was about designing a curriculum, and with physical intimacy it is about the Dom knowing when to build healthy bridges between he and the submissive.
He can still hold you accountable for the rest of your duties to which you agreed, but he must also acknowledge and embrace that you are Unique in the precise mix of intimacy styles that you require to be at your best. And at the end of the day isn’t that what every Dom wants? To have a submissive feeling happy and fulfilled in their service to the Dom, serving the Dom at the submissive’s very best.
It is the Ultimate Win-Win for the Dom and sub.
Dominant Dreams and Superb Submission to you all,
— Master Arcane and The Crow Academy