I sometimes wonder if creativity can be an intrinsic trait or talent. I'm sure, like many talents, it's one that can be nurtured or neglected, practiced or abandoned, littering the side of the road along with the ballet classes and piano lessons.
I remember around middle school (or maybe early high school?) having an epiphany that I no longer felt creative. That some link to childhood flights of fantasy and imagination had been severed (or maybe just left to wither), replaced by the reinforcement of memorization and facts and logical organization of knowledge. It felt like a loss, I was sad. But I didn't really try to change it, just accepted that color coded notes and matching binders might be as "artistic" as I was going to be from now on.
As I've been doing fairly regularly over the past year, this morning I was skimming around FetLife looking at photos. Beautiful, artistic photos that capture form and emotion in stunning visuals that have this incredible aesthetic appeal. You feel like there's really no way anyone could not find beauty in this photo, even your stodgy prudish great aunt who would normally be horrified at the idea of seeing a naked woman under any circumstances. But this, this ethereal creature who represents everything our culture idealizes about the female form, bound in complex flowing ropework that accentuates and highlights, set against stunning sunsets or swallowing darkness - wow.
I don't remember when I first realized a fascination with rope. Being restricted and restrained by various means was a very early fantasy in my erotic imagination. I wish I had a super interesting weird backstory, but I'm confident that the origin of that particular desire isn't unique - like most, I grew up with a vague but pervasive sense of shame and guilt around expressing desire and sexuality. Imagining being tied up and "forced" to receive or perform certain sexual acts allowed me to also imagine enjoying them, freed of having to pretend I didn't want something because it was "wrong" or "dirty." Totally the "good girls don't do that" syndrome. I didn't actually grow up in a strictly religious or anti-sex family, but did go to a Catholic school and generally picked up the message along the way that I wanted to be good.
I tried to hint to various girlfriends in college that being tied up was something I would enjoy. Maybe even being spanked a little bit? Occasionally I could move things that direction by presenting it as experimentation - I'll tie your hands to the head board for a little bit and touch you, then we'll switch? Very rarely did I have someone take the initiative, and when they did it tended to be in the spirit of "you seem to really want this so I'll give it a try because it will make you happy" rather than "you want to be tied up and I want to tie you up because it gets me hot too." A subtle difference, but an important one.
When I first started dating my current girlfriend, one of our first dates involved me inviting her to go with me to the sex store to buy rope and a book. It was an invitation to try it, certainly, but was also something I was doing for me, to finally act on the fantasy instead of just tying down a leg or arm with a scarf while masturbating. We didn't learn much from the book - it was full of complex knots but without a lot of basic rope mechanics we were spending too much time trying to get the knots to look right instead of on getting each other trussed and moving on to sexy times. Taking a rope class that emphasized that there was no "right" way to tie, that you could simply use the rope against itself to redirect it where you wanted it to go, was eye opening and immediately rewarding.
Fast forward a year. I've been to a number of rope classes, and here in my new city I get the chance to go to a practice group every other week. I'm learning that not only do I melt with the feeling of rope applied with purpose and desire, but that I enjoy rigging, learning to manipulate rope and bodies into a functional and/or beautiful result.
This is where that creativity comes in. I pick up on lessons pretty quickly, can see a demonstration of a technique once or twice, try it out, and feel pretty solid on it. But I look at these incredible photos on Fet, of suspensions and even ground work that is unbelievably beautiful and unique, and I can't even begin to imagine coming up with those things on my own. I know that it just takes a lot of practice, starting with these building blocks and individual skills, trying them in combination and churning through a lot of ugly results until you find something beautiful to refine into stunning. But it does sometimes feel that some people are born with this inherent creativity to see a body and know how to tie it to enhance that person's unique beauty, and it's a bit disappointing to feel like I just don't have that talent. I might be able to practice and brute-force my way to being pretty good, paying my dues as it were, but as a member of that instant gratification generation, I wish I could just have that creative spark instead of having to nurture it.
No comments:
Post a Comment