Fear and Loathing

About me: I am a kinky, queer, poly, writer and activist named Piper. My level of humility is constantly declining, and I honestly believe the more we can share about ourselves, the more we learn about each other, so I don't hold back when I'm writing. I write about my sex life, not only as a space for myself to grow, but also as a place for others to learn something, too. You can check out my blog here, and below is a recent entry about hard limits.

I have this thing about feet – it’s called a hard limit. But this limit extends outside of scenes and into my every day life. Most people’s hard limits are things you wouldn’t expect to encounter or tolerate outside of D/s play, like objectification, needles, or blood play. But when you don’t like anyone touching or even looking at your feet, ever, it comes up more than just with foot fetishist: pedicures and foot rubs and sandals, oh my.

So, the other night, I challenged myself. I had just walked across the city to get to a rope bomb, and I was ready for some serious rope. I had done a gravity boot a couple weeks before, and was hooked – but I wanted to push it further, and luckily, we were at the perfect spot to do just that. The park we were in had some walkways that rose slightly above the Hudson River, which were lined with heavy steel and concrete railings.  And I had a plan.

Gravity boot, over the railing, just above the water, wearing nothing more than underwear, on a night that couldn’t be more than 55 degrees – this was going to be fun.

Because this was a little more risky than other ties, Mr. Blue and I wanted to make sure we mitigated as many other risks as we could, so when I asked him if I should take off my heels, I already knew the answer would be yes.

He touched my foot, and the rope followed, and I felt my skin spike and a sort of chill run down my spine, but as he wrapped the rope into a kind of slipper, my body relaxed and the rope high took over. I slipped over the edge of the bridge, into darkness and one of the most delicious head spaces I have ever experienced: I was completely relaxed and entirely energized, feeling like I was floating. It wasn’t until the rope was coming off that I even remembered I was barefoot.

I am all for people having hard limits: knowing where your triggers are, and putting a big, red fence around them is great for everyone involved. However, my feet is one limit I am sick of having. It gets broken, made fun of and brushed off more than any other limit I’ve ever heard of. People can’t fathom that talking about my feet, even looking at them, makes my skin crawl, in a way that people wouldn’t even think about pushing if someone’s limit was rapeplay or another edge play or common trigger.

I’m not saying I’m aiming to rid myself of hard limits, but by pushing myself in ways that I know I can (like as a necessary safety component for my dream tie) I am bringing myself closer to being able to manage my triggers in a way that’s healthy for me. And in the end, that’s a big step towards getting a handle on my sexuality.