PS029 - Authentic Submission, Service and Self

Feb 27

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Episode: https://shows.acast.com/660e243b2f834f0017de9181/episodes/660e2440acbcaf00174d9943

My February Podcast is live! Axe (from the ever-kinky MasoCast) joins Lee to dive into his journey through submission that started off leading him by his orgasms, and helped him find his inner desires and interests along the way. That’s not to say the orgasms are a thing of the past… at all. He shares his struggle with explaining power exchange to folks outside of kink, trying to find compatible people to connect with, and fear around losing a dominant partner because of love. By the end of the episode, Axe even shares tips for men pursuing female dominants that he learned the hard way. Let’s look at how service to others can lead to finding a sense of self, and how a nice guy from a small town found himself amongst the maze of want-ads and bathtub cleaning scenes.

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…TheKinkyButton.com.
[music intro]
Announcer:
Welcome to Erotic Awakening, an exploration of all things erotic. Every Thursday, your hosts Dan and dawn share with you their experience and insights on kink, power exchange, and erotic life, as well as bring you interviews with exciting people from various lifestyles. Then every Monday, you'll hear from our various guest hosts. These nationally-known educators bring a variety of experience to the mics and share with you an ever-increasing diverse world of alternative life.
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Lee:
Hello fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington. In this monthly show appearing on the third Monday of the month, give or take, there's all kinds of opportunities for conversation around sensuality, connection, kink, desire, sex, and all places in between. If you want to listen to our back podcasts, feel free to go over to PassionAndSoul.com. Where you can find those podcasts as well as my writings, readings, and all kinds of other things as well.
This month, I have the pleasure of welcoming to the podcast another podcaster, who's been spreading information and stories about the world of kink since 2009. So I wanted to welcome you, Axe, to Erotic Awakening.
Axe:
Thank you for having me!
Lee:
Yeah, it's such a delight to kind of return the favor, since you grilled me not too long ago!
Axe:
I am known as a hard-hitting news and interview guru. [Lee laughs] So I almost always leave the interviewee in tears. As you know, you were very strong. You held up. You know, I was very impressed, I was very impressed that you held up as long as you did. I could be a professional interrogator.
Lee:
So what I'm hearing is that you're an ordeal master and spiritual guru of the airwaves.
Axe:
Sure.
[Lee laughs]
Axe:
See, I said it, I thought I was just joke bragging, and you now make it sound like I'm egotistical. So okay, okay, maybe.
Lee:
Well, I remember talking to Midori many years ago, and people were like, “Oh, you're claiming the label fetish diva. Is that some sort of thing that you're claiming as a professional dominatrix?” And she's like, “Um, that's what Fakir Musafar called me? And I thought it was kind of neat, so, um, I'm running with it.”
Axe:
So diva isn't like a, it's not like she's saying queen, right?
Lee:
Well, wait, but then you've got Queen Cougar, who's a fantastic and amazing sexuality and spirituality educator.
Axe:
I'm not familiar with Queen Cougar, but I'm sure wonderful person.
Lee:
Beautiful African-American woman who just wears leopard print, and shows up into her classes and puts down this whole altar cloth, and lights candles and incense and then just says, “We're here to talk. Some serious talk. No bullshit here. We're going to talk about the real deal.” And just has this presence! Oh my gosh, she's amazing.
Axe:
Oh, great.
Lee:
Absolutely amazing.
But I wanted to make sure that we had a chance to connect today, because I know on the MasoCast, you've talked in the past about male submission and about some of your own journey there. And I think if you're open to it, bringing into the conversation of connection, kink, how those things all interlay would be a conversation, if you’re game.
Axe:
Absolutely. I mean, I don't… I'm very, I'm just now kind of more reflecting, and I mean, like in the, not just in the last five minutes [Lee laughs] but in the last couple of years, especially. I never really thought that much about the spirituality side of things. It was always sex.
Lee:
Right.
Axe:
It was just the pleasure aspect of it and/or the pain aspect of it, or whatever. I didn't really have enough experience, and then it was really hard for me to find someone to play with, so it was a matter of “take whatever I can get and not analyze it,” right?
So it's only now that I've been with someone for several years in a serious relationship that I've been able to think, “oh wow, I can look at the more deeper aspects of this,” right?
Lee:
Yeah, you're certainly not alone there because I know a lot of people who get involved because it gets their bits hard or wet or whatever. And that's fantastic.
Axe:
Well, I think it's true with anything. Movies - you go to a movie because you really like it. Maybe you see it the second time, you can dive a little bit more deeper into it. Or a book, or - fill in the blank, right? You start it for maybe a different reason, but then once you take a closer look at it, there's a lot lying underneath there. So yeah, yeah, I guess I've been thinking more about it in the last few years especially, so…is there anything particular you'd like?
Lee:
Well, one of the things we talked about before we got started that I'm just like, as soon as you said it, I'm like, “Oh yeah, let's bring that on and see what we can find,” is the idea of love and submission. The idea of love and power exchange, love and dominance, and how those things all interrelate with each other. And so when you brought that up, I'm just like, “okay, okay, let's see where that goes.”
Axe:
I remember hearing someone - this was years ago - saying, once - she was a dominant woman - she was saying that once she starts having feelings for a submissive, she ends the D/s aspect. Maybe they'll be boyfriend and girlfriend and like that, but she just, she could not be dominant to someone that she's also in love with. In a romantic way, you know, because I can understand how you can love someone in a D/s relationship and not be romantic, right?
Lee:
Right.
Axe:
But I was very nervous about that. I was worried. I thought, well, am I going to have to choose? I always thought I was going to have to choose between a romantic relationship, and a romantic partner, and maybe someone to have kids with, or what you might say, you know, a marriage or whatever.
A D/s relationship, I thought, I was really worried about that. Like, what if more people felt that way? And she had some valid points, because I've heard other people say this as well, that once you start having a romantic interest with the person, your judgment gets clouded. You know, you're not thinking - you're seeing this person in a different light than just a slave, or just a dominant, or whatever.
But I found that it does change things a little bit, but not for the worse. They're just different. You know, with my partner Sade, it's a matter of - we have all these different facets to our relationship now. Whereas before, when we first started, it was, when we first started, it was sort of friends, and also it got more serious, we became D/s and we were also friends, and then it got more serious than that. And it was friends, D/s, sexual partners, romantic interest, people who dated each other.
And so not one of those things turned off. It just changed, it - not really changed the dynamic, it just added an extra dimension to it, I guess you could say. But I was really nervous. I remember when we kind of both acknowledged it, we were starting to have feelings for each other. I thought, “oh my God, does this mean, does this mean the play is going to stop? Or does this mean, what does this mean?”
But I found that it's just that more - my, I guess you'd say, dedication to her, is just that much deeper. And when we play, it takes on a whole other level. When she says she owns me, it's more than just her saying it. It's because I know she has actions that back that up.
Lee:
Mm-hmm.
Axe:
We moved in together, we got engaged. These different things that back it up as well. So when she says she owns me, she means, you know, there are other aspects that kind of back it up that I found really kind of deepen the play as well.
Lee:
Well, out of curiosity then, would you say as you went through these different layers of evolution in the relationship, that the flavor of the connection changed as well? Was it a change just in behavior, or was there a change in, like, how the two of you looked at each other, or how, like, there was a physical experience that was different?
Axe:
I think there was, because at first it was just lust.
Lee:
Mm.
Axe:
When we would look at each other, it was just pure carnal lust. And now there's pure carnal lust and… all these other things. She's not just my dominant. She's also someone who I love watching The West Wing with. She's also the person who… we love discussing politics with. There's all these different aspects. So the meaning behind a glance takes on a whole other aspect.
Before, the spirituality I had experienced in D/s play was… I had friends that I would have long-term but non-sexual, just pure M/s relationships, I guess you would say. And those were great because I learned many things about myself. I learned, oh, I am service-oriented. There are all these different aspects of myself that I hadn't learned before, but I would show up at their place, and it's like, okay, the D/s switch is on now. I would leave, and the D/s switch was off.
Lee:
Oh, okay.
Axe:
Right? Or sometimes we would be hanging out just as friends. But it was very much, it wasn't a constant thing in my life. Whereas, I mean, the respect that we had with each other, that was always constant, obviously. But as far as my day-to-day life, it would be like once a week, or every other week, that I would experience that. Whereas now, it's a constant thing, right? And that's really been amazing just to experience it.
Lee:
One of the things you said that I thought was really interesting was that in exploring your Master/slave encounters with people, you realized that you had an orientation towards service. And I'm curious how you realized that. Do you have a memory of what that transformation was?
Axe:
Yeah, well, I had stumbled upon an ad. It was an ad that a couple, a husband and wife, posted. And they said they were looking for service-oriented slaves. And I had thought, well, I'm not... It was very confusing to me because what they described in their ad was very appealing.
But at the same time, I was like, well, I'm not bi. [Lee chuckles] You know, but she's really attractive, but I'm not bi. And so we kind of started email chat because I thought, well, maybe they know someone. Maybe they know a dominant woman or something like that. We started up an email conversation. And the more I learned, the more I realized, oh, this is not sexual. It's not like that. At least that's not what they're looking for.
So I thought, well, here's a way of a very simple, clean, very just… It's just M/s, way for me to… So I wouldn't be confused. In the past, I'd been confused by sex, or I'd been, you know, I'd been driven by the urge to orgasm, or there were some other drives behind what I was doing. So it wasn't pure, I guess you'd say, it wasn't just my slave side that was getting itched, right?
Lee:
Right.
Axe:
There were other things that were driving me. So I thought, well, this is a unique opportunity, I'll be able to experience it not from a sexual aspect, and see if I'm really, do I identify as a slave? Am I just a bottom? Not that there's anything wrong with either, but I wanted to know.
I'd been calling myself a slave, and I remember in my mind thinking, what if I were to get in a relationship with someone and she wants this heavy D/s, and I turn - it's not for me. This will be a way for me to experiment with it in a very safe environment.
And I found out, because I would go over to their place, and we'd do D/s-oriented things, non-sexual, and I found that it really spoke to me. It was a way for me to shut off all these other parts of my brain that are always working, whether it's problems in my life, or whatever, or just being upset by whatever then-President Bush was doing. Oh, whatever, right?
I could shut these parts, and I was just there to do one thing. And it also helped my confidence level as well, just knowing that I had this experience behind me. And, I think, realizing… I was a little upset when I found out that this was part of me.
Lee:
How so?
Axe:
Because I thought, well, if I'm just kinky in the bedroom, then it's a lot easier to find someone who's just kinky in the bedroom, you know? As opposed to finding someone who's kinky in the bedroom and someone who wants D/s outside of it.
Because once I found this out about myself, I would tell someone, I would go on a date with a dominant woman or a switch woman, and I'd say, well, I'm looking for something, some sort of power exchange outside the bedroom as well, you know? And that people can wrap their heads around hardcore kink in the bedroom a lot easier than they can wrap their heads around someone, you know, going to get water or, you know, cleaning or whatever.
It's a lot easier to wrap your head around that because it's sex, right? It's a lot harder for some people to have the idea of someone serving them in a non-sexual way, you know? And I thought, oh, crap, now I got this to deal with, you know? So I thought, well, there goes my, you know, my options just dwindled, you know? But thankfully, you know, I ended up meeting Sade and it worked out, so.
Lee:
Yeah. One of the things that you just brought up that I thought really piqued my interest was that when you were in those encounters, you were really present to them. Like, while you were there, you weren't worrying about the politics in the outside world. All you were was right there in that moment.
Axe:
Right.
Lee:
And in some of the reading I've been doing recently on Buddhist practice, like, that's some of what the different folks are talking about is that idea of “Leave the outside world behind. You are here in this moment. If all you were doing is looking back at the past, that is where depression comes from. If all you do is look at the future, that's where anxiety comes from.”
Axe:
Exactly!
Lee:
Like, being here in that moment, and I'm curious, did that carry over to the rest of your life at all? Or was it mostly an evolution?
Axe:
No!
[Lee laughs]
Axe:
I wish. I wish. Because I am very good at drumming up regret from past decisions. I'm very good at being anxious about the future, whether it's the smallest thing, like, “oh, jeez, I just wish Apple would come up with a new iPhone so I can get it because this other one is about to die. I want to buy it now. What if I bought it now and they come up with a new one?” To, “holy crap, what happens if I lost my job? I'd be out in the street.”
So it was so nice to be able to shut that part of my brain off, you know? And that, even in my past sexual encounters, that's always been one of the hardest things to do, is just shut my brain off. You know, whether it's fill-in-the-blank. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's not that I was thinking of, you know, the nightly news while I was having sex or something like that.
But it was - and I had another friend who had this exact same experience. It was hard not, it was hard to actually get lost in the moment. Whether I was like, “oh, god, I hope I'm doing this okay, I hope she's, you know, I hope she's enjoying this. Should I do this now?” Rather than just, you know, going with the flow.
Lee:
Yeah.
Axe:
So it was really nice. It really helped me kind of just switch my brain off. Or that part of my brain off, I guess you could say. And when I say it's non-sexual, I mean, it's still part of, I still consider the D/s side of me, it's still a sexual part.
I don't know why I consider that a sexual part, even though there's no erection involved. There's no, you know, I don't know if my pupils get dilated or not or whatever. But I still think - consider it a sexual thing because there are, I don't know, sexual connotations to it, I guess.
I think especially, like - I've only come out to a few, like two or three of my vanilla friends, and that's probably the hardest thing to explain to them. It's easy for them to understand the kink stuff, but it's much harder to explain the D/s aspect of it. I don't know why that is, but I find that very funny.
Lee:
Huh, I wonder if it might be a cultural thing? Because I've talked with folks about female submission, and they're like, “oh, so it's like a 1950s housewife thing,” like there's a framework there.
Axe:
Maybe, maybe. I think because people can justify, “well, he's doing this because he wants, this is what gets him off with an orgasm, right?”
I remember talking to one friend of mine, and she said, “so are you hard when you're scrubbing the, you know, when you're scrubbing the tub or something?”
[Lee laughs]
Axe:
I'm like, no, no, not at all, you know? She was like, “I don't know, I just don't get it.” She was like, I just don't get it. And she's like, but you hate cleaning. I'm like, “yes, I don't like cleaning, but I do like doing things for people, you know?”
Lee:
Mm.
Axe:
It was really hard for her to grasp that, but… even me, describing it, it's hard, you know, to describe it, because I don't even fully understand it myself. Which is, you know, what I've been trying to think about a little bit more lately, so.
Lee:
Yeah, I have a friend of mine in the Northwest who - his perspective on the idea of service as not necessarily like a calling, per se, because he's incredibly pragmatic, but is this feeling that there's a place for him. Like, he has this, like, he's able to say, “okay, I am able to fill a useful niche in the universe that right now, by being my wife's service person, I can help her do more of the cool stuff she does in reality.” And like, I actually have, like, a place he fits in. Which I thought was really interesting to hear.
Axe:
Yeah, I think the best I could - I've never been able to describe it to…I've got one male friend that I've come out to, one, I really should say vanilla, one of my old friends that I had for a while, who I kind of hinted at and explained it, of what I enjoy about D/s.
And I said to him, “you know that feeling when your partner, she comes up to you and she gives you like, there's a jar of pickles or something like that, and she can't open it, and you open it, and you feel like you really, you feel like you just built the Great Wall of China, or something.” [Lee laughs] You feel like you've really accomplished something, you've done something that only you could do, or something that, you've done something just for her, that she couldn't do for herself.
It's kind of like that feeling that, you know, when that happens, when you do something for someone. Not that they couldn't do it themselves, but, you know, it's allowing them to do whatever it is, paint, or do something that they enjoy in lieu of it. So that's the closest I've been able to - jar of pickles.
Lee:
Jar of pickles.
Axe:
That's the closest I've been able to get.
Lee:
I like it.
Axe:
I found when I've described it to guys, my guy friends, it's easier for them to comprehend that than - I should say, my straight guy friends - my gay guy friends, they get it. I don't know… maybe because they're more exposed or open? I have no idea.
My female friends, they seem to grasp it a little bit better, but most of my - they claim to be straight vanilla guy friends, they don't get D/s at all. It's really hard for them to grasp it. Whereas my female friends, almost all of them, will at least bring down the logic of, “of course I want someone to clean my tub for me. Why wouldn't I want that?” [Lee laughs] You know, it's an excuse to get out of work. They might not get turned on by it, right?
But yeah, that's been probably the - whenever I have to explain it to someone who's vanilla, that's probably the thing I've noticed most of all.
Lee:
Yeah, you said that and I flash back to Rosie O'Donnell in Exit to Eden when they did the movie production of it where a guy says, “what do you want?” And she's like, “You know what I want? I want somebody to show up and paint my house.”
Axe:
Right, right, right!
Lee:
And it's - for me, when I've explored, and I'm curious what your take on this is, when I've explored power exchange, there's this fantasy element sometimes, of exactly what your partner is going to want. And my partner is going to want me to wear ballet boots while I dust the shelves with my ass and a feather duster up there.
And there's these stories that sometimes happen in, I think you said it before, when driven to the urge for orgasm?
Axe:
Right.
Lee:
As compared to what our partner sometimes might actually want. And I'm curious where the dichotomy might have, or the difference might have been, I should say.
Axe:
I've never - I mean, sure, I've enjoyed the idea of being sexualized or… and that's happened to me a couple of times. There were a few times when I - I learned very early on not to push my own desires on to the person I was trying to play with, right? Because that was an easy way to not play with the person a second time.
Or, well, I've got a lot of pro-domme friends, and they'll always, or even just non-pro-domme, all my female dominant friends, they will hear a lot. They'll hear the submissive, or the slave, kind of pushing their own kink into the thing. Like, “Yeah, sure, I'd love to clean for you. So maybe I can, you know, wear whatever, or maybe you'll beat me if I do make a mistake, or something like that.” Pushing their own - so I learned very early on not to do that.
And so sometimes I would show up, and it was very clear that the person thought that they had to act a certain way in order to get me to clean.
Lee:
Ah, okay.
Axe:
So the one person, I cleaned for her a few times or whatever, and she was like - you could tell as soon as I started working, that her persona just completely changed. It went from this very nice, bubbly person to what she was acting, what she thought I needed in order to clean for her.
And we emailed afterwards, and I said, you know, just don't do anything on my account. If you just want to sit there and watch TV or read or whatever, you don't have to interact with me at all if you don't want to. She was like, “Really? Oh, that's great.” She was like, “Because I've had so many guys come over, and they want this or whatever, and they perfectly make a mistake or something like that, so I'll ‘punish’ them.”
And then other times, I would show up and they would say, “Listen, there's going to be any sex! So get that out of your head right now.” I'm like, okay, fine. And I was like, that's good. I'm not physically attracted to that person anyway, but I didn't say that to them. And then I'd show up, and they would be like, “Strip and start cleaning!” And I'd start cleaning, and the next thing you know, they want sex. I'm like, wait a minute, hold on. This is not what you said it was going to be.
So I always made sure, after a few circumstances, to always lay out very clearly: “Okay, let's talk exactly how this is going to go down, because I don't want you to think I'm expecting anything, and I don't want you to, you know, I don't want you to think that I'm going to push myself on you or… and also I don't, I also want to know what you expect from this because I don't like to be surprised, you know, unless we've agreed that I like surprises or something.”
It's just like anything. I've talked to a female friend who - she loves doing service, but it was really hard. She only wanted to do service and she could not find a male dominant - and I don't know, I haven't talked to her in a few years, but she would go to serve a male dominant. She didn't want sex or anything like that. She was married, and they had agreed that this was something that she had to do, and her husband wasn't into it.
And she could not find a single guy to just explore, just the D/s aspect, and the cleaning, and the service, or whatever. It was always “You're going to wear a schoolgirl outfit, or you're going to wear a maid's outfit,” which she could do - but then it would always kind of escalate from there, even though she had said many, many times. She was really frustrated by that.
Yeah, as far as pushing my own needs on someone else, I learned that pretty quickly, that you don't get past a few emails if you do that. Which when you're first starting, I think it's natural to do, right?
Lee:
Yeah. Well, we're also told in - I think to Screw the Roses, SM 101, all this, is where it's like, “make sure in your negotiation to lay out every single piece of what you want to do, and put it all on the table to make sure you're compatible.”
Axe:
Right.
Lee:
And I wonder sometimes, with submission or with service, whether that style of negotiation serves everyone involved, and I'm not sure.
Axe:
I mean, if you're a guy, and if you're really into service, and if your big thing is you want to be naked, and you want to kneel whenever she walks in the room - or he walks in the room, or whatever - that's what really turns you on? And if there's all these different things, heavy protocol and all that stuff - you're not going to do a lot of service unless you lay it out for the, you know, if you make a profile that says it.
If someone says, “hey, I'm into service” and then you lay all that out, one of those things are probably going to turn them off. So what I found was, to kind of just go with whatever the person - unless they're into something you're completely not into. Sometimes I would do service for someone and they wanted me completely clothed. Sometimes they wanted me completely naked. Sometimes they wanted me wearing, you know, underwear. I mean, whatever.
I was sort of like a kink camel. I would get whatever, take whatever I could get, and live on it, right? Because that was fine. That was fine. And, you know, 5% is better than 0 or 10 is better than 0 or whatever. And I still had a lot of fun doing that.
Were they the most erotic experiences of mine? Some of them were fairly erotic. Most of them weren't, you know. In fact, I think maybe that's why Sade and I clicked so much, is because our relationship started out as just service, and it just kind of went exactly the way I'd always fantasized it would go, right? And I was like, “holy crap, this actually does happen, you know.”
Yeah, it was definitely…I think when it comes to negotiating, they always say the submissive has all the power. I think, maybe, once you start the actual play? But beforehand, if you're a male submissive and it's a female dominant, you're not going to even meet the person if you're, you know - if you're projecting something that is totally turning off, you know. You shouldn't lie. You shouldn't say, “no, I'm totally, you know, I'm totally into needle play” and you're deathly afraid of needles. Obviously, you shouldn't do that, but you know, there's a difference.
Lee:
Well, one of the things that I think contributes to that, that I heard you say - and please correct me if I misheard - but that the women you were coming over and serving, flat out said “you know, guys have shown up before and, you know, I wasn't looking for sex and they thought it was, or I was thinking they were going to come over and clean and suddenly I had to watch over them and ‘see if I have to punish them’ and all that,” you know, as if… as if you should spend just as much time watching somebody else clean your tub as you could have just cleaned the tub yourself and go finish it.
Axe:
Exactly.
Lee:
Go finish watching your episode of West Wing.
Axe:
Because people, different people - I'm sorry.
Lee:
No, no, no, that's, that's what I got. Go for it.
Axe:
No, people, different people - just like different people is coming from the bottom or the submissive side, different submissives enjoy different aspects of service. Different dominants enjoy different aspects of it as well. Some dominants really enjoy knowing that they're doing something, while the slave is doing their own thing in a completely different room. Other people just really get off on watching someone scrub their tub or whatever. Or just the idea of being served in that way and whatever it is.
So the key is to try to identify - both people have to kind of identify what it is they enjoy about it. It took me a long time to really identify what it is I enjoyed about it.
Lee:
Mm.
Axe:
And it still kind of confuses me, because I don't really like cleaning. I mean, before I - when I was just a single guy, I had the messiest apartment in the universe, because I just didn't care. And I'm not the best when it comes to attention to detail. But there are some things I do very well, and I just don't do them well for myself, I guess.
It's a really confusing thing, if it's something so vague. You know why you enjoy a blowjob, or you know why you enjoy a spanking, because there's a physical reaction to it, right? When it's something that's spiritual like service, or emotional, or mental, it's so hard to pin that down. It's really hard to pin that down.
Lee:
Do you have any sort of bodily reaction afterwards? Or you feel better afterwards? What happens? You're talking before about, you like a blowjob because it feels physically good, or you have that ejaculatory release, or whatever it might be that you enjoy in that moment. Maybe it's looking down, and seeing your partner really getting into it, or looking down and seeing your partner threatening you in some way, shape, or form. Is there something that happens either during or immediately after?
Axe:
I think it's depended on who I was serving at the time.
Lee:
Mm-hmm.
Axe:
When I was doing service for that couple, I remember walking away and it felt like - all week long I had been holding my breath. And then, that period when I was doing service, I was actually breathing. Because I was not - I didn't have the all the weight of the world on my shoulders, or whatever.
And so it was almost like, well, maybe carrying a big heavy bag of potatoes or something like that, and you finally let it let it go, and then there's this kind of euphoria that waves over your body. Just be like, “Oh God, that was so heavy. I'm so glad I'm not carrying that now.”
And I remember like walking brisker, afterward, like leaving their apartment and walking a lot more, you know - faster, and just really in, you know, and having such a good night sleep that night, because it was just a release, right?
You know, whereas some other people I've done service for, it was very anxiety, and it brings me a lot of anxiety into me, because I was worried the whole time. “Am I doing this right?” When I first started serving Sade, it was kind of like that. I was like, “Oh, my God, I really don't want to screw this up.” I really, eugh, no - and she will admit that she did a very good job of keeping me nervous on purpose, right?
[Lee chuckles]
Axe:
I think, you know, maybe if she knew me… I mean, now she probably wouldn't do the same thing, because she knows how anxious I get like that. I was so nervous when she would kind of toy with me a little bit that way, but it was her way to sort of transition over into play a little bit, you know.
But it was really… I was very anxious when I first started, because I thought, “Oh, God, if you screw up, you know, if you screw up, you miss a spot, that's it. She's never going to talk to you again.” You know, thankfully, that wasn't the case. I'm sure I missed plenty of spots, but she still kept me, so that's good.
Lee:
[laughs] That's beautiful. So if you were to give one piece of advice - or three, you can go over one, it’s okay - to a male submissive who is listening on the other end of this podcast, and potentially early on this journey, or making a transition to this role. Pieces that you would have them sit with or think about.
Axe:
God, It's just so… there's so many, so many things and there's a billion wrong ways to do it. There's a billion right ways to do it, because it's so dependent on the - now, if you're just looking for play, the best thing you can possibly do is not be like everyone else.
Lee:
Mm.
Axe:
If there's a profile on FetLife or something or wherever, maybe it's fill-in-the-blank personal site. Don't mention how dominant she is. Don't, you know, don't say don't say “hi, mistress” or whatever. Just be your - I hate saying this phrase - be yourself as much as you can.
You're extremely nervous. They get, you know, a thousand emails a second. So it's so easy for them to completely blow over it, you know. I found I started playing a lot more, when I started caring less. When I stopped feeling like “this is it.” There was a period when I was spending four hours every single night on some dating sites just to try to - I would send, you know, 50 emails a night, right? They were all personalized. I wasn't doing copy and paste, never doing copy and paste email, you know. But it was just total desperation. And I felt like, “oh, my God, I'm never going to play again.”
And I found - especially if you can go out in the local kink scene and just be a regular, chill person, you'll get a lot more attention that way, because you're not being that needy, desperate person.
If I had met Sade a year earlier, we probably wouldn't be together, because I was so much more needy, and I was so much more - way too overeager, to just be myself. I'm very glad that we met when we did. So…is that three?
Be yourself, don't copy and paste emails, don't be like everyone else. And, you know, try to make yourself look like someone who they would at least want to hang out with as a friend, I guess you could say, you know.
Or be rich. One of those things.
[Lee laughs]
Axe:
You can be rich and ignore all that. I'm not rich, I would say, I should say. So, clearly…
Lee:
Well, I would argue that you are rich of spirit and friends.
Axe:
That’s true.
Lee:
And you know what? Sometimes that's a winner over other situations.
Axe:
This is true. I actually had someone email me asking like, “how did you meet Sade? How did that happen? How did you possibly get her?” I have no idea. I have no idea. She would say leather pants. But that's what she always said. That's her blanket answer. Just leather pants. [Lee chuckles] But I have no idea.
Because some people have asked, “How wealthy are you? What do you do? Are you, like, you work on Wall Street?” I'm like, “No, you kidding me? I’m paycheck to paycheck. Get out.” Yeah, “I'm just as I'm just as surprised as you are.” That's what I usually say.
Lee:
Yeah, but sometimes the surprises in life, they are the gifts that we get.
Axe:
Absolutely.
Lee:
So if people were wanting to hear more from you, learn more about your life, and talk to all the amazing people that you are the guru ordeal master for?
Axe:
Oh god. Well, I've been podcasting for about four years on MasoCast.com, M-A-S-O-C-A-S-T, dot com. I've been blogging about… well, you can see early on my search, and all my horrible failures of trying to meet a dominant woman! Been doing that since like 2005 or 2004, or something like that, at UnspeakableAxe.com, A-X-E, UnspeakableAxe, one word, dot com.
Lee:
Wonderful. And you've got a lot of great stuff on there to explore, so I hope folks at home will go and check all that stuff out. So thank you so much for joining us on Erotic Awakening!
Axe:
Thank you!
Lee:
If you are listening at home and have any questions for Axe or myself, or any questions in general around sexuality, spirituality, kink, gender, connection, authenticity, or really anything else, feel free to send your questions to Lee, L-E-E, at PassionAndSoul.com with the subject line “Ask Lee.” Questions will be looked up ahead of time, or either recorded to on the podcast, or responded to on my website in my blog, so feel free to reach out.
If you're interested in finding me anywhere on the internet, you could do so by looking for “Lee Harrington” or looking up PassionAndSoul as one word, whether it's on FetLife.com, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, pretty much anywhere.
If you type in Lee Harrington, you will know that I am not a 60 year old judge, nor am I a lovely young woman who writes books on dog walking, but the rest of the stuff is usually me.
And thank you so much, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, for joining us. This has been Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington and with…
Axe:
Unspeakable Axe.
Lee:
And until next time, stay cool, have fun, be authentically yourself, and have a fantastic journey.
[music outro]