Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Kinky "Elevator Pitch" - Do You Have One?

I've been at a couple of parties lately where I bottomed to a person I hadn't played with before. In both cases, the person asked me, "What do you like?" My initial answers were somewhere along the lines of: "Um, *giggle*, geez, um...well, I like...stuff. Hmm...."

Wow. I have to get better at this. I have started to wonder if I need an elevator pitch for my kink.

I can talk about what I like as a bottom in a more neutral social environment. Or if someone else is talking about something and I get kind of turned on, I know that I like that. Also, if I'm topping, I seem to be at least a little better at articulating what I might want to do, possibly because I'm newer at topping, and there are fewer activities I feel I can offer with confidence.

Part of the problem is that, activities-wise, I have liked a lot of things. I think a more relevant question for me is, "how do you like to feel?" That question automatically makes me feel more vulnerable, though. It's easier to say "I like bondage and nipple play" than "I want to feel like I am so desirable that you can't resist tying me down and ravishing me."

Also, I wonder if that puts undue pressure on the top, or if saying how I like to feel even makes sense from the top's perspective. If I were topping someone, that would be information I would want to have, but maybe I'm an anomaly. One of my communication weaknesses, in general, is overloading people with information (you should have heard the driving directions I used to give in the age before Google Maps and GPS). I don't want to do that when negotiating.

Fellow perverts: how do you answer the question "What do you like?" Do you have an elevator pitch? What kinds of information does it include? Do you have any tricks for remembering it when you are in the presence of someone hot who wants to do nasty things to you?

Please comment!

7 comments:

  1. Oh, THAT must be my problem! Mine's an escalator pitch!

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  2. @Gerard - Nah, your problem is you're a wise-ass. I hear some people like that, though!

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  3. I'll throw out some more ideas, some of them not even wise-ass ideas.

    As someone who has been on a quest to find his toppishness, I can say that if I were to say to someone, "What are you feeling like this evening?" and they were to say, "I like bondage and nipple play." I would say something like, "Oh? What do you like about it?" and I would actually pursue the conversation into how does it make you feel? how do you want to feel? what would you feel like tonight? and probably many more questions. These are what spice up the scene.
    I would also submit (er, so to speak) that there is a point where there is too much information. I may ask "Would you like to be surprised?" If the answer is yes, that would spur me to think of something interesting, spontaneous, or new or different that we've talked about or hinted at. For me to take a risk but also for the bottom to take a risk, too. If the answer is no, well, then I would play it cautious and keep things within what we have talked about. I'm listening intently but also thinking what tools, what accompaniment, what other things I can do, obviously based not only on the conversation but also on whatever is venue- or scene-appropriate. For example, if we were talking about waxplay but there weren't any candles around or the location where we were wasn't okay with that, well, I would have to save that nugget until another time and place.

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  4. I guess what I'm saying is that an elevator pitch is nice but as a conversation starter. Even if it's somewhat or gratuitously detailed, it's still like someone asking me what food I like and I say that I like wine. Well, what wine? Which flavor? What taste? What do you like with your wine? When do you like to drink it? How does it make you feel? What have done with wine that's fun or different?

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  5. Right, I'm not saying it should be the whole of negotiation, just that maybe thinking about my answer to that question ahead of time, including the level of detail I should go into, would keep me from babbling like an idiot!

    I like your point about asking someone if they would like to be surprised, because I actually do like to be surprised when I'm bottoming, so that would be a good thing to mention.

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  6. I've actually read something by a top somewhere who said that they like to start the conversation with their bottom by asking them how they want the session to make them feel - it makes it easier to start the conversation.

    I have to say, I'm pretty new to the whole thing, and the few times I've been asked in real life what I liked, I turned into a shy, giggling, *super-embarrassed* mess. So maybe I should develop an elevator pitch, too.

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  7. I was thinking about this over my lunch time, which, I suppose, tells you where my mind was over lunch (;-)) and part of my "elevator pitch" comes from the training that I received to become a sex educator from San Francisco Sex Information (SFSI). As part of the SFSI training, they had us describe things like how we feel when we have sex ... what does an orgasm feel like? what does my face look like? what does my body feel like? how would someone know that I am having an orgasm?

    As part of this, I also had to get comfortable with also checking in with myself about how I would feel at that moment to be sexual. If I were to describe RIGHT NOW what I would need to "get off" ... that was part of the exercise. Now I sometimes use those questions as part of the seduction. I ask, "Would you want to or should I try to give you an orgasm?" "What would that look like?" If you don't want me to give you an orgasm, what do you want to have happen? Lots of other questions that I try to use as part of the seduction but not necessarily to get a "play-by-play" of the whole scene. I actually think having a well-known, well-scripted "play-by-play" of what we're gonna do together to be somewhat boring. Doesn't allow much inventiveness, expression, or spontaneity.

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