Early exposure: The Ice Storm

I've written a few posts about how my early exposure to Femdom didn't happen through the "front door," which would be basically being turned on by BDSM, D/s, Femdom, etc.  My route began with a fetish for women in fur, which led to a few fur fetish sites in the earlier days of the internet.  For some reason a few of those same sites were heavily tied to Femdom and that made up much of my earliest exposure to the lifestyle.  NTCWeb, Sardax, and to some extent, Melody O'Hair led me down this path to having a sexual tie between fur and Femdom. 

 I used to be a huge movie fanatic.  I've since cut back significantly but I still have an enjoyment of good cinema and I have a dedicated following to a handful of writers/directors that I have grown to trust will consistently put out good movies.  Ang Lee is one of those directors.  In 1997 I rented the Ice Storm with a female friend of mine and we watched it together.  If you aren't familiar with the movie, it takes place in the early 70's in white upper middle class suburbia and centers around a couple of dysfunctional families.

In the movie, Sigourney Weaver plays the wife in one family that is having an affair with the husband of the other family (although you get the impression that this isn't her first affair and she "upgrades" to a more exciting guy as soon as her current one bores her).  During one of the scenes she returns home to find her ~12 year old son blowing up his toys with M-80 firecrackers.  After sort of chewing him out she looks for something else to hold his attention.  What first drew my attention to this scene is her coat.  I absolutely love its style (although I'm a bit iffy on the print).  The cut/shape and the fur, mixed with the fact that her character is pretty much the most sexual character in the story really got my blood pumping.

After my friend left I rewound the tape to this scene and played through it over and over again... full speed, slow motion, frame by frame, etc.  I know I jerked off several times to it. 

As she searches for something to distract him with she finds a whip out on the deck with them and you can see her response. 
It can basically be summarized in:
SW picks up whip and gazes it up and down.
SW to son:  Where did you get this?
son to SW: Uncle got it for me on his trip to .
SW starts to fiddle with the whip, tossing her hair and then playing with it in her hands.  She seems to be getting ideas and possibly a bit aroused.

SW to son:  Play with the whip.
SW hands the whip back to her son and as she tells him to play with it she's sort of pointing it at him like a command.

I returned the movie the next day and immediately went out and bought a copy of it.  It's a very good movie in its own right but at that point I rarely if ever bought movies (I owned maybe 10 or so at that time).  I pretty much kept it cued up to that scene so I could just pop it back into the player and go through that one when I wanted to masturbate. 

In hindsight I can see how this affected me as it portrayed a situation mixing fur, sex, and power.  I've always been attracted to women that were self-assured and went out and took what they wanted and this pretty much captured all of it.  I give this scene about 20% of the credit towards my developing into a submissive. 

I sort of wish I knew what Ang Lee told Sigourney Weaver about acting in that scene.  I may have to buy the Criterion Collection release and listen to the commentary to see if it can shed any insight.  I can picture it as being something like "Okay, you find the whip, you're intrigued, ask him, now imagine yourself with your lover and you want to whip him with it and this gets you off."  The other interpretation I've had of it is like "Oh shit, is this my whip from my closet?  I better ask him.  Ok good... mmm... I love whips..."

I can only imagine how different my life would have been if I didn't have a fetish for women in fur.  I kind of have a feeling I wouldn't have turned out as a submissive and even if I did turn out as a submissive I probably wouldn't have turned out as a sissy. 

Fantasy...

Something I've noticed is that my fantasies tend to gravitate between two primarily different scenarios or something that starts as one and oscillates between the two.

The two primary scenarios being:
A) a situation where the Domme is controlling and strict but at the same time very loving and cherishes her sub.
B) a situation where the Domme is overtly cruel to the sub and treats him with disdain but keeps him around because she knows that he would be difficult to replace with another sub and still receive the same level of service.

I've never quite understood why my mind tends to swing to both.  It seems like when I am feeling down, situation A gives the warm and fuzzy feelings while still meeting the criteria that cater to my submission.  I think situation B is more a response because my deepest submission and cravings generally occur in situations that are better described in that way.

I think my ideal fantasy seems to happen when both sides of the coin face up at the same time.  That is, the Domme knows deep down that she cherishes the sub and will do whatever is necessary to keep him and keep him well-behaved but the sub is kept in an off-balance state of mixed signals and emotional confusion.  He has equal fear of being cast out and her wrath, yet carries tremendous love for her at all times.  The end result is one of desperation to please her while suffering at her mercy as he gives her a piece of his soul.

The details surrounding each fantasy have changed for me over the years but it seems like the basic themes have stayed the same.  When I first entered the lifestyle forced fem was the last thing I would ever think would turn me on.  My earliest visions were of being kept in a collar and cuffs while serving a woman dressed in leather and fur.  It's strange how much my experiences and conditioning have changed the details of those fantasies.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post revisiting the lesbian fantasy that has followed me over the years. http://furcissy.blogspot.com/2011/01/revisiting-lesbian-fantasy.html

My sexual responses to this idea haven't changed over the years and it's this fantasy that often serves as the gateway in my current fantasies to shift between situations A and B.  e.g. man serves woman, they fall in love, woman adds another female lover into the mix, female lover displaces man and makes his life a living hell, woman's romantic love for man fades and cruelty increases.

I can feel things changing again lately.  Ever since I dropped my hard limit and let Mistress violate me anally that seems to be creeping into my fantasies with increasing frequency...

I guess these are just some random thoughts.