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As an educator, there are times when the lessons I teach come right back home and bite me in the ass. For years I've worked with individuals and couples, in workshops and in one-on-one sessions, on ways to get their needs met and have their desires fulfilled in a healthy, safe, sane and consensual manner. I've written articles, I've spoken at universities, I've put as much positive "I'm-a-kinkster-and-I-love-it" energy out into the universe as is humanly possible. And after all my years attempting to foster openness, communication, and just plain good sex, I find myself with a sad, cautionary tale about obsessive behavior to share with you here. It's a personal story, and I'm posting it on the internet, the most public of all forums, in the hopes of sparing others the sort of loss I've endured.
Last week, someone stole all my panties.
I was doing several loads of laundry at the laundromat across the street from my home. (We can talk later about why a professional dominant would be doing her own laundry. What can I say? Good help is hard to find.) Somewhere in between the wash cycle and my clean dry clothes being taken from the dryer to my house, someone fished through all of my laundry and selectively stole the close to 25 pairs of black thong panties I was washing. Not my 350 count sateen sheets, not my oh-so-hip Adidas track pants, not my Italian designer jeans, but my panties. All of them.
At first I thought I must have forgotten to wash them. I had been recovering from a cold and a very busy month, and as a result needed to launder every pair of panties I owned. (Again, you may ask how an all-powerful professional domina gets to the point where she needs to wash every pair of panties she owns, and again I'll tell you: good help is hard to find). I went back to the laundromat and looked around: the same gay couple were sitting in their chairs, guiltlessly watching their socks spin, and there was not a trace of my undergarments.
I slowly came to terms with the fact that my panties, all 25 pairs of them, had been pilfered by some panty-obsessed freak who rifled through my four loads of laundry and absconded with possessions so personal, so profound, that I began to mourn each pair individually.
The delicate mesh Natori that hugged my hips and were low enough to be worn under my lowest-rise jeans. The sheer DKNY that my mother had just given me for my birthday. The satin, lace-topped Victoria's Secret that I wore under my gowns when working in my dungeon. The comfortable, cotton Calvin Klein that traveled with me to Cuba and China. Stories and memories began to flood me, as I recalled all the events of my life through the panties I once wore, and would never wear again.
In the midst of my grief I began to wonder about the myriad experiences the Panty Thief could possibly be having at my expense. I have no judgement for a man who lusts after a woman's panties. Quite the contrary: I love putting my panties on my play partners, sending them on errands in my silk thongs. I've slipped my panties off my body and into the mouth of a submissive more times than I can count. I understand, more than the Panty Thief could ever know, how some men ache for the feminine scent of well-worn panties, how some men experience ecstasy and fulfillment by simply wearing a well constructed lace thong. But to steal, to violate, to invade a person's personal space and take from them non-consensually is inexcusable. And sadly, I'm willing to bet that my Panty Thief is a fetishist far more than a thief. His behavior was likely driven by his need to possess women's panties, a need he has so obviously neglected in himself that it has given root to obsessive, unhealthy, unsafe behavior.
This is how it begins: some people are prone to fixating on what they cannot have.
The Panty Thief had a desire for women's panties, let's say hypothetically that he desired them for all the reasons I've proposed in this column. He loves the scent, he loves to wear them, he's turned on by the taboo. The Panty Thief's erotic need for women's panties is completely harmless. The social taboo that forbids men this sort of interest is based on nothing but puritanical sex-negativity. However, the Panty Thief is deeply affected by the social standards that dictate his interest is disgusting, perverted, unacceptable, and because of this he attempts to ignore his desire, or he hides it, he keeps it personal. If the Panty Thief had recognized that women might find his interests palatable, or if he had the social maturity to understand that his needs could be met by professionals who would be happy to sell him panties, I'd still have the gorgeous micro-fiber Felina thong that goes with my now mate-less bustier. But he didn't: he understood his interests to be guilty and pathological, and he acted out on them in a guilty, pathological manner.
I'm not just upset about this incident because it cost me some damn fine lingerie. I'm upset because the behavior of the Panty Thief reinforces negative stereotypes about members of the kink community. The Panty Thief does not speak the language of safe sane and consensual play, and has no healthy way of expressing his kink. He's not a member of my tribe, and yet his actions cast a negative light on those men and women who share his desires but have considerably more advanced and responsible means of realizing them. I would like to reach out to the Panty Thief and, after smacking him upside the head, gently educate him in healthy, consensual ways of fulfilling his fantasies. I'd like to teach him clever ways of preserving the titillation of the forbidden and taboo, perhaps suggest a negotiated role play in which he sneaks panties out of my drawers (or dryer, if that is intrinsic to his kick) and is then "punished" by being forced to wear them, sniff them, or masturbate into them, all under my stern, unapproving gaze. And frankly, I'd like to see him humbly present me with a gift certificate to Saks so that I can begin replenishing my panty supply.
Mistress Morgana lives and works in San Francisco and is a professional dominant, educator and writer. She has come in contact with thousands of men and women looking to expand their erotic horizons, to learn technical skills and to better appreciate and attain their fantasies. Mistress Morgana welcomes your comments and questions. You may contact her at [email protected], or visit her website at www.mistressmorgana.com.
©2002 Morgana Maye, may not be reprinted without author's permission.
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