Bottoms Up: Denial

Ellie and I had been playing together consistently for months, and I trusted her enough that, one evening, I told her we didn’t need to check in as often during sex. I wanted her to do something new to my body or take something away from me without telling me first. I wanted room for surprise. When I’m a bottom, I don’t need an advance play-by-play because I’m not in charge; I leave my incessant need for control on the floor with my clothes.

The next time we met up, she suggested blindfolding me, to which I readily agreed. I was not only exchanging far fewer verbal cues; I also couldn’t pick up on visual ones. All I knew was it felt like electricity when she touched me literally anywhere and I was aching for each and every perfect moment of contact. And then, when I felt like I wasn’t going to think about anything but the way her tongue felt on my neck ever again, she said, “Don’t come until I say so.”

I tried to close my legs but she had me completely at her mercy. The environment turned me on so much at that moment, but I didn’t come. I don’t know if it was the direct order from Ellie or my anticipation, but I was having a blast.

I was so into the denial because I thrive on instructions. Being told not to do something makes it the only thing that the bratty part of me thinks about, but specifically with regards to orgasming, denial made me slow down. I think a lot of people with vaginas worry about how much time it takes them to come; I come way too quickly and I’m always so embarrassed. I can spend a lot of time resisting pleasure in order to make the moment last longer. But when Ellie told me I had to wait, the anticipation felt even greater than the culmination of that anticipation.

Being denied permission to orgasm heightened our playtime immensely. Through her order, Ellie took control and didn’t offer me the ability to resist. I had to breathe deeper to focus on the moments we were having together. I had to allow myself to enjoy the moments that were building to my eventual orgasm, knowing that when Ellie said I could come, I would and it would be perfect; not because it was the best orgasm I had, but because I wasn’t worrying about it. There wasn’t any thinking about it before, or working to make myself last longer, I was just riding on a high of really great sex and then even got an orgasm out of it.

Anytime I play with a partner, it’s because I want to play, but that doesn’t mean I always play to get off. Sometimes, denial is exactly what I want. When I was so focused on my orgasm, I couldn’t focus on exactly how it felt when Ellie used a wartenberg pinwheel on my chest. I never realized all of the different sensations that occur when someone’s giving you a hickey: the warm feeling of their lips and tongue, the sharpness of the biting and sucking, the cool relief right afterward as the air hits their saliva. In my quick chase of an orgasm, I’d forgotten to enjoy all of sex.

That first time we played with orgasm denial, I lasted longer than I expected, but I totally came before she said I could. And it was fine. I got a nice spanking because of my “misdeeds” and that was it. Ellie got better at reading my body, I got better at neither resisting nor forcing pleasure. Adding denial to our sex lives opened up a new point of pleasure and excitement and brought us closer to each other because of it.

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Ari

Ari is a 20-something artist and educator. They are a mom to two cats, they love domesticity, ritual, and porch time. They have studied, loved, and learned in CT, Greensboro, NC, and ATX.

Ari has written 330 articles for us.

7 Comments

  1. “I never realized all of the different sensations that occur when someone’s giving you a hickey: the warm feeling of their lips and tongue, the sharpness of the biting and sucking, the cool relief right afterward as the air hits their saliva.”

    YES!!! I’ve only allowed one person to do this to my body but when I let that moment slow and gave myself permission to savor it, the intensity of it all. Loved this post.

  2. Orgasm control was how my ex gf (the first girl I slept with) made me realise I’m into BDSM….before her I’d never given any thought to it besides “I dont think I’m in to any of that stuff” (now I’ve realised a lot of that was how insecure and unsafe I felt having sex in general with men).

    One day she was like “you really get off on power play don’t you?” I had literally no idea what she was talking about, and she explained about how the orgasm control stuff she was doing was D/s power play and I was like OOOHHHHHH right! Then I read a great book and a week later was asking to try bondage…and here we are lol.

    I also come really quickly but I can have multiples, so she would “make” me have as many simultaneous ones as she wanted which was kinda intense. But I found that when she would edge me, or tell me not to come, when I finally did it was a more intense orgasm because (like you say) I was more focused on all the sensation going on.

    Loved the post :)

  3. Great piece.. saving me right now from the epic boredom of some presentations.. and yep, edging can be super fun… I will add that, while it seems like a relatively benign type of power play it still is firmly in the realm of D/S.. Getting consent (well addressed by Alaina in the article, just emphasizing this myself) is still super important, imho. Power play can make all the feels.

  4. Absolutely delicious. This is something I’ve only very lightly played with, but I’m definitely interested in trying more (with the right partner).

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