Please forgive if I revisit things I've said before. But, this has been on my mind tonight.
In my checkered past, my professional life, I worked detention units for a decade. I don't know for certain, but I think that may have played some part in my personal life... proclivities. As an example, I not only used mechanical restraints in my professional life but worked my way up to be a sought-after trainer for surrounding facilities. I don't think I flatter myself that I was pretty damn good at not needing to escalate to physical restraint, at de-escalating situations without recourse to physical. (I also trained units in those techniques.) But, when it came time to run "Hotel Hell Room Service" through full-blown riots, my teams were always the quickest and most proficient.
In my personal life,... I wasn't really a tremendous fan of employing mechanical restraints. I learned how it was done and even became a pretty damn good rigger (when my hands could still manage the knots). But, unless she (whichever "she" we might be discussing) needed it, the rope tended to stay in the battle bag. As well as the handcuffs and so forth.
I enjoy the aesthetics. But, frankly, it was too much like what I earning my paycheck doing.
It's been a long time since my hands could manage shoelaces. And the last time I tried to play with a bit of rope, I couldn't remember the knots (which was embarrassing). So, it's probably just as well.
Even non-mechanical physical restraint... Well, I enjoy "a bit of wrasslin'" as the hayseed cartoon said. But, frankly, I kicked around in seven different martial arts first as hobbies and then for professional reasons. (Before anyone gets too excited I wasn't a black belt in any and never stood a test in most.) And I was running second man on the "Room Service" teams (first man is the shield-bearer) as well as training them, disarming and taking down violent people fully intent on harming me over six feet tall and well over a couple of hundred pounds. Without causing them lasting damage. There... just wasn't much my delicate flowers were going to be able to do short of safewording to keep me from flipping them and turning them whichever way I chose.
Oh, I did it. For several. Whenever they needed it. But,... it really just didn't do a whole lot for me.
Er. Well, other than grabbing her ankle and hauling her (shrieking and laughing) back across the bed as I informed her we weren't done yet. "Get over here!"
No. My favorite method of control was purely mental. Preferably without even resorting to my voice. Just a look and some non-verbal cues, mostly body language with some limited facial expression.
My favorite memory with my late wife...
We'd been together for a decade by this point. And were so deeply intertwined in each other's minds that we could have entire conversations with just a shared look. We went to a Christmas party for her work. And I made her climax from across the roo,m seven "knee loosening" (her term for the strong ones) orgasms, just meeting eyes (and a slight head tilt).
Oh, we were actually late to the party because I'd been tormenting her for a little over an hour, denying her the actual orgasm. And continued the torment by clueing just what my plans were for her afterward, all the things I'd rather have stayed at home and done rather than going to "this stupid work party" to keep her simmering. I don't know if we could have done it without that.
But, seven times during the party, I would catch her eye across the room as she was talking with someone from work. Smile just a little with my head tilted down and to the left, our "command" for her to cum for me. And her body took over.
I guess I should probably mention she was disabled and walked on a cane. Her co-workers were very solicitous, imagining that look on her face was pain. I knew better. (Although I imagined it was just a small one until we slipped out early and she cleared up my misconception, showing me where she'd soaked through the panty-liner she swore she needed around me.)
I guess I could also mention that she swore before me she'd never had an orgasm while actually with someone else, but had to rely on herself to get herself off later. So, yeah... that was... pretty seminal, I think. Having that kind of control over her that I could not only make her cum, and at will, but without touching her or even saying anything, from across a crowded room. Because she knew I wished it of her at that moment and her body responded to my demand.
I doubt I'll ever manage to match that feat. And I'm alright with that.
While I certainly enjoyed that mark of my control, of her abject surrender to me, it also led to... eh... some laziness on my part perhaps? Not sure that is the correct word. What I mean is, my control was so complete (other than the occasional moment of smart assed brattiness when she was craving some funishment) that I didn't really have to exert myself most days.
Oh, we indulged in four seventy-two-hour sessions per year, one per quarter, when I pulled out all the stops. (Had to remind her just why she was mine, doncha know.) But, on a nightly basis... I don't know. I'm sure her submissiveness took some pride in being of service. Probably a lot had to do with her desire to make my life easier since my second career as a college instructor, I was putting in sixteen-hour days four days per week.
These days... As I say, I'll probably never manage to accomplish that feat again. And I'm okay with that.
However, orgasm denial just isn't my preferred method. I vastly prefer forcing my lover to orgasm early and often, just as many as she can manage, and then once more she didn't think she could, withholding my own and "making her work for it."
Not, I might mention, a very popular attitude for most submissives I've been involved with since her death. And would even make her a little crazy sometimes when we'd been going at it for a few hours, putting her through several, and I wasn't anywhere close.
Even my babygirl, my sweet little spice of my twilight, has some issues with it sometimes.
But, that's why it goes "her needs, my needs, my wants, then her wants." Because I'm the one in control. And I need her to cum for me, to submit to my will, grant me that badge of her surrender more than she wants mine.
And then there's the body pillow, bondage tape, and swaddling blanket to make her hold still while I read her to sleep, 'cause nobody has as much shit on their "to-do list" as a babygirl that's just been told it's beddie-bye. And that, the fact that I can usually only get through five paragraphs before she's snoring, feeds my need for control, my need to care for her, as well.