I discovered running at about the same time I discovered sex which is not long ago. By discovering sex I mean the time when, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I felt an urge to start writing smut and began to explore my sexuality and what it meant to me. This was, too, the moment when I began to connect online with the many clever, sex people (mostly women) who have inspired me on my journey. At the same time I took up running and joined a local club. I now train twice a week and have a few 10ks under my belt. I feel fitter and healthier and this impacts too on my self-image. I feel desirable. This, in turn, brings me back to sex, well, sort of.
Running is, if not directly, erotic, a deeply sensual experience. This starts with dressing for a run, the way the leggings mould themselves to the leg and the groin, and then there is the running itself, the being in touch with the body in an incredibly intense way. As I run I am aware of my body, and, as I slip into a rhythm and head for that mental state where I pass from allowing thoughts to flow randomly through my mind to the state where active thought stops altogether I am filled with that sense that I am my body. My body is me.
When I think about an altered state of consciousness I am reminded of something else, of what kinky people call sub space. The parallels are striking. The initial struggle, the pain and the drive to overcome it, the passing of the pain as the endorphin rush pushes us on into another realm of consciousness that is actually an incredible oneness of mind and body, the high on which it finishes and in which we remain for a while afterwards, the low that comes later as the high dissipates (what in kink circles is called sub drop).
My interest in kink was, until recently, that of an interested bystander and I spent my time at clubs on the sidelines. Recently I took the plunge and submitted to a spanking during an evening at a fetish club. I finished on a high that reduced my to tears as my play partner took me in her arms to look after me after she had covered my buttocks in angry red marks with a variety of floggers, crops and canes. At times I had to fight hard against the temptation to scream ‘yellow’ or even ‘red’ to halt the stinging blow that were raining down on me. But, as with my running, I gritted my teeth and stuck it out to the finish line. I am so glad I did.
Eve's Temptations 