Alysa Liu is My New Favorite BDSM Girlie

The way I discovered Alysa Liu amuses me and makes me understand more why people cheer on sports team. I first saw her in the team event, stepping behind the skater Milanin, who just won something. They were happy and I’d assumed all those people standing around him were his friends and family. One of them had raccoon hair and so I called her “raccoon girl.”

Then I learned that all those people were other skaters, and that raccoon girl is my skater. I was at someone else’s house while I was watching all this, and so I kept watching as the hours dragged on and people were doing things, and called the people over when raccoon girl came on to skate. I had learned that she was supposed to be a very good skater and was winning a lot when she was younger.

She had on a fun outfit. It was like white and strappy, with a tattered gray skirt. At this point I started calling her BDSM raccooon girlie in my head. She reminded me of Christina Perri vibes, with Christina’s piercings and tattoos, and then really romantic flowy love songs.

I didn’t make too much of it. It was my own private joke. Then she won gold and was giving a lot of interviews, and then one stood out to me, with Teen Vogue:

“I love doing stuff that I really don't want to do, really hard things. I get a kick out of it, and that's where I'm happy.”

I thought that was quite cool and very BDSMy indeed. I see some of the fun now of uncovering more details about someone in sportsworld. It can be fun.

The thing I like about real BDSM, and pretty open public BDSM, is that it’s not just about “doing the weird fetishy thing” but is actually about getting a certain kind of joy that pain is the mechanism for. There is a realness to the pain and to the joy. Finding that kind of relationship between them and using that relationship to make your life better is pretty neat.

I thought of that quote when I went for a run today. I didn’t want to go for a run, but thought I’d do some uphill sprints. I was running and thinking “now twice as fast!” every 10 seconds or so, and that was fun. It was also painful. Yes! The ethos was working.

The way I discovered the Hellraiser series is from this Rick and Morty Clip where Rick and Morty are hanging out with basically the Hellraiser demons.

“This is painful. Therefore it is pleasurable. Therefore it is painful. Therefore it is pleasurable!”

This stuck with me as a joke, but also I kept keeping my eyes peeled for when it is not a joke. The idea of increasing my suffering capacity because the suffering is joyful is cool.

This is different from an “existential kink” though which I am into, but that is a different thing from BDSM. The book Existential Kink describes a method of shadow work which gets you out of long-term holding patterns. It is a way to help you break free of stagnation, with the main idea being that you’re already doing what you want to be doing and so why change? Then, the pathway to change that is described is by really letting yourself enjoy what you are doing, and the reasons you are doing it, so that you the joy of it very fully, get bored of it, and then decide you want to do something else. By letting yourself really feel the intense want and the fulfillment of the want, you are not chronically edging yourself. Once the pleasure is gained, you are free to do something else that gives you pleasure, perhaps the “next thing you’ve been wanting to do” that you’d been feeling blocked from pursuing in your quest to fulfill that edging mission.

I like existential kink. I consider it related to BDSM, but also different enough from trying to apply Alysa’s quote in your life, and so “I get off doing really hard things I don’t want to do” is worth talking about.

I think if I practice coming up with one thing every day that I “really don’t want to do” and then finding a way to squeeze joy out of it, that would add a dimension of excitement to my life I would be very happy about.