For those who have to keep their participation in the hobby a secret, which I guess is most of us,  how does it affect you?

Do you get a frission of pleasure from having a secret life, such as it may be,  or does the necessary deception and undergroundness of your participation in the hobby detract from your enjoyment?

I get the frission, but my life is otherwise so dull and full of quiet desperation, I'll take whatever pleasures I can where and when i find them.

One aspect of having a "hobby" is that is gives a mechanism to associate with others who share similar interests and passions... TER kind of provides such a forum... I know other sites do as well, but there is a community here... of sorts!  

And secrets are fun too.

Since I'm not at a point yet where I can build a Secret Volcano Fortress filled with ninjas from where I can hatch Secret Plans of World Domination... the Hobby will just have to do

O.

"Secrecy" is a euphemism.  For most of us it means lying.  It's not something I'm proud of, and I'd rather not have to do it, but the attraction of meeting a sexy woman in a hotel and doing the wild thing is just too great.  I don't stay up nights wracked with guilt, and I certainly don't let it detract from my enjoyment of the act, but the fact is that if you have people who are close to you, having a secret part of one's life requires lying.  I think Leonard Cohen said it best:  

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
  - Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows", 1988


filmat11


-- Modified on 8/15/2007 5:57:32 PM

Actually the secrecy does nothing to affect my feelings about the sessions.

Sometimes it makes my life more stressful when I have to work my schedule around the sessions and can't really explain what I'm doing with my time.

It also frustrates me when I want someone to talk to about a great time I had or just want to blow off some steam when I had a bad session.  I could always post on these boards but it's not the same as being able to talk to a real live human being.

I'm divorced, unattached, and fully intend to stay so.

I do smile however each time I pass a copper on the way to a session.
One night in fact I was stopped by a copper on the way home from a session for a faulty tail light. He being typically cop-like inquisitive asked me where I was coming from so late at night. I matter of factly told him I was returning from having anal sex with a hooker in the next city over. He was so dumbfounded he didn't even ticket me for the equipment violation.

I'd much rather be up front with my wife about the hobby, but that's a sure no go. My need for secrecy and my ATF's need to keep some aspects of our relationship from her SO definitely detract from our enjoyment. But, not so much that our meetings aren't spectacular.

I have found in the past that 80% if not more  enjoy having the "secret" as much as they do getting their happy on ..
IDK why it is this way but it is sort of like living on the edge with wonderful memories to take with ya to the grave ..

I look at it from the point of view that a person can (and maybe should) have that part of his or her life that nobody else knows about.

So whether it is secrecy or privacy, it neither adds or detracts from the pleasure I get from the hobby. It's just a part of my life that I don't share with family and friends.

Being divorced with no plans to remarry, as a previous responder stated, secrecy is not something I dwell upon.  No, I don't tell all my friends about my hobbying, but several of them are aware of it, with different reactions.  

My family is not aware, because I just don't want to hear their comments, especially from my two sisters.  And of my two sons, one would probably not care, one would likely be upset.

The fact that, for the most part, my hobbying is a secret has no affect on my life in general.  Since I don't have a SO to hide it from, I feel no pressure to keep it a secret.  And I don't have to explain where the money went, which is probably the hardest thing to hide from the SO.

Swim

It's a French word meaning a little thrill. If you want to actually use this word in conversation, you should listen to the recorded pronunciation on the Merriam Webster site, since it is pronounced as in the original French.


From Merriam Webster - www.m-w.com:


frisson

Pronunciation:
   \frē-ˈsōⁿ\
Function:
   noun
Inflected Form(s):
   plural frissons
Etymology:
   French, shiver, from Old French friçon, from Late Latin friction-, frictio, from Latin, literally, friction (taken in Late Latin as derivative of frigēre to be cold)
Date:
   1777

: a brief moment of emotional excitement : shudder, thrill "produce a genuine frisson of disquiet" — Patricia Craig