Sorry for the long absence-- Life is just life!

Hello Fine Readers!
We are still here, still together and still rolling in The Kink.    This blog might be a little bit fragmented, because there is a lot of stuff that I want to touch on...

First, Winter Sucks.  There is snow literally up to my ass in New England at this point, and in case I never mentioned it, I am tall!   It's bullshit, I hate it and there is nothing I can do about it.  Control Freaks like Me hate shit like that!  So there.  It sucks, time to move on.

It's Valentine's Day.  I hope you made it a happy one!  I was greeted this morning with the most loving and wonderful text that it brought tears to My eyes!  The way that tomio loves me is unlike any love I have ever felt.  It's the kind of love people dream of, write of and paint for...  the kind I never thought I would find.  I am grateful for him every day!    I love you smoochieface!    Yes, yes the mean Dominant Mistress of Wickedness just called him a silly name.  Deal with it.  LMAO!

The other thing that Valentine's Day means this year is the release of 50 shades of bullshit, the movie.  While it amuses me to no end that churches and the uptight citizens brigade is all up in arms about the the movie, the reality of it is that, as I pointed out in My blog of July 2012, the books SUCK! They are baldy written, filled with the lamest sex scenes in history, loaded with inaccurate stereotypes of BDSM play, and worst of all it portrays blatant abuse as Kink.   I am not going to rehash all of that nonsense, I wrote it once, go read it here, http://fortheloveofdominance.blogspot.com/2012/07/50-shades-of-you-have-got-to-be-kidding.html

While I am not going to get into it all, I can't believe that they made a movie out of it!  Now all of the people who don't read, but still think BDSM is something they want to see, are going to go and get an eyeful of BULLSHIT!  They are going to see systematic abuse wearing the guise of Kink.  They are going to see a depiction a man being able to remove someone's consent by having them sign a piece of paper that they do not understand.  They are going to see rape, emotional abuse, neglect, mistreatment, maniacal control and all of it is going to wrapped up in a phony package called BDSM. Once I was hopeful that it would open the door for people to stop thinking of it as dark, creepy, dangerous and scary.   I wanted people to be able to see it a just another way people interact and private way to get needs met between two consenting adults.  That was a pipe dream.  This is going to color it darker and increase the stupidity level.   I am so disappointed and angry about it...  I can't even express myself correctly.

Ok so on to a more vibrant note.  We are still here, still kinky and still very much in love.  There have been emotional times over the past 8 months, medical issues, money issues and stress.  Lots of stress, but we push through it all.  There have been times when our visits were not about the kink at all, but about two people with the need for loving contact.  We have cuddled and watched movies and sprawled in bed, wrapped up in a bundle of arms and legs, just staring at the TV.   It's OK to do that, because its what we both needed.  We talked about needs and wants.  Sometimes we had big plans for all sorts of naughty deliciousness only to have the actually time dissolve into tears and needs that were well outside of the Kink...

Here's the thing:  We are a couple that is involved in Kinky things, we play Kinky, we having Kinky toys and talk Kinky. I am always Dominant. That part never changes because it is a not a role that I play, it is who I am.   My tomio is always submissive.  It is who he is. But the bottom line is that we are still PEOPLE.  We have wants, needs, hungers, fears, feelings and our time together is about filling the voids and making it all right again.  Sometimes that is not Kinky.

That being said, our last visit we found our way back into the full blown Kink (Wicked grin) and it was good, damn, it was good!

Desire, Romance, and Submission

During a recent conversation, just before our last weekend together, Mistress said that She was craving romance. Immediately, my mind went to all of those trite stereotypes: flowers, candle-lit dinner, poetry, whatever. The problem is: Being submissive, and bending to Her directions sort of means that it is difficult for me to spring such things on Her. And if She were to say, "Okay, be romantic..." - I'm not sure I would know how to obey.

I think this is an issue (in fact I know it is) for many non-BDSM relationships. She craves romance and he is clueless about how to feed that hunger. But with our relationship it was more than that - not only was I clueless, but I also needed permission to act.

Or so I thought.

Talking with Mistress afterwards, I discovered, much to my amazement, that She had felt very romanced during our time together. Apparently, I am much more romantic than I thought (patting myself on the back...). This only served to further confuse me. How could I feed Her need for romance without even being aware of it? Without even trying to?

I put the question out on Twitter, and got back some helpful input. But the best information, of course, came directly from Mistress. I'm sure She will discuss it from Her end, but from my end, it boils down to this: Romance is the experience of loving abandonment put into action.

I always rush outside to meet Mistress when She arrives. In fact, the first time we met, She nearly hit me with Her car because I was actively moving towards Her before She came to a complete stop. But my hunger for Her touch is so great that I simply cannot wait patiently. Greeting Her means touching Her, kissing Her, letting out all of the hunger and the need that I bottle up when I must be away from Her.

Because She can feel how deeply I mean every touch and kiss, this is romantic to Her. And I must say that I can see how having someone nearly running in Your direction just to kiss and touch You would be romantic. But only because I am not doing it to be romantic - if that were it; then it would begin to feel contrived and hollow.

When She arrived, She was exhausted from Her drive. So when She laid down, I rubbed Her feet with lotion. From my perspective, it was simply an act of service that She should not have to ask for. She was tired, and I tended Her. It was a rather mundane act of love. I honestly had no idea what it meant to Her until She brought it up as an example.

Again, I think the point is that it could have been something that She ordered me to do. If She had; then it would have been just as meaningful to me - I would still have been doing it for Her. But because She did not have to order me to do it; then it moves into another realm for Her. Because I did it without being told simply because I knew She would enjoy it, it became an act of love.

Men, too often, confuse "romance" with "desire." Or sometimes, "that silly thing we do to get women's underpants off." Based on my new insight, I don't think romance and (sexual) desire are as intrinsically linked as men believe. Romance is making the other person feel like they are prized above all others. That means it's very unique and personal to both people involved. What's romantic for one person is not for another - or even what is romantic for one person at one time may not be romantic for them at all times. It is both experiential (feeling) and active.

There is, of course, a sexual component to romance - call it "sexual romance." It's that point where the slow dance becomes something more primal. Where the feeling of slipping a strawberry between Her lips becomes sensual and arousing. Where sexual desire is unpent and directed at the only person whose existence matters at that moment. It's where sex becomes the most intimate possible act of love and devotion.

So the issue over how to be romantic and submissive really disappears with this understanding. It isn't as simple as just doing more of what I already do. It is going out of my way, even a little, to make sure that She feels loved and desired and...

And She knows that it is only for Her. Not in spite of Her, nor because of Her, but simply for Her. Because what I feel cannot be held back, it guides my actions in a romantic, desirous, and thoroughly submissive manner.

Submissive fantasies are...problematic

For years, I had no reality upon which I could base my fantasies, or against which I could judge them. I think my fantasies were largely based on what I viewed through FemDom porn and/or erotic literature. In these, Domination is almost always coupled with sadism and, to a lesser extent, humiliation. So it went with my fantasies.

My reality with Mistress Delila is much different. There is some pain involved, but it is not necessary to push the boundaries of pain simply for me to feel "truly submissive." I can honestly say, as well, that I have never felt humiliated by Her...although We have discussed and agreed that certain things contain some amount of degradation, the two are not synonyms.* In other words, my time with Mistress Delila has changed the way I view submission and Dominance, and so it has changed the way I view myself, the way I view Her, and the way I view representations of Feminine-led D/s.

My initial reaction was to blame the mismatch on the source of my information. In other words, I figured that FemDom porn was sort of poisoning my mind. But as I considered it, I realized that it was not exactly that clear cut of a relationship.

The fact is that I enjoyed FemDom porn because it matched some of the preconceptions I brought to it. The women were beautiful and dressed to accentuate their beauty. The ropes, the physical pain, the pegging, even (to a lesser extent) some of the verbal abuse resonated with my inner desires. What FemDom porn did was simply to put together images and archetypes that had been bouncing around in my head already. The problem was that it became a self-reinforcing cycle - any fantasies that could not be visualized began to fall by the wayside. Or, eventually, I began to move away from FemDom porn to female masturbation videos.

This is an important step. For me, submission is practically meaningless if the woman to whom I submit does not enjoy it. It can't just be acceptance. She has to want it, to demand it, to be enthralled by Her power over me. Anything less is just being an actor on a stage.

So I was better able to engage in my mental world better if I simply saw a woman enjoying her body than I was with the more explicit FemDom images. I could enjoy her pleasure, which is a much bigger trigger for me than is the pain or degradation. But when I would think of submission, and when I would write about it, I would almost default back to the intense and explicit language of FemDom rather than the erotic servitude of Feminine-led submission. Why?

I think I made a connection while involved in discussing the concept of "rape fantasy"as it was being discussed on a chat board.. I have to put that in quotes because I don't think it is possible to want to be raped...because rape is being forced against one's will to have sex (rough definition, I know). Beyond that, a person controls their fantasy completely. So it is, at best, a mental exercise to fantasize about having no control over something one always has complete control over. In fact, it is probably impossible.

What happens, I think, is something like a defense mechanism kicking in - call it a "fantasy mechanism." Because it is impossible to actually lose control in one's fantasy, the fantasy gets stretched to include things that one would not generally want. What I wanted was to turn over total control of my life to a partner who would enjoy that power (and not actually be abusive about it). But it is very difficult (impossible) to fantasize about what someone else would enjoy, particularly when it is not actually known who that "someone else" is.

As I have turned my life over to Mistress Delila, I have found myself engaging less and less in fantasy. When I try to do so, I am often confounded by trying to approximate the surrender I experience with Her. Knowing what it really means to submit to Her - giving up control of what will happen next and how it will happen - means that it is just not possible to maintain the illusion of powerlessness in a fantasy that I am turning the pages on. So it is just unsatisfactory.

So, too, have I found that FemDom images and videos simply do not hold the interest for me that they once did. It is just an unsatisfactory parody of what We enjoy. And despite the obligatory female orgasm in such media, it doesn't really appear to me that the women enjoy themselves all that much...and they don't seem to like the men involved, either.

This is a long way around of asking this question: Is part of the reason for the state of FemDom portrayals this inability to conceptualize a malesub fantasy? If so, does this just not speak of intellectual laziness? Even more to the point, does it not speak to devaluation of Dominant Women? After all, if we wanted to know what kind of porn might turn on a Dominant Woman, all we have to do is ask, right?

I think that is a discussion worth having. Not because of the wank fodder that will result (and let's be honest, the point of sexualized fantasies is to ENJOY them). But because letting submissive men peek inside the Dominant Woman's mind will give him an alternative to what he's being fed by his own inability to conceive of what She wants and by the porn industry that sees that as the One True Path. Because when Dominant Women are comfortable (and brave) enough to open up about what excites them, then we will begin humanizing them and seeing them as the loving and worthy people they really are.

*"Degrading," as I am using it, simply means to [somewhat] forcibly lower another person's standing relative to one's own; "humiliation" is to forcibly lower another person's value relative to one's own - related concepts, but vastly different. So degradation says, "I have status above you and you are beneath me (therefore I can direct you how I want)," while humiliation says, "You are worthless to me (and your needs are immaterial)."

Submission to touching

I found this little gem today, and it truly resonated for me. It resonated because...I truly need touch. I cannot function without it.

Our first face-to-face meeting was when She picked me up at a hotel to take me to dinner. As We sat there, staring at each other and trying to decide if what We had been feeling was still there...something inside of me literally broke. I think I may have gasped as I grabbed at Her hand and shoved it under my shirt so that Her palm rested against my skin. Then I sat there, nearly crying, my head bowed, and waited for Her to scold me for being so forward.

And She didn't.

I don't know what Our first touch was like for Her, but for me it was like...coming home for the first time in my life. I'm not someone who generally puts much stock in auras or energies and whatnot, but Her hand on my flesh fed me that night. I felt bottomless as I leaned my head against Hers and She gently stroked Her fingers against my skin.

She ran Her hand over my scalp (I'd begun shaving my head about six months prior to our meeting). It was if angels were singing an old chorus from my childhood church days, "Ye who are weary come home!"

And I was so weary. So hungry. So empty. And She stood at the brink of the abyss and began filling it, drop by drop, touch by tender touch.

It was that moment in the car, when I first felt Her touch, that I knew I belonged to Her, and with Her.

I say that there is good karma in holding a crying man. Taking his head to your breast calls to some deep emotional place of desperate want and nurture, and the tears come in even the most dominant, independent and hard of men.

I am far from dominant. But Mistress Delila has held me while I cried, and She has held my head against Her breasts to comfort me. I would not belong to Her as I do had She not done so.

For a lover, there is no replacing a woman's hands grazing his chest lightly in post-coital bliss. There is no substitute for her hair falling across his body as she lays in the crook of his arm. There is no equal to her breast, warm and welcoming. Even hand-holding becomes a sacred thing.

Amen.

What is dominance to a submissive?

When Mistress Delila asked me to write this, I joked that it would be easy. "Dominance is Mistress Delila."

That's certainly true for me, but it doesn't help anyone who isn't involved with Her.  And, as it turns out, it isn't so easy to define "dominance." It's kind of like describing the taste of celery. You know it when it is in your mouth, but until someone has sampled it, it's kind of hard to talk to them about it.

In psychological terms, dominance is simply the tendency to assert control over others. In our individuality-driven culture, dominance is sometimes seen negatively - as is submission. In reality, they are simply human nature. When they are mixed in proper measures between two willing partners, they create a strong and intimate bond.

Of course, any personality trait can be distorted to the point of neurosis, if not psychosis. Television shows like CSI and Law and Order make their bread and butter out of stretching personality traits into psychoses. So the most common example of dominance that is displayed on television - especially if one looks at sexual dominance - is that of the predator, the bully, the rapist, the homicidal sociopathic sadist.

Americans, in particular, seem to have difficulty in determining levels of subtlety.  At least, they do when it isn't their own life under the microscope. So those of us who are not involved with power-specific relationships are all-too content to lump anyone who seems "different" into the same bin as the dangerous and loony. In a way, it's natural. But that doesn't mean it's right.

After all, dominance is also a trait of people we refer to as "natural leaders." Should we force them to be mediocre just because...well, it sounds better? Should we sentence our next generation of leaders to the loony bin just because they are actually good at it? God, I hope not.

So at a basic level, "dominance" is a personality trait. But when a relationship is to be based on dominance, it becomes more than that. It becomes the cornerstone of the relationship. It is the touchstone to which all aspects of the relationship must return in times of conflict and joy.

Dominance in this respect is not simply making demands and expecting them to be obeyed - although there is certainly that aspect. It is accepting leadership of the relationship in order to create an atmosphere of trust in which the partner can remain submerged in submission, without fear of being abused or damaged. It is accepting the responsibility of guiding the relationship so that it can be successful.

Dominance is a way of relating. It is a way of loving. It is an obligation and a duty to the relationship in which is expressed. Sometimes it is sadistic. Sometimes it is fawning. Sometimes it is as simple as sending me across the parking lot to get something out of the car. Sometimes it is as complex as telling me to plan a menu for our vacation, including a shopping list and a budget.

For me, it is also a reward and a necessary ingredient for me, a submissive man, to fully express my love and affection. Dominance is Mistress Delila.