Struggling into Submission

I never considered myself submissive in the past. I've been called willful, rebellious, stubborn and contrary. I tend to be argumentative and to want my own way. I'm more selfish, rather than selfless. Focusing on the needs of another has been something I've resisted in the past. My service-orientation has been limited to my need to tend to my children, the only place I've truly understood the satisfaction of making things better for someone else. In short, I don't tend to the traits associated with submissives. I admire these traits in others, and the lack of them has at times made me feel unfeminine.

How then, did I discover these hidden and powerful places inside of me, the latent desire to be overtaken, the longing to kneel before another, the wish to be made to do that which I do not want? Why would I ever bend to someone else's will? I honestly have no idea. How do these conditions translate to fulfillment,the sexual and emotional and spiritual completion?

What I know is that "it", the desire to submit, was there within me before I knew the words, and that it's been something I've resisted most of my life. In fact I would guess that significant portions of my personality have been the direct result of my efforts to conceal and shield my real nature from those around me. My brattish manners, my need to challenge anyone I react to in a way I now recognize as submissive ... I've been in battle perpetually with this part of myself. I recognize it in the panic and turmoil I felt, and still feel when exposed to overt submissive behavior, or when confronted with dominance. I struggle to contain these feelings, to resist them, to not look.

My awareness of what exactly it is that was setting me off began when I entered the bdsm scene, thinking I was there only to explore sexual play or, rather, play that would enhance and feed my sexuality for later expression in private. I was interested in spanking, whipping, bondage - as though I could experience those activities in public and bottle up the results for later on, fodder for my private sexual life as a married woman. I had heard the term submissive but doubted it pertained to me.

My interest or need revealed itself as agitation at first. Outrage at the idea of ownership when I heard it discussed. My distress at a photo of a woman in pearls and formal wear eating her dinner off the kitchen floor, at seeing my friend wearing a collar and leash. Later, at being told I had to ask for things I wanted such as a kiss. Wanting to be close to someone, knowing there was no place to sit but at his feet and the senseless concern over how to get from standing in the middle of the room to kneeling beside him. Confusion over where these feelings were coming from - why out of the blue would I have a compulsion to kneel before someone, where does that originate, suddenly and unbidden? And more importantly, where do these kinds of compulsions lead?

The need to submit, in my mind, goes beyond and through the easier sexual sort of submission that makes my heart speed up and my body tremble. That can be done in the context of a sex game, that level of submission is easy ... hold your arms here, touch me there, don't move - innocent games any lover can accomplish for fun. Where it becomes tricky is the place, the line where trust and control intersect, where I have to abandon and release my own preference, instinct, want and intuition and replace it with the directive of another. In sexual terms its the difference between the lovers game of bondage, of force and resistance, and the more subtle relinquishment of will. The elimination of restraints and force, the need to take morphed into those things instead being offered.

Offering implies freedom. But I don't think that to be the case, because I've learned to offer things I don't desire innately on my own, not from my own need or purpose. At first the offer is insincere, an effort to please, to meet the expectation, to avoid disappointment. Later I sense it will be more genuine, an automatic response. Holding still while clamps are applied. Not pulling back despite an instinct to do so. Relaxing into pain rather than resisting. Learning to sigh instead of cry out. Most difficult, offering something when I so much want the option to say no, or to be able to change my mind after we start. There is an offering, but the word is also synonymous with sacrifice, which I find more accurate. In that sense, offering as a submissive is similar to an offering made on an alter to appease a personal God...it is usually either something precious, difficult or painful to give up, or something requiring work or effort. Very different from taking, more difficult for one resistant to submission. And therefore, more profound?

Its the being observed and left open to judgement or rejection, the vulnerable place where I put my lips to a boot, kneel, cast my eyes down and say Yes, Sir and am not laughed at for the emotion and passions that erupt. In my life it's living in certain ways according to the preferences of another, the desire to avoid disappointing someone that makes me try harder and make different choices. In sexual terms its surrendering my body to the desires of the other - receiving pleasure yes, but the pleasing more, experiencing the joy abstractly, as a function of proxy.

Today, I still "resist" because I enjoy the sensation of my walls. I've waited so long, it turns out, for this ... guidance that I need to feel it's presence. I crave the stern tone, the reproach, the glance that makes my knees buckle. I strain in his presence to not kneel on the floor because I want to prolong the moment when I do so, either at his hand or on my own. It's the descent downward that thrills me, the elevator ride I take from belonging to myself to belonging to him. I want to feel that change, experience the transformation again and again. It's nearly as moving to not submit in the midst of my strong compulsion to do so, like holding the breath, knowing the relief that will come when it's released, when I can let go and exhale and know I am safe.