I realize this isn't the case for most people, or doesn't seem to be. I think for most, submission and D/s are a sexual kink, something that only works within the context of an intimate relationship.
I recognize now, that while I can have a D/s experience or encounter or elements of submission outside of a love context, I do not think I can experience true love outside of a D/s context. The act of serving another, of being helpful and nurturing and caretaking is what inspires emotion in me.
This has made motherhood rewarding for me, knowing that someone else needs me, that they appreciate or enjoy what I do for them, that I am making my children's lives better by the things I do. I personally know self-proclaimed "service" submissives who make special shopping trips to buy things to prepare for dinner for their dominants, who don't derive the same gratification for doing for their own children. I don't get that. To me, serving the needs of those I love, whether a child or a Master is fulfilling - not always in the same way, maybe the difference between one kind of meal and another, but the contentment and satisfaction, the heart-fullness is the same.
As far as romantic relationships go it's been more complicated. I have often sought out dominant men as lovers, however, these encounters did not always result in long lasting relationships because of that lack of will or desire to dominate that others discussed (see my earlier blog on this for links). It was never enough for me to just be involved romantically or sexually with someone who was naturally dominant. I wanted to be pushed, and molded and made to do things I did not want to do.
One relationship in particular comes to mind, for I think he was a natural dominant, but had no idea what he was interested in was D/s, or if it was he did not share this with me. He did refer to me once, I heard later, to his friends as kinky, so perhaps he knew more than I thought, but we never discussed what we were doing at all, let alone in D/s or kinky terms. He tied me up for sex, he ordered me to strip for him, told me when to move and when to not move...but my willfulness in other areas, the things I did for attention, knowing he wouldn't like them, hoping he'd punish me and tell me I was his and that I was forbidden to do them any longer, that he wanted to control me outside the bedroom ... these things drove him away. My childishness and inability to understand and communicate what I wanted, why I was doing these things, lost the relationship.
I was heartbroken. The intensity between us made it difficult for me to get over him the way I normally had with other relationships. So I deliberately steered away from any repetition of that kind of intensity and ended up married to the wrong, albeit safe person. My needs for caretaking and nurturing were met, as I viewed him in most ways as another child. However, my sexual desire and interest in him dissolved. I assumed it was age - I was 30 - and that those feelings were just something that disappeared when you got older.
To be honest, my life felt more sane, more in control that way for awhile. I felt I'd finally grown up - and I had all the responsibility to prove it, as he assumed very little, allowing me to take care of everything, finances, the house, planning, being the grown up. He on occasion would exert his authority as the man of the house I suppose, but my response was only resentment because I didn't feel he was entitled to this control or authority because I was the one making the money and doing the housework and raising the kids while he lived a comparatively stress free life.
To me, the only reason for this resentment is the lack of his will and intent. Had he been different, had the life we lived been in the context of a D/s construct, I would have contentedly done the same things, viewed my work as service, viewed his handing over the tasks I did as an honor, rather than as a sign of his inability to do them himself.
Our marriage began to dissolve, as I began, for a variety of reasons, to awaken from this frozen state I'd tolerated. I realized abruptly how utterly lonely I was. Being alone began to be more appealing than being lonely in a marriage. I began to develop crushes on characters in books I read, for God's sake - all these feelings I didn't feel for him, I felt for imaginary others.
We began to discuss our problems and attended some group seminars and in one of them the topic of sexuality came up. For the first time I described to him what I liked. He did some research and told me I was submissive. We began to play at this. Just hearing the word "submissive", just the idea that I had this label to put to myself and my desires was life changing. I was in a constant state of arousal, it was as though I were a teenager.
He really didn't have to do anything other than demand sex, and my mind did the rest - I called myself a slave, considered him my Master, my mind dwelt on the knowledge that he could do anything he wanted to me, that he owned me. I honestly have no idea what went on in his mind. It honestly didn't matter, I was having a fantasy and he was going along with it and it worked at first.
However, for me a huge part of this, at least in the realm of intimacy is sacrifice, being made to do things because someone else wants them. I really related to the other posts, in the sense of wanting, at some point an acknowledgement of your submission, a demand of it, a pushing or luring.
This kind of thing requires a certain type of intellect. This is not a caveman thing. My dear husband was a pretty simple, basic person with very uncomplicated needs. This is how he could remain married for years in what he experienced as bliss, to a woman who was suffering a soul death. Without his desire for my submission, a need to impose his will onto me, we failed.
It was the introduction of discipline and pain into the mix that did it. I wanted to be spanked, punished. I wanted rules, limits. He began by making me go to church - something he'd never had any interest in during the prior years of our marriage. I believe now he was hoping Jesus could cure me. I went to church, soaking my panties as I repeated in my mind that I was there as an act of submission to my Master.
Ultimately though, in our seeking (read: my seeking) out of others to guide us in our exploration - and by others I mean community, not individuals - we fell apart. I wanted to run headlong into the bdsm scene, relieved to find there were others like me, my family. He was appalled. We would look at a scene underway, my mind reeling as I saw a woman spread out and helpless upon a cross, her body writhing under a whip, focusing on her bound wrists and spread legs, imagining myself in her position, my husband wielding the whip, whispering to me to relax, encouraging me to take more for him, stroking my body and telling me I WOULD take more for him. My husband saw only a man torturing a woman. He was repulsed by me.
The rejection of one's mind is far worse than the rejection of one's body. To know, finally, that what he loved and wanted from me was only my body and my paper doll wifely-ness, not my submission, not my will, not to know me fully and completely as a person was only a revisiting of my anguish months earlier. I'd taken a risk, exposed my parts to him as I had never done to anyone and he was unable to love me.
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