Love and Submission Part III

In the first two entries about this topic (inspired by other blogs I read, links to which are available on the first entry), I discussed my thoughts on D/s experienced entirely as a non-love, non-romantic response, purely submissive, without the requirement of the will or knowing involvement of the dominant. My second entry was about the connection between love and D/s, whether D/s can work without love, or in my case, I question whether love works without D/s.

I have found myself in love, of course without an overt D/s component, but for me the elements are already there in every love. I always have tried to shape myself into what I believe the loved one wanted me to be, in an effort to please them, to connect better. We all want to put our best foot forward in any new relationship, to impress and woo the other. I suppose you can view submission as the willingness to take that a few steps further.

I think that is where it becomes tricky. Is D/s possible in the context of intimacy without love at all? I still believe so. Respect is necessary, trust is necessary, but I don't believe love is.

This has come up in my own relationship with my Sir, because I certainly was submissive to him long before I knew him well enough to love him. Love has made our connection deeper and more interesting, more passionate. But it is the trust and the respect I harbor that has enabled me to submit and then to love him.

I can submit casually, more of a bottoming than submission I suppose, to any dominant if I choose to in a playing context. I will leave them in control of the pace, the order, the intensity of sensations or activity. Just as I can submit to an authority at work and enjoy that same thing, functioning within a structure set up for me. None of that requires love, although on some level there needs to be respect and basic trust.

But the deeper levels of emotionally submitting, not just giving my body over to someone to play with, but allowing them access to my mind and being vulnerable does not come easy. Letting someone hurt my body is nothing. Opening up to allow them to possibly hurt my heart, or my ego, or even damage my mental health is another. My Sir has taught me to be more cautious, to be more careful even in casual play, before I trust someone simply because we're in public and "what could go wrong"?

My Sir recognizes that I used to give my body easily, even while clinging to my will. I think he has at times suspected I took him casually, before he learned to see through my feigned indifference and emotional removal. His response has been to show me consistently and steadily that he is there, an unchanging and unwavering force in my life.

I often read about women not hearing back from their doms, going for days or weeks with no contact, feeling ignored or anxious when they write or text. While I have endured times of less frequent contact with my Sir, it has been well over a year since I've felt the panic and wondering, the constant anxiety of separation, of worry over whether he cared or would be there for me. Despite our not living together and our distance from each other, his presence and control is with me continuously.

This sense of security and the freeing lack of concern about where I stand with him is only made possible through trust. This is why he is the only one in the world who knows who I am, that I write this blog. I can open up here anonymously, but no one in my life, not even my kinky friends, know who I am. I am not Lyla on FetLife.

It's taken us a long time to get to the point we are now, mainly because of my past, in particular my experience with my ex-husband. Along the way there has been a great deal of balancing between us, he has even had to extend trust to me first in some ways, before I would take the next step and give him a little more. I read in another post, the comment that you are trusting your Dominant, as he is trusting you with his desires, and that's entirely true. I think D/s relationships are inherently more risky, we are more vulnerable with this type of exposure of our selves than most people have to be to achieve intimacy, especially if we've suffered at all because of our proclivities.

I think that's another reason I see so much more willingness to compromise between those who are in D/s relationships. An example is the number of people who are doing D/s long distance or who are in open or polyamorous relationships.

It's not simply about being more open because you are kinky. It's about understanding the rarity of finding someone who pairs up with your needs, and for me at least, the kind of love I feel for my Sir is based on making him happy. If that happiness included his involvement with another, I would be more understanding than I think I've been in other relationships because I know how difficult it can be to find these things in others, to find someone who pushes your buttons in the right ways and who is also responsible and sane.

I also trust absolutely that my Sir has my best interests at heart. Unlike others I've known, he engages in the introspection necessary to evaluate his own motives and needs, and weigh them against mine. Not much about him is transparent to me, but even I can see how he has slowly and steadily taken me down a path I know he foresaw months before we got there. I appreciate that time, because it has made him familiar and comfortable to me, made my slow relinquishment seem natural. And while I love and crave the feeling of being made to do things, he knows better that there are some places I might have gone too early, that would have made me feel unsettled, rather than at ease with what we are.

So while, yes, I love my Sir, it is not that which binds me to him and inspires my submission, but the confidence I have in him, the trust that he knows where he wants us to be, and that I can let go and give him the reins for both of us.