So! Cute!

My dear friend, the wise and wickedly hot Patrick, commented on a thread I’d started on Facebook. Someone has started selling little flower hankies for flagging, which I think are adorable and clever. Patrick, not a firm believer in the power of flagging, had this advice for those attempting to suss out the topworthiness of a potential date:

“The test for for tops, for instance, is the same as for properly cooked pasta. Throw the man against the wall. If he sticks, he’s a bottom. If he comes back at you with fists flying, well, you’re a bottom.”

So let it be written, so let it be done!

Now excuse me. I’l be seeing @TheDominantGuy in a scant 165 hours. I gotta get buff in preparation for throwing him against a wall.

Sometimes, you gotta get off the highway.

On Sunday, September 5th, 2010, I got hit in the face with an epiphany about my journey in Leather, in slavery, that shifted my paradigm, re-routed a stifling blockage of self-pity, and enabled me to take back a part of me that felt broken and damaged.

It was a massive reset.

I was at the Master/Slave conference. I was looking forward to attending a class by Skip Chasey, and early on in the course of the discussion, he expounded on one of his more controversial positions: that mastery and slavery were arts that one could only be said to be engaging in if they were actively doing so. You couldn’t call yourself a master if you weren’t the owner of a slave, and an unowned slave wasn’t able to be called such. This was a sickening drop for me…and it only got worse when he referred to those who weren’t actively walking the path as “wannabees”

I was wrecked. (more…)

…yeah I know. This sock puppet thing is hilarious.

Anyway, silly pseudo identities aside? Thank you.

I can’t say that I ever thought I’d be riding the particular train of thought that I’ve been running today, but I realized that I was feeling a particularly profound gratitude that hit me rather unexpectedly.

A great deal of my apprehension about being involved in a relationship with someone who was poly and married was what seemed to me the obvious weirdness of having to suss out how to relate to the other people in his life, especially with his life partner. My own baggage included fear of feeling very much “less than” the others. Or of being rejected, or treated awkwardly, or…or… (more…)

Someone asked me yesterday if I still identify as monogamous. Well, yes. And to me this is obvious. However, I can see why it might look like a gray area. I’m involved with someone who is poly. So does that make me poly, too? By being in a non-monogamous relationship configuration, aren’t I giving up my identity as a monogamous person?

Fuck no.

Let’s look at some definitions. One from a dictionary…

pol·y·am·o·ry

noun /ˌpälēˈamərē/

The philosophy or state of being in love or romantically involved with more than one person at the same time

OK…nope. How about wikipedia?

Polyamory (from Greek πολύ [poly, meaning many or several] and Latin amor [love]) is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

OK. I don’t do that, either.

So, no. So, what am I now? Monoflexible? Poly-friendly? Dumb as a bag of wet mice? (more…)

I’ve started to actually dig it when I hit on a communication block with TheDominantGuy. Not that I enjoy wrangling per se: I do not. But in the past 11 months or so in getting to know TDG, what has been consistent is the erosion of my defensiveness around communication blocks and his capacity to keep on truckin’ until we have sufficient understanding, can mirror back our individual stances and truly know what the fuck the other is talking about.

Unsurprisingly, in this Mercury retrograde, we’ve hit a couple of “What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” moments. But tonight’s discussion underscored a vital lesson for me.

TheDominantGuy had asked me a question about something I’d said, and I had that moment of “Oh Lord, this question is deceptively simple.” I answered it as best I could, and the discussion got Mariana Trench deep real fast. I’m better about getting defensive than I was in the past, before knowing him, so I took a deep breath and answered as best I could. I would ask if my responses had answered his query, I got back a “Yes, mostly.” and would get hit with a re-direct.

OK, re-re-direct.

Alright, Here is my other take on it.

And this one.

And this.

Still not closing the deal.

“I know I’m a good communicator…why is this so hard?” I wondered. (more…)

So often I hear submissive / slave types say “I know my (dominant/owner/master / mistress) would never reallyharm me, and that is why I trust them.” and it made sense. It made sense but somewhere there was a loose thread in that thought that my mind picked and worried for years. Of course we need to feel completely safe in order to submit completely, right? I mean, who would be so stupid as to submit to someone if they felt that someone were capable of doing real harm?

Hand raised.

I think it is hubris, frankly, to believe that you can trust someone completely. People are complicated mechanisms, with many moving parts. And sometimes, they break. Every day someone somewhere “snaps” and you get those interviews with neighbors who shake their heads in confusion “But they were such a nice family…” “He was such a quiet guy.” “She seemed like a wonderful mother!” and some gruesome story unfolds in the wake of these puzzlements.

(more…)

Yeah so I’m making some broad sweeping off-the-cuff generalizations about some recommendations I have for dominant types. Take it or leave it. But if you leave it? You suck. So there. Nyah. Feel free to add your own off-the-cuff recommendations in the comments!

Insist on having us tell you what is really going on for us…and then listen without defensiveness.

It can be amazingly difficult for us to open up on tough things. If you create safe space, encourage and insist upon hearing the feedback, and keep it flexible, being encouraging and supportive means that the lines of communication are healthy and open and strong.

Apologize specifically for your fuckups and missteps, and talk about how you can avoid repeats.

Too many people have this “The dominant is always right.” attitude. You are human. Humans are fallible. Putting yourself on a pedestal only means you have that much further to fall. Taking responsibility for yourself reinforces that you can take responsibility for us as well. (more…)

She’s big tonight. Big and persistent and not backing down and I have far, far too much on my plate and mind and heart to coddle the demon. She trots back and forth in agitation. Barking an incessant litany of failures…the shit I ain’t done, ain’t never gonna do, the projects over which I’ve been sweating, the other projects on which I’ve fallen behind because of workload and overload and fretting and

…and you know what else?

What.

 

I don’t actually ask it as I’m staring into the light on the ceiling glowing below the ceiling fan, its blades spinning air into invisible currents that I feel like maybe…just maybe…I would be able to see if…

This submission thing you’re supposed to be doing. Isn’t it his job to tell you what to do? Why the fuck do you have to do all the heavy lifting with this emotional shit?

 

I wonder whether or not people can will themselves to dissociate. I’m pretty sure I don’t believe in it…

Did it ever occur to you that sometimes people are there to help you figure out how to shovel the shit out of your own soul?

She sneers

It is very convenient how you manage to make this shit OK with your miraculous ability to justify anything. You are getting pretty fucking pathetically desperate with how much you’re compromising of late. Look at all the shit you swore up and down were not acceptable attributes for a partner and you’re just giving them all up one by one. You’re a mess.

 

 
(more…)

…I don’t always get it.

Today I came face-to-face face-first with my Dark, dragged by the scruff of my neck, grasped tightly in the teeth of my own personal demon, who was tired of my whining. Well, Bubbles calls it whining. I’ll call it feeling a bit depressed. Or as I like to put it, emotionally recessed. Depression is another few miles walk from what I’m feeling. I think the blues is a term that best encapsulates my situation.

Yeah. Bluesy.

Lots of reasons for that. My life has an unfamiliar shape. I’m recovering from being abruptly shoved off of the roller-coaster of spending over three weeks living with The Dominant Guy and Mrs. The Dominant Guy, and being in service. Lots happening there, most of which was surprisingly…good…culminating in attending a big-ass con, doing some big-ass play, which itself culminated in my getting my tiny-ass nipples pierced.

Go big or stay the fuck home, right?

(more…)