Littles and Furries and…

…Homo’s, O, My!”  That’s what Kenny said last night, as he looked around Ms. Constance’s living room.

The little’s and the furry {i think there was actually just one} are stretched out on the floor coloring.  Kenny is representing the gay contingency himself, and therefore has the liberty of using the “Homo” label.

It’s an interesting gathering ~ Ms. Constance’s Thanksgiving celebration on the day after.   Ten or twelve of us enjoying fabulous pumpkin pie, Cookie Slut’s caramel blondies, some kind of cake, and even my own chocolate covered strawberries. 

We had just gotten through talking about horse cocks.  No, not the real thing, although i think the conversation started with someone remember a person who was hung rather like the equine stereotype.  Or maybe Sir started it by asking about where He could find an authentic riding crop.  Who knows…

In any case, the conversation turned to replicas of specific horse cocks ~ i mean, how would you know if it was really Secretariat’s cock or not?  And sperm whale cocks too, ‘Nilla.  Apparently some vendor at an event was selling them.

Most of us felt that the regular dildo’s that one attaches to the shower with a suction device were adequate for our needs, without requiring one that was so big that ~

 ~ when you set it down on the table, the weight of it bent it over “like a slinky.”

As Ms. Constance said, who thinks that’s an attractive description of a cock?  Have you ever heard someone say, “O, god, his cock looks just like a slinky?” like it was a good thing?

No, me either.

Anyhow.  We talk about how they got the models for the casts of the horse and whale cocks.  We were imaging all kinds of things, but Ms. Tammy straightens that out.  Apparently, they take pictures and create a 3-d model from the pictures, so “no animals are harmed  in the making of these cocks.  Or aroused!”

Anyhow, i sit at Sir’s feet for a long time, which is interesting to do in front of a room full of people.  Firsts…  

Eventually, it gets too uncomfortable, and i move to a chair.  We old submissives get to take some liberties here and there.

But it’s a delightful get-together.  Lots of laughter, and the pleasure of being able to talk about those things we  don’t usually share.

Of course, it isn’t all kinky.  Drew tells a wonderful story about him and Ms. Constance on their way out to dinner on Thanksgiving, stopping to help a 90 pound Hispanic man trying to push a small truck up a slight incline.

Drew’s linguistic skills come into play when he has to convince the man that his 250 pound friend, who’s steering the car, should actually be pushing instead.   “El Grosso hombre ~ HERE,” says Drew…

But it works, and the larger man and Drew are able to push the vehicle back into a service station/ parking lot.  At which point, one of the men in the lot looks up and says, ‘Truck won’t start?”

With a snort, Drew says, “No, we were just bored and thought we’d get out and push the truck around a while.”

He cracks me up, Drew does, and then Ms. Constance, who may have heard his snort, reminds me of my little, harmless snort at the event the other afternoon.  And Sir Charles graciously confirms that it had, indeed been a snort.

And i have to laugh, because i’ve gotten in trouble for a smart ass reply to Sir that very day.  You can imagine how comfortable i’m feeling that i decide to share the story with this crew of folks.  

It starts with me in the kitchen ~ making chocolate covered strawberries, actually.  Sir is talking about the bamboo poles He bought at Lowe’s.  He says,

“I’ve been thinking about maybe tying them together.  What do you think would work better?  To use them separately, or to tie all three of them together?”

And i say, without missing a beat, “i think they would work better in the garden with the roses, Sir.”  And, um, i laugh.

{It still makes me laugh.  AND it was an honest answer.}

Sigh.

Sir is not so amused.  He says something about missing an opportunity to give my thoughtful opinion, and He barely gives me time to wash the chocolate off my hands before i find myself bent over the bed, panties down, while we experiment with the bamboo canes.

Yeah

i think that we are actually not through with that experiment, because He only used one by itself, and then two and then three together, but now He wants to try each one in combination with each of the others… and yeah.  You get the picture.  Once again, i will “pay with my ass.”

And it would be good if i could quit feeling like i’m going to giggle every time i think about it.

Anyhow, everyone laughed as i told the story, and Ms. Constance was moved to gift Sir with a souvenir of the evening.

It’s a dowel rod, with a handle added, painted a lovely red.   

Just what Sir needed, right?   i’m sure i won’t forget the 2012 Thanksgiving celebration at Ms. Constance’s.

“Thank you, Ms. Constance.”

Giggle….

Day 24 ~ Questions ~ 30 Days of Submission

What are the emotions that most directly let you access submission? What feelings do they inspire?

This question confuses me ~ is it emotions that let me directly access submission?  How does that work? 

When i feel ___________, then i am able to directly access my submission.

Nope.  Not working.  Multiple choice?

i am able to directly access my submission best when i feel:

a)  sad

b)  mad

c)  glad  or

d) scared

Nope.  Doesn’t make sense to me.  And those are the four feeling groups.   They say that all other feelings are either varying degrees or combinations of those feelings.

Often, we confuse thoughts and feelings.  We say, “i feel like…. blah, blah, blah,” but what follows is not usually a feeling, the “blah, blah, blah” is not a feeling, it’s a thought.  

Feelings are usually one word, not a phrase or sentence.

Is “submissive” a feeling itself?  Some odd combination of all the feeling groups?

Maybe.

Yeah.  Think about this.

When He grabs my hair at the base of my neck, i feel submissive.  

And it’s a process, right?  It happens quickly, much faster than i can describe it, but it’s a process.

There’s a physical response ~ my heart beats faster, my breath quickens, i may blush, i feel hot.

Ok, that’s anxiety.  Or fear.  That’s a response to danger.  

Hmmmmm.

That’s the flight or fight response, but instead of running or fighting, i relax into it.  i know i’m not in real danger ~

~ although i stay in a state of alertness, right?  On edge, intense awareness of the moment, my environment, and Sir.

Physically, my body is responding to danger, and my mind knows i’m safe.  So there’s relief and risk all mingled together.   i feel aroused and my pussy gets wet and i demonstrate my submission.

i open to Him, in some way i signal Him that i’m not fighting His demand on my body, whatever the demand is, but i’m open to Him.  

Like dogs in a pack drop to the ground, belly up, to signal their submission to the alpha male, i do too.  In some figurative way, through body language or words, i concede to His power and control. 

Lots of anxiety in submission, even if i don’t label it that way, that’s what my body says.  

Last night, Sir said He would put me to bed.  Usually He waits til i’m in bed and tucks me in, but last night, while i’m brushing my teeth, He turns the covers down.

He leaves a long piece of rope on the bed where i would lay.

Heart beating faster, i wonder what the rope is for.

He has left the tether next to the bed all day.  Now there is rope on the bed.

What is He going to do?

i’m not actually surprised when He ties my wrists together.   He ties them in front of me, and tells me to lie down.

The ends of the rope seems short ~i’m thinking, ‘i won’t be able to move!’ but i lie down, on my side, which is how i sleep anyhow.  The rope reaches the tether, but without much room to move.

He attaches the rope to the tether.

“But, Sir,” i say, “i can’t roll over, or anything.”

“No,” He says, matter-of-factly, “You can’t.  Can’t touch yourself either, can you?”

“No, Sir,” i say.  

i can’t touch myself, can’t cover myself with the blankets either, i’m exposed, laying on my side, attached to the tether.

His hands are on me, as He does now when He tucks me in, His hands stroke my body, as if He is taking inventory, yes, there are her flanks, her breasts, yes, the nipples still get hard, legs, thighs.  His fingers explore my wetness just long enough to confirm my arousal.

Then He covers me with the sheet, pulls up the quilt.  

“Go to sleep,” He says.  “I’ll be in soon.”

Turns off the light and leaves me there.

In the darkness.  Tethered.  Helpless.  Tingling.

And safe.  

i fall asleep.

When He comes to bed, He unties my hands.  Half-awake, i feel Him loosening the rope, unwrapping my wrists, and smile.

He slides into bed behind me, spoons me, while His hands check my body one more time.  Like He’s leaving His mark on me, the imprint of His hands lingers.

It is such a mix of feelings that make up feeling submissive… is it fear followed by relief, mixed with some version of glad?  i don’t know.  More to think about.  

But i think “submissive” is a feeling itself.

**************************

Before all that, yesterday evening, i went to the fourth Sunday munch,  and had a lovely time, chatting with Ms. Constance mostly.

Now that she’s joined the ranks of bloggers, that’s a whole ‘nother topic for us to explore.  She blogged about the munch too ~ check it out here.  

She mentioned the 30 Days of Submission writing project that some of us submissives are doing and mentioned that she’s considering coming up with some questions for Doms/Masters/Tops.   Probably not 30, but some.   Wouldn’t that be cool?

Fear and Guilt

In all the excitement of my life, i missed the Special Interest Groups discussion yesterday.  i realized it was the third Sunday about half an hour too late to go to the discussion.

Greedy girl that i am, i really wanted to do that too.  Visit my grandbaby, help Sir get moved, AND go to the discussions all in one lovely Sunday.  But it was really just too late.  Even if i drove really fast.

Sigh…  and it was on one of my favorite topics:  Fear and Guilt.

Here are the questions, from the Fetlife Event Page:

How do guilt and fear fit into D/s relationships?
• When are guilt and fear unhealthy and harmful, when are they good?
• Is it ethical to use guilt and fear within relationships and if so, how and when?
• What good benefits might guilt and fear bring?
• Is guilt more pervasive in one orientation than another?
• Does guilt serve a useful purpose?
• Are there ways to use guilt effectively and ethically to manage behavior?
• What, if anything, do you feel guilty about your own desires in terms of S&M and D/s relationships?
• Which do you find to be more crippling, guilt or fear?
• What’s the first thing you remember feeling guilty about in terms of S&M and D/s desires?
• Do you believe that we as a community allow fear and guilt to dictate our actions? How valid is that fear and guilt in the larger sense?
• How do you feel guilt can be handled within a spiritual or religious framework?
• What’s the biggest fear you have about your own orientation?
• What do you think is the biggest fear other orientations have?
• Is it ethical to use fear in scenes?
• Is fear always something that should be overcome?
• Are there instances you can think of wherein guilt or fear made an otherwise good relationship unworkable?

Lots of questions…  Ms. Constance always looks at Jackie, who leads the submissives’ discussion,and says, “And you know, you don’t have to answer all the questions.”  Which is a good thing, cause we usually don’t.

  • When are guilt and fear unhealthy and harmful, when are they good?
• What good benefits might guilt and fear bring?
• Does guilt serve a useful purpose?   Is fear always something that should be overcome?

So i’m going to talk about these four questions, cause in my mind, they go together.  My answer would have been:

Fear and guilt are feelings, so of course they serve a purpose.  Guilt lets us know that we’ve done something wrong, and maybe that we need to make amends.  Fear is our alarm system ~ it lets us know when we sense danger or a threat of some kind.  

Feelings aren’t good or bad.  They just are.

The trick is to sort out when feelings are fact based and when they’re strictly emotional mind, or a false alarm.  Just because you feel something, doesn’t make it true.

So i can feel guilty as ~ guilty as sin ~ but that doesn’t necessarily mean i’ve done something wrong.  i can feel tremendous fear, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that i’m in real danger.

It does mean i need to pay attention, right?

Feelings motivate behavior.  So if i’m afraid of spiders, and that motivates me to jump on a chair when i see one, there’s probably a safety reason built into that.  From the safety of a chair, i can assess whether it’s a poisonous spider, and how best to get rid of it.

But if i have to stay up on the chair the rest of the day, and i can’t sleep that night, or the next night, because i’m afraid there will be more spiders, fear is no longer serving a purpose.

On the other hand, if i’m afraid of jumping off a cliff, that’s probably not a fear i need to overcome.  Yes, the divers in Mexico do it, but i probably don’t need to face and challenge that fear.  That would be a real danger for me.

Same thing with guilt.  When we’ve done something wrong, guilt sends us that message.  It motivates us to try to remedy the wrong.

But lots of times, we carry around other people’s values and feel guilty about not doing what other people think we should do.

For real, guilt needs to be about our own values, and being true to what we believe in.  “Healthy” guilt goes away once we’ve made amends as best we can for whatever we did wrong.

In the lifestyle, of course, fear takes on new meaning.  Riding a roller coaster stimulates all the physical indicators of fear ~ but many people love doing it.

In the same way, BDSM takes us to the dark, scary places of the psyche ~ and many of us thrive on that.   And here it gets more complex.

Rope suspension can be an adrenaline rush like a roller coaster.  But so is confessing you like to be spanked.  Having to say it.

There’s no real danger in either situation, at least neither one will kill you, but facing and overcoming some of the fears associated with it can be powerful.

Gotta go now – gotta be at work early, time to shower and get on with the day.  What do youall think about guilt and fear?

One More Thought on “Being Broken”

In the comments on my last post on this, Joyce asked a question and i wanted to make sure i’m being really clear on this one.

Joyce seems to bring what the Buddhists call a “beginner’s mind” to the blog world and this isn’t the first time one of her questions has sparked a whole post.  This time she asks:

“Do you effect changes in behavior (pushing the limits) or “break” and completely restructure the basic personality of self to suit the Dom?”

So, i don’t know how one would completely restructure someone’s basic personality to suit the Dom, or to suit anyone.   “Basic personality” {not a technical term} is a combination of temperament and early experiences.  While you could damage someone so much that they no longer seemed like the same person, i can’t imagine that being anything positive.  i think Mouse and Jade both make that point in their comments.  

Mouse says:

We come here with our personal baggage, mouse’s baggage includes being broken and damaged by an uncaring dominant type.

i’m glad she says “dominant type” because i would argue that someone who abuses another is not “dominant” but simply abusive.

Jade says:

i have been broken in ways that destroyed my sense of joy, peace, excitement until i felt less than human

but then she goes on to say:

And that–has absolutely nothing– to do with what i think a slave is truly seeking when they are walking the path you speak of.

i was relieved to hear her say that, because it’s essential to recognize that when we’re talking about “being broken.”  Even in the extremes of TTWD, there is a difference between M/s and abuse.

Getting back to Joyce’s question, LM asks for the experience of “being broken.”   She says, “i want you to break me.”

Later, she goes back and defines that as:

Breaking me is pushing me past my boundaries, exploring my limits, making me cry, pushing me to painslut sub space where I completely rely on him to be everything in that moment, my tormentor and my savior, simultaneously.  When I am there all the noise in my head stops and He rules…. a very simple, visceral place, that moment..

It reminds me of The Teachings of Don Juan, where the seeker finds oneness with universe through peyote. Some people may even reach their version of “that moment” through mindfulness.

But the key factor here is that LM wants this.  Yes, her Dom originally says the words, but she wants it.  

Joyce, i think you’re thinking about some kind of intense training in which a Dom might teach the slave to behave in certain ways.  i would still argue that “basic personality” is not going to change, but i could be trained in ways that are pleasing to my Master.

“Being broken,” in my mind, is part of a spiritual journey of the submissive or slave, not for the benefit of the Master or Dominant.  So the experience is not really about Him or Her, it’s about the slave.   

This is only one of the ways that BDSM crosses paths with spirituality.  Back when i saw Raven Kaldera’s workshop at Cope last year, i became more aware of and more comfortable with that concept.

And i’ve been thinking about it as we talking about “breaking,” so i was delighted to see that my friend, Ms. Constance, has blogged about the connection.  

{Yes, ‘Nilla ~ our Ms. Constance has her blog up and running, isn’t that cool?}

You can read what she says here.  i’m curious to see what youall think about what she says.  And i’m glad to have the chance to introduce you to Ms. Constance.  She’s interesting and funny and wise.   i think you’ll like her.

In baby news ~ we have contractions, ~ well, my daughter does, not i, thank goodness ~ but they’re not regular yet.  Maybe today…  🙂

 

The Munch and More

Sir and i got together yesterday afternoon before the munch.  He’d said we were going to  do something mundane, but fun.  And it was.

We went shopping. 

We had never been shopping together ~ well, the grocery once, but that was a quick late night trip.

And ~

~ we went shopping for shoes.

Life doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

We found two pair  ~ white tennis shoes, and black dress shoes.  Both size 10 1/2 wide.

O, did i forget to say ~ it was shoe shopping for Him, not me…  {laughing…}

As He reminded me, it’s not always about me.

i was allowed, once He was finished, to wander through the women’s section once.  i didn’t actually spot any “have to have” shoes so that was good, and we proceeded to the search for a new shirt.  

Yes.  Also for Him.

It was fun actually, partly because He’s fun and partly because i’m wild about HIm.  i don’t remember the last time i went shopping with a man for His clothes.  Actually, i’m not sure i ever have.

Have i mentioned that i’m wild about Sir?

Anyhow, then we went home and got ready for the munch.

He seemed pleased with the little black dress i was wearing, so that was good.  And Ms. Constance commented on it, which made me smile.

We were greeted at the door by Mr. Michael ~ and Caile, wearing some adorable bunny ears.  Jacki was handing out candy ~ i took a bracelet.

i wore it all night ~ it looked great with my dress.

Laughing… anyhow, it was a delightful evening.  Drew was there, Ms. Constance’s slave, who is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  He has such a lovely Zen feel, and a wry sense of humor, which is an unusual combination.  But it was wonderful to see him, and Ms. Constance too, who i haven’t seen in forever.

Then Sir and i went home.  

i had been waiting to have “the conversation” until i was in a most submissive frame of mind.  That happened pretty quickly.

He slips a finger through my collar to pull me closer.  Fists His hand in my hair.  i am immediately in a different head space.

Even before He grasps my right nipple and pinches firmly.

But that  makes it much easier to explain the whole issue, and tell Him how i feel.  Well, except for it being a little difficult to find words, or to talk at all, but i manage.

And He listens, as He does so well.

And it doesn’t take Him a minute to make a decision.

“You should email me every day,” He says.  “At least once a day.  I’ll answer when I can, most of the time, but I want to hear from you every day.”

Which is really all i needed to hear.

Happy sigh.

And now here we are, at the kitchen table together, having slept til daylight once again.  This could become a Sunday habit.

Happy Easter and Happy Passover, and just general happiness to all of you!

Ms. Constance Comments…a Little More on Leather

Ms. Constance’s had some additional thoughts to share on earned leather,  She put them in the comments, but i thought they needed space here.

Thank you, Ms Constance!  🙂

Thanks to all of you for the comments.  There are, of course, things that I realized I should have added, once it was out of my hands, but isn’t that the way it always goes?
I should have said, for instance, that if your goal is to get a piece of earned Leather, then you’re not there for the right reasons and, as it is so often perversely true, that path probably won’t lead you to where you want to go.

I should have said that not only Leather people should be participatory, either.  I’ve never had a taste for people who belong to any group, whether it’s a church or a bowling league, and never seem to really DO anything for it or with it other than show up for the occasional Christmas service or championship.  If something matters to you, whatever it is, then dig in and DO something with it and for it.  Even if you don’t get a nifty leather vest out of it, you’ll likely make friends and get a sense of accomplishment.

I should have pointed out that earned Leather isn’t limited to tops, that regardless of the orientation you can earn Leather within the community.  The only limitation I have ever heard of is that the actual pieces of leather given are sometimes different, the main difference being that only a top would ever be given a Master’s cover.  A Master’s cover is the leather cap that looks like a military peak cap, often decorated with chain or metallic trim, which signifies that one is viewed as a Master by one’s community.

I should also have said that I believe that nepotism is also not appropriate in the earning of Leathers, in that if a slave believes his or her Master has earned Leather by dint of their work, they should not be the one to lobby that it be presented, as a top shouldn’t give Leather to their own slave and call it earned Leather.  Gifted Leather can be just as meaningful and is perfectly appropriate, but in the same way that when the boss’ son is named the CEO of the company, it leads to speculation as to whether he would have earned the position on his own, gifts of Leather from those with whom we are in primary relationships are likely to seem to be less valid than one might hope.

I’m sure there will be more things that occur to me, because that’s the way I am, but I am glad that you all found this useful and/or entertaining.

Ms Constance