Changes to My "View" of My Masochism

Morningstar asked, in her comment to the last post:

"i wonder if you always had this "view" (for lack of a better word) towards masochism? Or is it something that has just crept up on you??"

I am honestly not exactly sure how to answer that question. To tell the truth, I am not sure if my "view" of my masochism has changed, or if my physical and emotional experience of it has changed, or if the way it is being "done" these days has changed. I suspect that it is some combination of all of those things.

What I'm going to say here represents MY sense of things. It does not match Master's view in a lot of the particulars. That seems to be a big part of the difficulty right now. Even having come this way together, we are looking back over the same territory and seeing entirely different scenery. I really find that scary sometimes. But, oh well... Here's the story as best I can make sense of it:

When I first started "playing" with Master, I'd spent years longing for a relationship that would recognize, acknowledge, and simply honor that part of my "self" that I have come to call "masochist." In the beginning, deep pent up frustration and a lifetime of suppressed fantasies fueled our play. We explored with an abandon that was giddy and emotionally charged and starry eyed.

And I was younger.

And I bore no scars.

And I was full of hopes and dreams.

And I hadn't yet crashed into any of the realities of this lifestyle.

And I was not sure about even being a masochist. The very word was one I was learning to wear with some difficulty. Still it was clear that what fired my deepest fantasies lived in that realm.

Our play, in the beginning was fierce and intense and passionate -- and probably not entirely prudent. We played almost daily, in sessions that often ran to an hour and a half or two hours, running through the entire "arsenal" of implements from floggers, to straps, to canes, to paddles, to quirts, to canes, etc. Every "toy" was wielded for 50 strokes or more. Those sessions came, over time to include some fairly strict bondage as well, which I had trouble with at first, but then learned to embrace as a "security" thing. I never bled. I often would end a session exhausted, but my recollection is that it was an exhaustion that was happy, soft, secure. I'd feel I'd "won" in some sense, and I'd feel proud of the accomplishment. I was always welted and bruised, but I wore the marks happily and relished the warmth and sensations.

Eventually, things shifted. I began to break and bleed at every session. Too, His increasingly arthritic knees no longer allowed the use of the floggers and quirts and whips. They simply were too difficult and require too much physical energy and stamina. Age took its toll on us both. He began to pare down, consciously or otherwise. And the sessions began to "collapse." The collapse was a sort of telescoping in terms of time and the selection of implements. Along with the shortening and paring down of the implement selection, what I've "felt" is an emotional distancing between us. The sessions have become (from my perspective) mechanical, utilitarian, cold, and as stripped of all erotic content as it is possible to get. He paddles or spanks or whips or whatever, at whatever intensity He has in mind, for however long He wants, and when He is done (which is usually when He is turned on "enough") then we fuck. I understand that this is what pleases Him, and I have tried to learn to serve by learning to "do" this kind of play, although I find them very, very difficult because there is no chance for the help of the endorphin high, and so little erotic connection to lean on. Again, this is my perception -- I am the one who experiences these sessions as beginning and proceeding abruptly, severely, and without much in the way of verbal communication or erotic touching or "other" sensation. When I try to explain that as a "loss" to Him, I am almost always met with a reaction that is incredulous.

At first, I thought it was a temporary or maybe situational or even "sometimes" shift that would be an addition to our play style. I simply believed that we would sometimes (or maybe even most times) do what I thought of as "efficiency" spankings, but then sometimes get back to the more erotically charged, gently-graded, longer sessions of our beginnings. It took me a long time to finally understand that those were gone for good. He, I believe, has made the changes in style for good, and caring reasons. From His perspective, all the shifts have been made to spare my hide, and to make things lighter and easier on me. The loss of emotional and physiological response content is not something that He comprehends at any level -- it is a "bottom vs. Top" vocabulary gap that I have been unable to bridge. When I attempt to talk about what I miss, or what I long for, or what I reminisce about, He "hears" reference to play that, in His mind, was far more brutal than what we now engage in, and I believe that He feels that I am unappreciative of how He has "scaled back" in order to accommodate my more limited capacities. I know, because I have heard Him say it (incredibly), that He fears that I might someday claim that His SM play with me is "abusive," and so land Him in legal trouble. Hence, there is an essential trust issue that hinders our relating and communicating about this from the outset.

I still believe that I have intact masochistic responses. I honestly believe that my erotic orientation is submissive and masochistic. I am convinced that the physical and health limits that have constrained us for so long have pushed our dynamic into an odd and skewed configuration that makes it hard for us to relate in sadomasochistic terms or to balance our power exchange roles consistently -- it is too easy to slip out of Master/slave and fall into "nurse/patient," or some other crisis-based model that throws us out of alignment with one another.

I want the masochistic experience that takes me where I know I can go. That requires a partner willing to take me there, even if I fuss and rage and bleed. Somehow, the diminishment of aging has robbed me in a way that I could not have predicted or imagined. It is something I cannot overcome, although I can cover it cosmetically. When it comes down to it, I cannot hide the fragility of my skin. However, that fragility has cost me in terms of my own self-confidence, and it has cost me in terms of His. We have backed away from one another. I want to submit. I can muster some of the courage it takes. In the end, though, I need His hands and His words, and His strength. I am too weak to go the whole distance alone. When He backs off in the face of my weakness, I feel abandoned. I think, in shortening, in reducing the range, in backing off, He has felt He was "taking care." The effect though is akin to leaving half the trapeze act without anything to catch onto...

I believe that there must be very few roles scarier than that of sadistic Top. Not only do these Ones go against all that our society says is proper, polite, and "right," but they most often walk straight into their own darkness and ours as well. In doing so, they have to trust that we, as partners, will play fairly and steadfastly in our mirrored roles as the "bottom." When personal history leaves room for doubting that partners will be constant, it becomes even harder to invest in that way. He and I are walking a difficult road to learning to trust after long, difficult, unhappy personal relational histories. What we are learning together is about way more than the mechanics of how and where to land a flogger or a paddle. It is not simple or easy.

It has to be worthwhile. This I believe.

swan