Favorite Posts -- Sadist Taking What is His

Here’s another one of our most popular posts from the past:  On March 21, 2006, I wrote a piece that was called “Sadist Taking What is His.”


It followed a period of some months during which I was recovering from a hysterectomy and our sadomasochistic play was (except for very light, almost sensual play) entirely shelved in the interest of my health and well-being. When at the end of that medically imposed hiatus, He determined to take us back into our lives as Master and slave, it was a decisive and definitive event – one which made a huge emotional as well as physical impact on me and on Him. We didn’t know or understand, when that post was written, what sort of path would have to be traversed to achieve “recovery” after that surgery. "Sadist Taking What is His" has, looking at it from this distance, an almost naïve and innocent sound to it. We were both so thrilled to be back that we never once contemplated that there might be unseen hurdles on the road ahead.  How very typically human the two of us seem even in the most extreme enactment of our alternative sexual orientation!

I think that people come back to this bit of writing for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is remarkably evocative. I am not entirely sure, at this point, what the timing was – how long after the session described here did the writing occur? I cannot remember. If I had to guess, I’d venture that it wasn’t long – it just sounds to me like I was still awash in endorphins; barely back from the far corners of subspace. I also think that people find it fascinating because there is some imbedded understanding of the nature of the M/s dynamic, and specifically the interplay between sadist and masochist, that is encapsulated in the final line of the piece:

The masochist needs the sadist to take what can only be offered. It is a duality that cannot be realized in the singular.

Looking back is such an interesting exercise. Reading this piece, I am made aware of what was, and how different that is from what IS; what has come to be. On that day, back in the early part of 2006, I was braver and sturdier (even post-surgically) than I’ve been in the intervening years. I can hear the optimism and the hopefulness in my “voice,” and I know that the “me” that writes here was only a matter of weeks away from sliding into depression and despair. What was looming was a personal sojourn in a place of emotional darkness and storminess – and clearly, on this day, I had no idea. How very odd.

Too, I am struck by the complete confidence He had in His path and His rightness on this occasion. There was no sense of hesitance. He took us both where He wanted us to go, and when we arrived there, we were right with each other and safe in one another’s arms. It is instructive. There is a reciprocity to power exchange. Although it seeks to create deliberate inequality, it is not grounded or founded in an inherent inequality. To do it well requires that partners have each got personal power to share; to exchange. A careful reading should make it clear that, although I am the bottom partner, I am a full participant in the endeavor. It is a rich and heady depiction of the life that we share, and though things have changed in the intervening years, He and I still find our way to those shores together, and it continues to be an amazing journey.

swan