New Look

He and I have gotten into watching movies together.  Sometimes I swear that we pay for 250 cable TV channels and still there is nothing to watch.  And... it does seem like that sometimes.  It is particularly an issue in this part of the year when football season has ended and baseball season is yet to begin.  Over the last few weeks, we've watched both the Bourne Identity and the Bourne Ultimatum.  Neither of those are going to ever qualify as top drawer theater, but they are fun, and they do have some entertainment value.

I feel like I am coming back to life these days.  That survival thing has finally begun to recede, and along with it, the "survival look" is starting to let go as well.  For me, the "survival look" grew out of a belief that it mattered not at all what I looked like.  He was going to be angry and bitter and resentful and just plain mean ... no matter what.  Why bother with all that girly stuff when no one cared anyway?  Passing through the hell we all endured, I stopped doing the things that were once just part of my normal routine.  I quit shaving my legs and underarms on any sort of regular basis -- especially in the winter.  No one sees the fur, so why bother?  I moved to wearing very prosaic, very plain clothing.  My school wardrobe is very practical:  slacks and sweaters.  Nothing flashy, and definitely nothing "sexy."  Weekends and evenings?  I've gotten into leggings and sweatshirts.  Yeah.  Not awful, but not alluring either.  For years, I colored my hair; tending toward strawberry blondes and fairly subtle red shades.  But that, too, has fallen away.  I've just let my hair be its natural color -- a dingy mix of dull brown and even duller gray.  I have even gotten into "cutting" my hair myself; trimming my bangs with a pair of scissors and using an electric clipper to keep the sides cut short.  Not attractive, but functional and cheap.

And then ...

Watching the Bourne movies, I began to contemplate those "Bourne Women."  I became fascinated by the transformation that inevitably ensues when a woman becomes entangled with Jason Bourne.  Always, as things evolve, they find it necessary to alter their appearance and become "less recognizable," and it seems that the way to do that is to cut their hair very short and then dye it a dark, almost black.  So, there are these predictable scenes of beautiful young women, in dingy bathrooms, hacking at their own hair with scissors, and then washing out that very, very dark hair dye.  And, if the movie scripts are to be believed, the move to raven-hued and cropped locks renders them almost impossible to resist.  Sexy!

So, thing 1 plus thing 2 added up to my own "Bourne Woman" transformation.  After all, I already have the short-cropped thing going on, and a decent haircut by someone who actually is trained and knows how to do that gave me the impetus to go ahead and try out the darker color, too.  It felt sort of daring and a little risky.  I'm not at risk of being shot at by some unknown spy agency, but I do have to appear in front of a host of people who are between 11 and 14 years old.  Talk about a "tough" audience!

I considered lots of color choices, and finally settled on a color that is called "Cola," I read all of the directions and timed it all carefully.  I washed the dye out and rinsed and conditioned and dried and took a deep breath -- looked in the mirror, and saw my own face looking back at me from underneath my new darker mop.  And...  I loved it!  I know it is a small and insignificant thing.  I know that I'm no 20-something Bourne beauty.  There's no denying the age in my face.  I've earned those lines and every mark of character that gives away the story of years lived.  Still, I love my pretty dark hair, and the sparkling eyes that show even deeper framed by that "cola" color.  I might not be the one that enchants the Jason Bourne's of this world, but I sure like the look ...

swan
 

Turning the Queen Mary

There are things that happen quickly and easily, but turning an enormous, ocean-going liner, like the Queen Mary is not one of them.  In the days of screw driven ships, turning around in the open ocean was an undertaking that might take two or three hours.  Today's modern ships can be turned in as little as 30 minutes... although probably it takes longer in the tight quarters of a harbor.

Sometimes, I think that what we are trying to do, as we work to bring our relationship around and set it on a new heading, is a lot like that... turning the Queen Mary.  We have to overcome the momentum that carried us along our previous path. We have to overcome the inertia of a long-term relationship with plenty of history.  We have to create new patterns, find new currents, learn new habits, try to understand an intimate world that is completely "other" than what we recognized before.

In the world of big ships, the thing that does the work of making that turn happen is a small flap on the main rudder called a trim tab.  In terms of the physics, a small adjustment in the trim tab, changes the dynamics of the ship's motion, and so creates the turn with way less effort and energy than you might expect.  A small, effective change can be the beginning of a much bigger movement.

For us, the small triumphs; the seemingly ordinary moments, the otherwise unremarkable happy events act as that relational trim tab.  And so, when we find our way, as we have this weekend, into spankings that leave us flushed and giddy, when we make love, when we enjoy a pleasant meal, when we come out of  a movie feeling like we've shared something special together...  it is way more than what it might seem on the surface. What those things become for us, are the trim tab that helps us change the direction of the ship we've been sailing.  If we are to finally succeed in turning the Queen Mary here, then I think this weekend was a beginning.

swan

Alcoholism Recovery #1

We are at the end of the first week of intensive outpatient treatment for alcoholism, and when I say "we," that is a very intentional reflection of the most basic learning we've done this week:   

THIS IS A FAMILY DISEASE.  

If someone in the family is affected by the use of alcohol, then the whole family will show signs of the disease.  So it is that, while He has been attending His required and prescribed series of classes and AA meetings, T and I have also spent time in both "class" and group therapy sessions.  Tonight, we will attend a nearby open meeting of AA -- as a family.  We've ordered a whole shelf full of reading materials, spent time doing online research about the various aspects of alcoholism recovery, and begun to shift our thinking and perceptions to move us, each and all, toward recovery together.  It is all so very new, that we are feeling like we've been dropped suddenly into the middle of some foreign land without a map, with no useful language skills, and with no idea at all which way to proceed. 

I've come to my computer probably a dozen times in the last few days, my head full of swirling thoughts and feelings -- and been completely unable to get words to line up reasonably here on the screen.  So many things that I could say, and then there seems nothing at all for me to say.  I cannot remember when I've ever had so much trouble dragging my thoughts out into some sort of acceptable prose.  In some very significant ways, life seems so completely different than it was that I've questioned the very foundation of our lives together.  I find myself wondering how it can be that who we are together this week remains at all consistent or congruent with what we have been for so many years, with the story we've told here for well over 9 years. This post then, is my attempt to travel back through the archives here to find words from myself to myself -- I really need some wisdom for these days, and I have sometimes thought that I knew what I was talking about when it comes to knowing about "us." 

We do not, as one commenter guessed, engage in SM play anymore.  It has been months.  If there are people who look in from the outside and wonder about the state of our power exchange, and clearly there are some, they are no different than we are -- questions of power and control linger in every minute of the day.  Having admitted to being "powerless over alcohol," He is (I think understandably) uncertain where His power lies, or even IF He retains the capacity to exert power in any context.  There are just so many more questions than answers at this early stage.  None of us know what to expect or where we might come to rest in time.  The admonition to take "one day at a time," seems simultaneously wise and frustrating.

I know that He is feeling lost.  It is almost akin to amnesia.  He will often say that He does not know who He is.  I have watched Him moving through the motions of His day, and sometimes He seems so vulnerable and new that it is as if He were an infant still in those early first days of life when a loud noise or a sudden movement elicits that characteristic newborn startle reflex.  Having traveled so far into the darkness of the disease, He frequently feels guilty, remorseful, and ashamed of all that transpired to bring us, finally, to this point.  I honestly think that He is engaged in an ongoing self-assessment that is somewhat comparable to the sort of thing that submissives sometimes get into asking, "what is it that makes a GOOD dominant."  I am imagining that He is running through some sort of list of character traits that "make or break" a dominant, and then coming up with His own score card. In December of 2009, I wrote a post that I called

About Dominants in which I borrowed a list of dominant traits from  Associated Content:

• Honesty
• Trustworthiness
• Integrity
• Self-Control
• Sense of Humor (even at himself)
• Capacity to Love, Be Loved and to Express that Love
• Desire to Learn and Grow, both for himself and for his partner
• Dependability

And then I added this bit --

The one thing that I'd add to that list is SELF AWARE.

The ability to believe in and rely on a dominant; the ability to be certain of his love; the comfort of knowing that He can laugh at Himself, and the silly things that happen in real life and real love, the knowledge that He can take the lead as partners grow and change -- all of those things are essential and foundational to making power exchange work. 

There isn't anyway that I'd pretend that He was possessed of self-control or self-awareness or honesty or trustworthiness when He was most seriously in the grip of His addiction.  A very large part of the situational dissolution of our power dynamic was due to the fact that He was no longer capable of exercising any sort of responsible or dependable dominance.  No more.  Admitting His addiction and moving to address that (even if that came as an outcome of terrible circumstances) has completely shifted things.  He is once again awake and aware and actively becoming the reliable, strong partner that I want, and that He wants to be.  Surely, I have seen the embodiment of that desire to learn and grow both for Himself and for T and I.  

Maybe my thinking about this reflects what I said about it a while back when I wrote a post called

Goodness.  There, I worked to contrast what we submissive types sometimes refer to as "good dominants" and "bad dominants."  Some of us want to assert for ourselves and for others that the ones that we allow to exert control over us are "... that "knight in shining armor" sort of strong protector ... a paragon with character traits like kindness and responsibility and honesty and gentleness and generosity ... he would never, ever do or say or ask for anything that might cause ... true discomfort -- emotionally, physically, or spiritually."

And conversely, the sexy, sort of scary, "bad dominant" who "must be a person of low character -- no ethics, no integrity, no human feeling, no heart, and no soul. ... in a relationship with one of these guys... a person is likely to end up abused, de-valued, broken, lost, ruined, and less than human."


What I said about that duality then is what I continue to believe today, maybe even more now -- "the vast majority of us live somewhere in the middle range -- burdened with flaws and graced with glorious gifts... human creatures..."

For good or bad, we live and love, and we grow in the doing of that living and loving.  He isn't perfect.  Neither am I.  Neither is T.  We all suffer from this FAMILY DISEASE, and we are all now working to live in recovery from that disease.  We've made mistakes, hurt one another and been downright arrogant and foolish in the event.  But not always.  There is good along with the bad.  Today we are more awake, more clear, more humble.  We are living with a cherished hope that there are better times ahead and that what we will learn in the coming days and months and years will enrich our family and allow us to share our gifts with others we may encounter.

There are moments, as we work our way along through all of this that I am reminded of the possibility that I outlined in a post that I called Ownership and Being Owned.  I was playing "devil's advocate," challenging the assertion of some that they were living in total power exchange relationships without any limits.  Instead of drawing up grisly hypotheticals of slaves dismembered and killed in the name of "no limits," I proposed a scenario that, in my mind, seemed almost worse than death:  What if any or each of us were to get this sort of direction from the One to whom we have pledged our obedience?

I've had a revelation.
I've been on the wrong path.
I understand that SM is "bad, sick, and abusive."
So, the first thing that you must do is pack up and discard all of the paddles, whips, clamps, clips, and other "toys."
Dismantle all of the restraints and bondage gear.
From now on, I want our relationship to contribute to the well-being of mankind and the earth, so each day your "tasks" will be as follows:
Monday -- volunteer at the homeless shelter
Tuesday -- voulnteer for a local agency for people with developmental disabilities
Wednesday -- volunteer for an agency that works for the environment
Thursday -- volunteer for the local Headstart
Friday -- volunteer for a local agency for the aging/elderly
I expect you to journal about each of your daily activities just as you have been doing.
Oh yes, I've also decided that as part of my ongoing spiritual quest, I am adopting the practice of celibacy, so please dispose of the bed and purchase two simple twin beds for the bedroom."


Now, the shifts in our lives have not gone to that extreme.  Not exactly.  On the other hand, what is happening for us is surely not particularly kinky or sexy.  We are immersed in the hardest, most desperately important work we've ever done.  There are times, especially late at night and very early in the morning when I lie in bed and stare at the toys hanging unused in the racks on the wall, and I think that they ought to be packed away.  When, I wonder, will that part of our lives ever come back?  Ever?  I get sad and sink down into hopelessness and despair.  I don't want what was -- it was too often scary and frustrating and just awful.  Things are better now that He is not drinking.  Things are much better now that we are recovering.  Things get better each day, and I am hopeful that we'll continue on that path.  But it is all different than what I expected so very many years ago.  If there was some implied limit regarding having life turn out differently than we expected, then we have blasted through it into some unfamiliar territory -- AND we are still here.  Together.  Working and growing and learning.  We still love.  We still laugh. We are still good.  

And so, just for today, that is the story about the path in this particular place.

swan

Not an "Adult Child"

Chloe commented (with great care and deference) on Master's last post:

...My father is an alcoholic. He has been dry for many years, but as I've been reminded many times... Like the Marines, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. Anyway, my father has been dry for 22 years. (I'm 27, so I'll leave it to you do the math.)I've had many thoughts and questions and (admittedly) reservations about the path you and your family are walking to face this problem....I just wanted to take the opportunity to let you know I'm reading, even if it's been mostly silently.


From my own personal experience for my own personal reasons, I don't hold any stock in self-policed or family-policed moderation being the best path when it comes to something a person was previously addicted to. But if you can do it? If it's a better path for you to follow ...Then I wish you all the best in it, and maybe I can learn something new by watching...

 And I imagine that Chloe may very well speak for many who have simply chosen to not get into that conversation with us.  It isn't any surprise to me that she would feel like she does about this issue of alcohol addiction and approaches to recovering from that.  It doesn't really surprise me that most people would react exactly like this...  It is the way that most of us, but especially those of us who grew up in alcoholic households, are taught to view the challenges and realities of alcohol use and/or abuse.  Within our culture, the alcohol recovery and rehabilitation industry has become so entrenched and so ubiquitous, that we mostly don't even recognize it when we parrot the lines we've been given with regard to alcohol and addiction.
"They" have done such a great job of scripting the conversation that there is essentially not a person who does not immediately fall into the accepted recitation of what "everyone knows" about the subject. 

I'll be the first to validate, absolutely, the sense of disquiet experienced by Chloe as she considers the stark discussion here about alcohol use and the intent to moderate that use.  Like her, I grew up in a family with two parents who were alcoholic.  My mother was the most actively abusing of the pair of them.  Her natural bent toward meanness was exacerbated by alcohol use, and my brothers and I lived in continual terror of her.  The abuse she inflicted on me before I was old enough to be verbal left deep marks in my psyche that were only revealed when Master and I first began to delve into intense sadomasochistic play, and I'd spin off into not quite remembered darkness.  As for my father, his drinking left him unavailable and uninvolved.  She abused and he was not aware enough to prevent it.  I survived and so did my brothers.  I honor all those children, like us, who survived and grew up in spite of childhoods spent awash in the craziness of boozed up parents.

I was a very young adult, and a new wife and mother when I first became aware of the new label being applied to people who had grown up like I did.  It was 1983 when Dr. Jan Woititz, wrote the New York Times Best Seller, Adult Children of Alcholics.  The book became the definitive work describing the issues specific to those who were raised in families impacted by alcohol, drugs and the dysfunctional behaviors of others,  Woititz became the mother of the movement that would forever enshrine the concept that no one ever completely escapes the depredations of an alcoholic upbringing.  Her book elucidated 13 characteristics of adults who grew up with alcoholic parents:

1. Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.

2. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

3. Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

4. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy.

5. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun.

6. Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously.

7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships.

8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over which they have no control.

9. Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation.

10. Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different from other people.

11. Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or super irresponsible.

12. Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.

13. Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsively leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.

And there you go -- nice and neat and tidy.  Check off "yes" or "no" and if you get 7 or more positives, you know who you are...  Or something like that.  The damage is done.  You are what you are.  Ruined in your formative years and forever unable to be anything EXCEPT an ACOA.   Well, I rejected that tidy little diagnostic trick when I first encountered it, and I reject it to this day.  I acknowledge that I was a child who had the bad luck to have parents who were addicted to alcohol, and who abused it on a regular basis.  Too, I generally lay claim to the status of "adult."  I am, to be sure, the product of all my myriad life experiences, and the circumstances of my childhood are part of that picture -- but not all of it, and not, in my view, the most significant part of it. 

The checklist of characteristics doesn't describe or define me.  The memories don't disable me.  The things I missed as a child do not cause me to long for them without hope of ever being satisfied, now some 50 years later.  I am not that child, although I love who she was.  I am not that child, although I honor her strength and courage.  I am not that child, although I value the lessons she learned.  My alcoholic parents lived in their own sort of hazy hell, and because they were our parents, and because we loved them, we hovered around the edges of their torment -- until it was time for us to grow up and move on.  I don't know about my brothers -- their lives are their own, but I am not anyone's "adult child."  I am an adult -- well and strong and good.  Period.

So, I understand when people like Chloe lead with the story of their alcoholic parent.  The experiences of having a drunken, unavailable, unreliable, abusive parent is frightening and sad.  There are any number of ways to HAVE a parent who is less than ideal -- who is ill or uneducated or poor or crazy or preoccupied or old or overweight or selfish or...  Most of us grow up anyway.  And if we are lucky and strong, we grow up to be OK in spite of whatever befalls us. 

I knew, when I met Master; when I agreed to be His, that He drank.  I knew that He drank a lot -- and I knew that He drank at a level that was not considered to be healthy.  I saw His drinking behavior, and I saw how He managed His life and affairs, and I believed that His alcohol use was a part of His life that was under His control.  I chose, with full awareness, to accept those realities and join my life with His.  For all the years we have lived together, that has been our way of living and it has been good.  I have not one single regret, nor do I give any credence to those who simply write me off as a co-dependent enabler in an alcoholic constellation.

And then He had His bariatric surgery.  When He resumed drinking after the prescribed months of alcohol avoidance, everything was different.  At first I had no idea what was causing the wildly out of control behaviors that became the norm.  It wasn't that He was drinking more than before, but things were spiralling out of control.  I watched and worried and I talked and talked to Him in His sane and sober hours, trying to make Him understand what I was seeing and experiencing.  Although He occasionally reacted to my efforts with scorn, accusing me of exactly that ACOA damaged goods thing, He also listened to my reasoned arguments, and in time we reached some agreement as to how we'd proceed with the problems I'd identified. 

What we are engaged in now, with our power based approach to regaining control of the drinking dynamic in our lives, flies in the face of all the conventional wisdom that we share in our culture about alcohol addiction and recovery.  We have rejected the "facts" of the situation as promulgated by an industry that rakes in millions of dollars in fees for the treatment and management of alcoholism, and chosen to strike off into relatively uncharted territory.  We have no guarantee that the path we are following will lead us to success, but we are determined.  We've lived by our own rules and our own lights to this point, He and I.  This will be no different.  I know that will make many people nervous and uncomfortable.  I am grateful for those, who like Chloe, have been willing to sit with their own discomfort and follow our journey though this. 

We are encountering a number of challenges that we did not anticipate.  He feels disoriented and unsettled.  He feels unsure about the role that alcohol played in "who He is," and is unsure "who He will be" in a more sober life.  He is grieving.  He is sad.  While, intellectually, He understands that I've pushed for change out of concern for His health and our relationship, He FEELS that I've taken control, and that He is now in the position of submitting to me.  Our accustomed relational dynamic is changed, and neither of us knows what to expect going forward.  We are, each of us, coping with a tidal wave of feelings and fears.  We are working to be honest with one another.  We are trying to remember to listen to how the other one feels.  We are holding on to each other.  We are trying not to hurt each other.  Some will notice a distinct lack of regular or normal or recognizable BDSM or M/s related material in what we are posting.  That is the simple fact of our lives just now. 

We will go forward.  Perhaps it will be next week or next month or next year before we find ourselves in some sort of accord and alignment in our new life together.  When we get there, we will be who we are with one another.  I don't honestly know, today, what that will be.  For those who have followed us BECAUSE we were M/s, or BECAUSE we have practiced BDSM, I completely understand if all of this leads to a choice to read elsewhere.  This web log has never been primarily about the kink we enjoy, and it has never been mostly about our poly lifestyle.  We've always written frankly about our lives and our ups and downs.  That will not change.

swan

Fur a Change

A long time ago, when I first began to actively explore my interest in aspects of BDSM with the one who pretended to be a Dominant, one hurdle we faced was in knowing just HOW it was that this D/s thing is supposed to be done.  Like most people coming into the lifestyle for the first time, we had no real life models, and our access to decent information was far more limited than it would be if we were starting out today. 

Questions about how to do Dominance or how to do submission weren't likely to show up in Ann Landers' daily newspaper column.  When we came across bits of information, we grabbed it like drowning souls lost at sea.  And that is how I first came to the practice of shaving my pubic hair.  From what we could see; from what we knew; that was how everyone did it, and so, being the pretend Dominant that he was, he decreed that I too would shave my girl parts. 

It had a sort of delicious wicked feeling to it in the beginning.  It seemed very "out there."  I remember being concerned about the first visit I ever made to the gynocologist after I went bare, and I remember moments of anxiety when I would go to the gym or the spa -- what would people think?  What would people say?  The truth is no one ever SAID anything, and I doubt very seriously that anyone ever stayed up at night wondering what my shaved crotch might mean.  Please!

I've shaved my pubic hair for well over ten years now.  It has come to be "the way it is."  I don't think about it much anymore, and I surely don't worry who will see or what they will think.

Master has never indicated that He cares.  One way or the other.  I am pretty sure that He is among the vast throng of folks who do not give the state of my pubic hair a second thought.

Lately, I've stopped shaving it.  Keeping it bare is work, and it got to be something that I was doing BECAUSE I was doing it.  Each time I got in the shower to de-fur, I wondered why I was spending the extra time on something that absolutely no one cared about.  As we went through that last round of surgery and recovery, I found I had less and less time to attend to those personal details, and so I quit. 

The world did not end.  The hair grew and grew, and it is now reaching the point where I am reminded what it was like so many years ago.  It seems softer than it was when I was younger.  Not as curly.  Surely, it is grayer. 

Having it there does not impact Him or us in any way that I can see.  Interestingly, I am enjoying the feel of it -- late at night, it is somehow comforting to be able to feel the soft downiness of my own privates.  It is like having my own soft, fuzzy stuffed animal right where I can always find it. 

There's no point to all of that, really.  It just is.  Another change.  Another thing that I once thought meant something that really didn't mean anything at all.  I've regrown my fur and the world goes around just as it always has.

swan

What Can We Do?

I've been a bit surprised, and very gratified by all the comments left on my post on marriage equality:

Greenwoman -- Your concern for perceived hurts, born of nuances in awareness and experience, is encouraging to me. Sometimes, I get convinced that "no one" cares. You've reassured me that my sense of complete alienation from the rest of humanity is misplaced.

Tapestry -- the re-echoing of that affirmation of validity is important to me. Thank you.

Impish1 -- I like that phrase: functional love vs dysfunctional...

KG -- I don't know how the "common law" part of all of this might work. I do know that the approach of marrying somewhere else in order to "force" recognition here seems pretty fruitless for the most part.

It is interesting that the laws that prohibit polygamy in our culture might be found (by our courts) to be discriminatory against women who are immigrant from other societies where the practice is more common. Thank you for looking into this.

sara -- another enlightening phrase and viewpoint in your words: "the superficial structure, not the heart to heart reality underneath." I like that very much.

bridget -- It does seem true that one has to live this in order to actually have a sense of what is missing. It is very difficult to explain the nuances of this to those who are safely ensconced in the cultural mainstream with regard to marriage.

Finally, OliviaManners asked a very difficult and challenging question in her comment:

"swan, it is a big question...but what do you think that people like you and I could do to effect any real change in perception or acknowledgment of this area?"

I feel a little overwhelmed, actually, when I contemplate some sort of "strategy" for pushing us (as a society) toward change. I'm sure that there are more politically and legally savvy minds than mine that have spent time contemplating the possibilities. With that disclaimer firmly in place, I am drawn to making some attempt at mapping out paths that might begin to shift the current set of realities:

1) I think that if we are committed to creating some sort of true marriage equity in our society, we need to begin by addressing the misconceptions and erroneous assumptions about marriage that are pervasive in our society. We need to be able to confront and correct the kind of blatant falsehoods that go unchallenged everyday in discussions about the nature of marriage. So, for example, some rudimentary historical perspective would cause educated people to respond to a Warrenesque declaration that marriage has "always, in every society and every religious tradition, for over 5000 years" been defined as between one man and one woman. No. That is simply incorrect. Master wrote about it at length in His treatise on Modern Monogamy. There's plenty of historical and anthropological information to inform our understanding of the roots and traditions that have shaped the practice of marriage in western culture. We don't have to let the conversation be shaped by those who would promulgate lies as the foundation for our ongoing decision making.

2) We need to become clear and definitive about what it is that marriage confers on people in terms of rights and benefits. I think it is easy for those who are not directly, intimately, immediately impacted by the disparities in our laws to assume that it is really "much ado about nothing." Having lived without those legal and financial benefits, I can attest that it is not even remotely "nothing." The following list, prepared by Lambda Legal, outlines some of the approximately 1400 rights and benefits that accrue to individuals once they marry:

joint parenting;
joint adoption;
joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents);
status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
immigration and residency for partners from other countries;
inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare;
spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home;
veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns;
joint filing of customs claims when traveling;
wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
crime victims' recovery benefits;
loss of consortium tort benefits;
domestic violence protection orders;
judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;

3) Those of us who are somewhat aware of this issue can begin to change things by beginning to change the way we see the world. Our society operates from a set of assumptions that divide the world into "singles" and "couples." There is the embedded view that those are the two possible relational states for adult humans in the world. Evidence of this perception is everywhere:

• pillowcases are sold in singles or pairs
• restaurants seat people (generally) at tables for two or four -- almost never odd numbers
• when there are promotions or deals for travel or entertainment opportunities, they are always arranged for couples
• you can buy his and hers towels, but not other configurations
• a wide range of products (especially food items) are packaged and sold to be served to two
• almost every image that we see that depicts adult loving relationship shows the cultural "norm" of one man and one woman
• almost every media mention of family and marriage assumes the "one man and one woman" construct

4) We can believe, and refuse to stop believing in the possibility. I like the ideas of the Transcendentalist, abolitionist, Underground Railroad leader, Unitarian reformer Rev. Theodore Parker. Most of the causes that this frail minister worked for never came to fruition until years after he died at 49 in 1860. He said: "Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Things refuse to be mismanaged long."

5) We can speak up and speak out. We can write to every legislator, every political entity, every media outlet -- over and over again; pointing out the truths of our lives, refusing to accept the easily delivered lies, insisting that they see and correct the unrecognized biases that spew from our televisions, radios, and newspaper pages every day. We can show up. At city council meetings, and legislative hearings, and political debates, and town hall meetings -- until the sheer weight of our presence begins to shift the balance.

6) We can refuse to attend "mixed-sex" weddings. This is a radical and demanding position to take, but consider... Those of us who are not able to marry should ask why we are expected to participate as observers in a social event that we may not ever legally partake of. Our silent acquiesence to these ceremonial events allows the mainstream of our culture to continue to uncritically embrace injustice and discrimination because we let them do that! If we want the larger culture to open their eyes and lose their blindness to the discriminatory politics of engagements, marriage, and weddings, we must point out the segregated nature of these rituals and institutions.

7) Where we are able, we have to come out of hiding and act to challenge the status quo. Those who can do so, might attempt to register, or obtain marriage licenses at the local county clerk's office on some sort of regular basis. I understand that we'd be turned down and turned away, but our presence -- over and over again, across the country would, in time, make the statement that we are here. Even better if such efforts could be made in some coordinated and public fashion.

8) We could co-opt the media coverage that swarms to celebrity weddings -- appearing outside the places where those weddings are held, silently holding up signs stating "Participation in Marriage is Participation in Injustice," or "Saying I Do when We Can't = Bigotry."

9) We could encourage our justice-minded friends who ARE allowed to marry to boycott marriage until the institution is democratized. Those who love and care for us who are barred from marrying could make a major contribution in undermining the status quo by refusing to participate in the institution of marriage until it is open to all. Such a movement could put an economic dent in the wedding industry, as large numbers of COUPLES refuse to open their wallets for marriage licenses, wedding receptions, bridal dresses, photographers, and honeymoon excursions.

Probably, there are lots of other possibilities that I've not thought of. I'd welcome others who want to join this conversation with ideas to share. Please -- everyone, feel welcomed to join this discussion.

swan

Things are Changing -- Have Changed

"Things are changing -- Have changed."

That's what He told me late last night as we sat, together, on the patio enjoying a lovely, late summer evening. He's right of course. It is a verdict that I have pushed away; a judgement that I've tried to avoid hearing for a really long time. But, after yet another in-session meltdown yesterday morning, and the awful, difficult, painfully distant, and scary hours that inevitably ensue, the truth was simply inescapable. Fifty-three is not forty-six. When it comes to SM, I am not able to do what I could do a few years ago. I still have the cravings, and I still have the desire to please Him, but I don't end up feeling "fulfilled" (His word), or turned on, or sexy, or powerful, or even successful most of the time. I feel hurt. I feel exhausted. I feel sad.

I have battled and struggled to try and get that old feeling back, but it isn't there. Just as Yoda advised Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, " Do or do not. There is no try." All that trying gets me basically nowhere. I might as well not have bothered. I remember when He used to beat the living daylights out of me, and I'd roar with the energy, and float on the endorphin mix. No more. Hardly ever happens anymore. I hang on, and I grit my teeth, and I try to remember to breathe, and I work really hard to stay put and be good. Then, usually, we make love, and, if I'm really good at it, He achieves release. Not me. Not more than now and then -- every few months maybe. I can't ever avoid, for very long, the sense that there is no real payback, or at least not enough of a payback, and that tends to bring up feelings of anger, sadness, and resentment. Not a recipe for a good scene, and not something that I am able to hide from Him for very long. And He loves me, so setting off that chain of emotions isn't something that He chooses to do most of the time.


Harder still -- He hasn't changed. All of His drives, desires, and fantasies are still exactly what they were "back then."

So. There is love. There is our undeniable, unshakable, unbreakable connection. I will, of course, continue to care for Him, and serve Him, in all the ways I have for years. I will cook His meals, and take care of His laundry, and manage His pills. I will handle the household finances, and make sure that the C-Pap is cleaned and set up every single night. I'll keep Him apprised of where I am and when I'll be home (or gone), just as I always have. I'll obey and I'll defer and I'll listen and speak with the same kind of respect. I'll be His, when and as He chooses to have that be the reality, but it isn't ever going to be what it was.

All of that seems just about like what any wife would say -- except, of course, I'm not "a wife." It surely doesn't seem that there is much there that would entitle me to claim the title of "slave" as I have for the last number of years. That label feels dishonest to me. So, I don't know what anyone will call me from here on out -- assuming anyone feels the need to "call" me anything at all. There's just no easy label for the place that my life has come to.

I imagine, there will still be words to write here, but it is time to acknowledge the truth. There may still be some BDSM in our world, but I don't know what that is going to look like, and I don't have any idea what I'll have to say about it all, and I can't imagine that it will be of any interest to anyone who is really "into" the lifestyle. We'll go forward, as family. Whatever else there is, will be seen in time.

swan/sue

The "Shape" that He Desires

There is art to deep power exchange. Like a sculptor, a Master works to mold and shape a slave into the form that He can see in His mind. That shaping occurs in a variety of ways, but it does occur. The root experience of consensual slavery may be change.


The behavior changes. The voice changes. The mindset changes. The temperament changes. The focus changes. The physical being may change as well.


Some of this "shaping" occurs naturally and simply as the power dynamic begins to create new experiences and the expectations become known and practiced. Other changes may be more challenging or difficult, and so require active interventions to cause the shift.




I remember that, in the beginning of our relationship, there were times when Master would decide that I needed "reprogramming." Generally that occured when I'd get myself caught up in an internal (mental) monologue that caused me to begin to be self-denigrating or to lose my sense of trust in Him and in our relationship. I'd get entirely wound up with a litany of "I'm too old, too difficult, too tall, not masochistic enough, not good enough, OR I'd begin to believe that He wanted someone else, was tired of me, bored with me, frustrated with me ... Either of those sets of self-talk, would cause Him to intervene as soon as He became aware of them. Generally, I'd find myself strapped down, crying, begging, raging, pleading, promising anything -- ANYTHING. Reprogramming was never a "gentle" thing.




I am well aware that you really can't beat someone into believing they are good or attractive or sexy or accomplished or whatever. On the other hand, I do believe that it is possible to aggressively address self-defeating and negative thinking patterns, and that this may be exactly what a Master does at various points in the process of shaping His "property." I have come to believe that a slave comes to reflect what her Master sees. Sometimes that vision is made clear in words and instructions and requests. At other times, the clarity comes in much more sensory intensive ways.

swan

Living the Life We've Imagined

He has, for years, signed off with that tag line... "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined."


It is easier to say than it is to do, as it turns out.



The life we imagined some six or seven years ago was not at all what life itself chose to hand us in the event. The hurdles have been higher and closer together than we ever dreamed they might be, and while we are sturdy and resilient people, there comes a time when things wear on you and the imagining starts to get harder and harder.


I have been particularly guilty of looking backward with longing more than I've looked forward with "imagination." That has ended up keeping us in a continual loop of bitterness and frustration that really has kept us from living the life we might have imagined IF we'd imagined any life at all in the forward sense.


There are some tricky places to the relational power dynamic that He and I engage in. Our particular orientations are closely aligned, but not exactly so. He is an inveterate spanko and sadist with a very Dominant (controlling) personality. However, He is not primarily driven by control urges -- He controls as He needs to in order to satisfy His desire to spank. I am inherently a control freak who is driven by the need for a strong Dominant force to allow me a safe place into which I can relinquish power. The masochism that forms a deep and dark core of my sensual and sexual nature, is a reflection of the drive to have the control taken from my hands. I don't respond, in the first sense, to the pain -- rather to the loss of control that the pain brings/implies.


We have struggled in the last months; struggled to find a shared path, a shared vision, a shared understanding; a shared imagining for our lives together. We have struggled to even communicate what it was that was out of sync between us, and the knowledge that we were missing that mark with each other has only served to ratchet up the level of fear and frustration on both sides.


He has done everything He has done with the very best of good intentions; fearful for my health and well-being (emotional and physical), He has lightened up and pulled back and relaxed in a hundred different ways -- accommodated until the framework that might once have conveyed certainty and security to my very core, has been stripped to almost nothing. Not that there is any blame -- I've fought and spit and hissed like the wounded animal I've been; all claws and fangs and scraggly-looking fur... The fun and playful companion that He thought He was getting back six years ago has turned into a worry and a drag.

I've tried, in a couple dozen completely ineffective ways to convey to Him just how lost and cut lose I've felt, and how desperately I've needed to have more, not less, of His guidance and input -- but terror is not a particularly eloquent state from which to begin a conversation. Worse, as I've sensed His drawing away, I've fallen into my own natural control mode, snatching the control from His hands anytime and anywhere He will let me. Each and everytime that happens, and I "win" the power battle, I become more frightened, and less sure of the foundation upon which I've built my life.


And so things spin further and further out of control.


Saturday was bad. Really bad.


We'd had a very long, difficult week, and we were both looking forward to a chance to reconnect and play and spend some time together as Master and slave, as lovers, as partners. But we hadn't talked, and we weren't nearly on the same page, and all the agendas were spinning in the air around us, and the stories that I've been telling myself were all playing loudly in my head... None of that makes for an easy session, and things went south really fast. By the time it was over with, I'd busted up the relationship, piled the pieces into a heap, poured gasoline over the whole mess, and set it on fire.


Luckily, we are two damned stubborn people. He is even more stubborn than me, mercifully. There is no "quit" in the man, and He really does believe in living that imagined life. Saturday was a long day of working through the conflagration I'd made, sorting through the ash and rubble, and finding our way back home again. By Sunday morning, somehow, He seemed to have come to some sort of decision point.


Whatever foolishness I'd flung at Him on Saturday, He'd chosen the path of "Master." Come the light of morning on Sunday, He began to reclaim the ground that has been slowly ceded to my moods and rages and fears in the last months. He moved to break through the barriers that I've been so busily erecting -- to take possession of my mind and my heart and my body, so that as we played together in the early hours of the beginning of the week, I felt myself coming back to the place I'd fled from in panic over the last few months -- relaxing into His control.


I think, believe, that our path will be different from here. He has declared that there will be more of His control over my life in the coming days, weeks, months -- that He knows what is and needs to be for Him and me and us, and that is the way it will be, and I believe Him.

That may sound trite, pedestrian, simplistic. It is perhaps all of that. It feels entirely right. He has already begun to define the lines and outlines of how things will be for us as we move forward. Things will be different. There are things that I have pulled to me, declaring that I would "do this" or "not do that." He has obliterated that control grab. I WILL do what He decides I will do.


We will, together, imagine our lives anew. We will begin to live the life we can imagine together. If He were different; if I were different, that might all seem grim and dark and dismal, but we are the people we are -- for the first time in a very long time, things seem hopeful and good.


swan