How to Begin

We keep track of the statistics for this little bit of cyberspace using StatCounter. We do watch our stats go up and down, and we sometimes scratch our heads in utter amazement at what it is that brings people here. It isn't always, or even often, clear at all.



Overnight, we had someone find their way to The Heron Clan by typing in a Google search looking for "what should I ask my Master before I give my submission." We came up, among the other hits for that query, because of what I wrote here about the differences between BDSM and Domestic Discipline. I can't imagine that, if the seeker was looking for advice about how to negotiate ahead of entering into a D/s or M/s dynamic, that they found what they were looking for. I don't believe I've ever even come close to discussing or addressing that topic area.



I am not clear that I am the person who ought to talk about this, given my experience. All I can do is reconstruct the path that brought me to this life. Perhaps there is something in the story that others might find instructive.



It was the month of March; exactly this time of the year, six years ago. We'd known each other, at that point for a little over two years. Mostly, our contact was by IM, email, and long-distance phone calls -- because I was living in Denver, Colorado, and He and T were here in Ohio. We would travel, one way or the other, to visit and play, usually several times a year, but ours was a long-distance relationship.



We'd already declared our love for one another, and weathered the storms that were the result of that revelation. We'd come together, as a "quad" at the new year to make the final decision that would bring us together as a "family." We understood that we were moving to make that a reality.



We hadn't set a date. We hadn't discussed timing.



That day, in March, He and I were IM'ing, and I was running down a litany of perfectly sensible and rational reasons why it would be "at least" two years before we could reasonably make the move. After all, I told Him, there was a lot to do...



I will always remember the words as they blinked across my screen: "Do you think that we will live forever? Get here to me this summer!"



And, I did exactly that. I sold my home; quit my teaching job; said goodbyes to the grown children and my mother; packed all the household goods that I didn't sell; and separated from the few friends that had shared my path to that point. Just a bit more than 24 hours after the last children walked out of my classroom in Colorado that first week in June, we pulled up out in front of the apartment complex where He and T were living, and where we had rented the apartment next door to theirs.



I don't recall that there was any negotiation to that process. He said, "come," and I obeyed. There was huge eagerness between us, but very little in the way of conversation about our respective expectations for the relationship that we were creating. I remember asking, once, about what "sex" would be like between He and I -- a question which He answered with absolute candor and honesty.



We thought we knew what we were doing. Neither of us were "children." We were of a certain age. We'd played together a few times by then, and we'd talked and talked and talked. We were dreadfully, irretrievably, ridiculously in love.



So, clearly, I am no expert at the business of submissives negotiating with Dominants in the beginning stages of a power exchange dynamic. I've seen negotiations carried out to a rather remarkable degree of precision before people entered into short-term scenes in my local public dungeon. I've surely read a whole lot of advice on the subject. In practice, it wasn't like that for me with Him. I'm not clear, that if I had it to do over again, I'd do it a whole lot differently. There is all that "theory," and then there is the reality of what is at stake when you make this kind of move. I'm not convinced that you can really "negotiate" the entry into this kind of dynamic -- anymore than you can negotiate the final step over the edge of a cliff.



If I'd asked questions then; if I'd tried to come up with some list of "limits" or "requirements," I think I would have been entirely caught up in the "physical" implications of our pending arrangement. It would have been the kind of thing that comes up on "check lists" like one finds on sites that try to provide BDSM information for beginners: what and how much and how often and how hard and on and on. I would have seen, and possibly tried to address, what was within the scope of my vision. It would have been grotesquely inadequate in terms of trying to define the life that I was about to step into.



I can't imagine. I can't imagine Him being anything but amused (or perhaps mildly annoyed) by me attempting to define the life that He was calling me into with Him. He was utterly sure and completely in control at that point. My submission was not something that He needed me to "give" to Him. He had the vision for us together, and He would have it in exactly the form that He could see in His mind's eye. So, part of me believes that if the question is "what has to be in place between us before I agree to give my submission?" there is already an issue of whether the Dominant partner is ready to assume that control.



I suppose that, if I had the gift of prescience that would have allowed me to see into the future, I'd have asked:

• What will we do to mitigate the unavoidable impacts of aging and health changes on our life together?




• How will You help me and guide me through the emotions that I'll encounter when/as You become "bored" with me (as You surely will) and seek to create relationships beyond just "us?"




• How will we find the strength together to withstand all the unexpected and uncontrollable vagaries of living our lives day to day?




• How will you shelter me and us from the impacts of social sanction and isolation related to our lifestyle?

Those are the far more piercing questions that might have been asked. I doubt very much that He'd have been able to answer those "look into the future and tell me it will always be OK" questions with any kind of specificity or accuracy. The only truthful answers to those kinds of quetions have to fall into the "I don't know" realm.



So. No answer to what questions one ought to ask a Dominant or a Master ahead of deciding to enter a power-based relationship dynamic. The only advice that I can come up with, six years later, is to reach for a level of self-awareness that makes it seem "right" for you personally to follow the path that lies at your feet, aware that there are hurdles and chasms ahead that you cannot see or predict. There is no way to eliminate the risks; no way to prevent the disasters and challenges that will come up along the way; no way to measure the ratio of joy to sorrow that might be your portion. In the end, it is His tag line that seems to offer the best advice: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined."



swan

Bargains

There has been all sorts of talk around the circle, lately, about being "gracious" and "graceful" in the doing of this thing we are all trying to do -- this following of the path of submission and slavery. Most who read here, and most that I read are either engaged in, or at least interested in, the path of relational power exchange, and for most, there is at least some component of personal service to that dynamic. The proportional mix may vary from person to person, but read the "ingredient list," and you will find service in there somewhere.



For almost all of us though, that "service" component isn't the thing that really fires our rockets. We will mostly testify that it makes us happy if He is happy, contented, satisfied, comfortable, and all of that... and I don't doubt the veracity of that because I feel the same way. However, I know from personal experience that living on a steady diet of cooking, cleaning, ironing, shopping, filing, on and on and on -- leaves me feeling strung out and pallid after awhile. Unsatisfied. Starved. Stretched thin.



I understand that I serve just as well when I present a perfectly ironed shirt as I do when I bend over for a beating, but without some balance between the two, I'll begin to wither. And, frankly, no amount of self-talk about being "gracious" and "graceful" is going to change the fact. Because, while I claim the title of "slave," the truth is that, in coming to this relationship, I made a bargain (just as I did in my marriage -- just as everyone does entering into intimate relationship). Whether we know it or not, and whether we openly acknowledge it or not, the bargains we make about our relationships, are held intensely in our hearts and psyches. There is no need for detailed negotiation or ink to make that be the reality.



When I married, at the tender age of 19, I was negotiating for things like safety and security -- refuge from the alcoholic hell that was the home I grew up in. I didn't know who or what I was, and so I didn't have the information I needed to negotiate well for what I really needed. I really didn't know what I brought to the bargain, and I didn't make a good deal for myself. I didn't get what I thought I was getting, and I didn't get what I really needed either. It took me almost 28 years to understand that I needed to break the deal and start some new negotiations.

I subscribe to Jack Rinella's weekly column. It comes to my e-mail, and it always gives me something to think about. The last one was entitled, "Don't Let It Stop," and it dealt with the subject of ongoing negotiations between long-term partners. Rinella writes:

Sometimes, there is this myth that players who are experienced with each other don't need to negotiate ... Negotiation, no matter how thorough it is, is based on the here and now. In spite of how much we may resist the facts, it remains that the"there and later" will be different. Over time each and everyone of us will change, as will our partners and the myriad circumstances in which we will find ourselves. Inevitable as it is we can still be surprised by change. As resistant as we maybe to it, it never ceases. We will age by the very fact that time continues. Aging may bring wisdom or folly, expertise or failure. Over time our bodies, minds, and emotions will evolve. There is no stopping the graying of hair, the weakening of muscles, or the growing diminishment of our senses...

However we might fantasize all of this, or might have thought of it at some beginning point, that constant fact of change and evolution is the simple reality. None of us, Master or slave, is today, as we were a day or a month or a year ago. Physical, emotional, intellectual needs and abilities and potentials shift, and if we are wise, we must move with them. As partners, we need to renegotiate the bargains we make.

A very real and powerful part of walking this path is our ability and willingness to go, naked, into the depths of our own souls, to seek out the truth of who we are and offer it to one another. That is the best of our bargaining. We simply must be willing to know and understand what it is that we bring to the negotiations, and then make the very best bargain that we are able. There is nothing at all contrary in doing that. That is the epitome and essence of power exchange. That is the best of what we do with and for one anoher.

swan