Love and M/s

He and I are deeply, passionately in love. That reality continues to be the core of our relatedness, even now, just over seven years after our first encounters with one another. We part with great reluctance each morning to go off to our jobs in the "real world," and we come back together with huge joy each evening. Whatever the stresses and strains and challenges that life throws at us, and however exhausted we find ourselves, we take simple, honest delight in the daily gift of being able to wrap up in the security and physical comfort of one another, knowing that we are blessed to have come together in this lifetime. He is my strength, my best friend, my safety, my partner, the one who makes me smile, the all of my world. I don't know what I would do without Him. I am the luckiest of women.

There are those who believe that love and BDSM, and particularly total power exchange lifestyles, are imcompatible. I don't want to dispute the validity of that experience. I only know that it has not been ours. We love and we live as Master and slave -- at least by our lights.

Of course, we don't let the world tell us how to do that. Never have. So perhaps that is part of what saves us.

We didn't begin by defining our relationship in terms of the power exchange. We called one another "friend." And, I asked if He would teach me, or guide me into the lifestyle because I was so new and so inexperienced and so uncertain what it was that I wanted -- or even who I was in the beginning. So, we started with very little in the way of expectation from one another, and a very great deal of openess to the process of sharing information. We never saw the train coming that knocked us both flat.

In the beginning, I struggled mightily with the labels, that today, I wear with relative ease, and sometimes even pride. I had terrible trouble coming to terms with the knowledge that I was masochistic. The reality of my submissive nature was not much easier to deal with. He shared information, and shared His story. Mostly He shared who He was. Too, I was married, and I was a prickly and defended upright and uptight bit of a firebrand who set absolutely inviolate limits -- DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE!!! And He respected the lines I drew. Entirely too much of a gentleman for His own good. And mine.

It took us months and months to get to the point where we admitted the truth of our love for one another. What a cataclysm that was. For us. For T. For our world. Things changed radically and forever on that day. We began in that moment to redefine who we were to each other and to reshape our view of our lives and our path and our future. Nothing was ever the same from that moment forward.

We still hadn't spoken about anything that resembled a formal power exchange at that point. We knew some of the outlines, but that part, for us, was still in the future. There were clear indications beginning to show though... It was only a matter of a few months when He and I were in an IM conversation, discussing the timing of the necessary move from Denver to Cincinnati. I was hemming and hawing about the logistics of such a venture -- opining that it would probably require something on the order of a year and a half or two years. Suddenly across my IM screen came the oh so serious exclamation: "Do you think we will live forever? Get here next summer!" There was clearly no room for argument, and even though that was March, my entire house and household was in place in Cincinnati in June.

Still, we resisted calling ourselves Master and slave. We talked about Dominance and submission. He cut His initials into my flesh, and still we called what we did D/s. We played and we talked and we lived and we loved and we simply could not bring ourselves to define ourselves by what felt to be the "overheated" language of M/s. Until, one day it seemed to fit. And then it did and we did. It wasn't that we'd changed radically, or that we did things so drastically differently. We had simply arrived at a point of solidity and stability and maturity with our relationship and our dynamic that it felt appropriate I think. We knew it to be true for us. We didn't really mark it at all. It was just the truth.

I doubt even now that there is much that anyone looking in from the outside would notice about us that would tell them who or what we are with one another. Certainly, we do not fit the stereotypical image that I once had of a Master and slave -- or that I can still get if I read very far online these days: I still work out in the world in a career that requires me to take significant responsibility each and every day, and I earn a good salary that goes into "my" bank account. I still operate as the household "checkbook Nazi," paying our household's bills and managing our accounts. I still get up everyday and pick out "my own" clothes and drive "my own" car. Sometimes I call Him Sir, and sometimes not -- although ALWAYS in session. I sit on the furniture and I order my own food when we dine out. In many, many ways, I manage my life, and it would most likely appear that there is much more power in my hands than is appropriate for a "slave" to have. He likes it that way. He has no interest in micro-managing my life. It isn't His style, and He gets no "charge" out of those kinds of interactions. The expectation is that I will handle myself within those arenas as He would expect, and as is appropriate to the situation and my station. End of discussion.

Perhaps it is that He is so sure of His power that He is willing to give me such range. He is like the Archer. He sends me with sure hands out into the world, knowing that I will go exactly as He intends. He is not afraid to pull the string taught, but neither is He afraid to release it. I can lie easy in His hands. He will not break me, although it lies within His power to do so. We are calm with each other. Confident. Our trust carries us past the need to continually up the ante, peer around us at what the world tells us we "ought" to be doing. Ours is a path that is determined by His will and His skill.

We've learned. Together. There is a deep darkness into which we understand that we can travel together. We know about it. We know that together, we are strong enough to travel those pathways and come out on the other side with wisdom that neither of us can obtain alone. We also know the risks of going there. We understand things about protecting what is fragile and valuable and irreplaceable. Some pain can be transmuted into pleasure. Some rage can be harnessed for healing. Some grief can be nurtured into acceptance and even joy. Anything is possible when you love faithfully and well.

swan

Leather

He has reverted to leather. Tawse and heavy paddle.
I am in heaven. Leather is my delight. There is something about the pain that leather brings that is deeply delicious and warmer than all the other evil stuff that fills up the arsenal of implements.
It isn't that He can't bring me to tears, to screams, to sobs, and the near panic that makes me think I can't hang on another stroke with leather toys... He can surely do that. With leather, though, my skin doesn't seem to break and bleed. He gets that glow He loves, the color that He likes; the heat that makes Him hot -- and there's no blood to clean up.
So, this rarest of mornings, when there was nothing at all on the calendar to drag us out -- nothing pressing to force us up and at it, we came slowly up from deep and dreaming sleep to contemplate -- breakfast. Sigh. We've gotten so old. So tired. So worn, that, when the time is given, there is simply no energy left for passion anymore. Old age sucks. Stress has gotten to us finally I think.
I am a good slave (at least I try). I have quit complaining most of the time -- quit pouting. I climbed out of the bed and headed off to brush the teeth and become presentable. It was as I stood, naked at the bathroom sink, brushing my teeth, that He finally noted "the butt," and decided that perhaps there really might be some value in spanking me this morning. Back to bed we went. An hour or so later, well spanked and with the appropriate morning "ministrations" completed, we were finally off to a breakfast treat -- crab cake benedict at a favorite nearby eatery.
Maybe we are not quite as old as that after all.

swan

Community

We often wish for more opportunities to socialize with others with whom we could be open about who we are (our life and lifestyle choices). We bemoan the lack of "community" here in our area, and by that we mean very specifically a BDSM-friendly community -- a kink community. It isn't that there aren't kinky people in the area. There are. There are groups within an hour or two of us in several directions. There are even a few people right here in the immediate area that we might hook onto if we were inclined to do that.

So, our isolation is not a function of there being NO local kinky people. It is related to decisions and choices that we make, and that is in spite of a deep longing to be connected to others who would share some of our interests and understandings -- who are "like" us. So, knowing that there are linkages that we could make, we remain unconnected and isolated.

There are, of course, reasons; examined, and otherwise.

Part of the problem is defining exactly what it is that we mean when we talk about community. In the sociological sense, a community is really just a group of people linked together and sharing some common interest or goal, and small or local enough to provide a sense of intimacy, safety, or belonging. Really, communities should provide both security and freedom, and so encourage individuals to want to invest in them and share of themselves.

Theoretically, a community can form up around almost anything that a set of folks share in common. In my childhood, it was common for neighborhoods to become communities as people came to know one another and children roamed from house to house and schools and churches formed the gathering centers for everyone in the area. That sort of physical definition isn't as typical anymore and so communities don't seem to form up around geographical locales as readily as they did when I was young. I know some people who use their bowling leagues or bridge clubs or Red Hat Ladies Groups as the focal points to make up their community. Those kinds of "interest" related groups can work if that is your thing I guess. Probably, that would be the nature of the community that we would be looking for when we go looking for "kinky" people to create community with for ourselves.

Except that there are a few challenges to the whole business of creating a community that is wrapped around an interest like "kink."

The first one that we run into all the time is that "kink" isn't easily definable and describable. Our kink is not the same as your kink, and just because you are kinky and we are kinky doesn't mean that you and we will necessarily like the same things or each other. Not at all. Once we get past the "we are all into something kinky" part of things, the odds that we are anywhere even remotely on the same page become almost astronomical. Then the odds that we will have anything much in common, and/or enough to spend more than about 15-20 minutes in anything even remotely approaching a conversation becomes just about laughable.

Then there's that "safety" thing. We need to feel safe and secure. Chances are, if we decide that there is something that warrants us all spending a bit of time together, we are all going to want to talk. That implies contact. Real, live, honest to goodness, human contact. Contact means that there are levels of risk. We will need to talk and/or meet eventually. For us, and for you, there are risks associated with that. We tend to take the chance on a regular basis, but we know each and everytime we do it, we are putting ourselves on the line. We know that the people we meet and talk to are doing the same. It is the cost of having to live undercover -- coming out into the open, even a little bit, becomes scary and threatening. Doesn't matter whether we meet in a restaurant, or make a phone call, or invite you to our home for a meal -- we all still lay it on the line each time we reach out and say, "hello -- nice to meet you."

The other problem with getting "into" the community is dealing with the created structure of it all. We come together artificially, in secret, often with assumed identities, for stolen bits of time, in borrowed venues. We cannot risk being fully who we are or being seen or recognized. We lose our identies from "outside" and come, stripped of our reality, into a world we create from whole cloth. That fact requires us to make up whole new structures and new hierarchies. And we do: new leadership and new rankings and new status levels. Just as it was in Junior High School, there is jostling for power and prestige, and inevitably, there is an "in-group" and an "out-group" image and connection become everything. Being part of the right circle becomes part of the game.

One local group that we are sort of loosely attached to is pretty well "run" by one couple. They recently announce on the group list that they would be attending a showing of a particular movie at a specific theater. Soon, the list was flooded with answering "me/us too's." Since we knew nothing at all about the particular movie, we went to check and saw little or no connection to the lifestyle, or any real reason for everyone to be flocking to see it all together. Clearly, it was a case of wanting to be seen in the company of the "cool kids." Ewwwww.

We want company. We want friends. We want to be able to socialize and spend time with others that "get" who and what we are about. That would be simply a given if our lifestyle were part of the mainstream. Clearly it isn't. We aren't interested in running naked theough the local pizza restaurant, or creating a scene at the local mall. Isolation feels like a factor in forcing us into weirdly contorted relating styles with our peers and would-be friends. And around and around it goes.

How does a person create simple friendships with others IF one is kinky? That's the dilemma. Our lives are not one dimmensional. On the other hand, they are kinky; they are different; they are not "vanilla." We know, that we cannot bring our work asociates, our unsuspecting social acquaintances home. They would not understand. We know that we cannot bring all of us to company dinners and school functions and the like. It is too complicated to explain. We know that our "vanilla" life and our "kinky" life must be kept radically separated in very definitive ways or there will be real and cataclysmic consequences.

It is interesting. Effective banishment. Shunned, and we cooperate and collaborate. We can choose a community that is difficult to connect with, prickly and strange and cliquish. Or we can remain in lifelong isolation. What a tangle.

swan

Communication

It is probably the most ubiquitous advice within the lifestyle, whatever your kink: communicate, communicate, communicate. We all understand that it is not only good advice, it is necessary if our kind of relating is going to work. But simply telling someone to "communicate" does not answer the "how to" questions that come up in the trenches when people actually try to do this. It just isn't always as simple as it sounds.

We've been working our way through a problem that has challenged us for probably the last year and a half. It has shown up with a lot of faces, but at its root, it has been an issue of communication -- or more correctly, a series of communication miscues and misses. I think, WE think, we've got it figured out now, but I'm going to try and describe what we've been through. Maybe some of this will be instructive or interesting or just useful to someone else in some way. Maybe not. Whatever. It is part of our story together.

I think there are a few parts to the problem we've had. Part of it is that my own thinking isn't always that clear. It is hard to communicate when what you ought to be communicating is a wordless tangle of stuff in your gut and your mind without much form to it. Communication that sounds like a wounded animal shrieking is just not a whole lot of use to the average Dominant. The second part of our sometimes struggle is that His own thinking process is very quick and very direct. He wants words, laid out neatly, in nice straight, simple lines that make sense. He has very little patience for my sort of round about, image driven, fishing for words and pictures. Then there is what I think is a very natural barrier between Dominants and submissives (although I imagine He might disagree with me on this one) which is that we are not the same in our most essential natures. I believe that Dominants and submissives simply see and experience the world differently.

Perhaps it began long before it actually began. I came here, over 4-1/2 years ago, with a simple black leather collar. It was not a collar that He gave me. It was purchased early in my explorations, and worn whenever my husband and I ventured out into public to play. For me, that collar said to the world that I was "submissive," and that in those days, when I was with my husband, that he was my "protector." Nevermind that he really wasn't up to the job, that collar made it possible for me to explore, to learn, to grow, to go safely in the community where I first spread my wings as myself. I invested it with a very great deal of power and significance. It was a powerful talisman for me. Admittedly, there are other pieces that served as "collars" between my husband and I. Most of them have significance attached to that relationship and do not bear the same weight that the leather collar does. I don't ever wear any of them, and we don't use them for anything, either. Because, in the early going, I learned my way into my submission largely by myself, that leather collar came to be VERY powerfully weighted in my psyche.

He has always used it as a restraint. Along with matching wrist cuffs and a simple metal fitting, the leather collar has always served to hold me physically in place for our SM play. For Him, that is what that bit of leather is for. It is a practical piece; a nice addition to the toybag. It has no particular significance and no emotional or relational weight. He didn't give me that collar. It doesn't mean anything special to Him. As far as He is concerned, the collar that matters is the chain mail collar that He gave me -- and the cutting marks on my back. The other is meaningless. Dominants are like that I think. They see the world from an entirely different place than submissives do sometimes.

So.

It was nothing at all for Him to take the restraints and use them AS restraints a year and a half ago with *j*. It wasn't anything that was discussed between us. I wasn't part of any of it. There wasn't any reason why I should have been. He was going to play, and so He used the restraints -- including the collar and cuffs. It was purely a practical matter. AND, after all, when it comes down to it, slave's don't OWN anything, so there shouldn't be a problem with it, anyway. He'd do it again, will likely do it again with anyone He chooses to play with.

Practicalities, shouldn'ts...

In the beginning, it wasn't anything that I really noticed. There was so much brokeness; so much damage to clean up; so much to attend to just to survive the initial aftermath following the mess with "j", that I didn't really pay any attention to how I was feeling about any of it. Things all seemed to happen quickly. Then I started having real medical troubles, and then there was the surgery, and the aftermath, of the surgery, and the very long and difficult recovery.

Except that there was more and more and more difficulty with our SM connection. It started very subtly at first. He would put that collar on me, and I'd begin to struggle. I would gasp, and sweat, and my stomach would clench. I didn't make the connection at first. I didn't make any connection at all for a very long time. I'd simply fight down the reactions and hold on and get through it all. I really didn't even "get" that it was the collar that was triggering it all. Over time, the reactions escalated, from a bit of queasiness to a full on gagging reflex, to an almost overwhelming sense of impending nausea. The idea of having that collar around my neck began to make me ill, began to make me angry, began to be an obsession that I simply could not make go away.

And I knew it was all just crazy. I knew that if I told Him what was making me so nuts, He'd send me right back to the creepy shrink guy again, and I'd have to do all that icky psychobabble crap all over -- and for what? It wasn't going to change a single freaking thing. Somehow, I knew that I was going to have to get through the place in my head where the leather collar meant more to me than it did to Him; figure out how to stop feeling like having it on was like wearing someone else's used underwear...

I tried to tell Him a couple of times, but couldn't get it to make any sense because explaining all of that in few enough words, clearly enough and concisely enough, without a whole lot of emotional burden so He would sit through it all just seemed to be beyond my capacity. I just hadn't had any luck making it clear to Him what my problem was. All He was getting was that our sessions were breaking down and that I was falling out of "position" in a rage most of the time. He was concerned but not sure what the issue was.

Confusion was sitting between the two of us, creating havoc.

That's where things were last weekend when He got out the restraints and strapped me up. I was in trouble immediately, physically repulsed AND furious. He had no idea that there were storm clouds brewing, and set about with a rubber strap. That was enough -- the floodgates burst. I couldn't do it anymore. I began to try to rip the leather from my neck, flailing and tugging, wrenching the evil thing every which way -- determined to get it off of me. Snarling and spitting, I shrieked my anguish at Him: "I don't care what You do! Take j's fucking collar off of me and You can do whatever you want! Just don't make me wear her goddamn fucking collar anymore!"

It didn't save my ass. He went right on with whatever He was doing. Left me bloody and bruised and welted. Broke the cane over me in the bargain. Finished. I think I remember hearing Him say something about it not being her collar, but maybe I imagined that -- I was still shrieking and trying to rip the damn thing to shreds. Afterwards, He held me, rocked me, stroked me, made love to me. Said nothing at all about any of it.

Later in the week; days later, He told me: "Order a new collar -- choose a two-toned colored one so that we will be able to tell it apart from the other one. Then there will be one that will be only yours." End of discussion. He heard me; loved me enough to honor the depth of my pain and fix the problem. I am the luckiest of women.

Sometimes communicating takes hard work, and lots of patience, and more than just a little time.

swan

Polyamory Observations #5

Once you create the kind of multi-branched poly relationship that we have, you simultaneously create a multi-faceted sociological phenomenon as well.

We seem to have come with a variety of strands, attached to all kinds of other folks that we love and care for. In a couple, those strands of relatedness can get complex enough sometimes, but when you start adding more people into a "family" group that is about something more than just a little happy lustfulness, then those relationships need to be "handled." That can get sort of interesting sometimes.

I don't think that you can do this if you haven't got a pretty good set of fully operational brain cells between the bunch of you...

So, a story. Indulge me.

If you've been following along, you already know that we have Grandma and Grandpa, both in their late 80's. Grandma is well along into Alzheimer's, knowing less and less about the "real" world, or any of us all the time. We've just gotten her settled into a local nursing home in the last couple of weeks. Grandpa, who lives in an assisted living facility, is moving this weekend to a smaller apartment.

Grandpa is a fairly health guy for someone approaching 89 years of age, but managing a move is beyond his capacity -- even if that move is only one door down the hall. So, it has been necessary for us to step in and offer a significant amount of assistance, and that's where things get interesting. Our cast of characters is not what you would call "normal" -- you see. Along with a lot of much needed and welcome muscle provided by Master's 18 year old son, we've had a whole lot of help from "our ex-wife." Yes, Master's first wife, the mother of His children, pitches in and helps out when the olagers are in crisis, and works side by side with T and I to make things happen.

So, today, when it came time to wade through the "crap" in Grandpa's place; to sort out Grandma's clothes; to determine what could go to Goodwill and what could be sold on E-bay; to figure out which bits of Grandma's old jewelry might be kept for the day when daughter and/or a someday daughter in law might appreciate Grandma's pearls; there we were -- wife, slave, and "ex-wife,' working in perfect concert to get the job done (after sending Master and Grandpa off to shop for a recliner for his new place). It is really hard work, but we enjoy each other. We laugh and we chatter, and we tell stories. We do what I imagine women have always done... slip into the easy camaraderie of homely talk and silly gossip, and it is as natural as stream water over stones.

We never really talk about how that happens. Much of it is because T has worked really hard for years to create the ground for that relationship to exist. None of us really look at it very closely. It is so shimmery when it is going on that it feels as if there are unicorns in the room -- the oddest incarnation of "the three graces" ever to come into being. I can feel my mind tickling about it, but being reluctant to consider it much. I am quite sure that if we pointed directly to it, it might vaporize.

In some very odd way, another sideways benefit to our poly relatedness, is that "our ex-wife," who, in many ways, is a very prickly, difficult, seemingly lonely woman, gets a couple of sort of girlfriends to hang out with every now and then. Interesting. Amazing. Wondrous.

I am entirely sure that IF you could bring in someone to observe the whole business, and they didn't know any better, they would assume we were all sisters. On the other hand, IF you could bring in an observer who was completely cluedin to the dynamics and aware of the relationships, I very much doubt that they would believe what it is they see us do so easily and fluidly. Perhaps, that disbelief would be well founded. Maybe it really isn't all that easy. Whatever. It really is worth whatever energy we all invest in the civility, the kindnesses, the reaching out to one another, the simple thoughtfulnesses. Back and forth -- across our various connections, we are weaving a "family" that defies all the expectations, and that continually surprises even all of us.

swan

Rant

I cannot stand arrogance, ignorance, intolerance, or condecension. It is particularly noxious when it comes robed in the garb of "civility" and acts to put itself out as if it has been somehow injured. My friend, morningstar, participates with an unusual group of bloggers in a community that calls itself (for reasons that are not entirely clear) Freedom's Place. She got herself into a bit of a tussle with some there about the use of the word "vanilla" as a descriptor within our community, and that has caused a fair amount of angst. She's apologized, and been way more sweet and accommodating than I would have been under the circumstances. I admit that I don't read there regularly, and don't really know most of the contributors -- I peek in upon occasion... but a day or so ago there was This Bit, and I have been fussing about it ever since.

So. If you do not want to read the rant that has been going on in my head, go somewhere else now.

The person who wrote the "charming" and oh so typically dismissive piece at "Freedom's Place" punched so many of the buttons that society uses to dismiss and marginalize those of us who pursue a lifestyle alternative that is seen as other than the norm. As I read first morningstar's response to footpad, and then the others that followed, I noticed that nobody seemed to find that what he had to say was offensive. Honestly, that surprises me. How dare this person just assume that he has the right to make these judgements without even a scintilla of a question as to whether there is a foundation for the reasoning behind all of this drivel? And why does everyone just go along for the ride, and pat this whiner on the head and chime in with "oh, poor thing..."

So let me just go through my issues:

• The "Freedom's Place" writer states, "I am not in a submissive, nor dominate, relationship...and I want neither. Nor do I particularly want to participate in a community that makes such a relationship, well, important." Such a relationship? The implication behind this must be that it is just "our kind" of relating that is out of bounds. Other relationships, I assume, would be perfectly acceptable to discuss, consider, dissect, encourage, support, and write about at whatever length. Traditional marriages, and all the vagaries and issues associated with them would, presumably, not trouble this individual, and would be entirely acceptable topics of discussion. Never mind that these relationships are all fraught with their own, usually unacknowleged, power exchange, dominance and submission issues. So this is just not good enough. If you are going to disallow one kind of relationship dynamic, then it must be that all relational dynamics must be unacceptable topics of discussion for the blog forum. So, just do not talk about any person with whom you relate, regardless of gender or marital status. Do not discuss children that you may have given birth to or raised. Do not mention any concerns about any family members of any age or relational status. Do not bring up any of the worries or sorrow or joys that may come about as a result of being a human person involved in intimate relationship because that is somehow "inappropriate."

• Then, footpad writes, "Over the years, I've been involved in many online communities, each dedicated to different (technical) issues. I've not squaked about them because I've been truly anonymous with them. However, this one has my RL photo associated with it." So, if you are anonymous, it doesn't matter what a community does? There is only a need to hold yourself or the community to a standard if you have a "face?" Let me make it clear -- if that is the standard, then what I write can be counted on to be absolutely up front, because here at "The Heron Clan," you have our faces, my neck, and my ass on the line. I'm willing to back what goes on here with the full credibility of my own heart, soul, and yes, face. No hiding behind the cowardice of cyber anonymity.

• Then, the "Freedom's Place" writer brings in the children. "And, yet, I find myself hesitating to let my children read the posts herein. Look, I don't really care what you do in the privacy in your own bedroom. Nor do I want you prying into my own." Sigh. Why is it that people do this? Don't they understand that children above the age of about 8 or 9 are simply awash in all sorts of influences that they cannot control anyway, and so they'd best be proactive in discussing and explaining and "parenting" around that, so that the lines of communication remain open for them to have some reasonable influence? Do they live in homes with televisions (Desperate Housewives, Fear Factor, etc.) and radios and I-pods and all the various media? Do their children go out and talk and interact with other children? If, as a parent, you would prefer to not allow your child to see certain things on a certain site or on a certain television program, etc., then take steps to make that happen, but do not bring that out as a club to limit the participation of other adults in that site -- or to constrain the discussions or conversations of those adults. Again, I am uncertain, why this writer has problems with some of the content at Freedom's Place (in relationship to children -- BDSM specific) but not other topics (drinking perhaps or smoking for instance). It's an interesting double standard. Further, I wonder what, exactly, it is that is so horrible about what has been written so far by morningstar, that children of a certain age could not be engaged in talking about it with a responsible, caring parent. Sex and the variations of how humans relate to one another are topics which children and adolescents are appropriately curious about. Parents and caring adults in their lives are the absolute best people for them to discuss these questions with -- assuming these people remain available for those conversations. Sadly, too often, those people make themselves unavailable because they convey that these topics are "off limits."

• Then the "Freedom's Place" writer gets truly incoherent as the ultimate meltdown begins to show up: "My personal hope for this space was to engage in interesting discussion with different people from a variety of cultures different from my own. Yet, what seems to be taking place is more appropriate for the letters page of various and sundry adult publications or a singles bar. A couple of you were pretty defensive about your personal interests. If this community is to become another avenue to reach out, rather than embace, to "non participants," then I need bow out and (as graciously as possible) disassociate my photo and my support from such as place.Look, I frankly don't care what you do behind the bedroom curtains. But I really have to ask if it's completely necessary to lead with your sexual interests. Would you walk into a new situation and say (essentially), "Hi all, I'm a sub and your OK?"I don't think so. IF so, well...um...Thanks for sharing.(I guess.)Is this making any sense?Look, Freedom's Place is a new community and it needs to determine what, precisely, separates it from every other community in the 'Sphere. If it's to become yet another place for soft porn, OK. That's where's it's citizens choose to go. Obviously, there is no desire to be with anyone who is that "different." The only different people this one wants to get to know are the acceptably different sorts. Clearly, the view has been forever distorted by too much time spent with "porn" which has defined the understanding of what it is that WE must be about, and so there is no need to get to know anything about our sort of people. OUR "culture" isn't of any interest, and that has been pre-determined before the trip even gets off the ground. This writer employs exactly the same argument/implication that was used to keep gay and lesbian people in hiding for so long: "must you TELL everyone about your lifestyle?" It is the belief that everything we do is by definition sexual and pornographic and therefore somehow relegatable to the bedroom. Under this rationale, our orientation can be hidden from view and separated from the rest of our lives. If this is the requirement for US, then, why is it not the requirement for everyone else? Why are others allowed to discuss their marital status, their partners, their household living arrangements, etc.? And why are these things not considered to be inherently sexual? Yes, some of what goes on with BDSM is sexy and sexual. I'll not deny it. However, as I recall, some of what I did as a "vanilla" wife and mother was sexy and sexual, too. If we are going to disallow everything that hints of sex in relationships, then why is it that we do not admonish the "vanillas" in our society to keep all references to their lifestyle out of sight? Why is it OK for them to openly declare that they are wives and husbands; to flash titles like Mr. and Mrs.; to go about proudly boasting that they've given birth to two, three, four or more children (clear evidence of having participated in vaginal intercourse). Why is it that we have no problem at all with the clearly erotic celebration of traditional marriages and the power exchange oriented religious/traditional wedding vows that follow the form:

Priest say unto the Man:
Wilt the have this Woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's
ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt the love her, comfort her,
honour, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep
thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?
The Man shall answer: I
will.
Then shall the Priest say to the Woman: Wilt the have this man to be
thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of
Matrimony? Wilt the obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in
sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so
long as ye both shall live?

I'd submit that the "perverted-perception" of all of this is in this writer's mind. Not ours.

I imagine I'll not be invited to write at "Freedom's Place," but that's OK. It's a hell of a lot more honest right here.

swan

Broken Cane

Amateurs break their toys. They play with ping pong paddles and cooking spoons and paint stirrers and other bits and pieces of whatnot that are never really intended to stand up to the stresses of serious impact play, and so they break their toys.
We have professionally crafted implements. They do not break.
I break, but the toys do not break.
I break in a variety of ways: my skin breaks, my resolve breaks, my emotions break. It is not uncommon for me to come to the end of a session drained, shaken, sweaty, bloody, teary, gasping for breath, completely without any resources left.
The paddles and whips and straps and canes, however, seem always to come through completely unscathed, whatever invectives and threats I might hurl against them. However dearly I might wish to see them serving as firelplace kindling, they remain ever sturdy and indestructible foes in my world.
Until yesterday morning.
We'd had a difficult session not too long ago. I'd not done well at all, so He'd strapped me down and restrained me against a repeat. Then He'd gone about administering what was an intense, but not a particularly over the top, paddling, strapping, and caning...
We've all been in emotional deep waters these last days and weeks and no matter what my logical intentions are going into a session, the actual event taps whatever I'm holding onto. It wasn't long before I was roaring and growling and snarling -- rages that I'd been incubating for a long time. I was well into it, fighting the restraints, determined to rip them apart.
He paid no attention at all, and laid into me with the lovely rattan cane that we bought when we were at Thunder in the Mountains. Soaked in linseed oil, that cane is marvelously flexible and whippy, and beautifully finished. It delivers a wicked sting. As I swore and snarled, He must have gone after me with a vengence -- because when it was all over with, my butt was in tatters, and the cane was broken.
Now it sits, handle all akinbo, atop our headboard, bearing mute testimony to our final struggle. It may well be days before I will walk, sit, or sleep comfortably -- but the cane will never recover.

swan