when John and i first started dating, email was a very primary connection for us. he would send me sweet notes, or hellos, or most often, links to things he found that he thought i would like to read. (he was usually right.) his experience in the lifestyle had started online, so he already had a wealth of marked sites and weblogs and other such things saved, and could get to the good stuff more easily than i.

what i found, and find still, is that more often than not, what posts he sends me to read give me a very mixed reaction. it doesn’t seem to matter whether dominant or submissive has written, but that i walk away feeling, well, mixed. whether a real-life account of a scene, or just musing, or a fantasy written out, i can never seem to just accept it and enjoy it. this confuses John a bit, i think; it certainly has made him feel as if he shouldn’t have sent that particular thing to me, which is not actually true.

the truth is, there are simply tons of things that other couples in the lifestyle do or say or partake in, for which i am just not ready. and some things for which i will never be ready.

but what i don’t get is why it affects me so much to read about those things. it’s not as if i think John has sent me a story of, say, a Dom and Sub scening in a public restroom in order to tell me he’d like to do that the next day (though i admit, at the very beginning, not being sure of that. thank goodness i asked!). he knows i’m not ready for anything that huge (not to mention illegal), and i know he would never push my boundaries in such a way that would simply be too far. i think the difficulty for me is that i start to identify with the ppl in the story, especially the love-based ones, and i think the story is headed for a familiar place, and it does go there, but then it takes what feels like 100 steps beyond what’s familiar, and all of a sudden i’m freaked.

i know that my limits will change; hell, they’ve changed already, so much so that i confuse myself pretty often (see earlier post). but there are so many things within submission that i don’t want. there are terms doms and subs alike use in their descriptions of activities, or of themselves, that i don’t like, don’t agree with, or just plain don’t understand. maybe it’s because they are all words on a screen, but phrases like “i fucked her mouth” seem so damned disrespectful that i can’t get past them. i know i have John’s respect, and that’s a big part of my trust in him. i know that even as he pushes my limits, he will still listen to me, he will still help me to understand when i don’t, and most importantly, he will hear me when i say “stop” and mean it.

and i do completely understand that every relationship is different, in or out of the lifestyle. i even know that the way we define terms is probably completely different from anyone else’s definition. so some part of me knows that when i am reading how he “fucked her mouth”, even as my head reels against it, that may not be as disrespectful within their relationship as it seems to me.

but it still bothers me, as do other things.

maybe some of the bother comes from the posts being so intense, where i’ll be happily reading along, really enjoying what i’m reading, getting ideas or getting turned on or whatever, and then WHAM! all that intensity is balled up into that moment of “i don’t like that at all!!” in other words, if i didn’t like the rest of the post so well, the part i don’t like wouldn’t affect me so much.

and for sure some of it is fear: of the unknown, of myself, of what John may want in the future that i just can’t imagine right now, of some of my more conservative friends and family ever finding out about this part of my life.

but i think also that some of that fear is that there could ever be a part of me that does want to be . . . THAT submissive. and i can’t give specific examples, because frankly i don’t feel like discussing my hard or soft limits with the world right now, but i do know that i don’t want to lose my sense of self within this. i feel that in John, i have found a guide and master who will take me down the path in such a way that i won’t lose my self, but realistically, there’s a chance something will get screwed up along that path, right?

right?

yeah, i know: not so much, as long as we step carefully, and talk all the time at every step, and just be careful.

but i guess i’m cynical enough, even after he’s thawed my insides out, to know that the world isn’t actually wired for dreamers all the time. sometimes, you do still get bitten, and not in the Good Way.

and i know that from the outside, our relationship may even seem odd to others in the lifestyle as they observe us. and none of that matters to me, really. as long as we both feel respected and loved, the rest of the world can either accept it, ignore it, or ask questions if they really want to know.

but when i feel as if the person writing, whether top or bottom, is without respect, or without a sense of self-respect, that i think is what becomes difficult. because while i am John’s submissive, i am not his slave, and really don’t want to be such in any of the ways i’ve read about or seen so far. since definitions are ours to make, that may change, but again, it will be our definition, and it will be what works for us.

i’m sorry. i just re-read that paragraph, and there are too many ideas there to make sense.

let’s start with that first sentence: but when i feel as if the person writing, whether top or bottom, is without respect, or without a sense of self-respect, that i think is what becomes difficult. it’s not just the master/slave dynamic that i have trouble reading posts from, but that is one that usually hits me the hardest, because that seems to be where terms are used or ideas are presented that fly in the face of all i’ve been taught. and because my relationship is so different-seeming from what i see in those posts, it’s REALLY difficult to understand how either of those ppl can be truly happy. and i know i can’t see their whole lives, or whole relationships, outside of the weblog reality, so i have to remember: when i think that what’s been said or done is wrong, it’s not actually my problem. this does help.

okay, now that other bit: because while i am John’s submissive, i am not his slave, and really don’t want to be such in any of the ways i’ve read about or seen so far. since definitions are ours to make, that may change, but again, it will be our definition, and it will be what works for us. which goes back to the above, and how i can’t know what their lives are like outside that post or weblog. but i guess, if i were going to post exclusively about my lifestyle-related time, i’d put it all in there, not just the titillating bits. and perhaps this is done more than i realize, since i don’t spend the kind of time reading weblogs that i’d like to, but . . .

yeah. i don’t know, is it just me trying to push my values on to the others? the more i write, the more i wonder.

the point is, i have a lot to learn, and i know that. frankly, i’m just thankful for the opportunity, and i hope that now that i’ve worked some of this out, in the future, i can read those posts and enjoy them more, rather than having that nagging “that’s not right!” feeling.

know what i mean?

that’s all for now, except for wishing everyone a blessed Samhain.

L