My Thanksgiving was delightful. Good food, good company all enjoyed in abundance. The night ended a bit too early for my tastes. My poor hostess had just flown in from London that morning, and when the wine and the jet lag hit her, it was clearly time to put the poor woman down for the night. She's a morning person as well, and she always curses me for our revelries since I just keep going and going.

She was additionally worn out from having her parents there as well. They are perfectly nice people, mind you, but there's some rule that says our own parents make us nuts for reasons no one else can understand. Or at least, in ways not detectable to others in any obvious way. I am sympathetic to that, not having the best relationship in the world with my mother right now. My Mom makes me a bit nuts too, but I'm a good son, and I return the favor in kind.

After having one last quiet glass of wine with Jennifer and a friend after everyone else had left, I returned home. I then spent way too many hours chatting the night away with Xantcha and Michael Aridfox on that time sucking swamp of the Red Quill Hotline server (I mean the Black Sheep hotline server...) I finally went to bed at 6AM. I was going to bed at 3AM, I swear. I have Conny to blame for that. Actually, I have her to thank for listening to a nascent post that I have been wanting to write, but due to other circumstances, cannot share here. I promise such barriers will fade with time. It's not my inhibitions that hold me back, but the very, very public nature of this venue means I must consider the effect of what I say on people I care about. It is indeed a difficult balancing act.

I did get to talk to her about the nature of submission in an SM context. I'm sure when the typical vanilla person thinks about a person being submissive (or "bottoming", as we pervs call it), they can summon up a rather stereotypical image of a person groveling obsequiously at the feet of another person. Add to that scene the dominant, or top, being a hell-on-wheels bitch or bastard, barking orders and degrading comments to the bottom. Admittedly, I can see where a vanilla person would look at this and think "What the hell is the appeal to this?" But that imaginary transaction is a gross simplification of what takes place.

For me, SM is about pushing yourself, or pushing another person. I've had conversations with my triathelte friend about our motivations for out respective madnesses, and they both are driven by the same thing. It is a desire to bring yourself mentally, physically and spiritually to an intense state of being by sheer force of will. SM has one advantage over running a marathon to me, in that it involves a powerful link to another person. That link is one of great trust and deep intimacy. It cannot be formed in a relationship that is mean spirited or hostile. SM is not abuse.

James's comment on pain in his diary made me laugh. I don't seek out pain either, it's not erotic for me in the least (though for some, it is.) But if we shun pain, both physical and emotional, we limit ourselves greatly. Pain is a wall to be scaled, and the feeling of triumphing over it is sheer rapture. I do not seek a flogging for the feel of the lash. I do it to prove to my top that I can take it, and take it for her. If it were a pleasent thing, it would prove nothing. And, she knows in flogging me that she is helping me to challenge myself. She also feels the power of my devotion to her. If she is good, she will push me just to the cusp of my limit, where I really begin to think I can take no more. When it is done, my submission to her as given me a great feeling of strength, and my top feels it as well.

So it is possible for a man to kneel before a woman and give himself over to her utterly and completely and not be weak. Quite the opposite, actually. When you truly submit to another, you actually come into deeper possession of yourself. It is heady, heady stuff.


While James sadly expurgates his diary, which I hope he will reconsider when cooler heads prevail, Conny has been bitten by the journaling bug. The structure of the site is still a work in progress, and she gets points for having a dutiful little web gnome working on the engineering. I am sure when it is done, her diary system will be a BMW to my Ford Blogger. In the mean time, feel free to tease her about the slightly awkward navigation. Oh, and no fair for the suggestive domain name, Conny. She'll get more traffic on that alone, damn her.

posted 2:33 PM | link |