Monthly Archives: April 2021

bdsm, control, dominance, protocol, rant

My submission is a gift, and other dime store romance novel bullshit

Hello party people.  It’s been awhile since I actually ranted about something, so here’s a tirade for you to ponder on your Earth Day.

There is a phrase that has become so ubiquitous in the BDSM culture that it is literally written on t-shirts and mugs that you can buy from dropshippers worldwide – but it is just plain wrong and it sticks in my craw every time I read it or hear someone say it.

The phrase?

“My submission is a gift…”

This is usually followed by other such sundry tripe as, “… and any man who can’t understand that doesn’t deserve it,”  or “… and if it is not respected, I will take it back.”

This is wrong.

It’s a terrible metaphor and we really need to stop using it.  Submission is merely half of a power exchange negotiation.  It represents something different for every power dynamic, and every couple or group.  Submission, like almost everything else that we deal with in this thing that we do represents a spectrum of possibilities.

Submission is not a gift.  A gift is something that you give to someone with no expectations.  If you are submitting to someone with no expectations, you are doing it very, very wrong.

A gift is something that you give to someone knowing that you will never get it back.  A gift is something that you give to someone because you are following a social convention, or because they are someone you care about and gifts are one of their love languages, or because you, yourself, enjoy giving things to people.

Only the worst gifts come with strings attached, and while every gift given creates some sort of socially bonded obligation on the part of the recipient – it is always acceptable at some level for the recipient of a gift to do absolutely nothing with it, or even to re-gift it to someone else.  If someone were to offer me their submission and I did nothing with it – I would be doing us both a massive disservice, and if someone were to submit to me, only to have me pass that bond onto someone else, that would be a serious violation of trust (unless this is something that you negotiated prior.)

To make matters even worse, the vast majority of the people that I see using this phrase seem to think that they are somehow maintaining some level of control by trying to use this metaphor, which is completely untrue.  Everything gets wrapped up in these bullshit harlequin romance novel terms and ceases to have any real meaning anymore.  These sorts of modes of thinking force us to treat submission like it is a binary condition – either you are submissive or Dominant and that’s that.

It is certainly possible for a particular power dynamic to be so black and white, but that has to be negotiated to be that way.  It is also just as possible for a power dynamic to be more fluid, for areas of submission to be valid under only certain conditions, or only up to certain levels of comfort, respectful of hard and soft limits.

In fact, in my not-so-very-humble opinion, binary D/s is boring and uninspired.  Even if someone wants to consider themselves my property, I am not going to treat them like a slave under most conditions of normal everyday life.  Not only is it exhausting, but it’s not fun.

So, if my submission is not a gift, then what is it?

It’s a negotiation.  How many times do I have to say that here?  In the BDSM world, everything is a negotiation. 

Let me say that just one more time.

In the BDSM world, everything is a negotiation.

There is power to be shared on both sides of a power exchange negotiation, and if you have not negotiated away a particular power of yours, it remains yours. 

I seriously urge anyone who is entering into a D/s relationship to think long and hard about what they want to give up and what they expect to receive as part of that power dynamic and to not only have an earnest discussion about what those things all mean for you personally, but to even write them down and codify them in a contract.   This will help to prevent misunderstandings and many of the not-so-fun aspects of D/s relationship dynamics can be avoided.

End rant.

And I am, as always, Rant.

 

control, limerence, love, polyamory

On the nature of Love

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of love over the course of my life.  Everyone seems to experience the expression of love in a slightly different way, and apart from being a place to rant about my discomfort with the state of the world, exploring the topics of love and limerence was part of my motivation for starting this site.

English is a very descriptive language.. it actually has more words than any other language, by a large margin, but I think that we sometimes miss with the focus for where we put those words, and that has some pretty dramatic implications for the way that the minds of native English speakers work as compared to everyone else in the world…

I tend to steal the Greek words when I talk about love – they had at least seven different forms.  Of course, because Latin is very dependent on Greek and English is very dependent on Latin, these words are often the roots of the words that we use in English anyway:

eros: this is the Greek word for ‘romantic love’ – but also lust – and as such is the most overused of these words.  Eros was specifically a word about sex though – it was, after all, the name of the Greek god of fertility. It was actually a frightening concept for them because it involves a sense of a ‘loss of control’ – which is commonly seen in art from and inspired by the period, including the very famous story of Cupid and Psyche wherein Cupid himself becomes overwhelmed by eros and tragedy ensues.  Using modern English words, the Greek concept of eros was probably far closer to limerence than love or even lust.

philia: this is what we might call ‘brotherly love’ – but it meant a great deal more to the Greeks – this is the word I use to refer to my chosen family.  To the Greeks, this was far preferable to eros.  This is the love that leads one to make sacrifices for others.  This is the love felt between soldiers on the same line – the kind of bond that remains in place no matter what barriers of space and time lie between the people for whom this bond exists, but the Greeks understood that even philia did not necessarily mean that both people in such a bond would be equally bonded.  I may be willing to sacrifice almost anything for you, but that does not necessarily mean that you would for me — that does not negate my own feelings of philia towards you.

storge: this is a special form of love that parents have for their children.  It’s akin to the above, but recognized to be a special case because there are ways in which you modify your own expectations and behavior for your children that you are unlikely to do for anyone else, even your romantic love(s).  This is really the only form of love that the Greeks thought had to be shared between both parties – because it was of an instinctual nature, beyond the view of the self.

ludus: this is what we might call ‘affection’ – it’s the love that children have for each other, or the physical aspects of love that are not carnal in nature – hugs, dancing, playing.  In our Western society, we tend to reserve expressions of this only for people with whom there are taboos involved that prevent sexual expression, which kind of perverts and cheapens it, if you ask me.

pragma: this is what I might call ‘patient love’ – it’s the love that you build over a long time with someone, that allows you to overlook small character flaws or acute events of an unpleasant nature and still keep a pristine mental image of the person that you care for.  This is ‘mature love’ – or what we expect most romantic relationships to settle into once eros has taken leave and you have a chance to return to your senses.

agape: this is also a pretty commonly stolen word, often misused because we don’t think like the Greeks did… this is ‘hippie love’ – or ‘love for everyone’ and sometimes referred to as ‘brotherly love’ as well, but in the “society is full of my brothers” sort of way, rather than, “I would die for that man,” sort of way.  This is really meant to be more like the Theravada concept of metta.  I fear greatly the expunging of agape from the minds of people, but that does seem to be the way the world is moving – division is the rule of the day, not love.

philautia: self-love… to be held in direct opposition to narcissism – this is the concept that all expressions of love for anyone are really just manifestations of your mind recognizing in other people things which you value in yourself – if there is nothing that you value in yourself, you cannot love anyone at all.

And all of this information is useful, but kind of secondary to the point that I’m trying to make, which is that when I say, “I love you” to someone – I may mean that I feel any or all of the above things in differing measures, and the phrase may not mean the same thing to everyone to whom I speak it – just as it doesn’t always mean the same thing when I hear it from different people.

For some people, love is a jealous thing – it is possessive… if I say “I love you” to someone, and I mean in a romantic sort of way, society tells me that I’m not supposed to say that to anyone else – but that doesn’t stop me from feeling it, and because I’m polyamorous, it doesn’t stop me from acting on it either, but that may not address the feelings of the person involved with me, and sometimes that can cause friction.

I don’t have a silver bullet here – jealousy is a very normal thing to feel, and there is no way to magically stop it if that is what you feel, but surprisingly I’ve also found that the converse of jealousy is often almost as important to some people’s feelings of love.  I have had partners who, while telling me of their interactions with other people, have wanted me to feel jealous and when I do not exhibit that kind of reaction, they begin to doubt the truth behind my statements of love.  If I am not jealous of them being with someone else, how can I really love them?  And yet, I do.

Love is one of those dangerous and chaotic things that makes our lives in this universe worth living, and yet it is also the one thing that has consistently laid me low when a relationship ends.  I don’t think I will ever completely understand its power or be able to control it, and perhaps that is why it is so compelling for everyone and the subject of so many works of art and media.

Hopefully by communicating about it, by understanding that there are different facets to it and how those things are each individual spectra of emotion, we can find a way to live beside it.

There is a reason why every pantheon of gods contains at least one, if not several, deities who are personifications of this powerful force in our lives.  Love is every bit as powerful as the sea or the wind or fire, perhaps even the Sun itself, and I consider myself fortunate to be its acolyte.

life, story

Being Damien

1 Comment

This is not a post about kink – sorry… my soapbox, I get to talk about the things I want to.

Today I’m going to talk about what it’s like to be Damien. 

Damien is one of my alters.  If you don’t know what that means, educate yourself here or some of what I say next may not seem to make much sense.  But that’s okay, it probably won’t make much sense after you learn anyway.

Damien is one of the main three personalities that I express most often, along with Rant (that’s me), and Apollo.  

Damien is a bit of a handful…  He is very much in tune with my Dominant side, but he takes the things that I do and kicks everything up to 11.  He has no shame.  He has no fear.  He rarely forms attachments.  He believes himself to be good at everything.  Somehow he does this without attaching his ego though.  If you insult him, he’ll just laugh it off and then try to buy you a beer.  He is arrogant and charming at the same time.  It’s really kind of strange. 

Whereas I am very patient, compassionate, forgiving, and I do not judge people; Damien judges everyone and everything, he is not very patient, and he has been known to hold a grudge.  He is, however, generally kind and he will moderate his behavior when he knows that it would not meet with my approval… sometimes, anyway. 

We are both Hedonists, but while I enjoy wine, women, and song, he enjoys everything and everyone if the context is right.  He is very, very everything that he chooses to be, and he gives absolutely zero time and attention to the things that he does not care about. 

This incompatibility in our values can sometimes be difficult to deal with, especially when he acts out in a manner that would be inconsistent with what people have come to expect from me (Rant). 

I often find that I have to apologize for things that I don’t remember because Damien took something too far or stuck his face in someplace where he wasn’t necessarily welcome. 

However, being able to be Damien under the right circumstances is kind of a super power, and I wish I had more control over it.  He tends to come out on Wednesday nights, or if I’m super stressed out or otherwise emotionally overwhelmed, especially if I’ve been drinking – and it seems to matter very little how much I drink, even just a nip from my flask can bring him out if he’s lurking.   

He thinks that I am entirely too emotional and he has no problem telling everyone that.  In the beforetimes, he would try to pack as much activity as he possibly could into every time that he was at the fore.  He is well known for dragging people from one party destination to another, to another, and then finishing up with breakfast at 4am in a diner someplace, preferably one that sells pie.

Damien claims to have access to my memories, and sometimes I can remember his, but I do not understand how this works and while he claims he does, I don’t really believe him.  However, I can remember being Damien sometimes, and it’s a very different way to experience life.

I’ll almost certainly follow this up with another entry on what it’s like to be Apollo, but that is a more extreme shift.  Apollo actually experiences the world differently than I do, which is kind of hard to explain, but … that is also not this post.

Damien does not see the world particularly differently from the way I do, but he tends to ignore things a lot more than I do.   He is interested in the things he is interested in and nothing else matters.  This means that our behaviors are different in subtle and not-so-subtle ways…

Back in the beforetimes, if I had to navigate through a crowd, I would take a path that winds around people and other obstacles in my way, trying not to bump into people and letting the speed of the crowd slow my progress in order to avoid those sorts of unintended contact with people.  Damien – he walks a straight line and if you don’t get out of the way in time, he might run into you, but he’ll then stop and apologize and be very charming about it and probably get your phone number…

In the beforetimes, when I would go to a grocery store, I might take a cart and go up and down each and every aisle, looking to see if I find anything new and interesting that I might like and then take my stuff up to the front and largely wordlessly put my goods on the conveyor belt, help bagging them, thank the checker, pay and then leave.  Damien – he walks straight to the thing(s) he wants, grabs it, and then goes and flirts with people in line or with the checker while waiting for someone else to bag his stuff on the way out. 

He just sort of expects that everyone wants to please him all of the time, and he is correct more often than he has any right to be.  

One time Damien was at a nightclub and as they were closing and kicking everyone out, my girl went to the bathroom, leaving me standing there alone in the club, waiting for her and the bouncer told me to get out of the building.  Damien told him that we were waiting for my girl and that we would leave when she got out.  The bouncer decided that this was not sufficient and that we needed to leave immediately, so he got into my face a little bit.  Damien just laughed at him and said, “What do you think you are going to do?” and the bouncer just walked away without saying anything else.

Being Damien feels powerful, most of the time. 

I don’t really suffer from social anxiety all that much, but I think every person is affected by it from time to time – except Damien.  He walks into a room and expects to be the most intelligent, best looking, most captivating person there, and kind of just refuses to acknowledge any reality that may be different from that.  

As you can imagine, this does not always rub everyone the right way, however, he is so charming that most of the time he gets away with all of it.  He leans heavily on Apollo’s assessments of people and when he is interested in something, he pays very close attention to everything about it or them.  At the end of a single conversation with Damien, he can make people feel like he knows them better than anyone ever has before.  He can create instant connections with almost anyone if he wants to, and often he wants to, though his EQ is not quite as high as mine and sometimes I have to clean up his messes.

I really wish I had the ability to turn those sorts of abilities on and off at will.  It really does feel like a super power sometimes, and if I could control it, I wonder what doors it might open for me.  I doubt that it would change my life entirely, and Damien is far too polarizing as a personality to be able to be Damien all the time, but I do wonder what it might be like if I could be Damien whenever I wanted to be, especially if I could always remember the things he does along the way.

Being me is not easy, but Damien makes lots of parts of it fun in ways that I might never even think about.   He is in many ways like the brother I never had.  The pandemic has had him visit less regularly and for shorter periods of time, and I actually sometimes miss him, as odd as that may sound.