Category Archives: dominance

control, dominance, life, love, rant

Chemical Control

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I am a Dom.  Sometimes I don’t act very Dom-like though, and for the past several months, I’ve been out of control and very rarely Dominant.

The essence of Dominance is Control – control of yourself, control of your environment, control of the scene, control of your submissive.  That is the order and hierarchy that the world should adhere to from the perspective of the Dom in me.  Rant’s rules, distilled to the control elements…

But lately, I have NOT been the one in control – the demons in my mind have been controlling me and therefore everything else in that chain – including my saint of a poor submissive girlfriend.  The fact that she stayed with me through all of this is something for which I shall always be grateful and never fully understand.

But let’s back up a bit…

I live in the United States.  California, to be exact, and the San Francisco Bay Area – which is more tolerant than other places in this country, but we still lag behind in a few areas and one of those is that there is still a stigma attached to mental disorder.  People still seem to think that if you are diagnosed as bipolar or depressed or with general anxiety disorder that there is something fundamentally wrong with you and, perhaps more insidiously, that there is something dangerous about you.

To a certain extent these fears have a basis in reality… as I have personally come to learn in the past several months. But more importantly, these sorts of preconceived notions can affect how one perceives such things, even when one has personal experience.

I have battled depression, and recently, anxiety as well.

I knew the demons of depression, and that was part of the problem with this most recent bout of anxiety.  Anxiety and depression look and feel very different, and yet they can cause a lot of the same sorts of symptoms and problems.

When I was controlled by depression, I wanted to kill myself.  I was overwhelmed with the world and I just couldn’t see any way past the horrible realization that everyone I loved would be better off without me dragging them down.  I was despondent and in pain and sometimes even just breathing seemed to be too much effort.  I wanted out and I could see no other way.

Fortunately for me, I was strong enough to recognize that suicide is ultimately an extremely selfish act, and I chose not to be so selfish and got help.  I pulled out of my depression and I thought that I was cured.

I’ve always been neurologically atypical, but it never even occurred to me that I was suffering from anxiety.  I was stressed out and I couldn’t sleep and I was irritable and short to anger and couldn’t concentrate and had all of the other hallmarks of severe general anxiety disorder, but I was sure that I was “just a little stressed” or that once the current crisis abated that things would get back to normal in short order.

But that was masking the problem.  The current crisis always gave way to the next.  And that’s just how life is.  Life is not easy, and if you let every issue balloon out to the point of crisis, you will be fire-fighting all of the time.  There is no shortage of crises to be found anywhere nowadays.

I started fighting with my girlfriend – daily.  We fought about everything and nothing at all.  We spiraled into the same patterns, over and over again.

But never did it even occur to me that I was the problem.

Even that statement isn’t really fair – the problem wasn’t me, the problem was that I was unable to cope with the level of anxiety that I had in my life.   Once again, I was overwhelmed, but this time instead of forcing that inward and causing myself to be depressed, I pushed it out into the world around me, and I lashed out at the people I loved.  I shut out all emotions and I pushed everything and everyone away.

My girlfriend tried to get me to get help.  And I even went along with it, but I didn’t try very hard.  I saw a doctor and I told him what was going on in the broadest of terms and when he told me that I just needed to deal with it, I took that in stride and just figured that I was facing daily stress like we all do and that better time management or organization would help me.

But no amount of organization or time management can fix a broken mind.

As the anxiety got worse, my symptoms did as well.

I got delusional.

I stopped sleeping almost entirely.

I lost the ability to concentrate, even for minutes at a time.  If not for the reputation that I have developed at work, I would have been fired several times over for being behind in my duties or just plain failing to get things done, and the more I failed to get done, or the more behind I would get, the more anxious I would become.

I felt like I was failing at everything.

I can recall many conversations with my therapist or my girlfriend where I said, “I’m failing at everything,” but it was never enough to clue me into the real problem.

My friends and even my family would tell me that I needed to get help, but I was sure that I knew better.

“I know what depression feels like, and this is not that.” – I would tell them.  And I was right, but I was completely missing the point, it wasn’t depression that was sidelining me, it was something else entirely.

Of course, it took things getting really horrible before I actually took the steps that ameliorated the problem.  My body started objecting in the most amazing ways…

My blood pressure went off the charts…  I’d started dropping a lot of weight.  I was sweating like crazy – so much that even the skin on my palms was beginning to peel…  but even that was not enough.  I didn’t go back to a psychiatrist until I had a panic attack.

I was driving on surface streets and had a panic attack and failed to move when the light changed.  People in cars around me honked and leaned out their windows to yell at me and flip me off and I still couldn’t move.

Eventually I was able to begin breathing again and moved my car.  I got home and resolved right away that I needed chemical help for my anxiety.

I found a new doctor (who is pretty amazing, actually) and started a new treatment program and now, three weeks in, I am in control of myself once again.

The difference is as stark as day and night.

Just a few weeks ago, I doubt very much that I could have managed even to sit still long enough to read a blog post of this length, much less actually write it.

The last time I was taking psychoactive pharmaceuticals, I was worried that I was going to be stuck on them for the rest of my life.

I wasn’t.

I may be on the new meds that I am taking now for years to come, but I don’t care one whit…. I am in control again, and it feels good.

Back at the helm.

I am Rant.

bdsm, control, dominance

An imaginary conversation with a new submissive

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Kneel for me. Look into my eyes and try to maintain eye contact for as long as you can. Give me your full attention. Do not speak until I am finished talking. I will let you know when that is.

People are not rational beings. Trust is almost always brittle and ephemeral. This process will be disorienting and frightening for you, but even before we begin, you should know that I am terrified.

Most people cannot do the things that I am going to ask you to do. Most people will break under this sort of stress, and if you break I will be there to help pick up the pieces, but we will go slowly… more slowly than even I think we need to, because if _we_ break, that will be the end of us.

But I trust you, and I trust us. And we are going to forge something unbreakable with that trust.

As we start this, you are going to think that I’m joking. The further along we get, the more doubts you will have – about whether or not I’m joking, about whether or not you can do this, whether or not you really want to do this. You will start to believe that maybe I’m crazy, or that maybe you are. You will question the motivation that brought you to this conclusion from the very beginning. Everything will feel unnatural at first, but I promise you that eventually it will seem second nature.

You are not you anymore. Not when you wear my collar. You are an extension of Me. You exist purely to reinforce my Will and Serve my needs. You will begin to learn the things that I like, not that I merely require. You will begin to anticipate my desires as well as my needs and you will feel incomplete while you know that there is anything that I am missing. The only way to feel complete again is to satisfy those needs and desires, and you will do anything in your power to be complete again.

I’m going to tell you to look into my eyes and tell me that you exist only to please me. You are going to feel silly when you do. You won’t believe it at first. You will hold back a kernel of yourself, a part of your own being, of something that is not Me. You will say the words, and you will want to mean them, but you won’t. Not at first.

I’m going to tell you to look up into my eyes and tell me that you exist only to please me. You are going to bear false witness at first. You will do as I command, but you will withhold a part of yourself. You will think to yourself, “I am choosing to do this. I want to forget myself, to let myself become this vessel for him. I want to stop being myself for a time.” But you won’t quite succeed. Not at first. Because you will have to think about it. Because you will feel insecure. You will feel like you’re acting. You will feel juvenile, pretending, silly. But you will be stepping closer towards being Mine. And once you are Mine, you will be finally Free.

You are not you anymore. Not when you wear my collar. There is one inside of you who has always known that you wanted this. You have been searching for the one who sees this need within you and who can foster it and cherish it and shape it, because you don’t have the knowledge or strength to shape it on your own. There is one inside of you who feels like she is being forced to confront a life that she does not want. You move through life uncertain of your place within it. You know that you belong somewhere, but you haven’t ever really found it.

I can show it to you.

When you wear my collar you are giving yourself to me. Completely. You are not you anymore. You are an extension of my Will and your only purpose will be to Serve my needs and desires – even those that I am not consciously aware of myself. Eventually you will know what I want and need before I do, and you will be there already, ready to provide.

In exchange for this, I will take your burdens. You will be Free. Your only purpose will be to Serve me and you can leave all of the rest of the uncertainty and doubt behind.

While you wear my collar, the rest of the world exists at the periphery, but it is unimportant. You, for as much as you connect to the world, cease to exist and become subsumed within my Will. You can leave doubt and uncertainty behind because they no longer matter. You have only one purpose and you are the very embodiment of that goal. Your mind, your body, your actions – they all become an extension of something outside of yourself. They all become a part of Me.

I will hold you within my Will and keep the world at bay. I will protect your essence and hold it for you so that when you are ready to take up the mantle again, it will be waiting for you, but for this moment, for right now, those things cannot touch you.

I will take your body and I will use it to satisfy my needs and desires. I will protect it and cherish it as I force it to conform to my desire. I will use it to control your mind. I will use it to mold the being inside of you that you give to me. I will hurt it, because positive punishment is faster and more effective at calling attention to undesirable behavior than other methods, and you seek to become the least you can as quickly as possible. You want to vanish within my Will and the fastest, surest way to do that is to call direct, immediate, and shocking attention to anything that is contrary to that goal.

I will hurt you, but I will keep you safe.

I will hurt you, but I will never injure you.

I will flay apart the pieces around the kernel within you that you give to me. I will burn away the pieces that don’t belong. I will leave behind the strength of nature itself. I will find the seed and I will nurture it until the uneasiness is gone, until the part that you held back can’t be seen separately any longer, until you are Free from the disorientation and feelings of silliness or the idea that you’re playing a role. I will break apart the bindings of the world upon this part of you and take it for myself.

You will remain, and the world around you will call upon you as it always has, but for a time, for a moment here and there, I will pull a deeper part of you free from that existence and I will hold it apart from reality, within my own Will.

You can always go back, but while you are Mine, I can show you the freedom that you always knew was hiding from you somewhere.

Okay. I’m done speaking now. Are you ready to begin?

bdsm, control, dominance

Just what the heck is protocol anyway?

I have been accused of being an ‘old-school high protocol Dom’ a few times in my life.

I’m not sure that the statement is entirely accurate, but I suspect that there may be two reasons why this is being applied to me.

1) No one really knows what ‘protocol’ means anymore
2) Anyone who expresses any sort of structure as a part of the BDSM relationship seems to be getting classified this way lately.

So, let’s begin by addressing the first part of this.

What the heck is ‘protocol’ anyway?

It’s a three syllable word that basically means ‘rules.’

People think that because I use contracts and limits lists that I’m a ‘high protocol’ Dom.  And while there is no definitively correct answer for what ‘high protocol’ means, I tend to think of the emphasis on the ‘high’ in that phrase as indicating an emphasis on enforcement.

I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen the label of ‘low protocol’ or even ‘ordinary protocol’ applied to anyone.  It seems that within the context of the BDSM world, the two words are inextricably linked.  If you practice ‘protocol’ at all, you are automatically a practitioner of ‘high protocol.’

I’m fairly certain that I actually do NOT fit that definition.

Yes, I set rules.  In some of the contracts that I’ve held in the past, these rules can be rather strict, and failure to follow them can be met with some pretty significant consequences, but whereas I exerted a singular level of control in my earlier days, I haven’t the time or inclination to attempt such things anymore.  I don’t think I’ve necessarily grown softer – because when I decide to correct something, I can still be pretty rough, but my need to be in absolute control has waned as I’ve picked partners that are more capable and have a greater internal strength themselves.

This is not to say that I don’t invoke protocol in-scene, or even just in that nebulous ‘in the bedroom’ space.  Often I will bark commands in the midst of sex or play, and I fully expect them to be adhered to.

Bondage with ropes or straps is incredibly effective, sexy as hell, and sometimes exactly what I want or need, but sometimes I don’t have ropes with me, or I just don’t want to go through the time and effort to tie them properly – and I’m enough of a safety nut that I’d never half-ass that job.  So, I might give instruction like, “do not move except when I move you,” or “leave your arms in this position,” or even, “you can fight me on this, but if you do, I’ll hurt you.”

And you know what? The words in those cases can be even more effective than physical restraints and even sexier in the proper context.

Does this make me a ‘high protocol’ Dom?  I don’t think so.

When I used to require my submissive to walk three paces behind me, not to make eye contact, and to speak only to or through me.. that was ‘high protocol.’

And to be honest, while there is some pleasure to be derived in the novelty of it, and while it certainly does appeal to the control freak in me to have complete control over another person’s words and actions if not her thoughts, it’s exhausting to be so much in control for more than a short span of time.

Hell, I find it difficult to remain in control of just my own self from time to time.  To have to be in control of someone else, to monitor her every action and to punish or reward them as appropriate.  It’s just not something that I have time for anymore.

Protocol has its place.  It’s a wonderful thing when used properly, but it’s often misunderstood to mean something far greater than it needs to be.  You can claim to be introducing ‘protocol’ into your relationship by doing something as what I’ve described above.  Give your sub a rule to follow, and then follow up and make sure that she understands and obeys.

Isn’t that what D/s is all about anyway?

control, dominance, life

Enemies

“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.”  — Abraham Lincoln, sort of…

Abraham Lincoln actually did say that – but it’s a bit out of context.  He was responding to a woman who posited that he was not being hard enough on the newly conquered South.  She made the assertion that he should not be attempting to rebuild the South or to refer to southerners as he had – as men who were blinded by circumstance.  He was a learned man – though an autodidact – and he paraphrased the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund.  What Lincoln said in response to her query was, “Why madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

And so he did.

I’m an extremely fortunate man.  I’ve said this before, and I say it often enough that I would not blame you for thinking that I am trying to convince myself of the truth of the statement through repetition, but it is true.

I’ve been stressed out, tired, grumpy, and unhappy lately.  When this happens to me, my desire is to turtle.  I want to shut out the rest of the world and just sort of lick my wounds until I feel ready to face reality again.  Of course, this manifests itself in even further enhanced grumpiness as every little incursion into my world even from those that I love is an invasion into my need for isolation.  I snap at my kids; I snap at my girlfriend; I snap at my colleagues.

I’ve been doing this all week, since I got back from my trip to the Middle East.

At first I could blame jet lag.  It was almost certainly a factor.  I wasn’t eating, my sleep was off, and I was just generally miserable.  But I think it goes deeper than that…

Everything in my life right now is in flux.  I just settled my accident case – though not satisfactorily – this is one instance where being a Caucasian male definitely works against me.  My project at work is being transferred away, and I’ve been wanting to find a new job for quite some time.

My back was aggravated by the air travel – I can’t sit for long periods of time without it causing my back problems – but it brought one thing into sharp focus.. job stress is FAR more harmful to my health and my back issues than even sitting on a plane in coach for 20 hours.

Job stress is killing me – possibly literally.

I like to think of myself as being reasonably grounded, as being Zen in places where others cannot be.  I like to try to react unemotionally but with empathy, or at least compassion.  I try to be rational in all things, and yet, in this instance, I am most un-rational.

I seem to have an expiration date when jobs are involved.   For the first six months or so in any new job, I am in love all over again.  Even if I’m doing something very similar, I have many new things to learn, new people to meet, new technologies to play with, and new experiences of nearly every type.  Eventually the newness wears off and I develop confident competence – I become an expert and I begin to take on leadership roles, and that works for another year or two.  I invariably come across and begin to resent those that are either not competent or who lack the ethic that I bring to task.  At first I silently compensate for these low performers, but eventually I begin to resent them, and that’s when the downward spiral begins.

In my current job, I’ve been spiraling for a bit more than a year now.  For awhile I was able to achieve some sort of emotional distance, but eventually even this failed me and I find myself where I am now, angry and feeling exploited.  I began to stop compensating for the lack of ability in my peers and rather than reacting as I expect, those further up the corporate totem pole bring their ire to me directly – the things that I was doing to compensate for the lack of ability or focus in others are no longer getting done, and despite the fact that these things were never my responsibility, the fact that I am now no longer doing them becomes my fault and my shortcoming.

The injustice of this only serves to further increase my anger and unhappiness.

And now, recent market changes have made it economically irresponsible for me to leave my job and seek employment elsewhere, so, as you might imagine, I’ve been feeling a bit trapped.

And what do I do when I feel trapped?

I pull in and react to the rest of the world with anger and resentment.

I could rail at the gods.  I could pull back and say to myself and the rest of the universe, “this is unfair! Why me?!”   I could blame others – the colleagues that I have been carrying, the management who is laying the blame at my feet, the Universe itself for being a cold, uncaring place.  I could lament my misfortune and no one would blame me for it.  My friends would support me, “you’re right, that’s unfair!  You deserve better.”  And I would be grateful for their support.

But that’s not the way out of this.

It’s in my nature to take charge of things.  It’s in my nature to automatically pitch in and take over when things are faltering.  It’s part of who I am to sacrifice my own time or my own desires in order to bring the team across the line.  And I do it, over and over again.  And I’m unlikely to stop – and even if I did, that wouldn’t make me happy.

The problem is that I can’t do it forever.  Not without developing resentment.  This is normal.  This is not a violation of Zen principles – to deny my own feelings would be turning a blind eye to the most important thing in my universe – Me.  And while martyrs get nice things written about them more often than not, martyrs also tend to die miserable deaths, and I’m not quite ready to lay down and die yet, so I need to take care of me.

So, how do I get out of this, you ask?

I turn my enemies into friends.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I abhor my boss.  She’s incompetent, lazy, bigoted, and just plain mean at times.  She is not a leader, and in my opinion, does not deserve her position.  She is barely capable of holding on to it, and if I were willing to sacrifice my own position, I could certainly bring her down.  But I won’t do that.

I’m going to make her into my best friend.

I am going to do everything in my power to force her to succeed where she is floundering now.

I am going to change my world.

Now, while this is something of a personal epiphany that I’ve had, and while I’m arrogant enough to think that it might be worthy of reading, it’s really not got anything to do with the focus of this blog, which is BDSM specific – for the most part.

So, to bring things back into focus, I’ll extrapolate from D/s philosophy and put this into terms that almost make sense in that context.

I’ve been beating my head against a brick wall by trying to Dominate my boss and my colleagues.  I’ve been trying to expose – bluntly at times – how fucked they really are if they don’t do as I’ve been suggesting.  I held my head high, knowing that I didn’t create the situation in which they find themselves so thoroughly fucked – I just did nothing to prevent it.

And even though I know better – I tried to pretend that those two things are not the same thing.

Just as a lie of omission is still a lie – to allow something to occur through inaction when I could have prevented it is the same as causing it myself.

And so.. I was Dominating nothing.  I was allowing things to happen when I could have controlled them.  The proper thing to do for me – the proper thing to do to respect my own very nature – is not to get out of the way and let bad things happen, but to control them to create the best possible outcome that I can, and I was not doing that.  So – things were falling apart, and I have been extremely unhappy to watch it unfold.

You’d think that I’d have some sort of schadenfreude inspired glee at watching things fall apart, but really it’s just made me a mess.

No more.

I don’t care who gets credit for things happening as they should – I never really have.  So – I’m going to fix it, and in so doing, fix myself.

 

control, dominance, life, love

The Monster Inside

Firstly, before I begin this post, I need to apologize – dear readers.

I promised that I’d be more frequent with the updates, and then life got in the way again.  Even while I was not able to keep up on the blog posts, I have always been responsive to email requests from my readers, until this past week.  I’ve received a few emails that I was not able to respond to for almost a week, and for that I apologize.  I think I’ve responded to all of those that require a response, but if you sent me something that I failed to give an adequate response to, please re-send, I think I might have lost one or two in the process.

I should also apologize for the content of this post – it’s in keeping with blogs in general, but not precisely with the tenor of this blog in particular.  This is a personal piece that has almost nothing to do with my role as Dom…

As I write this, I’m sitting in an outdoor covered patio on a beach on the Mediterranean.  It’s overcast, but warm, and while it rained a bit earlier this morning, it doesn’t seem to be threatening rain now.

You’d think that this would make me happy, but really, I’m rather discontent.  I’m far away from the one that I love, in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language, and in the company of people that seem to not like me.  It’s the sort of thing that makes one angry and pensive – at least when that someone is me.

I miss my girl.

Lately, we’ve both been stressed to the max and it’s boiled over a few times into conflict, but even when things were their worst, this remains the most solid relationship that I’ve ever had – while I still have doubts about myself, and I still wonder how I had the good fortune to find her, I no longer have any doubts about us, and that is really about the only thing that is keeping me sane today.

Anger is just below the surface, and it’s undirected and undirectable (yes, I know that isn’t a word, but you know exactly what I mean by it, so leave off) and it’s become a terrible distraction.  If my girl were here, I could do something about it, but then again, if my girl were here, I would likely not have to…

I’ve spoken about my ‘Aggressive Days‘ before, and this would seem to be quite similar, but whereas I didn’t quite grasp all of the nuance involved in bringing me to this point when I first wrote that entry, I’ve had a bit of a personal revelation since then.  I thought at that time that part of the reason that I was unable to really let myself loose and open up my Primal side was because that wasn’t really part of who I am anymore, or maybe that I was growing too old and the chemistry of my body was different enough that I didn’t feel the same things as intensely as I did, but that’s not actually true.  I think I was just with the wrong girl.  Things have taken a much better turn now… but I want to talk about the past a bit, to where these things began – I think.

When I was a teen boy, not quite a man, but thanks to an early puberty, looking every bit the part, I sort of … broke.

When I picked up the pieces that were left, I was not the same person – or rather, I was not just the same person, there was something else, something new, something that broke off from the main part of what I consider to be me.

The Monster.

One of my favorite novel series is called the Sandman Slim series, written by Richard Kadrey.  Incidentally, Mr. Kadrey is a San Francisco resident, respected fetish photographer, and at least peripherally connected to the same scene to which I am a part, but we’ve never crossed paths that I am aware.  If by some chance Mr. Kadrey or one of his acquaintances happens to be a reader of this blog, I’d very much like to buy him a beer and have a conversation.  I don’t completely relate to every aspect of his antihero protagonist Stark, but I do identify with him to an extent, and one thing that I certainly do understand is the problematic way that broken people (to apply the term loosely) like Stark, and to a lesser extent, myself, deal with other people and the world at large.  There are certainly times when I think that I belong in Hell myself, and there was a time when I was convinced that I should be, or that at the very least I should be isolated from society, so as to not cause any harm to those that I actually care for.

This is not because I like to be alone.  Sure – I need alone time, and I think everyone does, but nothing has gone so far to reinforce the point that I need people too as sitting here, surrounded by people that are in most ways alien to me.  They speak a language that sounds like nothing I can understand.  They live and move and wander around me as if I am not even here.  I sit here, surrounded by people, more alone than I have been in a long time.  I was at a grocery store yesterday to buy some basics, and I completed the entire trip, including purchasing a few sundries, without speaking a single word to anyone.

And so… here I sit.  Pensive.  Angry.  Lonely.  Longing.

And there is a part of me that is raging.  I don’t understand the things around me, and while I can still read the body language and emotional cues of the people I see, I cannot understand them, and that is making me tense.

I don’t do so well when I feel this way.

I grew up in fear.  I let myself be led astray by a man that I respected and he abused me in the worst way that he possibly could have.  I didn’t have any control over my own destiny, and when I managed to pull myself out of that particular situation, I got myself trapped in another.  I think that these things worked together to make me who I am today, and contributed to my need to control everything – including myself.  Which is why the need to channel the scared young man inside of me into physical and emotional actions.  It’s why I want to control every aspect of my life, and it’s why I want to exert control over others.

But my heart is still strong and I’m still a chivalrous man.

I’m beginning to accept and even embrace this side of me.   It’s always been something that scared me in the past.  It was a thing that scared others too.  Simone once told me that she was only in her life ever afraid of two men, her father and me, but she never told me why.  I think I know though.  I’ve always kept the monster caged, and I do again today, but he’s come out a couple of times recently, and I’ve not lost control.

There are two ways you can control a situation, and each has its place.  You can seize control.  You can force your will upon someone, and if you have enough power, you can get them to do what you want.  Or you can accept the burden of the situation.  You can allow yourself to be pulled in, and then with a strong will, you can guide the way to the resolution you desire.  This is not a manipulation, this is a sublimation.  You can give up control in order to get what you want… what you need.  These are the two sides of the D/s coin.  And they both need to be employed to make for a complete life.

In my present situation, I could attempt to seize control.  I could expend my personal power in a number of different ways and force those around me to act how I want them to.  It might even work, contextually.  I could hire an interpreter or guide.  I could only go places where I know that there are people that speak English.  I could only acknowledge the things here that are familiar.  But I choose not to.  I am immersing myself in the world here and now, and it’s quieting the monster.  I am experiencing new things and expanding my horizons, become bigger, better, stronger, more… but I do not think that I could do that by forcing the world to meet me where I am.

It has taken me a terribly long time, and perhaps in some ways my growth in this area was stunted, but I’m learning that extremes have their place, and it’s not sufficient to ride the middle line all the time.

I can let the monster loose when I need him, or when I want him, and I can still be the man I want to be.  I can let him take control when I want to, but I am always still there, watching, making sure that nothing untoward happens.

This is how I can love my girl, even as I choke her until she passes out, or slap her across the face as I fuck her.

Fuck, I miss her.

I’ll be back with her in a week.

I can hardly wait, but I know I am strong enough to manage it.

bdsm, control, dominance, question, rant

FinDommes

The nature of Dominance is not always an obvious thing – even to me.

Preface: This is a post that I started and didn’t finish from about two months ago.  The information is still valid, but the email that I reference is pretty old at this point.  Caveat lector.

I recently received an email from a very intelligent reader who did not specify his gender, so I apologize if my use of male pronouns is inappropriate, but I’m going to continue to refer to this reader as ‘him’ for expediency’s sake.

He asks me, “Is this FinDomme for real? I’m really thinking about this and I don’t know how to stop myself.  Is this for real?  What should I do?”

I’m not really sure how to respond to such a request.  I can’t claim that I didn’t know that financial Domination was a kink for some people, but I’m not sure that I can bring myself to endorse it.

I know that “your kink is not my kink but your kink is okay” is a huge part of the open philosophy that I love about the kink community so much, but this may be one case where I have to reserve my views.

I’m not sure that I think that financial Dominance – especially in the form being peddled by the young lady in the link that I won’t echo here – is okay.  I don’t judge her.  She is extremely honest about what she intends to do.  She explicitly states that she wants someone – very clearly intended to be a wealthy older male figure – to give her total financial control of his life, and that once she has this, she intends to completely ruin him.  There is a great deal of camouflaged language that follows which seems to indicate that this financial control would also entitle one to sexual favors, but even that is very clearly secondary to the stated and intended purpose of financial ruin and humiliation.

I have been involved at some level in the kink world for almost two decades and learned that there is quite literally a kink for everything and that there is always, always, someone who will subscribe enthusiastically to that kink, and yet, even after all of the things I have experienced or seen, I have a really hard time believing that there is someone out there who wants to be financially ruined like this person is advertising, and like one of my readers is considering.

My problem – and it may just be a personal problem for me – is that I can’t see how this is a good thing for the person being Dominated.

D/s relationships are, by their very nature, stilted.  They’re not equitable.  They’re not equal partnerships, and they’re not intended to be, but there is still some level of balance.

One can, and probably should, argue that every true TPE relationship is a financial Domination, and that might be true. but there is a huge difference between controlling something and destroying something.

My own personal philosophy, and I know I’m not alone in this, is that I always try to leave every interaction I have with people such that they are in some way better than they were when I first found them.  I’m human, and I don’t always succeed in this.  I’m sure some of my former friends and exes would probably start fuming if they were to read this, but I actually do try to do the best I can in this regard.  I value friendship highly, and I try to always help and support my friends, but D/s takes this even further.

I regret to say that I cannot, with absolute certainty, claim that every submissive that has been under my thumb left our interactions in a better state than she began them, but I do know that I’ve done more good than harm, and I’ve tried to ameliorate any issues of which I am aware and able.

I do have remain friends with some of my exes and some of my former subs, so I know that I’ve managed to keep things positive at least most of the time.

So – with that in mind – I cannot see how this could possibly be a good thing for at least one of the participants in this arrangement.

If you go over things with a fine enough resolution, you can probably find something that is being satisfied by such a relationship, and if you have an itch that needs scratching, you could say that finding someone to scratch it for you is a good thing, but again, I have to think about the relative magnitudes of these things.  While my reader may be getting some deep seated psychological need fulfilled – temporarily – by this sort of arrangement, the implied consequences are far from temporary.

Bankruptcy is a horrible thing.

Fortunately for me, I haven’t had to go through it, but I have been destitute at one time, and while I do not necessarily believe that it is required for us to have material possessions to be happy, I do believe that having our primary survival needs met is absolutely critical to our wellbeing, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.   In the society that I live in, not having access to any money at all would be a severe impediment to at least two of these needs – food and shelter.

I can see how a relationship where the Dominant partner controls all aspects of the submissive partner’s finances would be appealing.  In fact, I’ve been in such relationships myself, on both sides of that particular coin, and I don’t believe that the experience was damaging to any party involved, but this particular situation differs a bit.  The FinDomme in question is not offering to take ownership of this person and care for him – as I have done and had done for me in the past – but instead is explicitly stating that she will financially ruin and embarrass this person, leaving them completely on their own with no resources and no recourse.

I cannot recommend such a thing.

D/s is a journey.  I believe that more strongly now than ever.  It is, however, a journey that one must undertake with much forethought and preparedness.  It is not a thing to engage in lightly and there are no shortcuts.

Sure, you can do a short scene or incorporate elements of D/s into your kinky fuckery and leave off with a lot of the more profound considerations, but in so doing you are only scratching the surface of the possible.  To get the profound D/s experience that it seems most of my readers are seeking, you have to commit yourself, body and mind, time and energy, and give it real attention.

I suspect that the reader who wrote me is trying to shortcut some of these things – by signing over his assets, he is creating an instant and binding relationship that goes far beyond the ordinary.  Most vanilla marriages include at least some aspect of separate finances, or at least some kind of equitable scheme through which both partners are able to make purchases of necessary and everyday items.  Under the sort of scheme this young lady is trying to proffer, her finsub would not even have the ability to purchase food or pay rent.

And then again, maybe there is just a kink element to it that I can’t understand…

bdsm, control, dominance, life, love, story

A long time coming

It has been a very long time since I’ve posted here. I’m sure many of you thought I had abandoned the blog, and effectively I had, but that was never my intent.

I’ve been very busy lately with work and life issues, working on a side project of my own, and playing video games to distract myself, and while I’ve written the starts of several posts at this point, I never managed to press ‘Publish’ because I was discontent with the results.

I’m not gone, and I am beginning a process of refocusing my life and how I live it.

I’ve been complacent in too many areas of my life lately. I’ve been making progress on some things, but for most, I’ve let them slide and just allowed myself to live with things as they are. I resolve to stop that (again) and to take a more active role in my own destiny.

Funny, isn’t it? The big, bad Dom-type was drifting. Isn’t that supposed to be the last thing that a D-type would do?

Each person’s Dominance is unique, and each is a journey. My own journey has taken many turns over the course of the past couple of years – most of which I did not anticipate.

This is a source of tremendous anxiety for me.

I do not fetishize control, but Control is the thing that lets me be a Dom in this world. Control is the thing that reinforces my power, that gives life to my Will. Control is the thing that allows me to tame the chaos of my mind and live a successful life.

But it’s fucking boring.

I’m a dichotomy and I contradict myself all the damned time. I have a consistent set of values and desires, but there are things in my mind that get in the way when I try to enact them sometimes.

Lately, my life has been largely out of my control, and that has been a source of tremendous anxiety for me – but also joy. While control allows me to accurately (for the most part) predict how the events of my life will unfold, it also completely removes the ability for anything to surprise me, and it can be exhausting to try to force things to fit when that is a state to which they do not naturally gravitate.

I’ve had literally weeks where I was almost paralyzed with fear concerning a couple of lawsuits in which I have been involved over the past several years. But I’ve also recently had moments where I was comfortable enough to completely let go and allow the Primal in me to come out – something that has not happened in a decade or more.

Just last night, I attended a kink event with my girlfriend and I made a horrible misjudgment. I think it’s fair to say that I know her better than anyone else, but I erred, and not in a small way.

There are those of you out there who read this and already think that I’m too soft to be a ‘True Dom’ – and this is going to reinforce those beliefs.

I fucked up.

I take responsibility for my lack of preparation, my lack of empathy, and my disturbingly effective emotional distancing coping techniques.

I entered into a highly emotional situation without the ability to access my own emotions or to empathize with my girlfriend, and I made a huge miscalculation.

And that is precisely the correct word to use here, for my actions were calculated and predicated on years of experience that I have and she does not. I embarrassed her in a public setting in front of people that she very much cares for how they view her by treating her as if she should have known things that I never showed her.

And so, the evening fell apart, and when things were at their bleakest, I did too. Spectacularly, and in a way that has not happened for more than decade.

I relived moments that I wish I could forget. I went to the place in my mind where control is fiction and I didn’t possess control even over my own body. I went so deep that I actually caused myself to vomit – no mean feat when I’d not eaten anything all day.

But there is catharsis in surrender – as any s-type can tell you – and as I once lived myself.

When I broke, she came to help me.

I cannot possibly overstate the significance of that to me.

The big, bad, Dom-type was quite literally a blubbering idiot in the corner, and his protective and nurturing and beautiful girlfriend and submissive-in-training took control for a moment and gave me the strength to allow my mind to find the coping mechanisms that evolved in me over the years and Control came back. Briefly, and without form, but it came back.

I wrote once before on this blog that I thought I had finally found the love of my life, but it turned out to be untrue.

I have been reluctant to make the same sorts of claims with this relationship, largely because I did not see it coming the last time, and I didn’t want to jinx this time, but after weathering the battle and experiences of last night, I think it’s safe to say that this is the most stable and mature and balanced relationship that I’ve ever had.

We struggle with D/s.

This is my fault, not hers. She wants it, and I have a very hard time presenting things to her because I do not want to insult her by treating her like she knows nothing, but in so doing, I do her a massive disservice. How can one learn if no one is willing to teach? Sure, books exist, resources are available on the ever-mighty Internet, and there are even classes that you can take, but ultimately, at the end of the day, our D/s is between us, and it’s not every Dom in the world that she needs to cater to, just me. And there is no manual for me on the Internet – the closest you’ll find is this blog, or the defunct one I wrote years and years ago – so how I can I expect her to know what to do if I don’t show her?

This is a journey. I don’t want the same type of D/s that I’ve had in the past, but I haven’t yet formulated what it is that I do want, and until I do that, we’re going to flounder.

So, this is where I cast off the worries of the lawsuits that have since been settled (and very recently – I literally just signed papers to settle one case on Thursday) and I recommit myself to my life, my love, my joy, my friends, my family, and my community.

More posts will be forthcoming.

I threw out the 500 words a day goal when my life became overwhelming a couple of months ago, but I’m reinstating it now.

If I have time to play video games, I have time to write.

NaNoWriMo will be taking a back seat to the other parts of my life this year, but my circle of friends is widening, and my relationship with the woman who I intend to keep for the rest of my life is only beginning to really solidify – despite months of growing and a nearly complete merging of our lives.

I love my girl. I hurt her, and I cast myself into Hell for doing so.

Punishment is always a part of D/s relationships, but last night we both punished ourselves to an extent that I could never replicate. The worst punishments always come from within, don’t they?

Rant is a name that I took when I started this, and it’s not a bad one. It’s short, easy to say and remember, and accurately reflects the mindset that I was in when I began this particular journey, but it doesn’t quite fit any more.

This is not a rant. This is not a lesson. This is a confession and commitment.

I shall return. One small step at a time, I shall return.

control, dominance, life

Control

I started writing this piece some time ago, as with many of my entries, but most of the ideas expressed herein remain true to the form they took when I first began to approach the idea.

I suppose that’s a good sign. But things have also evolved a bit, and that’s a good sign as well.

I can also now say that I may finally have arrived as a minor internet celebrity – about a week or so ago I received my first marriage proposal through the blog email address.

I responded to the person with a personal email declining her (or his) very gracious offer, and I won’t further belabor the issue, but I thought it worth mentioning as it has been on my mind when I think of the blog.

The Internet is a strange place…

But this is a piece about control, and the Internet is quite clearly outside of the control of anyone.

Hail Eris!

Part of living in human society means that you have to surrender control of some aspects of your life to other people, processes, governments, corporations… entities beyond your influence.

No matter how much one embodies the qualities of Dominance or how much of the Domliest Dom of them all you may be, there are parts of your life that are not yours to control.

As you might imagine, for a control freak like me, sometimes this causes hiccups for me.

It’s always part of a bargain though… Control is yours, like anything else, and you are coerced, compelled, or even just sometimes asked to trade it away for other things. You trade some of your personal liberties for safety when you agree to abide by the laws that we have in place to prevent crimes of property. I give control over my ability to drive my car when and how I want to in order to have access to the public roadways. These are mostly things that we’re used to and things that don’t intrude upon our thoughts very often, so it’s not as if I feel their loss most of the time.

Right now I’m having a bit of an issue though.

I’m too attached to my job.

One of the ways in which I’ve always been able to exert more control over my life is through practising the concepts of non-attachment. If I don’t become attached to things, people, concepts, preconceived notions.. well, then they can’t be used to control me.
But I’m not perfect.

It’s almost always been the case that I’ve had a great deal of liberty with respect to my job. My skills are in high demand, and there are more jobs to be had for people with my abilities than there are people with my abilities, so I’ve always had the freedom to just quit and find another job – generally equally as good, often actually better.

I don’t even really like my job. It’s not particularly important work that I do, but it pays well, and that’s part of the problem. I could be doing something more meaningful or more interesting, but if I were, I’d have to give up some of the ability to control my own life and choices that I’m provided by having access to more money.

I also have a lot of schedule flexibility with my job. I could take a more interesting job somewhere that would probably pay me as much, or at least a similar enough amount that I wouldn’t feel the loss of the income too acutely, but if I were to do so, I’d lose some of my ability to control my schedule.

On the surface, these are good things. I have the ability to control my schedule and I make enough money at my job that I’m able to finance the things that I want to do when I exercise that schedule flexibility. I can, quite literally, do almost anything that I want to, almost any time that I want.

That is a huge amount of control for one person to have, and I’ve become quite attached to it, and it’s beginning to make my unhappy.

That’s what attachment is, you see – it’s unhappiness. When you become attached to something, you vest your future happiness in having that thing be present, and when that future is threatened, you become paralysed in your attempts to hold on to it.

So – I’m too attached to my job, and this is starting to become a problem because when you fear the loss of something, you will do things that you wouldn’t ordinarily do in order to keep it.

My boss is a particularly loathsome type of individual. She is operating at the level of her incompetence, and because I have held positions in other companies which are directly superior to her current position, because I am older than she is, and because I occupy a higher pay grade than she does, she feels extremely threatened by my existence. I am reasonably certain that she has tried to have me fired or transferred more than once, but unfortunately for her, the company puts as much or more value on me than they do her, so we are stuck at an impasse.

Add to this the fact that she is extremely passive aggressive and completely incapable of dealing with someone who is very open and assertive like myself, and we end up with the situation we have now where she avoids me in person, talks about me behind my back, and attempts to undermine my authority and position through subterfuge.

I must admit, I do experience a small amount of schadenfreude every time I hear about one of her efforts to undermine me going awry, but the fact of the matter is that none of this shit should be happening in the first place. I am her most capable employee, a natural leader who chooses not to lead in the office setting because I have no patience for the political games, and I would be more than happy to let her take credit for all of my successes if she would only get the fuck out of my way and let me succeed.

But… personal success is the only kind she has ever known and she clings to it like sinking ship because she is in charge of too many people and too many projects to actually be able to do the job and I made the mistake of offering to help.

And I really was offering to help.

I do not have to be Dominant in every aspect of my life.

In fact, coming out of a 24/7 TPE relationship that ended and finding myself in one that is more egalitarian, I am finding that I actually like not having to make all of the decisions, not having to lead every charge, not having to always be certain of everything. I still naturally stand in front, and I always (much to the chagrin of those who know me) speak up when I feel that I am right, and these are not things that I can or am willing to change about myself.

And so – every day at my job has become a new alpha contest with my boss.

The worst of it is, I want her to win.

I want her to take control, but I’m not going to just roll over and let her have it.

I recently re-took ‘The BDSM test’ and was slightly surprised to find that alongside the top two categories for which I am rated (Dominance and Bondage-giver) I am also extremely highly rated as Primal(hunter).

I don’t really think of myself in such a way, but when I allow myself to observe my interactions with other people, I can see it.

I naturally stand taller around people when I want them to listen to me.

I have a resonant voice and I’m not afraid to use it.

And, apparently, while I’m willing to acknowledge another as Alpha, I’m not willing to simply roll over and let an unqualified person take the mantle. In this case, the mantle was never mine, and I never (and still don’t) wanted it. She became my manager because my manager left the company, and she inherited me.

I don’t know how this situation will resolve itself.

In the past, being unattached to my job, I would simply leave in a situation like this – washing my hands of the issue, metaphorically speaking, and letting the incompetent lead the incompetent. But now, I’m attached to this job. I am not willing to so easily give it up, and while I do strongly believe that happiness can be achieved through non-attachment, I also believe that some things are worth holding on to and fighting for.

I may be making a terrible decision here, but I’m going to hold on to this job, and I don’t think the intolerable situation between my boss and I will resolve itself until one or the other of us leaves the company through choice or force, and I don’t intend to be the one to flinch here.

I am Rant.

I am usually happy, and I am usually able to let the detritus of life slide off my back, but this time I’m feeling ornery.

bdsm, control, dominance, protocol, question

The Importance of the Collar

6 Comments

Collars can carry as many meanings as there are people to share them, but generally they are a few well accepted archetypes within the greater BDSM community.  However, even these can be somewhat confusing and entirely open to interpretation.

From my perspective, in my experience, and in my opinion, the three major archetypes are the Slave Collar, the Play Collar, and the Training Collar.

The Slave Collar is the most common within the BDSM community, and in fact, in most cases when a person is talking about having a collar, being collared, or collaring someone, this is what they are talking about.  Symbolically, this is intended to denote ownership.

Generally the person wearing the collar symbolically becomes the property of the person who placed the collar around the slave’s neck.  If I were to collar you with a slave collar, I would refer to the collar as ‘my collar’ and I might tell others that you wear my collar when defining our relationship.

While wearing my collar, you are my property, and the moment I take it off of you or permit you to remove it, that relationship ceases to exist.

For this reason, a slave collar generally never comes off except to be momentarily replaced with another collar.  There may be more than one collar to fill this role… for instance, one might have a collar that is worn only in private or around other kinky folks but is a bit too obvious for daily outside wear – this is generally referred to as the ‘slave collar’, ‘private collar,’ or even simply ‘His collar.’  Additionally, one might have a necklace with a lock pendant or some other indicator of its true purpose but that is less obvious to the uninitiated.  This is typically referred to as a ‘day collar,’ or ‘public collar.’

The term ‘Play Collar’ can have a couple of different meanings.  Generally this is used to either mean a collar that is used for a short duration – usually only the length of a single scene.  This can either be because the collared person is not actually your property – you are assuming that set of roles for the scene only – or because that person has a regular slave collar and the play collar is different in some way that facilitates your play.

For instance, I once had a rather chunky leather posture collar with three rings on it.  It would not make sense as a regular wear collar because it forces my property to keep her chin up at all times, which would make negotiating the world somewhat difficult, but sometimes that is exactly what I want.  It also has more attachment points on it, and sometimes you just need to shackle your property’s ankles to her neck, you know?

The Training Collar is a bit more uncommon and bit more nebulously defined.  It sits somewhere between the two listed above.

Where the Slave Collar is meant to be eternal and the Play Collar is meant to be used only for a short time, the Training Collar is meant to be used until the subject under consideration is either accepted or rejected.

The Training Collar is usually replaced with a Slave Collar or discarded entirely, depending upon the results of the training in question.

During a training period, there may be an equivalent ‘private collar’ and ‘day collar’ pair, but usually at least one of the two is intended to be replaced once the training is completed.

The training collar comes off and on a lot more frequently than the slave collar, and indeed, the right to wear the collar might be considered as part of the rewards to the sub during training.

For these reasons, Slave Collars (and their corresponding ‘day collars’) are generally well made, expensive, eternal sorts of items.  I’ve purchased and used Slave Collars made from leather, stainless steel, even titanium and day collars made from silver or gold.  Though of course, they can be made from anything at all.

Training collars are generally intended to be rugged enough to wear for a long time, but will eventually be replaced and are generally good quality but not jewelry level pieces.  I’ve used leather for these most commonly, but rubber, vinyl, or neoprene are also quite common.

Play collars really run the gamut, are often more interesting or gaudy than their longer wear counterparts, might often be used by more than one person, and can be anything from a piece of string or a ribbon to a dog collar made from nylon or fake leather, or even heavy pieces of wrought iron and chain.

It is important to note, however, that nothing about the materials that are used to make the collar can be inferred to denote the type of collar that it represents.  That is entirely up to the participants and their own particular aesthetic.

The most important thing though, and the thing that brings all of this together, is that all of these collars (and possibly others of which I am completely unaware) are intended to be powerful symbols that establish Dominance.

The collar is meant to be owned by the Dominant partner, and whether it is purchased by him or not before the power exchange takes place, it is understood that he is the Owner and Controller of the collar.

When he puts it on the submissive partner, he is symbolically establishing his Dominance, and the collar itself is intended to serve as a reminder to the submissive partner of his submission.  While the collar is in place, this is intended to be an absolute (subject to negotiated parameters) transfer of power.

I used to be what one might consider a ‘High Protocol Dom.’  By this, I mean that I used to establish a set of rules and expectations that I had for my property.  While you were wearing my collar, you would be expected to carry out my instructions exactly, you would be expected to anticipate my desires and fulfill them prior to being asked, you would be expected to understand what I mean when I call, “Front!” and to comply immediately.

The days of High Protocol seem to be waning, and I am not so strict any longer.  Hierarchy and order are important, but I find that as I grow older, these things are less and less compatible with my worldview.

In fact, I’m coming to believe that Hierarchy may be harmful…  But this is not an article on Protocol or Hierarchy.

Today, for myself and most of the others that I’ve had the opportunity to witness lately, the collar is more an expression of partnering and position than anything else.  It can be used as a reminder to fulfill a role, but it’s not typically used in the way that I was originally taught, and even my own use of collars has recently been much more lax than it used to be, but the collar is still a useful reminder and tool.

As with everything in BDSM, these things are evolving.  As a former High Protocol Dom, some of these new, more relaxed ways of handling things chafe a bit.

I see something that would have been corrected in my past life and I let it pass because the current paradigm does not place the same level of importance on these things, and there are a great many things about the current paradigm that I find myself enjoying lately.

BDSM is making it’s way into the mainstream, and things like this must happen for that transition to take place.

Where once power transfer and authority were the forces that drove me, now I find that inclusion and compassion are the things that I crave most.  Devotion remains my main kink, but I am learning that it may take more forms than that to which I was most accustomed.

Still though, if you’re wearing my collar, you can expect me to point out that fact every once in awhile, and to urge you to think about what it represents or even use it for corrective action when required.

I may be taking a trip down the path of Hedonism lately, but I don’t see those things as wrong or incompatible.   BDSM is evolving, and so am I.

 

bdsm, community, dominance, events, rant

A Call For Leadership

I’ve received a few emails from readers (but surprisingly few visible comments…) about my posts, but my last post on The Feminist Dom seems to have gathered more attention than average.

I suspect that this is due to the current and ongoing focus on the #yesallwomen hashtag and discussion, but since I have neither a facebook nor twitter account, I’m not privy to a great deal of that information.  What I do hear is either picked up by the mainstream media, relayed through friends, or things that I see on fetlife (which is the one ‘social network’ of which I am, nominally, a part.)

The comments to my post have been universally positive, but there was at least one call to action – a reader (I don’t know what gender this person chooses to identify with, so I’ll use the colloquial ‘their’ despite it being grammatically incorrect – forgive me) has stated that in their opinion, I do not go far enough.  I make a bold statement about my beliefs and why I hold them, but it falls short of the force of Will that normally accompanies one of my Rants, and it is not explicit enough to be a call to action.  I have a duty to do more than that, and in my life in meat-space I do, but I can still do more here (and on fetlife as well) so I shall.

 

I am a Dom.  In my case this works for me because I have certain personality traits that facilitate me taking on that role – it is those traits that make me successful and that allow my submissive partner to feel willing to submit to me.  I have never taken the title of Alpha, or even claimed to be a ‘Type-A’ personality, but the truth of the matter is that I have many of the qualities that people look for in a leader.  If you are being true to your own nature and that leads you to take on the role of Dominant, then you do too, and it is directly to you that I am speaking now.

We are almost all the leaders of our peer groups – perhaps in both vanilla and BDSM worlds.

Some of us are the leaders of our communities.

Some of us are leaders in professional organizations.

Some of us are leaders in the workplace.

Some of us are parents.

Some of us are leaders in other contexts as well, but one truth remains even if none of these apply.

All of us, regardless of roles, regardless of gender identification, regardless of personal power – all of us are a role model to someone and there are people who will observe our behavior and incorporate it into what is and is not acceptable in their own minds.

The perpetrators of the vast majority of violence against women or against transgendered people or against any non-dominant group are men.  They’re not all Dominant men, and they’re not all social outliers, most of them are normal in almost every way.  In fact, this is part of the problem.  It is because society as a whole has divorced gender – specifically the male gender – from the problems of repression and gender violence (not all of which is physically violent) that we are in such a state.  It is because we don’t hold men accountable for our own actions.  We laugh things like catcalling off as isolated incidents by ‘other men’ but I’ve met self-proclaimed feminist men who will still ogle women and may even go so far as to say something stupid like ‘Daaayumm’ when they see a woman they find particularly attractive.

There are men who are now trying to ‘opt out’ of the #yesallwomen discussion by saying that it’s is #notallmen who perpetrate these things.  To a certain extent that is true, but like my original Feminist Dom post, it does not go far enough, and to make matters worse, it shifts the blame to the women making the claims.

Victim blaming is evil.

There is more that I could say on that particular trend, but the above line is succinct and sufficient for anyone who is actually rationally part of this discussion.

Sure, I have personally never catcalled at a woman.  I have never groped someone who I wasn’t very sure wanted me to.  I routinely turn down sex when I feel like the person I’m with is not able to give consent.  And yet, I know that in my past I’ve let comments like the illustration above slide without comment, and I need to stop doing that.  Comments like that, those types of actions, they are all hurtful behavior and they need to stop.

That behavior is part of the problem.

Glossing over that behavior is a much larger part of the problem.

One of my favorite movies is The Boondock Saints.  There is a great line at the beginning of the film, when the monsignor is giving his invocation at the beginning of mass and he says, “…we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.”

This is where I get personal.

You.  Whoever it is that is reading this right now.  If you are a male Dom, I am specifically calling you out, but you if you identify as a sub or a switch or something else entirely, you are not immune to this either.  This is not because I do not think that women are capable of fighting their own fight, but because for too long we have made it their fight to carry, it never should have been their fight to begin with.  We men are responsible for our own behavior, but I am calling on you to act and to go even further than that.

Do not be a bystander.

Do not perpetuate the oppression that is holding down more than half of our society and making them feel unsafe, unloved, or unwelcome.

If you are playing poker and one of your buddies makes a comment like, “Dayum.. did you see Kim Kardashian’s ass in that dress? I’d tap that.” do not let it stand.  Do not laugh it off, do not agree, do not just let it slide.  That is an inappropriate thing to say and you know it.  What if he was making that comment about your sister, or your daughter?  I omit wife here because I know that would actually turn some of you kinky fuckers on, but that’s not the point and you know it – so don’t do that either.  Don’t dodge an important issue and attempt to deflect with humor.  Yes – that is why humor works – it allows us the ability to talk about things that are otherwise socially unacceptable and it has filled a very important role in its ability to do that since the dawn of civilization but we are on the cusp now.  We can now take this back and actually make a difference.

If we, the leaders in the male community, take this cause up and act with integrity and mindfulness we can change things.

#yesallwomen is not solely a women’s issue.  It’s not even really a people’s issue; it’s a men’s issue.  It is us, the men, who need to step up and make the asinine comments that our brothers have been making since the dawn of time unacceptable.  These are status-raising comments now and that is totally upside down and backwards.  A bigot should not be rewarded for his bigotry.  If we, men, leaders, Doms, stand up and make it known that this type of bullshit will not stand, if we remove and reverse the status-raising effects of these comments that put others down, if we instead make it so that everybody knows that those types of comments are unacceptable and that they lower your status, then we have the power to change this behavior.

We are the leaders of our community and now is the time to act.

The iron is hot and we have the opportunity.

This is a first for me in this blog or any forum at all.

This is a call to action.

This is a call for Leadership.

I am Rant.

Lead with me.