A New Salute to an Old Habit

Well, considering the fact that it has been over a year and a half since the last entry in this blog, I suppose this will end up as a silly attempt to rejuvenate something which was once cathartic and full of possibility. Why did W/we stop? Well, the most recent post barring this one is some interest in the subject, yet in reality there was created a sort of lack-of-need for awhile. Things spiraled up and down as life goes, and through hard and easy the blog fell to the wayside. I have been unconcerned for some time, as it is necessary to focus on the world in which you can touch cups and railings. Why am I back? I’m not sure, though considering the trip I’ve taken in the last many months, it may provide an outlet for things which need to be said to an invisible audience.

Preparing to leave my parent’s house after a long weekend of dinners and holiday and move-theatres I find myself looking back at what I wanted, even a year ago, and wondering how off the mark I may have been. Domesticity is fine when it’s a dream but who am I kidding? perhaps the wind will roll past, again, this time.

Perhaps this time there will be more than whimpering half-hearted admissions. Hopefully.

m...or M? The Follies of Spring Break 2005

No, we did not die. We're still alive and kicking.

And so, the long awaited update:

DR and i have been settling back into the groove now that W/we are back from Spring Break, which i might add, went WONDERFULLY. DR and i have both said at one time or another that W/we both went into this relationship sort of acting like W/we could create the opposite of what W/we grew up seeing. i know from DR that He grew up in a household very much like mine, in which a dominant woman threw the entire household into chaos. Certainly this is a simplification, but in general i think W/we were both negatively influenced by dominant women and so, through this relationship, want to do things the other way. of course, this isn't perfect, as this past break showed. DR and i do not fit into any sort of example. i suppose i'm realizing more and more that the D/s lifestyle is an umbrella for a lot of different types of relationships. DR and i are not a perfect split. Sometimes m is M. Sometimes DR and dr. W/we took that to the extreme over break, with some interesting results...

This had happened a few times before (usually when He felt guilty or upset about something, and usually when he was a little - or a lot - intoxicated), when DR and i switched roles. Now, i understand that some people are "switches" in that they can go back and forth between d/s roles. A few weeks ago, we experimented with this. Before this point, whenever it had come up i had immeadiately dismissed it. i was not comfortable with the idea of being the one on top. and then one night as we were lying in bed, sporadically, it just sort of happened. He asked me if I wanted to be in control for this night and - surprising myself - I said yes. At first I was hesitant, but soon both of U/us were swept up in the momentum of it. And the roles were never quite as sturdy as usual. i realized what was happening was - as amber termed it a few weeks ago - topping from the bottom. Even on His knees, even after being spanked, slapped, scraped, whimpering...dr was actually DR. Because in reality, He was directing the session. This is when I got mean. This is when m became M. I set two rules: 1. Do not tell me what to do. 2. No apologizing.

I began at 10 smacks. When he still wasn't able to comply, I began raising each punishment by ten, and really letting my hands fly. By the end of the night dr had taken 300* sweet smacks to the bottom and thighs (the last time I had taken pity on him and had given him very light smacks). The momentum that hit me so hard though wasn't the physical punishments (and i think the same for DR), but the psychological play. I enjoyed playing with the power that I had, and I demeaned him. So when my hand stung from one of his punishments, I said once: "see how you've made me hurt my hand? kiss it, lick my fingers." These fingers then went up his asshole. Five hours later, dr and I fell blissfully asleep and woke up in the very same position, him pressed up against me, curled up into my arms. And then we began talking...Jesus Christ, what just happened?

and DR says to me...were we wrong? to which we both came to the same conclusion. over the course of the night W/we had proven that I was a better Dom and he was a much better Submissive. hmmm....so what now. we mulled it over throughout the day and the following night, fell back into this play. Only this night, after I let him come, something different happened. His response, while we rolled around in bed, was to start teasing me. When I put my foot down and warned him, He flipped me on my stomache and shoved two fingers into my asshole. This was the test, because regardless of how W/we CAN be, this is what W/we instinctually did: i curled up and wanted to cry, and He comforted me.

We haven't attempted to reverse roles since then, I think because we dont treat the gender roles as part of the game. W/we are very playful about some parts of our relationship, especially sexually. DR is very creative, which i dearly love (hmm...I can think of another use for this ping pong paddle - m, grab your ankles!). We refer to this as "playing" because it is, even if it's sometimes scary (for the both of U/us i think). But although W/we can be lighthearted about a lot of this, i dont think W/we can be about the gender roles, because it's so much more than what happens in bed. That is a very small fraction of the pie. And even if W/we're not perfect, and perhaps W/we will experiment with this again sometime, this is not who W/we like to be all the time. i love being DR's submissive and will be, as long as He'll have me.

and YAY! i found U/us an apartment, so W/we finally have a place to live this summer!

The Picture

Well, here's the picture of Rebecca from our weekend in Vermont. This is after impact, and rather blurry, the photo ended up suffering from drunken camera work.



I suppose that I should also note that the one in the background with the horrible stance is Grant, not me.

We have a series of other photos in which this look of absolute horror melts into a very big grin.

-D.R.

On the Division of Power

It has been nearly a week without an update, and frankly that’s a bit too long. My apologies go out to anyone who keeps seeing “A Quick and Shallow Observation on Blindfolds” over and over again when they visit here.

With that being said, I believe I promised a post on my side of Dan’s Boys Will be Boys post from February 4th:

Now, most of what Dan had to say I feel was straight on the mark. m and I are both of college age, and not so far from living at home with parents who, in one sense or the other, attempted to “raise us right.” In my own personal experience my childhood was happy, content and rather without incident excepting the underlying relationship between my parents which still exists to this day. I have blogged before on a few of the unhappy moments concerning my parents’ relationship, and as well as on being given a skewed vision of how a “man” should act, as my entire sexual education (and I used “sexual” as a means of determining the intimate relationships between men and women) was hinged upon the ideals of the sexual liberation movement. Throughout my education in school (middle-class suburban) the independence of women was stressed above all other concerns. This is where the game becomes a dance of semantics: “independence” means allowing a woman the ability to “be whomever she wants.” Now, this term of “being whatever she wants” is almost always used in a sense of employment: a woman is able to be either a C.E.O. or a Firefighter.

Now, the concept of a “submissive” woman is railed against and torn apart in all studies of literature. I study the English language and am enrolled, on average, in three or four English department classes per semester. I am still awaiting a class in which feminist interpretations of the subject matter are not brought up and taken seriously. Am I against feminism? Of course not. My concern is with the ability of professors and educated students to place emphasis on a thematic concern which has no bearing upon either intent or studious contemplation. Flaubert held no purpose in constructing Emma Bovary as a feminist, as was suggested multiple times during recent class discussions upon the subject of the novel. Every possible situation is turned to the (often natural) occurrence of feminine submission. This concept is culturally destroyed multiple times a week for most students within a high school or college setting. Is it any wonder that “men” are becoming so scarce?

I had a boss during high school that was everything the culture taught him to be: sensitive, kind, loving and so forth. He was fond of the saying “nice guys finish last,” and would invoke it in our presence on the subject of women often. He would comment on how all the attractive, feminine women would date “assholes” that were beneath them. In short, without the self-awareness and self-control of their actions, these men were unrestrained masculinity. They would hit them or treat them badly, and these women would still feel as if they were happy because they were unaware that power differences came with responsibility. The closest thing to a “dominant man” they could find were these brutes.

m and I began living our lives as we chose, with a strong emphasis on both of our own natural gender roles, a short while ago. I thank God every day that I have found her, often multiple times a day. I’m sure she’s sick of hearing about it. Now, our relationship has had what m likes to call a “ripple effect” on those around us. Within our personal circuit of friends we have seen a distinct evaluation of both her submission, and more often, my dominance. If you read back to the posts on our weekend in Vermont, this is shown quite explicitly in the crudest of examples. We have seen relationships clinically torn apart and reevaluated through what we both believe to be the basis of any relationship: a division of power.

Power in Relationships

In all relationships there exists a distinct division of power. In many of these: friendship, acquaintance, the clerk down at my favorite deli, the distinction of a power difference is so insignificant that it is unnoticed. Without a system of respect (think back to the extreme propriety of the Victorian age), we are all on essentially the same footing as everyone else. In an age of “equality” and “liberty” which stresses the basic sameness of human experience and worth we are left with little experience in dealing with power structures which do not fall under the “50/50” division. I believe we are all familiar with different divisions, yet these are within the proscribed relationships which we are familiar seeing: your boss, a mentor, parents or an esteemed colleague.

Dealing with Different Divisions of Power

In my experience, most men and women today act out roles without self-awareness. Sometimes these roles are rooted culturally, having been the product of years of passive education that engages in devaluing the “masculine character.” Others act upon the remnants of their instinctual roles, without a knowledge of why or how to correctly assert themselves. This latter example can often become the underlying basis of abuse and oppression against women, when the inappropriate manifestation of “masculinity” is allowed to breed itself into a stupor of self-indulgence.

There is a certain degree of blindness which precedes any contemporary relationship between and man and a woman. For a long time the ideal of the “50/50” haunted me, I moved from relationship to relationship, every time feeling as if something wasn’t there, or that I was missing something essential. I attempted to be what I was taught to be: patient, respecting, considerate of her feelings and moods, all the while misunderstanding why I was being caring and protective. I was passive in my moods and always wanted to know “what she wanted” before a decision could be rendered. Six months ago when I truly began to understand who I was, and that I was capable of happiness on a level I was never fully aware of, my conception of an intimate relationship changed considerably. All of a sudden I understood the roots of respect and admiration; I knew why I wanted to look up to certain mentors, and why so many of my friends were unhappy in their relations with members of the opposing sex.

Now, this is not the blanket statement which it is turning to be. Of course, as was stated before, different power divisions work for different people. It is in the self-awareness of the internal mind which allows us to first come to terms with the person we are, and then allows us to bridge the gap to our relations with others. In example: an old girlfriend of mine recently told me “I am amazed at the things I still learn about you which I never knew.” This statement seems harmless, or even commonplace, yet in my relationship with m this would be a dire breach of our respect. I am comfortable with myself, in being a “dominant male” who enjoys being respected. As a ripple-effect, my posture has improved, my self-confidence has skyrocketed, and my comfort with myself has reached a level I never thought possible.

Further, my relationship with m, though to an outsider would seem strange and unfair, is a direct response to our own needs, without compromise. I dote upon and spoil her because she deserves it for being what I need. And she submits herself to me because I take care of and protect her. Gender relationships, the basest level, exist on a power division which allows for them to function without personal harm. With a distinct cultural and educational silence on this issue the self-actualization of one’s character are never given the time to develop.

In a way, the very issue of sexual equality has acted as a counterweight to the instinctual and often correct notions of gender relations. Most relationships do not need to be D/s or anywhere close, but in my observation, those relationships with are lasting and truly loving are those in which the parties involved do not attempt to become people which they are not.

-D.R.

A Quick and Shallow Observation on Blindfolds

It’s really very amazing the effect a blindfold can have. About a week ago (the point of our last really ‘bondage’ session) I had m on the floor, hands bound behind her back, shoulders on the ground, and a blindfold slipped over her eyes. Now this is simply a quick observation, but the intensity of the scene for m was incredible. I have never seen her so deep in subspace as she was that afternoon. The whole session lasted perhaps an hour, no more, yet when she surfaced it took her perhaps half an hour to fully get back up.

I blame the blindfold. There is no better way to achieve a concentration of sensation (nice phrase) than to block out all other sources of visual stimulation.

Thus my quick and dirty assessment for today, perhaps if I can get myself away from work and Knights of the Old Republic I (m is, again, the best girl in the world considering she was able to, without a complaint, watch me play a little over seven hours last night) I will be able to post more in depth later on.

-D.R.

Excerpted from an Autobiography

Thanks to Rebecca for this gem, excerpted from an autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila by Irving Lavin:

“It pleased the Lord that I should sometimes have the following vision. I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel in bodily form — a type of vision which I am not in the habit of seeing, except very rarely…It pleased the Lord that I should see this angel in the following way. He was not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest types of angel who seem to be all afire…In his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce out my heart several times so that it penetrated my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing me out with it and he left me completely afire with the great love of God. The pain was so sharp that it made my utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one’s soul be content with anything less than God. It is not bodily pain, but spiritual, though the body has a share it in — indeed, a great share. So sweet are the colloquies of love which pass between the soul and God that if anyone thinks I am lying I beseech God, in his Goodness, to give him the same experience.”

-m

Our Weekend in Vermont (m's side)

This weekend was a tad manic, to say the least. Driving back from Vermont was bittersweet. Although it isn’t a “real” world, it was really nice for once to be able to be so open about my relationship with D.R. We are in an interesting situation since the two of us are in charge of a dormitory. This means that, not only are we living in close quarters with other people, we also have to (to a certain extent) represent the administration of our college. It wouldn’t be very seemly for my residents to see me paraded about in my collar, or to hear loud smacks and screams (and laughter). This is quite a hindrance to us, I’m sure you can imagine. And I am not going overboard about this either. The administration is quite against this type of thing. In fact, when a college group printed a pamphlet on safe bondage techniques and spanking tips the administration immediately banned it. I think the quote was something like “there is no such thing as safe bondage – it is abuse.” Now, abuse certainly is a loaded word, but one I’ve heard before. When I was breaking Rebecca to the idea, she often exclaimed “But you shouldn’t like pain! It isn’t healthy! It is abuse!”

Well, she got a taste of it this weekend, all right. One of my favorite moments was D.R.’s small demonstration on Saturday night. He was attempting to show Grant how to properly smack Rebecca (to her utter delight -oops- I mean horror). Here I’m instructing Rebecca – brace your hands on the counter! that’s right, arch your back! ooh baby, you look so cuuute! While D.R. is saying to Grant – no laughing, straighten up boy, extend your hand for maximum leverage. Grant did his best, but it was D.R.’s surprise smack (surprise to rebecca, that is – I had been happily waiting, knowing my boy as I do) that did the trick. Oooh the look on her face was an awesome thing.

I asked her about it a few days later. She responds – “I was so shocked. I feel so degraded!” A terrible word I think, but I wasn’t about to let her get away with it. After a little pressing, she agreed that she didn’t entirely hate it. “So does that mean that you liked it a little?” (well….). She admitted that she didn’t like it when Grant did, but that she did like D.R.’s slap (that’s the hardest ass-slap EVER. Not even my parents hit me that hard as a kid!). To which she responded with absolute shock when I asked her if she could imagine taking sixty-five of them. But this brings me to a point. Although I can tie a lot of things together now (asking my dad to hit me when I was bad, “begging” a boyfriend to “stop” chasing me around the stable as he whipped me every step of the way, dating men that treated me badly), it wasn’t until I found the right person that I was comfortable to get deep into a relationship like this. Rebecca and Grant will never enter into that type of relationship, not because it isn’t necessarily in them to want to fulfill those roles, but because they haven’t met people who bring it out in them.

Rebecca couldn’t pin her finger on why she liked being hit, but I think I can. After a particularly rough session, D.R. laughed when I curled up and stretched: “you just waking up hon?” To which I responded, “sort of.” He asked me what it feels like when I’m that deep, and the closest I can come to an analogy is swimming. It feels that I am swimming at the bottom of the deep end, weightless and heavy and comforted and beautiful. It is a release. It is also a way of getting out other types of pain. D.R. is wonderful at not letting me beat myself up about something mentally.
This is also why I understand when he blacked out those two nights. The first night, I became very upset because he would not let me take care of him. I think the role reversal was hard on both of us. He was embarrassed and was still trying to control the situation, while he was utterly unable to do so, while I wanted to let him take the lead, but knew that he couldn’t. When I finally got him to bed he wouldn’t let me sleep next to him. He wouldn’t let me be close to him. I slept for most of the night on an armchair. The following night, he was aware of the night before and so, apologizing, he let me take care of him with just a few protests. But when I got him to bed he asked me something that I am still mulling over. He asked me to hurt him. We’ve talked about it since, and I understand that the two of us aren’t really that different from each other, really. We just have different ways of going about it. And though at first I was scared by it, I understand why he asked – he wanted to be cleared. He didn’t want to feel so terrible about letting me down and knew that if I hit him, it was like he would have already paid for his actions and he could be forgiven. I didn’t hit him. I just rubbed his back until he fell asleep, and forgave him anyway. Forgiving himself will be a bit more difficult I think. He comes down harder on himself than he does on me.

-m