Roots

I started writing to process my early experiences in BDSM.  During a debrief one night after a session, Mr. Grey (my first Dominant partner) instructed me to write the scene from my perspective. I hadn’t written anything non-academic since my teenaged melodramatic journaling, but I agreed to give it a try.

He specifically said that he wouldn’t be reading it, which I thought was odd- why give me a task if it wouldn’t end in praise?  As it turns out, that was the entire point.  Looking back, it was exactly what I needed.  

He made sure that we debriefed after every scene, both while basking in the glow of aftercare and more soberly the next day. He asked direct questions about how things felt, and expected direct answers.  I shared my perspective to the best of my ability, but I think he could still see it under the surface- performance.  My incessant tendency to be palatable, to manage others’ experiences and expectations by managing myself.  

When we would debrief, no matter how raw I felt, I always retained my ability to edit myself and my story for my audience’s benefit. Writing about my experiences knowing that no one was going to read them allowed me a ruthless honesty that I didn’t (and perhaps still don’t) have the capacity for in real life.  I could write about my thoughts and feelings without fear of them being judged, and it really helped me to understand more about the dynamic, and its impact on me.

Sure, I eventually started sharing them with the internet, but my anonymity here is an armour that I don’t experience in real life. The threat that my body registers when vulnerable doesn’t register in the same way.

The D/s dynamic has always allowed me to explore vulnerability in a controlled environment.  I can focus on responding and absorbing instead of calculating and planning, and as a result I feel more free than I ever have.  After a hell of a lot of recent self-reflection, however, I have come to realize that there is still a layer of performance in my submission, almost all of the time.

I am interested in pulling at this thread, and seeing if I can understand more about my approach, and whether I can make some changes to stop being good at submission and instead be more authentic in it.  One of the things I am considering is a departure from my usual MO of scene-based play to something more immersive, or dare I say vulnerable- I think it has potential to teach me a lot about myself, including perhaps my most authentic self.  It also, of course, has the potential to break me.  

At any rate, I intend to return to my roots, as it were, and use writing to help me understand my experiences, and their impacts.  Stay tuned for more