Pondering the Unanswerable

This one's Omega's fault. ;-)
He made a comment, via mouse, on gg's post, wondering why subs always worry about being too needy. A response has been niggling at the back of my brain ever since, unable to quite gain form.
Then, while browsing the other day I found, surprisingly (or perhaps not,) that my buddy Ralph Waldo had already had a similar thought -- and expressed it perfectly.

"…man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness."
    - Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

That, in a nutshell, is what I was trying to vocalize -- the fact that we worry because we act as our own judge and jury, yet we do so using another's voice -- that of society. We forget that, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of [our] own mind" and we let that pesky forebrain's societally-driven consciousness override our inner convictions. And somehow, I think, living in the D/s arena amplifies that disconnect -- because the mores of the society that creates that consciousness are set so firmly against our lifestyle. 
So, how we are told we should want to be seen is worlds distant from our reality -- and the two views get tangled and hard to pick apart.

The disconnect expresses itself in wide reaches:
Those who worry that their partners are secretly appalled at being asked to dominate.
Those who fret over what wanting "this" says about them.
Those who that worry that they aren't submissive enough to suit.
Those who are afraid their submission will overwhelm their dominant.

Doesn't it seem possible that the reason we harbor these worries about how we appear to others could be because we cannot ourselves fully accept our natures, despite having committed to acting on them? I only wonder because we say we value submission for allowing us to be true to ourselves, yet we seem to spend a lot of time agitating over how that truth makes us appear to those we reveal it to. If we're truly good with it, wouldn't this be kind of a moot point?

Nor is it only female subs who trip over their own disconnect.
How about the dominant who says, "I can't do that with you - I respect/love you too much"...?

Now, I'm not a psychologist (nor do I play one on TV) so take this all with a grain of salt -- but it occurs to me to wonder… how exactly does respecting us stop them?
Is it that that they'd lose that respect for us, or could it be that they believe deep down that we would inevitably lose respect for them? That when they looked in our eyes, they would no longer see the knight in shining armor reflected back, and that would be somehow too diminishing to bear? (Again, I honestly have no idea, I'm just thinking out loud here...)

But it does seem to me that we're each clapped into jail, or at least the fetters of self-judgment, by our belief that the darkness we carry within is somehow ours alone, that other people don't have any of their own (certainly not as bad as ours, anyhow) nor could they possibly ever be able to accept that facet of us.
So ingrained is this belief, in fact, that we convolute it to the point where even if if they do accept us, it doesn't result in redemption for us but rather, condemnation for them. (As SP put it, "It might be argued that a person who really gets me and sees who I am and is still willing to love me, has to be a pretty scary person herself.")

There's a great quote by John Irving in an essay posted up at Amazon:
"…sexual tolerance comes from being honest with ourselves about what we have imagined sexually."

Jz's Corollary to John: "Tolerance Begins At Home"

Acceptance, tolerance, honesty...
They sound so easy, don't they?
Why the heck do we all find them so very hard?

Can I Get That On A Pillow?

 More Motivationals by SP...  

   Jz: Oh, you know me, I just crawl back in my shell at this stuff...
   SP: well don't be a crawler back in at all. 
   SP: crawl out further and laugh even louder
   SP: celebrate the bette davis in you
   Jz: Wow. Is she in here, too?
   SP: yep
   SP: and you have not been nice to her
   SP: (spank spank)

(Dorothy Parker, Bette Davis... it's getting crowded in here!)

The Hovering Shoe

I think that most of us walk a fine line in relationships, between allowing things to develop organically at their own pace and how we view the progress in our heads. I know there have been a number of times with BG where I've been so happy that I wanted to just whooosh over that edge and wallow in being in luuuv.

Yet every time, I've managed to stop myself -- because that's simply not where we are. I wouldn't stick by the relationship if I didn't feel it had the potential to end up someplace really good, but we haven't reached that point yet. So I would be foolish in the extreme if I just went ahead and dove off the board before the pool has finished filling up.
I've done that before and it hurts.

It is far too easy to let yourself act on feelings as you project they will be in the anticipated future, rather than remaining grounded in the here and now... We seem to have some innate compulsion to rush emotions, deeming them to be felt, therefore indisputably real. I've done this, I get it, -- but I've also paid the price for it. (sparkles, remember?) So I have learned caution, always guarding against my tendency to race toward the mirage.

If you've been reading here for a while, you know that I've been picking my way along this precarious line for some time now. BG & I have an incredible time together: the sex is amazing, we get along well, we laugh a lot, we even manage serious discussions without drawing blood. There is much that is rare and good. But the structure of the relationship has been problematic, with a few areas that I would really like to see change.

Recently, however, there has been a shift -- a good one. The desired changes actually seem to be starting to occur... and I am completely flummoxed as to how to deal with them.
Sure, I want to rush at them with open arms, embarrassingly, even to squeal with joy as I run. But I can't.

I've been keeping myself in check for so long now that I cannot let down my guard. It's not that I want to avoid the changes -- but I find I can only advance at a cautious pace.
I'm taking one tentative step at a time, all the while giving myself whiplash from snapping my head down to watch where I put my foot, and up to scan the heavens for that shoe that I just KNOW is going to drop...

SP scolds. "Just relax and enjoy it, will you?!?"
And I am trying, honest.
But I can't quite shake that nervous tick of looking upwards...

Anyone got some ibu for a sore neck?

Snippets

I knew it was going to happen one of these days:
My jaw locked.
A person with a locked jaw can no longer control her teeth.
  *ahem!*
So, choosing the devil over the deep blue sea, I pulled back.
He watched closely as I went from fruitless attempts to feeble movement to stiff opening to reasonably effortless full-range flexes.
I was allowed exactly two.
"Break's over!!!"
(*stuff, stuff, stuff*)
***************
"Ass up!"
Positioning himself, he grabs my rope-bound wrists for balance --
and our pinkies entwine ...
***************
I distinctly saw God.
And for at least a moment there, he had BG's face.
***************
One thorough and wildly-satisfying reaming later, he withdraws and I collapse forward, drained and completely inert.
The Scene is Over ...
  *SMACK!!*
"I can't believe it! I meant to do that earlier and forgot!"
  *SMACK!!*
*smack! smack! smack! smack!"
"Can't have you getting spoiled, now..."
  *SMACK!!*
"When my brain starts working again, the memory of this moment is going to make me highly indignant, you know ... Sir ... "

Beware the Dom Who Sails...

... for he is far too good at tacking.

A while back, he threw me into a complete tizz when he mused, "I have to come up with more things that will actually shake you up ..."

My first reaction was anxiety:
    He's bored.
    I'm too easy.
    I'm not edgy enough ...

Then came the panic:
    Oh crap! What am I in for now?!?

My already-vivid imagination kicked into overdrive. Visions of extreme bondage, grim endurance, and other deeply unpleasant scenarios on a grand scale looped through my mind, somehow bypassing the regions of thought that know he's much more understated than that.
Subtle and unsettling manipulations of degree and contrast are really far more his style …

True to form, he waited to act, lulling me into a false sense of security. Then the other night he arrived in an exceptionally good mood -- usually a sure sign that I'm in trouble. But there had been none of the usual instructions or warnings, so I told myself to stop being paranoid. Dinner was, in fact, calm and pleasant -- until he reached across and stuffed his beer bottle into my cleavage, grinning at my look of surprise.

And so the zig-zagging began …

I was ravished with kisses, I was tweaked 'til my eyes watered.
I was soothed, I was punished.
I was growled at, I was praised.
I was held in the moment, I was lost in subspace.
I was made to please, I was pleasured beyond belief.

I was completely off-balance, barely finding my feet at one extreme before being brought about and driven to the other.

By the end of our voyage, I was one thoroughly shagged, fagged, and satiated slut -- and he was one seriously grinning dom.

And not a bit of grim endurance in sight…!  ;-)