I’m yours before you even begin to want it

It was enough to see that calculating look on your face for me to open up to you like a vault opens up to its rightful owner. The moment you looked at me the way a hunter looks at his prey - already dividing its dead carcass in his mind’s eye - I was yours. You could have thought that it took us two dates for you to have me (not particularly long). But it’s not true. It was a 30 seconds gaze. That’s all. Topped off with your cold, disinterested touch, it was a mixture that hit me in all the right places. During our next meeting, I was crawling for you on the floor and licking your feet. Apologising for a mistake that I didn't even make. Only to proceed later to worship your entire body, kissing and licking each (and every) of its parts.

It’s hard to explain what is happening to me in moments like that. People say that men think with their penises. I guess that you could say that in those moments I think with my cunt. Yet it’s not exactly that. Yes, it arouses me to be humiliated and objectified but not in a way that I imagine ‘normal’ people get aroused. Sometimes my pussy gets wet when it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn't really matter. My goal in those moments is not for my cunt to be filled. Even if I plead for it, what I want the most is for it to be denied to me. I get off on the fact of being emotionally abused, not on the pleasure of sex. It’s as if I have a second pussy in my brain. A pussy which gets pleasure from hurt and terror. A pussy which gets soaking wet when I am degraded or rejected. And it’s exactly that one that takes over when I meet a man who looks at me the way you did.  

I can imagine that it might make some people uncomfortable. The speed with which I give myself to those who I feel might give me what I desire is close to that of light. I’m greedy. And there are not many people who have the things that I am greedy for. So when I meet someone who might - I take my chances.

At the same time, what other people see at sex, I often see as a small talk. I do not feel like we have fucked until you have left me a sobbing mess on the floor. I do not feel like I have had you in me until my stomach gets twisted at the smallest twitch on your face. Everything that happens before is an appetizer. Something to arouse our appetites before the main course. Or not even that - a snack before the meal itself.  

There is another reason why I am behaving the way I do, I believe. I think that I also do it to establish our dynamic before you have had the chance to start to care about me. I put myself below you, take off the veil of mystery and show all of my most miserable pieces to make sure that you won’t fall in love with me. I demystify myself so that I can keep your mystery. I make myself available so that you will lose interest in me. To make sure that there will be nothing that might prevent you from treating me the way I desire to be treated.

I don’t lust after romance. I don’t want a relationship. All I want is to be played with and deserted. I want to experience all the shades of emotional pain one can imagine. I want to taste all the flavours of dirt there are in the world. I want to be a punching bag for you. I want to be despicable so that you lose all your barriers with me. So that you are ready to treat me like you have never treated anyone before. And so that you don’t regret it.

I guess that you could see it as an objectification. I objectify my partners to play the role that I envisioned for them. That role and nothing else. You could also see it as manipulation. I behave a certain way in a hope that they will behave the way I want them to as a result. And maybe you are right. Maybe I do objectify and manipulate my partners to a certain extent. The same way as I would objectify and manipulate a romantic partner or a friend to get love or friendship from them. People want things from each other. In any kind of relationship. It’s a give and take.

Or is it? To be honest, I am not sure. I would like to believe that my partners are much more to me than the things I get from them. If I devote myself from someone, I do not expect anything in return. I am capable of spending weeks without an orgasm, months without seeing them and I have a strong belief that my devotion can easily last till the end of my days even if I would never see them again. This is my gift. The allowance to give it is in a way all that I need. 

I think that the important question when assessing my behaviour is whether I see them for who they are in the moment they are with me or am I trying to fit them into a mould that I had prepared earlier? Do I allow them to express their deepest selves with me? Or do I push them into treating me like I am treated in my fantasies? 

To be honest - I don’t know. I would like to believe the first one is true. I want my partners to be themselves with me. Even more - I want them to be with me the selves that they have never been before. I don’t want them to play roles with me. I want them to express their deepest desires. I want them to let themselves loose. I want them to stop hiding the parts of them that the society required them to keep at bay.

And for that, I need to communicate that I am harmless. I need to disarm myself from all the flirting and games so that they can see through me like through a sheet of cellophane. Only then will they allow themselves to relax with me. Only then will I become as predictable as a household object they’d own. Only if I lose all the human complexity will they be able to do to me what they fantasized about but would never dare to execute on someone they loved. 

And this is what I want to be for my partners. Is it worse than love? And who gets to say it is? Who gets to decide that being a caring girlfriend they could show off at family parties is more valuable than being their dirt mat with which they never have to hold back? Isn’t the fact that they can be with me whoever they want to be without having to care about how it affects me something special? I know that many people believe that you could be both. But in the way that I live BDSM - I doubt it. 

I don’t know if my behaviour is manipulation or simply communication. Devotion, suffering and dehumanization are what I have to offer when it comes to romance. I am fascinated by the dynamics of pain and fear that can arise between two people. Especially if they are tainted by sexual desire. Some people want to have children together. I want to have Stockholm syndrome. 

Better to know it sooner than later, I guess?

On submission as my way to taste the forbidden

I have a tendency to be swept off my feet by men. People who have known me for a bit can confirm.

Not by all men, that is.

In general, I tend to be rather intimidating and hard to impress. Sometimes, I can be a girl who emanates the vibe of ‘better don’t come close unless you have something really interesting to say. And I mean: really interesting’. Sometimes, I am a girl who has a bunch of guys around her begging for her attention. Sometimes, men treat me like a princess. I can’t say that I don’t like it. It can be pleasant and flattering. But it doesn’t turn me on.

I was raised in a family of strong women. My mother is a kind of woman who is a feminist and at the same time sees anything feminine as a sign of weakness. I love my mother. She is an amazing person and she has taught me a lot. She also might have been one of the reasons why my sexuality has developed into something so dark and twisted.

This tendency of mine to be swept off my feet by certain men has been in me since I remember. It would not happen often but there were certain kinds of guys (guys whom I found admirable and respectable and who at the same time did not pay much attention to me) around whom I was melting. If I met a guy like that, I would do anything to make him notice me, anything to get a sign of his approval. I’d travel to the other side of the country just for a chance of seeing him for a couple of hours. Usually, I wouldn’t get what I’d hoped for but it wouldn’t keep me from trying.

My mother hated my behaviour around those men. She thought that the way I was acting around them was pitiful. That I should be ashamed of myself for being like that. That I make a joke out of me. She has always told me that it should be men who admire me and not the other way around. That if I behave like that, they will for sure never be mine. Because the path to the heart of a man is being inaccessible. Only then, they will desire me.

There might even be some truth to it in the context of the culture that she was raised in and the, still pervasive today, traditional goals of a woman. There might also be some truth in it if you like when the object of your desire also desires you.

To me, however, it is a slippery slope.

My problem with desire is that I can either be a subject or an object of it but not both at the same time. And if my object makes me their object as well, my subject role gets shaky.

Not that it ever happened to me. I’ve been choosing my objects wisely so far.

I don’t know if it is because, trying to impress my mother, I have suppressed my natural behavior so deeply that now it comes to the surface blown up to unnatural proportions. My hypothesis is: 'Possibly'. But I know that men who are everything to me while I am nothing to them are my ideal kind of men.

I want to crawl at their feet while they don’t even notice.

I want to seek beggingly for a glimpse of their sight while they are busy admiring someone else.

I want to be ecstatic from them merely noticing me.

I want to pray for their touch not believing that I will ever receive it.

I want to be the most miserable, pitiful, despicable kind of girl. The one my mother would shudder with disgust when looking at. I want people to cringe with pity when they see me. I want them to feel sorry for me. I want them to think of me as a loser, unloved, and unlovable. I want them to think that they would never want to switch their places with me and truly mean it.

Because they probably shouldn’t.

Without my highly developed taste for rejection, such experience might prove dangerous for them.

Without my appreciation of hardship, it might not be possible for them to take it.

Without an understanding of the calm beauty of loneliness, the velvety warmth of sadness, and the reassuring composure of disinterest, seeking what I seek might even prove deadly.

For me, however, submission is a means for exploration of exactly those feelings. It is a way to experience a part of me that has never been accepted. It is allowing myself to feel to the fullest the emotions that I have never been allowed to experience.

Not so that I can prove to myself it finishes with a happy ending. Not so that I can show to my mother that she was wrong, that if you truly give yourself to someone what you get in return is their love and devotion.

I don’t think that it is necessarily true.

Rather, submission allows me to experience the rejection that has been so demonized to me, to feel the unreciprocated desire that I have been taught one should never feel. Submission allows me to live through being unloved, unwanted, pitiful, low, and ugly.

So that I can finally, without guilt, taste the forbidden fruit of weakness.

A broken toy

It’s amazing how adaptable one can be to scarceness. How in the face of a shortage, norms redefine themselves. How your brain finds ways to explain and accept the new circumstances. How after the initial period of terror and panic, new means for coping with deficiencies are adopted and your life continues as if it has always been this way.

I haven’t had an orgasm in more than 1.5 months. What used to be a reason for dread and anxiety, now is just a fact of life. Half a year ago, when my orgasms were taken away from me for the first time, I’ve spent weeks mulling over it, hoping for it to change, fantasizing about being able to come freely. Now, when they are unreachable for me again, I don’t even think about it. I just live my life as if I haven’t known what an orgasm was. 

I am not sure if this is what He wants me to feel in this situation. I am not sure if He wants me to get used to the power that He has over me. I am not sure if He wants my mind to learn to cope with the suffering that denial used to cause in me. But I am also not sure if He doesn’t. I think that what matters to Him is the fact that He can do this to me and I will accept it without a word. I don’t think that He does these things to me because He wants me to feel a certain way. I think that He does them because He can. 

And this is one of the reasons why I crave to be in His power. Because there is no subserviency in the way He treats me. There is no sign of consideration of how His decisions affect me, no hidden will on His side to please me. My needs are out of the equation in our play. Anything that He does is because He wants to do it. Anything that He wants me to do is a fulfilment of His needs. All that is fulfilling the only need that I truly seem to have. The need to be disregarded and used. 

I sometimes wonder what do I get out of our dynamic and are we not taking this too far? Is it still play or has it become abuse? Am I allowing him to treat me this way because I am afraid to say that this is too much? That I want my freedom back? Or is this exactly what I desire? 

The truth is, that it is exactly what I desire. My fantasies are dark, twisted and elaborate and they have much more to do with what I don’t get than with what I get. I dream about someone having total control over me but for me to have no control over them. I want them to enjoy me whenever they please but at the same time, I want to take up as little space in their lives as possible. I want them to have power over me, but not because I want to feel like I belong to them in a sense of having a feeling of belonging and being taken care of, but because I want to feel powerless and small and unimportant. I want to feel as if my life is in the hands of someone who is completely out of my reach.

I guess that the dynamic from my fantasies is the closest to the one between a God and their believer. God is powerful and almighty and the fate of the believer is completely in His hands. There is no point in questioning God’s will because there is no way that He would change His mind hearing the arguments of the believer. They are from two different worlds and different rules apply to them. The power of God over the believer is absolute and the love and trust of the believer to God are unconditional and unquestioning. God didn’t earn it and He doesn’t reward it. There are no requirements that He needs to fulfil in order for the love to continue. It simply is.  

Of course, this is how it looks in my fantasy world and in reality, I do not play with Gods but with real people. However, the sentiment stays. And having someone disregard my human desires so deeply, having someone execute his power over me with such nonchalance brings me closer to living that fantasy. I find it exciting to be pushed so far and to see where it leads. To get so close to living the dark stories that I dream up in my head. To see how they taste in real life. With the dirt and sweat and all. I want to live it all with the pain and suffering and loneliness and not just the hot kinky sex. Because my fantasies are not just bed scenes. They are parallel universes in which I live my parallel lives. 

This is how I look at it when I lie alone in my bed thinking that I would probably be masturbating right now if only it made sense and would lead me to some release instead of just causing me more frustration. 

My feelings about these things change, however, when other people discover my temporary defect. When I have to reveal to my sexual partners that they won’t be able to make me come tonight. That this privilege has been unavailable to me for a while now and I can’t tell when it is going to change. When I see the shade of disbelief in their eyes. When they ask me with a tone of pity if I enjoy it. When I feel them distancing themselves from me after hearing me say ‘yes’.

I can feel their inability to comprehend how can this be something that I desire. I can feel that they feel sorry for me. I can also feel how they lose their interest in me. How I become less human when they find out that I can't be pleasured the way that I normally can. That they won't have a satisfaction of giving me satisfaction. How that makes me not sexy anymore to them. How they don't want to use me even though they know that being used is exactly what I want. The veil of normalcy falls off me. Now they can see my real face. And they don't understand what they see.

At that moment, I become less certain about my sanity. At that moment, I begin to see myself not through the eyes of my fantasies, but through their eyes. I see a pitiful lonely girl, disgraced and mildly disgusting in how low she will go for Him. How much she is ready to give up. And for what?

Maybe this image is closer to reality than what I see through the lens of my fantasies. Maybe this is what I really am. A broken toy, an unwanted scrap of matter. Ready to give up all the worldly pleasures for just a glimpse of a promise of His heaven. 

Heaven that is so hard to tell apart from hell. 

There seems to be a common misconception about what it means to be objectified

People know that I am into objectification so they sometimes approach me to talk about it. After going through a number of these talks, I saw one common idea repeated over and over again. 

That to be objectified means to behave like an object.

For example, I am often asked: 

Is it really possible to be turned into an object without feelings, needs and desires? And if yes, what is so fun about it?

Or:

I don’t see any appeal in objectification. I like to respond and interact with my partner. I like to feel and desire. I wouldn’t want to become an inanimate thing. I like to be used and I want to experience it.

Or, in the rope context:

I don’t want to be objectified in rope. I want to be able to feel and express myself.

Like one would be excluding the other.

I’ve heard the above and similar statements so many times that I’ve finally decided to address them in writing.

Objectification is a really elusive concept and even though I have written quite a lot on the topic, I still don’t feel like I’ve properly expressed what it is about for me. I often write from the position of an object. Describing what an object would experience (or rather not experience) in a given situation. That an object wouldn’t need, that it wouldn’t desire. It does not mean that I strive to not need or desire. Rather, it explains why, when I am being objectified, I do not. Because when I am being treated like an object, at some point, I kind of become one. Not because I want to, but because my partner puts me in that position. It's not that I free myself from my needs and desires. They do it by treating me like I don’t have them. 

To me being objectified does not mean to behave like an object but to be treated like one. Objectification play for me has nothing to do with striving to act (or rather not act) like an object and everything to do with my partner behaving like I am one. And that is a crucial difference. The feeling of objectification does not come from me but from my partner’s treatment of me. 

It is a matter of origin. My starting position in objectification play is not that of an object. I do not do anything in particular to become it. It happens because my emotional responses are attuned to the actions of my partner. They treat me like an object, so I start feeling like one. They treat me like I do not have feelings, wishes or desires, like I do not feel pain or panic, so I stop feeling them. If nobody is responding when I am communicating my emotional states, if it seems like what I feel is an unimportant illusion, at some point my brain becomes aligned with the way that I am being treated and I stop feeling. 

I don’t think that it is like that for everyone who enjoys objectification. I can imagine that it can have infinitely many facets, depending on who gets involved in it. I can imagine that there are people who want to be a perfect object for their owners. Whose goal is to become as close to an inanimate thing as possible. Who strive to shed off their humanity as much as possible. For them, the origin of their objectification comes from the inside. Exactly as it is in the case of submission for me. 

If I feel submissive towards someone, they do not have to do anything to put me in that state. My submission does not come from their dominant acts, but from within myself. And I will keep on striving to prove my submission to them no matter what they do. I will keep on trying to be their perfect plaything.
But not with objectification. There, they put me in the mindset of an object only if they behave like I am one. 

Another difference between objectification play and play centred around my submission is that when I am submissive, my needs and desires are very important, even if they are being ignored by my partner. They are ignored but acknowledged. And that acknowledgement brings them into existence in the space between us. When I am being objectified, my needs are not ignored, they are simply not there. At least not in the eyes of my partner, but when I play, it is as good as them not existing, as what is in their eyes is what defines my reality.

So to answer the questions that I posed above. For me, it is possible to be turned into an object without feelings, needs and desires if someone treats me like I don’t have them. What I enjoy in that state is the feeling of freedom from my ego. The emptiness of my usually busy mind. The absence of desires, at least for a little while.

Being objectified or taking part in an objectification play does not mean that I stifle my reactions in any way. I do not put an effort into behaving like an object. That is not the point. I can behave like a human all I want, I am just not treated like one.

Being in that position does something to me. And that something is exactly what I am into when I say that I am into objectification. 

Do you know what it means to be someone's property?

It means being used, but only when they want to use you.

Sometimes it's less often than you would wish for. Sometimes it's more. Your view on frequency does not matter. They are not there to make you happy. Physical objects don’t get frustrated from not being used. Neither do they get overwhelmed from being used too much. Sometimes, they might get a bit worn out or dusty, but with proper care, it is usually fixable. Maintenance is what gives things their history and what adds to their depth. 

When one has owned something for a while and had to fix or polish it here and there, maybe it is not their newest shiniest toy on the shelf anymore, but they know that it has been through a lot with them and they took good care of it. They know that it can serve them well. They know what they can use it for and why and they can be sure that it will not disappoint them. Even if it doesn’t excite them that much anymore, it gives them something else. A feeling of reliability and at the same time melancholy over the beauty of things that are getting worn out over time, but stay with us.

It means to wait without waiting.

Sometimes, you need to wait long before serving your owner again. Time is not linear for a property. It only matters at the moment when you are being used. All the other times you are just lying around, purposeless. 

Objects don’t wait in the sense of “I will wait for you”. There is no yearning in them, no neediness. They are just there. Always ready to be picked up by their owner again, but never following them with their eyes and wishing for it to happen sooner. They will use them when they use them, and the rest is just a standby time.

It means not needing anything from them.

It means not having any requirements that they need to fulfil with regard to you. If you own something, would you ever consider what it would like you to do with it? You might think about what is it good for, what is the right purpose for it. But never what it would want to be used for. Never what it needs. 

Things don’t need anything. Their owner might need them sometimes, other times they don’t. But their property never needs them. They don’t have to consider it in any way when making their decisions. They don’t need to feel guilty when they don’t use it for a while. It is their right to do so. 

Your objects are always there for you when you need them. They are made to serve you. But not the other way around. Becoming possessed by the things you own is a curse of our modern times. A curse that you would not wish upon your owner. As much as you want them to be able to rely on you, you should not expect the same. They have more important things to tend to. They have people to care for.  

It means doing the things that they want you to do.

Objects don’t have opinions about what is and isn’t right for them to do. They don’t have likes and dislikes. As long as your owner decides that this is what they want to use you for, you are used for it. Of course, there are purposes that you are more and less suitable for. It is never a question of a wish, though, but of a capability. And usually, things are capable of way more than it seems at first sight. 

At the same time, objects don’t have their own initiative. They do not come up with ways to be used by their owner and propose it to them. They do not wish to be used in more ways than they are being used already. They are completely passive in that regard. Responding when requested to the best of their ability, but never initiating anything on their own. 

It means not getting what you’ve asked for.

Maybe sometimes your owner does wonder what it might be that you would want from them if you could ask. If you would be a person, what would you want them to give to you? It is an interesting question to ponder upon. If that plate could wish for things, would it want me to eat pasta out of it or rice? Would it want to be used every day or only for festivities? Would it want me to wash it right after use or leave it dirty in the sink so that I can enjoy my freedom and take care of it later?

Sometimes you get curious about what the things that you own might wish for. And if you could, you might even ask them out of that curiosity. Imagine that you hear their answer. “That’s interesting”, you might think, “that this is what they would wish for if they could ask for things”. And you proceed to use them for what you’ve had in mind. Because they can’t ask for things. At least not with the expectation that they will get it.

It means realizing that any treatment other than that would put you out of your place.

As a property, you might sometimes dream of becoming a person. Just like Pinokio did. You might look at the other people interacting with your owner, asking them for things and getting them and wish for the Blue Fairy to come and turn you into a person as well, a person with your own likes and dislikes, with your own needs and demands.

But then you realize that if it happens, you will lose your place. You will not be their property anymore. You will not be free anymore from feelings and expectations. You will have to start expressing your wishes and hoping for them to be fulfilled. You will have to take the space in the life of your owner. You will have to ask for things. And you might end up in a place where they do things to you that they think you want them to do, but not that they themselves want. When they start to consider your wishes and demands and disregard theirs. When you stop giving them pleasure and joy and start being another responsibility that they need to tend to.

And you recognize that this is not the place where you want to be. That this is not what you take your pleasure from. This is not what gives you the freedom of, for once, not having wants and needs that you so much cherish. This is not what gives you the satisfaction of knowing that they are free to do with you whatever they want to do without any considerations and that they know that. And then you are happily back in your place. 

Maybe I take it all too literally, but this is what it means to me to be someone's property.

Do you still want to be his property?

Because I do.

The unvoiced truth of your touch

Disclaimer: this is a highly personal post in which I talk about how I want to be treated. By no means, it is an opinion on how a Dominant should treat a submissive. Nor is it a critique of service tops in general. It is simply an account of my feelings in certain situations.

It’s unbelievable how much I can read from the way I am being touched by someone. How many unspoken desires and motifs can spring from under the tips of their fingers. How subtle but at the same clear those unuttered truths are.

Your touch can tell me everything about your desire for me. No matter how rough or reckless your gestures seem to be, it is very easy to read between them and see how much you actually want me. How your touch often might seem objectifying, but what it really screams is “I want you. I am dying to have you.” 

There are people who can beat you up in pulp and each of their powerful strikes reads like an insecure question: “Do you like it?” And there are people who can stroke your cheek gently and what you read them saying is “You’re mine and I will do whatever the fuck I want with you. And it won't be pleasant.”

The second type is what I fall for.

So don't think that you can fool me with your violent pose. I can see how you are trying to read if your actions are pleasurable to me if this is the way I want to be treated. It is clear that you are looking for the signs of enjoyment in me, that you are drinking greedily from the cup of my contentment. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad in wanting to please your partner. I don’t condemn you for wanting to give me the pleasure that I expressed my desire for. Your tender violence could be exactly what I need. By fulfilling my desire to be dominated, you could be giving me precisely what I want. 

And maybe sometimes you even do... But what I am certain about, is that by treating me this way, you will never make me yours. The moment I feel that you want me, I know that you’ve lost me. You handed the power over to me, no matter how much we want to pretend otherwise.

Being desired means holding the reins. If someone wants you, they will do anything to get you. They will do all the things that they know you want them to do to you. They will violate and hurt you. They will make you crawl on your knees and they will humiliate you. They will beat you up and make you beg to stop. But if underlying all this is their desire to please you, it becomes meaningless. An empty theatre of Dominance and submission. 

If this is the case, I can feel that all the things that are done to me happen only because I want it. One word from me and it would all stop and my Dominant would be at my feet. I stop being violated and start being served, in a twisted kind of way. And the thought of being served by my Dominant makes me cringe. Being served kills the sacrifice.

I love making sacrifices for the people I admire. I love to feel that I am serving them. I love to feel like I am giving up something for their pleasure. Sacrifice is one of my biggest fetishes. And what is the point of a sacrifice if it is not needed? 

When I feel like you are mine without any effort on my side, just because of the sheer fact of my existence, then I lose my appetite entirely. And I stop wanting to give you what you desire. 

Myself.

Even more so, I begin to wish to punish you for your weakness of falling for my whims. I start to torture you using your neediness. The door closes. By trying to win me over, you lose me irreversibly. 

I know that it is kind of cruel on my side. I know that I can be ruthless in my desire to be used and violated. I demand of my partners to truly disregard my needs. I demand of them to take pleasure in my real misery. I don’t want us to act like I am their property, I want to be their property. With everything that comes with it. 

It is a great responsibility because what is and isn’t too much for me becomes their decision. They need to decide how far we can go, without endangering my physical and emotional safety to an undesired level. I require them to know something impossible to know, that only I could know. I require them to know and state my limits. 

I would like to believe that what I desire is not a complete madness. That there are limits to the sacrifices that I will make. That I will see and voice those limits when they truly are unbreachable. 

I will never know until I get there, though. 

What I do know, is that being wanted makes me cold and cruel. Your avid and passionate touch turns me into stone. Your need to please me makes me indifferent and withdrawn.

I know that it's unfair and probably unhealthy. Especially, because I do not want my partners to truly not care about me. My desire is not to be a victim of abuse. But what I do want, is for your touch to show not even the slightest sign of worship. I want you to grab and grope me as your trophy and not as a precious gift. I want you to use me for your pleasure and disregard mine. I want you to demand sacrifices of me and make no concessions for my sake.

Only then, will I yield under your touch. Only then, will I relax into submission. And only then, will I feel truly recognised and appreciated for who I am. 

An object. A possession. A toy.

Sometimes, I wish that you’d kiss me more

I don't dare to tell you that, because I don't want you to think that I'm greedy (which I am) or ungrateful (which I am not).

I do cherish every single moment when your soft lips touch mine like it's my last moment on Earth. In fact, at that moment, I wish that it was the last one. I wish that I could just stay like that forever, captured in an illusion of us together, loving and tender.

And because I am greedy, I want more of it. I want more taste of that romance, because it feels so, so good when you are soft to me. So good, that I freeze when it happens, afraid that even the slightest of my movements might make you change your mind. Hoping that maybe if I remain still, you won't notice how much pleasure you are giving me, and continue longer.

I think that you know exactly how much your kisses mean to me, though, and that is why you are granting me that privilege so rarely. And I'm glad that you do. I'm glad that it's you who is deciding when and how I am going to receive pleasure from you. And that you are so frugal when rationing it. I'm glad that your mind is so strong and composed when mine is squishy and soft and restless. 

Because if I could, all I would do, would be to kiss you. I would bathe in the taste of your lips day after day after day until I would grow so sick of it that I wouldn't want to taste them ever again and I would lose your kisses forever.

Sometimes, I wish that you'd kiss me more and I'm glad that my wishes are not what guides your choices. I'm glad that you are so relentless in not giving me what I want. I'm glad that my disappointment and desperation is what gives pleasure to you.

Because underneath that layer of neediness and softness, there is the me who needs to prove herself to deserve tenderness. There is the me who only appreciates what requires effort and hardship. The me who needs a constant challenge.   

And I know that it's not easy to be that challenge. 

I can't help but wonder, though, are you treating me this way because you know that scarcity is what I need, even though it's the abundance that I want? Are you catering to my deeper needs, the ones that I wouldn't express, but that actually need fulfilment? Do you want the tenderness and romance as much as I do on the surface, but you're just smarter than to give it to me?

Or… Do you simply not care about me, and are you kind to me from time to time out of pity, just enough to keep me coming back, but not enough to ever satisfy me? Is cruelty all you care about and are your kisses a necessary evil, a prize that I'm granted for 'good' behaviour, and that you generously put up with when you feel that it’s time for it? 

These are the questions that cross my mind when I am getting desperate about the fact that I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that you've truly deeply kissed me. And when I am thinking about how much I enjoy and admire this fact and how devoted to you it makes me feel.

I hope that I will never learn the answers to these questions because I need them all to be positive. And that's impossible, I know. Or is it? 

It would be impossible, once I've heard the answers, but as long as I don't, I can believe them all to be true. Sometimes, I can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. I'm one of those, you know? Like with the Schrödinger's cat, as long as I don't open the box, all the possibilities are equally true and valid. And I need them to be.

Because sometimes, I need to believe that you don't care about me, otherwise the foundations of our dynamic would fall apart. And other times, I need to believe that you do, because otherwise what is between us would be a simple abuse and I would be its naive victim.

The uncertainty is what holds it all together. And even though I often wish it would go away, I know that it's a cowardly wish for safety. And like with the kisses, fulfilling it would take away from me what I really want. 

Sometimes I wish that you'd kiss me more, but I hope that you never will.

I just think that I should be used

Some people might call me a slut, but I don't think that I am one. As far as I understand, being a slut is about enjoying sex and having as much of it as possible because you have pleasure from it. I don't care about my pleasure. I just think that I should be used. Other people should have pleasure from my body. That's their right.

My threshold for physical closeness is very low. As soon as I kind of like you, I will probably let you fuck me. If you realise that it is a possibility and how easy it is to get, I won't say no, because I'll think that you deserve it, just because you’ve requested it. Whether I want it is out of the question.

I think that it comes from the notion that I acquired as a teenager, that I need to repay people for physical closeness. And that payment should come in their ability to access my body. My need for physical touch and closeness is huge. Not necessarily sexual, just hugging, being caressed, kissed. Just feeling someone close to me. Being intimate.

In my youth, I thought that I can't just get it from someone without giving something in return. Somehow, I didn't feel like being close to me might be of any value to other people. So I needed to give them something more of myself to deserve the closeness. And sex was an easy and obvious currency.

So I learned to treat my body as an object and to use it to get an illusion of being close to someone. An illusion, not because they didn't want to be close to me, but because I couldn't really be close to them. Usually, because they weren't the people who I truly wanted to be close with. And those with whom I did, I was too terrified of rejection to ask.

I became a master of my way of seducing people by giving them all my attention. If I decided that I want someone to like me, I would do anything to please them. I still do it and it's not necessarily a bad thing. There is no pretending in there, they do really have all my attention at that time. The problem is that it's not sustainable and when it ends, it hurts. You can't be so focused on the other person 24/7 and not lose them and/or yourself. You should never forget about yourself in your quest to please.

Or shouldn't you? Getting to know more and more about BDSM and especially about D/s, I begin to realise that all these imprints that I have and that I used to see as negative, and which are negative in a normal world with ‘normal’ norms, are perfect for creating a successful D/s dynamic. With the right partner, my inability to be something else than a sexual object, my need to please and my hyper-focused attention on the other, are assets. As long as we both know what we are exploring and what we're both giving up and we agree to it, there is nothing negative about it.

Because can’t my unwillingness to explore my own sexual needs, and the desire to be a sexual object, be a need on its own? Why is it considered unhealthy to get pleasure not from my own physical pleasure, but from pleasing the other? Why isn’t it ok to suppress my own personal expression as a price of moulding myself to the image that someone else might have designed for me?

In today's western society all the above are definitely not valued and understood. We strive to develop the individual self, to express ourselves fully and to be emotionally independent of other people as much as possible. This kind of attitude is often portrayed as an ideal that we should all be striving for. But what if my individual expression is a lack thereof? What if I prefer to please other people than to please myself? What if I prefer to focus on other people than to focus on myself?

And don’t get me wrong, I am not an altruistic mother Teresa. I do have a lot of individual self-expression in my daily life. I do have goals, strong opinions about things and I like some people and strongly dislike others. But in sex, I just want to be used. I just want my partners to enjoy me and I want to please them as much as I can. I want to be their perfect toy. My only need is for them not to care about my needs.

It seems great at first sight, but actually it is a lot to ask. It is easy to get from someone who truly doesn’t care about you, but when they start to like you (or even worse, love you), they usually start to care about what you want. And that becomes very problematic for me.

Before I discovered kink, I had a lot of random sex with people who didn't care about me, because it was very easy to be objectified by them. But when I would start to be intimate with someone, having sex with them would become more and more difficult. They would begin to ask me too many questions about what I want. It was becoming too much about me. And when I started to think about it, I wasn't even sure if I want sex at all. I begin to wonder what should I want. What would they want me to want? Why don't I have needs on my own? What's wrong with me?

There is definitely something wrong with me (maybe 'wrong' is not the right world, out of the ordinary is better), but I don't necessarily want to change it. I found a place where the weird notions in my head can be a source of pleasure without guilt. I finally understand and accept that I enjoy the feeling that being used gives me, proxying my own pleasure using the pleasure of the other, the attention that I am getting from my user and how natural they become with me when they realise that they can just do whatever they want with me and they don't need to care about my needs. My whole life I've been working towards becoming a perfect toy (and I still am) without even realising it, and finally, I am starting to see value in my predisposition instead of considering myself a freak.

Because I just think that I should be used. Is that too much to ask for?

My reflections on giving blowjobs

I’ve been told that I have amazing blowjob giving skills. I don’t know if it is true but if it is, I think that it's not really about my technique or physical capabilities. In that realm, there are many things that I could improve. Rather, I believe that it's about my devotion during the act and about my stamina.

Blowjobs are a special sexual activity because they are purely focused on the pleasure of the receiver. In principle, there is no physical satisfaction that I could be getting out of it myself (it so happens that I am sometimes having intense orgasms from giving blowjobs, but I will leave that out of this writing because it's a very special case and it's out of my control). So the purpose of the act is to give pleasure to the other without being pleasured myself.

I think that the reason why blowjobs given by me feel so special is that I'm totally selfless in the act. I do it purely for him and I don't expect anything in return. I don't ask myself whether he will return the favour because I know that he won't. And that's what makes me happy. I don't want the pleasure to be reciprocated. My only purpose is to serve and that's how I want it to be. My reward is being allowed to be around him and to make him happy. And that's all I desire.

The moment that I take his cock into my mouth, the only thing that matters to me is pleasing him. Everything else disappears. Time stops. It's a bit like meditation (maybe it even is one of my natural meditative states). Up, down, up, down, lick the tip, go down and stick out your tongue, repeat. I can go on like that for hours and I completely lose track of the time. My head becomes empty. There is nothing to think about as my purpose at that moment is clear. To suck his cock.

And somehow, even though I've said the opposite, having his cock in my mouth is a pleasure to me in a way. It's such a sensitive and special piece of him that he allows me to cherish. How could I not appreciate that? I feel very special to be allowed to be close to him in this way. To take him into my mouth, to caress him with my tongue and lips. It's a privilege to be allowed to get so close to him, to take care of his happiness. To be a source of relief and relaxation.

I never think if and when it will finish. I don't try to bring him to orgasm. It's not me who is directing the situation and I wouldn't even try to. He'll cum when he feels like it and he'll use me for it in a way that he sees fit, by fucking my throat, choking me on his cock or ordering me to go faster and bring him to orgasm. And then the moment when he pushes himself really deep into my throat and feels it with his sperm makes me so radiant. HE ENJOYED HIMSELF!

It's not like I do it always singing inside and without any effort, though. It is hard work. After a while my knees and calves start to hurt from kneeling, my shoulders and arms ache from keeping my hands behind my back, my back and neck hurt from the up and down movement. My lips become numb and my throat sore from being filled with something too big to actually fit in there. But I ignore it and go on because that's my service to him. My devotion is bigger than my discomfort.

I don't even consider the possibility of stopping. Because how could I stop if he wants me to go on? It is unthinkable of. The only reason that I would stop is if I would drop out of exhaustion. Until I'm physically capable of continuing, I will. And I'm pretty strong, so I don't think that it would happen quickly.

I love blowjobs because of their one-sidedness. During PIV sex I tend to feel kind of guilty if I cum because it shouldn’t be about me, but I am making it as such. Here I don't have this risk. It's clear that I'm not going to get any physical pleasure from it that it is all about him. And that’s why I love it.

Because I don't deserve to be pleased. All I deserve is to be used and discarded afterwards. And what gives a better opportunity for such a treatment than giving someone a blowjob?

Sometimes I wonder where the borders of my submission are?

“Tonight I want you to kneel next to my bed the entire night, while I am sleeping. You will be suffering in silence for me. Without my attention. Without recognition. Hurting and wearing yourself off, while I am getting my rest, because I told you to do so.”

You didn’t make me do it, but the look into my eyes told you that I would. And it is true, I would.

Sometimes I wonder what are the things that I wouldn’t do for you? So far, it seems like I would do anything that is physically possible in order to please you. I find it weirdly exciting and empowering. It is strange how my attitude towards submission is changing. Not long ago I would see it as a weakness. Being so subdued, so obedient. Right now I see it as a sign of power.

It makes me feel powerful because I know that I do these things because I want to. You have total control over me because I gave it to you. And I gave it to you not because I want someone to take this burden of being in control of me. I am perfectly fine with being in control of myself and my own life. In fact, I love the feeling of being in control of my faith. Of living my life the way I want it to be, of achieving my own goals, of thinking where I want to go next and then going there.

Recently, I have been getting to know and appreciate myself more and more. I can recognize much better my own thoughts and emotions. I can see better where my worries are justified and where are they being misplaced. But most importantly, I can see the value in who I am and not just in who I might become if I put enough work in improving myself. I feel lately like I am finally discovering myself. Discovering all the depth and beauty that has been inside me all this time and that others had seen long time ago, while for me it was hidden behind a thick fog of self-criticism and comparison with others. The fog is finally diminishing.

And with all that, I can see how much I am giving up when I hand it over to you to play with. I can see how brave I am to let go so much when I have a choice not to.

The choice that I am talking about is not a choice that I would be making every time we play and you ask something difficult of me. It is not a choice whether to go with it or not, whether to safeword or not. I am past that. It is a choice that I made at some point, I am not sure when. The choice to give all the control over myself to you, to let you decide what is and isn’t too much, to let you peek into my soul deeper than anyone else.

And looking at the fact that I’ve made that decision and that I stand by it, that I let it develop despite the vulnerability that it triggers and despite the enormous hurt that I know it might cause if it ends, makes me proud and in awe with myself.

In line with the popular belief, I used to see the traits of being in control and of dominance and signs of power, while letting go and submission as a weakness. I used to be ashamed when other people would see me being submissive towards someone.

It took some time, but I don’t anymore.

I don’t, because how much strength does it take to go against the current and show it to the world that you let yourself be open and vulnerable towards someone? To not be ashamed to show that someone else has so much control over you while being independent and in control are one of the most desirable and admirable traits in our society? To me, it takes a lot.

It takes a lot because I am a proud and ambitious person. I always want to be the best. I want attention and I want other people to admire me. I want them to see me as strong and smart and interesting. And being submissive does not fulfil any of these needs for me. Being openly submissive to someone is like the opposite of what I thought I always wanted to be.

Not anymore though. Not anymore because I stopped trying to be someone that I am not. And it is not to say that I am not dominant or not in control. I often am. But I don’t have to be any more in order to feel good about myself. I don’t have to prove to anyone that I am this amazing person that I want them to think I am. I am an amazing person. Everyone is an amazing person. And the most rewarding thing that you can do with your life is to keep discovering all the ways in which you are.

Being so brave to let someone else rule my life so much, to be so open and vulnerable towards them, to give up all of my own needs and desires for them, to let them do the most humiliating and degrading things to me and keep coming back, to be willing to explore the darkest corners of my soul and the edges of my sanity are some of the amazing things that I can do.

I don’t know where the borders of my submission are, but it is not because I don’t have an awareness of how much I am willing to give, but because I know that I can give really a lot. And finally, I am truly proud of it.

My reflections after reading ‘Story of O’

This writing contains spoilers.

It’s way too late for me to read this book only now, but better later than never, I guess. It is such a deep account of a mind of a woman who gives herself entirely to someone else and it stirred up so much in me that I just had to collect my thoughts together after reading.

My dark side is darker than I thought

First of all, reading this book made me realize that I might be even more fucked up than I thought I am. Because no matter how much I don’t want to admit it, there is a part of me that truly envies O. And it’s not naive childish envy without realizing the consequences. I think that by now I can have quite a good feeling of what being in her place would entail. And I still kind of want it. Not just the sex and the pain and the loss of control over your body. I want her brokenness and her despair. I want her transformation and the total loss of dignity. I want the disintegration of her ego in the name of the man who owns her.

And believe me or not, but writing about it is really scary. It’s scary because it reveals my darkest side which existence I don't necessarily want to admit to. In the same way, as dominants are sometimes afraid of the darkness that lies within them and that revealing it to other people will cause losing them, I am also afraid of revealing my darkest desires. At the same time I feel like if I don’t, they will only grow until they really get out of control.

Because I think that as much as it is scary for a submissive to play with someone who has a really dark side that they must keep at bay or otherwise things will go really wrong, it is as scary for a dominant to play with a submissive who has such dark side. In a different way of course. Because the dominant knowing it about me will not be afraid of me hurting him irreversibly. He will be afraid of him doing it to me and me not telling him when to stop. And there is a part of me that will not want to stop.

I realize that being in such an intense dynamic as O would basically fuck up my life. I realize that I would lose my identity. Because it is not possible to be exposed to such extreme situations of mental degradation and humiliation, to be stripped away of any control over what is happening with you and your body and get out of it unscathed. It would break me. And exactly that brokenness is what is luring me. Because I am curious what lies beyond that state. Would I be able to build myself up again?

In my teenage years, I loved reading fantasy books, because they were full of stories of people tortured physically and mentally and subsequently broken and becoming pets of their enemies. I devoured those stories. And not because I am a sadist and enjoyed reading about their misery. On the contrary, I enjoyed putting myself in the position of the victims. Imagining me being in their place and experiencing all the humiliation and tortures and slow breaking of my spirit. Watching myself becoming docile and obedient.

The interesting thing is that as much as I enjoyed reading about the breaking, I also very much enjoyed the rebuild. Because in the end, they were always becoming stronger. In the end, they always managed to get free and were starting the slow journey of rebuilding themselves. And after that was done, they were even fiercer and stronger. Because once you lost everything that you thought holds value and you’re still there, your perspective on who you are and what really is worthy, shifts entirely. And I think that that is one of the things that I am really interested in. Would I be able to repair myself after being so broken? And what kind of person would I become after that?

I started to appreciate much more the possibilities that the physical pain gives

My journey into kink started with humiliation, as this was what my first kinky boyfriend was very much into. After him, I quickly moved into the realms of physical pain though. I had a period of being extremely masochistic and looking mostly for physical pain in play. But then, after a while, something shifted in me and my kinks made a full circle back to humiliation, while I stopped enjoying physical pain so much.

I am not sure whether it is my auto-sadistic brain that decided that I will have more fun if I actually don’t enjoy pain, as it will increase my mental suffering, or whether after the first period of hormonal high, I decided that there is not enough depth for me in the physical pain domain, but the fact is that currently, I am in a period of appreciating mental pain much more than physical. More than that, I basically stopped enjoying physical pain altogether. I think that one of the reasons might be also that the people who give me pain nowadays are often the ones with whom I feel very submissive and from whom I wish only tenderness.

Reading ‘Story of O’ I started to see physical pain in a new light again. Not as a source of potential pleasure, but rather as a way to intensify my misery and as a catalyst for a mental breakdown that otherwise would be very difficult to achieve. And that got my attention.

I realized that being physically tortured really does something to you that possibly nothing else can. It makes you docile and obedient. It trains you to accept your faith and it shows you that you don’t matter. Of course, you can possibly achieve the same results with mental abuse, but something tells me (although I can’t explain why) that the results would not be exactly the same. There is something urgent and inevitable in the physical pain that mental abuse does not have. I don’t think that it is only the speed with which it causes the person to break, I think that it is also the way that it makes you break that is very different and quite interesting.

There is also another aspect of corporal torture, and especially the marks that it leaves that 'Story of O' revealed to me thanks to one sentence.

"Sir Stephen readily admitted that O was infinitely more moving when her body was covered with marks, of whatever kind, if only because these marks made it impossible for her to cheat and immediately proclaimed, the moment they were seen, that anything went as far as she was concerned."

I’ve never looked at it this way, but it makes so much sense that the marks are something to be ashamed of (or that one should be ashamed of) because they show that anything goes with me. They prove that you can treat me as badly as you wish and I will let you do that. I was always covering my marks, but more because I didn’t want uncomfortable questions. I’ve never looked at marks though as a source of shame about my lack of dignity, as a sign that I will let others do anything to my body. Now I can see it, though. And it offers lots of new exciting possibilities.

There is definitely something of a slave in me

There are many aspects of being a slave, like O was, that appeal to me. Above all, the lack of control and disregard with which other people are treating you. As a submissive you still have dignity, you belong to your Dom and it is something that you can be proud of. He is proud that you belong to him. You obey his orders, also because you know that he values you and he wants the best for you. He cares about you. Other people see that and respect you for that as well. But the position of a slave as was shown in the book is different. And in a way much more appealing to me.

The thing with me is that I don’t want to be cared about and respected. At least my dark side that I feed during play doesn’t. I want to be truly disregarded. I want to be used. And that is why the situation of O was so alluring for me. Because sir Stephen was truly disposing of her as if she didn’t matter to him. Or else, she did matter to him as your car would matter to you, but he definitely didn’t consider her feelings. They were completely out of the question. To him, she wasn’t a person. And she loved it.

"Would she ever dare to tell him that no pleasure, no joy, no figment of her imagination could ever compete with the happiness she felt at the way he used her with such utter freedom, at the notion that he could do anything with her, that there was no limit, no restriction in the manner with which, on her body, he might search for pleasure. Her absolute certainty that when he touched her, whether it was to fondle or flog her, when he ordered her to do something it was solely because he wanted to, her certainty that all he cared about was his own desire, so overwhelmed and gratified O that each time she saw new proof of it, and often even when it merely occurred to her in thought, a cape of fire, a burning breastplate extending from the shoulders to the knees, descended upon her."

And that’s definitely something that I identify with very strongly. To belong to someone who really uses me for his own pleasure disregarding my feelings completely is the greatest of joys.

I also loved all the small things that Rene and sir Stephen instilled on O to remind her at all times who she really is. How her lips always had to be slightly open, her legs never crossed and her clothes such that they are always easy to take off and have their way with her. I can only imagine how such small things can have a huge impact on one’s psyche. And that was only the beginning.

She had to expose herself whenever sir Stephen ordered her to, no matter who else was in the room. He would make his servant beat her, and give her away to his friends for use any way they wanted. Finally, in the last scene, he put her naked wearing an owl mask in the middle of a party, where people treated her as some weird animal, touching her and looking at her, but not once saying a word to her. She was just put in the middle of a crowd like some sort of cheap entertainment and after that used by the men who brought her there.

All these things are fantasies of mine. To be stripped away of my dignity, slowly broken into obedience, disgraced publicly, given away to anybody like a thing. To be put in a crowd for entertainment and really be treated as such. To be truly disregarded by a mob, have everyone around me treat me without respect. Isn't that how slaves are treated?

The thing about a slave in a D/s sense that doesn’t suit me though is that it seems to me like it is an awful lot of work for the Dominant/Master. Because having someone’s life in your hands is a huge burden in my opinion. Deciding about each aspect of someone else’s existence requires a lot of effort. They consume a lot of your attention. It requires a certain devotion from the owner. And I often feel that I couldn’t ask for that. Because I feel that I wouldn’t want to take so much space in someone else’s life. I am not sure if it is because of my tendency to be independent and to make my needs as small as possible or because I wouldn't trust my life to anyone to such a degree. But it's a reason why I don’t see myself as someone’s slave.

What I do see myself as is a toy. Their’s to play with whenever they please, in whatever way they please, and independent and self-sufficient whenever they get busy with their lives. Of course, in such circumstances, you won’t reach the level of devotion and depth that’s possible when you belong to the other at all times. But you also don’t become a burden that you might become as a slave. At least that is how I feel about it and being a burden is the last thing that I would wish to be for my Dominant.

___

Reading this book was quite a ride for me. I can't believe that the author managed to describe the process of falling deeper and deeper into submission and the feelings of the submissive so well. And how many times I wished I was in place of O. I don't think that I ever will get to that point. But the repertoire of my fantasies definitely has grown substantially after the read.

With him I go so quiet that I almost disappear

Have you ever met someone that you've been so submissive towards that when you are around them, your entire personality basically disappears? They ask you about your opinion and all you can think about is what opinion would they like you to have? They ask you what you want and your mind goes blank because you don't want anything, except for giving the right answer to their questions.

I did.

And it's both amazing and terrifying.

Even when he tries to have a normal conversation with me, I just can't get myself to express my thoughts with him. Because when he is around, there is basically no me to express.

Normally speaking I tend to be quite opinionated. And I can usually express myself verbally very well. But not with him. When he's around, I'm paralyzed. I'm constantly afraid that I might say something stupid or simply something that he might not agree with. So I just try not to say anything, unless explicitly asked to. And even then it comes with difficulties.

My favourite moments are when he's using me because then I know exactly what he wants and I don't need to worry if I did something against his wishes. I can relax in being his toy, used exactly as he likes.

I actually quite enjoy this suppression of my personality. It's freeing. I don't need to be anything anymore. I don't need to worry about what other people might think of me. Only his opinion matters and as long as he is happy, I'm in bliss.

When I'm in that space, I go quiet. My mind is free of my usual worries. The only things that I worry about are related to him and there are usually not that many, as most of the time he is quite happy with me.

I also go quiet socially as I don't really have much to say. I only exist in relation to him. So when other people try to interact with me exclusively, it's a bit like if they were trying to interact with a toy that he took batteries out of. You can still squeeze some fun out of it, but it is a rather limp version of what it is when the batteries are in.

Maybe I am exaggerating, but I really feel that this is who I am around him.

And it sometimes makes me worried.

Usually, people tell me that one of the main reasons why it's gratifying to have me submit to them is that they are aware of how much I'm giving up. They saw me in normal situations when I'm my usual, opinionated, cheerful, maybe sometimes even a bit bitchy, self. And they find it special when I give it all up for them.

With him, it's not the case though. He has never seen me different. He has never seen my ‘normal’ self.

And I just can't stop worrying that he will get bored of me very soon. Seeing only my submissive side. Quiet and docile.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Probably.

But I really can't see what can be interesting about someone who is so invisible. So reactive. Who has no opinion of her own? Nothing smart to say. Who can't do anything properly, because her hands are shaking all the time? Someone without the personality of her own.

I do realize that it's not fair to think this way. On good days I understand that it might be seen as admirable to be so devoted to someone. To forget one's ego to such a degree. To be so vulnerable and open. It can have a value of its own, not only in relation to my other side. More than that, it might even be the most valuable side of me.

But I won't really feel it until I start to appreciate myself for it. Give it a place in my identity. There is no amount of praise from other people that can convince me that this part of me is worthy, without me wanting to hear that it is. Even if it comes from the most important people.

Deep inside I think that it actually might be seen as quite beautiful.

But it's really scary to start to identify with it. It seems so squishy and vulnerable. It feels safer to despise it. To not treat it as me.

Only if I keep doing that, I will also keep rejecting the connections that I've made when I let it out. And that is something that I can't do.

Because being quiet, I've experienced some of the most beautiful encounters. It would be a shame to deny them their validity by not admitting that that's also me.

Does being an experienced dominant really mean being a better dominant? And what does ‘better dominant’ even mean?

“Hi Door, I am an experienced Dom/Top/Master...”

I can’t even count how many times I’ve received a message starting with this sentence. Yesterday it happened again, and I began wondering, why do so many Ds (let’s just call them that for the sake of brevity) think that it is such important information to share when they are approaching someone?

The thing is that for me it doesn’t make them any more appealing. Maybe they’ve dominated many people before, but they’ve never dominated me. So no matter how experienced they are, in terms of playing with me, they are newbies. And I like when my partners approach it that way.

I am not saying that it means that every new partner of mine needs to be overly cautious and take things awfully slow (that’s a stereotypical view on being a newbie I guess). Taking things slowly in play is not really my strongest point. I am more of a roller-coaster-experience kind of girl. It does mean though that I want them to be focused on reading me and getting to know me and not fall back on their experience with other subs.

Because the thing that I love the most about kink is that every person that I play with is completely different and also plays differently. That’s the beauty of it. The unique dynamic that is formed between the two people. And it happens through getting to know this particular person and not dominant/submissive people in general.

Saying that being experienced makes you a better play partner is a bit like saying that having been in many relationships makes you a more appealing romantic partner. Maybe in some ways it does, since there are certain obstacles that are shared among all relationships and having dealt with them in the past might help you deal with them in the future. But more often than not, it doesn’t really matter, since people are so complex that your experience from one relationship will probably not be very relevant to the next one.

What is true, is that relationships offer tremendous opportunities for growth and if you are a mindful and growth-oriented person then having been in a few relationships probably have taught you quite a bit. Still, the question here is more what kind of person you are than in how many relationships you’ve been before. If you lack self-reflection then even 100 relationships will not teach you anything. If you are able to self-reflect then one might already be enough.

To the advantage of the experienced Ds, there is a truth in saying that if you've done kink for a while then there is a big chance that you are skilled in some BDSM-related form of play, like impact or knife play or rope bondage, to name a few. And these are the areas where I definitely value dexterity. Actually, I'm a total sucker for skilled people. And I tend not to enjoy playing with people who are beginners in practical skill. I know, it's a bitch tendency on my side, I am working on it, but the truth is what it is. It mostly has to do with (lack of) patience and my perfectionism. To my defence, I do enjoy people who are striving for the best, even when they haven't gotten there yet.

But telling me that you are experienced doesn't tell me anything about your skills or your personality. It also doesn't give me any indication of whether I will want to submit to you. I've had great and strong D/s connection with people who are complete beginners and I've met experienced dominants with whom I didn't feel submissive at all.

In the end, this game is all about attitude and personality. So tell me something about that and not how many submissives you’ve had before. Show me who you are and who you can be to me. To me, D/s is about how and why you play and not about what you do and how many times you've done it before. So please, tell me something more interesting than that you are experienced.

Defining a Toy

I love to figure myself out. And lately, I've been asking myself a lot what does it mean that I identify as a Toy? Why do I feel like it fits me better than a submissive or a masochist that I’ve labelled myself before? Because it's not like I am not submissive or not masochistic. I am. But there is something about Toy that gives a distinct flavour to all the other roles that I identify with. And it really speaks to me.

Because what I want above all is to be played with. And now you can say, “Well, that’s not very special. All kinky people want to play. That’s what we are here for.” but what I mean is that I want to be toyed with, physically and emotionally. And above all, I want to be a source of entertainment.

The origins

Since I remember, I would let my friends make jokes about me and laugh at me. It never bothered me much. What they were saying was funny, they were laughing and I was laughing with them. Other people were sometimes surprised why would I let someone ridicule me like that, but I didn't see anything wrong with that. It's not like I wasn't able to cut their jokes if I wanted to. I wasn't a victim of bullying. I would never let someone whom I didn't like to make jokes about me. It was a privilege for the people whom I really liked. And the way that they were making jokes usually showed how much they knew me, which I was finding really pleasing. They were appreciating my openness and sense of humour and I was happy to be a source of entertainment for them.

I have also always loved to be manipulated. And again, it's not like I couldn't prevent it from happening. I usually knew perfectly what the other person was doing and I could stop it if I wanted to. But I didn’t because I preferred to enjoy their craftsmanship. I let them lead me wherever they wanted to lead me because I appreciated their effort. They were having fun with steering my mind where they wanted it to go and I was having fun being steered. I was glad to be able to give them pleasure like that.

These situations repeat themselves in kink. I like when my partners are mean to me or when they ridicule me. I like when they make the most painful jokes about me. I also love when people are manipulating me in play. When they send my mind in different directions while preparing a trap exactly where I least expect it. I appreciate their wit when they are doing so. I appreciate when they show that they know how to control my thoughts and when they know where to strike to hit me the hardest.

And I am happy to be the person for which they don’t need to censor themselves. There is something appealing in being mean to others and in using others. There is an undeniable joy in malice and in having power over someone. I like to be the source of that joy. I like to provide my partners with this kind of entertainment. And isn’t that what toys are for? For letting other people simulate situations that they would enjoy in real life, but which for some reason are not available to them? And, of course, for entertainment?

I want to have the attention of the other

I think that one of the main reasons why I enjoy all of it being done to me is that it gives me the attention of the other. And what does the toy want more than attention? Its only use is being played with, being entertaining to its owners. If it is granted their attention, then it means that it's serving them well because they want to play with it. If they don’t, then it's failing its purpose.

I love the attention. And when you give yourself fully to someone, you do get all their attention. If they want to use you to play their games, to elicit the emotions that they enjoy seeing in people, then they need to learn you. And for that, they need their focus to be on you. And I love that. I love when people are reading me, when they are seeing me and when they are figuring me out.

I think that part of me thinks that the only way in which I deserve the attention is when I am being useful to someone. The only reason why someone would want to see me is that I can serve them in some way. Part of me believes that I need to be pleasurable to the eye and entertaining at all times for others to notice me. That otherwise I am not worth their attention.

It is a part of me that now fuels my play. And I kind of love it, as it lets me have tremendously intense dynamics with people. I feel like I am in a way channelling my insecurities and my inner pleaser into play. And it allows me to partly eliminate it from other parts of my life. In play, I bring it to such an extreme that I start to see better how ridiculous it is to think that way in general. Also, having time for honest aftercare, when you hear from your partners how they value you for who you are is great for silencing the insecurities. But still, I wouldn't want my attention-seeking, pleasing self to go away entirely. In the end, it is the foundation of my toyness.

I want to see what they do with me, once they realize they can use me as they please

I'm so eager to be played with that I make it extremely easy to engage in play with me. I don't want to make it difficult. I don't want to be conquered and for my submission to be earned. I enjoy submitting way too much. I yearn to be in that space. I want the dominant to take me, to ‘have’ me. That's where the fun starts. I want to see what they are going to do with me. How are they going to use this toy that dropped so eagerly into their hands?

I used to be worried that maybe it's boring. Maybe dominants enjoy the struggle? Maybe they enjoy conquering the submissive, maybe they enjoy making him or her submit?

I don't think so anymore. It's not like the way I am is worse or better. It's just different. For me, the fun is not in having the power being taken away from me. I'm usually handing it over willingly. For me, the fun is in seeing and experiencing what the dominant decides to do with that power. In having a peek into his or her twisted mind. Is he or she thinking what I am thinking? Knowing that I will be willing to do most of the things that they might be fantasizing about, which of them will they decide to put into reality? And how will it affect me?

I want to be used and disregarded

I am not very specific in terms of play that I enjoy doing. Or maybe I should put it differently. I don't pay too much attention to my preferences when it comes to play. There are things that I do like, like rope bondage or being manhandled or knife play. But even apart from these, I can find pleasure in almost anything. Because what I value more than my own enjoyment is being used for the enjoyment of the other. And if it so happens that what they enjoy is not necessarily into my liking, that is even better. I want them to do it anyway because it is not me and my preferences, which are important in this game. I am just an object for them to entertain themselves with.

I love for my needs to be disregarded, not taken into account. I love when the dominant uses me for his or her pleasure. As a Toy, I don't think that my needs should be considered. Ideally, I should not have any needs. I do, though. I could see it as a flaw, but I don’t because I think that it makes it all the more fun for the dominant. As long as he or she enjoys objectifying and emotionally torturing other people. And those are the people who I am usually used by.

I could enjoy the things that are done to me just because the dominant is enjoying them. I believe that some submissives have that. Feeling pleasure from the fact that you are pleasing your dominant. I usually don't. I can be pleased after the scene if I was able to provide them with entertainment but I don’t feel pleasure during the scene because of the fact that the dominant is enjoying themselves. During the scene my discomfort and distress are real. I truly don’t enjoy the things they do to me. Which gives me all the more pleasure afterwards when I contemplate what they did. And which makes me fun to play with for emotional sadists. Because what fun it is to torture people when they find pleasure in what is being done to them?

I want to be a source of entertainment

I’ve mentioned it before and it is a bit tied with wanting the attention, but I feel like it deserves a separate line of thought. Because the thing is that I feel like in order to be able to deserve the attention, I need to be entertaining to others. And what kinds of Toys are the most entertaining? Interactive ones, I figured.

So I am very responsive in play. I react to everything that the other person is doing to me. They provide action and I am giving them the reaction. As I’ve said, I want people to read me, but at the same time I so much want to be played with that I don’t want that reading to be too much of an effort for them. I want the process of reading me to be fun because I am worried that otherwise, they will get bored before they get to the bottom of it. So I want to make it fun from the start, but at the same time to let them know that there is much more to be discovered.

I guess that if I would be a toy sold in a shop, the label on my packaging would read something like:

“This Toy is entertaining, but complex. It has many layers. Peeling off each one of them is a pleasure in itself, but it also leads to something even more enjoyable and even more intricate. So keep discovering it.”

I like to play with people, who enjoy that complexity. If someone gets satisfied after the first layer, I am kind of disappointed. I feel like screaming, “But there is so much more to me than this, don’t you want to play more?”

I like curious people. The ones who are able to discover many of my uses. The ones who are inventive. Because the thing is that even I don’t know all of my uses. When people play with me, I am playing right by their side. Peeking from behind their shoulder at my own reactions. And I am equally fascinated by them as they are.

I want to be used by many

I am not a kind of submissive that devotes herself to one person only. At least not to the best of my knowledge. I can be extremely devoted to one person at the moment, but I feel like I wouldn’t want to play exclusively with one person until the rest of my life. As an object of pleasure, I want to be enjoyed by many. I want to see what each person would do with the possibilities that I have to offer.

I am not saying that I wouldn’t like to be a beloved Toy of one very special person. But people rent their toys, even the beloved ones, to very special friends from time to time. If they are fun, then it is a shame to play with them all alone and not share with others.

Another thing that I discovered recently is that my need to please and entertain is not limited to the people that I feel submissive towards. I want everyone who plays with me to have fun. I will try to do what pleases them, just so that they are having a good time. I will let sadists hurt me because they enjoy giving pain. I will be sensual with people who enjoy sensuality. I will do as I am told by dominants because I want them to keep playing with me, even if they are not my dominant and I don’t really feel submissive towards them.

My draft definition

I think that the love for being treated like an object, combined with a need for being given attention and to be interacted with are very toy-like properties. Add to it the feeling that my purpose is to be entertaining and the extent to which I am willing to go to provide this entertainment, together with being open to being used by many and I feel like some sort of defining traits start to clarify.

I feel like all my other kinky traits revolve around being a Toy. Both my submissiveness and my masochism are flavoured by my toyness. My submission is very use-oriented and interactive. My masochism presents itself only when I can see that the other person enjoys seeing me enjoying the pain. But the Toy is always there and it is overarching everything else.

Finally, I don’t think that the things that I wrote about are all there is to it. But it is a good start. And I will keep digging until I define this elusive identity of mine.

Thank you for making everything fall into place

I am not sure if it would be possible for me to live my life this way the entire time. I'm not yet sure if I would want to. There are other parts of me that need catering to which I feel like I was abandoning when I was with you. Yet, being around you, there was a quiet and calmness in me that I’ve never experienced before. Everything seemed to be in the right place. I was in the right place. All that matters had been taken care of and all the rest disappeared. It was a new and powerful experience.

To be so free when no decisions belong to you. To be allowed to just be, just take what is coming. To be so fixated on another person that you completely forget your needs. To be completely selfless. It felt like real freedom. Not being able to choose anything I want, but not having to choose at all. And at the same time feeling seen and appreciated.

To give someone the greatest of gifts that you can give, yourself in its entirety, and to feel that they understand the importance and the weight of it and that they will treat it with care. I thought that I understand it, but I wasn't fully aware of what it means to give yourself to someone fully. Now that I’ve felt it, I know that I've been longing for it for such a long time.

I've been grooming myself for so long to be the most enjoyable toy to entertain yourself with. I was taking care of my body and mind, developing myself so that when the time comes, I will be able to entertain you. So that I will be enjoyable for you to be around and to use. So that you can use me in the ways that you would wish to, without having to worry whether I can take it. I've been building myself strong so that with the right maintenance I can serve you long without breaking.

It's amazing how well you understand me. How well you know what to give me back in return for my service. All I want is to be seen. To be discovered. All I want is for someone to dive deeper and deeper into my psyche and make me more and more open and vulnerable. To peel off my insecurities and worries, one by one. To show me who I really am and what I am capable of.

To meet somebody who is able to handle having so much power over someone and not break under the weight of it is not an everyday encounter. I am sure that giving up all the control is what I yearn for, but I also know that it is not bearable for most of the people. And I won't put it into somebody's hands if I don't feel like they are strong enough to hold it.

You are strong enough to hold it. The reason why I trust you so much is that I feel like you are perfectly aware of what we are toying with and you are completely comfortable with that responsibility. You delight in my mind. You delight in the possibilities that I have to offer. With you, I can go further than I've even gone because I feel like you feel better than I do where my limits are. You trust me that I can take it and then I trust myself that I can take it as well.

You are also so extremely attentive and focused. You don't take me for granted. The worst thing I could experience is when I offer abundance to someone and they don't notice me in it. They are enjoying my gifts, but they don't see the person who is giving them. They get so lost in enjoying the power they've been granted that they forget about the one who is giving it to them.

You love the feeling of power that you have over me. I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. And there is nothing that gives me more happiness than seeing how much pleasure I can give you. But no matter how much of a power rush you experience, you never forget the source of it. No matter how small and unimportant you make me feel, you never forget about me. Being seen by you, even when I am in my most despicable self. Being appreciated for going so low for your pleasure, that's the deepest yearning of my heart fulfilled.

Thank you for making things fall into place. Thank you for making me feel like I am not too much. Thank you for accepting my gift. It means the world to me to finally feel like this part of me that has been hidden and despised for so long is beautiful and special and truly understood. Thank you for taking everything from me. Only after it's all been taken away, I can finally see myself fully.

Losing a dominant

Apparently all good things must come to an end, and sometimes the end comes sooner and more unexpected than one would want. It is a tough lesson to learn, but it makes me appreciate even more the short moments of joy that I experience in my life sometimes. Being his property was definitely one of those moments.

It is the first time that I lose this kind of dynamic with someone without it being exhausted. I ended relationships with dominant people in the past but it was always in the moment when the power exchange was already fading or even gone. This time it was still very much alive, actually, it was only starting to gain momentum. And losing it so abruptly feels like there is a void in me that needs closing off because it sucks up the pleasure that I used to have from play.

Suddenly I have to go back to thinking about what do I actually want. Suddenly my sexuality is again mine alone. It's confronting and confusing. I can again have sex with whoever I want (including myself) and whenever I want. But the thing is… It's not necessarily what I want… Not belonging to someone, not having to ask for permission to do sexual things takes a lot of flavors away from them.

It's not like I don't enjoy play anymore. I do. But… Everything just feels different. After I've tasted how it feels to be truly someone's, it is hard to look at the things that you used to do the same way. One thing is to enjoy being messed up by somebody, another is to enjoy being messed up by somebody knowing that you can only experience it because your dominant lets you.

When he was my owner, he had always been in the back of my head when I was doing sexual things, even when, physically, he was far away. It is like the triangle in a rope scene. There is you, there is your partner and there is the audience. Even though you are having a scene with your partner, you are still influenced by the presence of the audience. In my head, he was the audience.

Here is the thing that I've learned about myself being part of this dynamic. There is nothing that lures me more than being somebody's property. But not in the sense that they dictate my life and I'm dependent on them. That kind of ownership does not interest me. There is nothing that I enjoy more than shaping my life the way that I want it to be. And there is nothing that I hate more than other people telling me what to do.

But sexually... That's an entirely different story. Sexually all I want is to hear what I am supposed to do. Sexually all I want is to lose my agency. To become a vessel of somebody else’s desires. To share with them my wishes and then have them entirely disregarded, because they simply aren’t what the other person feels like doing.

This kind of devotion does not develop overnight. And not with anybody. Giving myself fully to someone is what I crave for, but it is also something that I must feel that the other person deserves. I must feel that they understand what is happening between us and what I am giving to them. Not many people do. And not many people even want this kind of devotion.

And that is ok. I will park this part of me for now. I will let it wait in hiding for a suitable person to be brought back to life. I will let the storm that was awakened in me to calm down to a soft breeze. I will enjoy all the other dynamics that I have with the rest of my partners. I will focus on other aspects of my life.

But, now that I’ve tasted it, I will never forget that taste. Sooner or later I will start to look for it again. I’ve been served a bitter-sweet poison for which there is no antidote. It runs in my veins now. And I know that when the time comes, it will overpower me again.

Maybe submission is not cool but embracing it, is

Anyone who has seen me play can tell that there is nothing more natural to me than to submit. The moment that I feel that someone has the power to take over and dominate me, I lean into it immediately. There is no struggle in me to let go. Nobody has to earn my submission. It's right under the surface the entire time, just waiting to be discovered. You don't even have to do much. It’s enough if you just scratch it and I'm already yours, staring at you with my puppy eyes and longing for more.

What is so tempting in submission for me?

I love to feel owned. And I love the feeling of losing control, the feeling that nothing that is happening right now depends on me. I guess that a part of me thinks that this is what I deserve. That I shouldn't be taken into account. That I shouldn't matter. And if someone shows me that they can see this, they earn my respect and admiration. Finally, someone who doesn’t fall for my bullshit and sees me for who I am. Only when you are ruthless to me, I can believe your words. Because I am ruthless to myself and any opinion that is milder than that should not matter. If you can be harsher with me than I am, I can finally relax and let you lead me. And that is liberating.

Also, when the hardship comes from the outside, at some point it makes you see that there actually is a limit to how much you can take. When someone is degrading you, there is a moment when you say, that is enough, I won’t take anymore. And that moment shows me that there are some shreds of pride and self-love in me. Without it, those shreds can sometimes be hard to find for me.

Another thing that I enjoy a lot is attention. If you are owned by someone, if you are used for their pleasure, you get all their attention. I love the attention. But I hate asking for it. The nice thing about being treated like an object is that you do not have to (and should not) express yourself. You can let someone else use you in whatever way suits them and enjoy their presence, without having to explicitly ask for it. On the one hand you make yourself extremely vulnerable because you give all the power over yourself to someone else, but on the other hand, you are shielded because you do not have to reveal your wishes and needs.

That works particularly great for me, because most of the time, I am kind of afraid of my deepest wants and needs. I am a masochist in many ways, emotional masochist more than a physical one I think. I love to suffer and I love to be hurt. And what I enjoy the most is when someone is truly cruel to me. When they find ways to really get to me. And somewhere deep inside I hope that one day they will find a way to break me.

If you have these kinds of urges, it is hard to act on them on your own accord. It feels wrong on so many levels that it is really hard to express it, let alone do it to yourself. So you just wait and wish that someday you meet someone who will be willing to do these things to you. Someone who will take you on this journey that you’ve dreamt about for so long, but you were afraid to go on alone. And you wish that they will understand you without words.

There are not many people who can make me truly suffer

As much as I lean into submission easily, because being dominated is what I crave for so deeply, I don’t often feel truly under control. At least not to the level that is interesting to me.

I feel like I make it extremely easy to be dominated. I am very expressive and I give a lot of clues on how to gain control over me. I want to be toyed with. I put myself in the spotlight with all the controls out in the open and the instruction lying aside. And still, not many people see that. Or maybe they do, but they don’t want to go where I want to be taken.

Because the places that I want to go to are scary and hard to navigate. The things that I want to be done to me are things that not everyone is willing to and interested in experimenting with. And you don’t only have to willing. You also need to be confident in leading me there. And you have to truly want it as well and understand it.

So even though it looks like I am giving up control easily, what I mostly give up is a layer that's so loose, it almost peels off by itself. I want to be dominated. I want to give up control. You don't need to be extremely skilled to get that from me. Or at least it might seem like it. Where it gets interesting is when you start uncovering parts of me that I don't want to be uncovered. When you make me dive so deep into submission that I almost lose my breath trying to come back to the surface. The lack of breath is what I crave for. Being stripped down from my layers is what I am looking for.

So what makes it not cool?

Deep inside I don't feel like submission is something that I should be ashamed of. It's such an inherent part of me and it gives both me and my partners so much pleasure and fulfilment that I can't believe that there might be anything wrong with it. How can something that feels so natural and that causes so much enjoyment, without harming anyone, be wrong?

This certainty is shaken though when I display my submission in public. Because then it's not only the opinion of my partner that I care about but also the impression that people watching might have of me. And that makes things way more complicated because while I carefully chose my partner, knowing their preferences and limits, I didn't choose the audience. And while I can ask my partner after play for reassurance and validation, I can't do the same with the audience.

And I probably shouldn't as I might not like what I hear. Sometimes they might have opinions about me that are not positive. And it's their right, they didn't enter the scene with me directly and they didn't make any promises. In its essence, kinky play goes against the mainstream understanding of morality and normality. I know that a lot of people don’t understand how what I am doing can be pleasurable to me. And usually, when people see things that they don’t understand, they judge them. Negatively. It is natural.

The solution to this situation is not to get aftercare from everyone who has seen me play. The solution is to care less about what other people think about my play. Of course, I should take other people into account when I play publicly in the sense of trying not to invade each other’s space. But I tend to care way more than that. I tend to care way too much about other people's opinion of me. And the funny thing is that it is not even their actual opinion, it is the opinion that I think that society has about submissive behaviour, which is that it is weak. So every time when I show a deep level of submission towards someone in public, instead of seeing it’s depth and beauty, I see an act that some people might consider as being weak.

I don’t think it is though. I think that being able to be so vulnerable towards someone and to trust so much is an act of bravery and strength and beauty.

Where is beauty?

The beauty is in the power exchange, in the dance of two minds and bodies, in being part of the spectacle of human experiences.

In the end, all art is created to evoke emotions and D/s power exchange is one of the rawest and direct, but at the same time intricate ways to achieve that. I love to be touched by literature or film or other forms of art. For me, a D/s scene is an escalated form of that experience. And I think that it is beautiful.

I think that it is beautiful that two people can strip themselves down so much in front of one another, that they are able to show each other their deepest and darkest desires. And I think that it is beautiful that there are people whose deepest desires are exactly complimenting mine.

It is amazing how vulnerable and bleeding open a D/s scene leaves us. How much we can learn about each other from it. How much trust the dominant needs to have in me to be able to do all these terrible things to me and believe that after that I will still be there with him. That I won’t turn away from him.

I love to be the vessel into which the dominant can pour the darkness that is in him. I love receiving it. I love letting him show to me that hidden side of him. I love to give him pleasure through my suffering. I think it is one of the most intimate things to do between two people. Accepting and taking in each other’s darkness.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that even though I was ranting a while ago about how being a submissive is making me feel not cool, I am over it now. I love being submissive and I love the emotions and intensities that it lets me experience. I love the connection that it allows me to have with my partners. And I love the strength and resilience in me that it is a sign of.

I am really happy that I am this way and I hope that I won’t doubt myself anymore when showing this side of myself to other people, but I will be proud of being able to offer myself so deeply to another person. Isn’t it one of the most beautiful gifts than one can offer?

Being a submissive is not cool

Disclaimer: I am writing this as an attempt to put words to my feelings and shed some light on them. By no means am I treating anything that I wrote here as a fact, nor am I saying that this is how I view the submission in general. I am simply trying to get over something and I hope that letting some of the thoughts out will help.

The more I play and the deeper my submission to my owner becomes, the more I realize that I don't accept it in myself. I'm not at peace with being a submissive. I don't find it cool. No matter how much I hear that it's beautiful. No matter how much people preach that it's a strength to be able to open up and make yourself so vulnerable, that it's a strength to be true to yourself, to recognize your needs and to follow them. I don't find it strength if what I want is to be weak. And that is what submission feels like to me. Being weak. So I show strength by admitting that I am not strong? It seems contradictory and I can't wrap my head around it.

The funny thing is that when I see other submissives interact with their dominants, I find them strong and beautiful. I don't see a sign of weakness. Well, sometimes I do, it depends on the type of dynamic they have. But more often than not, I don't. The more control they give over to the dominant, the more hardship they go through for them, the more in awe I am with them. But not when it's about me. In that case, I see it as pathetic, weak and something to be ashamed of.

I am not sure where it's coming from. I think that it might be because of the values of independence that were cultivated in my family. I feel like showing someone that I need them is a weakness. Wanting to please someone is a weakness. Even more, loving and caring about someone is a weakness. And for me being weak is the feeling that I am the most afraid of. The feeling that I can't cope with something on my own, that I might need someone to help me is something that I find despicable. What I might be even more afraid of, is being seen as weak by other people.

Paradoxically, caring too much about what other people think is what takes the strength away from me. As well as not accepting and being proud of who I am. But that's the thing, I'm not confident enough to be able to do it. And I blame my lack of confidence partly on being submissive. I do think that I am getting this one wrong though.

In my head, there is a link between not needing anyone, confidence, being able to manipulate others and strength, and between wanting to please, shyness, honesty and weakness. Basically, if you need other people, if you let them influence you if you let them make decisions about your life, then you're weak. If you are completely independent, cold, always have a strong opinion and other people listen to you then you're strong. Weak is bad, strong is good.

It so happens that being a submissive entails being a lot of things that I find negative and undesirable. And it so happens that sexually I am a submissive. I tried to assert the dominant role, and it's paralyzing to me. Submission on the other hand comes so naturally as if I was born with it. At the same time, I envy the dominants for who they are. I feel like they have all the desirable traits and I have none. I feel like they are the success and I am a failure.

And the thing is… That they are. Because how is letting someone else decide for you cool? How is sucking up to someone making you interesting? How is following others something to be proud of? No matter how much I try, I can't convince myself that those behaviours have a value. I can't make myself believe that both sides of a D/s dynamic are equally valuable. There are people who lead and people who are led. And it's the people who lead, the ones who are admired and valued. The position of a submissive is always under. It is always the one who is less important, less respected (if at all), who has less (if any) power. It is exactly what I enjoy to be, but at the same time, I hate myself for enjoying it.

Playing with fire

I think that my biggest kink is mind play. I like physical experiences, but the body has so much more limitations than the mind. You can vary the intensity and parts of the body to which you apply physical pain, but in the end, the experiences are quite similar. Of course, most of the time there is some emotional aspect related to the physical pain, but the spectrum of emotions you can elicit this way is rather limited to low-level ones, like fear or anger. The human mind on the other hand… There, the possibilities of inflicting pain are almost endless.

I am fortunate enough to have found someone who is equally fascinated by the possibilities of mental torture that the human brain has to offer. I love to be emotionally tortured and he loves to give me pain in this way. Seems like a match made in heaven, right? I thought so too, but it is not as perfect as it seems. What feels kind of schizophrenic in our relationship is that what we feel for each other enables us to play the way we enjoy the most, but also puts us at a huge risk of losing each other. One of the things that drew us together was almost impossible compatibility of our kinks. The same compatibility might bring our doom.

One of the things that we love to play with is rejection and humiliation. I suffer the most when I feel unloved, unimportant and ridiculed. When I am made to feel worthless and lonely. And there is no better person to make me feel that way than someone who I love dearly. He owns my heart and he can easily break it. And is there a worse pain than that of heartbreak and betrayal? For me, not much can compare. So I give him my heart to play with. And I urge him not to be cautious. Each time we play, I can feel it crack a tiny bit more. So far, we've been always able to fix it, so that not even a scratch is left. But will we always be?

Even though he has so much control over me, the biggest part of it, is the control over breaking things. And I am the one who does the fixing. I am the one who puts the effort into bringing myself together. It is not like he wouldn't want to make this effort, he just simply can't. He can help me with that, but he can’t just order me to feel better and wait until it will magically happen. For some reason, fixing things is way more complex, uncertain and internal than breaking. I have to do the work, and it is a kind of work that can't be forced. That’s the scary part for him because it is something that he has no control over, but at the same time, it affects him. So, even though it seems like I am putting my life in his hands, he is also putting his in mine. Or at least his emotional well-being. He has all the power to break me and he has a big understanding of the results of his abuse. At the same time, each time that we play, we push a bit further and it is a new territory that we are discovering. So he can never be sure if he is not going too far this time. And whether or not it was too far is actually entirely up to me.

It is not only my emotional health that we are toying with. Also, the future of our relationship is at stake. We are putting at risk something that we both care a lot about, for the sake of what? Sexual pleasure? That doesn't sound very reasonable... But is it only sex we are talking about? Would our relationship be as deep and intense without our sick little games? We actually need immense levels of trust and knowledge of the other person if we want to engage in this kind of play. Levels that you might not come across in a ‘vanilla’ relationship. We are extremely vulnerable as we display the darkest corners of our souls to each other. And being loved in such moment or even especially for those dark sides feels radically accepting.

So isn't it ironic? The more we are putting our love at risk, the deeper it becomes and the more there is to lose. The more we feed the fire, the bigger it becomes and the more heat it gives, but also the harder it gets to control. So here we are, caught in this bidding game, where the only way to go is to go forward and hope that you will keep winning. I feel that the odds are in our favour. And even if we lose, isn’t it better to have something special and then lose it, than never have it at all?

Lessons on pain, suffering and humiliation from Soptik and EisEve

Last weekend, Soptik and EisEve gave a performance followed by a 2-day intensive workshop at Ellipsis in Rotterdam. I attended both with high hopes and was not disappointed. In fact, I've learned way more than I expected.

The performance

Their performance left me speechless. I’ve heard that Soptik is a real sadist and I was prepared for an hour of enjoyment mixed with embarrassment while watching EisEve being tortured in his ropes. What I have seen was nothing like what I have expected. True, she was suffering for most of the performance, but mostly it was a spectacle of humiliation and objectification and a show of an intense D/s dynamic. And it was beautiful.

He started strongly by cutting open EisEve clothes and putting her in a partial involving only a neck rope, causing her to tiptoe and struggle for her life while he was tying a TK. He then put her in a series of transitions, each one slightly more difficult and exposing than the previous. She took them all gracefully. What was amazing to me was how intensely Soptik was focused on his model. He barely watched his ropes. His eyes were almost constantly fixated on her. And he was taking his time. He wasn’t hurrying from one position to another. Each position was a feast on its own and he was delighting in every little drop of EisEve suffering.

And she does suffer beautifully. From the first till the last moment of the performance, she was completely surrendered to him. You could feel that she would let him do anything to her. She was there at his disposal, surrendering completely to his ropes, with her eyes closed and her body relaxed. At the same time, she wasn’t lifeless. She was truly present and you could feel the intense emotions that she is going through.

At some point of the performance, Soptik gagged her with her own panties, which he previously cut open, and tied a white cloth around her mouth and eyes. Then he proceeded to draw a smile and a pair of eyes on the fabric. This was a powerful message of objectification. For me, it was like saying ‘Look at her, she is all mine. She will let me do anything to her. And I will execute this power.’ That really touched me. I rarely see such expressions of submission in rope performances, and at the same time, they are something that I really look for in kinbaku.

On top of everything, Soptik is an extremely skilled rigger. His moves were confident and fluent and each position that he put his model in was executed with great care and seemed simple, but was actually very complex. He was deliberate in creating shapes from EisEve body. And the shapes that he was creating were not always making his model beautiful. She was a material that he was forming according to his desires. And his desires were often to expose and objectify her. He ended the performance with a single point TK suspension, which was a very dramatic position, making the model resemble a hanged person. Another powerful message.

For me, the entire performance was comparable to that of Bingo, that I’ve seen in Paris, in terms of the intensity, skill and the qualities of kinbaku and D/s that it displayed. It left me extremely excited for the workshop.

The workshop

And the workshop didn’t disappoint. There was lots of pain and suffering, but most necessary, it was not without a reason. I think that the most important lesson that I have learned from it is that as a model you want to suffer in ropes for someone. If you see your rigger paying attention to you and enjoying what he is creating, it really makes it worthwhile to go through all the pain and discomfort.

Soptik kept repeating that for him every moment of the scene is important and that he wants to enjoy the model in his ropes as much as possible. Therefore, it is really crucial to pay attention to your model by learning how to minimize the amount of time that you look at your ropes when tying. You want to enjoy the model and the feelings that you evoke in her and for that, you need to pay attention to her, not the ropes that are on her body. They are just an object, they don’t have feelings. But your model does. And that is what you are after.

For me, it really does make a difference, because I treat my scenes as an emotional journey. I go through a spectrum of emotions when being tied and if the rigger does not appreciate them then I miss the point of doing it. I know that there are different reasons why people tie and this is not the only ultimate one, but it is for me. That’s why Soptik teaching resonated so much with me.

Another thing is that as a model, once I decide to tie with someone, I should be willing to suffer for them. That also means that I should try to overcome small nuisances, like a pinching rope, as long as they are not dangerous. In that way, I make sure that we can enjoy the scene and its flow with minimal disturbances. I learned that any time that I communicate to the rigger, I take us out of our headspace and we have to make a big effort afterwards to get back in. Therefore, it makes for a way better scene if I suffer through small discomforts, even unintentional, and only communicate things that I really important.

Finally, watching Soptik tie and interact with EisEve completely changed my views on D/s relationships. Throughout the workshop, he kept exposing and humiliating her, by for example casually exposing her breasts and crotch. Not for a moment though it made me think of her as weak or less a person than he is. (And that is how I usually feel when someone does something like that to me.) On the contrary, I thought that she is very strong and brave for being so vulnerable to him in front of us. I could also see how much she means to him and how much he appreciates her and I understood that even though there is a power imbalance in their relation, it does not mean that either of them is less valuable.

Some of you might say, ‘Duh...’, but for me, it was quite an eye-opener. So far, I’ve rather seen myself as showing weakness when expressing my submission to my boyfriend in front of other people. And now, when I saw how it might look from the outside, I don’t think of it as appearing weak anymore. I think that it is touching and beautiful. And both sides show strength by expressing it.

Our scene

As a culmination of this weekend, I experienced Soptik’s tying myself. And it was again both different and better than I expected. He asked me to tie because he really liked my expressions of suffering in ropes and I agreed because I could see that we have many common kinks and I expected that he would put me through an amazing journey. And he did.

I think that I have never experienced so much pain and humiliation at once given with so much intention and enjoyment. Especially by someone who I barely know. The way he was hurting me and the emotions that he was able to evoke in me by giving me pain made me re-evaluate how I see myself as a masochist. For a while now I have thought that I prefer emotional masochism over the physical one. And partially it is still true. Soptik made me realize what you can achieve when you combine the two. A mind-blowing experience.

I guess that there are not so many things that can make one as panicky and vulnerable as experiencing pain from which there is no escape. I am a masochist and I like pain, but only to a certain degree, and I am not even sure if my pain tolerance is that high. I can take quite a bit, but not without strong reactions and I only experience mild levels of very specific kinds of pain as pleasurable. The pain that he was giving me was definitely above my limits. But he overpowered me mentally and physically and made me feel like there is nowhere to go from it. He made me submit to the pain and to him and accept whatever he is giving to me. And that really changed my perception.

At some point, I started enjoying way more than I usually do. It seemed like because there was no escape, my mind decided that it is better for me to think that it is what I truly want. And then, for a submissive, there is something really special about letting someone torture your body and seeing them enjoying it. And he definitely was enjoying torturing me. It made me very confused because, on the one hand, I wanted the pain to stop, but on the other, you wanted to keep pleasing him. Also, he kept humiliating me. He twisted my body and exposed me. He tied my face and made me drool on myself and then smeared the saliva over my face. He slapped me and beat me and stepped on me. At some point, it turned me into a needy wimp and I just wanted him to be nice to me and caress me, but he kept only hurting and degrading me. That made me only more miserable and more submissive.

I was truly amazed by how much I can take from a complete stranger. He was my teacher for two days, I have seen him tie and we talked a bit, but there was not much more that I knew about him. I have always thought that degradation and humiliation are something that I can only do with someone that I have a deep relation with. But it turns out that it is not necessarily the case. I think that because I could see very clearly that it is something that he enjoys, I felt safe to enjoy it as well. To show my real self to him and let him take us on this journey.

At the same time, it was very different from what I experience with my partners that I have a deeper relationship with. I think that there was not so much emotional depth behind it and because of that, it was less (emotionally) dangerous. It was a very strong and pure D/s power exchange, but at the same time did not have the emotional loading of humiliation play that I have with my boyfriend for example. Having a deep relationship with someone definitely changes the angle of play, because he can hit you in more emotionally vulnerable places. And that requires way more aftercare that I felt like I need after this scene.

Here, I felt like a victim, first caught and overpowered and then slowly, by means of torture, turned into an obedient pet. It was really amazing and intense and at the same time very contained within the scene. I feel like rope is a great tool to create this kind of emotions. It makes you powerless and vulnerable and can cause a lot of pain. At the same time, it's not like cuffs or straps that only immobilize you. Your partner keeps on making you move, reminding you of the power that he has and at the same time putting you in a kind of trance. It's also very theatrical in a way which for me works great in putting my mind on an emotional journey. Since it is a non-verbal tool, the flow of energy is in a way purer and therefore might be stronger than when you use words, even though the exchange might be less intricate, as I feel like only more basic dynamics can be expressed without verbal communication. Still, you can achieve the intensity and experience emotional journey that is really special and hard to come across otherwise with such minimal tools.

My lessons

I can already see my boyfriend laughing at this one, but I think that I can safely say that this weekend was a life-changing experience for me. Or at least, it changed the way I look at many things.

First of all, I strengthened my conviction that what I am looking for and want to experience in rope is an intense D/s dynamic. I want to see suffering and submission. I want to see humiliation and eroticism. And finally, I want to see simplicity and beauty created by using the model as a canvas. And that is exactly what Soptik and EisEve showed in their performance.

Secondly, I’ve learned that the intention of both the rigger and the model can make or break the scene. On the rigger side, it is extremely important that he enjoys what he is doing to the model. And for that, he needs to pay attention to her. He should maximize the time that he looks and reads the model and minimize the time that his attention is on the rope. From the model side, she needs to have the intention to suffer for the rigger, to give herself to him for his enjoyment. That also means that she should try to not break the scene with every little pinch of rope on her skin. Sometimes it might be better to suffer through the discomfort, also unintentional, and see where the scene goes than to break the flow.

Thirdly, I learned to appreciate and respect the submissive role way more. I realized that it requires strength and vulnerability to be able to submit, but that the same goes for the dominant. Even though there is a power imbalance in a D/s relation, there is no value assigned to either of the sides. They are both equally strong and brave and beautiful. And there is something truly magnetic in observing a couple with a strong D/s dynamic. Like watching two elements both fighting and needing each other to exist.

Finally, I’ve learned that rope is a perfect tool for creating intense and complex D/s scenes, even between people who don’t know each other that well. You can degrade, scare, torture, humiliate, give and take hope, caress and evoke many more feelings, using only rope. At the same time, the dynamic is very contained within the context of the scene and the strong power exchange that you experience does not have to exist outside of it. This made me appreciate rope even more and it might have made me more open to tie with new people.

Thank you Soptik and EisEve for teaching me so much about rope, D/s and myself. It was a truly deep experience and I can’t wait to learn from you again.