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.

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. 

Mindsets in which I love to receive pain

I think that I am a weird masochist. If I can be called one at all (to hell with the labels anyway).

I haven’t always been like that. In general, what I like a function of what my partners enjoy. Recently, however, I began to realize that I do also have my own taste for certain things.

My first kinky experience was quite painful and violent and the fact that I enjoyed it left me deeply disturbed and confused (a ‘decent’ girl should not enjoy being spanked and fucked until her ass turns completely blue and she can’t sit for a week). Then, my first dominant boyfriend was all about humiliation and degradation and we didn’t explore physical pain much. I didn’t feel the need to, either. Enough was going on already. After that, I entered the kink scene and that was the first time when someone pointed out to me that I am masochistic. And it was true, I enjoyed physical pain enormously at that point in time. It was a way of easy release and achieving the intensity that I craved for without investing much emotionally.

That fountain dried up for me though when I started discovering how much pleasure emotional suffering gives me. When I realized the depth, complexity, intensity and ease with which the emotional pain can be given to me by some people, my interest in physical pain deteriorated significantly. I even felt like I am not masochistic anymore. A bruised butt or other parts of my body lost their appeal to me. A bruised soul was what I was looking for.

Recently, I began to appreciate physical pain again, only not in the way that I used to. I am not so much interested in the pure sensual experience of pain anymore, but what its combination with emotional suffering can bring. The circumstances that I enjoy when being hurt are the ones that take away any possible physical pleasure that I could be experiencing from it. They take away the context of pain being a different tool of giving pleasure to a masochist and interchange it with actually being physically and mentally hurt.

Being an object

Receiving pain when you are objectified has a special flavour to it because you can be sure that it is not about you. There are coldness and carelessness to it. You're hurting, but it's not relevant. You could as well not be. Your pain doesn't matter. You're just a toy and you're used for someone's amusement, but your pain is not part of the amusement. It is just your body that is being used for someone else's purposes as if you were a puppet. And if it hurts then too bad for you. Do puppets even feel anyways?

Somehow I love this state because it makes me let go of my own experiences. Let go of myself. Yes, I am being hurt and yes I am in pain, but there is no way to prevent it, as the person who is hurting me doesn't even seem to see what I am experiencing. So better stop fighting against it and just accept it.

I love the mental challenge that accepting it requires of me. Since I don't have the usual supporting power of doing it for my partner to help me go through it, I really have to use all my resources to carry on. Being able to cope with pain like that is a very powerful experience.

A punishment

Punishment is another situation in which pain is not pleasurable to me. The same strokes of the whip can feel very different when they're purely sadistic entertainment and when they are a source of punishment.
When I'm being punished, my head automatically tries to help the person who is punishing me by putting me in a mindset of atonement, making everything more painful and reminding me with every stroke that what I am currently experiencing is an expression of someone's disappointment. And being a disappointment is one of the worst crimes in my eyes.

Since I always want to please, being punished is a painful experience in itself for me. Adding pain to it only intensifies it. That's because at that moment all I dream of is being forgiven and embraced and told that everything is fine and they're not going to leave me behind because of what I did. Receiving pain, when you're waiting to be told that everything is going to be ok, can be quite devastating.

Being not cared about

Pain can also be an expression of someone not caring about me. And I love to feel not being cared about. There are little things hurt more than that.

Being objectified can also be a sign of not caring, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Here, I want my partners to see and recognize what I feel, but not care about it. For example, when they beat me way harder than I might find enjoyable, just because they feel like it, knowing that they are causing me a lot of pain and showing me that their entertainment is more important than my suffering. Again, it's a sign that what they're doing to me is not about me, which is exactly what I want.

Outside of kink the fact that someone gives another pain is often a sign of them not caring about the other person unless it is a necessary evil for your own good. Within the realm of kink, this reasoning is twisted as giving pain to a masochist can actually be a sign of love, of recognizing and catering to someone's needs. But since for me, the last thing that I want from my partners is for my needs to be recognized and catered for (at least in play), I often bring myself to the 'real world' mindset, where I don't want to experience pain and the fact that they are still giving it to me is a sign of not caring, of doing what they want without considering how I feel about it. At least, I want to believe that this is the case.

Being a recipient of anger

Being hurt by someone who appears to be angry is yet another flavour that I love. It makes one feel so panicky and abused. There is some carelessness there, but it's mixed with fear and violence. They might be careless, but not because they don't care whether they hurt you or how you feel. Here they actually actively want to hurt you. Their carelessness comes from a deliberate loss of control (or at least it looks like it).

I love how terrified it makes me feel to think that not only am I out of control but my torturer as well. It gives me a feeling of being in the power of an uncontrolled natural force, unstoppable and deadly. It awakens lots of primal fears and makes me freeze with terror.

An additional aspect is added to it if the person who is angry and violent with me is someone who I care about. Someone who I wish would be kind and loving but instead is using me as their punching bag. It makes me feel lost, confused, and hurt, and wishing it all to stop. It gives me a feeling of betrayal because I thought that I knew them but I find out that they are not who I thought they were (especially when it's something unexpected and played really well).

Humiliation

Physical pain can also be a great tool for humiliation. In general, if you are equal to someone, they will not cross the boundary of physically hurting you (in normal circumstances I mean, not in kink). If someone feels entitled to hurt you and you let them do that, it might be a sign of lowering your status. Especially if it is done in a humiliating way.

To me for example, being spanked with a bare hand or beaten with a belt is somewhat humiliating, as it makes me feel like an insubordinate child. In such a case, the humiliation is often bigger than the pain. Especially if other people are watching it. Having my nipples twisted is also often an act of humiliation to me. It makes me feel so vulnerable and exposed. Another obvious painful form of humiliation is face slapping.

I love the combination of pain and humiliation because the pain somewhat intensifies the humiliation (and to me usually is absorbed by it). It always makes me think about the fact that I am so subdued to the person doing it that I'll allow them to do anything to me. I'll go as low as they want me to. Pain makes me realize that and at the same time makes me feel more helpless in it.

Denial of loving touch

This is a circumstance that I love to go to in my head. Even a slight sign of denial (conscious one and not because of carelessness) of touch or softness makes my mind tremble from a feeling of lack. I start to desperately want what I can't get. Longing for the thing that they're denying me more and more, showing them how much I want it. And giving them more opportunities to deny it even more painfully.

And when someone makes you hungry for their kindness and care and love and then feed you with pain… It hurts. On so many levels. When you long for their touch and the only touch you get is mixed with pain. It makes you so confused and helpless and trapped. You become their prisoner. You begin to long for the pain that they are giving you because it's the only way that you can be close to them. And despite the hurt, you want to be close to them. It is so tragically romantic that I can't get enough of it.

Bein in someone else’s control

Finally, I love when someone is using pain to show me how much I am under their control. Not as a tool of gaining control (in general when I play with people I am under their control already), but rather of executing it. Of showing me how much they can do to me and that I am not going to stop them.

I am not a fighting kind of person, you don't need to use force to overpower me. If I'm there playing with you, I'm already yours. The fact that even though that is the case, you will still hurt me just because you can, makes me truly feel the power that you have over me. It makes me realize that you know exactly how much I have given up and that you are going to use it.

It's both exciting and terrifying. On the one hand, you're fulfilling my desires. Being entirely under the control of someone else is one of the states that I long for. On the other hand though, knowing how much I'm letting my guard down and seeing someone who might actually use it to the limit is scary. Can I really take as much as I think I can?

Being hurt by someone who has complete power over me is so thrilling, again, because the pain that they are giving me is not about me. They are hurting me because that's the experience that they want to give me. And I know that because it's for them, I will suck it up and go way further than I find pleasurable. I won't say stop when it gets hard to take. I will let them bring me just on the brink of breaking. And that's the place where I love to be.

So I guess that what I actually want is to be hurt in a way that my partners want to hurt me and not on my terms. I don't want them to use the pain for my pleasure. I want them to really use it to hurt me. I can also recognize how much physical pain can enhance and alter emotional suffering. How it can add to the intensity and bring me to a state of terror or nervous breakdown that is hard to achieve otherwise.

So please, do hurt me. Use the pain against me. Just don't make me feel for a moment that what you are doing is about me.

What I find so alluring in being hypnotized

Recently, I have experienced hypnosis in completely different circumstances from what I am used to, and the ease in which I followed and how much I enjoyed it, made me realise that I am much more into it than I anticipated. I knew that I loved it being used as a tool for asserting more control over me, but this experience made me understand better what I love about hypnosis in particular and that it might be much more my kink than I previously thought.

The feeling of complete letting go

One of the things that are amazing about being in a hypnotic trance is how much it allows you to let go of all the noise that is in your head and around you and just follow the voice of your partner. Even though you are under the control of the hypnotist, you are actually feeling unbelievably free. All your worries are gone, everything disappears, you become calm and centred. At the same time, you are extremely aware of what is happening to you, as soon as it is brought to your attention. Your attention span narrows, which really frees your mind from all the chatter, which is usually happening inside you. It is so relaxing to just let it go and follow the soothing voice of the person who is guiding you. You feel safe and taken care of.

Total control of the other person over you

I love the fact that it allows me not only to give someone my body to play with but also my mind. It makes me feel like I have barely any control left. In a normal D/s scenario, you do things that your Dominant wants you to do because you want to obey his orders. But it is still happening out of your own free will. Here, you do them, because that is what he tells your mind to do. Of course, you still have the control over whether you want to let them hypnotize you (depending on the dynamic), but past that point, you are all theirs.

It is scary, but at the same time really exciting to have someone have so much power over you. To give them your mind to toy with. For them to be able to tap into your unconscious and control you from that point makes you feel like a real human toy. And it is amazing how much possibilities for entertainment I am able to provide them with this way.

Being able to do and experience impossible things

Thanks to hypnosis I was able to experience things that I did not know were possible. And that were not available to me in normal circumstances. Like experiencing a full body orgasm just from hearing someone counting, or losing the sense of touch or the ability to speak. It can literally turn you into an object without will and consciousness, giving your partner the possibility of using you without your participation in it.

It is unbelievable how much control over your sensation one can tap into using hypnosis. How much they can suggest to your unconscious. How much they can increase or decrease the intensity of your experiences by suggesting certain things.

I love exploring new, uncharted territories and discovering previously unknown bodily experiences and I don’t think that there are many things giving more possibilities in that realm than hypnosis.

The loss of will

As far as I experienced, it is true that I can’t be made to do things that I really don’t want to do. But that limit is much further than you think it is. You will do things against your conscious will, but not against your deeply rooted instincts and principles.

And it is interesting how much hypnosis can reveal about your real desires. For example, I hate to look silly or be made stupid in general. If I could, I wouldn’t do things that make me look this way. On the other hand, I love to be forced into humiliation, which making someone look silly is a great tool for. That is why I will let someone make me do stupid things using hypnosis, even though consciously I really don't want to do them.

Still, the things that make me look silly are not the easiest ones to plant in my head, as there is some resistance in me to follow those suggestions. Anything sexual or sexually objectifying on the other hand is as easy as it can get, which reveals what I am really into, even if I wouldn’t want someone to know about it.

So in a way, when in hypnosis you will lose your will because you will follow what your partner tells you, even though your consciousness says that it is not what you want. Again, as I've already said, hypnosis can be a tool of an immense control, which I personally love about it.

The opening-up

Letting someone peek into your head and mess with it is a deeply intimate thing to do. It requires trust and vulnerability and openness. They might discover (or almost surely will) things that you would rather keep secret. You have to either trust them that they won't go there or trust that if they do, they won't use it against you.

For me when I let someone hypnotize me, I am putting all my guards down. Also, because of how open and vulnerable I am in general and because of my tendency to hand myself over very easily to people who want to accept it. I don't think that this level of vulnerability has to always be there during a hypnotic play, but it is always there in my case. It's frightening but also beautiful to be so open, to let someone dive so deeply into your head. And it's one of the reasons why I enjoy hypnosis so much. Because it allows for that openness to happen.

I was quite amazed by how easy I followed into a trance state with someone whom I barely knew. How easy it was to let go and just let him guide me into the experience that he wanted to give me. How seamlessly it happened. True, I trusted him, but should I do it so easily? Part of why I did it was because I so much wanted the experience again. Before it happened I didn’t even realize how much I crave to be in this state. I was playing with fire, as always, and it created magic again. I know that I might burn myself at some point, but how worth the experience of absolute loss of control is of those burns.

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.

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.

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.

When his kindness makes you cry

So we’ve got to a point in our relationship in which no matter what he does, it leaves me a sobbing mess. He doesn’t have to abuse me for that anymore. He can also just be nice.

Last weekend he gave me a taste of what it would be like to have a normal relationship with him. We went to a cocktail bar, talked until early morning, woke up with me giving him a blowjob followed by us having sex. It sounds so normal, right? Only that it left my head completely messed up.

First of all, I woke up before him and spent 30 minutes looking at him and wondering whether he really said that I am allowed to wake him up by sucking his cock or did I only imagine it? Thinking about that made me really horny. And mostly not because of thoughts about sucking his dick (although that as well), but because of realising how much under his control I am that I am afraid to wake him up with a blowjob, because of fear that I will do something against his will. I will do something sexual without his permission.

In the end, he woke up before I overcame my fear (which would probably be never) and pushed my head down to his crotch. It was such a relief. Finally, I was sure what he wants from me and I could just follow. After a while of my eager sucking, he pushed me on my back and lifted my legs. My breath got faster and shallow. Is he really going to fuck me? He told me that he will, but I still couldn’t believe how lucky I am that it is actually happening. And when he filled me up, I started crying. All the feelings of anticipation, of rejection and denial, were finally letting go. It was really happening, he did want me after all.

And when I asked him if I can cum, he allowed me immediately. That made me cry even more. He was so kind to me. It felt almost… Normal. Like I was his beloved girlfriend, whom he is making love to. And it is not like I want to be his normal beloved girlfriend, but the feeling of how it would be, made me recall all the other moments when I didn’t feel like that at all. It made me realize even more strongly everything that I am not getting from him. It made me realise that he is giving me so little sexual tenderness that any act of it is almost painful. The buildup leading to it is so big that it makes it almost unbearable to receive.

And then the thoughts of self-doubt and self-blame came. Because how can I be so ungrateful for what he is giving to me? How bad must it feel for him that when he is being nice to me, I start to cry and almost lose my mind, instead of behaving like a normal human being and enjoying what is happening between us? In my head, nothing is ever his fault. It is not like he messed me up so badly that this is how I react to normal acts of love and desire. It is my fault for being unappreciative and behaving like I am mad, instead of acting normal. What was wrong with me?

After we were done, I felt really bad for putting him through this. I kept saying how sorry I am and he kept saying that it is ok and there is nothing to be sorry about. That he enjoys me the way I am. That he is not normal either and he would never want us to change.

I believed him, but I also couldn’t get over the fact of how fucked up in the head I am. The fact that there is no way for us to be a normal couple. The fact that even when it seems like we are not doing a scene, it ends up being a mindfuck for me. And in some way it is great. It is exactly what I dreamed of. But in other ways, it is also scary and pretty sick.

We can’t have everything and I would never replace the things we are having for a normal relationship. I do think that it is amazing that I react this way to his kindness and that it is a sign of us getting to interesting places with our dynamic. It felt also, however, like a point of no return. Or rather, it made me realise that we might have crossed that point a while ago. And I accept it. If vanilla tender sex and a bit of my sanity is a price that I will have to pay for going forward, so be it. I am ready to give it up for what is there to come.

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?

Am I a bad feminist? - A sub’s question

I’ve read an article entitled ‘The female price of male pleasure’ today and it stirred up a lot in me... Sadness, shame, guilt, disappointment, anger. A lot of old triggers came up. But also a lot of fresh thoughts were buzzing in my head. The tension was calling for a release. And what is a better valve for an angry and disappointed feminist then listening to Beyonce’s Lemonade and crying? Writing your thoughts down. So I did. It helped me to get over some things. And I feel like sharing it with others might make it even more powerful.

Let’s stop victimizing women

My first reaction to reading the article was a slight annoyance. At first sight it seemed like another statement on female distress in the likes of #metoo campaign which I think did a lot of good but also went a bit off course. It is highlighting the problems that exists in our society, but also victimizing the women, leaving the power still in men’s hands. Coming back to the article, it read a bit along the lines of ‘those poor women need to endure unpleasant sexual intercourse in order to please the stronger sex’. But hey!? I do have a lot of pleasure from sex and I don’t feel like it is only because I give pleasure to my partners (definitely my vaginal orgasms are a very direct and bodily source of pleasure).

So why is nobody talking about female enjoyment, but treating sex like men’s business that women have to endure?

That was a burning question for me. But then, I’ve realized that I am in a privileged position. A lot of women really do not enjoy sex, mostly because they have never had the opportunity to learn to enjoy it. They were conditioned not to think about their needs but about pleasing the others. That realization made me feel guilty and sad. While I am opening up to my kinks and the beauty of a fulfilling sexual life, some women don’t even realize that sex can be pleasurable at all. Let alone getting on a path of finding out what their kinks are.

How can we create an environment when women stop being the victims and start enjoying themselves?

We want a situation, where women are empowered to think for themselves and not allow others to use or abuse them. How do we make women feel that it is ok to say ‘no’? And how do we teach them that saying ‘yes’ is not the only way to get where they want? I believe that women will feel more empowered to speak up when they feel like there will be people who will listen and stand behind them. Even more than that. They should feel that the society as a whole will stand behind them. And for that using sex as a tool of power needs to stop. Sex should be a way to connect to the other person and give pleasure to both participants and not a contract or an exchange of goods.

Wait… Isn’t the kind of sex that I enjoy embodying the power dynamics that we are trying to put an end to?

So yeah… Apparently what I enjoy the most in sex draws on gender stereotypes that are the most deeply rooted within us. Am I enhancing them? How can I be a feminist and at the same time enjoy being humiliated and used by the opposite sex? This is exactly the type of dynamics that the feminists are trying to fight. We are trying to level up the field. Give more power to the women! And what am I doing in this regard? If I was a switch at least… I could kind of feel like I am giving evidence to the equality of the sexes. But I am submissive to the core. Especially when it comes to men. I might even enjoy seeing some cute little girl in distress… But men? Overpowering them really doesn’t turn me on. At the same time, I feel that since I started to explore my submissive nature I have finally became my true self. Am I just fulfilling the role that society conditioned in my brain and that is what makes it feel so good?

Where does my submissive nature come from?

There was a thought in the article that really triggered me:

"At every turn, women are taught that how someone reacts to them does more to establish their goodness and worth than anything they themselves might feel. (…) One side effect of teaching one gender to outsource its pleasure to a third party (and endure a lot of discomfort in the process) is that they're going to be poor analysts of their own discomfort, which they have been persistently taught to ignore."

I felt to the core the truth that was for me in that sentence. I am fighting every day to stop caring so much about what other people might think about me and want from me and start doing what I want. It is one of the biggest obstacles that I have in a pursuit of a fulfilling life. And I do feel that women struggle with this more than men. At the same time, as a submissive, pleasing the others is exactly what I get my pleasure from. I ignore my own discomfort and humiliation in order to make the other happy. So, my submissiveness is basically a betrayal to my daily struggle. I tried to convince myself that the goal of the feminist movement should be to give women the freedom to choose the way they want to live. I should be free to make my own choices on how I want to live and have sex.

But still, why is my pleasure coming from acting out the most stereotypical gender and power configuration?

Is it coming from a cultural brainwash? Am I weak? Why am I not turned on by having power over people, but instead by being overpowered by them? I am not sure if I will ever find answers to these questions.

And does it really matter?

Even if my sexual preference comes from the social conditioning, so what? I can’t change the way that I am wired and why should I? Is pleasing other people really that bad? The fact that you take pleasure in pleasing the others does not make your enjoyment less valid. My feelings are real even if they are conditioned by the way I was raised. In the end, everybody is wired in a certain way due to his genetics and past experiences. Why should I feel bad about myself for being a submissive woman and a man with the same kink should not? Or should he also feel bad because it is considered as a weakness by the 'male' standards? I guess that the way to get free from all that and take control over your life is to accept and embrace who you are. Know yourself, know what gives you joy. Use that to bring happiness to those around you, who can appreciate it. And stop f***ing care what others think.