Good lord, there are some serious chucklefucks in my supposed community.
My sub and I do not, of course, wish to reveal the gritty details of our relationship to our vanilla friends, so we are subtle, but at the same time it is frustrating[...]
Last night we were at a fan-based literary discussion group and my slave was very outspoken in heated discussions, and I enjoyed hearing her opinions. She is the first one to admit that if she is not interrupted she could keep talking all night, and so from time to time if I wanted a word in I did just that, interrupted her. We have agreed it is my right to do so. Well, this one woman was very offended and told me to, "let her finish!" more than once. When this happened my slave was the first to say, "No, it's ok!" to the woman and, "Yes, sir." to me. When the formal discussion had finished, the woman approached me and tried to give me a piece of her mind about respecting women, etc. I held my ground and told her I have a great respect for women, that this was between myself and my wife and that she should kindly butt out of our relationship, but the fact that she confronted me in the first place took me by surprise and left me annoyed.
I really don't understand this kind of thing. Now I know I'm not really such a super submissive, my idea of dominance pretty much comes down to that you should hit my butt (when I say, as hard as I tell you to) and tell me to suck your dick (when I already feel like it). But I can understand the concept of one person taking charge of a relationship. I can understand showing extra respect and deference to your husband, even in public, because he's your Dom.
What I can't understand is the idea of BDSM as a "get out of normal society free" card. You don't interrupt people like that. It's rude to the people listening as well as the person being interrupted, and it doesn't make you look like the boss so much as a big ol' assface. And it's not even very dominant; conversationally stomping on your sub doesn't mean you control her, it means you're a loudmouth. I guess the dominance is that she doesn't bite his head off afterwards? That's some really finely tuned command there.
And if a guy gave me the "this is between my and my wife" speech after something like that, it would give me the creeping heebie jeebies. Not because I'm some naïve vanilla rube but because that's abuser-speak. Although to be fair, I don't know how you would explain something like that forthrightly. "Oh, don't worry, that's just our fetish, and we like to practice it during book club in front of everyone," I guess.
I think it bothers me more than anything that this guy can't even understand why normal people would be upset by this.
BDSM (even that weirdass 24/7 D/s thingymajig) isn't wrong, but it isn't always right either. It's a thrill, it leads to the best sex and sexiest relationships and deepest release of weird subconscious things that I know, but it's not carte blanche. You can't turn off your ethics and social skills because "it's my kink!" Being a kinky motherfucker and a decent human being isn't that hard.
God, I should get beat up more. Even as I kind of mock it, I'm realizing that I'm also itching for it. But I won't do it in front of some poor unsuspecting book club and then answer their concerns with "oh no, that's just his way, you don't understand, please don't make any trouble."
It seems to me that doing that sort of thing responsibly would involve having, say, a 'You're running on and on again' signal in a shoulder squeeze or something, and use that. Then they could get the little control kick that they clearly want to have without being bizarre in public.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think part of the reason why some of the 24/7 D/s relationships come off as creepy (most do to me), is because the men feel it does give them carte blanche not to follow any of the social norms. That, and, well, from many of the "Dom"s I've seen in the kinky world, a lot of them just never bothered to learn normal social skills in the first place. I'm actually starting to think a good portion of them might just be highly fucntioning autistics, becuase they seem to have as much understanding as an autistic would.
ReplyDeleteThat guy sounds like he expects everybody else to be participating in his kink . . . and he's not even going to tell them that's what it is, just act like a wife-beater and tell them to take it on faith that he's not. He'd like to have it both ways by practicing his kink in front of strangers in public, which he thinks he should be able to do because he's being "subtle" so they won't know what's going on. But when they don't know what's going on and act accordingly, it's their fault, not his.
ReplyDeleteWell, we all make our choices as to how much trouble we want to borrow for ourselves. If that's the hill he wants to die on, OK, but there's no way the rest of the world will suddenly decide it's OK to talk over your wife in a discussion with strangers.
Maja, you can drive yourself mad playing the "maybe he's really autistic" game. Autism is a syndrome with a lot of symptoms, and not much else is known about it, so we all fit the definition to some extent.
ReplyDeleteI have a child who has great difficulty communicating socially, very few social skills (and the ones he has acquired are formal,) above-average intelligence, and a very obsessive personality focused on English royalty and vampires. He carries thick notebooks everywhere he goes and takes notes on everything. He has great difficulty controlling his emotions, but usually also a flat affect and a lack of empathy. He finds it almost impossible to imagine the thoughts of others.
And he's not considered autistic . . . just a kid "with traits." He's somewhere on the spectrum, but so are we all. If I spent a day with you, I could write a list about you that would convince your own mother that she'd been missing the signs of your obvious autism all these years. ;)
As my Nana used to say "There is a time and a place for everything." Long term couples, vanilla or D/s do develop codes to inform each other that one partner is being a butt. It may be a code word, a gesture, or a LOOK. That is appropriate, and the way civilized people do things.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is not appropriate to be disrespectful to your partner in public, Dom or not. (Pleather vest or no)
Now, Holly, the TWOO LIFESTYLERS would say that you are just a fake, and a poseur, playing at BDSM lite. I believe the universal symbol for "jerkoff" is appropriate in those situations.
Dw3t-Hthr - That's entirely reasonable and several commenters on the post suggest something like that. But it deprives them of the obvious kick (probably not sexual, but god knows) of flaunting their kink without explaining it, of shocking the mundanes and thereby reaffirming their own specialness.
ReplyDeleteMaja - The other thing that creeps me out is the lack of an off switch. Say she wasn't just going on, say she had something she wanted to say--does she have the ability to go "no, really let me finish" and not face consequences?
I guess a safeword. "Artichoke, honey. Anyway, as I was saying..."
Don Gwinn - The "funny" part is, the guy probably is a wife-beater. With her permission and enjoyment, I hope, but... when a guy shows this kind of cluelessness about how humans work, and when his wife doesn't get any time off to go be a normal person, there go those heebie jeebies again.
Maybe I'm projecting, but there are days when I come home from work in a bad mood. I've got a backache and people were mean to me and I haven't eaten since 6 AM and all I want to do is turn into a lump on the couch. If this guy came up and went "naughty girl needs a spaaanking" and I wasn't totally free to go "not right now, honey, seriously," without causing a scene... I would not be happy with that relationship.
Williamthecoroner - We're all poseurs, and the things we're posing as are so damn creepy that anyone who was really real would be a criminal. Anyone who keeps their Masterful Domination within the permission and limits of their submissive is a poseur, and anyone who doesn't is Jeffery freakin' Dahmer.
I pose damn pretty and I'm not ashamed of that.
I have heard of but never actually seen extreme examples of full time Dom/Sub relationships. The sub essentially is incapable of running their own life, or at least running it properly, and trades freedom safety and security. The vast majority relationships have this to a degree, and it is often but not always obvious.
ReplyDeleteI am actually somewhat similar to Don Gwinn child though not as bad. Someone with a similar emotional disposition to me but with some sort of sexually dominant side and streak of sadism would be quite dangerous.
I am one of the rare breed who is neither dominant or submissive. I would feel evil Doming and week subing. I can be a rather cruel bastard at times, but I think that's more a function of me being evil than anything to do with Dom/Sub
It's the lack of the OFF switch that does get me. I can't be in role all the time. I know some people have the NO LIMITS, 27/7 Lifestyler fetish. Sheesh, what a way to make sex like work. And yes, it is a way to rub the mundanes' noses in it.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
ReplyDeleteAlso...it is possible to be vanilla without being a moron, a prude, or a hopelessly naive busybody. The fact that a person doesn't get off on kink doesn't necessarily imply that they're going to freak out at the sight of a ball gag. I have a fair number of kinky acquaintances, and there's always the new person at the party who tries to freak me out with the whole D/s lifestyle thing, and can't accept the fact that I don't give a shit.
It makes me wonder if they're really kinky or just so immature that they think their sex life makes them More Speshuler Than The Rest Of Us. This guy sounds exactly like them.
There should be a flavor Vanillas can use to lump all the kinksters together.
ReplyDeleteNeopolitan, maybe. Yes, I think that would work handily everywhere except Naples.
Well, you know, I'm the sort of 24/7 d/s kinkster who tries to actually be a responsible adult. And that means occasionally having a little freaking subtlety.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible to do some amount of serious kink interaction without being socially bizarre. It just takes a little cleverness and a little discretion, neither of which this guy seems to have. (I bet he wouldn't have noticed my totally d/s wedding ceremony was totally d/s, even in the bit in the photo-shoot afterwards where my liege was holding me by the neck.)