Where is the love in BDSM?

I think it is important, it is the glue to hold together.

It is the trust

It's also the foundation, as it is in any relationship. It gives the inspiration to give your partner what they need, and the drive to give them what they want, as well.

D/s & love

Playing is one thing...a relationship is another

Love?
An interesting word...used by lots of people lots of ways.

Here isa defination I like and I think fits the D/s relationship very well

Love is when respect,caring,knowledge and responsiblity converge

Richard
michigan

If you have no trust then you have nothing....................every thing is built around trust................

Myself .......I think the love IS the bdsm......................

Re: D/s & love

Richard49 said:

Playing is one thing...a relationship is another

Love?
An interesting word...used by lots of people lots of ways.

Here isa defination I like and I think fits the D/s relationship very well

Love is when respect,caring,knowledge and responsiblity converge

Richard
michigan

Click to expand...

Hello, Very well put Richard, thanks for sharing....

SpectreT said:

It's also the foundation, as it is in any relationship. It gives the inspiration to give your partner what they need, and the drive to give them what they want, as well.

Click to expand...

Hi SpectreT, very eloquently put thanks for sharing....have a good day lexy

Sometimes, we don't get to have love with our BDSM, though. Sometimes, the heat and caring is enough, has to be enough, or we go without any of it.

Sometimes we don't love our partners, and they don't love us.
Maybe not ever.

And it has to be enough for us, then, those of us who don't get to feel love through the scorching fire of the heat of our BDSM.

I don't know how to give everything and not give my heart as well. For me love is the thing that binds me to another and allows my trust to grow.

lexy24 & cymbidia

lexy24 thank you for the thank you <smile>
Nice to see another Michigan person here

cymbidia you are right sometimes we do not get the love.
We get the "action" of BDSM.......and are some what content with it.....it fills a need.

Now when we can have the love and the action.....WOW !!!!!

Richard
Michigan

Where is the Love?

This is a topic that I am thinking about a great deal right now. I have many good friends in the BDSM scene here, and some of them are at least ocassional play partners/dates. I enjoy my time with them, socially, and (with a few) in scenes. However, I am the perpetual free agent sub. (a term I made up in a cockier period)
I have had my crushes, and perhaps even a love, but it just seems like I can't find a lover/Dom/friend who wants me on more than a temporary and/or casual basis. I realize that one should not look too hard, and just let it happen, but in a year and a half of r/l waiting to see what would happen, well, the "right" Dominant (who also thinks I am the "right" sub) has not. So, I enjoy what is available to me, and try to focus on being glad that I have as much as I do.
Still, it is hard. Sometimes, I feel like a Leather Spinster (lol, I must remember that one!). oh well, just rambling. I will hush now, at least for the time being. Lisa

where is the love? where you build it.
yes i think there is "something" that needs to be there to start with for love to grow, but love is an action as well as a feeling. it is more then just that heart pounding, lost in the clouds feeling; it is something that you practice, that you do every day.

BUt love doesn't have to be there, necessarily.

Sometimes all you need is true, honest affection. It may sound like quibbling but for some folks, love is a very tough thing to even comprehend. Affection is much easier for them to come by and gives the same respect, and honest like, and joy for the companionship.

JazzManJim said:

BUt love doesn't have to be there, necessarily.

Sometimes all you need is true, honest affection. It may sound like quibbling but for some folks, love is a very tough thing to even comprehend. Affection is much easier for them to come by and gives the same respect, and honest like, and joy for the companionship.

Click to expand...

That is certainly true, and well expressed. If someone is not of the nature to feel love, you need to respect that. But the problem that often comes up in BDSM is that people who do want love sacrifice that need in order to get the BDSM connection they want as well. AS much as we like to think that love is the basis of these realtionships, in some cases the partners are settling for less.

Sometimes, even if one wants a love relationship that is also BDSM in nature, that love simply isn't a part of the BDSM relationship that one has.

Whether it's because love will never be a part of that particular relationship or because it's too early or for some other reason, it is true that for many of us, love simply isn't a part of our BDSM sexual relationship.

Sometimes, we either accept affection and respect as the underpinning of what exists or we do without a BDSM relationship altogether, irregardless of what one is putting into it from her own end.

Sometimes our good healthy active sexual relationship won't ever become a love relationship. Sometimes respect and caring and really good sex is all it's ever gonna be. Should we not enter into or continue with such relationships, knowing they may never go where we want them to go, romantically? Should we enter them, knowing we'll leave when another, one that looks more promising from a romantic perspective, comes along? Should we close ourselves to sexuality altogether unless true love accompanies it beforehand? Should we date in a nilla way before ever doing anything sexual, trying for Great Romance before we get all hot and sweaty?

The answers, of course, are different for us all. We all have different needs, different morals, different end goals.

It would be just neato keeno wonderful if we could all have love accompanying our hot 'n heavy BDSM play, if we could have that wonderfully fulfilling exchange of boundless love, if the hot wet shivery touching we do with another like us was fed by a tender rush of sweet love.

But we can't.

Not all of us.
Not always.
Not with every partner.

Such is life.

If we've already known the boundless abiding pleasure of our kind of sexual touching with a love partner, then we already know what we're missing when we do it with a respect/like partner.

So do we pass on something new cuz that abiding soul-deep love we once knew with another isn't there? What if no one ever love us like that again? Do we live forever, alone, untouched, unwilling to accept a part of someone else if we can't have their heart?

I've been in love in BDSM relationships.
I've been in like in BDSM relationships.
I've been in BDSM relationships where there was respect -and that's all- on both sides.

Love is best.
You know that.
I know that.
We all know that.

But one doesn't always get love as an essential ingredient with this, boys and girls. Sometimes, it's just not a part of the mixture. Sometimes, you simply have to decide what you most need in your life right now from among the alternatives available to you.

There's no other way.

Sometimes, one chooses to put on hold -you might call it "sacrifice"- the love they're seeking in a long-term BDSM relationship so they can have the comfort of a caring and warm physical-release kinda BDSM relationship now. There's nothing wrong with such a tactic if one does it as a conscious choice. One can call it "settling" if they choose, or can view it as a relationship of worth and value in and of itself, though ultimately temporary in nature.

The difference lies, again, in what one seeks and how honest one is with oneself and her partner. What one person considers "settling" may be, to another person, exactly the kind of low-maintenence, respectful, caring, sexually-fulfilling BDSM relationships she needs for now, as she continues her search for another Mr. RightDom.

To you who have answered this question with an assertion that love is everything in a BDSM relationship: i hope you never lose your loved one and find yourself foundering on the less-sure and lonlier side of this issue, a place that so many of the rest of reside.

More love

cym writes (eloquently) about love in a BDSM relationship being possible but not always probable. But if the person giving loves what he is doing and she loves what she is receiving and the respect for both partners is there then that is love too.
Respect should always be there but (as in in marriage) it isn't always there but something is and in a BDSM relationship there should be respect. The giver must understand that the receiver has chosen him and he needs to build on that if the relationship is to be fruitful and meaningful.
Humans need love in order to exist and I hope everyone who reads this is loved or loves someone.

Re: More love

fallon2 said:

cym writes (eloquently) about love in a BDSM relationship being possible but not always probable. But if the person giving loves what he is doing and she loves what she is receiving and the respect for both partners is there then that is love too.
Respect should always be there but (as in in marriage) it isn't always there but something is and in a BDSM relationship there should be respect. The giver must understand that the receiver has chosen him and he needs to build on that if the relationship is to be fruitful and meaningful.
Humans need love in order to exist and I hope everyone who reads this is loved or loves someone.

Click to expand...

I still like my defination

Love is when respect,caring,responsibly and knowledge converge.
Now I can not sopeck to strickly play things in BDSM but in D/s relationships...even if it is for a night.......these must be there.

Richard
who has no one speical in his life at the moment

Whether you are into to just a one night thing, or a relationship I think that you have to in some form at least have a mutual respect for the person you are with at that time. I know that if I didn't have the love I have for wizard then I could not do some of the things we do. If the love were not there then the trust isn't either and if you are into BDSM I think you have to have the out most trust in that person and I think that is where the love comes in. If you love that person and him/or her loves you. You know that anything you two do no harm will come to you .

All BDSM relationships are different and everyone has there own fantasises, but for me I do not think I could do some things we do without being in love. But that is just me.

cymbidia said:

If we've already known the boundless abiding pleasure of our kind of sexual touching with a love partner, then we already know what we're missing when we do it with a respect/like partner.

So do we pass on something new cuz that abiding soul-deep love we once knew with another isn't there? What if no one ever love us like that again? Do we live forever, alone, untouched, unwilling to accept a part of someone else if we can't have their heart?

...But one doesn't always get love as an essential ingredient with this, boys and girls. Sometimes, it's just not a part of the mixture. Sometimes, you simply have to decide what you most need in your life right now from among the alternatives available to you.

There's no other way.

Click to expand...

I think there's at least some need for a reality check: Love is precious to us precisely because it's so rare. This is no different from any other kind of relationship in this sense, is it? Really? Romantic love is fickle, often fleeting, difficult to find, and rare; such relationships are often devastating. In any dating relationship, there are sexual needs and there are emotional desires. We hope to find both, but why would we ignore our needs in the meantime?

Consider this in a 'nilla context: If someone gets a divorce, should they not have sex until they marry again? Should they not date until they're fairly sure it could turn into love? Why should BDSM relationships be any different--they're built on respect and trust first, love comes with time, if ever. Anyone who claims to be in instant love with someone is mistaking lust for love, and (I would say) doing so at their own risk.

I still like what my dad said about sex--love makes it nice, but it ain't necessary.

To you who have answered this question with an assertion that love is everything in a BDSM relationship: i hope you never lose your loved one and find yourself foundering on the less-sure and lonlier side of this issue, a place that so many of the rest of reside.

Click to expand...

I would add this: Those of you who assert that love is everything, I would ask if this is your first relationship, if you've ever experienced the devastating loss of love and can still make this assertion.

If you've gone further than you ever thought possible, and you currently feel tethered to your life by the loveline between you and your partner, consider what would happen if they were suddenly not in your life anymore. Given all the joy that you have found (andcould continue to find) as you follow your path of experience and exploration, could you really turn your back on that kind of sexual intensity because you're not yet *in love* with someone else? Would you, even if you could? Would you actually ask everyone else to do the same?

Everyone has different priorities, different needs, and the exact same right to them.

RS

cymbidia-
i wholeheartedly agree with every thing you said in your post, and I hope you didn'y take my comments to mean otherwise. What I was trying to say was not that someone shouldnt be involved in a BDSM relation that is less than "true love" but that too mnay people give up on the possibilty of love at all. I hope that you did not feel offended by what I said.

Oh James - no.
No no no no no.
You didn't offend me.

I ask you to forgive me my tantrum, please. As many here know, i've fairly recently lost my Dominant. I loved him with all my heart, an emotion that was, i thought, fully reciprocated. Our relationship was of a few years duration and we were very out about here at Lit, both of us. He abandoned me in December. I've been having a difficult time getting over it, him, the loss. Some days are better than other days, some weeks are better than other weeks. The last few days have been difficult. The best i can hope for in the middle of the down times (which are coming more rarely now, and lasting for a shorter amount of time) is to keep it all together. Risia has, honestly, kept me going and somewhat together in the middle of all this over the last few months; her post may be the result of the pain that she knows all too well i've been revisiting in the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, my post was in response to that, too, the incredible angst/pain/anger/disappointment/disillusionment/hopelessness/etc that characterizes my private loss and really didn't have much at all to do with your well-reasoned comments, James. Please forgive my using you as a convienent whipping boy. I'm ashamed of having done so.

James, i've been impressed, time and again, with the depth of your advice and knowledge about all things BDSM. Yours is a wonderful addition to our chorus of voices and your continued and relaxed presence is both needed and valued here.

My apologies to you, James, in particular, and to all of you in general for my mean comments. I am sorry.
b.

cym,
I did not take your comments as mean, but I could feel the hurt in you coming right off the words, and feared I had a hand in causing it. I thank you for your generosity of spirit and please be assured that I feel totally comfortable in discussing with you on this forum.

abandoned and deserted

cymbidia said:

I ask you to forgive me my tantrum, please. As many here know, i've fairly recently lost my Dominant. I loved him with all my heart, an emotion that was, i thought, fully reciprocated. Our relationship was of a few years duration and we were very out about here at Lit, both of us. He abandoned me in December. I've been having a difficult time getting over it, him, the loss. Some days are better than other days, some weeks are better than other weeks. The last few days have been difficult. b.

Click to expand...

My subbie deserted me in Sept. She was also my wife. We had been together for 13 years. It has been a rough 6 months. Most days are OK now but some are rough.

Break ups are hard in any relationship. Harder when you love. I think they are harder in D/s relationships when proper clousrue is not there.

Richard
Michigan

I think love is important in a long term BDSM relationship, just as it is in a regular long term nilla relationship. Agree or disagree?

PBW

*bump*

MissTaken said:

*bump*

Click to expand...

I stick to what I have posted here
unless someone has ..........