"Lifestyle" subs vs. "sexual" subs

redelicious said:

sigh

you talked to her first for awhile? online? phone?

edit btdt - been there done that

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awhile? define?
maybe a couple weeks..
phone/emails/IM for both

Great topic...

I refer to myself as sensual submission, which sounds a lot like your description of a sexual submissive. Very submissive in bed and while I'm not dominant in the rest of my life, I am assertive. Then I found myself in a relationship with a man who was naturally dominant (defined by me as a person who has been dominant since childhood - liked to tie up little girls behind the barn way back in elementary school, etc..).

I met him online before we met in person so I always knew him to be dominant and throughout our relationship there was never a question of who was in charge. It might be the fact that I have a natural inclination towards submissiveness, but that aspect of our relationship was effortless, we just fit. He was more of a father figure to me as opposed to a strict dominant and he really wanted me to be assertive in my life. He always wanted me to be the best I could be.

As in a vanilla lifestyle, there are an endless number of variations in the D/s lifestyle where expectations and personalities are concerned and it is just a matter of finding someone who fits you just right.

I think that labels can bring with them a level of preconceived notions that can limit a person. If I meet someone who tells me that they want a lifestyle submissive, that could lead me to discount them right away. I would like to think that I would dig a little deeper to find out exactly what a lifestyle submissive looks like to them.

Just my two cents..

kel

timberwolf05 said:

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awhile? define?
maybe a couple weeks..
phone/emails/IM for both

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I guess I am having trouble communicating my thoughts. Not the first time.

My point is you got to know her first and she you. Some groundwork was laid. You didn't *meet* her online or otherwise then offer your submission without trying to develop a relationship.

I get all caught up on thought when people say 24/7. I mean, what is 24/7? What the heck does that mean?

Here I am at home. He's at work. Am I still his Domme? Hell yes! Am I sitting at home in my leather bustier with my crop in hand. No. Do I make his decisions for him while he's working. No. Does he call to let me know he will be late. Yes. He calls just to let me know he is leaving the work facility.

If I ask for a drink, does he jump up and get it. (We're assuming he is home.) Yes. Do I ask him for a drink while he is doing his homework, when I am capable of getting it myself. No. I respect his education more than that.

I don't make all the decisions at home. If I had to lay out his clothes and choose what he is going to have to eat for dinner, etc... I'd go insane.

It's all balance in the relationship. But we do have a 24/7 relationship. The D/s and his natural desire to make me happy is a part of that relationship. The BD and SM is in the bedroom only.

I'll let whomever reads this decide whether it is 24/7.

.....

Gob-snark-it-all I typed out a great reply and lost it.

jasonlf said:

Hah. I thought you were older.

Either way, that's still 7 years :!

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Lordy that makes me like.... Grandma at 40 (*never married, no kids*)

FWIW - I am a bit of a sub in some things and a bit dom in other areas om my life. I'm looking for a switch or top in the bedroom but a partner on other areas - someone willing to share the duties with. I don't want to push someone else around,. I don't want to be pushed around, but I don't mind deferring to him when he has more experience in one harea then I do, and I don't mind listening to his conserns for the areas that I may have more experience in - and letting decisions outside the bedroom be joint affairs.

I'll let whomever reads this decide whether it is 24/7.
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type it a 3rd time.....i feel You are 24/7.
and it pretty much equals to being on call and in-the-lifestyle 24/7 vs someone that is a weekend player only.

wolf

redelicious said:

I'm assuming that you didn't meet him on a Tuesday and submit to him on a Wednesday. Of course I could be wrong.

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We read each others profiles, spoke by email, PM, and then on the phone ... all on a Saturday, met and submitted on a Sunday. You have the idea, just the wrong days of the week. We were both very candid and straight to the point as well as quite thorough in those 'Saturday' communications. He stated what He expects, needs & wants along with examples of what He does not expect, will not tolerate, does not need nor want. i supplied Him with the same details regarding myself and what i need & wanted... etc. Both knowing what we want and do not want, it didn't take too much conversation or time to know that we needed to meet and give it a go.

Again, it's not that I think 24/7 is a fantasy. As I said, I believe it can and does exist under a special set of circumstances. You and some other posters here are proof positive of this. However I continue to believe (notice, not stating as fact, just what *I* think) that those circumstances probably did not magically present themselves out of thin air, primarily because trust takes time to develop.

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In our case, the circumstances DID 'present themselves out of thin air', yes. i didn't need days, weeks, months or years to decide to trust Him. i could, just as easily and as quickly, have decided NOT to trust Him. To me, trust is simply that. i can either give it or not. i relied on my gut feeling, and the absence of any apparent 'red flags'.

Also, I never said that ALL Dom/es who wanted 24/7 were ungenuine or unqualified. My post was specifically about those without experience who have an idealized view of what 24/7 would be like. I should have been more clear. I think it's an entirely different situation when you are talking about folks who have BTDT successfuly - but those are rare.

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Ahh, i see. i interpreted you as stating that it is your opinion that ALL Dom/es who wanted and expected 24/7 immediately were to be regarded as being ungenuine, unqualified or otherwise questionable charactors. Of course, i was simply stating in my reply that not 'all' are. i agree, those with no 'real time' experience may be living a pipe dream in expecting it all to simply 'fall perfectly into place' upon first domming/playing etc ect. i just don't see how anything in any situation where two people pair up, neither having experience can work perfectly. He had the experience and i had NONE and it still wasn't ALL 'perfect' form the start ...... although it WAS pretty close to perfect.

i think you and i are on the same page with regard to our general opinions, redelicious. He and i realize that, our choices, and the details of how quickly our relationship developed is not typical. For that reason alone, i find myself having to stand up and state that not everyone wants to, nor needs to drag their feet and make for a long drawn out process, and some actually just dive right in ... swim very well, and do just fine. Of course though, it's not for everyone.


As far as for the topic of what we know to be 24/7:

i am His, 24/7.
He is the Dom and i am the submissive in our relationship .. 24/7.
We don't just 'do this' on weekends, and while we do it, we are not 'playing' ... it's who we are, it's what we do.
We don't need specific types of clothing, or toys to define who we are and what our relationship involves.
We are D/s at all times, and sometimes we involve BD, and/or SM ... and when we are not actively doing BD and/or SM ... we are STILL D/s at all times.
If 24/7 means that i am His, am obeying Him 24/7 & honoring Him, and hold respect for the pain my ass will feel should i for one second of my day forget that i am His, or foget to obey, or forget to honor Him or forget how much i dislike the pain i feel while being punished ...... (not being able to forget the burning sting of His belt hitting my ass with good reason, whether i am in His presence or not is reason enough for me to KNOW that this is a 24/7 agreement we entered into over a year ago ) well then ... hell yeah, we are 24/7.

In any other type of relationship .... does the relationship cease to exist when one partner leaves for work? .... or does the dedication between the two cease?? Does their loyalty and love for the other cease??? Are they less of a couple, should their relationship not be taken as a serious one simply because they are not humping each other every hour, every day of the week .... but, must they actually cease in their humping rituals in order to eat, work, tend to life's mundane details outside of that relationship and their bedroom??

Regardless, why care what others THINK we are, or what others THINK our relationship is?? We are still and it is still .... exactly what we are / it is. Nothing else matters.

sinn0cent1 said:

We read each others profiles, spoke by email, PM, and then on the phone ... all on a Saturday, met and submitted on a Sunday. You have the idea, just the wrong days of the week. We were both very candid and straight to the point as well as quite thorough in those 'Saturday' communications. He stated what He expects, needs & wants along with examples of what He does not expect, will not tolerate, does not need nor want. i supplied Him with the same details regarding myself and what i need & wanted... etc. Both knowing what we want and do not want, it didn't take too much conversation or time to know that we needed to meet and give it a go.

In our case, the circumstances DID 'present themselves out of thin air', yes. i didn't need days, weeks, months or years to decide to trust Him. i could, just as easily and as quickly, have decided NOT to trust Him. To me, trust is simply that. i can either give it or not. i relied on my gut feeling, and the absence of any apparent 'red flags'.

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Really knowing oneself I think is key, and is certainly a time saver. However, I can't agree that trust is there or it isn't. Sure, gut feelings and absence of red flags are good indicators and would make it safe to procede with caution perhaps, but no way are they enough to trust someone with my life (24/7 or otherwise). There is just too much room for error. However, I totally admit these are my issues and may not apply to everyone, and I'm glad it worked out for you.

i think you and i are on the same page with regard to our general opinions, redelicious. He and i realize that, our choices, and the details of how quickly our relationship developed is not typical. For that reason alone, i find myself having to stand up and state that not everyone wants to, nor needs to drag their feet and make for a long drawn out process, and some actually just dive right in ... swim very well, and do just fine. Of course though, it's not for everyone.

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Understood.

And, it's not that I am in favor of feet draging or against diving in. I am mostly for making informed choices.

redelicious said:

And, it's not that I am in favor of feet draging or against diving in. I am mostly for making informed choices.

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Ditto.

I enjoy being here, and enjoy this place, but one thing that makes me want to stay away is the constant urge people have to validate themselves by devising categories into which
a) they fit, and
b) from which they can exclude others.
Sometimes it can be really useful having a shorthand for tastes and desires, but not if that shorthand somehow converts itself into an ideology. Consider the difference between 'lifestyle' and 'sexual' subs. You could provide just as useful a distinction by talking about 'spontaneous' and 'setpiece' subs. Your everyday spontaneous sub is the individual whose ready 24 hours a day 7 days a week to be used for their doms sexual plesure; your setpiece sub would be the one who goes away and writes a lovely note imploring the domme to turn up on Sunday with 50m of rope, some surgical needles, that Al Green album and the purple riding crop.
The you might have your physical sub, who wants only to be dominated in sexual and physical ways, or your emotional sub, who mainly wants to be dominated mentally and emotionally.
Then there might just be all of us who've ever lived in relationships where some aspects of your partner are perfect, and others are just bumps in the road.

I'm not looking to pick a fight here, but true love does travel on a gravel road, and sometimes I think the categories are too much like a road map; great if you know exactly where you've going, or where you're coming from, but just a mass of pretty pictures otherwise.

exiledmaster]

I'm not looking to pick a fight here, but true love does travel on a gravel road.
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true love? oh no. change topics to romance in s/m;

nope. not ME. both of my Ms are otherwise pre-spoken for. there is no romance love. i am platonic since 2001.
and also celebate as of 2001.

but otherwise? i do 24/7 on-call service. i said SERVICE. no sex or love.

wolf

I didn't get the impression that he was saying that -every- D/s couple is romantic. He was just speaking about the ones that are.

It's that need that some folks have to pop up and declare themselves the intriguingly different exception to every rule that has people using blanket terms like pyl and PYL... to avoid having to say "I think the course of true love, even in BDSM, never runs smooth.. except for those of you who happen to be only service, or only visit professional Dom/mes, and those of you who submit only on a Sunday when there is a lunar eclipse scheduled for 8:36 pm."

sunfox said:

and those of you who submit only on a Sunday when there is a lunar eclipse scheduled for 8:36 pm."

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sunfox said:

I didn't get the impression that he was saying that -every- D/s couple is romantic. He was just speaking about the ones that are.

It's that need that some folks have to pop up and declare themselves the intriguingly different exception to every rule that has people using blanket terms like pyl and PYL... to avoid having to say "I think the course of true love, even in BDSM, never runs smooth.. except for those of you who happen to be only service, or only visit professional Dom/mes, and those of you who submit only on a Sunday when there is a lunar eclipse scheduled for 8:36 pm."

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That'll teach me not to go quoting a favourite song on here; 'True love travels on a gravel road' is an old Nick Lowe song about nothing ever being simple. I wasn;t really talking about true love; the song just happened to be in my head...

See, I think Timberwolf does excellent shorthand - he's not categorizing anyone else, or needing to fit anyone else into his classifications, and I think that's what I was trying to say. Somebody on line recently said to me 'You sound like a 'straight bear daddy dom' and I was dumbstruck. Is that a description or a marketting category, or a dance club music definition? (Well, musically, it's kind of happy handbag meets redneck rock with some headbanging and greebo thrown in, all tied up in a back beat of trippy space rock....)

Guess what? Im also the kind of arsey so and so who sits down, looks up his Acorn classification (it's a marketting tool used over here) and tries to prove that I don't fit it.

I wasn't talking about true love either. Good thing we're all not talking about the same thing.

I am, however, talking about the compulsive need people seem to have to stick up their hand and declare how special and unusual they are compared to the rest of us 'simple' BDSMers. "I don't fuck, I just act like a footstool" "I don't suck cocks.. I only tickle them with pigeon feathers" "I was around drugs, but I didn't inhale"... wait, wrong subject.

Every person on this board has something about their brand of BDSM that is special and unusual. Getting all "Oh, I don't do what -you- people do.. I'm so exotic and odd" doesn't usually do much for making friends and influencing people... tolerance for the popular viewpoints as well as the unpopular isn't a bad habit to take up. I may not like what you do, and I may think it's gross/weird/bizarre.. but I don't think I'm better because I don't do it.

sunfox said:

I wasn't talking about true love either. Good thing we're all not talking about the same thing.

I am, however, talking about the compulsive need people seem to have to stick up their hand and declare how special and unusual they are compared to the rest of us 'simple' BDSMers. "I don't fuck, I just act like a footstool" "I don't suck cocks.. I only tickle them with pigeon feathers" "I was around drugs, but I didn't inhale"... wait, wrong subject.

Every person on this board has something about their brand of BDSM that is special and unusual. Getting all "Oh, I don't do what -you- people do.. I'm so exotic and odd" doesn't usually do much for making friends and influencing people... tolerance for the popular viewpoints as well as the unpopular isn't a bad habit to take up. I may not like what you do, and I may think it's gross/weird/bizarre.. but I don't think I'm better because I don't do it.

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I'm not a lifestyle sub or a sexual sub. I'm both. Bet ya all cant top that










covers bottom and runs away...................

sunfox said:

.. but I don't think I'm better because I don't do it.

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..... or because I do it !! b.

babiesmiles said:

..... or because I do it !! b.

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You're just a naughty girl But I love you anyway. Or because of it. *laughs*

Kajira Callista said:

I'm not a lifestyle sub or a sexual sub. I'm both. Bet ya all cant top that










covers bottom and runs away...................

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Don't make me get out my Domme-ness on you!!

Rrrosyn said:

I'll let whomever reads this decide whether it is 24/7.

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I think the only one who's definition matters is your own.

Screw everyone else, they ain't living it.

I'm Dawnie's lifestyle submissive slave, but I am still a very dominant person in many aspects of my life. Living a submissive lifestyle doesn't mean there is an absense of dominance in ones' personality. I submit to Dawnie and Dawnie only. So my personality outside the bedroom is little indication of what kind of BDSM role I choose or how I live it. This is one mistake I think a lot of people make on this topic...assuming that lifestyle submissives have submissive personalities in general. I highly disagree with that.

Like I said, I am *Dawnie's* submissive, I am not *a* submissive. To anyone else I may play with in the BDSM realm, I am a bottom. In general, I'm simply me. Sometimes I can be very in charge, very opinionated, very dominant. Sometimes not. However, in the bedroom I am always submissive, because not only is it my nature, it is required of me by my Owner.

Although I do not live with her (yet), we still consider our relationship 24/7, as there is never a moment when I am not her submissive first and foremost. I don't define 24/7 as a physical time frame but more so a frame of mind, and thus, she considers me her 24/7 submissive slave, as do I. I am just not yet her live-in.

sunfox said:

Don't make me get out my Domme-ness on you!!

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purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Enough tolerating.

I say the lifestyle submissives and the sexual submissives get in the ring and settle this shit once and for all.