the marks of a slave

[eastern sun]

I have always wanted to be the kind of woman men write songs about . . .
but it is my destiny to be the songwriter.

 

[simplypleasing]

Thank you for this thread, eastern sun, and to everyone who has contributed. This is how I hope my life will be one day with the Man I love. I look forward to the mundane things of every day life that will reinforce to him and to me that I will do almost anything to please him, and he will bask in my submission, appreciating me for all that I am.

 

[minx1]

but it is my destiny to be the songwriter.

With words that people like me can sing

 

[eastern sun]

I keep flashing this avatar, and then removing it, because it seems out of place on this board.

But it is my husband's favorite. The only picture of me that he has ever used the word "gorgeous" to describe. And I want, so much, to hear him say it.

 

[eastern sun]

And lonely with an inarticulate mind, I hang on to your words like the last thread in the nylons I rip myself, when no one is looking.

Your songs of quiet desperation suspend me over the great abyss, and leave me hanging onto each next word, lest I fall - to my surprise - into the fires of burning desire and sweet harsh love.



Keep sweeping. You are brilliant.

 

[eastern sun]

With words that people like me can sing

You're writing your own songs, minx It's so inspiring to witness your happiness.

 

[eastern sun]

Thank you for this thread, eastern sun, and to everyone who has contributed. This is how I hope my life will be one day with the Man I love. I look forward to the mundane things of every day life that will reinforce to him and to me that I will do almost anything to please him, and he will bask in my submission, appreciating me for all that I am.

Eroticizing the mundane things of everyday life really does create an environment saturated with sex and arousal. In large part, because there are so many opportunities to practice your sexual devotion.

But, I guarantee, 100%, it isn't sustainable.

Maybe it will last for a few years. It has for me. But inevitably, the day always comes when I don't really want to do what pleases him. And he really does not appreciate me for all that I am.

And in that moment the sacrifices we've made for each other appear in a different light. Their forms are cast in brighter, less forgiving tones, harsh and pointed; and suddenly it seems that everything that went before is less significant or tainted.

That is the moment when illusion meets reality. When these relationships are tested in the fire of truth.

If you believed in the first illusion (the romantic vision), you're as likely to believe in the second (the loss of love).

Either both are true. Or neither are true.

(I'm finding the second position easier to live with. And this is coming from someone who has always loved rollercoasters.)

 

[eastern sun]

Rope, so far, is all about feeding my greedy self! LOL
If you ever get the chance to be tied in this manners of kimbaku/shibari, please do so. I'm sure you will love it!

Emotional or physical submission are easy, or so it seems to me. The mental one is my bete noir.

The most I can get is to make my mind overwhelmed and thus speechless, something that happens with pain play, where the entirety of my mind is reduced to fear/flight/fight and screams. But it is merely an overpowering of it.
The mind's overwhelmed state, makes it easier to submit as there is no discordant voice talking in my head. Too bad I also lose about 50IQ points, making me slow in understanding and obeying.

With rope too my mind quiets down, but it is mostly due to a folding onto itself.
It is like my mind curls up into fetal position, listening and talking to itself, the outside world forgotten. Unless, of course, I'm being tied by a rigger with a dominant energy that knows how to tap into my energy and keeps me off-centered and interferes just enough to keep me from closing up into myself.

The core of my ego is hidden and protected withing a diamond core. All the different layers around can be shattered, or penetrated, but the core, even I don't really know what it consist of.

And I agree that it is a question of opening space around it. It is just that the "fixed ideas", the over structure is what we confuse with our identity and as such have a hard time letting go.

Thank you again for a glimpse into your dynamic.
I've been thinking about the way the power is in my marriage, between my Hubby and I. He is the PYL, and I'm the pyl. But I'm not HIS slave, I'm not HIS property. But I am a slave, a slave to the marriage, and within the marriage to him as the husband. It is simply that the good of the marriage comes before anything he might want, to the point that sometime I need to push what I need for the sake of it. And of course there is the dichotomy that it is all about him, but I'm the one reading up, and exploring and learning and meeting new people.

I've been accused that it has stopped being about us and it has become about me. I cannot totally deny the accusation. But I am aware and do my best to keep him as the top priority.

I love these images, rida. so clear and concise.

I have also been accused of losing sight of him when I am engaged with other people.

A friend suggested yesterday that I like to fuck with my husband's head. My husband didn't agree. He countered that I just stop thinking about "his head" altogether. And it's true.

My behavior continues to conform to expectations, but my mind is not fully present. He gets off on some of it. But it wasn't until he got very sick last week, and needed my full attention, that I realized myself how distant I'd become.

I was grateful for the wake-up call.

I would be a fool to forget where I sleep.

 

[rida]

*snip*
If you believed in the first illusion (the romantic vision), you're as likely to believe in the second (the loss of love).

Either both are true. Or neither are true.

(I'm finding the second position easier to live with. And this is coming from someone who has always loved rollercoasters.)

Or you can convince yourself that love never dies. Even when it seems to be MIA. A perfect belief for an emotional masochist such I am. *blush*

With time I'm learning that I do love drama and emotional rollercoasters (cannot stand the real ones though). But the fact that in my life I love to have things going as smoothly as possible has made me enjoy it only in my own mind and heart. It has spilled a little now into real life though and I'm still not sure how to juggle it.

I love these images, rida. so clear and concise.

I have also been accused of losing sight of him when I am engaged with other people.

A friend suggested yesterday that I like to fuck with my husband's head. My husband didn't agree. He countered that I just stop thinking about "his head" altogether. And it's true.

My behavior continues to conform to expectations, but my mind is not fully present. He gets off on some of it. But it wasn't until he got very sick last week, and needed my full attention, that I realized myself how distant I'd become.

I was grateful for the wake-up call.

I would be a fool to forget where I sleep.

Thank you

And *nod*.
I had a similar wake-up call a few months ago.
It suddenly made all my struggles, all my drama seem insignificant and it gave me back perspective on what really matters. As you put it "where I sleep".

 

[IrisAlthea]

Eroticizing the mundane things of everyday life really does create an environment saturated with sex and arousal. In large part, because there are so many opportunities to practice your sexual devotion.

But, I guarantee, 100%, it isn't sustainable.

Maybe it will last for a few years. It has for me. But inevitably, the day always comes when I don't really want to do what pleases him. And he really does not appreciate me for all that I am.

And in that moment the sacrifices we've made for each other appear in a different light. Their forms are cast in brighter, less forgiving tones, harsh and pointed; and suddenly it seems that everything that went before is less significant or tainted.

That is the moment when illusion meets reality. When these relationships are tested in the fire of truth.

If you believed in the first illusion (the romantic vision), you're as likely to believe in the second (the loss of love).

Either both are true. Or neither are true.

(I'm finding the second position easier to live with. And this is coming from someone who has always loved rollercoasters.)

I just have to say, I love this post.

 

[eastern sun]

"I really do have your well-being at heart. If you weren't here, who'd do the dishes?"

 

[eastern sun]

Mother

Go go go go now
Out of the nest it's time
Go go go now
Circus girl without a safety net
Here here now don't cry
You raised your hand for the assignment
Tuck those ribbons under your helmet
Be a good soldier
First my left foot
Then my right behind the other
Pantyhose
Running in the cold

Mother, the car is here
Somebody leave the light on
Green limousine for the redhead
Dancing dancing girl
And when I dance for him
Somebody leave the light on
just in, just in case I like the dancing
I can remember where I come from

I walked into your dream
And now I've forgotten
how to dream my own dream
You are the clever one aren't you
Brides in veils for you
We told you all of our secrets
All but one
And don't you even try
The phone has been disconnected
Dripping with blood
And with time
And with your advice
Poison me against the moon

Mother the car is here
Somebody leave the light on
Black Chariot for the redhead
Dancing dancing girl
He's gonna change my name
maybe you'll leave the light on
just in, just in case I like the dancing
I can remember where I come from

I escape into
your escape into
our very favorite fearscape
It's across the sky
And I cross my heart
And I cross my legs
Oh my God
First my left foot
Then my right behind the other
Breadcrumbs lost under the snow

Mother
Mother the car is here
Here maybe
maybe you'll leave the light on
for the dancing girl
he's gonna change my name
maybe you'll leave the light
just in, just in case I like the dancing
I can remember where I come, come from
Mother
Mother
Mother

- Tori Amos

 

[eastern sun]

I miss my mother. And I wonder what advice she'd offer me today.

 

[eastern sun]

Tugging on the ropes just ends up tightening the knots that hold everything in place.

My husband has made a few statements last week that shook me, but the one that caught my attention was a question he asked - "do you think we'd still be married if we didn't have the children?"

It has never occurred to me to ask that question, let alone contemplate the answer. And it drove home the precariousness of the slave's commitment.

I watched him considering the possibility that the only thing binding him to me over the years were the children we shared. Whereas my understanding of the relationship agreement we entered into is that the only thing binding us is the agreement itself.

It reminds me that he still considers that agreement in flux, whereas for me it is fixed and unchanging.

And the sudden realization of the precariousness of my position, especially in light of my recent activities, made me heighten my commitment and focus on his needs like I haven't for weeks.

And this afternoon, he called to say "I've been thinking what a great marriage we have." Reminding me that fidelity is not an action, it is a state of mind.

 

[Tennie]

I hear you with respect to the fact that he can't be "DOM" all the time.

Every couple is different......but my issue is that the play I need isn't something my husband wants to engage in as a matter of course.

I guess I'm asking, how did you arrive at this arrangement? It's hot.

 

[eastern sun]

I hear you with respect to the fact that he can't be "DOM" all the time.

Every couple is different......but my issue is that the play I need isn't something my husband wants to engage in as a matter of course.

I guess I'm asking, how did you arrive at this arrangement? It's hot.

It's a long story, but the short version goes something like this . . . my husband wants some things (as a masochistic dominant). I want some things (as a service-oriented slave). We'd always known we lived on opposite poles of most issues. So we never imagined we'd share the same perspective on life, or even the same desires, except at the most fundamental levels.

Over the years, we have slowly figured out how to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together with a lot of patience, trust, volatile emotions and (most importantly) a commitment to each other that was binding.

He always led the way though. And every time I jumped through his hoops, it took him totally by surprise. That seems to have been key.

 

[eastern sun]

My husband didn't realize I had been posting in this thread again (though he looked over my shoulder often enough to have a preference of avatars, hm).

Correction -

Regarding my directions, it isn't the fact that I'm telling him what to do that drives him crazy. It's the fact that I don't allow him enough time to play with or explore the character before I start imposing my blocking. It makes him feel like I am stealing the character from him. Which made me wonder - who owns the character?

Here, he totally agreed with you, Keroin - and used it to demonstrate the validity of his perspective.

Having worked with many directors, I was really curious to see how this would play out. The best directors I've seen, know how far to push or pull in order to get what they need form their actors. You've always struck me, from your writing, as being highly intuitive, so I had a feeling you would make an excellent director. However, because of the power dynamic between you and your husband, I wondered if that would change things. I think your decision to "let go" was a wise one - too many directors believe it is all about "control".

I stand corrected, and recognize the importance of adapting your work style to meet the circumstances of the work you're doing. (But I still think that blocking is the easiest way for a director to communicate his/her understanding of the characters' actions to the actors, and serves as a support in the memorization process.)

 

[eastern sun]

He also finally told me he hates the "pig" stuff. (He's been reading my email all along and "reserving judgement" for months.) He adamantly states that even with his predilection for heavier women, he has never thought of women in those terms. (In his opinion, I have never been one of those women who wears fat well.)

In light of his comments, though, I wanted to bring this post from the recent humiliation thread over here. I, too, had to move through the negative connotations we normally attach to the word "pig." It is in my mind, wholly changed.

I was thinking about humiliation on the subway this morning. I've been exploring degradation recently in a manner I haven't before, and I've discovered things I didn't know.

Because I have had shaky self-esteem, and sexual experiences that I didn't fully consent to that I found very humiliating, I have shied away from extreme forms of degradation play in the past. I genuinely did not want to push those buttons.

And I always thought that consensual degradation was based in playing with those buttons.

What I've discovered recently is that the blend of degradation and desirability completely changes the nature of the experience.

For instance (a couple of more tame experiences I'm willing to share): When I was young, a guy I found very attractive got drunk, spit on me and ignored me during our rest of our first date. I hated it, because it expressed his complete and utter rejection of me. I was undesirable, and I internalized it.

In college, I lived with a guy for many years who explicitly expressed his disdain for me. Our best (and most honest) sexual experiences together were the times he pissed on me. Again, I felt fundamentally undesirable, and I internalized it.

When I was older, a guy took me out to lunch in a very expensive restaurant, behaved on the surface like a perfect gentleman, but a brittle and cruel misogyny lay at the foundation of every word and gesture. I went home in tears and cut off all my hair. (Weird, hunh?) Again, I felt fundamentally undesirable and detested, and I internalized it.

The difference in my current relationship lies in the experience of degradation with someone for whom the degradation heightens my desirability. In that context, my heightened desirability is so palpable, the degrading acts feed my own arousal, and changes their fundamental nature (which seems so obvious it hardly needs stating, right?).

But in order to get there, I had to pass through a more superficial stage in which every one of those old buttons were being pushed - the internalized feelings of being undesirable, disgusting, ugly, pathetic - and could only emerge, literally changed, by the continued experience that these very things that made me think I was all that negative self were in fact positive and desirable.

So, my discovery is fairly simple, but significant in my own psyche. It isn't about staying in the places those old buttons take me to. Being in a place where I feel undesirable and pathetic is not at all what my friend is looking for. And I am very grateful for his ability to move me through it with relative ease and comfort. (and that relative is most definitely relative . . .)

Anyway, I'm just throwing it into the pot, because I always thought degradation played into the more wounded aspects of self - and didn't realize how comforting and genuinely warm and (I was going to say "fuzzy" but will instead say) "wet" it really can be.

When I think of myself as "pig," I have an internal picture of someone very beautiful, sexually uninhibited, and absolutely voracious in her appetite. The fact that I can also be - as we all can be - clumsy, messy, stinky, greedy, fleshy, etc. just gets folded into the being of this stunning sexual creature, and leaves me quite shameless, happy and satisfied.

 

[eastern sun]

I will also share the silly but significant thing that helped me move through the degradation barrier.

One morning, I was literally feeling like an ugly, stinking pig, questioning whether this was a goal in my best interests, and sobbing with the knowledge that I have always been a stinking pig, however I might have tried to convince myself and the world otherwise - when I caught an idea that pigs are also highly prized. And I knew I needed to balance the negative connotations of the word with positive ones.

This was the first thing I read -

"Pigs are models of sincerity, purity, tolerance, and honor. When you first meet them, Pigs seem too good to be true. They are careful and caring, obliging and chivalrous. Put your trust in him, he won't let you down and he will never try to. The Pigs simply want to do everything right.

Pigs are the people everyone admires most. Make a list of the Pigs in your life: aren't they the nicest, most loving and scrupulously caring people around?

Pigs are born to give, to yield and to serve. Frankly speaking, most people take advantage of this Pig nature. Also, not only are Pigs easy to fool, they like it that way too. No matter how old they get, Pig people still only see and believe that all men/women are basically good. Pig people constantly sacrifice their own happiness and comfort for the sake of somebody else."

from a website on the chinese zodiac signs.

I stopped crying, and thought "yeah. I want to be a pig." It was a turning point.

 

[eastern sun]

And I hereby publicly declare Glenn Campbell to be one of the great artists of our age, capturing the humble redemption of a soul lost in dissipation and vice with his simple heart-tugging musical persona.

 

[Keroin]

And I hereby publicly declare Glenn Campbell to be one of the great artists of our age, capturing the humble redemption of a soul lost in dissipation and vice with his simple heart-tugging musical persona.

Ha, talk about humiliation.

 

[eastern sun]

Tugging on the ropes just ends up tightening the knots that hold everything in place.

My husband has made a few statements last week that shook me, but the one that caught my attention was a question he asked - "do you think we'd still be married if we didn't have the children?"

It has never occurred to me to ask that question, let alone contemplate the answer. And it drove home the precariousness of the slave's commitment.

I watched him considering the possibility that the only thing binding him to me over the years were the children we shared. Whereas my understanding of the relationship agreement we entered into is that the only thing binding us is the agreement itself.

It reminds me that he still considers that agreement in flux, whereas for me it is fixed and unchanging.

And the sudden realization of the precariousness of my position, especially in light of my recent activities, made me heighten my commitment and focus on his needs like I haven't for weeks.

And this afternoon, he called to say "I've been thinking what a great marriage we have." Reminding me that fidelity is not an action, it is a state of mind.

He also calls "bullshit" on this post, reminding me that - even at the time - he told me he'd just said it without thinking. He has always considered his commitment equal to my own.

And, it's true. I know that he does. It is a significant feature of the trust I have in him.

On the other hand, I did have a strong reaction to the question, one that changed my attitude and behavior. And it served to draw us quickly much closer together in a period where we're playing with fire. So, sometimes, I guess, misperceptions and/or misstatements of intent can have a positive outcome even if they are bullshit.

It's just good to remember that the truth is independent of one's perceptions.

 

[eastern sun]

RIP Bruce Gary, the greatest power pop drummer of all times. May your memory never fade.

 

[eastern sun]

We love Justin Timberlake!

 

[eastern sun]

My slave shoes sit by the front door.

Sometimes I slip them on as I walk in.
Sometimes I slip them on as I walk out.

Sometimes I forget to put them on.
Sometimes I forget to take them off.

But whether my shoes are on or off,
it doesn't change the fact of my slavery.

I just feel the pinch of ill-fitting shoes,
or the looseness that causes me to stumble.