Submission
Recently a very close male friend of mine who identifies as a dom came to me with an interesting proposal. “I want to submit to you,” he said. For reasons of his own, good solid reasons that I approved of after picking his brain for literally hours. But I was surprised. He’s a dom, after all. We’ve played in the past; long ago in an alternate universe we would switch off topping and bottoming to each other for exploration and catharsis. Now he and I do needle scenes together. There’s trust there.
We played earlier this week. It was a good scene; there were knives involved, and face slapping. I knew from our conversations that submission is sexually linked for him; I was a bit more sexual. It ended quietly. He spoke about where he’d gone, and what he’d felt, and I did a bit of the same, but in the end, really, I was surprised.
For me, nothing changed.
For him, that scene fit his idea and definition of submitting. But for me, it didn’t. It just was. I just was. If that’s what domination and submission means, then I dominate everyone I play with. (I have had people argue that I do dominate everyone I play with, because I am “naturally” dominant. I have no idea what that means.)
My ideas about domination and submission are changing. I wish to still accommodate differences of opinion; I realize that relationships are possible with different expectations and opinions, much in the way of the recent scene I’ve mentioned. But the idea of “submission,” for me, is going deeper. Is becoming more rarified, and more intense. More (and I hesitate to use the word, because it has horrible connotations in the scene) true.
It is for this very reason that relationships created with an established power dynamic from the very beginning wig me out. I have never in my entire life started a conversation or a relationship out with the idea that I’m the dominant partner; the thought of doing so makes me simultaneously infuriated and nauseous. I like it even less to be approached by people who immediately qualify that they are submissive. Men and women I don’t know who want to submit to me. I bet there are some of them reading this blog. I know you’re out there.
You have no idea what submission means to me. You and I are not speaking in the same vocabulary. How could we be? We just met.
Submission means different things to different people. It means different things to the same people in different contexts. It plays in shades, degrees and variations. It comes in stripes and spots and purple sprinkles. For the context of this blog post, I will attempt to explore what the hell I mean when I say that word. What I want it to mean, although I accept that I can’t always get what I want.
Submission.
I have a hard time coming to terms with my “dominant” tendencies, the part of me that demands submission. Devotion, surrender, control. There are little voices that like to whisper: you think I’m awesome? You think I’m powerful, worthy of respect? You think I’m qualified to play with your mind and your emotions?. . . Really?
It’s intoxicating, the thought that I could reach out and take that. That I could go to a club, post my photo on a list, or hell, write a craigslist ad demanding submission from strangers. Men would fall down for me. It would be so, so easy. And it makes me sick to think I’m tempted by that. Even the smallest part of me. What kind of men would they be? What kind of person would that make me?
I get that it’s hot, I get it. Power is delicious no matter what end of the spectrum you’re standing on. Oh god, dating a man who jumps when I say, strips when I say, fears me, follows me, spends the whole first date in a sweaty-palmed frenzy, I get it.
But I don’t do it. It takes so, so long for me to play that game with people. I’m frightfully bad at being dominant. Actually dominant, the way I think of dominant.
A part of submission is choosing not to fight back. choosing to support a power structure wherein I rule over you. How can you choose that, how can you support me, if you don’t know me? And if you’re smart and thoughtful and have worked long and hard coming to terms with your submissive nature, how can you then take something so valuable and just drop it in my lap?
Fuck, don’t give that to me. Don’t give that away to anyone, but least of all to me.
Do you realize that in so blithely handing your submission over to me without knowing my qualities, you have devalued all of the work I’ve done in my emotional journey to accept my dominance? I want someone who submits to me consciously, who’s worked hard and respects me because I’ve done the same.
Submission, especially well thought out, careful, loving and intelligent submission, is not a gift. I don’t just take it and play with it and own it merrily until I wear it out and send it to Goodwill. It is an exchange. Do you know what you demand of me, when you submit to me? That the more power you give me the more responsibility I have? (Secretly, I am Spiderman.)
I want you to dominate me.
Do you have any fucking clue what you’re asking?
What part of domination and submission says that the dominant’s part is easy? That we can just hand out sentence without remorse? That we can accept devotion without personal recriminations?
Maybe you think I’m an appropriate person to submit to, but more important than your opinion is my own. It’s my life, after all. Am I an appropriate person to submit to?
If being dominant is being given complete, utter, total control over another person in emotional, physical and mental aspects, how much fuckupery can be caused by one simple, stupid mistake? I hate mistakes. I hate them, but I make them. If being dominant is being asked to take responsibility, what do I do when I’m tired and don’t want it?
Submission as I want it is not giving all these powers up to me. It’s giving them up and then having the courage and intelligence to still be alive, well, and supporting me when I mess up and it all comes crumbling down.
Sometimes when I’m very, very small and sleepy I ask May questions. “Will you still love me if I don’t reach my goals?” He laughs, and he kisses me, and he says yes. He always says yes.
And I cry. I cry like a lost child, I cry because I’m terrified, because it is so fucking scary to exist in a world that demands so much. My world. My standards, my goals.
Many people who decry instant power dynamics say that submission is about trust. How can you trust someone with your submission if you don’t know them? But there’s another side to that, as there always is.
It’s not just “Do you trust me to dominate you?” It’s “Do I trust you to submit to me?” Do I trust you to catch me when I fall, comfort me when I cry, allow me the insane luxury of believing, just for a little while, that I’m as worthy and valuable a person as I want myself to be? Do I trust you to understand how hard I’ve tried and how much I want from you and from myself, and how desperately I want it?
Do I trust you to still love me if I fail?
