kneeling

For lili ...

I placed a cushion by my feet and asked her to kneel for me.

She had knelt for me many times before. However I had never been there when she had done so. My instructions to her had been through emails.

Now she was kneeling in front of me for the very first time.

At my instruction she had fetched something that she used to wear as a symbol of her submission to me. I attached it to her. She was mine again.

I took her hand. I held it firmly in one hand and stroked it gently with the other.

I felt happy and at peace with her there before me. I felt a sense of power and a gentle warm glow.

I had imagined this scene for so long. It was different from in my imagination - but so wonderful for its reality.

I desired her so much.

I talked of complications and issues for us both. She understood all that as well as I.

I stroked her hand.

I wanted her.

I hoped she wanted me too.

At last.

Kneeling.

Before me.

Such a precious gift.

Thank you.
- P xx

trust

I have written about trust often before - as have others in their comments. About how important it is in any relationship - but most especially in a D/s relationship.

It is so hard to build. It takes honesty and openness from both sides. Once built it is very precious. However it is also very fragile.

It just slipped from my fingers for a moment when I wasn't holding it carefully enough. It is so easy to damage. I hope it is just cracked and can be mended with care and effort. I promise to try hard to do so. I will be desolate if it is broken.

begging

A previous sub of mine once wrote on her blog that begging was a hard limit. She was a wonderfully obedient sub - whilst in other contexts she can be a very assertive woman. Letting go of that assertiveness enough to be able to beg though was something she could not and had no desire to be able to do.

Recently I have had an email exchange with another sub friend about begging and pleading. She feels it is an attempt to get someone to do something against their inclination - perhaps topping from the bottom. But it is clearly ingrained in her nature too as something she would find very hard to do.

I wonder though if begging could be at the heart of total and complete submission. When one has given up all power then begging is all one has left.

Also begging is seen as a humiliating and demeaning activity. Maybe that is why some subs like it but others hate it.

needs and desires

In conversations with sub friends, the experience of having had their submissive needs awakened has been mentioned several times. I have often wondered in what sense these are needs - or whether they are just strong desires. However I am not a sub so cannot speak from first-hand experience.

In comments to my previous post released there was agreement from a few commenters that to put submission "back in the box" once it had been awakened might be impossible. I was interested in this in relation to the points I have just made so I suggested that a sub blogger might like to follow it up.

Well - little did I realise what that would stimulate. Selkie has followed it up with a thorough, thoughtful, well argued and thought provoking series of posts. There are four in total. The final one is here and has links to the previous three. Do pop over and have a read. I am interested in others responses from their own personal perspectives.

Thank you Selkie.

have I learned anything?

swan asked in a comment below if I had learned anything from the failure of the relationship that I described here. She wondered if I would do things differently if the circumstances arose.

I do want to learn from this. It is important to always continue to learn. I am sure I will do and I have been reflecting upon it. I wrote last year about a previous parting. I reflected a lot on that and wrote about some of it in this blog - last May I think if you want to look back. I did learn from that a lot. It also made me a little more cautious about my emotions and protecting them. But that is hard in such relationships.

If one does not give an emotional commitment then it cannot work. So there is bound to be sadness. I am pleased that my friend asked for release now rather than in some months time - when our emotional commitment would have grown so strong. Then I know I would have been badly hurt - and may have badly hurt another. If it was not going to work then I am grateful to her for having the common sense and strength to stop it before we both became damaged by it.

The thing I have reflected upon is the intensity of the relationship - and the extent that might have been created by my approach or whether it is just inherent in the D/s dynamic. I know that previous online relationships I have been involved in have also become very intense very quickly. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be very seductive and give extreme pleasure. In a sense it is what it is all about. But if it catches one unawares then problems can arise. I was aware that such intensity could arise quickly and warned my sub of this at the start. That is not to say that I shouldn't have perhaps realised she was getting caught up in it more quickly than she had believed possible at the start. But we are all adults - and when she did realise she sensibly put a stop to it. However if she hadn't then perhaps she could have been damaged by the experience, rather than enhanced by it in the way I had hoped.

So I have had reinforced the dangers of how such relationships can become so very life affecting - and my own responsibilities in ensuring a sub who has given herself to me to care for is not hurt by the experience. I need to reflect on my responsibilities to ensure I do not harm someone who has put her trust in me.

released

It came out of the blue.

She asked to be released.

It was an online relationship. We had hardly known each other long. In truth we were still getting to know each other - though a bond and affection had grown quickly. I had warned her at the start that such relationships can become very intense. She had thrown herself into it with gusto - becoming far more submissive and sensuous than she had imagined posible at the start. Perhaps that was the problem.

She'd had a weeks holiday and time to reflect - even though she was keeping up to her reduced daily tasks. She realised that embracing her submission had consequences for her daily life. Her work was suffering. She was neglecting her friends. The sexual energy she chose to expend on me left little for her husband. The growing deceit was hard to maintain. The time she set aside for creative thought was now taken up with erotic reverie. Household tasks were being left undone. She had been taken over so completely by her submission.

So before she fell back into that safe space of submission - she reasserted herself and asked for release.

I think she did right.

I had written for her some overriding instructions. In summary these said that she should look after herself physically, emotionally and psychologically. She should do nothing to harm herself in these ways or to damage her relationships with family or friends or her standing in the community or at work.

But her very submission to me was in conflict with these overriding instructions.

So in a way - asking for release was carrying out my instructions. There was a contradiction that in continuing to submit to me the consequence would be to break those instructions I had carefully put in place. I wanted her to grow through submission to me rather than be diminished. But for her it was having the opposite effect. So she did right and I am pleased she did so before real damage had been caused.

That does not stop a sadness we might both share for the loss of what might have been.

I hope though that we have both learned from this.

I wish her well and every happiness.

being teased

I think all my subs seem to have teased me - and that continues to this day!

I rather enjoy it. I think some Doms can take themselves far too seriously. I feel it shows self confidence in my position as Dom - but others may feel that being teased by their sub undermines the nature of their relationship.

Perhaps some would say I am not taking it seriously enough.

Valentine Greetings

I would like to wish a happy Valentine's Day to all my readers.

I hope you get to celebrate it in wickedly salacious and erotic ways ...

;)

topping from the bottom

This phrase is often used to describe a situation where a sub uses her wiles to get her own way, perhaps sometimes in a manipulative manner. It tends to be regarded as very bad form - and implies a weakness in the Dom.

I am wanting to suggest that it may sometimes be no bad thing - and if communications are good should never be necessary.

I once talked with a sub who felt that tears could be used in a manipulative way to reduce a punishment and was critical of it as "topping from the bottom". However she was happy to talk of how she would leave a longer time in counting the strokes in a caning to indicate the effect of each stroke to her Dom. Was that communicating or was she too topping from the bottom?

Yes the dynamic is of course all about the sub being controlled, of the Master's wishes being all important. But surely in a good, trusting and respectful D/s relationship the Dom has a duty and responsibility to try to meet the needs and desires of his sub. Surely that is part of the agreement. His sub has given herself to him - but in the expectation that doing so will also meet her needs. Is finding a way of communicating her needs to be dismissed as topping from the bottom?

If she is reduced to trying to manipulate a scene - or even fundamentals of the relationship ... then couldn't that imply that quality communication has broken down?

pain

Lady Alpha wrote in a comment to an earlier post that,
"... pain is generally perceived by the population to mean something that should be avoided. Even coupling the word 'exquisite' with 'pain' doesn't seem to get the message across: pain is extreme sensation, and is not necessarily bad or best avoided."

I do not like feeling pain. I am quite a wimp really! So I am full of admiration for subs who undergo pain as part of a scene. I would not normally deliberately cause anyone pain. But within a D/s dynamic, within a BDSM encounter pain can be an essential and fulfilling part. I have had a sub request more pain from me - more strokes - harder. She needed that within the context of the encounter to fulfil her desires and needs.

It can be interesting to investigate sensations - to try to find the point where a pleasurable sensation turns to discomfort and where discomfort turns to pain. It can be fascinating to investigate where pain can be pleasurable and where pleasure can be painful.

The endorphins created by pain can give great pleasure - it is similar to athletes pushing themselves in a painful way and getting an endorphin rush that helps them to extreme performance. Many subs like to push themselves in the same way, helped by the same endorphin rush.

Within a D/s relationship pain can also be part of the establishment of a relationship of control - the administering and receipt of, say, a spanking establishes the whole nature of the relationship.

For some spanking or being spanked can be the totality of the BDSM and D/s aspect of the relationship. They just like spanking!

I have only touched the surface here I am sure - and there may be many subs who enjoy spanking or more extreme pain in a D/s relationship who may be able to explain much better.

It is also the responsibility of a Dom to ensure that the context of the administration of pain is such as to enable the sub to gain satisfaction, fulfilment - and yes even pleasure - from the scene.

As Lady Alpha says, pain is extreme sensation. Perhaps rather than just not necessarily being avoided - there may be circumstances where it is to be embraced.

the eroticism of power

I wrote last of the erotic power of submission. Of how submission to me was powerful. How it could arouse me in a very strong physical sense. Some subs wrote that the act of submission had the same effect on them - that there was an eroticism in the relationship.

There is a flip side to this though that does not feel to me so positive.

I am not aroused by my own power - or I think not - I am aroused by the woman's submission to me. But is this not the same? That would worry me though.

Power too has a strong erotic force. Many women are attracted by power. Would Monica Lewinsky have been drawn to service Bill if he had just been a bloke she met in a bar? There are numerous examples in British politics of senior politicians of a certain age and without obvious physical attractions having affairs with beautiful younger women. Presumably these women are attracted by the power of the men. It arouses them in the same way that submission arouses me.

This may be the case also with the legion of examples of older businessmen having young, beautiful, "trophy" wives. There is sometimes an assumption that they have been attracted by their husbands money. But could it be their power that attracts them?

This is often abused by men in powerful positions. They know the effect of their power and influence. They could perhaps be helpful in ensuring promotion if only ...

So women may provide favours and may even occasionally receive preferment as a result. So unscrupulous men abuse their power because some women make use of it.

I have been in senior positions with power over the preferment of female staff. I have never misused that position in this way and have never been tempted to. However I know of one example of a senior colleague who had a reputation for appointing pretty women and having affairs with them. This was despised by male and female colleagues but he seemed to get away with this abuse of power.

There is also the point that in analysis of rapes that the perpetrators do not do it for sex - but to exert their power over a woman.

So whilst power may be an attractive quality in a Dom, one that is desirable to his sub ... there are aspects of use of this power with which, even as a Dom, I find very uncomfortable.

The erotic power of submission

I wonder if many submissives understand the power they wield by the very act of their submission. It is an erotic power.

It has happened to me often when reading an email. Typically an email that has no salacious content, nothing especially expressing submission - but from a woman who I know submits to my will. I have become aroused. Hard with desire. Just from the knowledge of her submission to me.

This is not the power of one particular woman. It has happened to me innumerable times with more than one woman who has given me the privilege of being her Master.

ideas and posts ...

I've got lots of ideas for new post - honest I have. It is just trying to find the time to write them that is hard.

So in the meantime pop in and see my friend lili.

She has started posting again. So catch her while you can. She could also do with a few hugs at the moment. Send her my love.

More tears

Thank you again for all those who commented on the first tears post. This is such a personal area and it was good to begin to understand different perspectives.

Selkie also published a post about tears. You can read it here. In it she explains how for some women it can feel to be a weakness to cry and why many strive to avoid tears in certain situations.

I remembered too a discussion with a sub a long time ago - where she felt that some subs in a difficult scene might use tears as a kind of "topping from the bottom" to try to control the scene and the level of intensity. She was somewhat critical of this. Though I will talk in another post about topping from the bottom.

Tears certainly can be used by some women to manipulate some men. I guess this is done in a conscious way by some women but in others might just be learned behaviour - that tears help them to get what they want. Whilst I am very moved by tears and want to console and help a person in distress I have personally never felt manipulated by them. (Well there is one person but that is a very long story!)

I was once a senior manager in charge of a medium sized organisation. My deputy at one time was very firm and appeared quite hard to staff. But with me when we were discussing difficult issues she often came to tears. We had a professional relationship and we would get past that. It never affected our decision making. I was worried though about her ability to take over if I was to leave because of this propensity. However she eventually took over quite successfully and presumably found another outlet for her emotional frustration. Or perhaps when I left she didn't have the same frustrations that drove her to tears! There was many other times with staff where there were tears but I cannot recollect ever feeling manipulated by them or changing a decision because of them. Am I so very hard!?

I know some strong women too can be angry and frustrated when they see other women using tears manipulatively as a means of getting their way rather than through more appropriate ways.

my tears

I shed a tear today. I was watching the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.

I hope he may turn into a great man. The world needs one just now.