The (New and Improved) Loving Dominant (6 page)

Because of the range, there is a great deal of diversity among the so-called real dominants. As trust develops, so does the relationship. For some involved in BDSM activities, it is sufficient to have these times set aside for scenes, but for others the trust building helps to develop the relationship outside of the BDSM activities. There is a continuum within this level with functional scenes at one end and real relationships at the other.

In the third level, called transparency, the partners know each other well, and trust for personal safety is well established. Safewords are still operative, but they are not as necessary because the dominant has a sharper awareness of the submissive’s limits. Paramount in this level is excellent communication and a willingness for each to trust the other with what is truly within their hearts and souls.

In this level, one begins to establish emotional trust, a kind of, “I trust my body, safety and pleasure to you. Now, may I also trust you with my emotions, hopes and other desires?” It is here, with the passion-desires of the maiden having been met, the fully realized woman, incarnated as goddess, begins to hope and believe her relationship-desires and drive to be special or chosen can be met. Many BDSMers move into this level, but it takes ongoing work to maintain transparent trust.

The experience of submission

Well, what is it like to step across that threshold from fantasy into clarity? I’ve had BDSM or S&M or B&D fantasies as far back as I can remember. As I came to realize these sexual fantasies, I was a bit ill at ease, thinking I was a masochist. None of the terms to describe what I felt seemed to capture what seemed to me to be very natural, exciting and compelling.

I feared enacting my fantasies for several reasons: that I would not be safe doing so, that I would verify that I was a pervert, and that reality would not be as good as fantasy. I believed that somehow I would be able to negotiate safety and be able to deal with the pervert label if I acted on this desire, but I was very reluctant to give up exciting sexual energy that I derived from the fantasy.

After a while, I knew that I would have to at least have to find out. It actually took more courage to get over being a BDSM virgin than to lose my virginity in the first place. Behind the mask of a computer bulletin board, I felt safe enough to talk about it. I stalked my lover on a national family-oriented bulletin board after I found out he had BDSM interests and experience. I had long thought about answering BDSM or B&D personal advertisements, but an image of a snickering and licentious sadist always prevented me.

This computer bulletin board stalking did allow me to discover things about him outside his BDSM interest which made him seem like a reasonable risk to me. After stalking for a while, I wrote him a private email that said, simply, I shared his interests. He wrote back, and a week later I was on my way to visit him in NYC.

We met on leap-year day. To me this was symbolic of taking a leap into this new and wonderful world. In that twenty-four hours, we did several scenes, went to The Vault where, in spite of my reservations, I did my first public scene. In this first encounter, I felt that the innocence of the virgin and the wisdom of the crone were operative, but the passion of the maiden had not really been released.

For me, reality was much better than fantasy. The world of BDSM is replete with contrasts and polarity, but when I first entered this stage of clarity, I was quite surprised to feel an ambivalence when I reentered my vanilla routine.

When I awoke the first morning back at home, I felt ambivalent about proceeding any further, despite a wonderful rest caused by having had my body sensually satisfied to the point of exhaustion. I wanted to run right back and do it all over again, but I kept asking myself if I wasn’t I was dragging my body somewhere my mind was not yet prepared to go. I realized that, in giving BDSM a try, I had been trusting myself and my perceptions about the situation. However, to go any further, I would have to trust my mentor, and this scared the living daylights out of me. I had tapped into my own passion, the lioness within me had roared, and she would not again be silent. The maiden was about to be liberated.

Losing control is a common fear in the trust-building stage of clarity. One submissive who was playing in the fantasy stage asked me how I could give my mind over to someone. My response was that, in the process of submission, my mind does drift off, and it can drift off quite a bit, but this happens in a most pleasant way.

Initially, fear can make it seem like a battle of wills, but as fear is replaced with trust the battle becomes a dance. Often, when someone dances with another person for the first time, they find themselves stepping on each other’s feet. Eventually, as each becomes used to the other’s style, they begin to move as one. If one listens to the music with the heart and responds with the will it is truly a brand new and exciting dance.

Physically, submission is hard to describe to one who does not have submissive tendencies burning within the soul. I had, long ago, accepted that I must be a masochist. This was not a very pleasant thought, but it was the only term I could find anywhere that described my taste for pain. I knew that I did not like being hurt. In fact, I am a wimp when it comes to what I call real pain, but I and many other submissives can only describe the joy of a whipping or a spanking as increased intensity. The language is truly impoverished in trying to describe the physical feeling.

Because there is clearly a sexual component, and most people recognize the nebulous word “turn-on,” perhaps, I should just say that I am turned on by acting on my submissive urges and feeling the physical aspects of submission, such as bondage, whipping, spanking, waxing or needle piercings.

I have always been a spanking enthusiast. It still elicits the strongest sexual response in me. When I am spanked, my vaginal juices flow like a fountain, and sexual tension builds in my clitoris into a tidal wave force that longs to be relieved by an enormous orgasm. Whipping has the added smell and feel of leather, the caress and sting of the leather providing contrast in sensation and in emotion.

Bondage was not initially a primary turn-on for me. I asked some of my submissive friends why bondage is such a turn-on, and typically, the answer was that it made them feel secure or allowed them to be sexual. As I have grown to trust my dominant partner, I have become more willing to be rendered helpless before being disciplined. The symbolic, consensual helplessness heightens the physical response and amplifies the pre-orgasmic sexual tension.

Waxing is something that I had never heard of before becoming involved in BDSM, but I really love the sensation. First, I experience anticipation as I see the wax from the burning candle building up into a small hot puddle. The wax splashing on the skin is somewhat like a hot rain drop, but as it quickly cools, it feels like a point of massage oil. There seems to be a direct line connected to the clitoris, making the sexual response even more intense.

These are just a few examples of how I experience submission physically. To those who still feel you have to ask, “Why do you enjoy pain?” The answer is, I have the strongest and best multiple orgasms this way.

Integrating spirituality and ritual

Looking at the stage of transparency takes me into the arena of deep trust. For many it has a spiritual component. I am called to the reality of BDSM from within what I understand to be my soul. All of my religious upbringing and the faith development that took place in adult life led me to accept this truth.

I can no more deny this call than the Biblical prophets could deny their call. I have seen this in others as well, others who risk more in the way of heart and home than I do by answering the impulse within.

The word soul represents an individual’s ideas, feelings, hopes, fears and desires. Everything that shapes us, surrounds us or in any way influences us rests within this soul. When one senses the stirring within one’s soul it is nearly impossible to not heed impulses, whatever they may be. For me, the most satisfactory image of soul comes from the ancient Greeks, who viewed the different aspects of the soul with different deities. Psyche, the spirit, was married to Eros, the body. To me, this is why the call is so strong, It is a call to be whole, to be integrated and happy within.

It often comes up that there is a strong similarity between religious experience and BDSM experience. I have been asked, “Do the submissive’s feelings in a BDSM relationship compare to other control/ surrender situations?” For me, it is more than a similarity. BDSM is part of my spiritual journey. I would call it a faith experience rather than religious. Anyone who experiences the joy of new-found faith is often willing to give up control to God. In mature faith, however, one finds that God speaks to one’s heart through the community and through the aching and longings within the heart.

To listen to the spirit that calls beyond what you are takes courage. You know it is a right move spiritually when you feel peace about the decision, and the move is affirmed by the community. Often in new faith and in new BDSM experience people think that they are giving themselves totally. In both cases, preconceptions and “the way it ought to be” mentality are cast aside in order to make room for new fulfillment. But, in neither case, do people abandon who they are at the core of their existence. Instead, they often find that they become more true to themselves.

Rituals within the BDSM scene may seem like a very strange concept, but they can’t be discounted. Patriarchal religions have long attempted to separate the holy from the body – especially from the sexual aspects of the body. Yet, if there is one way the almighty could be sure that we would go forth and multiply, it is by a marvelous gift of sexual drive.

I associate the act of submission with ritual. Many of the toys we use in BDSM play are phallic symbols: knives, sticks, candles and needles. The vaginal symbols are more subtle, bowls, water or other liquids that flow such as melted wax. During a scene, beyond the enjoyment of the participants, there is a symbolic reality expressed that says sexuality is part of who and what we are.

My Catholic background makes me think of a BDSM scene as similar to a liturgy, where the actions or props are symbolic of a spiritual truth. For me, the spiritual truth in BDSM is that we are greater together than alone. The polarity of our BDSM roles symbolize the uniqueness of individuals, and we approach the divine by the ecstasy of the scene being acted out.

I often play out in my mind a scene where I symbolically give my gift of submission. It starts with two of us walking to the center of the scene or ritual space. My outer clothing is vanilla, and I have on a priest-like stole, a symbol of authority and power, that is rainbow-colored. This shows that we start out as equals. Pacabel’s Canon begins softly and slowly grows louder. As the music becomes manifest, I kneel down, bow and then take the stole and remove it from myself and place it on my lover.

He motions me to take off my vanilla outer clothing, and I do. As a symbol of a willingness to become vulnerable, he puts cuffs on me, a symbol that I trust being helpless before him. Here, I would feel the fire. It might be real fire on skin or my skin reddened and warmed by the whip, symbolic of passion. Pachelbel’s Canon finishes, and Weber’s Music of the Night begins. This music by itself is symbolic of spiritual journey as it talks of letting fantasies unwind and letting the darker side give in. At this point, there is a waxing, symbolizing fire and light. The fire in the candle is symbolic of the fire in the soul, and the image of light coming into darkness is replete with symbolism.

As the music crescendos, the lyrics ring out, “You alone can make my soul take flight. Help me make the music of the night.” We embrace and caress. This, to me, is symbolic of reaching heights in a journey that one could not reach alone. As the music dies down, we move apart. He takes off the stole and holds it out in front of him, draped over his hands. He bows. I return the bow, and, while my head is still submissively bent, he replaces the stole around me as a symbol of power returned. We again embrace and kiss as equals.

While this BDSM ritual is in many ways reminiscent of liturgical dance, it does fit my own fantasies of being exposed and becoming known deeply and intimately by another so it is still a personal expression. When I think of a private scene, it seems like private prayer and as such is open to multitude of diverse expression.

Submission as personal growth

Being a submissive woman has taken me on a journey that has challenged my preconceived ideas, and it has forced me into values clarification. The life force or spirit within me has been strengthened, and continue to be guided by the spirit of Goddess/ God in every step of the journey. I have gone beyond pain and pleasure into a world of selfdiscovery, personal fulfillment and community outreach. I have discovered a side of me that is curious about my previously repressed bisexual nature and a receptivity to open relationships.

At times, I have felt like Abraham in the Old Testament when he was asked to give back to God his son, who was to be the instrument of God’s promise. How could I give up the values of my youth or the hard-won advances of the feminists who have gone before me? Listening to that small voice within, I have been abundantly blessed, like Abraham was, when I trusted the spirit within rather than conventional wisdom. At other times, I’ve felt like I was an unwilling prophet like Noah or Paul. It has seemed that I have been compelled to be a prophet of a new sensuality as they were called to spread the word of God. My early faith development and refinement, even though it was in a very patriarchal religion, has taught me to live through questions. Being submissive may have put chains on my body, but it has removed my soul from bondage.

A Feast of Joy…A Dish of Pain

One of the things that makes discussing BDSM so difficult is the word pain. Submissives don’t necessarily seek pain, even though many enjoy many forms of pain as part of the play. What many of us do would seem to be painful, but most dictionary definitions of pain include phrases like, “leading to evasive actions” or “which are avoided.” Yet, these stimuli, far from being avoided, are sought. Therefore, BDSM actions cannot be pain. Or, can they?