A Note On Terminology and Gender
FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS BOOK, THE WORD “SUBMISSIVE” will be used to include anyone who identifies as a submissive person, even if that person’s primary identification is bottom or slave. As with anything else, take only what you like and leave the rest. Not everything here will apply to you or your dominant. And it must be said that while I would love to claim that the content of these pages will apply equally to male and female submissives, in good conscience, I cannot. Much of what is to come is based on my experiences as a female submissive, and has been approved by many female submissives of my acquaintance - but there has been little opportunity for me, the author, to gather data about how the concepts outlined in this book differ for male submissives. So, if you are a male submissive, or if you own one, I would very much like to hear from you regarding your thoughts about the pages to come. You can write to me at [email protected].
hidden in shadow
the heart longs for the freedom
found only in chains
ONE
Terms of Endearment
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be. - Hubert H. Humphrey
BOTTOM, SUBMISSIVE, SLAVE. THIS IS NOT A HIERARCHY, in order from least to most, or worst to best, or easiest to hardest. These identifications are simply what I define as a difference in motivation. It’s important to note here that every person will have his/ her own definitions of these terms, based on personal experience and observation. Some even consider them to be interchangeable; however, most people who use to these titles have very firm opinions on what, exactly, they mean, and many feel that they are drastically different.
I define a bottom as someone who likes to be on the receiving end of sensation play ranging from feathers to single-tails, teasing pleasure to searing pain, but has no real desire to serve. In other words, a bottom, to me, is someone who likes the way that BDSM feels physically. She may have a steady play partner or may play with many people. She does not live the lifestyle 24/7, and probably doesn’t have a collar or contract. Scenes are usually negotiated individually, and she retains safewords. Even if she is submissive during scenes, it is a method of play and not the way she typically lives her daily life. Some bottoms prefer to simply be called masochists, but not all bottoms like pain, so it isn’t always safe to assume that all bottoms are masochistic.
A submissive is one who may, or may not, like to bottom from time to time, and who feels a need to serve and obey, while at the same time retaining some rights within her chosen relationship. Many (but not all) submissives view their submission as a gift, which they give to a dominant, in return for the gift of dominance. (More on that later.) She may be in a service-related career field, or serve as a volunteer, or be a stay-home wife/mother. Many submissives retain safewords that will stop a scene in its tracks, and so always retain at least a small level of control. Typically, there are also negotiations before the relationship commences formally (collaring) which clearly state the submissive’s and dominant’s rights and obligations within the relationship, and very often these negotiations are noted in a contract. These contracts are not legally binding, but offer peace of mind to the people involved.
A slave is one who wants to serve completely. She wants to give up anything asked of her, in order to continue serving. The need to serve is often apparent in her life in other ways such as career choices and/or family dynamics She is not complete unless she is serving someone, somehow. However, her highest service is reserved in her heart for a dominant who is strong enough and right enough to master her. The slave typically wants to retain no control in the relationship whatsoever, and very often expects only that her basic needs of food, shelter and safety will be met. All else is granted by the grace of a master, or earned through good behavior. There are some slaves who consider themselves so very owned that even these three basic needs are not seen as rights, and are never guaranteed to be met. If a slave has a safeword, it’s often reserved for medical/emotional emergency (terrible cramp or impending panic attack) and not because “I can’t bear another stroke of that cane!”
If the slave does safeword, it is usually no guarantee of stopping the scene, only that the master will evaluate the situation and use his judgment as to whether or not to continue. This is of course, why finding a compatible master is so important. After all, the situation I have just described (emergency use of safeword) is not the time to have a serious mismatch in judgment. There is often no negotiation in M/S, because the slave is not permitted personal limits, or rights, and therefore no contract to protect those things is necessary. However, contracts are often still used in this type of relationship, for the psychological benefits that they provide to the parties involved.
To me, they are all equal, in terms of status, and they differ only in their motivations. Being a slave is no better than being a bottom, and being a submissive doesn’t mean you’re wishy-washy and can’t commit to full slavery. What is most important is that each person is happy in her chosen role. It’s also important to note that these are the opinions and observations of just one person. Each and every person in the lifestyle has an opinion on this matter, and most of them are different. For every so-called rule within our lifestyle, there are countless exceptions. Only you get to decide how you identify within the lifestyle. If you think of yourself as a slave, but more closely match my definition of a submissive, so what? We each get to decide who we are and it isn’t necessary that everyone agree with you. Keep in mind that they don’t have to fit your definitions any more than you have to meet theirs. Meet your own… there is power in that.
TWO
And This One Time, at Pancake Camp…
We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people’s models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open. - Shakti Gawain
I KNOW IT’S A WEIRD CHAPTER TITLE, BUT TRY TO stay with me here while I explain.
Quite some time ago, I was struggling with my identification within the lifestyle. “Terms of Endearment” (Chapter One) covers the basic terms, but at the time I was going through this struggle, I felt all of them were narrow and constraining. I knew I wasn’t a “bottom,” “submissive” didn’t feel like it said enough about who I really was, and “slave” felt like it said things that weren’t true at the time. Master and I were out to breakfast one spring morning. I was talking about these feelings and finally, in frustration, I said I wasn’t ascribing to any of our cultural titles anymore… henceforth, I would be known as a pancake.
I could just as easily have chosen some nonsense word, but pancakes were on Master’s plate at the time, while I had ordered crepes. He looked down at them, then back at me and asked, “Why a pancake?”
My reply: “Because you chose pancakes! Because you obviously like pancakes! Pancakes are simple, honest things, not all high-maintenance like, say, crepes. I want to be something you would order!”
Afterwards, I let it be known to all that I didn’t want to be referred to with those “s” words - submissive, slave (though slut was still allowed) - and I made no secret of the reason why. Interestingly, it seemed to become a short-lived local phenomenon and, for a while, I wasn’t the only breakfast food running around the local community. And sure enough, there were times I was introduced as “… and this is_____'s pancake,” while the speaker grinned. But what really struck a chord in me was how many others felt the classic words used to describe us (submissive; slave) don’t really describe who we are, how we feel, or how our submission works for (and within) us.
Of course, the whole pancake thing was fairly short-lived, but during that time, it was an excellent conversation-starter. I talked to submissives who were having great fun with the idea, and I also talked to both dominants and submissives who didn’t quite “get” why
I was a pancake in the first place. Those conversations and explanations were a necessary part of my personal journey because, by the time autumn rolled around that year, I felt I had arrived at a place of peace about the words we use to describe ourselves. I no longer felt the need to be a pancake.
What stayed with me, though, is the knowledge that the underlying issue is a valid one. Long ago, in a land far, far away, I thought there were two sub-types (and that’s it for puns in this chapter, I promise) of submissives… bedroom submissives and service submissives. The former, I thought, were those who wanted to submit in the bedroom for fun, either only during sex, or as a form of role-playing sex game, or both. The latter were those who wanted, at least to some degree, an element of D/S within the entire relationship so she could express her submission through service. As I grew within the lifestyle and became more experienced and educated about it, these narrow ideas began to feel like a suit of clothes grown too small. The pancake philosophy allowed me, for a time, to step out of those too-small clothes and explore other options of self-identification.
What I realized was that my education to that point had been very (I hate to say it) narrow-minded. Most things I read described submissives in a way that reinforced the two-category idea - either sexual or service-based submission. To make matters worse, when the issue came up at all in conversation, most submissives seemed content to describe themselves as service-oriented, as a method of separating themselves from those strictly bedroom submissives. The term “service-oriented submissive” is used with wild abandon within the lifestyle, and when you stop to look at it, the meaning is pretty straightforward: submissives who focus primarily on “service.” In this case, I’m specifically talking about acts of service which are offered up freely, without the dominant asking for them… or acts of service he requests once that submissives continue to provide, without being commanded each time. Examples of this include refilling his empty glass before he requests it, or always sweetening his coffee to his liking, even though he’s only ever asked you to do it once.
While my time as a pancake helped me understand I am not a service-oriented submissive, the question then became, “What am I?” I’m one of those girls who will happily serve, and feel fulfilled doing so, if the service is requested, required, or compelled in some way by the master. There are even times when I feel so overcome with submissive feeling, I simply serve as an expression of that. I don’t serve in order to feel submissive, I serve because I already do feel submissive, though those times are rare. But obedience… now that’s where I get my real jollies. When I’m doing something because I’m told to, it’s delicious. Particularly if I know there are consequences for disobedience … the very idea of it is spine-tingling. I know that for me, the appeal of obedience is based in two external things: his attention, and his total acceptance. When he gives me an order, the attention he shows reinforces my feelings of being owned - as if he’s saying, “You are mine.” This makes me feel completely accepted, because it is a statement of who I really am, and there is no greater way to accept something than to take ownership of it.
Discovering this about myself was intensely liberating. I realized it’s okay for me to feel how I feel, and to want what I want, and just because I’d never heard the term “obedience-oriented” submissive didn’t mean we weren’t out there! I realized I didn’t have to shave my heel to fit a beautiful slipper two sizes too small, just to catch (or keep) a prince… err, I mean master.
Service is certainly a part of submission and so, most of us will agree, is obedience. Most people fall comfortably in the middle, where each is an aspect of her own personal viewpoint of submission. But there are those who fall closer to one endpoint than to the center mark. Not every submissive is a service submissive. There are submissives who don’t really get a charge out of performing acts of service unless they have been requested or ordered, because then, it’s really about obedience. And there are submissives who would prefer to volunteer their skills, rather than having demands made on them, because for them it’s about being “of service.” There’s plenty of overlap, of course, because most submissives want some of both within their D/S, and feel most fulfilled when a balance between the two is found.
The point is: there is a difference between service and obedience. In the lifestyle, it seems service gets all the press, whether it’s domestic, sexual, or some other type. Service seems to be one of the most talked-about aspects of submission, and when obedience is mentioned at all, it’s usually an afterthought. Perhaps it’s thought that obedience is so inherent in submission that it doesn’t really warrant talking about, but I disagree. For those of us who fall closer to one end of the service-obedience spectrum or the other, it is an essential aspect of our personal views and goals for our own submission, and that cannot be disregarded.
So go ahead! Call yourself a pancake, or a jiknurf (okay, now I’m just making things up), or obedience-oriented if that’s what you are. These words we use are not just categories or labels… they are descriptions. And if you don’t feel that one actually describes you, you are under no obligation to take it on and make it a part of you. Leave your heel alone and find a shoe that fits, if you want to wear shoes at all. Personally, I think there’s a lot to be said for going barefoot.
THREE
Nature or Nurture: The Great Debate
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them. - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
NOTE: AS MY OWN NATURE AND NURTURE ARE THE ONLY ONES with which I am intimately familiar, this topic will be addressed from that very personal point of view. Though the phrase “nature or nurture” is in common usage, I want to take a moment to define the terms as they apply here. “Nature” is considered to be the raw material of a person, and also to define the boundaries for that person’s development. “Nurture” is the combination of external elements in the environment, which act upon the nature of a person to influence development.
One discussion I have participated in many times is whether a submissive is born or made. Nature or nurture? Like all other aspects of that particular debate, it is one that can never really be answered, short of doing horrible experiments on tiny children. I’ve been asked countless times, in countless ways, when the first time was that I knew I was a submissive. As if there were some defining moment, some epiphany or realization whereupon I suddenly sat up and exclaimed, “Eureka!”
Perhaps it works that way for some people, but not for me. I knew from a young age that I was different. Children, though, can be cruel, and are not terribly tolerant of differences in others, so I learned early on to hide my differences and to act as if I were just like everyone else. For the most part, I did a very admirable job of that. I became an observer, a “people watcher,” so that I could model my behavior to closely match the behavior of “normal” people. I watched television and movies and I read literally everything I could get my hands on, all in the name of research: I was researching how to be a “normal” person.
I was raised largely by my grandmother for most of my early life, though I spent short stints with my mother. One of my mother’s friends had a daughter a few years older than I who would often baby-sit me when I was six or so. This girl used to spank me when no one knew about it. I would act up just to get her to do it. She would often even spank my bare bottom. She was probably no older than ten or eleven, but she seemed grown-up to me. When I lived with my grandmother, and the neighboring girls and I would play house, I would always be the child and I’d behave terribly until spankings were administered.
I didn’t fully understand during these tender years why I often felt as I did when I was spanked by someone who was a peer (or at least close enough to my own age not to count as an actual adult). It felt naughty, forbidden, exciting and thrilling. Some of the thrill no doubt came from the illicit nature of the act. Children spanking other children would almost certainly have been frowned upon had any of our parents known about it, and insti
nctively, we all knew that and held the secret as sacred, as children do. Spankings from adults were never a positive experience in any sense, though, and to be honest, I still don’t quite understand that. Perhaps more odd still, now that I am an adult myself, I dislike being spanked and cannot tolerate being hauled over anyone’s knee for any reason. I don’t remember any particular event that spoiled my fun, but I often wish that I knew the reason for my adult reticence, since I would like to recapture the innocent thrill of my childhood spankings.
When I was eight, I also read a book called (if memory serves) Chained, Whipped Librarians. It was a small paperback full of complete smut. I found it while exploring in my grandfather’s closet, and read it furtively, instinctively knowing that not only was the content itself naughty, but it was Very Bad for me to be reading it, being female and so young. The plot was essentially about lesbian sex, straight sex, and group sex; along with bondage, whips and other BDSM elements. It fueled my prurient fantasies for years.
Sex wasn’t a foreign idea to me, at least not as much as it perhaps should have been. I understood far more than I let on, and I honestly have no recollection of how I came to have that understanding. I understood that sex consisted of naked people moving in the dark, but the whole penis/vagina part wouldn’t really make sense to me for a few more years. However, just because I didn’t know all the ins and outs (pun intended) didn’t mean that I was completely ignorant. I was sexually aware from a very young age.
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