Jealousy, Part Four

Jealousy is complicated not only by confusing feelings but also by the impetus to behave in ways unnatural to our own core, golden, untouchable self.  Jealousy (the feeling) is complicated by jealousy (the behaviour).  Often, people do not even examine or admit their jealousy (feeling) but, rather, demonstrate jealousy (behaviour) that they believe to be perfectly natural behaviour such as baking a cake (a little too angrily) or shutting a door (so loudly that the windows shatter).  The jealous man who becomes a little more violent towards the woman he cares for (because it's easy to take out his anger on her; she loves him and she won't fight back) is a classic example, one that was taken for granted back in the North American 20th Century.  (In fact, watching any movies from the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s will demonstrate how women slap men's faces in petulance just as often as men slap women down to the floor in a jealous rage... And there was a time when a man's slap on the face of another man signalled a duel to the death.  Obviously, people solve problems by hitting when the maturation process is stalled).

But what about the jealous woman who does not hit the man she loves?  She feels her jealousy rising: she knows that a woman from his past has resurfaced.  She knows that, in their former relationship, that other woman had no limits to her experimentation process.  She knows that the woman's no-limit ideas about experimentation really turned him on, at the time.  She knows that, being an open-minded man that he is, he might entertain the idea of dining with that woman while she's in town, just to catch up.  She doesn't like that possible scenario, and so she feels like bringing his attention back home.  She puts herself into unfamiliar situations in order to traverse the landscape of the human heart over to where he exists.  She puts herself into unrealistic situations in order to prove that she, too, can experiment.  She puts herself at risk, therefore, straying far from her normal boundaries and behaviour.  She puts herself at risk for his sake, for the sake of keeping him away from the adventurous woman.  It is jealous behaviour.  It is behaviour that arises out of the anxiety over losing him (a fictional worry, of course, since in this case he has no intention of leaving).  It is jealous behaviour arising from jealous motivation.  And it puts herself at risk.

If this woman believes that the Dom she courts still has feelings for an ex-lover, she might find herself involved in a (self-positioned) contest with this invisible ideal -- an ideal that she feels she needs to exceed in order to win his full attention.  "To be as good as, or better than, the other woman," goes the contest.  It's flattering to the Dom to have a girl who tries so hard, obviously.  More to the point, if the Dom can put his ego to one side, it's dangerous if the girl's motivation is not clear.  And, if her motivation isn't clear, and if she's doing something to compromise her safety, then that means her sanity is in question.  She's not behaving like a submissive; she's behaving like a reactionary jealous woman.   And if she's not behaving like a submissive but, rather, a reactionary jealous woman, then can her Dom fully believe in her submission at all?  Or can she, herself?   The reverse also: can a jealous Dom be trusted in his domination if he makes decisions based on jealousy?  Can either Dom or sub conduct a sane relationship without talking about this?

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In other news, I want to call attention to a blog I have just discovered.  Conor's Corner is the name of it, and it is such a pleasure to read.  I enjoy it frequently, the common-sense approach and the great care with explaining ideas that, often, people just take for granted.  This will be another standard entry in my reading list.