Eyes to mine, butterfly

We discussed past pains, past lives, past futures and past things abandoned.  And, then, ceremony number two unfolded, unwrapping something that I was not expecting.  I should have expected it: there was a little sound of something delicate, the tinker bell flutter of metallic music hidden inside red velvet.  I heard it in my mind's ear but I did not process the implication until -- there -- I see the dainty pouch and the emptied contents.

My hands were bound behind me, a precaution that forbids me common expressions of worship.  I must be more inventive with my gratitude.

This is the balance: even though there is evidence everywhere of my submission, there have been days recently with nothing overtly to do with submission and dominance.  This is the balance: after so many days, formality and ceremony.  Balance, after such a stretch.  Counterbalance and harmony in two/two time.  A renewal.  A progression further.  A proof of love and a proof of devotion.

Balance.  Counterbalance.  Harmony.  And a little velvet pouch with delicate utensils, and the thinnest, sweetest chain barely there, and more powerful than a magic wand.

I watch as you clean the needle: you use fire to burn away the impurities, and you use alcohol to purify the steel.  Your swordsman-quick piercing of the skin, and it is done and I have no hands to cover my breasts, because my wrists are bound behind my head, my shift dangling from me like a black and gold flag, and it's too late and all finished anyway, like magic.  It is done and I gasped long after you finish.  I beg to be able to look and see for myself, because my eyes were locked on yours and unmoving.  "You will not close your eyes," you said to me, and I did not.  I looked at you the whole time.  "Eyes to mine, butterfly." And then I felt the needle pierce.  And then a second time.

You say:  "When you are naked, I will see this sunlight and it will remind me of your fire. When you are displayed, men will see this diamond and know my hands are upon your body already. And when you are not naked, you will feel me, ever with you, beneath your clothes."  

I'm allowed to do this, to feel this, to have this.  I'm allowed to experience this and balance this and cling to this.  I'm allowed to revel in this feeling and I am so grateful.  Two diamond suns pendant and gleaming, clasped with a fairy-light chain that makes the daintiest noise -- so dainty, almost invisible...  But I know it is locked there, and I feel it minute by minute.  I must be more inventive with my gratitude.

Lovely Blog, Lovely Ponies

If you have not yet read my friend Ara's blog, A slut's storyboard, you are missing out.  Her poetry is well-crafted and powerful.  Well-crafted and powerful enough to teach me a thing or two about this D/s lifestyle, in fact one thing in particular that nobody has yet been able to impart to me.  There is a pony phenomenon that  I have learned about in Second Life especially through the careful administrations of Sir RB upon his little pony girls (and I am not one such girl, but I have met such girls).  I could not understand the phenomenon.  Even as I read Anne Rice's Beauty trilogy, I still could not understand the nature of the pony-girl phenomenon; the relevance of the pony-girl phenomenon; the desire to be a part of the pony-girl phenomenon.  And there are very explicit and detailed fantasy pages devoted especially to this kink!  Anne Rice does not disappoint, if you are into that sort of thing.  But, for me... not to judge it, not to disparage it, and especially not to negate its validity, I simply could not empathize with that particular urge or appetite, and I was convinced I would never be able to.  (Sympathize, yes I can -- there are many kinks in the world, and the world takes all kinds of people to make it go around... Nobody's safe, sane and consensual kink is a freak-show, in my opinion. But empathize, I simply could not.  I just did not understand the impetus to prance.)

Until I read Ara's post! 

I get it now.  It is simply another way to demonstrate one's discipline.  It is simply another way to demonstrate one's fitness.  It is simply another way to demonstrate one's showmanship.  To display.  To perform.  To sweat in the service of someone in a private language shared only between you both.  It is an immediate transformation into the dreamscape of fantasy and the concretized need of the submissive to serve, and to serve with many body parts all at once.  There are many points of access now, as I consider it.  I do not wish to experiment, personally; however I do understand that, as a submissive, I share very VERY similar urges and appetites which I demonstrate in different areas of display.  We are not so very different in your kinks and mine, you pretty ponies of the world, only in our display of them.

I mention Ara's blog because, bless her, she nominated me for a "Lovely Blog" award.  There are rules to follow for this and I am afraid I do not have the ability to follow them at the moment.  I have wanted for a few days to recognize the nomination, though, and to link back to Ara's gorgeous and perfectly poetic blog.

I want to take you for granted

I sat back today and considered a few things.  There are words that we speak but people do not understand them.  Or, people put their own spin on them.  Or, people mis-hear them.  Or, people forget that we spoke them.  Or a hundred other ways that people may mis-communicate.  And it occurs to me that a solid relationship is not just about finding someone whose interests match, whose temper matches, whose sense of humour (or sense of the macabre!) matches.  It's also about finding someone who communicates in the same way -- and who understands communication in the same way.  I think about all the different ways a person can understand the term, "to take for granted" and I shudder at all the different ways such a phrase can turn sour.  "To take as granted," or "to feel as though it is simply granted, no waiting, no request," or "to take without asking," or "to assume based on a history of past decisions."  When I think about You, I imagine the sentence as the latter definition.  A history of past decisions, of past consistencies, of past agreements, of past affirmations, of past pleasures, of past anticipations, that history between us makes me take You for granted.  Makes You able to take me for granted.  Willingly.

Something in other news, related only by language:
I read today some passages about erotic humiliation.  No reason; I simply wished to see how the other half lives, I suppose.  It amused me to see, "Require permission to do anything" as listed in the erotic humiliation category.  And then I had to sit back and start considering a few things, which spawned this post.  "Derogatory words like slut and whore" and "use as a piece of furniture" are erotic humiliation just as is "requiring permission to do anything."  Then it exploded like a giant, fiery dawn at the break of day:  so many of the online BDSM attitudes in Second Life involve the erotic humiliation of submissives, whether they wish it or not.  Even beyond BDSM, the Gorean enslavement of women online is predicated upon this theory (i.e a Gorean slave is trained to ask permission for every minute thing, feel comfortable wearing the title "slut" and feel comfortable serving as furniture without the respect due humans-- a sexy enough fantasy with the right practitioners).  No wonder there is such confusion and lack of clarity in the world: people take it for granted that this one way is the established way, never question it or interrogate it or challenge it (because it goes against erotic humiliation for a submissive to exercise a challenge function) and the online community of BDSM continues to be full of libraries that propagate erotic humiliation of submissives -- whether the submissive wants it or not.  It was quite a eureka, this idea of what we take for granted.  What we want to take for granted.  What we do take for granted without even realizing it.  I'm not sure I need to ask permission for every single thing.  And, I'm not sure I need humiliating words like "slut" and "whore" to feel stimulated into arousal.  That's just me, though.  The "place him or her in a cage" part of erotic humiliation most definitely has a place in my vocabulary, under the right circumstances.  And, well, "naked in public" feeds more than a simple desire for display that I am, apparently, cultivating.

Re-mystifying Submission

I experienced something today that drove the point home entirely:  submission is in the mind.  It sounds phoney and insubstantial: but submission is in the mind.  I met a man and we traded a brief private conversation in the middle of a public gathering, and it was enlightening in ways I don't get to feel every day.  He wasn't trying to teach me anything either.  All he did was present me with a conundrum upon which to meditate.   I didn't even particularly understand the conundrum, to be honest.  I felt slightly foolish.  (Hooray for the hanged fool of the tarot!  Once again, I honour thee!)  I understood the picture that came with the conundrum... a bound woman, blindfolded, readied.  I understood the words of the conundrum: imagine a man who knows what to do with such a woman, and who will be unpredictable, and who will be in control, and who (being her dominant) has already established her safety and his sanity.  He's got into my mind and he's making me do things!  The fun isn't lost on me.

"To steepen the learning curve," he said to me, I would have to consider these things.  To consider theoretically, to imagine the conditions, to picture in my mind.  I'm sure all he wanted was for me to acclimatize myself to the possibility of "him", as it were.  It's a nice line.  It's a fun and romantic twist on the meeting of someone new.  "How about it, baby, you and me on a beach far away... picture the possibilities!"  A man could do worse for an opening gambit, especially if he's willing and able to deliver on the temptation.  But nevermind all that:  I have learned something extraordinary.  All of my imagining, all of my steepening, all of my considering, and all of my picturing have fulfilled in one afternoon what legions of men have been unable to accomplish in months of knowing me.  I have chastely, intelligently, experimentally experienced a perfect idea of submission -- a Platonically perfect idea of submission -- in my own mind.  The conundrum:  "How do I make this real?"  And the simple solution:  "It already is."

Self-Esteem from Clarity

I enjoy meditating upon the idea of clarity.  I clarify things that I say almost to the point of redundancy.  I know it annoys some; and others find it charming.  But I have been trained to say what I mean as part of my personal make-up and professional discipline.  It occurs to me lately that self-esteem is directly linked to one's ability to articulate one's universe.  If I can say precisely how I feel at any particular time, I can experience my own sense of worth.  Many factors influence "whether I can say precisely how I feel".   Who I'm speaking with; what I have to say; how important someone else believes it to be; how important I believe it to be; how difficult it is to say what I feel; how hurt someone else might be to hear it; how happy someone else might be to hear it.  So many variables.  "Courage of conviction," and "speaking truth to power," as well as "le mot juste" all travel with this idea.  The most important variable, I think, might be the ability to "know thyself."
Sometimes I hear people say, "I feel weird," when asked how they feel about something.  Weird isn't a feeling, really, so that is an inadequate statement to make about something so personal.  One's feelings are sacred: it increases self-esteem to be able to articulate them properly.  "I feel afraid," is a big, big deal to be able to say.  "I feel happy," equally important.  The most difficult of all, of course, is "I feel angry and it is because of this very specific reason."

It all rests, naturally, upon one's ability to be able to feel entitled to these feelings.  I think it's fair to say that feelings are fairly genuine: they come unbidden, they are irrational, they don't listen to reason when they first surface, they are the opposite and equal reaction to that which happens in the world.  Like it or not, feelings are an important barometer.   Sure, they are controllable, deniable, push-away-able if one tries very hard.  But the fact that they arise in the first place is a good indication of something to examine.  Even later, if it's easier with time.  I remember the first time I realized that I felt like I wasn't playing enough, playful enough, enjoying enough.  I felt incomplete, and I felt aroused in a way that could not be satisfied.  It made me feel anxious.  It made me feel even a little angry, which I could not justify at the time.  I had vague, unspecified yearnings, a very tiny inkling of what it would be that might soothe my imagination and buff the rough edges from my appetite.  Eventually the picture in my mind came into sharp focus after I was introduced to Shibari in Second Life.  It was a gorgeous fantasy.  It coloured every vague corner of my imagination and brought new life to my fantasy world.  It brought clarity to my thinking and to my feeling.  (I am perfectly convinced that it was the Master at the time, as much as the ropes, who is responsible for that extremely good reaction in me.  I have never tried it since, terrified of the results that might arise from someone less than him.)  Bondage done right gives me a fine-point perspective and perfect clarity.  Because of that fine point clarity, because of those emotions named and controlled by their naming, I feel free.........

Control, Part One

I have no doubt that "control"  will be one of the many topics that I introduce in my learning journal which will ultimately yield changing or deepening conviction as I progress.  Before I go there, however, I'd like to address a question I get asked almost every day.  "Where," they ask me, "do you shop?"  And I guess it is a consequence of being a very experienced Second Life resident (though my current avatar is relatively new) that I know some pretty great places to shop, because I make it a point to shop only at reputable, high-quality, fair-priced brands.  I don't buy things for 5L on the marketplace: they're probably scandalous in origin.  I earn the money I spend here, and I spend it on integrity-priced high-quality goods.  My look is Curio skin, preferably, and I wouldn't be me without it.  So, I'm posting fashion-blogger images today to deliberately call attention to the good art that makes me "me" and the good artists behind the scenes.  Without good art on the grid, we'd be a bunch of uggle-fuggles wandering chalk-drawing streets, duckwalky and herky-jerky gesturing.  And I don't put up with that in the real world, let alone in my ever-evolving fantasy world.  The fantasy would be just ruined!

Sometimes I wear Belleza skin, if the photography demands bolder eyes and blush.  The Asian features on both skins are so delicately and expertly handled.  Both brands showcase great artists.  I spend a lot of money in Second Life, and I like to know that I am spending money on not just great artists but also principled artists.  These artists (and other greats on the grid) are important to me:  Gala Phoenix, Tricky Boucher, Elika Tiramisu, and Cocoro Lemon, because their art is original and fun and sexy and good, good fantasy.   Here, then, is one of a dozen answers to the question of where I shop.  I would very much like to continue shopping at Gala Phoenix's Curio store, as would thousands of Second Life residents.  Gala's reputation in the world as an artist is formidable, a person of unique and special talent.

So, now, back to the idea of control.  I have been reading this excellent blog written by, clearly, a Master (and by "Master" I mean someone who has mastered the art of communication, someone experienced who can convey complicated ideas by breaking them down into digestible bits so that all the parts build upon each other and make perfect sense to people who are newly initiated, like me -- a Master whom I could look up to and learn from for a long time).  This blog treats ideas such as "control" and "self-esteem" and "the difference between submission and slavery" and "trust" and "goals" and "the bullcrap" (ha ha).  In other words, the man has taken great pains to a) empower the submissives and Doms who take the time to read; b) clear up a whole mess of misconceptions; c) make it perfectly clear that even though there are traditions in the lifestyle, ultimately how I live (and how You live, and how They live) will be a personal expression and fulfillment, not something prescribed and prefabricated.   And the idea of control weighs heavily upon me right now.  I know that when I submit, there will be limitations to the power that I surrender.  It won't be a total power exchange 24/7 -- it will not be slavery, in other words, consensual or otherwise.  There will be limits to what I am capable of offering (reluctant, but real).  And determining what, exactly, those limits are will be an excellent exercise that develops between me and my Future You.

What You will not control, I can say right now, is what I look like.  And I have the right to say so; and that simply means that, as we customize our fit together, You will be with me because You don't need to control my look and because I do not need someone to take control over my look.  I'm pretty good at dressing and grooming myself (in any world) and there is every reason to be confident in my ability to "show well" when we go about the grid having adventures.  Controlling HOW I submit is the idea, here.  The detail about how I dress and groom myself is incidental: the point is that there will be limitations on my submission, but they will be limitations that I place.  When I surrender control, it will not be appearance-based control that I beg from You.  I have that under control perfectly well and dandy.  When I surrender control, it will be emotion-control, sensation-control (things I'll delve into later, at long long length).  Bondage and restraint.  It is important to realize, especially for a new submissive, that HOW she submits and WHAT she submits, and to WHOM, and for HOW LONG, are conditions that she still controls as part of that safe, sane, consensual dynamic.  Submission isn't just "a thing," in other words: it is "a series of things."  When I submit, I submit often and regularly, little bits here and there, depending on the situation and timing.  I cede control over little things bit by bit and temporarily, while we get to know each other.  The Grand Whole Unifying Collared Submission happens when we have been together for a long time and we, together, have earned that blanket.  The blanket of submission!  The blanket that rests beside the throne of trust at the table of intimacy, under the balloons of faith and in the next room over from the hammock of aftercare.

One of the things that I want to call attention to as a key learning in the realm of control:   self-esteem.   I quote Dennis Nagjee:

When we discuss fear, it is crucial to remember that it can manifest itself in different ways.  ... Characteristics such as guilt, worry, anger, resentment and arrogance have their basis in fear. ...   The problem with fear is that, when experienced, it puts us instantly into a state where we are out of control. ... Those who are driven by fear do not feel like they are in control of anything. ...  They are not even handling their own emotions.  ...  A person with low self esteem is driven by fear. 

It means that I will be looking out for evidence of fear in the Dominants that I meet, as well as examining my own, and not making decisions based on fear to the extent that such is possible.  "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing," isn't that the maxim?  I resent the control that a fearful, hateful person has placed over me, making me unable to patronize an artist whom I adore.  I look forward to when control is re-established in the proper hands and I can once again enjoy new and better work from Gala Phoenix.  I applaud those who have come out openly in support of a great artist: no fear.

But what can I give?

"Explain her submission," the assignment begins.  This task is a special one, for me, on many levels.  The basic level:  my mentor gave me this assignment conspicuously close to a declaration I made, which means she can hear me and she understands my quiet terrors.  I understand submission in the general sense; my logical mind can parse a sentence and process the meaning of words.  But my gooey mind still suffered (at the time) from a destabilizing conversation I'd had with someone who kept asking me, philosophically, "Why?  Why submit?  Why dominate?  What's in it for me?  What's in it for you?"  (Let me emphasize, it was a philosophical discussion, not crisis or grief.)

Which was fine, at the beginning.  But afterwards, I began to wonder, myself.  Why?  And then, as is my wont, I doubted myself, my gifts, whatever it is I have to offer a Dominant when the time comes to offer to him.  Why would he want me?  What could I give?I begin as a plain girl.  I begin as a girl who dreams of something beyond what I have.  What I have is good; what I have is polished and fine in the real world.  But it is insufficient.  What I have means I can take care of the basic needs of survival in my life: it means I can feed and clothe myself, nurture myself, strengthen myself with experience and learning, discipline myself with chore and duty.  I have and know love.   I have these things.  I know these things.  I practice these things as a matter of regular, vanilla ritual and living.  I know who I am in real life.  I know where I'm going in real life.  I know where I've been in real life.  I'm even beginning to know what it is I want from my fantasies; what my needs are.  And how I can best express them.  I begin to transform; I begin to learn.

In my dreams I am more.  In my dreams, I see more; and I feel more.  I interrogate what I have always known as certainty until there are no more certainties, and it is destabilizing and thrilling and... insecure-making.  I used to believe that pain was to be feared, avoided.  Now, my skin itches to feel something rough against it.  Something sharp strike it.  Something virile push it.  In my dreams, there is a world of experience that I cannot begin to imagine without the guiding hand of a careful man who understands the difference between a hard limit and an inexperienced barrier composed of fear.  Who understands the role of a Master, not just a Dominant.  Who understands the ideal and the real, and the concept of striving.  There is a world to explore on my knees, and I need to know those dreams and explorations.  I began as a plain girl; and I emerge as a dreamer under a very careful mentorship at the moment.  This is why I recommend being mentored in the beginning:

Because when I feel insecure and confused, and I honestly state what it is that shakes my foundations, my mentor gives me a task that answers my anxieties with my own words and my own thinking.  "What do I have to give, after all?" I ask in despair, and my mentor's answer is "Look at the picture of the girl, and explain to me her submission."  And then I explain it.   And my own words come.  And the assignment shapes as it will, and that's very gratifying...  But the crux:  I begin to understand that what I have to give is an excruciatingly-tender heart that never forgets beauty.  I forget the ache of agony and loneliness and waste; but I remember beauty.  I hold up a mirror to Your face, a mirror that is my eyes, and I show You Yourself as the exquisite apparition, the bright and blinding Divine light as You appear to me.  I find beauty.  I find it, and I keep it, and I protect it, and I give it to You when You demand.  It is why I collect songs and stories; musical instruments; images perfected by my own hands; jewels and trinkets of adornment.  I collect; I keep; I then adorn and display for You, so that You are transported from the muck of this world into a realm of my own making to be enjoyed only by You.  Because, in my eyes, You are the most important being there ever has been.  And my God, how important it is not to give this away to just anybody.  It must be to You, when You come.  To none other.

This is what submission looks like to me.  And when You come, finally, I am going to savour, for a long long time, explaining my submission to You.

Bondage Part Three: Display

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License and The Mask

There is something about a masquerade that appeals to me.  It is the license granted the masked, license to do everything one would not ordinarily do if one could see the face behind the action. Second Life is one such masquerade, in fact:  avatars performing acts of fantasy, reaching out to people one could not, ordinarily.  The mask licenses behaviour.  The sultry donning of a glittered cover turns the eyes dark and turns the intentions loose.

The sensuality of a masquerade clearly must be harnessed, teased, and controlled by an experienced master of ceremonies (or mistress...)  It seems as though without the expert imagination of a games-master there can be no finely-pointed focus upon the real reason for the mask in the first place.  One does not don disguise in order to fool one's partner...

One masks in order to liberate, transform, and experience.

In both of the preceding excerpts from "The Story of O", faces are concealed.  At Roissy, O never knows the identity of each man mounting his assault upon her body during her initiation night. Each one, or none of them, may be her lover.  The blindfold is a sort of mask; it transforms inhibitions in O's case as well as Elizabeth ("9 and 1/2 Weeks") with John Gray.  The owl's mask renders O mute but all-seeing, transforming her "as though she were a real owl."

One masks in order to liberate, transform, experience, and display.  Camouflaging one bit in order to highlight another bit in sharp relief.  To conceal the face in order to display the genitals, in O's case.  To conceal the humanity of her in order to display the submission of her.

In my imagination, I revel in the idea of masquerade.  License to seize, to feel, to take, to experience, and to discard before succumbing to sweet, long sleep.