On Being Selfish

April 30, 2014 by
Photo by Becca A. Lewis

Photo by Becca A. Lewis

I was telling my partner what felt good to me while being asked to do something.  After hearing me out, my partner asked what the difference between these four asks was:

I think you should paint your toes.

I really like seeing your toes painted, and it’s been a while.

I really like seeing your toes painted and it’s been a while.  Will you paint them?

I really like seeing your toes painted and it’s been a while.  Will you paint them for me?

Below is a short explanation of what I had to say.  Please keep in mind that this is my response and you are completely within your right to adamantly disagree with everything I have to say, and your relationships do not have to end up looking anything like mine, so long as we all find our bliss somewhere.

“I think you should paint your toes.” A command.  It is not necessary in a command to find connection with me when letting me know what is desired.  I will most likely feel a little confused or panicked (my baggage, not yours) about why he wants this, what it means, whether or not I can engage a discussion about it, etc.  This is not my favorite way to be asked for anything; in fact I find it emotionally and pleasurably distancing.  Someday I may not find it abrasive, or I may desire to feel that way – there will be a lot of trust-water under the bridge when that day comes.

“I really like seeing your toes painted, and it’s been a while.”  This is not a question.  My partner is passively topping, and I really like to be asked questions.  It just feels respectful.  I am likely to feel annoyed that he isn’t actually asking me for anything, yet seemingly expects me to give him what he’s mentioned.  This does not feel like a partnership proposition to me, nor a D/s engagement, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to get out of it when I’m not even being asked.

“I really like seeing your toes painted and it’s been a while.  Will you paint them?”  Now we’re starting to get somewhere.  Technically there is nothing whatsoever wrong with this question.  For me though, I still do not know what I am supposed to get out of it.  I like doing things for my partner, that is a major motivation for me.  This question feels like an upkeep request rather than a connected and loving desire I can fulfill.

“I really like seeing your toes painted and it’s been a while.  Will you paint them for me?”  Ahh, yes!!!  This one fits like a glove.  I am being told that I am appreciated, that my partner likes something about the way I look and desires to see me look that way, and I am being asked to do it for him.  For some reason those two tiny little words make all the difference to me.  All of a sudden I find myself smiling and actually desiring to say yes.  I feel giddy from the request, and I think giddiness is one of the major reasons I signed on to D/s in the first place.

After hearing all this he said he understood and wanted to make me feel that way, but he had a hard time phrasing questions in terms of “for him”.  It was scary and it made him feel selfish.  “But Doms are supposed to be selfish”, I said with a grin.  In reality what I meant is that I enjoy making my partner happy, and to do that I need my partners to be just selfish enough to tell me exactly what makes them happy.  I pointed out that s-types (read that term as you like: submissives, bottoms, slaves, or whichever label you most enjoy) are supposed to be selfish too – I feel completely selfish when my back is being bitten from top to bottom (one of my favorite activities), and I just lie back passively and take it with complete and utter bliss.  I know that my partner likes what they’re doing, and I know my partner likes my true response to the moment, so why would I rob my partner of their pleasure by being one ounce less than selfish in that scenario?

Perhaps this is one of the greatest reasons I’ve discovered to date to have a D/s dynamic – to have it written into the rules that it is ok to ask your partner for the things you most desire, and to know that they wouldn’t be in the relationship if they weren’t open to (at the very least) just that.

PS:  It’s pretty damn selfish for me to have asked to be spoken to in certain ways anyhow, I think 😉

To Breath and Being,
~ Karin

If you like my blog, please check out my Patreon Page and consider supporting me, or just click here: Support the Artist

~Thank you.

###

Be an ABCs contributor:  Have a story or perspective to share about kink or want to promote a kinky event?  Email Karin directly at: Karin@ABCsOfKink.com or fill out the as-anonymous-as-you-want-it-to-be feedback form below and you could see your writing published as a part of Wednesday’s “Perspectives on Kink: Conversations with the Community” blog on this site.  Don’t know what to write about?  Consider answering some of the Survey Questions I posted recently.  Happy writing, and thanks!

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

What’s the Big Deal?

April 14, 2014 by
Life's confusing sometimes, but struggle through – you're worth it!

Life’s confusing sometimes, but struggle through – you’re worth it!

Are Dominant/submissive (D/s) relationships any different than vanilla ones when it comes to basic rules of engagement?

In a D/s relationships you must:

  • Negotiate what aspects of the relationship each one of you are responsible for (who’s doing the laundry, who’s balancing the checkbook, who’s cooking dinner, who’s topping or bottoming various activities, the list of course, goes on…)
  • Make rules or guidelines about communication, and communicate a WHOLE LOT about what is and is not working within the relationship for each of the participants so that you can make it work better (or reconsider parts if not the whole thing)
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate…
  • Decide how open or closed the relationship will be and in what contexts it is alright to “play” (whatever that means to y’all) with others
  • Respect one another’s personal, sexual, emotional, psychological, and physical boundaries or limits when gettin’ it on together and strive to value your partner as best you can
  • Care for one another while also making time to fulfill your own needs as an autonomous human being who has needs unfulfillable by others
  • Negotiate the terms of disengagement if/when that sad mess comes around
  • What else…  I’m sure there’s more…  But I think you’re starting to get my point

I would say that in any healthy relationship, D/s or vanilla in nature, all of these things must be addressed in one way or another.  Where I see the types of relationships differ in the “how to” arena is simply in what types of activities might be negotiated the most – but then, isn’t that true of every relationship?  Different people get turned on by different things, and you’re probably always picking up a thing or two from your new partner.

Whether you like anal sex, being hit by stingy toys, tying someone to the bed, sex only in 3 positions, a hand on the neck during orgasm, never reaching orgasm at all, missionary as the only way, telling people you love what to do, being served, cleaning boots with your tongue, orgies, getting or giving a great massage as foreplay, mummification, regularly trying out new ways to “do it”, sex toys, only intercourse on Friday nights during reruns of Matlock, or whatever else it is that blows your hair back, your relationship is going to have peculiarities and subtleties all its own that you’ll navigate or…  well…  not.

We all need to negotiate a bunch while getting to know our partners (and in my experience that doesn’t stop being a thing ever).  We all need to feel safe enough to give parts of ourselves to the people we want to play with.  We all need to consent to what we allow our partners to do to our bodies and minds and hearts…

Looking at it that way, D/s doesn’t have to be so scary, does it?

To Breath and Being,
~ Karin

If you like my blog, please check out my Patreon Page and consider supporting me, or just click here: Support the Artist

~Thank you.

###

Be an ABCs contributor:  Have a story or perspective to share about kink or want to promote a kinky event?  Email Karin directly at: Karin@ABCsOfKink.com or fill out the as-anonymous-as-you-want-it-to-be feedback form below and you could see your writing published as a part of Wednesday’s “Perspectives on Kink: Conversations with the Community” blog on this site.  Don’t know what to write about?  Consider answering some of the Survey Questions I posted recently.  Happy writing, and thanks!

Filed Under: Brain on Download Blog Tagged With: , , , ,

Alien Moon

March 10, 2014 by

Sometimes I can’t seem to write anything at all.  I choke on my words, having one million thoughts one moment, and nothing to say the next.  Where a moment before I had it all worked out, staring at my screen, spacing out at this empty page, I cannot find it in me to begin…

Junkbox of bits

Junkbox of bits

I think on failed sexy times when screaming in my head are perfectly clear ice cutting words on repeat.  Loudly looping whole sentences.  Paragraphs of explanation and pages of meaning clearly outlined and trapped there in my mind.  An essay concerning what you need to know about me in this very moment.  Yet my mouth remains unmoving.  Synapses won’t fire.  Lips, teeth and tongue conspire against the inner novel you need to hear.  How will you understand what is going on?  How will you know what planet my innards have landed on just now, jettisoned from the trust and ease we started our night out with by this trigger-happy Ringleader with a torch buried in the memory part of my mind and taking over the scene…  I was here and happy, and then all in an instant, he struck a match, and I was gone.

I want you to follow me from our stack of mattresses and suitcases of sex toys, from our cuddling upright in the street and lovemaking adventures through a closet of bad memories to the alien moon on the other side.  Cluttered with screens replaying past images and the cagey feelings my inside landscape lands on.  I have a well known distant land where shame and embarrassment are the norm, where I can’t figure out how to break free, where I hear dogs in the distance and I can’t figure out how to get back.  I want to be better than this moment, but I cannot tell you how or no or mutter “stop”…  Because I love you.  Because I loathe myself in this place.  Because I think it’ll just blow over on it’s own.  Because I didn’t internalize the right way to think about safety or advocate for myself.  Because maybe this time I won’t get hurt if I play along until it’s over…  I’m in a trap.

But that isn’t how the story ever ends.  Past relationships’ beautifully woven tapestries of trust form thin spots and unravel a little.  Over time we can’t agree on how to fix it or just don’t.  A facade of patches creeps across the picture and we lose sight of what it once was, what we set out to build.  We don’t fix things by unraveling as much as we might need to in an effort to lay new stronger threads on the loom, building back a newer and better picture from the old.

But maybe if we could be fastidious enough in our building to weather going back and doing something well and right we’d breathe better at night.  We’d have a stronger tapestry acting as net to catch me when I shoot through the stars toward my dead place planet.

You don’t deserve that alien moon streaming through my pumping veins; I’m sorry my blood is sick sometimes, entertaining the virus waiting until I am weak enough so that he can whisper the command “fire”.

Put a shuttle in my hand, love.  We can go back over this one together.  Lets rip it all apart.

Time to write.

To Breath and Being,
~ Karin

If you like my blog, please check out my Patreon Page and consider supporting me, or just click here: Support the Artist

~Thank you.

###

Be an ABCs contributor:  Have a story or perspective to share about kink or want to promote a kinky event?  Email Karin directly at: Karin@ABCsOfKink.com or fill out the as-anonymous-as-you-want-it-to-be feedback form below and you could see your writing published as a part of Wednesday’s “Perspectives on Kink: Conversations with the Community” blog on this site.  Don’t know what to write about?  Consider answering some of the Survey Questions I posted recently.  Happy writing, and thanks!

Filed Under: Brain on Download Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,
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