What if submission is how I love, my purpose, an expression of all that is good in me?

Submission as a feeling has gone from the general to the specific.  This is a process which has unfolded over the past few years.  In all that time, my demeanour in relation to submission has not changed—I am not outwardly submissive.  At all.  I am ferocious.

But as it happens, I am a lamb in wolf’s clothing.  

Being generally submissive might mean bowing down to anyone whom one might wish to submit to.  The Twittersphere is littered with them.  Being specifically submissive might be to one person, or just a few.  In my case, this process has been a bit like being a kid in a candy shop.  One really has no idea just how many pro-dommes and sex workers there are in the world, and some really, really amazing and beautiful ones, until one goes on the various social media platforms and sees them by the thousand.

Submitting to all of them at once would be like blowing all gaskets at once, the death of me a thousand times, a unique variation of the death by a thousand cuts, the death by a million a dommes, but in this case, each dying moment would be pregnant with ecstasy.  Definitely more than I can handle.  In the meantime, I have submitted to varying degrees to people online and offline, but only ever one at a time…and in this process, however, I have gone from the general to the specific.

And it isn’t that I shouldn’t submit to a domme. Clearly this is me. But what should happen is that in my submission I do truly let go, do truly confront all that is ugly in me.

And I am looking for something.  I am looking for emotional depth.  Looking for the content of the interaction to take on the form of care, intimacy, even love.  I am okay with the idea that the nature of love that two people might feel for one another could have a very different basis.  One might love a domme in a very different way than she might have feelings back.  I think of it as the quality of Mercy.  This highest expression of the Divine Feminine.  The high priestesses of kink are tapping into the language, by parts teasing, by others, digging into the shadows, the motivations, our deepest selves in ways to uncover our ugliness and to show ourselves that she can see it, can handle it, and can provide a container for it, even if she doesn’t love it on a real and personal level.  There are some deep kinks out there, and a measure of this level of Mercy is embodied in what a domme will do, what her range is.  Not putting a value on one kink over another, but rather simply aligning the domme with what she does.

I crossed a rubicon in the past weeks.  Things have been stirring inside me.  Mighty currents.  Motivations, goals, focus, have all changed.  Stepping into my power as a human has become of primordial importance, and tearing out the junk, the shadows, the ugliness, central to that.  A part of this process has been to realise that submission is love for me.  That when love is life’s purpose, that expressing and receiving love, this tidal connection between two people, between the moon and earth, the sea and land, then connecting to people and feeling that energetic flow becomes our reason for being.

We all need love.  We can survive without it, but to thrive, we need to receive it, and to give it.  A lived life always has its share of trauma.  Most of it seems to relate to love of one form or another, or at its most extreme, how we inhabit our bodies.  As someone whose “trauma” related to an unhealthy attachment and attunement bond with my mother, and a rejection of the male born from my relation with my father, my need for love often takes the form of parental acceptance, of female Mercy and of male Justice, this simultaneous feeling of being protected and no matter what, forgiven.  The dominatrix as a muse has often embodied both of these aspects, and provided a container that allows for this strength.

But out in the vanilla world, the submissive male is often ridiculed.  And perhaps this is understandable when the form that submission takes is fetishistic, overly sexual, or in interference with what is deemed to be acceptable human interaction.  Just a thought.

My dear reader will know that I regard submission as strength. I do not wish to be humiliated, I wish to be strong, to be made stronger, to find that the letting go of self is a form of daily ecstasy, not just one for our orgasms or the extended tease and denial which precedes it.

As I have grown, the sexual aspects have mostly fallen away…and I am not entirely sure if this is a function of male desire v. female desire and what is happening to my body and mind on hormones, or simply that I have been doing the work, and letting go of these things.

On one hand, I am still angry at my parents for how they were…and I should really get over it.  I do forgive, but that doesn’t diminish the feeling.  For they didn’t do the work.  My father resolutely refused to do any work at all…when I think of the handful of narcissists I have come across in my life, he would figure high up on the list…and sadly, never developed a shred of self-awareness.  

As all of this has happened to me, my relationship to submission has changed.  I have, and am, learning to submit out of love, recognising that submission is the flavour of love.  On a meditation retreat not long ago, with the most incredible group of women, after days of tears and confession, this fetid stream of self-realisation came pouring out.  “I am a slave,” I blubbed, “I don’t know how to love any other way.  And when I look at the train-wreck that was my marriage, and think, could I have done it differently, and no, I would do it again.  It is the only way I am.”

It is true.  There is beauty in that, but there is also shadow.  One cannot love as a slave so that someone else can carry our load, so that someone else provides this container.  No, we need to learn to do it for ourselves.  I admire the submissive, because of the work that it takes.  So many dominants that I have met began as submissives, and this was a part of their development.  I think that this may be my path, though I am not yet sure.  I do believe that one can be a slave and also be dominant…and I don’t mean topping from the bottom.  I mean owning the self.  This has to be the first and most important part of life regardless of which side of the slash you are on.  

I can and will serve because I have gained control over my own tenor.  Not yet.  Still much work to do, but I can already feel that this is changing how people interact with me, how they react to me.  That even vanilla people can accept my slavery because it is not done with a desire to extract something from them.  And no, the submissive is not boring because they like to please.  No, they need not be wishy-washy.  A small example.  A woman who is dear to me and with whom I have an ever-deepening relationship is exploring her own dominance.  When we talk about what we might like to do together, where we might go for dinner, an activity, I am happy to step in with suggestions or to even make arrangements, and I often do.  But when she suggests something, I look forward to it, mainly because I know ahead of time that she will like it…and therefore, that part is taken care of, so I can concentrate my energy and effort on joining in with that feeling.

For others, dominance is love.  Holding space for someone is love.  It satisfies a deep need inside.  When I first met ex-Mistress and we sat in a restaurant together and I trembled from being overwhelmed by being in her presence, I told her that I needed to know that submissive love could be loved by dominant love…and asked if the dance we engaged in might allow me to fall in love with her, and that my submission take the form of following her to only those places where she might be said to be remaking me, to ask of me a kind of submission that would please her, not just in the act, but in the sense of pride of ownership, pride of having wrought something wonderful, pride in what she had done.

What was going on?  I was trembling for being in my presence before someone to whom I knew I would submit.  Big difference.  For I had never done it before.  That feeling is still very much inside me, not to her, but to whomever I feel myself in submission to.

We failed.  But no matter.  I learned so much, but most of all, I learned that it is possible.  That there are people out there who do want and need the opposite of what I want and need, and they might not even be kinky.  Instead, they might just want someone to take care of them, to fuss over them, to listen, to adapt, and to be there.

I am in love.  She is very special to me. The one.  She likes to debate the issues and is a passionate debater.  But I don’t want that kind of relationship with her, to be her sparring partner.  Instead, I wish to be able to love her, to support her, to listen to her, and to be together in silence, on the dance floor, in joy, and in sorrow.  That’s what submission means.  And it can exist without the trappings of D/s, especially when both people know that’s where it comes from.

And well, if I do still need a spanking from time to time, maybe if I’m really good…

Why do I submit? Because sometimes I feel it is the only way to access love, that I need help to wrench it out of me. And this process creates a feeling that it is bigger than myself.