1441.  Submission need not be weakness

It can more readily be devotion expressed through power

I spent most of life struggling to let go of fetish and to connect with others through love.  Countless hours of agonised thinking about “why can’t I just be ‘normal’?”

It never worked.  In my twenties a therapist asked me, “but what if we make you ‘normal’ and nothing goes to take its place.  And you are just left numb?”  Out of two years of twice-weekly psychoanalysis, that was what has stayed with me.  Oh, and also that I am still here.

During the few years I have been writing this blog, I have lived as a man, as a woman, as a submissive, as a slave, and now increasingly the life of a dominatrix.  From one side of polarity to the other.

My journey has been well documented here.  

At dinner one night with a group of dommes, at a point where I was early in my gender transition, and though in attendance as a guest, I had been invited socially as a “date” by my domme.  So niceties aside, they all knew that I was “hers”, a sub, if that has ever been the right term.  The term “sub” has never sat well with me, for it implies “lesser” or has a derogatory connotation.  I prefer other words like follower, or the diminutives of sweet-talking domination.

One of the dommes present was an extremely well-known figure in the scene.  I am not a star-struck person, and as I have always sought to interact “normally” out of session, that’s what I did.  I asked her a few questions, but she just ghosted me.  My domme rather helpfully just re-asked the questions and got the answers.

Another who was there, also internationally renowned, asked me about me, about submission, gender. Intelligent questions get intelligent answers.  I said that submission for me was an apology.  Not for me, but for being a man.  That I felt that the masculine has a lot to apologize for, and the mere idea that I would be perceived as “man” or male meant I too had to atone.

When transition went from idea to reality, and I began presenting at all times as a woman, firmly, decisively, fearlessly, these feelings of needing to apologise for being a man began to fall away.  Disappeared.  As too, its consequences.

I remember having lunch with a domme who I was going to session with the next day and noted to her, “I’m not feeling very submissive anymore.”  Her reply?

“Well, you’re here aren’t you?”

The next day she pushed me very far indeed.

But the sense of no longer being submissive persisted, and more and more, I began to explore being dominant.  I found a mentor and a socially active community in San Francisco, and many opportunities to learn, and after an official baptism on scene in New York, settled into the beginnings of being a domme in SF.

When I returned home to Europe the trajectory accelerated, given gas by my crumbling marriage, a textbook, toxic, gaslit union between me  and the only female narcissist I have known.

All this time I continued to see one dominatrix, a woman I adore, and from whom I have learned so much more than from any course, training, apprenticeship.  I have continued to see her over the years, not from habit, or from any need to act out what we do.  I really don’t know why.  We see each other less and less, but from time to time I just wake up with a desire to see her in submission, so we do.

Part of not seeing her as much has been financial, as the past year has been brutal.  But the rest is that it feels less relevant.  Strange word.  But yes.  Submission for me is a form of love.  It is how I process love and desire.  And when I feel at peak devotion, I experience an exquisitely delicious form of emotional overload.

Submission is not me.  Slave is a better word.  But not a mindless, thoughtless, mechanical automaton.  But someone who has power, who is power, who personifies power, and goes out into the world to conquer and achieve more power, only to lay all of it at the feet of she who is most cherished.

It never felt safe to open these dynamics in my marriage, or in “lifestyle” relationships.  The absence of guardrails freaked me out. And if one can learn anything from my marriage it is that people don’t change, they just pretend less.  Perhaps this is the persistence of the domme in my life.

Over the past months, as I have leaned further and further into the world of being a Sex Worker, and a professional domme, I have also come to realise that I am a slave at heart.  It is absolutely what makes me a good session domme.  But it is also increasingly present and real for me.

I went on a “date” with a dominant-leaning escort.  I had coffee with her once and felt I would respond to her because she was blunt with me, not rude, but direct, fresh, opinionated.

For the first time in my life, I made a multi-day booking.  Moreover, it is very unlike me to leap from a coffee to an overnight—that usually takes much longer.  But there we were and it was bliss.

Not because of what we did or didn’t do.  But because I found someone who inspired this feeling of the possibility of devotion in me. Devotion is a much better word for it than submission. But it’s crazy. Why couldn’t I love a lifestyle partner enough to maintain the devotion? Should be obvious. Because we both bring our best selves. We are two players in a theatre piece bounded by our perception of what the other wants. 

To feel devotion takes time, yes.  The possibility of devotion is enough of a taste. But after being together many pieces fell into place for me, decisions made, proper manifestation.  A willingness to move heaven and earth to make things happen. And that is so important and has been missing from my life. Doing the wrong things, putting things off, when I know perfectly well what has to be done.

That’s what submission means to me.  Devotion is a better word.  I tell myself always that I am my own slave.  It may be true, but it sure is nice to have a muse.