Belle and I had a lovely time out last night. The kids were at a community group event designed to give parents some off-leash time together. Belle thought a nice dinner would be a good use of our three hours while I voted for rolling around naked back at the house. She gets three more votes than me, though, so off to dinner we went.
We talked about a lot of things, even real life things like work, before turning to our relationship. At first, it was one of those general conversations where we reassured one another that we’re happy and satisfied. Even after a year (yes, it’s nearly been a year!) of larking about like we have, it’s necessary to keep checking in with one another to make sure we’re still on the right track. Once we had that out of the way, we talked about several things I think are worth relating here.
Belle told me I had been slipping lately in the service department, especially with regard to my morning duties (which are really quite simple). I told her I would endeavor to improve and found myself bringing up the idea of punishment again. As I’ve said here before, punishment is not the same as masochism for me. It’s really more about power exchange. That she would have the right to physically punish me based on her subjective opinion as to how I’ve served her, and that I would be required to accept her punishment regardless of my personal feelings as to its justification, makes my ears flush red. It’s not just playing at power exchange, it actually is power exchange. I crave that kind of submission. It speaks to the very base of my submissive nature and works on a lot of levers I’ve carried around since childhood. It was hard for me to even look at her across the candlelit table as I talked about it. It’s a very powerful subject for me.
I also feel that the threat of punishment will help focus me on doing the things for her I know I need to do but don’t always get to fast enough for her. I really want to be better at serving her in whatever way she requires and, like most people, I suppose, I often find myself slipping and doing things I want to do rather than those things I need to do. It’s not as though I have no intention of getting to those things, I just do the stuff I want to do first. Currently, there’s little downside for me reprioritizing things on my own. If she took the step to make me uncomfortable and embarrassed, I think it’d help me be more focused on my responsibilities.
So, with that all in mind, she asked me if I wanted her to kick it up a notch. Did I really want her to pile on some tasks? I told her I did, that I wanted to do whatever I could that would make her life better. That said, she gave me a number of tasks I had to perform this morning (all mundane) that she had planned on doing herself. That relieved her from running around like a headless chicken right after she got up and also gave her time to get her nails done (where she is right now).
We also talked about the idea, recently left by a reader in a comment here, that I should strive to be the “little woman of the house” (at least when Belle’s not around). I admit freely that the concept of the sissified submissive male is an alien one. Submission, for me, does not equal weakness or connote a feminine quality. I think part of the problem submissive men deal with (even in the BDSM world) is the perception that they’re all pink, frilly, or weak. I’m not weak, frilly, pink, or feminine, nor do I wish to be any of those things. I certainly don’t have any issue with those who do, but I ain’t one of them.
That being said, there is an aspect of male submission in the context of the whole “female-led relationship” thing that does suggest the transfer of certain activities or attitudes that our society identifies with specific genders. Traditionally, the female attends to meals and cleaning up, certain child duties, the laundry, etc., while the male initiates sex and, more often than not, is the primary beneficiary of sexual satisfaction and is generally allowed to wallow about the house while she attends to him (which is not to say she necessarily likes that arrangement). These are all stereotypes, of course, but stereotypes aren’t invented. They usually have some basis in fact. In some aspects of our relationship, I am very much “the woman” while Belle assumes what most would think is the man’s role. Mostly in bed, but even in other areas. However, I’m still very much a man and she’s very much a woman. She hasn’t become butch and aggressive while I haven’t become effeminate. But I do acknowledge that some kind of transference has taken place (and continues to evolve). I don’t have a problem with this or deny it, nor can I even describe it very well, but it’s intriguing to me. It’s too bad there are so few (if any) cultural archetypes to look at as our dynamic is developing. Images of men wearing hot pink chastity devices (to keep their hands of their “sissy clitties”, natch) under their fish net stockings and French main uniforms are certainly no help to us.
Another comment from the blog that we discussed was Sera’s thoughtful reply to my post about how Belle and I are slowly but surely having less sex as the weeks and months go on. She said:
It might be informative here to bear in mine that for women as well as men, it seems to be that sexual desire is a kind of “use it or lose it” thing. So that if Belle is not getting enough stimulation of the kind that gets her off . . . well, she’s not going to be in a position to give you the kind that gets you off.
And so I asked Belle, was she getting what she wanted? Was I providing her what she needed to get off? Turns out, maybe not so much. Belle said she needed to “connect” with me more than she’s been able to recently. I can’t say I entirely understand what that means yet, but it sounds to me like maybe we’re talking too much about ourselves and our relationship lately and not enough about our shared life. Over dinner, we talked quite a bit about our shared life before we moved on to discussions of relationship and sex and she said she needed more of that. I suppose posting almost every day to a blog that deals exclusively with issues related to our sex life and relationship doesn’t really help her feel as though I talk about anything else but those things. It’s another area where I, someone who literally carries a totem of his sexual relationship around 24/7, feels like I’m hardly ever talking about it since every word out of my mouth isn’t about our dynamic or sex or whatever. But she, who probably isn’t thinking about my chastity device or how many days it’s been since I came or how fucking horny I am or whatever for four out of every five minutes in the day, thinks it’s all we ever talk about. I understand and will try to do better.
So, as if to drive the point home through my thick, hormone-addled skull, once we got home and I put the kids down for the night, Belle let me bring her to orgasm. Stimulus…reward. Stimulus…reward. It’s the same way you train dogs. Anyway, it was your typical Belle ‘n Thumper orgasm and I was left very hot and horny and with a fully pressurized chastity tube while she was left relaxed, sleepy, and orgasmically sated.
In other words, exactly as things should be.