I was perusing some old posts over on Aarkeybabble and he said something that flipped a little switch in my head. Here’s his totally out of context quote:
I’ve been trying to deny myself a little more – reading some other guys who say things about themselves like “my need for submission” – which is vastly different from my selfish “need to be dominated” mindset.
That’s it. That’s what I’ve been feeling lately. Previously, I wanted Belle to dominate me, but now I feel the need for submission. These are entirely different things. Yes, I sound like a reject from The Perfectly Obvious Dinner Theater, but give me a break. I’ll still a n00b at this stuff.
It’s only recently that I feel like I’ve stopped spending so much time fretting about what she was going to do to me and have spent a lot more time doing things for her and accepting whatever came my way. There have been moments recently, sometimes in bed but not always, where these waves of submissive warmth have washed over me and the feeling is so much not the angst of before. Yes, it’s true. The bulb has finally lit.
Wanting to be dominated is not the same as wanting to be submissive!
Stop rolling your eyes at me.
So then, because I’m me, I’ve been spending a lot of the day thinking: What does being submissive mean to me? What do I get out of it? Why do I like it? I really can’t answer these questions yet.
At this point in my evolution, it’s hard to be too lucid on what being submissive is to me. It’s really a series of questions, more than anything else. What can I do for her? Is she happy? Does she need anything? I want to serve her in a bunch of little ways and to reduce her stress level as much as possible. Yeah, sure, I should have wanted those before the whole D/s thing showed up, and I did. But it’s different now and I think that’s because one very specific thing has changed. Now, she owns my cock. It’s remarkable how that little tiny detail can focus one’s mind.
My submissive feelings toward her are not just about sex, but they’re wound up pretty tightly with it. I’m not being nice just because I want to get into her pants (though I do, and badly). I know that if she only let me rub her feet, massage her shoulders, and wash her hair for the rest of the month with no sexual activity at all, as long as she was happy, I’d be fine. Yes, I’d be a quivering mass of repressed sexual energy, but I think I’m learning to pour that energy back into other parts of our relationship. And besides, I like the feeling I get when I’m subjugating my needs, sexual or otherwise, to hers. Believe me, nobody’s more surprised to hear me say that than I am.
And it’s not about being weak. I’m an not weak. It’s not about letting her think for me. She doesn’t. It’s not even really about control, except for her absolute control over my sex. She doesn’t much tell me what to do or boss me around (yet). I don’t think she’d want it to be about those things. Who the hell wants to be with a weak, mentally dependent puppet? And who wants to be that puppet? That’s not what either of us signed up for nor are we capable of living that way.
I don’t know. I sound like I’m rambling. Suffice it to say, I feel as though I’m seeing the game board from an entirely different angle. All the peices are the same and they move the same, but everything’s shifted 90 degrees. Another Great Big Obvious Thing™ just dawned on me and opened up a new box of stuff to sort through.