Solo Fight

There is something very important about being alone. I mean, we're all alone, ultimately, in our heads, right? The words lover, partner, toyfriend, play partner, nesting, all indicate that there's someone else on the other side of that. You can't be the lover of no one, although you can be the lover of yourself, I guess. 

I asked my owner the other day if he ever got lonely when we were playing. When I'm silent, or sobbing, or on the floor at his feet. "Rarely," he said. Which doesn't mean never.  But we are not equals in this, and he can pick and choose when he wants my company.

Last year I went on a few trips by myself. Sometimes I met someone at the other end, but usually not. A healthy ingredient of being a good partner is being really, really good at loving yourself.  A strong submissive/slave/bottom is all about knowing your own value - why would someone want to own you or dominate you or torture you for their pleasure if it wasn't worth something? What are you giving up if it's not worth anything, even to you? 

My "journey" (yeah, I hate that word) these days is all about finding value for myself, outside of my owner. I was asked the other day what I am proud of and I literally couldn't think of anything - I had to ask my owner what he was proud of me for. It's a scary funnel, when everything you are is focused on another, separate person that you don't have access to whenever you want. Finding balance between what I want, what I am proud of, what I love about myself while prioritizing what *he* wants and is proud of is a balancing act I'm still working on. It's especially hard for those of us with survival/trauma histories because the things we may otherwise be proud of us are just shrugged off as "I did what I needed to do, why is that something to be proud of". 

Still working on this. 

Fuck Material

"Hi slut, i want to rent you from your guy and fuck your brains out. Do you think he will allow"

(My most recent friend request on Fetlife)

It's an interesting question. Will he allow?

Probably not. But not for the reasons you think. It mostly has to do with grammar, location, (this dude's from Belgium. I am not located anywhere near Belgium.), but most has to do with making assumptions. 

It's a natural human response, to make an assumption about someone else based on your own history, the impression you have of them, their behavior and actions. It's how we get along in life, how we form our own created families and relationships as adults. We call it social context, and friendships and families are based on it. There's this new modern complication (or maybe it's not that modern, we just didn't talk about it as a society as much) of created families rather than biological ("family of origin") ones, and those require, I think, even more emotional investment. That's part of how assumption works, it's a psychological tool humans use. 

Who am I to him? There are so many descriptors. I title myself "slave", but that's kind of a fantasy term, since legally there's no way to follow through on that. I'm a wife, a deputy, a "helpmeet" (I kind of love this one), an object, a warm hole or three, and sometimes a pain in the ass. 

We ran into another gentleman who was very interested in playing with me. Not particularly interested in playing with my owner, and the gentleman in question made a lot of assumptions about *how* we play, and what our dynamic is. How we function together, what turns us on (and off) and that, more than anything else, was the reason it was a no go. 

Making assumptions about people is a tool to use as we get closer to each other, we use it for safety purposes and for empathy, and closeness. It's also a dangerous edge tool, because making the wrong assumptions push you further apart. 

debatable

"have you blogged lately?"

no, not really. okay, barely. i gave myself permission to stop thinking about the questions i've debated over the past two years. i stopped thinking about what was the right word for things, what was the right way at all, and just did it.

for the record, i do want to state this: living together is different from not living together. but also, i always, always agreed with that. i think the problem occured with the definition not of TPE, but with 24/7.

i guess i've always interpreted "24/7" to be a state one existed in all the time. for example, i am, 24/7/365:

- female
- short
- irreligious
- literate

and...

- owned

am i in active service all the time? of course not. i'm not at his feet, sucking his cock, preparing his meals, keeping the house (and specifically, his bed) warm all the time. there are times when i stop to breathe and rub my painful shoulder. when i take a teensy bit longer in the bathroom than is absolutely necessary because i like how quiet it is. or when i decide to eat that second apricot because i can't believe how tasty the first one was.

in the entire time i have been involved in bdsm (i'm older than you think), i have only once met someone who claimed to be in active service 24/7/365. One. it involved chains, rope, absolute micromanaging, including surveillance cameras. If it's true, than that i believe to be 24/7 active service.

but really, when it comes down to it, who the fuck cares what someone else does in their dungeon? why is it so important that someone agrees with one's definition or someone else's? what is this, junior high?

this goes beyond a need for commonality in language. this becomes a power struggle between the holier-than-thou, and really, i'm just not interested. i don't do well with competition - i'd rather bow out gracefully. i think i figured out why the second most-popular topic of discussion is always "where are all the real people?"

they're not online. they're busy doing it.

world in a bubble

i've lost interest in debate. i've lost interest in arguing about terminology, what i may or may not be, what's "right" or "wrong". i've lost interest in the gossip, the politics of online blogging.

mostly i'm interested in making sure i've hauled in enough wood for the night, the kitchen sink is clear of dirty dishes, and the coffee grinder is ready to go when needed. sometimes i put on clothes.

i'm happy as a clam.

i know it can't last forever. i know this is something like a honeymoon period, when it's all just joyful and sweet, and sometimes tears leak out of my eyes because i'm stuffed full of happiness and it just has to come out somewhere. it's work to leave the bubble - a trip to town takes a while anyway, so it had better be necessary, so it doesn't happen very often. i'm more often than not shoveling the car out for no reason other than to be outside, because it's fun. yeah - i know. it'll get old eventually.

i don't have anything kinky to say. i don't have much to say at all really, except the tea is sweet, the fire is cozy, and i couldn't care less if i'm marked or collared or a sub or a slave. it doesn't matter. it only matters that it's working.

(photo credit: Elessar Tetramariner's "world in a bubble")

yield

"what does Y-I-E-L-D mean?"

so far, what i've found is that most of daily life for us isn't about dominance and submission. what i've found are words that are much better descriptors. "yield" for example. i was trying to explain this particular street sign to someone who won't need to know the particulars of traffic intersections for at least another ten years, and found myself describing a perfect analogy for daily life.

"it's kind of like. well. when two cars come to an intersection..."

"what's an 'intersection'?"

"well. it's. um. when two cars meet going in different directions. and they have to decide who's going to go first."

"why?"

"why what?"

"why do they have to decide who goes first?"

"well. um. because they might crash?"

"oh."

"yeah. so. when there's a sign that says 'yield', it means that person has to wait for the other person to go first."

"always?"

"well, if there isn't another car, then they don't have to wait for someone to go first, because. well. there isn't anyone else to go first except them, right?"

"oh. so if you're the only car on the street, even if it says 'yield', you don't have to, right?"

"yeah."

"oh. what happens when both cars want to 'yield'?"

"well. that's a problem. because then no one would go first, 'cause they'd keep waiting for someone else to go."

"and they'd never get where they were going."

"exactly."

perceived

The Rules:
1. You must link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself.
3. Tag seven people.

swtbriarros got me. but i ain't taggin' no one. y'all can fend fer yerselves.

1. i used to have 8 body piercings. now i have 3.

2. if i thought i had the figure for it, i'd be a porn actress. i'm totally serious. i'm well suited to the business model, but not well-figured for the masses. C'est la vie.

3. i'm determinably bi-forced. not "bisexual" or "bicurious". i think it's hot that my owner makes me do anything i do not inherently find erotic, and that's one of 'em. just take one look at his face when it happens, and you'll know why this works for us.

4. i believe the term is "cuckqueen" - a female cuckhold.

5. i have been removing completely the hair from my bikini area and beyond for about 18 years. i barely remember what i look like otherwise.

6. there are very few things that offend me, except for lying. lies are gross. they are the opposite of my kink.

7. i'm not who you think i am. the character of luna_lux will never be the same as the person writing it. that's the difference between online play and real life bdsm.

choices

there are threads flying around on fetlife about what choices are possible for slaves. and threads about control, and how much control a slave can have. and threads, also, about definitions, labels, communities, and wrongness.

some notes about how it works for me. so that i don't have to say it again, i can just link to this later. and because i like lists.

1. i do not live with my owner, and there are no current plans to change this. this does not make me any less dedicated, owned, or enslaved. all it means is that i live somewhere else and miss him more. while i am ambivalent at best about this situation, i feel there are both positive and negative reprecussions. but the decision is not up to me.

2. i don't like to use the word slave, although arguably the word "property" isn't a hell of a lot different. i believe that a slave is a person who is actually enslaved - either physically or emotionally. sometimes i feel it, sometimes i don't. but what i am called is not up to me.

3. there are issues in our world that require decisions that are not sexual. they are not about who i fuck or don't fuck, not about how many orgasms i have, or about how i wear my hair, even. voting, career choice, weight loss, are all significant issues that have very little to do with sex as we usually know it. these issues are often designated to me to decide, but the final choices are still not up to me.

are you getting a general theme here?

i never said everyone had to be TPE, or that it was "better" than anything else. but it's "total". not "part". or "mostly". or "except for...".

all the time

"I never worry
Now that is a lie..."

- rhcp, under the bridge

i've been thinking a lot about this whole 24/7 concept. i'm not all that interested in changing anyone's mind about their own definition of it. i'm also not that interested in making changes to my own relationship because of what someone else thinks it means. recently i was reading a blogger who i respect a great deal, and their (what i consider to be) rigid opinion of this disappointed me. i'm just not one to argue the point, but it's made me think about it.

so here's the thing. conceptually, a "24/7" arrangement is one where there is no break. there's no time out, there's no re-negotiation, there's no aftercare (in the sense that there is no "after"). but the challenge becomes how we think about obedience, service, and control.

there are vanilla relationships that are 24/7. those people are never *not* in the relationship because they aren't living together. parenting is 24/7. but when your kid is, say, at overnight camp, or visiting their other parent for a visit, you're not not a parent. why is it any different with M/s relationships? the assumption seems to be that unless you are directly under someone's use and control you are not in a 24/7 arrangement.

i think that's crap. unless you have your slave literally in your line of vision or otherwise chained up while they are not.

my point is, that i am not doing my owner's bidding every.single.second. because (surprise! shocker!) he doesn't have the freakin' time to direct when i take a breath, eat a cracker, sigh, or sit. sometimes his directions are simply to take care of it myself. i am 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, doing what he wants. and sometimes that's to just leave him in peace.

isn't that the point of being a slave? a slave is what i am, not what i do, or where i live.

i wonder

most of my life i've been in love first with language. maybe it comes from being encouraged/forced through high school latin, but for whatever the cause, i eat words and sentences and paragraphs and plot lines up like sugary treats. men always came second to whatever book i happened to be reading. i've never gone so far as to depend on my writing or reading for a living, though. while i'm sincerely not opposed to prostitution of the body, i'm opposed to prostituting my first love. but i'm straying from my intended topic: doubt.

one of the challenges of having an unsuccessful love life in the past is one's lack of experience with extended relationships. i hesitate to call it "long term", and won't ever be able to call it "permanent", but it seems like D and i have passed through some relationship humps over the last year and are comfortable enough with what it is now to not at least constantly worry about the crash-and-burn potential for ending. well, at least i'm more comfortable.

i don't ever doubt that what i'm doing is "right", or "good" - i don't think either of those words even apply, because of the inherent value judgement made by using those words. and i don't doubt that the relationship is positive for me. i hope it's positive for him - it's one thing i *do* assume.

where does the doubt live, then? i doubt my ability to keep up. i doubt my ability to not falter, and rather to succeed. i doubt that i will always be as valuable as i am.

my only exit possibility, if i ever felt that i needed it, is to simply stop obeying. and even then, my owner has the right to come collect me from my disobedience.

so what am i doubting? that he would?

i have no intention of playing that possibility out on purpose, i should be clear. but i'm caught up in the definition the slave register puts out regarding what slavery is, about the relationship being one in which you cannot remove yourself. i'm wandering around in the limbo of the fact that i do not want to remove myself, but if it is never proven, am i never a slave?

i know. it doesn't matter, really.

pricey whore

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over the hill and through

i remember exactly when i realized how it felt to be owned. it's a graphic moment; there was a wash of something like i didn't want to be doing this, being violently moved back and forth while fucked on my living room carpet, my hands flailing around looking for purchase. my eyes rolling in my head and my teeth clacking from the force of it. i know i was wounded, both inside and out, and something broke slightly, as i felt the first prick of wet in my eye.

i tried to ignore it, because i knew what it was. i knew then that whatever defense i'd had, whatever walls i'd put up had cracked somewhere along the way and it was pointless to pretend i had any control left. the word "slave" echoed through my head with a voiceless sound, until it burst out.

funny, though, because i don't remember any cracks. i can read through my own writing and see them now, but at the time i didn't realize it had already happened.

i'm examining the words now, slave. property. owner. Master. thing. (no)thing. control. power. they're just words for other people to use, because really the only truth of it is what happens on the floor and the vicious things you whisper in my ear.

terms of endearment

i've spent a lot of the last year examining the terms i use to describe myself - my "identifiers". i came to love my labels, mixing them up at will and sorting them out. sometimes i'd throw one out the window, only to chase it down later and add it to my pile. others i've clung to for years, and finally managed to eradicate.

but i'm stuck these days on the other part of the formula, the ones we use for our - ah - "tops". now, in my training oh-so-long-ago, a top was defined as the person on the do-er side, rather than the do-ee. generally, this was understood to be the sadist, the dominant, the master, the pirate king, the knot-tying-expert. not all together, necessarily, but the person taking on that part of the scene or relationship. the concept always interested me, because you didn't have to be dominant, for example, to be the one wielding, say, the signal whip, (this fascinated me for reasons obvious to those who know my history and - ah - skillset - with signal whips.) and you could still be considered a "top". i'm not sure if this theoretically made/makes me a switch, but as someone Important says, whatever for that.

now i'm thinking through the difference between "Master/Mistress" and "owner". i've come to terms with the idea that i am "property". i'm not currently a slave - and i'm okay with that - but definitely property.

so what makes someone a Master rather than an owner? i'm thinking that it's partly by owning a slave that one becomes a Master. that would be interesting, because it's a backwards way of defining the "top". i'm open to thoughts on this - yes, it's mostly semantics, but with common terms and language, our perverted minds can explode that much faster.

10 things i learned so far

1. that i mean it when i say it.
2. it's not so easy to say it in the first place, so i'd better think carefully first. leading to...
3. think before i speak. loose lips sink - subs.
4. labels suck, and i don't care what you think i am (or not). it only matters what he thinks, and what i think. rest of y'all can eat my dust, i'm not waiting for you to catch up.
5. the things i don't want to do are what i consider edge play for me. they may be tiny things to anyone else, but that's where he pushes my so-called limits.
6. i will not go backwards.
7.pain does not make me wet. submitting does.
8. love came secondarily, not primarily, and that's ok. love as an afterthought isn't such a bad thing.
9. love is not a guarantee or a promise. it just - is.
10. i'm stronger than anyone realizes. except him, maybe. he realizes it. now i realize it.

push

triggered by kitty's post a 'me' post... i'm not a slave....

just another demarcation point. life's a changin', and i'm while i'm not dreading the next part as the term end of my contract approaches, i'm almost high with anticipation about it, and we're pushing edges almost daily. is this why they call it a fever pitch?

i spent over 15 years firmly in the land of submission with an occasional side dish of bisexual sadism.

i fought it, and fought it, and fought it, until one sentence this past year from someone i trust just about more than almost anyone else brought it all crumbling down.

yes, i am a slave. i know, now, that the reason i've been struggling in relationships for as long as i have is because i was unwilling to acknowledge this. so i suppose the answer to your question is no, i can't change that. i've tried, and failed miserably.

i know that who and what i am is unusual, and to some, even, unacceptable, dangerous, immoral and pathological. but i've never been happier in my entire life than with this realization. it's not right for everyone, and honestly - if i'd had had a choice about it, i'm not sure i'd have chosen it - it's a hard path. but it's mine.

repost: homophobia

because it's the right thing to write today - it's just already been written. never forget.

**edit** it's been pointed out to me that i should clarify - i didn't write this, originally, but i do repost it as many others have across the internet.

Whether you are homosexual or not, you should re-post this in support of your friends and loved ones who are. Love is not defined by color, creed, or gender.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag everyday.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds my gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am a warrior for my country serving proud, but can't be my true self because gays aren't allowed in the military.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends I'm a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to "teach me a lesson."

labelled

i've been called a lot of things. i've called myself a lot of things, too. labels make life easier sometimes, because it's something to cling to when you have no idea where you fit in.

that doesn't make them right. i'm fascinated and educated by the conversation going on in kaya's blog, here. yes, i'm obsessed with words. and i can't help but continuously try to pigeon-hole myself, as much as i know it's not possible.

i wrote this about labels a while ago, and even used it in a profile somewhere on the internet:

i adore labels. i love them. i cut them up and repaste them together again in little confetti anachronisms until i find one that looks like a gorgeous ransom note and say 'that'll fit.'

things i've been called both by others and by myself:

- victim
- masochist
- doormat
- submissive
- slave
- girl
- grownup
- mature
- immature
- petty
- cold
- warm
- Ma'am
- bitch

i don't own any of these. and all of them are mine.

interference

i've been watching with great interest this post on the slave register boards. and i suppose after the initial thrown-for-a-loop regarding the perspective on my own life, i'm still amazed that the conversation continues.

i'm perfectly okay with the perspective that if i have a job, or a child, or a sick family member that interferes with my ability to prioritize my owner's needs then i cannot be a slave.

that's fine.

what i think perhaps is a better way to phrase it is that i cannot be *their* slave.

which is also fine.

i think it's incredibly unrealistic to imagine that there is never going to be anything that de-prioritizes the owner's needs. granted, some interferences (children, for example) are a longer-term "interference" than others. but ultimately, the whole thing is supposed to be about giving the owner what they want. and if what they want is kids in their life, or a second income, or a slave who can find room in their heart to care for others, then - that's really all that matters.

i honestly don't care if someone considers me to be something other than what i know myself to be.

i'm being less articulate than i'd like to be about this, but i think it's a pretty plain answer, so it doesn't need a lot of dress up.

damage by self

"i treated myself
like i knew i would
i told you
i was trouble
you know i'm no damn good..."

-amy winehouse

it's amazing how you can destroy yourself in the absence of anything else doing it for you. it's a self-destructive pattern a *lot* of women have. some do it physically (cutters, ana's, overeaters) and some mentally (involvement with dangerous people, emotional distancing, or plain old un-ending sadness).

here's an aspect of submission i didn't expect: the loss of the need to self-destruct. perhaps that's getting closer to my non-sexual reasons for submission, and also closer to why i'm attracted to and respond very well to this TPE-like situation i'm in. it makes me think a lot about the post BDSM-IV, wherein it's discussed the sometimes-beneficial aspects of what would otherwise be a certain pathology.

i wonder if i'm substituting punishment by way of my dominant for the punishment i'd be giving to myself for my own perceived errors. in a way, it's taking something inherently damaging and negative about my psychology, and turning it back around into something positive, through both the eroticization of it and the resolution (which i'd never be able to give myself).

my dominant says i seem to live in gumby's backwards world - where everything that's wrong, is right.

allusions

i've alluded to this a few times before, about my understanding of my own masochism, both physical and emotional. two very separate topics, as it turns out, so i'm starting with the easier - the physical. Raven Kaldera's book "Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and the Ordeal Path" basically breaks it down into three different reasons, or rather, motivators, for masochism:

1. the body's need and ability to release out if itself via endorphins or other physiological reactions, and then it's ability to return back into itself. otherwise known as "out of body experiences by way of pain".
2. an individual's need to press themselves with endurance, self-strengthening.
3. an individual's need to experience pain as a service to a sadist.

i've done my time as a sensation-play masochist, and i gotta tell you, it did very little for me. i suppose i could, if i felt like it, consider myself now a sensation-play sadist (not dominant), but i'm not all that interested in pain for sensation's sake. at least, i don't get wet from it.

and strength building? i don't need to prove how strong i am, how much i can take, to make myself feel better. just not the way i'm wired - that's not proof to me.

but that third one, well, got under my skin (all puns intended). because that's fucking exactly why i do this bizarre edgeplay fucked up stuff. exactly.

so maybe i'm not actually masochistic at all - just submissive.

care and feeding, revisit

Quoting R100Rider,from a comment in the post attitude adjusted: "Bless your heart. I don't think I could do anything more than casual play without at least a grain of love involved. I couldn't trust someone that much."

I started writing the response to this there, but it deserves it's own post.

this makes me wonder if i've mis-portrayed the relationship i'm referring to. i don't think i said there was no love involved, but that he is not my "lover", or my boyfriend. i think there are ways to give and show love that are not within the realms of those two kinds of relationships. for example, love for a family member.

in this relationship there is an *incredible* amount of trust. affection, too. in fact, my struggle with this has not been around whether or not i'm getting enough care from him, but around how that can co-exist with the fact that i am also his posession, and don't always have the permissions and freedoms to make the choices i would make under my own steam. but the point, i suppose, is that whatever "care and feeding" (or love, depending on how you phrase it) that comes from my Dominant is what he chooses to give me. He's not obligated to *love* me, any more than i am obligated to *love* him. that's not part of the contract. it's not the primary reason we're doing this - that comes from a very, very deep need and pull that exists inside both of us.

but what *is* there is a mention of the fact that we continue to maintain a true, honest friendship throughout the term of service. and maintaining a friendship does, in my belief system, involve some level of care.

that's not the kind of love we associate with match dot com or somesuch, but it's there.

yeah, it's complicated.

but also part of the point of this is exploration, and i like to challenge my notions of what i thought i believed, what i'm able to do. an adventure with a *lot* of risk, i'm aware, but then again i've never been one to pull punches, even on myself.

thanks for the thought generator.