A way to love

I love it when authors inject into their writing statements that are presented as fact. It is particularly wonderful when you find yourself agreeing along with the author as you read them, or better yet, realizing just how right they are and wondering why you didn’t think of that first.

I watched this year’s BAFTA awards tonight; at least, the re-run of the ceremony. I enjoy watching how the British do it. There is no razzmatazz but some very lovely moments, such as the director’s tribute to Natalie Portman who gave “her heart and soul” to the project and without requirement, began training for the part a year before they began to shoot it, we were told. That is commitment!

I was truly delighted to see just how well ‘The King’s Speech’ did at the BAFTAs. I heard the director of the movie being interviewed last week on the radio and thought he sounded a delightful man; incredibly hard working. I loved the movie myself having grown up with my grandmother who was fascinated with the Royal Family and of course the movie was done with impeccable taste and restraint.

The last scene of the movie between Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush when they recorded the speech live to be broadcast across the United Kingdom as they prepared for war is not easily forgotten. Rush captured perfectly that Aussie irreverence and I agreed with the Director when he said that an Englishman could not have achieved with the King what this man from the antipodes could, with his constant banter and his refusal to be impressed that his client was the King of England, or just about to be crowned King anyway.

At some point during the BAFTA ceremony they played a pre-recorded interview with Firth about the relationship between the two men and he said, (and I wrote it down word for word), “Like all relationships that are meaningful, it’s not smooth.” It was one of those statements of ‘fact’ that leaves you wishing you had said it yourself.

No meaningful relationship is smooth. No meaningful relationship is meant to be smooth. You have to have the foresight and the faith to believe in a relationship; to get from one good period to the next; to withstand the not good periods and recognize that they will pass; that this too shall pass.

After all that I have written about the power exchange relationship I still don’t feel in the least qualified to make a statement of fact. Sometimes it works abundantly well. Sometimes, it is an abject failure. Sometimes, I think it is quite simply, flawed. I don’t feel that way about love. Love is sometimes turbulent and wild; sometimes elegantly simple and smooth. But, it endures if the will to keep it alive is there; if the faith is strong and the feelings real and deep. It can survive catastrophes and even neglect and betrayal. It forgives. It continues to revive itself and to withstand. It runs deep down in the heart and the soul. Like all relationships that are meaningful, it is not smooth.

I’ve never for a single moment believed that a D/s relationship can have the meaning that I would wish a relationship to have, if there was not some modicum of love involved; of one kind or another. At the very least, love is a feeling of warm personal attachment for another person. The more I think about the model of a power exchange relationship and the more I live it, the more convinced I am that it requires more love and less rigor; more connection of two human souls who embrace one another’s human frailties and less dependence on rules and rituals; more interconnectedness and open communication and less dependence on roles.

The power exchange has huge power and appeal for me as an erotic medium. I am endlessly turned on by living it and learning about it. However, what is truly significant to me is that it is a way to express one’s love for another human being. Without that, I’m afraid it has very little to offer me at all.