Transformation into power exchange

 If I go back two years in time, there was a conversation one day with someone well versed in the BDSM community that didn't make sense to me. I took that to mean, since I am not well versed in the BDSM community, that I must be wrong or ignorant.

He was talking about training submissives, (I admit that that sort of language still has both an appeal and a distaste for me), and I listened along, a bit confused. Eventually, I asked a question.

'I don't understand what you mean exactly,' I said. 'It sounds like you are saying that you can transform a relationship into a D/s dynamic by working on just the submissive, training her.'

Now, I have to paraphrase this conversation according to my recollection obviously, but this is what I remember.

'Think of it like a car... 

(My mind went straight to riding a girl)

...Imagine a guy drives a mini minor. Well, I turn his girl into a BMW.'

I actually went through this sort of 'training', in short form, a big emphasis on 'obedience', but of course this did not create a satisfactory D/s dynamic because what hadn't been satisfactorily sorted were the emotions and subsequent behaviours that had not been addressed and resolved, on both my and my husband's part. On a particular day, he felt rejected by me, and that was enough to blow the newly returned dynamic apart.

Of course, if I could have taken back that day and replayed it, I would. I have reminded myself that if it hadn't happened on that day, it would have happened on another day. It would most certainly have happened because his vulnerabilities and distresses still lay just below the surface. 

What hadn't been accounted for was that we had come out of a difficult period of time where he was spending a great deal of time at his desk trying to resolve business matters. He felt vulnerable about his health. There wasn't enough time spent together, next to no fun; inadequate displays of affection; low priority of our marriage in our lives.

Yet, we were being told we were codependent on one another. We were being encouraged to spend time apart. Yes, I had to come to terms with the fact that I needed to create a life on my own if I were to handle the situation, since he was utterly wedded to his desk, I understood that.  But how exactly was this going to create the connection and passion I craved in my life if he hadn't been 'trained' as well?

By turning me into a BMW and leaving him unable to find space in his mind for anything much than work - in other words, leaving him feeling that the sky would fall if he took his eyes off the business and political scene - or off his health, or that he was in emotional danger of feeling that he could do something 'wrong' in our relationship - the car, albeit traded in for a better model, was still sitting in the garage.

Looking back on it, the best advice would have been like this.

'We need to look at the marriage. Sort through feelings and emotions that have accrued in recent years. We build into it, once the feelings and emotions are expressed and resolved, new behaviours that will prepare the marriage for the next stage. It may take up to a year to prepare the marriage for a power exchange that will last. If you are up for that, let's do it.'

This is what I would advise. Make your relationship the very best it can be, based on evidence such as from research undertaken by the Gottmans. Consider work with a therapist trained in emotions focused therapy. Maybe, at that point, you are happy as clams. Maybe you want more, a power dynamic. Well then, now you're good to go.

Active Submission

 I heard a woman say on a podcast that she realized she was submissive when she identified with the submissive in all the BDSM/D/s/kink stories she read. It's the same for me and was that way from an early age.

In my marriage, I do, and always have provided service. I do this willingly enough. I am a pretty good cook. There are no complaints. I whizz through laundry and like to keep a house clean and organized. So, that's just the way I am.

When I was talking through a little detail for a written Contract with Daniel, a kink educator, he suggested I come up with something else, something more meaningful for the dynamic. So, we settled on me turning down the bed; that is, taking off all the cushions and extra pillows and turning down the bed. It's a small thing but I like to do it and he notices that I do it, what it represents, and he appreciates it.

Our lives didn't allow for a lot more add on, since pretty much all the service kind of activities of our lives are done by me anyway, and I am quick to help him with, say, stacking wood in winter, or gathering leaves in Autumn. This is especially the case now that he is on a chemotherapy type of drug which does sap his energy.

As I listened to the podcast of the 24/7 dynamic couple, I realized that we do pretty much all that they do on a day-to-day level. I am given tasks to do that I do well, and that he doesn't want to do or feels I could do better. We have been together so long that this developed into a groove that requires no discussion. 

I will ask his opinion about certain decisions and keep him abreast of matters but not always, because he doesn't necessarily want to know. Sometimes, he will say, 'why are you asking me this?' in a way that means, 'that is your province and I trust you to make the right selection.'

Daniel thought my husband should have a tracker on me. We both didn't see that as a form of communication that was ideal for us. I say when I am leaving the house and roughly when I am coming back. I might say, 'I am going to the supermarket' or I am going to Book Club'. I don't ask permission for these things, but I do inform. If I wanted to go on a girls' weekend or to a retreat, that I would definitely seek his approval to do.

Last night, I reached for some Kit Kat (a chocolate bar in Australia) and he asked me, 'Did you ask permission?' I smiled and said, 'May I please have permission for some more, Sir?' and he broke off a bar and handed it to me. I love this sort of thing.

This past weekend, he created a Friday rule too. That made my heart sing. I have to ask for something each Friday which becomes a weekend activity. He added in, 'If you don't come and ask, you'll get a beating. Got it?' I did get it. I have a love/hate relationship with spanking. I really do remind myself to be careful what I wish for.

Which leads me to say, it's just not enough for me to have this undercurrent of roles in our lives. I like to feel it more, in a literal sense. He knows this, and also that the feeling he provides, when he chooses to provide it, can test me.

My awareness of my own Self only grows, and I was aware on the weekend that I overreacted to being spanked hard and fast such that I couldn't get on top of my breathing. For the first time ever, I swallowed in some weird way where a sharp pain travelled up into my nose and I said, 'please, I need to stand'. He thought I was just being a whimp and said, 'no' but I said, 'please, it's my nose'. 

He consoled me and that should have been the end of the story, but my sense of Self, or ego, or my uppitiness or whatever you want to call it, got in the way and I became wordy and critical. So, he did too. 

This led to a waste of time back and forth which only ended when I said, 'Okay, I know I am bad.' 'Get that idea out of your head. You are not bad,' he said. This led me to say, 'I'm sorry. I overreacted.'

That night as we cuddled together just before sleep I said, 'I am sorry for today. You should probably spank me for it.' (This isn't a habit of mine - this is progress!)

He said, 'I appreciate your words, cindi.' We fell asleep in one another's arms.

I slept all night, but I was aware of my ass, in a way only a submissive can be. I woke aware of a sense of gentleness and calmness within me.

I know I need a period of training to get back into the lifestyle in a complete way and I do consider what happened just a bleep; not a setback, just me fully accepting my rightful place and associated behavior again. 

In another circumstance this past weekend I said to him, 'Please, Sir, could you go slower' and he liked that; made note to me that it was a good thing I did that.

So, I think this is a go-er for us, quite suddenly. I think we can build momentum from here. I am miles more aware and willing to be an active submissive now and for us, that's a good thing.

Thoughts on the Depp/Heard case

 Like millions of other people, I got swept up in the Depp:Heard legal case where Depp sued Heard for defamation in an newspaper article she co-wrote saying that she was a victim of domestic abuse. I very much wanted to believe her. Even now, I don't know and I don't think the court case made especially clear what actually took place in their relationship.

For sure, they said mean and ugly things to each other. For sure, they both found the union to be sufficiently disturbing that, ultimately, there was no alternative but to split.

Whether he caused those bruises on her face, kicked her, slapped her in the face over and over, (as a witness testified), I don't know. 

What we can know is that the jury and the world, generally speaking, was of the opinion, that none of these things happened, because if even one of those things happened on any given day, the jury was obliged to find for Heard. 

If she suffered not physically but emotionally, then that too would count as an acknowledgement of Heard's vindication for writing the article. The jury determined that she was not emotionally abused.

Or, maybe the jury felt that they were both emotionally abused by one another and so it sort of amounted to a cancellation of abuse.

There was very troubling testimony and had I been on the jury, I would have wanted to explore that fully. A young man who became close to Johnny testified that right after their wedding ceremony he made a statement that went something like, 'Now I can legally knock her around.' I found that chilling.

I also would have wanted to explore the fact that victims of domestic abuse often want to protect their abuser and that this was in line with Heard not wanting to talk to the police after they were called, and I think they were called after a friend heard a very troubling encounter between Depp and Heard on the telephone. (I didn't see the whole trial so that may not be entirely accurate)

My point is that there was evidence that domestic abuse of one kind or another appears to have taken place and has been corroborated by other people. Maybe the jury thought these people were lying too.

It's strange, because I am of the understanding that it is a crime to give false testimony and it seems odd that so many people who gave testimony have been accused of lying on both sides. It throws into  question the judicial system and the willingness of people to lie.

I was a young woman in the days of the trial of Lindy Chamberlain who woke one night whilst on a family camping trip in the Northern Territory of Australia to find her baby gone. It was a similar situation to the Depp:Heard case from the point of view that the judicial system and people at large got involved, with nearly everyone having an opinion one way or the other. (You may recall that Streep played Lindy.) Most people, and the courts, came down on the side that Lindy must have killed her baby.

I found that proposition absolutely ludicrous from the moment I heard about it. I held onto that position for years until that joyous day when baby Azaria's jacket was found, corroborating the fact that a dingo had taken her baby.

In the meantime, Lindy's life was destroyed. The (innocent) woman was in jail when she had her second baby. Can you imagine how devastating it could be for a human who loved her baby dearly to be accused and convicted of killing her? A witch hunt, indeed.

So, I wanted to believe Amber. If those awful things happened, and she made it out of there in one whole piece, then I wanted to support that strength.

But, things niggled me. For one, I would never write a public article that would destroy the life of the man I proclaim to still love. She supported him, she says, by not wanting to talk to the police, and yet she wrote the article. There's a problem there.

The 'malicious intent' that the jury believed in was a surprise. Really? She maliciously intended to hurt him? Well, yes, thinking more on this, I suppose she did write it with either the intent to inflict harm on him or else she was naive as to the repercussions of the article. 

One article I read shed some light on the power dynamic of the couple. Sure, Depp was richer and more famous, but Depp came across as a codependent who couldn't navigate such deep (narcissistic) waters.

Who knows?

I do know that this trial in some way struck a cord with the world at large much like the Chamberlain tragedy which took place long before social media was a thing.

When a relationship begins wonderfully; when a person is provided with much affection that they so sorely need, and then things start to become a bit emotionally abusive - intermittent validation/affection; tactics that confuse the other person but keep them enmeshed in a relationship that is troubling - it's hard for the brain to figure out what has happened. Wasn't it once a great relationship? Wasn't he or she once so loving? Maybe, if he or she tries hard enough, they can get back to that?

I don't know what happened in that relationship exactly and I am not sure if the participants fully understand the dynamic themselves. To be sure, they were both right to go their separate ways.  Unfortunately, that was not done quietly.

Excess

I have had very little interest in wondering about other planets and what life might be like on them, until I began reading my first sci-fi novel, 'The Book of Fabulous New Things' by Michael Faber. It's not strictly sci-fi in that Faber has mixed genres and what the book seems to be offering (I am at the half-way mark) is not so much an alternative world as an effort to have the reader think about life on this planet Earth, about devotion and duty to another person, and about the endurance of love. That's my sense of it so far.

Although I can't say I am particularly enjoying the read so far, it's got so much potential to have a searing effect on the reader in the long run that I am reading on into the very long novel with confidence that it won't be a waste of my time. Already, I find myself questioning the way things are done here; how much we assume is okay, when maybe it isn't all that okay after all.

Wintertime, I've worn a pair of boots a number of times. I'm not sure why it was yesterday, as I was walking along in a park, that it suddenly dawned on me that my old tried and true black boots with a medium heel suddenly didn't look right to my eye. I came home and scanned my boots and shoes and noticed that some toes were round and some toes had a short square toe, like the ones I was wearing. I sorta knew that on some level in that I gave away a very obviously square toed ankle book at the beginning of winter. But, that all the boots on women in the streets were round toed was something that had escaped my attention.

I have no difficulty in parting with clothing and footwear that has been well worn, but this turn in what was 'in fashion' threw me because it meant that a few pairs of footwear were suddenly unwearable, when they had plenty of life left in them. I expressed my annoyance to those who would listen, my sons. My eldest son assured me that square toed footwear was not to be worn, whilst my youngest son assured me that the fashion police didn't actually exist.

'But, they do, they do!' I replied.

These sudden changes in fashion styles are nothing new, of course; simply an old but brilliant ploy to get us to ditch perfectly good items in order to buy new ones. Whilst this has always been the case, I've more or less absolved myself from the game by maintaining a classic dress style. A classic black skirt is a classic black skirt and whilst my 20 year old black woolen jacket is currently having its shoulder span taken in, even the dressmaker who happily tells me to ditch things and buy a replacement agreed that the jacket was too good to throw away. Yes, she would remodel it. Oh joy!

I am realistic enough to accept that we can't change the culture too much, or too fast, or maybe not at all. Although, some people do simply ignore culture. I've a lovely girlfriend who gives the entire thing a miss; no makeup, long straight hair and jeans. Her idea of getting gad up is to change into a pair of black slacks. I think she's great. But, it's the sort of bravery that most of us are not up to; certainly not me.

Back in the day when plans were being put in place to contain me; something that thrilled me, I agreed to cull my wardrobe. The idea is/was that now that there was much less in the wardrobe, anything bought required that something be thrown away. It didn't entirely work for me. I'd see something gorgeous and impulsively get it, particularly if it was on sale. I worked on the basis of one in/one out, mostly, but there was something missing in the equation, a sort of ambivalence about the philosophy behind it. I hadn't quite taken it into my soul.

I think it goes like this, that I am surrounded every day by people with shopping bags in their arms, people who almost live to shop; daily emails telling me about sales; SALE notices in the largest letters screaming at me from store windows. It is almost our religion here on Earth: shop til you drop. And thus, from time to time the rule is broken. Sorta: if they can do it, why can't I?

I am, in fact, the opposite of a bower bird. I detest clutter. I can't function with stuff around me and this sense of wanting to live with space around me, space to breathe, just gets more and more intense. As I say to my husband, everything should be in its place and if there isn't a place for it, maybe we don't need to own it. He finds me excessively concerned about this matter which makes my relationship with my first born all the more important because he thinks I'm not minimalist enough.

I read a statement lately that suggested that we not talk to  the exterior - people, dressed and preened - but that we talk to their souls. It's an extraordinary thought, I think; that there might be another planet, another way to live, where there were no stores; no attempts to convince others, and yourself, that you're more special than another person because you have a fancy car and/or house, a Facebook account that highlights your overseas trips, or the latest Prada bag.

I love beautiful things and I love to look good, so I'd miss the opportunity to own some lovely things to wear, but excess is, well, it's excessive. Imagine if our philosophy here on Earth was 'Buy what you need.' Imagine if the culture looked down on those with excess. It's kinda happening right now; a moral concern with foodies obsessed with the latest fad when millions of people in the world are starving.

As one individual in a large world I feel that the only control I have is over myself; to monitor what I own and do with those items I no longer need; to use the food that I buy and not allow it to go to waste; to be a better role model for the children on these matters than I have been in the past; to recognize that we in some way are feeding the insecurities of our souls and hearts by over buying and obsessively wanting more.

I think this is where the awareness notion comes into play. If we are asking ourselves why we want the new dress or the expensive restaurant meal, we are at least taking the time to explore our reasons for the desire. With winter in full swing I'm aware of my sweet tooth demanding my attention and that's when I have to use self discipline to deny myself that which I don't need. Thank goodness for Jazz apples.

There is something about my submissive mind that likes to be contained and that feels out of sorts when there is too much allowed. I know deep down that happiness doesn't come to me via possessions but rather a sense of connection to those I love. This is what makes the power exchange dynamic special for me; containment and connection; happiness.

The delicate balance of the dynamic

When the dynamic between two people is firmly established - one person being the Dominant of the team, the leader, and the other person being the submissive, the follower of the team - there is an easy and consistent flow of life. Each person understands and is comfortable in his or her assigned role and whilst there may be some unharmonious moments, as there are between all couplings, the matter is soon set straight. It is to each person's benefit that the correction ensues, returning the dynamic to balance; the balance of the power dynamic agreed upon.

As I see it, lack of harmony mostly happens when there is not an adequate show of power, and to whom that power belongs. Any efforts made on my part to wrestle power (and that happens when I feel, often subconsciously, that I am not being sufficiently controlled) lead me to feel out of sync with myself and my place.  It is a sense of being in a foreign land without a city map or the ability to speak the language. It is a sense of unease.

I make attempts to 'fix' the Dominant party. Is there a problem? Do they want to talk about it? It probably looks like a play for power, or for making the relationship more like one of vanilla folks. I can even think this myself until it becomes self-evident eventually that what I really want is for the Dominant to be, well, more Dominant. I can't be myself, submissive, unless and until he returns to the person I know and I want him to be, leader-like, and aware of my needs to bunker down at his behest.

I can make a meal, or plan a weekend away, or assist the children with a creative endeavor, or plan a party, or write a story, without his assistance, but what I can't do is feel comfortable in my own skin without him feeling comfortable in his own skin.

There is an enormous responsibility towards the submissive and there's a pain in the ass factor here, I know. No-one feels dominant all the time. Life beats everybody down some days. We all need time on our own and every dominant sometimes expects his submissive to just get on with life without his involvement from time to time. There are protocols in place and so long as she does what she is supposed to do, all is, more or less, well.

It is, however, undeniable that without some input, some reminder of her place, and his place in her life, she can become unglued. There is always that risk. She needs evidence of the more assertive guy she knows is always there but not necessarily on show, so that she can be the compliant and content person they both known her to be deep down, regardless of  any and all conditions that are happening on the surface.

Technically, it is understood; the agreement has been in place for eons. But, the need for reminders of the dynamic, well, honestly, that never entirely goes away. She is much more happy when her place is abundantly clear and she can bunker down into it. This is the way that it is, has always been and always will be. This is the need of people who choose the power dynamic.