Wanting no control

When I am immersed in activities of the mind, using every ounce of intellect I have to create a piece of writing that appeals to academics, I can hunger for some time when I must make absolutely no decisions. When the opportunity comes I grab onto it, luxuriating in the experience of simply following instructions - instructions that are designed for my pleasure (and challenge).

What is hard becomes easy. It doesn't matter what the expectation is for whatever it is I go about filling it. The instruction doesn't pass through my mind but rather 'the bimbo' hears the instruction and immediately, without any thought at all, fulfills it.

Maybe, I know that I can be delivered from excruciatingly boring thought; or from my own expectations of excellence, or from having to climb one more intellectual mountain. Maybe, my mind has been trained to obey. Maybe, I equate challenge and obedience with pleasure.

It's so wonderful to feel myself for these times; to let go of societal expectations to be a certain way. How ironic, it seems to me that the 'postmodern' society paints us into boxes that it is meant to free us from. If I want to be controlled; to give up control; to let go of the role of 'emancipated female' then why  can't I?

It drives me up the wall that it is I that is seen as old-fashioned or behind the times when I am simply arguing for the right to express myself and my desires; to be myself. They aren't other people's desires; simply my own. I ask no-one to change. I ask for respect of my desire to give up control rather than have more.  Who knew the 'postmodern' society could be so constricting?
 

The whole entity

In my last post I expressed some frustration that my true nature is kept under the radar. I don't necessarily look like a person with kinky thoughts running through her mind night and day is meant to look. Certainly most people don't respond to me in any particular way that relates to my submissive nature. Only the rarest of people have caught on to what lies below the surface and have sought to interact in person with the whole entity that is me.

Last Saturday, my husband and I enjoyed one of our most kinky of days all morning and again in the late afternoon. There was just enough time for me to get ready for a dinner party with a group of friends and whilst 'cindi' was present all night on the inside (my husband said I was "aglow"), on the outside all that was visible to the untrained eye (I suppose) was "the girl".

I admit it bothered me and it particularly bothered me that when the word "spanking" was used by one of the men, I became particularly silent. I feel fear (and elation) when the word is used in such a vanilla setting because I worry that I am one step away from exposure.

But honestly, exposure from what? Exposure from the fact that I am happier now and more content than any other time in my life? Exposure from the fact that I enjoy living and loving in a certain kind of way? Exposure from the fact that I have special friends that have enriched my life and made me feel complete?

On one level, it's not that I fear exposure at all but rather that I covet that which is so very special to me. I don't want a bunch of people making lurid, smutty comments about me or those special to me when they don't really understand me, what makes me tick or the lifestyle of my choice. The exposure I worry about is an exposure than would alter something truly wonderful and transformational into something cheap and lurid. I covet my privacy in this space by way of a different name(s) because I fear that to not do so would let the sunshine in and void the magic of the experience for me and others.

I want to be very clear about one thing. The entity of Vesta/cindi allows for the whole personality and spirit of me. If I am kind, obedient and truthful, if I am honourable, if I am loyal and honest and reliable; if I can keep a secret and take it to my deathbed - and I am all those things and can do all those things, then those qualities are all part of the whole me (wife, mother, citizen, daughter, submissive woman who seeks containment, to name but a few of the roles in my life). The open expression of Vesta and cindi enable me to express all that is me.

And, who is me? I'm a girl who took a chance and reached out to her husband first and foremost and then to a few significant others about thoughts that had run through her head all her life. With the help of one or two special people, I'm a girl who opened her mind on these pages (and others) to allow other people in to read and explore her mind and heart and soul.

I'm a girl with the greatest of respect for other people who have also pursued the expression of themselves (semi) publicly in whatever form that takes. We all here reach out for interaction with like minded souls, for self expression and to live our lives as honestly as we can under the restraints of a community who may choose to judge/mock rather than seek to understand/accept how we choose to lives our own individual lives.

Would I prefer to look like a kinky person? Would it enrich the experience for me? Not really. I choose the clothes and appearance that are right for me, much as we all do. It is enough for me that only very special people know me for all that I am. I never needed a crowd, never needed to be the centre of attention and never wanted to be the life of the party. It is enough for me to live exactly as I do because it is part of me to be a very private person with very special people in my life.

I am a trusting but careful person. I choose who I trust and do that carefully. In the same way I can be trusted by them. A secret is only a secret when you tell someone and the secrets of others will never see the light of day on these pages or any other pages. It is said that if you have a handful of friends in your life - true friends - you are doing well. I believe that.

There have been times on this journal when I have wondered if I have anything more to say; anything more to offer the reader. The thought I return to is that this is my chance to be brave and to do something bold and good and true. This is what keeps me coming back to these pages.

Seasons

I am a product of a conservative (if not eccentric) background. My mother married young to a man she fell in love with whilst still in her teens. He had considered himself a life time bachelor until he met her but ultimately he agreed that if she felt the same way about him when she turned 20, he would marry her. Their wedding took place a week after that date and they remained blissfully happy and deeply in love until his death. Her devotion at nursing him until his dying day was inspirational. No one could have done what she did unless they have in their hearts a huge capacity for love.

For his part, he led her, guided her and loved her every day of her adult life. That is not to say that she was not capable because she was more than capable. She had people skills in abundance and the capacity for hard work. Together, they managed successful businesses, but he was always the boss. If the word went out that he was on his way onto the floor, we all knew what to do: act busy. He abhorred laziness.

Conservative as they were in many ways, my parents were not thrilled with my choice of a husband. This is not news to my husband and to his credit, he was always, and still is, gracious and welcoming to my family. I suppose they figured that I was still too young to know my mind and the fact that he was immediately taking me to the other side of the world didn’t aid matters.

Although my mother quite naturally accepted my father as the boss, she has a wilful, independent streak and she knew how to work my father. She saw my husband as too demanding, too much wanting his own way; altogether too opinionated and anal-retentive. If I complained that I couldn’t get him to make a decision about this or that; say painting a room, she would encourage me to just organize it myself. Patience is not her strongest suit.

In fact, she continued to make private retorts and complaints to me, away from my husband’s ears for many years and I was torn. I have never fought with my mother because I know that cross words from me would hurt her profoundly but I also knew that her lack of respect for him as my husband, even if only expressed when with me alone, was destructive to my state of mind and all our relationships.

This rather difficult circumstance continued on through the years until a few years ago when I talked to my husband about creating a more formal ‘power exchange’ relationship. With a better understanding of what I wanted and how to achieve it, I now felt more empowered to deal with her complaints.

I didn’t argue with her but what she experienced was that I was now standing up for him with a new verve. She was not against him now unless she chose to be against me, too. She wasn’t going to do that. She loves me with a passion and if I was happy, she was happy.

This was a revelation to me. Immediately, our relationships improved on every level. She no longer so much saw a man who was inclined to want his own way but rather a man who would protect his wife and children through all and any eventuality. Her daughter oozed happiness and contentment and that being the case, what was there to say?

I am inclined to think that being confronted lately by criticism of becoming the ‘doll’, and taking that criticism hard, relates to my choice all those years ago to fore go a career for myself; to give of myself to others so intensely. My mother had difficulty at the time understanding my choice of a large family. She has said to me endless times that I could have been anything. I could have had a good career. I have given too much of myself to my family.

At a school reunion a year or so ago, my old school friends echoed her sentiments but in a more sympathetic way. As one of the high achievers, they had anticipated I would go on to a career in education or writing (perhaps journalism). It was a shock to learn that once the children were born, I had devoted myself largely to the family.

The reality is that I could never have split myself into two in this way. With the strongest desire to care for them, I needed to do that as well as I could without distraction or endless frustration. My husband understood that and enabled it, just as he enabled this blog, a mentor, moving into the power exchange relationship that I requested. He is, in fact, the right man for me and bringing up a large family together was the right decision for us.

Of course, I understand my mother’s concerns. I have strongly encouraged my daughter to reach her potential with her god-given talents and I wish her every success in her chosen profession. I urge her to consider using her talents for a lifetime. But, I also urge her to keep her eye out for a man she can love and respect, and who will love and respect her, too. I know the sort of man she wants. I’ve paid close attention to her comments over the years and she has a fervent need to be cherished; to love with intensity.

It is only now, later in my life that the opportunity exists for me to explore my own needs in any focused way. 'Balance' need not necessarily mean that we spread our time equally between career and family/spouse at all times in our lives. Rather, for some of us, to everything there is a season. My earlier adult life was given to my family and perhaps now is the beginning of a time in my life when my own more intense personal needs and interests might find flight.

For me, that does not mean that my husband gets the flick and I go off to ‘find myself’ on my own. Rather, that means that I might now have the chance to wallow in my husband’s attention, companionship and love.

We must all choose our path in life and I chose mine with open eyes. Alas, the messages that surrounded me (and still surround me at times) that I was choosing poorly derailed me from accepting my true nature in total. But, that is over now. I’m back on track and there is nothing left to stand in my way.

Values

I’m grateful to Dr.Yaldah Tovah for his wonderful writings about the female submissive. Perhaps, there are other professionals who have also written papers on the subject, but I’m not aware of them. I recommend his writings to you and I suggest you look out for an article on the Internet entitled ‘The Healthy Female Submissive’.

Dr. Tovah is concerned that women with a submissive nature are receiving incorrect messages from society at large. He writes:

“Here in Western society, we place highest value on independence...the less needy and more self-sufficient. We value competition over co-operation, tangible achievement over achievement in relationship.”

But, is this, he wonders the right way to think?

“There is something wrong with believing that such independence is the only good. It is especially wrong for the most relatedness-oriented among us, the submissive female.”

I don’t think there is any dispute that societal expectations can be hard on the female submissive (and the Dominant) and Dr. Tovah has some suggestions to make:

“Part of the newly aware submissive’s task is to separate out the internalized voices of her culture: those voices that tell her she is too needy, too dependent, too focused on the others in her life. Once she can articulate what those voices tell her, she can begin to question not HERSELF, but the validity of those internalized values, using her own yardstick to measure her life, rather than our culture’s standard.”

I think I have felt guilty at times for my choices in life. I’m not out there climbing any corporate ladders or fulfilling my ‘potential’. It soon became very obvious to me that with my husband’s ambitious nature, working full time would leave my children without the focus of a parent for much of the time. I just didn’t want that and nor did my husband. It worked for us to have less materially and to have one parent for whom the focus was, the children. I don’t regret that decision at all but I confess I have felt that I may have gone against some code that says ‘women can have it all’. They can, of course, but for me, having it all meant that I could choose to make my children and my husband, the focus of my life. Mine is a different perspective.

Dr Tovah writes, “We can see how perspective is critical in understanding a phenomenon. He suggests that submissive women should ask, not ‘am I weak?’ but “is there something missing from the yardstick I use to measure myself?”

The truth is that personally, I long ago stopped worrying about societal norms. I don’t mean that I fly in the face of conventions because I don’t do that. I tread quietly across this earth and I don’t look for conflict. But, I am proud of myself for finally fully accepting my submissive nature and for putting in place (with assistance) a way of operating in my life and with my husband wherein we are both happy, where we both feel natural and at peace, and where we do no one any harm. I am proud of my willingness to go against conventional wisdom and the thinking of the group to live my own life on my terms.

If life had been a little different, it seems that my choice of career was indeed suited to my submissive nature. Dr. Tovah notes the little girl with a submissive nature has a “sixth sense” about people. The submissive “often finds great fulfilment working in fields such as social work, nursing, medicine, counselling, teaching.”

I am touched by Dr. Tovah’s understanding of the female submissive’s needs in a partner:

“Those who consciously seek a Dominant partner are those who are perhaps, so sensitive that they require not only benevolence, but someone who understands PRECISELY how mouldable and influence able they are, and is capable of using the power to mould her and influence her deliberately and consciously, for her good and the good of the relationship. In that kind of relationship, the submissive is freed to be all of herself. She is safe enough to feel her exquisitely sensitive reactions to others, to play like a child, to give care and to take care, to be angry, to lose shame.”

In my mind, he is exactly right. He might well have been talking about me.

Dr Tovah writes, “There is a strength beyond measure in self knowledge and acceptance. There is freedom in jettisoning shame, in letting go of ‘shoulds’. To know oneself as a submissive woman, to accept that it is neither the terrible thing that society tells us it is, nor the only right and true way to be for OTHERS, is to be free. What is, is.”

I completely agree. No other article has ever meant more to me than this one.