My image

Although we talk about 'dominants' and 'submissives' in a very general sort of way much of the time, I wonder if we don't have an image in our heads that defines our sense of submission or domination. For me there was one scenario that I carried around in my head from an early age. This scenario goes to the heart of my kink. By the time I had left school it was firmly cemented in my mind, even though I didn't tell anyone about it.

I am not sure when I wrote the first story about submitting to another's will. In the same way that I didn't talk about my fantasies, I didn't tell people about the stories I penned and I certainly didn't show them to anyone. It was a secret just for myself. But, it went like this...

I was a single girl. I was educated. I was capable. I took a job. The details of the job in the fantasy changed from time to time, but usually I worked within the realm of the English department of a university. I was not a senior person but I was responsible to a senior person - the Head of the Faculty.

He was considerably older than me; much more experienced and definitely more learned. He took a shine to me. He recognized that underneath that quiet, controlled and neat exterior lay a girl who was in need of guidance and that if he could guide me, I would be a great aid to him; even a comfort to him.

He decided to put me in charge of special projects and he began by having me research various details for the paper he was writing. I loved that I had a special task and that he had chosen me to help him. I tried very hard to impress him and worked hard on the research.

Sometimes, I let myself down. He was a perfectionist and occasionally I did not go the extra mile to see that all the details were correct. In my youthful thought process I failed to see how he could ever know this.

Inevitably, he would call me into his office to ask a variety of questions and he would point out that some topic needed more work. Had I checked this or that file? Had I read the analysis of this or that poem?

Perhaps once, I fibbed a bit but never again after that. He made it very clear that he didn't care for sloppy work and he had no time for a girl who lied. After that, my approach to the work was incredibly diligent. I just wanted to impress him; to hear that he was pleased. He could be quite harsh; much harsher on me than on any other girl in his faculty and one day I asked him why that was so.

"I don't care about them. I care about you," he said. "I want you to be the best you can be."

Finally, I understood the dynamic between us; what I meant to him and how important he was to me. Our relationship was not at all sexual, at least to this point, but he demanded my best and I gave it to him. I bathed in his praise of me and my work and I occasionally suffered the brunt of his disapproval and vowed to do better.

I revelled in his care and although he never said, I knew that he looked forward to seeing me each day and that I lit up his day, as he did mine. I felt incredibly honoured to be the one he had chosen to work extra hard, to obsess over detail and to make him his tea. I cared about him and for him and he watched over me.

Occasionally, he would invite me for a brandy at the end of the working day, and as we sat side by side in the comfortable chairs where he received visitors, chatting a little and reading the evening's papers, I would consider myself the luckiest girl in the university to be under the tutelage of this sage and sophisticated man who knew so much more of the world than me. There was no place I'd rather be than right here, sitting contained beside him.

This image lives on in my mind and has shaped the woman I have become but as the years go by the image has altered perhaps in line with what now is and is not possible...

I no longer have a strong interest in a career of my own but I continue to want to be a help mate to a strong and successful man. I support him, care for him and assist him in all and any ways I can. I want to be improved - to be the model of perfection in his eyes. However, being proud, self assured and sometimes even bold, I recognize that correction will inevitably come my way. As much as he tries (and he does try hard) , efforts to annihilate that streak of independence in me prove to be difficult. I hold onto that part of me that is just for me.

He recognizes he needs help and a few times a year I am sent away for training. This yields results as my ego chips away to reveal a core desire and need to submit to this man's will and to experience great pleasure and peace. I am coming to understand that 'choice' is not a word appropriate for me but rather that I submit to his demands and commands. I am subjected to various humiliations as part of my training and yet secretly I enjoy them and even revel in them.

I progress. I alter and transform and one day I find that I have let go of that secret place inside of me. I relinquish my ego and give it away in full trust that it is of no further use to me. He leads me where he wants me to go and I do whatever he wants. I experience peace; joy and complete fulfilment.

Perhaps you can see significance in the story and the way that it has altered over time. For me, the notion of being pleasing and wanting to please is central to my state of mind, no matter what my age. So too is the image of a rather strict man in my life with exacting standards and high expectations of me.

At all ages, I have had a notion of love being given to me through discipline. It was never in my mind that love would be given to me by spoiling me or being soft with me or letting me away with things. My best was always demanded as an expression of the love he felt for me and in return I loved him by being disciplined and giving him by best.

Who knows why I conjured this image. I don't really know except to say that I learned ballet from the age of four. My teacher was a very strict Russian man who would scream at us if we made a mistake, yet I never felt put down by him, always trying hard. I doubt I was very good but I never gave up and eventually I think I was quite good. He rewarded me with the occasional prize or piece of praise - for example, a book about the Russian ballet which I coveted for many years. One day, when I was about 14 or 15 he saw me in a department store and beamed. I had grown to be a beautiful girl, he said. It was high praise indeed from a man who had so little praise to give, perfectionist that he was.

I realized at that moment, all those years after I had begun learning from him that he was actually very fond of me and I think that feeling stayed with me - that sense of basking in his glow. Perhaps there is something else locked away in my memory banks to explain it more. I honestly don't know.

All I can really say for sure is that the image in my mind of wanting to please a rather strict man who quietly cares for me is almost as old as me. It never fades. It never goes away. It just alters a little bit and then gets even more intense. It is the essence of who I am and why I write here.

Feelings

Controversially, my husband has noted on several occasions that the biggest difficulty with dealing with young women out there in the workforce at this time is their feelings. He might call the bank to have an issue corrected only to find that the conversation has launched from the facts of the matter to the girl at the bank's feelings. My husband has not agreed with her findings, has told her so and somehow they are in the land of her feelings. He's too long in the tooth for this sort of thing now. He just wants the job done and move on. Trust me when I say that he can be an absolutely charming man whom women think adorable but if you use the feelings card with him when he wants something done, he won't have any time for it any more.

He is not alone. His associates complain of this matter and when I asked women at a lunch recently how they felt about this, they all agreed. The young woman today was very inclined to take umbrage at simple expression of insistence that the task be done to the customer's satisfaction. My husband has taken to hanging up the phone only to dial the same company until a man answers. He explains the issue and moments later he hears "Not a problem, Sir. Done." Ah! No mention of feelings!

My feelings has been an issue of contention with us over the years. When my husband is in a go-get-it mood, and he often is, he just wants things done and at times he can be short with me. On my good days, and most of them are good, I snuff it off. I can even enjoy it, in an odd sort of masochistic let's -get-the-girl-going sort of way. (I am not on these pages for nothing!) Occasionally, I get upset and I tell him that my feelings are hurt. Or, I might just snap back which always has him look at me as if to say, 'where did that come from?' I wonder!

In any event, a great deal of effort on my part has gone into getting control of my feelings. It is an exceptionally odd moment that this is ever an issue for me out there in the big wide world. My feelings being out of kilter and destructive to me and loved ones occur in the private domain. I might be upset with my husband's tone or my children's inconsideration. My challenge is to stay calm, and not allow the flood of adrenaline to overtake my brain allowing me to react in an out of control way. My task is to stay in control. It's the task I have given myself.

Whilst I have a pass rate on this task, I don't have a High Distinction and that really bothers me. Instead of waiting for the right moment to say something like, "I'd like to talk to you about..... I am a little confused as to why you said..." I tend to feel extreme agitation inside my body and I tend to make hasty decisions, finding it a virtual necessity to react instantaneously. I read lately that this is why people might eat foods they know they should not when they are upset. They are looking to change how they feel. I too am looking to change how I feel but instead of reaching for a chocolate teddy bear, I launch a Scud missile instead and get a momentary improvement in how I feel.

Of course, it only takes minutes for me to question my action but the deed has been done and of course, I have my "righteous indignation" to keep me warm for quite a while. There are moments of sanity. I sent off an email on Saturday (yeah, it's on my mind) and on Sunday I was wandering about the garden when I thought, 'Did I really write I was "humiliated"? Oh boy, that was over the top!!'

It gets worse. It turns out that it was a total misunderstanding on my part and by Sunday evening, I felt very, very silly. And, shameful. The whole day of upset could easily have been avoided for both parties if I had just taken control of my feelings and thought it through and acted sensibly with the end in mine.

I have read enough blogs of submissive women and know enough submissives to feel that my challenges are not uniquely mine. And, it says something of the value, integrity and warmth of the relationship that even amongst all this hullabaloo over the weekend that we managed to find a little humour in the next exchange and I like to think, brought us a little closer. Yes, some things should never have been said, but then some things were said that cleared the air, too.

I do know from long experience that feelings are not just the domain of the female or the submissive. I can most certainly hurt my husband's feelings and an argument with me can leave him terribly upset. Rupert Murdoch once said that the only person who could make him feel like a fool was Anna (his first wife). It is those we care about who have the ability to upset us the most. Our feelings are most hurt when the person (or people) who provide the most stability for us take the ground from under our feet (or at least, we momentarily think they do).

In essence this returns to what Mary said to me - that a passionate relationship is going to have push and pull. It is not a well received idea in BDSM circles but nonetheless it is true. People who care about one another are meant to challenge one another in some ways, to get the best out of one another and that includes the dominant and the submissive.

This whole emotional mine field of our feelings takes place amidst the formality of the power exchange relationship where one leads and one follows; one feeds and one serves, making feelings a very complicated issue to handle. I think there are just moments when in amongst those roles, the issues related to hurt feelings must be addressed and resolved. The skilled dominant will know how to get the submissive back in line and the true submissive will fall back into line without any further ado. Meanwhile, I stay calm. Of course!

Brand new world

All the way back to university days, I have had male friends. Even when my husband and I started to go out together and develop a strong connection, there were male friends that I hung out with. He never seemed to mind. They were certainly no threat from a romantic perspective and perhaps he understood that they enriched me. I don't really know, actually. We never talked about it.

My first male friend at university was a boy whose name I can't remember. Let's call him John. I met John either at a lecture or a tutorial or some place like that. He seemed a dreamy sort of boy; a boy operating in some other universe than me. His parents were "away" a lot overseas and he seemed to have little support in his life - and I mean that in every sense of the word. He looked too skinny and too pale for my liking and so I took it upon myself to feed him. After a lecture, I'd gather him up and take him back to my room and feed him.

He must have been bright. He got outstanding marks for his English essays, better than me, and I figured that it was that parallel universe that he lived in that made his ideas in those essays so compelling. Who knows. My husband, a very down to earth sort of boy even then explained to me one day that John was clearly on drugs. This was a great shock to my pure soul. Was he sure about that, I wanted to know? Quite certain, he said.

I continued to keep an eye on John, feeding him and talking to him, and getting a little closer to that parallel universe of his until one day he just disappeared from the university never to be seen again. I had some understanding of his need to dispense with such a rigid system as a degree at an esteemed university. My cousin had also abandoned his university degree to write and went on to become one of the country's best known writers, as he puts it, "in spite" of his university training, so I rather hoped that John might do the same. Whether he did or was shot down in the flames of excessive drug taking I will never know.

I had two conservative male friends at college too and I hung out with them a lot. One of them has gone on to be a judge and I always knew he would make it to the top. He had a side kick, Michael; a small boy with a delicious sense of the ridiculous. We often ganged up against the judge in the library and he would tell us off in a sweet kind of way. Michal gave me a key to his room. He had a lovely big room, much better than my claustrophobic little first year room and when he was off at lectures or away for the weekend, I listened to music in there.

Not a single romantic or sexual thing occurred. But, Michael loved my femininity. I remember once I couldn't get my little car to start and he adored that I could be so dumb. He just loved how girls could be so ridiculous and I liked that he liked that about me, too.

There are a lot of other boys from those days. I had a friend from my home town and we often drove one another home and back. He talked of his girlfriend and we were just chums.

There was an Asian boy who hung out with me, and several of the agriculture boys came to visit me; one in particular. I would send him off on his motorbike to collect Italian cakes and I had the tea ready when he got back.

One boy was the brother of my previous boyfriend. Again, it was never romantic or sexual, but the bond here was closest of all. His parents had divorced and it left him needing sustenance; sustenance that he couldn't derive from his girlfriend alone and he would come and collect me late at night and take me driving, eventually stopping some god-forsaken place to tell me his troubles and hug me tight.

One of my dearest male friends was Mitch. I met him at work when we moved to the US. He was most definitely gay and he opened my eyes to a brand new world that I knew nothing about.

It was the days when people knew little about AIDS and we might be walking along the street together when he would nod to some chap, excuse himself and go and talk to him for a few minutes. The first time, I asked him if he knew him but he told me they had just met, been attracted to one another and were arranging a rendezvous. It blew my head away but I never judged him or tried to stop him. I knew I had no sway over him. I was his friend, his confidant and not there to pass judgement or offer advice.

It was Mitch who told me that I would make a wonderful mother and he continued to write to me upon my return home until one day the letters stopped. Of course, I want to believe that he is still alive, but in my heart I know that he is not.

As a married woman with growing children, the opportunity to have male friends began to dry up for me. I was close to the husband of a girlfriend until my confidence in him was shook. It became clear that he was open to a little hanky panky on the side, and that was not of interest to me. With one of my dearest friend's husband?

To this end, the Internet has proven to be a huge gift in my life. I have had conversations with a number of dominant men and I have a very small handful of superb friendships, men and women alike. When something is ailing me I know who I can turn to; who will listen, guide and comfort. And, words can't convey what that means to me. It is a gift of the highest order; a great blessing in my life.

There is one person in particular that I know that I can rely on. I'm told that he feels the same way. He tells me that he can say anything at all to me; that he says to me what he can't say to anyone else and that was music to my ears. We remain who we are: he the dominant and me the submissive but we speak the truth, we don't play games and we support one another through the good times and the bad times.

The simple fact for me is that as much as I love my husband, and I do love him so very dearly, I thrive on making close connections; with forging friendships that go straight to the soul and the heart and the inner mind. My curiosity for life demands that I speak with people who are different to me even more than to those who are the same.

When I look back on my life I can see very clearly that it has been a pattern for me to stick with situations and relationships that I didn't understand in the hope that one day it would become clear - to give people the benefit of the doubt, time and time again. I don't like to write anybody off. I don't ever want to give up on a friendship, on the opportunity to understand another person's mind. I twist and turn my mind to accommodate them; to see life through their eyes and to try to find my place in their life.

To this end, the power exchange relationship and this web journal is an exploration into not just my mind but the mind of others. I don't reject other ways of looking at life. I embrace other ways of looking at life; at looking at life through another pair of eyes. It is not for the faint hearted and there are moments when I wonder if I am doing the right thing. In any case, my heart is open and my mind is open and I consider that a good thing.

"Don't ever become twisted and bitter," was the advice I was given one day by a trusted friend, a long time ago now. "Stay just as you are."

That is exactly what I intend to do.

The Spider and the fly

"Do you feel trapped?" he asked her.

"Uh huh"

"Do you feel caught?"

"Uh huh"

"What image does this evoke for you?"

"I'm the fly and you are the spider."

So, she knew, he thought. She knew all along. And, yet she came into the parlor, all the time. Sometimes, she didn't even wait for him to invite her. She just waltzed straight in, as he preferred. He wanted a willing captive in her own demise.

"You struggled at first, my dear. You pretended that you didn't want to get caught."

She opened her mouth to speak.

"Don't deny it now. Just listen."

She closed her mouth.

"And, the more that you struggled, the more tangled you got...

She blushed to her toes. My God!

...the tighter your constriction...

She was loving this (but could he read her mind?)

...And, you really began to enjoy it, didn't you, my darling?...

Oh gosh, he could.

...The web cocoons the object you have become...

Oh yes, it does!

...a silky cocoon...

Deliciously so.

...and now you are completely covered. Metamorphed."

How lovely!



"'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the Spider to the Fly."

"Lead the way. I'm right behind you," she replied.

Push and pull

I have been having a rough time lately (and cindi has too). As much as I have loved my experiences of burrowing further down into a submissive place, I have struggled with it, too. There have been many moments when I feel there is a tug of war going on in my mind and I have no real idea who is going to win - the part of me that feels that her worth as a loving, intelligent being has been put into question in some way and the part of me that is never happier when I am in my sweet spot of total obedience and submission. I have had something of a dream run lately and so this hump in the road has been felt with all associated discomfort.

So, I walk. I keep busy. I exercise. I try not to allow my mind to dwell too much on the dilemma. The answer will come, I figure. It will come in its own sweet time and I need to try to just relax about it all. I go to the gym and I do an advanced Pilates class. You can't think and focus in there when the going gets really tough and that suits me fine. I allow my mind to drift in the relaxation time at the end of the class and nothing especially profound comes to me today. I debate whether to stop for coffee and since I've run to the gym, I decide that a cup of coffee would be a nice treat before I run back. I order the coffee and pick up the daily paper. I see Mary.

"Do you want to go on reading the paper?" I ask.

"I'm going to the weights class," she says, but makes no move to go. I sit down and the nice boy behind the counter brings me my coffee.

Mary launches into a tirade about what she is reading. The election is a mess. Neither party is up to addressing the needs of the nation. Nobody has the information to address the challenges of the environment, she says. As I listen quietly, she moves quite naturally into the topic that is closest to her heart and I am delighted she has done so and I hang on every word.

I've known Mary for several months now and I felt right away that she was going to be important in my life. But, our conversations are really just sandwiched into the conversation of a group of women and this was the first time that I had her all to myself.

She met her husband at 20 and they married eight weeks later having fallen in love at first sight. They raised four children until he went for a bike ride and never returned, having had a heart attack. She was devastated. He was the love of her life. But, she's strong, Mary, and she continued with her work and brought up the children on her own and did a very fine job of that.

Inside, she was just heart broken and in her quest to survive this experience of loss she learned about meditation and she says that it saved her. Over time, she began to read about religion in general, as opposed to specific religious beliefs and she went looking for what is common in religion. Ultimately, she has chosen to believe that we all evolve; that we are reincarnated many times and that if we are evolving well, as she believes we both are, we are probably in our 30th life.

She believes that she has a guide that goes with her through her life and helps her with her hardest decisions. And, she believes that she does not make hard decisions alone but that her guide brings those correct decisions to her. She cited many examples (and never did get to her exercise class, by the way).

I am sure you can imagine that I was spellbound. I said nothing, fearing that I would stop her in her tracks. I wanted to hear every last word of what she had to say. My own mentor had opened the door some months ago to me getting closer to Mary and here was the opportunity. I was seizing it. Finally, it seemed the right time to ask some questions:

"Mary, I know you loved David passionately. But, did you ever fight?"

"Often. We fought long and hard but we always made up."

"Us too."

"I have learned through my reading and spiritual leader that it is preferable if there is push and pull between two people; two passionate people in love."

"Yet, there is often a dominant partner in a marriage..."

"Yes, there is. There was..."

"But, it is okay to have arguments with a partner, from a spiritual point of view?"

"It is more than okay. It is preferred. The push and pull of a passionate relationship is what keeps it strong and nurtured and alive."

"That's nice to know."

"Yes, it was for me, too."

We talked a little longer. We truly are kindred spirits just on the cusp of opening up to each other but I can't tell you what this conversation meant to me. I felt like my 'guardian angel', that spirit that walks with me had led me into the room to find Mary there alone, ready to aid me.

I think in so many ways in this journey I've wanted to be the most submissive, the most obedient I could be, finding fault in myself every time I felt that need to push or pull. I did not want and I don't want to win. But, I do need sometimes to push and to express myself and to challenge the call. I feel that keenly. And, spiritually speaking, in a passionate and loving and enduring relationship, that is perfectly all right.

I'm still processing what this means to me. I've not found the dominant man especially comfortable with my need to push or pull at his commands at all. But, that in some deeply spiritual way this is how it is actually meant to be, soothes my weary soul.

Force - expansion and contraction

For a woman like me who for the past quarter of a century knew she must run fast to keep up with her brood, I am in a transitional stage of my life. These days, I am most likely to communicate with my two older children through technology rather than face to face. My son called yesterday on his mobile phone from Atlanta. His flight to New York had been delayed and there he was in the middle of the night with no one to talk to but his associate who was not a big talker at the best of times. Then this morning I finally got an email from my daughter travelling about Europe. They had decided to flee Italy, she and her friend, finding those Italian boys a "bit much". Anyways, they love Spain, she said, and that was no surprise to me.

My third child is hardly a chore these days. He asks for the odd lift with thirty seconds notice, and he isn't exactly tidy, but he can whip up a meal for himself and is a most independent soul. My last chick insists on his independence. His homework is entirely his domain. Yes, he sorts me out, letting me know when he needs various sports equipment or when to attend which concert; that sort of thing. But, he is no trouble whatsoever. In fact, he is a joy and I relish these last few years of his school life.

I didn't go the career route, as regular readers would know and it is too late, I think, to suddenly announce that I'm going to teach after all, or go do a course as a therapist or coach, or whatever. I can't imagine my husband finding that route appealing. He doesn't ever plan to retire himself. He has too much energy to do that. But, he does envision us travelling much more; sailing or fishing perhaps with more regularity. I like the sound of that too.

In the interim, I've taken my energies to the concept of reduction. I'm reducing the contents of the house for one thing. No surface or cupboard is to be left untouched as I reduce our lives down to what we need and no more. I am loving this. Since she is away right now, I began with my daughter's room. It began looking like a bomb site and has been transformed to quite a pleasant room that a visitor could actually inhabit. My desk has been sorted and I finally feel that it is tidy enough that I can write with a clear mind. I've been through my husband's cupboard and out went three suits that hadn't seen light in a decade. I've continued to reduce my own stocks of clothing and even the laundry is getting an overall. This is a wonderfully cleansing experience.

Another area for reduction is my body. Through the menopausal period my body put on a few unwanted kilos and now is the time to take them off. Gym time has increased and sugar has been more or less banned from my life. I never thought I could give up Turkish Delights but I haven't had one for weeks and weeks and don't even feel tempted. The reducing of my body isn't happening fast but it is happening and I'm very pleased about that.

Meanwhile, as my mind kicks into a new gear with the thought that I finally have freedom to do more of the things I would like to do with my life ( an increase in opportunity), my mind also seeks to reduce further. I'm relishing this time when I am my husband's good, little girl exhibiting all the virtues; ever ready to be reduced to nothing more than a play thing.

My world expands. My world contracts.

My understanding of scientific concepts is not a strength but this statement made sense to me:

"The differences in expansion and contraction are even more visible in different states, again due to the amount of force holding the atoms together."

The kind of contraction in my life that I am interested in does require some force; some dominant force. Without that, I can't contract in the ways I would like to. And, maybe I can't even expand in the ways that I would like to, without some dominant force, either. I embrace force that enables me to be all that I wish to be.

Force, pressure, insistence, demands, requirements, domination, standards, encouragement; call it what you will. I embrace the opportunity to alter - to expand and contract - and welcome the alterations that lie ahead.

Analyzing the analysis

I used to talk about analysing the analysis, right back at the inception of this blog. So, I don't imagine there is any surprise here when I say that one of the few television shows that I enjoy at this time is In Treatment. I'm quite addicted to it actually. When one episode finishes, the announcer will sometimes say, 'Don't get off the couch. Your session with the doctor isn't over yet'. Oh, goody! Another show to come and I stay right where I am.

I haven't spoken to other fans of the show but I just bet many would agree that even better than his sessions with patients are his sessions with his own psychotherapist, Gina (played by Dianne Wiest). She is the model of consistency with him and last night I got the feeling that he left his session with her almost healed. Yes, his father had not behaved well towards him but his father had loved him and Paul did love him, too. It seemed to quell the angry little boy inside him, at least for now. It thrilled me to see a preview of the next session when Gina finally blows her top at him, "You know Paul, you can really be an asshole!" Oh wow! I'm going to enjoy that episode.

I've been skeptical about analysis because I saw a family member in therapy for years and she never changed one bit. They seemed to talk a lot about her childhood in those sessions and hardly at all about the modes of behaviour that were causing her so much damage now. It all seemed such a waste of time if she was not going to learn to make better choices for herself.

But, in essence I've been in self therapy here for over a year now so I have some proof that it has value to put oneself on the couch, so long as the requisite changes in mindset are made to make for a better life for oneself and those others in our lives.

Paul really was in a great deal of pain about his father. He wanted his time and attention, seeing him as a very interesting person and he remained angry with his father, even after his death that he did not give him this time. When he settles down later in the session with Gina he looks at her and asks, "Did you have the kind of father you needed?" First, she nods tentatively, and then she shakes her head. "No, I didn't. I am a therapist, Paul!!"

It was a lovely soft touch alluding to the fact that it is those who have things to work out that are interested in psychology, and judging by the people I see choosing psychology courses, I really think that does bear out. And so, we are flawed in this analysis, therapist and patient, just as all people are flawed. Yet, one leads the other; one gives the other the security of being lead and of having that safety net.

I have heard dominant men say that they enjoy the process of providing that security, leadership and control for a submissive and I don't doubt that for a second. But, Paul is often beside himself about his patients, about the limits of his control over their lives beyond the therapy session; of his doubts that he is of any real use to them at all. It is a burden to him in some ways because although he desperately wishes to help them, he hurts too. He needs love, affection and tenderness as do we all and he also needs to throw the odd hissy fit himself; to act like a petulant little boy rather than the statesman that he is capable of being.

In the case of a power exchange relationship even those of us who long to be daddy's little girl; to cede control and curl up on the couch in his lap recognize that no man is perfect, even though there may be moments when we forget to take off the rose coloured glasses and believe it is so. But, I think at the end of the day that is what is really lovely about a power exchange.

Somewhere, some man wrote that each submissive he had been with had changed him in some way. This is the reality. We are who we are and we crave that which completes us: the dominant wants a submissive and the submissive a dominant. But, no person is perfect and nor should they be expected to be perfect.

It is not about perfection but rather the pursuit of perfection. I think perhaps this is what analysis is all about, why I gravitate towards it and why I enjoy the show.

In so many ways I have been taught to let go of analysis; to let go completely and let the dominant catch me. I adore this more than I could ever say. But, in the dustiest corner of my mind is always a faint reminder of what lies behind one of the most wonderful experiences of my life: people who truly do recognize that neither is perfect but that both strive to be the very best that they can be.