Mantra
Posts: 6
Joined: 2/24/2004 Status: offline
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As someone who has only recently found the courage to see the "switch" in me, this is a fascinating thread. I should say that I have been submissive, scene and non-scene for over 10 years, so it is a significant development in personal terms. Anything I post now may be subject to revision but here goes: I no longer view BDSM in terms only of consent but also of compulsion. By that I mean that one may feel compelled to submit to someone else, or to command submission with more honesty. Imagine a world where everyone is a dominant but where outside circumstances can mean that submission is the only correct response to certain situations. (A historical example might be feudalism, where you might be the lord of a village of serfs but compelled to submit to a higher ranking noble). Prior to this, there was only submission in my world. Now I see myself as someone intrinsically worthy of worship but who can recognise this quality in others and choose to bestow my service out of a spirit I can only compare with "courtly love" rather than one of self-gratification. For the terms of my argument, compulsion to submit would not only mean at the pain of punishment (although, that's cool!) but could be a response to another's impressive personal attributes - great intelligence, beauty,etc. Its all obvious now but I failed to see this for years. I find this thesis useful because I suffered greatly as a submissive from feelings of shame. Once, after much work, I had accepted those feelings, owned them and accepted myself, I found I moved on. I soon discovered that the strong presence and bearing I have always had in vanilla life had finally found an outlet in fetish terms. Since then I have felt myself to be a much better integrated (and more importantly) happier person. I still have tons of stuff to work out (eg, never a masochistic bottom, I am not a sadistic top) and that is hard. Having found a bit of a niche as a sub, its challenging to develop the new me. But I feel far from split now. I feel unified. The only dark cloud on the horizon is the growing realisation that I now want the whole world to turn Switch!
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