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Noah -> RE: Straight Woman Blues (12/24/2005 8:32:32 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: candystripper
Not quite prepared to do up an essay on "What Monogamy Means To Me"; but Noah, You miss the part where i make it clear where my boundaries are; in Your scenario, i'd get dressed -- to go home and pack. And yes, i still consider myelf submissive, Noah. i'm just bumfuddled why the concept of a straight submissive woman is "stretching the word beyond its useful application." That comes close to saying this town ain't big enough for the both of us...which is nonsense.
candystripper
I didn't miss the part, Candy.
Did you miss the dozens of parts where posters here have explicitly acknowledged and accepted your stated boundaries? I said that I accept them and that I know you are not alone in them and "may a thousand flowers bloom". It seems as though you can't see the forest for the persecution complex.
I accept that this computer I'm typing on does all the amazing things it does even though I don't understand how it manages to. If I say to a computer scientist: "I don't get this. Can you shed some light on the phenomenon for me?" Should he or she say to me in response: "I take your plea for help in better understanding something to be an attack and a rejection of the thing you are admiting your ignorance of."?
When someone says: 'I don't understand something about you, but I'm interested enough in you and in this thing to ask: would you examine it in this particular light for me?" you needn't conclude that the person is implying that you should get out of Dodge. Honest.
What makes no sense to me is your steadfastness in hanging from this cross of your own making, this "the other kids keep picking on me because I'm straight and desire monogamy" cross.
What you missed in my hypothetical was that it not only accepted your monogamousness and heterosexuality, but that it was very carefully focused on those characteristics of yours and in fact would have had a completely different meaning, if any at all, except that it was very much about these two things which you know and accept about yourself.
There is a woman in New Jersey who knows and accepts about herself that A. she doesn't want to be intentionally made to bleed by the pint for her dominant's pleasure, and B. that she doesn't enjoy pretending to be an animal and eating from a bowl on the floor. Her personal response is to make a hard limit of extreme blood play, which her dominant (and I think all reasonable people) accepts and and understands. As for B, this submissive has decided to engage in puppy play at her dominant's request for some constellation of reasons which she doesn't pretend to be able to list but which she reports has to do with her desire to please her dominant, even if it means doing something she doesn't enjoy. I think all reasonable people with some background in kink should accept B, too, irrespective of whether they understand it.
A sub told to engage in puppy play is not being told to abandon her homo sapien sapien-ness and be a dog. A dom who requested same-sex behaviors of a sub might or might not be encouraging or pushing her to not be straight any more. He needn't be rejecting her gender identity in the least. He might instead be saying: "By this I acknowledge in the most unambiguous way possible your stated sexual preference. I am asking you to taste a dish from a cuisine that we both know you don't like. I am asking you to do something you would not choose for yourself, to submit to my will in this. Your heterosexual monogamousness is the heart and soul of this request; I couldn't make it without accepting who you are."
I understand intuitively why a person would hold a hard limit at extreme blood play, whether or not I share this limit. I don't understand why a person would have a hard limit at engaging in something undeniably physically pleasurable--even if squicky. I accept your limit, Candy. I accept it and you just the way you are and I don't think think that straight women should leave this site nor monogamous ones. I am not coming anywhere near close to saying that this town isn't big enough for both of us.
As for the use of words, well they are malleable and elastic. But when someone insists on saying "maple" just where others are in the habit of saying ""elm" or "deciduous", needless confusion can result. When someone uses the term "slave" to describe a person who abjectly and as a matter of prior restraint refuses to do what she might be told to by her owner, even when that thing is physically safe and even pleasurable, well I just don't see how the word slave applies. That is astatement about me and what I understand and don't understand. It is not an attack on you. Okay?
If someone wants to refuse behaviors on this basis that's all fine and good. I accept that. I can't see applying the word "slave' to this person, though. What has slavery to do with this, or this to do with slavery? Someone who says I want to "submit" to all sorts of things I like and would chose to do anyway looks to me like the person who says she wants to "swim" across the dining room. I'm very happy if her goal is reached and she gets a close look at the china cabinet over there, but if afterward she says that this makes her one with Esther Williams and Mark Spitz then I may just tell her I think she's being silly.
Walking doesn't make you a swimmer in any sense that has value for me. Doing things you would otherwise want to do and only things you would otherwise want to do does not make you a submissive in any sense of the word that has value for me.
To quote again from your response: "the concept of a straight woman is" not "stretching the word beyond its range of application" as I have tried to explain. What stretches the word is applying it to a person of any gender who refuses to perform what are objectively quite safe and innocuous behaviors for her dominant's pleasure, just because I happen not to prefer that sort of thing.
It's okay. It's fine. I accept it and I accept her. May a thousand flowers bloom. It just isn't what the word submit is generally understood to point to.
Walk where you want, but don't call it swimming if you want to be honest and furthermore be understood. And if the only things a person is willing to do for a partner are things that she would be glad to do anyway but just wants to be told to first well then I wish her all the best. There is no reason she and I can't be great friends. I may point out though, if she raises the issue, that what she s doing, or asking for, is not submission.
I am not suggesting, by the way, that you are such a person. My sense is that you would do a whole host of things just for the pleasure of a man you loved even if these were not things you would choose for yourself. it is just that you have marked out this one range of behaviors as verboten. I'll say it again: like every other poster I have read in this thread I accept that (so please don't climb up on that faux cross). But as it happens I don't understand it.
I outlined for you an area of my ignorance. While I accept limits--yours and those of others--across the board, I understand certain sorts of limits quite intuitively while other sorts evade my understanding.
Once again please note that a person can be confused by and accepting of a phenomenon, or a person, at the very same time.
I set up a hypothetical designed to help shed light on a phenomenon I don't understand.
You chose not to explore the hypothetical. That's fine too. Just please don't attribute to me a lack of acceptance when what is present is a lack of understanding, one which I have been taking some trouble to remedy.
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