Another thing about that conversation on Masocast...

I forgot to mention one of the other comments made by one of the women on the Masocast roundtable. I think the subject was whether she would top her boyfriend. Her response was that she had been through so many changes around dominance and submission in her mind and through her time as a dominatrix that she didn't feel it would be fair to drag someone whom she was emotionally involved with through those changes.

This felt very familiar. And the idea that one doesn't have to feel bad about that, that this is all part of an exploration, was very powerful to me. Because I have, of course, dragged my beloved through just these kind of changes - from "Women are superior" to "I want to serve" to "Punish me", from "this is who I am" to "this is what I love to do" to "this is something I don't seem to be able not to be interested in", from "I need to be totally out and in public about this" to "This is just something we do between us" to "I can do these activities with someone but not have an emotional connection with them" - and I'm not sure I even remember what-all else.

She has been patient and supportive, even though some very large percentage of this leaves her cold. The idea that this journey is not an indicator of my screwed-up-ness, but a set of realizations that can't happen without the journey is a very revealing one.

Don't know why I forgot to mention that in the other post.

Coming soon (I hope) - What happened in March and where we are now.