How it’s going, what’s working, and what’s not

My beloved “suggested” that I write a post on “how it’s going, what’s working, and what’s not.” So here I am.

How’s it going? At the most basic level, it’s going well because I really feel like I can be all of myself with her. So in that sense, after 40 years of hiding who I am, I don’t have to do that with the person who’s most important to me. That’s pretty darn good, and it’s important to keep that perspective as I run down the rest of this post.

We had two dear friends visiting this weekend, friends who have been through at least one iteration of “going public” with my need to be submissive, an iteration that A) didn’t go anywhere, B) wasn’t very stable in my dynamic with my beloved, and C) didn’t lead us to a life style that worked. But that was a long time ago, and arguably a necessary stepping stone to get to where we are today. All that notwithstanding, it felt very awkward to me not to be able to share with these friends the most important thing going on in my life.

So why not share it? One practical reason is that my beloved was away for the week before our friends arrived, so she and I didn’t have any time to talk about it. But in another sense, it felt like too much information. As far as I know, only one person who knows who I am reads this blog (other than my beloved). And I don’t think that person actually follows it, especially given its sporadic nature of the recent past. And with the agreement and the counters, it feels a little like “too much information” to share with friends. I suppose we could have shared the reality with them without sharing the blog, but as I said, we didn’t have an opportunity to talk about it.

But perhaps more importantly, my relationship with my beloved now seems to be more about “how we are with each other” than “what we do.” I think perhaps it’s a little more “how” and less “what” than I might prefer, but in the end we’re looking for a balance that “tells” me (emotionally) what I need to hear, but is fun and satisfying for my beloved. So if that’s got more “how” and less “what” than I might prefer, maybe that’s OK.

What is the most important thing to me about the “Female Led” aspect of our relationship? (So called for lack of a better term, but I think it’s not a bad term in and of itself.) It’s her knowing that I’m happy doing her will because it’s her will. And my knowing that she knows this. Not to wander into the hall of mirrors here, but it’s the back-and-forth knowledge and communication that’s important to me. Doing something hard is, well, hard. Doing something hard but knowing that my beloved knows I’m doing something hard is very satisfying. I haven’t figured out a way of asking for that feedback and I don’t think we’ve naturally come up with one yet, so that’s something to work on.

I think it’s involved in the idea I have (never successfully implemented yet) of disparity play and the talk and acknowledgement of that play. And it’s part of the same dynamic as orgasm control by my beloved – orgasm control being a particularly potent form of disparity play: “I’m getting pleasure and you’re not because we agreed that that’s how it would be.”

So one aspect of what’s not working for me would be my beloved being annoyed at my not coming upstairs because I’m doing my evening chores (writing daily reports, managing cash in her wallet, finding her cell phone, etc). Believe me, at that point, it’s not because I don’t want to come upstairs. But if I’ve left them to the end of the evening and they have to be done….

Perhaps I need an established consequence for each of the chores left undone, so that she could just say, “Come upstairs,” and it’s my misfortune that I didn’t get things done. Perhaps she would be comfortable saying “Are all your chores done?”, that being a command to get them done immediately.

Getting back to the idea of talk and acknowledgment of disparity play, which is kind of like teasing (in a good way), I have this fantasy (not completely articulated) about a dialog we would have where I need to admit and acknowledge the privileges I’ve given up, in a conversation with her. There’s something about the power of the spoken word that this invokes: Just waiting to come to bed is less powerful than, “Do you want to come to bed?” “Yes” “You will when I invite you to.” The bratty sub answers that question, “No” and then spends an unpleasant night not in bed or cold on the floor without a covering.

In summary, what’s hard is when we’re not talking about what we’re doing. Talking about what we’re doing is, to me, almost as important as doing it because it assures me that this isn’t all in my head. I can pretend my beloved wants me to do something and then do it, but what’s the point of that? I’d rather do one tenth the “stuff” because she wants me to than ten times as much because she’s like “Yeah, I guess you could do that.” But if I do one tenth without communication, then that’s almost no different than doing the ten-times-as-much without communication, and less fun.

Now that there’s a counter on the site, I can remember how long it’s been since I had an orgasm. Being required to know that number and report it on demand would be another verbal form of disparity play: I need to know, she doesn’t.

I don’t know if this is really a summary of what’s working and what’s not, but it’s what came to mind. Often when writing prior posts I’d get all hot-and-bothered, and I was waiting for that to happen when writing this one. But I think that dynamic has changed since we’ve started doing stuff, rather than my just fantasizing about stuff. Does that mean the energy has gone out of the blog? I think not, but it has changed a bit.