(I have had to REwrite all of this. I was IRRITATED. So if you see any random words like “BASTARDS!” or any inexplicable keyboard flails or I come across as supremely bitchy for no reason… That’s why.)
In my last post, I mentioned my friend Rais. I’ve known him since we were 12. It was a pleasant time during which I screamed at him to “drop dead” and “leave me ALONE” and kicked him in the shins every chance I got. (It’s remarkable how little has changed.)
But seriously, we’ve grown very close in the last fourteen years and I’ve spent a lot of time with his family.
Rais himself is very Americanized, but being as his family fled Iran in the 80’s, they remain steeped in Persian tradition.
Most of Rais’s heightened awareness about partner disrespect comes from his deep frustration with his mother, who takes ANYTHING and EVERYTHING his father hands out, says, or does – without question. No matter what. Even when it’s moronic. (And his father can be a dolt, so it is often moronic.)
Rais’s mother was simply born and raised to know this is her place. Period. No discussion. It’s just is the way it IS. And it is perfectly in line with her cultural norms, just not with most American ones.
Bloggers who occupy any sort of similar submissive-to-their-partner place in their relationship are often going against our cultural norms – myself included. We spend a lot of time talking, discussion, evaluating, thinking, pondering, questioning, and just plain FREAKING OUT about serving and obeying. About our reservations. About hesitations and motivations. About labels and hypotheticals and doin’ it wrong. About our failures and omgwhatdotheymean. About punishments and rewards. About expectations and reciprocation. About isolation and struggle. About what it is, what it isn’t, and what it should be. About our tricks and tips and about manipulations. And a bajillionmillion other things.
And Rais’s mother just kinda… DOES it.
She just serves and obeys. It isn’t some calling she felt. It isn’t a deep need. She doesn’t agonize over decisions, motivations, needs, desires, or labels. She doesn’t blog about it, join groups to discuss it, or hide it from her neighbors. In general, she doesn’t do any of the crap that a lot of us do.
But, the part I find most fascinating and awesome is that she doesn’t rely on his dominance to maintain her submission.
She doesn’t think HE is responsible for keeping HER in line. She is a wife, and hence she is a submissive one. He is her husband and hence he is a dominant one. She is not submissive BECAUSE he’s dominant. She’s submissive because she took a vow of marriage and she takes it, and everything her culture demands it entail, seriously. The End.
It’s not a choice, a lifestyle, a decision, an activity, a negotiation, an evolution, a kink, etc. There are no collars or contracts. It’s just… Life. Raw, organic, tough, trying, rewarding, life.
And if he doesn’t watch her every second of the day? If he doesn’t create a litany of rules for her to follow? If he doesn’t enforce his dominance consistently?
It doesn’t matter! Her level of submission is NOT related to his level of overtly displayed dominance. He just IS dominant, she just IS submissive. They are simply states of being.
Cooooooooooool…
Anyway, the POINT of this (and I swear to God I had a point) was that I have read blog posts by slaves/subs/pets/whatevers discussing times when their Boss-figures had “failed” at keeping them in line. He had failed to keep his focus, to keep “on top of” the submissive partner. He had failed to pay enough attention. He had failed to make sure she was following rules. Blah blah blah. FAIL.
And often the submissive blogged about the “bad” or unsubmissive/unslavelike things she had done during that period when his mind/control/energy were elsewhere. The Consequences of His Failure.
Sometimes, I’ve even seen the dominant partner apologized for his “failure” to keep his submissive in her place, etc.
And… I just can’t get on board with that.
There is no capacity for Antonio to “fail” at keeping me in line. The possibility does not exist, because if it did, it would imply that I don’t have my priorities or my motivations or my deepest desires in line with our relationship dynamic. It would mean, if I relied on an EXTERNAL force to dictate my submission, that I am not submissive to him at my core. I’d be, in short, an entirely different person. Perhaps one who was playing or forcing a role. And that’s just not the case.
The quieter things become in my head, the longer I have to think about this stuff with Antonio and the “no longer a slave” stuff… The more I realize it only affected me because I was losing my grip on reality, and I was filling my head with a whole lot of theory and clutter and I lost sight of the most basic truths in this relationship.
In a few years, unchecked, I might have even worked myself into a selfish and convoluted enough place where I could have thought that Antonio actually bore responsibility for making me be (or feel) submissive toward him. (Humans are fabulous at convincing themselves of things, even when they are categorically insane.) I could have decided there were actions (or lack thereof) that implied he had lost his focus, dropped the ball, or failed as a dominant partner.
And, holy hell, is that ever a load of bullshit.
But I can see now that I was inching along that track… No wonder I actually managed to feel slighted when he “took away” my title as a slave.
I was an idiot for thinking that’s what he was doing, btw. He took away pretense and filler. He took away meaningless bullshit. Looking back on his words, I realized he said “of course, you are still submissive to me” and that was the most important statement of all. It wasn’t him saying “you are submissive to me because I say so” or anything… It was merely a statement of fact.
Of COURSE I am submissive to him.
It’s our reality. It’s not a lifestyle or a choice or a negotiation. It just IS.
Because when you remove all the rules, the collars and the discussions, the titles and the protocols? What remains is the simple fact that I am incapable of relating to him in ANY manner other than as a partner in a submissive position.
This “being his” business is who I am, NOT something I do.
It requires no external motivation. It is a state of being. I’m his. It IS his way or the highway. It just IS.
And… I have all kinds of further thoughts on this but I’m winding down for the evening. Lucky you guys – I’m shutting up!
(Oh. And. I probably don’t need to mention this, but obviously this had nothing to do with bedroom kink. This is a discussion about how and why different people maintain their dynamic in different ways, and on different levels. There are no hidden metaphors about how bondage is crappy and I should just find my core and maintain wrist restriction in my head or something. I mean, duh, of course it’s not… Because bondage is kickass. *beams*)