The last thing I figured I’d do is get into any kind of religious discussion. But I can’t seem to help myself.  This may be taken the wrong way by some, or may give people the wrong impression about my beliefs. If you’ve got questions – just ask.

A while back, I was reading Behind The Collar (incidentally, great blog)… And this blog was mentioned. So I moseyed on over. And saw posts like this.

I’m really… Quite confused.

I am a Christian… I guess? I was baptized an Episcopalian (that’s like Catholic Light – all the religion, half the guilt.) I celebrate the Christian holidays, so if asked to identify with a religion – Christianity is it. And, while it has nothing to do with religion, I do want to lead a good life.

But the only way I feel I can lead a truly good life in this world is by being intelligent and intuitive. And, were I deeply religious, that would mean with the Bible too – I could not take it literally without thinking of myself as ignorant.

I long ago decided that if George Orwell can write a book that speaks on two levels, and the one we need to listen to, in order to understand fully and gain the TRUE insight, is the deeper, non-literal level… Then I’m pretty comfortable thinking if there is an all-powerful deity, it can too. To me, taking the Bible literally is like thinking Animal Farm is JUST a story about animals on a farm. It’s the route of the simplest-minded of all humans, the blind ones destined to get things wrong… All of this is in my opinion, of course.

So… Reading that one post I linked to… Well, yikes. I guess this post of mine is more addressed to the writers of that blog, even if they’ll never see it…  Or to anyone who is religious, actually.  I’m CURIOUS.

If you’re taking the Bible literally in those instances, how do you reconcile with some of the OTHER rules in the Bible? I mean, I understand wanting to use some of them to say “God says this is not okay!” but do you follow all of them? What about Leviticus 19:19 (no mixing of fibers). Or Leviticus 15:19-20 (women, and everything they touch during their menstrual cycle are unclean) or (and I can’t remember what passage it is exactly) the idea that people should be stoned to death over concepts like astrology. And… Do all husbands HAVE to grow a beard or suffer being immoral?

Do you consider yourself any more or less moral for WHICH rules you follow? Who decided it was okay to ignore the Bible and to mix fibers, but NOT okay to sleep with someone of the same sex? Who made that judgment call? You? Your priest/reverend/minister? If you made that judgment call, or ANY other HUMAN made it, doesn’t it inherently carry the potential for flaws? Isn’t that what humanity is all about? Humans are not perfect creatures. So doesn’t it mean ANYONE else should be able to make that judgment call about which rules actually matter, in a direction opposite to your own, without persecution and with the full love of God, just as you think you are receiving? What human can make those calls and think "I’m more right than HE is"?

I don’t know… I have had to find my own path to interpret the right way to lead a good, moral life. And for me, taking a book that was transcribed and edited by humans literally is just not the way – it leads me down a path of confusion, bigotry, hate, segregation, and unfounded boastful pride.

I guess some would try to strip me of my baptism, say I am not truly Christian, but I know if I face a day of judgment, I will have a clean soul. I will have worked to find the glistening divine threads in life, threads that are so badly faded by the need and greed for power that fueled the humans who wrote, edited, selected and spread the word of their God…

I guess I just try to have faith that IF there is a divine afterlife waiting for me (and I am not secure enough in my intelligence to assert there is OR that there isn’t) my efforts to dig deeper and to not be dull-minded will be rewarded.

But it doesn’t stop me from being curious how other people do it… How they take some of the Bible literally, and some of it not, and then… Act as if their judgment of what is and isn’t included in morality is the final word and somehow defines a good Christian path.

I don’t get it. You say that homosexuality is wrong, no matter what, ever, no, omg, no. Bible says so, so NO. But then, from this post… “The Bible does say to watch your language, but I think God understands I’m just doing it in the bedroom for a thrill.”

You “think God understands”? So, what if I think God “understands” that love is a beautiful thing, and it is not to be condemned among consenting adults, regardless of gender? Based on your logic, is that fine then? Yes, I guess it is.

Holy hell, I just solved the religious vs. gay issue! GOOOOOO ME!  (Sarcasm optional.)

I think this came off a LOT harsher than I meant it. I think it’s actually a cool blog, I really do… But it can be hard for me to swallow personally-abbreviated morality (even if I agree wholeheartedly with some of it. And I do! I am (personally) firmly against things like bestiality, obviously.)

So, if you’re religious – how do you do it? How do you pick and choose what rules to follow, which ones are worthy of your condemnation and which ones are just an "oops, I cursed!" or "oops, I wasn’t entirely honest with someone!" but no big deal and not worthy of your condemnation? Also, how do you do that and then summon the incredible sense of superiority necessary to think someone who decides differently from you is somehow damned?

Limits fascinate me. (This is not a difficult feat. I can be fascinated by sewing kits. Those mini scissors are OMG, SO SMALL.)

What are some of my limits? Well, I will have a huge (and somewhat hilarious, being as it was written way back in the day) post about this, so I won’t go into them deeply at the moment. But, I’ll pick one to illustrate my point. Let’s use bestiality since I’ve gone into more depth with it before.

I ain’t doing it. Nope. Not happening. Ever. I’ll never have sex with any living or previously living thing that cannot give informed consent.

(Errrm… Except produce.  I don’t get consent from produce.  And that shit is definitely alive in some capacity.  But once that comes off the vine, isn’t it dead anyway? But wait, does that make me some kind of vegetarian necrophiliac?  *headdesk*)

Anyway, the reason it’s okay for me to have limits, and still be considered a slave, is because…

…

…

Wow, I just realized this whole post could end there.    Because the reason I can have the limits AND be a slave?  It’s ’cause HE thinks it’s okay.  Nothing else ANY other human has to say about it matters.  If he says so?  Then it is so. 

But, it’s me, so I have a WAY longer post in mind.  So, the OTHER reason I can have limits is because Antonio and I share the same core limits.

I knew his limits going into this… I have to assume I’m not the only slave who met her Master and didn’t just say, “You know what, let’s not talk about anything or get to know each other whatsoever. Let’s just be Master and slave. Sound good? Good. What’s your name again?”

In the beginning we slapped names and titles on our lifestyle.  We said “Dominant” and “submissive” to describe ourselves.  I was, at that time, caught up in semantic definitions. I was scared if I so much as thought to myself I wanted to be a “slave,” I’d live in a hell-world of licking poopy toilets and never seeing another living soul or something.

I was, as it happens, a bit of a moron.

And yes, eventually, we started just thinking of each other in terms of Master and slave. (Okay, that’s a lie.   He just growled out “SLAVE” one day,  and I was dumbfounded for a while, but it sounds way better if I say we came to some magical, mutual, mental agreement in our deeply connected subconscious minds.) I guess it made more sense to call ourselves that, in a way.  Kinda?  It also is slightly pointless, because no title change in the world will change my dynamic with him. But it works for him, so it works for me.

We spent a long time exploring, verbally before physically, our kinks and desires and goals and histories. I got a LOT of assignments that included everything from describing fantasies to playing a sort of word association game with dozens of terms. I had to discuss things I felt I was unwilling to explore no matter what, and things I didn’t want to do, but I knew wouldn’t harm me or go against any of my ethics, etc.

I see now that these were mental exercises designed so he could see what I was ready for, and see how much of a struggle I might put up over certain things, not for me to establish ground rules.  There were things I said “Nooooo” to that he just kind of nodded and was like “Okay, I understand YOU don’t want that. Next?” But there were some things, the important things – like bestiality, incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, infidelity – that he said “Agreed. Absolutely not going to happen, discussion over about that” to.

Those are HIS limits, if you can call them that. He doesn’t need limits, because something he doesn’t feel like doing will never be explored in the first place.  So they are not that important for HIM to know or talk about.  But I needed to know he had them and what they were, before I could truly give myself to him as his slave.

If he’d been into certain things, bent on, I don’t know… Loaning out my services to a million random people or making me give dogs blow jobs… He would not have been the Master for me. I would still have been a submissive woman and he would have still been a dominant man (and he would have made another slave a very happy girl I’m sure) but we would not have been right for each other.

Does that make me not a “true” slave? I dunno and, more importantly, I don’t care. I’ve always felt deeply submissive, and while I might not be A slave, my only goal is to be HIS slave. He says I am, I say I am. Problem solved and discussion over as far as I’m concerned.

I think I’m not being clear. Or at least, I could be clearer. I’m saying everyone is like this, I think. If you’re fundamentally against infidelity (as I am) you would not gravitate toward a Master who was into loaning out his property. And if you did, or entered into something before figuring out the foundations, you’d probably be miserable. If you simply didn’t LIKE it, didn’t WANT to do it, you might end up happy, if being made do to things you don’t like is a kink.

But if the action burned your soul and made you loathe who you are?  That’s different. You would not be a happy person, never mind a happy slave. You can’t loathe something on a soul-deep level and still be happy with yourself and life. You can’t loathe who you are as a human being and be happy. I think a relationship that made you feel that would fail. Not because someone was a bad slave or a bad Master, but because two people with different CORE limits who are involved in a power exchange dynamic cannot be truly happy with one another.  Not in The World According to Chloe.

So I think no matter who you are, you have limits that would end a relationship. Most people would say things like… “It’s insane to think about what I would do if he asked me to kill our children; he would never do that!” Well, yes, my point exactly. Your limits are okay, and it IS insane to think about those things, because you are with someone who shares those kinds of limits.

It’s not that you don’t have the limits, it’s that they match your partner’s limits.  So you feel safe they will never be explored. Don’t pretend there aren’t people (and couples!) who are murderers, who rape children, who destroy their own families. There are.  So imagine trying to be a slave to one of them? Or imagine your Master got a disease that addled his brain, and he suddenly thought those were good things to do, and ordered you to do them.  You wouldn’t. Because your core human limits wouldn’t match anymore.

(Btw, if you want to swear up and down that your core limits do NOT include things like murder and pedophilia? I think you’re either delightfully self-deluded, or you need to Go. Away. And. Get. Help. Right. Fucking. Now.)

I have two more things I want to talk about in relation to limits… But I’m going to post them later, I think. I told myself I’d write a short post today, so I’m going to see if I can cut this sucker off while it’s still only semi-long and not colossal.

(EDITED TO ADD:  Excuse me while I edit this a billion times. I make WAY too many typos.)

I tried to tell one of my girlfriends how power exchange increased trust between Antonio and me, and she took it as an insult. She responded with a VERY huffy, “Yeah? Well my boyfriend trusts me to actually make decisions for myself.”

*handface*

Needless to say, I was a little frustrated. And I know this lifestyle isn’t everyone’s idea of bliss, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to back down from this belief of elevated levels of trust. At least for me.

Faith is a muscle, and if you don’t use it, it atrophies.

In the context of my relationship, I exercise the hell out of my faith. I use, stretch, and test my trust in my Master on a daily basis, simply by the nature of how we interact.

(Btw, forgive me if I use “her” for submissive partners and “him” for dominant ones. I’m not trying to say that’s how it is or should be – it’s just how it is in my relationship, and it’s a LOT easier than saying “him/her” yanno?)

I know plenty of women (and men) in vanilla relationships who claim complete faith in their partners. But I know if seeds of doubt are planted – if they merely saw raised eyebrows from someone at the mention of infidelity – suspicion would be running rampant. And if someone outright said a partner was a cheater? These people would start snooping. They would scroll through the received calls on their significant other’s cell phone, take a peek at emails if they were left open (or maybe even if they weren’t), or start second-guessing when he or she goes “out for a drink with friends.”

A lot of people don’t seem to even need the suggestion that their partner might be straying to do that stuff. Sad, but true. They just assume their partner is not totally honest with them. I have the sneaking suspicion that’s because they are not totally honest with their partner.

Now, I’m not saying every vanilla couple always comes equipped with an unfaithful man and a mistrusting woman, or vice versa. And I’m not saying they are incapable of deep trust. Of course not.

I’m just saying I see mistrust in a lot of vanilla relationships, and that sort of basic mistrust is truly not an option in mine. And it’s because of the dominance and submission that I am not able to ever claim I have a level of trust I don’t truly possess.

Because in a vanilla relationship, I could say, “I trust you with my life.” But to say it in my relationship, I’m going to have to get blindfolded and bound and continue that thought with, “And now, I’m going to prove it.”

I don’t see it as just me, either. In sexual BDSM relationships, some of the harder, kinkier scenes involve incredible levels of faith. Both during and (sometimes more importantly) after.

During a scene, someone might be tied up, cuffed, blindfolded, gagged, chained in place, etc. And faced with pain, torture, mindfucks, solitude, or all of the above. The sub/slave/bottom has to trust the dominant partner to know her, to listen to her and respond accordingly (or know when to not respond at all), and not to harm her permanently.

That’s a hell of a lot of trust.

And of course the dominant has to trust the submissive. Consider a rape scene. During the scene, the submissive will have to trust her partner, obviously (or, I suppose, be a raging moron). But after the scene, the dominant has to essentially trust his life and reputation to his submissive. She could run, bruised and bloodied, to a police station. And with his skin under her nails, her body bruised and used, and his semen inside her, she could scream rape as loud as she wanted. And her dominant could be branded as a sexual predator. If it went to court and he went to jail, he’d have to register as a sex offender everywhere he lived for the rest of his life.

That’s a hell of a lot of trust too.

Trust in the bedroom is just one example. It exists (and sometimes translates) to the rest of my relationship, and to me, that’s the beautiful part. To know I can literally place my life in my Master’s hands means I can trust him implicitly in every aspect of our relationship.

If I saw raised eyebrows, or heard someone say my Man was a cheater, I could just smile and confidently say, “No. He isn’t.” That’s an incredible gift. And I believe it comes directly from my relationship dynamic.

Anyway, I was just a teensy bit irritated with that comment my friend made… I had to vent because she didn’t want to hear it, and you people don’t have a choice!

I bet I could find a lot of blog posts about this from the BDSM point of view.  But the truth is, I haven’t really looked.  But I do read lalana’s blog regularly.  And she talked about Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, briefly. And linked to HSMom’s post about it.  Which prompted me to remember “Hey!  I ranted about Twilight to Antonio!” 

Then I made the classic leap from “I’ve thought about this…” cleanly into “Clearly I MUST share my ramblings with the internet!”

I fear my logic may be crumbling there. (She says as though that’s ever stopped her…)

FYI, most of this was written to Antonio, after I had only read the first book.  So I don’t think there are any spoilers beyond book one. 

(ASIDE:  If you haven’t read Twilight, and don’t have the time/energy/desire to read the whole thing, or you just want to read an intensely hilarious chapter-by-chapter parody of it, go here.  That’s shinga’s livejournal and that parody makes me stupidly happy.)

Anyway… Twilight… 

My first thought was “Huh… Is it just me, or does it reads like a twisted BDSM primer for teenagers?”  Only… You know… Plus supernatural beings and minus any semblance of level-headed, open, honest talk about relationship dynamics.

I’ve noticed many people have judged the relationship between Mary Sue Bella and Edward as simply misogynistic, and I was intrigued. 

Maybe eighty pages in, I started noticing things…

When I reached his table, I stood behind the chair across from him, unsure.
"Why don’t you sit with me today?" he asked, smiling.
I sat down automatically.
[...]
He smiled again, and then he changed the subject. "I think your friends are angry with me for stealing you."
"They’ll survive." I could feel their stares boring into my back.
"I might not give you back, though," he said with wicked glint in his eye.
I gulped.
He laughed. "You look worried."
"No," I said, but, ridiculously, my voice broke.
(pp. 87-88)

Nothing big.  Not really… It just stirred something in me. 

Later, Bella gets sick at school after seeing blood. Edward sees her being taken to the nurse by another boy. He literally picks her up and carries her there himself, sending the other guy away. She shouts to be put down, multiple times. All ignored. Then she wants to go home, on her own, but he insists she go with him. To highlight that insistence, he physically DRAGS her to the car. She thinks about escaping and he promises to drag her back if she tries.

Legally, I’m fairly sure that amounts to kidnapping.  But Edwards is beautiful and it’s OMG TRUE LOVE, so it’s fine – just fine – apparently.  Even though, you know, they barely know each other and aren’t together or anything.  They just secretly love each other.  Except Bella actually thinks Edward DOESN’T love her at that point.  Uh, right.

In basic phrasing, Edward is overtly domineering. For example, even when he uses "please" it’s clear he’s not asking:

"Distract me, please," he ordered.
(p. 163)

Also, how Bella doesn’t "realize’" something until Edward commands she does it: 

"Drink," he ordered.
I sipped at my soda obediently, and then drank more deeply, surprised by how thirsty I was.
(p. 169)

For some reason, that one REALLY stuck with me.  

It’s that “I don’t know what I want until HE tells me,” situation, you know?  Hell, I experience that.  And I love it!  But victims of certain crimes eventually experience the same thing.  The difference, always, is consent, which (look, here I go finally getting to my point…) I never saw. 

I saw (eventual) affirmations of love, I saw rebellion on Bella’s part, I saw Edward struggle with his rage and desire to control and kill her… But I never saw Bella go “It’s okay for you to tell me what to do, to prevent me from seeing people, to have stalked me, etc.  I like that, and I want you to do it” in any concrete way.

(BTW, if anyone reading this saw consent, or has a theory like… Like I’m simply seeing through my own lens, because I AM in the lifestyle, and my interpretation is colored by that, please share!)

Another example is when Bella attempts to place conditions on a conversation with Edward. He warns her (with tone) that he’s absolutely not one to suffer provisions from the likes of her…

"I’ll tell you about it in the car. If…" I paused.
"There are conditions?" He raised one eyebrow, his voice ominous.
(p. 172)

(I swear, that line could come right out of the start of a BDSM story/fic/fantasy… Or whatever they’re called…)

And when Edward offers her a choice about something? She’s genuinely shocked he’s letting her make a decision all by her little self!

"Do you want to ride with me today?" he asked, amused by my expression as he caught me by surprise yet again. There was uncertainty in his voice. He was really giving me a choice – I was free to refuse…
(p. 197)

(FYI – EVERYTHING I’ve quoted thus far happens before page 200 and before they are really together as a couple… Yeah…)

Anyway, it made me think…

First, I don’t know that much about the Mormon faith, but my first thought was that perhaps Meyer’s faith follows the belief (or a belief similar to) Christian headship in marriage. (If you don’t know what that is, it’s summed up pretty well, direct from the source, in Ephesians 5:22-33.)

So I figured, hell, if that’s what the author is going for, and it makes the characters happy… Rock on, Bella and Edward!  Christian headship FTW!

But then things like this, beginning on page 302:

"That suits me," he replied, his face relaxing into a gentle smile. "Bring on the shackles – I’m your prisoner." But his long hands formed manacles around my wrists as he spoke."

And for three solid pages (until they get interrupted and Edward literally HAS to let her go) he keeps her wrists locked in his hands, manipulating her position with his superhuman strength.  He spends the time engaging in light conversation, such as talking endlessly about his seething rage-like jealousy when other boys so much as talk to Bella, how it deeply bothers him he can’t know precisely what she is thinking (and I mean every SINGLE thought in her head – he can read all minds but Bella’s) at all times, and how he came to watch her sleep at night while he wrestled with his desire for her and/or to suck her blood and kill her.   Not so Christ-like, yanno?

I mean, okay, I’ve seen Secretary. And this all struck me as a little bit like that. Not the same, obviously. But with elements of obvious domination and submission in a work of fiction.

P.S. – did anyone else go “HA!  Both men are named Edward… Tee hee hee!”  No?  Am I the only total dork here?  Figures…)

(Spoiler Alert for the next two paragraphs. If you haven’t seen Secretary and don’t want to know anything about it, skip down please!)

I thought Secretary was done pretty well. It was very clearly a life-changing (arguably life-saving) discovery on the part of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character, Lee, that she wanted to be in submission to a man, specifically Edward Grey. And it’s difficult for them both to swallow that they had an urge for a dynamic that seemed so not normal. So they really had to hash it out, battle back and forth with desire vs. decorum, to come to their version of (what I believe was inarguably) consent, mutual understanding, and a powerful love.

There was no scene where they sit down and talk over their dynamic, but there was the scene where Edward tells Lee that they can’t do this every day, and she says “Why not?” and then how she fights for the relationship (desk scene = <3) because she CLEARLY loves it and loves him and is a better person for it and knows he is too. And they wrap it all up with the ending of domestic bliss.

I think love and possession can be mingled. (Duh.) Some see it as Christian headship, some simply as a more traditional marriage/relationship, some as BDSM, some as a bunch of FancyPants, internet-savvy terms I’ve probably never even heard of. 

And that’s cool.  I don’t take issue with any of that. But I took issue with Twilight.

My problem, and it was a raging problem throughout the book, was where the hell was any acknowledgment or consent of this dynamic?

Edward clearly has a very dominant personality, and Bella seems so swept off her feet that she likes anything Edward does… But she does make attempts to rebel.  Part of her is screaming “No, no, no, don’t listen to your raging hormones, no, no, NO!” And she seems complacent and obedient in many cases after minor rebellions are shot down, or her rebellion disappoints or angers Edward, and I’m just…

I’m just left thinking "Okay, fine. You want to be controlled. Or, wait. Do you? Do you even know? If you don’t want it, and you suffer it for some other reason, some pathology or personal issue, this is abusive. If you do, then dammit, people have to talk about it in SOME way."

And, honestly… It wouldn’t matter.  It DOESN’T matter.  Not to me. 

BUT… My fear is that other people will be in my “Huh?” position or at least have something niggling at them.  Or, worse, they might not even be questioning the element of consent in the dynamic. And, since the “people” who read this book are mostly young teen girls, this sort of controlling behavior will be viewed by the millions of them, and they will be subconsciously inundated with swooning and thinking THAT dynamic is true love, and what a good man does, no matter what. It can be a part of a healthy, loving relationship, but in other cases, especially those with immature teenage boys and girls involved, it is abusive, controlling, and un-fucking-acceptable.

If Meyer wanted to confront EITHER dynamic – dominance and submission, or abuse, that’d be great. But to tread water just enough so she doesn’t have to address either? That’s just gutless, in my opinion, and potentially seriously damaging to her fans.  I was 13 once too.  And I didn’t have a fucking clue.  And I was impressionable.  And hormonal.  And confused.  And emotional.  And desperately searching for something, even though I didn’t know what. And…  Maybe I’m alone in that, but I don’t think so. 

And my fear of “girls not simply identifying but wanting to become” is, I think, very founded. Because the trouble with Bella is that she’s a complete shell of a character – empty and meaningless – designed specifically so ANY girl can "be" her. (I actually went to the author’s website today, after writing this, and Meyers even confirms it.)

So if you’ve ever wonder why the books are so successful with teenage girls, wonder no more.  It’s because Bella is pure, unadulterated cliché.  She is nothing more than a list of adjectives – “pretty” yet “insecure” and “plain” yet “alluring” and “feisty” yet oh-so-swoonily in love with her soulmate,  a vampire who is seemingly unattainable and is head and shoulders (and centuries) above the rest.

I’m not saying these books are going to single-handedly encourage teens to seek out abusers, not at all.  I’m just saying…  Well, I’m saying that it appears that teenage girls have a tendency to forget the definition of the word “fiction.”  Like, hardcore. That post is from a film blog, and its crassness aside, I think it sums it up VERY nicely just how DEEP teenagers get into this stuff.  (I’ve heard other, much worse, horror stories.  A woman named Rosalie who literally hunted down and married a man with the last name Cullen, girls wanting to get pregnant, etc.) If anyone was questioning my assertion that teenagers are really reading into these books, how unrealistic and warped their view becomes in the midst of this flock mentality and obsessive fandom?  Well, read that post or google around a bit.  I really think I’m right that some girls DO take it too far. 

Anyway… It just seems irresponsible and worrisome.  A big “TSK!” for Stephenie Meyer, thus far.