Mourning Pieces

It's been two months since my last post about serina and I parting ways, and I've been spending most of that time mourning, as I'm sure you understand.

It's been hard because there's three parts to my grief - the first is the obvious, my partner and I have split up, and I am sad about that.  Not just for the relationship that was, but also for the future that will now never be.  When you have planned many years together and it gets cut short, you need to take the time to mourn for that future as well.

The second part is mourning the loss of a family member.  She was a part of our lives and our household, and we were finding the rhythm to improve our lives by utilizing the strengths of each of us.  The house feels so much bigger and emptier.  My social calendar no longer contains as many important dates and events.  We have to reconfigure household chores.  Household holidays and celebrations (like upcoming christmas) are one person less joyful.

And the third part is the mourning the loss of a slave in training.  I have mentioned briefly before that submissives are not the only ones who crave D/s relationships and feel less than complete without them.  I've been having D/s relationships for just over ten years now, and there has always been a hole inside me where I am waiting for the right slave/property to come fill it in.  It's a hole that can only be filled by a slave, not a boy, not a princess, not a pet.  Only a slave, though the labels of course don't matter as much as the dynamic.  I don't know what the labels of our dynamic might be, I only know that there is a hole in my heart where I am waiting for someone.

That hole had slowly begun to close with serina.  We were approaching the type of relationship that I have been looking for all these years.  I was able to focus better, I was a better person, because I was beginning to lack the decade old ache inside my chest.

But now, of course, it's opening up again.  And I am by no means ready to start a new relationship right now, which makes the pain all the more noticeable, because I can do nothing about it right now.  All I can do is mourn for what was and try to move on to a place where I am ready for the new to come in.

The collar is still on my desk.  Soon I will be taking it on a trip to the countryside and burying it somewhere there.  I am determined to get it done before the new year, I want to start 2014 having cast off this relationship for good.  Because new years is important to me, it's my most personally important holiday.  I need to cast off the last physical remainder of what was so that I can move forward in the new year.

And one day, I will find the right person for that hole in my chest, as well as many other wonderful relationships I will have, I am sure.  But for now, I heal.

Parting Ways

Ah, I've put off making this post for a couple of days, but now it's the last thing that needs doing before it's all "done" in my mind, so here it is.

Pet--well, serina--and I parted ways a couple of days ago.

As break ups go, it was a good one.  No one did anything wrong and there's no blame to be assigned.  Put simply, she realized that slavery is not the right thing for her right now.  So, we dissolved our contract.

Because a lot of people use my blog as a learning tool, here is how it happened and how we did so with grace:

Once she asked for release and I agreed, we made a time to sort through the details (the release happened when we were apart, via email).  The next day she came to my house so we could do so.

Clothes that I bought for her using her money, I bagged up and gave to her.  Some of the clothes I bought her using my money, I kept.  I don't know if I will ever have another sub who is the right gender and size to wear them, but I am fond of them and I wanted to keep them as an option.

I removed her, or she removed herself, from apps that we used for household management.  So she was removed from the gps tracking app I have, she was removed from the to do list app we use, and we deleted each other's calendars from our accounts.

We discussed social networks briefly - I told her that I had no intention of removing her from my social networks but that if I change my mind on that in the coming weeks not to take it too personally.

Her boots, that I bought for her as her first earned leather, she kept.  That might sound natural but I feel it's worth mentioning anyway.  Regardless of where she goes in life she earned those, they are hers.

Finally, she returned the key to my house, and the collar I had her wear.

And that was it.  Boy drove her home.

I am, to put it mildly, sad about it.  It came out of nowhere to me, as far as I knew we were doing very well.  But... well, it takes two to make a relationship and only one to break it.

The collar is sitting on the desk in front of me as I type this.  I am not yet sure what I will do with it.  At the moment I think that in a couple of weeks or so, once I have felt the worst of the grief, I may bury it.  If I don't do that, then I may just put it in a box in storage.  I don't know yet.

So, it's just the two of us again, me and boy.  He's upset about it too.  We were a little family and now we have lost one.

Missing Cultural History

Ever since I first came into this life, there has been this hole inside me where my cultural history should be.

I am very young by Leather standards.  Very, very young.   I am 28 years old.  I burst out onto the public kink scene the moment I turned 18, and so I've been around for a decade now, which means something in generic kink circles; but in Leather, it's not much.  I am a baby.

I'm okay with that.  We're all young and new in the beginning.  I'm hardly concerned about that.

But this hole, this hole has been in me from the beginning.  And I've spent the last--well, longer than ten years, I think I first started researching this life when I was 14.  So I've spent the last 14 years, literally half my life, trying to learn about my cultural history.  Trying to learn where people like me came from, what life was like for them, what the world looked like for people like me.

I collect lifestyle books.  I collect queer history books.  Unfortunately I'm not as rich as I'd like, so my collection is still quite small, only about one shelf of books.  But I still collect them, it's my lifetime passion.  I read them passionately, because every word makes me feel a little more connected to those who came before me.

Just before my most recent health crash, I sent a few messages to some of my personal elders, asking if sometime I could come have a cuppa and talk with them about their lives.  Reading books is all well and good but it doesn't have the warmth and the earth of personal experiences.

I want to know my cultural history.  I want to hear it.  I want to hear what worked and what went wrong.  I want to hear the heartbreak, I want to hear the ecstasy.  I want to feel connected to the past, specifically the past of Australian Leather people.  I want to save the history and the knowledge from disappearing from my generation, and those who come after me.

Yesterday I was reminded how important this is to me.  The hole in my heart got a little smaller, and it hurt in that itchy way that healing wounds do.

As I hope my health continues to slowly improve, I need to try and get to those discussions.  It's not just that I want to learn, want to know - I need to.  I need that connection to my past, I need it like I need the air I breathe.

Still not much to update, but I missed you, blog.

Still rather ill.  Not a lot has changed since my last entry - although my health does seem to be slowly on its way up, which is good.  Now I just have to not go overboard and wreck it again, heh.

I can't remember if I blogged about this, but pet has another relationship at the moment.  I allow her to have any vanilla sexual relationships that she wants, and while this started out that way... heh.  Pet is one of those people who falls into relationships and honestly I was not particularly surprised when it happened.

She has had her boi for a few months or so now, they are exploring a power exchange dynamic where pet is the dominant.  I'll refer to her boi here on my blog simply as q, hopefully that won't be too confusing.

Q is very new to D/s and BDSM, as far as I know this is the first time they have dabbled in it at all.  Pet has learned a lot from me about how to slowly introducing things in relationships so that seems to be coming along well.  They recently had their three month negotiation that I sat in on, so things are going well there.

It's an interesting thing, the chain of command.  Because while I have no issue with my subs having their own subs, there are practical aspects to consider.  I am high maintenance at the best of times, and at the end of the day if I'm your dominant, I come first.  Simple as that.  Any relationship that might interfere with that is not welcome.

Which isn't to say I'm draconian about it.  I don't mind what my subs get up to when they're not directly interacting with me or following orders, as long as it is something of which I would approve.  Every breath and action my subs take is somewhat of a reflection of me, and that means they need to be living up to my standards as much as possible.  Unfortunately for them my standards get more draconian the more years they are involved with me, heh.  :)

It's not difficult to have a submissive who has a submissive, but having a slave who has a submissive may well be so.  I am however not particularly worried, everyone has been very clear about the chain of command and where everyone falls, and that takes about 6000% of the difficulty out of the situation.

Things are very early days and we will see how things go.  Q has shown an interest in becoming part of the family unit as time goes on, which is a very positive sign for the future of their and pet's relationship.

I'm sorry if this post is a little disjointed or strange, I'm still quite ill and brainfoggy and so I'm not as articulate as I might normally be.  I hope you're all doing well, readers.  :)

Nothing sexy to report.

My health has continued its downswing and everything is boring at the moment.  So no matter how hard I want to write a blog post, I can neither think of anything to say nor can I just talk about life because the only interesting thing that's happened recently that isn't terrible is that we got a kitten.

(We called him Tribble.)

Withholding

First of all, thank you so much for your comments on my last entry.  This is a trying time and your comments were greatly appreciated, thank you.  ♥

~~~

D/s relationships quickly break down if the submissive withholds their feelings or thoughts.

Something I have experienced many times with both boy and pet is that they will stop letting everything out to me, and that's a problem.  I can only make the best decisions with the information I'm given, and if I'm not given complete information I am not making complete decisions.

One of the hardest things you will have to learn as a submissive, no doubt, is that you cannot keep things from your Dominant.  You can't not tell them your thoughts or feelings.  You can't hold yourself back from being affectionate or devoted.  You can't give anything less than 100% of yourself when it's required of you.

Frequently, the Dominant is not giving back an equal share of thoughts, feelings or actions.  That's okay.  These are, by design, unequal relationships.  If you want an equal give and take relationship, then D/s and especially M/s is not the relationship models you should be looking at.

That's not to say Doms should keep things from their subs.  Not at all.  Dominants have their duties too, but they are different from the submissives.

This last couple of months have been awful for me, and pet especially but boy a little too have fallen into this thing where they "don't want to bother me" with things.

No.  Silly submissives, that's not how this works.

Tell me everything.  Give me everything.  What I choose to do with it is up to me, even if it's nothing.  But they, as my submissives, do not get to decide what is best for me.

I've been keeping much to myself and have told them that I am checking up on them less right now because I need to focus on other things.  They, however, are not on holiday, they are still expected to be my submissives and continue giving me access to their power and authority.  Unfair?  Perhaps so.  But as I said, this isn't a relationship model for people who want fair and equal relationships.

I'm back!

Oh boy, this last month has been a Thing.

I don't really want to talk about it, heh.  Suffice to say, stuff has been a headache at best and it's still not finished being a headache.

This last month or so has been awful for me, personally.  Aside from moving house, I've had to do a long term sleep study for a specialist (which has been awful), I lost a friendship, my health has been awful, money has been beyond tight, and to top it all off, my father died.

During that time, BDSM has taken a back seat, unsurprisingly.

What is interesting to me is watching the ways in which boy and pet deal with me being more or less out of commission.

Boy has made me very proud this last month.  He has gotten up and taken over things that needed attention that I wasn't able to deal with, he has taken good care of me, he has been an exceptional example of what a Leatherboy can be in times of stress.

Pet on the other hand, well.  I don't think she even realizes she's doing it, but it's clear to me that without a firm hand on her at all times she begins to lose the headspace.  I haven't done much about it yet because, as you may have guessed from my description of this last month, it has been a very low priority thing, and it's not that she's been a problem.

It's not that she's become rebellious or anything that severe.  But she has become less devoted, she has been less focussed, she has been less communicative.  Not to a degree that it's a problem, not by any means.  But it's something I've noticed.

I feel like this is actually a pretty good example of the difference between a boy/girl and a slave, actually.  When the Dominant is out of commission, how do they react?  Do they step up to look after things, or do they flounder?  Obviously it's not a one size fits all thing, but it is something that I think is very common.

Anyway, as I said, I don't have much to report.  Things are still very stressful here but will hopefully settle over the coming couple of weeks.  I hope you're doing better than I am, dear readers.

Moving House

Well embarrassingly enough for me, no one asked any questions in March.  Fortunately for me, this means I have more time to put towards packing.

Yes, we're moving house.  To a much larger and much cheaper house.

Where finally I will be able to have a dungeon.  :D

See you after the move, blog!

March Q&A

So my life right now is incredibly stressful and incredibly not-kinky-enough so I don't have much I want to blog about.

I've been spending a lot of my spare time reading other blogs (speaking of which I really need to update my blogroll, eesh) and apparently a thing that a lot of kink bloggers do every March is have a free for all Q&A sort of thing.

So!  If there's something you're dying to know about me, my lifestyle, my Leather family, my blog, or anything else Leather or BDSM related I guess, drop a question or two in a comment here on this post and I'll answer it in another post later in the month.  :)

Erotic Hypnosis

Hey, I'm actually going to talk about play!  I bet you forgot that I actually do that sometimes.  ;P

So, boy has always had an interest in hypnosis.  It's not been something I'm particularly into, but the easiest way to give me a kink is to show me someone who has it.  I'm easily converted.  (Seriously, I went to a workshop on a topic that was a soft limit for me and came out desperate to start doing it.  I'm that easily converted.)

Anyway.  We went to a workshop on erotic hypnosis a couple of years ago now, and I learned a lot.  But we never got around to playing with it for a lot of reasons, the main one I think being that I just wasn't ready yet.

But we've been talking and I've been reading and researching and so we are getting ready to give it a go.  We did a small session tonight, just a sort of pick me up scene for me to test the induction process I'd come up with for him to see how it worked and see how we felt and all that sort of thing.

It went well.  I need to make some changes to the induction (for starters I need to make it twice as long) but it was a good start.

I do start getting a bit lost with what to do WITH hypnosis though, you know?  Boy already does whatever I tell him to do.  And I'm already a big fan of conditioning and use that.  Hypnosis, from what I can tell, is basically just a combination of those things.

But!  I am not one to sneeze at a new kink to play with.  Plus I have talked with boy about his fantasies about hypnosis and some of them are realistic, so we will have a go.

I'll let you know if I get any fun results.  :)

Generic Update

Nothing of particular importance to blog about right now, so some general "here's what's going on" sort of updates.

Boy and I are well.  I've noticed I've been talking about him less on this blog, and I'd like to reassure you that that's not a cause for concern. We've been together long enough now that there's not many surprises, and day to day stuff is just puttering along quite well.

He's very busy and so am I lately, and that's another reason there isn't much to talk about.  We're trying to get our shit together to make moving house in a month or two easier.

Things with pet are going well also.  We have been looking over our relationship and where it goes from here, and I am starting to put some thought into the practical aspects of moving from D/s to M/s, as that's a step we're looking to take fairly soon.  "Soon" in this case means anywhere from three months to a year - we don't have an exact timeline right now and that suits me fine.  We will talk about a firm timeline once a few headaches are out of the way - such as aforementioned me and boy moving house.

Since the move to M/s will include a lot of big changes, it needs a lot of thinking about and preparation.  I will be taking full responsibility for pet, including her living situation (she'll move in with boy and me), her money, her lifestyle, everything.  As it stands, I have the OPTION of enforcing control on many aspects of her life that I simply choose not to, but because it is optional it is not a responsibility.  Since moving to M/s involves shifting a lot of things from being allowed to control something to being responsible to control everything, that requires a lot of careful thought and preparation from me.

There's a lot of talk on the internet about preparing for slavery from the bottom side of the equation - being ready to give up on freedoms in things you like as well as the ones you don't, for example - but there's not enough talk about the preparations for the Master, when it comes to Ms.

Planning living arrangements for your slave - where will they sleep, what will they eat, basic things like that.  Planning financial arrangements for your slave - do they get pocket money, where do you allocate their resources for the good of the slave and the household, making sure there's an "escape fund" put aside for them, things like that.  Planning lifestyle arrangements for your slave - handling their study or career, their chores around the house, their social calendar.  Planning healthcare for your slave - making sure you're familiar and knowledgeable about their medical conditions and what they entail, planning health insurance (if you're unfortunate enough to live in America or another country without universal healthcare).

The thing is, one of the attractions of slavery is not having to worry about these things.  The slave can trust their Master to take care of them.  But that means, as a Master, that you need to be prepared to do that.

Mastery is paperwork.  More paperwork than you'd think.

So that's what I've been doing when it comes to pet, recently.  Thinking about the paperwork.  :)

I also have an interesting meeting coming soon with someone I may be taking on as a protege.  That's in a bit less than a week.  I'll keep you updated.

So things are good for me at the moment.  Busy and hectic and a little bit stressful, and not kinky enough, but good.  :)

Family Names

Names are pretty powerful things.  They're secular magic, as my boy likes to say.

There's always been a running joke that the house I live in is called "Erinland".  It's been that way through a couple of houses now for a few years.  It's interesting to me because I never named it, even though it's named after me - other people named it and to other people it has a certain quality about it.  "Erinland", in the eyes of my friends, means a place where you can be free to be a little bit freaky and experience fun and joyous things that you might not be able to elsewhere.  That?  That makes me very happy.  That I can offer that space is amazing in itself, but that it's been named after me is actually kind of an honour, even if I do groan about it at times because, let's face it, it does sound a bit silly.

Recently, my little group (myself, boy, pet) have been referred to as "Erin's family" or "Erinkyan's family".  This probably shouldn't bother me, but it kind of does.

I've written before about my inner drive to build a family.  So what is happening now is both incredible and stressful.  On one hand, I am finding myself forming a family as easily as star dust forms planets.  Slowly, but organically.  But on the other hand, that makes me acutely aware of the things I'd rather not be organic.

Like names.

I'm not sure how I feel about my name being the modifier that marks someone as my family, but at the same time it's very natural that it's happening that way.  If you know a vanilla family you probably call their house the Smith House or what have you.  It's incredibly normal.

But it feels... off.  Not bad as such.  Just... not quite right.

But the fact is that if I'm going to change it then I need to do it soon and I need to figure out some things.

Not just what name to unite us under, but also what that name involves.  What it means.  Who gets to wear it.

I have a lot to think about.  I've been thinking about this stuff for years and years already, but we are now exiting theory-land and entering reality.  Which actually, now that I think about it, means I have less to think about and more acting to do.

Dom Frenzy

A friend of mine is currently going through sub frenzy.  We had a chat about it and where it comes from and how to deal with it, and I mentioned that doms go through the same thing although no one seems to talk about that.  She went researching (as we nerds do when we want to understand something) but couldn't find much about dom frenzy, and asked if I had any recommendations.

I don't.  I've never seen anything written about dom frenzy.  I'm sure some exists out there in the quiet areas of the internet, but I haven't seen it.

So I'm writing a post about it.

Dom frenzy is a mental state a dominant can fall into where they want more, they want it all, NOW.  They want full control.  They want a slave.  They want a stable of slaves!  They want to live like a roman emperor!   They want to tear you apart and put you back together.  They want to play three times a day.  They want to do edge play, even if they're new!  They want to take on complete control and responsibility regardless of whether that's something they can handle.

Like all mental states it looks different on different people.  A monogamous person probably doesn't want a stable of slaves, but they might want their slave to be under their thumb as often as possible, all day, all week, all year, no matter what kind of career their submissive has!  A poly dominant might literally want a stable of slaves and not care too much about their personal compatibility with each one, as long as they have lots of them.  A dominant interested in edge play might go piercing or cutting things they don't know enough about to pierce and cut, because sheer hubris and desire makes them believe they can do it.

Sub frenzy and dom frenzy are similar in the basic ways - from both sides of the coin, it's about wanting MORE, and wanting it NOW.  It's about being vulnerable to making bad decisions based on your desire.

The problem with dom frenzy (just like the problem with sub frenzy) is that people get stupid.  They think they can do things that they can't.  They think they want to own a slave but they don't actually want the responsibility for owning a slave.  They want to spend all their time with their submissive and play as much as possible, possibly leaving friendships (and even work) by the wayside.  They do risky play that they've had no training in.

Dom frenzy can let you fuck up your relationships and your submissive(s).

So how do you tell if you're in a frenzy?

Like everything in kink, a good self awareness is the best starting point.  Know what you're like when you're rational and sensible and then check in with yourself every so often to make sure you're still being that.

Are you thinking about kink more than usual?  Are you fantasizing more than usual?  Do you find yourself wanting a level of D/s you've not previously desired?  Do you want to do more types of play that you've not previously had an interest in?  Do you want types of relationships you've not previously wanted?  Do you find yourself unable to focus on things that aren't kink?  Do you find yourself drifting off and daydreaming about it more than usual?

You might be in a frenzy.

Now in case it's not obvious, all of these things can also just be normal growth experiences.  Actually, I'd almost go so far as to say that most states of frenzy are natural growth spurts.

So please don't think that frenzy = completely irrational things that you don't actually want.  Because that's not the case at all.  The problem with frenzy isn't that it makes you desire new things, it's that you can get over excited and carried away with trying to get them.

So here's some tips on how to deal with frenzy:

First of all, remember frenzy in and of itself isn't a bad thing.  It's a growth spurt.  You're hitting kink puberty, you're being flooded with all these feelings and desires you didn't really notice before.

Be patient.  Your blood is telling you to go and get all the new things NOW NOW NOW.  You don't need them now now now.  You can wait.  Trust me, all those things you want to do or have?  They'll still be there when you get to them.  Don't go running into things head first, that's a good way to fuck things up.  Take it slow.

You can, however, start looking into these new things that interest you.  Developed an interest in Master/slave relationships?  Read books, read blogs, join a MAsT chapter in your area, meet folks who are in M/s relationships.  Got an interest in edge play?  Ask around and meet the edge players in your local area and ask them questions and pick their brains.  They'll probably be happy to share information with you.  Whatever new thing has caught your interest, don't assume that you're not really into it just because you're feeling frenzied.  Go and research it.  Meet people who do it.  Ask questions, watch scenes, let it sink in.

Communicate all your frenzy feelings to the people around you.  They probably understand, and talking it out will help you make sure you don't lose your shit.  Letting people know where you're at also helps hold you accountable for your actions.

Think about things carefully.  Before, after, during.  Keep a good awareness of your own mental state at all times.  Be analytical, even when you don't want to be.

If you're like me, all of the above is well and good but how do you deal with the blood pumping NOW NOW NOW feelings when they happen?  Being responsible is all well and good but how do you deal with frenzy when it's itching under your skin and you can't sit still?

*  Watch porn.  Whatever fantasies you have, watch porn of them.  If you're more of an interactive person, roleplay online.  Join ShangrilaMUSH or Second Life, or go into chat rooms for cybersex, or something like that, and get it all out on there.

*  Do more of the stuff you can already do.  Play more if it's reasonable, using techniques and toys you're already familiar with.  If you're in a D/s relationship and you have certain privileges with your submissive built into your contract, use them.  Take a small thing and make it a big deal - maybe instead of your submissive just making you coffee in the morning, maybe they have to present it to you on their knees for a few days.

*  Spend time on forums and networking sites with people like you.  Join fetlife groups for the stuff that's interesting you and read all the discussions.  Read collarme or recon personals (although probably don't respond to any unless you've thought about it for a week).

However you deal with it, you'll be okay.  Just try to be as clear headed as you can be and don't rush into anything, and you'll be just fine.  And honestly?  Enjoy the frenzy as much as you can.  There's something to be said for the intoxication of desire.  :)

Why I Care for My Own Leathers

It's pretty common in Leather circles to have your submissive/slave/etc take care of your leathers for you.

For my boots, I like this.  I like my subs caring for my boots.  It's a service they can give me that I value greatly.  It's a skill that I can be proud of them for.  It's something they enjoy doing, as I'm sure it's a potent thing to help you "feel" submissive to work over your Dominant's boots.  And if I am wearing the boots so much the better, a good boot black scene is a delicious morsel that should be savoured.

But my vest, I care for myself.

My vest is a very important piece of clothing for me, as you know if you're a long time reader.  I bought it for myself as a promise that I would constantly strive to be the best I can be.  Every time I put it on I ask myself if I am worthy of wearing it.  If the answer to that question is no, it stays off until the answer is yes.  My vest is very personal.  It's a part of who I am and who I can be.

Because of that, it would feel wrong to have someone else care for my vest.  My taking care of it is as much a part of the package deal as anything else.  If I don't have the inclination to love and look after my vest, then I don't deserve to wear it.

Aside from all that though, I enjoy looking after my vest.  It's relaxing, it's calming, it's a good labour with a satisfying end.

Negotiation Tips: Give Examples

A quick note, this post is about D/s relationship negotiation, not BDSM play negotiation.  There are similarities between the two of course but at their core they are quite fundamentally different.

Pet and I have been doing LOTS of negotiating over the time we've been together, not just at our re-evaluation times every three to six months, but just in the day to day when we talk hypothetically about the future.  And I've been talking about it with a lot of people who express interest in knowing how we do it.  Negotiation is one of those things in WIITWD that everyone says we should do, but no one really tells you how to do it.  There are checklists and so on and so forth but those only get you so far.

After talking with a few people about negotiation and communication and making sure you're understood and all that, I thought I'd offer up this tip.  First of all though, this isn't the be all to end all about relationship negotiation, I don't have the energy right now to write up a post in great detail of how we do it, but this is something that might help if you've had trouble making yourself understood or understanding your partner.

Give examples.

Lots of them.  Not just one or two.

Don't worry about "going too far".  Because this is a negotiation.  It's not set in stone.  You're not laying down the law at this point, you are discussing options.  You're offering what you do and don't want, and then they offer what they do and don't want in return, based on your wants and not-wants.  That's negotiating.  Examples are hugely useful for this.

Don't just say, "I want to control your eating habits".  Explain what that might look like.  Tell them you want to be able to specify how often they eat, what they eat, what they're not allowed to eat.  Tell them you don't want to be asked about every meal though.  Maybe you only want it when you're around.  Or maybe you do want it all the time, maybe you want to construct some kind of schedule meal plan for them.  They might ask, do they get time off from your plan?  Do they get exceptions?  Can they eat a chocolate if they've been good?  Do they get to have x number of cups of coffee every day without asking?

Don't just say, "no body modification".  Think about and explore what that means.  Okay it means no tattoos, what about piercings?  Probably not.  But what about hair colour?  What about clothing?  That's modifying presentation.  Are those okay?

Don't just say, "I want to mark you as my property".  Marking with what?  Words?  Symbols?  Pictures?  In what medium?  Tattoos?  Piercings?  A collar?  Branding?  Sharpie-on-skin?

Don't just say, "I want you to respect me as your dominant".  Jeez.  What does respect mean?  What does it look like?  Respect might just be a feeling, are you okay with your sub just feeling it and not expressing it?  Do you want them to show you respect by worshipping you every day?  Bringing you coffee?  Sitting at your feet?  Never interrupting?  What does "respect" look like, to you?  What does it look like to them?

The reason examples become so useful is that talking theoretically will only get you so far.  You can talk about an idea and it sounds great to everyone, but everyone might have different ideas of what it looks like.

For example (heh):

Pet and I originally had a protocol that if she was around me, she would have to ask before drinking or smoking.  When she was on her own it was her decision.  Something that changed this most recent negotiation is that that no longer applies.  She now has to ask every time if she can drink alcohol or smoke.  When we discussed this, she said, how do I ask?  I said, send me a text.  And to pre-empt her next question, I added, if you don't get a reply, assume "no".  She was concerned, what if she's in vanilla company and someone offers her a drink, and she can't exactly say "oh hold on, I need to text Sir and ask"?  I replied, then she can say "Oh, I'm not sure," or "I'll think about it", and then quietly text me.  She was satisfied with that answer.

Without that example, she might have been floundering a bit should that situation actually come up.

We had a conversation when we were discussing, can she play with other people without permission?  My stance on it was, she can play, but she can't submit.  She submits only to me.  And that threw her a bit, and we had to define what "submission" meant to us.  For me, it's as simple as - if she's playing for her, then that's fine.  If she's doing it because she's told to do it by someone who isn't me, that's not fine.

I'm running out of brain juice for this entry (stupid brainfog, stupid chronic illness) but I hope that's given people some ideas, if you've had communication issues around D/s previously.  :)

Power Trip

The little thrills of power intoxication have started.  Just little ones.  Pet and I aren't far enough into this for me to get drunk on power just yet, but there are the small moments that warm my belly.

When I look at her septum piercing.  Knowing; I did that.  I chose it, I paid for it, I made the decisions about the jewellery and the location and the piercer.  That ring is mine.  That hole in her body is mine.  She wears it because it pleases me and she won't remove it without permission. She cannot hide it; it marks her as something outside the norm and that's now inescapable.  My presence on her body is inescapable.

Even when she is at home my control is slipping into her life, not just her body.  She emails me every night to let me know she's done her chores and she's going to bed (so I know she's going to bed on time).

I get that email and I feel warm.  She is doing as she is told, and she is keeping me informed.  She is conscious of me.  I am boring my way into her mind, becoming an inescapable presence in her actions and thoughts as well as her body.  I am the all seeing eye.

She now has to do ten minutes of kitchen housework daily even when she is not at my house.  Knowing she is doing housework, even if she's not at my house, because I have told her to, is good.  Housework isn't much fun at the best of times, and her doing housework at her house does not have an obvious benefit for me.  Obviously there are plenty of indirect benefits but that's not the point of this post.  Bottom line, she is doing it because I told her to do it.  That makes me feel warm.

She is obeying.  Her obedience is the tangible expression of my control.

Big Update

Hello, hello!  Happy new year!

I had meant to do a big round up of 2012 before it ended but, well, as you can see, I didn't get around to it.  I have a lot to update you on, so I figure it's time for a nice generic What's Been Happening sort of blog post.

Pet and I had our renegotiation on January 4th.  Rather than explicitly state our next renegotiation is in six months, in six months we'll discuss whether we want to renegotiate or simply extend the period for another six months.

Not a huge amount changed, it was more that a lot of areas were simplified.  I now control much more of her life than I did previously, but she still has complete freedom in some areas (such as her money and her sexual life).  It's all in a good place that I feel good about, and I am enjoying this level of control while maintaining a level of irresponsibility.  It's a sweet spot :)  Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to the deeper slavery type stuff eventually, but just because there's a goal doesn't mean I can't enjoy the ride an awful lot.

One thing that did change was that I now have complete control of her physical presentation, barring tattoos.  It'll take some time before that effect will really be obvious (since I am not made of money and can't afford to just replace all her clothes in one fell swoop) but I did want to mark the occasion with something special so I took her to Piercing HQ, a kinkster owned piercing studio here in Melbourne, and I got her a septum piercing with a ring for the jewellery.

I'm not sure why, but septum rings have always appealed to me as a submissive piercing.  *shrugs*!

I don't think people understand just how boring the negotiation process is - especially when it's run by me, and I'm terribly anal retentive and love paperwork a whole lot.

I mean we literally spend hours going over limits and boundaries and what powers I do and don't have.  My limits and boundaries too, by the way, not just hers.  We talk about potential issues and how they should be resolved.  We talk about rules and protocols and punishments.  For most people, it's an incredibly boring session of talking about boring things.

But I feel good when I have these talks.  It lays everything out so there are no surprises.  It lowers the chances of drama.

And I don't mind taking so long with these things.  Pet and I are working towards a lifetime commitment.  I see no reason why we shouldn't be taking it as slowly and carefully as possible.

The other big thing that happened was the solidifying of our hierarchy.  Boy and pet had their own negotiation that I facilitated and also took part in, to work out their own thing.  As it stands now, they also have a slight power exchange relationship.  Boy wants to exercise his domination muscles and learn to be a better dominant and having the opportunity to learn by doing with me and pet is a good one for him.  So that is now also a part of our lives.

We will see how that pans out.  If it goes well, that gives me hope for our family as it grows together and also as it may expand.  Boy is a very special part of my life and it is good for me to have him by my side, and if that can continue through my relationships so much the better.

There is another new thing I feel is worth blogging about.  We are certainly a Leather family of the 21st century, as we have started a household wiki!  It's fairly common for Leather and D/s households to have manuals, but being the products of our generation as we are, we've gone high tech and are utilizing wiki software for ours.  It's a good move, actually, it lets our manual have branches and structure that is much harder to do in a linear manual.

In short, things are good.  Busy, but good.  I could talk in more detail about all of these issues but I'm tired and a little out of practise blogging.  Perhaps it will come in future posts.  :)