Was talking to a girl last night (I'll call her april) and she related an indicent that happened to her earlier in the day.
april went on IRC and visited a room that she used to frequent fairly frequently, but not nearly so often lately (can't blame her . . . the #Enchanted_Palms habit is hard to break LOL).
Anyway, she's in the room . . . and receives a private message from a Dom. He leads off with the ever-popular "fall down at My feet you dirty slut!" sort of thing. Now, normally april would simply put this hoser on IGNORE and be done with it. (Helpful hint to aspiring IRC Doms: "Fall down at My feet you dirty slut!" should come at least a few posts after "hello.")
But this wasn't a normal day . . . april wasn't having a good day, and she'd just had enough. So she let loose on the Guy. I didn't see the exact conversation, but knowing april, I'm sure it was hilarious, pointed, and totally deserved.
But then, in talking with Me about it, april said that as she thought about it afterwards, she admitted that had she been owned, she would've been much less likely to react that way. In short, part of what "allowed" her to react the way she did was the lack of overt consequences. Had she been owned, she'd have felt compelled to report the incident to her Master, and then take the punishment that might result.
april didn't feel good about that . . . she feels (with some justification) that her behavior should be more based on what's right, and not dependent upoin whether or not there is a Master to suffer consequences from.
Now, I understand that position, but, if you think about it . . . people often do the right thing for the "wrong" reasons, and vice versa. Yes, april shouldn't need a Master to know right from wrong, and she doesn't, but if one is submissive (and april is, deeply . . . more deeply than she herself realizes, actually), then one needs to be able to embrace the freedom of being submissive to Another . . . and one of the big freedoms is not having to decide certain things. Some of those things are trivial, some bigger. april's thinking of what a Master might have thought of her actions . . . and realizing that she may not in fact have taken the course she did had she currently had a Master . . . is a reflection, a tacit acknowledgement of the freedom there is in submission, even though she struggled with that realization.
It's OK, it's more than OK . . . in fact it's necessary to understand that one can and will act differently without the guidance of a Master/Mistress. This is not to say that everyone must have one -- it's just to remind april, and those in similar situations, that one of the main reasons one is submissive is becasue it feels good to submit -- to realize that one's thoughts and actions can, will, and should be different when owned than when not. And to not feel bad about doing things in the absence of being owned that one probably wouldn't do otherwise. Otherwise, why bother being submissive if the authority one submits to produces nothing different in you?
3 comments:
Lenora-
an interesting post on several levels. It took me a while to sort out various reactions.
First, on your general insights regarding the pleasures and differences in being owned, I agree. It is a nice insight.
Second, the context in which you set it seemed, to me, entirely contrived. That is to say, for me, that would no longer happen. I guess it's a function of personal growth.
Years ago, something like that on IRC could have happened to me. But now, having submitted in person in several involvements or relationships, I can barely related to your anecdote.
I suspect being in 'in person' relationships causes IRC interactions to rapidly pale by comparison. Now, the thought of responding fully as a submissive to an anonymous set of keystrokes appearing on my monitor is simply unbelievable.
I am not being critical of "april," nor you. Rather, I just can't imagine being wholly drawn into submission like that anymore.
It does bring to mind, of course, a sort of Kantian sense of the difference between the stimulations, and the reactions they cause in ourselves. One might ask, does it matter what the former were, or from where, if they cause the latter?
And in this case, I believe the answer is, "yes." One may not know this prior to in-person D/s, but, nonetheless, it is true.
People can, and do, feel submissive, or dominant, feelings from online interactions. But they are nowhere near, imo, as powerful and genuine as in-person, full sensory interactions.
Thanks for such an interesting, thought-provoking post.
It's hard to convey what happened to april in that situation with it seeming contrived. (Also, male submissives, I have a feeling, encounter that sort of boorishness much less often than females do -- "Fall down at My feet you drity slut" not being a tpyical Female Dominant pick-up line.)
But all women, submissive and Dominant, on-line and off, have been there, to varying degrees, both in the scene and in plain old vanilla life. I don't see it at all as a "growth" issue, unless one is capable of growing to the point where one no longer has bad days, which, I suppose is theoretically possible but not likely.
As for on-line vs. in person, in My experience of both, feelings are feelings. We all have different needs; fortunately various arenas exist in which we can pursue and express them.
actually, you would be surprised how crude and presumptive some Domme-wannabes can be.
as to feelings...that was why I wrote of Kant. exactly why. at first blush, it would seem that whatever caused submissive feeling x is as relevant as anything else which also causes submissive feeling x. However, in my experience, online stimuli are much, much weaker, and cause much weaker responses in the submissive.
but perhaps that is just me. Kant would probably say as much.
Post a Comment