Intimacy

I just read a post on Avah's blog about intimacy, and how elusive it seems to be for her.

For Me, this is perhaps the single biggest, most irresistable draw of D/s -- the intimacy. Both the physical intimacy and the emotional/spiritual intimacy. And most importantly, how they mix.

Physically, D/s can open certain doors of intimacy that vanilla sex can't. Because the physical aspects of D/s, while they almost always do encompass sex at times, include so much more. And not just pain, this is an important point (the intimacy of pain is another entire post on its own). Not all D/s relationships include a lot of pain play. But the physical aspects aside from pain -- how it feels to kneel, for instance. How it feels to practice the kneeling posture that the Other finds most pleasing, the actual physical sensations one feels as one's muscles and limbs slowly conform and begin to remember how to arrange themselves, can be a silent intimacy of incredible power. Or perhaps the submissive is simply doing something at the behest of the other that is physical -- working out, washing the car, straining on tiptoes to dust a high shelf -- there is the potential in any of those acts and many others to feel a deep physical intimacy with the Other, even if the Other is not physically present at the time.

And of course that physical intimacy can't and doesn't exist in a vacuum. The mind is engaged as one practices one's kneel, as one plans and executes assigned activities. There is a true dialouge between mind and body at those times -- the submissive frame of mind drives the body to be as perfect as it can in completion of what it has been assigned to do, and the body in turn drives the mind as the physical sensations push the mind deeper. A drop of salty sweat runs down your face and into your mouth as you wash the car on a warm July morning, and you can taste your submission in that tiny sensation. The taste of intimacy.

This isn't to imply that it's easy. There are a million things that can distract one, not all of them controllable. Sometimes washing the car is just washing to car. That struggle to make it feel like more, to remember that it's more, is the essence of D/s for the submissive, and like all struggles there will be fits and starts.

When the submissive is serving more directly, it can be much easier. Rubbing the other's feet, for instance, can be a powerful intimacy -- the physical sensations, the multi-sensory interchange as One progressively relaxes more and more and the other falls deeper into the act of simple service, drive each other, and the results can border on the orgasmic, both phyisically and emotionally.

Intimacy can be hard to define, and elusive. In a strong D/s relationship, it is always just in the background; the tiniest, seemingly trivial thing can make it suddenly explode from the background and fill both parties with a glow that's impossible to describe in words.