posted by Ferns on about me, musing

There is a perception by some out there in the world that dominants enjoy conflict. Maybe some dominants do, but I’m not one of them.

One of the reasons I operate better in a D/s relationship is because I *dislike* conflict. I don’t like arguing, I don’t like fighting, and I *really* don’t like wasting time on stupid irrelevancies that shouldn’t even be a ‘thing’.

I want a harmonious, happy relationship where my sweetheart and I sail along smoothly and sweetly, and having a clear line of authority makes that easier.

Theoretically, if that was all there was to it, I could be submissive and have the same result with the harmony and all, but then add to the mix the fact that I am also stubborn and resent being told what to do and that is never going to work. I want things my own way and when I don’t get it, I become unhappy.

With friends, strangers, and random people, I don’t have to resolve things in my favour, and I have absolutely zero interest in creating conflict to do so. If they want to have something a certain way, I’m happy to go ‘sure, fine’ and unless it’s somehow vitally important, there is no way that I am going to argue about it. I don’t have to live with their preferences day in and day out, it doesn’t impact the harmony and happiness in my daily life, and I have no driving need to get my way with people with whom I am not in a relationship. In my own home and with my intimate partner, it’s a very different story.

My last vanilla relationship ended up being characterised by conflict where the one of us who was most willing to incessantly argue about stuff got their way. Our relationship was complex (aren’t they all?!), so of course this was not all there was to it, but if we had a difference of opinion about something, my choice was to argue longer and more loudly than him to ‘win’, or give in. Both options were hateful-making. The former made me loathe myself, and him, for wasting my time arguing about these things, and the latter made me resentful and angry. There was no goodness in it.

While it would seem an easy thing for two smart, articulate people who cared about each other to resolve, it wasn’t. What was really happening in all of that is that we were jostling for power in these small things, daily and relentlessly, and without the ability to step outside of it. No matter how many times we discussed it sensibly, like proper grown ups, we could not ‘get over it’ and we would find ourselves arguing over and over, or one of us would resentfully capitulate and then snarl quietly about it to ourselves while shooting daggers at the other. It was exhausting, beyond ridiculous, and ultimately unhappy-making.

One of the things I love about D/s relationships is that we agree up-front that I have the final say, and he trusts that I will consider him and his happiness in it. It makes me happy, and that makes *him* happy also. A lot of that potential conflict just goes away.

So for me, among other things, my dominance acts as a conflict-resolution strategy. Hmmm. Sounds about right. I should start couples counselling based on this concept, write a book, do the talk shows. Someone call Oprah!

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posted by Ferns on about me, musing

There is a three year old who lives in my head… she might be a little older than that, but I imagine her at about three.

She is a selfish, demanding, unreasonable, spoilt little brat. She is not interested in logic, in reasoning, in consequences, she just wants things and she wants them NOW! And sometimes she *doesn’t* want things and will kick and scream and petulantly yell ‘No no NO!’

She can be incredibly funny and playful, but sometimes she is just a pain in the arse.

She is the one who whispers impractical things in my ear, urging me to stop worrying about consequences because that thing that I want is right there right now and SHE WANTS IT!

She is also the one who drags along behind, whining and complaining, when I have to do things that are boring or unpleasant. She will dig her heels in and claw at the ground to stop me dragging her along with me to do something she hates. She will try and talk me out of it. She is the one who wants chocolates for dinner and never any vegetables.

As a Domme, the brat is fun, and sometimes I let her out to play. She is the one who will do mean things just because she can, who will pout and be completely unreasonable, demand impossible things and get cranky when they can’t be done. She is the one who will laugh with delight at his confusion, at the unfairness, she will make him do silly things for her amusement, she will be incredibly annoying just to see what he will do, she will poke at him because it makes her laugh. She is both playful and petulant.

I like her well enough most of the time and I really like it when she does things that make him roll his eyes because I find that really adorable. I mean, regardless, he will go along with what she wants, no matter how unreasonable she is being, because what else is he gonna do, right?

33 comments

posted by Ferns on about me, musing

After all the talk of the amazing openness and vulnerability that I wish for from my submissive, I’ve been considering posting something that shows me at my most vulnerable. It is scary, the showing, even though it doesn’t really matter because the actual terrifying part of doing it is already done, is over.

I rarely take emotional risks, and when I do, they are quiet risks, whispered into someone’s ear, tentatively put on the table for the taking, and this was a quiet risk also. It is the sharing that makes it noisy and loud; that gives me pause, though it is tapping insistently on my ribcage and calling me out for hypocricy.

I am not good at it, taking risks, opening up what is bleeding, exposing my soft underbelly, and I rarely have the compulsion or desire to do it. It has to feel like *need*, and even then, the *need* to do it has to be extraordinarily strong, and when the need is there, it does feel compulsive, like something ticking in me obsessively, something that simply will not be willed away, will not be ignored.

I will ignore it, though, for as long as I can, in the hope that it will go away if I don’t look directly at it. Sometimes it refuses to go away, it will plant itself at my feet, make roots, settle in and grow happily, sometimes with sharp and spiky thorns, sometimes with stunning heartbreakingly beautiful flowers, and it will bloom there, patient as the gods, and wait for me.

Despite my reluctance to go there, I have found, and I wonder how true it is for others, that finally opening up and bleeding all over the floor feels like a kind of strength, and I recognise that it is a smidgeon (oh, such a tiny one!) of the strength I so admire in submissives. For me, I don’t think it is the ‘making myself vulnerable’ that feels like strength as much as getting over the fear of it. And as I say that I am very aware that vulnerability for me also feels like a terrible weakness, I wish it didn’t and I don’t see it that way in others, and I know that makes no sense, but sometimes what we feel doesn’t really make sense. It just is.

There is a ceremony that the Thai do, where they create floating lanterns, light, rice paper constructions into which candles are placed and lit. The heat lifts these lanterns into the the sky; they are symbolic of problems and worries floating away. There is a sense of doing that for me when I give in to this need and finally send my vulnerability out into the world.

I expect my having done it to make no difference to anything, and that’s ok. I have put myself out there, into the ether, and that is enough. And it is enough.

I am working up the courage to share it, which makes me shake my head and laugh at myself.

I am being cryptic, I know, but dipping a little toe into the cold, black, swirling water and admitting that some things are hard to share is a start.

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