Pet Peeves

Here are a quick off the top of my head pet peeves when people discuss power exchange relationships and kinky things.

1) The use of the word “more”. I will not go with the words “real” or “true” as those should be automatic for all to think moron when people use those. But more is used too often as well. Relationships are between two people and how they make each other feel. One is not more of a slave if they clean their house spotless without being ordered. One is not more of a Master by how little they have to directly order their slave. Your values and enjoyments of your other and relationship are only in the end important to you and your other. You can feel more of something within that relationship by some act being done but it is misplaced hubris to think of oneself more of a Master or slave because you do or did something that you think other might not. We are not in competition with anyone!

2) Self esteemed challenged male dominants who proclaim one must first start out as a submissive to learn it from their side before becoming a Master. Look, I am not going to say there could be nothing gained by trying our side for a little bit. But pretty much most things can be learned multiple ways and this life is one of them. But on the bigger picture to think that someone who gravitates toward being a dominant can possible understand what someone goes through that gravitates toward being a submissive is quite foolish. All one learns is at best the tip of the ice berg. To think that some man tries being submissive knowing it is only temporary, not being able to truly get what the pleasure of suffering for one out of love, to get turned on by the power or being on the receiving end of something and on and on compared to someone who is wired for that and it is not for some small time frame but an indefinite one. To think you can learn or get how that mind set filters and feeds off things is ludicrous. The men who promote this come off as what most of them are, long time Top only players in their local community that are trying to score more play partners by trying to keep as few as tops around from being attractive to the bottoms. To really believe this is to basically think anyone can be submissive and it is just idiotic and cheapens all of us who are submissive.

3) Dominants who think every problem they hear can be solved by the submissive to just focus on being more submissive and submissives who think every problem they hear is an automatic red flag leave the person thing. Problems in relationships usually come from a lack of open and honest communication and effort between the two or personality and compatibility issues. Not every problem has a quick fix and base on the dominant is perfect or just needs to be encouraged by a submissive being more overtly submissive and until one knows all the facts a problem or bad action by a dominant should not always default into a leave him submissives.

4) The continued watering down of the important things of trust, safety and abuse by throwing those words around so cheaply. Trust and safety are critical things to people in relationships and avoiding abuse as well. Thinking everything that goes wrong in a power exchange relationship causes one ability to trust to be destroyed or every mistake or accident can mean the person is totally unsafe and especially thought of as abusive without any other analysis is just doing a big disservice to not only this life but for actual victims of abuse in all walks of life. These are not any different then any other relationships and you do not hear nearly as often about someone’s trust being destroyed and wondering if they can trust again after a three week relationship blew up. You were not abused because the top did not get you in sub space and the scene was bad or emotionally abused because the guy you met over the Internet still has a open profile on another site a week after writing you. I do not know how many times I have had to try to talk some sense into an actual abuse victim to where they basically think they are not in a bad situation because all they hear is that everyone’s abused so why try something different.

5) People who confuse themselves and mislead others by confusing just for kicks or trying to lose their identity by “discovering themselves” or “exploring who they” are within the context of looking for long term relationships. I have written about this before but I really wanted to focus on was the fact that most proclaiming those are often doing the far opposite. I knew a woman on a personal site/message board which she had been on for five plus years. She had kept a running journal on her life and had pictures posted throughout those five years. She was big on discovering who she was but in those five years probably had not learned one thing about herself. In her journal entry and pictures you would see a woman who adopted probably six or seven far different religions/spiritualities and types of power exchange roles between the two. Each time in a zealot and “I have found my true self” way that to an objective observer was an obvious lost soul in trouble. All she was doing was discovering a new role to play every so often and hoping that would make her happy. I doubt she had discovered anything about who she was. This may have been an extreme case but it can shine a spot light on the issue. I have no problem and encourage people to “discover” and “explore” who they are. Just make sure you start with inside out instead of trying to go outside in and hoping to stumble into something that makes you happy. But it is also critical to stop trying to do this while at the same time find Mister or Misses long term. If you have not figured yourself out how can someone else or how can you truly know what is the best fit and relationship type to go looking for.

The hypocrisy of how safety is discussed

Safety in the activities we in this life do:

For pretty much my whole time in this life of ours I have been driven crazy or just flat out get mad about how safety is discussed. Now let me be very clear, safety of all types is very important and I do not mean this to be some catch all disclaimer. Unfortunately in my opinion when safety is actually discussed in terms of BDSM play it really has very little to do with actual safety and understanding the risks and more importantly the level of risk. What usually is being discussed is a person not liking what is being discussed and is using safety in a hypocritical and judgmental reason why they do not do that type of play.

I am an RN. Pretty much guaranteed that 90+ percent of the people reading this I know significantly more about health and the human body then you. I also live a conscious attempt to not assume everyone is dumb and ignorant so the only way to communicate is by writing in worse case scenario tones. I just refuse to do it. I write this as an instant rebuttal to all that will mistake this entry as an entry to ignore safety or some personal attack on you a stranger I have never met.

We need to be honest and clear with ourselves; risk is part of almost everyone’s life and nearly on a daily basis. What smart people do is understand and acknowledge the risks they take and then try to minimalize the dangers as far as they are wanting to. That is what really safety is all about in the end.

It is unfortunate but people into BDSM and power exchange have little trouble pointing out what is unhealthy and has risk in things they do not partake in all the while acting like what they partake in can be just as unhealthy and risky and depending on the subject even more is certainly possible. So what do these people do, they play the worse case scenario game. The topic of a gang bang comes up and the anti people paint a picture of strange men picked off the street lined way outside the bedroom all going to have unprotective sex with the female. Heck, I know of women who refuse to swallow cum from their monogamous spouse and try to claim serious health concerns.

Now I have a problem with the people who play the worse case scenario game but the other aspect of pointing out legit health concerns I understand and do see the need and service it provides. The problem is in the motivation and perspective the person is usually sharing the information. I see two main reasons behind the look out safety people. 1)The I do not do it but think others might think of me as less cool or less of a submissive so therefore will harp on the safety issue. 2) For people who actually are not willing to do it specifically out of a risk they are unwilling to do no matter the actual risk level.

But the problem with “you should not do this” or “I do not do this because” (which infers you are stupid if you do) is it is often complete hypocrisy in action. The classic example I like to use is the pack a day smoker telling the person eating fast food how bad it is for them. There are risks in pretty much anything we do. Anytime you hop on a motorcycle, drive a car over a certain speed, not use a seatbelt, not exercise, smoke, drink, eat poorly, too overweight, too underweight, sky dive, scuba dive and heck even when we exercise there is risk and a ton of other things. It is unfortunate that life in general but even more prevalent in BDSM activities is to point out things we do not do as dangerous without thought to things we do can be and often just simply are just as if not more dangerous.

This has often bugged me because with all the activities that come under the wide tent of BDSM it seems that almost all the S&M activities get a free pass but many of the humiliation and degradation activities get picked apart. Well I hate to break it to some of you but bondage of any type has risks. So does any impact play. Also despite how people promote themselves in this life you were not a virgin when you met your Master or slave. Most have had multiple sex partners and many this is more then just measured on one hand and was not just with people you ended up married to.

This goes for mental health as well. A person is either mentally healthy or not. They can either handle it mentally or not. The dominant is either an abuser or not. The non abusive dominant cannot be responsible for another person’s mental health. I bring this up because of the blatant hypocrisy about humiliation and degradation play as opposed to bondage and S&M play. In every thread on a message board about humiliation or degradation or in talk within a local community people pounce on the mental issues and how dangerous it is. This is junk. Of course for people with mental issues and/or were verbally and emotionally abused this is very dangerous. It is junk because the same people that preach this never ever qualify any S&M discussion with people who were physically abused this is extremely dangerous. It is people using a very serious topic, health, and using it to promote their values and beliefs as the right ones and not just personal preferences.

So the next time you talk or write about safety try to avoid phrasing it as you should not do this or out of an excuse because you think others might not think you are cool. Because I am willing to bet my life savings that the person who eats healthy, does not smoke, exercises regularly and when chooses to do other things that are risky try to minimalize that risk is going to live longer and in better health then one who partakes in one or more of those poor habits and does not partake in any “unhealthy” BDSM activity.