I’m a member over at FetLife (you can friend me here), and recently, there’s been some rather heated discussion on one of the submissive women forums. For those of you who don’t know, FetLife is the MySpace of kink, and although everyone is welcome, it has become increasingly clear to me that not everyone gets along.
The problem posed by one member was this: She’s married to her Master and recently he’s told her that he no longer wants to continue their BDSM dynamic. They’ve had a D/s relationship from the start, so it wasn’t something she told him about or they discovered after they’d been married already. According to her (and remember, this is only one side of the story), he refuses to communicate and won’t give a reason for not wanting to continue. He also won’t participate in therapy or allow her a play partner (sexual or non-sexual) outside of the marriage. She has kids, and while they aren’t biologically his, they are attached to him.
The members of this group have quickly divided into two parties.
- On one side, you have people saying that she deserves to be happy, he’s a bad husband, she should leave, she should seek counseling on her own, etc.
- On the other side, you have people saying that she’s a whining fool. She wants submission…so submit to his needs, even if right now his needs are to NOT play Master.
I kind of get it. Daddy and I first got to know one another (at least, enough to no one another’s names) in a very non-personal way. He actually approached me when he found out about this website (actually, the mirror one I used to run before I migrated to my own site), so since becoming friends, we haven’t been shy about sex at all. However, it was a few months before I confused that I was interested in submission and he confessed that he was interested in domination. If you knew he personality in everyday life, you wouldn’t be surprised, but if you knew me in everyday life, you probably would be!
In any case, since we’ve been a couple (officially or otherwise…yes, we are official these days!), we’ve been in what I call a 24/7 D/s relationship.
That doesn’t mean it is always 24/7 bondage and whatnot though. We’re not the type of couple where I ask him for permission to do things in a micro-managing type of way. I’m not going to say that it will never develop into that, because if he wants that dynamic, I’ll certainly do my best to make him happy. That’s not really us, though. He’s happy that I’m my own person with my own opinions and my own desires. In fact, we were recently debating something political while watching football and he made the comment that he never though he’d find a girl who could hold a conversation about both topics.
Sometimes we go weeks without any true submissive play. I still call him Daddy and whatnot, but at times, his mood just swings and he needs to focus on things other than spanking me or tying me up…and I get that. I’m more than happy to channel my submission another way, like working out to look good for him (and no, he hasn’t asked me to do this, it is something I want to do) or doing nice things for him (again, he doesn’t ask, and I don’t feel obligated. I just want to.)
I’m getting off topic, though. What does this have to do with the girl from FetLife and her problem?
If Daddy ever came to me and said that our D/s relationship was over, that he wanted a non-kinky vanilla relationship, I’d give that a try. Submission isn’t something I turn on or off to make him happy. At the hear of things, it is about pleasing him.
At the same time, though, I need to be happy too. I don’t care if you are a slave or a cumslut or a submissive or a bottom or whatever. It doesn’t matter the terminology. You deserve to be happy.
So I guess that what I’m saying is that I have a foot in each camp. Yes, I think that, as a good submissive, she should give the vanilla lifestyle a try. In her posts, he really does sound like a jerk, but that’s just because we’re only getting one side of the story. Maybe he feels like she needs a little vanilla right now. For example, maybe she’s getting so caught up in "being submissive" that it is affecting to relationship with her children or her work.
But after giving things a try, if she is not happy, I do believe that she should leave him. Even a sub has the right to be who she is, the right to pursue happiness. If that wasn’t the case, subs everywhere would remain in relationships that were loveless, unsatisfying, or even abusive.
I wish the best to this FetLife member. Above all, it simply reminds me that I have a great person in my life, and Daddy or not, I love him.
About Rori
Rori is the founder of Between My Sheets. She works full time as a writer, reviewer, and online educator and can be reached at rori-at-betweenmysheets.com
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And if you have to wonder what else is going on in their lives. I am sure it is a lot of work being Dominant 24/7. I know for myself submissives do tend to need a lot of attention. And maybe he needs a break from all that. And you also have to wonder if she was willing to submit to that if he wouldn’t want to pick it up again after a breather. It’s hard to know what the whole story is with just one side though. And he may just need to know that she loves him and is committed to their relationship more than she is to being submissive.
I think that you have a point about her leaving if she isn;t getting what she needs from their relationship. On the other hand, isn’t that part of submission…accepting their wants and needs before our own?
The Knight and I are about more than kinky sex. If I were to be brutally honest I would tell you that the kinky stuff is less than 5% of who we are. The dynamic is there on a day to day basis, but the freaky kinky is not.
Sometimes, even for our Dominants, it’s not about sex. It’s about knowing that they lead and we follow, that we are there for them as they are for us.
So, I wish the girl well and I hope that things work out the way they are meant to.
Fantastic post!