Submission

I’m going to dive into Kink for the first time with this post. This will be a very vulnerable, revealing topic. I am likely to wander through this, meandering from point to point, exploring the twist and the flow of my thoughts as I work to lay out how this interacts with my life. It is a topic that I have intertwined with, to various degrees and on various levels, for the better part of my life. This post alone may not touch on *all* the details of this journey, as it is a long and broad tale with a lot of intersection, but I want to do my best to focus in on it here. So, let’s talk about one of the most pivotal topics in my life, and my evolution to who I am today and who I am becoming. Submission.

Submission is a topic that invariably carries with it a host of orbiting connotations. Among the broader mainstream culture, on a shallow level, it becomes associated with passive or unassertive behavior permeating one’s life. There’s a lot of complexity to this topic, as it’s entirely possible that some of that can hold true for some people. The more important discussion, and one that I think most kink-familiar folks at least will understand to some extent, is that this is not remotely a universal constant.

Anyone who knows me in a professional capacity would balk at this assertion. I am known to push, to be the one stepping out and accomplishing, to pick up tasks and projects and drag them forward. I am ambitious, and I am not quiet. Challenge me, and you better have something backing up your challenge. And I proactively work to bring others up with me to improve my surroundings.

In relationships, the bar shifts. I am a pretty introverted person. I enjoy my alone time, I rarely need all that much in the way of going out. This does end up detrimental at times, as I fall into the pattern and fail to make sure I *do* make an effort to do some of those things and fulfill what social needs I do have. This also means I tend to a limited set of deeper relationships, because too many people in my social circle can overwhelm me. On an individual interpersonal level, I tend to primarily care about getting time with someone, usually in a relaxed environment, and talking. Because the specifics of going out and doing things tends to be less important to me, I only tend to put forth something to do if I *really* care about the event. This even carries into smaller things, like getting food. Usually I’m just happy to have a meal and fulfill that requirement, and I want whoever I’m with to enjoy themselves, so I don’t really tend to strong opinions, and consequently usually don’t take charge of making a choice. It can actually end up causing strife, with partners feeling like they’re always responsible for the choice because I tend to leave that choice to them. I do, however, heavily assert my need for communication, and also take on a guiding role when my partners are dealing with difficult topics or struggling mentally or emotionally. I am a caretaker. I have a need to show my partners I care and to help them through struggles. I’ll likely touch more on relationships and things I’m both exploring and working on within myself regarding them in another post, so I’ll leave this here for now. Suffice to say, it’s a little easier to see that lack of assertiveness here.

Now it’s time to talk about this from a BDSM/Kink perspective. I am, undeniably and unequivocally, a submissive. I have tried switching. I have tried being Dominant. There’s a lot to explore in those topics and the journey I took, especially pre-transition, that I will talk about at a later time. But for right now, the important takeaway is that those are not a part of who I am. Submission brings me to a place of letting go. It allows me to relinquish that control I exhibit so readily in other areas of my life, and to erase the millions of things coursing through my mind that relate to that control. I am an extreme masochist, and heavily into bondage, and this usually gets associated with more sensory-level desires, which does not tell the whole story. Most particularly, I want to state right now that BDSM and sex are completely separate topics in my mind. There’s correlations, and aspects that play into BDSM for me can also be things that turn me on, but they are not the same. Willingly ceding that control means I am free. I can let myself feel. Not only do I not *have* to be the one focusing on what’s coming next or on making sure something is getting done, I *can’t* do that. I can put myself in someone else’s hands, and let them move and guide me to their will. This takes an *immense* amount of trust, but it is attainable, and at this point in my life I am confident in saying it is a necessity to my wellbeing.

Subspace is a hell of a drug. For those unfamiliar, “subspace” refers to a mental state a submissive enters wherein they are fully in tune with their submission, and have given over to it. It can manifest in slightly different ways for everyone. For me, there are a few key signifiers. First and foremost, I am wholly in the moment. There is nothing else in my conscious mind, nothing pushing in from the edges trying to steal my focus or keep track of what’s happening outside of my immediate situation. In everyday life, I am observant and situationally aware, generally speaking, on an almost unhealthy level. I keep track of what’s happening around me and usually am ready to respond to possibilities I see. Subspace is where that shuts off. My Dom/me is in control. It is in their hands. I exist, and that is all that is needed. They will handle the rest. In the case of scenes based around impact or pain play, subspace also includes a shift in my sensory perceptions I am receiving. While there is always a component of the pain that hits on things I enjoy, when I enter subspace, it becomes euphoric. Each impact, or scratch, or bite feels like a rush of endorphins that washes over my body and releases everything I hold onto so tightly. It carries an immense catharsis, bleeding tension from me and blotting out all the indecisions and uncertainties I wrestle with. In some sessions this leads to something I so rarely do. I end up crying, unfettered, wracking sobs from emotions held so long I can’t necessarily tell you their genesis. In that space, they can finally manifest and be released. Other times, as far as outside observers are concerned, I become almost catatonic, completely lost in each momentary sensation and so deeply immersed into that baser level of consciousness that I either don’t or, in some cases, can’t respond. This is an area where that immense trust with my Dominants manifests. It is possible for me to sink into that to the point where I am not consciously aware of things like just how much is being done to my body. It is up to my Dominant to ascertain in those moments if I am capable of indicating to them enough that I am still in a place to continue, or if I have sunk so deeply that they need to pull me back out and ensure that nothing goes too far. This is a process, and an open conversation, I have continually with my Dominants across sessions like this. I have been doing this so long with one of my Dominants that even if my responses is only a slight nod of my head, she understands me well enough to determine if it means I am still good to continue, or if my response, even if it looks positive without any other context, indicates I am too far gone to be a good judge of that.

I also engage in another form of Submission, one that is often not well understood, and also which has begun to play an unerringly important role in my life. This is the concept of a 24/7 D/s dynamic. What this means, practically, is that my Dominants and I have talked about and established a set of rules which I have agreed to follow on a daily basis. I want to emphasize this isn’t going to be the same thing you may have seen in 50 Shades of Grey or depictions like that. The rules that we have in place generally involve helping me with things I struggle with, or laying out things we both want to do and setting it in stone. The rules act as a touchstone, an anchoring point that make those things easier to accomplish, or express, or explore. Additionally, this kind of submission plays a massive role in combatting my uncertainty in relationships, in my self-doubt that I am worthy of my partners, that they want to be with me, that they *enjoy* being with me and doing the things we do. And it *encourages* communication between us. If I am left to my own devices, I will certainly end up talking about many things with my partners, but I will also end up with topics or thoughts that imposter syndrome or some level of self-loathing tell me I can’t waste their time with, or will push them away, or will show them I’m farther off the rails than they realized and they couldn’t possibly deal with me like that. If it’s a rule that I have to work on being open, and I have to talk to my Dominants about things I am struggling with, two things happen in my brain. First, on a level that is really just tricking myself into moving past those blocks, it gives me something to point to and say “no, I *have* to do this, it is written right here in this rule” and use that to springboard myself into it. Second, considering the rules are something my Dominant and I established and agreed to *together*, it tells me, in no uncertain terms, that they want to hear those things and be involved in my struggles, and that they *need* me to do that for them to feel connected to me. This short-circuits so many of my defense mechanisms and self-isolation. And the more I do it, the better I get at it.

I have come to a realization in my life that I do not believe I could have a healthy, vibrant relationship with someone that doesn’t involve Kink. If there is anything beyond platonic interactions with someone, I need it. It is integral to the way I process and relate to someone, and quite frankly that includes on a sexual level. I don’t know at this point that I need 24/7 dynamics with someone as an absolute. I’d assert I’m pretty confident I could have a more casual partner that involved Kink but not 24/7. I *do* know that in the relationships where I have the most intense connections, 24/7 has opened a world of connection that has fundamentally redefined how open and honest I can be, and how willingly I can engage with my partners. There’s a heavy intersection in this area with the way my interactions with polyamory/ethical non-monogamy have evolved and the way I even process the concept of relationships, which I will dive into in a post that likely is coming sooner or later. For now, suffice to say Submission has defined itself as a key part of my identity and my relationships.

This is a topic that never really stops evolving. My experience of it now is changed drastically from my experience of it 6 months ago, and is just about unrecognizable from a year ago. I can all but guarantee there will be more explorations of this, of things that evolve in the future, of how I got to where I am now, and other aspects of Kink as a whole. It’ll be a fun ride, however long it lasts.