A blessed rest from contemplating my own navel…
Let’s see who’s been hiding all up in my Ask box, shall we?
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I’m a 23 year old virgin male who is extremely submissive. Because of this, I have a hard time meeting women and always want them to take the lead (it has never worked). Any advice here? Kind of worried I may never find what I’m looking for.
My advice: Go where the dominant women are. Try both online venues and off. Get involved in online community discussions, put up some ads on BDSM personals sites, find your local groups (on Fetlife.com) and scope it out.
Good luck!
Ferns
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Thanks for your thoughtful answer to my question! Your reaction to my ‘mutatis mutandis’ brought a smile to my lips in a day in which I really needed one (all plans frustrated, etc.). I am a little bit of a language lover… I collect languages and words the way some people collect stamps or toy soldiers.
The more I read your blog, the more I like it. If words of appreciation make you happy, here are a few more: your sincerity shines through your words in a way that is both calm and soothing, and adventuresome and daring. You sound like an old, trusted friend who is telling stories about wonders never seen — like Sinbad describing this experience of flying on the Phoenix to his school friends during recess, or Medea talking about chopping her dead father’s body and cooking it in a cauldron so as to resurrect him to a group of girlfriends over tea and cookies.
I bow, and salute.
Nep-Amsterdammer
Hello again Nep-Amsterdammer,
Collecting languages sounds like a fabulous hobby.
Your words of appreciation are wonderful and much appreciated, as is your courtly bow and salute *smile*. Thank you for both.
Ferns
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I had a question, which I couldn’t fit in the space in the previous message, so I’ll ask it here.
I had asked before about the potential for self- (or alter-)damage in submissiveness. Were you ever in such a situation? Were you ever with a submissive man about whom you thought, ‘maybe he’s going too far, maybe he hasn’t thought this through yet?’ Or were you ever in a situation in which you were tempted to go too far? If so, how did you handle this/these situation(s)?
(The reason why I ask is that I am myself a submissive man, one who has never really played the game in reality, and I have noticed that my fantasies become gradually more extreme. I am afraid of what that might mean.)
Nep-Amsterdammer
*laugh* Hello again! How’ve you been?
I don’t think I have ever *really* thought that about myself or my partners. I have played close to what I consider our edges and my last submissive would have allowed me to go much much further than where I judged his edge to be, so I think choosing partners who will look after you is really important.
I wouldn’t worry about your fantasies unless you start imagining that they are realistic and you start to seek them out. Fantasies about castration: perfectly fine. Role playing castration in real life: perfectly fine. Actually planning the reality: needs a serious self-check.
Some of my fantasies are super violent and terrible and ridiculously undoable. I don’t for one second confuse them with reality nor do I worry about them anymore (I did when I was young: I think that sort of self reflection about it is healthy and perhaps necessary).
I also think that when you get some real life experience, your fantasies might not do that escalation any more because the experience might short circuit that process.
Ferns
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Hi!
Pre-defined roles are difficult. You don’t really know yourself until you find yourself in a certain place.
And when I say “you” I actually mean “me”.
I’m not normally submissive but am with annoying consistency attracted to “a dominate” woman [that was an attempt at a referential joke, I think].
Equally annoyingly, I seem to deem such relationships not practical to pursue due to the inherent turbulence and difficulty in finding a common space between two people who’s lives will unavoidably crash into one another’s.
Do you have any advice before I spend the next few years saving up to start a homeless dogs’ shelter for Border Collies and Blue Merles?
Oh god …
… I shouldn’t have searched for pictures of Border Collies and Blue Merles just then.
Yours,
A moderately festive Englishman.
Hello moderately festive Englishman (I assume that means ‘drunk’, right?),
What a delightful email, thank you for it *laugh*.
Your attraction to dominate (heh) women and your deeming of this as impractical both seem less annoying than your determination to label them so.
I suggest you save up to start a homeless dog shelter for Border Collies and Blue Merles (both super adorable dogs!) while pursuing that relationship with the dominant (couldn’t do it twice) woman, and crash the fuck out of each other.
You’re welcome!
Ferns
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How well is your D/s integrated into your day-to-day life? Most of the D/s imagery on tumblr is porn standard; poses, costumes, orgasms. The long process leading there is left as an exercise to the reader. Since you’ve published a book on the subject, (probably more experience than imagination) I wondered how it was working for you…
Happy holidays
Well, I’m single at the moment (I SAID I’M SINGLE AT THE MOMENT IN CASE ANY AMAZING SUBMISSIVE MEN ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION EVARRRR!), but when I’m in a relationship it’s all integrated pretty well.
D/s is my relationship style. It simply means that I’m in charge. That doesn’t mean I’m all ordery-bitchy about it because that’s not who I am. It just means that if I want Thai for dinner and he wants Italian, we’re having Thai and he’ll say ‘Yes, Ma’am’ to that decision. It’s pretty seamless.
And play is the hot sexy stuff. I don’t dress up and ‘act like a porn-Domme’ for that any more than a vanilla woman dresses up and acts like a nymphomaniac stripper to have sex. That might be fun once in a while, but if you had to do that every time you wanted some action, it would be pretty annoying.
You might find this post useful: Blending D/s and vanilla.
Ferns
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Did you have fantasies about being sexually dominant before you tried it for the first time, or had you not thought about it until someone encouraged you?
I always had a lot of power based fantasies, and things in real life that made my stomach flip when I was young were often some kind of objectification of men.
No-one encouraged me to get into BDSM. I found it online and felt relieved since I’d long struggled with making the power balance in relationships work and with having the sort of sex I wanted.
Ferns
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You fight?
STEP OUTSIDE AND I’LL SHOW YOU!!
I don’t understand this question.
Argue? Box? Pick fights in the street? Brawl in local bars? What?!
For the record: Yes, no no no.
Ferns
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What is “FL”?
Oops, sorry for the lack of clarity wherever I used it (you could have asked me in the comments, it would have been quicker!). It’s fetlife.com.
Ferns
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Not a question, just an observation. Ok. I can type now. I’ve stopped laughing enough. I love your Craigslist entry. Very funny. Thankyou.
*laugh* I’m glad you loved it, thank you for dropping me a note to say so!
Ferns
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I’m sure you’ve talked about this before, but– where’s a domme to go to find a submissive partner? I keep striking out. It’s frustrating.
Did I mention I’m single? :P
See my answer to the other asker above.
I’d add that it’s just HARD to find someone with whom you are compatible, so even when you put yourself all out there with your shingle out, usually it just takes time and talking to lots of people with whom you AREN’T compatible. No different from the vanilla world except the pool is a lot smaller.
May I add there that snowflake found me after one day on Collarspace.com. ONE DAY!! I told him he should mention that to every submissive he ever meets, because sometimes that boy needed a good punch in the face :P.
Ferns
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Want to ask me something? Pop on over to my Ask Me page and do it: even if I’m slow, I WILL get back to you! It’s completely anonymous, even to me, so it’s all secret squirrel business…
9 comments
Ferns,
As always, love your responses. Have you noticed that your question askers seem to be above average writers possessing above average intelligence?
Possibly the best thing about your blog (or is this your tumblr?) is that the attention hungry amongst us can almost always get a kind and pithy reply with above average eloquence as long as we are reasonably polite and coherent and even if, for example, one might otherwise be subject to a general communication moratorium. Thanks for all your literary internet goodness and hope your well.
SSS11
*laugh… suspicious squint* HAVE YOU TRICKED ME?!
If one is subject to a communication moratorium for particular reasons which are of value to one’s well-being, then it would behove said moratorium-haver to honestly assess when said value has been reached and the moratorium’s usefulness has ended. Discussions of same would be judged on their merits.
And happy new year *smile*.
Ferns
Ferns,
“it would behove said moratorium-haver”
That is an excellent impersonation of a lawyer trying to make sure that his writing “sounds like a lawyer.”
Said moratorium-haver is constantly reassessing the value of said moratorium re well-being status and stands ready at a moment’s notice to suggest ending same, but is certain the time for moratorium-not havingness, is not yet reached.
As you may know, some individuals have an exquisitely poor understanding of how moratorium-having works (or not, as the case may be) and insist on eliciting delightful and witty snippets from certain bloggers, regardless of moratoriums.
Happy New Year to you!
SSS11
I agree that some moratorium-havers are completely moratorium-challenged and seem to lean heavily into the domain of moratorium-not havingness during moratoriums.
That being as it may, the moratoriumness of any moratorium is only as moratorius as the least moratoriamest moriatoriamer. That would be you.
Your continued moratoriamosity awaits forthwith.
Ferns
What the fuck did I just read??? Both of you took five minutes of my life, and I want them back.
Thank you again for your clear and articulate answer to my (hopefully unfounded) fears. Interestingly, in your “darker” post, which you mentioned in your answer, you describe pretty much one of my own extreme dark fantasies quite accurately. (I also dream about castration, but being killed is… better… Your description is close to perfect, except that I see a woman using her nails on me before other tools; her nails go deeper and deeper… is that your heart? It’s coming out now…) And being killed is not the worst.
I think you’re saying that, as long as it is just fantasy, there’s nothing wrong with it — just enjoy. I have no real BDSM experience, while you have a lot; chances are you’re simply right. But I can’t help feeling afraid. Maybe my lack of actual experience means I never really did the kind of self-reflection you did when you were worrying about such fantasies. What was your conclusion? That fantasies and reality can always be kept apart? That we can be sure that fantasy desires will never push us towards attempting them in real life? Is it … really safe? (Please say yes!)
(I’ve mistakenly submitted a version of this question to you via your ‘Ask Me’ link — I hadn’t realized I could also use this space to talk. Please disregard the ‘Ask Me’ version — sorry about that.)
I’m really glad, by the way, that you liked my comment on your ‘Navel Gazing’ post about tbe fateful misunderstanding of Your First. (Asehpe is from my e-mail address; I hadn’t noticed that the comments software automatically uses it as the commenter’s name.) Very few pleasures beat the satisfaction of having crafted something that another human being loved.
I had violent non-con fantasies way before I had any experience: I think experience is irrelevant except in that it might temper or change your fantasies.
“What was your conclusion? That fantasies and reality can always be kept apart? That we can be sure that fantasy desires will never push us towards attempting them in real life? Is it … really safe? (Please say yes!)”
YES!
I have to put caveats here: People who have extreme and harmful fantasies and then look for ways to enact them are outliers… waaaaayyy out.
I honestly have no way to know if you are one of them, but I feel pretty confident to say you aren’t *because* you are asking these questions. It shows a sensible level of caution and self awareness that I assume will keep you from getting confused about ‘hot in fantasy’ and ‘hot in reality’.
“Very few pleasures beat the satisfaction of having crafted something that another human being loved.”
Truth *smile*.
Ferns
Thanks for your opinion. I suppose there is no way of knowing for sure, but I hope you’re right.
Do you ever wonder if that’s all the difference between good people who have violent non-consensual fantasies and serial killers or self-cannibals… whether or not they ask themselves questions? Is that all?…
I realize I’m sounding darker than I normally do, and you don’t have to answer if you think I’m going too far. Sorry if that’s the case.
I think questioning yourself is part of it, yes.
But no, that’s not all.
The real test is, of course, whether you actually seek out ways to act out those things.
On the plus side, if you are submissive and want to be acted UPON, you would have to find someone willing to act out those things ON you, which helps to provide a pretty serious barrier to entry.
I think your fear is healthy, and if you genuinely worry about it and are unsure of your own boundaries, I would strongly encourage you to go to a kink-friendly counsellor and talk about it. They can probably help you sort it out in your head so that you can be more comfortable about it.
Ferns