Romanticising Suffering

Todays Psych session was oddly relevant today, to my BDSM stuff.

We were talking about my Daddy's breakup, and while I thought I'd have some serious conflicts about it, it turns out that my emotions are actually nice and straightforward - I'm sad that my Daddy is sad, and I'm sad that I likely won't be seeing a person I liked very often from this point. But that's about it, really - I have no real conflicts about the whole kibosh.

But it brought up a more interesting question - why I thought there would be more complex emotions involved. He pointed out to me an odd phenomenon which comes up a lot in my mind - the fact that I almost strive for suffering, like it's a good thing.

Now, don't get me wrong - to suffer at the hands of your dominant is not necessarily a bad thing. But I have this view in my head that I must suffer - that I always take the hard road, always do things by the least efficient method, that I don't feel I've accomplished anything if I didn't suffer through it. Really, I've put this romantic spin on suffering, and I think part of that is that the suffering that I've been through in life has lead me to the person I am now, with all it's kindness, compassion, and willingness to listen.

But the fact is, I don't need suffering to learn things. I don't need to suffer through everyday life to learn things in life, I can just, you know, learn stuff by looking around. There's no need to complicate things by pushing myself to inflict pain and woe upon me just because it builds character.

Rocking on

A couple of days ago, Daddy's girlfriend broke up with him.

There are times where Daddy takes care of me, and there are times, like this, when I need to take care of him. It's part of the D/s relationship that not a lot of people get to see, but the fact is, part of my role as my Daddy's boy is to take care of him.

No, actually, I take that back. It's not part of my role as a boy, but part of my role as a partner. Even if we weren't in the relationship we were in, I'd still consider it vital to take care of Daddy doing times of sadness and trauma. But people forget that, sometimes, in a D/s relationship. That sometimes, the greatest service you can give is just to be there, with hugs and pats, to be willing to sit there and help your partner talk through the mess of emotions, and make sense of what the hell just happened.

And it's a service I willingly, and happily, give.

My Daddy, when talking to me last night, said how grateful he was at how stable and secure I was. That he'd never felt secure before, and that I was the one who kept him that way. I was his rock, something he could hold on to when the rest of the world changed and shifted.

It was one of the greatest compliments I've ever received. So I'll keep rocking on for my Daddy. I like being a rock.

Why I Love Rope

I was asked today at my psych why I enjoyed rope, why I enjoy being confined. For once, I actually came up with an answer, so I'm writing it here for posterity.

Sensorily, I love the feeling of rope. I love feeling it's constriction around me, I love the feel of rope, I love testing the boundaries of rope around me.

But it's not just the sensation. I could get that feeling just from tight clothes.

I love rope because being tied up feels safe. It takes me back to games with my brothers, where we would wrap each other in blankets and rugs, like big burritos. We'd inch around like worms, laugh, sometimes we'd even put two of us in the same rug. Being confined with rope takes me back to that place in my mind. When I'm wrapped in rope, I feel like the little rugworm again, unable to anything but inch around. I guess unlike a lot of people, being tied up never had bad connotations for me. When I was teased as a kid, I was never held, never forced down. The attacks on me were always social and psychological, never physical, so physical restraint just doesn't have a negative colour to me. So, being physically restrained always brings me in mind of childhood games, and all the positive feelings of play.

I get the same feeling when I'm caged. When I was little, my favourite places to hide from the world were always little "caves". Either the cave made from the beds in me and my brother's bedrooms, or a little hole in the hedge where my mum played netball, or the hidden little walkway at the basketball stadium, or the boot of a car, I've always had positive associations with small, hidden spaces, and cages bring that feeling into mind, because my cave is the place where the rest of the world isn't. It's where I can be, and I don't have to deal with the world while I'm there.

And then, there's Daddy. My Daddy is possibly the world's most responsible Dom. If he ties me up, or puts me in a cage, he doesn't just leave me there, and walk away. When I'm wrapped up, or in the cage, I know that Daddy is always somewhere giving me attention, keeping me supervised, making sure that I am safe, that nothing will go wrong. I know that when I'm confined, I have my Daddy's attention, and while I know he'll give me attention if I ask it of him, it's just one other thing that makes me feel good inside, to know that when I'm confined, Daddy's always there.

Not gonna be a bro

A few months ago, Daddy had a rant to me about how much people raised as women are dealt a whole lot more restrictions about interaction, and "being on best behaviour". I'd just come back from the family Christmas lunch, with my very, very straight and non-queer family.

As my Daddy pointed out to me, at family gatherings, men aren't expected, really, to do any of the cleaning, or hosting, etc. Now, I used to buck that rule a lot, and you'd often find me in the kitchen with the women helping to prepare the meals, or working to help clean up the house. But the last few months have seen me stop that, and become a lot more slack at gatherings.

And as we talked about this, I realised more and more that this was not the kind of person I wanted to be. I don't want to be on the couch while the wimmin do everything. That's not who I am, and not really who I was raised to be.

It lead to a new little slogan, which I am now trying to incorporate into my life: "I don't wanna be a bro". The term "Bro" is often used with all the man-child connotations, with all the lack of responsibility that men are given because they just don't know any better. Well screw that. I am not a bro, I refuse to be a bro, I will not be a bro. Not the least because it goes against everything the Leather culture teaches, but it also goes against the submission that I strive for. I am there to serve, and while only me Daddy gets the right to be served, my service is a gift that I wish to bless the world with. I will not be a man who just lets the world serve him, I will not be a boy who lets his parents clean up for him.

I will not be a bro. I will be a Boy.

Songs of Aspirations

Sometimes we hear songs that don't exactly describe who we are, but do describe what we want to be. Songs which call to the higher parts of our soul, and focus our mind back to what we could be, what we desire most in our lives. A lot of times songs make us feel by connecting with our flaws, sometimes, despite themselves, a song will connect with the dreams we wish we were embodying.

The song that made me write this post is a song by Tim Minchin, called "Not Perfect". It's a song about the world around and within us. Most importantly, it's a song about accepting ownership of your world, accepting that, despite it's flaws, it's where you live, and even if you work to improve it, to love it, warts and all.



It's a beautiful (if long) song, but it's been haunting me this morning, and I wanted to spread it to everyone out there.

Touch

I am a beast of touch.

Touch rules my life in a lot of different ways. I have noted several times that I'm a big sensation slut, but it goes further than that, I think.

I'm generally an anxious person, and many of the ways that I deal with my anxiety is by engaging my sense of touch. Either by poking a bruise, by biting the inside of my cheek, by licking my teeth, by feeling underneath my fingernails, by hugging myself, etc. When I'm really anxious, all it takes is a hug from my Daddy to start calming me down. When I see someone in emotional distress, my first instinct is to hug them, to place a hand on their shoulder, etc. The language of my intimacy is in my sense of touch, much to my Daddy's displeasure, as it often means that I talk far less than he'd like.

I like massage, but massage to me is an intensely intimate experience. I have discovered that I can't go to shopping centre masseurs, because I feel extremely odd getting a massage from them. It seems that only my partners can use massage to help me relax.

When I see animals and pets, one of the first impulses is always to pat and touch them, and this is probably why I tend to get along with dogs and cats so often, because we both enjoy touch a lot.

Simply, my skin is my preferred method of contact with the world, especially doing so intimately. Hugs, pats, sensual touch, are all definitely my favourite things!

On This Day

Five Years Ago, me and Daddy decided to become a couple.

Around Two and a Half Years ago, Me and Daddy realised that we were a Daddy/boy couple, and chose to Embrace it.

Two Years, Two months ago, I was collared by my Daddy.

Today, I feel nothing but gratitude for my Daddy, and all that he has done for me, and all he has allowed me to do for him. Without him... I don't know what I'd do without him.

Happy Anniversary, Daddy!

Why can't I just be automatically good?

In the last week or so, Daddy has decided that I'm going to be taught proper dinner table manners, as he feels that mine are somewhat inadequate. He's given me an etiquette book to read (which I have been, dutifully), but this week he's decided to actually make me practice my table manners. Of course, he's been doing this slowly, and he decided that this week he's focusing on a single thing - how I hold my fork.

Of course, the way I hold a fork is very similar to how you would hold a spoon, as I'm very much a shoveller. As a result, I'm entirely unfamiliar with how to hold a fork properly. For the last couple of times I've been eating I've been railing against it, almost angrily against this stupid "proper" way of holding a fork that seems entirely in appropriate for a how a fork is designed, and designed to entirely prevent you from actually eating anything that's even slightly squidgey. Last night it pretty much came to a head, when I was pretty much throwing my hands up in frustration at how stupid the whole thing seemed.

Daddy was looking at my slightly dumbfounded at exactly how badly I was taking this whole etiquette thing, and being slightly hurt at how vigorously I was attacking it. And even I had to admit, my reaction seemed wholly out of proportion to the entire thing.

And then, I realised why I was railing against it so much - I sucked at it.

Like so many gifted kids in school, the kind of praise that I was given was based on how well I did at things. So, in a perfectly obvious turn of events, if I didn't do well at something, I would stop doing it. After all, you don't get praise at something if you don't do well, so why bother doing it? In many ways, this has been part of a lot of my behaviours throughout my life - I don't get the idea of training yourself until you're good at it. It frustrates me to fail, and the idea of sucking a whole lot to get good at something is a horrible idea to me.

And the thing about the etiquette thing was that the discomfort of using the fork a different way, and Daddy constantly correcting me, were constant reminders of how bad I was at the task. I didn't have the option of giving up, since Daddy wouldn't let me, so obviously I started lashing out at the task. Venting my frustration became hating the task, thinking it was stupid, etc.

And this was just one little task! I can only imagine what my reaction would have been if Daddy (or someone else) had been deciding to train me in a big skillset entirely that I had no experience and no natural skill at. I could very well have exploded, and done a lot of damage.

I will need to start paying attention to this, methinks. If I'm to be a good boy, I need to start learning how not to be frustrated at my own shortcomings, and learn how to be a good student when I'm not already good at something.

Long time no post

So, I've definitely been breaking the 1 post a week thing. I think a lot of that has been depression, with a big dose of doing way too much. So, I haven't really had a lot of brain for writing. But I'm not going to abandon this blog (besides, Daddy would kill me if I did).

This is mostly just a post to let people know that I am actually back. While I've been gone, I've been talking to a psychologist, about my depression, and I've gone on antidepressants (in fact, I've recently upped my dose). I'm hoping that the drugs'll work their magic again soon, and I can get back to being more writey. Talking with my psychologist has been helping too, in particular, we've been trying to get me to think past my more childish thought processes (Oh, did you think I was just playing a boy? Oh no...). It's been a lot of hard work, but I am forever optimistic.

Mostly because I do feel like I'm starting to grow up now. A lot of people say that they feel like they're not adults, that they're just pretending, and they're afraid that people will come in at any moment and notice. I've often thought that about myself, but I think I'm actually starting to feel like an adult. Now, this doesn't make me less of a boy, and I will always hold onto that boyish perspective in my head. But I feel more like I can move past that perspective in my everyday life when I need to.

And that leads me into my next post, because as I'm growing up, I want to follow in my Daddy's footsteps, and go through an explicit coming of age rite. Like my Daddy, I'm a big believer in rituals (although not always for the same reasons), and I think a proper, full ritual will help me hold onto this feeling of adultness. I'm going to talk to my psychologist today about what kind of trials such a ritual might hold. I'm a bit nervous, truth be told, because I'm not sure he's going to completely understand what I'm asking for. Still, I want the input, and if you can't ask your psychologist, who can you ask?

More tonight, I think.

Taking Care of your Daddy.

In the last week me and Daddy took a roadtrip to see his family, and coming back, I noticed a few things that I needed to get around to doing with his car.

This is interesting for a few reasons. I am not a car-minded person, as might be shown with my car, and how little attention I pay to it. But Daddy's car? I'm all up on how that car runs. I see every little indicator, I know exactly what needs doing, I have even been seen under the hood, replacing fuels and checking things.

And I only realised recently how differently I treat my car and Daddy's car. I will learn things and do things that I never would have bothered to do for my car. I keep fluids topped up, check tyre pressures. All the things you're supposed to check on your car, I do for Daddy's car.

When I think about it, it's a very obvious analogy to my relationship with my Daddy. So often, I won't do something unless I can make it in service to my Daddy. Chores? I'll do them in service to my Daddy, but never in service to myself. Taking care of myself is couched in terms of how it makes my Daddy's life better. And of course, I'm more attentive to my Daddy's car because keeping his car running is an essential part of making sure his life is running well.

I'm sure I'm being more than a little selfish in this regard. But in a way it kindof works. I take care of my Daddy's needs, and in return he makes sure my needs are being met. We can be each other's guardians, make sure that each of us have what we need, where we'd often ignore the important bits if we were left to ourselves. We can give each other permission to break rules, to be slack if we have to, to take breaks, or to push ourselves hard when we have to. Daddy does it by ordering me around, I do it by making sure my Daddy has my fullest support when he needs it, and has my advice at all times.

Sometimes I wonder if I need my Daddy more than he needs me. Certainly, I seem to have gained a lot more in terms to self-power than he has. Or perhaps we need each other just as much, in just enough.