My last post was about power exchange. And it was kind of funny that the comments were a bit reticent. That brought me back to a thought that I think quite a bit...the power of words.
When I first started exploring I was loathe to use the word submissive. It was scary, the connotation of the word, to someone raised in the kind of environment I was. I was subjugated regularly, by people who were supposed to care about me. I came from a time and in a society where Gloria Steinem talked about dissolving sex-roles stereotypes, and Helen Reddy sang about not being kept down on the floor.
Well, I'm not the fist raised kind of girl. I was very content to use my easy-bake oven and a Betty Crocker cookbook I got for my 8th birthday. It's not that I don't believe in equality for all people - I do - regardless of sex, color, sexual orientation or lifestyle kink. But don't tell me that I'm wrong because I'm comfortable cooking and cleaning and nesting. When you give someone a freedom, it should really include a judgement-free freedom of choice.But I digress...I grew with a head-full of images and some kind of perverse aversion to the idea of submission. When I started exploring my core, what I wanted needed and desired, I struggled with the idea of submission. That word...but the reality, and the feeling are very much different. And the word became not something to fear, and not a label, but a way to express a very deep dimension of my soul.
Then I was confronted with the word slave. Oh good Lord are we serious? What a negative connotation does that have? But ask me now, I am Ward's little girl, but there is nothing that I would deny him. There is nothing I would not do for him. There is no limit to what I would do for him, out of trust and love and because he would never diminish me. He lifts me up. He honors me. I honor him.
One I still struggle with is masochist....Hello, my name is June and I am a spanko. Ward and I enjoy spanking as play, as an assertion of his dominance, and an acknowledgement of my submission, what some might call maintenance. We also use it for discipline. I dislike labels - we are a lovely mix of different dynamics. I feel like Donny and Marie - we're a little bit DD. a little bit D/s, a little bit spanko. We are us. I like us quite a lot.
I am a spanko, I do indeed crave pain sometimes. I know that when I feel I have done something that is detrimental to us, I need his absolution. I need the purging. When I am stressed, the pain takes the unbearable emotional pain, transfers it to flesh and poof...does that make me a masochist? That word still holds power over me.
When I heard about Daddies and babygirls, I thought, especially in light of the sexually abusive childhood I had that that was just not me, that was sick. I had the impression that many have, it's about age-play, incest-play. And that's not it at all, not for us. Certainly there is an age-play fetish, that is scene-dependant. It's something you put on and take off. We are who we are to the depths of our souls, it is 24/7, it is fluid. Sometimes I am little me, sometimes I am big me - but that's a chat for another post. Having a Daddy and being his little girl doesn't frighten me anymore.
There are some in the DD world that would deny that they are in a D/s relationship. But when one party takes a leadership role and another follows, it is a Dominant/submissive relationship. And Daddy and I, being who and what we are think most must like/want/need/desire spanking even if they don't want to admit it.Which brings us back to power exchange. Another scary concept. Wikipedia defines a power exchange relationship as "refers to a relationship or activity in which the submissive gives to the dominant partner power and authority over the submissive's body in exchange for the submissive's happiness and health".
Well, that's kinda of what we all do, whether we're DD, D/s, D/lg, M/s, isn't it? So I'm kind of curious as to what image the term evoked for the commenters on the Power exchange post. Is that a term or a concept that you found jarring or scary? Are there words or terms that you have trouble embracing, but keep coming back to you?
In answer to your comment on the last post - I do not fear power exchange - but obedience? objectification? other words that start with "o"? apparently.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really great post - I love the thought you put into it and described how your journey started and the path it has taken - so many of us are somewhere along that route.
Thanks this is something that's been a persistent thought, and even more so since I started on this path.
DeleteYou know, Kitty, maybe 15 or even 10 years ago if you had asked me if I would have taken a marriage vow that said "Love, honor and obey" I would have had a decidedly non-submissive reply. To say that to Ward? It's sweet on my tongue, and in my head. The only explanation I have is the person who Ward is. It is my deepest desire to honor him and to be pleasing to him, to be his 'good girl'.
Objectification, oh, I have major problems with that term. I am submissive to Ward, but he honors me as much as I honor him. He lifts me up. And maybe that's the problem I had with my perception of 'slave'. Ward owns me, every part of me. And that, too is sweet. But perhaps because I am treasure. If he owned me as 'property' I might feel differently. That may seem a narrow distinction. But to me the gulf is wide. One is....exalted, the other is inconsequential.
Yes, objectification is tough, but I think it happens regardless in various moments when pleasure is overtaking a person. The question is - would one seek it out, root it out, or merely exist around it.
DeleteI believe I seek it out - it is a better word for me than being broken.
Treasure does sound better than property, but it is still property. Hunh.
Yeah, I guess it really is the same thing - I was thinking that as I wrote it...I guess it's more in the way that the Dominant handles it. I fully enjoy being owned by Ward. It is safe and warm and lovely. If it were someone else? Not so much.
DeleteObjectification - I do have major problems with that word. The image that it conjures for me is one of those hardcore images you see, of someone kneeling, with a tabletop strapped to their back, or being a human footstool - that kind of thing. What is the image it conjures for you?
Now being broken...that's a little different. And again, because of the man that Ward is, he will push me past my limit, but he will never push me to debilitate or demoralize me. Being broken.... being pushed far enough that I am laid bare, broken so he can build me back up.
I love your post. I don't think I can say very much except I think we ALL have specific notions attached to various words. And I've learnt that I attach different implications to them with regard to different people too.
ReplyDeleteI wrote some stuff about this HERE
Thanks, FondlersAnonymous. You'll have to forgive me, I've been in kind of a fugue lately - missing Ward has gotten the best of me & I have found it harder to keep up with posting (obviously) and with reading around (I've had trouble concentrating making my rounds intolerably long when I have to drag myself through a day of domestic duties...sigh...) Anyway...
DeleteAnswering some of your points here. As I said I have issues with the word slave, but as in your post servant is better, I have said I serve Ward. As for Master, I wouldn't have a problem with that - he is Master - of my heart, of my soul I gauge my actions against his standards - Daddy fits him so much better, though, and brings in the other elements of our relationship. I feel him surrounding me, I can feel myself under the guidance of his hands, and I can feel myself supported and protected and held in his hands. It works for us.
The submissive and obedient - I don't have so much of a problem with - I probably would have scoffed big time not long ago - but you know - I really don't remember life before Ward, and I don't ever want to. I don't have a problem - with him - being submissive or with being obedient. I thrive on pleasing him, I love being his obedience submissive little girl. I live to hear the pride in his voice, in his laugh, his smile. Although both of those things cause great distress for a friend of mine who knows about Ward and myself.
Domestic discipline, well, for me it means that he sets the operational objectives for our family (hahaha - that's how Daddy talks when he's been writing technical manuals all day). Just means that he's in charge and is in control of himself and helps us all stay on track, and when we go off on those 'ohhh a shiny' moments, pulls us back. And when we do something detrimental to our family, or ourselves he provides correction.
I know some people would cringe to read that, and still, after writing this, it makes me ponder why.
I have done a post about the power of words too. Like you some of the words cause issues for me. It is getting better though. I find I am better at dealing with certain words when I stop and look at the intentionof the action, opposed to the actual word used. The words really only have power if we let them have that power. That is what I am actively trying to change, ridding myself of the negative connotations and replacing them with my perception of the meaning of any given word. Did that make any sense? LOL.
ReplyDeleteNo, faerie, it makes perfect sense! And it gave me a little broken lollipop moment. Words are just words, and it's our experience - personal or observed - that dictates our visceral reaction to those words. Perhaps, we (kinky/spanko/submissive ladies) find our partners, our puzzle pieces, and they very gently change our perceptions, and that is why some concepts have become more palatable and less reactive. The ones we still struggle with, perhaps we haven't gone there yet, or perhaps because other terms fit better - like Daddy over Master.
DeleteSo I totally get your point. Words are words and we have the power to define them in the context of our own lives.
Awesome post, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI don't have much to add - except that I enjoy the concept of being my husband's possession, treasure, yes, slave - all the same to me. The words change but the meaning behind them stays the same - I am his to love and protect and ..whatever else he may desire.
Perhaps the thing that makes it "okay" is that the same applies to him for me. I am owned but I also own, and that flies in the face of previously established meanings of those words, but it is also true.
Oh, yes, Conina! I have asked that, too - I think we talked about that before somewhere. I am completely and totally owned. Slave still feels not quite for us, but I am his little girl who does everything. And my objection is to the etymology of the word. The connotation - that I am his completely - is delicious....back to what I started to say, lol --- I said to him - you're mine! Then thought - uh-oh! And I said am I allowed to say that? And he said - yes, you are, and yes I'm yours. And that smile and that feeling was too big to be contained....I wonder if they feel that way when we say we're theirs?
DeleteNow, and that's another learned thing - I know that we own each other, right back to balance, yin and yang. And that just works.
Awesome post! I feel at a loss to add anything useful to the conversation but my biggest word issue was submission at first. I thought I would lose all my power in the marriage but I gained more than I thought wa spossible.
ReplyDeleteThanks so very much, Kat. Yes! I have a nilla friend who knows about Ward & myself. When I told her I was submissive to him she said, "How much are you giving up?" and I responded, "Much less than I am getting." He feeds me, and I feed him. There is an incredible reciprocity, it is a flow of energy, and it is awesome!
DeleteThanks for those very sweet words. I am....wait for it....just me. I love him completely, and if I am beautiful, it is because he makes me so, with faith and love and belief and trust and honor and protection, and a million other treasures that I have never before been privileged to possess. But he gives them freely, and I treasure him and I treasure the gifts that he brings.
ReplyDeleteHe and I talk a lot about labels, we don't really fit anywhere. We're a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But we are a whole lot of us. And I think if you looked at every one - Stormy & Ogre, faerie and Musicman, Kitty and H, Conina and her husband - none of us would likely be happy if we tried to form ourselves to the molds they have created. Each of us prescribe to certain dynamics, but the actual...application in our own loves are very different. We all love ice cream, but our flavors vary.
....now I want pralines and cream!....and Daddy to share it with :)
I feel like Donny and Marie - we're a little bit DD. a little bit D/s, a little bit spanko. ...I lover that and I feel like that too. Most places you feel like you have to be one way or another- it's nice to find some many pople of there that want/need to fit into many boxes in stead of just having to work in one.
ReplyDeleteHi, Mrs. Soft Bottom, welcome! Yes, we don't quite fit in any one category. Daddy likes to say we are just us, and that's what I love about this blogging community, everyone is very tolerant of everyone else's dynamics and no one is saying anyone else is doing it wrong.
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