Chronicles of the Strange

Wow.

I totally had a sexy dream about Hannibal Lecter last night. I guess it’s time to go watch the movies again.

Evolving Identity

Recently someone asked me whether I lean more towards Dominant or submissive, seeing as I am a Switch. It’s a question that comes up a lot, not only when out meeting new people at fetish events or parties, but also in interviews with clients at the dungeon. It’s a question I also have been avoiding recently, simply because my answer to that question has grown more tangled, more complex, and has drastically changed since the last time I assessed it. I feel like I am obligated to really try to articulate this shifting identification though, not only for myself and my desire to evaluate my own identity, but also for my Ma’am, who I know would want me to try to tackle introspective questions like this one.

I used to say, as a very general rule, that I was split pretty evenly down the middle- that I tended to feel more Dominant towards other females, and more submissive towards males. I cannot quite tell if that has changed, or if I was always wrong about that, but either way, that is not the case now. My experiences at the dungeon have certainly influenced me, because now I very rarely find myself feeling submissive towards a male. Nowadays I feel more Dominant with men, more sadistic. In the past, it was females who I felt a very strong sadism towards (though don’t get me wrong, I have always been sadistic with everybody) as well as a tendency to be more Dominant. I think it may be because through my job at the dungeon, I have met a plethora of strong, Dominant, amazing women who have earned my respect and admiration. The type of women I never saw in high school, I guess I could say. The silly girls I went to school with only drew out my sadism; the ones I was actually close with sometimes drew out Dominance, but never, ever submission. I used to think it was rare for me to find a woman I could submit to, but I realize now that it was only because there were no women in my life who carried themselves with the dignity, honor, and demeanor that sets one apart as deserving of submission in my mind. Now that I am involved with the BDSM community on so many levels, I am surrounded by them. I don’t feel submissive towards every Dominant woman I meet, of course, but in many of them I can see the potential for leadership in a dynamic. There is a seed of surrender, one I could imagine myself cultivating given time, and this characteristic was evidently lacking in the females I kept company with until entering the BDSM community.

With males, as I said, I tend to feel more Dominant nowadays, a complete reversal of my original predispositions. Once again, I think my exposure in the dungeon has changed how I approach certain situations, how I perceive things, etc, and I am now more likely to feel Dominant towards a male I don’t know than feel submissive. I generally feel more Dominant towards any gender if I don’t know them now (but especially males), and I think this is a defense mechanism because of my job. I loathe doing submissive sessions at work, and very rarely do anymore, mostly because of safety concerns on my part. Of course, none of these are hard lines- there are still a few rare men who make me melt, even at first meeting, and there are quite a few women who I feel Dominant towards. And of course, this article is totally leaving out all the muddy grey areas- the places in between Dominant and submissive, the sisterly connection, the Sadism, and a host of other things that do not fit neatly into the black and white boxes of “Dominant” or “submissive”. To cover those other things would be much too long for this journal though.

I guess what it boils down to is that my identity is in flux. I tend to be much more Dominant in general now than I used to be, especially towards men, while at the same time, I have found that a woman who commands my submission is not nearly as rare an occurrence as I once thought it to be. Do I still identify as a Switch? I think so. At the moment, yes. That may change. I may end up shifting into a full Dominant who only occasionally bottoms, or only submits to a very, VERY certain type of person, like my Ma’am. I could see myself taking that direction, but I’m not entirely sure yet. All of this raises more questions about how my Switchiness works, what triggers certain reactions, and if there is a better term to describe myself than the one currently used. The more experience I gain in the community, the more complex and multi-dimensional my kink becomes, the more it overlaps and intertwines with itself in different areas. It’s very difficult to separate certain feelings from one another, or to really accurately analyze exactly how I feel and why. I know with time and experience, all of this will become clearer. I suppose I’ll just have to wait.

Mohawk

I’m getting one tomorrow.