Ever since I first gave Joscelin his collar, he has slept with it on at night (with rare exceptions such as while camping with his family). He likes to do this, and one of his first questions to me about the collar was whether I would allow him to.
To me, the question was kind of strange. Of course I would let him wear his collar anytime he chose. It’s his collar. (Yes, it is my collar in the sense that I own it, and it comes from me, and he wears it with my permission. But it’s his in another very real sense.)
Last night, he was in a strange and rebellious mood. To give an example of how this played out, he was short 1 minute on his exercise, and he nearly skipped it. (I was, frankly, somewhat captivated by the mood myself, and half-dared him to skip it just so that I could punish him – which is sort of fun, after all, and matched my perverse mood - but eventually I pushed him to do it, knowing that he would regret it later if he actually defied me.)
“Am I required to wear my collar to bed?” he asked as bedtime approached. (Just to be clear, we don’t live together. This was over IM, as is often the case.)
The idea of him not wanting to wear his collar to bed was painful, but I needed to figure out the answer to the question. Is he required to wear his collar to bed?
I first thought it might fit into a particular category, sort of ‘basic acts of submission.’ For instance, if he refuses to kneel for me, without some very good reason, then it’s a crisis. It means he has, for that moment at least, withdrawn consent from the d/s part of our relationship, and in order for us to continue relating, either we need to renegotiate, or he needs to reinstate his consent (which also involves negotiation, because it’s not like if he walks out of the fence, it just hangs open waiting for his return). Wearing his collar upon my request would fall into this category for sure.
But I never asked him to wear his collar to bed. That is for him – to give him good feelings and reinforce things. I could instruct him to do it; I just haven’t. I could have last night, and maybe I should have.
I felt pressure to say, “Yes, you are required to wear it,” but the honest answer is that I don’t think he is. So that was what I said, even though I felt like I was letting him down by saying it.
It hurt.
I think, if I “were a dom” and “my” submissive asked me the very same question, my first reaction would be, “Why are you asking?” and I’d probably take it from there. But this is, possibly, an example of how much I dislike drama, which is clearly not your style.
If blog comments could be hugs, this would be one of them.
Thanks, May.
I like difficult questions. I like them best if I more or less know the answer but it is difficult to say. But I also like the ones like this, where the difficulty is finding the answer I think is best without being too influenced by the answer I think is wanted. (I try not to think about what answer is wanted.)
Jos did not wear his collar to bed. He told me that his choice not to wear it affirmed that I did not let him down. Oddly, I am mostly able to understand this.
The worst case would be if not wearing it to bed would crush me, but I was unwilling to actually order him to wear it. That would be me trying to get what I needed (the collar-wearing) without giving him what he needs (the dominance). I didn’t do that.
It is OK with me if he doesn’t want to wear the collar to bed, though if it happened that he rarely chose to anymore, I’d be sad in a wistful kind of way, for the loss of something that was sweet to me. (It is his wanting to wear the collar to bed that is sweet to me. It’s the way that it makes him feel.)
What is more viscerally scary about “I don’t want to wear my collar” is the hint that he doesn’t want to be submissive to me anymore. I never would have thought, a few months ago, that something like that would have the ability to cut me to the quick, but it does. It would be a huge loss. But I’m pretty sure it’s not going that way.
Hmmm… think I’ll lock my collar on and climb into bed to think about it. :P
My experience, which is not great or anything, but here it is, is that submissives do this a lot. These little pushes. Any why not? They have to express their desires somehow. But it is tricky to handle because even though the obvious interpretation is to say ‘yes’, your instinct not to is correct, because doing what he wants in this situation you will both find subtly undermining of the dynamic you like to play with.
I usually deal with things like this by flipping them around and saying stuff like ‘would you like it if I told you to wear your collar in bed?’ or ‘Would it make you feel submissive to have to wear your collar in bed?’
What I also like to do is have the guy beg for the thing he’s trying to push me into ‘making’ him do.
This kind of dynamic is one of the hardest things to handle. But it is much better than feeling like the guy expects you to read his mind. Really, he’s told you something he wants. And knowing what he wants is always leverage.
Well, first let me say I followed you to your blog from Bitchy’s….which I am enjoying immensely. Your comments have been insightful so I thought I’d see what you have to say in your own forum.
That being said, I haven’t had a chance to really get a feel for what you’re about and your relationship other than this post. But what I read here is a very common phenomenon for us submissives. I also see it with my children. We NEED to feel the control and the boundaries. If he has chosen to sleep in your collar it gives him comfort and if he asks if he is required to do something that is important to him, I suspect he has a need to feel your hand on his psyche. Particularly when you say he was recalcitrant with his required exercise. It is interesting to me that as woman, top or bottom, we tend to make things more complicated by over thinking them. “Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar”….to coin a phrase from Freud.
Not to follow the Bitchy one over her to kiss up…but I find her comment to say ‘would you like it if I told you to wear your collar in bed?’ or ‘Would it make you feel submissive to have to wear your collar in bed?’ to be excellent advice from the point of view of the submissive one. Then you find out what’s really going on….if it’s just a bit of brattiness…ei..attention seeking or truly a NEED that’s not being met and then problems do develop. Never under estimate how much a true submissive needs to feel the control of the dominate partner.
Just my most Humble Opinion….
Bitchy,
Thanks as always :-)
His girl,
Thanks for the comment! And thanks for reading.
I probably shouldn’t post when I’m hurting, because of course we did completely patch things up later over this issue.
It is true that one of our recurrent issues is that Joscelin would like to feel he’s in a “tighter box” – that he’s more controlled. And I love exerting control over him, but it’s important to me to find ways of controlling him that I like, and not just control him every which way. It’s not submission if it’s just for him. And as a total newbie at this thing, I don’t have a whole built in pattern of how I like to control someone, or what I like for the someone to do.
I hope this blog gives a balanced impression of our relationship. I tend to write about high and low points, drama, etc., and truthfully, we don’t have a lot of “quiet times” of just being happy and content. So maybe it’s accurate ;-)
I didn’t wear my collar that night, or last night (the night after).
I’ll see if I feel like wearing it tonight.
The night in question, I had written a long post to a submissive’s blog about taking advantage of and using the freedom you ARE given. Sure, I’d like it to be mandatory for me to wear my collar every night. But for the moment, it isn’t. I have the freedom to, and the freedom not to.
If I’m not cool with having freedom to go one way or the other, I’m requiring my dominant to make every decision in life for me. I can’t demand that, and still feel submissive demanding. Besides, it would suck for a while.
On the other hand, if I do use the freedom I have, then when Mistress decided to take some of it away, we both FEEL It. It’s hot, and sexy, not like, “whew, she finally caught up to me, and here I’ve been busting my ass showing her where I want her boundaries to be.”
And because we both feel it, she’s incented to do it more, and I’m incented to obey and be pleasing. It’s a lot nicer that way.
So, like I said. If I want to wear my collar tonight, I will. If not, I won’t. My decision.
You guys are going to suck me into the vortex that is blogging. Joscelin certainly added to the thoughts your post had brought up for me about submission. I think the internal made concrete by getting it out and putting it into words is fascinating. I kept a journal long before people blogged…but it was something private and actually caused me great pain once when discovered by my lover. This seems such a healthy way to manage the emotional side of a relationship…and help the blogger sort out their own feelings, if only by forcing the decision of what to present and what to comment on.
Now for this “commenter” I saw Joscelin had the “last word” at the time and when I clicked on his comment at the top of the blog…it took me to his blog!!! Dang!! And your sweet boy had written about games, a topic near and dear to my heart…Damn and Balls…so now he’s bookmarked, too. You both are very generous, interesting people to share so much of your inner life with the outer world.
I think why this discussion is so fascinating to me is the whole concept of “topping from the bottom”….something I see Joscelin addresses very effectively…and something, as a true submissive, I find myself being concerned with a great deal. Maybe that is why, for me, I find more “rules” or protocol, better. I wear some sort of collar all the time…and when, for whatever reason, I’m not able to wear one, I feel vaguely out of balance and anxious. Also, when I wear my “night” collar…it is placed upon me and I feel a tremendous sense of calm and ease….even if what ultimately happens is not so calm or easy!!
So what I am learning is blogging is a way for the blogger and the reader to each visit their own inner world and learn a bit more about how their mind and emotions work. Thank you both for sharing a part of your journey with me!!
His girl,
Blogging rocks. It’s especially cool if people actually read your blog and leave comments and stuff :-)
But even besides that, it’s so fascinating for me to look back even just a few weeks and see what I was thinking and writing about. I’ve learned so much in the time I’ve been with Jos, and having the whole thing down on paper (as it were) is cool.
If I had secrets from Joscelin, I wouldn’t put them here, of course. And while I don’t think I have “secrets” per se, I do have some inner thoughts that don’t get shared. I can share so much here because this blog is anonymous – only a very few people I know in real life know this is my blog.
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