my third assignment

Joscelin and I are still having our scene, which has no whips, chains, naughty word, hot sex, etc., but consists of these deep conversations and the blog posts that I have been assigned.  I am having a little blood sugar crash now, but sipping some soymilk, and I think it will pass.

I have been assigned to answer the following question: Why must submissives sometimes earn their collars?

I will say first, as Joscelin knows, but you, dear readers, may not, that the question kind of grosses me out.  Something that we often run into as we go forward here is that certain aspects of d/s as typically conceived arouse a kind of prickly, resistant response in me, which I’ve been calling “gross” or “icky” as a  shorthand.  (This sometimes has the unfortunate side effect of egging Jos on–he has both honorable and kinky-selfish motives for subjecting me to things I find icky in this sense–but I am commanded to transparency, so I can’t hide it.)

So…”earn their collars” – ick.  But I will try to respond earnesly and without regard for that prickly self.  I would also rather not talk about why I think people actually do it that way–which would force me to talk about the old leather guard and what people think is conventionally required and what people think is hot from reading certain fantasy novels, and so on.  I’d like to write from the heart with my most sympathetic interpretation of why it should be so.

It is a bit like the C.S. Lewis I quoted earlier:

That is why [Christ] warned people to ‘count the cost’ before becoming Christians.  ‘Make no mistake,’ He says, ‘if you let me, I will make you perfect.  The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for.  Nothing less, or other, than that.  You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away.  But if you do not push Me away, undestand that I am going to see this job through.  Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect…This I can and will do.  But I will not do anything less.’

You don’t know what you are getting into when you commit to submitting to another person.  It isn’t possible to really know without doing it.  In the process of earning your collar, you get to find out.  You can walk away in that time without having broken a serious commitment.  If you stay, it gives you practice in having tried and worked.

And, of course, it is the same for the dominant.  Is the style of this person’s submission something you can accept?  Are their problems, flaws, and weaknesses ones that you can work with, or would it be beyond you to help them become something pleasing to you?  (Do you even like them enough in the role?)  If they are trying to “earn” a collar, you can see, perhaps, whether they are able and willing to work hard for something abstract.  If you find that the answer for you is “no,” you can walk away without breaking a commitment or abandoning your pet or your property.  It is dangerous to allow someone to become your property if they will ultimately fail.

My previous posts led to some pretty deep insights for me, but I’m not sure this one has.  I don’t know that I have a deeper or further answer to this question, even when I internally frame it as sympathetically as I am able to.  But maybe I can expand on the last sentence of the previous paragraph: “It is dangerous to allow someone to become your property if they will ultimately fail.”

Sera, in her comment my first post today, was confused over my talk of commitment.  Because Jos and I broke up, one of the ongoing questions for us, or at least for me, has been, now that we are doing this crazy hot good deep new thing, are we going to get back together?  (It might seem like a silly question given that we live together and are having constant awesome sex and love stuff, but it’s still a thing.)  Jos has been saying all along that he isn’t sure he can commit to me, but a few nights ago he said that he would need me to commit to him, in a way that I’m not sure I can, or that I want to become able to do.  We have talked about this a lot more today, and I’m…significantly more in favor than I was, let’s put it that way.

But I don’t know how or if I can bind my future self.  The voice that wants me to be independent, strong, a shiny tin man, and also, of course, unburdened by constant little service tasks, and unconstrained by someone else’s whim, is not going to go away no matter what I agree to or promise.  And it’s not a straightforward matter of just ignoring that voice.  That voice might be right.  There is certainly a threshold for quitting, so I need to keep listening.  I’m not interested in being locked in a cage I really can’t ever get out of.

So…I certainly am afraid that I would fail.  Is that why he asked me the question about earning a collar?  And yet I don’t see how that would or does really help, exactly.  I can do anything for a while, maybe.  By contrast, I don’t know if there is literally anything that I can keep up indefinitely.  I have trouble even making myself floss continually.

We’ve been talking about courage, largely with regard to this amazing TED video that he showed me as part of our scene.  It seems like this commitment requires, at least from me, more courage than anything else.  Trying, working hard, etc., are necessary but definitely not at all sufficient–not even close to sufficient.  It takes courage to sustainedly direct the effort in this direction rather than some other.