Humbled

It was the early hours when I crawled into bed this morning. My eyes felt gritty but that was okay. The wheels were slowly turning, the work on my new blog had begun.

Before sleep I take a last glance at the penpal app, Slowly – 5 incoming letters. Holy cow, however would I cope?

Well, slowly and gradually is the answer, I do everything slowly and gradually now. I might not get everything done in a day and that’s okay, as long as I get something done.

As of late then I’ve made four great new friends, three of them American, and one next door in Canada. Most of them are in their forties, but Ben, my Candadian friend, is older. !

Ben is a blogger too, writing about the judicial system and reform in Canada. We have many great chats, about writing, about relationships, about married life, autumn/winter sceenery et al. It’s great to converse with people who share your same zest and enthusiasm for life, it makes the letters better.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit naughty with my letters because I do get a lot of them, so I have to have a kind of filtering system in place. ‘Sex’ and ‘relationships’ are topics in common for me – but is key for me because of what I do – so unless a letter is addressed to me personally, I’ll just skip it. I’m not looking for love or a relationship, just friends, and anyone who had taken the time to read my profile would know that. How that friendship looks, of course, is very much in the detail! Some are pleasant, some are fun and flirtatious, and some are simply culturally enlightening.

But it’s when Ben tells that he’s referred others to my (main) blog that I feel truly humbled. He even calls me a BDSM expert, which I want to correct him for, but then something about it feels right. It’s the second time that friends have referred to me now in terms of BDSM, and certainly far from the first time that I have been called a BDSM expert. Perhaps it’s high time that I embraced it?

I also have to admit here that braggadocio isn’t in me. I think, growing up with my brother, then arrogance was always my antithesis. Whereas he’d be showing off one of his many talents, I’d sit tight and watch.

“Do you have any hidden talents, Helen?” I’d be asked, and I’d deny them. It turns out that I did, I just didn’t know what they were back then.

Also, perhaps unlike my brother, I wasn’t about showing off. That one time my Mum heard me sing, I was singing because – and crazy as it sounds – I just actually wanted to sing. It also turns out that I can sing Shakira’s “Underneath Your Clothes” to near CD-quality, who knew?

Or at least I could back then, anyway.

But as the Texan saying goes, it ain’t bragging if you can back it up.

It ain’t bragging to call myself a BDSM expert if people refer to me in BDSM.

It ain’t bragging if other people refer to me as a BDSM expert.

I have to accept it, embrace it, feel it and be proud of it. It’s odd and not a job title that my forensic science-inclined ass ever thought I’d possess, but okay.

I think back, right back to my early days at the BDSM clubs and what they would think and say of me if I told them that I’d been called a BDSM expert. I think back to the gentleman who told me that BDSM experts don’t exist, and what he would say or think if I told him that I’d been called one now.

I think back to Mistress Anita, the House Mistress at the club I used to attend and who took me in like the daughter she never had. One of the reasons I did what I did was because I owed it to her and the love, acceptance and endless support that she gave me, may she rest in peace.

What would she think of me now?

Well, she’d probably be proud too. She’d also be glad that, of all people to leave behind as a sort of kinky legacy and one to lead and support the kink community, someone who cares for other people and not just the right and wrong ways to BDSM, that I’m it.

And it’s a role and position that, humbly and gratefully, I step up to and accept. As both a submissive and a leader, if ever there were a contradiction.

That all of those who endorse my position as a BDSM expert and a leader in the BDSM community are/were Dominants themselves, I think, really says something. It says something for me, that they know I see people first, and I do. I really do.

It’s how I lead, with empathy. It’s how I will do BDSM, with empathy.

Forget rules first, a Dominant’s rights and a submissive positions, I put people first. I put people in the spotlight and then mould BDSM to suit them, not the other way around. Too many focus on what a submissive should do or how a submissive (or Dominant) should look or behave, and it forces too many into positions where they feel like they don’t belong in BDSM, and sadly I speak from experience there. Absolutely anyone and everyone who is interested in BDSM belongs in BDSM, as long as they’re old enough and can be respectful of others. It’s about making BDSM work for you (and, potenitally, your partner), not the other way around.

I’ve no doubt that I’ll come up against some resistance from other ‘BDSM experts’ along the way, but then that’s to be expected. Haters are always gonna hate.