The Bubble Bath Game / Purposeful Disobedience

Firstly, I should say a huge thankyou to slave Shae for her referral yesterday. It’s truly wonderful to read from and to work with Shae in terms of teaching kink and sharing our submissive experiences, even in a sort of indirect, ad hoc way. I know that I have other collaborative ideas in mind with Shae and those haven’t been forgotten. True to form, we are simply both monumentally busy women who’s lives are often otherwise dictated by the trivial and the mundane.

In her referral Shae talks about the differences that I sometimes draw between our submissive experiences, and I did think of another one yesterday – the idea that BDSM is or is not a game. This is an interesting area because arguably, for those of us who are deeply immersed into the lifestyle (and that’s what it is) like Shae and I are then it doesn’t feel much like a game. It’s a part of who we are, our identities, our purposes in life. There’s simply no ‘game-playing’ about it.

I do remember a conversation I had with my mother once, in which she told me that “at the end of the day, BDSM is just a game we play”. I think that far oversimplifies what BDSM is or means to many people, even if it’s the cold, hard truth. I prefer to think of it as being like another non-legally binding relationship style, like fiancé and fiancée or boyfriend and girlfriend. To quote the movie Secretary here, who’s to say that love needs to be soft and gentle?

Certainly not this girl. I like a love that I can feel.

But our submissive identity feelings are not our reality, and somewhere inside we (albeit begrudgingly) know this. I could feel that the sky is purple and the oceans are made of Jello, and that might even seem like a wonderful and and great (if slightly weird) world to live in, but that simply doesn’t make it so. We see this argument often today in the gender debate as well – humans are free to feel anything they like, but feelings don’t always equate to reality.

There are three pieces of irrefutable evidence that support the not-reality stance that was taught to me: nobody has legally owned anybody since 1862, BDSM contracts – though often intense and meaningful – are nonetheless still not legally binding, and BDSM without consent is abuse. The slaves before slavery was abolished did not give consent to being enslaved. Even if, admittedly, the idea of losing our rights may have an appeal to those of us who are deeply submissively inclined, it is still a life that we would (or have) freely choose for ourselves. The real slaves (and even those caught up in human trafficking circles today) never had that choice.

If I wanted to, or even if any serving submissive (or Dominant, for that) decided, in the next five minutes, “I’m done, I don’t want to play that game anymore”, then nothing anyone can do or say can legally make them change their mind. That is the power of consent – that unless a submissive has consented previously to being forced back into their submission, nobody can force them otherwise. Make no mistake, I’ve had that unexpected change happen to me in my primitive Dominant days and it stings like an absolute beast, sure, but it is still the reality – nobody can make anybody do anything that they don’t want to do in BDSM.

Unless they’ve consented to being forced, of course.

I refer you here to the first kinky song that I was ever introduced to, that some might say was even sort of my ‘initiation’ into BDSM. The song in question is Depeche Mode’s “Master & Servant“, and the opening lyrics of the song are “there’s a new game we like to play, you see. A game with added reality.”

So, you see? Even musicians, arguably, see BDSM as a game.

To me, subspace is a lot more like slipping into a warm, bubbly bath. I could take a bath almost anytime I wanted to, if I wanted to, the bathtub is right there. I live a life where I can take baths almost anytime I want to, so long as I arrange the other stuff I need to do around my bath-taking desires. It feels good, pleasurable and relaxing to me to submit, much like taking a warm bubble bath. The appeal to submission only really makes sense though if you aren’t afraid of the submissive experience – much like how a hydrophobic person probably wouldn’t understand the desire to take a bath.

To meet me, you wouldn’t label me out as submissive unless you knew the covert signs of a submissive that knowledgeable Dominants look for. I don’t seem submissive; I’m confident, articulate, I power dress, I keep my head up, smile broadly and I make eye contact. Nothing about me screams “submissive” and yet, if you know what to really look for, it’s all there in plain sight: I throw down the gauntlet and then wince because I’m not sure if my opponent will pick it up or leave it on the ground. I struggle with observations being made about me because it makes me feel objectified and heady. I hate being ‘seen’ because being seen makes me feel vulnerable and submissive. I make eye contact, but intense eye contact makes me squirmy because I don’t know what my opponents plans are for me and that loss of control unnerves me. I give off an air of confidence but I instinctively gasp if a Dominant presence invades my personal space.

Clothed or otherwise, at that.

Paradoxically, however, I am a “bad girl”, “a dangerous woman” and a “tease”. I make no bones about it, and that is my submissive power. I am my Dominants’ weakness as much as they are mine. I’m notorious for “topping from the bottom”, but not in a way that my Dominants actually mind – they know that my alluring to them is akin to my rolling over and going belly up, and that I don’t fear them in my doing so. I’m inviting them to play with me, if they want to. It’s entirely up to them how rough it gets.

As an ode to all of that, some years ago I set my ringtone to Danny Elfman’s “Danger Girl” from the second Fifty Shades movie. I know the soundtrack by name of course, but to anyone else then it’s just a ringtone. It’s a kind of personal joke that makes me smile while I go about my daily business, and because life is always more fun with a little danger in it.

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Matt did finally speak to Lewis about things yesterday, having asked me to help him write a carefully constructed message. That’s something else that I get used for submissively too – writing things. In fact, I get assigned and deployed to writing things so much so that my husband even has a petname for me because of it – “Sexetary”. How cute.

It’s all part of the submissive endurance; we can take it, they know we can. Figuratively, literally.

“I like your laptop, it has a very clicky keyboard” I say matter-of-factly. Responsive. That was the word that I was looking for, but ‘clicky’ will have to do now.

“Thanks, you know, that was why I spent so much on one of the most expensive things I’ve ever bought” he says of his Victus laptop, “not for it’s memory, not for it’s processor speed, graphics card or amazing gaming capability, but for it’s clicky keyboard. I walked right into the store and I said ‘excuse me Mr Currys PC World, I need your most clickiest keyboard to impress my wife with'”. I’m almost breathless with laughter.

“Are you ever not an ass?” I ask.

“Only at work, the clients don’t like it too much” he replies. I move to speak and the look I get tells me not to. Do not, under any circumstances, refer to myself as a ‘client’ of his. He will turn that shit on as sixpence and make me swallow every one of my words. Noted.

I lean over the back of the sofa in a not-exactly-posture-perfect position. While I work, Matt gets up to head to the kitchen to make some teas.

*Whack*

The pain is searing in my right ass cheek. It takes me by surprise and it makes me gasp. He stays with me for a moment to let it, and the feeling of it, sink in.

“Carry on” he says softly.

“Yes Sir, thankyou Sir” I whisper, I hang my head in shame. How the hell can I think about writing strongly-worded messages now?

Again I’ll spare you the long read, Dear Reader, but the long and short of Lewis’ reply was “I’m sorry I hurt you, I knew I should have spoken to you first but I chose dating your ex-girlfriend of one year over our friendship of twenty.”

So yeah, a pretty shitty ‘friend’ if you ask me. Not only did he cross a line behind my husband’s back, he’s not even really sorry he did it.

“People make mistakes sometimes” Matt says to me.

“No, you’ve made mistakes before, that you were forgiven for. Giving your boxers to a stranger as a drunken birthday dare was a mistake. Stripping off to your boxers on webcam, and without checking if it was okay with me first, was a mistake. Lewis knew he should have spoken to you, and for two months he chose not to. He didn’t just kiss Claire on a night out, he’s been shacking up with her for two whole months behind your back. That’s not a mistake, that’s a choice” I reply. He’s stuck for words.

“Matt, please, you need to recognise your worth. Recognise that you deserve to be treated as more than an afterthought because if you don’t, one day someone is going to hurt you really, really. really badly.”

I don’t know how that’s going to be yet, but if he’s not too careful I can see it happening and it will be me who has to pick up the aftermath. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and all of that.

“It just feels like you want me to drop my friends” he says.

“I want you to have friends, good friends” I argue. “Real, honest, decent, reliable friends. Friends like you, who respect you.”

“But Lewis has been my friend for twenty years” he says.

“Doesn’t make him decent” I reply. “The twins I went to primary school with? I invited them to three different parties and each time they turned up for some food then made their excuses and fucked off into town. Those aren’t friends, those are users, that’s why I’m not texting them each time Mum tells me they’ve enquired about me. Let them wonder how I am. They didn’t care about me when I paid for them to stuff their guts full, they don’t deserve to care about me now.”

“Catherine, my high school bestie? She used to us as a place to crash when she fell out with Mummy and Daddy and as a free crèche for her son. She used to flake on me because her abusive boyfriend called and she’d rather be there than where she was safe and respected. The last time I saw her, she turned up with her seven-year-old uncontrolled son who repeatedly kicked and punched her, tormented the dog and had soiled himself, and she expected us to be okay with all of it”. The protective anger rises in me rises and I quell it. I wanted to kill her boyfriend back then, it turns out that it’s not gone now.

“Lewis was my best man” he tries.

“Catherine was my second-in-command bridesmaid (my brother was my chief bridesman), she was my pre-wedding fitness partner, my dress-fitting buddy.”

“But if I drop him then…” he says. I shrug.

“I don’t have casual friends either, but I have a lot of acquintances who love and respect me nearly everywhere I go, who would do anything to help me if they could because they like who I am. People respect me because they know what happens if they don’t. They value my time and attention because they know what happens if they don’t.”

“Boundaries, try them. They might look good on you” I say with a wink.

“But he said he was sorry” he argues. By now I’m exhausted.

“Okay, you know what? Do what you want to do. Kitten out” I say. He looks at me and smiles slightly; did I really just mic drop him?

Yeah, yeah I did.

I take some time for myself for a while. It feels wrong and abusive, sure, but then, I tell myself, I’m only taking the time and ignoring him because I feel ignored too. I’m ignoring him for a bit because I need to cool off from feeling ignored myself, ironically. Of course he’s free to do what he wants, I’m just hurt that all week we’ve had little intimacy (even non-sexual) because he’s been hurting so much. I’ve been a source of information, support and advice at his request but now that Lewis has said sorry? Everything is somehow okay. Matt is focused on the idea that this relationship is most likely to fall through (and being a good friend to Lewis when it does) whereas I’m aware of the (albeit slim) possibility that it could succeed, and the pain that will cause him if it does. You can’t just drop a friend you’d forgiven because they’re now marrying the girl you wanted to marry at one time. that stirs up a whole other shitstorm of questions and difficult feelings.

It’s in that time alone though that I have my epiphany – I did what I felt and thought was right for him, even if it wasn’t necessarily what he wanted me to do. Instead of simply saying “yes Sir/yes Daddy”, I stuck to my guns and fought it out. That had me wondering then, is purposeful submissive disobedience a thing?

The act I refer to here, Dear Reader, is not merely saying no to a Dominant to get punished, or not undertaking a particular task or assignment that the submissive doesn’t want to do or whatever. What I’m talking about here is, as I say, sticking to one’s guns and knowingly doing what is right for one’s Dominant, not what is asked or instructed. It’s an act of submission to the Dominant still, even if it seems wilfully disobedient at the time.

Even if, somehow, Matt decides to stay friends with Lewis, then I’m still proud of myself for staying – and to quote the Mulan song – loyal, brave and true. I stayed loyal and true to my Dominant, and I was brave in my choice to do so, knowing that I risked hurting and upsetting him in the process.

So, over to you, what do you think? Can purposeful submissive disobedience be sometimes useful? Is it an already existing thing? Do let me know.