Curvy_bottom, Informed Consent, and me…

The blog below was first posted on the UK-based BDSM website, informed consent – at the time of writing due to close between 17 and 24 February 2013. It will be much missed by many.

I owe a lot to IC, and this, my 5,000th post there, tried to express a little of what IC had done for me – not the least of which was to help me find my girl

IC helped me change my life.

When I joined IC, I was in the 12th year of a marriage that should not have lasted that long. I was a devoted father and an abused husband.

It seemed it was escapism that brought me here – desire to recapture something healthier, if less conventional, that I’d shared years before. Certainly, at first, I kidded myself I just wanted vicarious satisfaction – to look, but not to live it.

Thinking back, it seems it was actually my very first step toward escaping my marriage, and getting back myself – and my family – and finding someone who cares for me.

There’s a lot I regret about the time since, but I have no regrets about where I find myself now.

I have a lover who is my partner. Is she my submissive? Yes. Is that important? Yes, vital – but not in the way I expected it to be. I have been here before in some ways, many years ago, when I lucked into my second serious relationship – also my first D/s one. That first time, we both wanted everything and, for a time, that’s what we thought we had.

We were both young. Everything was ahead of us then, whereas now, I have as much of a past behind me as there is a future still to come. That past is part of me and I’ve no desire to leave it behind.

For c_b and me, things are different. Both she and I have rich pasts. Neither she nor I are in a position to give the other everything even though it always feels that we do. I have my children – and leaving their home and my marriage saved my relationship with them. Since, it has strengthened immeasurably.

C_b has her marriage and the life she has built with her husband in over 20 years of life together.

We have our relationship: as lovers, as friends, as partners. And we have our dynamic.

I’ve thought more and more about this dynamic and how it makes our relationship possible, and I am afraid I have few answers. I possess her when she is with me and there is a vital part of her (her submission) that is always only mine.

Neither of us considers the other of less than equal worth or inferior in any way. I love her more completely than I have any other and, for a long time, I considered that, in the context of the kind of relationship I needed (a D/s one) ,this made me inferior – because I worried that c_b could live without me much more easily than I could without her.

We each decided – twice – that love was not enough and that our futures could not lie together. But, now – and, I hope, until she buries me, or I her – we are a tough little partnership with a real prospect of continued success.

Of course, all the best love stories are tragedies, so I am not going to promise myself that this will last forever, but I’m sure, right now, that both of us aim to try.

At the moment, I think that if there is a secret to what we have achieved so far, it is in something that could apply to any couple – but which, for me and for her, has been made easier by a D/s dynamic.

We’re hard work. Both of us.

Not to others, I hope, but certainly to each other. Because we concentrate on each other. Because we try to put the other person first. I’d thought this was only possible in a D/s relationship and have often said so here. I now think I was blinkered and that it is possible for anyone – but I think our D/s natures make it possible for c_b and myself.

An example. c_b hardly ever asks for anything or tells me what she likes or wants. It’s something that just happened and it’s something that we’ve only really talked about recently. But, she always accepts my decision or my choice. It reinforces my D mojo because, in a shared relationship, there is much I can’t be responsible for. But, I want c_b to want me and to welcome what I do with or to her. So, I watch hard to see what makes her feel great, whether because she takes a genuine pleasure in pleasing me or if it is just something that makes her feel good. (Rope, anyone?)

This often leaves me puzzled. If all she wants is my pleasure, then what – really – is in it for her? Well – just that. When she thinks she’s pleased me more than she ever has before, when she thinks she’s amazed me, she feels great. And, sometimes, that’s when I wonder who has the whip hand – because she’s grinning and proud because of the way she’s made me feel and all I can be is amazed at what she’s done for me.

But I know she wouldn’t want to be the best she can be for me if she did not genuinely feel she could offer me her submission. It hasn’t happened just because I am dominant and she is submissive and we get on with each other. It did not happen because we fell in love. It happened because I gained her respect and she desired to give me authority to look after her and to use her. And, I know that if either of us lose that respect for the other, it’s over.

She is in all of my life – not a D/s compartment. c_b knows my children and the rest of my family, my workmates and other friends. She’s seen me through times when I nearly made some bad decisions and been a critical friend when I’ve needed one. It may be “My man – right or wrong” to the world (and often to me), but when I need it she’s right there with the tough love.

And now, a confession: without the community that IC has helped create I am sure our relationship would have had a much rougher time thriving.

We made friends (one especially important but no longer with us – Mrs_Smith) who helped us across the roughest parts of our path so far. We began to understand who we are by posting and talking and meeting people. Even the criticism we got made us stronger by helping us see outside ourselves and to understand who we could be, whilst respecting others’ points of view.

We found people who understood how we wanted to live and didn’t judge us for our failure to be conventional – but who would, by encouragement or criticism, help us feel even more special to each other.

I’ve no idea what the future holds. I just know that, when I joined IC, I never dared look ahead. Things looked black and IC felt like somewhere I could be me, for an hour or two each day.

Now, looking back, even my worst times have been made less frightening by the woman who holds my hand. And the future looks like a place I shouldn’t be afraid to go, if she’ll walk with me.