All Things BDSM

24/7  
   
Was lying in the bath last night pondering some discussions I had had earlier in the day with friends in the unowned subbies room, after shaving my bits as all good subbies do. We were discussing lifestyle versus weekend or part time submission.  
   
I can never explain what submission is as; in my opinion, submission is different for every single submissive. But I can try and explain what my submission is to me. For me submission is not something I can take off when it suits me, it�s a large part of who I am. It is demonstrated in my having children and being their primary caregiver on a daily basis.  
   
What is extraordinary to me is when submission is not 24/7. I simply can�t understand it being sexual only, and not overflowing into other areas of your life, relationships etc. I can�t understand just putting that faith and trust in someone and then just tipping your hat and saying have a nice life and never seeing that person again.  
   
For me, submission is my ideal relationship, finding an honourable Man who I have complete faith and trust in. It�s not about the sex, or about whippings or about wearing silk stocking and corsets and high heels or about being tied up. It�s about finding Someone who I truly love and respect, who I can give my all to. He is the only One who gets to experience all facets of my personality.  
   
There�s a whole lot of difference to a normal orgasm with a partner and an orgasm on several levels, the mind, the heart, the soul and the body. This doesn�t require sex, but is innately sexual. It can be achieved simply by sitting and holding the hand of someone you love. It comes from putting everything you have into that relationship, 100% commitment. Unless you have experienced the pleasure of being kissed by someone who�s only thought was you, your pleasure, your happiness, then you simply haven�t kissed.  
   
Taking it further, having sex with someone, putting your entire body, soul mind and heart onto making that person happy, becomes something much deeper, much richer, much more fulfilling than a simple fuck. It�s not something you can buy. It�s not something you can force to happen. It can only happen with perfect love and perfect trust.  
   
Submission is not a gift, simply put there are strings attached, he must be more than a man, he must be a God. He must be worthy, he must love, he must command respect, he must be honest and he must never let you down. It�s a huge responsibility taking onboard not only your own happiness and welfare but someone else�s. It�s very much like the commitment one takes on being a parent.  
   
Submission goes a long way past adhering to the will of another; it takes a huge level of trust love and commitment. In my opinion that level of commitment takes a great deal of time to build. That much trust in another human being is difficult, because almost all of us have been hurt in the past. Regardless of the other BDSM interests you may enjoy with your Master, you have to trust him to not hurt you, to not take you past your limits be they physical or mental. It is as possible in a vanilla relationship, just rarer as other things take over in your life, kids, friends etc.  
   
Because my submission is such a personal thing to me, I simply can�t switch it on or off. I am lost to imagine it not being something ongoing that is as important to me on Monday morning when I go to work as it was when we made love on Saturday night. Its not just important but the singularly most important thing in my life. It�s truly worth everything to me.  
   
It doesn�t require marriage or a white picket fence or even that the couple live together, just simply that their regard for each other is the most important thing in their lives.

The "L" word.  
   
From the Mirrium Webster Dictionary.  
"Main Entry: 1love   
Pronunciation: \ˈləv\  
Function: noun  
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lēof dear, Latin lubēre, libēre to please  
Date: before 12th century  
1 a (1): strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2): attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3): affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b: an assurance of love <give her my love>  
2: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>  
3 a: the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration <baseball was his first love> b (1): a beloved person : darling �often used as a term of endearment (2)British �used as an informal term of address  
4 a: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1): the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2): brotherly concern for others b: a person's adoration of God  
5: a god or personification of love  
6: an amorous episode : love affair  
7: the sexual embrace : copulation  
8: a score of zero (as in tennis)  
9capitalized Christian Science : god  
� at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis  
� in love : inspired by affection"  
   
But what the hell does that mean? Seems to be more confusing than anything else. Probably the most misused word in the English language and in my opinion the most misunderstood.  
   
For me the word raises more questions than it answers. My only thought is that Love isn�t a noun at all but a verb, �love� the act of putting another�s welfare and happiness before your own.  A mother loves her child, will love them when they do the most horrendous things, is blind to their faults or simply accepts them and still loves unconditionally. But its still not a noun, it�s a verb to me, it�s not something you feel but something you do.  
   
I�m a fairly secure person, I love myself � but the socially acceptable term is I have healthy self esteem, saying you love yourself suggests an unbalanced narcism. I love my friends, but am very particular about who IS my friend. I love my children and it�s obvious that as a parent I chose to have them and therefore put their wellbeing before my own, I take such commitments seriously. But the love of a partner is definitely a very grey area for most people.  
   
Love needs firm foundations, without them it simply dies away. It takes open and honest communication, trust, respect, commitment, honesty and lastly hopes. It doesn�t mean its conditional simply that without these foundations it erodes over time.  
   
There also seems to be a huge difference between romantic versus non romantic love. Eros versus Agape. Conditional versus Unconditional. I�ve done the twice married thing, and still find love is hard to fathom. What is the difference between loving someone and being in love? It appears the difference is simply sexual attraction. But in my opinion if you can achieve both unconditional love, i.e. wanting what�s best for your partner even if it�s not You, and romantic love, i.e. sexual attraction to the one person and this is what I would call �true love�, as opposed to a short-term attraction that fades when the reality of who your partner is comes to light over time.  
   
I�m a very affectionate person; I don�t use the word love very often other than in the daily context of within my family, to my children. When I do use it, it is having weighed up the way I do feel and evaluated if I would want this person�s happiness before my own. I�ve come to the conclusion that there are degrees of love, the same as there are degrees of happiness and degrees of acceptable behaviour. Caring for someone and wanting or wishing them to be happy is love. It�s beyond a feeling but is very firmly something you do; you modify your behaviour, to ensure their happiness if at all possible. This doesn�t mean you adjust your standards, or be untrue to yourself, but simply that you enjoy spending time with that person and choose to do that, hoping to please them. You share part of yourself with that person, and they share part of themselves. In some very special relationships this can feel like an exchange of pieces of your soul. They become a part of you, and without them you no longer feel whole.  
   
Loving someone is no guarantee that they will feel the same way, will place the same importance upon your relationship as you do. They may well find you attractive and care about you, sometimes a great deal, but are unwilling or unable to change their behaviours to put the person they care about first. This has been my experience having been married to an addict. We all make choices and we generally go with the choice that hurts us the least. Sometimes that�s very hard to accept.  
   
These days after a great many life experiences, I tend to shy away from the term love, not because I don�t feel as much, but simply because it is often taken out of context or the word fails to indicate the degree or depth of my feelings for the person.  I find the term vague and too broad, much like the term Pagan or Christian. It means too many things to too many people, and seems to have lost its punch. One needs to use such terms as I care about you from the very depths of my soul, and you matter more to me than any other human being alive, to convey one�s feelings, or your happiness is vital to me. Simply saying I love you could be misconstrued as your friendship is important to me, or I find you sexually attractive and want to fuck you or I'm in a loving mood.  
I also think that love changes when your needs have been fulfilled, be they for security, financial or emotional, for sex, for a myriad of reasons, we differentiate different needs at different times in our lives. We're lucky to live in a society where there are different ways to find people with different interests similar to our own.  But in our eternal struggle for that elusive happiness, we all have on basic human need. To love and be loved.  
 

The Importance of Being Submissive.  
   
I have some terrible habits, the worst being hanging around chat rooms, but often draw inspiration for writing from bits and pieces of conversation therein. Often it�s the idiots who make the most ridiculous statements that inspire me to write, because they will have started a train of thought about common misconceptions about BDSM, at least from my perspective.  
   
The worst one in my opinion is that submissive women and men like to be hurt because they have some sort of death wish and or have come out of a violent relationship and have become dependant upon having someone control their lives. It is also suggested that such women suffer from low self esteem, mental illness etc ad nauseum.  
   
While this could be the case for a very few submissive personalities, in my opinion this is not the case with most submissives within the BDSM scene and certainly not with submissives in society in general.  
   
The modern societal perception that everyone should lead, and that there is indeed something wrong with following, is in my opinion rather unbalanced and biased. There are always going to be leaders and followers, that is simply how people and human nature work. There is nothing wrong at all in my mind with following someone or something if you consider it to be the best on offer. This could be following a political leader, a philosopher, or simply the boss at work or your partner in life.  
   
Being a follower doesn�t mean you can�t excel at your chosen path. As a mother, a writer and an artist, I make a lousy manager for a business enterprise. It�s not my strength and I�m comfortable and happier not doing that, however I am confident of my ability to select someone in my own life to fulfil my needs. It doesn�t make me dumb, far from it, I have a ridiculously high iq, it just means that I am better at other things, in which I do excel.  
   
I also don�t see marriages and relationships breaking up as failures. My needs as a sixteen year old girl and a young woman are dramatically different to my needs as a 42 year old woman. It is not a failure to have had a 18 year old marriage and to say this marriage no longer fits me, we have grown apart and have different wants and needs as adults.  
   
On the whole it is in our best interest to pick our leaders carefully and hand over authority over ourselves with care.  No less care is taken within BDSM. A good BDSM match is not based  solely upon spanking and erotic foreplay, though it is huge fun, and can be beneficial for both parties.  
   
The other aspect that is often ignored is that pain makes pleasure more intense. Let me just state that again, pain makes pleasure more intense.  If you examine what pleasure and pain do to your body to make you orgasm and the effects it has on your brain, you will find both release endorphins in your brain that we interpret as pleasure. These are the same endorphins we drink coffee, eat chocolate and take drugs to feel.  
   
So someone who is submissive in bed simply wants a double serving. Likewise I�m sure that being Dominant has similar releases of adrenaline and endorphins, which make the experience pleasurable for both parties. So instead of a situation where someone is suffering low self esteem, we have someone who�s greedy and fairly manipulative in bed, who gets their cake and a cherry on top. Call me a blonde bimbo but how is that a symptom of low self esteem?  
   
I think that what is a key element in a successful and happy submissive is that they are comfortable with who and what they are, and don�t feel the need to pretend to be something they are not to please other people or to answer societal pressure to conform to a perceived norm. So instead of a downtrodden battered housewife, you have a capable well adjusted and in this case woman who is comfortable about embracing her self and doesn�t change to please other people. Once again how is this a symptom of low self esteem?  
   
In all seriousness, I think that while it�s fine having Chiefs, they need Indians. Leaders need followers. Dominants need submissives. Co-dependency is bandied around as a catch cry of mental illness in our modern era. There are even twelve step groups against it, �co-dependants anonymous�. I think there is a problem with making unwise choices, but a choice in a relationship be it sexual or cerebral or indeed the big �l� word, love, should be a conscious decision where one partner compliments the other. Where one�s strengths are complimented by their partners differing strengths and therein a more solid foundation exists based upon mutual respect, trust, open communication and not just upon a momentary fascination or love.  
   
So while it may appear if one looks only at the surface that submissives are inhibited neurotic women who like being abused, that�s a far cry from what my perception of BDSM is all about. The assumption that what is good for one person is good for another is simply invalid. BDSM simply caters to and explores a wide range of needs and wants both in a sexual and non sexual relationship between consenting adults. It explores the individual, their personal growth and encourages a robust mental health in the right relationship. The key is finding the right relationship and making healthy choices for you and your partner.

Gay, Bisexual, Straight, Transgendered,I am very much a natural straight submissive alpha female. When you read my writing it comes or could be perceived as being either slightly Dom or anti Gay. Which is not the case. There is only a 2% difference genetically or slightly less between the sexes, men and women. In my opinion there is a huge  assortment of normal natural variations in between. In some ways it's wrong to say that the only sex's we have are men and women, because we have endless variations including the transgendered of various designations, bi, gay, lesbian. So to all those who have a different sexual orientation, I truly have no problem with your own unique sexual orientation, the same as I have no problem with Dom Females, but my writing style leans towards my own personal perspective naturally. I do have a quarrel with the militant feminists who have hogged the media in Australia for generations in that they truly haven't been fair in representing "my" group of women and had the audacity to say they spoke for "all women". I know some of their children, being of that next generation and they were brutal and cruel to their male children. Unnecessarily and savagely so. There is no excuse for their behaviour, or for any form of abuse because of sexual orientation. We are after all one race, human and it's about time we started working together

Are you a sub or a bottom?  
   
There is a huge difference or is there, between a sub and a bottom?  
   
A submissive is someone who gives willingly control not only of their body�s but their self (mind, heart soul, body) to another. It is very much a traditional role, and a submissive woman may well have aspects of her life where she is in a position of authority, but still be submissive completely to her partner. There in lies the key difference in my opinion. Their submission is total and affects every aspect of their lives.  
   
A bottom is a sexual submissive for want of a better term. This submission finishes at the bedroom door. But let�s examine their motivation, a fair percentage of bedroom submissives are doing it because they enjoy the masochistic facet of BDSM. This implies their submission is only because they want something- that being pain or humiliation for their own sexual gratification and not to please their master�s.  
   
Naturally there is huge debate over which form of submission is right or �real�  
   
Now there is a further in my opinion option where a submissive who is cerebrally submissive as opposed to a bedroom submissive is originally attempting to please her master in being open and exploratory in their sex lives, will find that she actually enjoys a variety of things she has tried with her master, who is naturally someone who she loves and trusts, and who has total control over her.  
   
A submissive whether a cerebral or a bottom, needs to have a clear idea of who and what she is before she enters a Dom/sub relationship. She has to know her self, her tolerances and her limits. She needs to be able to communicate these to her Dom and to take her time to assess the Dom before rushing into a relationship. Regardless of who you are, your limits and preferences are going to be different to mine. We are all individuals.  
   
Vive la difference`  
 

Dear Reader,  
   
Sometimes I wonder if I am the strangest person living. That my want�s and need�s are so different that I am completely alone. That there simply isn�t someone out there for me. I�m bizarre enough to really like sex, it�s an important part of a relationship to me. I really like literature and music too. I�m very involved in the local occult scene. Sharing some of my interests if not all of them is a want.  My needs are for honesty, the ability to trust given time to win my respect, integrity, honour, commitment and of course open communication.  
   
Everyday I meet new people and they seem to be so far away, their expectations seem unreal, like they are manikins instead of real people.  What appears important to them is work and money and owning things. Worse imo are the people who measure themselves and other people by they way they look and by the tricks they can perform, as if that really mattered.  
   
I don�t want anyone�s money, I don�t care how you look, what colour your skin is, whether you can perform oral sex on a teakettle and not get your lips burnt or some other form of hijinx that titillates the public. I don�t care if you live in an igloo on the Serengeti Desert. I don�t care how kinky you are, or about your prowess in the sack. I don�t care about your experience, your age, your weight, your hair colour or if you have all your own teeth. I don�t care if you are bald, fat, and old or smell funny.  
   
I care about You, the person. Are You someone I can trust, are You worthy of my respect, do You honour your word, how do You treat your ex partners and children, who do You love, what are Your beliefs, what do You think and feel about everyone and everything? If You are the right person than nothing else matters.  
   
As for me, I am happy with who I am. When I look at the mirror, I can meet my own eyes and say I am proud of who I am and what I have achieved. I have five beautiful children, a great family, and an open and loving heart. I am far from perfect, I am very human, with more than my fair share of weaknesses, but I am a survivor. I have courage and stamina, humility and honour. I have faced great losses and overcome them and moved on. My thirst for knowledge keeps me motivated. My lust for life lies unchecked.  
   
So if You are going my way, perhaps we can share the journey

Open Letter to Feminism

Feminism, after 42 years of living in the society you have created I have a few bones of contention to pick with you. You told me as a youth to forget the 25 year loving relationship my parents had as a role model and be my own "independent woman". You told me a career would bring me more happiness and fulfilment than a man ever would. You told me my Mother was a "weak submissive" woman to my Father because she obeyed his rules and dedicated her life to caring for him. But how come my "stupid" Mother is the envy of the majority of women we know because she is one of the few who lived a life full of love and comfort? As a youth I had many sexual relationships with men because you taught me that I was "empowered" when I exercised my "right" to pick and choose my partners. But you failed to inform me that once a man got what he wanted so easily he would take off and leave me with the memories of the precious pieces I gave of myself away. You told me that those feelings of being used and sexuality being precious was only a result of the patriarchal conditioning I received. That I would be certain it was only a result of propaganda and not an inner truth if only I informed myself enough on the history of the world. It has now been 30 years since I first had sex and I have a Masters degree in the study of the ultimate patriarchy: religion, but those feelings never did leave me. I was lucky though, at least I never got an STD like my other "empowered sisters" got while exercising their "right".

Feminism, you told me that I was equal to a man. But you forgot to acknowledge that nature has equipped me with the ability to gestate, labour, breast feed and child rear which can leave me dependent on a male at some points in my life. You never addressed how my lesser upper body strength leaves me a sad match in protecting myself and young. You never informed me that my less developed eye sight leaves me a weak hunter. Feminism, you told me that my desire to keep strong social ties cantered around the hearth was mere clap-trap. But psychiatrists and psychologists now have evidence to prove you otherwise.

Feminism, you made me feel ashamed and needy for having secret thoughts about making a family just like my parents had, you told me I was a "traitor" to the cause because I just couldn't understand how my Father, who I seen work three jobs for 60 hours a week to feed his family was "repressing us all". Feminism, you told me that I am "weak" unless I go out and slaughter the bacon, come home and cook it and clean up afterwards no matter how tired or unequipped I may be. You told me I was "stupid" when I expressed the desire to have a mate that would perform the slaughtering function because I thought he was genetically better suited to it than I. You told me I was "nor smart" because I admitted to liking decorating, sewing and cooking more than factory work.

Feminism, you told me I was a "masochist" when I dated alpha men because they made me feel safe. You said it was only a result of the "abuse" I witnessed from my "domineering" Father and I would come to find men I could manipulate the shit out would be better suited partners. You never mentioned however that respect was a vital part in a relationship and a man I could manipulate wouldn't garnish any respect from me. Feminism, you told me I had "low self esteem" because I believed a man who would work for me and my family is entitled to appreciation and submission to his decisions because he has earned the right to be a leader of our family by proving we are his priority and guiding us in the right direction thus far. You and those of your ilk laughed and said that I was "pathetic and ego less" because I dared to believe the male instinct of protecting his woman with his own life is an admirable quality, not a treacherous controlling one.

As a result of all the "real women" speeches you gave I thought I was lazy unless I shuffled my kids off to day care to be raised by a stranger and stuffed my parents in a nursing home so that I could work side by side with men in a factory. When my feet were aching from a 12 hour shift and I came home too tired to listen to my child's first new words, you said I should be thankful for your accomplishments in the working world, a world I didn't even want to belong to. Your brainwashing forced me to miss first steps, first teeth, first dances and first days of school because my self-esteem was shit unless I was living up to the feminist icons you constantly shoved down my throat. You used those biceps to bury my pain of missing those first moments way down deep under the load of crap you fed me about "equality". And despite working my ass off, fucking as I seen fit, raising kids on my own and not shaving my legs you STILL told me I was not a true feminist because I felt a twinge of truth when I read that the women flooding the work force were lowering the wages and job availability for men to take care of their family. Somewhere deep down inside my heart lurched at the knowledge that I was condemning a sister to the awful duty of a two family income and depriving her of a man who would treat her better as a result of his increased self esteem now that he could provide.

When I would question as to if it was fair that your ideology was beginning to take away the choice from women to either mother or career you would have my "sisters" shame and avoid me both in my friend network and work place. That was really cruel because you should know better than anyone that as a woman I need to socialize with fellow females because my brain requires interaction to maintain its endorphin and serotonin levels. Our biology is so dependent upon interaction with other females that our menstruations will even cease if we do not interact with other women enough. And so, your delivering me into isolation thus causing a biological depression served as punishment for questioning your authority. I thought you weren't a supporter of using oppression, feminism.

You know what I am most angry with you about? That you insist I must be a "man hater" even if I hold a son to my breast. You insist we are betraying the cause unless we wussify our boys and deny them of their nature as aggressors, protectors and providers. You want us to do this to our precious sons so that the next generation of females can use them for their own selfish desires, robbing them of instinct, fulfilment and happiness. But it makes no sense feminism! Because if I do what you ask me to then my son would be the butt of some woman's abuse. Or worse: my son could grow up angry at women for denying him his nature and thus he could turn out to hurt the few good girls unpolluted by your ideology. The most horrifying: my son could turn his anger on me as the root of his issues and that would permanently damage our relationship. Why would you want to cause wound to this woman's heart, feminism?

If I were to birth a girl and raise her in the way you demand then I would never create a fully moral human being, but instead a simultaneously ego-centric/self-denying deeply conflicted shell of flesh. What is you want feminism? A gaggle of hate filled, work enslaved dikes who harbour intense feelings of exhaustion and loneliness or happy women who are vigilant of keeping our right to vote and reproduce? Isn't feminism about equality and not superiority? Speaking about reproduction and superiority, women by nature have the honoured stewardship of being the member of the species which own the ultimate trump card of nature: ability to give life. Men awed us for this and have envied the gift for 1.5 million years. He has committed the craziest of acts in attempt to gain such power from circumcision to the worship of mythic blood sacrificial Gods.

In fact, the majority of male behaviour revolves around our stewardship. They protect us because we bear their genetic material. They are often jealous of us because they want to ensure our offspring is indeed theirs. They provide for us because we are so obviously equipped to raise the children better than them on average. Men flex and compete on a daily basis to win our attention because we are the vessel of their legacy, how can we hate them so? Frankly feminism, you have stripped women of their natural "superiority"; you have caused the devaluation of the one gift which had secured our place in the hierarchy. No matter how men will try they can never take our lofty positions. You could have used that to call for equality, yet instead you made the most stupid of all choices: you brainwashed women into feelings of shame for exercising her natural gift. In turning women into men you never erased her desire for mother or wife, you instead made her so burdened in having to play both masculine and feminine roles that she has no time to really discover who she is. She has no time to fill your expectation and her own desires. She is so tired and angry by the end of the day that child abuse is actually on the rise. You have managed to make women then enemy of their own children. Shame on you!

The ability to give life is the most sacred of gifts the universe can possibly bestow. It is the strongest emotional bond a sentient creature can feel. We women are the lucky inheritors of this unique experience and yet your ideology has stripped us of the ability to enjoy it. The ultimate experience which makes womanhood enjoyable you have stolen from millions upon millions of human beings. You are a thief feminism, a brutish lying thug. You have dragged too many of us unwillingly into your "freedom" crusade. You made me "equal" in the eyes of men, even though I never wanted to be. I wanted a knight, I wanted a guide, I wanted a protector, a chivalrous man who would lay down his life for me. I wanted to be seen as delicate, humble, compassionate, honourable, soft and nurturing. I wanted to have my days filled with the innocent of childhood and my nights filled with the passionate knowing hands of a man. But because of you I have been left me with a dating pool of incredibly shallow, self serving arseholes to choose from. Emotionally stunted, confused, effeminate head cases who can not even understand the basic gender roles which were once a natural instinct. Feminism you stole my nature from me along with my entire generation.

You swore that you sought to protect me from the big bad oppressive forces but instead you delivered me into grievous harm. You stole my joy in being a wife and a mother, the most feminine things a woman can ever hope to be. You created a diluted gender war in which men and women are perpetual children. You created a race of tired, bitchy, materialistic, slutty women who I am unwillingly grouped with by their equally fucked up male counter parts. More closet queers, misogynist superficial men who abandon their family for a tighter hole to fuck, exist than ever before. Even primates show more dedication to family than us humans now.

Fuck you feminism, for accomplishing a 52% divorce rate and a 86% infidelity rate; for making more children latch key kids and more victims of domestic violence! Fuck you feminism for taking women away from the "subjugation" of their husbands and delivering them into the subjugation of their bosses, who have no commitment to honour them as a mate would! Fuck you feminism for reducing family values and the concept of love to a Victorian distant memory! I have been reduced to reading fantasy novels to get my fill because you destroyed all the chivalry men once had for women. The fact that feminism seeks to CONFORM women in the name of "freedom" to the perpetual state of feeling guilty and "weak" about natural desires shows just how little feminism has to do with "Women power". I am pissed as hell that it took me 32 years to figure out how to be a woman because you fucked my journey of self discovery at every turn. I'm disgusted that you took advantage of my young mind and it inhibited me for three decades to figure out a very basic fact: I don't need to be a feminist to be a "real woman", my vagina alone qualifies me.

Misanthropy  
   
It�s been six months since the baby and I were attacked by a stranger. It�s not something I talk about a lot, but it had a huge impact on me. What makes it a problem is not the damage that was done to the car, or the fact that either the baby or myself could easily have been killed, nothing can change that past and we can only move forwards. It created a feeling of being unsafe, no matter how careful I was to guard my identity and our location.  
   
While I was living in a women�s shelter, after being attacked, my house was robbed. I went home and was told in no uncertain terms that the Police could not guarantee the baby�s and my safety. As well as thousands of dollars of my stuff missing, they had damaged property and urinated on some things. They had no doubts it was the same people but couldn�t prove it. I had gone to a shelter instead of family because I was hoping the government would give me emergency public housing and we could move sooner. Alas the government has no such compassion and I stayed with my mum while I saved the money to move.  
   
So I moved house, slowly bought new furniture, was ultra careful about security, had my older sister move in with me, and still was not coping. I went to the local hospital that had looked after me when I had gone through a rough patch many years before and they admitted me and said I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I spent 9 days in a psychiatric ward. The end result is your aren�t crazy when your fear is rational, but you need to stop it taking over your entire life. You need to move forwards, or spend the rest of your life trapped in the past.  
   
I still lock all the doors and windows at night, I still make sure that the baby is safe umpteen dozen times a night, I still have this unreasonable fear that some stranger will attack me or worse the baby. I don�t sleep because I hear noises, even if they are just the usual neighbourhood noises. I often sleep in the baby�s room. Other than family, I rarely see anyone.   
   
I�m not on the electoral roll, I�m not in the phone book and I use an alias online. My pictures are intentionally hard to see. I use the nickname MissAnthropic and get email about all the possible romantic notions one could have for avoiding people, when the obvious choice is that people scare me up close and personal and I have reasons for a fear based upon being attacked.   
   
So when I say, I want to get to know you, it means a little bit at a time, in doses I am comfortable with, and that trust may take a wee while to build up. I can�t just have respect or trust, it has to be earned. I no longer have even that veneer of trust that most people are good. My experience tells me not to trust people.  
   
If I didn�t work at it everyday, I would become a shut-in. Some one who never leaves their home, just talks online. It�s an effort to go to the shops. I loathe places where there are a lot of people; I�m frightened of being followed home etc. Even at family gatherings where I�ve known everybody for all my life, I still disappear for a while to calm down the panicky feeling inside.  
   
But regardless, there is somebody out there who I can trust. I know it because there have been good people in my life in the past and now, my mother, my father, uncles and aunts, people who have never ever let me down. I know there are good people. It counts for a lot. I think about how my situation makes me feel and I see people who have been brought up in abusive homes, who were abused by the very people they should have been able to trust, and I wonder how they survive, when I have so much trouble knowing that I have people who love me.  
   
Psychologically we all expect that if we do the right thing, treat people respectfully, have compassion and basically do unto others, that we should expect the same to be done to us. With these kinds of scumbags, you don�t have to do anything. You don�t need to provoke an attack; they do it without any provocation whatsoever. In the cases of children who are attacked, they are completely innocent. I know when my infant son and I were attacked, that brick hurtling towards his face, and him being so innocent he didn�t know to duck, to expect harm, because he had never experienced anything of that nature in his life. That picture will stay in my memory forever.  
   
I know that what I feel is normal, given the circumstances and eventually it will fade. I know the reason behind my misanthropy and it doesn�t scare me as much, because now I am in control, and will do my very best to not let something like that happen again. It�s the third big traumatic event in my life; the first was meningitis which left me with debilitating pain. The second was loosing custody of my children and it causing the death of my daughter 20 weeks invitro. The third was the attack. So if it takes a while to earn my trust, be patient. All things come to those who wait.  
   
What surprises me is how very many people have had similar experiences. The world is full of survivors, who not only get over their trauma but rise above it to do amazing things with their lives. It struck me today that I should write some of their stories, to give people like me and you hope, when there seems none. So that survivors don't feel so overwhelmingly alone.

Why BDSM?  
   
Why or what is it about BDSM that capture me, that holds me and not all my other many and varied interests. What is the thing its doing or has done to me that keep me coming back for more?  
   
For me BDSM isn�t just about sex, it�s about a perspective on life. That having unlocked that perception of myself and others, I can never go back to a Vanilla world. It not so much changed my life, as caused me to think and feel, outside of the box so to speak. It caused me to change my perceptions and lift my expectations.  
   
I wonder if everyone else�s introduction to the lifestyle was so intense. Did they suddenly wake up and have these intense emotions, a sense of liberation and freedom from being one of the lesser mortals?  Did they find what they were seeking or did the journey lead them to themselves?  
   
I find myself being much fussier, I am no longer content with just anyone. I�m not looking for Mr Right Now, I�m looking for Mr Right, and I am going to keep searching until I meet him. Its no longer enough to have bad sex, bad conversation, bad human interaction, simply because I don�t see beyond  a physical attraction.  
   
I understand that no one  is perfect, but know that out there somewhere there is someone who is perfect for me. That he will compliment  my weakness�s and fulfil my needs. It�s not enough for us to be somewhat matched, but a search for the One who is able to capture and own my heart, and with it come my mind, my soul and my body.  
   
There can be only One.  
   
*Fades to Highlander Music*  

On Sexuality and Orientation

Gay, Bisexual, Straight, Transgendered am very much a natural straight submissive alpha female. When you read my writing it comes or could be perceived as being either slightly Dom or anti Gay. Which is not the case. There is only a 2% difference genetically or slightly less between the sexes, men and women. In my opinion there is a huge  assortment of normal natural variations in between. In some ways it's wrong to say that the only sex's we have are men and women, because we have endless variations including the transgendered of various designations, bi, gay, lesbian. So to all those who have a different sexual orientation, I truly have no problem with your own unique sexual orientation, the same as I have no problem with Dom Females, but my writing style leans towards my own personal perspective naturally. I do have a quarrel with the militant feminists who have hogged the media in Australia for generations in that they truly haven't been fair in representing "my" group of women and had the audacity to say they spoke for "all women". I know some of their children, being of that next generation and they were brutal and cruel to their male children. Unnecessarily and savagely so. There is no excuse for their behaviour, or for any form of abuse because of sexual orientation. We are after all one race, human and it's about time we started working together.
 

Identity � Gender Issues  
   
There is one unifying thing in a Dominant Male and a Submissive Female relationship, and that is stereo typical gender traits. Women�s bodies, hormones and natural inclination are towards creativity and nurturing as opposed to men�s natural inclination to be competitive and protective. We didn�t just make that up to suit ourselves; it�s what scientists have been telling us for years. We observe it in Lion Packs and in a variety of creatures, Scientists have examined hormones and how they affect brain development and we have not only different musculature, different bodies but different brains.  
   
What is clear is that the vocal minority i.e. the Feminist and the Metro sexual male are often the only voice being heard, discriminating against the silent majority. While their voices are important in that they represent a minority for example those who are Gay, Lesbian or Transgendered. Does that mean we all must become militant feminists or meekly metro sexual to be acceptable in society?  
   
The problem with Feminism is that it became unacceptable for women to want to stay at home and nurture their children, being proudly wives and mothers. That very important role in our conventional family unit was no longer an acceptable career path for young women, instead of having a choice of  a family or a career, were told they MUST do both in order to be women. The role of stay at home mother was so marginalised that a young girl was actively laughed at is she said her goal in life was to be a stay at home mother.  
   
On the other hand, our men were emasculated to the point of loss of self identity. Young men aren�t allowed to fight and challenge each other in our society. They are not allowed to hunt and  their position as protector meets with consequences that aren�t reasonable, such as a career ruined by assault charges because he taught some bad mannered oath not to grope his wife. Their position as breadwinner, while mother tends to those tasks suited to her body and mind such as looking after the little children who need their mothers, is now something they are challenged with daily, as there is more competition in the workforce, and often people will be selected to balance the gender issues in a company, so those deserving of a promotion don�t get one, but those who are the right gender, colour, ethnicity are promoted to answer discrimination biases.  
   
Where has this political correctness gone horribly wrong? The problem as I see it is that they forgot that we normal people are not designed to that role. That it isn�t normal for a mother to abandon her young to be raised by a childminding centre, that the consequences are often that she loathes herself for not being the parent she wants to be, if she had time and could afford to not work other than for paid employment, the majority would choose not to work at all. Most men on the other hand choose to work, not because they have to, but because they need that challenge. They are genetically predisposed to want to fight for superiority.  
   
The consequences of such a lifestyle and loss of the family unit, are only this generation being felt. Ours was the first generation of mothers that HAD to work. Our mother�s didn�t have to, the majority staying home with their families, while our father�s often worked two jobs to support us happily, so that our mother�s didn�t have to work. Such was the consideration of the family and specifically the children that their needs were placed first. If that�s a bad thing then I must be a terrible person. My father must have been an absolute bastard to have worked three jobs just to make sure I had every lil princess Barbie thing I wanted. Such was his contempt for us.  
   
The truth of the matter is more that he loved and idolised his family, sought to give them anything and everything. He did it because he wanted to. He could have abandoned us, but we belonged to him and that gave him a responsibility to us. He was never unfaithful to his wife. Not because he didn�t have opportunity or inclination, but because he was a man of his word, and had given his to be faithful. So to Germaine Greer and her Cronies question of where are all the �real men�, they were here all the time, the very people you slandered.  
   
What concerns me now is the breakdown of gender roles has become so great that both boys and girls feel this enormous lack of identity. Less than 50% of Australians over 18 now marry. Children are largely brought up in broken homes, with little or no positive male role models in their lives. There is such a low population growth that the government pays incentives for young people to have children with their �have one for Australia� policy and bribes them with their baby bonus. Sadly it is economically unviable to be in a married relationship where you declare you are living together. Such is our current situation.  
   
Other than us lobbying our government to demand the right for women to be stay at home parents, and to have the same entitlements in a marriage as single mothers do, the right to stay home and nurture their children. The right for men to rise in the workplace as a priority so that they can support their wives and children. We have made both parents the enemy of their own children. We have made our own future economically unviable. We are eradicating our own culture with our obsession for equality. One thing that we can be absolutely sure of is that no man, women or child is equal to another, because we are all individuals with individual talents and needs. To turn us into genderless entities has hurt us enormously. Let�s try and undo at least some of that harm.  

Cerebral Submission  

I was asked why I liked being bullied as I was a submissive personality, and it provoked much thought. I don�t like being bullied at all; in fact I dislike it greatly. For me submission isn�t about whips and chains, though I enjoy the sex and the physical representation of the symbolic submission side of things, but that wasn�t to me what being submissive was all about.  
 

It led me to try to put into words what being Cerebrally Submissive is. My master MUST be my superior. He must lead, not through bullying but through logic. An example of that is my inability to say NO when I need to. I can�t help but labour at doing is nicely. It�s just a part of my personality and not a dithery blonde thing. He helps me arrive at a decision based on the knowledge at hand. I get lost in the miniature and he sees the big picture.  
 

I am far from unintelligent, however I tend to bend over backwards trying to see and understand all possible perspectives. I am fair to the point that I ration the pie so well and leave none for myself. My Master is the person who says to me, enough, where is your slice, your time out, your day off etc.  
Submission isn�t about being bullied at all from my perspective, but all about being led into better decisions or to make a decision instead of failing to complete a task. It�s about bringing that rational part of my personality back into focus. I have no trouble in a relationship in controlling spending, all my bills are always paid on time, and I usually can save for anything I really want or need. But the submissive part of me gets seduced into purchases outside of a relationship because I don�t have the same conditions in place. The usual sort of thing is �we discuss all purchases over 100 dollars.� That doesn�t mean I can�t have something I need, or that I have to ask to spend more than 100 on groceries this week, that�s normal budgeted and agreed upon necessities. All the normal things are fine, the children get new school shoes when they need them but to buy Nikes as opposed to buying a reasonable quality of school jogger really isn�t a necessity and must be discussed just as an example.  
 

I have to admit there are good and bad Doms, the same as there are good and bad submissives. But a good Dom compliments the other persons weakness�s and gains their strengths. He listens and makes decisions. Far from acting against his submissives best interests, he is the person who looks out for and protects her interests. (The use of �he and she� in this example is only because that is my personal situation and can be changed for different sexual orientation, this is an example only.) So not only is the protector role a physical one, but very much a cerebral one.  
 

Respect is earned. It is never just a given. For me a Master must be someone worthy of my respect. He can�t be someone I would consider inferior. He must be intelligent, he must be sensible, he must have good humour and be able to understand who and what I am and accept me and love me for myself despite my obvious failings. He must be able to turn my weaknesses into strengths. Two submissives together would be trying so hard to please each other that they would be worn into a frazzle constantly. Two dominants would clash constantly. In my opinion the most complimentary relationship for a submissive personality is with a Dominant. But it must be the right combination.  
 

In the working world I am a creative personality. I write, I draw, I play music. I can pursue almost any creative career. I go off on tangents. What I fail to do is submit my work. I have entire books written which have never been printed out, never mind sent to publishers. I have brilliant flashes of insight that I fail to put on paper. I have songs going round in my head that I don�t have the musical knowledge to put down on paper. My type of personality needs a manager, be their title agent or manager, the job is the same. Someone who can say, this is enough now write a synopsis and tie it off, and I will have it professionally edited and submit it. It�s no wonder that in my personal life I need the same kind of direction.  
 

Far from being bullied, I am liberated from my own failings. I am forced into action instead of pondering on tangents. I have limitations that form achievable goals instead of meandering along achieving not a great deal. I have reasonable boundaries that I can work more comfortably within. I just happen to need that sort of direction, not all submissives do.  
 

I don�t need to be told what colour undies I should wear today. What I need is to be told to stop writing long enough to get dressed today. I need to limit my work to a reasonable level and not sit up until 2 am scribbling away. I need to be pulled back and have that balance and perspective that I don�t have too close to a situation.   
 

A Master is so much more than a bully. He is a mentor; he gives guidance, protection, love and comfort. He fulfils me. He manages my need to please into a desirable outcome for both myself and for him. In turn I do my utmost to fulfil him. It�s very much a partnership based on utilising each others strengths.

Finis