Need help to accept submission with joy

[Ranai]

Dear Steve,

I will add some thoughts even though I am one of the much more inexperienced ones and you asked for ideas from experienced people. I believe Ruby, RubysPet and her_Joe have given you excellent advice. Ruby’s questions address the core of the matter: the facts. If your submission causes no harm, but pleasure for you both inside a loving relationship, it is a good thing.

Now for the unwanted lingering side-effects. I can understand that your wife is not overjoyed when you talk to her about that lingering sense of shame. In the afterglow of passion, and in moments of emotional intimacy, who would be thrilled to have to deal with that? But you are her husband and her submissive. With all there is to you. So it is for her to listen when you have something to say that troubles you. Even when it’s no enormous fun, and even though she can not perform a miracle and make it suddenly go away. Yes, it is important to appreciate the lady you are so lucky to have in your life. Yes, it is good to do your best to please her with your submission and devotion. But you are under no obligation to be perfect.

How are you to dictate and control your feelings and thoughts? No human being can. When we discover the joys of BDSM for ourselves we don’t need to turn shame around by 180 ̊ degrees. I mean, there’s no point in feeling ashamed because you have been feeling ashamed? I certainly had heaps of misconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes concerning BDSM before I made an effort to look at facts instead of myths. We don’t learn that many useful facts about BDSM in mainstream education. And as you say, each relationship has its own dynamics. We need to listen inside ourselves to find out what is good for us. As for cultural stereotypes how all men and women are supposed to be and act and feel – nobody is immune from them. The trick is to recognise stereotypes as what they are.

If thoughts and feelings of shame that you know to be irrational and unfounded in the light of your loving and mutually satisfying relationship show up in your mind, there is no need to battle against them. Look at the thoughts. Name them. Identify them. Identify where they come from. Let them pass. If they show up again, let them pass again. Another idea: Some old demons don’t support being made fun of very well. If you can find an amusing angle, use it.

As for the factual part, your answers to Ruby’s questions: The joy is there. The happiness is there. You have every reason to celebrate. So when the joy is there, let it soar and savour it!!


With a certain lack of originality I’ll add a quote. This dialogue is from a favourite book. It is not about desires of domination or submission, but seems applicable – and I like it! The speakers are Miss de Vine, a historian, and Harriet Vane, a novelist. Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night, chapter 2.

'...I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.'
'Yes,' said Harriet, 'but I am one of them. I disconcert myself very much. I never know what I do feel.'
'I don't think that matters, provided one doesn't try to persuade one's self into appropriate feelings.' (...)
‘But (...) how is one to know which things are really of overmastering importance?’
‘We can only know that,’ said Miss de Vine, ‘when they have overmastered us.’

Finally, I would like to congratulate your wife on having such a wonderful man by her side and occasionally at her feet.