Mistress Rex isn’t the most prolific of writers on my blogroll, but when she does post it’s always interesting, thought provoking and highly literate. Her most recent post helped crystallize a number of thoughts I’d been mulling over recently. I suggest reading the whole thing, but I’ll just quote the section I particularly want to talk about.
I’d be bored out of my mind if I stayed within the parameters of what clients (or lovers) told me they think they want. It’s domination. It’s the thrill of control and power. It requires a degree of force and discomfort, a shifting of will. How do you know how much you can take if you’re not challenged? How do you know how much you can give if you’re unwilling to offer it?
Brock Lesner is an idiot, but he happened to deliver a beautiful concept (wherever he got it from) on national TV when he said that, “fights are won by inches.” Technique and skill can take you a long way, but it’s intensity that fills those inches – it’s knowing to keep going when you have your opponent hurt. It’s holding someone’s head under water despite their thrashing, because you know that panic is a moment too soon.
Mistress Rex from her post titled ‘Give Her an Inch and She’ll Walk All Over You‘
I’ve observed that being stressed and forced close to their thresholds of tolerance is a common desire amongst submissives. It’s certainly a desire I have in any session I do. No matter what the activity, I like to feel I’m being pushed and stretched in new ways. That I’m going to go further than I have in the past. I hate to stop an activity because it’s too intense for me (and I almost never do), but at the same time it’s never a completely satisfying session if we don’t briefly flirt with that possibility. It’s a very tricky line to walk.
The need to push for this intensity, to inch forward towards that threshold, is one that has bothered me a little. Am I just doing it for stupid macho-sub reasons? To prove that I can do it? And am I going to run out of inches one day? Find out that there is nowhere left to go and I’ve burnt out. Most other activities in life don’t require this kind of dynamic. I love fine dining and nice wine, but I don’t have a constant need to push my boundaries every time I eat in a restaurant. Why is my masochism and submission different?
I think Mistress Rex has helped me answer these questions. It’s about the shifting of will, the relinquishing of power. It’s only in those last few inches that dominance and control is absolutely demonstrated. What happens up to that point is just sensation. It might be interesting or pleasurable (in the masochistic sense) sensation, but it doesn’t cost the submissive anything until it approaches the edge. It’s the extraction of that payment where both the dominant and the submissive find the real satisfaction.
Mistress Rex’s comment about holding someone’s head under water made me initially think of this image, but I posted it because it represents a type of play that quickly pushes me close to some of my personal edges. I struggle with anything that closely covers my face, whether it’s a leather hood or a tub of water, so using this apparatus would be to extract a very high price from me.
The dominant is Isis Love in a Divine Bitches shoot.
I appreciate that you’ve included my writing as a resource on this blog. I will enjoy perusing the various other sites included here.
There is a fallacy to the belief that we are all working toward an ultimate goal that, once reached, ends the game. It’s a limitation of the mind that reverses understanding in order to close off the question, rather than repose it. For example, evolution (that beautiful thing of CHANGE that lets you know time is happening) doesn’t have a purpose or an end. One might say that birds evolved wings so that they could fly, but there was no thought toward it, no effort. This way, it’s finished. Birds fly because they have wings and now the question is open, reposed to consider what’s next… who’s next?
I like your realization that it isn’t until approaching the edge that an experience “costs” the submissive anything. By all reasonable calculations, by that same token there is nothing to be gained, either. I’m not dismissing all the wonderful things that can take place in the wide open space of a playing field. But when anything expands, it is the edges that are reaching out and gaining ground, distancing from the middle.
Thanks for the followup comment Mistress Rex. Glad to see the wordpress trackback system worked correctly and linked the two posts together.
Your point about ‘nothing to be gained’ made me smile, as I had a sentence saying almost exactly that after my original cost comment, but it got written out as I was redrafting that part. Things of value usually come with a price.
The tricky part about evolution is that it might change you in a way you don’t necessarily appreciate or desire. It’s a childish viewpoint I’ll admit. As you say without change there’s no concept of time or progression. But when you’re enjoying a particular section of a journey, there’s always a fear the next bit won’t be as good. Evolution is inevitable, but doesn’t care much for the individuals involved.
– paltego
Isis Love is quite something! A really nice picture that is.
I can definitely relate to what you say here. I felt very much the same way during another phase of my life. I was anxious to try everything I had always dreamed of. Happily I got a chance to sample most things at least once. Some I liked very much. Others pushed me right to the edge. I was happy to make the journey and never regretted trying something new.
Now I am a bit more reserved and feel about D/s play much the way you do about fine wine and dining. I know where my comfort zone is. I know what I like and what I don’t like. I am no longer a client and am happily settled with a life style partner. I think that accounts for a lot of the difference in my attitude.
There’s definitely different starting points for the interaction in pro sessions and lifestyle. In the pro session you have just a few hours to create the right dynamic. The mistress has to build it afresh each time, or at least start from a relatively low foundation for ongoing regular clients. In a lifestyle situation the dynamic already exists, and can evolve far more gradually. Although given I’m not (and have never been) in a lifestyle relationship it’s probably not an area I should attempt to venture opinions on!
However, I will add when I look at (for example) Scott’s latest post (over at Mrs Kelly’s playhouse), he and Em clearly are pushing an edge (with the cage in his case). So it’s not a concept that’s necessarily contrary to a lifestyle situation. As you say, it’s a combination of both situation and life phase.
I should also add (and it probably wasn’t clear enough in the post), that I’m not really talking about extreme play or particularly varied play. Much as like both of those, I think I could have written the same post if I only enjoyed a single activity. For example, even though I have issues with hoods and breathplay, it’s something I return to time and time again. In fact it’s precisely because it’s a difficult thing for me that I return to it. There’s a satisfaction to pushing just that bit further each time. Giving up a little more of myself and placing more trust in her hands.
-paltego