This week's Weekender Question comes, once again, from David:
Is there anything about the whole BDSM 'scene' that bothers you?
I haven't had very long to think about this question, and I think I'm going to have to defer it to next week. I have an answer, but not one I can properly back up at the moment. My answer will probably anger quite a few submissives out there, and we don't want that unless I can give well explained and researched reasons for my point of view. So I'm going to mull over it for the rest of the week and then on Sunday I'll write down my thoughts, well explained or otherwise.
So, to keep you all entertained, and to give a point to this post, I'm going to go a little into what's been happening over the last few weeks. Both Sean and I have been through a bit of a rough patch, but we've come out on top. We've been together for six years, and in that time we've had a couple of rough patches. Mostly, they've been due to the feeling of "being in love" disappearing. I don't really want to go into it here, here isn't the place. If you want to read more about it, you can read about it on my Black Dog Blog (Also called "Mel's other blog" in the sidebar). In the end we managed to open up the communication channels - a thing that has been closed between us for too long - and the result of that is that we're now more able to talk to each other openly, even about very serious issues. That's something that is essential in this lifestyle, we think. After last week's Weekender ("Where do you want to be in five years time?") I had been thinking about Sean's point that he wants "a much larger list of rules that we have both agreed upon". I've been wondering about what sort of thing would constitute as a rule.
We currently have five basic rules, and they serve as a basis for a subtle change in the way we both live our lives. As Sean has put it recently, he wants our rules to be generic, to be the way the law should be: There should be a small list of generic rules (Eg "Don't kill people"), which gets expanded upon in a separate rule book (Eg "Don't kill, but it is okay to kill if you're a soldier"). So at the moment, our rule list is rather generic, easy to remember and perhaps not in detail enough. This is probably what inspired the comment on the current rules post from a person who, rightly, chose to remain anonymous: "Poor amateures...". Of course we're amateurs! (I'll leave my ranting to be put in another post. Perhaps the one that I'll be writing on Sunday...)
I look around at various websites and lifestyle blogs and I see many submissives or masters who post a huge list of rules. Some total to more than 100 individual rules. I'll gladly sit there and read them, take on board some of them as they seem to be a good idea, and then disregard the rest and spend my time wondering if the submissive actually manages to keep to all of them all of the time. Of course, for spankos, perhaps the idea is that they only keep to some of them some of the time... but then where is the respect in this? I'd want a list of rules that, given time, I'd be able to keep to all of the time. Rules, in my mind, are there to make life easier for both the master and the submissive. I'd happily have some rules that tell me what I should be doing each day. But, as I've realised recently, I thrive on regime so while it'd suit me to live that way it probably wouldn't suit many others.
Well, two new rules that we have come up with, which need to be refined before they are added to the list, are:
- I must shave at least once a week, or more if there's a special occasion that demands it, or Master asks. I'm not big on keeping myself smooth, so this will be a challenge for the first couple of weeks. By the way: read here about how to keep yourself from getting razor burn "down there".
- I will sleep on the floor once a week. During my birthday celebrations, I slept on the floor at Sean's feet and found out that I really enjoyed it. He also enjoyed a very good night's sleep. So each Sunday that's what I'll be doing. If I've been a bad girl, I may even be bound. We chose Sunday because Sean has a 9 o clock start on Monday, while my Mondays are lecture free
Like I said, they need some work but in the end they'll be added to our list. I think possibly a
new weekly/fortnightly feature we'll run for some time is exploring D/s rules, either by me finding rules pages and writing my own opinions about them, or by readers telling us about their rules and what they mean to them. I might even approach some bloggers who I read regularly to get their opinion. I think this would be a good exercise. (And making it a weekly feature means I can't skimp out of doing it.)
So if you're in a D/s relationship, why don't you share your rules and your reasons behind them? I know I'd like to read your responses, and with your permission I'd like to expand on it. You can give your opinions in the usual way: leave a comment or
send a mail.
Can't wait to hear from you!
