it used to be so simple. i was submissive. all i needed to do was cling to an a-frame, look pretty, and moan sweetly.

ok, yes, there's more to it than that. being submissive, surrendering trust and control to another, is not an easy thing to do. it can be emotionally draining. and there are things you need to learn. being conscious of your own physical well-being, are you having circulation problems, breathing difficulties, becoming dehydrated or exhausted, and maintaining communication with your Dom/me, making sure your Dom/me knows what He or She needs to know about what is happening to you.

but it's relatively simple in contrast to all the things a good Dom/me needs to know. how to tie some one up without cutting off circulation or pinching nerves, how to flog someone without risk of injury, etc.

it quite surprised me to discover how much i enjoyed flogging. and now i'm beginning to think that i just might enjoy rope bondage as a top too. have i gone over to the dark side? i don't think so. while i'm enjoying the flogging and curious about rope, i don't really feel any desire to be the one in control, at least not after my partner steps down from the a-frame or is released from the ropes.

giving a flogging is fun. tying someone up is beginning to look more interesting than i thought it would. but nothing, so far, compares to the buzz i get from being the one getting tied up and flogged. i'm not going over to the dark side just yet. it's kinda fun testing the waters, though.

i got to flog the very lovely L again on saturday night.

i'm finding i'm enjoying flogging a lot. it's an absorbing activity. i become very focused on the person i'm flogging and how they're reacting, and everything else fades into the background. much as it does when i'm receiving a flogging.

i got to receive a flogging too, from the wonderful DC, and enjoyed that very much also. it was only my third session so far this year. i hope it will prove to the the first of many with her.

i also got to experience electro-play again. at first it was quite painful, but later became very enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating. i was quite close to orgasm, i think, but only close! i have never experienced a public orgasm. it's a fantasy, but for now at least it seems destined to remain just a fantasy.

i was going to begin this post by wondering if we kinksters experience a more intense emotional life than our less kinky fellow human beings. then i got to thinking that it might be arrogant to assume that we, or more specifically i, experience anything more intensely than anyone else. can we ever really know what someone else is feeling?

and then i realised that it doesn't really matter. all that really matters is how intense the experience is to us and to the person or persons with whom we are sharing that experience. how it compares or contrasts with someone else's experience of something different is not important.

so i will leave comparisons aside. let's just say that some of the things we do arouse intense physical and emotional responses. when we surrender ourselves to another, put our trust in another, give up control to another, a powerful bond is formed.

and it hurts like hell when that bond is broken.

we are left facing the age-old question, is it better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?

it's an unanswerable question, of course. those who have loved will never know what it might have been to have never loved, and those who never love will never know what it might have been to love.

or as Aslan says in 'Prince Caspian': "We can never know what would have happened, Lucy. But what will happen is another matter entirely."

The power of submission lies not in the ability to kneel before another, to give over one's body or the wearing of a collar. The power of submission can be found only in the heart of one who gives her love to another freely, knowing what joy and pain will come from it. ~Unknown Author