The following talks were given by Jon and Polly to a diverse audience on the IRC channel #surrender_discuss on October 8, 1996. Polly and Jon were asked to speak on the subject "Defining the BDSM Life Style."

Hello, my name is Polly Peachum. I and my master, Jon Jacobs, were invited to speak to you on the subject of Defining the BDSM Life Style by Artful and Natasha, presumably because we are writing a book on submissive women. I'll say more about our book at the end of my talk. For now, please understand that although both Jon and I will primarily speak about and address submissive women tonight, many of the points we make, especially about the S&M subculture, will be relevant to kinky people of both sexes and all power persuasions.

Introduction

It seems appropriate that I am speaking to you first tonight. Although I know that people at various levels of experience and knowledge will be reading this talk, I have chosen to speak on a very basic level about the subject at hand. While some of you may find what I say here to be common, well-known information, please remember that many people new to D&S will find these same ideas new, and perhaps even shocking.

The problem in defining the BDSM life style is that there are really two BDSM life styles. The first is the life style of people actually engaged in full-time power-exchange relationships, living with one another, usually quietly and faraway from the public BDSM subculture. The other BDSM life style is the one you are probably more familiar with: the culture of play parties, IRC, AOL, and most of the infrastructure of the public S&M subculture. Most, but not all, of the people involved in this subculture are engaged in one or another kind of fantasy life, which they are forced to or are allowing to substitute for a real life that accommodates their sadomasochistic needs. A few of them move away from this fantasy world into genuine and permanent relationships. Most, however, are lost forever in the fantasy subculture.

(I realize, of course, that there are people who do not want more than this fantasy, or who cannot, for very good reasons, have more. An example of the latter would be a person exploring D&S desires who also has retarded children that need extensive, full-time care, leaving little time or energy for a full-scale romance or physical exploration of her sexuality. For such a person, an on-line world like the IRC can be a tremendous blessing, as it is her only outlet for expressing her desires. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the fantasy world and the D&S subculture. Far too often, however, the effect of that D&S subculture is that it keeps people from understanding their genuine needs or from pursuing them.)

By making the distinction between fantasy and reality from a number of perspectives, I hope to clarify why actually knowing what is real and what is not is essential, not only if you wish to define what a BDSM life style means for yourself but if you wish someday to live that life style successfully and happily.

My personal experience with dominance and submission is extensive and quite real, and it gives me a very good perspective from which to talk to you about what is real and what is not. Why should this experience matter? An example will make this clear: if someone says to you, "50 hits with a riding crop will make anyone bleed," you may believe that statement if you've never been hit 50 times with a riding crop. You might be particularly inclined to believe this if you've never been hit with anything in your life and all the hitting you'd heard about came from stories or fictional scenarios staged in on-line rooms. However, if you have, as I have, been hit on numerous occasions over 500 times with a riding crop with not even a bruise to show for it, you'd know, from your experience, that the person who made that statement is either a liar, a fool, or a fantasizer. The statements I'm going to make later in this talk about what's real and what's not are quite strong, even challenging. Therefore, I'm first going to tell you about my experience so that you'll know why I say these things with such confidence.

Distinguishing between BDSM reality and fantasy is extremely difficult, if all you've encountered in life is BDSM fantasy, as you have nothing else to compare the fantasy world to, no real experience that enlightens you as to either how true or how steeped in imagination are the attitudes or practices of others. An experience I had a week ago on IRC observing people in a BDSM channel points this out particularly clearly. I'll be describing that directly after I describe my personal history with S&M. I'm also going to provide a few more examples of fantasy BDSM versus the reality after recounting my IRC experience, just to make what I am talking about very clear. Then I'll move on to some of the common, real, and often quite disastrous consequences of spending one's life in a sadomasochistic fantasy. Finally, I'd like to present you with a brief excerpt from our book, a description of a common misconception that submissive women often have about power-exchange relationships. It's another example of a fantasy, a myth about submission, but unlike the fantasies we weave for ourselves in on-line environments, this one is not created for the submissive's and dominant's mutual pleasure. It's a fear that submissives new to power exchange develop based on their perceptions of how the reality of BDSM differs from the fantasy.

Personal History

I was born 38 years ago on the west coast. Like many submissive women here tonight, my earliest memories involve fantasies and play with elements of dominance and submission in them, with myself always in the role of slave. And, like many submissive women, I repressed those desires once I reached puberty and young adulthood. I had boyfriends. I had a girlfriend. I had a 12-year nonkinky relationship which ended in marriage. But through it all my sexual fantasies always involved being controlled, overpowered, beaten into submission, humiliated. In my late 20s I read some sadomasochistic pornography that woke me up. I realized I was a submissive. I realized I wanted a power-exchange relationship in which I was utterly controlled. And, like many others here tonight, not knowing the first thing about what I was doing, about who was out there, about just what was possible and what was only fantasy, I set about bringing this into my life. I did it on line, through a computer.

Unlike many submissive women whom I know, I lucked out. I had almost no bad cyber-encounters. I ran into no predators, no abusers, no fantasizers, no ignoramuses who knew as little or less than I did but who set themselves up as experts. I didn't spend weeks or months involved with someone who eventually turned out to be incompatible. I did not spend years living a virtual life, hundreds of miles away from my dominant. In fact, I found exactly what I was looking for almost immediately. I met the man who has now been my master for seven and a half years within a week of joining CompuServe's kinky message base, Variations II. When I say he's been my master for seven and a half years, I don't mean an email or hot-chat relationship. I mean we've been physically living together for that long (we moved in together about six months after we met). And he's been directly controlling my life for that long.

Seven and a half years is a long time, and I've spent much of that time thinking about what it is like to be a slave, writing about my experiences, and comparing them to those of other submissives. I've realized, over the years, that I have a perspective that, although not unique, is certainly quite rare, at least within the kinky cyber communities and among those who are publically vocal about their D&S experiences. First of all, even after this much time, I'm extremely happy and content. Also, I'm aware that my relationship has been a success, that my master's twin promises--"that nothing barring a physical disaster like an accidental death would ever threaten what we have," and that "You will never escape me"--have come true, despite all my doubts and suspicions to the contrary. In addition, the sense of newness, of specialness, of being in exactly the right place and time, being exactly where I should be and who I should be, has never worn off. Finally, while I have no doubt whatsoever that there are numerous submissives in very private relationships, relationships no one will ever know anything about, who are as at peace and as joyful about their lives as I am, these people seldom, if ever, come into the public eye and speak openly about their lives and experiences. My position as a writer and as the wife of a known D&S author put me in an unusual--and perhaps unique--spot: while my sympathies, understanding, aesthetics, and background all belong to the private, little-seen S&M life style, I myself am in a position of visibility to that other, more public subculture. I am known, in part, by a society with which I don't have much to do with. To paraphrase the sufis, although these circumstances place me very much in the S&M Scene world, I am definitely not a part of that world. Thus, I see myself as a sort of bridge between these two very different worlds.

Private Life Versus Public Life

The reason for the lack of outspoken, experienced, genuine submissives and dominants is simple. The public BDSM life and the people you encounter in the Scene communities, especially as lived over a computer, are perceived by many of those who have experienced the incredible depth of real power exchange for many years as not worth bothering with. The people who have the most experience, who have the most to offer those of us trying to learn and to feel our way through the difficulties and challenges of making a D&S relationship work, take one look at the fantasy-based and ego-driven world of cyber S&M and run in the other direction, never to return. But not because they're sacred of this world, you understand. Rather, they are horrified and repulsed by the alienating, hostile, almost entirely clueless, pathetic, blind-leading-the-blind subculture that makes up most of the public S&M world in the United States. Someone with a lot of real experience looks at the lies people routinely tell themselves and others in the name of thrilling romantic fantasy and she shudders in horror. It all seems so ugly, so desolate, so stripped of anything delicious and real. There is so much wrong with the public side of S&M, that version of the life style, that one barely knows where to begin. If I were to write a 500-page critique of the Scene, I wouldn't even get half finished with what needs to be said.

Luckily for us all, I don't have time to upload 500 pages of critique, one line at a time. But I will give you a couple of topical examples of what I mean.

First IRC Experience

I went onto the IRC for the first time on a recent Saturday night in hopes of getting a feel for the assumptions and attitudes of the individuals I would be speaking to tonight. I entered two BDSM channels at random. I was appalled by what I saw. The level of knowledge and experience out there appeared to be much worse than I had ever, in my darkest moments, imagined. (I have since learned that not all that happens on IRC is as awful as what I observed. But keep in mind that a new and probably confused submissive exploring her interests for the first and looking for answers on a BDSM chat channel is far more likely to encounter the types of people I ran into as those who are more experienced or helpful.) Let me describe, briefly, a few of the things that I observed:

TO CASE or not to case: is that the question?

In both a playroom where scenes were being enacted and in a support room, allegedly there to help new submissive women confused or in trouble, I heard the following advice being dispensed to submissive women: if you're a submissive, you should lowercase your nickname, like this: Polly to polly. No explanation was given about why they should do this, and so, in an attempt to clarify, I asked the support group people if this were some sort of "IRC Hanky Code" (i.e., a system, like the gay tradition of wearing a colored handkerchief in the right (sub) or left (dom) back pocket, that allows others to recognize one's sexual orientation and fetish interests). Apparently it was not, because my question was met with incredulous giggles and chuckles.

So I had to assume that subs are being told regularly to do this lowercasing because most people in IRC chat rooms actually believe it is only right and proper for a submissive to lowercase her name. Am I the only one that finds this belief incredible, even preposterous?

Uppercasing and lowercasing one's nickname doesn't seem like such a big deal, and, in fact, it is a mighty convenient way to identify your place on the power continuum to attractive members of the opposite persuasion (maybe we should call this the "Hanky Panky Code" ;). Unfortunately, this practice suggests to people new to both D&S and IRC that all that submission consists of is a conglomeration of outward postures and attitudes, an idea amplified by many elements of the D&S subculture. Walk the walk, talk the talk, capitalize your name correctly and not only will everyone accept you as a genuine submissive but you will be a genuine submissive. If only it were actually that easy!

The Ugly Clash Between Fantasy And Reality

Reinforcing the idea that submission is composed primarily of an outward pose are the fantasy cyberscenes that so many like to partake of on IRC. I watched one such scene: a "Gorean Whiskey Ceremony." A woman with a lowercase Grecian name enacted a scene right out of one of those John Norman science-fiction novels about the planet Gor. The people watching this scene applauded her as if this were a superb performance of Madama Butterfly--only these people, unlike the average opera audience, apparently were convinced that the act she was putting on (her demurely lowered eyes, her kissing of the cup before handing it to some guy with an Uppercase name, her rubbing it against her bosom and the ritual speech of "May my service please you in every way") represented some sort of D&S reality. Yes, people, this is what BDSM relationships are actually like in the face-to-face world of squalling kids, rush-hour gridlock, and parents in nursing homes. You don't kneel down and find that your middle-aged knees won't hold you because of a sports injury or because you're overweight. You never accidentally catch the "goblet" against your nipple ring, causing you to spill the cold whiskey all over your Lord's "little lord." You're never interrupted in the middle of your pretty "passing the cup" speech by an annoying message on your answering machine from your mom, by your master's beeper going off, or by an angry child banging on the locked paga tavern door while screaming, "Mommy! Tommy won't let me watch Melrose Place!" Your dominant never takes the whiskey glass, takes a sip, and exclaims in disgust, "Bleahhh! Will you PLEASE stop wearing that TERRIBLE tasting lipstick!" Oh, no, none of this ever happens, because this is True D&S, and D&S relationships--as anyone can see from watching our Gorean slavegirl--are magical and perfect.

Many people experienced with cybersex forget that new people, watching such scenes, think this wordplay is the real thing; they think that something like this "Gorean Whiskey Ceremony" is actually how D&S takes place between a dominant and submissive. Years ago, when I was first exploring, I did a few cyberscenes and watched many more. And I, too, developed from my observations and experience a basic confusion between fantasy and reality. Once I participated in an on-line slave auction, and the fellow who "bought" me got to call me up on the phone for a talk session. He told me to go get an ice cube from the freezer and put it between my legs. Having watched and learned from other cyberscenes, I replied "Yes, my lord, I've got the ice cube now. It's wet and slippery between my fingers. Ooohhh, it's so cold! Please can I remove it, etc.," and all this time I never once moved from my chair or did a single action besides hold the receiver and speak. I wasn't trying to disobey the dominant. I wasn't trying to deceive him. I simply had picked up the idea from watching others do cybersex that D&S was done with words only, not with actions. Finally, after about 15 minutes of this entirely verbal ice play, it suddenly occurred to me to ask my purchaser, "Say, did you want me to get a real ice cube out of the fridge and actually touch it to myself?" And do you know what? He didn't know what to say! Apparently, the thought had never occurred to him, either!

To me, the most disturbing thing about cyberscenes such as the one I witnessed on the IRC is that they reinforce the idea that the way one becomes a good submissive is by putting on an act, by pretending to be a good submissive rather than by doing the hard inner work it actually requires. Whoever writes the most poetic or erotic fantasies is the best sub on IRC, even if, in real life, she is actually the most resistant, disobedient, manipulative, arrogant, vanilla little bitch ever to claim to be something she is not! Submission is something inside you, not something you convince others of by faking an attitude. Unfortunately, few on IRC, unless they're lucky enough to run into those few who either have actual experience or are intelligent and lucky enough to figure out the difference between fantasy and reality, realize this very basic fact. A new submissive comes on line, and, wanting attention and acceptance, she emulates the most popular cybersubs, the alpha females, and she moves up in the social pecking order. Then newer subs come on, and they emulate her, and so a grand hoary old tradition of fantasy, of being someone you are not, is perpetuated.

What really put the capper on this little scene for me, however, was what happened when the whiskey-serving was over. When our darling, demure Gorean slave was finished offering up her goblet to the uppercased one, she proceeded to whiplash verbally some poor confused soul who had the nerve (and the bad luck) to wander into the room and say point blank, "I remember when you would enter a room and people would actually talk--about cool stuff." "I remember when one would enter a room and not act like an ass," she jeered back at this rather rudely direct but essentially honest comment (ever notice how hard it is to tell the truth without someone taking offense at it?), to the cheers of her followers. It wouldn't have hurt her, or someone else as experienced with IRC as she appeared to be (she was the room's op), to have told the newbie where to find a room with serious D&S discussion. But instead she chose instantly to go on the defensive and jab back, as this person's rather awkward comment made him a very easy target. New submissives watching this scene get another couple of free lessons: real discussion is frowned upon among popular or seemingly experienced D&Sers, and your submissiveness only lasts until someone ticks you off and you forget to stay in role. But it doesn't matter. As long as you can make those purty little phrases pour onto the screen a few minutes later, you'll be admired--at least by the indiscriminate majority--as one of the deepest submissives who ever lived.

So, in a few short minutes, I learned that if I go into an IRC BDSM channel, I can become real popular if I act like a character out of a misogynistic and terribly written sci-fi novel; that if I make direct or honest comments, I will probably be lynched for them; and that if I want to fit in and be recognized as a True Submissive, I'd better lowercase my name instantly or get used to being called "Sir" all night long, as I was by one confused woman.

Telling them Apart

When such incredible ignorance about very basic ideas exists and is perpetuated by so many in the S&M subculture, those people who want to live a BDSM life style need to make a clear distinction between the fantasy aspects of BDSM and the real aspects. There are hundreds of realizations that make up the process of distinguishing fantasy from reality. Here are a few simple examples that I hope will give you an idea of the scope of this undertaking:

THE FANTASY: Every dominant, everywhere, must always be addressed deferentially as "Sir" (or "Ma'am," if she is female), and possibly, obeyed as you would obey someone who actually owns you.

THE REALITY: Some dominants will hit you upside the head if you dare to address them in this way unless you know them really well. Not only does "Sir" assume a certain familiarity or the existence of a power exchange when none is actually there, but honest dominants do not want to be called by such a title unless they have, in your eyes, earned it.

THE FANTASY: A submissive who doesn't wear a collar is not a True Slave.

THE REALITY: True submissives are made by what they are inside, not by their (or their masters') BDSM fashion sense. A slave is someone who is owned by another--period. If her owner doesn't want her to wear a collar, that slave will not wear a collar, unless she's rankly disobedient.

THE FANTASY: A person who does really good cybersex, who is able to paint delicious erotic scenes with words, is in reality a wonderful dominant or submissive, with profound feelings and extensive experience.

THE REALITY: A person who does really good cybersex, who is able to paint delicious erotic scenes with words, is simply a good or an imaginative writer. To believe otherwise is the same as believing that an actor is in real life the same personality he or she plays on the screen. In actuality a superb BDSM cyberscener may be as vanilla as they get. Or he may be a cop. You will not know anything about such people, you cannot know what they are really like, by watching them spin pretty scenes. You have to get beyond their words, somehow see more of what they're really like. This involves talking to them on the phone. This involves meeting them in real life. At the very least, this involves observing them carefully over a long period of time and questioning them extensively about their real feelings on sexual and other issues.

Moving From Fantasy To Reality

The fantasy D&S life style can be very attractive, especially to those who have not yet experienced the reality. It's incredibly easy to be an "absolute master" if your slave lives hundreds of miles away from you and isn't in your face all the time with resistance, anger, frustration, and other problems of training. It's awfully easy to obey orders over a computer screen or a telephone, as the person ordering you can't really see what you're doing or know how well (or how poorly) you are carrying out each duty. It's a wonderful escape to pretend that you are not stuck in a miserable marriage with a man who cannot satisfy you, that you have three snotty kids or a relatively low-paying job in a small, conservative community and that your buttocks are beginning to respond to the call of gravity. Instead you are Kajira-Tantric, proud and beautiful slave princess of Gor, or Lady Inglenook, beloved possession of the Great Lord Sky Pilot, the domliest dom in all the wide land. And people on line will accept you in the role you paint for yourself, especially if you are creative about it. What a wonderful way out of the drabness of ordinary life the on-line world can seem!

But this land of dreamy dreams does have its drawbacks. Because other people attracted to the same fantasies tend to be like yourself: dissatisfied or deeply unhappy with the reality they have (and also often too scared to change that reality), the types of people you are most likely to meet on line are often very limited in actual experience and the knowledge that inevitably flowers with experience.

Some dominants and submissives who meet over the computer do attempt to take their relationships out of the realm of fantasy. They divorce their husbands and wives. They arrange custody, according to their and their spouses' needs. They move in together and attempt to build a life as dominant and submissive or master and slave. But, after the initial honeymoon period, which can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of years, trouble comes to paradise. Both the new submissive and the new dominant--despite possibly extensive cybersex experience (or perhaps because of it)--are usually extremely ill-equipped to deal with the problems and challenges that are part and parcel of trying to make one of the most difficult kinds of relationships in the world--a power exchange--work.

The problems that come up are quite extensive and complex to describe, but I've noticed that certain predictable patterns tend to repeat. One pattern is that the so-called "dominant" in the relationship, after a number of months or years of acting the role, seems completely to lose his interest in controlling his submissive. He turns vanilla on her, and, if she has sincere submissive needs, she is, sexually, right back to where she was before she met him. Another extremely common pattern--in fact, I would go so far to say it happens in almost every D&S relationship--is that the submissive begins to resist her dominant's control. She doesn't want to obey his day-to-day orders. She finds doing what he says unpleasant. She gets upset when they do scenes together. And, seeing this unattractive behavior in herself, she begins to question whether she really is submissive or not.

There are dozens more problems that pop up when people try to move from fantasy to reality. But often, because they've lived in the fantasy world so long and have been indoctrinated by the fantasy ideology that everything about D&S is easy, they are extremely ill-equipped to come up with workable solutions to the inevitable problems and challenges of power exchange. They don't know what in the world is going on, they don't know why their wonderful dream of bliss is turning into such a horror, and they don't know anyone whom they can turn to for help, as everyone they know in fantasyland is pretty much at the same level of knowledge as themselves. (Remember, the people who really do know a lot about the reality of S&M are usually deeply hidden from the rest of us. They tend to keep to themselves and refuse to become a part of any social Scene whatsoever.) And so what does the beleaguered and inexperienced kinky couple do? Break up, usually. Renounce the BDSM life style as an impossibility--not just for them, but for everyone else, often. Or return to the comforting, false, easy world of cyber relationships--and stay there for good.

The Essential Prerequisite

If you want to define a real and workable BDSM life style for yourself, you must initially do a lot of hard work. You need to get to know yourself very well. You must determine what you really need from power exchange and the type of person that you want in your life. Finally, you must set out somehow to find what you want, to get it into your life, and not settle for anything less, anything second-best. But before you can begin to do any of that, you must take one very important step: you must give up the seductive, addictive fantasy world of BDSM and step out into reality with the rest of us who have struggled and thought and worked hard for what we need. Shedding the comforting cloak of fantasy, just as a child gives up his security blanket when he gets too old for it, is the first hard step that a person who really wants to live a real-world BDSM life style must take. You must realize that most people in the S&M cyber society around you will not take that step, and, in fact, not only do not want personally to take that step but do not want you to take that step, as they feel that your doing something different from them will invalidate their life choices. When you do choose reality over fantasy, you may find--as so many of us before you have--that the seemingly warm, loving family surrounding you suddenly becomes a hostile tribe who close their ranks to you. When you're no longer willing to play their games, to accept them at face value, when you try to dig a little deeper and get at who they really are, many people dedicated to fantasy will start to hate you: you're ruining their fun with all this tedious probing. Expect that, and it won't come as such a shock when it happens. Fantasizers have a right to pursue what they want. Just because you may want reality, this doesn't give you the right to force this choice down their throats. But it's important not to forget that you, also, have every right to get what you want or need. This means that the fantasy players who try to force their attitudes or codes of behavior onto you have no right to do so (and in fact, they cannot do so--unless, of course, you cave into them out of a desire to be liked or admired).

Our New Book

The book I am writing with Jon Jacobs, Submissive Women Speak, is aimed at people at all levels of experience who are interested in dominance and submission. I hope, however, that some of what we write will make that extremely difficult (and often quite lonely) step from fantasy to reality a little easier for those who feel that they need to do this.

Recently, I finished a rough draft of a chapter we are tentatively titling "Myths and Misconceptions." I'd like to present to you right now a short excerpt from that chapter. In the excerpt, I write about what I call The Topping from the Bottom Myth, and it talks about just one of the misunderstandings about submission that a woman often acquires during her time spent in the largely fantasy-based S&M Scene world. This myth is only one of over twenty that are explored in this chapter.

The Topping From the Bottom Myth

The Topping from the Bottom Myth is the idea, held by a submissive woman, that she is really the one in charge of the relationship with her dominant. Whether through covert manipulation or direct demands, she calls all the shots, and her dominant is simply a figurehead. The submissive who believes this myth thinks that she controls her dominant in the same way that she's controlled all her conventional partners in the past. If she has genuine submissive needs, then being in control is the last thing she wants, but she believes that this is the only way things can be, and inevitably she is miserable in the relationship. Of course, some "submissives" do try to manipulate and control their dominants without seeming to. In addition some submissives wind up with non-dominant partners who cannot control them. In such cases, the myth is the reality. The Topping from the Bottom Myth, however, is usually held by sincere submissives who are not trying to control their situations and who have genuine dominant partners who actually control them.

Submissives acquire the misconception that they are in control from a number of sources. One is the Scene, many of whose citizens spend a lot of time spreading this propaganda. Not only do well known Scene personalities intone, in that certain voice that means they are imparting a great wisdom, that "the submissive is always ultimately in charge," but the heavy promotion of safewords, negotiation, and slave contracts in which the submissive makes it absolutely clear what she will or will not do gives newcomers the distinct impression that the powerlessness of the submissive in a power exchange is a sham.

Another source that supports this myth in the mind of a submissive woman may be, strangely enough, her dominant's kindness to her. The submissive who believes the Topping from the Bottom Myth misinterprets such kindness, such interest in her welfare and opinions, as weak, nondominant behavior on her master's part. She, who probably has been suckered by the Sir Steven Myth (described earlier in this chapter), compares her master's behavior to the ways in which she thinks the ideal dominant acts. If her dominant is not cold and aloof, if he is not arbitrary in his commands and completely oblivious to her needs in most matters, if he says "please" or "thank you" to her, if he cracks jokes at erotic moments when she is deadly serious, then he doesn't really own her or control her. It doesn't occur to her that he's being kind or gracious to her because he enjoys doing so; it doesn't occur to her that a benevolent dictator is still a dictator; it doesn't occur to her that most genuine dominants do exactly what they want to do and don't censor themselves to please a submissive's sense of propriety; all she considers is the clash between her fantasy of proper dominant behavior and how her dominant actually acts.

Often an inexperienced submissive won't talk to her dominant about this belief because she fears that he will instantly see its reality and be crushed by the realization (see the Deep Dark Secret Myth, below). And so, in isolation, she builds a case about her dominant's perceived lack of control. She notices every little thing that seems uncontrolling to her; she conveniently ignores or explains away as a fluke all actual dominant behavior that doesn't fit the case she is building.

Of course, some submissives really are manipulative: they do try to control things subtly or obviously, with passive-aggressive and deceiving behavior. If such a submissive's dominant is more conventional than dominant or is extremely inexperienced, she may succeed. But this sort of submissive doesn't generally feel a lot of grief over her table-turning; her taking the control--however deviously--provides her, at least initially, with relief, not stress and misery.

A submissive who feels miserable because she thinks that she is in control could be right: she could be paired with a nondominant person, but it's equally possible that her ideas stem from the Topping from the Bottom Myth and not from reality. A submissive in this situation can learn a lot from talking openly and honestly to her dominant about her belief that she is the one in control and explaining why she believes this. Someone who is actually dominant will be able to explain clearly to her why he does what he does and how this does not diminish his dominance over her one iota. He will also be able to point out all the ways in which she is strictly controlled, which she may have forgotten or denied in her distress over thinking that she's in charge.

As in other areas that involve confrontation with her dominant, if her partner is defensive or angry or unwilling to discuss her belief that she is in charge without a lot of manly-man posturing and arm-flapping, she may have reason to believe, in fact, that she is dealing with a person unable to shoulder the responsibility or deal with the complexities of dominance. A submissive in this situation often feels very alone: terrified that her worst fears about this man and the relationship are true, but not entirely sure, thanks to the vigorous and angry denials of her partner. A person in this situation should try to look for someone whose opinions and insight into D&S relationships she respects and see if he or she would be willing to act as a sounding board, to help her to discover if her perceptions about her relationship are accurate. Before seeking help outside the relationship, however, she must convince herself of the futility of talking to her partner and also prepare herself to hear the worst from the person she seeks advice from.

http://submissivewomenspeak.net/

If you should know of writings by others submissives that you think should be linked to or published on this page, please ask the authors to get in touch with us. We'd love to expand our small library of submissives' writing about submission.

A big thanks to Artful and Natasha for inviting me to speak here tonight. And thank you, everyone, for listening to me. Finally a very big thanks and slavely hug to my Master Editor for helping me turn this mess into a coherent speech.

Polly Peachum

Before taking questions, I'd like first to present my master's speech. He's decided this cutting and pasting is a slave duty while his job is to sit back in his easy chair and smoke a cigar. When his speech is complete he'll come to his computer and then we'll both be happy to answer any questions you may have about what we've said or about our forthcoming book.

Jon's Speech

Hi, there!

Polly has said the bulk of what we want to talk about tonight, but I do have a bit to add. I want to talk some about the two SM life styles, including some good things about the SM subculture--which will probably surprise everyone--about how to tell the difference between the two, and about what is required to go beyond the fantasy SM life style.

First, the good about the public SM subculture. The phenomenal rise in visibility of the public SM world, mostly through the explosion of on-line communication on the commercial computer services and on the Internet, has had one profoundly good effect: it has allowed hundreds of thousands of submissive women who used to believe that their sexual fantasies and needs are unique to find out that they are not. I'm certain that a goodly percentage of the people here tonight can relate to the experience of having deeply felt dominant or submissive needs, believing them--perhaps guiltily--to be secrets that only you have and that must be kept to yourself, and then suddenly coming upon an on-line SM area or a local support group and finding that you're not alone at all, that many people share your desires and fantasies and even act on them. What an exciting and liberating--and shocking--moment that is! And had you not bumped into the highly public SM subculture, you might have gone the rest of your life keeping your guilty needs to yourself. Many, many people have done so over the years. It's a tragedy.

There's no doubt about the fact that the public SM subculture has provided and continues to provide a crucial moment of liberation for many isolated people. It's ironic and sad, however, that the realities of the public SM subculture often lead its newly aware members into an attitude toward their needs--what can be done and what can't, what should be done and what shouldn't--that is in many ways as repressive as the ignorance and confusion in which its members lived before finding it.

This is a shocking idea to many people--no doubt to many people here tonight. They look at the rich panoply of activity in the public SM subculture and feel like hungry children with an invitation to the world's biggest candy store. Why, out there are masters and mistresses, submissives and slaves, Very Important Subcultural Personalities who talk authoritatively and soothingly about what people should do and shouldn't do, support groups and play parties, chat rooms and support channels--what could be better? It's easy to believe--as many of its members do--that anything the scary dominant or little submissive could want or need is out there just waiting to be plucked. Even better, the subculture comes complete with a set of rules and jargon, clear guidelines about how to behave and what words to use--as Polly has pointed out--that can be learned just by watching and listening. And once you learn the basic niceties, there's a comfortable place for you, and you can begin your quest for sadomasochistic satisfaction!

Does anyone here have a degree in or any experience in anthropology? If you do, you'll recognize that there's a name for the sort of subculture that I've just described: mystery cult. Humans have been inventing them--mostly but not always around religious ideas--for at least as long as we have oral history to tell us about. It's a pretty loose mystery cult: very few Scene organizations have the formal initiations, the deadly oaths, etc., that are usually associated with such organizations. Still, it is a mystery cult, with the requisite rigid ideology (based on the rubric "safe, sane, and consensual" and on the belief that the submissive is always ultimately in control), a highly evolved jargon, a rough hierarchy, and all the rest.

For several reasons, it's not surprising that the sadomasochistic subculture has developed into a mystery cult. First is the reason that many mystery cults are born: the need to protect a persecuted minority from the outside world and to provide its members with support and a feeling of safety in numbers and in the possession of knowledge that not everyone has. Secondly, the public hetero SM subculture has been heavily influenced by the development of the gay leather subculture before it, starting just after World War II. These folks, a classic persecuted sexual minority, developed a structure of behavior and organizations that seems to have stood the test of time, complete with hanky codes, initiations, very rigid hierarchies, and a sophisticated symbology. Some of the leaders of the public SM subculture have simply been influenced by the gay leather culture; others seem to be intentionally trying to emulate it.

So what's wrong with all of that? Who cares if the public SM subculture is a mystery cult or a marching band? It seems to work, doesn't it? It does give people a comfortable place to belong, where they find people who seem to understand and support their ideas and needs, people who tell them that what they want is for the most part OK.

What's wrong with that is nothing--for a great many people. Many people don't want or need or simply can't have more than the public SM subculture offers: people whose dominant or submissive needs are relatively shallow, people with deeper needs who can't come to terms with those needs and who will always have to settle for a kind of play acting, people whose real-life situations--families and children and work and other considerations--make any more than the kind of involvement provided by the public subculture impossible.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of people reading their screens right now are confused, angry, or both about what I just said. It implies strongly a challenging and dangerous idea: that the public SM life style, with its IRC and news groups and play parties and support organizations, is actually a shallow and fantasy-based place whose members only imagine that they are engaging in SM in the deepest and most profound sense, which is what most of its members say that they want. Please understand, if you are among the angry or confused, that I am neither attacking nor trying to negate your experiences in and with other people in that version of the SM life style. I understand that many of the experiences and relationships generated by and within the context of the public SM subculture can feel real, profound, even life-changing. In fact, I want to talk for a moment about exactly that, since it is one of the most seductive and for that reason dangerous aspects of that subculture--that life style, if you will.

For the last decade or so I've watched the public SM subculture develop with fascination. I've talked to literally thousands of its members over the years, interviewed hundreds of them, and been in counseling relationships with dozens of them. And I've seen some astonishing ideas develop. Let me tell you a few of them--a few that will no doubt sound very familiar to many reading this, and in which some of you will find yourselves.

* I am the absolute slave of (master of) someone whom I have never met and who lives a thousand miles away from me (or whom I have met a few times, perhaps).

* I am the absolute master of (slave of) someone, but I still maintain my vanilla marriage and continue with my life in many ways just as I did before.

* When I submit to people at play parties or otherwise, I use a safe word and negotiate exactly what I will and will not do, but I still am submitting to the people I play with.

* When I dominate people at play parties or otherwise, I accept safe words and all sorts of limitations on what I can do, but I still am actually dominating the people I play with.

* I only submit to or dominate people over the computer, but I experience real and profound dominant or submissive satisfaction.

* [my personal favorite] the submissive is always ultimately in charge.

My friends, you cannot be the absolute slave of someone whom you seldom or never meet. You may want to be. You may try to be. You may feel as if you are--and more on this in just a moment. But someone who is not with you most of the time, observing your behavior and needs, cannot control you, which is what a master does, if the word "master" is to retain any real meaning at all. Likewise, you can not absolutely control someone whom you never or seldom see.

My friends, you cannot be the absolute slave of someone and continue your vanilla marriage and the rest of your life pretty much as usual.

My friends, when you "submit" to or "dominate" someone in a situation where safe words are used and when limitations are negotiated, you are not actually submitting or dominating at all--you are playing at it.

Is anyone really pissed off yet (g)? Even if you are, stick with me.

If all of what I've just said is true, howcum so many people disagree with me? Howcum so many people do those things and things like them and believe that they are actually owning or owned, actually dominating or submitting? Several reasons.

The first is an ancient human psychological ploy: wish-fulfilment and self-deception. People often feel their dominant or submissive needs deeply and are quite driven by them. Still, very few people view change, let alone drastic and painful change, with equanimity: they want to have their cake and eat it, too, have their dominant or submissive needs met without messing up the rest of their lives, without having to make extremely painful and portentous decisions. What's the solution for a lot of these folks? Pretending and believing. If I want it to be so, it is so. That's wish-fulfilment. If it isn't really working as well as I'd like, then just deny that and plunge on. After all, what I have now is more than I had before, and to have more would mean facing choices that I simply don't want to face.

Wish-fulfilment and self-deception need a lot of support from the real world to work, though, and that support does indeed come from the activities of the public SM life style. This is the seductive part, the dangerous part, the part that leads many people to disaster. People here who disagree with me will say: "But when I do these things, I really feel it! I go places where I've never been before, where I could not go if I were just playing at it. This is real!" In a sense, yes.

The emotions involved in dominance and submission, even in just fantasizing about them, are very, very strong and compelling--no doubt a few people around here have noticed that (g). Perhaps this is because the establishing of and awareness of pecking orders and dominance relationships is so important to most animals, perhaps for other reasons, too, but very strong they are. In fact, they're dynamite. The fact is that just playing around the edges of these emotions, even just playing at them as people do at play parties or with "absolute masters" whom they've never met, can be spectacularly affecting to the people involved. They go into "sub space." They can feel the exhilaration of controlling another person's actions and senses, even if that control is extremely limited. These experiences strike deep into our animal natures and make us feel intensely, perhaps more intensely than ever before; they seem to speak to us directly.

But it's crucially important to realize that that experience is like a kind of masturbation: the profound experience is coming more from inside you, from your imagination and expectations, from the contrast between the way you are behaving sexually and the way you are supposed to behave, from the experience of actually indulging some of your fantasies--no matter how pale-ly--than it is coming from that actual and only prerequisite of the other SM life style, that one thing that must lie at the root of all relationships in the second, often more private, version of the SM life style: the actual--and often the absolute--exchange of power.

I promised in the beginning that I'd describe the difference between the two SM life styles, and I just done did it. In the larger and more public life style of the SM subculture, despite all appearances, the actual exchange of power between two people is rare. In the smaller version of the SM life style of which I've been a part for most of my adult life, power is exchanged, either absolutely or, especially in the early stages of a relationship, experimentally.

It sounds like a simple difference. It sounds as if it ought to be easy to tell a relationship in which power is actually being exchanged from one in which it is not. It should be easy, too, but often it is not. The reasons for this are several. One of the main ones is that the distinction between a situation in which two people have actually exchanged power and one in which they are simply trying to do it but have not accomplished it yet can be subtle--crossing over that line involves changes in the heads of the two people rather than changes in their activities. Another one, sadly, is that many of the denizens of the public SM subculture, including most of its high-profile leaders and gurus, work hard to confuse the issue. Some of this misinformation is unintentional, sown by people who are simply confused. Some of it, alas, is intentional, generated by "dominants" who prey on new and needy submissives and by "experts" interested largely in promoting themselves--I'm sure that most of you can think of a few who might qualify for this last.

If you cannot, let me help you out. Have you read books that tell you that there are X number of Positions of Submission that all submissives must learn? That "masters" and "mistresses" should be addressed thus-and-suchly by submissive people, even if they don't know one another from Adam's aardvark? That negotiations, even between people who know one another well, are mandatory, since eschewing them violates the credo of "safe, sane, and consensual"? Have self-styled experts on line--usually but not always men who say that they are dominant--told you that a submissive is ultimately in control of a scene or a relationship? That love and SM should not be mixed? That he or she is the absolute owner of six slaves, some of whom he or she has never met and most of whom he or she hardly ever sees? That safe words must always be used? That he practices "Gorean slavery"? That relationships of ownership and slavery in the literal sense of these words are either impossible or to be avoided absolutely because they are inherently abusive?

People who tell you that sort of thing are describing correctly a certain reality: the stylized, fantasy-based reality of the SM life style which most sadomasochists in this country practice. It's all perfect nonsense, of course. There is no list of Positions of Submission. People ought to be addressed by their actual names, except in special and rare circumstances in the context of real relationships. Negotiations, safe words, and the idea that the submissive is ultimately in charge are ideas generated by people whose lives are dedicated to play parties and play relationships where responsibility, like power, remains fundamentally unexchanged. In the most successful and happy SM relationships, love and sadomasochism are inseparable--love must exist in any relationship that is longlasting and happy. It is a profound and constant challenge genuinely to own one person; someone who tells you that he or she owns two or five or nine is really telling that he or she owns nothing at all except a fervid imagination. Anyone who tells you that they practice "Gorean slavery" and have done so in real life for more than a few months is almost certainly lying to you. And ownership and slavery, in the literal senses of the words, are both possible and, for many people, mandatory for happiness.

But you know what? All that silliness, all those imagined rituals and silly orthodoxies can be fun for people--if those people are unable or unwilling to have the real thing--or are uninterested in having the real thing. As I said above, for many people the play world, whether at a play party or in a full-time relationship, is just dandy. More power, as it were, to them (g). So what's my beef, eh?

My beef is that the overwhelming power of the ideas promulgated by the public SM subculture hurt a great many people, people who need more than fantasy play in their lives. There are a lot of those people, too. And they get eaten up by the public subculture in many ways. Here's the worst of 'em.

Remember that submissive woman I talked about above who has had submissive fantasies all her life but who, like lots of people, represses them because she thinks that they are sick and in any case that nothing can be done about them? Then one day she is surfing the Net and happens upon an SM-oriented page, which leads her to an SM channel on IRC or to alt.sex.bondage or another kinky news group. Remember what a wondrous revelation comes over her! Here are the people who understand her needs and who don't think they're sick! And she begins to explore the possibilities.

Now, let us say that this woman is a woman of unusually deep submissive needs. A woman whose fantasies and dreams are not just about being spanked or whipped or tied up or having enemas forced on her or any of the rest. Her fantasies go beyond that, to an absolute exchange of power, where she is genuinely owned by a man or a woman who has both the need and the ability to own her and who also loves her dearly. This woman is newly hopeful that her needs can be met by someone out there in the public SM subculture, and she goes searching in many ways. She talks to other people about her fantasies. She goes to play parties and support groups, where she is welcomed with open arms. She reads books and pamphlets. And, far more often than not, here's what she finds.

She finds people and publications that tell her that what she wants is either impossible or sick or both. She finds people who claim that their relationships are wonderful, exactly what she has in mind, but when she actually gets to know these people, she finds that their relationships are not as described--that the people are either living a palpable and obvious fantasy or that their glowing descriptions of how they live are dishonest, that their relationships are dysfunctional and unhappy. Or she may meet "dominants" who make many promises on which they don't deliver.

What a position to be in! Her brave new world of hope is suddenly and cruelly dashed on the rocks of the reality of the public SM subculture, and so, in the end, she gives up any hope for what she really wants and needs and either withdraws back into denial or settles for a fantasy relationship that may or may not be better than nothing. There are lots of people like this woman, folks, who have been mortally wounded, in an emotional sense, by the ideology and practice of the SM subculture. I've dealt with them in counseling--and, believe me, they are often irrevocably lost.

This woman I'm describing has a sister who is also a victim of the public SM subculture. In fact, Sister is considerably more common than the woman I described above. She comes into the subculture with no sense at all of the depth of her submissive needs. She joins in the fun, and she enjoys it. But genuine internal exploration, while the SM subculture pays lip service to it, is not something that is really encouraged. This woman is absorbed by the subculture and its ideology and values, and what she might have been if she is in fact profoundly submissive, the joy and satisfaction that she could have found if encouraged honestly to explore herself and if supported in the process, is never hers.

I'm willing to wager that there are people here tonight who fit both descriptions. It's a damnable shame.

Let me put this bluntly. A woman with deep submissive needs, the kind of woman who needs to be owned to be happy and fulfilled, is far more likely, at the mercy of the public SM subculture, to be the victim of an abusive and manipulative man or woman posing as a dominant than she is to find a man or woman who will actually be her loving life partner and who can and will give her the control that she so desperately desires. That's not something that we ought to be proud of.

I want to talk for a moment about the other SM life style. As I said above, there's only one crucial difference between the public SM life style and its alternative: the actual exchange of power. Simple idea, right? Sure. But what the hell does it mean?

People involved in the public SM life style use all sorts of words that describe what they do that imply that power has been exchanged: mastery and slavery, dominance and submission, ownership, control, helplessness, many more. But, although it's popular in the subculture to twist the meanings of those words so that they seem to fit activities supported by the subculture, so that they support the fantasy of the exchange of power, in fact very little of it goes on. This is another unpopular idea; nevertheless, it's a fact.

If you go to a play party and negotiate with a dominant what he may or may not do to you and then you "submit" to activities entirely obedient to the terms of the negotiation, you are giving up no power at all; you are controlling the activity from beginning to end, even though you do not always control each specific event that occurs within it. If you like that, great--I have no bone to pick with you whatever. Just don't pretend that it is what it is not. If you sign a "slave contract" with a dominant that says what he controls and what he does not, what he is allowed and what he is not, then you remain in control of the relationship to a degree that precludes any genuine exchange of power. If you have a scene or a relationship that includes a "safe word" whose effect is to stop whatever is occurring when you speak it, then who is really in ultimate control? 'Tis you.

People living that other, usually more private, SM life style eschew any situation where any control at all remains in the hands of the submissive--although, particularly in the early stages of the relationship, they may accept certain limits, especially limits of time, until they are are sure that they want to make final commitments of ownership to one another. There is supposed to be enough trust and intimacy between them that the absolute commitment of control or helplessness is possible. And, while just making the commitment to helplessness and absolute ownership does not create helplessness and absolute ownership in an instant--does not make out of whole cloth that genuine exchange of power--it is the beginning of the process of creating it. People who make that final and irrevocable commitment to one another and who then make the relationship work are without a doubt the happiest and most satisfied people in the SM world--in fact, they are as a group the happiest and most satisfied and contented people whom I have ever met.

What is living this life style like? Well, aside from the fact that it always involves an actual exchange of power, people living this life style often share very little with others living it. The hallmark of the people living this life style is that they create their own shared and very individual realities. They do the things that work for them, not the things that self-appointed SM gurus tell them are the things that "all BDSM people do." Although there are a few emotions, attitudes, experiences, and difficulties that most such couples have in common, beyond these very basic matters there is very little that all of us share. How people actually live in such a relationship is ultimately decided by the ideas, intelligence, experience, and character of the dominant, leavened by the same qualities of the submissive, as well as by the particular package of emotional difficulties that the submissive brings to the relationship. The submissive's life may be anything from that of a cloistered house slave to that of an active and aggressive woman of and in the world who is yet absolutely submissive to her owner. There are endless permutations--whatever makes the two of them happy is what they do. It can be permanently glorious.

So how do you, as a submissive woman, know if that sort of life is right for you? And if you decide that it is--if the version of the SM life style that is for you is one where you are absolutely owned by your loving dominant--how do you go about creating that kind of life for yourself? Just as important, how do you avoid the pitfalls of trying to create that sort of life for yourself (serious dangers lurk in these waters)?

In the answer to that question lies an irony and a paradox. One of the characteristics generally shared by profoundly submissive women is the desire to be little: to be without ultimate responsibility, to be loved and controlled almost in a parental sense. And yet, before such a woman can be little, she has to be very big indeed. She has to take a difficult and often searing inner journey to decide if the life of a slave is something that she absolutely needs (if she doesn't really need it, she ought not to mess with it). If she decides that such a life is for her, she faces the daunting prospect of finding, in the SM wilderness, the master or mistress who is right for her. All of this requires taking the kind of responsibility for self, the ability to make difficult decisions that, good or ill, will change her life forever, that are precisely the kind that she often wants to do away with entirely. And she'd better make her decisions well, too.

So how does our profoundly submissive woman go about all of this? Glad you asked (g).

That inner journey, through which she must know herself well enough and be absolutely honest with herself, must usually be made more or less alone, alas. There may be friends who can help her, if she is lucky there may be a couple who is in a genuine power exchange or at least whose members are not hostile to the idea and who understand it, who can help. But the most obvious way--becoming involved with the myriad "dominants" and "mentors" who populate the public SM world--is something that she should avoid. Many of these folks have agendas of their own, and they are less interested in helping the submissive to know and discover herself than in getting her clothes off her and bending her over the nearest hassock. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but how can she know that the person whom she's relying on for honest counsel and insight is either honest or insightful? She cannot.

The details of that inner journey are a subject far too complex to address here in any more detail than Polly and I have. We'll certainly be dealing with it in Submissive Women Speak. But its outlines should be pretty clear.

So let us say that our submissive woman's inner questioning is done and that she has decided that her happiness lies in exchanging power, in giving up control of her life to another person. What now? Unfortunately, things get even harder.

The challenge of finding a man or a woman whom she can love and who can love her, who needs to own another person as badly as she needs to be owned, and who has the emotional maturity to pull it off is daunting. What such a woman must do is to make her interest known anyplace where she imagines such a person might be watching. Yes, it's true that most of those places are the strongholds of the public SM subculture: support groups, educational organizations, interest areas on line, and even (shudder) SM clubs and munches. That those are basically the only places to look for such people, outside of a chance encounter in the Piggly Wiggly, is part of why the task is so daunting.

Having made her interest known, our hopeful submissive will be deluged with offers from putative dominants, all glad to give her "exactly what you're looking for." Anyone here ever experienced anything like that (g)? Some of these people are lying to her, trying to get her bent over that ubiquitous hassock. Others who respond to her believe that they can offer what she needs; it's most likely that all of them, inculcated with the ideas promulgated by the public subculture, are wrong. They'll be happy enough to play with her, and they probably like the idea of owning someone, in theory. But are they capable of it? Do they have their emotional shit together enough to do it? Do they really want the responsibility, day after day and year after year and decade after decade, of absolute power over another person? Not bloody likely. The person who might be for our girl is the one who meets all of those prerequisites and who really needs to own a woman; anyone with less than that real need will poop out pretty quick.

Hard as it is, our submissive woman must keep looking, fending off the bozos and the poseurs and the honest people who really don't understand what she means by a permanent exchange of power. She may be able to get some help from a couple who is living the life that she wants to find for herself and living it successfully. Such a couple may be able to help her enormously in her search--if she can find one. If she has someone in mind to help her, though, it's crucial that she see their relationship as it is--not as they say it is--and be certain that what they have together is fundamentally similar to what she wants for herself.

What to look for in an owner and how to tell if someone is the right person is too complex a process to talk about here in any detail, and, in any case, I've talked long enough for one evening. Perhaps we can go into it at another time; we certainly will do so in our book.

To conclude, then: there are really two SM life styles, one the life style of the public SM subculture and the other, often very private, of the actual exchange of power between two loving people. One is relatively easy to become involved in and to enjoy, the other much more difficult (although both have their dangers). Each of them is fine for the right person. Either can be emotionally deadly and physically dangerous for the wrong person.

If you like the public SM subculture and if it's all you want or all you can have, enjoy yourself to the fullest. Remember, however, that there are others out there who are not cut out for it and who you may be able to help by telling them that they have alternatives. If you think that you may be someone who would thrive within the strictures of a permanent power exchange, know that it is possible to make such a life for yourself if you do the hard work that is necessary first. And all of you: remember that being absolutely honest with yourself, not letting yourself wiggle away from the tough questions about yourself, is the surest way to happiness.

I'd like to thank Artful and Natasha for having us tonight. Polly and I would be happy to answer any questions about what we've said tonight.