Don't Check My Box... For Once, This Isn't Innuendo.

We’re renegades, right?  Living on the edge in “polite” society; celebrating our sexuality in everything from secret basement dungeons to large lobbies in convention sized hotels.  The way we strive to live and love embodies the spirit of freedom and empowered choice. 

Why then do we find ourselves blindly wandering into the pitfall of over defining our relationships?  If indeed we are truly free and consent and choice are almighty, why isn’t choosing each other enough? 

For years now, it had been my preference when I am engaging in S&M play to make my play partner hold on to equipment rather than to restrain them so they ‘had to’ remain in place.  I connected the visual of choosing to remain in place to be a hyper-erotic demonstration of choice.  I’ve been engaging more in bondage lately, which has been über hot, but a whole other tale. 

I’ve never been a fan of the traditional notions of marriage, but I’ve formally collared a submissive.  What could be more ‘traditional’ in our community?  Even thinking on it as I write, I’m still more titillated by the idea of someone wearing my locked collar than a gold wedding ring.  But aren’t they similar concepts from different worlds? 

When it all comes down to it, the couple that seeks legal marriage, the dominant and submissive that enter into a collared relationship, the top that gets off on a pronounced display of submission, or the bottom that feels most at peace in bondage; the emotional commonality in all these scenarios is security.

There is a well trafficked kink website which offers the ability for users to use a drop down menu to add varying relationships; lover, toy, dominant, in a leather family, in a rope clan, owner, daddy, sister, brat, keyholder, girl, boy, pet, trainee, slave, sadist, mistress, etc…. and some utilize this function to add the people they are connected with and define them with most of these descriptors.  While I think some of these identifiers help us more easily recognize the compatibility of a potential partner in crime, I have come to believe this ultimately does a disservice by teaching people into a notion all relationships have to be highly classified.  

I also believe those of us who are dominant in D/s lifestyles might have a more difficult time floating with the ebb and flow of relationship tides.  After all, we're supposed to be the guide and know what's happening now and two steps into the future at all times.  Usually, that's our nature which serves us well.  We can shape a scene.  We can also invest in tomorrow, but we can't really shape tomorrow.

Being very specific is also a by-product healthy polyamorous relationships, and I feel this is a basically a positive way of being.  In our home, all matters of love and sex are discussed clearly as possible.  Potentials are outlined, feelings and thoughts are gathered, and futures are mused upon.  But within all the methods of being concise, sorting, and all the definition boxes one can check online, I’ve discovered living in the moment is sometimes lost.

In bed yesterday after some sublimely pleasurable BDSM play and intimacy, resting forehead to forehead with someone for whom I care deeply,  I experienced the moment of peace, happiness, and comfort where you want to exhale aloud.  

And I did.

With my intake of breath, I started to think, “This feels so good.  What are we?  What is next?” but made a conscious decision to stop musing about a story that has not been written. Feeling the person next to me nuzzle and contentedly sigh, it reaffirmed the present was the best place to be. 

I’ve learned to be wary of squinting into the sun looking toward a shimmering tomorrow, as I will be blinded.  And if you want to check the boxes on the kink site, I’m Lady Justice:  dominant-Master-bosslady-owner-sadist-Goddess-lover-whatever, etc., etc., etc.  If that makes you happy, that’s fine, but I’m at a point in my evolution, where I have realized (with help, thank you to you-know-who), I want to be just Kim; and exploring loving, nurturing, kinky, relationships without classifying what we are, other than invested in each other.