“Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.” – Essays in Love by Alain de Botton.
strength
“Don’t wish me happiness. I don’t expect to be happy all the time… It’s gotten beyond that somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor. I will need them all.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea.
People who know me tend to equate me with strength. Which I definitely appreciate, as it’s something I pride myself in being.
But, I think I’ve developed such a thick skin that it is hard for the people around me to realize how I can hurt. Because I do believe that underneath the resilience, the self-reliance, the nose to the grindstone sort of attitude I have, the flippancy and all of that is a lot of sensitivity and a lot of sweetness that maybe gets overlooked. My therapist says I have trouble being really, honestly vulnerable with people, especially when feelings are at stake. I agree. I also simply do not allow myself to be anything less than strong. I’ve got this headspace where I can’t show people my actual vulnerabilities because to do so would be unacceptable.
Part of submission that appeals, then, is that ability to be vulnerable. To be sweet and gentle and devoted and sensitive and not have that mistaken for weakness. Maybe it’s partially a coping mechanism – a safe frame within which I can actually be vulnerable rather than in a normal life situation. But, I don’t know. It helps me express a lot of what I keep buried under the surface.
I’m not nearly as fragile as I’m allowed to be. I’m given permission to collapse, to surrender, to let the cracks deepen until the secrets and fears and insecurities come oozing out. But, I’m nowhere close to being that breakable.
I’m sensitive, but I’m not inconsolable. I’m submissive, but I’m not codependent. I’m pliant, but I’m not weak.
To no one in particular, but perhaps to a good crowd: real domination is not grabbing someone by their insecurity, it’s grabbing them by their strength. It’s not about using or patching up vulnerability, it’s about allowing something unyielding and independent the opportunity to surrender. And there is the prize: controlling something that can very well control itself.
L’Accès ..*
Basically.
But that doesn’t mean I like handing control over to everyone. I am in no way chewing one of my followers out when I say that a comment made on a post I made about being sassy to someone who doesn’t own me got me thinking. Paraphrasing, the follower said that he was grateful that ballgags were around to put bratty subs like me in their place.
This was in reference to a person in my frat, who had told me that liked to dominate women, and who I decided to be a little mean to. Once again, I was not terribly offended by what the follower said, and I got the joke. But, it reminded me that I’m not submissive to everyone. And thank God.
There are people with terribly submissive personalities. I don’t think I’m one of these people. I consider myself driven. I believe that I am intelligent. So, no, when some guy makes a cheesy comment to me, I have a right to be sassy and not just melt into the kid’s arms at the first mention of interest. And I exercise it.
I’m not owned by everyone. I’m not submissive to everyone. That’s what makes the experience of someone being able to consensually tackle my strength and control me so powerful.