self-mastering

Recently someone said to me 'In order to be a true slave you have to be a master of yourself....' [more >>]. Fundamental truth or common place? Is this simply a cleverly worded maxim in the trail of such statements as "you must love yourself before you can love someone else" or is there a hidden truth behind it.

The problem i have with statements such as this one is that they hint to a black and white reality where there is a way that is right and one that is wrong. There are true slaves (who do the right thing) and fake slaves (who don't do the right thing). i have no idea what a "true slave" is. i'm not really trying to learn to be something that i'm not and the slave definition seems to fit me not because i try to become it but because it seems to be right for me.

i admit that my need to be owned is strictly linked with my seeking something that is not within me. There is a need for me to be taken over by somebody else because i don't want to do it myself and for the "master of myself" to be someone other than me. Frankly i fail to see why, if i was master of myself, i would be seeking to stop being it, in order to pass that role on to someone else.

Clearly, the need for me to be owned stems from a manifest instability that characterises me in the absence of a master. As an unowned slave i feel void, empty, unfulfilled. I truly rejoice in the service of another man and i'm coming to terms with it being my nature without feeling that i must force myself to be any different.

i realise it's a condition that makes me vulnerable and non autonomous but, quite frankly, i'm not even sure i fully understand what it means to be master of yourself. How do you know that you've mastered yourself, that you've got to that stage. It seems to me that a lot of people who are not as vulnerable are often shielding themselves behind a fantasy, a facade, an image of themselves that could, upon deeper analysis, come crumbling down taking with it this perception of being masters of themselves.

We all need something and we all usually reach out to find that something that we miss. That's what makes us sociable animals: we thrive in the interaction, not the isolation. So, maybe, the fact that i can't be self-sufficient doesn't make me a good or a bad slave. It just makes me a slave.

mickey of finland

i sometimes read or see photos of the elaborate, extreme scenes that people live or fantasize about and i feel a little like i'm at the crossroad of BDSM and Disneyland, caught between a dungeon and a cartoon, my own fantasies being so peaceful and uncomplicated sometimes. In my head, for instance, the image of happiness is the idea of curling up to sleep on the floor at my master's feet while he comfortably sits on the sofa watching tv or reading a book. One of his feet maybe snugly warming up between my legs and the other under the curve of my neck.
i don't need much more.

break in

yesterday my flat was broken into.

The extent of the loss is limited. It appears likely that one person might have easily gained access to our flat through a flimsy door with hardly any locks in and, after realising that one of my flatmates was home, left with whatever little they could get their hands on, meaning a powerbook and 2 dead iPods. Full mac-loot.

As a result i'm now carrying my own laptop around with me which gives me the chance to blog my way to work sitting on the tube.

Recounting these events to my master, i was taken aback but immensely touched by how bothered he was at the thought of his boy living in an unsafe flat. His concern made me feel protected and safe. It was the best feeling ever.

back

My master is back and is fine. i feel stupid having felt so concerned but i had no idea what to do.

With my previous long-term owner, things ended pretty much this way. For a long time i didn't see him. Over this period he kept saying that he still wanted to have me as his slave and he was just busy. i was happy to wait because his declared wish to own me was enough to fuel my already strong desire to belong to him. Unfortunately after an absence from my life of almost three months he "came clean" and told me he didn't want a regular slave anymore.

Over this 3-month period, people had told me "what are you waiting for, just change your profile to say you're available" but i just felt i couldn't do it. If i was to be set free, i felt he had to do it, he had to tell me or at least i had to ask and he had to ok it. i couldn't just go and say "ok, whatever, see you around". But i didn't want to ask to be set free, because i didn't want him to set me free.

So it came as quite a disappointment when he informed me about how he felt and told me that he had been hesitating to tell me because he was feeling badly about it. i felt i had waited all along for someone who hadn't wanted me as a slave and i ended up feeling very low as a result.

My current master's silence brings with it echos of this past experience and although i'm happy to wait while i'm not needed, all those past insecurities and fears of abandonment are being stirred up. i understand the need for me to deal with those without expecting that he should do it for me but i can't help missing him and feeling the weight of the distance. These days it feels like he's very far.

the vanishing

My master has vanished. Disappeared. No message gets answered, no phone call gets picked up. Beside feeling like an abandoned slave, i'm feeling like a worried slave. He hasn't been online at all for a very long time and i fear that something might have happened. i try to wait quietly to be called upon but i'm feeling restless, my brain is working overtime. This seems so out of character, i wish i at least knew he was ok.

welcome to fuckknows

The other day someone i know told me that "men are from venus, slaves are from... fuck knows". This sums up his frustration with slaves who arrange to meet and then cancel or simply don't show up. Maybe calling these people "slaves" is stretching the definition or maybe not. My comment to him was that perhaps he needed to refine his screening process, spend a little longer getting to know these people before he arranges to meet or even restrict the range of people he agrees to meet.

Personally, i can understand why a slave would arrange a meet and then have second thoughts. But that's because i, too, am from Fuckknows. Sometimes it might be because your rational side is raising its ugly head pointing out that it's not sensible to go and meet someone you don't know and give them so much power over you, shifting something like this from an online fantasy to a real-life meet can be difficult or sometimes you might find your desire to submit so overpowering that it scares you and you feel that you need to work it out, or run away from it. Whatever the reason, this sort of behaviour, my friend tells me, seems to be quite common in slaves, or in any case, in people on the submissive side of the spectrum.

i have never been stood up by a master. i have been in contact with a good deal of procrastinators and have learnt, from my experience, that those who postpone never tend to arrange an actual meet. Of course that's not a rule fixed in stone but there's a trend there. But stood up, never. Perhaps because generally the people i arranged to meet were those interested in going a little further than a shag or maybe because masters don't stand slaves up. They are in control of things and don't have as much to lose. Let's face it, if you're going to meet a psycho serial killer, it's best if they're the ones cuffed to the radiator.

Personally, i don't think i've ever cancelled an appointment with a master, unless i had just had surgery or was very ill. i've certainly never stood someone up that i was supposed to meet. And that's not because i'm such a good slave and a great guy but because i have this strong sense of duty that's ingrained in my brain and it's something i find it hard to get away from. i finish what's in my plate and i don't stand people up. In my head the 2 are connected. But that's because i am from Fuckknows.

But what interested me about my friend's comment is that it suggested this opposition between masters and slaves that's generally used for men and women: i.e. suggesting these are 2 types of individuals that can never understand each other.

i wonder if that's true: that a slave can never understand what's going through a master's mind and, likewise, that a master has no clue what slaves are all about, that the 2 only just click, are attracted to each other like positive and negative charges. Maybe it's just this guy, i don't know. i do generally think that the men that i find myself drawn to, i.e. the masters who don't switch, are far removed from my galaxy. Nowhere near my native Fuckknows. Sometimes my behaviour pleases them and sometimes it angers them and i often feel unable to know in advance which it's going to be. Through training i can learn what is expected from me, but without the training, without being told what it is that i have to do, i'm totally lost. Beam me up, Scotty, we're heading back to Fuckknows.

norms of behaviour

This one is quite a dilemma that i have found myself wondering about many times.

A slave who doesn't get to be used very often will inevitably miss seeing his owner. Should he:-

1. Be honest and express his desire to see his owner and, in this way, risk bothering him by appearing to be pushing his agenda and forcing an encounter. After all, it's only fair that the master should call upon his slave when he decides, and not the other way around and if a slave wants something, that his master doesn't want, there's a problem somewhere.


2. Patiently wait to be called upon and, in this way, risk giving the (false) impression that he doesn't much care, that he can function perfectly well regardless of his owner's presence and fail to show his master how he feels.

the proud shopper

My first taste of winter this year was an easygoing weekend in Berlin where i went to visit a master friend, or a friendly master, i have known for some time. As he's welcomed me into his home and his daily life, introduced me to his friends and kindly spent a considerable amount of time and patience giving me a comprehensive and time-efficient tour of his city, i mostly followed him around taking in all the stimulation that the city provided in such a short amount of time

As this short break had been planned since before becoming owned, i felt thankful that my Master didn't ask me to cancel it to remain at his service but also guilty and a bad slave for going on a holiday and not being present and available to serve him.

A fair amount of the stimulation that Berlin provided was in the kinky arena. Notably due to the company but also because the city seems to drift naturally towards the fetish way of life. The streets are awash with skinheads at every corner and kinky stores are not hard to come by. Ok, maybe we were lingering in certain parts of town but the point is another. What was refreshing about those stores is that, differently from London, all the shop windows were clear, the doors were opened, the inside was visible from the outside. There was no attempt to shield pervy customers from the incidental onlooker. I liked that. If fit well with my current attempt to fully accept the slave in me and it was a welcome change from London where entering a fetish store is not unlike setting foot in an underworld of perversion where you feel you should hide from regular god fearing folks outside. i found that liberating if on a slightly consumeristic, shopoholic level.

mirrors

I sometimes find it eerie seeing myself portrayed in what people say about me. It's like looking in a mirror and, each time, seeing a different reflection. Understandably (perhaps) people assume that the version of me they can see is the one that everyone sees, that that's me, that i'm one person no matter who i'm with.

Some know me as a friend, others as a slave. A boyfriend, a son, a brother. A neighbour. Some know me from school, some from this blog. Some know me as a co-worker others as a patient. Some find me bossy, others submissive. Polite and rude, accommodating and immovable. Too playful. Too serious. Immature, experienced. Some have met me at a party, others in a chat room. Some have given birth to me and raised me and others have taken me and turned me into something else. Some have known me for 5 minutes and others for a lifetime. Some who've known me for years feel that they don't know me that well. Others who have met me 5 minutes ago swear they know me inside out. It's not unusual for those who've known me for 5 minutes to feel that they know me better than those who've know me for a lifetime. Sometimes they're right. Often they're not.

But whereas people come in contact with one version of me, i am confronted with all those different reflections where every time i'm put in a different box, classified under a different label. But some of these labels burn and leave marks that stay for a long time. For ever, even, piling up confusingly one over the other.

Fortunately, in the midst of all this chaos, a selected few can, with one word, bring peace and order all around me again.

the blog bites back

When you pour your heart into a blog, it makes you vulnerable. Vulnerable to attacks and opinions voiced at you from people you don't know and can't even see. i guess it's a form of exhibitionism, not unlike the thrill of letting go of your defences in submitting.

It can be arguably interpreted as a form of self-destruction. Or, fail that, maybe it simply makes you stronger. A slave's strength, after all, is in the acceptance of his weakness, his choice to vent it rather than shield it.

But at times, certain attacks make all the difference. There is something brutal about being attacked by somebody you don't see, somebody who seems to have found a weak spot and lashes out at you under cover of anonymity. And suddenly it makes you snap out of your submissiveness, react, revolt. The unfairness of it makes you angry and it feels like you can't take it anymore.

After all, being a slave, for me, is about submitting to the man who owns you, not taking abuse from anyone who's up for dishing it out.

noise

People give me grief about being "a slave who thinks too much". These people would be better off reading something other than this blog.