#50.
Giving it Up

Essays on a Life of P.E.
by shadow

I thought a long time ago that I knew about slavery- about giving up my choices to my partner, about making commitments to let someone else be in charge.
I was sure I had it all covered.

First, I gave up my rights to make my own general choices in scene.

Then I gave up my safeword in play.

Then I gave up my control over my body 24/7.

Then I gave up my control over all my personal information including finances of my family, access to our lives, and everything from home ownership to taxes.

THEN we negotiated a contract, and I thought I had given up everything else.

Sure.... Piece of cake huh?

Well, yeah, there were those moments when I would rebel, when I would feel anger and not sublimate it properly or when I forgot how to respond and had to take some time, get my shit together, and apologize.

Sure, there were days when I was irritated as all hell that He would make a decision and I was neither privy to what the final decision was nor even why it was made or what was considered when it was made.

Yes, I sometimes bridled under the feeling that there were frustrations (try walking through a whole mall and NOT being allowed to even fucking slow down and LOOK!), but after a little time and energy, a little reflection, and a lot of patience, I was comfortable with all of it.

I was only looking at the tip of the iceberg.

There were other things I still had not given up, nor even acknowledged that I had to give over. I didn't know that until they became crisis issues and Master did not see them until they came tumbling into our lives. They were not THERE to see.

I had someone from my past, someone I used to love well, lie about me out of malice and retribution. It was done in a mean way, and it was done by violating the confidentiality of not just myself, but of everyone attending an event. It was a nasty evil little piece of work that arrived in my mail box after a long weekend.

My first thought, on reading the thing, was to consider exploding. That passed almost immediately though. I have learned, through years of being Master's, that I really do NOT have to either acknowledge nor reply to every sling and arrow tossed at me. I have the luxury of knowing I am secure, that He is in charge, and that I do not have to jump just because someone else yells "jump", so within a short time, I was calm and rational. Over the course of several days, I was happy and pretty much ignored the storm raging about this issue. I wasn't reading any more mail and He and others that I trusted were handling the entire ugly incident. but something gnawed at me, popping up when I least expected to think about the issue.

I felt the need, with permission, to consult a kink attorney, as some of the issues surrounding outing private information had bothered me. They actually ate at me. Knowing that I had been, as the attorney put it, "slandered with malice" and lied about was digging into me.

You see, my "pride" was hurt. Someone had said something about me, and while the entire issue was resolved, my pride wanted to be satisfied. I wanted to stand up and confront the person just to make sure they understood that they had not made any "points" nor hurt me, and to correct any mistaken points.

I wanted, even needed, to handle some of it. I wanted my pride to be fed. I needed to protect some inner part of me that handles assaults (as I thought) poorly. I was still hiding myself and my control behind the wall with the big red P written on it. I didn't want to give up taking some role in my own defense.

Foolish, no?

Well, not really. I had, up until that moment in time, NO history of anyone other than myself ever standing up in public, out loud, and renouncing anyone, anywhere, on my behalf. I had always had to do that myself and after 4 decades of being in charge of protecting my pride, I had the knee jerk reaction. Yes, Master could handle the nuts and bolts. Yes, He and others would correct the mis-statements and stop the actions of others... but I still needed something... call it satisfaction. Call it revenge. Call it clearing the air.

While I was struggling in my head (fantasizing?) with what I should or shouldn't do about making my pride feel better, my Master was doing what those who are intuitive, patient, and smart have done from time immemorial for those they own and control. He was handling it ALL. He was reading all the posts between the original party and the others that the writer had spread the lies to. He was listening to all the noise, speaking with the principals, and sorting through all the chaff and the BS to not only correct the facts, but to understand and consider how I would FEEL about all of it. Without me there to make any kind of "stance" or request, he had the space to take total charge of my innards.

He took the time to really think about my ego, and to hold my pride to the same respect that He would hold my family or my skin. He handled the *entire* situation, not just the stuff that was surface apparent.

After a week or so, He wrote me an e-mail with His final reply, wrapping up all the lose ends including the thing that had gnawed at me, the part that I felt I *had* to handle myself.

It was a lightning strike to me. He did what no one else ever- EVER- had done in my life. He stood up and handled my hearts hidden things.

I expected the entire situation to be deftly corrected, quietly fixed, but often in the larger world, those "social" fixes carry niceties that gloss over a lot of deliberate cuts, ignore some very nasty bits of truth, and clear the air at the expense of some ground given, just for the sake of peace.

I had always fought against those fixes, keeping a part of me behind a large high wall of pride and concern where I felt only I could defend myself. I have a strong sense of social justice and fair play that most people do not have the stomach to confront. I tilt at windmills for the sake of tilting.

Even with all those "givens", all those hours of play, all those nights of crying at His feet knowing that I would cut off my arm on His whim, I had none the less held back unwittingly something vital and important and BIG in my emotional actions. I had not done so deliberately. I didn't even understand the workings of this part of my emotional makeup. I knew I HAD pride, but did not know how to give it to someone else.

I would never have even known I had done this and He might never have seen it, had I taken ANY kind of an active role in the whole mess. Even the act of making a decision would have been based on how my ego and my pride needed to be assuaged.

ANY input would have slanted the process. Researchers learn one of the most fundamental truths of observation is that once an observer moves close enough to observe, that observer influences the thing he wants to watch. I learned that even my being in the room while Master and others made contact might have changed the way it was handled and might have kept Master from truly feeling empowered to take charge of not only the obvious lies and untruths about me and my actions, but from taking on the added charge of protecting my pride.

I realized all this in one single flash of insight upon reading His final input. I realized, in that instant, something that is not always hammered home to those in the Power Exchange(PE).

We on each side of the PE are not only there because we want to be, but we are there at the pleasure of the other. A Dominant that does not take charge keeps a submissive from having the ability to give up power. A submissive that keeps control, even inadvertently, does not give the Dominant the space to take up that power. The door to my submission is the path to His dominance. That exchange does not and CANNOT happen with the simplicity of a contract, the logic of a checklist, or the abstract knowledge that one side WANTS to give and the other wants to take.

We are complex creatures, and the things we hide in our hearts are often not known to anyone, even ourselves. Sometimes, it takes a painful incident to bring us to a better understanding of ourselves, and a deeper level of our PE. We need to be educated about our own psychology and have a basic working knowledge of what we create in our own defense.

Sometimes, a Dominant has issues about being in charge of a situation, unaware that the struggle is not within the relationship, but within the submissive, learning how to dig deeper into the things hidden not from a partner, but from themselves. Sometimes, we have no idea what we still have inside to give up.



copyright August 2007 by shadow, all rights reserved. i999shadow@aol.com This document may be reposted and reprinted only in it’s entirety including copyright and author contact **WITH PERMISSION from the AUTHOR**. Failure to abide by the laws of common decency will result in inhuman revenge. Ask around. i can do that. It will be painful.