I always looked for opportunities to transcend myself and become another being. But I only began to toy with the intricacies of submission recently, when reading smut on my phone when I got some alone time in the bathroom wasn’t cutting it. What started out as playful kink and bed restraints turned into me begging my partner for demeaning words and rules. While a natural top, they had to shift and stretch to become the dominant I thought I wanted.
My partner enabled me to sink into subspace, letting me become the “whore” or “bad girl” I so desperately wanted to be for them. At first, I worried about asking too much. I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable. They didn’t want to hurt me, degrade me. Given my history of abuse, it was hard to grasp my need to be controlled. But, as we discovered together, I am righteously empowered by being submissive.
Beneath them, and their commands, I gained true control by letting go. Whenever they took me, they erased my compulsory need for calculated information. My mind clear and pulsing, I forgot to clench into fear and insecurity. I internally climbed beyond myself until I reached cathartic nothingness — just flesh and heat and equanimity. I erupted in the release of myself. I found blistering strength, goaded by the pain and honesty of feeling completely consumed.
At the end of every scene, we reconnected outside of our headspaces. I easily slipped out of my submission and into the arms of the person I cared for. This natural transition was sacred and fiery. Sometimes I muttered something about having no more dry underwear from so much sexy time, and we ordered in Thai food.
And then, in the middle of exploring kink more deeply together, I took on a summer job abroad. We could not see each other, but our relationship and sexual understanding grew beyond physical touch. We played with the word “Daddy.” Even though masturbation has always been a challenge for me, I finally learned how to make myself come with the fantasy of unconditionally giving over my body to please my dominant. I got off to the visual of myself begging on my knees for another spanking. I felt powerful and in control of my body’s desire for deviance. As the summer continued, I built it up, asking my partner for more and more degradation. I started to ask for submission outside of the bedroom. Just the idea of being told to eat a bowl of cereal or to wait before speaking made me frantic. I was getting so deep into this world, meditating in my bodily freedom.
As I opened up, toxic memories from the abusive relationship I was in years ago seeped through. Though I therapied my way out of nightmares, he came back incessantly in my dreams. My subconscious battled with his judgment and control every night. When I am lucid, I cannot even remember his face. But being asleep or in subspace opens old wounds. Anxious, I did what I always have and tried to shut him out.
My partner came abroad to visit me and I was ecstatic to build on our online conversations and deviant whispers. Daddy put me in a special chair for bad girls who were asking for it. I yielded all to serve them and please them. Every command was a chance to be a good submissive. When they brought out their cock, I thought I was ready to take it and stay in the scene. Though we usually broke character at this point, I wanted to go further. It felt like the next natural step in our sexual exchange.
But I shattered. Lying on my back with a large foreign object inside me, I was jolted back into the memories of unwanted penetration. I was splayed, helpless and hurting. I was so deep in my mix of subspace and past that I could not even remember my safe word. I just said, “I can’t Daddy, I’m sorry.”
They quickly took off the strap-on and protected me with their body. I could tell they were scared by my inability to leave this headspace when I was legitimately in pain. They held me, and understood.
After that night, I was worried all my work to accept and lean into kink would be for nothing. I did not know if I could return to that space and be safe in my own mind. I recognize the irony of wanting to be controlled after succumbing to non-consensual control in a previous relationship. I was numbed in the experience of losing myself to an abusive person. Beyond this, I crave submission. Perhaps this primal need that runs through my blood has always existed, and is my only way out of victimization. My identity thrives because of the all-encompassing validity I have given to it.
While my relationship with this person ended, I now unfold my submissive role to new partners. I proudly wear my collar to the local gay bar, hoping my date will know what it means. Being slutty and kinky makes me stronger in my independence and sense of freedom. I can be clear about my needs and push these different individuals to understand how this empowers me. Each partner is learning, in their own ways, the awe and humility of tying me up and pushing my eager face down into the sheets.
Being triggered forced me to confront a simmering ugliness. While painful in the moment, it was the necessary push I needed to embrace my changed reality — I get to decide when and how I am controlled. Waking up one morning to a torrent of drunk game-goers outside my room, I decided to be impulsive. I skipped town and got a tattoo of my safe word. I look down at those stark black letters, sitting quietly next to my pubes, and I am calm. No matter where my subspace takes me, the boundaries and the pain are mine.
