A submissive's Bill of Rights

A submissive's Bill of Rights

You have the right to be treated with respect. Not only do you have this
right, you have the right to demand it. Being submissive does not make
you a doormat or less of a person than anyone else. The word
"submissive" describes your nature and in no way diminishes you as a
human being. You have the right to respect yourself as well.

You have the right to be proud of what you are. Being a submissive is
nothing that should ever bring you shame or feelings of reproach. Your
submissive nature is a gift and should always be a source of pride and
happiness.

You have the right to feel safe. Being a submissive should not make you
feel afraid, insecure or threatened. Submission is not about living on
the edge or flirting with fear. In any situation you should feel safe or
there can never be true surrender.

You have the right to your emotions and feelings. Your emotions and
feelings come from you and they are just as valid as anyone else's. You
have a right to them. Those feelings, whether positive or negative, make
you who you are and suppressing them will only bring unhappiness later.

You have the right to express your negative feelings. Being submissive
does not make you an object that no longer has negative thoughts or
concerns.Your concerns are real and you have every right to express
them. If something doesn't feel right, bothers you, makes you feel bad
or you just plain don't like something, say so. Failing to express your
negative feelings could give the mistaken impression that you are
pleased or satisfied with something that is not pleasurable or
agreeable.

You have the right to say NO. Being submissive does not take away your
right to have dislikes or negative feelings about things. If something
is happening or about to happen that you feel strongly opposed to, it's
your duty to speak up. Remember, failing to communicate the word NO is
the same as saying YES.

You have the right to expect happiness in life. Being submissive is not
tantamount to being miserable, suffering or a life of despair. Your
submission should bring you joy, peace and fulfillment. If it doesn't,
then something is wrong.

You have the right to have input in a relationship. You are an active
partner in any relationship you enter and have every right to contribute
to it. You are submissive, not passive. A relationship that doesn't
include your needs, thoughts, hopes and desires is not one you should be
in to begin with. This applies to friendships, partnerships and D/s
relationships.

You have the right to belong. Being submissive greatly involves the
feeling of belonging. Many submissives have expressed that it was in
discovering their submissive nature that they felt as through they
"belonged" for the first time in their lives. You belong to the
lifestyle and will eventually belong to the One. It's in that
relationship you should find the final fulfillment of "belonging" at
last.

You have the right to be loved and to love. Anyone who tells you that
love doesn't fit into a D/s relationship has never experienced the
fulfillment of all it truly can be. Submissives are by nature loving and
needing of love and have every right to expect this to be a part of
their lives. It takes love to bring your submission into full bloom, so
don't settle for less.

You have the right to be healthy. Health involves your physical, mental
and emotional well-being. Any relationship, D/s or otherwise, that
causes you to suffer physically, mentally or emotionally, beyond your
limits, is abuse. There is no place for abusive behavior in a D/s
relationship and it's up to you to make sure those lines are not
crossed.

Being a submissive does not give anyone the right to harm or injure you
in any way. The D/s community will stand behind you if you should
encounter such a situation but you are the one who has to make them
aware before they can help.

You have the right to practice safe sex. Not only is this a right, it's
a duty to yourself and others you may come into contact with at a later
date. Sexually transmitted diseases have reached epidemic proportions
and must be a concern to any sexually active person. Safe Sex is
something you have the right to insist upon and protecting yourself
should never be discouraged by anyone who really has your best interests
at heart.


author unknown

Obedience, Happiness, and the Need to Serve

by OperaShade


The word "obedience" used to leave a bad taste in my mouth, in part because American culture conditioned me to value independence and personal freedom above almost everything else, and in part because I had practically no conscious understanding of what it meant in terms of submission. It brought me pleasure to make my Dom happy, but I was not, as he put it, "eager to please". I was willing to serve him and had given him my meta-consent, but I found nothing erotic about it in and of itself. To this day I still do not fully understand the
process that changed my willingness to serve into a need to serve him - it was, in fact, the last thing I ever expected; I didn't think I was capable of it.

I may not understand the 'how' of it, but I can elaborate on the 'what'. There was a gradual shift in what I wanted out of the relationship; like most people, I had a conscious desire to be made happy by my partner. I was still expecting certain things out of my dom, in the same way that vanilla partners expect birthday presents or orgasms from each other. I was still wanting him to do things for me, and still expressing those desires.

I gradually became aware of the idea that maybe I didn't have to tell him specifically what I wanted and when I wanted it - he probably already knew, and if he didn't, he would surely inquire. And along with this idea came another - that there was no real need for me to expect him to please me - that maybe, if this guy really was all I thought he was, he was perfectly capable and willing to look after my happiness without any guidence from me. Those two ideas spawned a third: if I put aside my own concerns for my happiness, I could focus entirely on him, knowing that he would be keeping my well-being in mind. I could forget about myself and turn all of my attention to pleasing him. It was a way to surrender another portion of control, a way to give him more of myself. It felt appealing, it felt right, it felt like a natural extension of the power exchange that was already in place.

Pleasing a Dom can incorporate vanilla stuff like cooking them a lavish meal or waiting on them hand and foot, but it can exist on a much deeper level: it can mean obeying them simply for the sake of obedience. It is not simply a matter of enjoying being told what to do-- there are some subs who like that but who are uninterested in the other aspects of total submission and surrender. It is a state in which your obedience is a source of pride and pleasure for yourself and your Dom. It is going beyond the mode of "How can I serve you now?" and into the realm of "My obedience to you matters more to me than anything else; you can test it all you want, and I will prove it to you again and again and again, because I am your slave and that is who I want to be."

To give a hypothetical example - if my Master told me to go stand outside without a coat on in a cold rain, I'd do it without a second thought (aside: this is more likely to be a play punishment than an instance of real punishment, there's more on that further down). So it's cold and wet, whoopee - I don't care. I'd stand there being cold and wet and pleased with myself that I obeyed, because I know he's pleased with me. If the phone rings and he goes into the other room to answer it, and then forgets about me for some period of time, I'll merrily stand there shivering. I'll stand there for hours if I must. If I were to become hypothermic, I'd tell him. If I were to become dangerously hypothermic, I'd use the safeword; If I couldn't find him, I'd do the smart thing he'd expect me to do - get myself inside, dry off, and warm up.

There is a good example of this kind of obedience towards the end of the movie Secretary (spoiler warning for this paragraph), though it can be construed as an example of real punishment as well, due to the conflict between the two characters at the time. When Edward tells Hathoway to put her hands on the desk and her feet on the floor and then storms out, she doggedly persists in obeying him even though he doesn't return for a few days! Even when someone physically removes her from the desk, she struggles out of his grasp and returns immediately. She is obviously miserable, and yet obviously hell-bent on obeying Edward, who watches unseen from the window, pleased and touched by her devotion.

It seems to be a viscious cycle of the good sort. I know that when I walk into my Master's home, he might just tell me to strip right then and there, perhaps without bothering to close the front door first... and I know I will obey him, even if I'm balancing a stack of books in my hands, even if I'm cranky, even if I'm just not in the mood. I know he can whisper a single word in my ear in public, and my conditioned response will be immediate arousal, whether I want it or not. I know he can forbid me from eating anything but oatmeal, rice, and fish for a week - and I will not only obey him, I will accept this restriction on my freedom and take pleasure in the opportunity to demonstrate my obedience even if I dislike the command. These demonstrations of control.... even thinking about how much control he has over me (how much control I have given him),
about how willing I am to obey... they are arousing in and of themselves - which is positive reinforcement for those behaviors.

OperaShade