I’m hilariously submissive. “Hilariously” because it took me far too long to figure out what was plainly true. My 10th-grade journal entries talk about wanting girlfriends/boyfriends/crushes to climb on top of me, hold me down, kiss me against walls, boss me around, take care of me… and yet I was still saying shit like, “I wish I had an interesting fetish, but I think I’m vanilla through and through.” Oh, Baby Kate, you have so much to learn and so far to come.
One of the major roadblocks people come up against when they’re curious about submission is: Don’t you have to enjoy cleaning/cooking/shining shoes/giving head/folding shirts/~insert other service activity here~ to be a “real” submissive? Expert opinions vary on this, but my take is a resounding “LOL, NO.”
Submission is about your attitude, your approach, your desires. If you enjoy handing over your power to someone else in sex or kink situations, you might well be submissive, even if that doesn’t manifest in the ways you’d expect or hope. Submission is a spectrum, too, as are so many parts of sexuality: there are the 24/7 domestic slaves who crawl around on all fours with a butt plug in and chain restraints around their ankles, and there are the vanillish dilettantes who enjoy a little hair-pulling from time to time, and there are a zillion different variations in between. No version of submission is less or more valid than any other, so long as they’re all carried out consensually and with awareness of the risks involved.
That said, knowing this won’t necessarily make it easier to deal when you feel like a failure – as I did this morning when my Sir asked me if I’d like to iron his shirts daily when we’re in Montreal together for a week soon. Because, guess what? I’ve never ironed anything and wouldn’t know how.