Comfort or crutch?

I've been under a bit of emotional duress lately, due to issues that would possibly compromise my anonymity, and in any case, lie outside the purview of this blog.

Through it all, I can't help but wonder how much better it would be if Socrates were here. Even more than the counsel of my circle of friends, now mostly dispersed to the far corners of the country away from my university, and even more than having my parent's shoulder to cry on and pour out my troubles to, I wish that I could feel his embrace. More than his presence, though, I wish that he could exert his dominance- no, his possession of me. I want to feel that almost paradoxical mix of objectification and love, that I am his cherished possession, both because of the utility I offer him and because of who I am, with that wonderful clarity and feeling of comfort I can't begin to describe.

I can't decide whether all that means that my submission is a source of strength and comfort in times of stress, or a crutch I use to avoid dealing with my problems, and leaves me wondering perhaps if the formation of my submissive sexuality had something to do with this fleeing of my problems. Then again, I'm not convinced that's even a meaningful distinction, or whether methods of coping that are approved of are sources of strength, and methods of coping we disapprove of are crutches.

Then again, wishing for the comfort of your lover in times of distress is scarcely an unhealthy thing, even if it takes an odd form.

Nobility and Morality

"You spend your formative years being told that you're sick, you're a deviant, that who you are as a person is wrong. Then when you reacted as you did... tell me, mom, do you think any less of me knowing what you do now?"

"Not in the slightest. There is no consensual sex act between adults that is immoral."

While I was relieved to hear it (of course, it failed to allay her fears on other fronts), I had to wonder if it was a complete answer to my question. I have never once doubted the morality of my actions; there can be no moral evil involved in what I'm doing here, even if I do get hurt because of my own actions.

But it seems to me that, "is what I'm doing harmful to other people?" is a very different question from, "should I be thought less of because of what I do in the bedroom?" There may be no justification for governmental intervention, for anyone to protect me from myself, but that's not to say that I'm living the best life here.

However, "best life" doesn't seem to hit the anxiety I'm feeling. I believe that the best life is the happiest life, and, whether or not my submissive sexual orientation is more or less conducive to that, now that I have it, exploring it seems better for my happiness than keeping it repressed.

I suppose the best way to phrase my question is, "Are my actions noble?" As corollaries- "Do my actions or desires align with what I would consider a good human being to do? Do they align with my political and philosophical beliefs?"

I feel adrift here. My questions are getting closer to the mark, but they're not hitting it yet. Perhaps it's because I'm not sure of the nobility or virtue that I'm striving for. In any case, if I can't get a handle on the question yet, I'm certainly not equipped to come to a satisfactory answer.

At least I've got a goal to strive for.

Home Fires Burning

I'll be returning home in around a week for the first time since coming out about my submissiveness to my mother. In preparing, I've been greatly helped by Eileen's posting about her being outed to her family. Like mine, hers isn't as simple as a rigidly intolerant, closed-minded bigotry; I've weathered God hates fags; I can weather the charge of perversion of the natural order. If it were so, it would be easy; I could cloak myself in the mantle of righteous rebellion, refuse to let the intolerance of small minds prevent me from pursuiing the life I deem best, and not really grow in the process.

Of course, her objections are far more principled than that, objections I have to answer for myself as well as for her. If you want a succinct statement of the principled objection to my lifestyle, look no further than the spanner decision:
"In principle there is a difference between violence which is incidental and violence which is inflicted for the indulgence of cruelty. The violence of sadomasochistic encounters involves the indulgence of cruelty by sadists and the degradation of victims. Such violence is injurious to the participants and unpredictably dangerous. I am not prepared to invent a defence of consent for sadomasochistic encounters which breed and glorify cruelty [...]. Society is entitled and bound to protect itself against a cult of violence. Pleasure derived from the infliction of pain is an evil thing. Cruelty is uncivilized."

What defence to this indictment can I offer? Certainly, from the outside, I can see why it would seem a dark place. Screams, in more extreme instances blood; the disgusting arousal of the sadist, the degradation that the masochist craves; how could one spring to their defense? Even from the inside, you will often run across profiles of people bragging that they revel in the darker side of human nature.

Except that framing has never rung true to me. I think back on the night I lost my virginity, the ecstasy, the caring dominance of Socrates, how my heart exults when I reflect on my submission and his dominance- and the only thing I can see is joy. I KNOW, with the certainty only emotional engagement can bring, that there was nothing shameful, nothing degrading, about that joy.

But, if I ever doubt my own virtue, I know this much: I REFUSE to believe that that is Socrates. The man who performed the most sterling moral action I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing; my lover, my Master- he is not some corrupted deviant, not the high priest of a "cult of violence," not driven to the archevil of human affairs by an impurity in his soul! Whatever one can say of me, I know this- Socrates is good at his core. He has too consistently proven his goodness for me to believe anything else.

And, of course, the damnable thing is that I can't just react angrily, tell them to get the fuck out of my life and be done with it. Even more painful than if this were borne out of hatred, my mother is doing this precisely because she loves me, because she's worried about me, because she thinks that I've gotten myself into something that's physically and emotionally risky, and potentially spiritually degrading.

Of course, it had to be her. The disappointment with which the majority of my extended family would receive it, I can dismiss as closed-minded intolerance. My sister and my father's rejection would hurt, but I can live without their approval. But she is so intelligent, so even-handed, and so much my role model that, should I fail, I'm not sure I could ever be certain of my goodness again.

Crossdressing

Socrates suggested adding crossdressing to our repertoire awhile back, and my feelings on the issue are mixed. Of course, there's the power exchangey, "if it gets your Master off, do it, even if it is a bit distasteful" - but I also trust that, if I air my grievances, I can trust Socrates to come to a just conclusion on what we should do.

I said recently that I don't find submissive men very attractive, and until fairly recently more imagined myself as a submissive woman within scenes than as a submissive man. As the son of two feminists, you have no idea how much this galls me, because it says that, in my deepest self, I see feminity as a weakness, and the natural order of things as a dominant male, submissive female. And if I haven't yet been able to find submissive men attractive, I have at least fought long and hard to decouple my feminine traits from my submission (if not integrating my masculinity and submission, seeing as a I have little and put little importance on the former), but these gains, I feel, are fragile, and I don't know how long they'd last.

After my first less-than-positive experience with Socrates, I met another dom on collarme- call him Thrasymachus. He eventually flaked out on me, and probably for the best, because the online conversations I had with him didn't give me much faith that he'd respect many limits or have any of the traits of loving domination that Socrates exhibits- but truth be told, his relentless misogyny and determination to turn me into his "sissby bitch" were incredible turn-ons at the time. I don't want to head back down that road. Ultimately, crossdressing in a BDSM context says that feminine traits in a male are shameful, and should be mocked, and that the only natural order is a dominant male and submissive female. I subscribe to neither of these views. While crossdressing in most situations is an act profoundly subversive of the gender binary, and while I've a lot of respect for those that flaunt that convention, ultimately in my context it's only reinforcing that pernicious institution.