Names and dynamics

Doms and subs. D/S. Daddy doms and little girls. DDlg. Ethical non-monogamy. Etc.

I hate labels.

Growing up, I never quite felt I belonged. Partly this was religious. Surprisingly, given where and when I grew up, I experienced my family’s Jewish background, our recent arrival (on not such great terms) from Europe as a mark of… well, I was told it was distinction. In fact, though, my family asserted its superiority in a way that unintentionally revealed a deep sense of alienation and inferiority. Which I internalized.

It wasn’t just religious, though. My family was unconventional in a number of ways. I was raised primarily by my father, who was (is) gay. My parents were divorced, at a time, and in a world, in which divorce still carried a stigma – and marked me as unusual. As, to most, a victim of a broken home.

Fast forward.

In recent years, as I’ve discovered some of what I like, how to get more of what I like, I’ve encountered more than a few who would like me to be their Dom, to be their “Daddy,” to play some role they have written for me. Or, more often, that they’ve allowed someone else to write for me. This chafes. I don’t like it.

There are lots of aspects of what people often think of when they think of a Dom/sub relationship that appeal to me. And, while I certainly seek certain dynamics, certain behaviors, certain stimulation, over and over and over, as I’ve written more times than I can count, it feels different to me with every partner. And, it feels bad to me to have anything be presumed simply because of what John Warren wrote in The Loving Dominant, or what Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy wrote in The Ethical Slut, or… whatever.

Maybe this is why I’ve so shied away from the DD/lg thing. It seems so scripted, so predetermined. And maybe partly because part of the appeal to the lg herself is the option to be “taken care of,” to be infantilized just a bit. Anyway. The doe-eyed beauty about whom I’ve been obsessing of late, she and I seem to have a bit of the DD/lg thing going on, but (to my mind) in all the wrong ways. Or rather, in none of the right ones.

She looks up to me, indulges my narcissism. She sees me as a teacher, a mentor, a benefactor and protector. Unfortunately, she sees me as all those things, like, for real. Not like, in play. And, she doesn’t see me as an object of her own desire. She doesn’t see that she is an object of my desire. The way my narcissism works, I want to be ALL those things. And, I want there to be a playful indestructible willfulness lurking beneath. I want to feel like I’m all those things, but to know that, in reality, if push were to come to shove, my “little girl” could do just fine on her own.

For reasons, it’s probably good that she doesn’t desire me.

But it makes me sad, in an aching, throbbing way. I had imagined until recently that we both were playing out the same fantasy in our minds, knowing it was impossible to indulge, but still, harboring the fantasy. Turns out that was, actually, the fantasy, and not a description of the context of the fantasy.

I still want to explore the DD/lg thing. The doe-eyed one helped me get in touch with some of what feels so good about that dynamic, how it reassures, soothes, medicates some of the wounds of my past that the Dom/sub structure leaves untouched.

FWIW, I’ve always been aware of problems I have with the “Dom/sub” structure – ways in which when people paint a mental picture of a Dom, they end up with a picture of someone other than me, and, when I paint a mental picture of a sub, I end up with a picture of someone different than most self-defined subs.

Perhaps 2020 will allow me to play out a bit more of the DD/lg thing. I think that would be fun.