Sex talk or no sex talk?

Some bloggers have mentioned an important topic: do we blog about sex or not? Two recent posts on this topic are by Conina ("On Why I Blog") and Grace ("Intimate Details").

The trend I've noticed is that BDSM blogs have a lot of sex details. It's heavy on what happened and how it happened. On the other hand, DD blogs often skip the intimacy. They talk about punishments and spankings and submission, but don't usually go into detail about the sex.

Of course, each blogger should only share the sexual details he or she wants to. But as a blogger, even if I'm comfortable sharing those sexual details, I have to wonder: will my sharing be offputting to some of my more conservative readers? Will I lose readers if I share too much?

Since I've also blogged about my stance against pornography in my post Porn and the Christian BDSMer, I also worry if, by sharing the dirty details, I'll just gain readers who only read my stories for the sexual titillation. I'm not sure if there's really a moral difference between erotica and porn-- isn't it possible that erotica is just written pornography? It's something I wrestle with.

On the other hand, I feel it's dishonest of me to pretend like punishments aren't erotic for me. Usually, unless I really, really hate one, they are erotic. D/s has definitely helped our sex life, giving it more of a "spark" and making me more interested in sex. This is because, through D/s, I see my husband as more masculine and strong. When we started D/s, I noticed I was much more sexually attracted to him. Suddenly it didn't matter so much what he looked like or that he'd gained 15 pounds and had lost those muscular arms I loved so much when we started dating; I wanted him because he was strong and awe-inspiring! He seemed like such a man to me.

Are there punishments that I hate? Yep. However, there are also punishments that I love. I've gotten aroused and even had orgasms just by being lectured and punished by him. I can't explain why it has that effect on me, but it does.

Still, I was sort of "in the closet" about that. I got the feeling that it was okay to talk about submission and spankings, but not coming or having my nipples pinched. It was okay to talk about crying through a punishment, but not squirting because of one. Spanking and lectures were seen as "okay punishments," but being forced to give him head or submit sexually were "not okay" punishments.

Well, I guess I'm coming out of the proverbial closet. If hearing about my sexual exploits makes my readers uncomfortable, I'm sorry. I'll try not to get too hot n' heavy on the details so I don't offend anyone. I also don't want this to become a place where internet creepers come to get their rocks off on written porn. But I do want to say that sex is part of my punishment dynamic with my husband, a very big part actually, and it's silly for me to feel ashamed of that just because other bloggers keep sex and punishment completely separate. In fact, when I first read about CDD, a big part of the draw was because the stories turned me on mentally in a way I'd not felt for years. The punishment-eroticism was very appealing to me.

Besides, one of my favorite things to do with my girl friends? Talk about sex. It's a rare and precious friendship where you can just talk unashamedly with your friends about your sex lives. It's a way to get things off your chest, discuss your worries and fears, learn from other people, and share part of yourself.

I think that's a good thing to do on my blog.

Want to read more on this topic? Read Bethany's article, Spanking in Relationships, to find out what she thinks of as a mixture between sexuality and spanking in CDD and DD relationships.

Mick's Blog and My Submission

In his post Spanking Made Us Grow Up, DD blogger Mick said these astounding words:

I expected her to do it on her own without my insistence. I didn’t want to
force her to take part in our marriage. I wanted her to be willing enough to do
it on her own. If she didn’t do it on her own, that meant she didn’t really love
me.


I resented this for a lot of years.


I stopped being
angry when I realized she was doing the best she could.


It took me a
long time to realize she really did need me to take charge. It wasn’t that she
didn’t love me; it was that she couldn’t be who she wanted to be without my
guidance.


I don’t know if she was conscious of it or not, but she
was waiting for me to step up and insist on her respect, on her learning how to
do her work, and on her trying hard to be who she was meant to be.

This post really resounded with me because my husband and I struggled with the same thing. When we first started doing DD for real (a few years ago we tried it but I got scared and bailed after 3 days), it caused a lot more fights for us. He was angry because he said I was acting more childish and rebellious than ever. I was angry because he wasn't forcing me to submit or demanding my respect.

I'd never thought about what Mick said, which is that maybe sometimes we women truly want to do great things in our lives, but we need guidance and leadership to get us there.

Oh, I can take care of myself. I did it for years without my husband when I was single. I had a job and apartment, my bills were paid, and my life was good. I didn't sit at home waiting for a man to come rescue me.

But it's just so much easier when a man is there to help me along the road. I can give some of the responsibility to him. It's a big sigh of relief to not feel my entire spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing is completely on my tired shoulders.

On the other hand, it was a lot more work for him. He felt like he had to be in charge of when I ate, how healthy I was, and how submissive I was. He said it was like having a child. Why couldn't I just be responsible for reading my Bible myself, he wanted to know? Why can't you just make sure you eat regularly and healthy on your own?

Well, my answer to that was: Biblically, it's not my job!

Sure, I can help, but the ultimate responsibility is his.

On the other hand, the same biblical passage says I am to submit "in everything."

Ouch.

So then it's my job to do everything right, and his to make sure it's done right.

It was a tall order for both of us.

We're still figuring it out, actually. :)

Labels: Am I DD or D/s?

Labels are good because they help us define what we are and what we are not.

But sometimes we get carried away with labels.

For instance, on this blog, should I call my husband my Dom or my HoH? Or even my Master or my Daddy? Some of these labels are ones that those in the BDSM scene will identify with and some are used more by those in DD, although I do see some crossover.

All four terms could apply to him at different times in our relationship. So I generally just call him my Dom, because that's what I started calling him when I started this blog.

Of course, when I started this blog I thought we were into BDSM. Now online BDSM forums have led me to discover that we are actually more similar to CDD or Taken in Hand.

I try to keep one foot in both communities.

No, you won't find me at a munch or wearing a black leather bustier at a local dungeon. On the other hand, most of my punishments aren't OTK and I don't have a list of rules like many DD couples do.

As this post aptly pointed out, BDSM and CDD and DD and Taken in Hand don't have to be seen as completely separate lifestyles. There is actually quite a bit of overlap.

Punishments and spanking... total power exchange... male-led relationships... there's not a huge difference between being a "Christian kinkster" and being in a "domestic discipline" relationship. They both share these common characteristics.

I worry about other people getting caught up in the labels, though. Will people from both communities judge me? Will BDSM writers dismiss my blog because I'm Christian, monogamous, and against activities like pornography, sex work, public play, homosexuality, and polyamory? These things are sometimes seen as basic parts of BDSM. On the other hand, will DD bloggers be turned off from my site because I use terms like FetLife, Dom, and nipple torture? I worry about how to straddle that line.

I wonder sometimes if my Dom and I are D/s (Dominant/submissive, which is a BDSM term) or CDD (Christian Domestic Discipline, which is a DD term). I often follow DD blogs and comment more on those kind of blogs, because I connect more with a community that is mostly married, monogamous, and often Christian. On the other hand, I hesitate to distance myself completely from BDSM because that's where my husband and I started our journey into power exchange. We actually don't use spankings that much and we still like to use bondage, punishments, and nipple torture.

Does that mean I can't be part of the DD community?

I hope not.

Other Bloggers: We're All in This Together

It's easy when I'm reading about other people's DD and D/s marriages to feel like their lives must be perfect and my marriage isn't up to par. I know it isn't true, but it's easy to romanticize other people's marriages.

For instance, Spanked Army Wife just wrote about how her husband found out she was playing in the snow when she was sick and is going to spank her for it. He texted her and made her go home right away, telling her she knew better than to play in the snow when she was already sick. And Rogue Bambi at Past the Hurt has been writing lately about how she and Wonderboy are getting into newer and sexier elements of D/s and power exchange. Just in the few months I've been reading her blog, she and her husband have progressed from a couple skirting around the edges of D/s to a very confident power-exchange dynamic.

Yeah, I'm jealous.

Not because I don't have my own power exchange dynamic that works for us. But of course, what my Dom and I are building together does not look like what I pictured when I first read all the stories of sexy, powerful men and meek, submissive women at Christian Domestic Discipline and Christian DD.

Every couple is different. I envy Mick his easy leadership style that comes across in his writing; I envy Stormy her husband's awesome resolve and ability to be firm, consistent, and insistent about their DD lifestyle. I envy Sara and Grant their longevity and the obvious respect they have for each other due to their years of experience in this lifestyle.

That doesn't mean I think these people don't have real marriages with real struggles. I see how Mick sometimes feels hurt by his wife, or how Stormy struggles with embracing her husband's style of discipline at times. I know Rogue Bambi and her husband are struggling with infertility and that puts a strain on their marriage. No one of us in this lifestyle has a perfect, storybook marriage. We're real people with real problems.

When I first found CDD, I thought for sure I wanted it. I romanticized the rules and regulations. I thought the stories about spankings by strong, confident Christian men were unbearably sexy. I wanted my husband to be those men overnight and gently lead me into being a submissive Christian woman.

Of course, if you've read my blog much, it didn't work that way. We had to carve our own story out of the stone, you see. You can't just take someone else's style and adopt it. You have to do the long, hard work of carving your own lifestyle out for yourselves. And the result won't look exactly like anybody else's.

I struggled a lot with issues, like my identity crisis as a feminist vs. submissive. My husband would be wonderfully strong and consistent one week and not the next. My visions of sexy spankings rarely came true; most of them time I hated them and felt angrier than ever afterward. I spent more, not less, time criticizing him for not being consistent enough. Then I got depressed and just gave up entirely. I made up rules for myself and then got depressed that he hadn't made them up for me and he wasn't enforcing them as strictly as I thought he should. He got angry that I was acting more rebellious and childish than I had before we started the power exchange.

It was hard, but it was worth it. My marriage, whether you call it D/s or DD or CDD, does not look exactly like Sara's or Kaya's or Bambi's or Stormy's or Mick's or Dauntless Vitality's or Dannah's or anyone else's. But it is similar enough to them that I enjoy reading these men and women's blogs and I feel a connection with these people, as though they are friends, maybe not in real life but in a sort of online community nonetheless.

We're friends, you see. I may not know your names or your faces, but I know something about your lives, and I connect to it. I appreciate the stories you tell and the lessons I learn from them. I want to support you and help you as best I can, by leaving supportive comments and praying for you when the need arises. I enjoy the relationships that develop in the comment boxes.

We're all in this together.

The Baby Has Arrived!

The baby has finally arrived!!!

She is healthy and beautiful, just like we prayed for. She was just over 8 pounds and is 21 inches. So far, she is a very laid back and easygoing baby, although she eats constantly! :)