103. A Curious Cat

A reader, Curious Cat, commented on my last post and shared his observations about what I have shared and he posed some interesting questions.  I thought the answers deserved their own post.

Warning – no spanking stories here.  Just a bit of a rant and ramble about this, that, and the other.  Okay, more than a bit.  It’s more like an epic ramble on my part.  I thought of omitting it, but it felt so good to get it out of my system, so you’re stuck with a choice of reading it or not.  If you stick with reading through it, you will find that I eventually address his questions!

MONOLOGUE
First I’ll ruminate on some things before I directly answer the questions he posed.  I can imagine how my life is perceived by those reading my blog.   Surely my days are consumed with the things I post about?  Sorry, truth is these posts are simply glimpses into a particular moment.   Much of my day is mundane and ordinary.  The ordinary isn’t the focus of my blog.  My focus is on how Domestic Discipline shapes my life.  Here’s something “ordinary” – I like to cook and try new recipes – in fact, I follow several cooking/baking oriented blogs (whose author’s probably gasp when they click on a comment I made and arrive at my blog!).  I don’t blog about my kitchen experiments or great recipe find.  Not because those things aren’t interesting to me – it just isn’t the purpose of my blog.

With that said, yes, even the ordinary parts of my day are susceptible to an injection of something erotic or scintillating.  Such is the byproduct of the lifestyle Mike and I have chosen.  You can certainly have a DD lifestyle sans the eroticism, but that isn’t us. 

I have written about how the pace of the last eight months has surprised me.  Our first year of DD was confined to sexual exploration between just Mike and I.  Even after nearly 25 years of marriage, DD opened us up to more exploration between the two of us than I thought possible.  That exploration started taking a new path about the time I started blogging.  First John and Donna, then Kayla. 

I mentioned before that I believe this happened because we were open to such things.   We never sought out to say, “We are open to having sex with John and Donna,” or, “Let’s see if Kayla wants to join us.”  Instead, we agreed that our relationship was full of love and understanding and we both aspired to help the other experience their dreams, hopes, and desires.   That openness positioned us to be accepting of certain things.  Once you are open to such things, those things are likely to occur.  Some may call it karma or apply something mystical or spiritual to it.  I simply look at it as awareness.   It’s like when you buy a new car and then suddenly see that same make and model everywhere.  They’ve always been there, but your mind is now tuned in to recognize them.   It’s not magic, it is simply awareness.

Mike and I were in a mindset that made us more aware of the sexual exploring that was available to us.  I mentioned before that Mike and I attended two FetLife functions.  We stopped going primarily because we were both satisfied with our relationship with John and Donna.  If our relationship with them didn’t turn sexual, I am sure we would have met other people and explored whatever interested us.  So if not John, Donna, and Kayla, I am sure I would be posting about other erotic adventures.  

Back on Post 14 I mentioned a growing sexual subtext to our DD.  I can directly link it to the addition of something in our last contract revision in October 2015.  I cover that in Post 16, Sexual Thoughts, Dreams, Desires, Fantasies.   It required me to share all my sexual thoughts, dreams, desires, and fantasies with Mike.  I won’t rehash what all that entails (read post 16 if you’d like).  Suffice to say it led to Mike reciprocating.  Once we could have a completely open and honest discussion about those things we could then talk about what we truly wanted to explore and what we wanted to leave as strictly fantasy.   THAT opened the floodgates to what led to John, Donna, and Kayla.  

Curious Cat’s Questions
Curious Cat asked if, in looking back, I see the seeds of the life I am now living.  The short answer is no.  While I would never in a million years have envisioned living the life I live now, I do see the characteristics I had (and still have) that allowed me to seek and accept this lifestyle. 

I am curious and willing to try new things.  Secondly, I am nonjudgmental and tend not to attach stigma or bias or judgement based on a few data points.  “Oh, he’s a Republican therefore…”  “Oh, look at that immigrant, they are….”   “Oh, she likes anal, therefore…”   “Oh, he will suck dick therefore…”   While I am not perfect in this (we all have biases of various sorts), I tend not to attach shame or judgement (on others or myself) based on a select few behaviors or characteristics.  While I may not be a Republican immigrant who likes to suck dick, I still don’t judge Ted Cruz.    Pause.  Insert laugh track.  Okay, that was a joke.  Pause.  Wait for it… Of course I judge Ted Cruz, he is an a-hole.  But I digress. 

I also am generally not a jealous person — not to say that jealously isn’t foreign to me.  I’ve got prior posts to prove that.  But, I do not get jealous when Mike enjoys himself without me.  Think of it this way – I love going to zoos, museums, and theme parks.  Mike is accepting of that and enjoys them enough to come along sometimes, but I often go with J and without Mike.   Even when it means an out of town trip overnight or several nights.  Sometimes Mike comes, sometimes he doesn’t.   I can enjoy myself in that manner without any stigma or shame. 

Mike likes sports.  Me?  Meh!  I can watch a bit here and there, and enjoy going to live sporting events, but I can’t park myself in front of the tv to watch an entire football game.   Mike really enjoys it, thus he often goes over to John’s or John comes to our house and they hang out watching the game.  I may stick around or I may go run errands.  It isn’t my thing.   Again, no stigma or shame in that.

Why is sex so different?  Because society as a whole says so.   There are millions of people who do not conform to various societal “norms.”  Just because these people are in the minority doesn’t mean they are defective or should feel shameful.   We can list a dozen societal “norms” and likely identify with one or more that we don’t conform to.   And these norms are certainly not sacred.    Look at the “norms’ of twenty years ago, fifty years ago, a hundred…. they change!  They change because as a whole we are more enlightened, more accepting, more understanding.   As a human race we are slowly but surely collectively realizing that because you are “x” doesn’t mean you are therefore “y.”   Those X’s are more like you and me than they are different, and their X does not diminish their worth as a human. 

Unfortunately as we move towards greater acceptance of each other, those who are unable to be accepting will continue to become more desperate to hold on to their inability to accept.  They will hold on to their bias or their fear or their hate.  They will continue to try harder and harder to force their “norms” on us by passing laws, restricting voting rights, gerrymandering, and the various other tools that allow a minority view to prevail for as long as possible.  In the short run they will and have succeeded here and there.   But as their numbers continue to dwindle, they lose more than they win (latest presidential election excluded) and eventually they will lose.

Okay, I lost my way here. . .
Sorry to get off topic.  My point isn’t that we are heading towards everyone embracing DD.  My point is we are heading towards fewer and fewer people caring about what people do with their private lives to the extent those actions do not negatively affect them.   It’s called freedom.  It’s also called love and acceptance.   Love is not shame.  Love is not damnation.   Funny but the millennials seem to understand this.  I wish more of the age 30+ crowd did.

While I hope for greater society acceptance of all types of people, when it comes to our specific personal relationships, our acceptance will always have limits as we are individuals with different needs and desires.  We surround ourselves with people whose limits give us the greatest sense of love, acceptance, and security.  That said, we don’t have to try and impose those limits on society as a whole.  If a couple wants separate beds like Ricky and Lucy and use sex only for procreation – go for it.  If a couple wants to share their bed with others and likes to be tied up and spanked – go for that too!   My wish is for people to engage life to the fullest, however it may fulfill them – just so long as it doesn’t come at the expense of others fulfillment. 

Sorry, don’t know where all that came from.  I guess it just struck a chord in me and I had to vent.

OH YEAH, BACK TO CURIOUS CAT’S QUESTIONS
Curious Cat, I completely understand and accept that you were not judging me in any way.  I hope you don’t feel my rant was due to feeling defensive about your comments.  I felt no such defensiveness.  My tirade sprung from really connecting with why I am open to sexual exploration.  It then caused me to want to address the stigma that is too often attached to that.  Sorry for getting so far off topic but it felt good for me to express that stuff.  I hadn’t really tried to put those feelings into words before.

You asked if Mike and I had ever had threesomes pre-DD. No.  There was actually an opportunity for one but it did not happen because we were not open to it at the time.  My guess is there were probably many more opportunities that we weren’t even aware of simply because we were not open or in-tune with it.   Pre-DD we were pretty vanilla.  No toys, no paddles, not sexual accoutrements.  I will say that if we were both limber enough to bend a certain way, then we tried it, but other than that, pretty vanilla.

You asked about whether this more extreme version of Mike was visible to me back in my vanilla days.  I wouldn’t call his current actions “extreme” but clearly, they are not reflective of his pre-DD days.  Mike has always been easy going and not that much of a take charge guy.  While he has become very comfortable in his role as a dom, he still surprises me when he comes up with something very Dom-like that I don’t expect. 

Mike has shared that he has found he is less passive even at work, than he used to be.  He isn’t aggressive in a mean way or overly authoritarian way, but he said he has found he holds others a lot more accountable than he used to and it actually has made him a better leader at work.  He said he believes it is about confidence, not arrogance, and about being bold, without being a bully. He credits that to our DD.

You said you can’t imagine your wife masturbating in front of neighbors, swinging, or taking on a third.  What CAN you both imagine doing?  Whatever it is, do it!  I encourage you both to share your dreams, desires, and fantasies (whether or not sexual) and then talk about which ones you want to explore and which ones you want to leave as fantasy.   If you both are completely honest with each other you’ll both know what is and is not productive to your marriage.  To me, Pandora’s Box is the unsaid expectations that someone has and then they later are filled with resentment when those expectations are not met. The way to keep that box closed is to not have any unsaid expectations.  (I talked about this is post 81. Expectations). 

Communicate, communicate, communicate!   When a couple shares all their thoughts with each other it displays a willingness to be vulnerable to each other.  I believe that if you aren’t willing to be vulnerable with the person you love the most in this life, then you are missing out on a big part of what love is.    I have always loved my husband, but that love has deepened more than I ever imagined once I became vulnerable to him.  And vulnerability has a way of being reciprocated and Mike is much more vulnerable to me now, as a Dom, than he was pre-DD.  I talked about this in my Post 67: An Esoteric Ramble.  To me, if someone is with a person that they feel is not worthy of their vulnerability, then perhaps they are with the wrong person.   

I am not directing that comment at you, Curious Cat.  It was just a general statement and my words are intended to encourage people to completely open up with their partners and share their full selves with their partner.  Anything less is unfair to you and to them.

Next: 104. What’s my Role?  Dom-ish?

91. Undressing Kayla

What a whirlwind of delightful debauchery!  As the time with Donna as a house guest has ended our attention turns to Kayla who will likely move in with us.

I’ll admit my title for this post is a bit of click bait.  I am referring to undressing Kayla in a metaphorical way, as in revealing more about the true Kayla, and not about physically undressing her (yet).  Sorry, for the tease!

I preface this by saying that no written description of her, or anyone, is complete.  We are all more than a page full of labels and adjectives.  Whatever words I use are bound to have various connotations for each reader.  As much as possible I am using Kayla’s words in how she describes herself, with some of my perspective added in.  I got her permission to share these details with you.

RECAP
Here’s a quick recap up of what I previously shared.  I introduced her in Post 76 and wrote more about her in Posts 77, 78, 79, and 80.   Yep, lots about Kayla lately.  She is 22 and has grown up with a consistent presence in our household.   She’s been a babysitter for my youngest but was always more than that – she was an extension to our family.  Over the years she spent a lot of time in my house, even went on some vacations with us.  We’ve helped her emotionally through tough times, and watched as she blossomed into an intelligent and caring young adult.  I recently revealed my DD lifestyle with her and she was highly curious.  Lastly, she is soon moving in with us.   There, that’s the recap.

“Naked” Truth.
Kayla has always been wise beyond her years, and since childhood she always had friends that were older than her.  Growing up she interacted and related more to my oldest son who is four years older than her, versus my middle child who is basically her same age.  Their interaction and friendship was always platonic and they behaved more like cousins than friends.  Kayla had unique interests that my kids didn’t share.  While they enjoyed her company, she likely would not be someone they would have been friends with if not for the inclusion that Mike and I sought to provide her.

She readily admits to being the “quirky girl,” a bit of a bookworm, and on the shy side.  She’s beautiful but carries a lot of negative thoughts about her body image.  She is 5’4 and wishes she was taller, her weight is fine for her height, but she wishes she was skinnier, her 32c bust in her words are, “just barely a C-cup and overall just unremarkable.”  She is self-conscious of her complexion.  Had some bad acne that left very slight scaring, not very noticeable, easy to cover with makeup, but the slight imperfections are massive craters in her mind, not to mention two small chicken pox scars that add to her insecurities.

She admits to feeling “dismissed” by her parents.  They were not overtly mean and while she has many positive memories, they weren’t as numerous as she’d like and were also mixed in with a lot of not so positive ones.  The way she puts it is that they were outwardly loving when they “had” to be.  She describes it as a sort of benign neglect.  She knows her parents had their own hang-ups and shortcomings and feels perhaps their lack of high involvement and interest in her was a reflection of her parents attempt not to repeat their own messed up childhood.  In other words, she feels her parents felt they probably couldn’t parent well, so they tried not to parent at all.  She recognizes that it is possible that actually gave her a better childhood than if her parents reverted to parenting the way they were brought up.

She is empathetic to a fault with a high “emotional radar” where she can quickly sense the emotions a person is feeling.   I have often been concerned she was a co-dependent in the making as she would often take on the problems of other people.  In trying to help others fix themselves, their problems became her problems (I can relate!!).  Unfortunately, often her love and empathy was twisted into leverage that simply enabled the other person to never take responsibility and truly fix their own problems, or worse, project onto her the blame for their ongoing problems.

She is sweet, kind, and thoughtful.  She can be bubbly and funny on rare occasions, but too often you can sense the weight of the problems that she is carries on behalf of others.  There are occasions where you can see a void in her eyes, as if joy and acceptance eludes her.  She is very shy around people she doesn’t know, but is very open with her thoughts and feelings when talking to me or Mike.

She talks about the years of growing up around our household in very glowing terms.  The warmth of my family, the joy of just hanging around us, even when we weren’t doing any particular fun activity.  According to her my household is “light and non-judgmental, where satisfaction replaces shame, and affection replaces disregard.”  I would be happy with the nice complement if I wasn’t saddened that she couldn’t have that in her home.

Most of her small circle of friends are either married or living with boyfriends/girlfriends.  She yearns to get out of her mom’s house and didn’t like the few choices she had for potential roommates to share an apartment.  She loves the idea of moving in with us as a good first step towards getting out on her own.  She said she could never feel as secure living anywhere else but with us.  And none of her reasoning has to do with submission or sex.  It is love, respect, and admiration (with a potential side-order of kink, hee-hee).

As for the kink, Kayla knows all about my submissiveness and has read my blog, as explained in Post 77.  Obviously if she moves in with us she will be a witness to my submissiveness.  I told her that she can have nothing to do with it if she chooses.  It is my life and my choice, and she is free to live as she chooses.  She indicated she is very intrigued by DD or D/s.  Being as studious as she is, she has been reading a lot about it since we first talked.  She says she is excited and curious about exploring some facets of submission for herself.   All of the discussion has been between her and I. I encouraged her to talk to Mike, but she admits being nervous and embarrassed about talking to him.  She said she just finds it hard to talk to him about her specific needs and desires.

I told her it that if she decides to become a submissive she needs to articulate what submission means to her.  Mike needs to understand how to best be her Dom and it can help me in helping her as well.  I told her if it were easier she could just write it all down.  It didn’t have to be like my contract, it could be more like an essay or even just bullet points.  Whatever way she feels comfortable in communicating it.

She liked that idea and has been working on “her document” as she calls it and plans to give it to Mike and I soon.  She also asked both Mike and I to prepare something for her and we can “exchange” documents.  She wants us to write out our suggestions on what we think would work for her.   Her hopes are after sharing the documents and talking through them that she can come up with a final document, akin to having her own contract.

Mike and I are working on our suggestions and we will be exchanging documents soon, hopefully this week.  With some risk she could read this before then, my list is not going to be very specific.  It is not for me to request any particular acts of submission from her.  My suggestions will be about letting go and approaching her submission as simply allowing herself to risk her vulnerability.  It is through becoming vulnerable that I have received the greatest joy and growth in my submission and believe she can receive the same.  I will share my observations on what I believe makes her feel vulnerable, but ultimately, it should only be about things that are true to her regardless of my thoughts or Mike’s.

Oh, and we talked about the living arrangements.  At first we were thinking of putting her in a spare bedroom that is actually an extension of our master bedroom.  I mentioned before this room is normally a separate bedroom with an entry in the hallway, but we opted to put a door to that room into our master bedroom.  It was a great room to have when our son was little.   We have two large doors that open to the master and when you immediately step into our bedroom, to the left is the door to the spare room, and to the right is the master bedroom.

Anyway, in talking with Kayla we decided it best that she have something that is more physically separated from us so that it feels more like her own space.   Mike may move his office into the spare room off the master and have Kayla take what is now his office as her bedroom.   We also talked about simply relocating the door to that spare room next to the master.  It isn’t all that much work to dry wall up the existing door and install a door in the hallway.  It’s something Mike feels he can do himself over a weekend.   We’ll see.

She wants to move in on 12/26.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

92. The Inspection.  Defining Necessary.