From Submissive Journal Prompts:

“What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print.” -Isadora Duncan

I began my journey into D/s and BDSM in online chat rooms; namely those on IRC (BDSM-Net and Bondage.com). I knew nothing of what the lifestyle would be for me, only the fantasy that I lived when I got home from class or work; it was a retreat from the everyday hardship that I was living with. I felt the control release and the pleasure of making someone else happy. I loved the creative talent it afforded me in my poetry and writing, the scenes I participated in. It became an art. I fell in love with the fantasy of it. Even when I accepted an online collar I thought that there was no way I could really love this in real. The activities I participated in, the rules I followed, the tasks assigned to me all seemed a part of the fantasy.

I didn’t understand why those that were ‘real’ shunned the way I behaved and looked down on my personae as one that would be trapped in online play for all my life. I didn’t understand what they were talking about when they talked about service and hardship in surrender, about the pleasure of being there for their owner, about serving and the pride in the words, “good girl”. I never understood the reality of what I was playing in.

Until one day I started asking a lot of important questions of myself. I wanted to experience the SM for real. I wanted to be tied up and see what the draw to my pleasure senses was. I wanted to know what it was like to kneel and serve someone. I wanted to hear “good girl” for something I had done. Was it going to remain fantasy? I seriously didn’t know. I thought that maybe it would just lead to kinky sex and I was okay with that also. I really didn’t know what I wanted nor could I have imagined that my life would be as it is now or where it will be in years to come. My surrender was not easy and there are parts of it that I still cling to; a part of my independence that Master is allowing me to hang on to.

I’ve known submissives that can only experience online or LDR relationships. I do not shun them as I was shunned. I know the desire and the pull to live it in any form you can. I was lucky, I guess, and left my husband to explore the part of me drawn to BDSM, the service and surrender specifically. I’ve been able to embrace the relationship I am in and am so very thankful for the role I played online to test the waters.

Online is no substitute and you can’t learn all that there is to know about living this life from essays and forums. You have to experience it to truly know. Every journey is different but I am grateful for my online VT beginnings. Without them I would not have met my Master. Now we live happily together.

But even now I can’t see how to explain how my life is to someone online. I don’t know how to put my service to him in words that someone with no experience or ability to experience would understand. I don’t think words like that really exist.

–luna

From Submissive Journal Prompts:

List 5 things that you are grateful for in your life.

1. I’m grateful for my ability to change. Without the desire to make my life better and more fulfilling I would be stuck working at a dead end job with no happiness in my life. Since I’ve been able to change my thinking, my behavior and my thought process I’ve moved up in the world, I finished school, I have a Master that loves me completely and I’m making my body healthier too. Without this internal drive I don’t know where I’d be.

2. I’m grateful for friends. Since I’ve moved into this lifestyle the BDSM community has been my rock, my wealth of friendships and resources that I’ve been able to lean upon has been so immense. Without the people I’ve been able to call my friends I don’t think I would have stepped away from online play and fantasy into the real. My friends stand by me and aren’t afraid to tell me that I’m being selfish or stupid. They are also the first ones to say that the know I’ve changed, they are happy with how I hold and conduct myself and because of that the bond of friendship is even stronger.

3. I’m thankful for love. The love I feel for Master is the most profound feeling I have ever had. It’s so deep that if I spend too much time thinking of it, I will cry the hard chest hurting cry that overpowers your thoughts. It’s like coming to the realization that you are important for the first time in your life you mean something to someone else. That someone will do anything they can to make sure your life is perfect. I’m in that type of love right now and we give each other perfection every single day. I never want to lose that.

4. I’m thankful for my health. While I am working to make that better I ‘m thankful that even though I’m considered obese that I haven’t had the high blood pressure, the onset of diabetes, severe knee and back problems or asthma. I’m healthy enough to get up off the floor under my own power, I can walk for 20 minutes without being winded and I want to be more active. My current health will help me be more healthy down the road. This goal will be acheived.

5. I’m thankful for passion. Not just lust but the awe-inspiring passion in community, or politics, life or love. This passion is the driving force for all things. I love that my passion for this lifestyle helps me be a better me and hopefully is a beacon to someone on a similar struggle. The inner struggle to become and the outer struggle to improve. I have a passion to change. I will change and I know that with all the other items on this list I will overcome.

–luna

From Submissive Journal Prompts:

How do you feel about the idea of ‘breaking a slave’?

For me, the idea of breaking a slave goes against the natural progression of a submissive/slave. I perceive it as a forced breakdown of someone’s own will, their own attitude and sometimes their own thought process.

What generally results is a blank canvas upon which the Master can apply behaviors, attitudes and reactions that would please them. In many broken slave cases I’ve read about; the submissive/slave doesn’t even remember how to think for themselves anymore. They have no dependence, they have no limits where they used to have limits and in very rare cases I’ve seen fear of the unknown where things once were known.

I really don’t like the idea of training just to break a slave into their base role. It can be very damaging to the person emotionally and mentally. You could wind up with someone that is no where near the person you started with. Do they then get discarded?

I guess it boils down to the fact that I don’t like people to be treated as chattel. We are human beings and while playing as animals or temporary treatment as animals can be beneficial to a D/s dynamic I don’t see it improving a person’s life to be treated such all the time.

Now I’ve seen and read about submissives and slaves that consider themselves broken but I see them in a different view. They have willingly become powerfully subservient, brainwashed (for lack of a better word), and live solely for the rule of the Master of the house. I find these relationships challenging and hard yet beautiful and very moving. It’s like these people move as one person. I don’t believe that the process has hurt the persons involved.

My choice would be to keep the submissive intact and work other ways into stopping or changing behaviors that are not appreciated. I know my Master is very good at working into my mind and helping me change my attitude and behavior.

For example I used to be a very nosy gossip. I loved a juicy rumor and would have no problem spreading it around where ever I could. Master found that very distasteful and worked it out of me. I’m now a better person because of it.

I am not broken, I really don’t like the idea of breaking a slave, but I can’t say that those that are, are any worse off (when successful).