a subject for a hard ruler
(This is a response to Dev’s post, subjugation as love. I feel a bit strange about putting this stuff into words, but I also feel sort of compelled to, out of curiosity).
Because of the connection between my dominant partner and I, I feel that “subjugation” thing pretty strongly. It’s definitely a key aspect of submissiveness for me. It’s tied into headspace, unlike service, which is another side of my submission but which feels more like a sort of constant or “entire” type of emotional orientation—like a kind of very intentional longing to meet unstated desires.
Subjugation in itself doesn’t feel to me like an externally directed force, like love, or honour. It’s a more selfish form of pleasure (if the sensation of self-dissolution can be called selfish, which seems all right to me). I crave it. Service, I also crave—but that is the externalized force of me-being-subject; it’s like expressing the pleasure of loving and being loved through fucking, except, instead, it conveys the pleasure of being subjected through acts of service. So if service is a way to express love or honour felt by being made subject—subjugation is more of a stand-alone delight.
Willing subjugation facilitates devotion, though. And that is extremely legible:
He looked at me with his beautiful subby eyes… (via)
I am devoted to my dominant partner and that makes me feel like he is (as Dev characterizes her idea of Joscelin’s perception of her), “distant, alien and possessed of unknowable motivations”—except that I would describe my version as: elevated, numinous, and possessed of his own, unknowable motivations. This kind of devoted perception I have of him surrounds him when he’s being dominant. The rest of the time, it still exists, but in a muted version that I’d describe as a form of very deep, human respect. Polite equals is what I think we would be if I didn’t always want to skew towards the power dynamic, but I get so much pleasure from the devotion that I tend not to want to turn it (or have it turned) off.
Subjugation feels to me like deliberate positive reinforcement for this devotion, because that is when he formally takes it.
Fuck, it’s crazily hot. It makes me want to kneel all over the place.
The scary thing is the worry that this kind of submissive response “isn’t asked for” and isn’t wanted. Anxiety about that is very frightening and possibly damaging. It isn’t necessarily a helpless love that opens a black hole of need, though, so long as there’s some sort of structure to ensure the submissive partner doesn’t get insecure and all stymied by self-doubt (I’ve got a sweet little protocol to follow for this now). But beyond that—also, basically, to keep on with this, I am prepared to accept that there will come moments when I will need to bury my pride and just ask.
Thoughts that are anathema to my feelings of submissive devotion are things to do with fallibility like, *big breath* “my dominant partner doesn’t know what he’s doing” or something of that ilk, any sort of disrespect or ethical infringement (like not telling him I broke the bowl. Well, I guess I did think about that. But there was never any question that I wouldn’t tell him), making negative judgements (although I do always assess what happens between us) and contradicting him. The contradictions thing is important because I’ve come to realize that I cannot have a meaningful debate with him when the power dynamic is on, or when I’m invested in protecting that power dynamic because that’s my default setting.
Thoughts that go along with those devoted feelings aren’t really thoughts. For me, the devotion is just a known. My biggest desire is to communicate that known to him, which is why when he is dominant with me, it is a rush. Because he’s then taking the power I’m giving, and it makes me feel baseline strong and secure, with peaks of agitated eagerness-to-please and valleys of calm bliss. None of that worry.
Being ruthlessly subjugated is gratifying because it both endorses my devotion, and gives me a (rightful) place to be. I feel like all there is is mercy. I don’t feel deep intimacy, although it’s certainly an intimate experience. Mostly, I feel a great deal of joyful gratitude, and peace.
Filed under: afterthoughts | 7 Comments
Tags: D/s, devotion, submission
This was very, very interesting to read. Thank you for writing it.
Cheers for the prompt and the parameters. I found it very interesting to write.
I read Dev’s post on this the other day, and felt really weird for not understanding what was going on, and now I’ve read yours, and I’m still stumped. This is very bizarre for me. I am reading this, and it is *interesting,* but I have no idea what it means.
If I change ’subjugation’ to ’subjugating’ my automatic response is ‘hot,’ in that kind of roleplay kind of way. But I don’t think that’s the way you two are discussing it.
I’m still not sure what subjugation means in this context. I think I understand what you’re saying about its effects on you, but not what it *is.* Could you give examples? I’m not big on acts defining paradigms, but in this instance I think it might help me understand.
I was thinking about my reply to this on my way to the pool tonight, and I’m going to start by describing how I feel when I’m in that perfect place of subjugation and then provide a couple of examples of things that have put me there.
This might sound kind of unnecessarily grand and oddly put, but it’s a very powerful and wonderful feeling. It’s very abstract:
It feels like an immaterial equivalent of spooning in which I am the little spoon, and the big spoon is the utter bleakness and indifference of reality. It feels like being cradled by one’s insignificance, stabilized by vast power. It’s extremely soothing.
It is definitely a dominance-elicited response and it is easily possible for me to feel it just in the presence of my dominant partner, when the power dynamic is turned on. But I feel it especially when he is seated and I am kneeling—even more so if I’m also experiencing discomfort. Anything that has me at his feet puts me there. *** (just daydreaming about that a little) ***
But, oh god, there was also this fucking mindblowing hotness when he deliberately inversed the normalcy of a subjugation trigger like clothed vs. naked position. It’s definitely to do with ruthlessness, rather than correction or that more compassionate kind of endurance-eliciting that Dev described as comforting while hurting-you-for-your-own-good.
The subjugated feeling I’m describing is definitely a response to dominance, more than sadism. Sadism makes me alert and excited; dominance makes me very calm and secure. It is certainly, decidedly, decisively not roleplay.
Did that answer your question? Please let me know. It’s a pleasure to come these examples…
Totally forgot I left this comment.
Reading the comments over at Dev’s, I still don’t entirely get it. I said over there that i could only see what people were describing as roleplay. But reading your response here, which is very different, I can also sort of see that in this context it’s not roleplay. The parts I’m resonating with most are the ruthlessness, and the hotness of reversing the clothed-naked equation.
All in all, I am still slightly mystified, but I think I have a better handle on what people are experiencing. Thanks for sharing!
Yeeeah… over at Dev’s there’s a presumed time dimension to subjugation that has popped into the comments—that forever and ever part—which I personally can’t relate to and isn’t what I’m intending to mean here.
For me, subjugation is essentially a feeling of top-down totality. Like being totally subsumed, or totally subordinated, except that it really doesn’t feel like it’s *about* me in the slightest.
It’s really immersive sensation/emotional orientation. A feeling of reverence is part of it too, and kind of… horror? ..in that awed way of the terrible sublime, not the shocking or slashy variety. It’s more like a kind of awful gravity.