Authenticity and BDSM

I received an inquiry from a man, Señor, about my thoughts on BDSM. I posted them to my other blog, Ask the Dream Queen.” Here is the correspondence that followed:

Señor: Amy, first off, awesome blog. You are wicked smart and well-read. Amazing work.

[quoting me] “There are parts of your identity that are chronically imbalanced.”

What if being submissive is what makes me feel loved, excited, and whole physically, erotically, emotionally, and spiritually? What if it completes me and makes me happy?

Amy: Totally, Señor – to each his own. Go for it. I wish you all the peace and contentment it gives you.

In case you don’t know my background, I am transsexual, and I used to have the selfsame desires as you. As I discovered my feminine nature outside of BDSM fantasy (never having had actual experience with a dominant woman), the compulsion to submit neutralized because I was submitting to my true self.

BDSM fanatasies were there for me every day when I was male, but becoming a woman was out of the question. As a man, I had no desire to change sex. I was not “born in the wrong body,” as so many transsexual women claim about themselves.

In my understanding of how we are constituted, every person is a latent transsexual. There is a perfect woman in the soul of every man, and many men make use of submission to be close to her, to make them feel whole. Being submissive gets them in touch with feelings they cannot have as men because of standards in the culture of masculinity.

Though BDSM can serve as a passageway to deep experiences of ourselves, I do not see it as an end-in-itself. I believe it can be a means to an end; as was described in the link to the blog entry I forwarded to you in my last email.

For me, the fantasies were a dead end. They got me in touch with my feminine nature, which was pacifying – so pacifying that my depression and anxieties were tranquilized and I filled with feeling. From that point, the only place the feeling went was sexual arousal. Arousal, like anxiety, is just a type of excitement. As a male indulging in BDSM fantasy, I was on cycles of depression/anxiety and pacification/arousal from which I never learned anything, and that kept me static, never growing. BDSM fantasy was like an escape into Heaven, but it was never an escape from hell. I would guess that it is like this for many submissives.

Individuation is a psychological term for “processes whereby the undifferentiated tends to become individual.” We “individuate” as we increasingly grow into our true, individual selves over the course of our lives. The pinacle of individuation is the death one self and the birth of a new one – which happened for me through my gender change. All of the feeling concentrated into BDSM fantasy is now part of the rest of my life, and I am a thousand times more fulfilled than I was as a male. By this, I am definitly not advocating transsexuality for you or anyone else. I am just saying that we may think we know who we are, but we can’t because who we are is discovered through a process; it is a becoming; it is individuation.

Señor: There are many many sexual components to it for me: oral servitude, being taken with a strap-on, being restrained, spanked, disciplined, being used for my Mistress’s pleasure and being loved and appreciated in doing it all. This is very deep, long-term stuff that is inside me. Of course, there are roots to it all, and needs, and more, but what if it’s a true, authentic piece of me?

Amy: It may be an authentic piece of you today, but it won’t be forever. What we are to become in the future is a total mystery. The only things we can be assured of survivng are our souls, hearts, minds and bodies – not our identitites.

I believe that the soul’s prerogatives are to feel, express and experience as broadly as possible; and that while being in a sub/dom relationship may fulfill some of the soul’s need to feel, it cuts off other ranges of feeling, expression and experience.

My understanding is that we exist to spiritually evolve, from one life to the next, into eventual reunion with our souls in the flesh. Perhaps your destiny in this life is to be a feminized submissive, but I am sure your eternal soul is not a feminized submissive. We were created to evolve from creatures into human beings and into beings. We become beings by becoming aware of our humanity. If a person thinks they can become aware of their humanity as a submissive, I would say go for it. It’s all a lesson leading someplace new.

The psychology behind the goddess worship of ancient peoples is the selfsame that compels modern people to submit to dominant females. While the focus of goddess worship was often fertility, the focus of submission to a dominant female is eros. From the perspective of the submissive, the dominant female is an eroticized mother figure; she’s not really human; she’s perfect; she’s an archetype; she is preprogrammed; she has no personality of her own.

In my experience, feeling loved, excited, and whole physically, erotically, emotionally, and spiritually is something that is reciprocal, between two lovers. Surely, there are legions of lovers who practice BDSM; but I am assuming that the fulfillment many submissives seek is more about them than the dominant. Instead being fulfilled, their partner indulges them or their dominant receives money for service.

And it is like a game; submitting to the feminine in order to possess it. As such it is impersonal. It is mainly about the soul-needs of the submissive (and perhaps those of the rare dominant).

Ideally, through dominance & submission, partners can help each other to feel and express. They are play-forced to submit to what is most beautiful in themselves. Submission is a means of becoming aware of their humanity, which brings them closer to the being within them.

Señor: This is my 21st year drug and alcohol free. I’ve done huge amounts of healing in all arenas and still I want to be Mistress’s slut, slave, and toy.

Amy: There is always deeper healing to do.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.