#some of them even in the right order

The most effective way to remove a bad habit from your life is to take away the option in the first place. If you have a predeliction towards overindulging in ice-cream, give the Ben and Jerry’s a pass next time you’re at the supermarket. At least that way you have to put on your shoes and head out the door in the search of frozen delicious next time the urge takes you. And you’ll have to go twice as far if it hits you in the middle of the night.

D/s is creating a framework of honesty, that removes the option to not communicate by forcing you into situations where a lack of honesty would lead to serious problems that manifest quickly and without mercy. It isn’t so much about avoiding lies of omission as forcing truths out of both of you over and over again. And I’m not talking about some intangible, cosmic truth that will bring your world back into focus. I’m talking about the nuts and bolts of a relationship. Thrust them into the framework of Dominance and submission and you’re all but submerging the punctured bicycle tire into water. You’re going to see the problem very quickly, clear as day.

I’m not saying there won’t be problems. I’m not saying there won’t be lies. I’m not even saying that a relationship that wouldn’t work without D/s will with it. But from all my dealings on the subject, the way that it has permeated not only the way I approach things, but my very personality and perception, it makes it very difficult for me to properly deceive myself. It requires far too much self reflection, and self acceptance, to tolerate any true denial.

And, as controversial as it might sound, I think that there is no relationship on earth that doesn’t manifest the D/s dynamic in one shade or another. Perhaps not all the time, and perhaps not always in one partner’s favour or the other, but in any one instant there will be something at play, one side ebbing while the other flows. D/s is a declaration of that truth, to accept and acknowledge it, and then push yourselves to the natural extreme. 

I don’t want this to read as propaganda, but instead a window into a perception that has been so coloured over the past few years by this singular facet. I’ve heard people label themselves ‘lifestylers’, and for the longest time I would secretly scoff, utterly incredulous that they could possibly be 'on’ for that long, without reprieve. I now realise that, at least for me, it means something else. That there is no part of you that is left untouched, no part wholly innocent of that philosophy or way of thinking.

It sounds like it might be a problem, and who can say, perhaps it is. But for the moment it feels wholly honest, both to me and the people that I deal with, those that I can talk to about these things. It affords me the opportunity to be unashamed, unblinking and resolute, and I’ll tell you now that there is no sensation on earth that empowers me more.

Excusing, if you will, the actuality of it all.

Ahem.