Submission wants to give. It needs to say “yes”, but sometimes, it works better when you say “no.”

As a fledgling kinkster, I thought BDSM gave me three options:

• To be a sub

• To be a dom

• To be a switch.

That little list was the source of my undoing. I believed that if I leaned towards the right side of the slash, I had two choices:

• To be myself

• To become someone I was not in order to provide absolute subservience.

Submission’s natural state is pliant, so learning to say “no” has taken me more time than learning to say “yes”. That part of my sexuality is inherent, so I had to hone the ability to defend my limits and boundaries. During my evolution, I learned that if I couldn’t say “no”, my “yes” had as much value as a bargain basement Boney M CD. I also learned there were quite a few different kinds of subs, and one of them was me.

Just me.

I didn’t have to have a special talent for making myself invisible. I didn’t have to efface myself to obey distasteful instructions. I didn’t have to torture myself over my unsubly failings. You could say I became a crap sub, and it took a lot of evolving to become this bad at it.

I no longer take my role as a submissive as seriously as a religion. I had to do a lot of therapy to become this way.

I won’t spend days pondering what makes me worthy of your dominance. I’ll thank therapy for that, too.

I won’t use my orientation as a step towards holy enlightenment. I think my therapist deserves a Nobel Prize.

Submission wants to give. It needs to say “yes”, but sometimes, it works better when you say “no.” Masochism and degradation leave you vulnerable to even the tiniest abuses. That means it needs a dominant who is guided by a stiff list of ethics and extreme respect. I do eventually become pliable, but only with a dominant who thinks as much about my wellbeing as he does his own.

Ethical dominants experience a side of me that few will ever see: I'll become Super Sub, Slave of the Armies of the North, Masochist to the Domly Legions, loyal servant to the true dom. I swear there’s a good sub in me. She just likes enthusiastic consent, which is perfectly compatible with submission.

Sexuality should never disempower. It should be worthy of celebration.

And I intend on celebrating it, even if I have to be a “crap sub” to do so.