Once upon a time…
Years and years ago, there was a woman in an IRC channel who called her dominant “M”. Though I asked more than once, she never told me why.
One day, in the interest of speed, I called Master “M” in private chat, and she asked me not to do that. She said, “If you start doing it, everyone else will start doing it, and it won’t be special to us, anymore.”
I side-eyed her like a mother fucker. Who the fuck thinks they own a letter? I mean, really. But I refrained from using “M” to talk about Master for the rest of my time on IRC. Because I like to pretend I’m nice. Sometimes.
Then Twitter happened. And I was asked to write a sex and relationships column for a conservative rock station. And I realized calling Master “Master” would be a problem for some people. Plus, 140 characters. Plus, I don’t know that woman anymore. She left IRC long before we did, and I never heard from her again.
So, I started calling Master “M”. It fits. His (mostly dormant and mostly written by me) blog is Mindcryme.com. He’s gone by Melen for his entire internet existence. And I call him Master. M, and M, and M.
She was right. Everyone does it now. On FetLife. On Twitter. On their blogs.
I’m not bothered by this. I don’t own a fucking letter. I just think it’s funny. I thought she was nuts.
Huh.
<3 P.S. I'm not saying everyone calls their M "M" because I do it. People who don't even know I exist call their M "M", and it's entirely possible that people I don't know exist were calling their Ms "M" before I started calling my M "M". I mean, I wasn't the first s on Twitter, and there are plenty of brighter, more efficient minds than mine. Anywhoo...
