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Wisdom On A Bumper Sticker

May 20th, 2015

Master doesn’t much care for activism.

I think I’ve said that before.

It’s not so much that he thinks no one should be an activist. It’s more that he is not at all interested in him being an activist, and he feels we have too much to lose if I’m an activist, and he doesn’t understand how people with families and incredibly happy lives can just flit off to protests, jeopardizing their careers, and their families, and (let’s face it) their lives. He doesn’t understand how any cause can be more important than all of that.

Of course, he’s also a straight, white, cisgender male who works in a corporate environment where he’s not required to leave the comfort of his own home unless he has to actually touch a machine, and there’s nothing affecting him specifically that he feels is a big enough deal to protest. That might change if he finds himself affected by the ageism that is ever present in the internet technology field, but for now, it is what it is.

He sees the problems with the world. He points them out to me on occasion, like the other day, when he was thoroughly disgusted by a cop who pepper sprayed a couple teens while they were handcuffed in a holding cell. But he doesn’t buy into the idea that activism is the rent we pay to live on Earth. And he looks at the arguments between activists on social media and in mainstream media and wonders how we’re gonna change things when all we’re doing is screaming in each other’s faces.

It took me a week to put together my recent post about the kink community’s reaction to a consent violation. That sounds like a lot when you consider the fact that I didn’t even hit 1500 words, but when you take into consideration my own issues with consent violations, and the funk I’ve been in since I found out about the things my ex is currently putting our children through, a week is not actually that long.

Unless you’re M, and your slave is so distraught because she’s completely focused on negativity that she can’t be bothered to actually be a slave.

The day that I published the post, Master’s frustration came to a head. He tried to tactfully explain what was bothering him, but when I mostly just smiled and nodded (because he was right, and I had nothing constructive to say about it), he gave up on tact.

“I’ve tried to figure out why your current focus on activism bothers me,” he said, “and I’ve finally got it. You’re taking all the fun out of kink. You, and all the other people like you.”

My jaw dropped, and I just sort of stared at him.

“How can you expect a man to get into hurting you and treating you as a slave when you’re all over the internet decrying abuses in the kink community?”

I know how that sounds. I was tempted to take it at face value myself, but I’m trying to stop arguing with Master just for the sake of arguing, and I’ve been with him 13 years as of this coming August. If I don’t know what he means by now, we’ve got bigger problems than a disagreement over me spending too much time on society and not enough time on him.

I wanted to scream at him, “It’s different!” but I didn’t have to. He said as much himself. Knowing that doesn’t change the fact that his confidence was shaken.

Over the course of our relationship, he’s made me explain to him the difference between my relationship with my ex and my relationship with him more times than I can count. I’ve had to point out all the differences again and again until I’m blue in the face.

I mean, he gets the general gist. Consent v. no consent is a pretty easy concept to grasp. But he wants to know where the line lies with me in particular because I’m a pretty edgy kinkster. There are things that my ex did to me that I’ve expressly asked M to do to me because it was never that I didn’t like being hurt…it was that I wanted to be hurt on my own terms.

The problem with that is that a big part of our dynamic is that M does what he wants, giving the impression that my terms aren’t considered. And sometimes, they’re not. But I want that. I asked for that. I gave consent for that. Ultimately, my terms are met, and everything that has happened since I gave consent happened on my terms.

Some people like to ignore that part. Makes their relationships feel more edgy, like the slave never had a choice, doesn’t have a choice, will never have a choice. There’s always a choice. Being stuck between a rock and a hard place doesn’t negate the fact that you have a choice.

I can see how pointing that out can ruin certain aspects of the ‘fun’ of kink; especially if your kink and/or dynamic depends on lack of choice.

We talked about it, and went over our dynamic again, and worked it out, and I’ve agreed to stop feeding the Outrage Machine1. I never meant for it to take up so much of my time, didn’t even realize it was. But then I had to figure out why.

Why has most of my content here been impersonal? Why is so much of it related to advocacy for other people? When did I decide to stop focusing on our relationship when I write here?

I tried all the old excuses. I’ve been busy (I haven’t2). The world sucks (it doesn’t3). I’m pretty passionate about the fact that someone needs to speak up about this shit (lots of other people are).

It’s become a distraction.

We have a small house, so cleaning (when I do it…slacking doesn’t even begin to describe it) doesn’t take very long. We keep our social circle small, and all of our friends work with M or live too far away for me to visit them without a license, and even if they didn’t, I don’t go anywhere without M. The cats sleep most of the day, and are devastatingly spoiled4 because I play with them and give in to them far too much. Sure, there are countless other ways for me to distract myself around our house, but ultimately, when it comes down to it, you can only start the same PlayStation game over again so many times before you want to put the controller through the TV; can only read the same book so many times before you’re reciting it instead.

M works more than he’s off, so when he’s off, he doesn’t really have the energy to be my entertainment5. Add to that the fact that he’s begun resorting to the stereotypical husband behavior (do I really have to say ‘not all’ here?) of responding rather convincingly when he’s not actually listening to me. And the fact that his lack of energy and confidence has meant a severe lack of kink (though that is definitely on an upswing).

So I distract myself with social injustice. There are worse things with which I could be distracting myself.

He asked, “How, exactly, is that helping with your job?”

My job, of course, is being his slave. And the answer is, it isn’t. It’s contributing to dereliction of duty.

A few days later, we were sitting behind an SUV on our way somewhere, when my eyes settled on a bumper sticker that said, “Wag more. Bark less.” And I tried to dismiss it. I mean, ffs. Dog humor. Amirite?

But as we sat there, the light refusing to go green and traffic piling up behind us, the bumper sticker started to niggle its way into my subconscious and eventually became all I could think about.

And I realized that I haven’t switched my focus and pretty much stopped writing here because I needed a distraction. I did it because I’ve taken all the fun out of it. Raising my own social injustice awareness (and barking about it) has taken all the fun out of it.

There’s loads of stuff I feel like I can’t write about here because it’s not feminist enough (or at all), or sexy enough (or at all), or educational enough (or at all). Other sex bloggers have been saying the same thing recently, so I know I’m not telling you anything new. But sometimes the omissions feel like lies. I don’t like telling lies. So instead, I stick with ‘safe’ topics (when I write at all) that people like to read about, and leave the rest in my head.

This is my own fault for letting the opinions of others affect me; for allowing myself to fall into the “my space should be more” trap into which so many sex bloggers are falling. I’m not faulting them for it, or saying they shouldn’t, or suggesting that they have caused my stupid faltering. I’m just saying that I used to be really happy with my little space until I allowed the ambitions and directions of others to affect my opinion of myself and my work, and that’s been really shitty for me.

What? Even I want people to like me. I’m just not overly concerned if they don’t. Can’t win ’em all.

All of this to say that I’m slowly getting on the right track. M’s on vacation soon, and we’ve got lots of (kinky and non) plans, provided our car cooperates. We were only able to get the back brakes fixed, so who knows?

M was recently able to get back on his bike, and that makes me obscenely happy. We were worried he wouldn’t ever be able to again. So we hope to go for a ride or two while he’s off.

And I’m looking forward to staying off social media, ignoring the rest of the world, and pretending I get to have all of him every single day for the rest of my life.

Though I probably won’t actually stay completely off social media. I like to brag about our sex too much. ~winky face~

<3

1. Outside of sharing pertinent links and the very occasional rant. He knows me well enough to know that there’s no such thing as Rayne keeping her mouth shut.
2. Not in the conventional sense, anyway. I have been busy trying to pull myself out of depression, but didn’t you hear? Self care doesn’t count.
3. Yes, there’s shitty stuff happening, but there’s also a whole lot of good stuff happening, too.
4. Bash has gotten to the point that he cries literally all day because he wants to be outside. “So let him outside.” No. He’s stupid, and the people in my neighborhood are careless. He would end up in a fight with a dog or another cat, or up a tree, or run over by a car. So we deal with the crying until one or both of us feels like going out. I’ve come down with a sinus infection and M’s busy with work. Bash has been crying incessantly all day. I’m about ready to shoot myself.
5. Not that I expect him to entertain me, or that he doesn’t make time for me, or that he doesn’t do what he can when he can.

Categories: Rayne Tags:
  1. May 21st, 2015 at 09:10 | #1

    open and honest. I love it. I totally get what you are saying here. It is a tight line we walk in the kink and social world, a few of us are safe being who we are, the rest have to put on masks.
    It is interesting seeing how social issues and injustices that we stand against sometimes go against the grain of our own kink. We are edge players too but if I saw someone treat another person outside of play like we play I would be revolted and pissed off for sure.
    Excellent article and it will give me something to mill around in my head today too as I am learning how to “wag more, bark less”

  2. May 21st, 2015 at 10:21 | #2

    @ Lord Raven Thank you for your comment! I was kinda worried about this post. Afraid people wouldn’t ‘get it’. So I’m really glad you do. 🙂

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