I think it’s a pretty tricky thing. You want to make sure your partner is totally ok with what you do, but you want to leave a little room for surprises, and some latitude to carry things farther than you discussed in order to really ramp up the emotions—and maybe use a bit of real fear. Has my partner gotten too far into the role? Is this real? If I use our safe word, will he or she stop?
That is terribly delicious when you don’t know that for sure and then you wonder if you can tough it out, or what happens if you use the safe word? And that is what the safe word is for, theoretically. Except that you might start playing macho games. How much can you take? How far can you go? And it might really hurt but you convince yourself you are doing it for love; for your partner; for their happiness and also for your own. It can get complicated.
For some people, dominance and submission is mostly a mental thing. Maybe neither of us is really into pain. But we like the idea of doing anything for our lover and of knowing they love you so much they’ll let you do anything to them. But you don’t really want to hurt them. Yet you want to play the game. You want to give yourself over entirely. You want them to hurt you so you can prove yourself. You want to be out of your mind, and giving yourself up and taking anything and everything can do that to you.
I’m not sure it’s something to play at. A lot can happen. I suspect people do it without really understanding what they are messing with, and then it turns into a kind of dramatic scene, which can be fun—passions are definitely inflamed—but misses the point, as far as I’m concerned. For me, this is a metaphor for how I feel. How deeply I feel. How impossibly in love I am.
Fuck it! I’m a nut.