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I signed up for Fetlife last year with a desire for something new to come into my life. When you sign up you have to choose a role for yourself: Dominant, Switch, submissive, Master, Mistress, slave, Top, Bottom, Fetishist, Kinkster, Sadist, Masochist, Sadomasochist, Vanilla, Not Applicable, Unsure. I admit I pondered that for a long time. Do I choose a role I am comfortable playing or do I choose a role I want to explore? Something that is beyond my comfort zone?

In the 14 or so years that Jay and I have been together, we have gotten used to a certain dynamic. He is most decidedly the Dominant and I, the submissive. It comes from our age gap. When we met he was 31 and I was 23. I had some sexual experience, all vanilla. He was clear about his sexual preferences and though he confided to me about frustrations he encountered with past lovers, he had explored his desires and knew what he liked. We fell into a D/s relationship naturally. We never even talked about it. I wouldn’t have known what D/s meant back then anyway. Any talk would have over-intellectualized something that was instinct.

My sexuality has grown quite a bit since then. Early on, Jay expressed to me that he wanted his young wife to gain experience with other men, a proactive move to ensure my curiosity was sated. Experience and the abundance of information about alternative sexuality made me who I am today. Most important is the security I feel about my relationship with Jay. We’ve been through so much together (believe me, we’ve both been very very bad), and though there have been times when we both thought we would each flourish better apart, those times are few. We somehow stick it out long enough for those moments to pass and realize that we would grow better together. Our relationship is so strong I feel safe to explore.

Growth never ends. We’re always changing. At this time in my life I am no longer the ingenue. I have this budding desire to explore my Dominant side. This is not a new discovery. I’ve always had it in me, but felt inexperience made me ill-equipped. Submission in not unlike being a student. After many years of study, one masters a subject or a craft. In academia, one graduates and earns a Masters degree.

Recently I came across this blog entry from personal development guru, Steve Pavlina. The second part of the article, with subheading “Alternative Relationship Styles” explains BDSM, or more specifically D/s, in a clear and simple way. Like Steve, I’m not into pain. I like bondage and discipline, enjoy Dominance/submission, but SM just doesn’t do it for me. Mull over this paragraph for a moment:

I should mention that my interest in D/s is partly sexual and partly non-sexual. It’s the power exchange aspect that turns me on the most. If I had to choose between doing a D/s session without sex vs. having vanilla sex with no D/s aspects, most of the time I’d probably choose the D/s play. However, I’d much rather explore D/s with a sexual element than without. It’s a lot more fun that way. Read the full article.

My favorite fantasy involves having a maid. I have a soft spot for household help, having grown up in the Philippines where it’s common to have maids who live with the family they serve all their lives. Back then I was the child; I was in their charge. Sex aside, I am curious about what it’s like to manage a live-in maid now that I’m an adult who runs her own business. It’s been almost 18 years now since I’ve lived with household help. I’m afraid my American sensibility has made me feel sensitive about enslavement, even if it is voluntary and consensual, which doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to face this fear and examine it firsthand.

I imagine falling deeply in love with someone who cooks, cleans and does my bidding. Maids are typically women, and in my fantasies my maid is a woman (she has to wear a sexy maid uniform, of course!), but I’m open to either gender once I meet them in person. It goes without saying that attraction is a big factor in my hiring a maid. It would be someone I feel confident and comfortable with. Someone I can see myself growing in intimacy with. I know I will be strict about how I want things done, but I also know I will be a caring, nurturing and loving Mistress.