I’m not interested enough in how you see the world to wade through this entire blog, or even this entire thread.

Maybe if you did, you’d see that we’re actually saying the same thing. But since you seem way more interested in, well, let’s just say not, then I don’t think I have more to say to or about you. Perhaps soon I’ll get to a point where I can say what I feel in a way that doesn’t trigger your Stand Up And Point At Dogma reflex so quickly, or perhaps not. (It’s a hard one to avoid, I know.) Either way, good day to you. :)

I’m not interested enough in how you see the world to wade through this entire blog, or even this entire thread. Your musings are not that important. But do not tar all of us with the same brush, whatever you think. My personal thoughts and feelings on submission, desire, etc. are probably not worth anyone else’s time, so I won’t bore the gentle reader with them. But I do not dare to presume that my thoughts and feelings are a prototype for others. If someone reads your posts and agrees, then fine. I have no truck with that. But if someone stands up and says, “I have a different point of view”, then they are accused of being ‘uppity’ or hearing voices. There’s a hint of “holier than thou” at work here.

I agree that the current prevailing culture surrounding submission and its cohort chastity is suffocating and too narrow-minded. But replacing one dogma with another is not much better. Notice I make no judgment about whatever your personal feelings are towards submission; But don’t put down people who may be happy with whatever is playing out in their own minds. You are not the arbiter of their fantasies.

Sorry, May, but *we* don’t have first principles, although perhaps *you* have them. Most people have given little or no thought to their kink, aside from what it is, and how it got there.

If I have first principles, everyone will have them soon if they don’t already. This entire blog is about giving away what I know. And we’ve all already enumerated many if not all of them in this thread: personal agency, self-empowered joy, and mutual satisfaction, each something that is not unique to anyone’s idea of submissiveness or submission here. So to say you don’t have first principles strikes me as a glaring oversight.

More to the point, I remain unconvinced that the state of having given little or no thought to one’s own sexuality means one doesn’t have access to first principles. That’s a pretty hopeless situation you’re describing and I simply don’t believe it’s reflective of reality, or I would never have been able to get to where I am today.

There was once a time when I, too, hadn’t given much thought to my own sexuality. I just started thinking about it earlier than most men, but I did start somewhere. So can anyone else.

Even this exchange shows some mis-communication.

Let’s not forget that this segment of our exchange began when you started quoting ancient Chinese philosophers to me without adding your own words. In response, I quoted ancient Japanese philosophers back to you. :)

I’d like to make the somewhat obvious observation that, if this exchange is to be carefully considered, it certainly seems that not developing one’s own language for the things one is trying to communicate about can hinder understanding between oneself and others, doesn’t it? ;)

Personally, I see so many variations on how people perceive themselves vis a vis submissiveness, that I’m about to totally absolve myself from that term because what most of them are describing seems be little relations to how I think of myself.

That’s exactly what I did for a very long time because I also felt so little of what people were calling “submissiveness” related to me at all. Interestingly, I felt the very same way about “manliness.” Yet with both manliness and submissiveness, I’ve come to a place where I value my self-identity as a submissive man.

Somehow, to find what I wanted, I first had to completely reject everything I had seen, learned, and heard about what it would be. I’m pretty bitter that the culture I found myself in was so poisonous to developing a healthy sexual understanding of myself and the things I wanted. I aim to find an anecdote to that poison. A language for developing that anecdote is key for such work.

That’s probably why, when I say “submission,” traditionally-minded submissive men get uppity with me and others, like Billus, seem to be hearing me say something I’m not. (Sadly, I have no idea what they’re hearing. Voices, maybe?)