Pearlgem, I am going to apologize in advance: I'm sitting in bed, cup of cocoa in hand (the kind with the tiny marshmallows floating in it, even), and I've really nothing to do for several hours. These conditions are prime for a Downtown Amber rambling response.

We could be here for awhile...

Quote Originally Posted by Pearlgem View Post
You'd think submission would be easy, wouldn't you? I mean, it's what we want; we desire it, seek it, do it, love it. So why is it sometimes so hard to give yourself in submission?
I am not sure when submission (or dominant tendencies, for that matter) became an all-encompassing and over-arcing state of being, permeating each and every aspect of our lives and relationships. Though submission may be craved, may be needed for the completion of our happiness in certain relationships, it simply doesn't exist in every situation or exchange.

Submission, for me, is a chemical reaction. Put oil and a spark together, you're going to get a fire that will burn on and on under the right conditions. That's the goal - a good hot flame that flares up or tones down, but still provides the warmth we require.

That doesn't happen unless the proper reactants and catalysts exist on both sides, and that surrounding conditions allow for the reaction to occur. The fact that we are submissive simply doesn't trump all other reality.

You're right, it IS hard, sometimes... Think of it this way: not only am I a submissive person, but people might go so far as to say I am a kind person as well, to pick a adjective out of a hat. I like to be kind to people, I want to, I need to be that type of person to feel as if I am living my life how I want to. But I have bad days, days where I simply don't want to see other people, much less be nice. There are also people, like the guy screaming at his kid yesterday in the drive-thru) that do not even remotely trigger the kind Amber in me, in fact, guys like that manage to quash it. Why should submission be any different?

Quote Originally Posted by Pearlgem View Post
Couldn't I have bumped up my credentials just a bit and claimed interest in those Westerns of my childhood where the heroine gets tied to a tree and the white-hatted hero saves her? Yes, but whatever I knew about my submission I honestly didn't know until I was forty and I'm content to leave it at that.
I have a feeling, however, this makes me a 'lesser' submissive - my submissive credentials aren't as sound as young girls who played sweet self serving mummy to big strong daddy all those years ago. I don't personally think I am lesser, but sometimes submission seems to me like a competition to see who's never had a genuine vanilla moment in their lives. Was I always submissive for all those years and simply didn't know it? I don't know but if it fits the theory better, go ahead and think so. Is there anyone else like me?
God I certainly hope I've had at least the occasional vanilla moment in my life...lol Can I back out of this uber sub competition please? Frankly, it scares me.

Pearlgem, if we all were exactly what we were supposed to be at puberty, then why bother having a life? We live and we grow based on a mix of who we are and what we see and do - submission, it seems, wasn't important to you or needed in your life before now. No big deal. Is a girl that had a baby at 18 a more natural and true or better mother than one who started at 30?

Quote Originally Posted by Pearlgem View Post
And this brings me to other points frequently discussed on here. What is a submissive, how can you recognize one, what is 'true' submission? There is an orthodoxy here, I think, that easily categorizes submissives as pleasing, giving, willing, (though never doormats - we can all agree about that. I pity the poor doormats - where on earth do they go?) Or, the opposite type - strong, feisty, challenging, just waiting for a Dom strong enough to tame them. Well, I don't see myself in either of those descriptions at all.

This is what I am - I wonder how many are like me?

I am competent, intelligent, friendly, nurturing, emotionally engaging, playful/serious, direct - in short, I am a modern woman. You will not find me casting my eyes coyly at the floor if I meet you. Not will I be glaring at you challengingly, daring you to tame me. I will smile at you, make a comment to put you at ease, chat, and take it from there. You might ask, well, how is a person like that submissive? Which brings me to jeanne's post.

My will is perfectly well intact and has had years of free and intelligent interaction in the modern world. So has my pride. But there is something within me that responds to the idea of submitting my will and pride to the desires of another. It's not a soft malleability in me or the fling of a gauntlet. It's an honest desire to 'align my will to the will of another'. It's not even primarily sexual any more, or more exactly, not primarily genital. At the beginning, you think that's what it must be all about really. But I, like many others I'm sure, am increasingly discovering how submission subsumes the whole person, and that increasingly sure knowledge/feeling is what convinces me I am a 'true' submissive and not just toying with my own desires.

And I hope you see from how I've described my situation, that I may desire to submit but it's not always easy to do. I can no sooner abandon my will than I can fly. My independent pride is soundly ingrained in me (do 'natural' born submissives have less of it??) So I must, as jeanne says, 'align' that will to that of my Master. I can do nothing else with it. And I can only offer him my pride to break down; and find new solace in the pride of being willing and obedient and submissive to him instead of being proud of the desires I have that actually block his access to them. It's a tremendous gift for me to give (I say that with 'pride') and for him to use as he wishes, and I want to give it.

One more thread reference - when I don't give my Master what he wants, when I don't or can't align myself to his wishes, it's not because I want some pleasure that he's deliberately withholding and I think I should have it. ('What makes a rubbish sub' - my own thread!) Yes, there are practices I prefer but I am learning it's up to my Master to bestow them or not. I am not the perfect sub though it's meaningless to say out of the context of a particular relationship. I know I would not suit many on here, or they me, but that's fine. When I am not aligning my will to his, I honestly believe it's because my independent pride has got in the way of telling him clearly and directly what's blocking me. To be fair, I don't always know myself why this happens exactly. I just feel the block and it sticks as little stabs of resentment or self pity. (Another thread, 'As a sub, how to say no respectfully'). Boy, I gave great advice in that one! Withholding as a form of disobedience, as Leo9 pointed out. Pride. Pride. Letting yourself go, letting him see your naked vulnerability - you know, the side of you you never let anyone see? How hard it is. Submission guarantees the desire but in no way the ability.
Hmm. I had seventeen really good replies to this, but it simply comes down to this for me: as we as submissives align our will, so do the Doms to us. We travel paths as people, like rivers flowing. We flow where obstacles dictate at times, at others we cut and erode our own way through the landscape. And sometimes, sometimes we merge to flow with another.

The D/s exchange boils down to me choosing a man I wish to posses me, not just the choice to be possessed for the sake of it. He chooses me for the sake of me, not just to posses. As multi-textured people of depth, not each and every facet of our relationships will always fit perfectly and that's really really okay. In fact, it's not just really okay, it's simply "real."