Nature Need Nurture

So I was going to write a post about reactive and proactive service but since book study the other night I've been thinking about the whole nature versus nurture when it comes to this lifestyle. Am I born dominant or is our life together creating this person? I have read many times other Doms' thoughts on this topic and each time they say you MUST be born a Dom or you aren't a REAL Dom I fight against it; I get frustrated and angry and unfortunately start to question my realness.

I don’t feel I was born with a dominant personality. Growing up, I always put the happiness of others first, going even back to the days when my siblings and I (I'm the youngest) were young enough to get excited over the silly little prizes that come in cereal boxes. My mom would put them away until there were enough for us to choose between. If I wanted one that either of them wanted, I would let them have it. I've always shied away from conflict by giving others what they wanted, even when I didn’t want to or really didn't have the money to, I would give in. I'd buy them the ridiculous guitar they were never going to play, or take them on a weekend getaway though they weren't working and the bills were barely getting paid. I'm pretty sure for many years I had a welcome sign taped to my back that people used to wipe their muddy shoes on. 

My mom raised us on her own since I was two, when my dad was killed in a trucking accident. I don’t think she ever fully dealt with her grief and suddenly having three kids under 7 to raise alone must have been terrifying to say the least. She was a strong mother in that she managed with the cards she was dealt and raised us on her own and we all turned out to be pretty good people, with a few minor hiccups along the way. However, she is nervous, self conscious, and lacking in independence - odd since she has lived either with us or alone for the passed...holy fuck! thirty years this June! - you would think some independence would grow from that. 

I think I fashioned myself after my mother in that way, and until four years and four months ago when I met elle those traits were the ones that were nurtured along either from unconscious copying as a child to ex-partners using them for their benefit. It wasn’t until my relationship with elle that other buried traits were slowly but surely identified. Her love, trust and belief in me have slowly watered long dormant seeds of strength I didn't know were there. Instead of taking advantage of my long history of putting others first, she has asked of me to put myself first and to decide what is best for us. She has told me in many ways that I deserve to and it's ok to say no. She has shown me, especially in the last two weeks, that I can be more decisive and I can ask much more of her without my expectations of her to comply leading to conflict, quite the opposite actually. Having her thank me for making her stand back up or come back to the room because she has not had permission to sit or leave, gives me a bit of a heady, giddy feeling.

I feel myself becoming more confident and questioning less the more elle helps nurture these seeds of power and control by responding more quickly and eagerly to my needs and wants. I feel her committing more to her submission each time I take more and expect her to give more. In this, her submission is being nurtured too. She has a dominant personality but has very strong submissive traits that need nurturing as much as my dominance needs it.

So do I believe dominance is nature or nurture? Both actually. I am coming to the realization dominance is in me but I am not a dominant person without it being nurtured. We are born with many traits I think, but unless they are nurtured they aren't going to blossom. They will just remain unfertilized seeds hidden in the muck of our souls.

A Contract You Say?!?

We had a great talk last evening. We talked about the rules and I think that everything that I mentioned in yesterday's post will continue to happen (and restart for the ones that have fallen away). I will let Lee finish writing them up then post them. We didn't fully talk about the "if you don't follow the rule this is what will happen" part, that's more Her job than something we do together really.

After dinner we listened to a podcast together. We have been talking about doing this for quite a while now, Lee had even written into our rules that we would read/listen to M/s and PE stuff and talk about it last time She/we updated them. So we listened to the Approaching D/s as a Lifestyle episode from Erotic Awakening. The majority of what they were saying was more basic/beginner than where we are at but towards the end they talked about contracts. So our post podcast talk revolved around contracts. We have started talking about writing a contract recently. To be honest, in the beginning of our relationship I didn't see the need for one but the longer we are at this the more that I see how having a contract could be such a blessing to our M/s (oh and as a side note, Lee told me yesterday to use M/s instead of D/s because She thinks that it more accurately reflects our dynamic even though She doesn't call Herself a Master... More on that later...)

We aren't planning on writing up a contract any time soon. It's something that we both agree needs to have time to develop naturally without the pressure of time constraints. We made a list of some things we thought are important to include. Obviously other things may/will come up between the time the contract actually gets written and now but so far here's what we want to include. Our responsibilities to each other and our dynamic, a mission statement of sorts-something that will not only outline our M/s commitment and values but, also, if we have a child, our family values (I firmly believe that we are a family already, we don't need a child to be one. However, our M/s values are our current family values and if we don't end up having a child they will remain that way. But if we do have a child I'm sure that there are things that we will need to incorporate.) We also want to have a clearly defined renewal time. We will also include our rules and protocols that are already in place.

The biggest thing that we need to work on for the contract is to learn what are true needs and wants are. Although we didn't discuss that topic in too much detail I imagine that that will include both personal and relationship needs and wants. Lee had mentioned about including a goal but I said that I thought that the goal would be to have our needs and wants met and thinking about it now, a mission statement is a kind of a goal, isn't it?

Why do we want a contract? We didn't get much time to discuss this but the first and main reason is for the structure. I have come to view signing a contract as almost synonymous as signing a marriage license. It will be a monumentous  (sp?) occasion for us. At one point I asked Sir why if She felt it was important for us to have one for our M/s then why don't we have a marriage contract? Her reply was "Our marriage is M/s". Don't know why but hearing Her say that struck me pretty hard. Not that I had ever viewed our marriage as a separate entity from our M/s but hearing those words come from Her mouth made me realize that She believes that too I guess was part of why it hit me. I don't know why since our wedding vows have hints of our PE laced throughout them. Heck we even used our "scene names" during the wedding (which is what we use with each other and are, in truth, derived from our "real" names) except for the legal mumbo jumbo part.

While we were talking I was in tears a few times. Those who know me know that I am a bit of a waterworks case, so the fact that I was tearing up last night comes at no surprise. We both commented that we feel like we have such renewed hope for our future. I feel like Sir has changed. For a long time I could feel Her struggle with a role that She was not fully comfortable in. I don't see Her "playing" a role any more, She has really blossomed, for lack of a better word, into being a great Daddy Dom. She is now (at least from where I'm sitting) seems confident and sure in Her position as our leader in our PE. When I told Her that she seemed very happy. I also apologized for not telling Her how great She was this weekend, She kept telling me that I was being good but I never praised Her. So I told Sir that She had been a good girl too, which got a bit of a chuckle.

I feel like there is something else that I wanted to say but for the life of me I can't remember what that is now so I think I'm going to end this here. I have stuff I want to get done around the house so I'm off to do that now. 

Before I do leave though I want to ask, if you're reading this and have any tips for writing a contact please either leave us a note in the comments section or you could PM Lee or I on Fetlife (my profile)

A Turning Point

I think that Lee and I have turned a corner in re-establishing our D/s and even taking it to a whole new level. On Saturday we went tot he protocol dinner that our local MAsT group put on. We usually operate at a relatively low protocol and for fun wanted to amp it up for the dinner. To get into it even more Lee decided that we would start the higher protocol on Friday. The dinner was wonderful and getting to have a whole evening surrounded by others who are all not just kinky but into power exchange made the evening so special. On Sunday we talked about how we each thought the evening had gone. It was decided that since we both enjoyed the more formal protocol that we would keep it going. Sunday evening we had Easter dinner with the family so obviously it was much less overt but we still managed to keep it going. While getting ready for bed last night we decided that we are going to keep this level of protocol up.

We are going to talk more about it tonight once Lee gets home from work. I imagine we will institute a trial period then re-evaluate and either scrap them or make them part of our permanent set of rules. This could be/is a big moment for us. I am hopeful that this will make lasting changes in our relationship. I don't think that our rules page has been updated with our most current set of rules (I just checked and nope it sure isn't, I'll have to fix that or get Lee to since they are on Her computer) but what i foresee being added is the following: I must ask permission to leave Sir's presence, tell Her where I am going and ask if She wants anything while I'm away; Ask permission to sit when I am with Sir and; As much as possible I have to kneel in front of Her to present things (not sure if it's going to be just food like we have been doing so far or anything I give Her).

Also, Lee said last night that while I don't need specific permission to use the washroom right now I will in the future. I have been thinking (uh oh!) and have come up with a few modifications: I want to add a piece that limits my use of furniture while Lee is around and change the waiting for permission to eat rule to include that Sir should start the meal then invite me to eat with Her. I think we should also reinstate the sweets/treats and water consumption rules that we have let fall by the wayside because one of our current focuses is supposed to be on eating healthier.Neither of us have been the best with this one so those two rules would help meet that goal. But to be honest we haven't been doing so hot with any of our focuses for this month (they are speaking restrictions, eating healthier and morning text message). To be fair though we haven't had a situation come up recently that would require my to have my speech restricted, which is a good thing since that means that we haven't had any disagreements! I don't have an excuse for the eating healthier one though.

I have always thought that I would do better in a highly structured rules-based relationship. I don't think that Lee fully believed me until yesterday. She kept telling me, both yesterday and today, that I'm being such a good girl and remembering all of our new rules quite well. I can't even tell you how much I loved that. I don't think that there is much better on a slave's ears than praise for pleasing their Dom.

Daddy has called me Her slave for some time now. In the beginning of our D/s relationship I did not think of myself as a slave. I don't really have the time right now to get into my opinion of sub vs. slave except to say that my opinion is mostly based around 24/7 power exchange and is very different than what I thought when we first started this kinky ride. I've been thinking about my role a lot lately and have decided that I feel that slave represents my position in our relationship. I changed my D/s relationship status today on Fet so that makes it legit and shit, right?!?