conflicted compliance

I have this rule that for the better part of a year I hated. It was among the first given to me from my former Sir and upon receiving it I had a strong immediate reaction. It's not just that I didn't like what was being asked of me...I felt that it undermined my femininity and obeying it ran contrary to my personal feelings of what is appropriate in societal terms. I understand that my Sir had his reasons for the rule and he did share them with me when I asked him about them. Learning his reasons didn't make it any easier for me to accept his will but I resolved to do my best to accept and remain obedient in light of my personal feelings. It was my first real struggle in my submission, one I still haven’t resolved completely.

Ma'am made a lot of changes after Sir S left us and it had been my hope that this rule would be amended or eliminated. It wasn't. I'm fairly sure that Ma'am's reasons for keeping it in place are not the same as Sir S's but I've never asked her about it. It is her will and that should be enough for me to find acceptance and obedience. And yet it has not been enough to erase my personal struggle or the internal rebellion that seemed to continually flare. My obedience of this rule has always been more grudging and less complaisant and, although I didn't realize it, it came with a high personal cost.

Not long ago, as I began to gain a deeper understanding of obedience, I started to realize the price I was paying. My inability to accept Ma'am's will with an appropriate attitude, to be able to lay aside my conflicting personal feelings on the matter, and the resulting internal rebellion I nurtured had undermined my confidence in service and built a portion of my self esteem into a fragile house of cards. I had made personal decisions that I would have preferred not to in order to avoid what I felt were the worst implications of my rule until one of these decisions proved a major miscalculation – the outcome was something significantly less than I’d hoped for and the self esteem I hadn’t realized was so fragile came crashing down around me.

It was only after the cards fell and I spent a terrible week trying in vain to rebuild that I realized my own culpability. Until this point, it was easy to blame the rule I hated for whittling down my sense of femininity and self esteem. But it was even easier to overlook the fact that I never once divulged my personal feelings or my struggle and rebellion to my Ma’am. I knew that in order to move forward I needed to find a way to come to terms with my rule. I needed to find the silver lining - something to hold onto that would give me some measure of peace with my obedience. Once found, I would be able to obey with a more appropriate manner and attitude and would eliminate some of my struggle. But first I needed to know why I’d never found a way to speak up about how following this rule made me feel.

The reason was easy enough to identify when I finally went looking for it – following this rule made me feel something else that I’d never quite consciously realized. It made me feel Ma’am’s control - something I’d craved and felt predominantly uncertain of. There was nowhere else in our D/s relationship, nothing else that Ma’am asked or expected of me, that made me feel her control as keenly as I did when facing this terrible rule on a daily basis. I realized that even when that control chafed, it put me in touch with and helped to deepen my sense of submission. There it was – the silver lining.

Almost a year after it was first given to me, I was able to find a much needed measure of peace with Rule 3. I still don’t like the rule but my struggle and feelings of rebellion have greatly diminished since I’ve identified a positive aspect to its existence. I’ve been able to change my attitude from grudging obedience into a more complaisant obedience that is more respectful of my Ma’am and her will - which has shown me glimmers of the contentment and joy that obedience can bring. Someday, I hope to be able to say that my struggle is gone entirely...right now, though, I am content with what I have overcome, what I have learned, and how I have improved the manner of my obedience for my Ma’am.

365 days

A couple of days ago, Ma'am and I celebrated our first D/s anniversary. Today a few thoughts on what I have learned in my first year:

Actually giving up control and learning to submit was much more challenging and involved than I'd thought it would be...and every bit as rewarding and fulfilling as I'd hoped it would be. I am now more sure than ever that I have chosen the right path.

A deep seated desire to please does not automatically make you a good submissive. Surely it helps. But sometimes such a desire to please can make you see failure where there is none and complicates matters. Focusing on imagined faults can blind you to what actually DOES please your dominant.

The challenges of service are multi-faceted and varied – and can change from moment to moment. Something that has been easy in the past can suddenly prove to be difficult for no apparent reason. And vice versa.

Compliance and obedience are not the same thing. Compliance is simply doing what you are told. Obedience covers a much broader spectrum – from the manner in which you comply to what exactly you choose to comply with. Intuition and understanding are crucial parts of being fully obedient.

Obedience is not always easy – many times not, in fact - but it would not be as valued or fulfilling if what is asked of you is exactly what you are comfortable giving. Finding a way to obey on those occasions when compliance is more difficult for you can open a door to growth and learning that is unparalleled.

I am not, and will probably never be, the girl that I'd expected I would become by now. The process of becoming takes its own time and can't be rushed. More importantly, the girl I am becoming is the girl that Ma'am envisions, not the girl that I saw in my head when I first began exploring this part of myself.

doing the right thing

Ma'am and I were going through some things the other night, gathering up items that we'd planned on getting rid of. I came across an old belt that I couldn't wear anymore and started to head over to the donation pile. As I looked down at the worn thick leather, I realized that this was a belt made for punishment and it occurred to me that this was probably the belt that Ma'am intended to use when the time inevitably comes. The obedient girl in me knew what I had to do...despite the fact that I did not need permission to get rid of something that belongs to me, I knew I should seek permission before giving the belt away. If Ma'am had had her eye on it, she'd be very disappointed to learn of it's loss when the time came to use it.

“Ma'am, do we need to keep this old belt for any reason?” I asked, holding the belt out to show her. I prayed that she'd say no. The leather was too thick not to pack a serious punch.

Ma'am paused in her work for only a moment. “No, stick it in the pile,” she told me without hesitation.

I turned and began walking over to the pile, a moment's relief to be rid of it. And yet as I went to drop it on the pile I found that I couldn't. I sighed. Clearly Ma'am didn't realize what she had given me permission to do. I turned back, belt still in hand, and walked back over to her.

“Are you sure we want to get rid of it?” The words didn't exactly come easy, “Um, I mean, when the need arises, do you have a belt to punish me with, Ma'am?”

“You have one I intend to use...Wait. Let me see that.”

Finally Ma'am realized what I was asking her. The belt never made it to the pile and has now been transferred into her possession.

Sometimes it is very difficult to do the right thing. Even the “good girl” I received is somewhat cold comfort when I think about being punished with that belt...

the loophole

Last week I discovered that in following my rules it is possible to follow the letter of the law and yet not the spirit of it. The possibility that I could be technically in compliance and but not actually compliant had never occurred to me before. It's gotten me to thinking and, just maybe, understanding a thing or two about my service a little better.

I have inspection on Tuesday evenings and so on Monday, as I do every week, I made a quick check of my manicure. My nails looked fine to me and I decided that there was no need to touch them up or re-do them. But Tuesday morning, in better light, I realized that they looked a little worse for wear. They weren't going to pass inspection and I've had one warning about them before. I wasn't exactly eager to learn Ma'am's reaction to a repeat offense during inspection.

When it came time for lunch, I ran out to the drug store and purchased nail polish remover and a bottle of quick dry polish. An hour really isn't enough time for a proper manicure but I needed to make due. Off went the old polish and on went the new. I used the fan in my car to help dry them but when I looked them over again I discovered in horror that the polish had dried streaky. My nails looked terrible and there was no time to start again.

Enter a quandary.

My nails were polished – which is exactly what my rule states. And yet it didn't make sense that just having them polished was all that there was to the rule. It would seem that the spirit of the rule, the reason behind it, is that Ma'am wants my nails to look pretty for her. And a bad manicure is definitely not pretty. So, yes, I was technically in compliance to the wording of my rule but probably not in compliance to its true meaning.

What to do? If I was right, and I was pretty sure that I was, I was most certainly in error and had something to confess when I got home. But I wasn't quite sure what...was I assuming too much? Is it even possible to be both in and out of compliance at the same time? Have I been missing a key part of understanding what it means to be obedient all of this time or was I being too philosophical?

The difficult and uncomfortable decision: should I leave my nails as they were (which was obedient and technically compliant) or remove the new polish and leave my nails bare (which was prettier and compliant to the spirit of my rule)? Which would be the lesser of two evils – which would Ma'am be more pleased with?

I considered my options for the rest of the afternoon. I would have to commit to a decision and see it through but I didn't like either choice. Any way you added it up the equation included something that Ma'am wouldn't like. Trying to determine the level of her displeasure and repercussion served no purpose. It wouldn't change the fact that my manicure wasn't what it should be, wasn't what Ma'am wanted.

There were a couple of other options... I could exploit the loophole if it came down to it. I could argue that my rule doesn't specify anything about them being nicely polished. I could fein ignorance - pretend I hadn't noticed how bad they looked and wait for her to point it out. If the light was the same as it had been the evening before it was entirely possible that Ma'am might not notice how bad they looked. These options just didn't feel right to me – they're dishonest and designed to try to get me out of trouble.

In the end, I decided to leave my nails as they were and come clean about the state I considered them to be in. There was, after all, a chance that my assumption about the meaning of my rule was incorrect and, even if it wasn't, bare nails seemed dangerously close to willful disobedience. I would discuss with Ma'am what full compliance of this rule meant and be prepared for whatever discipline she saw fit without invoking a loophole defense. It was the only decision I could make and it was the right one.

In the future, to better serve and please my Ma'am, I think I need to be less literal and take a fuller, more dimensional approach in my thinking. I must look past the surface and understand not only what is stated but also what is meant. I don't believe it's enough to simply follow the stated rules – to be fully obedient I must also understand the meaning and spirit of what she asks of me and take direction not only from what is indicated but also by what is meant.