Credo Part 1: Meeting the Family

Note: this is a five part entry, posted in five daily parts. It's strongly suggested you start with the first, here, and read from there. Further parts of the entries may be further edited based on comments, and are also still being copy-edited, but if you would like to read it all-at-once, it's available here. Note that single-spaced, it comes out to nine pages in OpenOffice, so the daily breaks are for both digestibility as well as readability. On the same note, I think I may get more useful comments and feedback with multiple parts. This notice will appear on each entry.

Meeting the family

I recently remarked to the monkey that it seems that, in my BDSM-related life contexts, I have the full spectrum of gender-feelings pretty well covered in some very special people it's my privilege to know.

I have in my life the following. I am numbering them only so I can refer to them later easily, and I'm not trying in this list to fully explain their sex/gender/sexuality:

1. a genderqueer and queer bio-female (the monkey).
2. a cisgendered bisexual bio-female
3. an ftm
4. an mtf
5. a hetero bio-female
6. a female whose ideal sexuality would be to go "nullo"
7. and of course a mostly hetero cisgendered male (myself).

Not all of the above wear my collar. None of the above save for the monkey do, in fact. Several are obedient to me, most have called me "Sir" or "Sensei" in the past.

Which I suppose brings me to where I introduce the folks above. I'm not giving them nicknames, or anything else right now. I'm not sure this journal will come to be about them. It's called, after all, TopTheMonkey for a reason. It's about me as a top, the monkey as a not-top, and our interactions. Any of those three. Even mentioning these people here feels like a violation in those terms.

1. You know the monkey. This is our space. I won't get into expansions here.

2. This is my other girl, who serves me in a technical sense: my IT department and accountant. From a fetish side, she is a dirty, dirty girl and deeply kinky. She handles clerical work for me. She understands the computer systems I prefer to use, and is slowly learning programming languages I prefer. She is second on the list above. Major points of development are emotional maturity, self-esteem, and better socialization. I want her to be a stronger person. She is an ocean away, but spent a month with the monkey and I last November/December. It was in many ways a stressful visit, and most of this is probably best served in another post. What I will mention is that as one of her first acts as a sub was to be beaten a number of times with the monkey's punishment stick, then to have her head shaved. (The monkey and I started out in a very similar way). From a "service" side, she is under consideration for receiving a collar: she wears one when she's with me, but it's not the permanent one.

3. This person has recently announced his male-ness to the world, and makes new discoveries every day. The monkey has loaned him a number of great books and I hope to grow them further together, hope for the monkey to be a resource for him to use and have them able to learn from each other. However, the thing to mention here very cautiously, is that my role to this person is less master and more Sensei: In this role, I am life-coach and conscience. I am the person who one must ask for permission before doing something one knows is wrong. While I can imagine him in some limited kink scenarios (wearing cuffs, being on a leash, or maybe serving in some ancillary "assiting" factor during play), I don't really have a sexual interest. In fact I've stated that because of FTM and body-image issues, I may see the definition of "naked" for him as "chest binder and underwear", never stripping off what he needs to be what he truly is. Goals in development here are life-bootstrapping, debt control, self-honesty, and the process of fully embracing the person he's becoming. Relationship is similar in some ways to #5, below.

4. Our MTF is mainly here to fill out the grid. For the longest time, he/she called me sir (I use that he/she syntax to state that the history predates transition, not to be crude), and I'm remaining available to answer questions to her, but she's in her own relationship with another bio-female. I recently proposed having her out to play and was told it would be at the discretion of the comfort of her partner, who had been feeling increasingly possessive and protective as she became more female. At this point, I graciously suggested that she stop calling me "sir". There's potential there, but it's a long story and would involve a lot of work and negotiation. I should mention also that #4 and her partner knew #2 long before I did. There's other issues there that are best reserved for other entries.

5. Aah, this one. Someone I've known for years, who is going through several rough places. She recently (within the past year) had her husband decide he couldn't handle his role as a parent/husband, and left for greener pastures. Divorce is still pending. No child support has been paid. Her family's been supportive and helping, but being alone is hard on her. Right before he left, however, they were trying to get back into kink, which was a long time interest of hers. Since then, she's been exploring the local scene on FetLife, but has encountered quite a number of people who are unable to make a commitment to her, or be honest about why. She deserves better. I don't feel I can commit either, as she's in the Midwest, and seeks monogamy, and also says she would safeword if there were another female involved in a scene. I can be realistic about that, though. What I am able to do, however, is give her someone to report to, to be obedient to, to act as she would for a potential master, to try to satiate at least part of the need. She doesn't call me Sir yet, although I may change that. Currently goals are similar to #3, keeping life together, self-improvement, putting what matters (family, her daughter, her safety) first (and not accepting compromise), being communicative and honest, and acting as a master would want her to ask. I tend to give her not "orders" but "suggestions" in a verb tense I'm not sure the name of: "I believe you'd be able to masturbate tonight" or "Your master would be very upset with you." I use this verb tense with #3 quite a bit as well, speaking about how I'd handle a situation if he were collared.

6. This friend, also someone I've known for years, lives about five hours away. She's a total sweetheart, and is on an interesting voyage of self-discovery as both an artist and a person. Similar to #5, she's recently separated from her husband, but in this case in a poly-gone-wrong sort of sense. She's worked in the sex industry in various senses, and would be quite interested in having her sex completely smooth and featureless. Oddly, this appeals to me (in another person anyway, I like my own parts as they are), as a way of saying "this relationship can never ever be sexual". We haven't spoken much very recently as she's been on several interesting quests. I know what I'd like for/from her, but I'm not sure if she's ready for it.

7. This is me, the top. Clearly, like the first item in this list, you know the last well enough.

That's the end of this section. Hopefully, you already see that not all of the above are "submissives" in what many would consider the classical sense. In the next entry, we'll cover how I've come to start seeing nearly everyone around me through the same paradigm, and how it's caused problems, and may have pre-empted others.

Once again, comments encouraged and welcome