What is Love, Baby Don't Hurt Me....

Oh that is a tacky title isn't it? While this sat on my dashboard waiting for a final edit, the placeholder title read :Insert Clever Title Here:. This had more edits than my average, about half were done while humming Tina Turner, What's Love Got to Do with It and the other, including this final was done while nodding my head to one side. If you're too young to catch the reference, perhaps you are too young to read my blog.  
I'm trying to write several entries for my blog and schedule them to post over the next week or so while I once again try to quit smoking. It's one of the things I find especially challenging to do nicotine free. With that in mind I tapped my friends and asked them to come up with themes to write about. My good friend and our psychic adviser, (yes, Princess Gemini Enterprises has staff spiritual/psychic adviser. ) suggested writing something about love within a BDSM dynamic. My first response was recognizing that it will probably be a really difficult subject for me to tackle at this time. Which is OK, Mistress sometimes enjoys when things are really difficult. Upon further consideration I decided that when your psychic adviser makes a suggestion you should probably listen to her.
I don't know that I am the best person to offer any insights on love. I love everyone. Sometimes I feel like people either don't take that statement seriously when I say it or that they judge the depth of my experiences of love and determine that I do not in fact know what love is if I can say with honesty that I love everyone. Whatever. What other people think of me is none of my business. I love you stranger reading my blog. I do not have to know you to know a woman allowed her body to be cut or split in half to birth you into existence. I do not need to know you to know that you possess an immortal soul, that just like mine is unique, perfect and flawed, vulnerable and resilient. I do not need to know you to know that while there is in fact no shortage of love in the universe, there have been moments when you craved love desperately and could not feel it, so let me give you a little of mine. I have plenty. I will not run out and I know no one has too much. What do I know about depth or love, I am a navel gazing, professional dominatrix, liberal snowflake.
Of course there are different manifestations of love. I would give you my last dollar. I would give you my last cigarette, yep even the one labeled, "Emergency-if quitting just sucks too much." Tell me that isn't love. I would not allow my body to be split in half for you internet stranger, but I have submitted to that for the souls that were entrusted to me. If love is arranged in a hierarchy, the love I feel for those souls sits miles higher than any other love I have experienced.  Let's be honest though, the profound love a parent feels for their child is largely one directional. Let's hope that those of us who are parents all strive to be parents worthy of our children's love, but it would be unhealthy if they felt for us how we feel for them. Further, that level of intensity is simply unsustainable if humans were wired to feel that for all other humans. While it is entirely a different experience of love, the love in a healthy BDSM dynamic in many ways, for me,  mimics those feelings. Perhaps the profound devotion is comparatively turned down, but then ideally it flows more or less equally in both directions. For me, whether it is within the confines of a single experience, a reoccurring arrangement or a committed ongoing relationship, feelings of love are always present. I screen my new submissives well, most of the time I do "click" with them, but I don't always. Sometimes, in person, the chemistry just isn't there. Regardless of how well we click, for the length of our time together I will feel protective, I will feel nurturing, I will strive to know you and to bring out your best self. It may not be the most intense manifestation of love, but it is still a feeling of love. Within an arrangement that is ongoing but perhaps informal, uncollared or otherwise a not committed dynamic, it is a similar feeling further enhanced by the familiarity one develops over time.
Which brings us to the last tiers of my love map. The love I feel for my committed, collared  submissives. I will give to my sub anything within my ability to give. I will continuously evaluate what I know to be best for them against what they want. I will challenge them to push themselves, to be their best self. I will do my best to guide them, to help them navigate their experiences and feelings. I will mentor them, and learn from them. I will as much as any one truly can, love them unconditionally.
And... I'm going to give you another peek into my personal life here. The love a dominatrix feels for the top she submits to. On another day I am going to write an entry about identities. I had yet another conversation about it this past weekend. I am going to write a voluminous entry on why I will correct you if you suggest that I am really a submissive, a switch or any term other than Dominatrix/Dominant/Top. For now I will explain it in the most simplest of terms. I am not a vegan, but I love carrots. I am not a submissive, I love my top. I have mentioned my vacation many times. I have mentioned how exhausted I was before I left. What I haven't mentioned, although it was probably implied, was how burnt out I was feeling. Months before when someone had asked me what I do, I had joked that I was a fantasy fulfillment dispenser. In the weeks and months that were to follow that joke started to feel true, and to not feel funny or silly or whatever feeling I had when I first uttered it. Perhaps the flow of love and energy between a top and bottom isn't quite more or less equal all of the time. Particularly with my submissive clients, but also to an extend in my personal relationships, sometimes I find myself saying subs are needy, demanding little creatures. I forget sometimes that we do not all have the same experience level. There are things I assume everyone knows, BDSM 101 if you will, but really there is no reason I should make such assumptions. Who serves whom in a BDSM dynamic? Who's in charge? When my feet are aching on a Sunday, after a weekend spent dancing in heels, when my phone rings and it is not a foot worshiping subbie but rather a subbie with a shoe fetish, what sort of session do you figure is going to unfold? Foot worship, shoe fetish, aren't they nearly the same thing? Can't I just demand this little bitch rub my feet like I need? No, not if one wishes to build a returning client base. As the top in my work and play, I am responsible for the scenes I engage in, I am in charge only in so far as I play within my own comfort zone and I do take absolute responsibility for my scenes. Sometimes the juxtaposition of the conflicting points of view is invigorating, sometimes it is just exhausting. Sometimes a top needs aftercare. Sometimes a top needs to say, here this is every thing I need, do you wish to be a fantasy fulfillment dispenser for me?  Our dynamic is still relatively new. It is a simple arrangement, that is completely free from vanilla entanglements. I feel known. I feel heard. I feel unconditional acceptance. I feel protected. That is the one that surprises me the most. It is a feeling I was unaware that I wished to experience in any significant manner. The practicalities of our situation dictates that feeling is largely only a feeling. I have a mandate to keep myself safe. I could swear I was doing a great job of keeping myself safe for the past 45 years and I didn't have any intention of not continuing to do so, but now that concept has taken on an entirely new dimension for me. I find myself contemplating it with nearly every decision of significance I make. For example, as I started to write this entry, and with each re-reading and subsequent hitting of the backspace button, I have asked, is this emotionally and professionally safe to share? Does it hurt or enhance my image? It wouldn't be terribly safe to tank my career. Particularly now when I am about to embark on some huge, I am so excited but still not quite ready to share, projects. Hold your breath you little mutes, and watch for the announcements. Are these feelings of mine reciprocated in a more or less equal flow? I have no idea. If I spent much time contemplating such questions I would have to consider if I too might be a needy little creature, and I do not have time for that much navel gazing. Quit smoking, make good choices, be safe; they echo sentiments I have heard before.