- I remain on good terms with the first boy I mentioned on this blog, but he has largely moved on. He travels a lot, rarely gets to chat, and hasn't played here in about two years.
- The other local boy I've mentioned repeatedly, who has been in and out for about ten years, has also moved on. He's moved to a different part of the metro area and, when doing so, pretty much fell out of contact. This happens; he and his partner are planning to move to one of the U.S.'s larger cities this year, and his play here always tied him in emotional knots even if he didn't go through with anything.
- My puppy, and that name sticks, has been on hormone replacement therapy for several weeks, with an unexpected but welcome side effect: he is happy. One of the reasons I didn't hesitate much with our otherwise remarkable relationship was that I was one of the few people or things that genuinely made him happy, even for brief periods. Now that he's beginning his transition (puppy becomes "she" when he presents as female most of the time, at least in my language), he's happy almost all of the time. He even realizes how good looking he is. You can't argue with that.
The final boy, whom I have said I "owned" for the past seven months, was mentioned here. Despite professing happiness at being owned, he's had a ton of issues.
The big one turned out to be over, shock of shocks, shaving his head. He delayed playing for about a year because he wasn't sure he could handle it, even though he'd had short buzz cuts multiple times. I made clear that I would not only do it, but make him keep it that way and he eventually agreed. He didn't freak out, he seemed to enjoy it for a while, and went through the first month of an upperclass college semester that way. Then he wanted to let it grow out, and I was ok with that.
Then he tried to blow up the relationship, and when I let him back in, I shaved his head a second time. A week or so before that, he had told me that if I wanted to shave his head again, it would be best if I just did it and didn't tell him ahead of time so he couldn't worry about it. I followed his advice, because as regular readers know, I expect total and complete honesty from submissives. I can't know what can and can't be done unless I can accurately judge a situation. It is the dominant's moral duty to protect the sub, even while pushing him through those things he craves but can't do on his own.
Ever since then, he's tried to blow up the relationship again every 6-10 weeks. Last time, this month, I told him to take the rest of the month to decide, and that I would not use or order him before February 1. Within just a few days, he'd decided that he wanted to stay in—but wanted me not to shave his head, which I wouldn't promise. (I didn't intend to do it again until his spring break, provided he behaved himself.)
He's been back and forth since then on the whole hair thing, but last night he dropped the bomb: he said that shaving his head in October had "fucked him up." That it created "emotional damage."
As most dom readers will understand, that felt like a punch to the stomach.
Just a few weeks earlier, he had been keeping his head shaved, and had only indicated to me that he was just tired of it and wanted to grow some hair out (but keep it short, preferably buzzed; I preferred him to grow some longer hair if he was going to grow it out and ordered such). It had never crossed my mind that doing it again about 4 weeks later would cause any significant problems, especially since he had recently advised me to do it without warning if I wanted to do it.
He was upset at the time, but he seemed to calm down rather rapidly afterward, and later apologized to me for being upset. But in the past few weeks, he's been more and more insistent that I not shave his head again in the future. I felt that he obviously could handle it because he'd shown—twice—that he could. I honestly felt he just didn't want to. When the dom and the sub have colliding wants, the dom wins. Also, since he'd obviously done it before, I had real trouble letting him set it as a limit, since it's easily my #1 all-time BDSM turn-on.
I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I was pretty confident that he was simply dealing with the side effects of, you know, being in his 20s: having a rather limited self-image, finding it hard work to deal with changes to that, and so on. (He also didn't want to be collared because others would see it, and since I had shaved his head, I readily consented to that request though I had very much wanted to collar him.)
But when he said "fucked up," the train completely derailed. He has since tried to back off some from the obvious meaning of that term, saying now that it was more like a paper cut that should have healed but he kept picking at it and picking at it until it didn't heal properly.
He's only now beginning to understand that doesn't help.
This is not about law or blame or any of that stuff. It was a consenting relationship between two adults, and he's rather accomplished for his age, which I liked. There's no "blame." There's just the fact that ethically, a dominant is responsible for submissives in his care. The dom must know how well the sub is handling everything: pain, endurance, edging, milking, whatever. The dom must know he can trust the sub's word. If the sub says "I can take more, Sir," but he really can't, that's bad news for everyone.
It does not matter one whit whether he accurately communicated his emotional state about the haircut or not—even though he has apologized for not communicating it well (and I accept that apology, boy, if it wasn't clear). It's irrelevant—when he's tied up, I'm the one taking action.
Let's pick a more obvious example. Suppose a sub has a thing for drinking piss and wants to be made to do so with a funnel gag. Legally, all that matters is his consent. Ethically—a higher standard—once that gag is locked in place, it's my responsibility if he then pukes while his mouth is obstructed. That's why I would likely test his ability to handle it first with several smaller sessions not involving a gag, watching to see if he had to throw up, seeing if eating recently or not recently made any difference, and so on. Once he's bound, I'm the only one who can take action, so what happens is my ethical responsibility. (The law cannot and should not cover such things. It can only prohibit actions, not judge whether people should have agreed to them or not. Think of contract law.)
I knew he didn't want his head shaved again after that incident. I did not know his bad reaction to it lasted longer than the 20 minutes after the event itself. Finding out was a kick in the nuts, because even if it was entirely his fault, it's still my responsibility.
I don't see how I can ever dominate him again without worrying that I've completely misunderstood his reactions, so our BDSM relationship is over. I won't risk not understanding what he's feeling. As angry as I am at him (largely over how all this came out, including some really shitty things he said to me), I will miss him terribly.
With the end of that relationship, I currently have no boys I expect to play here any time soon. I've been talking rather seriously with an even more local boy who seems very interested, but he's not sure about submission right now. After all this, I can't possibly play with him until he's 100% sure. Even then, I may not be ready. It's going to take me quite a while to figure out how much of what happened here was him not telling me everything, or not showing me his reactions—and how much was him trying to tell me and me just missing it. Was I not looking for it because he'd had it done 4 weeks earlier? Was I dismissing things he said as his earlier tricks to try to gain control of the relationship? Was there something for me to miss, or did I see everything that was there? And if I saw everything, could I have figured out what was going on within him? If not, can I still be comfortable playing with boys, taking actions while they're (consensually) tied up when unsure about the future?
It's been the better part of three years since I haven't owned a boy or been very close to doing so. This didn't lead to lots of sessions (the Puppy lives over 800 miles away; the recent boy has a very busy schedule) but it led to a different state of mind. At the moment, I'm not anticipating any partners for a semi-significant period of time, maybe even the rest of this year.
I'm not saying things won't come up. Situations can change, the world is a wondrous place. I'm saying that right now, my confidence is in tatters and I won't risk anyone's physical or emotional well-being without full confidence that I know what's really going on. (I used to believe all Doms were that way; I know that the good ones are, and I want to believe the good ones still outnumber the rest.)
But the Puppy's collar is off, the local boys have all moved on, and I'm not sure I'm ready for the one new one who might be on the horizon. 2011 is going to be a different year for me.
