Friday, October 8, 2010

The Matching Game

Some entries by Mistress at Forever Hers and Queen Goddess at I am Her Maine Sub got me thinking back to some of my experiences over the years. 

When I was with one of my previous Mistresses we used to shop a lot.  I enjoyed shopping with her and helping her pick out her clothes and/or finding gifts for her.  She would ask for my opinions and I would give her my honest reactions, so many of her clothes were things that she knew I thought looked sexy on her.

We were very much in love and when I'm in love I have a tendency to get a bit playful.  She would describe it as bratty and she would let me do it because it would fire her up and she enjoyed beating the brat out of me (which happened quite often).  Because this often happened in public and it would be a while until we could be alone she began carrying some punishment items along with her on our trips.  Sometimes these were new surprise items that she had purchased without me and other times it was something we already owned, but she always let me know about them and they served as a looming threat to keep me in line (or if she got turned on enough and her dominance kicked into gear).  It might have been a pair of panties she would order me to go put on in the public bathroom or something more flagrant like a pair of pink earmuffs or a pink beanie. 

Even if I wasn't acting up she would sometimes try on a new pair of leather gloves or a pair of boots that got her very turned on and the punishment item would get pulled out.  In these cases I either had to wear them or was allowed to keep them in my pocket but she would decide we should go shopping for some matching items... perfectly matching.  As you probably know, with the exception of true white and true black, just about every color has thousands of variations of shades and hues.  This made this "game" rather difficult.

She might put a pair of pink fuzzy angora gloves on my hands and we would then go shopping for a matching scarf and hat.  Well, it was more like I would go shopping while she watched me.  I would be browsing the women's winter items and have to hold the item and compare its color against the color of the gloves and find something that was a perfect match (and hope that no one else would see me doing it).  This might take nine or ten stores to find something close.  Close was dreadful because she wouldn't give an opinion on it and she would tell me "that's what sales girls are for," implying that if I needed reassurance that I had to approach one.  *Studies have shown that women are much more sensitive to small color discrepancies than men are. 

After a few trips where this happened she began planning it out more thoroughly and making things more difficult.  She might have me wear a pink or purple turtleneck sweater and while I was allowed to wear a coat over it, she would then have me shop for some other items to match it (e.g. tights) so I would have to open my coat to compare.  Needless to say that barely opening your coat to hold an item against your shirt to compare the color looks a lot like shoplifting.  She began to add other stipulations and criteria, like the items had to be of a similar style/attitude and shopping trips to gather entire outfits soon began happening.  Luckily not every item needed to be a perfect match, but they still had to be a common hue, differing only in shade.  e.g. a Dark Pink sweater could be accessorized with Light Pink mittens, scarf, and hat as long as the hues matched.  After a while, she wouldn't even make a list but she expected me to come up with everything we would need to complete the outfit.  If I left something out it was bad news (luckily I'm a fast learner).

In many cases, I wasn't able to find matching items and she would punish me afterward with a sound beating and some corner time. 

In hindsight, recalling this story arouses me but actually remembering how it felt to do this, these trips were really terrifying and unpleasant and didn't arouse me at all.  When she noticed that I didn't get aroused when the humiliation hit a certain point she would tease me even more. 

I think the repetition of these events spoke a lot about her type of dominance.  She loved to watch me suffer.  She loved to know how much mental anguish she was inflicting on me.  She loved it when I would cry afterward and curl up next to her and lay my head on her thigh.  She loved punishing me for failing to meet her demands.  She loved that I would over-anticipate some of her expectations and end up humiliating myself because of it.   I really did love her.

A few other examples of matching game items that we did, some of these were over the course of months/years.  Also keep in mind that none of these were ever anything close to what she would ever consider wearing:
-Starting item:  Pink Fur Earmuffs   Coordinating items:  Pink Fur Scarf, Pink Fur-Trimmed Gloves, Pink Fur Vest, a Lighter Shade of Pink Beanie, a Sweater to match the Beanie, Leggings that matched the sweater/beanie, Boots that matched the gloves, a Darker shade of Pink Skirt, a Purse that matched the skirt, and Light Pink Boots.
-Starting item: Fuschia Spandex Mini-Skirt.  Coordinating items:  Lighter Shade of Neon Pink Spandex Top, Fuschia Gloves, Fuschia Arm Warmers, Lighter Shade of Neon Pink Leggings, Fuschia Leg Warmers, Fuschia Beanie, Fuschia Canvas Shoes, and a tiny backpack. 

Repeat similar types of outfits in White, Off-White, Lavender, Baby Blue, and about 5 more shades of pink. 

8 comments:

  1. You describe how terrified you were during these trips, how much you feared these unpleasant humilations, that you even cried and so on... And nevertheless you are ending your description with "I really did love her". And nevertheless you obviously did not decide to put these shopping tasks on your hard limit- or taboo-list. You continued to obey.
    And afterwards you sought her proximity and comfort instead of withdrawing from her, resenting her for that and questioning your love.

    So, would you say that your public humilations were in some way beneficial for you, allthow they were very unpleasant? Did you feel closer to your Mistress? Was your relationship stronger and more intimate because of this? Or did you feel some kind of "submissive pride" afterwards, pride as a result of suffering it through? What did you get out of this?

    And if these humilation were not beneficial at all and you got exactly NOTHING out of them, why did you consented? Why not declaring these trips as "hard limits" or even "taboos"?

    As a sub male who hates public humilations I can really understand your negative feelings about your shopping trips. My public humilations didn't always contain a form of forced feminization, but there are many ways to embarass a submissive in public. Unfortunately it's always tough for me.
    I doubt it is healthy for a relationship if someone is regulary forced to do things which are hard to accept. If these activities are exceptions, okay, but at some point it's enough.

    How did you manage to go through this all without questioning your relationship and your love?

    Clarence.

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  2. Clarence, thanks for writing. I will try to answer all of your questions.

    Experiences like these do wonders to absolutely crush the male ego. I tend to be a bit prideful at times. I am proud of my devotion and submission. I am proud of my ability to be interesting. I am proud of my sexual abilities, etc. The problem is that having too much pride tends to breed complacency. In my submissive ideal a sub should always strive for improvement: always do better the next time than you did the last time. If you are sure of yourself you tend to exert less effort than the earlier times when you were timid and uncertain.

    Also part of my submissive ideal is that a sub should always feel like he is lucky to have her and never feel that she is lucky to have you. Intense dominance and humiliation tends to keep any thoughts that you are more important than she is, out of sight and out of mind.

    What I got out of it was the inner peace that I only have during extremely deep subspace. Humiliation and deep submission in the face of extreme dominance are things that I crave. It's difficult to find a Domme that can practice a very intense level of mind fucking and she definitely was one of them.

    In turn, it would make her feel loved and completely devoted to when I would willingly undergo her torments.

    My hard limits are mostly things that would cause deep emotional scarring (on a PTSD level), are illegal, or things that would drive some of my other quirks insane (I'm a bit OCD). e.g. no animals, no minors, no public indecent exposure, etc. I must be allowed to exercise proper hygiene with bathing and teeth brushing, etc.

    Another reason why I went along with the trips is that they would be for things that would be later used in private/play and that was when things were most intense.


    Also, if I refused her punishments were really harsh.

    When I was with her I was never in a mental position to question things. She would keep me in such a level of subspace that I probably would have done anything if she wanted me to do it. Things didn't last, but it was because of completely unrelated reasons.

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  3. Well, if a submissive declares something as hard limit it's difficult to punish him harshly. After all this activity was excluded from the Ds-relationship... ;-)

    But what you said about the benefits for you is interesting. You felt inner peace although these trips were terrifying?

    You described these public humilations as very unpleasant. This is something I can totally empathize with as public humilations are unfortunately my big Achilles heel.
    But it is difficult for me to understand how someone who truly hates and dreads a certain activity can slip into subspace during this activity. If something is that unpleasant how can it create a pleasant mental state?
    And were you in subspace right during these trips or some time after (kind of "post-activity subspace" during aftercare)?

    For me it is very difficult to reach subspace during public play, I am far away from what you describe as inner peace. That's a really sensitive matter. That's why I am curious how you handle this activity.


    Clarance.


    PS:
    >> Also part of my submissive ideal is that a sub should always feel like he is lucky to have her and never feel that she is lucky to have you. Intense dominance and humiliation tends to keep any thoughts that you are more important than she is, out of sight and out of mind. <<

    The latter should never happen. But I find that relationships where both sides are happy to have each other are the best. If she would not be lucky to have you, what reason would she have to stay with you? ;-)

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  4. >> The latter should never happen. <<

    I mean of course: Thinking that a sub is more important than his Lady is.

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  5. Thank you for the follow-up, Clarence.

    I will try to elaborate.

    The inner peace is more of an after-care/post-trauma event and it can manifest in more ways than one.

    The actual event is very agitating... to the extent that the feelings and experiences are burned into your memory. In the aftermath there's a few things that can happen:

    -She may praise you for your obedience and even state that as a reason for loving you. This creates a positive reinforcement for a very negative experience. Basically, a warm fuzzy feeling will follow an extremely unpleasant experience.

    -After one or more of these experiences you may develop a highly conditioned response to the thought of a repeated similar experience. She might just hint at it like, "I'm bored, maybe I should take you shopping," or "If you don't behave we might just have to head to the mall." Assuming the actual experience(s) were sufficiently bad, this can trigger an immediate state of agitation and/or a sudden drop into subspace. My ex used to know how to guide me through both stages within about 10 seconds of one another whenever she wanted my attitude to change. She would take great pleasure in the initial jolt and then guide me into subspace.

    Basically, it became more of a conditioned association. I hate public humiliation but in its aftermath I am left with a great vulnerability.

    As for your PS statement, I think "happy to have you" and "lucky to have you" are two different things. Happy is good, but feeling lucky implies it would be difficult to duplicate. Femdoms are so vastly outnumbered by male subs I have to believe that a sub can be replaced with relative ease compared to a sub searching for a new Domme.

    Does that make sense?

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  6. So it boils down to: The way towards this inner peace is terrible, but the "tradeoff" is well worth it?

    The humilation is brutal and cruel, but the feeling afterwards is great, so it's better to face the unpleasant challenge and slip afterwards into subspace than to refuse the order not achieving subspace. Is this correct? The "warm fuzzy feeling" is more positive than the humilation negative?

    And as for the second reason: Yes, if a submissive is conditioned in the way you describe he reacts stronger when his Mistress demands something and mentions this humilation. He is more sensitive and she is able to use this trigger to her advantage.
    For me this sounds rather negative, but if I understood you right you are enjoying to give her this kind of "weapon"?


    >> She may praise you for your obedience and even state that as a reason for loving you. <<

    As long as it is not the only reason...


    >> Does that make sense? <<

    Intellectually I understand your argumentation, yes. Emotionally it's rather difficult to comprehend this, as my own reactions differ from yours. Public humilation does not help me to achieve subspace, it's only terrifying and unpleasant. I feel too agitated (in a negative way) to experience this "inner peace" and sometimes I even regret that I've consented in this.

    Perhaps I'll learn someday to even enjoy this, who knows? Fortunately none of my two former Mistresses were much into severe public humilation, but every so often...

    Clarence.

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  7. Quote: "So it boils down to: The way towards this inner peace is terrible, but the "tradeoff" is well worth it?

    The humilation is brutal and cruel, but the feeling afterwards is great, so it's better to face the unpleasant challenge and slip afterwards into subspace than to refuse the order not achieving subspace. Is this correct? The "warm fuzzy feeling" is more positive than the humilation negative?"

    It's tough to describe in my own case. I can reach the same subspace states without public humiliation but in situations like these we seem to mutually hit a fairly special level together. When anything public is involved I'm left to "stew" in the humiliation for an extended period of time so that I'm thanking her when it ends. For her, she experiences an extended duration of high arousal, gradually building up so that when we are no longer in public, she's extremely turned on and the outcome is quite enjoyable.

    I would say the trade off is worth it, but not just for the inner peace.

    The shared experience is so special that it seems worth bearing the unpleasantness vs. the alternative of if I was given the option to back out before it happened.

    Quote: "For me this sounds rather negative, but if I understood you right you are enjoying to give her this kind of "weapon"?"

    Yes. I enjoy VERY deep levels of subspace... sort of bordering on a slave mentality. There's a certain depth of cruelty and mind-fucking that is required to "get me there," and the more experiences we've had that she can draw back on to use as a trigger, the more likely I am to reach those levels.

    Quote: "Intellectually I understand your argumentation, yes. Emotionally it's rather difficult to comprehend this, as my own reactions differ from yours. Public humilation does not help me to achieve subspace, it's only terrifying and unpleasant. I feel too agitated (in a negative way) to experience this "inner peace" and sometimes I even regret that I've consented in this.

    Perhaps I'll learn someday to even enjoy this, who knows? Fortunately none of my two former Mistresses were much into severe public humilation, but every so often..."

    Well, this is me intellectualizing a fetish/sexual experience. I guess this is the only way it makes sense to me. Even if the experience is so terrible that it makes me cry it seems to have increased my love. I think that I subconsciously repress the memories and emotions related to the experiences. e.g. when I recall most experiences I feel detached in a way like they didn't happen to me. When she teases me about those experiences it triggers a very high level of agitation in me. That agitation ends to turn me on even if the original experience she is referencing did not.

    I think where your experiences and my experiences differ the most are probably in the aftermath. For me these have often served as a launching point for some of the most intense sexual BDSM sessions I've ever had and I have developed an association over time to relate the two.

    If you don't have a similar association I can see where you would have opposing feelings on the subject.

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  8. Also...

    ">> She may praise you for your obedience and even state that as a reason for loving you. <<

    As long as it is not the only reason..."

    I agree. But at the same time I don't mind if during intense D/s interaction she acts like she loves me more when I am obedient and loves me less when I am less/not obedient.

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