Total Surrender
By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com  

This is part of my column series called "My Travels with Griffin." It's the story of my relationship with Griffin, with a focus on our mutual exploration of BDSM and spirituality. You don't have to read them in order, but it might make more sense to do so. Griffin approved publication of every single column that I have ever written about him.

I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding.
~ Anais Nin

What would it be like to have no limits, no area where I was still in control?

I’ve always felt that I was the best manager of my life as I have my best interests at heart more than any other person possibly could. Yet, I find that with each little bit of control that I surrender to Griffin , I feel a visceral connection I have not felt with any other man. One of the ways this has manifested is that we have agreed to that he has the right to punish me. While this might seem par for the course for any BDSM player, I’m talking about real punishment here, not a spanking for some silly misbehavior. He had me write up a list of things I really don’t like (not the things I secretly get off on) and they are listed by “awful,” to “most awful,” so that he can choose them judiciously. He will also no longer allow the safeword “red” except for real medical conditions, which means that I cannot get out of a punishment just because I don’t like it.

The removal of limits is the important part there, doubly so because it came out of my own need, surprising even to me, to not limit Griffin . In a strange way, this “loss” of freedom has taken me to a whole deeper level. During my first punishment, I spread my legs wide and accepted his crop on my tender thighs, something that I hate through and through. It hurt, screamingly so, but it also felt perfectly right. I felt myself opening up to him, surrendering to his right to punish me in any way he chooses. I concentrated on opening my “self” up, having no boundaries between us, and being totally vulnerable to him. At this moment I practiced what Guy Baldwin calls “transparency” in his book Slavecraft. Although Baldwin was referring to the idea of having no secrets from one’s Dominant, I took this to the physical and spiritual level, endeavoring to have no barriers.

Giving up my sexuality to Griffin was a natural step for me, although of course there are areas that are still difficult. For example, he is training me to be able to take his cock deeply in my throat and to swallow his come – both of which I do only under duress. He has told me that he will refuse to allow me to orgasm until it is completed, meaning that I must not only do it, but do it without resistance. I wonder what will happen this weekend when I follow through with my promise to pleasure him this way. Will I have done it purely to serve, or only because by that time I would do just about anything to be allowed release?

I know it won’t end here though. Griffin knows that it is only in doing the things I don’t want to do that real surrender occurs. There are a number of activities which are not hard limits for me per se, but which I still resist. For example, while I have no urge to be involved with a woman (emotionally or sexually) I know that one day he will order me to serve a female Dominant or a sister Submissive. Although I am prone to proprietarial feelings toward him, I want him to be able to choose to have a second Submissive if he wants one, and to have us interact. This is scary to me, but my being able to do it would signify something important. Even with my known bias against public play, I know that he will one day make me perform in front of friends who will hear me beg to be allowed to come, and witness my tears, my humiliation when I am refused. I imagine Griffin one day lending me to another Dominant for a day or a weekend, maybe even someone I don’t like all that much. I would like to be so true to him that I could perform for someone else on his behalf.

I have lucid dreams of surrendering everything in my life to him, not just the little stuff but the whole kit and caboodle. Until now I have always kept a strict line between my submissive play and the central areas of my life - finances, job, workouts, home, and pets. I’ve always felt that it is far to risky to allow a man, any man, control of these things. I admit to be something of a control freak, and so it is not that I want to be helpless and free from decision. Rather, I want to give them up because the act of surrendering the most important parts of my life is, in itself, the radical experience. I believe that even if I turned them over to Griffin, I would always be conscious enough to take them back if his judgment proved to be unreliable.

Just so we’re clear on this, I’m a submissive, but I’m not an idiot. If Griffin asked me to do something which I knew was against my better interests - such as quitting my job and working at Dunkin Donuts - we’d have to renegotiate a bit. Or if he asked me to buy a house that I couldn’t afford, I’d say no. The key thing about these fears is that they are a worst case scenerio, not things I actually believe Griffin would ever ask of me. I could see him controlling my checking account, requiring me to work out a certain number of times per week, or choosing a new home for us (as long as it had big closets -- that’s my hard limit!).

Despite my fear, I feel a pull to remove all limits from Griffin’s domination of me, to open the doors of trust and see where he takes me. I have come to understand that in limiting his control over me, I am in some ways still controlling him. I wonder what it would take to reach a place where I could trust him at that level? Just time perhaps? He told me once that this kind of surrender was what he wanted as a Dominant, and I think now that I might be able to do that for him, and for me. I imagine that when we make a commitment to a real collar, (not the collar of consideration that I wear now), this will be my gift to him - total surrender.

In resolving the conflict between having no limits and knowing that there would be things that I would refuse to do, I rely on these two beliefs. One is that I trust Griffin not to ask me to do things which are clearly wrong. Second, since I cannot abdicate all choice, legally or morally speaking, I could choose instead to accept the punishment for saying “no,” or ultimately choose to no longer serve him. I have yet to test this hypothesis, but at least in theory, this critical issue would not arise because I believe Griffin to be of sound mind.

In a recent issue of Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology Newsletter, I read that, “It’s time to let go of the fairy-tale vision of success that fueled you when you were young and naive. A more mature dream is calling, inviting you to get older and wiser fast. Initially, this replacement may feel like a loss, but ultimately it will awaken passions and ingenuity that the original goal would never have coaxed out. Ironically, it will also lead you to rewards that the yellow brick road promised but never could have delivered.” Could this new road to surrender be the life transformation that lies ahead for me? My stomach knots at the depth to which we could take this. I know Griffin has it in him to accept my surrender, making me perhaps a slave – not the submissive that I have been until now.

Until now I have lived my life completely my way. With no children to limit me, I have chosen where I live, what I will do for a living, and how I will spend my time and money. What would it be like to choose to live by another’s hand? A still, small voice inside tells me that this is where I must go, to turn it all over without reservation. The fact that my heart quakes tells me how much I want and need to do this. We both know that it is a long road ahead of us, but we also know it will be one hell of a ride.

~~~

Read Sadie's second column in this series: Total Surrender? In a Pig's Eye!

*Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology Website http://www.freewillastrology.com/

Sensuous Sadie is the author of It’s Not About the Whip: Love, Sex, and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene (http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html). She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn, Vermont ’s first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing in most venues.

Copyright September 2003 Sadie Sez Publications