Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Listening to one's body, and responsibility for safety

So this morning in the pre-dawn Sir takes me.

"Now?"

"Now."

It's the first we've been together sexually since our recent trip. All the recent medical unpleasantness is finally behind us (it's been more a long stretched out annoyance in some ways than any one thing, per se.)

We've missed one another in that way, and we're both 'hungry' for it.

We're both absolutely mid, when he pauses ever so slightly to ask how the circulation in my feet (which happen to be straight up in the air at the time, cuffed to a strap that passes behind my neck, giving me something to both push against and relax into...) are and I lose that concentration. We were close, there was a certain focus, and then he paused to check on my safety, and I can't just pick back up again.

I blurt out something like,

"fine, fine, HARDER!"

But the moment is gone.

He, on the other hand doesn't realize anything has shifted, so we fuck, and I enjoy it, (don't underestimate that, in spite of it all) and he orgasms, and we go on.

Later, I explain to him, that while yes, it's one of those right things to do, positively textbook, actually, in circumstances like that, yes, even though I am very in the moment, I'd still alert him to a problem.

Naturally, we talk about kind of the usual nonverbal 'two squeezes or taps' (he taps, I tap back) but as he points out, whether verbal or nonverbal, either can form a stepping out of the moment. It's certainly something we have done, among other nonverbal signals, but ultimately, yes even when communicating nonverbally about such things, it does take a certain presence of mind that takes me at least out of wherever it was that I was.

That doesn't mean I didn't wander around all starry-eyed, and leaning against the furniture thereafter. But up until that point I was completely in that moment, and I was sad when he accidentally took me from it.

It's a "property-brain" thing far more than any physical effect.

When I'm fully in that mindset, I don't want 'real world things' pulling me back out of that moment. If anything, though it's hardly his fault, it feels almost like an annoyance, 'of course I'm watching that!' That's part of why I speak up when I'm 'submitting'. If my hand is going to sleep, it allows me to maintain if I bring the issue to him. If things pause while he checks or such, it can become impossible to regain.

As his, it's important that I honestly let him know what's going on, and that requires I be paying attention, and 'in my own body' enough to recognize what's going on. This does not mean, however that I don't go deep into what many call "bottomspace."

Odd thing is, rather than that responsibility pulling me 'back out', I've found ways to focus on such as a way of taking myself 'deeper'.

I don't know if other 'bottoms' articulate this often, but it is a particular skill.

Letting Sir know before my hand is cramped or asleep means an ability to work longer.

It can also have to do with not wanting damage to come to something that is his. Nerve damage etc would not only get in my own way of doing what he wants, it would also mean he would not be able to enjoy use of me in the same ways, whether that be just for a time, or more permanently.

So part of this being his, is in listening to my body.

Now, do I sometimes reach that place where I'm positively non-verbal? On a good day, with a tailwind- yes, I do.

But I don't rely only on words to bring something to Sir's attention.

If we're in sync enough, I can usually express such non-verbally, and if we're not in sync enough, that alone pretty much instantly pulls me back out to a place where words can come pretty quickly. But we've been together more than a decade, now.

It probably must sound pretty odd for me to be sitting here saying 'please, no don't stop to check!' but that's precisely where I find myself.

But it's by no means a universal, it's just a dynamic the two of us in relation to one another seem to have reached.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My submissive boyfriend and I often discuss this issue of responsibility. It is one he takes very seriously - to pay attention to his body and keep himself safe (physically and emotionally) by letting me know when something is going wrong. I still check on him, but I don't think it disrupts his headspace.

Habu said...

Indeed devastating, I think it's purely a matter of what works best in each relationship.

The point isn't to do it any one given way, but to talk about it and find what works best between the people involved.

I wrote this in part to encourage and support those who often feel 'invalidated' just because the way they've found works for them may not line up with how many authors recommend.

(Which of course, ignores the fact that the authors themselves may do such differently in the bedroom, but they write what they in a context of dealing with issues of legal liability, etc.)