~Subject: Re: _Your_ a.s.b. eloquence needed (urgent)
~Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 21:45:15 GMT
 
 
Beautiful, my Lord, but, a bit rambling, as is bound to happen when
writing extempore on such huge subjects...
But, fortunately, I have here the shorter, tighter essay we have
written together, in my name and viewpoint, on "Why I am into BDSM",
for a booklet on BDSM which is being prepared, and which we also
can post here... and this one seems a good occasion.  So here's my
personal statement about this... not just pain, but the scene as a whole.
 
 
Why do a loving husband and wife take mutual joy in inflicting on
each other, and receiving from each other, physical pain?
 
Every day, "mundane" pain (toothache, illnesses, childbirth...)
fills our lives; I have learned to fully accept such pain, to
transform it into ecstasy and light, by knowing that it is sent to
me by the Great Mother, the All-Loving Goddess which I worship,
for me to accept, and cherish - to make me grow closer to Herself.
 
I love my husband, my Lord, with the same burning totality with
which I love the Goddess. Can I then not accept with joy the pain
He chooses to inflict on me? More: I desire that pain - I yearn
for it - I will beg Him for it! For when He makes me scream with
pain, He is most strongly asserting His Godhead on me; and its
total and loving acceptance is my most intense adoration of Him.
 
We switch, we use to say, but it's not really that: we don't
alternate, we are simultaneously each other's slave and Master/Lady.
"Let husband and wife be submissive to each other", as Saint Paul
wrote; "As above, so below; as below, so above", to put it another way.
 
So I also inflict pain on him, as willingly and as lovingly as I
accept as holy the pain He wants to make me suffer. I am not as
strong and muscular as he is, but there are many tools I can use
- a whip, a knife, hot candlewax, my perfect teeth, my strong hard
nails, the slap of my hand on his face... - to bless him with the
sacrament of pain.
 
Why should I want to, when I love him so dearly, so strongly, so
overwhelmingly?  First of all, I recognize in him the same yearning
I know in myself: to feel the strongest possible interaction with
me, both physically and spiritually (and few interactions are
stronger or more intense than these); and I am overjoyed by being
able to satisfy this desire. Second, and just as important: this
is a part of myself, this allegedly "darker" side, this "tigress"
which wants to taste blood on her lips and see the prey writhe -
how wonderful to be able to express it fully, without harm!  It
makes me more whole, to accept and live and enjoy it (harmlessly,
constructively, in a safe, sane, consensual and loving relationship),
this part of myself which I would otherwise have to repress, to deny
even to myself, and surely would still secretly feel guilty about...
 
Pain, lovingly inflicted, and wholly and lovingly accepted, becomes
a new, different, intense source of pleasure - sharing, in part,
the same source as sexual pleasure, i.e. the sharing of intense
sensations between lovers, and, in part, its nature, but at times
even more breathtaking and overwhelming.
 
If you can understand this, the part about domination and submission
should come as no surprise. Not only in pair relationships, but in
the whole fabric of collective life, we, as human beings, tribal,
gregarious, social, are forever building veritable webs of dominance
and acceptance of it.
 
Taking them out in the open, living them wholly, acting them out
most dramatically -- kneeling at His feet, and kissing them; having
him prostrate on his belly on the floor in front of me, and place
my foot upon his own neck... -- such deep roots are accepted,
cherished, and transcended, to give what, perhaps paradoxically,
is the highest expression of which individual freedom is capable.
I am free to call myself His slave... that is the freedom I want,
none other will do!
 
 
Bright blessings,
    Laylah
    --
    You bite my slender wrists, my frail and fiery flesh,
    You drink the cutting taste of lips and breached sunsets
 
Laylah Martelli: 
lela@am.sublink.org,lmartell@nyx.cs.du.edu,an1826@anon.penet.fi