Hi there rose by another name ,

Greetings from another flower child. Great pseudonym you got there... it's evocative, sensual, not to mention scentual, I heartily approve.

While my erotic preference for older people has a great deal more to do with my perception of them as more sexy (about 70% of the equation) than it does with my perception of younger people as unable to dom me (the other 30% of the equation), I did write that sentence about finding it unlikely to impossible that someone younger than myself could dominate me in a satisfying way, so I'll address some further thoughts to this.

First of all, I know from reading and from talking to people all of my life that you and I are not the only ones to have noticed that there seems to be some truth to the old adage that girls mature faster than boys. Throughout my teens I noticed that this was so, although I didn't act on it much: my partners were of varying ages. When you start to get into your twenties, however, that becomes less and less the case, the boys manage somehow to "catch up" with the girls and the maturity gap narrows. It does not surprise me that at age 23 you were able to find someone your age you were proud to call "master." (Excuse me if I'm assuming too much here, but other people's messages about you and also the fact that you selected a quote from my message which started "But as a sub who is only a sub," leads me to believe that you are talking primarily about dominant partners in your message.)

At 23 I thought that guys my age were just fine too. Hell, I even got involved with a 19-year-old Romeo with a guitar who serenaded me every night outside my dorm room for weeks one spring quarter, but although I was not the instigator, I always secretly felt during that brief affair that I was robbing the cradle. While I admired and respected many older people at that time, it hardly ever occurred to me to view them as potential sexual partners: we just seemed to live in different worlds.

But that was when I was vanilla, and my submissive-masochistic desires slumbered (it also probably had something to do with the fact that I was on a college campus where the majority of men I was exposed to were my age or younger--not a lot of choice back then ). When I had my sexual epiphany in my late 20s, my taste in partners seemed to change overnight: older people (and for me, five years isn't nearly enough--I like the age difference to be at least a decade, ideally 15-25 years) became impossibly alluring. It's a queer sort of change to go through: one moment you're cheerfully eyeing people your own age and speculating about them in bed (although in entirely vanilla ways); the next moment they've entirely lost their charm. It makes sense to me now, after years of thinking about it, but at the time it was plenty baffling.

You know, I tried to post this message last night, but it bounced back to me because I forgot to type the "X-Anon-To" line. In a way I'm glad it did, because I just now remembered that after I went to bed I dreamed that a professor I had had a small crush on in my early 20s but was painfully shy around was arranging, with the assistance of a co-professor, to have an affair with me because, in my dream, I had done something I never would have considered in real life: told him I was attracted to him. I suppose you can tell what my subconscious had on its mind last night!

>> "Sometimes you find that real age and chornological age have little >> relation to each other."

I fully agree with that, Darkrose, and, sadly enough, this applies to people of all ages: there are hordes of juvenile 4th and 5th decade people out there. In my personal experience, though, I've found it extremely rare in this era of the extended childhood to find someone I consider to be fully mature in their late teens or early twenties. Finding someone chronologically younger than you who seems your equal in most ways becomes rarer as you get older and the age gap between you and the twenty-somethings widens. There is a lot of mental growing and maturing that goes on in the 20s, and while a few people manage to grow up early, it's unusual. Your SO (Michael?) might be that way, I have no way of telling since I don't know him, but look at it this way: assuming he's around the same age as you, pretend for a moment that you are now 40 while he hasn't aged. Do you still think you would find him "mature" enough for you? I guess that's kind of a hard thing to imagine, because it is hard to imagine what changes you will have gone through by the time you are 40.

You know, it could be that I've just had the amazing bad luck to always meet younger people, kinky and vanilla, who struck me as too immature to be an equal partner, let alone to dom me. Could be the luck of the odds. If I do meet a 20-something who acts like a 50- or a 60-something, I suppose I'd change my tune in a hurry . And like I said earlier, I suspect that when I'm in my crunchy autumn leaf phase, I expect (primarily because I see so many other Autumners doing it) that I might find more to attract me in the young sprouts than I do at present.

But on the other hand, I think part of my personal problem with seeing even people my own age as possible dominants has to with the fact that I have an unusually strong personality, in a number of different ways. It's been difficult for me to meet anyone I considered my equal in terms of power, let alone my better. And I just can't pretend--I can't sub to someone I perceive as weaker than myself. I'm talking about all forms of power here, not just brute force or the sometimes-incorrect conviction that one is a dominant. Intelligence is an awesome sort of power, as is a strong dose of self-confidence, as is an unusual persuasive ability, as is stubbornness, as is open-mindedness and a generous attitude toward others, as is the ability and desire to assume large amounts of responsibility, as is emotional maturity, inventiveness, a positive but realistic outlook, anything in one's personality that has the effect of moving or changing people toward one's own goals, towards ones own will is power--at least in my book.

I have some of these traits in abundance (if not overabundance--poor Donald!--g) while still being a rock-bottom submissive at the core. And while on the positive side, they give me the ability to explore submissiveness to the depths and to the extent that I crave, they also, on the negative side, mean that I've met few dominants that I haven't managed, somehow, to overwhelm, rather than the other way around. Don't get me wrong, I don't fight or resist needlessly, I'm a "good little girl" not a SAM, but it's those very qualities of my "good little girlness," my sincerity and intensity and fearlessness and thoughtfulness, that blasts them away more than anything else. :(

Darkrose, do you think that your power orientation has anything to do with your ability or willingness to accept people your own age as partners? Also, do you regard your SO as unusual for his or her age, or do many people you meet of a similar age have a similar level of maturity? And are these people mainly Scene people? I don't get out in the Scene much, so I don't have a lot of kinky acquaintances from which to judge maturity. I talk to a lot of people in messages and email, but I personally have a difficult time making more than a cursory judgement about someone's level of maturity from writing samples. People are just too different in person. I need a face-to-face meeting to really get a feel for where someone is at, mentally and emotionally.

On a not-so-entirely unrelated topic, care to hear a rose story? A long time ago, in the early middle ages I think, there was this eastern mystic who was sent by his teacher to be the director of all the mystics and holy people residing in the old city of Baghdad. In those days, there were a lot of those venerable old mystics around (Baghdad was sort of the New Age hothouse of its time), so many in fact that the Baghdad group was rather insulted that this outsider, and a young, wet-behind-the-ears whippersnapper at that, had been appointed their leader. So as this guy, Abdul-Qadir I believe his name was, was reaching the outskirts of the city, he noticed this band of dignified old Baghdad greybeards coming to meet him in the opposite direction. When they got closer, Abdul-Qadir saw that they were carrying a bowl of water, full to the brim. Mystics, for some annoying reason, often like to speak thier piece in symbols and signs, and Qadir, being a fellow mystic, immediately saw what they were driving at: Baghdad is full to the brim with holy gurus, and there is no room for even one more. Although it was the middle of winter and out of season, Qadir, without saying a word, instantly produced a full-blown rose from somewhere and dropped it into the bowl, where it floated effortlessly on top of the water without spilling a single drop. This blew the greybeards away 'cause they realised from this sign that they were dealing with someone who totally outclassed them in mystic lore, and they bowed down before him in acceptance of their new teacher and spiritual director. Abdul-Qadir became known (and is still known today in some parts) as the Rose of Baghdad.

I suppose you could consider me, Darkrose, in my obvious erotic dismissal of those younger than myself, a greybeard (or a grey-rivulet? ) who has yet to meet a Qadir.