Usually, when people hear “sexual orientation,” they think gay, straight, omni… that sort of thing.

Sexual orientation describes an enduring pattern of attraction—emotional, romantic, sexual, or some combination of these—to persons of the opposite sex, the same sex, or to both sexes, as well as the genders that accompany them.

I like the phrase, “an enduring pattern of attraction.”

I’ve had ”an enduring pattern of attraction” to bondage and masochism since childhood.  My first sex dream at 11?  Featured a lot of rope and threats. Pain and orgasm were good buddies in my mind before I could vote.

Now, I don’t know if that’s an “orientation.” So far as I can tell, usurping the phrase hurts people’s feelings. I don’t really want to hurt anyone’s feelings over this.  But, I think ”an enduring pattern of attraction” describes what I’m talking about.

I hear a lot of people that self-describe as kinky say they were always this way. And, I hear a lot of people, particularly women-people, say that it’s learned, it’s trained, it’s aberrant. It’s patriarchal play-acting. That sort of thing.  Like cultural Stockholm Syndrome.

I also don’t know where it comes from, specifically.

Maybe they’re right.

Maybe it is all misogyny and self-loathing.

This is at least post-polka dot bikini.

I do know that it doesn’t really matter.

I am what I am.

I can’t live outside society. I can’t just not have my own personal history.  The wank bank wants as the wank bank wants. The things that we fantasize about are often both involuntary and carefully honed and cultivated.

You run into Free Will pretty quickly with this line of discussion.  It’s sort of an enduring human mystery.  Maybe in hierarchy-less utopia, on Planet Thought Experiment, everyone has “functional” and “healthy” and “non-exploitative” sexuality. Maybe in that magical land, everyone is into the gentlest of touching and loads of loving eye contact and sex that only happens in a dense cloud of mutually tensionless energy exchange.

Maybe.

But, I kind of doubt it.

I have a really hard time identifying as “a submissive.”

It just seems so simple.

Too simple.

The about page is more-or-less accurate given my current relationship.  It says I’m “a spanko-y, bondage-loving, d/s-y, masochistic-type.”

In true “bad at this” fashion, I forgot to capitalize the D.

That’s some serious eyebrow. Recognize.

It’s really not a case of hating labels, or anything. I just have a tough time identifying with the Mythic Submissive concept. The True Sub who’s magically “connected” to the True Dom?

You know the one. They need permission to breathe.  They wilt on the vine without micromanagement. Etc.

I’m not that girl.

I have respect for the “service” theory.  Service-oriented submission makes sense to me. Pride in a job well done. It’s all very Protestant Work Ethic.

There are passive people out there.  I get that.

There are endorphin addicts that like pain.  I definitely get that.

There are bondage lovers and humiliation connoisseurs and age players and yeah. There are subs.  Some insist they’re not doormats. Others prefer being ottomans.

But, the True Sub of BDSM lore? Not so much.

And I actually have a tough time not sneering at the Mythic Natural Born Slave concept. Just-so-stories in pretty boxes bring out my sneer-face.

There’s something about in the earnest, full-blown-slave that makes me want to push, push, push straight into “just how self-negating do you think you are?”  Because, it has a logical conclusion as an train of thought, really.

And, well, I know that there are people that go there. They don’t want to be a person. They don’t want to have a will.  They want to be meat.

I don’t find it noble. I am not jealous of their Very Twuest Submission. I just find it creepy.

I think it’s some expression of a death wish, at heart.  Longing for annihilation.

Wannabe Slaves actually bring out my inner sadist something terrible. And I have an inner sadist, so clearly I cannot be the Truest Sub.

So, yeah.  I’m a “bottom” at best. And, a bratty one that’s pretty good at head games.  And, I’ve got noooooo interest in life as property.