"The whip is good for us," she said. "Perhaps it is hard for you to understand that, as you are not a woman. It makes our womanhood a hundred times more meaningful. The essential point here is not being whipped, of course, which hurts, but being subject to the whip, and being truly subject to it. You see the distinction, i am sure."
i guess having just been whipped, it couldn't be much clearer to me. i'm hard-pressed to think of a time i feel more wholly owned than under Master's whip. my life is in His hands at all times but that is never more clearly illustrated than when He wields the whip. Knowing He can whip me, remembering He has whipped me... those should suffice and do for most. But the absolute helplessness of just waiting for it to end, trembling tearfully and hoping it is over, trying to answer Him as He wishes in speed and content... of watching my avi suffer and wondering what that whip would do to my own flesh... i am more His in my mind at that moment than at any other and it stays with me. How do i get that same feeling from being SUBJECT to the whip without needing to be UNDER it? That is an answer i don't yet have but, until i find the answer, i have no doubt i am going to be unhappily under the whip with little provocation.
"We know that men are by nature sovereign over us. That comprehension requires no greater insight. Accordingly, men must then either fulfill their nature, or deny it, and in denying their nature, deny us ours, for ours is the complement to theirs. Accordingly we despise men who surrender their natural sovereignty. Surely, we would not be so stupid, would not be such weaklings and fools as to do that, if we were men. It would be too valuable and too glorious a thing to give up. Its surrender would be a tragedy."
i guess this leaves me questioning what this means for J. He WANTS to step up into a role of providing more control. He said and meant that when he and i spoke the other night. But i don't think he could ever be Master in my mind. He might in someone else's but how could i ever possibly view him that way? Maybe that is because it is not how i saw him first, not how i got to know him. In contrast, Master was Master when i met Him and nothing since has ever made me view Him as less. Even reconciling the image of Him as former slave is still a challenge.
So should we, J and i, try for something closer to his being in control? As much as i love the idea that it has any possibility of working, i am strongly inclined to say no. He would not be striving for nor achieving the full persona of Master and i would attack him for anything less as the next part of the quote says. i cannot fathom anyone but Master dealing with me as i don't necessarily want but do need to be dealt with.
"But we are not men! We are women, and want, truly, with everything in out hearts and bellies, to be women, and we cannot be women truly if men are not truly men! Lay down the whip, and we will attack you, and undermine you, and use your own laws, institutions, and rhetorics to destroy. Own us, dominate us! Enslave us, properly, so that we may love you as a women are meant to love, wholly and irreservedly, totally, without thought of ourselves!" She looked at me, tears in her eyes. "Is it so wrong to want to be ourselves?"
The "lay down the whip" sentence rings truer than anything else possibly could. It is the story of both my first life and my second life. i often feel as if my need for that overt control means that i am not truly slave, that i would not need such an outward and blatant demonstration if i was. This quote totally refutes that doubt. i think the quote means that my need is an attempt to define myself, to affirm who i am, and to give me permission to be that self.
I never expected revelations from writing as dramatic as those which have come tonight but i am grateful for them and for the fact that they are now a resource for me to look back upon when needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment