An Awakening

I am going to tell you a story because it is important. I will try to make it as brief as I possibly can.

My marriage almost ended before it ended.

I was married to Lily, whom those who remember this blog and this writer from ancient days will know. What had been a hopeful marriage had suffered through trauma and age and the indignity of the years. With two children and an increasingly demanding job, things found their way from bad to worse.

This is such a common story that it is a stereotype, but what is not common is that my marriage experienced a renaissance after Lily took a trip to Colorado. This what happened.

At that time, the sex had stopped, for all intents and purposes, completely. It almost never happened, and when it did it was clear to me that, for her, it was an unpleasant experience that she would prefer to avoid, and I did not have any interest in being that for her.

When she was in Colorado, and a bit before, she had tried to rekindle things, but they didn’t work out, for various reasons. Sex was just not something that seemed possible for her and me any more.

But Lily did something brave. Lily was, and is, remarkable. Lily took a risk.

She told me that what was wrong was that she was not getting the kind of sex that she was wanting. She took a risk and told me what kind of sex that was.

I have discovered, in my own experience, that women who want to conquer the world often want to be conquered.

Lily told me that what she needed was to submit to a man: to take his orders and be used by him. She needed to be tied up, to be spanked, to be flogged, to have hot wax poured on her, to be tied to the bed and teased with a vibrator and forced to have orgasms, to be forced to expose herself, to be used.

And she told me that she believed that I could give her these things, and that she would rather have them from me, but that she needed them from somewhere.

Lily was brave, and she also saw something in me that I did not see in myself.

And I told her that I would go on this journey with her.

At first I did a very classic thing for me: I immersed myself in the skills. I learned how to tie knots and tie people up and tie people down. I learned about spankings and paddles and rods. I read a book about flogging and practiced it. I read many books.

And I as I worked at developing skills, I bought things. I got rope and rods and canes and paddles and floggers and handcuffs. I got wrist and ankle cuffs and straps that hooked to the bed. I got many, many vibrators, and discovered the world of very high quality ones. I got all of the stuff.

Lily laughed and said, “that’s how you get a man to have interest in sex, you turn it into an equipment sport.”

We went to BDSM events and lectures. We met people and talked to them and began to join the community. And I learned at these lectures and added to my skills.

And I did have interest in sex. I threw myself into technical skill, and doing the things that would be pleasing, that would give Lily, or any woman, but specifically Lily, pleasure.

I learned to play the role of a Dominant. I did what I believed a Dominant would do, and I would act the role, having written the character. I did not feel like I was being myself, but I portrayed the person she needed me to be.

Many men are stupid, and I am no less so, so there were many things that Lily told me that I was so stupid I didn’t understand, or couldn’t process when she told me about them, but I learned them the harder, more painful way for myself and I and as I learned I grew.

And we talked about sex: about what we liked, about what went well, and what didn’t. About what we fantasized about and what we would like to do and what we would like to try. And that made the sex keep getting better as we grew.

And the story could have stopped there. I could have kept on playing that role and honing my skills. Some people stay in that place and are happy. I was a careful, controlled Dominant who worked to carefully, precisely perform in a controlled manner.

But Lily saw something in me that I did not see in myself. Something inside that I did not know was there, or was afraid to see.

It seems stupidly obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me: women who want to conquer the world often want to be conquered. And the flip side of that is, that the accommodating, conciliatory man, the patient man, the one so eager to help, would want to control, to take, to force, to use. To conquer.

I discovered a reserve, a well of dark energy within me. I discovered the portion of myself that I did not see that was not playing a role. The portion of myself that needed to do these things as much, more than Lily needed them done to her.

And it scared the hell out of me.

It began to grow within me and I began to experience moments when I was not in control and I didn’t know who I was. The dark energy was in control. And Lily loved that.

Over time, and after Lily and I were not together, the dark, frightening thing that I kept on a chain within me became more and more of a presence. I remember the first time I said something that I did not feel was me speaking. What frightened me was that that came from inside, and I didn’t feel like I was in control of what I said, or what I did.

But what I found within myself was something I never would expect. I found the man who wants these things, and I found that thing within myself that satisfied me in a way that I had never been before. And certain ladies loved it, more than any skill I could ever develop.

Lily saw that in me, when I could not see it in myself.

Why am I telling you this? What am I trying to say?

I am not a magical unicorn. I am just a man, and I don’t believe that I have some mystical god-like power. Lily was brave enough to invite me on this journey and I agreed to go. And I worked at it and I tried and I learned and I grew.

I am a man with opinions about vibrators. I wrote reviews.

I was a moderately popular sex blogger, writing mostly erotica and some essays, mostly on BDSM topics. These days I write this blog that  is meant to be the revived version of it, which I have restored but no one reads.

I am a man with a trunk full of equipment under my bed, and the knowledge skill and enthusiasm to use it.

And none of this is magical unicorn powers. I am a man. I became this because Lily had faith in me and took a risk.

I am permanently transformed and I have something that is an integral piece of who I am that I did not even know was inside me. I will be forever grateful to Lily for helping me to be fully who I am in a way I never could before.

I am just a man. I could do this. And the man I was could not imagine who I am and what I have, what I have done, and how much joy I can spread doing it.