Hmm, from what I'm seeing in profiles, it seems like the majority of men on here are married/taken men with severe anger problems... oh, and with an extremely fragile ego.

And oh my fucking god, one little sentence in that last entry was keeping the whole thing from posting. Why? Good question. That took forever to find what it was! At least it was a simple rewrite of the sentence once it was pinned down. But still... ugh -_-

My Own 50 Shades of Grey

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No, this doesn't have anything to do with the book. It's more a story of Robin Hood than anything else. This is about the grey areas of morality. It's a brief thesis on how we tend to misunderstand morality. We all have our beliefs and these are what guide us in life to help make each decision we make. Being in a committed relationship, the question of morality is something I've come across quite a bit; in fact, it's what led to the initial reflection of it. Often times we are in a situation which faces us with a decision that comes down to a quick calculation in the brain of either being right or wrong. If we choose to live within this framework, that's ok, it's easy and doesn't impose emotional weights that indecision and doubt bring. When I say that it's never so simple and that the motivation comes from being in a relationship yet also being on sites such as collarme, most will, I think, write this off as a delusion and a way to justify being what they see as immoral. And, to be honest, it is a way to justify what you/they see as an immoral decision. I accept that some will always see this as immoral but, in a society, we are best served by striving to understand others. This is how to understand me and how this issue eventually ended up as an amoral one for me. So let's start at the beginning: society.

We live in a society, a basic, undeniable fact. As no man is an island, we must always be aware that how we interact with others both is shaped by and continues to shape the society. Of course, the reason we choose to participate in the social structure in the first place is because of the greater benefit. Because two are more likely to succeed in an act than one alone, both are more likely to see the benefit of working together than they would by working towards the same goal alone. Even if the benefit must be shared because of this, they are still better off assuring they get a smaller reward than risking missing the bigger one. This is the foundation of society. Despite all of this, we are still animals at the core. We still are driven to ensure our survival first, which is a contradiction to the basic idea of a society. Every resource that goes to our neighbor is one less resource that can go to our own self, after all! We are all the same animal, so we realize this, and this gives rise to a distrust in others in the society. Out of this is borne the social contract: you abide by certain rules that guarantee my safety and I'll do the same to guarantee your safety. These rules are what we call morals.

Even though societies evolve separately at different times and different places, there are still some morals that seem universal from one to the next. Of course, to understand the foundation of morals, we must first introduce the concept of religion. Early man was stupid. It's not a bad thing, but at earlier stages of evolution, there was quite a bit yet to be discovered about the world. To provide security in times they simply could not grasp what was going on, a simple answer was provided: that was the way it was meant to be. Of course, for something to be intended one way implies motivation, and with motivation comes a source. This source gave birth to the concept of higher beings. Then, from the concept of higher beings, religions evolved, sometimes as a way to thank the beings, other times as a way to beg the beings to stop that which they could not understand (such as a flood). I'll take a moment to add a disclaimer: this is not meant to say that religion is wrong, stupid, or bad in any way. This is simply meant to state why they came about, and that they attempted to explain "why" to pretty much everything; science may have answered many questions of "how" over the past several dozen millennia, yet it's never answered the "why" question, not even once. The fact that it remains unanswered means there is still a place for religion, even in an advanced society, and it means that every religion still has its own merit... of course, it does imply that explicit explanations of "how" given by religion (such as miracles) are made dubious, but if anyone actually takes religious stories (such as certain scriptures) literally, then this wasn't for you in the first place. With that out of the way, that's how religion came about, to explain the "why" of life. It's then only natural that morals would be weaved into it. If we wanted the answer to the question of why we should follow certain rules to keep a society together, then we were asking a question of "why" in our lives, and thus religion predominately formed our morals. This helps to explain why some have such a difficult time budging on morals, it's about security, and, no, it doesn't apply to only religious people. But, to ensure that we're secure in a society, we need to eliminate uncertainty and, thus, we do so by fervently adhering to what we see as the framework of the society. However, is this the right course of action? Or, perhaps is it possible that this ignores where the morals came from in the first place...?

Where do our morals come from then? Well, go back to how societies were started in the first place: ensured survival. In that case, what best ensures survival? This gives rise to the most basic moral, do not kill others. For all of the promises we make each other in a society, even if a person does everything they're supposed to for their neighbor, it's all for naught if they kill them. What's next? Well, we best survive with good health; good health comes from keeping our bodies running, which requires food, water, and a lack of disease, if possible. As such, we have the moral to not steal. Do not steal food, do not steal water, do not steal anything that aids in the survival of another. That's the basic idea, although since societies have become more advanced and survival is more assured, being content has become just as important as surviving. So, to be content (read: happy), not stealing has also evolved into the basic idea of ownership and not interfering with another's ownership of something. So there's don't kill and don't steal. Now, when we were still early man, why did we want to survive? So we could pass on our genes. This, of course, is why sex is so fucking great, our bodies reward us immensely for carrying out the act of procreation! Of course, passing on genes was much more difficult back then and to best ensure that each and every person had their chance, the idea of not laying with thy neighbor's wife came about. In other words, it became a basic moral to not cheat. This idea both evolved when personal freedom was accepted and then it meshed with the idea of not committing violence and we got the moral to not commit rape. Another moral we got was to not lie. Transparency is imperative to having a society running smoothly, so we all agreed amongst ourselves that I'll tell you the truth if you do the same for me. You can keep going with these ideas and you'll eventually be able to trace every moral we hold back to some key to survival. Once we understand where the morals come from, what then is truly moral and what is immoral?

Let's go back to the beginning of this, to the story of Robin Hood. We have a basic moral upon which our society must abide: do not steal. According to the basic moral framework, Robin Hood was a criminal and immoral. But is that really the end of the story? The truth is that he acted out of his own moral conviction. He knew not to steal, yet he also understood that his society must persevere. Furthermore, those overtaxing his village were, in his mind, not his society, but an outside one immorally impinging on their basic right to survival. As such, he believed that the greater good was served by taking from those who, not only did not need all that they had, but who were stealing from them in the first place, and then to return what was stolen to those who needed it. The story is typically boiled down to a hero correcting the wrongs of others, but the fact is that he was stealing. He and the inhabitants of Sherwood forest lived in a society that utilized taxes to keep it running. To better serve the societies within the domain, resources were taken from all in the hope and belief that they could be used in another way to better serve everyone in that domain. Too much was taken, sure, and to be technical about it, it was an example of failing trickle-down economics, but the idea of taxes was actually there for the villagers' benefit. Those in power simply believed that the elite were serving their roles in society best by maximizing their own happiness and that those below them should do their part by continuing to serve their role in society as well. Yet still Robin Hood stole back the taxes and gave it to the poor to use for their discretion. Were the poor better off? Well, yes, the story has a happy. Not only did the returned taxes benefit the poor, but the evil taxers were overthrown to never hurt the poor again. Was the whole society better off? Maybe the greater good was served, ok, but technically the whole society wasn't. Those at the top actually were hurt by his actions. The point of this is, of course, that Robin Hood did something immoral, he hurt a group of people, yet the greater good was served. Why was the greater good served? Because the basic social structure, the basic promise he'd made to help society by being part of it was the ultimate motivator in his actions. Simply put, he wasn't completely in the right, yet we still seem to love him.

Why do we love Robin Hood? He was a thief, a criminal and, in some versions of his story, a murderer. Yet the character is adored, and anyone seen as a modern day Robin Hood seems to get a free pass in the minds of many. We love him because he was romanticized, because we know the ending of the story, because of what love is: an emotion. Emotions, frankly, guide many of us far more than our morals do. Have you ever thought about what emotion is, though? It's our base self, actually. We feel fear, an emotion, not because a moral tells us to, but because our survival instinct tells us to. We feel love not out of a moral obligation to marry in a society, but because we are attracted to someone our brains tell us makes a good mate. In a way, emotions are the enemies to our morals, they actually put them at risk. In the case of Robin Hood, we are told that the poor are good and the rich are evil; in societal terms, the rich are threatening the very foundations of the society, improving their position at the expense of our own. Of course, some would actually dislike Robin Hood for that reason, because they're immorally doing the same, using others unfairly for their own benefit and basically taking a giant shit on the whole social structure. But, most of us empathize with the poor instead and, as such, one particular survival instinct, one emotion, sets in. We feel fear that our own survival is threatened by others with greater resources out there. Ultimately, though, our faith in the societal structure is rewarded and the fear is alleviated by the outcome. We are all so familiar with this that, instead of questioning Robin Hood's actions, we simply love him for what he did for the poor. Sure, if we over analyze his story in this manner, we can also justify his decisions, but in doing so we also realize it was not black and white as we innately thing, but rather grey. We analyze it and we know the greater good is served. If we don't analyze it, though, we just like him as a hero because we lean on our emotions instead. This is understandable, though, as we're all still just animals. When we do not take the time to objectively think through a situation, all that we really have left are our emotions. And, in other questions of morality, this is something I've come across a lot.

I'm no Robin Hood. By being on a website such as this, I am not serving the greater good of society. And, in fact, I'd say that my relationship itself has no influence on the machinery of this modern society. My relationship is instead a pact between myself and my wife. Of course, some will still cling to the moral trappings of the idea to not stray in a relationship simply because they were taught to believe that it's still important. But, is it? The idea that we must not stray is to ensure that one man and one woman stay together to pass on their genes as efficiently as possible. Well, that's not actually true as the original basis of the moral was for one man to not steal another man's woman, and that each man should stay faithful to his women to best pass on his genes to as many women as he damn well pleases... but, that's beside the point, so let's just call the moral as we see it today, as monogamy. Do we really have the problem of procreation in a modern society, though? Hell, we live in a society of sperm banks, donors, accidental pregnancies, and adoption, so the answer is a resounding "FUUUUCK NO." Simply put, monogamy has no place in modern society. Where it does have a place is in a relationship between two people; it's much more isolated than a societal bound. Monogamy in a modern society is really an agreement between people to pass on their genes together. They're free to do what they want, to be sure, but they give up a little bit of that freedom and the man promises to not put his seed in another woman if she won't take the seed of another man. It's more of an individual survival thing, really, but society doesn't need that promise to be kept to keep running. So what does this mean? It means that the monogamy of one couple is not the business of another, and it becomes an amoral issue (if you don't know, "amoral" means outside of the bounds of morality, or "without moral consideration"). Alas, that does not mean that cheating itself is amoral. Indeed, it is still an immoral act. Why? Because, as much as society does not need monogamy these days, it does need honesty. Cheating in the modern world is not about fucking other people, it's about the lies necessary to do it.

The idea that cheating is about lying is easy for many to accept. Particularly, the swingers should really understand this. If cheating was immoral on its own, then swapping wives would itself be an immoral act. Yet the swapping happens and, in the end, everyone (ideally) remains happy and secure in their relationships. Why? Because, in the case of both couples, no promise is made to only fuck each other. As you can see, cheating is clearly about the trust in a relationship and, as I said, the problem society has with cheating is that it needs honest people in it if it's going to function properly. Often times we use the term "faithful" in a relationship to say that we're not cheating, but that's putting the horse before the cart. Rather, we agree to be faithful to each other and, from that, follows the idea that we don't cheat. But, at the same time, being faithful means we agree to provide emotional support to the other, we agree to look out for each others' well beings, and so forth. What being faithful really means is to keep the basic promise that the relationship with that person comes before the relationship with all others; another interpretation of this is, of course, that they become your primary concern. But this second interpretation is actually not necessarily the same as the first. If their well being comes first, then yours is technically second to theirs. This is, of course, different than saying that their relationship comes first, because that situation allows for your well being to take just as much, if not more, consideration than theirs. This may sound selfish, of course, but it is also more akin to human nature. That's not the reason I have grown to subscribe to the idea of the first interpretation, though, but rather I do so because of the idea of how relationships form in the first place. Going back to the very basics, two people help each other out because two is better than one. This idea requires that we must always take care of ourselves as well. Put in general terms, if two people are meant to help each other out and something bad is about to happen to only one of them, the one with the greater chance of survival must always be the one to take the bad. It doesn't matter if it's my decision or my wife's, if I have a better chance of surviving being shot, we both must make the decision for me to take the bullet if given the chance; I would never fault my wife for making the correct decision in that situation either. So, coming to terms with the idea that it is the greater good, I put our relationship first and foremost. I always eliminate the greater threat if two mutually exclusive threats arise. So, if given the option to give up my sexuality for her asexual tendencies and risk allowing tension tear the relationship apart, I'd choose what I see as the better option: a safe release. Is it immoral? Yes, lying about who I fuck is immoral. I'm ok with that if it means our relationship stays together, though. Is it ideal? No, I'd rather take the monk's approach and go without sex. I've also taken the better route of being open about sexual frustration, which sadly had a "deal with it" dead end. However, I know myself very well and I've also experienced what happens in this situation. As implied, it's a threat to my marriage. I try to not let it get to me as much as possible and I'm finding that as I get older (or perhaps get distracted by other stresses in life), the urge goes away. The urge returns, though, and when it is not met I do my best to suppress it. When it gets to the point that fights over petty matters happen a little too regularly, though, that's when I take action.

No matter what, some will always think that this is a moral hardline, that no grey area exists. We are all free to make our own moral structure and, although I would fight the very rare instance in which someone suggests a reprimand for my decisions, most innately know to leave it at chastising. I'm ok with that. I'm content with my decisions and, to this day, remain happy in my relationship because of them. Some will say the relationship is not worth it if my needs are not being met. To this, I would say that the relationship itself is greater than sex and some of my own needs, just as much as it's greater than my wife's flaws. Truly, I've never committed to a relationship based solely on sex, so I'd never end it based on sex. Likewise, I accept my wife's imperfections as part of the relationship, even the ones she cannot seem to get past, so I can deal with my actions stemming from my own imperfections so long as I strive to improve upon those imperfections (i.e. try to be more monk-like). To be sure, I'm ok with myself. If you don't like that I'm married, that's ok, I won't bother you about it. But I'm not going to stop, either.

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As somewhat of an epilogue to this thesis, my beliefs about bdsm actually do tie into all of this. It in itself is amoral, although it is related to the foundations of society. You see, living in society, we must balance putting faith in others with both maintaining control over our own lives and handling the faith that others put in us. For some, they have some extra fear that society will not best serve them. They might give into paranoia and become assholes about it to protect themselves from others, but they also have the option to reaffirm that their faith is well placed in others by giving up more than their mind tells them to. This is, of course, submission. They must always have faith in others to be a functioning member of society, but what will society do with them if they give all of their faith to it? Will they be rewarded with pleasure? Will they experience pain and hardship, yet still come out better than before? They do not know, but they can only find out by submitting their will to another. This is, I think, the most common reason for becoming a sub. Others might already have a lot of faith (read: responsibility) put in them on a regular basis because of their position in the society. Perhaps they need reassurance that they're not the only ones who are able to handle power, or perhaps they simply yearn to overcompensate the level of faith put in them by giving up their will when they can. Whatever the case, the result is the same and, those who have power in their daily lives, give up the power in their private life. The remaining group in there are those with conviction. They believe they are deserving of the faith of others and simply wish to put their beliefs to the test. They seek out the trust of others and, if they have good intentions, use that trust as they see fit. They are the ones who reward the faith with pleasure, who give the lesson that, no matter how many trials you undergo, you have it in you to still come out the better person. They understand the strains of taking on power and willingly let others in power lend them their trust. They are the natural leaders, really.They're the dominant ones.  For what it's worth, this also explains the bad doms. I said it earlier, but I'll bring it up again. They have some anti-social thoughts that society is against them and they lash out at it as a result. For whatever reason, they cannot handle their place in it, perhaps the are too afraid to put faith in it as well. To compensate for this, the react emotionally and find those who are willing to blindly put faith in another person. They take the faith and, rather than reward it, they selfishly use it, leaving the person worse off than before while only relying on themselves to regain confidence in their survival in the world. Really, the way they act is sort of a panic, hence the tendencies to explode in a rage when their position is questioned. Fortunately, I'm (proudly) not one of them!

I guess I'm back. I didn't intend to, really, but I'm here anyway. I'm also figuring out that I must be picky. I find myself hiding profiles from my search results left and right! Hmm... picky... self discovery is always fun... I'm a picky dom apparently!

Spoiling? Ugh, I've come to loathe that word. But, hey, let's start with that in the CM sense. A sub or slave who loves to be spoiled is... what? Let's think about this, submission is about yielding power, slavery about completely losing (and, by legally kosher means, giving up) it. Honestly, I can't understand why someone would want to give it up since I just don't have that frame of mind, but when a person submits, they do it because on some level they want to. I suppose on some level it all comes back to trust and the satisfaction of not having that trust betrayed... at least for some. So how does spoiling fit in this? Well, it depends on how you define a spoiling. The best I can tell for a common definition is that always involves the giving of gifts and/or money because the person giving wants to do it and the person receiving likes the attention (and the gifts/money, too, of course ^_^). Does anyone else see the disconnect in the ideology here? How is it a person could want to yield their power but also want gifts in return? I'm not talking about the obvious answer of wanting appreciation and reward for yielding that power as part of submitting is leaving it up to the dominant party to decide what is the best way to reward them. This is more about expecting an exchange to occur which, rather than submitting, is just whoring. On a personal level, I have no problem with a person who wants to whore themselves, it's their body after all. But, can we at least be honest about it? Can we not dance around it and say you're a sub who likes to be spoiled and, instead, come out with it and say you'll let me do whatever the fuck I want if I pay you for it?

Then there's just spoiling in general. Again, if you want to be a prostitute, by all means I think it should be legal and you should be able to. For me, there's nothing sexy about that, though. There's a great peace of mind for me in taking power consensually, not bartering for it. So this growing idea that little missy here is entitled to being spoiled really bothers me. Who decided you were entitled to that? On what basis are we talking about here? It's human nature to like getting something we see as positive, be it a gift or something else. So what the hell entitles someone to actually define their self by somehow being special enough to be spoiled? However you break it down, it's going to come out to the same thing. A person who truly believes they're entitled to be spoiled is lazy and deceptive. For one, it seems that the spoiled little missy sees the "generous" gent as the only way to get nice things. I have another way and it's worked well for me: a job. Fortunately, our economy is fairly effective in allowing those of us who actually have skills and the ability to contribute tangibly otherwise to acquire nice things. Just like being on reality show doesn't fit into the category of having a skill or tangibly contributing to society, neither does being confident, cute and a tease; put another way, personality traits are NOT a marketable product in that way, save for a very select few (e.g. really good sales people, speakers, and the like). And in the end, it really does all come back to the same thing: being eye candy, a flirt and, if they guy is lucky, putting out. Wouldn't it be easier to just be honest and admit you're a freelance amateur escort? Then at least the generous gent would at least have the full info available and could make an informed decision that, yah, it's probably more worth the money to get a real escort than one who can't admit that's all she is in the end.

But does that mean there's no room to ever spoil someone? Well, for one, to spoil actually means to make rotten so, in that sense, no one should EVER be spoiled. But, going back to the idea that all it means is to treat well, dote upon, etc, yes, there is a time to do that. But that's up to the person doing the spoiling to decide. In both the vanilla and non-vanilla sense, I've seen some that truly are worth spoiling. Some do end up showing that for some reason or another, they're worth the effort. And, possibly more frequently, I see ones that aren't. If a person seems like they're worth the extra attention, they'll be given that; but by no means do the spoiled little missies get to decide up front that's their inherent worth to another person, it's just not their decision or their judgement to make. And, in fact, when looking at it that way, that spoiled nature is a way of seizing control, possibly why I despise the notion so much! ^_^ Anyway, now do we see the difference here? Do we see the problem at hand? Maybe?