I am a Tumblr whore. There’s no other way to describe it. I spend way too much time on there looking for pictures. Most of the pictures I re-blog and most of those who I follow post lifestyle related pictures. I am very particular about the pictures that I re-blog. The pictures that I post or re-blog are pictures that speak to me, that stir up feelings of submissiveness, whether it being a picture of something as simple of a female kneeling or a female being used in an extreme manner. The other day while on Tumblr, I came across a picture that stirred a great deal of emotion and thought.

The image I stumbled across was a simple image, a black background with white text. It said:

This is not a role play This is not a game This is not a phase This is not playtime This is life

The reason why this picture struck a chord with me is that over the past several days I have seen various pictures on both Facebook and Tumblr relaying the same message. Also, it is a message that means a great deal to me, the way people view the lifestyle.

Hopefully, I’m not beating a dead horse with saying that thanks (maybe not so much) to E.L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy, the lifestyle has become a more popular topic of conversation. Just because it’s talked about more, doesn’t mean that it’s understood by all those who discuss it. This is something that has been going on long before the series came out. There have been a lot of people who have entered the lifestyle who don’t fully understand what it is that we do.

There are those on both the submissive and dominant end of things who enter this lifestyle for the wrong reasons; a way to find a meal ticket or escape personal responsibility, a way to justify using or abusing others. There are also those individuals who enter the lifestyle because, well, they think it’s cool to call themselves a slave or master and “participate” in an alternative lifestyle which makes them so much better than those “normies” and think they’re making some kind of statement saying “I refuse to follow what society says is right”, even though they can’t tell the difference between a flogger and a riding crop or just exactly what to do with that hook that has the ball on the end of it. Like those hipsters, who think they’re cool because they’re following their own drummer or whatever makes a hipster a hipster.

Unfortunately, those who give the lifestyle a bad reputation, are the ones who get all the attention and because of that, well, the most of the general society frowns upon anyone who falls underneath the BDSM lifestyle. We like to hurt people because we have nothing better to do with our time. We use people to get what we want, or an excuse as not to have a job because I can make my slave(or master) support me and take care of my every want and need and spoil me with lavish gifts. Not only that, but assumptions are made that we’re all a bunch of sexual deviants who have experienced sexual trauma at some point in our lives, which explains WHY we enjoy getting our hair pulled and being spanked. And if we haven’t experienced any kind of sexual trauma in our lives, yet participate in the lifestyle, then we suffer from a mental disorder.

Then you have the people that become active in the lifestyle for the wrong reasons. They call themselves a dominant or master as an excuse to be physically and mentally abusive and they call themselves slaves thinking to get a free ride in life. Unfortunately, like everything else in life, it’s always the bad apples that tend to get the attention and cause the entire group to get a negative reputation.

When in reality, those of us who are in the lifestyle because we are compelled to serve or to own, because we love the meaning that is given to our lives to be a part of something bigger, by loving more deeply and trusting our partners in ways not fully understood by those on the outside, who understand the true meaning of having a collar placed around our necks and the weight that our commitment we make to our Owners. To us, being a slave or submissive isn’t a game, a way to occupy our free time, or to make a statement. We are slaves and submissives because that is who we are because there’s no way to separate ourselves from our submissive nature and by denying ourselves of this would mean we would be living a lie.

I feel that there are so many who come into the lifestyle and do not realize what being a slave or submissive really entails. That the path we choose isn’t an easy one to walk, but a very rewarding one nonetheless. They come into the lifestyle having a certain expectation, a certain fantasy, but once they really get their feet wet, they realize it’s nothing that they expected. I know I was the very same way when I first posted my first profile collarme. I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I had this need to serve but had some kind of fantasy world pictured in my head and boy was I wrong. For some reason, I had the misconception that life was...easier as a slave, being in a BDSM relationship and the first time I became a live-in slave, I realized just how wrong I was. Nothing changes. Bills still need to be paid, people still have to go to work, messes need to be cleaned up and it was quite a hard pill to swallow. Because of these misconceptions and eagerness to serve, those new to the lifestyle end up getting involved in some not so safe situations and when they experience an abusive relationship, it just solidifies what they may have learned from society about the lifestyle. This is why I think it’s important for novices to have a safe place to turn to and someone to help mentor them so they can grow and flourish, hopefully learning from the mistakes that we’ve made, without having to make those very same mistakes themselves.

There isn’t just one set of rules for those who are active in the lifestyle. There are some basic guidelines and ideologies that everyone follows, but as more specific rules, that’s usually left up to the individual couples, which I think is one of the great things about the lifestyle. You make the rules fit to what your personal beliefs are. Unfortunately, though, there is a downside to this, even though there shouldn’t be. There are too many times that “my submission is better than your submission” starts. Submission isn’t a game, it isn’t a contest. Our Owners expect different things from us and we all have different skills that are brought to the table. Yes, slave a maybe a better cook than I am and instead of trying to belittle her or make myself feel more important, I’m going to ask for cooking lessons to better myself. We already have enough people from the bad apples crowd making things difficult for us, there’s no need to argue among ourselves and create even more chaos.

With so many who come into the lifestyle under false pretenses and do nothing but help perpetuate society’s negative opinion about those of us who take this lifestyle seriously, need to stick together and show a sense of unity, to show to those fledglings who come into the lifestyle what it really means to be a slave and to be a proud member and participant of the BDSM lifestyle.