I Used To Be

I frequently see people new to bdsm and dom/sub relationships ask “what am I?” They give a list of things they like and want, and a list of things they don’t, and want someone to tell them what they should call themselves.

It’s not that simple.

I have said many hundreds of times that we are forever in evolution. It’s only when we look back to see how far we’ve traveled that we can measure how much we’ve changed. What does change can be the very core of our being; what we thought made us who we are.

I’ve been doing a lot of evolving during the last twenty years. Some of it I didn’t know was happening. Some I was very aware of. Some isn’t actually evolving, but simply recognizing and accepting what has been there all along.

I don’t personally need for what I am to have a label. I’m me, and those labels aren’t for me in the first place. They’re for other people to get an idea of who I am through commonly shared terminology. That’s how we better relate to one another. That’s why definitions in dictionaries are important. They give us a commonality.

For example:

I used to be demi-sexual.

I could enjoy intimate things only with someone I had strong feelings for. It was how I was wired. I’d had a fuck buddy when I was 18, but the sex wasn’t as good. We didn’t have an emotional connection. I met and fell in love with the man who would become my first husband and suddenly the sex was mind-blowing.

Once I left my second husband, however, I realized I no longer needed an emotional connection to enjoy sex. I wanted sex for its own sake. I dove headlong into sex parties. Given the size of the wet spots I left on a couple beds, I’d say I’m way over being demi-sexual. It’s not how I’m wired anymore.

If I’m not demi anymore, then what am I?

During the flag-waving month, I found a great resource (two, actually) that contained a bunch of different flags. I looked them over carefully. I freely admit I googled a few of them. Sometimes I ask uncomfortable questions of those who know about it all, in my efforts to understand the subtle differences, or why two things that are complete opposites sit under the same umbrella.

I found that the term demi-sexual didn’t exist until 12 years back (2006). Well, no wonder there wasn’t a word for how I felt 30 years ago.

I found the term that really fits how I am now. Aromantic. A person who can fuck and be fucked without an emotional connection. Tongue pressed firmly in cheek, I call it the Slut Flag. YAY SLUTS ‘R’  US!!! I didn’t think we needed a flag, but okay. Everyone gets a trophy nowadays. I might have thought it would be a field of pink lace with a red thong and a condom in the middle, but no. It’s just four boring stripes of bland color.

It’s hard to take people seriously when they glom onto any new label that comes down the pike. It’s rather like being a hypochondriac. So realizing I’m no longer demi-sexual, that I do NOT need an emotional connection in order to enjoy sex (and haven’t for a long time) is not something I’ve accepted lightly. It has, however, been a relief to let that go and see myself as I am now rather than who I was five years ago.

I am a sadist, a masochist. I am submissive…whoops, hold on there!

I used to be submissive.

For 30+ years, submissive was my most natural state with my life partner. I was submissive to both husbands; was doing it before I knew d/s relationships were a thing.

My first husband and I were naturally d/s for over a decade. He was very much the boss and I…wasn’t. A woman knows when she is owned, and he owned me utterly. He controlled where I went and who I was with. He controlled where the money went, and would literally remove money from my pocket if we were going out somewhere. If he didn’t like my clothes, I had to change into something else (usually because of too much cleavage). I could be naked all day long at home, but had to be fully covered from neck to knees when we left the house. I didn’t really care much so long as he kept me happily fucked, which he did until the last couple years.

The minute I left husband #2, in January of 2018, any submissiveness in me vanished. I had been submissive solely for him, by his own command, for a very long time. For his benefit, for his pleasure (and mine), and for the harmony of the house; but not because it was who I was as a person anymore. I had ceased to “be submissive” as part of my being and had become “submissive for him alone.” When that shift actually happened, I couldn’t tell you. It was gradual over the years as he altered my own perception through the rules he instituted.

He’d let me explore topping. Topping led to domming as I realized I didn’t want to be a kink/fetish vending machine and wanted to do what ~I~ wanted to do during play. Negotiation ceased to be me asking “what do you like/want” and became “here are the toys I brought. This is what I do. Pick what you want used on you.”

The dominant aspects of my personality were allowed to flourish and, once out of a place of daily submission, became my whole being and personal point of view. I am dominant. It is my personality.

I am the boss when I top. I am the boss when I bottom.
I am a sadist.
I am a masochist. I’m not ever giving up the masochist part. I enjoy it too much. I just won’t be submitting in order to have those needs fulfilled.

Thus, I am a dominant sadomasochist.

I don’t have to submit to get a flogging, and the other person doesn’t have to dominate in order to give one. We can be equals, enjoying what we do and enjoying each other, cooperating to have a mutually satisfying scene/session, without either of us being the boss of the other.

The d/s aspect of it can be left completely aside. We can be top and bottom, sadist and masochist, and be perfectly satisfied and content.

I had thought the submissive in me was completely dead. Turned out she just needed a good, long rest. She perks her head up now and then, when a man has that innate quality that speaks to her. She will not, however, be who I am anymore. She only ever comes out for playtime.

Third on my list of things:

I used to be monogamous!

I used to be so strongly monogamous that I couldn’t think about being with a second man without feeling guilty. I couldn’t stand the thought of my husband being with another woman. Flogging was foreplay. If something involved tits, cunt, ass, or cock and balls, it was sexual. Period. It was that black and white for me.

Then husband #2 let me start paddling other people at parties. In turn, I had to not fuss about him playing with other people too. That was only fair. While it wasn’t easy those first couple times, I very quickly learned to separate spankings, floggings, and even dick caning, from fucking and being fucked by my husband.

There were rules I had to follow, and I agreed with them. I never broke a single one of his rules for playing with others. After I left him, however, those rules were gone. I had more sexual partners in my first two parties than I’d had since the year I turned 18. For 31+ years, I’d only been with those two men. My husbands were both very greedy with me, keeping me entirely to themselves.

I’m not polyamorous. Not by any stretch of the word. Remember, I don’t love any of the people I fuck. I’m not having an ongoing relationship with any of them except that we meet at the same sex party a few times. I don’t want a committed relationship or emotional entanglements.

I’m in a slut phase (waves that flag!), and enjoying the hell out of it! I don’t need or want romance. I actually don’t like what most people call romance. I write it really well, but I don’t feel it myself or have need of it.

I used to be heterosexual

Okay, yeah…no. That one hasn’t changed. I’m only interested in dick. Big dick, preferably, but we don’t measure entrants to the parties and put their length and girth on stat/name tags and I’ve had some fantastic sex with average sized dudes and too brief an encounter with some who are well-endowed.

Evolution of the self doesn’t stop. Five years down the road, I’ll take another look back and measure the change.

You will too at some point.

Embrace the change. When you do, you are accepting yourself as you are rather than how you wish you were. Acceptance of the self is one of the hardest things we as people ever do. Enjoy who you are.

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About the Author

TylerRose. is known as Dame Tyler in the NYC public SM/Fetish scene. She is an award-winning author who has written two “lifestyle”, four cartoon, and twenty fiction books that you can find on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/TylerRose./e/B00HCPLSP2

You can find more of her work in Fetlife: https://fetlife.com/users/305828

She enjoys crocheting and baking, and will no doubt die with a thesaurus open on her thigh.