My sister died recently and one of my children said in response…”she lived well”…which I found an odd reaction considering that she had spent many years in seclusion fighting depression, had not been able to maintain employment, and had otherwise swindled people out of money to survive. I found his remark, well, odd.
Even so, his note that “she lived will” had me look at my own life from the point of view “lived well” and to make an assessment of what that expression implies for my experience of being alive.
As a boy, I was not particularly aware of myself. I fantasized a lot about life because I spent a lot of time reading books, many more adult than probably made sense for a kid to read. So, I spent a lot of my youth in fantasy. I masturbated furiously. I grew up without TV, skin magazines like Playboy and Penthouse, were banned, and so much of my fantasy reflected the adult books I read.
As a teenager, I became aware of my athletic prowess, and excelled at all sports. I played soccer, rugby, cricket, tennis, squash, field hockey, and did track and field. I also swam and dived. I had great balance, and body control and good hand-eye and foot-eye coordination and I had a high IQ for sports. I was just not a very big fella, so I ended up growing into a competitive gymnast that competed at the very highest level thorough high school, and I played soccer at a high level too. In class, I was the “funny guy”. I drove teachers crazy. I became aware that girls found me sexually attractive. When I was 16, I spent time in Berlin and hung out in sex shops. I brought home a very kinky German kink magazine that had scenes in it with bondage, discipline, incest, anal, piss play, and more. My masturbation fantasies changed almost immediately.
I dated girls from about age 13, although it was all very innocent until I was about 17 or 16, when Pam, this voluptuous sexy vixen, the high school prom queen, took me into a room at a party one night and said “I have been waiting to get you alone” and then she pushed me onto a bed and to my delight, she sucked my cock.
The girls came fast and furious after that. I fucked as if I was the last man on earth. And I was not at all aware of my manhood. If she was willing, I fucked her.
When I met, dated and then married my wife between 5 and 8 years later, I was mostly aware of the expectations of family and society. Get married, hold down a job, have children etc., and I can now say with certainty, that I was completely unaware of myself as a man. Sex was largely fetish free. She was the preacher’s kid after all.
I first became aware of my sexual masculinity about 10 years later, at age 38, This occurred in part because while raising children, my wife simply refused me her body. Once she stopped nursing, she persisted in her refusal. There I was, providing for her and my children and she simply turned off our sexual connection along with the associated loss of intimacy and relatedness. the next few years were hard. Sex is my love language.
I had not signed up for this, so I asked for a divorce. We set about starting that process and realized that it would be quite complicated. We agreed not to pursue it, and to have a slightly open relationship…a don’t ask don’t tell policy. It was not workable. I was miserable. I called a lawyer.
My first real moment of clarity occurred when about 6 years into our estrangement, even as I was still working on terms of a divorce, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and begged me to “stay and to make it go away”. I remember, I was speaking to my attorney on the phone, and she called on the other line and asked to speak to me urgently. I hung up to take her call. She was hysterical and said, tearfully, “you can’t leave now”. She asked for me help. I agreed. I set to one side my differences with her while we set about managing and treating her illness.
During the next 8 to 10 years or so, I learned more about my masculinity as I encountered women who made themselves sexually available to me and who enjoyed my fetishes. On a gradient I learned more about the full spectrum of my kink. I also discovered that when submissive women are self-expressed,
they are more connected to their primal selves and more authentic than I was able to deal with at first. I needed time to understand the sexual power I seemed to naturally exude.
When I finally got divorced, I was lucky to meet several self-expressed submissive women who pushed me to explore the darkest parts of my nature and who gave me access to the full spectrum of kink, and a glimpse into the true power of a D/s dynamic. It was a bit of a surprise to find so many women eager to submit. I had no idea. In many ways I was living a sheltered life till then. I learned a lot about my desires by taking on different Dom personas. I found myself a solid disciplinarian, a sadist who enjoyed wielding the cane and the flogger. I found chains appealing. I found I enjoyed acts of humiliation including water sports. I discovered I liked the excitement of kink. Tying up and fucking women was more appealing than I realized. I also came to recognize newly that for me, sex is indeed my love language, and I was determined to find a woman who was both horny and an obedient submissive masochist. Even with access to the full spectrum of kink, I was still empty inside. I wanted, in fact needed the intimacy of a loving relationship in addition to the kink. In addition to a through the roof sex drive to match my own she needed be comfortable in her body, and also searching for more than kink and sex. I craved kinky sex for sure, but mostly I craved the intimacy that leads to a meaningful loving relationship, and I was convinced that I needed to partner with a likeminded submissive.
I began to truly discover my masculinity and unlock the power that the D/s dynamic allows as possible. The deeply naturally dominant male inside me longed for and needed the power of a loving and willing slut with whom I could accomplished the impossible. I intended to experience my own masculinity more acutely while she herself realized her own femininity as a corollary. I wanted a partner who would jump into the rabbit hole with me, hand in hand. It occurred to me that as much as I needed to be a sadistic Dom, I needed a submissive slut who herself needed to explore her own masochistic tendencies. We cannot exist at all without each other, and I set out to find her. That much was clear. As I searched for her, luckily, I found her searching for me. Our good fortune is that we are completely aligned. It’s perfect. We are deeply connected and aligned in every aspect of our kink and more. We have been exploring our 24/7 TPE D/s dynamic, stretching each other and growing ourselves. It’s been amazing.
It’s only now, 3 years in, as the Dominant partner in a Total Power Exchange with Lady Petra that I truly have access to the deeply dominant masculine nature of my authentic self. What I thought was dominance has changed completely inside that exchange. I am responsible for her sexuality and her wellbeing and the impact of that has caused me to use her often and hard every single day, while at the same time, ensuring that she is deeply fulfilled in her own sexual self-expression. Or as she puts it, I “use her up”. There is more intimacy than I thought possible. I have learned how to be vulnerable. I have learned how to meter my power, and how to enroll her in her submission. There is much that has come out of our dynamic, including collaring her that itself has led to such amazing blistering hot sex that I am filled with desire for her on a daily basis. She is my muse. She is the loving object of my poetry. With her I am fulfilled as a man like never before. I am also deeply in touch with my primal sexuality. This is new for me and has only been true for me when I am with her and in the throes of our mutual ecstasy that we find each other most appealing, and the sex so satisfying.
She has given me the very best gift a man can have. My manhood. My masculinity. I am deeply grateful to have enjoyed this chapter of my life so far. I can say now, finally, that “I have lived well” too.
**Note, this is a personal exploration and not meant to be a commentary on masculinity in general (the author).
