Oh hey there, nervous kitten. Let’s sit down and have a chat.
Because I see that shame spiral you’re stuck in. And damn it looks nasty. You’re fucking tired, aren’t you? Fucking desperate. Because no matter how much you chase the thing your soul is craving, it never seems to work.
For some of you, that’s because you’ve hit a crossroads and you’re paralyzed with indecision about where to go.
One side leads to your authentic self. Which sounds like a pretty fucking easy choice. Yes, please and thank you.
Except the part where you aren’t sure you like that person. Where you haven’t reconciled with them. Where you see the ways that taking that path would make you subject to societal ridicule.
The other path is a path of abstinence. Cutting off that part of yourself that society isn’t thrilled out and pretending it never existed. Keeping it tied up tight and locked in a closet (and not in the fun way).
That sucks a lot too. And your soul knows you really don’t want that path. To have to pretend to be dominant forever and ever. To have to subscribe to a very specific (boring) version of masculinity that isn’t really you. To never know what it would feel like to really sink in, find the edges of that part of yourself, know entirely who you really are.
So here you are, at the crossroads, building yourself a little tent city.
I’m here to say that won’t work either. You’re in fucking quicksand there. Never able to really sink into a dynamic and find yourself. And never able to fit like you want to in Just Vanilla Land either. And so it’s yo-yo time. Back and forth. Shame over what you crave. Shame that you can’t pretend effectively enough to stop craving it.
Ultimately, you are the person who gets to decide if you:
Work (because damn it will be work) toward embracing your kinks as part of your authentic self and actually giving a shit about yourself as a whole person instead of just the parts society finds palatable
Or
Keep hiding parts of yourself, keep wearing a mask and performing a stupid form of masculinity that most women don’t like anyway (notice how in polite society more and more women are opting out of dating men). Choose this route and you get to keep feeling exhausted and shitty about it.
Make no mistake: the society path will keep you in that shitty place and so will camping out halfway. So will scrolling on Reddit and telling dommes you want to submit but then being unwilling to show up for yourself when something is asked of you and running away when the shame hits hard.
It doesn’t move you closer to being the person society is trying to force on you. And it doesn’t move you closer to confidently living as yourself, society be damned.
I’m not saying the first path means living loud and proud as an armpit fetishist with everyone you meet or putting “foot worshipper” on your resume. I’m saying that first path is about meeting your real self and deciding you’re cool with them. Deciding that you like yourself as a whole human being with messy parts and silly parts and exquisitely stupid parts (which we all have, including the vanillas).
Let me also be clear that I understand that shame is part of the kink for many. Shame is a desired feeling in some cases. But it’s also how a lot of subs describe the thing that keeps them from what they want—and it’s to those subs that I am speaking here.
If you want to take that journey, it’s one you’ll need to take with yourself, probably a kink-safe therapist, and a safe domme who can stand consistently with you in that space. But to do that, you have to stop planting that flag at the crossroads.
What you are chasing here is the relief of submission, of being who you are, of being safe to let go. And when you hold back, plant your heels to keep from going down that self-loving path, the person you are cheating out of that relief is yourself.