Since I have been locked in enforced chastity, I’ve been ambivalent about my role. I’ve been thinking about why I wanted enforced chastity and later FLM*. My history is just the opposite. Most of my adult life I was a practicing top. I think the reason I was a top had much more to do with economics than my own sexual nature. By economics, I am talking about the law of supply and demand. In New York, where I spent most of my life, wannabe male submissives were everywhere. At BDSM events there were very few dominant women, and those who were there always had submissive male companions. In contrast, there were many submissive women looking for dominant men. Given a choice of role, it made the most sense for me to be a top.
A lot of people don’t feel that they have a choice in role. I’m lucky in that I am happy in either capacity. So, for three decades I was a fairly well known dominant. It was big fun and I was good at it. But my fantasies were always about things being done to me, not of me doing things to others. This isn’t unusual. I discussed it with other tops. Very few didn’t share my ambivalence. Technically, I am a switch. That means I can enjoy top or bottom. Most of the dominants of both sexes that I have known, can also switch. I think of it as Yin and Yang. Topping is Ying and bottoming is Yang. There is a need for a balance in most people.
Different people practice topping and bottoming at different levels of intensity. I would rate my topping at medium-high. I’m not sure at what level I bottom. Mrs. Lion could better answer that. Since my fantasies and happiest BDSM memories were with me as bottom, it’s fair to say that I am a bottom at heart. I realized that a few months before I met Mrs. Lion. So when I presented my need to play, I told her I only want to bottom. One reason, I told her, was that if I started topping she might not want to switch back. That had been my experience in the past. She rolled her eyes.
I have been thinking about enforced chastity since the early 1990’s. I mentioned it now and then throughout our marriage. But I never asked to be locked up. I had a problem with being considered submissive. Most of the men I met over the years who self-identified as submissives were unattached, rather-pathetic guys who called every female “Mistress”. I’m not that sort of man. In my mind, submissive men were in a very low caste. I didn’t want to join them. On the other hand, I saw submissive women as very valuable. They worked hard to please their dominants and gloried in their submission. I had a very obvious double standard.
I just couldn’t see myself as a pathetic male submissive. But I loved being tied down and made to accept all sorts of sensation play. So, I decided that was bottoming and being a bottom is an honorable role in BDSM. Semantics saved me. I remained firmly attached to this difference when I asked Mrs. Lion to lock me up. I was hanging up my topping spurs and accepting a full time role as Mrs. Lion’s bottom. For a long time there was a lot of topping from the bottom as Mrs. Lion grew into her role. She needed my “help” to learn how to properly tame this lion. It didn’t take her too long to realize that she didn’t need my help at all.
As time went by, I had to realize that I truly love her control. I’ve had to work through feelings of resentment when my desire to come was frustrated by her decision to make me wait. I no longer have those. Eventually, I came to grips with the fact that the “bottom” and “submissive” labels are synonyms. I am being submissive to Mrs. Lion. I even asked her to take more control by being in charge in our marriage and to use domestic discipline to train me. This is clearly submissive behavior.
I’m still not comfortable with the submissive label. I’m also not completely comfortable surrendering completely to Mrs. Lion. I recognize that I have to learn to accept her authority completely. I think this will happen as she learns to exert it. There is no question that I need training. Mrs. Lion has to work out how to train me. I can’t really help there. I’m hoping that she will get help from other dominant women with more experience.
I still think of myself as a switch, not a submissive. In terms of BDSM, that’s certainly what I am. But my life now casts me as a submissive male. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a dominant partner. It will take her some time to fully tame me.
*FLM – Female Led Marriage
