The balance of power

I Gave Him Power

What a strong statement that is. So often when it comes to D/s you hear things like, I gave up the power to him, I let him be in power, I let him take the power, He took the control. All those statements feel a little bit passive and the last one is definitely straying into Twue UberDom™ territory in my opinion but

I Gave Him Power

There is nothing passive about that sentence. It is powerful, strong and decisive. It is spoken by someone who knows exactly what she wants and who she wants it with. It is spoken by someone who understands herself as a submissive and how that fits with the dominant partner in her life.

I saw this tweet from Kayla yesterday when I went back to Twitter in the evening after finishing a piece I was working on for another site. It was, as the this weeks Wicked Wednesday task stipulates, the first thing I saw when I opened my feed and it totally grabbed my attention and instantly I knew what I was going to write about as a result.

We are a two equals who came together and negotiated an inequality between us that makes us both happy and allows us to thrive as a Dom sub couple and as our own individual people.

That is our definition of our Dom sub relationship. We spent a long time thinking about what that inequality would look like, what part of our lives it would extend to and what parts it does not. We came to this relationship on equal footing and carved out that inequality based on our needs, desires and life together. That definition is something that only came later as we experienced more and understood more but it is a definition that I love because it shows how even though we are D/s we got there not because he took the power, or I let him take the power but because we made joint decisions regarding the power. I have just as much a voice in what our D/s relationship looks like as he does and that is why I liked the statement Kayla made ‘I Gave Him Power’ because it speaks to that same idea, that even though they are D/s and that John is the dominant as she says in her piece

“He uses the power I gave him, the power he holds over me, with tenderness and care. Never once taking more than he deserves or demanding more than I can give.”

There is a partnership there, based on love and trust and that means that the power flows between them perfectly. I know, like Michael and I, they have their moments, because like us they have kids and money and health and work, those every day things that put a strain on a relationship but even then there is a strength between us that sees us through those things.

Yes he has the power but that does not make me powerless. I don’t agree with the whole ‘it’s the submissive who really has the power’ narrative either because that implies the Dominant is really just the submissive monkey, performing for their pleasure. It completely ignores the fact that both parties have to consent, both people have to be active participants and both people can withdraw at any time. In that sense it has to be an equal partnership. He does not get to just take it and just as I don’t get to force it upon him.

He has the power because we worked out together what that meant for us. He has the power because he likes it best that way and so do I. He has the power because I believe and trust in him to use it wisely. He has the power because I gave it to him and he accepted it. He has the power because we both get off on that. This is a partnership based on him having the power.