My submission is something that I have felt for as long as I can remember. I didn't know the word submission. I didn't know the word Dominant or that a community of people existed together who understood the feelings I could not put a name to.

When I found the BDSM community, I threw myself into reading everything I could get my hands on. I found a chat room that catered specifically to this *lifestyle* and I made a few friends. I watched people. I learned the language and the behaviours. I assimilated quite quickly to the *rules* of it all.

I admit freely, that the reading and the chatting with others who share similar feelings to mine has helped me in a journey to discovering what submission means to me and what I want to be as a woman who is submissive. I am finding, however, that after eighteen months of reading and chatting that even within the BDSM community there are still people who judge and still ideas and concepts about the *lifestyle* that I disagree with.

I don't believe that because I submit to One Man, that I should then be submissive to everyone who calls themselves a Dominant. I believe in being Respectful to everyone regardless of *title* until they may prove that respect not worthy. I do not believe that I must kneel in supplication if by chance I bring someone a drink a water. I do not believe getting someone a drink of water means I am more or less submissive, it simply means I am polite. I do not fetch drinks. I am not a waitress because in the scheme of labels, I am *submissive*.

I don't believe there is a wrong or right way of *living* the BDSM or D/s *lifestyles* though I see much judgement on this issue. I have to believe that if it is *consensual* it is that individual or Couples right to practice as pleases them. If unconsensual, that is another story, and I have very strong opinions on abuse.

I don't believe wearing a collar makes you a submissive or a better submissive. I think collars are taken far to lightly. It still boggles my mind to watch the lightening speed with which they are accepted and disregarded. If I ever wear a collar I might as well be married. A collar, for me, is a symbol of a Couple who have taken the time to get to know each other inside and out. Wants and needs, likes and dislikes, past historys and hopes for the future. Two people who have found they want to travel a similar path and take the time to make sure it is with the other that they travel that path with. It saddens me because I think a lot of people take and give collars because that somehow makes them think they are *doing it (BDSM..D/s) right*; to me it should be the oppisite. To not need any *physical* symbol to feel completely committed, loved, cherished, Dominant of, or submissive to another person. Your partner.

Down the road, for me, it boils down to...It's not about kinky sex, or vinyl, or fetish parties, or feeling like I am the perfect idea of what the *community* deems a *submissive*. As a child, I never considered any of these things and while the sexual side is a perk, in the end it all boils down to...for One special person, I want to Please Him and let Him know that in all His life, there is not Another who could affect me so greatly or encourage me so much to be more and more His loving partner. It started inside me as a child to bring happiness to others no matter the cost, and that's what it has come back around to on this new journey of D/s. I am His, because He affects me, because He sparks that want inside myself to make Him happier than He's ever known. And so to Him I am..submissive. I will submit to the needs, wants, and desires that will bring Him greatest contentment.

And so, I think now eighteen months later, after much reading and talking and watching and learning, it comes back to what it was before I found the *community* and the *labels*. Something intensely and wonderfully private between myself and One Special Man.