arayofsunshine55
Posts: 545
Joined: 8/1/2004
From: San Francisco, CA
Status: offline
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Maybe incoherent thoughts but there's so much swirling around in my head reading this thread.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Rover
AAkasha, I'm running out the door so this reply will be as concise and brief as possible.
I believe the issue we're both dancing around is that sharing an interest in power exchange relationships, or kinks, or fetishes, or this lifestyle in general, is (quite often) not enough to sustain a rewarding, fulfilling, healthy relationship. It does not guarantee compatibility. And yet, all too frequently, the assumption is that any two lifestylers (again, define it as you like) are perfect for one another.
At it's heart, "this" (particularly the power exchange relationship since it's ongoing, and many B/D S/M practitioners meet only to engage in those activities) is still a relationship, like any lifestyle. And we need fulfillment and compatibility on all the levels inherent to any other lifestyle relationship, not solely the power exchange, kinks or fetishes.
I do hope that makes sense. If not, I'll be back late today.
John[/font]
I suppose this is part of the reason I too do not consider myself a "lifestyler." Even in a 24/7 D/s relationship I would not define it as my lifestyle. There is too much else that is really important to me and takes up a great deal of my time --- religion, sprituality, yoga, travel, music, life. So general, overall compatibility is much more important to me. Are our values, goals, and ethics compatible? Does that make it harder to find someone? Sure does. But my friends who have no interest in WIITWD have just as hard a time of it.
quote:
LadyAngelika
What I am having difficulty with, and I went through the same thing with the Queer community 5 years ago, is finding where I fit in all this. I dated women and it was all good when there were just women in my life but the moment I fucked a guy, it all turned to shit because then I wasn’t real. I was just a lesbian when it was convenient to me. It took a while for me to figure out that I was just a very open-minded, sexual being.
I am so much more then my kink, just as I am so much more then my sexual identity. I have a career which is actually more like a vocation in the sense that I go speak at conferences in my field, write research papers and develop new applications, I publish and my opinions are sought after by my peers, etc. That is just another facet of my life. But I am not my career.
What I do helps define who I am but I don’t define myself based on what I do.
So why try and label myself?
I've also come to terms with the fact that I don't fit into anyone's box. I don't fit. And I'm not going to try to. Always some part of me is trying to burst out over hang over the edge. When I was in the lesbian community I was black, in my spiritual community I was gay, at work, well everything not work related is left at home. By other's definitions I'm not this enough or that enough. So I've become quite a label-phobe over the years. In the end I don't even think it makes it more difficult to communicate since everyone's has his/her own definitions. Would much rather take the time to actually discuss who I am, to learn about who he is. And anyone who needs to take the express route is probably not compatible anyway. I am who I am and that really works for me.
_____________________________
Sunshine
Is it not most transformative, most earthshaking, to pierce the veils of self-deception and illusion, and crack the eggshell of ignorance, to most intimately encounter oneself? Lama Surya Das
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RE: The non-lifestyler perspective - 
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