Love: A Hard Limit? (Full Version)

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RemoteUser -> Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:20:57 AM)

I've encountered a number of people here and elsewhere, whether sub or Dom, male or female, or any other label in the myriad swirl, who have strong opinions where love is concerned, and how (if at all) it integrates into their play.

Limits (as I have encountered them) are usually consigned to physical activities, not emotional or mental; yet that doesn't mean they cannot exist in a qualitative or quantifiable state. On that presupposition (skip if you don't agree, otherwise this wastes your time): can love be a hard limit? Would you view it as one, or know of someone who does?

This will all boil down to personal viewpoints, I know; but the discussion of outlook and application holds its own merit. If you are inclined to offer discourse, please do so.



Alecta -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:35:40 AM)

OP, it is central to this discussion that you define "love" :)



JanahX -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:36:32 AM)

Its ridiculous to assume that someone can be in control of how they feel about someone - or put "limits" on how that person develops their feelings when interaction is presumed.

It may be a whole other matter to warn people not to get too close to that person stating that, (because of whatever is blocking that path) where they dont want someone to develop feelings. But to "tell" someone how they develop and what feelings is not realistic.

To me its a red flag that that person is not playing with a full deck.

To me - love is defined as someone I absolutely adore, inside and out.



BurntKitty -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:39:58 AM)

In my personal relationship, I wouldn't be involved intimately with someone I didn't love. My guy happens to believe that, too.

For play partners, I can whack & thwack anyone at a party, or I can be whacked & thwacked by them. I'm not getting sexually involved with them, just enjoying pain play. (By sexually involved, I mean penetrative sex.)



RemoteUser -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:41:03 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Alecta

OP, it is central to this discussion that you define "love" :)


Fair enough. [:)] I'll stick with the dictionary definition of the emotion and the traditional caveats applied therein, to wit, the romantic variation. Is that sufficient?




needlesandpins -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:41:16 AM)

for my own part i would think it totally person dependent. i've had sex with people i don't, and never would love. however, it's cold, empty and cheap. it never made me feel good. one constant thing is that i had to be attracted very physically to those people.

i've been madly in love with a partner, and been hurt in the worst way because of it.

i allow myself to have feelings for my current playmate because i want to. that doesn't mean he reciprocates my feelings in any way. he told me not to, but i am my own person and my feelings are my own. i will not allow myself to fall totally in love with him because he says he will never feel that way for me. it would open me to a whole universe of pain to do that. i'm not even sure i want to feel that much for someone again really. that's not to say that if things were different i couldn't be in love with my playmate.

i can't speak for others, but my view is that you can profess to not want to love someone all you like. the thing is though that the heart wants what the heart wants when the inspiration is there. so someone can spout all they like about not wanting 'love' (for it is subjective), or being able to feel it, but if the right person inspires it then you will feel it. what you do with that is personal choice.

in my experience; to be loved, but not be told is soul destroying on both counts. why miss out on something that could be wonderful because you're too stubben to back down from what you have already said.

needles



RemoteUser -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 11:44:15 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JanahX

Its ridiculous to assume that someone can be in control of how they feel about someone - or put "limits" on how that person develops their feelings when interaction is presumed.



I agree with this on a personal level, I would only add to it that regardless, people try anyhow.



JanahX -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:12:18 PM)

You can tell people how to do a lot of things in this world - but you cant make someone feel the way you want them to. That is a built in system (or not built in - in the case of sociopaths ) that only they develop and deal with on the level they are at emotional wise. You can suggest how they can control their actions on how to go about their day to day lives with whatever feelings theyre dealing with, - but no one can tell you "how you feel" about something.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RemoteUser


quote:

ORIGINAL: JanahX

Its ridiculous to assume that someone can be in control of how they feel about someone - or put "limits" on how that person develops their feelings when interaction is presumed.



I agree with this on a personal level, I would only add to it that regardless, people try anyhow.





LadyHibiscus -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:17:25 PM)

As a person who has never had her love reciprocated...i wish I knew where that off switch was.

I think that if a person tells you that they will never love you, you should absolutely believe them, and do what you think you can handle. I know I say up front if there is no chance, or I am not interested in that kind of relationship.



JanahX -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:19:34 PM)

I WUV YOU AUNTIE HIB !!!!!! [sm=hearts.gif]



LadyHibiscus -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:25:28 PM)

Awww! But you are not all romatic like, are ya? And thats what we're talking about.

~wubs you too~



JanahX -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:32:32 PM)

Yeah - I know. I think that people do fall in "love" but its how long that adoration is sustainable - you brought up a great point though, it does have to be reciprocated in order for it to flourish.

The high of finding someone and reaching a peak level of adoration is really a feeling that is incomparable. But the valleys of low, when the adoration fails is as polar opposite as the high once was. - which is a reason why I believe so many people dont want to go there.



LadyHibiscus -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:35:33 PM)

For me its the being consistently unwanted. Funny old thing, life!




Alecta -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:44:28 PM)

Fair enough :)

Hm. We could certainly consider those who are just seeking play scenes and kink delivery systems but nothing else to take love as a limit.

I do agree with JanahX that it is impossible to make expectations on how someone feels. It's ridiculous even to control how our own feelings develop, much less someone else's. However, it is perfectly reasonable and doable to set love as a hard limit. It simply means that all play will stop as soon as love is experienced.

A friend of mine does this quite deliberately. It's a guilt complex thing, with her: she tops to relieve stress but the way we were brought up means it's not ok to her mind to take her frustrations out on the people she loves, regardless of how the person feels about it, so she can only be Domme to those she doesn't care about. The minute she starts to become close to the person on a personal level, the play stops. Sometimes the guys stick around as casual friends, and she's had at least one successful relationship with a bottom-turned-vanilla that I know of.

Another friend, a Pro-Domme, only picks clients who would not usually be "her type". It separates business from pleasure and keeps her objective and focused when "on the job". There is a certain moral dilemma there over the ethics of allowing her clients to fall for her, and it's a bit of a "damned if you do damned if you don't thing" especially with those guys who see her attempts to distance them as playing hard to get. I think she's confused as to which parts of her are "for the job only" and which parts are inherent and there's nothing wrong with a client turning into a bf so long as it's genuine, but that's up to her to work out.

For myself, romantic love isn't so much a limit as a improbability. I am not closed to it, but the kind of people I have romantic feelings do not tend to be the kind of people whom I enjoy as subs/slaves. I do love my subs/slaves, but it is generally a Masterly love rather than romantic. For me, the D/s relationship is an entirely different creature from a romantic relationship.

I've also run into subs whose whole game was to hate their Dom/mes (and promptly ran the other way), although most lifestyle submissives/slaves in my observation equate the romantic love with Masterly love anyway.



AngelOfSilence -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:53:30 PM)

quote:

OP, it is central to this discussion that you define "love" :)
No its not.
And of course it can be a hard limit, assuming you wish to have a short and unhappy relationship.



Alecta -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 12:58:24 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: AngelOfSilence
No its not.
And of course it can be a hard limit, assuming you wish to have a short and unhappy relationship.


Sure it is. Love can be many kinds, including the moment of affection between Top and Bottom in a scene, or love of being a Top/Bottom/Dom/Sub. If we include all possibilities of love, the only situation in which love can conceivably become a hard limit in BDSM is when it is penal performed by an unwilling torturer and that doesn't leave very much room for discussion at all.



LadyHibiscus -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 1:03:01 PM)

Definitions are crucial in these kinds of discussions. I've had long lasting relationships where we had mutual respect and friendship, but nothing resembling love.



AngelOfSilence -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 1:03:14 PM)

Which is irrelevant. The question was can it be a hard limit, which is applicable no matter how you define love.



fucktoyprincess -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 1:06:50 PM)

Of course someone can choose to make this a hard limit, and another can choose to accept this limit, but I'm not sure, at the end of they day, that one can ever control one's emotional attachment to another person.

I think it would be more valid to have a hard limit that says a longer term relationship will not result from the relationship (as I view even a play partner dynamic as a form of relationship, because to play at any meaningful level requires trust between two people, and that cannot occur without a relationship even if that relationship is not "romantic")

I suspect that someone having this as a hard limit is simply saying to the other person, "don't expect a romantic or longer term commitment from this interaction".

In my experience those who fight the hardest against falling in love are usually those who fall the hardest. I think it is actually a self-protective mechanism for some (although I don't doubt that there are others who are just incapable of loving, but that is a separate category).

[sm=2cents.gif]



Alecta -> RE: Love: A Hard Limit? (5/11/2012 1:07:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: AngelOfSilence

Which is irrelevant. The question was can it be a hard limit, which is applicable no matter how you define love.



If you're going to take that stance, the answer to any "can x be a hard limit" question is universally YES and there becomes no room for discussion :)



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