I’ve been threatening to write this post for awhile. It has been on the tip of my tongue, ready to come out. But I’ve been utterly unaware of what I want to say. You, dear reader, are a passive bystander to this, not the participant that I desire in this moment.

Instead, this post is for myself, it is a discussion with my own brain. But there is someone else at stake as well, there is Marc.

Who is Marc? Well, thanks for asking. The simple answer (and really the whole answer) is that he is a friend. One with a conflict and one that has me conflicted.

Lets imagine for a moment and perform a philosophical exercise. Are you with me? First we need to establish the preliminaries that you may already know. I like sex, I like exploration, I’m a junky for the excitement of a new relationship, and . . . I feel something new lately. A desire to submit. I don’t want a collar or a leash or for anyone to call me slave. I don’t want to pretend I am being captured by a pirate or call someone Master or start capitalizing pronouns inappropriately. No, I want to submit.

But I only know what that doesn’t mean not what it does mean. I am sure there are some of you out there biting your tongues. You are perfectly prepared to tell me what it means and how I should do it and with whom, where, and for how long. Honestly, and with the most respect in the world, and all of the love that I have for you, shut the fuck up. I know that was pre-emptive and bitchy and cruel but I can be all of those things and this is something I need to figure out for myself.

Oh, thats right, I was telling you about Marc. He is a sarcastic asshole, he has cats, he has been smacking pretty girls on the ass (and hard) for the past 20 years and he spends a lot of time in conflict. He worries if he is a misogynist because he looks at a woman that he cares about and respects and he shows her that by causing her pain and lording over her. He doesn’t feel like this helps him attract very healthy women.

Why would I want to get involved with that? Good question. I wish I had a complete answer. Perhaps it is just alluring to me and mysterious and I am wanting to chart new territory and experience new adventures. But, I want to think it goes beyond that.

When Marc talks, I want to listen. I am not docile or submissive but, instead, receptive. Accepting and learning and analyzing. He doesn’t think he is perfect and he doesn’t want me to think that he is, in fact the faults that I see make him more attractive because I think that we could teach things to each other.

There is something else, though, the problem or the solution (depending on how you see it). He is brutal. And brutality is beautiful in that eerie abstract way but do I want brutality acted out on the curves of my body? Branded onto me in the form of welts and bruises? Will it take me somewhere new, will it teach me something?

I don’t know that it will do good things for me, all I know is that I want it. I want him. My intelligent brain takes the things that he says and wraps them up into a neat package and attempts to set them aside as too extreme, too intense, too real. My gut steals them away, sequesters them next to the root of my desire and parcels them out beyond my will where my toes curl and my blood pulses and my mind rings with curiosity and longing.

And so I am left with my conflict and it occupies my mind in the quiet moments. And he will see this and know better than to think it is a love letter but it may put his mind in motion as well.