compartmentalization

Follower and friend, girlieboy69, has led me into some lovely ponderings about the subject of compartmentalization in the life of submission. I used the term “compartmentalize” in my post “Spatula in the Pantry” — which perhaps should also bear the subtitle “Writing about McKenna on Kevin Time.”

(By the way, girlieboy’s blog shares ideas and research on a number of interesting topics. The post about female libido being inherently polyamorous is fascinating. Worth checking out.)

In D/s life, one understanding of compartmentalization is that we submissives are to focus entirely on the one who owns us, to shut out all other thoughts and distractions, building a kind of mental box (compartment) around us and the one we serve. At times this is talked about as a kind of worship, being fully present spiritually in the company of one who rules us — the compartment as cathedral. This is how I am to be with Amanda, of course, and also now with Master McKenna, and I am able to be deep focused with each of them in a fairly disciplined way. (My presence with Kevin is a different thing, I am realizing, which may be the source of my current little mess.)

But there is another way of seeing compartmentalization (which is what girlieboy mentioned in a comment). This is with the sense that for some of us, all of life is always present in our minds and hearts. There are no boxes possible. We are a swirl of influences, people, and experiences, and we bring all of that into every submissive situation we find ourselves in. We cannot really block some things out and create separate boxes. And in fact, to some degree we depend on our dominant to do this, to discipline and shape us into their compartment.

It occurs to me there is yet a third way of thinking about compartmentalization. Some submissives might enter into a lifestyle experience and consider it one compartment separate from all other, perhaps vanilla, compartments of life. This is likely more the case in part-time D/s and in role play BDSM. It’s a way of us telling ourselves and others, “This (D/s) is not who I am but a compartment I play in from time to time.” This is fine, unless you are a full-time submissive, in which case your owner wants all of you in just one compartment focused on him/her.

My point is that I wrote what I did thinking of compartmentalization in one way. But there are these other ways to think about it as well.

Well, all these are just ponderings and musings.

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In my life now, it seems I have three compartments — Amanda, Master McKenna, and Kevin. But in fact this isn’t as complex for me to handle as it might appear.

I see really just one compartment, which is Amanda. She has given permission to Master McKenna to co-master me, but that is (to my mind) still part of her “compartment.” He has me by proxy of her, and even though he takes me separate from her in location and time, it is as if the two of them are mastering me in the same room at once. And I feel no confusion as to who takes priority — Amanda, of course. She knows this about me, and I’m sure it’s the only reason she considered letting Master McKenna have me — she knew I could handle being mastered by another as well.

As for Kevin, he isn’t really a separate compartment as such. (I see now why Amanda has been reluctant to give permission to having me as his slave too. He would then truly be another compartment, and that would get really complex.) Not to diminish him in any way, but in the logic of this, Kevin is for me kind of an obedience, an order I am to fulfill, dictated by Amanda. One of my more pleasurable tasks, to be sure, but an obedience nonetheless.

Well, I realize all this talk about my compartments may not matter to others much, but it sheds some light for me on my current life.

And to be clear, this is not to assuage my guilt in the matter at hand, which I will post about separately…