The Road Less Traveled.....

The other day I was out cussing up a storm while repairing the fence line after having to go get Pokey (the white horse) from yet another trip outside the pasture. He likes to escape, thinks it is great fun….  I called him an asshole...  a lot. But for some strange reason as I was working on the fence I got to thinking about this friend I had in Florida. 

Even though she knew nothing about horses, it was always her dream to own one. So as soon as she got her RN degree she went right out and bought her first horse. The horse had “some problems” but the seller, who was also the owner of the barn and the head trainer, told my friend that she “just knew” that those two were a perfect match and that my friend was just what that horse needed (remember the NO experience part here). 

 My friend paid this person for the horse, as well as monthly board ( covers food, water and a stall) , a trainer’s fee  (a monthly fee to work with the horse a few times a week) and then paid for lessons(were the trainer would work with both her and the horse privately) when she could afford them.  After the horse threw my friend for the umpteenth time and gave her permanent inner ear damage (even though she was wearing a helmet) that caused ringing in her ears so loud and so unpredictable that she was forced out of her job in the ICU, the trainer “graciously” offered to buy the horse back for a third of what she had charged. The whole process took less than six months.

I then got to thinking about my beginning in the horse world, and how extremely lucky I was - no more than that- more than words really - to be around people that saw how I knew nothing, recognized the danger I was to myself, to the horse, and what that wrong horse could potentially do to me, and from there made the appropriate moves to make sure that I was safe and was able to learn. They answered my questions, kept me paired up with horses that were not over my head, and overall except a few injuries here and here, I was immersed in an environment that was fun, loving and full of success that I still draw on today.

But that was just it, I was surrounded by people that were so vested in my growth learning and safety, so lacking of ego, and self importance, that they could watch me, and teach me without ulterior motive. 

They weren’t trying to make me be who they wanted me to be they were just accepting who I was and went from there.  

That life experience guided me strongly when I first entered onto my leather journey with my slave.  I quickly could identify the difference between a person that wanted to teach me because they were interested in my learning and growth versus the person that wanted to teach me because they wanted me to be a certain way, for them.

Those that had their own motives would do things like question my ability to lead my own house, question my decisions actively, or passively. Make “joking” comments about my lack of experience. Make unwanted and unwarranted passes at me, or go directly after my slave. They would hit her when I wasn’t around to see what her response was, and then tell her that because they were in the scene longer then I was that they had rights over her and that there was nothing that I could do. Then wait to see how I would counter that.

Ultimately these people did not last in our lives long, and we walked away annoyed but unharmed.

But just like my friend in Florida whose entry into the horse world left her so battered that not only did she lose her hearing and her job, she lost her hope and her hearts dream. I wonder about the people that come into BDSM and leather and end up being at the mercy of someone else’s desires.

The person that comes in and really wants to be a strong dominant but because those who surround them either  do not want them to do this, or simply cannot  see them that way, the new person  is talked out of having those experiences. The new person that is really smart but because the people around them are more experienced and have no interest in being challenged, they dumb themselves down. The new person that is laughed at, ignored, or humiliated   for their questions, until they simply stop asking them. The new person that really wants to submit, but are pushed into being dominant. The person that really wants and needs aftercare, but are told that real dominants don’t do that, and real submissive’s don’t need it. The person whose personal desires are overlooked, downplayed, laughed at, or harassed out of them, until they either leave the scene because it could not fulfill them and it was not what they thought or hoped it was, or they leave that group and keep searching for answers until they get them, and hopefully in a few years time when confronted with another person asking those same questions that they once had, they answer them instead of laugh at them.

There are so many ways to break someone down and just one road to build them up.

We all have that choice, and there will come a time when it will be right there in your face.

Which road are you on?