Introduction
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. For this episode we're going to think about submission.
In the first segment, Edge shares his journey into submission, or more properly his journey into something he misrecognized as submission. Then, in the second segment, Edge offers his thoughts on the psycho-spatial nature of submission. Then we talk with slave Phil about his experience with submission and the resources he's created to help others explore this aspect of their identities. As a special bonus, the episode ends with Edge reading his erotic story, "You." With special guest stars my cat and my AC pump 🙄.
Related Links
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
Introduction
Welcome to Full Cow, a podcast about leather and kink where your host, Edge (he/him), shares his 30+ years of experience in the community. For this episode we're going to think about submission.
In the first segment, Edge shares his journey into submission, or more properly his journey into something he misrecognized as submission. Then, in the second segment, Edge offers his thoughts on the psycho-spatial nature of submission. Then we talk with slave Phil about his experience with submission and the resources he's created to help others explore this aspect of their identities. As a special bonus, the episode ends with Edge reading his erotic story, "You." With special guest stars my cat and my AC pump 🙄.
Related Links
Ask Edge! Go to https://www.speakpipe.com/LTHREDGE to leave ask a question or leave feedback. Find Edge's other content on Instagram and Twitter. Also visit his archive of educational videos, Tchick-Tchick.
Let's talk about submission this podcast contains material intended for a mature audience. Before proceeding, please check your local laws and confirm that you are an adult. Welcome to full cow, a podcast about leather kink and BDSM. My name is edge My pronouns are he him and I am your host. As always, I'm grateful that you are joining me once again for yet another episode, this time on submission. In the first segment, I'll share with you my journey into submission, or more properly, my journey into something I miss understood that submission. In the second segment, I'll offer you my thoughts on submission as a psycho spatial orientation. Then in segment three, we'll talk with slave Phil about his experiences with submission, as well as some of the tools he's developed to help others who are interested in exploring this aspect of their identity. Finally, in a bonus segment, I'll give you a reading of my erotic short story you, which I think is probably the most powerful thing I've ever written. I think we have a pretty amazing episode, and I'm excited for you to hear it. So let's get started. If you're familiar with this podcast, and you know that here in this first segment, I like to share some stories from my life as a way of drawing larger lessons about the kink and leather community. This segment for this episode with this story is going to be fairly short, because my journey into submission was fairly short. Or more accurately, my journey was into misunderstanding and misrecognition. Let me explain. If you've listened to prior episodes, you may know that I got my start into kink and leather by getting tied up a lot. I loved to get tied up. And so from the outside people looking at me, this young man who loved to get tied up, I looked submissive. And so I thought I was because no one had ever told me there could be a difference between submission and bottoming. Wow, what a lesson there. Now, at the same time, I was meeting these wonderful leather men, and they were men who I both desired and desired to be. And so I treated them with extraordinary respect and deference. So again, from their perspective, looking at me and looking at my behavior, I appeared submissive, and really all I was was desirous. So for a long time, I thought I was a boy, because no one had really explained to me the inner workings of what submission really looked like and what it really felt like so I liked getting tied up. I was respectful to Leatherman they treated me like a boy, I thought I was a boy. From the outside, I looked like a boy. And I spent quite a long time in the category of boy, which is fantastic. You know, boy is an extraordinarily capacious category with expansive boundaries. A lot of people can fit inside the category of Boy, that's very different from something like slave. If you think about slave, it has very specific connotations. It has very, almost by definition, strict boundaries. Slavery is a lot about strict boundaries. But boy, everyone can sit inside boy. And so I did. And it wasn't really until I started to top that I really learned about submission, I truly learned about submission, when true submissives started serving me. This chart happening around the turn of the millennium when men started approaching me and calling me sir and at first that was a little disorienting. But I had also sort of run out of tops who could handle me on the bottom. And so I tried on sir for size, and it fit, you know, fairly comfortably. At first was a little awkward wearing my keys on the left, but I grew into it. And what I discovered was that I learned the shape of true submission from its contours. As I watched submissives serve me I learned what their insides look like. By tracing the shape of their outsides. It's a little bit like knowing the shape of a boat. By watching the weight of it and the way it displaces water. I could see what they displaced in my world. World, which is also where they placed themselves in my world. And that's how I came to truly understand submission. And so it wasn't really until I was topping that I ever realized that I was never a submissive, I was a bottom, I was never a boy, I was a bottom. That was an extraordinary insight for me. And it took a long time to learn. In fact, for a long time, I felt like what we call a service top, I would do things to men, because I knew they needed them done to them. But I'm not sure I truly felt my dominance. That was a long awakening. And when I think back on it, I imagined what an extraordinary service, those submissive men rendered me, because they were treating me like the dominant I was going to be years later, it's as though they could see my future self, and honor my future self. And through that teach me who they were, and what they needed, and how to meet those needs. In fact, I specifically remember a boy in New Jersey, and he'll know who I'm talking about if he's listening to this, because he's a huge comic book nerd. And I had asked him to lay out my leathers for the night. And he looked so excited and joyful. I remember quite specifically the joy he had in doing that task for me. And that's how I came to understand what submission looks like who submissive people really are, by watching their joy in opportunities for service both inside and outside the play room. It's an extraordinary thing. So the two takeaways from this relatively short segment number one, bottoming submission, not the same thing. You can be a dominant bottom, you can be a submissive top, you don't have to assume that just because you like the physical sensations or bottoming to a thing. And that means you're submissive. The second takeaway lesson is really more for the dominant peoples who may be listening. And that's about how you learn about submissives by giving them the chance to serve you, and then paying attention to them. I think we have this misconception about dominance that it's all about the ego base, the my desires, my needs, my commands, my orders, me, me, me, my mind mind. But what I found is if I simply hold back, men will reveal themselves in beautiful ways, they will lay themselves bare, and in doing that, I come to understand them and their needs better. And then I'm able to control them better. So if you are a dominant person, I want to invite you to discover the shape of submission by watching the way the submissive people in your life move through your world, the contours, they trace in the spaces in which you occupy because if you pay attention, they really are quite beautiful. It can certainly enhance your use of them, and everyone loves the use of a good submissive person. As you may already know, here, in the second segment, I tried to provide some more practical knowledge. It's going to be a little bit different this time, because the practical knowledge I have about submission is from the outside. And from the observations I've made and the lessons I've learned from the people who choose to submit to me, I'm still hopeful that'll provide some insights for those of you who are either submissively inclined or dominantly, inclined, or somewhere in the middle. First, though, a note about language. If you've looked at my videos on Twitter or Instagram, you may notice that I very rarely talk about dominance, and submissives. I'm more likely to say something like submissive people of all flavors or dominant persons. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that when I was coming out into leather, we didn't use the terms dominant and submissive. We use top with a capital T and bottom with a lowercase b as the generic categories that would define the different poles of a power exchange dynamic. The language of dominant and submissive to me felt imported from the heterosexual community that is where I heard it growing up in leather and therefore, it always feels slightly foreign to me. The second reason is that as upper Merion, I know that dominant and submissive are not nouns. They are adjectives, they are not states of being their qualities of being. So when I hear them used as nouns, it doesn't it's not exactly nails against a chalkboard, but it grates a little bit against my soul. And I think there's very good cause for us to hold on to the fact that these are not nouns these are adjectives, because as adjectives they are in Orton modifiers to other kink identities, so you can have a dominant boy, you can have a submissive Daddy, you can have a dominant pup, you can have a submissive Mistress, I'm sure it exists. If we lose sight of the activeness of these words, then we are collapsing the quality of being into the state of being. And I think we lose something in that. I will admit that sometimes for the sake of convenience and the rhythm of language, I will use them as nouns. But I don't like to do it. I'd like to make one other very important note before we get into the topic of submission. And that is the very important observation that being submissive is not being passive. And this is a mythology that's actually sort of been baked into recon, which is a huge, wonderful cruising site for kinky people. But the suggestion that somehow submission is passivity, is utterly wrong. submission is an extraordinarily active position, that you must not only be active in the scene by actively obeying, actively positioning yourself, actively responding to what your dominant person is doing to you. But on the inside, you must be actively choosing to submit Minute by Minute, second by second. So I think it's very important that we hold that distinction between submission and passivity, and really hold on to the fact that submission is a very active state of being. Now let's talk about what that state of being is, as a quality of being, I find that submission is a psycho spatial quality. And by psycho spatial, I mean that it occupies both an inner mental landscape, but also a physical space here in the three dimensional world. And primarily for both of those I find it's about orientation, the submissive person literally orient themselves to their dominant person. You know, Sara Ahmed is a really brilliant philosopher, and she has an essay about fear as a turning away. But submission is a turning to the submissive person orienting themselves physically to their dominant person, by kneeling before them, walking behind them, standing to the left of them, laying prostrate before them, they are constantly turning towards that person physically, to orient themselves in the world. But that orienting process also happens internally, the dominant person is the leader, the guide, the person who tells them where they're going, that helps them find their way. And in this, this dominant person is a little bit like the guide star, the submissive person can constantly orient their own journey in relation to the dominant person, and where they are standing as a psycho spatial element, I find that submission also has breadth, and depth. And I want to pause here a little bit, because a lot of times when we talk about categories that have neither binary elements, or somehow allow for some sort of ranking, there's some sense that one is better than the other. So that wider is better than narrower or deeper, is better than shallow. I want to really resist that and not suggest that one kind of submission is better than any other kind of submission, the kind of submission you have is the kind of submission you must celebrate. However, in my experience, working with submissive people, there is an enormous breadth possible in submission. And again, we're talking about both in the physical world and in the inter mental landscape. So the submission may only take place in the bedroom, or maybe not even in the bedroom, maybe only in the playroom, maybe only in the house, maybe only in the house, and certain leather spaces may be everywhere in the world wherever they go. So that physical space has a particular breadth to it. But that also implies an inner breadth as well, that the service being rendered could be only sexual only for one scene only in the context of the relationship. It may include domestic service, it may include thoughtful acts of service that lie far beyond what we might usually consider sexual submission. That's the breadth on talking about that it can cover a range of space and a range of kinds of services. I find that submission also has extraordinary depth. There are some men who can submit so deeply that their ego cells seem to kind of dissolve into the submission itself, there's a sense in which at that moment they exist as pure being an extension of their dominance will as pure submission. But the thinking ego self that's usually in control day by day has been completely pushed aside. It's a pretty extraordinary process, but also can be a very dangerous process if there's not a dominant person to guide them back into integration. Because that dissolution of the ego, hopefully is not permanent. We want to make sure that our submissive pupils are able to come back to themselves. The other thing I find about submission is that it's a gift. And I don't mean gift as in, oh, I am giving you my submission, the way I would give you a present, I mean, that submission is a gift in the way we speak of a particular talent as in a gifted musician, or a gifted athlete. It is a special talent that some people are born with. Like any special talent, if you're a gifted musician or a gifted athlete, it requires practice coaching, training, it requires us to be sharpened and developed to really maximize the potential of that giftedness. So too, with submission, it requires interaction with dominant peoples to really reach its full potential. And the gift, I think of submission, is the ability to nudge the ego aside, we are a very ego driven people as humans. And the ability to set that side even for the space of a scene is really extraordinary. And the extent to which people can displace their own ego to accommodate someone else's, really is a measure of how extraordinarily special This gift is. It's also worth noting that there can at times be unhealthy behaviors that get tangled up with a person submission, depending on their history of trauma, particularly with a family of origin, but perhaps other sorts of trauma, they can develop unhealthy, submissive, like behavior, particularly people pleasing. If you think this is something that may describe you, then that is something best explored with a mental health professional. And I would encourage you to engage a therapist or counselor to explore the boundaries between your people pleasing and your submission. In general, though, I would say people pleasing is about doing for others at the expense of your own needs, whereas submission is about doing for others in service of your own needs. And you can do an inner check to see which is which, if you're people pleasing, then you're probably saying yes, when you mean no, and there will be resentments, there will be resistance, there will be some sort of negative consequence within yourself, that you're going to have to manage or not, but you will definitely feel. Whereas with submission, because the behavior is in line with your own needs. There is joy, there is fulfillment, there's a sacredness of the soul. That's perhaps one quick way to check and see whether or not your submission may be entangled with unhealthy behaviors. And note, it's not just people pleasing. A lot of people with histories of trauma will also develop very controlling behaviors as well, which are mechanisms of self defense and protection. Those can also get entangled up with your submission. And you can become a very controlling submissive in ways that are not really consistent with the truth of who you are, or the truth of who you want to be in relation to another person. Once again, you can just look at the consequences of your actions and do an inner gut check to see whether or not they are driven by fear whether or not you feel safe, whether or not they are in alignment in a way that brings you joy. If they are bringing you joy, chances are they are healthy behaviors. And it never hurts to go ahead and check with a mental health professional to do a kind of submission check. But the big lesson, I think, is that submission in and of itself is never a mental health issue. You can be extraordinarily sane, and in fact, extraordinarily fulfilled and be a submissive person. And the truth is that if you do have some unhealthy behaviors all tangled up with your submission, those traumas that your experience did not cause your submission, you would probably had been submissive, whether you had experienced trauma or not. All the trauma did was make it more complicated for you to live and fulfill that part of your truth. I hope you found this information useful. I would invite you again to think about submission as a psycho spatial quality. That is about orienting towards the dominant person that has a BA Rap, and a depth that can be explored in the context of loving supportive power exchange relationships. I would also invite you to think about your submission as a special talent, a gift you were born with, that you're able to develop, and nurture and share with the world. And along the way, I invite you as well, to make sure that your submission is clean. And it is not wrapped up with any traumas of your past, and does not fold in any unhealthy behaviors. And if you would like some more resources to help you explore your submission, the book I would recommend is slave craft by Guy Baldwin. I think he does a really extraordinary job at exploring submission here in the context of slavery, but in ways that I think have lessons for anyone who has some submissive inclinations. And whatever your journey entails in relation to submission, whether that means exploring its breadth and depth for yourself, or as a dominant person helping someone else to explore it. I hope that it is extraordinary and fulfilling, and brings you great joy. And I am here with slave Phil slave, Phil, welcome to full cow. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. For starters, can you tell us your pronouns and how you identify in the community. So my pronouns I hate, or if there's a master that I really respect it, and I'm known as slave fill in the community. Wonderful. So this is an episode about submission and you identify as a slave, can you tell us a little bit about how you discovered your submission, and maybe more importantly, how you discovered you're a slave. So I think it's something I've always had, I can remember from when I was four years old, having kind of experiences and feelings of domination and submission. So kind of playing a certain game with friends where, you know, I would be in prison somewhere, you know, so I always had these sorts of kinds of feelings. And I used to have lots of fantasies about being submissive or in bondage. Or when I was very young, you could call them Gunj fantasies, though, I didn't realize there was a name for it until much later. Strangely enough, that's not a fetish I really indulgent but that was, that was how it all started. And then I think, when I was about 18, on the second day, I had the internet, I was doing some searching on Yahoo. And that probably shows my age. And I found a website called the dog house.org. And this really opened my eyes to the fact that there was a lifestyle that there was other people that did this, that I wasn't just this mad person. And then I kind of had a few years where I kind of, I think most of us have this like a bit of shame, I shouldn't be having these sorts of thoughts. Try not to have them, and then they'd go too much, and that kind of ping pong. But by the time I was, I think 20, I was suddenly like, I must start exploring this. It's it's part of me. And that started a journey that I never thought I would end up where I am now and the person that I have become because of it. Wow, that's fantastic. And I love first of all, that you really talked about this is goes back as far as you can remember, because I do also believe were born kinky. And I love that entry point of the internet, because I think that's where people are finding themselves this day today. And that's part of what this podcast is about, right? Like giving people entry points. So I love that you stress those two things in your story. How would you talk about submission? Like, what does it mean to you? Or how does it operate give us some sense of your philosophy of submission. So I think in terms of submission, there's a number of different things you can kind of talk about here. So there's power, giving up power, someone taking power, you gifting power. But I think there's also a very kind of this call it something from the slave Heart, you know, or master heart that for kind of like lots of people that are really intense in in the lifestyle such as myself, it's such an innate part of ourselves, you can also it's part of our soul. And as you kind of see these people around the scene and stuff you start to notice there's a certain quality that certain people have I really noticed it, for instance, in slaves, the sort of innocence a sort of, there's a source of energy they kind of give out, then I think there's something about connection and how we connect to each other. There's the convenience, very visceral energy between master and slave. When you're in positions of power, you know, and especially when you're having an intense scene or intense moment when that powers really displaying it's like there's this energy between you something greater than what each of the individual P Call is kind of bringing in into that. And then they're sort of service. So how do you help someone? How do you predict and make their lives better. And that tends to be a very big thing for slaves that want to live this as a lifestyle. And then of course, there is the sex of all of the different fetishes that you can imagine. And for me, I need a bit of both. So because this is a lifestyle, of course, the service, this is very important, because you can't have sex all the time. I have tried this, you can't. But then you've got the the service spirit, which is which is really important as well. And I think a final thing is that a lot of this bit master or slave is around transformation and growth. You can't do this journey without changing and this journey changing you. And if you're trying to do this to escape, or to not change, you're going to get into trouble. That this is all about transformation, growth, and a journey of discovery. Basically, I want to dig at some of that, because it was really wonderful. And you talked a lot about kind of energy, whether it's the master heart, the slave Heart, the power exchange, the sense of connection. Do you feel like as a slave, do you know, when people are masters before they know like, can you look at a person and just sort of feel an energy coming off of them that they may not even realize yet? I don't think I've had that. But I've definitely met a few people and gone Yes, you are a dominant or you are master, you know. And I remember once having dinner with someone, and it was the first time I'd ever met, and it was more sort of a business meeting. But I suddenly ended I just was like, well, it's clear that you're the dominant, who was why it was like what he kept on telling me to eat my dinner. Is that I was like, yes. It's pretty obvious that you like being in charge. I was like, and what's interesting is they let you so you can can very often kind of see this in in kind of people as well. I think I think the thing to bear in mind is whether someone that has that dominant kind of side, or that dominant energy, is this coming from the ego, or a deeper sense of self worth, and that can be very different personalities that can between these two different types of masters. Yeah, that's fantastic. I talked about that in the next episode, people, so please keep listening. You also sort of talked about seeing slaves and kind of really connecting with them in a way, can you talk a little bit about your sense of a brotherhood of slaves or a fellowship of slaves if I was to be unrendered. About that. So I think that, you know, there's a lot of people that can play on the scene and like, like to submit for a small amount of time. And that's perfectly fine. You know, if that is your kind of gig, if that's how you fulfill your needs, that's good. There's also some of us that want this to be something a bit more long term. And often, this has a service better. And it's really interesting, when you meet up with someone, and you start talking about it, and they go, Oh, my God, I thought I was the only one. Because it's can be very hard to find. And then when you do find that other person or find other people, you often do want to stay in touch in some way. Because the sort of quality of energy, but also the sorts of things we want to talk about and the issues we have, you know, it's like you've suddenly found a brother that can help you with it, you know, so slowly, over the years, I've kind of built up a small network of people, and then we can help each other out. You know, for instance, someone's got in touch with a new master, and you can kind of check along the network. Is this a good person or not? I love that you talked about those peer networks, because they are critical, not just for the support, but I love that you also mentioned finding people because everyone I know, their biggest problem is finding that master or finding that slave, but that's a project you started working on. Right? Can you tell us about that? So I have a website and podcast called master slave lifestyle.com. And the entire idea of this is to educate more about the master slave lifestyle and to help people you know, I've had a number of challenges on my journey. And what I've wanted to do is to kind of really show what is the reality of the lifestyle? And what are the concepts and things you need to know. You know, and this is one of the ways of trying to create a community around the master slave like lifestyle. And currently at the moment, I'm actually working on a product which is how can you find a master slave? So if anyone's interested for that, you can go to master slave lifestyle.com/find And you'll find more information on that. Yeah, and we're recording this in May but it's this epic was probably not coming out for a few months, your product may even be even more active by then. I hope so. We hope so. Now, in addition to that you do life coaching, and particularly kinky life coaching, how did you get into that? And how does that work? And why would people want it? So, for me, I've always been a leader at work. And at a certain point, I noticed that what I was enjoying the most was actually my one on one meetings with people. So and it was because I was helping them grow, helping their personality, development, and was actually the most joyful part of the day. And what makes it even more interesting is that at that time, I was probably working and leading the biggest project I'll ever do in my career. And it was really strange, I wasn't getting my joy in that. So I started to focus more on personal coaching. And then, shortly after I moved to Berlin, and broke up with my master there, I went on a workshop. And in this workshop, the idea was kind of seeded in me about why don't you merge your coaching, and your BDSM skills together, who seemed to have the knowledge to do both. And that is how I started to kind of go into Well, I think I should do something more here. That's also how master slave lifestyle, got him created as well. I think I did spend about probably six months fighting the idea before I kind of fully embraced it. And sort of what what I do now is part of it's helping people to find themselves, what is their authentic selves, and what is the life that's really going to give them joy, because we can have this huge pressure from mainstream society to conform. And even as gay men, and we've often had to break out of that we still fill up a lot of that pressure, we must have a certain source of career, we must have a certain source of lifestyle. For instance, a lot of people that I speak to it's like, Well, I'm a leader at work, but I also want to be a slave, how can I be both. And that's because of some of the messages we get from our culture or society tanning because she can't be rare as you can, you can do both, I have done both. So a lot of this about building up your confidence to really understand yourself, to understand your needs, and then to start aligning yourself to the life you really want. And then if you're already in the BDSM lifestyle, if your audio and the master slave, then I can actually provide coaching and help about issues that can happen inside a relationship as well. I think that's fantastic, because I see so much hunger for clarity and direction in the people I encounter online. So to have someone who can work with them one on one, and really help them figure themselves out. I think that's a great service. And I'm glad you're doing it. Thank you so much. So what advice would you have for anyone starting a journey into submission? So I'd say there's probably two main things. One is educate yourself. So you can do that through master slave lifestyle. But also, there's a number of books out there. There's other blogs and stuff that talk about the authentic lifestyle. But the second thing is you need to start having the experiences, it doesn't matter how much you read, it's not the same as going through the experience yourself. So I'm not saying that you need to find a full 24/7 Master. And that is a relationship but have a play session, start off step by step. But after each experience, sit down and take a moment to really reflect what have you learned from this? What did you like, what did you not like? What is it you want to experiment next? I think there's sort of a third negative, which is that what you might see in porn or on Twitter is not the actual reality. So you also need to have some of these experiences, to really start to understand the reality compared to what you might have been fantasizing or seeing from from some somewhat some of the content you've seen. If you are new, I would also suggest going after masters that actually like taking in new people and teaching them and helping them you'll find some people that just want to do very serious play. And that's probably not the people for you right now. They will be eventually but start with with people that do want to kind of handhold and help people through their, let's say initial steps into slavery or mastery or into BDSM. In general. What a fantastic answer. And, you know, I love that you talked about that moment of reflection after seeing because the truth is, even bad scenes can be good because they help you figure out what you don't want or the fetishes you don't like or the people you don't want to play with. So every experience becomes education on helps you on that journey, even if it wasn't the best experience. Exactly. As I said at the start this journey of let's say personal growth or change. Part of this is by having the experiences you figure out what you want and don't want, but by having that reflecting step in And then you can be much more mindful and purposeful about it. You know, in my initial, let's say 1015 years, I sort of ping pong without really knowing what I was doing. And then I started to get some of the wisdom to know, I needed to reflect better. You know, a lot of you who might be new to this, you can leapfrog some of the mistakes I've made by just having that kind of reflection and my mindfulness to begin with, that's really brilliant like that, you can stop repeating the bad scenes, if you figure out what made it bad, you can actually, I mean, I had, I had very, I had all kinds of challenges in my journey, in part because I did not have that self reflection, I didn't have anyone to tell me any better either. So I love that you're providing people a means to kind of not go through all the shit, I want. Exactly. That's fantastic. Anything else you'd like to say to our audience or any other projects you're working on that you want to share? Probably, there's just just one more, which is something else I'm working on with master slave lifestyle, it's actually create a support group. So if you are more seriously in a relationship, or you're seriously looking, you know, do have a lookout, because that's going to be launching very soon. And this is, so that was the dog. And, and this, this is something for people that really are in lifestyle, because I do think that we can have issues and problems which are very hard to solve. And you need a group to help you with that. And that's something else that I want to kind of create. And that should be happening or has launched by the time this is a broadcast. So please, please do have a look out for that. That is absolutely brilliant. And I'm glad you're doing that and creating several points of support for people in this journey. I will for the listeners include all of slave Phil's various links and contact info so that you can make use of his many resources and slay Phil, I am really, really grateful to have you here today. Thank you for joining us on Fool cow. Thank you so much for having me. Welcome to erotic storytime. You know, in the first segment, I shared with you my journey into submission, or more properly my journey into misrecognition. And so I thought this story would be particularly appropriate. The title of the story is you and it is the most semi autobiographical thing I've ever written. And also, I still believe the most powerful thing I've ever written. In fact, I've never been able to get through reading it without crying. So this will be very, very interesting recording this segment. Hey, I just wanted to insert that I am currently editing the audio for this segment. And just to give you a heads up, yeah, I am absolutely sobbing by the end of this story. So you know, be prepared. The story describes my evolutionary path in the community, from bottom to top from a position of relative submission into a position of dominance. And it's also about our search for the Leatherman capital T capital L. The one that we're always looking for, but who seems to never quite arrive. I think it's a pretty common evolutionary path. I know of many others who have followed this path. And for anyone who's had this transformation, this story may strike very, very close to home. For the rest of you. I hope you simply enjoy the story. Here we go. I waited for you. But you never came. You never came. So I became you instead. What else could I do? I always knew you existed. Knew it. From the moment my cock first caught hard. After all, I seen you all along in my mind, clad in leather armor, commanding with a look distilling all of masculinity, seducing me down to my soul. I didn't know a lot about you then. But I sent you from the start. I felt you inside me not as a presence. But as an absence, some missing shape. I can almost trace with my fingers along the contours of my soul. I didn't know where you were didn't know who you were. I had no words to name you back then. But still, I knew you were there. That counts for something, doesn't it? And then I found you. I started reading porn and there you were in every fucking story I picked up and so I learned your names. Daddy, sir. Boss, Master Sarge commander. I learned you rode a bike, worked on a ranch where the best cop and the force trained the platoon with an iron hand. You wielded a bullwhip like it was an extension of you. And you fucked like it was an art. So you know how jealous I was thinking all those men had met you and written about it. Do you even care? Each word each turn of phrase brought you into sharper focus. As I spilled load after load in honor of you. I came to know you intimately and came to know above all that I needed you. You see, I never wanted you never. That would be too easy. No, I needed you. That's why I kept waiting. I knew you're out there. We're gonna Where's the proof from black and white, right? So I looked for you. I looked in every bar every weekend, I looked at all the ads and all the chat rooms. Sometimes I thought I found you. But it wasn't you. It wasn't ever you. They wanted to be like you perhaps even like me wanted you. But they could never be you, no matter how hard they tried. Not that they tried very hard shit. The men who use your names fucking liars, there should be a law really, or a system or well, some kind of protection. Because each time I sought to ease the pain, it deepened. Each time I met one of those almost use, it just made my need for you, and only you that much sharper, the hunger that much more real. Still, I learned what I could from them, because I wanted to be ready for you. I learned how to black boots Tremere machine, learn how to relax my throat into a warm velvet hole. Learn how to suck tits in ways that could drive men mad. Learn how to light a cigar, and how to take it smoke and ash. I learned how to offer my suffering. Even though I learned that by offering it to dominate men who didn't deserve it. I got hurt a lot. Usually not in very good ways. Each time I had to tell him to stop the scene. Every time I had to admit it wasn't working for me. It killed some piece of my soul. Because it was something I would never want to do to you. That's not what boys do. You know, they just take it. So I did. And I kept playing good scenes and bad. Just so I could keep learning. I thought it was worth it. Anything would be worth it for you. If only I could be worthy of you. I guess in the end I wasn't. I figured you wanted a man in leather. So I got some I wore each piece with careful precision wanting it to be just so thinking that if I could only get it right you wouldn't notice me. I looked at all the pictures of you. They're all over the net, you know, in a million pages in a million shots in a million ways. I wanted to learn how to dress how to stand how to carry myself in a way that would speak to you buy boots for simple combat. My chaps were bar styled not biker, as was my vest with my keys on the right of course. Perfect boy uniform, right. I thought if I had the right gear, if I looked right in it Well, somehow I thought it'd be easier for you to find me. And that when you did, you'd recognize me. Welcome me. Wrong. Then I thought it was because I was too heavy. It's not that I was ever technically fat. But clearly I wasn't trim enough. slim enough. firm enough. If I were you'd come. The men I met thought I was just fine. But they weren't you so how can I believe them? So I lost weight. I went to the gym. I lifted a ran. Still you did not come? That made me depressed. So I gorged my weight shot back up. I dieted again, you still did not come. I starved myself back into my leathers and ate my way back out of them how many times? Fuck off. I know. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this. But once the cut myself. No, it's not what you're thinking I didn't want to harm myself because that's not what you're about. It wasn't sick. Really. It was beautiful. I just wanted to prove to myself that I would be ready to give you whatever you asked. Because I was willing to plead for you, you know, and because those little cuts didn't hurt near as bad as the cuts I had inside. I used to kitchen knife ankles. carving the wounds with care not too long, not too deep. Thinking about being tied down by you in your dark dungeon, begging for rituals of intimate bonding. After a while, I used to wonder why you weren't coming. I was still ready. Still waiting by wondered. Maybe you found someone else? That was certainly possible. Maybe that was you over there with the boy on the leash. He looked contented enough, that's for sure. But some part of me knew that that couldn't be you. Because I know you'd have room for me in your life. Some room? Other times I worried about you it's just the way I am. I worried that maybe you were hurt or jaded or burnt out or somehow lost in this world. Those times were the worst. Because I wanted so fucking badly to be there for you. And I felt so fucking helpless that I couldn't be what more could you want from me? Hmm, I could never be perfect enough. I can never look good enough. I could never be experienced enough or obedient enough or submissive enough or piggie enough. I tried. I tried with all I got in me honest. All that yet. I knew that knew that none of that crap really mattered. It see through all that, that's just how you are. You'd see my hurt, and my need. That's why you'd come. But you never did. I didn't mean to stop waiting. I didn't think I could have if I wanted to. It just happened slowly. I'd be online and these boys would come to me. And as often as I told them, I'm not you. They'd still come. I was even concerned. All my signs were right. I was sure all the words in my profile made sense. And they all called for you. Why did they come to me? Couldn't they read? What did they want from me? I don't know. I guess I was lonely then without you. And so were they. Sometimes being lonely with someone feel something like belonging. And as losses, I still felt they were even more loss more confused. I knew their hurt. It's mine. These men you see, they started coming to me and I could see they were waiting to and I knew how it hurts not have you come? So I came for them? I did for them. What you would not do for me? Maybe that makes me a better you than you are. I came to understand. I figured out that I learned a lot from all those shithead almost us. And now maybe I could teach the hungry others without them having to go through the crap I went through. Maybe just maybe I could come to them. And they could leave me a little wiser, a little more centered, standing just a little taller. Without the disappointment and the tears and the frustration. Maybe that's what makes me you not the leathers or the experiences or the skills or the whole fucking arbitrary look. Maybe it's just that I learned the hard way. And because I care enough about others, others I hardly fucking know. To teach them the best way I know how is that what you do to for those others who are not me? At the same time, I was still waiting still. Sure I came for them. But after I left their beds, I would come home looking for you all the way. In fact, I remember the last almost you I was careful, cautious. You only need to be burned once to another clarifier. But it seemed okay more than okay, even the vibe was there. The hankies were properly aligned. Thinking back though I imagine I must have crushed him with my expectations. How could anyone bear them? But I thought it was us it was okay, right? It's not too much to expect you is it? And I was so sincere, you have to understand that. At first when I got there. I thought it would work. My clock responded to you and him and I let myself go. I responded Body and Soul baring both and offering, but it didn't work. as things progressed, the chemistry fizzled as though it had run out of some vital catalysts consumed in the reaction. And my cock failed me. Or he filled me or I feel you. I don't know. I only know I ended it again. Not at first. I sat there going through the motions telling myself I need to end this. No, tell him now. No, please. Not again. You can do it. I can't. You need to. I can't now tell him now. Finally. I did. He was angry with me. Can you believe that? It took all the strength I had in me to end it rang me dry in the process. And there he was angry and disappointed. The anger could have handled but the disappointment was crashing because still thinking it was you. It hurt me mortally. I cried all the way home. Yeah, Hope springs but maybe not eternal. Now I look in the mirror and I see you. My eyes have that same wisdom. Did yours come through so much hurt? Did he not come for you? My leathers are heavier, more intense, just like me. Just like you. My boots are the ones I always imagined I would buy for you. The cigar I light now is only for myself. And now those others those hungry others get the smoke in the ash. Now my cock finds the velvet throat coaxes it open makes it home. Now my boots receive the offerings of hunger, returning to them the answers they need the same ones I always needed. I'm you. I thought it would be hard to be you. But it's not. Not for me, at least. When you've been me for as long as I have. You know what it's like, you know the doubts and the fears and the longings. It's easy to climb inside a head when the floor plan is the same as your own and being you just take saying what I would need to hear. So I do just that. And I can see it, you know, I can watch their eyes and see something like peace seep into them. It's pretty powerful. I'll give you that. No wonder you're all you are to have that kind of power over him. Do I enjoy it? Yeah, I guess I mean, the comment all but that's not what any of this is about is it? I enjoy being there for them, giving them what they've been endlessly looking for. Because that's what it's about. You know that. But some part of me, I'm ashamed to say is envious, bitter, angry. They don't have to wait any more. They don't have to wonder anymore. They don't have to hurt anymore. Why the fuck them? Why the fuck not me? Why does it matter? I guess. I guess what's important now is that you're here in me. And I've I have to carry the herd around. At least some others don't. It's not the way I'd like things to be. But sometimes we don't have a whole lot of say in that. I can't save them all can't even save myself. But some is better than none. Still, you know what's really weird? Once I became you, I think I needed you more than ever. Even though you're nowhere in sight. There's so much to try to figure out just trying to find my fucking way and all this and there's no you to answer my questions, or point me the way I stumble along blindly. If you couldn't come from me, then couldn't you come now? Can you give me answers? Or if that's too much to ask, can you at least help me find the answers myself? I guess not. I stopped waiting. I hate saying that. I don't want to even believe it. But it's true. I know it now even if I haven't accepted it. It reminds me of this night at the bar. So when I looked at my watch, and know that closing hour was coming soon, but I wouldn't leave wouldn't go home, because I still thought you might walk through that door. So I'd sit there nursing one final beer leaning as casually as I could against the wall. But for whose sake I didn't know. Looking at the door waiting. It's like that. I'm not waiting anymore. But I'm not letting go either. You still might come. I don't want to even say that. Because to say it is to believe to believe is to hope. And if there's one thing I've learned to hope is only to see that hope die. But how could I ever stop waiting? Especially now when I'm you? Wouldn't letting go of you mean letting go of myself? And where the fuck would that leave me? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. I know. But But that's where I am still confused. Only about a whole new set of shit. Only on a whole new path. They say you don't exist. They say no one can be you. They say maybe we're all waiting. They lie. I know because I come for some men. And I and they're waiting. Why didn't you and my nevermind. It doesn't matter. Now. I'm writing this though, because I know you're out there despite what they say. I guess I'm hoping you'll read this someday. I guess I'm hoping these words will hurt you. I'm not proud of that fact. But it's true. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say all of this. And I'm sorry if my confessions row knew it had to come out. This you see is my exorcism. If I can't keep my hope for you alive, I can at least set it free of me born ever onwards in these lines. And maybe if I hurt you, you'll come then maybe we can both say we're sorry. Until then I need to be free of you. So that I can be you. I know you'll understand. You know, I never expected you to love me. I never want it to take up all your time. I just wanted a pair of boots to sit at and warm eyes to look up to a confident voice to tell me it's okay. It's all gonna be okay. I told you thank you for your attention. And that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining me please consider subscribing or you can send feedback to edge at full Cowell dot show. As always, may your leather journey be blessed