How NOT to be a sub

Daddy sent me this list today. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share it!

"30 Things A Good Submissive Shouldn't Do"

1. Sing "Happy Birthday To Me" during wax play and blow out the candle.
2. In the middle of an intense cropping, close your eyes and start to snore.
3. During a scene, do a Howard Cosell impression and provide a play-by-play
account of what is being done to you.
4. If your dom/me tells you to "Look me in the eyes," do it cross-eyed.
5. If your dom/me decides to do a verbal humiliation scene with you in public,
stick your fingers in your ears and say "Neener, neener, neener, I can't hear
you!"
6. Stick an Alka-Seltzer tablet in your mouth at the beginning of a scene. Work up some saliva to get it fizzy, then call out your safeword.
7. If you're trussed up and ordered to count, inform your top you can't do it unless you can use your fingers and toes.
8. Hold up a scorecard after each blow delivered.
9. Tell your dom/me a better way to do whatever it is being done to you at that moment.
10. After a particularly hard blow, pretend to pass out. When your dom/me checks to see if you're OK, jump up and yell "Gotcha!"
11. Go in the toybag and superglue the nipple clamps shut.
12. Attach clappers to all the outlets in the dungeon just before a paddling (Clap on! Clap off!)
13. "Oh my god, where did you get those, they are gorgeous!!!" is not considered boot worship.
14. Flipping your dominant off while your hands are cuffed behind your back is a bad idea. Owners have ways of knowing these things.
15. Kicking that toy you hate far under the bed is futile. Master will only secure your wristcuffs to your anklecuffs and make you crawl for it... repeatedly.
16. Doing your Beavis and Butthead imitation of "Fire, fire, fire, fire!" during Master's lecture on fireplay safety is considered rude.
17. Responding with "Yes, All Wise, All Knowing Grand Imperial Weenie" is not appropriate when Master asks you if you are comfortable during a bondage scene.
18. Asking to go to the bathroom every five minutes while Master practices his Japanese rope work on you will try his patience, quickly.
19. Crossing your eyes and sticking your tongue out while your dominant is discussing your punishment is not wise. (He gave me a special emphasis on this one. Who... me??? *innocent*)
20. Pretending Master's collection of buttplugs are toys and singing the "Weebles wobble but they won't fall down" song is not a good idea.
21. Checking Master's head for the 666 symbol after a harsh punishment will only get you more of the same, or worse.
22. "I know you are but what am I?" is not the appropriate response when called a raunchy little whore during humiliation play.
23. "Missed me, missed me, now ya gotta kiss me" is an unacceptable remark when Master's flogger slips.
24. When Master pulls out his bullwhip and says he wants to play, he doesn't mean hide-and-seek... He will find you eventually.
25. "Oh, and you think I am?" is an unacceptable response to hearing your dominant say he is not pleased.
26. During a play party is not the time to do your hilarious imitation of Igor and hunch over, moaning "Yes, Master" when ordered to fetch something.
27. Adding "Sir" or "Master" to "Fuck that plan!" will not save you.
28. Singing the chorus of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" under your breath during a session is considered foolhardy.
29. Reciting nursery rhymes during an interrogation scene to crack your Owner up only lasts for so long. Then you will pay BIG.
30. Asking "Is that as HARD as you can hit??" is considered a cry for help amongst submissive suicide prevention workers.

The Story of O

I just finished reading The Story of O. I guess maybe it seems odd that I'd never read it before, but, I hadn't. I also have Madame Bovary sitting on my nightstand, waiting to be opened, if I can ever put down that stupid DS. LOL

Anyway, I found it wonderful. Not the best writing (speaking strictly from a technical point of view) I've ever come across; but of course, you have to take into account that it was translated from its original French. But it draws you in, makes you want to read more, puts you into the main character's mind. Yes, it is erotic, in its own way, but it comes across more as an emotional kind of story. A girl truly finding herself and learning what makes her the happiest and what truly opens her soul. Maybe it's easier to see past the chains and sex when you are already of a submissive mind-set, and more understanding of O's frame of mind, I don't know.

After I read it, I was looking the story up online. I found some interesting things. Like that the symbol on my collar is very like the true "ring of O" that she receives at Roissy (where she is educated in slavery, so to speak), and that the simple band with the ring on it is the simplified version used for the movie. I knew that my collar was ordered from a bdsm type site and that the symbol is used by many in that way, but I didn't know the O reference. Interestingly, that triskelion symbol has quite a depth of meaning back through the ages, and I love that I've suddenly learned so much about it! It makes it that much more meaningful to me!

I know there are many who wouldn't understand this: "It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure," says O to her master, Sir Stephen. And I understand that being a submissive, slave, whatever one chooses to call oneself, isn't something that appeals to all. But I did find this tidbit quite interesting:

The book tells the profound, and disturbing, story of a woman who wishes to exist without existing: "She lost herself in a delirious absence from herself." Through utter humiliation, O rises. Susan Sontag called the book a story of "an ascent through degradation." Such a woman today would, of course, be pathologized and, ironically, "healed" by more socially acceptable methods of control: institutionalization and medication. link

How true is that?! How is society's control of someone, in ways that they deem "acceptable", in order to make that person fit a mold that they deem "appropriate" any better than self-sought slavery or submission? We are all slaves: to society, to our family, to any number of things, and it seems to me far better to be able to choose what makes you happiest and most fulfilled than to submit only to certain bonds of slavery just because you are told the majority of people wish you to. It certainly makes you think anyway...