Accepting my Demons, One at a Time

 This is one of my favorite pictures of me, despite it being about 5 years old now and I have since grown my hair out and retired the piercings. Most of my selfies are taken from a strategic angle from above, but this one, I am actually looking down. And I think that's it. I think that's why I like it. But why? 

For a little back story, I took this in my first year of graduate school. I had actually done the makeup because I was doing a presentation in a class and (I think) going out with classmates after. At that time, I was newly single, and had started doing domme work for extra money. My specialty was humiliation and verbal abuse; I never touched a single submissive, it was all done via text, with the exception of a few sessions with a local guy that was into feet. I had always identified myself as being a "switch," someone who was okay being dominated or dominating, and I based this on my limited experience being dominated by a man, and being dominant to the point of being pretty sadistic with a woman that I neither liked or was attracted to. Being a domme taught me a lot about myself. A big thing I learned is that I do not like being dominated outside of a little light ropework and some spanking. I am too dominant and aggressive a person-- albeit introverted-- to submit to anyone, let alone a man. I like dominating men and treating them like shit. I've gotten a lot of compliments on my style and take pride in getting to know my submissive to make their session personal and extra painful. 

But this blog post isn't about me as a domme or sex work (but reminder that sex work is legitimate work) but about how I view men. It took years for me to examine my feelings, wrestling with it through the shambles of a long-distance relationship, and as I carefully constructed responses to decline advances from men when I really wanted to decline them in the most condescending, abusive way possible, I had an epiphany: I don't respect most men. It's a hard thing to admit. When men try to white-knight me, when they send unsolicited dick pics, when they position themselves as "nice guys," (spoiler alert, self-described nice guys aren't nice at all), when they apologize unnecessarily, all I can think of is grinding them under the proverbial heel of my cruelty, and I see, in my head, the picture of me that is above, looking down, cold, indifferent to the viewer, beautiful and untouchable. They are pathetic, and I have power over them. 

As you can imagine, this does not lend itself well to meeting people, especially when you're lonely. It is, however, something I am constantly mindful of when interacting with people. It's not all men, as I said, just most feel so pathetic and unworthy of any time or effort beyond charging them for it. I do make an effort to make meaningful connections, and I can typically tell within a very short time frame if someone falls into category A or category B. I know this is something that seems horrible, why would I admit this, let alone publicly? Because I am, and have always been, a firm believer in introspection, understanding oneself, understanding the why behind the feeling or thought, and either making a modification/learning from it, or accepting it as a facet of who I am. And here we are, the learning and acceptance phase. I once wrote in a long-defunct online journal that people can't hurt me with what I know and accept to be true, and I still believe that.