Month: January 2018

Emotional labor is often invisible to men because a lot of it happens out of their sight. Emotional labor is when my friends and I carefully coordinate to make sure that nobody who’s invited to the party has drama with anyone else at the party, and then everyone comes and has a great time and has no idea how much thought went into it.

Emotional labor is when I have to cope, again, with the distress I feel at having to clean myself in a dirty bathroom or cook my food in a dirty kitchen because my male roommate didn’t think it was important to clean up his messes.

Emotional labor is having to start the 100th conversation with my male roommate about how I need my living space to be cleaner. Emotional labor is reminding my male roommate the next day that he agreed to clean up his mess but still hasn’t. Emotional labor is reassuring him that it’s okay, I’m not mad, I understand that he’s had a very busy stressful week. Emotional labor is not telling him that I’ve had a very busy stressful week, too, and his fucking mess made it even worse.

Emotional labor is reassuring my partner over and over that yes, I love him, yes, I find him attractive, yes, I truly want to be with him, because he will not do the work of developing his self-esteem and relies on me to bandage those constantly-reopening wounds. Emotional labor is letting my partner know that I didn’t like what he did sexually last night, because he never asked me first if I wanted to do that. Emotional labor is reassuring him that, no, it’s okay, I’m not mad, I just wanted him to know for next time, yes, of course I love him, no, this doesn’t mean I’m not attracted to him, I’m just not interested in that sort of sex. Emotional labor is not being able to rely on him to reassure me that it’s not my fault that I didn’t like the sex, because this conversation has turned into my reassuring him, again.

Emotional labor is when my friend messages me once every few weeks with multiple paragraphs about his life, which I listen to and empathize with. Afterwards, he thanks me for being “such a good listener.” He asks how my life has been, and I say, “Well, not bad, but school has been so stressful lately…” He says, “Oh, that sucks! Well, anyway, I’d better get to bed, but thanks again for listening!”

Emotional labor is when my friend messages me and, with no trigger warning and barely any greeting, launches into a story involving self-harm or suicide or something else of that sort because “you know about this stuff.”

Emotional labor was almost all of my male friends in high school IMing me to talk about how the girls all go for the assholes.

Emotional labor is when my partners decide they don’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore, but rather than directly communicating this to me, they start ignoring me or being mean for weeks until I have to ask what’s going on, hear that “I guess I’m just not into you anymore,” and then have to be the one to suggest breaking up. For extra points, then I have to comfort them about the breakup.

Emotional labor is setting the same boundary over and over, and every time he says, “I’m sorry, I know you already told me this, I guess I’d just forgotten.”

Emotional labor is being asked to completely explain and justify my boundaries. “I mean, that’s totally valid and I will obviously respect that, I just really want to understand, you know?”

Emotional labor is hiding the symptoms of mental illness, pretending my tears are from allergies, laughing too loudly at his jokes, not because I’m just in principle unwilling to open up about it, but because I know that he can’t deal with my mental illness and that I’ll just end up having to comfort him because my pain is too much for him to bear.

Emotional labor is managing my male partners’ feelings around how often we have sex, and soothing their disappointment when they expected to have sex (even though I never said we would) and then didn’t, and explaining why I didn’t want to have sex this time, and making sure we “at least cuddle a little before bed” even though after all of this, to be quite honest, the last thing I fucking want is to touch him.

Emotional Labor: What It Is and How To Do It
(via brutereason)

Communication

femsubdenial:

pleasurewhore:

Communication is important in any relationship, but in a power exchange relationship, communication is paramount. Want to improve your relationship? Work on your communication.

I’ve written a bit in the past about how I’m learning to communicate my needs, and about the difficulties I face in allowing myself that sort of vulnerability. Now there is another aspect of communication that has been heavy on my mind.

Recently, I was feeling sexier than is normal for me, and incredibly playful. I decided to take the time one morning to have a little photo shoot for my Dom. It was meant to be a little surprise for an upcoming event, but I was so excited to show him that I couldn’t wait. I decided to send him just a couple of the snapshots I had taken.

We were connecting for the first time that day, talking via text. He was distracted, and when I sent the first picture he made a joke of sorts. I was unappreciative of his response, and, trying to brush it off, I sent another. I received another joke in response, and that feel-good feeling of earlier was shattered. Of course he complimented them as well, but those kind words were drowned out by self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy.

In NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) there is a presupposition that “The meaning of communication is the response you get”. My Dom would never intentionally hurt me. He spends so much time building me up, and I believe he already knows how much mental energy I spend tearing myself down. But, while he meant to be playful and teasing, that’s not how I took his words, and therefore it wasn’t the meaning of his communication.

It’s a hard pill to swallow. It’s so much easier for us to hide behind “I didn’t mean it that way”, “you’re being too sensitive”, or “it was just a joke”, than it is to own our words. To his credit, as he always does, he did own his words. Recognizing that he hurt me, he immediately started working to build me back up and show, rather than tell, me the intention of his words.

What I’ll remember most about the situation isn’t that he was insensitive. It’s not the feeling of inadequacy that squashed the self confidence I had fostered that morning. It’s the idea that the meaning of my communication is the response I get, and that my intentions are only part of the equation. When I fail to make my intentions clear to, and felt by, the recipient, I am failing to communicate well.

My Dom and I communicate primarily by text, and text can be a difficult medium for communicating tone. My sass sometimes doesn’t translate well. In the past I’ve allowed my playful intention to be an excuse rather than admitting that my sass can be taken as disrespect. His feeling disrespected outweighs the idea that I was aiming for a laugh. The meaning of my communication is the response I get, and I must own when I fail to communicate what I desire.

It happens all the time in relationships of all sorts. We say a thing, or do a thing, and we don’t get the reaction we hoped or aimed for. Because I value communication, I will work to take responsibility for these shortcomings. I will teach myself to choose my words carefully and to recognize when I’ve chosen the wrong ones. I’m going to fail. Often. But my best is always good enough, even when I fail, so I will persist, because my efforts are not in vain. Telling someone you are sorry for your words is an apology, but making the effort to communicate to them how you truly feel is an act of love.

Wow. I have believed for a long time that it is the duty of the communicator to be understood, but “the meaning of communication is the response you get” encapsulates it very powerfully!

this-cunt-belongs-to-daddy:

dollbreaker:

18+

This blog is super fucking 18+, in every way. If you have any age under 18 in your header and I see it, you get blocked. If you tell me you’re under 18, you get blocked. If I find out some other way you’re under 18, you get blocked. It’s simple. 18+ only, for content, fantasies, captions, followers, rebloggers, submissions, asks, messages, the works. 18++++++++++

Same y’all

femsubdenial:

I’ve learned that @untamedbratt’s “omg stop!!!” button kind of gets short-circuited when she’s in pain. She can cum again and again until her mind is mush.

So next time we do a bondage and forced orgasm scene in private, I think I’m going to make sure she’s completely comfortable, unable to even dig her fingernails into her palms to give her the pain she needs to endure the pleasure. >:-]