I received a most interesting letter from an officer of the law in a foreign country who had huge responsibilities around the clock including emergency response. In his private life he was an owned fetish-submissive to another officer, and he was asking me how to balance the two worlds – one world of tremendous responsibility and a crystal clear desire to be very good at his career, and the other world of deeply passionate submission to his Dominant partner. He perceived a conflict in these two worlds and asked my help in balancing his career and their D/s desires.
I thought this would be an excellent lesson to share with everyone since most careers do not require the absolute intensity of being an officer with additional emergency response duties. Many people have similar problems balancing their career and their D/s Life, so my thought was that if this officer can do it then anyone can. It’s all about Compartmentalizing – being able to give proper focus to the current situation and mentally putting aside other times and places. 🙂
Enjoy.
Hi.
The first thing I want you to consider and embrace is that Submission as a kinky / fetish / bdsm activity has literally NOTHING to do with being submissive in your daily career. As an officer I imagine you have huge responsibilities to be in control of situations, and yes you can happily embrace that career responsibility while at the same time remaining perfectly submissive to your partner in private. Definitely separate those two worlds – your romantic life and your career responsibilities.
Think of the book Alice In Wonderland, or more specifically Through The Looking Glass. Even though the two worlds looked the same when Alice first looked through the looking glass, they were in fact completely different. On one side of the looking glass was Alice’s normal world – this would be your career, where the meaning of submission equates to your chain of command as an officer, but otherwise your duties are priority. On the other side of the looking glass was Wonderland – this is your Romantic Submission to your partner, a wonderful experience you share together when In Private or at a BDSM / kinky event.
MANY – and I do mean MANY MANY – kinky people live like this, with jobs and careers of great power or responsibility, where expressing their romantic / kinky submissive nature openly would be inappropriate to the circumstances of their career. These same people however Absolutely Embrace their submissive nature when they are around other kinky people, like their partners, in a relaxed non-career environment. This is very normal. Take that in – yes it is Normal to completely separate the two worlds of your Romantic life vs your D/s life.
Personally, my slave and I have a Fully Developed “Mode” when she knows to NOT call me “Master” or ask permissions for things the way she normally does in our home. This Mode is signaled when I say “Drop Role” and is most commonly used, for example, when we are having dinner with her or my own parents. Both my own parents and my partner’s parents know all about our D/s lifestyle and accept it, but they do not totally understand it. So the point is simply respecting that they will not appreciate the depth of our D/s Relationship. Hence when out to dinner with parents we “pretend to be normal & vanilla” for the pure reason of not burdening the parents with trying to figure us out. It’s really an act of respect for the non-kinky people. 🙂
(*Note – I go into great depth about the Six Modes of Submission at The Crow Academy, including “Drop Role,” in my book, “Igniting The Fire: The Art of Romantic Submission*)
Now admittedly, when there is no one within ear shot who we are concerned that they would be antagonized by our D/s, my slave certainly DOES maintain proper submissive etiquette out in public…. yes even at a place as public as the local Shopping Mall, albeit a lighter, more casual level of D/s than we might maintain in private. We really only use “Drop Role” when around vanilla people who we greatly care about and who we genuinely want to stay relaxed, like parents and family. Again, everyone knows how we live, so its simply a matter of not burdening vanilla / ordinary / non-kinky people we care about with the complexities of our D/s. That said, even my vanilla / non-kinky friends know all about my lifestyle, so we actually maintain a high degree of D/s around most friends, including non-kinky friends who are very open-minded.
In work however, for example at my slave’s job in a retail store, I absolutely Drop Role if I go to visit her there. I leave it up to her how much she wants to share our lifestyle with her co-workers. If I walk in I do NOT expect her to commence instant proper D/s Etiquette. I have made it clear to her that if she wants to call me “Master” in front of her co-workers that she can, and if she wants to Drop Role and call me “honey” that is ok too. In this situation I allow her to decide.
Now lets look at your career as an officer. Keep in mind that while in 2016 most people have heard of BDSM and or D/s, many of them still do not fully understand this beautiful Wonderland, and most of the time showing your D/s side to co-workers would end up being something you would have to explain. Likewise, as an emergency response person you need your co-workers to think of you in a singularly helpful and team manner. Perhaps you know your co-workers outside of work as friends? As friends do they know about your D/s? If not then I would not expose that element at work. Even if they accept your D/s lifestyle as friends outside of work, is it really something that needs to be expressed at work? I would think that any kind of distraction during an emergency would affect the performance of your co-workers job, and I doubt you want your co-workers distracted by thinking about what you do in your private life.
Most work situations involve people coming together to perform a specific set of tasks and depend on each other to work together as a team. For that very reason, keeping one’s private life outside of the work environment is actually helping people focus on the job at hand. Sure if your co-workers are actual friends they may know more about you outside of work, but most likely when you get into work people who want to do their best will want to keep their focus on the job.
It sounds to me like perhaps the issue is more about Compartmentalizing, and making the shift from your wonderful private life that fulfills you so much where you embrace submission in a devoted expression to your Dominant, to shifting into a role of tremendous responsibility where you must act in a very dominant manner. Again think of The Looking Glass and Alice. In the normal world, the very best definition of “Dominant” means a Good Leader, someone who can take charge and make sure those under them are working effectively and safely. I have no doubt you want this effectiveness and ability to insure the safety of others in your actual career. And that is Great! That is definitely something to embrace – that in your career you can and should be Dominant by The VANILLA definition of “Dominant” (and of course submissive strictly in the Vanilla sense as you obey the orders issued by your workplace superiors as is appropriate to your chain of command). However, on the other side of The Looking Glass in Wonderland and in your private life, you want to be wonderfully submissive in the most devoted D/s manner to your partner and go as deeply as possible. That is also Great! Both these sides of you can be appreciated and respected for their meaning on the side of The Looking Glass where they belong.
The trick is being able to Transition from one side of The Looking Glass to the other. This is where nurturing your ability to Compartmentalize comes in handy. There will always be a transitional time between the two sides. It could be when you are driving or walking to work, it could be on the train home from work, it could even be the first 20 minutes after you get home or the first 10 minutes of work right before your daily briefing. These are the times where you should take advantage of the interim period to “reset” your mind and your will power to be excellent at what lays before you. If you are in the car driving to work then focus on what it takes to be excellent as an officer. If you are driving home from work then use that time to focus on what it takes to be excellent as a devoted Submissive to your Dominant.
It often helps to have some kind of “anchor” to link you to the state of mind that you are going to need. For example, on your way to work, maybe before you leave your home you hold your badge in your hand and think about what you love about your career and what you love about helping people as an officer. Then when you get home you can put your badge in a drawer and symbolically let go of the day’s work, and then take out your collar or some other item that absolutely represents the depth of your devotion to your Dominant, and meditate with that for a few minutes quietly, thinking about all the things that you love about serving your Dom and how good you feel when you are able to go cleanly into your submission with him in an environment (your home) where you can freely express that. Over time these anchors will have a more and more tangible and immediate effect as you begin to “ritualize” the transition. Quite often, Good Compartmentalization makes the person better in BOTH worlds – better in their career as well as better in their personal D/s life. 🙂
Since you mentioned being an Emergency Responder and I get the sense you are “on call” for that role 24/7, I want to share with you a VERY specific rule I have with my slave regarding emergency situations. This rule, after clearly discussing it with your Dom and having him agree to it as well, might help you make the shift when you get a call for Emergency Response off-duty.
The rule is this: In an Emergency Situation the submissive is EXPECTED to Absolutely Drop Role & Solve The Problem.
Let’s say that my slave and I are in a BDSM Club and someone there is having a heart attack. My slave knows that she can absolutely drop role, break etiquette, and apply 100% of her energies to solving the problem (calling an ambulance, etc) and she will absolutely NOT get in any trouble for doing so. In fact I expect her to be diligent in emergencies, and I expect her to apply herself to solving the emergency problem before she returns her attention back to our D/s Etiquette. I am not inviting her to be rude to me, but I AM inviting her to Be At Her Best Helping Others and Solving Real Problems.
So too should you prioritize – in my opinion – your responsibilities when dealing with emergencies far above your adherence to any D/s Rules you share with your Dominant. I hope your Dominant partner can respect this, and understand the virtue of dropping the D/s Roles & D/s Etiquette as needed when an emergency situation is occurring.
To sum up, consider BDSM & D/s matters to be appropriate for BDSM & D/s Environments and BDSM Audiences. Likewise, consider Acceptable Career behaviors to be appropriate for your career.
As a final note, if you wish to have the “feel” of Being Owned with you throughout your day, consider carrying some token of D/s that is meaningful to both you and your Dominant that might not be obvious to others. My slave has her nipples pierced, which we did as a BDSM Ritual at her request to celebrate our relationship, and no matter where she is she has this “secret” reminder of who she and I are and the relationship we share. She also wears a special stainless steel necklace 24/7 that does NOT overtly look like a piece of BDSM jewelry which she can wear all the time to feel connected to me as her Master (unless I remove it to place a more obvious BDSM Collar on her neck). Secret tokens of “D/s Connection” like this are very common amongst D/s couples. Even a keychain with the Triskelion symbol of D/s can give you that feeling. Or you can come up with your own items of “Secret D/s Connection.” The important thing is that if it holds Meaning for you and your Dominant then that is what matters. 🙂
To get you started thinking about this, here is a link to a list of various BDSM Symbols like the Triskelion, all of which have great meaning to people in the D/s Community, but most of which can be “secretive” to outsiders:
http://www.bdsmwiki.info/BDSM_Symbols
All the best,
— Arcane
Thank you for this Master Arcane. This was very insightful. And will help alot.