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In: Female led relationship with discipline, Male Chastity, Mrs Lion Comments

It occurred to me this morning that our male chastity, domestic discipline, and whatever we’re now calling our FLM is like cooking. We start out with a recipe and then decide to add a little more of this and less of that. Eventually we’ll come up with something we both like. Or, at least, something we can both live with. Lion’s chili and mushroom barley soup are two wonderful examples of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Not that the first runs were failures, but with some improvements, they are now go-to dishes.

So we started out with male chastity and followed the “rules” and found it didn’t necessarily work that way for us. A little nip her and a tuck there, and we were off. The same thing with domestic discipline. I still don’t think I’m doing things the way Lion wants them done, but I’m making it work for me and he’s going along for the ride. We’ve decided to back off from FLM and see what happens. I can still do as much or as little as I’m willing to do. We’re just playing it by ear.

I’m less of a jump-right-into-the-thick-of-it kind of person than Lion is. He loves to learn all he can about a topic and charges full speed ahead. I like to dip my foot in the pool a bit before diving in. And maybe I’ll never actually dive in. There’s nothing wrong with wading. You have to do whatever is comfortable. If you like your chili spicy, then by all means, add more hot sauce. If you’re not an adventurous eater, then use less. Sometimes you have to make the rules up as you go along. And those rules may only apply to you. That couple on the other side of town or on the other side of the country may have different rules. That’s okay. They are not you. You don’t have to conform to their rules and they shouldn’t have to conform to yours. We can all tweak our own recipes.

Happy Thanksgiving no matter what recipe you follow!

By:
In: Lion's Journal

Here in the U.S. we celebrate Thanksgiving today. This holiday celebrates when allegedly the pilgrims and the Indians (Native Americans in some places) had a peaceful dinner together. Mrs. Lion and I are celebrating together. Our families live across the continent. We will be enjoying a turkey breast that I will smoke tomorrow along with the usual trimmings. This feast challenges Mrs. Lion to find enough space in the refrigerator for the leftovers.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Most important is that I have my beloved lioness and she still wants to be with me. I am grateful that we found each other and very thankful she loves me as much as I love her. I am also thankful that I found work a couple of months ago. We were teetering on the edge of homelessness. I never want to feel the way I did during those dark months.

This is our second Thanksgiving in enforced chastity. I am thankful that we both find value in this activity. I’m thankful that the Jail Bird is so comfortable it never interferes with my sleep or other activities except, of course, sexual arousal and orgasms. I’m also thankful that Mrs. Lion takes the time and energy to discipline me.

I’m especially thankful that we are both healthy and happy in our lives together. I had a difficult few weeks with a corneal ulcer. It’s healed and while not fully recovered, my vision is much improved. I’m thankful that you have taken the time to share our lives and I am thankful that we have made a few online friends who take the time to share with us.

I know that compared to others, we have a very easy life. I am thankful that we are not only fortunate, but also able to realize just how much we have. Most of all, I am thankful that Mrs. Lion watches out for me and even when I feel lost and that all hope is gone, she lifts my spirits and reminds me that together we can get through anything.  I am very thankful that you take the time to be part of our lives.

If you like, please leave a comment to let us know what you are particularly thankful for this year.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Lion

By:
In: Mrs Lion Comments

Lion and I are about to have four days together. If it were up to me, we’d be hunkered down and never go out for the entire four days. However, I know we need to go out Friday and Sunday to run errands. We’re not shopping on Black Friday. I can’t think of anything I need badly enough to fight through the crowds. When I worked retail I was lucky enough to work a later shift so I didn’t have to deal with the long lines of early morning shoppers. Thankfully it was after my services were no longer required that stores started opening on Thanksgiving itself. With most of our family on the east coast, it’s easier to shop online and ship the presents anyway. I’m hoping the insanity will have died down by the time we hit Costco on Sunday.

At some point this weekend I’d like to play in the dungeon. I don’t have any definite plans, but as Lion said, it has been a long time. I’ve been remiss with a lot of things for a while. It’s so easy to get sucked into the 9 to 5 work then chores at home, and forget about what’s really important. Sure I play with Lion on a semi-regular basis, but the time consuming play never seems to happen. I know it doesn’t take that long to put him in restraints or in the sling, but a longer play session requires more forethought. By the time we’ve both worked all day, had dinner, and settled in, the last thing I want to think about is a long play session. In four days, I’m sure we can sneak in at least one session.

Last night I unlocked Lion and told him I was thinking we could snuggle and I could just fondle him while we watched TV. He was all for it. I’m sure he liked it, but there was no sign of Mr. Weenie becoming excited. Lion apologized and said he wasn’t really in the mood. No problem. I was just snuggling and fondling. There was no pressure to play. There never is. I was happy being close to him.

Tomorrow we’ll have our turkey dinner and be thankful that we have each other, but we’re always thankful about that. We both know how lucky we are to have found each other.

By:
In: Female led relationship with discipline, Lion's Journal, Male Chastity

[Note: I wrote this post before reading Mrs. Lion’s post yesterday. It just shows how much we think alike.]

This may seem to be a silly question. If I surrender sexual control to my lioness and also allow her to make rules and enforce them, does that mean I am submissive, at least to her? At first glance it seems obvious. But it isn’t. Consider a knight in shining armor. He was a fierce fighter who would fight to the death. He would also obey any request from the person to whom he pledged loyalty.

Obedience is an act of will, not submission.  The relevant definition of submission is: the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person. So, there are at least two ways to think of obedience. One is part of submission which implies accepting a superior force. The other is the decision to obey another. Submission never means submitting to everyone. It always refers to a specific superior force or person.

The more general flavor of submission suggests that the superior person will be followed and obeyed regardless of the nature of the direction. Willful obedience has boundaries that are negotiated and agreed upon. I agreed to surrender sexually to Mrs. Lion. This agreement includes permanent use of a chastity device. When we discussed FLM, the agreement extended to everything pertaining to our relationship. It didn’t affect my professional life or the way I interact with the world at large.

This may seem like quibbling to you, but it isn’t. Submission in the sense that we usually discuss it, is actually an agreement to submit within specific context. Some people self identify as submissives. This label can have a very different meaningsfor each individual. There is no accepted definition others can apply. Some people say I am submissive because Mrs. Lion controls so much of my life. But then how is it that I am generally the leader? Even Mrs. Lion accepts my leadership in many areas of our relationship. She doesn’t think of me as submissive.

I think that’s where we got tripped up with a Female Led Marriage (FLM). Over our years together we have established a comfortable working power exchange over non-sexual matters. We generally consult with one another about things that affect us both. We act largely individually with personal money and with things that won’t affect the other. When we started experimenting with FLM, our interpretation included my asking for permission to spend money on anything but necessities. I was to ask Mrs. Lion for decisions about almost everything where there was a choice. That was our understanding of what we should do. Since our relationship has always functioned differently, it was a strain to consciously reassign power. We were “fixing” things that weren’t broken.

In reality, what I want is to feel sexually dominated by Mrs. Lion. I want her to enforce rules that she has given me. I love how it feels with that power exchange. But that doesn’t mean she should take over the bill paying or dictate what we do all the time. She doesn’t want to pay the bills and I like being the lion about deciding what we do. Of course, Mrs. Lion has to agree with my decisions, but she doesn’t have to make them. That may seem to be a fine distinction, but for us it isn’t.

I just don’t have a submissive personality. I never will. It’s not in my genes. But I need the Yin/Yang of offsetting power exchange to balance my headstrong nature. Enforced chastity and a strict rule regime does it for me.

Over time I am sure that we will continue to evolve our power exchange. You’ve been reading about this evolution for the last couple of years. It’s not going to stop. We will try things, accept some and reject others. We may try again something we previously rejected and then adopt it. That’s the way it works for us. We only get into trouble when we try to copy what we think we need to do to conform to the label for what we are doing. Stay tuned. I’m sure we will be evolving more as time goes by.