Conquer Me
girl-to-girl wisdom about
fulfilling your submissive desires
Conquer Me
girl-to-girl wisdom about
fulfilling your submissive desires
by Kacie Cunningham
© 2010 by Greenery Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television or Internet reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Cover design by Scott Myles Studios.
Published in the United States by Greenery Press, P.O. Box 5280, Eugene, OR 97405, www.greenerypress.com.
Distributed by SCB Distributors, Gardena, CA.
Readers should be aware that dominance and submission, like all sexual activities, carries an inherent risk of physical and/ or emotional injury. While we believe that following the guidelines set forth in this book will minimize that potential, the writers and publisher encourage you to be aware that you are taking some risk when you decide to engage in these activities, and to accept personal responsibility for that risk. In acting on the information in this book, you agree to accept that information as is and with all faults. Neither the authors, the publisher, nor anyone else associated with the creation or sale of this book is responsible for any damage sustained.
Contents
Terms of Endearment
And This One Time, at Pancake Camp
Nature or Nurture: The Great Debate
Power To Choose
Opposite but Equal - The Paradox of D/S
Bare Necessities
Conquer Me
Dark Secrets and Dirty Sheets
Ball-gags, Earplugs and Other Communication Barriers
“Tomorrow”
Dousing the Flames
Catechism and Chain
The Perfect Master (And Other Mythical Creatures)
Active Dominance - Lead from the Front
Active Submission - On Your Own Two Knees
Submission Is a Gift - All Tied Up With String
Lovekink Bank and Trust
And Now, It’s Time for a Parable
Crystal Balls, Soap Bubbles and Acceptance
This Is a Job For… Super-Subbie!
Pride, Fear and Taboos
Topping from the Bottom… Or Is It?
Up, Up and Away!
The Myth about Surrender
You Show Me Yours, I’ll Show You Mine: Negotiating Your Kink
Punishment and Discipline - Spare the Rod, Spoil the Sub
Abuse
24/7 - Fantasy vs. Reality
The Vanilla Masquerade
Getting Back On Track
Dear Reader
Acknowledgments
SO THERE YOU HAVE IT … THE BOOK BORN OF COUNTLESS sleepless nights, 14-hour days, mountains of neglected laundry, and thousands of hours of conversation and interviews. I could never have done it alone, so I’d like to take a moment to give credit where it is due.
Brooke “Thatinator” Zeno has my undying gratitude… You began as a friend with an opinion and quickly became my right arm on matters both literary and personal. When I needed research, you were there. When I needed a friend at “ridiculous” o’clock in the morning, you were there. You understood the inherent message I was trying to send and fought to maintain the integrity of that message, even when fatigue and crankiness had me seeking the easy way out. Without you, readers wouldn’t be holding this book in their hands… a similar one, perhaps, but it wouldn’t be nearly this good. This book is better because you were a part of it and I am grateful for that. (Readers: And on a side note, she gets her nickname because in the first round of revisions, she removed over 1,400 occurrences of the word ‘that’ from the original manuscript! Talk about an eye for detail.) If I am this book’s mother, you are at least its aunt.
Everyone who ever had a conversation with me, confided in me, let me read their most personal blogs, and/or emailed me in all matters kinky… Thank you. You continue to humble me with your astonishing generosity regarding your words, experiences, and honesty. Without you, I would be still be feeling as if I am the only person to feel the things I feel, and I wouldn’t have had the desire to write this book. This book is for you.
The family I chose and helped to build, bound together by years, love, loyalty, laughter, and tears. I dedicated this book to you in thanks, but somehow, there are more thanks yet to give. Without each of you to bounce things off of, and keep me grounded, this book could not have been written. Your perspectives were valuable, but your support and love were priceless. Not to leave out the men, but a few of the women deserve personal nods for their special contributions: Special thanks to L for the conversation leading to “Lovekink Bank and Trust,” for the constant reality checks, and for being willing to be a case study in the chapter about Super-subbie syndrome… not to mention all the rest. Thanks to M for always telling it like it is, and keeping my head from swelling too much. And much love to our reformed beauty queen for reminding me, during the tedious process of revisions, why I wrote it in the first place. I love all of you more than I could ever say. Ma famille, j’taime.
And of course, to the one who collared me on a late summer day and has since shown me things I only ever dreamed of - I am so grateful to have you in my life. I would not be who I am, know what I know, and have this life I adore if not for you. Most of the content is this book can, in one way or another, be attributed to you and your presence in my life. Words cannot express the bond between us, so I will simply say, where the world can hear… Thank you, Master. I love you.
This book is dedicated, with love and heartfelt gratitude,
to The Family, without whom it would not exist.
Foreword, by Jay Wiseman
AS BOB DYLAN SANG, “THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGING.” Some of those changes include the enormous size and continuing growth of what is often called the BDSM community. And both within and outside these communities, more and more people -sane, educated people - are willfully and consensually choosing to enter into explicitly hierarchical intimate personal relationships, and to characterize themselves within these relationships by terms such as dominant, submissive, master, or - what can be a very emotionally loaded term - slave.
Even in a supposedly “vanilla” egalitarian intimate personal relationship, there is often an implicit power dynamic in which one person is the leader and the other person is the follower. (Indeed, it can be argued that some degree of hierarchy is more the norm than the exception in most human interpersonal relationships.) I remember my own parents’ marriage, in which Dad was, ultimately, the boss - not an unusual arrangement at that time. Before I entered the BDSM community, I too had several vanilla relationships in which we both “just knew” that one of us was, so to speak, the boss, even though officially they were relationships between equals. Now, however, we’re seeing more and more relationships in which the hierarchy is explicit: The game is named. These relationships are, at their core, between people who are not equals (for at least some value of the term “equal”). One person commands and the other person obeys, and both people are aware that this is how things are between them.
These relationships are qualitatively unique, and they often have an accompanying unique terminology. For example, there might be a person in your life who may happen to be your wife or your girlfriend, but who is, at core, some
thing much more than that. What is at core is her deep commitment to obeying you, and your comparably deep commitment to accepting and managing her obedience. She maybe called your “submissive” or your “slave,” and you may be called her “dominant” or her “owner” or her “master.”
Given this reality, the question then becomes: how does one implement what might be called “consensual neo-slavery” in a sane, humane, and realistic way?
A plethora of resources has appeared in response to this question. Numerous discussion groups on the Internet deal with what are called D/S (dominant/submissive) and M/S (master/slave) relationships. Many BDSM educational and social groups have specific special interest groups that offer support for such relationships. Large master/slave conferences draw attendees from all over the country and from foreign countries - I recently spoke at one - and there are master/slave title competitions at the local, national, and even international level. There is even a national organization called MAsT - Masters And slaves Together.
Unfortunately, only a few sane, realistic guidebooks exist as to how to proceed down this path. Further, many of these books are written for gay men and/or for lesbians. While there is frequently a great deal of merit in such guidebooks, they necessarily leave at least something to be desired in terms of their relevance to heterosexuals. Fortunately, Kacie Cunningham’s new book, Conquer Me, is a guidebook aimed mostly at heterosexuals, especially heterosexual submissive women, and its addition to the literature on this subject will be very positive and very much needed.
These days, many dominant/submissive relationships take place on a computer screen. While such relationships can be illuminating and exciting, they are no substitute for hands-on, real-time experience. It is obvious from the very first pages of Conquer Me that its author has a very large number of hours, days and years of actual experience in real-world, real-time dominant/submissive relationships — to the very great benefit of her readers, even those who may never have these experiences in real-time.
Kacie is both positive and realistic. She knows from extensive personal experience that happy, healthy master/slave relationships can exist and can endure. She also knows quite well that there are many people out there, male and female, who are not suited for - not up to the emotional and ethical challenges involved in - a healthy D/S relationship.
I entered into my first master/slave relationship (as the master) in 1977. Since then, I have been in several more. I have also spent a very great deal of time hanging out and talking with other people who are either in such relationships or who want to be. I’ve read widely on the subject, both online and in books. Nevertheless, I learned several new things in this book, and also had the validity of some of the things that I already did know confirmed.
Furthermore, Conquer Me is not a book that you can simply read once and put away on the shelf. Be prepared to read this book and then to re-read it several times, highlighter in hand and pen nearby to make notes in the margins. (It would also be a valuable addition to the reading lists compiled by submissive women’s discussion groups.) Here are a few points I’d like to draw your particular attention to.
Kacie’s chapters on “active domination” (“Lead from the Front”) and “active submission” (“On Your Own Two Knees”) are thought-provoking, especially in the contrast between these styles and their counterparts, passive domination and submission. She also solves the ever-challenging conundrum of how two people with unequal amounts of power must both give and take equal energies for the relationship to “balance,” to be viable. The playful title of the “Lovekink Bank And Trust” chapter should not detract from this serious and important content.
Watch for the very useful information on how to deal with negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, and despair , and for specific techniques about how to communicate about difficult issues and how to get back on track when the relationship falters. There is even some very compassionate, very useful information on how to cope with the ending of a D/S relationship, whether that ending was your idea or not. I’ve experienced that there is a unique poignancy, and certainly a unique pain, to the ending of a D/s relationship, and thus I found this information especially useful and pertinent.
One of Kacie’s most interesting observations is that “surrender seems to result in growth.” While at first glance it might seem that surrender is a loss - and in much of the “real world” out there, this is undoubtedly true - she shows how, in the context of a caring, consensual D/S relationship, surrender to a good person, in a good set of circumstances, and for good reasons can often result in profound personal growth. This is true, not only for the person who surrenders, but also for the person who receives this surrender.
Trust is especially important when dealing with such intimate personal vulnerability, and her book includes some excellent resources and practical methods of building, maintaining, and restoring trust.
The book also points out, again and again, that these sorts of relationships are pursued by real human beings, with all their faults, frailities, and shortcomings. She makes a point of cautioning the submissive female reader about looking for “the perfect master” (and therefore rejecting a large number of very meritorious men because they do not meet this mythical standard of perfection). She also makes a point of cautioning the same reader about the perils of attempting to be “super subbie,” and lists two variants of this folly.
I was especially impressed by the chapter on punishment - an issue of particular nuance and sublety with the D/S community, with a great deal of discussion surrounding it. Kacie makes an excellent argument that punishment, or at least the credible possibility of punishment, can be a crucial element of a D/S relationship, and that both parties can benefit from this being the case. She also does an excellent job of distinguishing between constructive punishment and destructive abuse, with highly usable guidelines on distinguishing between the two.
The book concludes with some useful (and entertaining) advice on how to engage in what could be called “stealth D/S” when the people involved are in the presence of others who are not aware of the unique relationship between the two people.
(Oh, and… if it never occurred to you that James Earl Jones, Hubert Humphrey, Anna Freud, Antoine de-Saint Exupery, Ferdinand Foch, T.S. Eliot, Confucius, William Shakespeare and Tori Amos might have important things to say about dominance and submission, this book will prove otherwise.)
I have a daughter. One of the questions I’ve asked myself is what would I do if she came to me and said, “Dad, I’ve decided to become a slave to my boyfriend.” How would I (a current and former owner of female slaves) react to this? What would I say? What would I do? I don’t know for sure, but I do know one thing: I’d immediately buy her a copy of this book.
- Jay Wiseman, 2010
Introduction
One of the hardest things in life is having words in
your heart that you can’t utter. - James Earl Jones
WHEN I WAS EIGHTEEN, I WORKED WITH A MAN WHO WAS in his mid-twenties. At the time, that seemed very adult to me, and I trusted him, mostly because I didn’t know then how to listen to my gut feelings on things. I’ll call him Ralph. We often worked late together, on the same shift, and as a result, we often talked. We talked about sex, kink, dominance and submission, and he supplied the vocabulary, because, while this was 1998, I had never been on the Internet for anything other than schoolwork, and had no idea what I was getting into. I only knew that it struck a chord deep within me and I wanted to explore it. So I did, with Ralph.
I was completely ignorant. I knew only what I’d always fantasized about, and the things he told me. I didn’t know that there were books in the library, that there were websites, that there was information available to me. I didn’t know how to protect myself, and the whole thing played out like a tragicomedy of errors. It was all a lesson in what the lifestyle isn’t, the importance of safewords (which he never once told me about), and the absolute necessity of a submissive t
o protect herself. He hurt me and I’m lucky that he didn’t cause some kind of permanent damage. As it was, I finally recognized when enough was enough and I walked away from the whole thing. I still had all the same desires; I just assumed that if that was what it was all about, that I was better off wanting it than having it.
But I was hungry for it. I craved it, needed it, and couldn’t stay away. So I read everything I could. I read books. I read websites, when I got a little older and had Internet access of my own. I read forums, essays, online diaries, anything I could find. I discovered that I was far from the only person to have these thoughts, and that there were safe and unsafe ways to “play.” I learned the lingo, I learned the accepted modes of behavior within the lifestyle, I learned about safewords and safe calls. I learned how to “play,” as we in the lifestyle call it - how to be a successful masochist. What I didn’t learn was how to submit. There just wasn’t any information out there that was really helpful in that area, at least not that I found.
Everything I read left me wanting more, wanting to experience it and learn what I couldn’t absorb through words on a page. And so I did. I am. And now, I’m sharing that with you.
This book isn’t about sadomasochism. It isn’t about technique, or toys. It won’t tell you how to find a partner, or build a scene (though negotiation is covered). This book is about the hearts and minds of submissives. While I would never claim to know all there is to know about being submissive, my goal is to help submissives, and those who own them, better understand what makes them tick. I chose to write this book because there are so many submissives who struggle valiantly to express themselves in words, but get frustrated when the words won’t come. It is my fervent hope that here, you will be compelled, at least once, to say, “Yes! That’s it exactly, what I’ve been trying to say all this time!” If that happens even once, then all that has gone into writing this book will have been worth it.
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