They Don’t Know
December 25th, 2007I’m home for the holidays. No, my parents don’t know what I do.
It’s easier than you’d think: in short, we don’t talk much.
With the college semester over, I’ve been on a vintage-dress kick lately. I spent the night before I left for Boston taking apart a 1950’s day dress and altering it to fit me: taking up the hem, dropping the waist, opening the collar to remove the ruffle. My family is far from dreadful, but lying to them is. I keep thinking about coming back home to sew new buttons on that dress.
In accordance to my recent dress obsession, I’ve been perusing the back archives of A Dress A Day (of interest more to sewing geeks than kinksters). She captures how I feel about dressing for sex, or really, dressing up at all. Dress should be evocative. It’s clothing as costume. It should tell a story.
You know that cranky feeling you get when you’ve tried to talk someone out of doing something stupid, something that might well backfire on them, and they go and do it anyway? That’s the cranky I have today, matched up with a little bit of a head cold. Somehow looking at this dress makes it slightly better.
I really like the completely superfluous straps. I think this would be a great dress for a gangster moll in a movie, because you KNOW, at some point, the Bad Man She Loves In A Hopeless Way will grab her by those straps. And you will have known that the Bad Man will do that from the first moment of seeing her in this dress, but no matter HOW MUCH you yell at the screen, she will never stop loving the Bad Man.
The two-tone version is pretty great, too, and of course, the jacket. But it’s the moll in red who first caught my attention. Why won’t she realize that the Bad Man is wrong for her, and that she should rat him out to the handsome G-Man instead? Because you can’t talk people out of doing stupid things, that’s why.
-A Dress A Day
I wish I were back in New York, like when I first started writing this entry: at the dungeon’s computer in my bustier and stockings and heels, mussed and flushed and just a little buzzed on a glass of red wine.
I check my email and see, “May I call you tomorrow, Ma’am?” Then I remember in in a moment of characteristic absentmindedness I’ve forgotten my charger in New York. I always joke that I’m a bad dom, and maybe that’s so, because damned if reading that doesn’t make weak in the knees.
New York symbolizes a lot of things to me. Freedom most of all. When I leave, I don’t like the person I’m supposed to be.
December 25th, 2007 at 1:24 am
If reading “May I call you tomorrow, Ma’am?” makes you weak in the knees, I would think that’s a sign that you’re more of a dom than you give yourself credit for.
Though, I am biased since I’m someone who gets weak in the knees when I’m required to ask for permission.
December 25th, 2007 at 2:29 am
The other day I listened to a woman speak about how happiness was, for her, the ability to say the things she sees right in front of her.
I think there’s a correlation here.
In any event, have a merry Christmas or, y’know, whatever it is you choose to do.
December 25th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
You left your charger in NYC? That explains why you didn’t pick up today.
Email me about tomorrow, k?
December 27th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I think most poeple don’t like the people they are supposed to be. I think the bulk of that group don’t realize they have choice in the matter.
By oneself, one can be whomever one likes, if one dares. Communities change this. They make it easier (”I’m not alone! I’m not crazy!”), but they also start to enforce their own standards and expectations - which the people in the community won’t notice, or will feel is ‘natural’ until someone calls them on it. People who won’t fit the mold where they are can attempt to conform, can radically unconform, or can find a community where who they want to be is more normal and accepted. Sometimes we even build those communities specifically to that intent. TES started as 5 guys who wanted to feel less alone. I’m not sure how CV started, because I’ve forgotten my history, but I bet that was also some people who wanted to feel less isolated.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I think I understand how you feel about ‘home’ and the city (though now, I don’t think of Long Island as home. Home is here, this apartment, me and my ratties. My parents house isn’t home.)
I always wish I were back in the city when I’m back with family - its only a half hour train ride away, but the city has become my refuge, the place where I can go and be ME and not have to try to be who my family think I am, or want me to be, when home. When I’m in the city, I don’t need to drink heavily to deal with the people around me. I don’t need to check my word, or stop and think about everything I might say, to see which is a slip up, or ‘not proper’. (That kills me - just about anything I ever say or do isn’t proper, but its ok to listen to my family talk about spics and niggers and how dangerous my area is coz of all the brown people. Thats ok, and if I say something about their language, ignorence or racism, I’m being out of line.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I made the opposite mistake of telling my parents everything. So the holidays were a lot of fighting. If I take too many steps forward with this career, though, I won’t have the option of being open. (”And what was this short story you just published?” asked my mother’s friend from church. Could I say it was about a girl getting a facial in a bar restroom?) But I guess my point is, either way it’s tough.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I can’t decide if my dad knows my proclivities or just made a very accurate quip. I’m going to a “party” tonight (actually, I’m checking out the local dungeon, might as well make the most of my time here). I’m being really vague about it and my dad goes “I bet it’s one of those S&M parties!”
Now I’m all paranoid.
Just thought I’d share
December 30th, 2007 at 9:50 am
It’s my first time posting here, so I should probably introduce myself. I’m just someone who’s a fan of you and your work, and a fellow switch/student from New York. I found your blog a month or so ago and check back every so often.
Its not easy being around the people you care about and not being able to share parts of yourself with them. More so the deeper you are into the whole culture.
I just wanted to say that I feel for your situation, and hope you had a great trip home, even though it can be difficult. Happy Holidays ^_^
December 30th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Nick,
I had the same experience with my father a few years back. I just try not to think about it!
January 4th, at 11:11 pm
SJ, I agree 100% about communities, and how they often don’t notice their own enforcement rules until called on it.
I sometimes wonder what my parents know and what they don’t. I have never been too forthcoming about my sex and love life to them. I think this is partly in reaction to my sister being overly forthcoming growing up. Mind you, I have never really gone far out of my way to hide things from them. I know they seemed to be happy when they thought my betrothal meant I was “over” poly and were disappointed when my sister pointed out that wasn’t true. I suspect they know of the kink, but don’t think about it much.