Frog anxiety

There's a well-known metaphor about a frog that goes like this: If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out right away.  But if you put a frog in a pot of lukewarm water, and then set the pot on the stove, the frog will boil to death.



My experiment in BDSM isn't going well.  I've lost my objectivity.  Not that I've been objective about it when I started anyway, because of my unflattering preconceptions of doms.  But with emotions mixed in, this whole experiment became mixed up.  I can't even analyze what's what and where things are coming from and why certain emotions are coming up and whether they're BDSM emotions or something else.  It's all a big mess.

Wolfgang has been very gentle with me.  Too gentle.  And sometimes, I regret that I tell him about my worries and anxieties about the whole BDSM RP that we are doing.  It made him nervous.

I think he himself noticed it when he said that I had become "soft."  Initially, I thought that he meant I had become more tender, more loving in the RP.  Maybe he meant something else.  Maybe he meant I've become more fragile.

We were transitioning into a different type of RP, but I felt that we had to give the old one some closure.  Even he said, when I initially expressed my concern about this RP, that it was like throwing a book away before finishing it.  Then later, it was I who insisted on finishing the RP, even though it is uncomfortable for me.

So, last night, we started a scene in our RP that's part of the transition to the new one. It was a female-to-female scene and he was using one of his female alts.  Then in the middle of the scene, he asked OOC if I was enjoying the RP.  Damn.  Why did he have to ask?

I told him that it feels a little awkward, and I jokingly added that I'd survive.  He didn't understand what I meant by "awkward" and he asked me to explain.  I said that the scene was for him and that I don't have to enjoy it.  (He had mentioned once that he enjoys watching female-to-female seduction.)

I said, "I've never had sex with a woman irl, so I don't have the experience to draw from.  And I don't have the inclination to, so it doesn't arouse me."  There was a long pause before he responded, so I kept babbling.  I had a feeling he would protest. He always insisted that he wouldn't do anything unless we were both getting pleasure out of it.

He said that he thought I had some female-to-female experience in SL in the past, and he figured that I might enjoy it, if the other female was more agreeable.  I had told him about a foursome experience I had with a lover and two of his female lovers, one of whom was a dom who hated me, probably because that lover preferred to be with me.

I explained to Wolfgang that that experience was when I was very new in SL.  At that time, I didn't know how to RP and all I did was simply sit on a poseball and my lover did everything else.  I was able to dissociate.

But Wolfgang refuses to do anything where I have to dissociate from my avatar.  He says it makes him feel lonely to be the only one gaining pleasure from it.

He told me a story of one of his affairs where his partner pretended to enjoy the female-to-female interactions and even encouraged it.  When he found out that she didn't enjoy it at all, it sullied his enjoyment of it and he stopped seeing her.  I told him it was the lie that soured the relationship, not the fact that he was the only one who enjoyed it.  But he disagreed.

He started wrapping up the RP scene, skipping what he had originally planned.

I asked, "Why can't you accept a gift?"


But he is stubborn and so am I.


I worry that without the BDSM, he would be bored and move on.  He worries that without BDSM, our relationship wouldn't be special anymore and he would be just another lover in my life.  It didn't comfort him when I explained that each of my relationships is special.  There is always something that sets each one apart from the others.  And when I miss a lover, I miss that specific lover.


At the same time, the more I think about BDSM, the more I hate the concept.  And, yes, I understand that "hate" is a strong word.  And, yes, I understand that the intensity of my reaction to it is probably a reflection of my own psyche fighting my shadow side.  (That last sentence is for you psychologists out there.)  And that's probably another reason I'm delving into this.  To face my demons and learn to accept my shadow side.

I don't know where this would go.  I don't know what would happen when we get on the other side.  His caring, his concern for my emotional well-being and my enjoyment, his empathy all touch me and awe me.

But I worry that that same gentleness, in the context of BDSM, might be even more dangerous, like the lukewarm water that slowly heats up.  I wouldn't know when to jump out, and then it'll be too late.

Rib-bit.