Maybe It’s Time…

Last week I got a call from a friend in the local community. This person is very well known and highly respected. She has been very involved in the forming of important M/s discussion groups both in New York and in Colorado. She’s also very serious about her own identity as a Master (yes, that’s a male pronoun and no she does not identify as male) and passionate about the leather community. Our family got to know her primarily through mutual friends and because she is also passionate about being a mother. This is where we find the most common ground.

But, we too are very serious about our respective identities as Master and slaves. We have been involved in the public scene some, but not as much as I think we really would like to. Why? It’s simple really. Real life gets in the way. We have three children. Two of us have full time jobs and one of us is at home full time (don’t get me started on how hard it is to get a day off when you stay home!). So, we are busy people. When we do make an excursion into the public scene it’s almost never all three of us because someone stays home with the kids.

It used to be that this job always fell to me because I was not of legal age (21) to be in the public scene. Sure, I was old enough to vote, and to join the army and die, and to have sex with anyone I wanted, and to be in porn videos if I wanted, but I could not step foot in any BDSM clubs. So, I got to stay home. After turning 21 it’s gotten a bit more complicated. If He wants to go out he has to choose which of us he wants to take. If CC and I both want to go to an event we either have to beg him to stay with the kids, or work it out between us who is going to miss out. This often results in the two of us staying home because we don’t want to have to make that choice.

So, all that is to say that we don’t go out to the clubs too much. We do participate sporadically in a few groups, but that’s it. We also periodically host discussion groups out of our home. We are far more likely to host a game night or movie night that happens to include mostly fellow kinky people than we are to have an actual lifestyle event.

Yet, I think all three of us have occasionally felt the pull to be in leadership roles recently. Personally I’ve felt like the community really needs to reach out to the young people in the 18-21 group who are currently excluded. There are plenty of reasons why I haven’t pursued this, but it’s not really that important. I have also felt that our Master/slave dynamic is somewhat unique. Yes, there are other people who live it more seriously, but they are few and far between. This level of service and intensity is something I think we have to offer to the community at large. We bring a different perspective.

Then there is the poly aspect. I know one other poly family through the internet. Kudos to The Heron Clan for making it work. Locally there is one family I know, but they live separately in two different cities and the man travels between the two. They are the only ones. Every other poly person I know is either single, or a couple and plays with others on the outside. That’s not bad, it’s just different. I think this experience is something else that is unique within the community. We’ve also been around longer than anyone else locally as a poly family. Even monogamous M/s couples don’t seem to last as long as we have. We are starting to get firmly established as one of the “long term” groups around.

Back to the phone call. My friend told me that she really appreciates our participation in some of these groups and hopes to see us involved more. Then she said, “I know all of you have expressed frustration over not having many people with more experience that you can go to for advice. Maybe it’s time to really step up and take on a leading role now.” At the time I was a bit floored. I still haven’t figured out what exactly it would look like. But, I’m starting to think that maybe she is right. As the wise man said, “hmmmmmmm.”