Over the course of the past three weeks I have received quite a few e-mails, comments and questions regarding the young woman and her statements about trusting me and respecting me.  Due to the influx of concern and curiousity I thought it would be best to address such matters here in my journal.  To begin it is extremely important for me to stress that the young woman has always demonstrated respect towards me as a human being.  The young woman is not rude to me nor does she communicate in any manner not becoming of her when she and I engage in a relaxed manner.  I have never felt nor experienced any level of disrespect from the young woman when we are sharing a conversation, when we are expressing our feelings or when we are merely just hanging out, watching a movie.  I would not participate in a relationship of any kind, with anyone if I felt disrespect, nor would my Master.

Where the young woman demonstrates a level of disrespect has to do with her growling or back talking to me when I am commanding her to behave, when I am commanding her to listen.  Although I do not appreciate it when the young woman does not listen to me, I understand where her behaviours come from and I take responsibility for such actions.  In the beginning I left all of the discipline, the consequences and the punishment to Master simply because it is not my natural place.  I am Master's slave, I obey him, I listen to him, with the exception of my brief exchange with Kandy, I have never been in control of a person in a sexual manner.  Both Master and I have learned from our errors and I am now an active participant when it comes to disciplining the young woman.  This realisation came from a great deal of thought and conversations between not only me and Master but also between the young woman and myself.  The young woman was forthcoming enough to share that in order for her to view me as a dominant, as someone to obey she "needed" me to be stern with her, to consequence her when she disobeyed.  This has not been an easy concept to grasp; however, I am more than willing to step forward and become a disciplinarian with Master, to show the young woman that I am in control, not her.   Along with that though comes the reality that the consequences I give are very different from Master's for Master's consequences are often expressed physically whereas my consequences are most often expressed emotionally/mentally.  This level of disrespect is not one I am concerned with though for I have no doubts that the young woman will progress positively the more I take control and I definitely am taking more control.

Okay, with that topic out of the way I feel comfortable moving on to the topic of trust.  In order to properly address the issue of trust I must back track ever so slightly and share a little bit of the history behind mine and the young woman's relationship.  It is fair to say that the young woman and I are exceptionally different on many fundamental levels.  This does not mean we have no similarities for we do; however, when it comes to our core being, we are extreme opposites, especially when it comes to emotion.  It is a fair assessment to say that I am emotionally driven more so than logically driven. I communicate with emotions, I analyze emotions, I read emotions, both spoken and silent.  Emotions are a huge part of my every day existence; however, for the young woman emotions have been something not expressed nor acknowledged and therefore whenever we tried to communicate with one another, we genuinely were speaking a different language.  It is my belief that because of our different dialect we struggled to find some common ground, to feel a connection and a connection was something I simply expected in order to continue playing/training her.

I am the first to admit that I did not explain myself as clearly as I could have when I told the young woman that we had to find some common ground, that she had to share some emotion with me in order for us to move forward. Regardless of how poorly I expressed myself, we did manage to communicate in a manner that satisfied my concern and the moment I expressed that I wanted to continue to train her, I never looked back.  I have only ever moved forward, focusing on how to train,  how to play with the young woman.  Although I have expressed numerous times that I do not wish to end training, that one conversation so many months ago, still spins the hamsters wheel inside of her mind and although my doubt dissipated during that weekend, hers has only intensified.

The knowledge that the young woman has feared that she would make me angry, angry enough to not want to train her any longer is something that, fortunately, the young woman expressed early on and therefore I have spent many hours, many conversations, many exchanges, many behaviours trying to demonstrate to the young woman that I was honest with my sentiments, that I did not speak in haste, that I meant what I said. Unfortunately, no matter what I do or say now, the young woman appears to be held hostage by her fear of being rejected, of being abandoned by us, by me should she say or do something that will cause me frustration, cause me to be upset.  Realistically, the young woman will behave in ways that I do not always find pleasant nor desired, she will say things and express herself in a manner that is not suitable for a pet.  I am very aware that mistakes will happen, that her emotions, her stubbornness will sometimes control her actions and that she will receive a consequence or even a punishment; however, unless the young woman lies to me or Master; unless the young woman tries to dominate/control me or Master, unless the young woman tires to control the relationship between me and Master; or unless the young woman actively and intentionally disrespects me and Master, there is no reason for me (or Master) to want to stop training her.

Trust is something that either exists or does not exist. Right now the young woman does not trust me with regards to wanting to continue training her and although it does not make me happy to learn this, I commend her for being honest and for sharing her feelings with me and Master.  There truly is nothing I can do to earn her trust nor do I believe I am required to have her trust in order to continue playing and training her.  What I do believe though is that in order for the young woman to continue playing and training with me and Master she will have to learn to trust me otherwise she will not feel safe enough to "let herself go", to play without reservations, to feel secure in the relationship she and I share and to grow from it.

I believe I have worked diligently to demonstrate that I am unwilling to simply give up on training the young woman. I have engaged in numerous conversations with the young woman and I have taken the time to show her that I am here for her by hugging her, cuddling her, encouraging her to share her feelings and voice her thoughts and concerns, by continuing to play with her even after we have had a disagreement and most recently, by continuing to train her even though she altered our agreement without even consulting me and Master.  I am not looking to stop our exchange; however, the cold, hard reality is, if the young woman doesn't  learn to trust me, eventually she will pull away or she will become despondent and that will eventually lead to fewer and fewer play visits and that will result in eventually no exchanges, no training and the end of our relationship.

I have faith though in the young woman and in both Master and myself and I do not foresee our exchange ending any time soon.  Actually after the conversation the young woman and I had earlier today, I would say that we are heading in a much happier and healthier exchange and much of that has to do with me communicating effectively with the young woman.  Carelessly, I had forgotten to share with her that I had changed my approach, my expectations with regards to her and the relationship she and I share and now that I have, I believe she and I are both in a better place.

Initially I approached the young woman from an emotional perspective, I wanted to have an emotional connection with her so that I felt comfortable playing sexually with her.  The entire situation was rushed simply because Master and the young woman were moving at warp speed and I needed to catch up. Generally I would not desire an emotional connection to happen so quickly; however, in order to move with Master and the young woman it was imperative that one took place, ergo all the pressure for the young woman to open up, to share with me.  Time has since passed and fortunately I trust the young woman enough to express herself when necessary, I trust her to be able to say her safe word, to not do something simply to be pleasing if it actually harms her emotionally.  I have also had time to look at myself and I have come to realise that I need to set emotions aside, to not concern myself with the young woman's feelings as much as I use to.  I will always care about her mental/emotional well being, to ensure she is psychologically stable; however, I expect her to take care of herself, to ensure she does not do anything that causes her to behave in self destructive behaviours.  I also trust her to communicate effectively, to ask for things she wants and to deal with things when she does not get what she wants.  I have also turned selfish to a degree. For instance, with regards to the young woman's lack of trust about me not wanting to train her anymore, that is no longer my issue, that is solely hers. If she never trusts me, that is not my concern. She has to work through that, she needs to deal with it and make the choice that makes her happy.  Should we engage in a conversation and she does say something that I negatively react to, she will have to cope with my response, she will have to work through her feelings of doubt.

This does not mean I do not care about her as a person, of course I do. I will always encourage her to share, to voice her feelings, to express herself. I would not want to take that away after she has learned so much, shared so much.  The difference is that sometimes I will care about what she is saying and other times I might simply tell her to shush.    This approach is definitely not my natural behaviour; however, this is what evolving is all about and in order for me to grow, to experience, I need to evolve.  I feel incredibly blessed to have a Master who has helped me get to this point and who continues to encourage my growth, encourages me to experience.

To many, many more days of fun and exploration.

~His

(Cartoon courtesy of Gary Larsen.)

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