Work in progress

@staff your website is failing because you asked the people what they want and when they tell you, you refuse to believe them. We want porn, but we want it safer. Victims and survivors need to be protected, but this ‘hurt the many to save the few (i.e. your obsession with being 'marketable’ so you can turn starving artists’ desperate pleas for security into piles of delicious money) approach sucks. For everyone, but most of all you because this website is imploding like a dying star. If you want to know how to make us stay? Stop listening to gatekeepers and bullies and Nazis and crazy people. Listen to us. Not them. We’re smart, we want this community to succeed as much as you do! But any community requires teamwork. You have to work *with* us. And maybe we haven’t been the nicest in the past but dude this is literally your website. You’re allowed to grab the wheel from us if we’re steering blindly off a cliff because this is your fucking car.

Do the right thing.

Thank you for your time.

Cackle.

I started on Tumblr soon after it was created with a vanilla blog. Since then, hardly a day has gone by that Tumblr wasn’t a part of my life. I have made excellent friends on Tumblr over the years. In fact, MOST of my friends came from relationships I made via Tumblr. The precious, bubbly cupcake that is in my bed? Tumblr. So you can imagine how painful Tumblr’s announcement has been for me.

I love seeing the marginalized communities that are shunned elsewhere on Planet Earth have a safe place to exist and be themselves. It always made me smile when I see a Tumblr blogger ease out of their shells, steadfastly into the world.

Well, that shit is no more.

As some of you may have noticed I started a community effort to rescue these communities. I want everyone involved because it will be our garden, our club, our safe space to be ourselves.

And the new site (name to be withheld until we have something to show) is not just for kinksters, I want vanillas too; artists, witches, horror writers, brewmeisters, budtenders, book sluts, fandoms of all types, beat poets, wilderness photographers, Burners, vampire hunters, Dungeons and Dragons players, and rocket scientists. Hell, I want people who just want to blog about cats and cabins in the woods.

What we won’t tolerate are bullies, minors, Nazis (and their fucked up allies), abusers or trolls. They can fuck right off to a cesspool of their choice.

I am putting up the cash to get this started PLUS I am making this a community effort, that is why I am being so transparent about the process with our Discord planning group. Yes, it is chaos. We have taken on an INSANE project to get done in less than 2 weeks. Well, 9 days now.

This isn’t my first rodeo. I am actively trying to keep my anonymity as long as I can, but I know it will soon be spugged out in due order soon. You will then see what I have done in the past and learn about a very vanilla project that has been near and dear to my heart. You have probably heard of it and maybe even participated!

The beta site will not be perfect. It will be good but not perfect. Hell, we have been suffering with “far from perfect” with Tumblr now for years. It is my hope that our community can put up with our rough edges for a little while.

Where we are tonight is pretty good. We have selected a host, got our software loaded, installed the Linux packages required and are now getting those packages to play nice with one another. We had it working for a bit until a small issue with the registration page required some elbow work.

I am working on the branding and marketing with a bunch of really smart pervs in our Discord group. I am really proud of all of our volunteers and want to thank them all. 

If you want to volunteer or simply eat popcorn and watch the porn riots, please use this invite link: https://discord.gg/jVempgb

Remember, Discord is just the site we are using for planning, not the actual site we are moving to.

Many of you have asked about the Library For Kinksters, it will be archived and placed on the now site.

We plan to allow you to import your Tumblr blog over to our new site but Tumblr may have other ideas. Other services have been using Tumblr’s API for exporting and now Tumblr now seems to be shutting down that API functionality.

That is all for now. Keep your heads held high and remember you are ALL FUCKING AMAZING PEOPLE!

- Dominant Life

P.S. Please reblog the shit out of this. Santa may drop a slutty elf off at your house for Christmas!

Some good news, I’ve been talking to two developers now and got them working together, we just had a meeting with the guys behind an existing large (millions of users) site similar to Tumblr, with a vibrant and open-minded community, and more importantly, it has open-minded owners who believe in free speech. They think we can get something done here to rescue the whole community.

I’m not allowed to reveal the site name yet. I can tell you it’s mainstream, open to everyone, open-minded and welcoming. (It’s not WordPress or any site owned by Facebook or Twitter. It’s not Pillowfort, that’s in closed beta. It’s not Ello, that’s mainly for artists. It’s not kinkspace or fetlife, those are too specialist. It’s not jux, that seems to be closed. It’s not Soup, that seems still in development and too small.)

One of the reasons for delaying the announcement for next few days is they don’t want a “land grab” where people take the names of current popular Tumblr users over there (cyber squatting). So they are looking at ways for existing Tumblr users to keep the same names on the new site.

More info over the days to come.

The plan is, broadly:

1. By December 9th, announcement of the new site and how to secure your username there

2. By December 10th, an online tool for bloggers to copy their existing content to the new site automatically, with the same tags and captions.

3. Bloggers will need to copy their content across between December 10th and December 17th if they want to use the automatic tool.

4. My understanding is that after December 17th there will be no public access to any “flagged” posts on Tumblr, but the original poster will still be able to see the flagged post (for a short time at least). Therefore, the original poster may still be able to manually download a post to their own PC or phone, after December 17th, and manually upload it to the other site. But if you have lots of posts that will take a long time, it will be better to use the automatic tool before December 17th.

Please understand that these dates are approximate and may change for technical or other reasons.

There may be a few rough edges or not so perfect looking site design on the transfer tool. Everyone is doing their best. The main goal here is to help as many people as possible preserve access to their content, in the short space of time Tumblr has allowed us, and preserve as much as possible of the Tumblr community spirit somewhere new.

The new site will cater for photo, GIF, text and html posts. It will not offer video and audio posts, due to cost reasons - maybe in future, but for now you will need to preserve video and audio content yourself in some other place.

If your Tumblr blog has a mixture of original content and reblogs, or all reblogs, all of that can be copied over to the new site. Reblogs will become “your” original content if nobody else posted them yet, otherwise they will be shown as reblogs. The devs are looking at ways to preserve attribution of reblogs back to the original Tumblr poster, if that person also moves to the new site.

Important: your Likes cannot be copied from Tumblr to the new site. You will have to go find the same posts again on the new site, and like them afresh.

(Similarly, existing reblog comments, asks, messages and other user interaction on Tumblr cannot be copied to the new site - that’s just too much to do, in the short time available.)

If you want to preserve any of your existing Liked posts on Tumblr, you will need to either: (1) download the post to your own PC, or: (2A) reblog it now to your own Tumblr blog, and then (2B) use the automatic tool, before December 17th, to move your whole Tumblr blog across to the new site.

If you have Liked a lot of posts here on Tumblr, the gridllr.com webapp should be able to help you do steps 1 and 2A quickly, I mean download or reblog.

(Someone complained to me today about the appearance of Gridllr on a phone. It’s best to use Gridllr on a PC, Mac or Tablet with a large screen.)

If you have liked a post here on Tumblr and the original poster decides to delete it, or even to delete their entire blog, some time before December 17th, then that post will be permanently lost. So if you want to be sure to preserve any of your Liked posts, you should best download or reblog as soon as possible. If it’s reblogged to your own blog it is safe from deletion, at least for next few days.

She rolled away from him and instantly tears started rolling down her face. One by one they silently puddled at the corners over eyes, finally spilling down in their sudden, silent release.

No one had really adequately explained the flood of emotions she would feel, none of the books could quite explain it, and the imagery ignored it all together. Nothing could have prepared her for what she was feeling, waves of angst emanating from her heart, mixing with the burn on her skin, her mind screaming in protest.

She hadn’t really agreed to this, had she? She couldn’t really want THIS.

The palm of his hand stung more than he had anticipated and the silence hanging in the air was thick and deafening. Based on everything he had seen, and the things he had imagined, this was not how it was supposed to be. He had dreamed of something sexier: a punishment delivered by an obedient and graceful, “thank you, Sir.” But all there was between them was muddled air.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now, he fumbled for strength, for words, for some way to reach her and reclaim the chemistry that had existed beforehand, but he couldn’t. Ten minutes ago things were beautiful, sexy. Now there nothing but pain and silence, and the unmistakable odor of anger, and hurt - an unspoken but unambiguous certainty.

Her mind, body, and soul ached, needing something - needing release. Instead of screaming, she cried. One by one her tears fell, a slow, steady saline deluge, their wetness spreading as they were absorbed by the pillowcase. She fancied herself strong and proud but her she was, broken. She felt like a child, and it made her unbearably angry. The humiliation of being spanked like a petulant child, and lectured, it was all too much. This is not what she had signed up for.

He had been so upset when she had smarted off to him, and she certainly had earned her punishment. But he felt like he had handled it correctly. The rules had been laid out in advance, she knew the consequences of her actions. They had talked about it afterwards, discussed what was going to happen… He had followed all the best advice and yet here they were, all at once inches apart, and miles away, the distance between them daunting, the ability to bridge it, wanting.

He swallowed hard, the fear of her reaction forefront in his mind, but still he leaned over and draped his arm around her, and then, gently but firmly and all at once, pulled their bodies together. The distance covered, their naked bodies pressed securely to one another, he leaned in and kissed her head, her hair tickling his nose. Pausing there for a moment he smelled the citrus of her scent, inhaling gently, and allowing her scent to consume him. With no discernible reaction, he braved forward, gently kissing her neck and shoulders. He wasn’t trying to fuck her, he just needed her to know that despite the firmness of his hand, she was loved. Deeply, truly, passionately, and completely loved. Her loved her as much and any man could ever love a woman. The tears that had been puddling in her eyes became a river, and she sobbed a painful relent.

His hand had startled her at first, she didn’t know if she was expecting it or not. She didn’t know what to expect. Emotionally she was already wrecked beyond repair, and so when his fingers gripped her waist and pulled her close she didn’t know how to react. Quietly and defiantly, she accepted it. But there was something unmistakably soothing about his skin, and his strong hand that felt comforting, and when his lips found her hair she finally fell apart, the cracks in her ethos giving way all at once to a torrent of feeling, and as his lips found her neck, she cratered. She loved this man, and for him she would indeed give everything. She’d suffer her humiliations, and she’d strive with things impossible to be everything she could - for him. With her hands she grasped his and held him firmly, nuzzling her body closer to his warm, strong chest. She hated him for the way he had made her feel, yes. But she loved him for it too, oh god did she love it. She needed it.

Lets talk about the submissives who were owned and have been recently released from their most recent relationships with their Dominant. Perhaps it was a relationship that had its good points as well as bad, like most relationships had a growing sense of love, but with many differences to difficult to resolve. The struggles with these submissives was/is who they are outside of the “ownership” that they had grown accustomed to?

…

Every submissive has a time where they will be unowned, whether it is new or where they have been released by mutual agreement or by default. I hear stories of unowned submissives who struggle to identify themselves without the tug of the Dominant. They allow themselves to be filled with self doubt, identity crisis, and a drop from the lack of leadership that a Dominant provides.

It is important to remember the submissive psyche that we all carry. The traits and the strengths that make up the submissive core. The core of the submissive is a primal one. It has everything to do with your own natural and nurtured self. You are valued by your attributes, you are seen and admired.

When you are not in a relationship these attributes do NOT go away. The beauty remains, and one day someone will walk into the room and all will become evident. As we move through life we never know what will happen. Hearts and minds change, conflicts arise, sickness comes. The fact is every D/s relationship has an end on earth. There will always be a Dominant without a submissive and the submissive without the Dominant.

The unowned submissive must be able to look in the mirror and say, I am beautiful, I am strong, I am a submissive. Every day is a day to learn, a day to do more, a day to grow in their submission. They should not rush or worry about finding “the one”.

WE OFTEN FIND WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR WHEN WE STOP LOOKING.

Subdrop is not what happens when a submissive goes skydiving. 

Without wanting to oversimplify or resort to the use of declarative statements, SUBDROP is usually the result of BDSM impact play. Impact play can include things like heavy spanking, paddling, flogging, caning, whipping, etc… Without wanting to get into too exhausting of detail, the application of PAIN results in the release of two key chemicals in the body: 1) Adrenaline. Adrenaline is released at the onset of pain as part of the fight-or-flight response. It significantly enhances the heart rate, dilates the pupils to allow more light in, makes you more sensitive to touch. It causes your blood to flow to the core of your body and away from your extremities to enable you to function a little more efficiently. 

In the moment, adrenaline can be hard to notice, it comes on so fast and so hard that you don’t always realize it. But when you come down from the adrenaline, it crashes on you. You feel cold because you blood has moved away from your extremities. You feel shaky because your mind is crashing, and you might even feel a little feint as your blood pressure which was moments ago sky-high, is now plummeting. 

2) Endorphins: Endorphins are a really cool chemical that the body produces to make us feel good when maybe we shouldn’t. It helps makes pain. When you laugh for example, you body releases them to mask the pain that is caused by the spasming of your abdominal muscles. The rush can’t last forever unfortunately, and eventually laughing happily turns into laughing so hard that it hurts. That’s because the endorphins are wearing off and suddenly you can feel the discomfort (or pain) that your body was masking. 

When pain is applied to a submissive by their dominant, the body releases massive doses of endorphins to counter-act the painful sensations, and the release of them can actually make the experience of pain, quite pleasurable. It’s been compared to morphine, and can make the submissive feel like they’re flying or having an out-of-body experience. 

That’s SUBSPACE. 

If you’ve ever had the privilege of seeing great sadists and masochists play together, you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about and how beautiful it can be. It’s also why a dominant must be very good at understanding where their submissive is at, and well attuned to their facial expressions and orientations. Dominants, even deeply sadistic ones, care about, love, protect, and cherish their submissives, and that care can be seen in the intensity of their attentiveness.

The drop (subdrop) of course comes afterwards. When the impact play stops, so does the bodies dump of chemicals. Suddenly the paddling that hurt at first, then became pleasurable - now REALLY hurts. And the feeling of flying that the submissive was experiencing is now a physical and emotional CRASH. The submissive is likely in a fair amount of pain, potentially disoriented, light headed or dizzy due to the lack of blood (and therefor oxygen to the brain as the body pooled it’s resources internally), and certainly emotionally drained due to any adrenaline that is still pulsing through their veins. 

That’s why AFTERCARE is so critical. 

You’ll see the submissive come down from the St. Andrews cross, off the spanking bench, or out of the stocks and be held and loved by their dominant in a nice quiet, safe space where they can be together, alone. Snuggles will be had, lotions will be applied, hair will be stroked, tears will be kissed away. Away from the noise, away from everything. Free to take what was an intense physical experience and manifest it as an intensely emotional experience. 

The Paradox of Dominance & Submission

Simply being a partner in a D/s relationship confers no inherent advantage, no guarantee of happiness nor fulfillment. Like any relationship, it thrives only when each partner accepts their responsibility as one half of an intricate dance, making a conscious daily effort to celebrate their partner.

The paradox that every woman exploring submission must eventually learn to understand and accept is that in accepting his collar, and clicking her leash into place, she is not becoming a slave: she is being set free. It is not a man, but her freedom from inhibition, and the freedom to become who she has always wanted to be that she is giving herself to.

In an altercation/argument: One of the skills that you learn in counseling is that it can be a useful tool to step away from a situation when something becomes too stressful. To walk away and process your thoughts, and calm yourself down. 

However, this period should be brief. Somewhere from five minutes to an hour. You still have to address the situation, after all. Provided you do, this type of behavior is healthy and beneficial to constructive communication. 

As a form of manipulation/emotional abuse: Leaving someone with the feeling of being abandoned, and the fear that the silence creates is trait of emotionally abusive people. 

When they’re upset/not getting their way/being challenged on their bullshit, emotionally abusive people will simply throw up their hands in the air, say something callous or cruel, and then leave the abused person to wait in radio silence. 

And wait. 

And wait. 

And they will keep waiting until one of two things happens: 

The abused person caves in and tries to reconcile. Then they will either “offer to forgive,” or “forgive” the one who’s been the victim of their abuse. In doing so reinforce that they (the abuser) are always in the right, and the abused is always in the wrong.

The abused person calls their bluff. Then they’ll slide into the reconciliation stage of abuse, where they will throw sweetness and kind words at their victim to paper over the abuse. This will last a short while until the next argument comes back, and then they’ll fall back into precisely the same behavior. It’s a cycle. 

BDSM relationships require the absolute highest level of communication skill. Far more than in any other kind of relationship due to the incredibly sensitive nature of the concepts and acts we explore and enjoy. SILENCE IS NEVER OK IN BDSM. If your dominant or your submissive is not able to communicate in a healthy and consistent way at any point in time, you need to leave them before you get hurt. 

I don’t get upset often or easily, but even when I do, I talk it out. And so does literally every other dominant, man or woman, I’ve ever met who was worthy of the title. 

And let’s be clear, Shades: silence isn’t degrading, it’s abusive. 

Hi there, Anon. I almost didn’t even dignify this with a response, but I think you’ve actually given me a good opportunity to say something that new doms need to know, so kudos to you. 

First and foremost, let’s establish something right here and now: You don’t get to tell me what I am, and you are damn sure not the leading authority on what does and does not constitute a dominant. For the record, I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be a dom. I never even thought of myself that way until I met belovedsangi 10 years ago. I always had the characteristics of a dom, sure, but I didn’t ever put that title on myself. That title was given to me by my submissive. SHE is the one who wanted to call me Master, and Sir, and sometimes Daddy. I never told her to do these things. But of course, you probably think I am making your point for you and that if I were a REAL domly dom, I would’ve demanded those things. 

And that’s where you have a fundamental issue understanding the meaning of the title. So let me help you with that. 

A dom does not demand respect. He conducts himself in such a way as to be worthy of respect. 

A dom does not bark commands. His presence is such that he can seduce and command with nothing more than a glance. 

A dom does not raise his voice. He is the kind of man who gets what he wants without needing to. 

A dom is not a braggart. He is possessed of a calm, quiet confidence that is evident in his demeanor, the way he walks, the tone of his voice, and all other aspects of him. 

A dom understands balance. He knows that while a firm hand and discipline are critical in this type of relationship, knowing when to be gentle and understanding is every bit as important. 

A dom is a gentleman first and foremost. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is a fancy man who values the finer things in life, but he does understand manners and protocol. He opens the car door for her. He orders for her if she is having trouble deciding. He treats strangers with courtesy and respect. 

A dom is a protector. He makes sure that his submissive feels safe and protected at all times. This means so much more than just telling her you will protect her. A dom shows her. He keeps a hand on her shoulder or on her waist in crowds so she doesn’t get nervous. He sleeps on the side of the bed closest to the door so that he is always between his submissive and an intruder. He walks on the side of the sidewalk closest to the street so that an errant vehicle will hit him before his submissive. If anything or anyone should threaten his submissive, he must be prepared to fight for her with the ferocity of an alpha wolf. 

A dom earns her submission. It is not a thing to be demanded, expected, or assumed. And he continues to earn it, each and every day.  

A dom values her submission. Fully submitting your will and trusting your body and well-being to someone takes a kind of strength most can’t imagine, and a dom never loses sight of that. 

A dom understands that being a dominant is 10% privilege and 90% responsibility. He is literally taking her life into his hands. He is accepting the most sacred and important thing she has to give. He is taking her burdens and bearing them as his own, always, every day. 

A dom is consistent. He understands that he can’t just be her protector, lover, confidant, master, etc. when he feels like it. There will be days when a dom is tired. There will be days when he is stressed. There will be days when he is broken. On those days, it is more important than ever for a dom to show his submissive that he is still everything she needs him to be. 

So what does it mean, then, to be a dom? I get the feeling that you, anon, would say that it’s all about making her kneel, having your way with her, shouting orders and using her. Helpful hint: Any jackass can buy himself a whip and bark commands. That’s not a dom. Don’t get me wrong, I do absolutely have my way with belovedsangi. I love it when she kneels. I love the kinky, rough, mind-blowing sex we have. I love to dominate her in the bedroom. But for every moment of that, there are a hundred moments of holding her, of talking to her, laughing with her, gaming with her. There are a hundred moments of making her feel safe when she is afraid, giving her confidence when she is unsure, comforting her when she feels troubled. Those are all things that a dominant does too. 

I love my submissive more than I love oxygen. I love my submissive with a fire that can never be extinguished. I value her and respect her in every way. I treat her like a queen and fuck her like a slave. These things don’t make me weak. They don’t make me less of a dominant. These things make me stronger than you can possibly imagine. There is nothing quite so formidable as a dominant who has found the perfect submissive to fuel his fire. Never will you see anyone love so strongly or fight so fiercely. 

Bottom line, Anon, is this: you sound like a boy playing at being a man. You decided one day that you were sick of women having willpower and a voice of their own, so you decided to call yourself a dominant and seek out some weak-willed submissive who wouldn’t talk back to you or stick up for herself. You are not a dom. You are a jackass with a whip. Classic case of toodomforyou.