Fear of the Not-Unknown

Ok, here is my attempt at my first 'real' blog post. Note - A standard disclaimer for the entire blog is that I'm generally not as sure of myself as I may sound, and realize mileage will vary, but have found that paradoxically, trying to put ink to paper, or the online equivalent thereof, to put down what I believe, is very often a good way for me to discover or get a better sense of what I believe, or sometimes just to further explore and better understand and refine what my views may be. And now: Fear of the Not-Unknown..

What do I mean by this, and why the double-negative? The reference I'm thinking of is to the very familiar phrase, "Fear of the Unknown" which, to varying degrees, is fairly universal, and naturally so.

Many of us have wondered as kids, what exactly is in that dark closet, or under my bed at night?

As adults, fear of the unknown is familiar as well: What will living in that new city, region, or neighborhood be like? What will happen with the economy and job market in the coming months and years? How will this new person, friend, or relationship turn out? And so forth.. (Meanwhile, the vanilla world wonders, what is this BDSM stuff anyway, what are they up to? While readers may wonder, what is this Carpe_Eros fellow like anyway, and what would happen if I contacted him?)

So Fear of the Unknown is quite familiar.

But we also have fear something becoming no-longer-unknown, no longer mysterious. Think of magic tricks, for example.

We worry that we might not enjoy, if we found out, if we knew..

In that example, the fear or concern might be justified. And yet there are so many examples of our society having a Fear of the Not-Unknown that have turned out to be unjustified.

The female body for example, and how much more important it used to be to have so much more of it covered. Don't get me wrong, I recoil against the crass titillation in so much of our media, which is not pro-sex or sex-positive but just a cheap way to get ratings. But there was an unhealthy earlier time when almost all of a woman's body had to stay covered. Imagine what society's reaction back then would be, if shown what a basic 1960s bikini...A reaction of "The end of the world! The masses would be running wild in the street, chaos, the end of civilization!"

Go back far enough and even revealing the woman's legs up to the knee was feared. Society wanted that to remain Unknown. And not just for what they thought were 'moral' reasons, but also the idea that, if women showing their legs up to the knee was common, "why, men would get used tot hat and not enjoy women's nudity anymore...maybe they'd even stop enjoying sex!" In fact we know that is not what happened. In fact we can look at the nudist community and find not a single person there who is "no longer interested in sex" or the body of their partner, as a result of "getting used to it" from their nudism.

So that was an unfounded 'fear of something becoming No Longer Unknown.

What about scientific discoveries? "Why, if we probe too deeply into the mysteries of the world, that would be sacrilege, or at the very least, it would ruin the Mystery, the supreme Beauty, the Awe!"

And what happened in practice? Quite the opposite! We look at the eyes of a bee or the wings of a butterfly under a microscope, view vastness of the milky way galaxy.. We learn about the incredible intricate relationships in nature among plants, animals, microbes..even the ones inside us which keep us and our internal ecology healthy and well...we start to peel away the mystery of electricity look at thunder and lightning no longer as the result of angry gods, but instead come to understand the basics of how and why these work..the list goes on and on..and in most if not all cases, the mystery and beauty and awe not only fail to diminish, but are heightened!

Sex itself suggests another case where society has a (I would argue, also unfounded, and counterproductive) Fear of the Not-Unknown. It's yet another area where society wants to say, "Here there be dragons"

Today's version is less extreme: maybe not "avoid this outside of the confines of Official, Organized Religion-sanctioned marriage" not that anymore, not 'evil' dragons..but the idea that we must "keep it a mystery" to some extent is all around us. This is a big topic, and I want to conclude by turning to the narrower world of D/s, where similar notions apply.

At the very least, whether the larger world of sexuality or the microcosm of D/s (BDSM to some..you say tomato, I say tomahto) the notion that if we understand our innermost desires too well, much less, if we try to or actually start to understand WHY we have them, well, that would ruin the fun, the sexual desire, the arousal!

I shall not claim that there is nothing to this concern. To be sure, must as I love to analyze and philosophize about D/s and must else, I don't want to be doing so while I'm in the middle of passionate play...at least not most of the time (there are times when a time out to discuss makes sense, for example...but then we're no longer "at play" but on pause from it)

That disclaimer aside, I guess I want to argue that there is nothing to fear, or at least, much less to fear than we might think, as far as the risk of, the fear of, "losing the magic" of the sensual or erotic element of our relationship(s).

Quite to the contrary, we can become better lovers (vanilla or otherwise) and in my case, a better Dom, by thinking a lot about What it is that makes D/s special, and the very multi-layered, difficult question of Why that is, and of How to approach it.

In an email from a woman who read my first full length erotic story, The Spanking, comes to mind. She spoke of her own (initial) discomfort with how my writing had pealed back the curtain of some of the psychological aspects of D/s...she was afraid of the no-longer-unknown, and what that might do to reduce eroticism. My fantasy included a lot of indirect hints and even direct indications of my understanding of what goes on inside the world of the female sub's mind and emotions So having read that fantasy, I can remember the words she used in her email to me: "I was at first uncomfortable with, then I accepted, and finally I found myself completely luxuriating in" my writing style which had laid more than a little bit of the female sub's Inner World, bare and on display for the reader...and this (as well as Fear of the Not-Unknown) was perhaps a bit embarrassing or just uncomfortable, before she later not only got used to it but "luxuriated" in it emotionally, as well as getting quite hot, aroused, and wet, from reading it.

To those who are wondering, yes, this is the same woman as the one I mention in my profile as having said to me after she and I had been in person, that I seem to know things about a women's emotions, psychology, and arousal, that she had thought only women knew (and she had made love to women as well as men, in her past experiences, to boot)

So, Yes Virginia, we can truly open our eyes, including in D/s, and not lose the eroticism and the magic. It's not like opening our eyes and seeing "hey, that's not Santa, that's my parents! Now it's no fun anymore!" but instead we find that we've peeled away a few more layers, just as with Nature and science or vanilla eroticism, the fun, arousal, and yes, the sheer "dirty" and "naughty" aspects are not gone, are not lost!

Sure, while we think about them, analyze them intellectually, at those moments, we may temporarily have no libido (or more likely, still a libido reaction, just not full blown..!) but afterwards? when we've gained in perspective and maybe even in wisdom, having stepped back to look at the big picture, and having peered into some deep wells of desire, and past the peaks of some rough mountain ranges, what do we find? We return to our erotic center with more powerful passion.

In short, the farther we travel to learn more about the erotic world, the higher we climb to peer down, the deeper we delve underground beneath, the more powerful we can upon our return find ourselves even more strongly resonating with our sexual Home, at the altar. And yes, we Doms/Dommes, when we are at a "Peak Experience" we too, like you subs, cry tears of joy, tears of release, tears of catharsis, and release..at least on the inside, during and after our deepest personal connections to you, to ourselves, and to the universe, standing there under the stars, at our erotic altar...

So that's what I wanted to say. As you can see I can tend to write some long entries...and this first entry is one that grew out of my thoughts merely about the kinds of posts I'd like to do in the future! This blog will try to unravel and with love and respect, to expose and explore what is there in the dark, the How and Why behind aspects of our D/s desires (seeing even how Dom and sub while very different on the surface, and female and male or whatever D/s orientation, have much in common in this deeper world) and come out of it, hopefully, a bit wiser, or at least with new and useful perspectives..less afraid of the dark, but also less afraid of the Not Dark...less afraid to look inside our souls, and in a way that is compassionate towards others and towards ourselves, to let our spirits grow and evolve..

© 2011 Carpe_Eros

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope you found it worthwhile. Comments need to be approved before appearing but I would enjoy hearing from you in the comments or by email message.