[Bit]

Originally Posted by Jess

While reading through this thread, I keep stopping and scratching my head just a little as I am trying to understand why it was placed in the gender, label, id forum instead of in the BDSM forum. I think because so very much of the "issue" that is originally written about is very specific to the "power exchange" relationship, which is more readily accepted and discussed within the "power exchange" community, it may be better served being *there*.

Hi, Jess. I can't speak to most of your post, but I can tell you that I appreciate this thread being out in the wider forums, so to speak, since I don't read the BDSM forums and would have missed out on it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I've been Mama in several relationships with boys, one a Transman, several of them Butches; I've also informally been Mama to several bois/boys and girls/grrls, not as part of a sexual relationship but in an extended family way during times that they needed extra support. I am most decidedly not Leather, nor a part of the BDSM community; none of my Mama/b/g relationships have been about Leather, BDSM, or kink (not even the sexual ones).

The gender issues I as a Mama have run into in the community have been from Butches and Transmen, all of them Daddies or Syrs/Sirs who were... oh, a polite way to describe their reactions to me... um... highly threatened by the idea that anyone at all might think they would allow a woman (interestingly, they ALL insisted on referring to me as a woman even when I said I preferred to be called a femme) to dominate them in any way. The impression I got was that it was extremely threatening to them to allow themselves even to seem to be vulnerable to strong female energy; they were only comfortable if they were clearly in control of and dominating that energy.

I always took this to be an issue that was individual to the people in question, rather than an issue that was widespread in the butch/femme community. I see from reading this thread that I may have been wrong, and that there seem to be way more people (of all gender IDs) who are threatened than I previously realized.

In my experience, put-downs and disrespect usually come from people trying to mask their own vulnerabilities and fears behind scathing derision. I'm sorry that any of us ever has to endure that... and I'm also sorry that anyone has to feel so threatened, so insignificant and frightened, that they would only feel safe by putting others down and treating their relationships with disrespect. That's really sad that so many of us might be so badly hurt in that way, yanno?

About switching, it's been my personal experience that my relationships are received easily and treated with respect by people who know that we switch between Daddy/girl and Mama/boy. I suspect, having read the thread, that it might not be such an easy thing if Gryph and I were to say that Gryph was only my boy and that I was the dominant one in the relationship.

The truth is that we're both dominant and--at the same time--we're both equals. I know that sounds complicated but actually it's the simplest relationship I've ever had. We both check in quite frequently to make sure the other's needs are met, and we're both always willing to compromise to make the other happy.

I think maybe what makes other people comfortable with our relationship structure is that we meet not just one but two stereotypes at once: some people see the dominant butch, and some see the equal feminist lesbians.

We just see each other.