Subversed

There's a version of me that kneels for my Dom. There's a version that overrules him on features. Last week I met both in the same hour, and I'm still turning it over. So I'm going to think out loud about it with you.

I was in a meeting with Rob, the co-founder of this app you all love. We're talking app stuff, roadmap, features, marketing, decisions that needed making. And somewhere in the middle of it, I noticed that our dynamic was way different than usual, because I was going through our agenda, noting things down, pushing back on some of his decisions, a very work-like meeting. Except that Rob is also my Dom.

The same man I kneel for. And there I was, overruling him on the roadmap.

And the side of me that usually comes out with him was nowhere to be found in that moment. The one who exhales when he takes control. The one who genuinely doesn't want to be the one deciding, who finds real rest in handing it over. In her place was my usual work side, who is very much in charge and making decisions all day long.

Here's what I know about all the parts of me: I'm dominant in most of my life. Work, the way I move through the world, the load I carry. I make a lot of decisions, and I'm good at it. And what I love about my dynamic with Rob, what I actually need from it, is that I get to put all of that down. I can stop holding it for a while and trust someone else to. That rest is real, and it matters to me more than I usually let on.

But we built something together, this app, that needs care and loving, as much as decisions from both of us. And in that space, I'm not his sub, I'm his co-founder. I don't want to shrink into a secretary in the room where we made this thing. And I don't want to drag the boardroom into the dynamic that lets me breathe.

So which one is it?

Submissive or girlboss? Turns out the honest answer is: both, depending on the room.

I used to assume these things lived in separate boxes. Work brain here, our dynamic over there, neat little labels, and the right version of me would show up on cue. But life doesn't sort itself that cleanly. Anyone who shares more than one kind of relationship with the same person knows the lines blur all the time: partners who are also business partners, lovers who co-parent, friends who collaborate. Add that to a s/D relationship and phew, what a brain-twister!

The submission I love is something I choose, the relationship with Rob and the way we handle ourselves in the bedroom is also something we both agreed on. So after trying to stick to business like meetings where we kept our identities separated, we realized that that wouldn't work. We can't just take one identity where more are also true and pretend to keep the other one to the side. That's exhausting, so we've now settled more on the "let's have an agenda, but let's make sure this meeting can take whatever form it wants to take." And for us that usually means that we talk business for a while, we sidetrack into our own little world of dominance, romance and other things and then go back to talking business at some point.

We don't have a system for it yet, we're just figuring out what works best for us, but this did raise the question for us of: how do we protect the spaces that let us be a version of ourselves we need, without going small in the spaces where we also have to show up fully?

So here's what I'd love to know. Have you ever held two roles with the same person? Two versions of yourself that both feel real? How do you move between them? Reach out on Reddit, Discord, FetLife or social, or just hit reply and tell me how you navigate it. I read every one, and I'm still figuring this out alongside you.

Meghan

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Subversed is the newsletter from SubTasks  ·  subtasksapp.com

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