By Miles Whitney
Copyright ©2024
I am the “s,” the right side of the slash. After I married Karen, my taste for the extreme compelled me to sacrifice two things I cherished: money and sex.
I was earning good money as a lawyer. I owned my home. Giving money away only highlighted my ability to withhold. Money was power. Money created dependence. I loved the power, but it was not entirely compatible with my role in our D/s relationship structure.
I sacrificed money by agreeing to deposit the bulk of my income into our joint account, over which I abandoned control. I also ceded the power to make financial decisions. I kept a significant allowance back and the agreement was not enforceable in a court of law. But the agreement was a contract, a vow, with its own sober weight.
Sacrificing money scared me before I did it, despite my deep yearnings. As soon as we started, however, the arrangement felt natural and deeply comfortable. Karen wielded their new power gently and responsibly.
As my thoughts became words, that became action, my life was transformed. A significant amount of responsibility for, and entanglement with, the mundane fell away. The restrictions paradoxically freed me. Night after night I dreamt vividly of water in the desert. My creative and spiritual life flourished.
The success of the money experiment inspired me to sacrifice more. I considered increasing the proportion of my income that would go into the joint account, or further restricting my access thereto. Karen rejected those proposals, stroking my head and whispering, “You need your own money.”
In this process, I considered Karen’s idea of alignment. Karen hoped that we could be in alignment on values, ideas, and in our approach to the world. I decided that I disagreed with the whole concept. Alignment implied equality; the antithesis of us. Alignment could happen between equals, by chance, for example two devout people meeting and marrying within the same faith. Alignment could also be achieved through movement by one or both parties.
Alignment required no hierarchy. Even assuming for the sake of argument that I would always be the accommodator, I would have to consciously decide to move in case of disagreement. I would have to take some action, probably repeatedly. In that sense, alignment became more like obedience, which is not the same thing. But conceptually, this type of accommodation seemed to fall short of the shared vision I understood Karen to be after.
Besides being conceptually problematic, the practice of alignment was a massive challenge. It was almost impossible for me to convince myself to believe something I did not.
After my daughter Isabel died, seven months into our marriage, there were periods in which I had no opinions. The quietude was shocking. For example, if I began to worry about how to address future taxes but then imagined that Karen had control over that, my opinions about how taxes should be handled didn’t matter. Taxes would no longer be my problem. In this imagining my opinions vanished.
Of course, there was a real sense of a burden being lightened by Karen taking on some job within our marriage. My trauma-induced opinionless state included that, but also more. I would go to push open a door in my mind; the door dissolved under my hand. Before me was expansive freedom. Fenceless open spaces. The issue could be anything. Anything at all.
The feeling of the door dissolving was exquisite, like chocolate melting on the tongue. I felt my will disappearing out of complete irrelevance. I was a cave dweller with no need for eyes, a dolphin with no need for legs. No longer was there an issue of my will aligning with Karen’s. I had no will. There was nothing to align. I did not have to change my mind or convince myself I believed in something I did not. I had no dog in the fight not because there was no dog, but because there was no “I”.
What is hierarchy freed from patriarchy, class, or the artificial ordering of value according to the delusion of race? What is hierarchy when it comes from consent, deep longing, a way of being that demands expression? There are examples of hierarchy embraced voluntarily, such as a life contained by religious vows. The military is a model of honorable obedience and service.
I may freely create hierarchy with anyone willing to be my counterpart. Obedience and hierarchy allow me to do the impossible. I gave my need for safety to Karen. The night following my daughter Isabel’s unexpected death. I curled up in Karen’s arms and surrendered myself to their care, whereafter sleep came gently upon me. This was a miracle.
Although it is not the best argument in support of my surrender, in the end, what does it matter? I no longer have a child to provide for. Karen and I are married and have joint expenses. Someone must make decisions, and I do not want to. I am called after other things.
Closely following the sacrifice of money, I turned toward sex, with eyes like a predator’s. In our early days, Karen had asked me about giving them authority over my sexuality and I was absolutely against it. Within a few months, I agreed to be monogamous in practice. Karen was living with roommates and was only allowed to invite one person into the pod due to COVID. I could have said no and not spent time at Karen’s house, but I agreed. Karen later explained that although they were polyamorous, they could not abide by me being so, as they were temperamentally unfit. This had once been a hard limit, but I agreed, with the caveat that I could make no long-term promises. For whatever reason, monogamy eventually felt comfortable to me, an expression of their power over me, which fulfilled a deep need.
This idea that I would give Karen all control over my sex life was hard to contemplate. I knew that I would struggle with being denied. But in my longing for extremes, I was taken up by the prospect. I imagined that even in this last stubborn realm of autonomy, I might also have no will of which to align with Karen’s. In this new world, it would not be about me or my needs, how much I or what kind I could get. It would no longer be a matter of me graciously accepting rejection but delighting in Karen’s power to use or not use me as they wished. It felt right.
We tried it, with the agreement containing a pressure valve: I had a couple of “freebies” a week for which I needed no permission. The change was deep. A sweetness came to the fore. Suddenly, what had been conflict and angst seemed right and easy. I was ready to take it to the next step, to remove all freebies. I added a paragraph of expansion to balance that of restriction.
Drawing on the Jewish concept of Onah, wherein the husband is responsible for the wife’s pleasure for a set number of times per week, I proposed one night a week in which Karen could choose any or no activities. To facilitate the choosing of activities, I created an Onah box, in which I placed small wooden tiles. Each tile was inscribed with an activity. Karen countered that once a week felt like too much pressure but agreed to once a month.
I anticipated the creation of the Onah box would be an adventure, with me searching the four corners of the earth for every known sexual activity. Would there be a tile for “s’s choice?” Would such a tile be contrary to the essence of the exercise, or would the act of asking me to choose be an active expression of desire? I suspected the latter, free access a radical expression of trust. How many tiles would include some version of, “do nothing?” How many would be sensual but not explicitly sexual, such as hand holding or a foot rub? Was there a limit on how many tiles Karen could choose a night? Did I have that kind of stamina?
Before the Onah date came up, I had a month to experience the rest of the contract, without freebies. It was much more challenging. I had no control, whereas before I could plan to use my freebie strategically, to save it or spend it. Shabbat would arrive and the meter would reset. Now, there was no beginning or end, the control was infinite. If I wanted anything, ever, I had to ask. I had to plan ahead in the event Karen would become unavailable due to travel or even just falling asleep. I immediately lost privacy. Karen would know exactly what I was up to even if they were not there.
In commemoration, Karen bought me a new piece of jewelry in the shape of a ring. I still wear it today.
About Miles Whitney:
Miles Whitney is a queer, trans, Jewish writer and attorney. Miles started writing creatively after the unexpected death of his daughter, Isabel, in 2022.