Who cares what others think?
In response to Kali's post regarding unwanted attention from her neighbor's elderly relative, Louise mentioned she asked her husband how he would reply:
He went on to point out that in polite society that sort of behaviour is frowned upon.
This is an important comment. Society's manners have degraded to such disrespectful levels. Yet we have this tolerance that has been adapted because it is politically incorrect to tell it like it is, lest you offend someone. Meanwhile, people are left to feel uncomfortable (as Kali was) and left to second guess if their feelings are acceptable or not.
This vein of thought can be stacked side to side with those of us who have not yet become fully comfortable with Taken In Hand relationships because the concept may be politically incorrect. By whose standards, though, and who cares about PC considering it hasn't made society overall any more polite?
I am new to Taken In Hand and moving in to the new year, I am going to adopt a clearer mindset to embrace it without question. It feels right to me, feels right for my mate; so who cares what society or the neighbors think? Who cares what the feminists have been saying for too many years? Who cares if it seems like an outdated, old-fashioned spin? If it works to make a relationship stronger and better, I choose it. And work it does.
I don't mind surrendering a more liberal, feminist mindset to my mate, if the return response promotes my greater well-being and security. In fact, I have been in previous relationships where I felt everything needed to be equal and ultimately that way of thinking brought conflict which brought long silences or big outbursts of emotion I do not want to endure again in my life. Not that I am willing to be a doormat and have no opinion.
Maybe I have learned that by following Taken In Hand, I can avoid being left to wander in emotional states of insecurity and confusion. In times of disagreement, there are no emotional responses that I can not handle or surprise me. I know what to anticipate. My mate respectfully guides me. We honor each other's intelligence, but ultmately I will defer to his decision rather then create an issue that will only bring emotional pain or we revisit it. I do not give up...rather I have learned that feeling happy does not always mean being the one in charge.
The parameters are not limitless which means we do not go in directions so far apart from each other that we can not return. By choosing how I react, becomes what I give to my relationship. Taken In Hand has taught me it is okay to express myself, to trust and be confident and feel safe. With these positive feelings, who cares about what others think?
Taken In Hand Tour start | next
Have you seen the following articles?
Learning the ropes
Knights earn the name
The freedom to be an alpha male: the joy!
Three different experiences of rape
How Taken In Hand exorcised my inner demon
There is no knight in shining armour
Who says you have to be submissive?
Timeshare taming
- Login to post comments
Comments
#1 Who cares what people think?
I've never cared much what people think and less so about how I run my private life. It's really not anyone's business. The rest of the world is much more interested in their own lives than yours anyway.
"Pat"
#2 PC or not PC?
Political Correctness is supposedly about being as inoffensive as possible, right? Well, years ago when I was in college studying for an I.T. degree, we had a mandatory class about political correctness. This manure was shovelled down our throats, in other words – we weren’t allowed to call a manhole cover anything other than a “personhole” cover, a blackboard was a chalkboard, a whiteboard was an inkboard.
Now, when I was told this, my first reaction was to turn to a good friend of mine (who was in the same class, and happened to be black) and ask if he thought it was racist to call a blackboard black. He said no. Asking everyone else in the class if they minded referring to something that was black as being black, there was unanimous agreement that it just didn’t bloody matter.
There was a feminist teaching the class, and a feminist in the class agreeing with every daft thing she said. Apparently using words that have any sort of gender to them is oppressing womankind. Now, anyone who’s read my story will know that I’ve seen true oppression of a woman I love, so I let them know how offensive I thought the whole idea was. The motivation behind your use of a word is important, not the actual word.
The fact is that the whole PC thing is actually counterproductive. It’s a minority of people having a knee-jerk reaction to problems that don’t really exist for the vast majority of us, and trying to force the population into complying with a set of rules that will “Make things better”. I think that was the motivation behind the Spanish Inquisition, too…
I’m not PC. I like to say very un-PC things to annoy people who are, purely because they tend to be the kind of people who like to shove their philosophy down other people’s throats, and try to force them into conformity. On the flipside, I consider myself a Gentleman, and as such do as much as I possibly can to make those around me feel at ease as much of the time as humanly possible. That means accepting another persons lifestyle – even if it’s not one I myself agree with. In fact, if someone lived a very PC lifestyle, but didn’t try shoving it down my throat, then I would be respectful of that and I wouldn’t try to wind them up about it.
And I think that’s basically my point – tolerance and understanding should be key, not conformity to some freakish model of behaviour that is nothing short of facist. If someone doesn’t understand your lifestyle, explain it to them. If they understand it but still can’t accept it, then that’s their loss. If you live your life according to some stranger's rulebook, then how will you ever be happy? Life’s not about conformity, it’s about being happy. If something you do in the privacy of your own home offends someone, then tough. If that thing makes you happy, and breaks no laws/hurts no one who is unconsenting, then carry on regardless. You’re not living your life to make your neighbours happy, after all.