I think the "true submissive" BS can be seriously damaging to a person. I had a MAJOR epiphany yesterday, in the slap you in the face, holy crap, sense.

I'm deeply submissive. I honestly had no idea.

It's because I'd previously heard so much about what made one a "true submissive" that I figured it was best just to stay out of that chinese finger trap altogether. So I just said (even as recent as yesterday) "I'm not really that submissive, what I am is owned."

While I think that feelings toward one's ownership can deepen and expand, I don't think there are "levels" to being owned. Either you belong to another person or you don't. So knowing that I did was much more comforting and much less of a potential minefield than having to worry whether or not I was a "real and really real true submissive."

What I'm not, is indiscriminately submissive. I'm not a people pleaser in general. I'm submissive to ONE person. And even within that relationship sometimes I do resist. I did not get a lobotomy when I accepted my collar. I will not agree with everything he says, and I will point that out. If I get my ass whipped for how I express myself, I am willing to accept those conditions, but I will not behave like a mindless automaton just so that someone else can "approve" of the "validity" of my ownership/submission.

As years pass and our relationship deepens, my trust in his ownership of me will likewise deepen and resistance will be less and less. But it is a progression. And though we've been together 8 years in a kink/ownership type relationship, we have a very complicated history which has made our journey even to where we are at this time, a very slow one.

Hey Flaming_Redhead, I don't think that being a slave means "blanket submission." Slaves don't always obey, they just understand they will be punished if they don't.