“Sekhmet” ~ by Laurel Green

As often happens my brain revs up to impossible speeds just as I’m going to sleep. I am certain that this is because “normal working hours” are at odds with the hours in which I work best. I am NOT. Bloody. Diurnal. If the average person has an 8-hour window within which they can best rock the mike, mine is sure as fuck not 9-5. I’m at the height of focus at the 6PM-2AM shift. I loved working graveyard, back in the day.

Every day I fight against the way I have been my entire life to squeeze into a system that isn’t working and never did. My Mom has stories of literally walking me though morning as a kid, and yet finding me under the blankets with a book and a flashlight in the middle of the night.

Last few nights I have been flipping back and forth between thoughts about a solo show that is hammering on my brain…a story that I have to tell and it is becoming more important.

OK, fair enough.

Then I had a sudden series of thoughts on things I feel I need to say to other kinky folks. OK, sure, great. Now of course the internal committee calls a hasty meeting, roiling raucously and figuring out how best to hammer this idea to the wall so that it makes sense in the stupefying light of day.

It was something about Submitting, being fierce, embracing your Leather Identity…mull mull. An acronym formed around this idea: S.E.L.F. Submissives…submissives what……OK, Embracing Leather Fiercely. Nice. That was easy. Snappy. Sassy. Win.

Now, what does it mean?

I think too fast…far faster than I can type but in ten minutes I had the outline for a class on being submissive, and being fierce in your submission, and how to remain true to your identity, and not softening your fucking boundaries because you don’t fit in. It really struck a chord for me. All of the times I am told “You don’t seem submissive.” and “You MUST be a top or a dom!” rushed back to me like so many gnats and I growled in my head.

Why can’t people see that you can be in service in a way that EMBODIES your strength, rather than draping it in fancies and fuckery so that you don’t “intimidate” or even “scare away” a potential partner?

Fuck. That.

Fuck it right in the ear.

I wanna be the lioness. The predator. The top of the food chain, the Goddess…AND submissive.

Dammit.

One story of a God’s progress that speaks to me is that of Sekhmet. She was Egypt’s warrior goddess, and badass as fuck. Her job was to serve the God-King Pharaoh, protect him in battle, and all kind of coolness. She also was a healer, and so was capable of fixing up anything she took down. Additionally, Sekhmet had some anger management issues. She was assigned with the awesome task of fucking shit up, all of the time. She liked beer, a lot, so you can see how her mythology appealed to me. Eventually, as she was wading through rivers of blood and feasting on it, to the detriment of the human race, Ra finally was all “Shit, she’s gonna wipe out every motherfucking thing. “ So he dyed a shitload of beer red, Hathor thought it was blood and so she pounded it. Evidently this mellowed her out enough that she gave up slaughter, blood drinking and burning the fuck out of everything and was smushed with a gentler deity’s persona: Hathor. Who is much more chill, and is all about the healing and the teaching.

I, of course, know nothing about drunken wrath *cough* but I DO know that being a fierce warrior is often NOT the purview of submissive. Yet there is a broad spectrum of service. From the person who wants to be a footstool and totally objectified to the slave who can bring home the bacon… fry it up in a pan…and tackle finances in Quicken with one hand.

There is a great deal more here, but my brain is on the job sorting it out for later regurgitation. I think it is high time I talk about the collared lioness. And how being a submissive sure as fuck can also mean fucking shit up.