My Love for Retro, My Understanding of History and My Style

As I envision myself as a Madmen Character.  With a Martini.  And a cat.

My love for retro started long before Madmen ever aired.  I would argue that it was something my mother instilled in me.  It was in her style, her perfumes, her collection of shapewear.  It was in the music she would play for us.  Instead of bluesy rock or singer/songwriter pop songs that was popular in the early 70's, she was listening to Frank Sinatra, and Nat King Cole.  She had books from the 50's and 60's.  It always looked so much prettier than the fashions of the time.

Officially, I didn't really get serious about retro fashions until I started working as an underpaid social servant in my late 20s.  If I wanted anything stylish on my meager salary, I had to buy it at the thrift store.  Retro fashions fit my curvaceous figure and my diminutive height better than anything that was contemporary, and at the time, there was plenty of it.  Later, I started to make a little bit more money, and my trained eye was able to find contemporary fashions with retro details such as cuts, shapes and tailored silhouettes.  

As I started looking for a style to call my own in the kink world, I ended up coming back to my love of retro fashions, partly to stand out from all the leather, but I also wanted to highlight where my dominance came from, from my femininity, from my sexual energy.  So, I'm once again starting to collect retro-inspired pieces, even so much as getting a bullet bra for my birthday.

And yet, this got me thinking about what this said about me as a person.  I wondered if I was conveying a message that I was a luddite of sorts.  On the contrary, I'm very aware that I am dressing up as a woman in a very interesting time in history that will never be duplicated, nor should it.  The 1950's was a time of great prosperity for this country, as well as having huge cultural changes at the time.  The urban sprawl started during this time period and don't forget the baby boom.  I am also aware of how tumultuous it was if you were a person of color, or a woman, or both.  Let's face it, the strict gender roles of the times didn't make it easy for men either.  Don't forget McCarthyism, the atomic bomb, the red scare.  And if you think I'm exaggerating, the 60's was a direct results of the 50's.  I realize that this isn't a very comprehensive history, but I am aware enough of the social/political flavor of the times to realize that I'm fucking happy to be born in the 70's.

I am a feminist.  I am a dominant.  I can be very independent and have had to forge my own path when I need to.  I also love pretty clothing that accentuates my figure and highlights my femininity.  A dress with a full skirt doesn't detract the fact that I am a strong woman. 

Besides, I love how people do a double take at a dungeon dressed like this, when they realize that I'm the dominant.  I also love dressing up so "girlish" while I have M on a St. Andrews cross as I flog his ass and tell him how much of a manwhore he is.  Now my dominance isn't tied  to what I'm wearing.  I do have a few corsets, domme boots, and other elements to make me look like a femdom on porn and I can look imposing with it on.  Then again, I've topped guys naked.  

I really don't care if what I'm wearing makes me less of a dominant or submissive or switch or whatever.  But I do have a style, and I like it and look good in it.

Reflections

In the course of about a month, my world decided to have its own tectonic changes, erupting my calm surface.  Literally, a few days of my birthday, M announced that he was starting a relationship with someone that I was vaguely aware of. Because of the nature of this, namely the long distance and the fact that he is currently educating her regarding kink and poly, our rules of engagement had to be a bit more flexible.  This presented an opportunity for me to experience what M had been going through for the past several months, the feeling of jealousy, envy and insecurity.

As M pointed out, these feelings came to fruition at the start of this relationship.  But to be fair, I think if his metamour was closer, I would be feeling these things as they come along.  I wrote about some of my processing here. (To summarize, about how M was better at compersion than I am, and how it was weird of me to be in the position of being jealous.)  It took me a few weeks to fully process this, until one day, something snapped in me and realized that It's going to be OK, that M still loves me.  That is not to say that I don't feel insecure from time to time.  It's just that my insecurity isn't so focused now, taking up space in my head (as people in 12-step programs would say).  

The one thing that seems to have not gone away is the self-reflection, the hard questions of what I want from poly, from kink.  You see, I never did mention about another relationship I had that sort of percolated for a few months, that was extremely intense for me, but that fizzled into nothing.  I decided to end it before it began, or he decided it wasn't meant pursuing long ago, but thought that sex with me would be nice so he kept me around until I got impatient?  I'm not sure.  Suffice it to say, it is no more.

I am currently without my own metamours, and the universe has seen it fit to remind me that it is not time to have another relationship outside of my primary relationship with M.  

So that is the state of my life at the moment.  It hasn't been all bad.  It would seem that the universe has seen it fit to bring me friends who may be able to help me be a better dominant.  We shall see.  In the meantime, I am continuing to evaluate what is meaningful to me, and what isn't.