A couple weeks back, over the course of a weekend, I hosted and participated in an immersive online experience for FLR, FemDom, and Women in Charge enthusiasts.

Over several months, I had gathered questions about women-led lifestyles, and used those questions to choose topics and presenters, and to shape my own presentation, a 6-hour workshop: Building Your Best WIC Life.

One of the questions I got repeatedly (no surprise) was along the lines of, “Is 24/7 right for me?”

So, I figured I’d answer that.

Because it’s an easy answer, once you have all the moving parts in place.

What moving parts?

Well, the moving parts of:

• Definitions
• Negotiations
• Expectations

And then the answer is: Maybe. LOL!

Let’s dig into this a bit.

How do you define 24/7?

For me, it means that our dynamic is all the time. It never goes away. This is how we live it.

There is never a time I cannot stop a conversation, make a final decision, give a command, veto plans—whatever. We don’t set a scene for play to begin, or designate time for our dynamic. It just is. Always.

What have you negotiated?

I won’t get into all the details of what we have negotiated throughout the years, or what we continue to negotiate.

Suffice to say that in nearly 9 years of being together and over 8 years of owning him, we have negotiated through just about everything life can throw at us. And we have thousands of small and large “rules” about how things are handled that we have set in place over the years.

I will be clear: We did NOT try to create what we have now, although it has been intentional. We simply allowed ourselves to grow and expand as we loved together, and when something came up without clear guidelines, we created them.

Sometimes after the fact, when one or the other of us had screwed up, LOL!

But we have, thus far, left no stone unturned.

What do you expect?

This is where people get tripped up most often.

Because what we hope for and expect is often informed by our fantasies, and not usually by reality. Which is kind of the point, in some ways.

After all, we enter into the dynamics we do as an alternate reality to what we “live” in the real world.

And yet, if we truly want 24/7, whatever we create has to fit into the real world, and in some ways, mold the real world around it.

Yet, no matter what we might negotiate, expectations can still trip us up with their sneaky little ways.

Let’s take an example…

I’m going to start with my own definition of 24/7: The dynamic is all the time. That means (in this case) that the D-type (or stompy-boots as a friend of mine calls them) always has authority to make decisions and to overrule when they choose.

In specific negotiations, in this example case (and in my life), the capital letters person has been granted the ability to “Yeah” or “Nay” any social event for the lowercase letter, especially those that involve any sort of play or dating.

It has been discussed. It’s been spelled out clearly. And there is no doubt. You ask either of us about that, and us will agree, “Yes, that is what we negotiated and what we live.”

Ok. Let’s pause here for a moment.

Imagine that scenario: what would it look like to you, in practice?

• How would the s-type get permission for social engagements?
• What protocol would be followed?
• How often would the dominant say “No”?
• Would a reason be offered or necessary?
• Would certain types of social outings be mostly on auto-pilot, or would every single happening have to be run by the Supreme Overlord?
• What would the consequences be of not asking?
• Would certain types of social gatherings be off-limits entirely?

And yes, you could try to cover every single one of those questions in negotiations. Especially now that I’ve written them out for you. You may even come up with a few of your own.

BUT…

What then?

Now you have a bunch of rules, down to the minutiae, that you have created together, and that someone (actually two someones) is going to have to remember.

Ugh.

As a dominant, that is actually the LAST kind of situation I want to find myself in. I’m not all about micromanaging my partner, myself, or my dynamic.

If you are, great! I’ve just given you some of the tools to do so.

But that’s expectations, right?

For me, it was enough to say: “I get to approve of his social activities,” then to shape that as we go and learn more about each other. And ultimately, over the years, there are many things that are habitual. It’s understood that they are sacrosanct and auto-approved, unless specifically stated.

There are other things that will never not include a direct ask and answer in order to happen.

And some things that will always have an honorific with them (My Queen), and others that are way more casual, and fit into our daily lives.

Mostly, we are super casual. He’ll say “I thought I’d go out with the guys tonight to watch the game,” or “Is it cool with you if I go riding tomorrow night? Do we have anything going on?”

AND, while I don’t always check in with him, I often do. “Hey, is there any reason you can think of that I shouldn’t go out with [fill-in-the-blank sexy person or friend] Friday?” or, “I was planning on having some friends over Wednesday evening. Will that affect any of your plans?”

Kinda like almost any relationship rooted in respect and care for the other person might look like.

Now, does that fit what you imagined? Your expectations of what that would look like?

Maybe, maybe not.

And it probably would not have fit ours, way back when we were trying to figure all of this out for US.

It’s evolved over time.

And it works for us, because it has evolved over time, because we have taken what works and discarded what doesn’t, and we live our best WIC lives together, 24/7.

smiles

What are your thoughts?

Is 24/7 right for you? Have you lived a 24/7 life? Do you hope to someday?

How was your mental picture of the dynamic different than what I live? Or, how was it the same?

Have you ever been tripped up by the expectations of something, even after the negotiations were set?