I’ve been obsessed with relationships for most of my adult life, reading countless books, listening to podcasts, doing polyamory coaching, asking friends one million nosy questions, just trying to understand what other people are doing in their own little worlds they’ve built to house their love. That’s what relationships are when it comes down to it — little worlds with their own language and culture just between lovers. How do they communicate? What are their rituals? How do they pray? What cracks them open? What raises their dead? The creativity and imagination needed to world-build is endlessly fascinating to me.

For years I’ve been set on what I want in a relationship. I’m polyamorous in a way that leans more towards relationship anarchy, and I’m a dominant who desires a total power exchange dynamic with a masochistic service sub. I’ve mostly oriented romantically in this way for about eight years now. In the wake of yet another breakup that felt similar in many tough ways to other relationships of this kind, I’ve been jolted to navel-gazing in ways only breakups inspire. I was left with a lot of questions like is being a Daddy actually good for me? Why do I seem to attract people who hurt me in familiar ways over and over again? What am I doing wrong?

It’s a really sad process to question if a core part of my identity (being a Daddy is all at once my sexuality, my gender, and how I build worlds with others) might not actually be for me. I’ve been taking inventory on my own desires and how I ended up here once again. One of the core tenets of power exchange for me is receiving service. In the past I had come to the understanding that my almost religious draw towards receiving service was born from a desire for intimacy, a way to heal from being neglected by my parents. I learned to be fiercely independent from a very young age because I recognized that my parents were certainly not going to meet my emotional or material needs. The disappointment of their neglect faded as I built confidence in my own capabilities — it was nice to have people in my life, but I didn’t need any of them. Service provides me with a safe container to ask for help because the other person is signing up with a deep devotional desire to give me what I want.

The real gauge of success in relationships is being able to learn more about yourself and grow into a better person. I’ve learned so much about myself just by allowing myself to trust other people, and phew is that trust hard-won. In serving as a parental figure in romantic relationships, I’ve been able to re-parent myself (be the Daddy you wish to see in the world). I learned that my capacity for helping others grow can often be at a detriment to myself, and to pay very close attention to this. My most recent D/s breakup gave me more perspective into my deepest motivations, ultimately helpful while still heartbreaking as fuck, and I learned that service isn’t really about the vulnerability of allowing other people to help me, it’s more about letting them see me.

There are many different types of service. The most satisfying to me, and the harder to get right for the submissive, is anticipatory service. This is when a submissive knows and understands their dominant so well that they can get ahead of their needs and deliver service they want, when they want it, and how they want it. This doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect, but to get it right takes a lot of dedication and initiative. The thing about anticipatory service that is so appealing to me is that it necessitates the service submissive studying and understanding their Dominant completely. Someone needs to learn me intimately to know what I want and how I like it. The quiet insinuation that your submissive is observing your every move to understand how they can interject and offer more ease and comfort into your life is the ultimate peak of service. Like, what’s more intimate than knowing exactly how someone likes their underwear washed, folded, and stored?

I struggle a lot with feeling seen by people who claim to love me. I trust and believe the people close to me who tell me that this is by no fault of my own. Most people who’ve called me Daddy have ignored chances to celebrate my position in their life (my birthday, Father’s Day), have decided that showing up for me when I needed it was optional, and treated me like someone to work out their unhealed parental issues on (I’m your biological father but not your biological father, got it?). Something about me as a Daddy has attracted people who don’t know themselves enough to truly see another person clearly. The constant struggle of choosing to believe someone’s words over their actions when they don’t align is crazy-making. How do I get people do truly understand what they signed up for? To meet me in the level of intimacy in a power exchange dynamic that I desire, a submissive must know themself and allow me to see them. It’s more about the capacity to be present, pay attention, and approach with deep intention. There’s work to be done to get there.

Should I quit being a Daddy? I asked my tarot reader. She pulled the Mentor of Feathers card and is convinced that this is my path in life, that this is who I am. The card features friends around a campfire listening to the stories of a wise bird. It’s showing me that I have something to offer others, lessons to share from forging my own path for so long. She pulls another card. Eight of Keys, she says, tells me I shouldn’t give up and there’s more to be done. This card features a person standing next to their bike watching fireworks. It’s about trusting yourself to know you have all the tools and you’ve done the research and now it’s time to get on the bike and ride.

This is the beginning of a series where I will attempt to share my aforementioned navel-gazing thoughts on D/s, service, and what I’ve been learning about myself recently. I am reminded time and time again that “dykes don’t write about power exchange relationships” and I’d encourage everyone to help me change that and let’s learn from each other.