Kneel
Welcome back to ‘a touchy subject.’ I’m your host Casey Boykins. This time it's all about submission.
Listen, I’ve been dying to submit. Always. But especially now. No wait. Just listen. I know it seems like a strange time for that craving, what with authoritarianism and fascism on the rise. But in that way. It seems there is no hotter time to hand myself over. By choice. Because it’s all about choice isn't it? It's about choosing pain and pleasure. It’s about not getting told what to do unless I want it. Beg for it.
My relationship with sexuality is elaborate. Obviously. Sexuality to me is a game of authenticity. It’s about seeing and being seen. It’s about knowing the right time to lift my skirt. Knowing when to show my heart, when to cover it back up.
I’m not interested in any gamification of sexuality that includes knocking myself off balance so that another can catch me. Because if I sweep myself off my feet, I trick myself into believing I am having an experience that is not real. Not special at all. But a sleight of hand, performed expertly, by me.
If I keep knocking myself off balance, it means I never get to find out if someone else can do it. And they can. They have. Sure they’re rare. But I’ve always loved plucking a needle from a haystack.
Now my relationship with authority? Elaborate. Thorny. I struggle to submit to that which I do not respect. I struggle to respect that which I do not know. When I was in catholic school I got in trouble a lot. I was battling pubescent depression. But I was also battling getting on my knees for a god I didn’t trust.
One time I got detention for telling off my science teacher. She was yelling at my classmate, making her cry. I looked at my teacher and said “you don’t need to speak to her like that.” I don’t bow to authority wielded like a knife. With force. Authority that plays god. In his eyes we’re all made equal, right?
The more I feel caged in by an authority I did not choose. The more I dream of freedom. The more I’ve been forced to bow, the more I crave dropping to my knees. I’ve felt what it's like to kneel for the wrong person. I’ve submitted plenty in my life. In abusive relationships, submission is de-escalation. I thought that kneeling would keep me safe. That I couldn’t be attacked if I was already on the ground. I was wrong. I’ve felt my knees tear under the pressure. Felt the blood run down my legs. I’m too old now, to ask anyone for a band aid. I’ll find one myself.
I thought that submission was just bowing. My relationships, my friendships, always began this way. With me, exposing my neck.
This was a kind of control, a safeguard. A stopgap for that moment. You know the one. If you’ve been reading this Substack for a while you’ll know what I’m talking about. That moment when someone I love decides I’ve become bad. I never see it coming. Even after all this time.
Submission has not kept me safe. The only thing it does is help me be closer to the ground as I pick up the pieces and start over. My only comfort, the knowledge that I didn’t try to hurt anyone.
So if it hasn’t helped me. If it hasn’t protected me. Why can’t I stop thinking about it? And it's not just because I saw Babygirl in theaters. Twice.
Maybe it's because it sounds like the ultimate form of peace. Because in my heart of hearts, I know that if I’ve found someone I’m willing to submit to, that means I’ve finally found someone I trust to keep me safe.
I have an estranged mother and a black father. My mother couldn’t protect me from anything, not even herself. My father cannot protect himself from the police, the state, the color of his skin.
The walls of this world are closing in. This country built on the agony of my ancestors is cracking beneath me. At least if I’m already kneeling I cannot fall down.
How many people who look like me have been shoved to their knees. To do it by choice? How could I?
But then I see a cute boy at a party, with sparkly eyes and an easy smile. And I can’t help but picture it. Come on. You know you want to. How I’d bat my eyes. Getting shoved against the wall. Lowered to my knees. The pressure of his hand on the back of my head. His fingers tangled in my hair.
I trust you to hurt me. I trust you to stop. I trust you to hurt me and I trust you to stop.
Maybe what I want, what I’m using so many words to describe. Is just love. And freedom. I’m searching for a love that leads to my freedom. Because what is the opposite of authority, of control, of law, of order. It’s freedom. Isn’t it? Isn’t that the wish that has carried us all the way here? The dream deferred. The whisper in the breeze that tells us keep going, don’t stop, you’re so close.
Maybe love requires submission. Forcing us to submit to the needs of the other. To admit that we need each other. To genuflect at the altar. To bow at the foot. It's about being on our knees together. Maybe it's not about kneeling. Maybe it's about helping each other stand back up.
Love y’all,
Casey