I Am Woman by Lady Ashe

Ashe's Confession - How I Discovered BDSM

About 18 months ago, while exploring a non-lifestyle sim, I observed a couple of female avatars, dressed in the stereotypical femdom attire... latex, leather and thigh high boots.

Something in me stirred... it was very primal. Having never been exposed to BDSM, I didn't really understand what I was seeing. I only knew what I felt inside my body. When I observed these women, I saw power. I saw a fierceness and strength. And a kind of "aliveness" that I had not felt in my body for some time. When I recognized the feeling of aliveness, my instincts told me to follow it, because when you are faced with a chronic health situation that has "no cure", you look for and follow aliveness.

Flashback to 3 years ago... early 2012.

"You have cancer. It's advanced."

Six rounds of chemo therapy, called the Red Devil. 6 is all the body can take, then they switch you to a different kind of chemo, if you still need it.

Over the summer of 2012, I endured what many women diagnosed with breast cancer undergo... and it would challenge me to the core of my femininity. Those things that are physically beautiful about a woman, would be stripped away, laying me bald and without breasts...

Who would I be with no hair? No boobs? My long eyelashes, lept to their deaths into the bathroom sink, a few-at-time. "Not my eyelashes too, God, really? ..."

But that summer, I made myself dance outside and celebrate my life, feeling the warm kisses of thunderstorm raindrops on my bald head.

Flash forward, to 18 months ago and discovering SL, and then later, BDSM.

After a full year of treatment, everything in my body was different. I had no desire to be sexual. I didn't feel the same. I couldn't feel my sexual energy. Areas of my chest were very numb from surgeries. The reconstruction made me "look" somewhat normal, but underneath my clothes, it wasn't my body anymore. I didn't want to be touched.

But while observing those women avatars doing tai chi, in their femdom clothes, ... something inside me came back alive. I acted on the instinctual curiosity, by telling her that I liked what she was wearing. Later that day, I would look at the designers she recommended in the Marketplace and have the realization that what I was looking at was known generally as "BDSM."

My exploration, into BDSM, helped me get back INTO my body, after cancer. In a strange way, I am healing by consensually hurting *smiles.* When I found the whip, a deep erotic pulse was found inside me... (no surgery or chemo could strip it away). The women, whom I saw, WERE me. A future self, I had yet to discover. Somehow my now-self had the ability to recognize Her, and it's brought me right here, to this moment now, where I'm sharing my very personal story.

There are not many here, I dare say, that if I polled the room, asking, "Do know of someone, friend or family, affected by cancer?" I'm certain, you do. It doesn't make me special.

What makes me special is how I decided to face it. How I decided to trust and follow my own primal call. What makes me special, is knowing it's part of my mission, to share the story with you.

And the truth about my story is, that I AM every woman. There are many ladies here listening right now, that face a similar chronic health situation (I refuse to say illness when wellness is the dominant force in my life/body). Many of us, face chronic, debilitating, painful conditions in our daily lives.

Look around...

If you are kneeling, look up into Her face and recognize the Superior Woman.

She is not what happens to Her, but how She chooses to handle it. She is grace under fire, and She'll take those fires and use them to transform Herself and everything around Her.

And for a few of you—the fortunates ones—She'll set you on fire.

~ Ashe Athenais (astarteh resident)