CW: dark ageplay
“I Love You.”
“I Love you more.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Daddy knows best. And what you don’t know, Daddy will teach you. But then again, little girls like you don’t have to know anything–except ‘obey.'”
When I first really got involved here, I actually didn’t know there was such a thing as a dominant who didn’t want a brat. Any BDSM I’d played with in the past had involved bratting, which I enjoyed, and I thought constant obedience would just be boring for a top. It’s also worth mentioning, I think, that no BDSM I’d played with in the past really satisfied me. I wanted rules that held firm, and breaking them to get what *I* wanted—what I was told was ‘punishment’ at the time—was so very backwards.
Well, here I am all these years later, well-satisfied (when He wants me to be, of course) and with a man who doesn’t tolerate brattiness, and I think it’s safe to say I’ve long since dropped my ideas of what there is no such thing as. And yet, there are some things I still see getting pigeonholed over and over again. One of these is the Caregiver/little relationship.
The most recent occurrence of this for me (and the inspiration for this writing) was a post I saw from a little who had realized she needed to combine DDlg with a TPE to be happy, but didn’t think the two could exist simultaneously. “In a TPE,” she said, “there is no negotiation. It’s no longer about what the s-type wants in the relationship. Everything is about the Master. In DDlg the focus is on the little and usually, from what I have seen only, the little is not focused on complete and absolute surrender and service to their D-type but on their needs and wants.”
If you’ve followed me on this site at all, you probably know that ain’t how it works over here. If not, a quick summary: while I don’t like using the terminology of M/s 99% of the time, I think most definitions would put us there. My relationship is 24/7 CNC TPE, by which I mean there is no explicit negotiating, no safeword, and complete obedience is just expected. We use many terms for each other, often as a sort of subtle signal as to what mood we are in, but the most frequent and nearly interchangeable ones I use for Him are “Owner” and “Daddy.” I do everything my Daddy says, and my Owner takes care of me, plays with me, knows the names of my teddy bears, and talks down to me in the most wonderful ways. And I can’t imagine having to be a brat to constantly feel like His little girl.
A lot of people draw a firm line between words like “little” and “babygirl” (if you know a non-gendered form of this term please let me know) in that one is regression or role-play based and one is just a part of your personality. You can be one or the other or both. I’d say I’m both, and I don’t want to—can’t—step outside of that latter persona just because it might seem outside of the prescribed CG/l roles to do constant service or be broken down ‘til I’m nothing. But luckily, in my world, these things that Don’t Go Together interact seamlessly. Here is a bit about how I see it. Hopefully if you’re struggling with desires you see as conflicting, this will help you figure out how to restructure that thinking a bit.
Service/50s-style Household
The other day, I told my Owner how happy I am for this new life I’m embarking on right now, wherein my job involves plenty of time to serve Him. The thing is, whenever I think about this, I keep using the words “playing house.” And that’s exactly what it is! See, my Daddy is *so* cool that He wants to play house with me forever. So of course I’m going to play well! I get to cook and clean for Him and dress up at the end of the day before He comes home to kiss me, just like in old movies. It’s lots of fun!
And it’s a way of showing how much I Love Him. Just like some littles are really great color-ers and draw their caregivers pictures to put up on the fridge, I’m really good at cooking food. There’s nothing better than seeing my Daddy happy about something I’ve made just for Him.
Humiliation/Degradation
Daddy does all the stuff that I think Daddies are supposed to do. He gets rid of the bugs. He opens the jars. So in return, I do all the stuff that He tells me little girls are supposed to do—bend over, kneel, open their mouths.
He also Loves me very much. He makes sure I know this, because He makes sure I know how disgusting, needy, and pathetic I am… all the things nobody else would ever understand. It makes me feel so very lucky that He Loves me anyway.
S&M and CNC
Caregivers know what their littles like better than anyone in the world. They may know what characters are their favorites and get them coloring books to match, they know what ice cream flavors are the best to pick up as a surprise. I’m a masochist. I absolutely must be beaten and tortured. My Daddy knows this. As mentioned in the beginning, there was a day that I was a brat, and I think that being a brat can actually be a great consent tactic and way to signal “I want to get beaten” for some folks–but the kind of torture I truly want relies on it being *His* choice when it happens, not mine.
Because I fall on the babygirl “this isn’t roleplay” side of things, I am not pretending and I don’t want to start. I’m not going to act like I don’t want to get hurt and then do something bad because that’s the punishment. I want this all to be real. This all *is* real. So, knowing what a reward actually looks like for me, my Daddy frequently makes me scream and cry. Because He knows me best, and He doesn’t assume that just because I’m a little, cuddles and hot cocoa are the things that make me happiest (though they don’t hurt). And the fact He knows me so so well—even enough that when I think I don’t want something and tell Him so over and over and beg Him to stop I end up so happy at the end—feels very much like Love to me.
And sometimes, when Daddy is whispering to me that He just can’t help Himself, that we must be very quiet, that His little girl understands, right? I remember all the things He does to take care of me and remember what He’s told me about what little girls have to do. And even if I don’t, it doesn’t matter. And that makes me feel even littler.
TPE
What if my needs and wants *are* absolute surrender and service? What if, in focusing on the desires of my Owner, I’m having all my own dreams fulfilled? I don’t agree with what the person asking the initial question said—that everything is about the top in a TPE, or that the focus is on the little in CGl—but if it is, there’s no reason that those two things can’t go together perfectly in a well-matched partnership.
M/s-y protocol fits perfectly with this dynamic in my mind, too. Of course I wear something identifying me as His. Of course I am locked to the bed at night. Of course He can track my location. Daddy Loves me! I’m the most important thing in the world to Him, and little girls can be flighty or get confused. He wouldn’t want me getting lost!
And finally, both being His property and His little girl means that I accept His superiority and trust that He will always have the answer to ‘why’, no matter how many times it’s asked. Daddy is the center of my world as a little, and His ruling over me is just a given of that. He’s not little like me. He’s my guiding force, powerful, smart, and I look up to Him because I know that He deserves to be all these things. So I do as He says. And like many other little girls, I may ask “why?”—not to argue, but because He often is thinking five steps ahead of me and I might just not get it—but in the end, I do what He says, trust or clarify that there is a reason, and don’t fight it.
I mean no disrespect to brats. I think you all are hilarious and wonderful. And no disrespect to the many wonderful littles I know who are tops or sadists, who have their caregivers wrapped around their little fingers, who do this in any other one of the zillion ways you could do it. But if you are a little who feels drawn to giving up all power or any other thing I mentioned here, I want you to know you don’t have to abandon any part of your identity to do it.
All these relationships are what we build them to be.
Don’t compromise on your desires.
If you want to join in on the conversation in the comments of the original Fetlife post, you can do so by clicking here.