When I was 15 I met a man of 23 who had it. We were together on and off for 3 years.

When I was 24, I met a man of 30 who had it. We eventually slept together but his words of wisdom have been more important to me than our sexual adventures.

And now, at 27, I've met a man of 38 who has it.

What is it, you ask? I'm not sure. It's the way they are, their personality, that evokes a certain response in me. I call myself submissive but really, when it gets down to obeying someone on a regular basis, outside of sex or play, I have no interest. The idea of rules and punishments and rewards and all that jazz sounded incredibly attractive to me - until I tried it and realized that unless the guy is going to run my life exactly the way that I want it to be run, I'm not going to pay the slightest attention. Unless he knows the ins and outs of all the decisions that I make and why I do things a certain way, I'm not going to listen if he tries to "lay down the law."

And yet, I am submissive, to the right person. And so far in my life, I have only met three men that can evoke that automatic response that doesn't set off the "fuck you" instinct of non-obedience. Maybe it's because they are dominant naturally, and they enjoy being in charge of their surroundings. I'm not sure.

I do know that with G, it was his way or the highway, and even when it sucked to pick his way, it was better than the alternative. There were very few instances of disobedience from me, and it was never a conversation or negotiated or anything like that. I knew that I liked him being in control and I knew that I liked it when he hurt me physically. I had no idea that there was anything called BDSM or that other people acted this way or enjoyed the same things that I did. I was innocent of all preconceptions and had no problems submitting myself to his will. It just came naturally.

With R, it was different because we weren't in a romantic relationship. Rather, he was saving me from bashing my head against a wall that wasn't ever going to come down and in the process I allowed myself to be seduced. But it didn't really make a difference - before and after we slept together I still felt submissive to him. I wanted to obey him and the situation didn't allow for it. I'm not going to get into all the details here but suffice it say that I had to make a choice eventually and the pull that he exerted on me meant that I chose him. Thank god, in retrospect, but at the time I was being pulled in two different directions. Rich and I had many conversations that had me feeling that pull, feeling that whatever that evoked this response.

And now, I've met S, and it's the same feeling. He's a naturally dominant man who knows what he wants and it's taking no effort on my part to want to follow his lead. With him, I feel submissive without ever feeling like I am giving up who I am, or abandoning my own strength. For a long time, my signature line read: Meet my strength with more of your own. I never wanted to feel that I had to become less to fulfill that submissive side, and yet with these dominants that I met, that's how it ended up. I had to sublimate parts of me to fit into their box. With S, I feel like all parts of me can be at full strength and yet I can still be submissive. It's so easy to follow his lead and to fall into that place that I occupied with R and G.

And it scares me, because this is what I have been looking for. This is the type of personality I need to be with in order to feel happy in all parts of my life. I have only ever met 3 men who can do this, or be this, and only S is the right timing that it could even be a relationship that lasted. I was too young with G, and there were other complications with R that meant that what we were was all we could ever be together. Here I've met a single man who has everything I could have ever thought of wanting in a man, all rolled up into one package, and it's scary. Because what if this is just a teaser and it's not meant to be? I can handle the demise of relationships where I knew it had no future. But here ... this is what I want.