We do not mean to be this difficult.  We never meant for it to be this difficult at all.

Here is the thing.

We want you to understand that we are independent women that have demanding jobs and we are perfectly capable of running our lives, thank you very much.

So you cannot tell us what to do. We are doing it already. We are ahead of the game. Sometimes we are the ones running your lives; we have a pretty good idea how to do what needs to be done. If you try to tell us what to do we will raise a perfectly arched eyebrow at you. We are busy. We are focussed. We like that we are capable. We like how we turned out. We still have lots of learn but we will get on with that too. We would like to meet you for dinner. We would like you to kiss us. We will spend a goodly amount of our money on lingerie for you to discover. You should make love to us but leave us to make up our own minds. We can talk to you about religion, art, politics, literature; we will exchange views with you, we will tell you without tension when you are wrong. You like that we are like this. It is part of what attracts you to us. You never needed a weak woman.

We also want you to set some boundaries, clear and reasonable limits that make sense. These are the non-arguments of modern life. Do not tell the enthusiastic man on the internet your real name or where you live (or maybe don’t talk to him at all.) Do not endanger your life by walking alone at night through a rough area. Do not smoke. Do not work 20 hours a day. Do not punch the irritating person.

Some of those were a little silly, were they not? A well-educated sensible woman knows all of those but some may be risks she would take. Do not take her acquiescence for granted- she has her own mind and may do something just to be contrary. We thrive on this though. We know we should not. We know it is regressive to need the big man by the entrance of the cave. Catch us at the wrong moment and tell us not to walk home alone and we will bite you for patronising us but secretly, sometimes so secret that not even we will know, we will buckle a little. We will tell you how bossy you are but when we leave we will kiss you a little more deeply with images of you deep in our mouth as we pull on our jacket and walk into the world. We know you watch us, we know we are safe. You are bigger than us. We can call you if we need you. Your literal strength surrounds us as we walk.

And then, come a little closer because I cannot say this loudly, there is a deeper secret. We struggle with this and we know you do too sometimes. That you struggle with this makes it harder to admit to but seeing as we are here as a collective we can tell you.

We need more sometimes and sometimes we need more all the time. We need to hear a “No” from you. We need a structure from you, an unyielding, dictatorial, sheer bloody minded series of boundaries. Do you want to know exactly what this looks like? Well, if we told you it would not come from you and the magic healing of it would be lost but we also must say that we do not always know what it looks like ourselves.

We can tell you it is damn inconvenient, this wanting gets in the way; it is contrary to who we are supposed to be.

We can tell you that when you do it, when you are strong enough and loving enough and secure enough to take that hard step into leadership part of us arches our back and not our brow. We succumb to you, we submit to you.

We are standing looking at you and you demand we cross the room to you.

You tell us we will stay in your arms until you say we may leave.

You tell us we are going to bed now.

You tell us to stop talking.

You tell us to explain clearly what we have done.

You tell us to call you Sir.

You tell us to stay in the corner.

You tell us to fetch the switch.

You tell us to bend over.

These are the extra unreasonable submissions that we long for, these and a thousand others. These are the demands that make us want to kneel in front of you, that are hand in hand with our submission.

But we struggle. We struggle with it being wrong to need it. We struggle to ask for it. We struggle with how intensely it affects us.  We struggle with how it affects you. Is it a burden? Is it too much?

But if I may offer one piece of wisdom that I have been offered then I shall.

We are only trying to become what we already are. We are not changing, we are uncovering our true selves.

We shall learn how to meet these needs and, for my part, I shall cherish the part of me that longs for these boundaries because I may as well cherish them. I can no more fight them than I can make myself fly. I shall accept them because they make me want him with the wide eyed wonder of a child and with the body of a woman.

This is part of my gift to him.

I need him. I need who he is really is.