Part of Life, Lifestyle or ... ?

Below are some of the initial responses to my playful query:

It’s just who I am. I’m a funny person, but I’m not ripping off funnies 24/7. It’s just me, and it’s seamless throughout my life. I can’t really categorize it.

I’d probably classify ours as “in the bedroom only”. Although in all honesty, the D/s dynamic is permeating all parts of our lives, from always going to My restaurant of choice, to him asking what he should wear daily.

Not to be difficult (yea right, lol) but I just see it as one facet of *me*. I’m not 24/7, not a passing interest, don’t give it much more focused thought (anymore) beyond the same as anything else that I do with my day. The basis of my relationships don’t revolve around any form of S/M or kink but do usually incorporate it to some extent. (Birds of a feather?)

The far more important thing to both of us is the relationship… that we’re both happy and fulfilled by it… sometimes that includes T&D, BDSM and/or D/s activities, sometimes it doesn’t… it always involves intimacy though and a sincere desire to please each other.

all of the above?
d/s has the theoretical potential to be expressed at any given moment around here, but since we have jobs and kids and house, it rarely is an actual 24/7 exercise. it is the basis of this relationship in that without kink, said relationship would not have existed. sm is a pervasive enough part of my orientation that i find it difficult to consider having a primary sexual relationship without it. i don’t have any sexual parters who are not kinky, now that i think about it. while i don’t go looking specifically for a type, it always just seems to happen to be there. like attracts like, perhaps. among these friends-with-whom-i-fuck, it varies from always there to fun but minor.

I would say the D/s partnership I have with my love is not the basis of the relationship, love is. However, I highly doubt I`d be capable of not interacting with him in a D/s kind of way, now that the relationship has taken that turn. Now that I think of it, I wonder if the D/s was inevitable with him, given my submissive nature and his dominant one, and our respective positions in life at the time we met… He had the great need to feel that his terrible life was useful, and the pain he went through was not in vain, that he was worthy and deserved trust and respect. I needed safety, love, unconditional acceptance and adoration, and much much help untwisting my mind from all the shit I had gone through in the years before him, and even more importantly, needed to be taught who I was and that I was ok just as I am. Given that, I`m not sure we could have stayed vanilla even if we had deliberately tried. So perhaps my desire to submit is more a need to submit, then, and not something I can choose to shut off or take out of my life when I want to. I`d equate it to the need to ride a motorcycle, except I`m unsure whether that would be understood here without a much longer explaination.

I identify bdsm as being part of my sexual wiring or orientation. I guess i could say it’s “important AND pervasive”. Although i don’t like to think of it as a 24/7 lifestyle, it’s certainly not something that i can turn on and off. Roles are always assumed, even if from the outside looking in, they might appear vanilla.

Lifestyle, Part of Life or … ?