I posed the 24/7 question to an email list to which I belong because I was interested to see how people viewed their own situations. There was, as expected, a range of responses. Some said that 24/7 simply identifies people who live together, some that it identifies people who live together *and* maintain a constant D/s dynamic. Others said that it defines relationships where there is a constant dynamic between people, although they don't live together and some that it simply defines a lifestyle, irrespective of whether or not there is an ongoing relationship.
While I don't have a need to put a label on my relationship, I do have a need to understand it as it continues to evolve and to understand its place in the overall scheme of my life. Sometimes looking at what it is not helps me to understand what it is, if that makes any sort of twisted sense. Asking the question and reading the responses, helped me to stick a pin through mine and examine it.
What I have is a somewhat unique situation. I have a reasonably long term (4 1/2 year) D/s relationship which is absolutely consistent in its power exchange dynamic. It is intense and challenging and very satisfying. It is also a relationship where the dynamic spans across a wide variety of activities which are not S/m related. We see movies, we shop, we browse bookstores, we take long walks and we spend hours in conversation, much of which is not lifestyle related. But, we don't live together and it is unlikely that we ever will. Without reservation, I accept that. In fact, as much as it isn't perfect, I even like it that way. So, neither of the 'living together' scenarios apply for me. But, I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that 'living together' was the defining factor in the nature of a D/s relationship. Still, something wasn't sitting right about the other two defining options either because they seemed to suggest that there had to be a certain constant focus on the activities of D/s in order for it to be considered 24/7. That didn't seem to ring true either.
I finally figured out where the disconnect was for me. The math and the geography were wrong. The percentage of time or the location that one engages in any role does not define it. Neither does it define the person. We are not chunks of things. There is a taoist teaching which says that it is only ideas which create the appearance of separate things, which are not really separate at all. So, it is only the 'idea' of different roles and different locations that makes it seem that a relationship might be defined in such a way.
The owned submissive does not disappear when I change locations or engage in another activity anymore than I become less of a mother when my children no longer live at home or become more of a business owner when I work at the store than when I work at home. It could even be said that I'm as much a dancer now as when I last donned a pair of ballet shoes almost 30 years ago. It is only the 'ideas' of those things which make them seem to be separate or different or unrelated.
In reality, I am a composite of those things all the time, no matter where I am, no matter the activity in which I'm engaged. My relationship with my children is 24/7, my relationship with my customers is 24/7, my artistic perspective is 24/7 and my D/s relationship is 24/7. I am never 'more' or 'less' of any of those things. Neither are the relationships which reflect those roles ever 'more' or 'less'.
24/7? As Pooh would say .... 'oh that'.
abi
Related article: The Idea of 24/7 - a Response