I am going to collar a girl I love. 

I haven’t a lot to say about that. First, in general, when writing about anyone on this blog I apply a five-year rule, so that nothing gets on this blog before five years have passed. This is mainly for confidentiality, so that even if someone works out my secret identity as a policy advice guy for governments, they won’t be able to tell which woman any particular story concerns. 

And second, I give false names and make sure key details are misleading. So if someone is a lab technician, for example, I’ll say here that she’s a chemist. If she’s short I might say she’s tall, or not mention it. Mentions of hair colour is usually incorrect, but not reliably so.

So what I’m about to say feels very strange to me. I’m going to collar the beautiful and clever Zoe, who blogs here. Never think the simple truth is simple: it took a real internal fight to make myself give that correct information. Out loud. 

The only other thing to say is that she’s somewhat nervous. But my pledge to my readers, especially one of them, is that I’ll go slow, gentle, and only fierce when I’m sure the mood wants to be fierce. 

And giving a collar may present itself as a kind of ownership, but that’s largely rhetoric, to help intensify the emotional intimacy between the collar-giver and the collar-wearer. The fact that we consciously know it’s rhetorical doesn’t prevent that rhetoric from having its desired emotional and erotic effect. 

What a collar definitely is, is a symbol of love: both giving and accepting the collar are huge and powerful statements and admissions of love.