Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook (2 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
want to express my undying gratitude to the very special people in my life who
helped make this book possible.  You believed in me, even when I found it
hard to believe in myself.  You encouraged, cajoled, and cheered me when I
needed it most.  You put up with my grump. You are my synergist, muse, and
inspiration.  Thank you so very much.

“We
are defined by how we use our power.”

Gerry
Spence, The Rat Hole (2003)

Just as we might expect any reasonable discussion of
the
solar system
to focus first upon our
sun
, we’re going to
begin our examination of Domination/submission
(D/s)
relationships by
taking a look at the self-appointed center of the D/s universe, the
Dominant
. 
In any relationship, it is always the
interplay
of personalities that
helps us to understand the true nature of the relationship dynamic at
work.  It isn’t so much about what happens
inside
of their heads,
as it is about what happens
between
the partners in the
relationship.  This is very much the case in a
D/s relationship
,
where the true expression of one’s core personality is enhanced by a partner
who not only understands it, but encourages it and thrives upon it.  After
all, it’s hard to be a leader without a follower, and vice-versa.

In this chapter, we will explore the part that the
Dominant plays in this little waltz.  Some of the questions we’ll address
are:  What is a Dominant?  What drives a Dominant?  How does
someone know if he or she is a Dominant?  How does one approach, or please
a Dominant?  What are the risks and drawbacks of being a Dominant, or
being involved with one?  We’ll discuss those, and other relevant
questions, because at the risk of appearing to contradict what I’ve just said
in the preceding paragraph, it
is
important to understand what is going
on
inside
of a Dominant’s head as a precursor to understanding what
occurs
between
a Dominant and his or her submissive. 

Knowing a Dominant’s heart and mind can often be a
difficult thing.  A Dominant, generally speaking, does not appreciate
being psychoanalyzed, categorized, or labeled.  The reason can be simply
stated thusly: 
Scientia potentia est.
  Knowledge is
power.  For a Dominant, life is all about
power
, in one form or
another.  It needn’t always be about power over other people. 
Sometimes, it can be as simple as the power to control or change his own life
circumstances, to alter his environment, or to choose his own path.

If you really want to learn about a person’s true
character, the part of him that stays safely tucked away from view most of the
time, just give him a little
power
.  There is no faster, nor more
accurate way to see what lies buried beneath the public veneer. You’ve no doubt
seen what happens to petty bureaucrats when they’re given just a
little bit
of
power.  Various university psychological experiments have shown that when
individuals are given the power to
anonymously
administer electrical
shocks to another individual, they quickly become increasingly and surprisingly
cruel in doing so.  Just imagine what can happen when someone is handed
absolute
power
over another human being. The results are often not very pretty.

How does one avoid that ugly and potentially
dangerous
possibility?  One way is to learn the difference between a true Dominant
and a pretender.  A pretender is someone who is simply infatuated with the
notion that having
absolute power
over another human being for the first
time in his miserable, powerless life might be
really cool.
  If
you’re a submissive who would prefer to avoid becoming an unwitting part of
someone’s tragically warped, doomed-from-the-start psycho-social experiment,
avoid
the pretenders
.

Before we go any further, let’s clarify some
terminology.

Throughout this book, I’ll often refer to a Dominant
as
“he”
and a submissive as
“she”
.  Please be assured that
this is
not
the result of any gender bias, but simply a way to avoid the
awkward and clunky
“he or she”
– or even worse, the grammatically
incorrect
“they.”
  It is also done out of recognition that, in a
purely
statistical
sense, Dominants are far more likely to be male, and
submissives to be female.  Additionally, society generally characterizes
dominance and submission as male and female traits, respectively.  I
really
am
fully aware and appreciative of the many good people both in
and out of the lifestyle who defy the stereotypes.  I am a
wordsmith
,
and my job is to connect with an audience with a predominantly
vanilla
perspective.  For those who may not have heard the term used in this
context before,
vanilla
is the word used by those in the D/s lifestyle
to describe those
outside of it.

You’ll also see me using the terms
“true
Dominant”
or
“true submissive
.”  This will probably infuriate
some folks, especially those who may be unsure or insecure about their place on
the Dominant-submissive spectrum.  Please remember that the great majority
of people fall somewhere in the middle, with a rather equitable mix of
both
Dominant and submissive tendencies and character traits.  That’s
perfectly
normal
and acceptable, even in this culture that sometimes views
normalcy
as abhorrent.  There’s no crime in being a lot like the great majority of
humanity.

A very tiny percentage of people will find
themselves at either extreme of the scale, feeling not just more comfortable
there, but
profoundly uncomfortable
with the mere thought of being
anywhere else.  That isn’t to say that they can’t
function
in roles
outside of their core D/s orientation; just that doing so brings them no sense
of joy or fulfillment.  For some, working or living counter to their core
D/s orientation brings them a great deal of emotional stress and makes them
want to escape to their inner
happy place
all the more.  So, how
does one spot the
“true Dominant”
in a world where people often change
their roles the way we change our socks?  The answer lies in that
emotional stress and
happy place
.

Everyone
experiences stress.  It’s an integral part of life, and completely
unavoidable.  In many ways, we are
defined
by how we handle that
stress and by how we process it.  Imagine the difference between how you
might expect an optimist to handle stress, versus how you might expect a
pessimist to handle the same stressful situation.  Imagine further how surprised
you might be if a good friend, who always seemed cheerful and optimistic on the
surface, inexplicably shifts into
“doom and gloom”
mode whenever the
crapola
hits the fan.  Does that sound like anyone you know?  If so, then
you’ve experienced first-hand the phenomenon we’re talking about. 

Your friend operates one way on the surface, when
things are going the way they should, and another way
below
the surface,
when things
aren’t
going quite so well.  While we may sometimes
refer to this as seeing someone
“freak out,”
in reality, what you’re
seeing is simply a case of someone
reverting to type
.  At a certain
point, under extreme duress, a person no longer
cares
what anyone thinks
and they abandon their carefully crafted façade and fall back upon their
core
coping strategy
.  Sometimes that core personality characteristic is in
sync with their public persona and sometimes it isn’t.  Frankly, being in
sync isn’t really all that important to our purposes.  My sole purpose in
calling your attention to it is so you can apply what we’ll call the First
Commandment of D/s Relationships:  Know Thyself.

Knowing yourself is the singularly most important
thing you must accomplish before even
considering
entering into a D/s
relationship or adopting a BDSM lifestyle.  Again, let me be clear about
this.  There is a
huge
difference between the BDSM
activities
that are a casual part of the Saturday night kink that spices up your sex life,
versus entering into a D/s relationship or
adopting it as a way of life.
 
There’s nothing wrong with
either
, but you should just be sure never to
confuse the two, and ensure that when you transition from one to the other,
that you do it with your
eyes open.
 

So, how well
do
you know yourself?  Are
you a
true Dominant?
  What makes you
think
so?  Are
Dominants
born
that way, or can someone be
trained
to become a
Dominant?  We’ll explore those questions and others like them in the
remainder of this chapter. 

Let’s begin by asking a few simple introspective
questions.

Do you like being told what to do?  Practically
everyone answers
“no”
to this question, at first blush.  After all,
no one
likes to be told what to do, particularly if it’s done rudely, or
when it’s not necessary.  But I want you to think very carefully, and ask
yourself this: When I am confused, or hurt, or lost... when life seems to be
crashing down around my shoulders, do I
then
like being told what to
do?  If you were to find yourself in a burning building, and an
authoritative voice yells,
“Everyone run to the rear exits!”
do you
reflexively
do so
, or do you instantly suspect that doing so might be a
fatal
mistake
, if for no other reason, than because everyone
else
will be
doing so?  If your
immediate and visceral reaction
to any directive,
no matter how reasonable, polite, or helpful, is generally
negative
then
(at the risk of sounding like the punch line from a certain redneck comedy
routine)
you just may be a Dominant.

This is not to say that a Dominant can’t take
orders.
Of course
they can take orders. A Dominant does what he has to
do, but he doesn’t necessarily have to
like it. 
In my particular
case, even though I have been a die-hard Dominant all of my life, I was also
able to have a very successful military career.  I had two basic strategies
for coping with being told what to do.  First, I learned how to become
so
good
at what I did, that even my superiors consistently came to me for
advice and, second, I quickly got promoted to positions where I eventually
became the one giving the orders.

Unfortunately, many people are eager to accept the
common misconception that Dominants can’t or won’t take orders, or conversely,
that because he does, he must not
really
be a Dominant.  Just
because every two-year old child is at the center of his or her own universe
and doesn’t want to be told what to do doesn’t mean that every Dominant must
behave like a two-year-old and throw a tantrum when he doesn’t get his
way.  It is, however, why it’s always important to be able to
differentiate between what a person
does
and who a person
is
. 

Are you stubbornly independent, even to a
fault?  Imagine wandering through an unfamiliar city, looking for the
train station.  Do you prefer to wander on your own, even if it takes
twice as long to get to your destination, rather than ask someone for
directions?  Does it rub you the wrong way to accept help from someone,
even if you sorely need it or are probably entitled to it?  Are you the
kind of person for whom the three most difficult words in the English language
are “I need help?”  If so, then you just may be a Dominant.

Pride can be a double-edged sword for the
Dominant.  It shapes and defines him like no other character trait yet it
is simultaneously his greatest weakness.  Despite the fact that he
necessarily has an extraordinarily healthy ego, the Dominant is always
painfully aware that he is
far
from perfect.  Nevertheless, he
often creates and nurtures for himself and others the illusion that he is
always
in control and rarely in need of assistance.  To accept help, even when it
is sorely needed, is to allow a chink in the carefully crafted illusion that
makes him what and who he is.

If a Dominant allows you to help him, in even the
tiniest way, you should probably consider that a great honor.  In doing
so, he has revealed a part of himself that he would rather not be confronted
with, much less have to reveal to others.  It is also an integral part of
the
power exchange
that occurs between Dominant and submissive, which
we’ll discuss at greater length elsewhere in this book.

Do people seem all too willing to grant you
authority over various aspects of their lives?  Examples might range from
the serious to the mundane, such as trusting you with the keys to their homes
or with access to their online accounts, or something as simple as ordering for
them in restaurants.  Are you often asked to help make important decisions
for others, more because of your decision-making ability than because of your
expertise on the subject at hand?  When you are a member of a group or
organization, are you frequently nominated for or elected to positions of
authority, whether you want to be or not?  If so, you just may be a
Dominant.

Are you energetic and task oriented?  Dominants
tend to be very focused on accomplishing their goals, even if the goals may be
unclear or out of reach at times.  You won’t typically find a Dominant
spending a lot of time soul searching, or second guessing his decisions. 
He is an unstoppable force until he hits an immovable object, in which case he
often simply pivots and shoots off in another direction, until the next
immovable object is encountered.  When a Dominant is asked
why
he
does what he does, the answer is almost invariably,
because he can.
 
If this sounds like
you
, you just may be a Dominant.

Are you sometimes hard to get along with? 
Anyone
can be difficult to get along with at times, but the key in this instance is
the
why. 
A Dominant is usually more focused on
facts
than
feelings
. 
This tendency to overlook the feelings of others can sometimes result in the
Dominant being characterized as harsh, disrespectful, or lacking
compassion.  At the same time, one advantage to this character trait in
Dominants is the fact that you
always know where you stand
with
him.  He is not one to tiptoe around an issue in order to spare your
feelings.  Dominants are often characterized as being brutally honest and
unafraid to tell you what they think.  If your feelings get bruised by his
direct manner, his response will usually be,
“Get over it.”
  
If that sounds all too familiar, you just may be a Dominant.

You’ve probably noticed that much of what we’ve said
about Dominants thus far has been about
how he feels
, or how
others
feel
about him.  That’s because what sets the Dominant apart from the
rest of humanity is his unique world view, and how he
relates
to
others. 
Anyone
can bark orders or learn to crack a whip. 
That doesn’t necessarily make him a
Dominant
.  What makes him a
Dominant is
how he thinks and feels, how others perceive him, and how he
relates.