Labels : Submissive, Dominant
» D/s Practices
Excerpts from a discussion on the words dominant and submissive in a BDSM context.
Oh, yes. How many forum discussions have I abandoned because people can't accept that most words have agreed upon meanings. It isn't "just semantics."
It's a pretty important thing to me; I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Those people who feel it necessary to attribute other than the literal meaning (as found in a basic dictionary) to my words are not people I can deal with.
Still a noun to me, which is why I say submissive man, woman or person.
You have to watch out for the language of BDSM. It can be misleading. We've taken words and bent them a bit to describe our experience. For me submissive is a prime example. We've taken an adjective and turned it into a noun--a very misleading noun.
Labels employed warily have a use. But the map is not the territory.
I found the ones who didn't like the desire to stay away from labels were the ones I didn't have much in common with. The others managed. Some liked the labels, because they found it helped to come to terms with the desires or they liked having a name for how they felt.
Investing a label with too much specificity transforms it into a stereotype.
Ignore the stereotypes. You are you; unique. Your submission is unique. Your relationship is unique.
The label dominant isn't an entitlement.
I think it is important to not have the expectation of instant "respect" be so weighty that small adjustments in learning to communicate with another are not considered burdensome, and I don't believe in offense being easily taken.
But don't make it hard on the dominant.
I think it's a bit of everything. I watched many times as a dom initiated a conversation with a sub only to be rebuffed as not being domly. I've then watched said dom approach the next sub with a more domly attitude, to be rebuffed as rude. So it does exist on both sides of the issue.
Problems with identity, not wanting to be id-ed as a "submissive"....
Comments
How about this?
a or sub is a hopeful, a wannabe, a searcher for its dominant, eager to submit.
a slave is one who has found its place at the feet of a dominant, has been accepted as such (for whatever time period it may be) and is busily serving, submitting and suffering at the pleasure of the dom[me].
a dominant … dom or domme … is a person with the attitude and (one hopes) experience to direct a slave’s existence.
a Mistress is a domme Who owns one or more slaves and uses them for Her benefit, pleasure and amusement. It is Her responsibility to both Herself and them to train them to be better slaves. (The term Master describes a male dom in action similarly. The term Mastress was formerly used, and occasionally is today, for a Mistress — evidently by those unsure of the true duperiority of Women — but that’s another matter.)
Posted by: bootlicker | May 23, 2011 2:51 PM