I asked my top, MsKathy to describe a dominant. Ms Kathy is a dominant but has not been in SL much. Her viewpoint is from her experience in RL BDSm scenes. Her response is printed below: ((OOC Content))
Traits of a Dominant (not all inclusive and perhaps some will overlap)
1. Service: Submission is not taken it is given. The submissive is using your dominance for their pleasure. You should be getting pleasure from their submission as well but they are the customer and you are the vendor.
2. Responsibility: You have another human being incapacitated. They are depending on you for their safety. Take the time to learn before you make someone else burn. Know your scene. Know the safety challenges and if it is too dangerous don't do it.
3. Self Control: There is a tendency to want to give the sub what they want. It is the dominant that decides if it will happen. If it is too dangerous or if the sub is not ready then the Dom has to be the one who stops it.
4. Pride: Recognize your strengths! False pride however can be dangerous. When dealing with the life of another, as some scenes in fact do, you need to trust yourself but you must accept your limitations. For example breast suspension requires a knowledge of physics and anatomy. If you think you know what your doing and you don't you have a seriously injured person or worse.
5. Respect: Give what you get and get what you give.
6. Self Respect: This is part of self acceptance and self esteem. You should not need to tie a person over a chair and whip them to feel good. Your not spanking them because you want it your spanking them because they want it.
7. Patience: Vital to the relationship is patience on the part of the dominant. The submissive may not be ready for what the dominant wants now. This is life. The D/s relationship is a work in progress and never completed but always improved. Pushing the submissive beyond their ability or over their fears is much like pulling a rope and watching it unravel and break. That rope is no longer usable!
8. Loyalty: For trust to occur, both sides of the relationship must be loyal to each other.
9. Intelligence: This is common sense not a PHD in BDSm. This is also knowing what the toys do and how they work. It is also knowing how to do things like bondage without ripping an arm off or dislocating a shoulder. Using ones head. I always say that anything you plan in a scene should be safe beyond question. I do not want to have to explain things in an ER.
10. Humility: To see yourself as another human and not as a god. Humility requires that the dominant possess a feeling of self worth and to understand they are fallible. Feet of clay just like anyone else.
11. Honesty: The D/s relationship is based on trust. Without honesty there is no trust and there is no relationship. Again open communication without fear of retribution in both directions.
12. Strength of character: showing natural leadership ability. The ability and desire to care for another human being. This is what the submissive is attracted to
13. Acceptance: Accept yourself first including your shortcomings. Accept the dominant mind set without apology. Only by accepting this can you accept the submissive for who they are and appreciate their mind set
14. Courtesy: This applies not just to peers but to the submissive as well. Manners and respectful tone. A dominant can say please and can show appreciation with a thank you.
15. Compassion: Understanding and responding to the submissive's motives. This means observing actions and analyzing of the motives behind the actions of the submissive. This also applys to the submissive's reluctance to serve.
16. Communication:. The ability to listen as well as speak. Honest communication is vital to the relationship between submissive and Dominant. Honest, open communication is vital and it must be bidirectional.
17. The Dominant carries themselves with grace and charm. The scene flows without hesitation or confusion. Note this takes rehearsals!!!
18: DOMINANT DOES NOT EQUAL MALE OR FEMALE! Dominance is a mind set not a gender factor. The tendancy of males to be in a Dominant role and submissive to be female went out when women became CEO. Live with it! Get over it!
I don't much understand your first paragraph. First you say you are sick of hearing the term "True dominant" and "True submissive" but then you go on to use the term yourself? And your comment re pixels... does that mean you don't consider anyone who is presenting themsleves to you as pixels rather than in your FL as a dominant are just posers and wannabes?
ReplyDeleteIn SL we are all pixels. The person behind the keyboard can be anyone from any background.
ReplyDeleteYour point is well taken that there are people behind the keyboards in sl that are dominants and submissives. There are also posers. The posers are relatively easy to spot by their actions online. Dominants in SL would exhibit the same traits as outlined however would not be able to exhibit all of them as the scenes are virtual rather than real in SL.
I want to point out that my top did not use the term true dominant to describe herself. I asked her what here view of what a dominant was and she gave me the items i wrote. I have since removed the term true dominant as the term is misleading.
I am sure second life has dominants and submissives behind the keyboard however to compare a real bdsm scene to a virtual one is like comparing a video of Niagra Falls to being there hearing the rush of the water and feeling the spray on your skin.
ReplyDeleteI spend long hours behind a keyboard. The last thing i want to see when i come home is a damn computer. I wanna see my jas!