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Isolde -> RE: Does Submissive/Slave=Domme/Top (7/2/2005 10:55:05 AM)
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I think in a healthy relationship, the needs of both partners are being met at the same time, no matter their dynamic. It's true that in a BDSM relationship, the submissive is serving the dominant, and oftentimes that means s/he will place the dominant's own needs first, but a good dominant will also be sensitive to the submissive's needs and make sure they're not feeling neglected, taken for granted, etc. It is not just all about you. There are two in your relationship and to concern yourself only with what you feel you want and need, just because you're the dominant partner, strikes me as a quick way to a failed relationship. Being submissive doesn't mean that their needs have less importance, and it certainly doesn't mean they're worth less in their standing in the relationship.
(Disclaimer upon reading back what I just said: I'm not saying that's how you go about your relationships, MstrHellsFury; I was using 'you' in a general sense. Nor am I saying that there aren't submissives out there who wouldn't be perfectly happy in a relationship where their needs are considered only after their dominant's, by the dominant as well as themselves. This is just how I tend to interact with the world and how those I care about interact with me, so... my opinion, yadda yadda. [:)])
I see nothing wrong with being upfront about what you do and don't want from a relationship either. How else to know if someone will be a good match for you? What seem like demands to you might be absolute necessities for someone else's happiness.
Not to say that I don't think there are submissives out there who, for one reason or another, do attempt to overcontrol their relationships by setting unrealistic limits or are unwilling to allow those limits to evolve with the relationship as it goes on. But I don't believe that it's an epidemic. What I do believe is that it's difficult for people to empathize with differences in others, and so it's common when seeing those differences to think that (instead of their just being different) someone is making unrealistic demands, or not doing things correctly, or is a faker because they don't have the same philosophies, rules to live by, expectations, whatever.
Anyone who behaved as if it was all about them, all of the time, would make me wary. It wouldn't matter if they were submissive, dominant, switch, vanilla... someone who is incapable of looking away from themselves long enough to really notice the ones around them, particularly those who care about them, is someone I would just as soon avoid.
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