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If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 1:41:30 PM

Noah

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Elsewhere, Emeraldslave2 wrote:

"Mastery and submission aren't about ACTs. Any act can be submissive or dominant."

I read this and thought of the historic debate within the Christian tradition regarding salvation through Faith vs. Works. This reflection revealed depth, gravity and poignancy in Emeraldslave's assertion. All this added emphasis for me to the clear rational value of her assertion.

While the Faith/Works(Acts?) discussion is a Christian one I think that the underlying issue is met in other traditions as well. Consider the Buddhistic exhortation to "... chop wood and carry water." It sounds a little bit Works-oriented, eh? ... even if the topic is "Enlightenment" instead of "Salvation."

Of course I am taking that Eastern snippet out of context (rule number two of internet posting venues) and you might say that in context it jumps to the other side of the Christian argument. Fair enough; this would only reinforce my suspicion that the same deep matter is at issue. You might also try to point out that Buddhism wouldn't countenance a dichotomy like Faith/Works--but then would you grant identity to enlightenment and salvation?

So lots of conversations might be spawned here but I would like to leave them for other threads and see one here exploring Emeraldslave2's contention above. It seems to me that she is plainly right that mastery (or dominance) and submission are not fundamentally matters of performing these acts rather than those. This leaves open the question of what instead it is about.

Some questions are best left open. They turn out in an important sense to be unanswerable. But the decision to leave this question open can be made just as well after a bit of discussion as it can before.

The response will come that "it is different for each of us" and yeah that needs to be said, but that only says so much.

So Emeraldslave2 picked up on someone else'e perceived focus on Acts, as such. Is Faith--or something closely related--a candidate, by analogy, for what dominance and submission *are* about--in the very sense that they are not about Acts?

I feel that this is true for me somehow and I'll be thinking more about it. I'd like to read your thoughts on the matter in the meanwhile.

Noah

Post #: 1

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 2:38:43 PM

Lordandmaster

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The problem with this kind of analysis is that it means absolutely nothing to people who aren't Christian.

(in reply to Noah)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 2:40:54 PM

EmeraldSlave2

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Woohoo a statement of mine provoked such a wealth of perspective and thought, I am both honored and humbled!

For me it's simply about orientation. Being a bisexual isn't about how many people you have sex with, how often you do it, what you do when you do it- it's simply an inner orientation that lets you know what sort of intimate personal relationship you will be fulfilled in.

My statement was also not to be taken such that acts have no meaning. How we act is an expression of who we are. It is simply best not to assume that a person is "acting dominant" because they open the door for another.

(in reply to Noah)

Post #: 3

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 3:43:28 PM

anthrosub

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William James said, "Before you can be something, you must first do something." This approaches the two themes mentioned in the OP but I think there's a bit more to it. For one thing, to experience salvation or enlightenment, one must be immersed to the point they forget about "getting there" as a goal. Once this state of being is reached, it's like stepping out of your old self and experiencing something totally new (sort of like being reborn I would imagine). Exactly when this moment is reached cannot be seen in advance...in fact, if that's what the person is doing they will be forever and constantly distancing themselves from what they are seeking...just like chasing the horizon.

Have you ever been so caught up in something you were doing that you totally forget yourself? The subject/object split ceases and the two become one.

anthrosub

_____________________________

"It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

(in reply to EmeraldSlave2)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 4:03:26 PM

Faramir

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I believe that the only real thing, the only meaning in this world, the only thing that lasts in the universe is relationships - everything else is ephemera.

I subscribe to Martin Buber's I-Thou paradigm - it is only in seeing Other as Thou, and engaging Thou, that we have context or meaning. Not my house, my car, my dog, my kids, my wife, my slave, my God - those are I-It articulations.

I-Thou, relationship, is all that is real or has significance.

All that matters to me is the health and welfare of the realtionships in my life, the most important of those relationships on earth being the one I am building with my little girl in intimacy and slavery. Acts, because of their symbolic content, help strengthen and make healthy those relationships. The Acts say "I Love You," "This is My Connection to You," "Thy Will, Not My Will," etc, and those are building blocks for relationship.

This is true for all relationships. The Acts I do in honoring my relationhsip with God are qualitatively similar to the Acts between my little girl and myself - they are part of I to Thou.

So I think the OP is onto something - the OP is recognizing something about the nature of Action within the context of Relationship.

(in reply to anthrosub)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 4:19:55 PM

lonewolf05

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quote:

Have you ever been so caught up in something you were doing that you totally forget yourself?

NO! but then, i am one anal s.o.b.-------

_____________________________

"there is no gravity, life sucks!"

(in reply to anthrosub)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 6:36:14 PM

anthrosub

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I used to know a guy who strongly believed the most important thing in any relationship was the relationship itself. He described it as a three legged stool...person A, person B, and the relationship between them. These made up the three legs. He used to say the relationship should be treated with as much respect as each of the two people involved...almost as if it were a third person because its made up of traits from the two individuals. I think he's on to something.

anthrosub

_____________________________

"It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

(in reply to Faramir)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 8:04:06 PM

imtempting

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

The problem with this kind of analysis is that it means absolutely nothing to people who aren't Christian.

Yes thats people like me.

(in reply to Lordandmaster)

Post #: 8

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 9:32:27 PM

onceburned

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quote:

ORIGINAL: EmeraldSlave2
It is simply best not to assume that a person is "acting dominant" because they open the door for another.

I agree. Actions have no meaning in themselves. The meanings given to actions (and to words) are an interpretation made by individuals. And those interpretations are affected by many variables.

Re-defining the matter in terms of faith vs works doesn't clarify this issue. At least as I see it.

(in reply to EmeraldSlave2)

Post #: 9

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 9:40:56 PM

anthrosub

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Keep in mind actions, like speech, have two sides (and it doesn't stop there). What I do, I experience quite differently from someone witnessing me doing it and vice versa. This is one level.

I think how acts as intended from the original post is pointing more to the person's sense of personal experience (fulfillment, enlightenment, sense of well being and doing "good" just for the sake of it...or in this case submission or Domination) than simply identifying a motive.

anthrosub

< Message edited by anthrosub -- 7/16/2005 9:44:17 PM >

_____________________________

"It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

(in reply to onceburned)

Post #: 10

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 9:47:17 PM

ScooterTrash

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I don't totally agree with this. Some acts (reading these as actions) ARE in fact, acts of Dominance or submission. Sure, in some cases such as opening doors and such, these could be courteous gestures and in no way based on Dominance or submission, but in other cases such as; catering to personal whims, preparing meals, doing assigned tasks, submitting to acts of pleasure (weg), I see these as true acts of submission. If you don't think this is so, try taking away that right to do these things from a submissive..they will be devastated and questioning what they have done wrong. On the other end of the coin, stating what needs to be done and punishing if they are not..are acts of Dominance. Again..if you think this isn't true...look to see what the reaction is when a submissive tries to tell the Dominant what they are going to have to do the next day...I think they will see the fault in their logic, when they see the next Act.

As for the reference to religion or faith with regard to this? I see absolutely no connection and frankly am tired of seeing it (any religion) brought up with regard to anything to do with the lifestyle, unless it is relative. To do so is just asking for a heated debate.

_____________________________

Formal symbolic representation of qualitative entities is doomed to its rightful place of minor significance in a world where flowers and beautiful women abound.
-Albert Einstein

(in reply to Noah)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 9:50:42 PM

Lordandmaster

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I agree. But the faith people never seem to tire of talking about faith.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ScooterTrash

As for the reference to religion or faith with regard to this? I see absolutely no connection and frankly am tired of seeing it (any religion) brought up with regard to anything to do with the lifestyle, unless it is relative. To do so is just asking for a heated debate.

(in reply to ScooterTrash)

Post #: 12

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 10:02:15 PM

anthrosub

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Well, for myself...I've been trying to lighten up on the religious track. As you say, it seems only to result in a lot of stirred emotions. But as I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to fall off the deep end when it comes to discussing the mental side of things (bad habit I need to break). I always do enjoy reading your considered replies to topics though.

anthrosub

_____________________________

"It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

(in reply to ScooterTrash)

Post #: 13

RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 10:22:33 PM

Noah

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I'm gratified by the thoughtful responses to my original post.

To Imtempting and Lordandmaster I'd like to say that I think you exclude yourself from the meat of the conversation too easily. It seems to me that you are no more excluded from the Christian-influenced part of the conversation than you are from the Buddhist-influenced part, or any other part. Anyone can access both sets of literature and both living communities without identifying themselves with anything in particular beyond their own desire to explore and maybe grow, it seems to me.

Anthrosub mentioned William James who as I recall examined lots of religions and religious people, things and events, not in search of a church to belong to but to try to get something straight about what people in some general way call religious experience. But he did other research as well. I don't know whether the quote Anthrosub offers come out of James' work on religious experience but either way his example shows that a person can productively explore religious ideas from other than the point of view of an adherent to the religion in question.

One of my hopes was that someone would post about their own discovery --from personal experience or someother source in literature, or art, engineering or sports or where ever--which illuminated this picture for them and might for the rest of us. Does anyone know of strong parallels to the Faith/Works debate in other traditions, religious or otherwise?

We surely see them in ordinary life in the modern English-speaking world. Is it the gift or the thought that counts? Is, as the old saying goes, the road to Hell paved with good intentions? That old saying has a religious word in it but it really strikes me as more of a gritty, here-and-now piece of wisdom which doesn't require the least bit of religiousness to appreciate.

The little train in the children's book prevails while reciting: "I think I can. I think I can" *and* while exerting himself as he'd never done before. Is the message here that success (enlightenment, salvation) reqires equal measure of Faith and Works? If so, is the message on target?

Now neither of those sayings nor the train engine story represent precise, cut and dried parallels to a the theological issue nor to the Buddhist's point but to me they seem to all resonate together a little. And the thing I note here is that to me Emeraldslave2's comment resonates strongly with all of this talk, some of it religious and some of it not.

Thanks to Faramir for bringing Martin Buber into the conversation. Many profiles here are comprised of pleas for an I-Thou connection, if I understanf that notion correctly. Some, on the other hand, plead to experience the loss of their Thou-ness, if I can say that. Some plead to experience their It-ness as deeply as can be arranged. I don't suggest that this is a counterexample to Faramir's view (carefully stated in the first place as personal to him.) In fact when I have had the experience of acquainting a submissive with her It-ness, sometimes very deeply and even dangerously, we have so far in every case found a floor under that desire for It-ness. What that floor was was not uniform for each person. Some were pleased to find what was truly there even though it came contrary to their expectations. Others were disappointed, even bitterly. They were in love with the notion of a bottomless pit within themselves, you might say, and hated to find something more, or less. As time went by at least one of these people experienced an evolution of that negative feeling into something quite different.

By the way I realize that my own experience is not statistically significant. I don't conclude from my experience that every submissive in search of her It-ness will end up in the same sort of places that my friends did. I use the term friend widely and maybe wierdly, but not loosely.

Anyway my sense in looking back on each case was that in the end nothing was found on those trips that would stand as an example against Faramir or his presentation of Buber (and anyway how can you not like a philosopher with boob in his name?)

So how about Jung? Did he get near this stuff? Seems like he must have but I don't know him well enough? Anybody run into this business in Joseph Campbell or the feminist canon or a coach's half-time motivational speech, or at your grandmother's knee? If you did, does it shed any light for you on the question here?

What was the question again?

Emeraldslave2 said that: "Mastery and submission aren't about ACTs. Any act can be submissive or dominant."

If dominance and submission aren't fundamentally about "acts" (I happen to think she is right) then where are some likely places to look to see the heart of the matter? I suggested one notion rather provisionally and would like your comments on it. I would also like to consider other notions, including opposing ones, that you may have found useful for yourself.

Thanks again to all posters.

Noah

(in reply to imtempting)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 10:25:34 PM

domtimothy46176

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Perhaps I'm just in a more spiritual place than normal due to recent events, but I have to weigh in on this one.

I agree with Scooter's assertation that, at times, actions can be defining. OTOH, while actions can serve to define the parameters of the relationship, I believe the submission/dominance dynamic is more of an intellectual/emotional predilection, as per emerald's POV.

I'm dominant not because of what I require of toy, but simply because it is who and what I am. My requirements define the parameters of our interaction but they are simply an expression of self. I tend to think of dominance and submission in terms of spirituality not because I seek to express my religious convictions through D/s but because this path is an expression of who I am, deep in my soul.

Dunno if I'm stating my point clearly or simply muddying the waters, lol
Timothy

(in reply to anthrosub)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 10:34:29 PM

Lordandmaster

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Well, partly that's because the way you're describing Buddhism sounds completely Christianized. When you're talking about faith, you're talking about Christianity.

Edited to add: It's always amusing how Christians seem to believe that their message is relevant to everyone on earth. It's almost like they can't imagine someone who wouldn't benefit from hearing a little more about Christ.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Noah

To Imtempting and Lordandmaster I'd like to say that I think you exclude yourself from the meat of the conversation too easily. It seems to me that you are no more excluded from the Christian-influenced part of the conversation than you are from the Buddhist-influenced part, or any other part.

< Message edited by Lordandmaster -- 7/16/2005 10:37:56 PM >

(in reply to Noah)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 10:40:04 PM

Gemeni

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Forget faith-that's an abstract conception.

People cultivate connections to foster their fulfillment in living richer lives. This is about indulgence,rather than abstractions of "belief systems".

"Actions" are outward expressions of inner worlds, and they help people to share a reality in a tangible manner. But their initial expressions always began within. This is the root,the place below the waterline.

What one sees on the surface is merely the tip of the iceberg.

(in reply to Lordandmaster)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 10:49:42 PM

zaynab

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*whispering.... not to interrupt, Noah Sir... but i was just wondering if you've ever tried Molson xxx beer?....

(in reply to Noah)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 11:17:24 PM

imtempting

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Noah

To Imtempting and Lordandmaster I'd like to say that I think you exclude yourself from the meat of the conversation too easily. It seems to me that you are no more excluded from the Christian-influenced part of the conversation than you are from the Buddhist-influenced part, or any other part. Anyone can access both sets of literature and both living communities without identifying themselves with anything in particular beyond their own desire to explore and maybe grow, it seems to me.

Thanks again to all posters.

Noah

The Christian part of it has not influenced me in any way. I do not care about it. As for growing well life experience's make me grow.

Now here is another part of the conversation of replies. The Athiest part of which I am part off.

(in reply to Noah)

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RE: If is isn't about Acts, what is it about? - 7/16/2005 11:20:13 PM

Noah

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Scootertrash, I seldom totally agree with things either.

What I took to be Emeraldslave2's point was that no matter how submissive or dominant a particular action at a particular time might be, the key to it's being submissive or dominant is not in the act itself, but somewhere else.

Take a few of your examples of (apparently and usually) submissive acts. What if your partner were to wake up tomorrow only to see you: "catering to (her) personal whims, preparing (her) meals, doing (her) assigned tasks"? (sorry if I got the pronoun wrong) She might be a little shook up. She might take a new look at herself and her recent behavior and in light of your unsusual activity she might see things she hadn't seen before, things that you were going a long and careful way to make a point about. Maybe you saw an opportunity for her to learn or grow or just please you more and this wierd-ass subby-ish behavior by you was the best way for you as a dominant, her dominant, to get a certain kind of point across.

Maybe you are into a certain kind of emotional sadism and were just totally fucking with her head for your own pleasure.

Maybe you had reasons too subtle and clever for me to think of, but they were very dominant reasons.

When she folded the laundry (as an assigned task) she may have been doing this act to be submissive. If you folded the same towel the same way (did the same action) but did so as an effective lesson or punishment or what-have-you then it seems to me that this same act might have been an instance of you being dominant. Now maybe this wouldn't be your style but that isn't the point. In this sense the exact same physical act can be seen to be either submissive or dominant or neither, depending on various of factors.

For some submissives, to see her dominant busy himself with her assigned tasks would be a powerful chastisement or even punishment. This is a case where something you have called "a true act of submission" might in fact be dominant as hell.

This gets right to the heart of what I took to be Emeraldslave2's point. Sure, a given action in a given case can be truly and beautifully even terrifyingly submissive--or dominant. But it isn't the act itself that makes it so. A stranger who slits your throat in a parking lot outside a restaurant may be a murderer or he may be an EMT beginning a life-saving emergency tracheotomy after the Heimlich maneuver didn't work. The initial act, throat-slitting, doesn't tell the tale all by itself (although you an tell alot by the angle of the incision.) Other things must be considered in evaluating what is going on.

In fact I have a hunch that you and Emeraldslave (and I) are saying compatible things but using words differently.

As to your last comment: if you don't see any analogy where I saw one I respect that. If you thought that my initial post was trying to start a basically religious discussion I hope my second post cleared that up. Personally I'd hate to see a list posted here of things that can't be brought up in regard to anything to do with dominance and submission, with the exception of the subject of engaging children in adult activity.

If I encounter an aspect of a post that I find tiresome or that I think will probably be unproductive I usually ignore it and leave it to those who feel otherwise. In some cases a critical comment like yours might well be justified and I acknowledge your right to make it.

Noah

(in reply to ScooterTrash)

Post #: 20

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