Padriag
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Joined: 3/30/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: pinkpleasures
If there's a better way, fate, i am surely open to it...it's not my pride of place i'm interested in, but in reducing risk and possibly finding a way or ways of showing up abusive men for what they really are.
I've been thinking about this and considering exactly what to say, bear with me. I'd like to make a few points first.
As a rule I don't agree with trying to create checklists of cues for this kind of thing. Unless you're a trained psychologist I don't think you really have a chance to come up with a viable list. More likely you're going to come up with a list of cues that will be unreliable at best and may or may not offer any protection. This is why many of us object to such lists. For example, the suggestion of "if he won't give out his employer's number, he might be an abuser." This is not an accurate judge of whether or not a person may or may not be an abuser. I assume the original idea was that it would indicate an abuser has something to hide, but this is not a good indicator of that. A friend of mine, not in the lifestyle, dated a woman for a few weeks until she started to seem a little nutty. It was never serious and he decided to break it off and move on. She went completely nuts and began calling his boss and him at work several times a day, every day, harassing him and trying to get him fired, which eventually happened. If a dom doesn't give out his employer's info, maybe its just because he's trying to protect himself and his job from the nutcases out there.
There are no abuser ID cards, no good dom or bad dom ID cards, asking for driver's license, social security numbers, etc. is not going to ID a potential rapist or abuser for you. As others have pointed out elsewhere, there are plenty of cases of abusive ex-spouses, having a home address, joint bank account and all the ID in the world certainly didn't prevent abuse in those cases. Clearly this is not the way.
But I quoted that particular statement by Pink for a reason, maybe there is a better way. Perhaps the problem here is that we are focusing on the wrong thing, on the abuser rather than what a good dominant is like, what a healthy relationship is like. I see women come into the lifestyle all the time, especially online, and despite entire chatrooms devoted to how to avoid abusers, entire web sites devoted to it, they still end up in that one abusive situation nobody thought to describe... it wasn't on the check list. In talking with some, I realized that what they hadn't focused on was what they should be looking for. They had no clear idea of what a good dominant was really like. They had no clear idea what a healthy relationship was like. I'm sad to say it, but many of the women I encounter in this lifestyle have not had a good example of a healthy, happy, loving relationship in their lives, they don't know what to look for.
So here is what I propose... that we talk more about what an ethical, responsible, respectable dominant does do, and contrast that with what a predator does. As has been already said, if we are going to inform, lets paint a complete picture. Lets not simply list "if you do this you might be an abuser..." lets point out the kinds of behavior we attribute to "good" dominants so that anyone reading this has that for comparison. Lets also give thought to the responsibilities of both the dominant and the submissive in a relationship. There is plenty of talk about a submissive or slave obeying, what their obligations are, but what of a dominant or Master's obligations? Taggard sometime ago sold me on the idea of contracts, a concept I had not previously found much use for. What really changed my mind about them is that contracts are a good way to spell out obligations, for both parties. Not just what is expected of the submissive, but the obligations of the dominant, and also to spell out clearly what happens when either party doesn't live up to their obligations. It puts to rest the question of how far should a slave obey... by spelling it out for that couple, in the beginning, before any commitment is made.
And being that its good to practice what you preach, I'll kick off with a few examples.
A good dominant will be clear about what he wants, what he expects and what he will do; a mediocre dominant is often unsure or vague on many points (their answers indicating they haven't thought about things enough to know what they want); an abuser will be deceitful in their answers and over time might be caught contradicting themself or will avoid answering entirely.
A good dominant has clear ethics, and their actions over time reflect this; a bad dominant lacks reliable ethics and will try to justify any behavior as being their right as a dominant.
A good dominant can empathize and demonstrates awareness of others; a bad dominant will tend towards being self absorbed and unaware of others; a potentially abusive dominant doesn't care about others and does not empathize with others.
A good dominant feels they have a responsibility to be ethical, reliable and stable, they are conscientious; a bad dominant avoids responsibility, is unreliable and unstable, they feel they are never to blame and everything is some one elses fault.
A good dominant accepts responsibility as their duty, even when that is hard on them; a bad dominant avoids responsibility whenever they can get away with it.
PS: Not singling you out Pink, just using a couple quotes of yours as a spring board for what I was thinking.
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Padriag
A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel so that it may be very kind - Edmund Spencer
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RE: Is He a Sadist? An Abusive Man? Married? - 
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That has the ring...of a new thread me thinks!
Thanks for listening to me rant and rave, this time with a goal! 
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