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How do you as a Dominant, consider a particular scene or play successful?..What is your idea of a satisfying scene?...example..do you consider a scene successful only if the submissive reaches subspace?..if submissive has an orgasm?..if submissive cries?..And maybe what would you consider to be an unsatisfying scene/play??I hear much about some saying we had a great scene today, but never what made it so great.....Tempting

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ORIGINAL: ExtremeOwnerIL

Here's the thing for me - I have a hard time associating 'success'/'failure' with the things we do. It makes it feel like it's this goal or job or something. When I'm doing things with my girl, it's an expression of energy and what we have. I know, that sounds flowery *laugh*, but to me, it's like singing or dancing - the pleasure is the act and the flow, not the end result.

Arg, words are not helping this morning, perhaps if I wave my hands, that will make it all clear? *laugh*

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ORIGINAL: Noah

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How do you as a Dominant, consider a particular scene or play successful?..What is your idea of a satisfying scene?...example..do you consider a scene successful only if the submissive reaches subspace?..if submissive has an orgasm?..if submissive cries?..And maybe what would you consider to be an unsatisfying scene/play??I hear much about some saying we had a great scene today, but never what made it so great.....Tempting

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ORIGINAL: ExtremeOwnerIL

Here's the thing for me - I have a hard time associating 'success'/'failure' with the things we do. It makes it feel like it's this goal or job or something. When I'm doing things with my girl, it's an expression of energy and what we have. I know, that sounds flowery *laugh*, but to me, it's like singing or dancing - the pleasure is the act and the flow, not the end result.

Arg, words are not helping this morning, perhaps if I wave my hands, that will make it all clear? *laugh*

On the contrary, Extreme, you said something worthwhile and said it well. Thanks. If tempting had stayed with "satisfying" and a way from "successful" the question would have rung more clearly for me.

To tempting I'll offer that I enjoy intimacy, trust, power, pain, pleasure, fear, joy, contentment self-expression, communion, vulnerability, sensations (all the senses) and a range of other things to get and/or give. But each of these is actually a whole range of things in itself.

In one case the intimacy I find satisfying may be that of a long-standing, love-soaked relationship. In another case it may be the more raw intimacy of exploring someone with whom I've shared the bare minimum in a relationship promising no future at all.

On a given day I might more narrowly want to explore a new technique or device (or vulnerability.) I may get satisfaction from learning, or teaching, or both, or neither

It may be sharpness, tartness, sweetness or bittersweetness that brings satisfaction in a given instance. It may be brutality. It may be tenderness.

Sometimes catharsis can be a key to satisfaction. I might find satisfaction today in novelty, tomorrow instead in the comfortably familiar. I might want to be thrilled, even endangered (or to thrill or endanger others.)  Then again satisfaction may come from being soothed or cared for.

If anyone out there has "an" idea of a satisfying scene, I suspect they are busy with a whole 'nother enterprise than the one I engage in.

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Some friends of mine, a dear couple, are competing for title of Master/slave and we had a community fundraiser for them which was done as a slave auction.  Archer suggested that well known dominants bring the biggest money when the offer to bottom and so in the spirit of things I had myself auctioned off both as a top and as a bottom.

I had feared for the worse as there are some women who despise me (shocking I know) and think I am an arrogant bastard and who I figured would do anything for the chance to beat me.  They didn’t show but there were still enough that wanted to beat my ass that the bidding was lively.  Just as it slowed down and I was about to be sold, a dark horse who hadn’t uttered a peep upped the bid a large amount and won me.  OH FUCKING SHIT!!!  This woman is a serious submissive who goes back to some darker earlier days and played heavily in San Francisco and who was a serious pain slut.  While I adored her, I did so because of that experience but I had no idea what the hell she was going to do to me.  In an effort to be bold, I had set my limits as; no sex, no penetration, and no intentional marks figuring I could expand or contract those depending on who it was. 

Problem I had was my respect and trust for this woman runs deep and my most primal scene ever had been with her and I had no idea what she wanted to do.  I soon found out, WAX PLAY and I thought “piece of cake”.  I haven’t done a lot of intense wax play, I have played with it but never done a long serious scene but I know the basics.  I didn’t get the basics, they didn’t rub me with mineral oil but at least they were sticking to my back.  OH FUCKING SHIT!  They poured a long heavy run down the back of my hair leg, then the other.  Everyone was laughing as I loudly lamented how fucking bad it was going to hurt coming off.

In my head though, as much as I care for this woman, I realized I had none of the feelings I would expect from a submissive, there wasn’t anything erotic, my mind didn’t want to make the bitch happy or pleased, I was getting nothing out of this. However, “getting nothing” I realized later was a massive gift, it gave me a clarity about myself that I didn’t have prior to bottoming and it has made me a better dominant.  I have never been one to say bottoming makes you better but I won’t ever dismiss it again either.

Back to the scene. I am now covered with wax, I am naked and they made sure to get it deeply into my ass crack so I am totally fucked.  She shows a bit of mercy and uses a razor sharp knife to cut much of the wax away but the stuff in my ass and on my balls I am just going to have to deal with.

It wasn’t until I went to shower off that I realized it have been a complete mindfuck and it wasn’t wax but hot water.  The woman is good, I never clued in.  The laughter hadn’t been at me getting covered in wax but the fact that there was NO wax and I was whining about it hurting when it came off.

It was an amazing night.   I also got to beat a well known dominant who nobody would ever believe allowed it.  Takes a lot of balls and self confidence to do what she did but hers are bigger than many.  I also had a couple buy me to mentor them and that was a lot of fun as well.

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I find the concept rather hot in a way and was in fact mentored at one point by a lesbian Dominant who loved to modify the behavior on a rather primal level of the girls she played with.  Nothing made her hotter than taking a hard core dyke and making her LOVE being feminine and even enjoying cock on some level.

I have stripped away the things that a woman attaches her power to for many reasons.  Take an attractive woman and take that away from her and you have some fairly profound stuff going on.  Make her attend an event with people she is meeting the first time and not let her shower for a week and wear crap from a thriftstore.  This isn't for amateurs as you are starting to play/work with someone on a very deep level.  Or make her engage people in ways that let her discover that she can be responded to positively without "spreading her legs" in a figurative sense can be very very empowering.  But the risks of things going really really bad are MUCH higher and both parties better be ready for that.

Bottom line, taking things away from people they think they need/are/want or forcing them to do things they shouldn't/won't/can't do can be very powerful and hot.  It is also some of the most risky play out there and I wager causes far more accidents than the things most people wring their hands over.

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I for one can very much enter a topspace and I was SAILING last night.  I did one of the most intense scenes of my life with a very very glorious woman and despite being at a party after a large collaring ceremony, I wasn't aware of anything but the beast within me and my prey, NOTHING else existed, not the room, not the time, not the sling, nothing.

One of the great things about really intense mental scenes is that I bet anyone who watched was bored to tears, unless they could hear the low gutteral growls emanating deep from within me or could see the terror on the face of my prey.

Yeah, I for one, can on those most beautiful of moments, soar away deep into topspace.