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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 7:44:04 AM

hands0n0knees

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There's nothing I like more than to play with semantics on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

It may not have been clear, but I was using 'demand' as a noun, not as a verb. In that context, there is no useful distinction between a demand and a need. Read it as a verb, as you seem to have done, and you are correct in noting the (very attractive, let's face it) associations with vulnerability in 'need' that are absent in 'demand.' If a submissive man says he demands something then it's dreadfully unaesthetic. However, I was speaking as a good Marxist, and reducing it all to trade relations. In that context, the demands, needs, desires, and wants of a submissive man are without emotional or aesthetic significance and are therefore interchangeable. He demands a hand over his mouth and you supply; visa versa with your demands. We decorate it with all the artistry that makes it fun, but that's the relationship in essence. My general point is that many men here are very bad at that decoration.

< Message edited by hands0n0knees -- 5/4/2008 7:49:11 AM >

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 7:51:58 AM

DominantJenny

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We could argue about whether it was mere decoration or whether there is more to it than that for hours on end...but I have better things to do with my time at the moment, I'm afraid, so I'll leave you to your Marxism.

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 8:11:42 AM

hands0n0knees

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And, indeed, it would prove a waste of your time.

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 8:30:22 AM

ShaktiSama

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quote:

ORIGINAL: hands0n0knees
Again, though, and more on the point of the thread, I must disagree that there is a class of people in the world called 'quality male submissives' who are genuinely selfless.

Actually, genuinely selfless people do exist, but that in itself is a kink of sorts and as such will only be particular to a subsection of the male submissive population. And honestly, I don't believe that "genuinely selfless" is really the quality that would be addressed by this and other threads on this topic. A more cynical male submissive reader might call the quality in question "successfully manipulative".

I prefer to call it "charm", for want of a better word--the ability to please a partner or a potential partner with your manner.

It's simply an issue of social skills, from my point of voew. All social skills are designed at some level to get us what we want from others...in situations where putting a gun to their heads will not suffice.

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 8:36:28 AM

Reigna

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Pissing contests aside, I'd argue that this really does come down to a question of semantics and context. As an example, I once got a really annoying introductory email from a sub who outlined his wants/demands/needs in a way that immediately triggered my delete reflex. Some weeks later, I asked a Domina of my acquaintance whether she knew any boys who might be worth my time. As a matter of fact, she did; and she mentioned a couple of his attributes that she knew would particularly appeal to me. Same boy mentioned above, whose email I'd deleted some weeks earlier. He's turned out to be quite an excellent submissive, and I plan on keeping him around for the foreseeable future.

< Message edited by Reigna -- 5/4/2008 8:38:49 AM >

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 8:49:00 AM

ShaktiSama

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quote:

ORIGINAL: hands0n0knees
Chezzy, you shouldn't feel any guilt about having a specific desire. Your approach, however, should be to pretend that you don't. You are allowed to get away with having a vague notion of wanting to serve, but a lot of dominants will inexplicably feel objectified only if you mention anything too specific.

Feeling objectified by someone who leads with his fetish in a charmless fashion is not inexplicable. It is the only possible rational response. If a person hasn't spoken to me, gotten to know me, and aroused my interest first, he is no more entitled to expose his specific fantasies and needs to me than he is to expose his naked body to me as a stranger in the park.

A male submissive is allowed to get away with much more than a "vague desire to serve"--if he has the deftness to state desire in the appropriate time and place. Once a woman is interested, a discussion of intimate desires is appropriate and even necessary! But it is not the topic of an introductory email. The earliest possible venue to state desire is your profile, which a woman will read if she is interested in you. And even then a wise submissive man will find some way to state desires in the profile with charm, enticingly, rather than as an explicit demand. "I dream of a woman who will clap her hand over her mouth and silence me" is much more inviting in the end than a flatly stated fetish.

Speaking for myself--I am endlessly fascinated by the fetishes and fantasies of people I care about. I am completely disinterested in those of people I do not. Any man who wants me to take an interest in his fetishes had best know the way to go from Group B to Group A. Stated desires, vague or specific, are not the way to do that. An interest in me--as a person, as a woman, and as a creature of desire myself--is a much better approach.

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 9:15:41 AM

hands0n0knees

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quote:

A more cynical male submissive reader might call the quality in question "successfully manipulative". I prefer to call it "charm", for want of a better word--the ability to please a partner or a potential partner with your manner.

I quite agree, though I never use 'manipulate' as a pejorative term.

quote:

Feeling objectified by someone who leads with his fetish in a charmless fashion is not inexplicable. It is the only possible rational response. If a person hasn't spoken to me, gotten to know me, and aroused my interest first, he is no more entitled to expose his specific fantasies and needs to me than he is to expose his naked body to me as a stranger in the park.

Again, I am evidently guilty of lazy writing. I entirely agree that it is rational for a woman to feel objectified if a man approaches her with nothing more than his wish-list and an expectant smile. What I thought I said, though, was that it is inexplicable that it's the only way she feels objectified. As I was saying to our friend with the implausibly Freudian hand-on-mouth fetish, you can avoid accusation of objectification even though you have decided what you want from a woman before even knowing she exists if you employ circumlocution, or 'charm' as you called it. People come on here because they have a desire that requires another person's cooperation to be satisfied. The recognition of his domme's subjectivity will only occur (if it occurs at all) sometime after he has recognised her ability to satisfy his desire: so she exists as an object before she exists as a subject, regardless of how he ornaments his language when approaching her.

What I'm sayin' is that there isn't anything especially selfish about all those dull men who e-mail you their do-me list. They are failing on a decorative, aesthetic level, not on an ethical one.

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 9:42:36 AM

AAkasha

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ElanSubdued

Akasha,

About my post above. I hope this didn't come across as being critical of you. My intent is to say that if you meet a lot of people, it's likely you're going to run into some bad eggs, especially if you don't filter judiciously. I'm sure you filter well so this isn't meant as an attack on your screening abilities either. If there is anything that bothers me a tad about your post, it's the stereotypes within it. There are lots of self focused people of all leanings. This isn't the domain of male submissives by a long shot. What I've found is that if you concentrate on the chaff, then that's what you'll get. Conversely, if you focus on all the good people in your life and on inviting other people you find enriching and compatible into your life, you'll enjoy yourself and others much more. I think the key, especially online, is to spend as little time as possible worrying about those who aren't compatible with your needs or who want something different than you do, and to focus your efforts on those who you feel chemistry with.

Again, if my previous post came across at all in an attacking or offensive manner, I sincerely apologize.

Elan.

Not at all Elan - it's all good!! As always, I'm really enjoying this discussion.

Akasha

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RE: Keeping a sub focused: It's not about you - 5/4/2008 9:48:41 AM

ShaktiSama

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quote:

ORIGINAL: hands0n0knees
People come on here because they have a desire that requires another person's cooperation to be satisfied.

Certainly. Most sexual desires answer to this description. The ones that don't do not require an Internet connection.

quote:

The recognition of his domme's subjectivity will only occur (if it occurs at all) sometime after he has recognised her ability to satisfy his desire: so she exists as an object before she exists as a subject, regardless of how he ornaments his language when approaching her.

This is a somewhat pessimistic view in general, and also serves as a rather damning condemnation of male desire generally and male submissive desire in particular. I'm familiar with the school of thought that produces this line of logic--Britain's Laura Mulvey is the exemplar--but these stereotypes have never stood the test of real people in my own experience. In general I think they unfairly demonize men and castigate all male sexual desire as essentially dehumanizing, which I think is bunk.

*shrug* I'm sure there are some men like this, but I don't believe it's all of them, or even a majority. Lack of social skills does not always indicate a lack of feeling or potential.

quote:

What I'm sayin' is that there isn't anything especially selfish about all those dull men who e-mail you their do-me list. They are failing on a decorative, aesthetic level, not on an ethical one.

I disagree. Many questions in ethics revolve around the display of courtesy and compassion toward others. To be rude, objectifiying and charmless is not only personally inconvenient to these men because it doesn't get them what they want--it is a form of harm inflicted on me as a person and on the community at large. I am not singled out for this nonsense--it is directed at all female dominants, and makes them, collectively, kinda cranky.

< Message edited by ShaktiSama -- 5/4/2008 9:49:56 AM >

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