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SimplyMichael -> RE: The Dominant Submissive (6/14/2008 4:35:07 PM)
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quote:
Why is there a 'best way' at all and why does someone need to prove it in the first place?
As usual Bita posts something short, elegant, and insightful and is sort of the question that inspired what follows, which was the post I deleted earlier. I have no interest in proving a "best way" in the sense of a rating system, or a heirarchhy. I am interested in discussing relationship patterns and paths that work better for those involved, how best to identify those involved, and how to best help people who want to be on that path but for whatever reason can't. I think the reason this is so hard is we lack the language for it and my rambling post below is sort of that question.
I think that the het BDSM community has come a long way since the early authors like Dossie Easton and Jay Wiseman, and even John Warren were writing their books. They were FAR healthier than the old guard gay groups and probably even their contemporaries in the gay community. However, today, we have come even farther in some ways but in others we haven't progressed at all. I think part of the problem "we" have is that we don't have the vocabulary for the difference between various groups of relationships and who does and does not do them healthily. Plus we have no mechanism for truly helping people become healthy.
All of that combined is why we have the problem LA is addressing.
For those in the scene in SF (I really don't know about other places) it tends to be focused very much on poly and multiple partners or serial monogamy whom are in short term transitory relationships. What works in a short term relationship is often what would destroy a long term one. What works for someone like me in either of those cases wouldn't work for someone else.
Combine that with our lust for shiny labels and we get terms like "dominant submissive" which on its face implies that a submissive is passive or weak and that dominant is a positive modifier, "better" than submissive, at least in the context used by the instructor in LA's example. I will admit, I get a thrill out of "dominating" a powerful woman, it pumps my chest up. However, despite what many think, I am actually quite modest about it when it matters. So, you can take me as the good or the bad dominant in our example but someone IS going to be one or the other and it sure sounds like a great line for applying for an "uber dom" badge so I can see the attraction “dominant submissive” has for people.
Because frankly, there ARE people who are "truly" dominant, not domineering but Dominant and worthy of the caps. Knight of Mists is one to me even though I haven't met him, Merc of MercnBeth is one I have met, VERY different people and yet we have no way of really labeling that, not labels in the confining hierarchical way we normally speak of them but in a constructive and positive way.
This conversation/discussion is hampered by the fact that our society (and probably most) don't really have a language to describe atypical relationships in a positive way. In fact, the language we use for “good” vanilla relationships tends to be both narrow and shallow although English is rich with worlds like cuckhold, shrew, man’s man, horndog and others that describe other ways of being but all those are used outside of the normal discussion of relationships and usually in a negative connotation.
I think the BDSM scene is on the verge of morphing, or at least I have run into a number of people recently who want "more" out of it that it is providing, they want to see "our/my" style of real long term relationship and relationships in general talked about and discussed and positive relationship in general become the norm and not the aberration that they are today.
I realize some are going to see this as me trying to force people into labels but it isn’t . It is about creating better language to allow a richer communication than we now have. The Eskimos have 20 words for snow, I want the same richness for describing bdsm relationships. Because with that, we can begin to celebrate those paths that work.
I haven’t quite got this down, but I hope people can see where I am going rather than dig some minor point out and quibble.
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