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stella41b -> RE: The Dominant Submissive (6/15/2008 5:27:21 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: shivermetimbers
I hope I'm staying true to your post, but this is what started running through my mind, so I apologize if I am way off base. I was in the military, and as everyone knows, there is a rank structure. You have at one end of the rank structure generals, the other privates. Neither can exist without the other. Both have a responsibility to either give or execute commands. The general is tasked with a multitude of decisions. The private is tasked with the final obedience to execute those decisions. That mutual respect for each other, the knowing one can't exist without the other, is what makes a functional unit. A good private doesn't demand a general to prove their stars, and a good general doesn't need to prove their status by pulling rank. (Emphasis on the word "good" for former and current military folk who want to challenge about generals and privates who don't deserve their rank)
I'm coming into this late though I wanted to come into this discussion much earlier (I'll explain why I chose not to later).
I'm coming back to the above post because I come from a background which is quite similar to the military - theatre. In theatre there's a sort of hierarchy, there's the same need and requirement for discipline, for structure, and there's a rank structure. The producer is the top of the hierarchy, then the director, then it divides between the stage - actors, and what I would call the crew - stage manager, technicians, costumes, set design and so on. Each has their own role in the whole, each must play their part or the production falls apart.
However there's a difference, and that is with regard to challenges. Challenges are unwelcome in the military because of the training - it's about lives, technical equipment, some of which costs huge sums of money, but more importantly, one small mistake and someone could die.
However in the theatre there are challenges. I have my reputation not just as a playwright but also as a director, but I also welcome challenges. Why? Because a challenge doesn't always mean a confrontation, it can also mean stimulation. I lead, I make the final decisions, I maintain discipline, but I realise that - unlike the military - I'm dealing with creativity in both thinking and expression. If an actor cannot create they become wooden, nothing more than a puppet. The play and production dies, and the audience will end up with nothing more than a puppet show. This isn't what theatre is about, it's a live shared human interactive experience. Therefore challenges are necessary.
I think a better and more accurate term than 'dominant submissive' would be 'proactive submissive' which to me fits the definition much better - that someone is stable, doesn't need micromanaging and doesn't bend easily or even yield easily like a more reactive submissive.
I find myself a little in disagreement with some of the Doms who posted earlier who were against challenges from a submissive. I would argue that most Doms need to be challenged by submissives. But here I would like to point out what I mean exactly by 'challenge' here. It's a positive challenge, one arising out of a motivation to stimulate. I guess most of the Doms who were against challenges thought instead maybe of the more negative connotation of challenge - confrontation. The logic and reasoning behind my argument is thus - why should a Dom always have to be the creative one in the relationship? Why can't the submissive also be creative, and creative enough to stimulate the Dom? Is stimulation by both Dom and sub harmful to the relationship? Why does it have to be that the Dominant stimulates the submissive but not the other way round?
Labels can be misleading especially in the English language because English is so individual as a language and context is oh so very important. This is why I sat back and waited until now to post what I think. I read LA's account of the seminar or meeting, given from her own position as someone who took part, and I wanted to see how it developed as a thread. My own take is that DommeTX made some very valid points in what she was trying to teach, but in taking common labels out of context and putting them in a new context she not only caused a fair amount of consternation but also failed perhaps to get her message across.
The thing is, as a teacher, and I've taught TEFL English myself over several thousand hours, not every lesson is successful or turns out as it should. The failure of a lesson doesn't necessarily make you a bad teacher unless the failure of lessons is habitual or consistent.
This is just my opinion, I may be right, I may be wrong, but I feel that putting 'dominant submissive' together perhaps caused the failure and that 'proactive submissive' might have achieved a different result.
The problem with labels however is that they tend to form preconceived notions.
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