Padriag
Posts: 2633
Joined: 3/30/2005
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I haven't read all the replies since I'm doing this from work... but I wanted to jot some thoughts down before I got distracted.
I'll start by saying that I think the frame of context you set up Michael is far too simplistic for the subject matter... I'll try to explain this further on. You've presented some fairly stark choices which I don't feel accurately reflect how things necessarily are.
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ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
It is a common refrain that as a dominant you must be able to "walk away" or that you can't "love your submissive" without losing control in a relationship.
What exactly does that really mean?
There is some truth to both those statements. If a dominant isn't able... if it were necessary... to walk away from the relationship, then that dominant is merely one step away from losing all control. This is because, should the submissive realize this and decide to start topping from the bottom, they could continue to play that card until ultimately they had become the defacto dominant in the relationship. However, just because one can do something doesn't mean it becomes a club to be used at every turn. Being able to walk away is less about a threat, and more about a frame of mind.
As to the question of love, I think a better way of putting it is that you shouldn't love too much. It was Yeats, that old romantic poet, who also said "Never give all the heart." He knew of what he spoke. Love too much, too deeply, too blindly and you become unable to see things as they are and therefore react as you normally should. There comes a point when a person, who loves too much, becomes addicted to "being in love" and at that point will... like an addict... do anything to maintain the addiction. Can a dominant love a submissive... a master love a slave... yes... but take care not to love too much. All things in moderation, as those old Christians used to admonish... good advice that.
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When you say "I need you to submit to me by doing X" do you really want your submissive to hear "or I will leave you"? Making your partner feel safe and secure to me is the most fundamental task in trying to evoke submission from someone. Now before people start spouting "I don't want warm and fuzzy" D/s remember there is still something that makes you feel safe. It might be having someone who is strict with lots of rules and or who is terrifying but whatever it is, it satisfies what you need to feel safe.
Saying "do this or else" with the else being the ending of the very relationship you are trying to do is build and strengthen is destroying the very foundation you are trying so hard to create. Love shouldn't threaten a relationship, it should enhance it (baring part time or specific relationships where love is not part of the dynamic) and combined with real deeply felt security should allow all sorts risks by both sides.
You asked two questions here and I'll try to address both as I understand them.
First, as I alluded to previously... being able to walk away isn't about a threat to be used as a club in order to get ones way as a dominant. A dominant, if they are any good at it, should have other options to motivate a submissive in their "tool bag" beyond such a basic threat. Such a threat should, in fact, probably never be used... if things have reached a point where that becomes a consideration, they've probably reached the point the dominant should simply walk away regardless... with no threat. Again, I'll emphasize the point that being able to walk away is more about a state of mind on the part of the dominant, rather than a threat used to cajole a submissive into obedience.
Your second question or point was regarding making a submissive feel safe. Feeling safe within a relationship does not equate to promising never to leave, or to love unconditionally, etc. In my experience, "feeling safe" is more about the dominant being stable and reliable, about the submissive knowing that they will not be harmed, and the submissive knowing that they are accepted as they are (even if they know the dominant will require change to who they are). Remember, submissives in general want boundaries, they want structure, they want rules... these things are all also part of feeling safe for them. You cannot have boundaries and rules without consequences (if there is no consequence to violating them, then they are meaningless), but that does not mean the only consequence or even the first consequence should be "I'll leave." Just the opposite, it should be the consequence of last resort... applied when things have gone so badly wrong, it is the only option left... and even then it shouldn't be a threat, if things are that bad then just walk away Dommie... just walk away.
I'm going to use a couple of examples to try and illustrate both points in a practical application. Let's start with a friendship I have with a guy I used to work with. We're pretty good buddies, and I have often been able to confide in him, talk about things I would not ordinarily talk about with others. I've also been able to ask him for favors, and likewise done favors for him. But... I do not think for one moment that that friendship is unconditional. I know that if I abused his trust and friendship, I'd lose it... and vice versa. Neither of us has ever threatened the other with that, neither has ever petulantly said,"If you don't do me this favor I'll stop being your friend." It sounds silly to even imagine either of us saying that... how very juvenile. Yet still, on some level we both know if we ever abused that friendship, we would lose it. In most cases if one or the other has needed a favor, all that was necessary was to ask. In some cases some bargaining was done... an exchange of favors. There are parallels in this for any relationship.
Another example, I recently fired an employee... a former manager at my coffee shop who I had become friends with. My mistake was that I had become too much a friend and that interfered with me being the boss. It also put in the former manager's head the notion that I would not fire her, that she was indespensible. That mistake on my part cost me control... it also cost me thousands of dollars in lost revenue, stolen inventory and cash taken from the register... which I probably would have caught much earlier if I'd been more of a boss and less of a friend... I was too much a friend. In the end, she found out the hard way she wasn't indespensible. I found out the hard way I can't be too much a friend. She's fired, I'm out a lot of money and we both lost a friendship. By being too much of a friend I violated the "boundaries" of that employer/employee relationship. There are parallels in that too for D/s.
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In addition, what is more submissive, someone who has all options open to them choosing to submit or someone who fears losing someone doing it only to prevent that loss. One would happen even if nobody was watching, the other only if someone was watching.
Though I understand the point you are trying to make, I also see how this could easily drift in the direction of "who's submissive is better." Honestly, its a subjective question relative to the kind of submission a particular dominant wants, and the kind of domination a particular submissive wants. People are complicated and your view here is just too simplistic. Clearly its not the kind of relationship you want, not exactly what I want either... but I'm also aware it does describe what others... to some degree... do want. Who am I to gain say what works for them?
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Now I wrote this from a dominants perspective but both sides play a part in making the other feel safe. How many threads do we see where a dominant is afraid to show their soft underbelly or even cook breakfast for someone without the fear of being seen as soft and weak. Taking care of your partner is a two way street, the safer each side feel, the more genuine and vulnerable they can be which encourages them to be more caring which starts the cycle all over again, drawing them ever closer in an uplifting spiral of love.
If a dominant doesn't feel safe in being who they are, or in behaving as they wish... they've done it to themselves, and I've little sympathy for them. I also have little sympathy for a dominant who needs, wants or expects their submissive to make them feel safe to be who they are... because I promise you, sooner or later it will bite them in the ass. A dominant should be secure enough in themselves to be who they are regardless and they should have done so through the whole process of forming a relationship so that there is no worry about how the submissive might view them... because its already out there and the submissive wouldn't be in the relationship if they hadn't already accepted it. That's a healthy foundation for a healthy relationship.
Alright, all that said, it might be useful for me to outline in one paragraph (if I can manage to keep to just one, you regs know how I get  ) just how I think things should work. Here goes...
As a dominant I don't appologize for who I am or what I expect... ever. Neither do I negotiate about it. From day one I am who I am, and if that scares lil Susie submissive then I look at her and tell her to just walk away, Susie... just walk away. And sometimes that's exactly what they do.
But sometimes lil Susie submissive looks back and says... I'm not scared, I'm intrigued... tell me more. So I tell lil Susie submissive more. I tell her about the life I want to create. I tell her the kinds of things I want to do with her... and too her. I tell her the ways I'd use her, the ways I'd make her serve me and please me. An then I tell her again that if that scares her... just walk away, Susie... just walk away. And sometimes she does...
But sometimes lil Susie submissive looks back and says... I'm not scared, I'm turned on by that... I want to know more. So I reveal still more, about who I am, the good, the bad, the ugly and the just plain goofy. I make plain who I am... the guy she'll have to accept if this goes any further... and I don't appologize or offer to change. I make clear that if I change at all it will be because it suits me to do so... not to please her and most especially not to seduce her into staying. I make clear any expectations I have about changing her, and exactly what that means. I put all the cards on the table. And then again I tell her... if this scares you, just walk away, Susie... just walk away. And sometimes she does.
But sometimes she looks back with those big brown/blue/green or whatever eyes and says... I'm not scared, I want this... I want to be yours. An I smile back... but before I reach for that collar I remind her one more time of what I will expect of her, that I absolutely will use her... use every orifice of her body, use her whole body for my pleasure when and how it suits me, and that she will serve me in what ever way I desire, that I will expect her to be useful to me... that I will possess her and own her, and this will be her life... and that it absolutely is and will be my way or the highway... and if that scares her, walk away... just walk away.
But she doesn't, because at that point the collar is a mere formality, a symbol of what already is... she's mine. After having spelled out everything to her, been completely honest about who I am and what I want... the good and the bad about me. Having given her every opportunity to walk away... and yet still she wants it, she is still there... at that point she is already mine and that last choice, that fastening of a collar around her neck is a formality that marks a beginning. Yet we both know that if either of us violates the boundaries of that relationship... one or the other will walk away, because that's reality, that's how things work and there's no need to say it or threaten it. She serves and obeys because she wants to, and I keep her because I want to... and that will remain true so long as we both respect that relationship.
Okay... that wasn't one paragraph... but we all knew I'd never be able to do that and besides it reads easier broken up like that. 
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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: Love, fear, and D/s? - 
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