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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
Yes, yours focuses on externalities, mine on internal processes.  Since we are talking about a personality type, doesn't it make more sense to look to internal processes and not external processes?

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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23

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Actually, yeah it is. If submission was the goal itself, what do you call the people who will only submit in the context of a romantic relationship, or who will only submit to the person they love. Their goal isn't simply "I want to submit" and some people have a bit of a quirk in which they'll only submit to someone who inspires submission in them.

Their goal is simply "I want to submit."  That they need to find the right totem to submit to only indicates that they need something outside themselves to achieve that goal.

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Also, someone who will only submit to someone who inspires submission in them in not a submissive.  They have been cowed.  Being the subject of someone else's dominance does not make one a submissive, merely a person who is submitting.

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Your definition goes into motivations and that makes it limiting.

Aren't our motivations what defines us?  I think the primary opposition to motivation based definitions is people's unwillingness to face their own lack of self-awareness and inability to be honest with themselves.

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There are professional submissives. There are submissives who submit because it gives them a feeling of security. There are submissives who have no innate desire to submit until they meet someone who inspires it in them.

And it doesn't occur to you that, rather than lump all of these disparate entities under one catch-all label, we should perhaps have other terms for these people?

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You seem to have these lofty and noble ideals of what makes a submissive, that all submissives submit just for the sake of submission and that we are looking for something "greater than ourselves" - since when did "low self esteem" become a requirement for submission?

Since when did seeking something greater than yourself become an indicator of low self-esteem?  I would think the real indicator of low self-esteem was what a submissive chose to submit to.  Those submissives who hold themselves in high regard will seek out highly regarded Dominants, while those who view themselves as having no worth will seek out worthless Dominants.

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Now you can go ahead and say that in your mind the best submissives are the ones who do it as an end goal in itself, but to say that anyone who has more refined motivations is no longer a submissive makes me wonder what you think of all those women who won't submit to strangers. I mean, if the goal is submission and not the relationship, why should it matter *who* you submit to?

It shouldn't matter, in an ideal world.  It does matter, but it shouldn't matter.  The reason is does matter is because most submissives, being real people, have multiple conflicting goals and desires.  Often self-preservation is one of these goals, to give an obvious example.  Thus the real submissive -- as opposed to some theoretical ideal submissive -- will find that zir desire for self-preservation (or other, less obvious desire) is an impediment to zir goal of submission, and thus finding a person who doesn't imperil zir sense of self-preservation becomes a necessary preliminary step towards achieving the ultimate goal.

For example:  A woman whose end goal is submission but finds she needs to feel safe and protected before she can submit is a submissive with a precondition for submission.  A woman whose end goal is to feel safe and protected and is willing to submit in order to feel that is not a submissive.

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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella
The difference between my definition and yours is that mine focuses on actions and yours focuses on motivations.

Yes, yours focuses on externalities, mine on internal processes.  Since we are talking about a personality type, doesn't it make more sense to look to internal processes and not external processes?

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

You seem to have these lofty and noble ideals of what makes a submissive, that all submissives submit just for the sake of submission and that we are looking for something "greater than ourselves" - since when did "low self esteem" become a requirement for submission?

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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella
I think relationships are a bit more complicated than that, I know I couldn't base a relationship off of just wanting to submit. I'd say being able to submit is one of the things I want out of a relationship but to say that as a submissive my goal is just to submit seems incredibly limiting.

Well, this is obviously getting into semantics, but here you are conflating "I" with "I as a submissive."  As a (presumably) at-least-partially realized human being, you inevitably have many identities.  So you, Elisabella, have many things you want out of a relationship, because you have many elements to your being, but you Elisabella qua submissive only want to submit.   If your identity is reduced only to your submissive quality, then all you want is submission.

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Likewise, I'm a dominant, but that doesn't mean every moment of my life is spent being dominant.  I'm also creative, and sometimes I'm being creative.  And a hedonist, so sometimes I'm being hedonistic.  Etc, etc.  Take away all those other qualities though, and I would only want to dominate.

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My fiance inspires submission in me, because I adore him. It's not based on whether he's actively dominating me, it's based in my feelings toward him.

Then he doesn't inspire submission in you.  You are inspired by your adoration of him to submit to him.  You are attributing your submission to his action (he inspires), and then claiming he is not acting. 

And I simply have to point out that adoration is worship.  He is the something greater than you that gives you (Elisabella qua submissive) purpose and meaning.

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I think it's a lot harder to define a person than you make it seem. My main issue with the motivation based definition is that in a BDSM context "submissive" is more of a role definition than a personality definition.

Bottom is a role.  Submissive is an orientation.  (And Slave is a lifestyle, for those keeping score.)

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To me, submissive in this context = a person who wants to be in the submissive role of an interpersonal relationship, not just a person who enjoys submitting to others. And like any other role-based definition, there are multiple paths to get to the same goal.

No one is claiming that a submissive is a person who enjoys submitting to others inclusively.  Remember the qualifier of "something greater than themselves," something they can adore.  I think you'll also find that there is no need for the word "role" in your statement.  A submissive in the BDSM context is a person who wants to be the submissive in an interpersonal relationship with someone they adore.

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No, because they all essentially perform the same function, regardless of motivation. They all submit to the will of the dominant half of the relationship. They just fall into different subsets of submissives.

Ah-ha! So you are admitting that they aren't all the same thing.  All I am suggesting is that rather than create "subsets" of submissive we simply acknowledge that these things are different and not actually submissives.

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Maybe it's not an indicator of low self esteem but I can't imagine wanting to submit to someone because I felt they were "greater than myself" - I submit to them because I feel that reaction to who they are as a person, not by comparing them to myself and deciding they are better than me.

Okay.  Of course, when describing your relationship to your D-type, what word did you choose?  Adore.  To love intensely, to honor and worship; an example sentence straight from the dictionary: I adore God.  Synonyms of adore?  To esteem, to glorify, to honor, to idolize, to revere, to venerate, to worship.   Your own language betrays you, I'm afraid.

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I want to clarify something. Do you see submission as an absolute? In other words, do you think that in an ideal world, a submissive would desire to submit in every way s/he was able? And if so, do you feel that the only definition of submissive in that world would be someone who did desire that?

In an ideal world an ideal submissive -- a theoretically perfect submissive in every context, not simply BDSM -- would absolutely surrender to the entire world.  Which would make zir more Christ-like than Jesus.  In fact, if one wanted to be poetic and say something imporant but without a lot of clarity, one might say:  Where the submissive desires to be Christ-like, the Dominant desires to be God-like.  But that's a tangential thought.

I'm not sure that BDSM would exist in an ideal world, as BDSM seems to exist primarily as a means of dealing with the less than ideal reality of our actual condition.

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Anyway, if I had to choose one "ultimate goal" in a relationship it would be to find someone who I loved, who loved me, who I could spend the rest of my life with.

That's what pretty much everyone wants, though some might quibble over the last part.  It doesn't mean much to say that one wants to be loved, because it is more or less impossible to define what that means. 

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The fact that I submit to him is just one of the things that makes the relationship more enjoyable, sorta like having sex. It's great, it's important, hell it's probably a prerequisite, but it's not The Goal.

It's not Elisabella's goal as an entire human being, but it is the goal of Elisabella as a submissive.

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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23
All I am suggesting is that rather than create "subsets" of submissive we simply acknowledge that these things are different and not actually submissives.

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Sure you can.  Do some LSD, you'll see.

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In fact, if one wanted to be poetic and say something imporant but without a lot of clarity, one might say:  Where the submissive desires to be Christ-like, the Dominant desires to be God-like.

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I find that for many people talking about D/s dynamic that the urges they feel are more akin to the natural religious urges that have caused religion to have such a place in the human mind for eons. They want to know that someone is in control. They want to know that there is a structure that gives meaning. They don't want to be slaves as much as they want to be saints - in communion with the Master/God and serving His purpose. It's common in religious thought to theorize that God created humanity because true love requires an Other. Similarly, a dominant person will not be satisfied by controlling his own life in the same way that he will be satisfied by controlling the life of an Other. Control that was freely given by the Other. I just find the parallels to religious devotion difficult to ignore.

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ORIGINAL: Psychonaut23

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ORIGINAL: Elisabella
Right but there's a difference between saying "the submissive aspect of a person only wants to submit" and saying "a submissive only wants to submit."

There is in some contexts, such as if you're speaking of a specific person, but if you're speaking in generalities, then both statements mean the same thing.

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But does the time you spend not dominating mean you're no longer a dominant at that time? If you had a day when you had no desire to dominate anything, as I have days when I have no desire to submit, does that mean you lose that aspect of your identity for a day?

Essentially, yes.

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You can't just compartmentalize human beings and say "this part is this identity, this part is this identity," because when someone assumes a self-identity they're making a generalization about themselves.

Sure you can.  Do some LSD, you'll see.  Who we are is just a series of choices we make about who we want to be in the end.  Everyone is everything, our ego simply chooses some features to highlight and downplays the rest. 

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If adoration is worship then he worships me too, because I wouldn't be with a man who didn't absolutely adore me as well. The look of adoration in his eyes is also something that makes me feel whole, so if my adoration makes him greater than me, his adoration would make me greater than him, and I'm not quite sure how that would work out.

It's all perceptions.  Nothing is actually greater than anything else.  From a truly objective perspective, everything has a value of nil.

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So in an ideal world you think the 'submissive aspect' would override all other aspects of a person's personality?

No, in  an ideal world the 'submissive aspect' would override all other aspects of an ideal (perfect) submissive's personality.  That is to say someone who was perfect at being submissive would be submissive in every possible sense, but I don't think an ideal person would have one dominant personality trait.

A truly perfect person would, I would think, be able to manifest whatever personal qualities were the perfect qualities for the situation.  The ideal person would be dominant when presented with submission, submissive when presented with dominance, and egalitarian when presented with equality.

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Except my personality isn't fragmented into small compartments of desire. I mean it's fine if that's your paradigm but I take a more holistic approach to self. Otherwise how would you reconcile me the submissive who wants to submit with me the girlfriend who wants to get my way sometimes with me the dominant who wants to co-own a slave with me the antisocial loner who just wants him to fuck off sometimes with me the clingy and insecure who wants him to tell him he loves me and see it in his eyes with me the lover who wants him to make slow passionate love to me with me the fighter who wants to take martial arts so we can fight for real during rape scenes with the thousand other "Elisabellas" inside here?

Because really trying to break it up would just show a bunch of different people who want different things, but when you take me as a whole you see that each of those aspects are integrated with the others to an extent that it's nearly impossible to separate them.

Or maybe the entire concept of self-identity is a big fat lie the ego tells itself to maintain an illusion of continuity between experiences.  Who says the Elisabella that interacts with her fiance is the same Elisabella who interacts with her parents, or innocuous strangers, or creepy people, or bosses, etc.  I'll tell you who:  your ego.

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But people are really just a jumble of drives, needs, trained behaviors, conditioning, and the like.  We are all a half-dozen different people in the span of an average day, with the ego massaging the reality of our experience into a consistent story.

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ORIGINAL: kc692

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It would seem at first glance that psychonaut is an [sm=AttentionWhore.gif]and why yall dont just hit ignore or better yet, watch the fun like me and not reply and give him the attention he seems to thrive off of, (which is evidenced by taking someones words, putting them in quotes and then changing them to his own infantile words, in a childish fit) and watch him bounce and wither, is beyond me. He is not the first one, nor will he be the last [sm=AttentionWhore.gif]and to me, its fun when the other users get enough, to ignore him at large and watch him [sm=anger.gif]. Its entertaining.

edited to add: I m back to refusing to say anything to him

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'Why does it have to be for him?'

I don't improve myself for other people's enjoyment,

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ORIGINAL: perspectives

LA, question...if your boy is instructed to ejaculate, is it not always followed by a period of time during which he ''loses'' his submission? A time when, for example, he may not be able to squeel like a piggy. How do you deal with this?