DelightMachine -> RE: Can integrity be taught? (5/7/2006 10:20:15 AM)
|
I think you instill virtue/morality/integrity in another person through his heart much less than through his mind. It's a slow process and usually takes place in childhood, so when you have a sub in front of you, you can mold him around the edges, but not very deeply in the short-term or medium-term. But as I read your post, you seem to be talking more about what I would call the "edges" -- not a person's fundamental morality, but applying the sense of morality they already have to BDSM situations. So I assume you've already watched this person for a while and determined he or she has a fundamental sense of morality to work with. I'd suggest engaging both the heart and the head, and I'd do it at "teaching moments" (a phrase I've heard used in the Catholic Church and, I think, in schools). A teaching moment is an example, usually dramatic, where you know you've got the other person's attention, often because that person has been shocked by something done by a third party. Then you can engage the other person's emotions as well as his mind, so at some point soon afterward it's a good time for a discussion. I definitely wouldn't make it so much a lecture as just a discussion where you encourage the other person to say what he thinks. After the initial discussion, I'd even bring up the same matter later by saying something like, "I just can't get out of my head the way that Domme hurt that sub by not being careful enough." Or, "I just can't get it out of my head the way that sub lost an eye by standing too close to the guy whipping his wench. This is why I was so concerned when you stood so close to the woman flogging her slave." Or, "I just can't get it out of my head the way that disease ate away at that sub's arm until now it's a stump. Ugh! This is why I want you to be so careful in cleaning the floggers and my other toys. I'd really hate for that to happen to your ass." Most of the Dommes I've been with have chatted with me afterwards about the play events we've gone to or the BDSM lectures we've attended, or just the BDSM parties we've been at, and they always mention what they liked or didn't like about the behavior of various people there. Those have always been teaching moments for me -- just the fact that I also saw the other people and may have seen the same thing take place that she referred to helped get my attention and engage some of my emotions. Sometimes it doesn't take much.
|
|
|
|