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xssve -> RE: Submissive personality traits - rescue me from my lack of life skills? (1/10/2012 7:34:05 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Epytropos
I don't fall into the in particular (as perhaps you can tell from my extensive life skills[;)]), but this is an interesting topic so I thought I'd sacrifice some of my considerable celebrity and take a series of unpopular stands on it. After all, what is life without good enemies, right?
Firstly let me make the disclaimer that I do not subscribe to the notion of so-called life skills. If we take the most "successful" (and I place that in quotations since I am using it in the traditional sense, which I do not subscribe to either) people, what will we find in common among them?
Will we find the ability to cope with pressure? I suspect we will not. Turing was prone to panic attacks, Gaius Octavius could charitably have been described as whiny and cowardly, and Churchill turned to drink when there was so much as a garbage strike.
How about people skills? You know you were thinking it. Kafka couldn't even interact with people he didn't know, Einstein survived socialization solely because he didn't believe in free will, and of course, returning to the time of that most famous of Triumvirates, Ptolemy XIV refused abjectly to speak to anyone if he could help it. We'll call that one off, then.
Financial planning? Trump has been bankrupt 14(?) times. Thomas Jefferson spent 120k on wine in a single term despite already being deep in debt. I could do this all day.
In short, life skills, as a concept, are bullshit.
That said, even with that being aptly demonstrated as only I can, we can nonetheless follow a parallel line of inquiry and ask ourselves this: Are subs inherently a personality type well-suited to deal with the world without a dom in their life? To this I can only answer 'no.' There are exceptions, as with everything, but it has been my experience that most subs function in the absence of a dominant principally through the building of walls and the support of friends and family and so forth. They are functional, but not in the same way a nilla is functional, rather more strained, as if a facsimile.
Similarly, it has been my experience that doms (and I don't mean just me, though I notice it in myself to be sure) in the absence of a submissive personality develop a kind of listless antagonism. Often there is a savior complex involved as well, though I've lost that in recent years, a need to help and support everyone. It is perhaps a more functional mindset, a more sustainable one, but no less false.
Does this mean that unattached subs (or doms for that matter) are going to necessarily have lives in shambles? Of course not. Does it mean that all subs drowning for want of rescue? Not really. Does it mean that there is going to be a correlation between fucked up lives and unattached practitioners? Quite likely
So, at the risk of falling in with the "spectacularly clueless" as I so often seem to when putting forward a carefully-considered positions, I would say that yes, there definitely is that component. A submissive is inherently someone for whom control is anathema, and it has been my experience that there are very few situations in which you will find a person who is fantastic at that which they do not and will not practice. It isn't an insult, it isn't a value judgment, a discussion of worth, it's simply an observation. As a rule, reality is rarely pleasant.
On a lighter note, I initially read your name as seanbaby and thought I had gained surprising and rather strange insight into an author. Mais, non.
ETA: This wasn't to OsideGirl in particular, I just loaded and wandered away and when I got back there were people between quick reply and I (if that makes sense).
Excellent observations, I'd say that dominant personality types, if there is such a thing, tend to be more organized and a bit compulsive - not necessarily the people you mentioned above, but the run of the mill dominant, and these are traits that are convenient economically - in order to accomplish certain things you need to be able to talk other people into doing things in an organized manner, to run a resturaunt, or any other business for example - i.e., you have to have a vision of what you want and the will to force, browbeat or cajole others into helping you realize that vision - we tend to refer to thee people as type A's.
And, there may be some disjunct between professional and private lives, I don't think the sexually submissive type A is necessarily a myth, it just depends on how you define submissive - relaxation was mentioned, sex and play both play critical roles in stress relief, releasing anti-stress hormones and anti-oxidants - I believe there is reason erotophobic religious types are so dried up and shrill, while the sluts are all juicy and purring like kittens.
As far as submissives, they would tend to be more type B's, competent, but not as driven, more attracted to support than leadership roles, though again, a disjunct between professional and private leanings is not entirely unusual, you do what you gotta do in your professional life, what you do in your private life is theoretically more discretionary.
And, a leader is often only as good as his, or her, followers, look what a pack of assholes do in Jesus's name.
So, combine the two, you have a person who has a very clear idea of what they want and what needs to be done, needs things to be predictable and orderly, up to the point of compulsion, and somebody a little more laid back, open to randomness and fuzzy logic, dreamers and doers would be another way of looking at it, proactive and passive perhaps, but either way, it has little or nothing to do with intelligence per se - certain activities, like art or even science contain a large element of passive observation and simply sitting around thinking about things, it's just a different skill set than a demagogue or a general.
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