FieryOpal -> RE: Natural Law of Dominance (4/12/2014 6:04:26 AM)
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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt You use manipulation like it's a bad word. It's not. Any good dominant uses manipulation all the time, the difference being with good intentions. There is no such thing as a 'natural' dominant. That's as bad as 'real' dominant. Are there people with more dominant personalities? Sure. Often they are domineering control freaks. They don't make good dominants b/c they're far too self absorbed to know how to engender submission in another. Since everyone is a combination of submissive and dominant personality traits, most people can be taught (or can teach themselves) how to dominate another. Many don't like it or want to do it for long. Those that do, I *suppose* you could call them natural dominants, but they still have much to learn about manipulation, seduction, internal enslavement, all those things dominants use to control others. It's easy to top for a few hours, quite another thing to control a *relationship.* Okay, so you're going to make me use my less-than-full capacity brain cells this morn (I need more than one cup of coffee to get my day started) to attempt to tackle these complex issues. [:-] Yes, I do view manipulation as not-a-good-thing, not that we don't all do it to one extent or another. One can hardly parent without resorting to it or succeed at one's job, but it is not a requirement for dominance. It's a friction-reducing stratagem to impose one's will on another and to transition from one state to another seamlessly. My point, since this topic is about Natural Dominance - not my choice of title or of terminology, by the way - was that the natural expression of dominant characteristics is overt, not covert. My mother was a master manipulator. She could make just about anyone do her bidding and convince them that it was their idea. Is this a desirable skill for leadership? Yes, if the end result is what matters the most. Not if it causes you to lose respect in the eyes of others, like it did for me. Why, you might ask? Because it becomes an issue of integrity in my mind. There is no integrity in "tricking" someone to do one's bidding. This is not *true* dominance in my book. Was I the object of such manipulation while I was growing up? Damn straight, I was, and my mother enlisted my brother on occasion. However, I am thankful that I learned early in life how to see through the machinations of others and NOT let myself get manipulated. Therefore, my mother taught me a valuable lesson in invoking my own will to circumvent the will of those whose agenda is not aligned with my own. Onto the next subject. I completely agree that everyone walking the face of the earth is a combination of both traits and has the capacity to shift modalities in order to adapt to our environment. He who cannot adapt will perish like the dinosaur, in the form that we know of their existence.
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