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dreamlady -> RE: BDSM and Communication (1/7/2016 11:45:49 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DocStrange
I think for some people communication comes easy. It feels very natural to their nature. Think of the smooth talking salesman. The person who can make ice water sound good to an Eskimo. Their thoughts flow easily.
Others, and I am in that group, communication is not always naturally flowing. Or said another way, I find it hard sometimes to communicate what I am feeling. I often need to think about it for some time before I can verbalize what I want to communicate.
What does this mean for my Dominant? It means that I may not be able to verbally tell the Dominant after a session why I reacted a certain way. A lot of people do a Q&A as part of the after care in a session. I often need more time to think about and verbalize my feelings than the time allowed in aftercare. So I will communicate to my Dominant that I will need more time to give feedback. For me it is often the next day before I can fully communicate all my thoughts from a session.
I think it is important to recognize you and your partner’s communication skills. And to know that you can build your communication skills. To go from “Yes I liked it” to “ I found it enjoyable when you did XXXX because of YYYYY, I might have like it more if you did ZZZZZ and would not have liked if you did WWWW. I know this is very generic but it demonstrates the ability to better communicate.
I think Dreamlady and DesF bring up good points. Training is a poor choice of words on my part. Teaching is a better terminology. The key is recognizing that there is a teaching opportunity. And DesF’s point that part of being a good communicator is to be an active listener. Are you hearing what your partner is telling you?
First off, this is your op, and training is an apt enough term for you to use, one that is commonly used in this lifestyle, as long as both parties have the same understanding of what training means to them in a subjective sense. (Sometimes "training" is a euphemism for a bunch of "Me Master" of Exploitation nonsense.)
Sub-slave training requires instruction, which is the same as teaching. Since your emphasis was on communication, I felt that teaching provides a broader umbrella, because very often training can get limited to conditioning as in behavior modification. Pavlov's dogs and all that. In a D/s context, training may just involve Obedience Training with predominantly one-way communication. Communications per se, is not conditioning. It is nevertheless a vital component of maximum effectiveness in the training/instruction/teaching processes.
On-the-job training for new employees is par for the course, as well as learning to adapt to a particular corporate culture. These cultures can be widely divergent. The same with varying styles of Domination.
Let's say that you hired a new servant and gave him or her instructions. If your instructions were not clear, this servant should have enough common sense to ask for clarification.
If I inquire of my servant how does he feel about any given activity, he may get stumped in giving me an answer.
He may feel apprehensive about his new position, he may internally question what kind of response he will get, or he may just be uncertain how to express himself.
What you've described has to do with play, with Topping and bottoming. Regardless of how D/s factors into the relationship, BDSM play between play partners requires a constant level of communication in terms of the unhindered ability to communicate with one another.
Frequently with sensation play, the bottom will enter into a non-verbal state and won't be able to articulate himself or herself.
Processing new sensations can take time. Not only that, there can be a disconnect between your bodily responses and your feeling responses.
Mentally, you may not be able to process what you have experienced right away either.
What worked fine one day won't evoke the same response from you another day, depending on your emotional state (or physical state if you have some health issues).
Warm-ups, routine partner checks, aftercare, feedback, debriefing, and follow-up are absolutely critical responsibilities for any Dominant to adhere to.
(Not just the Dominant partner, but a submissive may not believe it is his or her place to expect these steps to get implemented.)
A newbie sub or bottom is not an employee or a hired servant. The reason why I tend to avoid the term training is because it is most often evocative of Obedience Training.
In my case and in that of other Dominant women I know, there are just too many men wanting sub-slave Obedience Training in becoming more submissive or more suitable for Mistress ownership, as if submission in itself can be taught rather than being a natural state of being.
I have to scoff at that concept. Why would I even want to consider a man who presumes he has to be "trained" to be a submissive? What they really mean is that they want to be molded like a lump of clay instead of bringing some finely honed natural talents to the table.
Fine tuning is different, and requires two-way communications, so that's where I was coming from.
Not so much a matter of apples or oranges - because they're both fruit - but varying bandwidths or points of view.
quote:
ORIGINAL: DesFIP
I wouldn't get into a relationship with someone without communication skills. Because it isn't as easy to teach as you make it sound. You have to get them to stop learning to be passive aggressive, to stop using anger and rage to control others, and they need to fix the other dysfunctional problems that come from growing up in a family that deliberately prevented people from having to hear someone else and acknowledge that not everyone will always agree with you. You need to teach fair fighting and active listening.
Why would I put two years plus in on trying to help them become functional adults without knowing if I'm ever going to get my needs met. After all, I could put in that time and only then discover that we weren't compatible.
I'm not interested in being their private therapist. They need to want to fix these things on their own. If they don't want to, then no new partner can make them willing to deal with the pain that comes when you face your past.
Lack of adequate communication skills is a definite deal breaker for me.
This goes beyond mutual compatibility issues of major importance, in that a communications breakdown can turn into a life-or-death proposition for a submissive.
DreamLady
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