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Aswad -> RE: Bad Etiquette (4/22/2007 7:21:01 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Rafters
I used to use a combat version of "The Look" in self defense when covering riots. Inside the temporarily, rule free anarchy, someone would take offense to me carrying a camera and Suggest I give it to them and their mates. I would Look at them and Suggest otherwise.
Sounds familiar. Perhaps I should try to strip that look down to something I'd be more inclined to direct at a person I wouldn't go all medieval on. ~g~
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It's a cocktail of body language, and really hard to explain, since its more reaction than something artificial you construct.
Yeah, that's always been the problem for me, too. I can usually emulate "regular" body language if someone explains it to me, or demonstrates it, but I have a hard time putting it into words.
The look I've used in the past has always been an instinctual reaction, from a place that I don't go to around people I care about unless someone threatens them.
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+ Like a punch, you don't aim the Look at them, instead through them.
I always thought the reason for this was that looking them in the eye tends to make you focus in a way that leaves you less attentive to clues that they're about to make a move?
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+ Their actions have flicked a switch, crossed a line, broken a social contract that protected them from you.
Yeah, there's a definite sense of something coming "off the leash", as it were. I can see how one could transpose this into a D/s context.
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+ Whatever they have counts for nothing, in fact will probably hinder them. Whatever you have will be what will be imposed.
For me, that's always been more a sense that, to borrow my own words from another thread, another step means one or more of you will most likely not make it to the hospital, and that you're not about to start giving any thought to whether that might be you until it's over. A fictional character put it similarly, but I'll quote it for a different wording: "A lot of fights end before they start; when his eyes meet yours, and he realizes you're willing to pay the price in blood. His, yours, it doesn't matter. You're committed."
I've never had any expectation that it will work out for me, just that it won't work out for them.
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+ The personal space around each of you, is now yours. You will be reaching out to prove this, within seconds.
There does seem to be a sense of merging the personal spaces, which disappears when the threat is aborted. I try not to make the first move, though, unless there's an opening and a clear advantage. Of course, in a combat setting, this might not be a viable restraint.
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+ They are a paper-thin cartoon character thats run off a cliff edge, but hasn't fallen yet. Either they backtrack or the whole planet will rise up to hit them, they have no other options.
~g~ I think most movies with the word "Acme" in them just flashed before my mind's eye, but I can relate, yes.
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+ They're aren't trapped, since you have left them an escape route that will cost them a small amount of dignity in comparison to the alternative.
Vital point that people sometimes forget. Failing to leave an escape route will engender the same commitment in an attacker that didn't have it originally. I've seen people do the mistake of closing on them in a way that cuts off their retreat, and that doesn't seem to defuse things, ever. So far, I've never seen anyone verbalize their backing off, and I'm not sure they can, instead they take that step-and-a-half back, and they palpably fade back to non-aggression.
This bit could probably be transposed to D/s too, I guess.
Either way, it makes an interesting point about a sort of counterpoint to sub-space, both in relation to what I said about both parties being unable to verbalize the threat or its resolution, and also in the effects: time slows; the soundscape fades, leaving auditory clues more pronounced; exclusion of a majority of the visual field from conscious awareness; sense of clarity and calm detachment ("no-mind" as some put it). And after the event, the memory is somewhat hazy in the same way that childhood memories, or other memories acquired in an altered state, are.
Kind of interesting to consider in terms of the alpha/beta dynamic, which I suspect still has a biological presence in humans. I've been planning to write an essay/post on this for a while, and have a rough draft of a post that relates it to what Lt. Col. Dave Grossman discussed in "On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs". Have you read that piece?
Perhaps it would be useful to employ some of this "dom-space", or whathever one would call it, in the D/s context.
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Question: Would they now really like to rollback time, so the last fraction of a second and it's causes, didn't happen [Yes/no?]
No rush![sm=evil.gif]
Yeah. I found that most people get a serious realization that they didn't think this one through, and pull back fast. It's also happened once when this exchange happened after someone attacked me "out of the blue", when I'd stepped off the line of attack. (Not really out of the blue, it never is; looking back, I recognize the clues, and would have done so at the time if I hadn't been lost in thought.)
This is part of why I don't put myself in that position in the first place, or perhaps the other way around. I know that if I'm going to be asking myself that question, the answer will be "Yes". It is only going to be "No" in those cases when I don't ask myself that question; when the commitment is already there, like if someone else initiated.
We might be straying from the topic, though I suspect the OP has his answer already, so if you'd like, we can take it to PM. I'm fine with continuing here, too, if this might have some interest to people.
edit: unfucked quoting.
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