Tasks

I've noticed that the notion of "tasks" is very BIG in the submissive world these days. It has come to feel like the latest fad. People go on about their lists of tasks, compare their various tasks -- it has gotten to be an almost "guys in the locker room" sort of phenomenon (mine's longer than yours is). These days, if you are not engaged in keeping track of and completing your latest set of tasks, you can hardly consider yourself to be involved in a power exchange. It's just that simple.

It has even become a language artifact. I was talking with an old friend -- someone with whom I came into the lifestyle many years ago. She and I have traveled divergent paths, but we touch base with one another now and then. We'd been chatting for a few minutes when across my IM screen came the message: "I've been tasked with an errand for Master." And she was gone. Okay then.

I don't have lists of tasks. Before this, I didn't have lists of rituals, rules, chores, protocols, or punishments. I don't have a slave contract or a slave registry number. I don't expect that any of that is coming down the pike. I understand that there are people who do all of those things and find them valuable, and that is all fine. I just do not find that the heart and soul of this is in any of that.

A listserve that I participate with (for relative newcomers to the lifestyle) is currently all caught up with the question of what sort of tasks should a new and exploring submissive give to her Dominant so that He can assign them to her so that she can feel more submissive. ARRRRRGHHHHH! Am I the only one who sees the contradiction there? If she collects a whole list of "tasks" that she then passes on to Him so that He can assign them to her so that she can feel the way she thinks she ought to feel when she is being "submissive," who is doing all the work, and who is in control of the dynamic?

Call me old fashioned. Call me a purist. Call me a minimalist. I believe that a submissive ought to be focusing on what it is that the Dominant partner wants and needs in any given moment or activity. An awful lot of the time, that probably amounts to being engaged in an internal monologue about what is the best way to make and serve coffee, or iron a dress shirt, or present oneself in a public setting, or make a bed, or pepare a meal for guests, or fold a bath towel. I hate to be a party pooper, but once we get past the "hot and horny" first flush, an awful lot of submission is about thinking about Him and His needs.

There really probably are Dominants who get into this task thing. When that is the case, I say, "Yippee, skippee!" On the other hand, I have a deep and abiding suspicion that there are an awful lot of power dynamics that are engaged in "task list keeping up with the Jones's" behavior these days, and that the burden for keeping the intensity and the attention level up is falling onto Dominants. Talk about pressure...

I believe that these dynamics should work to meet the needs and desires of those who engage in them. Still, there is a defacto inequity to what it is we do. When the bottom partner begins to "require" continual attention and input in order to stay mindful of place and self, there is a problem. I can ask for what it is that I think I need. He is careful to try and meet my needs. However, He has no interest or desire to engage in continual feeding of anything that is going to look like an ongoing demand loop for attention from me.

I've said it before. And, most likely, I'll say it again. Submissives submit. Tasks, when they are truly generated out of a Dominant's desires, are one thing. When tasks come to be a submissive subculture sort of "counting coup" behavior, that's a very interesting sort of exercise of power.

swan