About Dominants

I found a recent post, written by Measha, poignant -- to say the least (italics are mine):

My husband is not a Dom. He's not a Master, nor is he a Top. He is simply himself... he will never give a good damn if I shave or don't shave. He probably wouldn't even notice if I was wearing panties to bed or not on most nights, and most likely doesn't have a preference, anyway. He doesn't notice any act of submission on my part unless it something that he is looking for in a sexual way ...As much as I enjoyed exploring my submissive side in that way...I was alone in it. He was merely a spectator who would throw out a command now and then ...I didn't drag him down that road. I stood to the side and tried to follow...but there was nothing to follow...He will never care about my routine, my habits, or anything other than if I've done the shopping, washed his underwear and kept the kids all safe and fed while he was at work....maybe a little micro managing here and there would be nice...

The sense of disappointment and frustration is soooooo clear in all of that. That was the thing I responded to first ... hoping that somehow these two could find a way to work through whatever there is that isn't working, and find their way to a place that is "good," whatever that might be. I still feel that way.

Sometimes, some bit of writing, or some set of ideas will capture me and I will find I just keep coming back and chewing on it. This has been like that. As I thought about it further, I began to get to my usual take on power-exchange relationship dynamics. It is not possible for a person to both give up control and hold onto it at the same time. The most commonly occuring challenge in the beginning of a power-based relationship, whatever label we put on it, is that we almost always come into it with hopes and dreams and needs and wants -- and many of those have been closely held in our most secret hearts for a very long time. That simple reality makes it very difficult to accept that the "control" we crave and the submission we seek may appear in our lives in a form that isn't at all what we imagined, and may come to fruition in ways that we do not like much. Being the crotchety old lady that I've gotten to be, I am inclined to tell the younger ones among us that it is simple really: "submissives submit." Right. This I believe, and I think that many would be submissive women come to the point of disappointment and frustration when they fail to persuade their partners to provide the sort of dominance that they imagine.

Measha insists that she loves her husband and is adamant that nothing will change that. And that makes me wonder -- why does she love this man? What is it about him that makes him worthy of such fierce and determined love? Because, I'd almost bet that, if he's a guy that inspires that sort of love, he may be a better candidate for "dominant" partner than she thinks he is. After all, dominance is really not about spanking on schedule, or setting up and enforcing pages and pages of silly rules, or continually looking for reasons to punish, or abusing, or micro-managing,or collecting a vast array of toys, or demanding this thing or that. It is true that there are partners who find that some or all of those kinds of things excite and connect them. There are people who take pleasure in a wide variety of sexual/erotic practices that are based in the deliberate creation of uneven power dynamics. There is not a thing wrong with any of that -- it can be great fun and sexy as hell.

Dominance (and submission for that matter) may not look anything at all like what one might think based on some of the lurid tales that are splashed all across the Internet. The preponderance of that material is pornographic fantasy junk that has no more relationship to reality than Disney's "Little Mermaid" movie does. Standing around (metaphorically speaking) with your hands on your hips and a mental checklist of what your "dominant" partner ought to be doing or not doing is very likely going to lead you to the exact kind of disappointment and frustration that Measha is feeling. Power exchange relationships get formed in the real world, between real people. There are inevitably real life challenges that have to be negotiated and accommodated, and there is no percentage in demanding or attempting to create a dynamic that goes counter to the inherent nature and temperament of the parties.

Back to Measha's declared love for her husband, whether or not he ever comes to be the dominant she once imagined and wished for, I'd say that if we are evaluating a partner as to suitability for assuming the dominant role in a relationship, we might consider this pretty good list of traits that one might expect or require (borrowed from Associated Content):

Honesty
Trustworthiness
Integrity
Self-Control
Sense of Humor (even at himself)
Capacity to Love, Be Loved and to Express that Love
Desire to Learn and Grow, both for himself and for his partner
Dependability

The one thing that I'd add to that list is SELF AWARE.

The ability to believe in and rely on a dominant; the ability to be certain of his love; the comfort of knowing that He can laugh at Himself, and the silly things that happen in real life and real love, the knowledge that He can take the lead as partners grow and change -- all of those things are essential and foundational to making power exchange work. All the rest is window dressing and style and personal preference.

I don't think that every vanilla husband is necessarily qualified to be a good dominant. I've lived the futility of trying to make someone who is NOT dominant into a dominant. Hopeless. On the other hand, I'm not willing to write off all the genuinely good and decent fellows who just don't see any reason to fuss about silly details and rules. I am suspicious that many of those fellows might be just fine in the dominant role if they were left to their own devices to figure out what they wanted that role to look like, and what was important to them. Women who want to explore submission can "kill" the whole project with their insistence that their men dominate them in precisely the way that they want to be dominated. That isn't ever going to be it.

swan