April 1, 2009

Pet Peeves

Here are a quick off the top of my head pet peeves when people discuss power exchange relationships and kinky things.

1) The use of the word “more”. I will not go with the words “real” or “true” as those should be automatic for all to think moron when people use those. But more is used too often as well. Relationships are between two people and how they make each other feel. One is not more of a slave if they clean their house spotless without being ordered. One is not more of a Master by how little they have to directly order their slave. Your values and enjoyments of your other and relationship are only in the end important to you and your other. You can feel more of something within that relationship by some act being done but it is misplaced hubris to think of oneself more of a Master or slave because you do or did something that you think other might not. We are not in competition with anyone!

2) Self esteemed challenged male dominants who proclaim one must first start out as a submissive to learn it from their side before becoming a Master. Look, I am not going to say there could be nothing gained by trying our side for a little bit. But pretty much most things can be learned multiple ways and this life is one of them. But on the bigger picture to think that someone who gravitates toward being a dominant can possible understand what someone goes through that gravitates toward being a submissive is quite foolish. All one learns is at best the tip of the ice berg. To think that some man tries being submissive knowing it is only temporary, not being able to truly get what the pleasure of suffering for one out of love, to get turned on by the power or being on the receiving end of something and on and on compared to someone who is wired for that and it is not for some small time frame but an indefinite one. To think you can learn or get how that mind set filters and feeds off things is ludicrous. The men who promote this come off as what most of them are, long time Top only players in their local community that are trying to score more play partners by trying to keep as few as tops around from being attractive to the bottoms. To really believe this is to basically think anyone can be submissive and it is just idiotic and cheapens all of us who are submissive.

3) Dominants who think every problem they hear can be solved by the submissive to just focus on being more submissive and submissives who think every problem they hear is an automatic red flag leave the person thing. Problems in relationships usually come from a lack of open and honest communication and effort between the two or personality and compatibility issues. Not every problem has a quick fix and base on the dominant is perfect or just needs to be encouraged by a submissive being more overtly submissive and until one knows all the facts a problem or bad action by a dominant should not always default into a leave him submissives.

4) The continued watering down of the important things of trust, safety and abuse by throwing those words around so cheaply. Trust and safety are critical things to people in relationships and avoiding abuse as well. Thinking everything that goes wrong in a power exchange relationship causes one ability to trust to be destroyed or every mistake or accident can mean the person is totally unsafe and especially thought of as abusive without any other analysis is just doing a big disservice to not only this life but for actual victims of abuse in all walks of life. These are not any different then any other relationships and you do not hear nearly as often about someone’s trust being destroyed and wondering if they can trust again after a three week relationship blew up. You were not abused because the top did not get you in sub space and the scene was bad or emotionally abused because the guy you met over the Internet still has a open profile on another site a week after writing you. I do not know how many times I have had to try to talk some sense into an actual abuse victim to where they basically think they are not in a bad situation because all they hear is that everyone’s abused so why try something different.

5) People who confuse themselves and mislead others by confusing just for kicks or trying to lose their identity by “discovering themselves” or “exploring who they” are within the context of looking for long term relationships. I have written about this before but I really wanted to focus on was the fact that most proclaiming those are often doing the far opposite. I knew a woman on a personal site/message board which she had been on for five plus years. She had kept a running journal on her life and had pictures posted throughout those five years. She was big on discovering who she was but in those five years probably had not learned one thing about herself. In her journal entry and pictures you would see a woman who adopted probably six or seven far different religions/spiritualities and types of power exchange roles between the two. Each time in a zealot and “I have found my true self” way that to an objective observer was an obvious lost soul in trouble. All she was doing was discovering a new role to play every so often and hoping that would make her happy. I doubt she had discovered anything about who she was. This may have been an extreme case but it can shine a spot light on the issue. I have no problem and encourage people to “discover” and “explore” who they are. Just make sure you start with inside out instead of trying to go outside in and hoping to stumble into something that makes you happy. But it is also critical to stop trying to do this while at the same time find Mister or Misses long term. If you have not figured yourself out how can someone else or how can you truly know what is the best fit and relationship type to go looking for.

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