Thoughts on Control and Submission

I have recently run into a small problem. It is about the way I think about power exchange compared to the way others may think about it. Most people I have encountered believe that a submissive must choose their dominant. I share this opinion and think that each person must find the person they trust and can submit to on their own. In the end it must be the submissive’s choice as to who they submit to. Now this is the point that I have found that I conflict with some others, on some level Kai included. I am not totally sure why this is perhaps is it just me being overly cautious, or perhaps there is something else to it.

Many of the people I have talked to, and that isn’t saying much as my pool is limited, believe that once the submissive makes it known in some fashion they are interested it is the part of the dominant to take control of them. In the context of a single, planned out scene in which the parameters are laid out before hand I can agree with this statement. In those cases there is a clear beginning of the power exchange and an end, you only need submit or be in control for that set period and much of what is going on is predetermined at least in part. Now here is the place that I seem to deviate, in the context of a long term relationship I think it is important for the submissive to make some kind of gesture aside from a passive display of interest.  I think this is due to the amount of commitment that is required on both sides of the equation.  In the context of a long term play relationship the boundaries between vanilla and BDSM are blurred and sometimes do not exist. There really is often no defining moment between play and not, the scenes just flow into your daily life. As a dominant I would like my submissive to know that she is getting into that type of situation. I sit and tell them what they are getting into and then they need to choose to commit to it or not. After they have made the choice and offered their submission in a tangible way then I will begin to take things from them as I see fit and scenes will just materialize out of thin air. But, until they decide to take that step I feel that taking their control outside of the boundaries of a pre-discussed scene is something akin to rape. It is forcing someone to do something that they may not be completely willing to do. To put it in a non-sexual way if you imply that I can take something and I do, but the offer really wasn’t there it is still stealing and I am guilty of the crime. If you give me the object and say take it whenever you want, then I am no longer stealing from you and I have no problems taking it if I need or want it.

Some people might say that this diminishes my strength as a dominant because I am unwilling to take and use what I want. If you ask anyone that has scened with me in the past you would find that they don’t think me less of a dominant and many of them have really loved the times that we have spent together in scenes. I think that the way I approach things actually makes me a more responsible dominant and better than I would be if I merely took what I wanted all of the time. In the end to be a good dominant I believe that you must have the submissive’s best interests at heart. In doing things my way I hope to be able to say that I have Kai’s best interests at heart when we play and when we think about our relationship. I can say that in the past I have had my submissives best interests at heart and I hope that many of them learned from me and can say that they truly enjoyed our time together and that after we parted ways they still thought about me in a good fashion. 

In the end, I am not sure if my method is the correct one, or that there is a single correct method because as I said each person much find their own way. I do know that the method I choose is what has worked for me and is my method, and I don’t see it changing in the near future. Perhaps you disagree with it, or you have a different method that you choose to employ. I encourage you to post here if you have a different method or you just want to talk about mine.