Control

Control…

The idea of control and power exchange is essential to a BDSM relationship. More specifically it is essential to the D/s side of that relationship.  But how does one find a balance of enough control and too much? This is something that is dependent on the partners involved. However, if you are new to the lifestyle and don’t know how much control you want to give or possess, this becomes an important question. Even in the almost eight years that I have been interested, investigating, and actively participating in this lifestyle it is something I am at times not sure I know. I have been in relationships where the submissive wanted me to control much, and relationships where they wanted me to control very little. I have yet to truly find where I am 100% comfortable.

I guess I can start by talking about the far end of the control spectrum in each direction and see if my thoughts collect and take me somewhere important or meaningful, or if instead they become an indistinguishable ramble that ends with me being as confused about it as I was when I started. What is too much control? Well I have in the past been asked to control great portions of a submissive’s life or at least perceived portions. Money, friends, email, websites visited, time spent out, all of these things were perceived to be under my control. Were they really under my control? Not likely, this isn’t due to a lack of willingness it is due to a time requirement on my part. When I get busy with school, work, friends, life I have a tendency to overlook the BDSM aspects of a relationship. Especially when the relationship is not a live in situation, I expected my submissive to perform X task daily; but I was working 50 hours a week, running things for my friends, dealing with payments and everything else so I didn’t check up on that task for a week. Well because of this I wasn’t illustrating my control, since that situation I have not desired to be placed in that much control. On the other end of the spectrum, I have had relationship where I only had control in the bedroom and only some of the time. This was by mutual agreement because my partner wasn’t sure how far she wanted to take it. This is close to the agreement I currently have with Kai. In the case being addressed there was no bleed over into any other aspect of life, her friends were hers, her money was hers, and her time, aside from that spent in a scene, was hers. I had no problems with this type of relationship fundamentally but I hungered for more of a sense of control. I have also had relationships that were in between these two extremes and all along the spectrum.

In the end I think I want to feel like my BDSM experience is augmenting my life not becoming it. But, at the same time I want to feel like I am on some levels in control of my partner. I will try and explain the first statement. I have dreams, aspirations, wants, and thoughts that are outside of BDSM. In truth these things are more important to me than BDSM. If for some reason I had to choose my life as a dominant or my life as a professional presentable individual, I would hands down choose the latter. BDSM would be tossed by the wayside in favor on continuing to my goals for the rest of my life. That said I don’t want my BDSM side to actively interfere with the rest of my “vanilla” life. There will be times when I have to work 60 hours weeks and during those times I can’t have a submissive that will hit the ceiling because I haven’t checked to make sure she is washing the windows daily (Yes, I know this is a foolish example but it popped into my head first so I went with it). Hopefully this illustrates my point. On the flip side of this coin I don’t want to be in a situation where I am completely in the dark about things and have no control over the way the relationship and things progress outside of my ability to end the relationship. I don’t want someone that hides their emails, friends, websites they visit, etc. I have had bad experiences in the past with these types of practices and so would just like to avoid them all together. So where is my ideal level of control? In truth I have no idea. It very much depends on the person I am with. Take Kai for instance, I can’t seem to figure out what control level I am comfortable with in regards to her. Some days I feel like I would like a lot more control over what is done and what needs to be done. Other days I think the level I have is acceptable. Part of this is a function of the relationship that she and I had before we advanced to this stage of our lives. Another part is that she rails against anyone that is trying to control her in any fashion. It seems to be a defense mechanism that she isn’t even completely aware of but, is there none the less.

I think part of my desire for control is a desire for a certain amount of transparency in a relationship. Because I have had trouble with cheating in the past I want to be aware of what is going on before I get stabbed in the back. That is one small part of it at least. The rest comes from my desire for my partner to be the best she can be and get the max out of things. Sometimes, in my experience the only way to achieve the max that you can is to have someone pushing you, at times pulling you kicking and screaming, to your end goal. That is my end goal, not to nitpick about every little thing I have assigned you not being done. I want to inspire a submissive to be driven, disciplined, and to go after what they want. And it is through a certain amount of control that I meet this goal. A loving friend, family member, of significant other can only go so far to motivate you. They can only say please do this I want you to be happy and this will make you happy. As a dominant I have the ability to say you will do this, you will learn to stick to the road you decided on and not give up when it gets hard or chicken out because you have to change something. I can say if you want to do X for a job then you need to be ready to do Y and Z to get there and when it comes down to it I will push you to do them. But to teach these skills and lessons you need someone willing to submit to them and learn them. If I teach you to be diligent in your work by forcing you to clean the floor and not letting you miss a spot when it becomes critical in a job that you do it a specific way and do it well you will. If I teach you to patience by withholding orgasms or making you kneel silent for a time before I give you what you want then we you need it at work to deal with someone you will have it. If I teach you how to control your spending and money by taking control of them and showing how much better it is if you learn to keep spending down then if something happens between us you can function better in the world on your own. I want control to teach, not to assign mindless tasks that foolishly keep you busy and supply you with something to do through your day.

So in short I guess I want enough control in a relationship to teach. I don’t want to feel like I have none or like I have to control every little thing in a submissive’s life.

Who is responsible for a scene?

First, I suppose I will open this post with an apology. I have been extremely busy as of late and haven’t been able to post much to my blog. Furthermore, I really haven’t had the time to process those things that I have done that are worthy of a post. So for my neglect in posting I am sorry, I will try and keep up on it more in the future, but when it comes down to it some things are more important than others. And while I love having you all here, those that follow actively and those that just visit, I need to focus on some things outside of my blog sometimes.

 

Now that said, a lot has happened in the month that I have been absent. I don’t even really know where to start. If you have been following Kai then you know some of what has happened or at least her side. Instead of saying what has happened to me in the past couple of weeks I think I will do something different. I think I will talk about sharing the burden of a scene.

 

As a Dominant I realize that I am expected to control a scene. It is my job to construct a particular scene, make sure it flows and is an enjoyable experience for both myself and my submissive. However, not all ideas for a scene should come from me. I am not an endless sinkhole of ideas and kinky things to do. I don’t know many dominants that are capable of always doing something with nothing. I know I personally prefer to hear ideas from my submissives. This doesn’t mean that your ideas will come into play the next time we scene or even at all. I just want places to start from, if you tell me you really enjoy being flogged in X place and aren’t opposed to others then I can design a scene in my head in which I bring those elements in. Merely saying that you know how to use a safeword doesn’t help me as a Dominant. In the end all it does is say that if something goes too far for you that you know how to stop it. That is near worthless when it comes to deciding on a scene to participate in or start.

 

I think in short what I am trying to say is that as a dominant it is my job to build a scene. To take control of it and make it my own, to push boundaries and make certain that both parties enjoy what is happening. As a submissive, you have the responsibility to feeding me things that I can do with you. This is especially important during the beginning of a relationship. Don’t tell me “I like flogging” because it tells me nothing about the scenes that I could create.  A better approach would be I have always wanted to be bound on my knees and flogged until my skin was a pretty red. This then gives me some boundaries that I can build from, it tells me you like intense flogging coupled with bondage. Will you be bound on your knees when you are flogged? Probably not. Might you be bound to a bed or a table or something else and flogged? Definitely. Could I push you a different direction and go for a more mental bondage? Yes. But, these things give me starting points. Could you say “I like bondage and flogging” sure, but it still isn’t as informative as providing them in a situational way. Just listing things off doesn’t give any context, and context is important. I have met many submissives that really don’t like much in the way of pain but they find flogging and things of that nature enjoyable not because of the pain but because of other mental aspects. Would you want to flog one of these submissives until her skin was cherry red? No because she would hate you for it and likely need to use a safeword during that scene. But her saying she likes flogging, and a pain related submissive saying she likes flogging sound the same if just listed out as I like flogging.