Short-Sighted Dominance

Why is it that so many people don’t seem to understand that there’s a difference between service and taking advantage of someone?  There are those who use submissives as unpaid laborers.  Then they wonder why they can’t manage to keep a sub for very long.  They must not really be submissive.  Of course, that’s it!

If you expect someone to submit to your will, you need to make sure their needs are being met as well.  The relationship can’t be one-sided.  If the domme is the only one who benefits, what reason is there for the sub to stay?  Most likely, he’ll move along and find someone who does care about a mutually fulfilling relationship.  There is a certain amount of responsibility involved with being dominant; sitting back and communicating one’s desires does not make someone dominant.  There’s a lot more to it than that.

It would be tempting for a dominant to think, “I don’t like doing this particular thing, so I’ll pawn it off on my sub and call it d/s.”  This is an unfortunately common occurrence in some relationships.  Being dominant does not preclude someone from dealing with their responsibilities or from doing things they don’t like.  Same goes for being submissive.  If you’re alive, you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to do.  If you’re in a relationship, you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to do.  Being in a d/s relationship does not give anybody a free pass to abdicate their responsibilities.

That’s not to say that submission is always easy.  Sometimes it does involve doing very difficult things or a dreaded, unpleasant task.  But if that effort goes unappreciated, or if the unpleasantness is a daily companion for the sub, that relationship will fall.  Submission doesn’t mean constantly doing things you don’t want to do.  Submission is ceding authority to another.  It’s very possible to do that without being taken advantage of or being someone’s grunt.