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A Tale of Two
Novices Applying for the Job of Dominant Level II
By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com
Back to the list of columns on Sadie's
Relationships, including this one with Liam
This is a tale of two Dominants. We’ll call them Liam, who you may have
met in a previous article, and Joshua, who you have not. Both of them
were recently being considered for the position of my Dominant Level II,
which is an experienced position, one which you might say requires a PhD
in the dominant arts. Both these men, who are in their late thirties,
have more or less parity when it comes to attractiveness,
intelligent, finances, and technological ability. And, they are both
novices, but that’s about where the similarities end. I’m going to tell
you a little bit about each of them and then talk about what that means
both for them and for me.
Liam is a novice to dominance per se, but has spent the last ten years
or so exploring his specialty fetish which I’m not going to name, but
suffice it to say he’s spent thousands of dollars on BDSM toys from the
mild to the magnificent. He only joined the formal BDSM scene last year,
and was soon introduced into a polyamorous lifestyle which he found very
much in line with his beliefs. So he is not only exploring a variety of
types of BDSM play, he’s exploring them simultaneously with at least
four different women. Liam has a lot to offer a woman,
and even I found him so attractive that I developed feelings for him
although we are not pursuing that at this time.
You can find Liam (not his real scene name of course) on Fetlife, and he
attends many community events. He’s an avid reader, and is genuinely
engaged in expanding his repertoire, both as a switch, and as
a man with a wide loving heart. I believe that with a good mentor and some gentle
direction he could one day be one hell of a Dominant. Still, becoming
one hell of a Dominant takes some doing. After all, think of the skilled
and sophisticated Dominants who you may know. How long did it take them
to get where they are today? It didn’t happen because the Glinda the
Good Witch swung by and waved her magic wand. It came from years of
learning and practicing with real Submissives.
Glinda the Good Witch says: "Just click your boots three times and you'll
be a Dominant!"
Joshua on the other hand is a bit of a conundrum. Joshua has had a
series of relationship of the D/s variety that were mostly short and of
what you might call the BDSM-lite variety, mostly because he came upon them
accidentally. While he clearly has a strong dominant streak, he has
never read a single BDSM book, visited a single website, joined
CollarMe.com or any other BDSM singles website, joined any community
group, or bought a single kinky toy. In short, he has never attended to
his dominance self in any way. Meeting me (on a primarily vanilla dating
website) was the first time that he had ever heard of many of these
things; in fact he actually told me that he had no idea that there were
BDSM groups in the Boston area. Now just so we’re clear here, this man
has a Masters degree; he’s no slouch in the brains department. When I
asked Joshua why he never did any of these things, he couldn’t come up
with an answer.
This all is quite a puzzle to me so I’ve given it a great deal of
thought, and I have come to some tentative conclusions about how this
could be so. After all, Liam did nearly the exact opposite under similar
circumstances. Here’s my thinking. Liam’s fetish requires by its very
definition an attention to specifics in order to do it effectively and
safely. Liam had to read about it and get to know others with the same
interest because if he didn’t, he could have hurt himself or others; the
necessity was clear. Joshua, on the other hand has "dominance" as his
"interest" if you will, and I believe that he simply saw that as an
aspect of his personality much like I am assertive, or the fact that I
like to wear belts with my skirts. In other words, not something that
needed to be attended to.
But Dominance as a concept is also so broad that you
can’t just go read a few articles and have it down. In fact, it’s more
like something you can get a Bachelors degree in, then go on for the
Masters, then the PhD. The more you do it, the more you learn about all
the options and subtleties there are. But Joshua didn’t know all that of
course, so he just went on his merry way.
That is, he went on his merry way until he met me. Me, who in the last
ten years has written over 200 articles on BDSM, and who even ten years
ago had years more experience than he has today. So I sat down with him
after lunch today and I told him how much I really liked him as a man,
because I do. But in truth, how could he and I ever reach the parity we
would need for him to dominate me with that 200 articles worth of
information between us? Joshua needs to not just learn and put all those
ideas into action, but also to move beyond those concepts into his own
dominant identity. That is a long way down the road; a very long way.
The worst part is that because he doesn’t know about all these things
that he doesn’t know about yet, it’s one hell of a challenge to explain
the universe of BDSM. It’s like trying to explain a kitchen layout to an
ant. It’s just too big of an architecture when the ant is still working
on their tiny space behind the stove.
I guess you can probably see why I
didn’t “hire” either of them to be my Dominant, because either way I
would have been training them and that’s no kind of a dynamic to be
getting into with your partner if you want a healthy relationship. I
will say that if I were a betting woman I’d lay my chips on Liam if only
because he has a track record of engagement. He might not become the
Dominant who’s right for me, but he will definitely become more than he
is now, and that’s something magical in itself already.
As for Joshua, I admit I’m still pretty baffled on how
anyone who wants to be involved in a BDSM relationship as much as Joshua
wants to could not be interested in learning about how to do it well.
But I am hoping that I’ve at least started him on the right track of the
dominant arts. And who knows, in a few years you might find Joshua out
there with the best of them, and some gal will have me to thank. I’ll
just nod sagely and tell the story of the day when he told me that there
wasn’t a length of rope to be found in his house.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous Sadie is the author of Spiritual
Transformation through BDSM; Stories and Submissions from Fellow
Travelers. Read an excerpt and more at Sadie's Kinky Goodies
http://www.sensuoussadie.com/sadieskinkygoodies.htm.
She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose
& Thorn, Vermont's first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and
complaints, as well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her
at SensuousSadie@aol.com or
visit her website at
http://www.sensuoussadie.com/. Sadie believes the universe is
abundant, and that sharing information freely is part of this abundance,
so she allows reprints of her writing in most venues.
Copyright 2009 Sadie Sez Publications
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