entitlement 101: gimme my gold star

And the weekend o' dominance continues.

I'm having a good time. The workshop content is a little basic compared to what I'd hoped for, but at the same time I had a really specific purpose in coming here, and that purpose does seem to be getting met. The short version: I've been a dominant person in life since I was a child, and leadership roles come easily to me, so in that sense I have no problem with dominance. But I'm a gentle sort of leader - I'd rather ask people to do things, and then praise them for doing them, than order them around. I can dominate someone during an SM scene when it's appropriate, and because I can see the person getting off on what's going on, it feels good to me - but I can also turn off that dominance if it's inappropriate, because for some people play isn't about power. So: when I have responsibility to fulfill as a leader, or when I'm clearly seeing the way a person is enjoying my behaviour, that short-circuits any worries I might otherwise have about being dominant.

The problem I've had for quite some time now is sustaining or being consistent with my dominance in longer-term affairs. When partners of mine have wanted a D/s basis to an entire relationship, I've often been more than a little awkward when it comes to holding up my end of it. It seems somehow... I dunno... obnoxious or presumptuous. That sense of entitlement to someone's submission does not come naturally to me. It feels too much like that general kind of entitlement that pisses me off whenever I see it - the kind of bad behaviour that comes with unexamined privilege, lack of manners or just plain insensitivity.

And yet, I know that's created an enormous amount of frustration in some people who really wished I would take up my power with them - who were offering me submission and seeing it go unmatched or unmet. And worse: the idea of having a full-time D/s relationship (oh hell, more than one would be fine too!) is extremely compelling to me. So my un-dominated submissives have not been the only frustrated ones in the equation.

So my purpose in doing this weekend training was to try and wrap my head around that dynamic in a way that I could make it feel good for me and get past the "privileged asshole behaviour" block I seem to have.

Today we did an exercise where the issue came up, and several people had valuable suggestions for me. Midori was the one to say something that resonated the most. She compared the entitlement of a dominant in a D/s relationship to the entitlement a boss feels to her employee's services. They applied for the job, you hired them, they want to do it, and you're paying them (i.e. giving them pleasure and satisfaction). If you then prevent them from doing their job, do it for them, or don't pay attention to whether or not they're doing it well, they'll feel frustrated, discouraged and undervalued. It is, in fact, your responsibility as an employer to uphold that end of things, because otherwise the employee can't grow and develop their skills and you are directly behaving in a way that's to their detriment.

It was an "aha!" moment for me. Maybe it's because I've been working for so many years now and have seen good and bad bosses... maybe it's because I have spent so much time managing employees and volunteers... but somehow the metaphor worked and something clicked over in my brain. Woo-hoo!

So in a sense my purpose has already been fulfilled. Sweet. And we still have another full nine-hour day of training tomorrow.

I think I'm entitled to a gold star, no?