I think I’m due another PPPP – a Paltego Pet Peeve Post. Excuse me while I unburden myself on this one.
Today’s pet peeve is domme’s who ask questions with the deliberate goal of tripping the submissive up or drawing out a ‘wrong’ answer. There are a lot of ways to do this, but perhaps the canonical example would be posing a question and then, however the submissive responds, following up with “No. The right answer is whatever Mistress wants.” That really bugs me.
Let me first qualify that there is a specific style of play that this kind of gotcha questioning is appropriate for. If you’re doing a punishment or humiliation dynamic, where the whole point is that the submissive should always be wrong and kept mentally off balance, then its a valid technique. It’s certainly a mindfuck to be forced to answer knowing that there is no good response. But those kind of scenes are a specific and narrow style of play. I actually never do them, yet still encounter the gotcha question approach from time to time.
The reason I dislike it so much is that it runs directly counter to the goal of being open and honest in communication. I always want to be transparent and truthful with my thoughts and emotions in a scene. That’s the only way I know to build two way trust and a sense of connection. If I start having to second guess my answers, or spot the gotcha questions from the real ones, then it runs counter to that goal. Being told an honest answer is a wrong answer sets up bad incentives for my future answers, and forces my brain into social-interaction and negotiation mode, which is not at all conducive to subspace.
I’ve seen plenty of dommes complain over the years about submissives expecting them to be mind readers. They get told that the submissive will do anything to make them happy, and then get upset when it turns out that they were operating with different definitions of ‘anything’. I think that’s a very reasonable response but, on the flip side, asking submissives ‘no win’ questions conditions them to give exactly these kind of responses. You can’t have it both ways.
Of course, just because a domme doesn’t deliberately trip up a submissive, doesn’t mean she can’t beat him. It’s always fair to say – “It’s interesting that you think that. Now bend over so I can cane that ass.”
I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this image. Please leave a comment if you can help me with that.
Updated: Thanks to a helpful comment I can attribute this to Princess Toni. Based on similar images, I think this might be a Cruella shot.
Well, this is maybe a case of YKINMK. As you rightly say “If you’re doing a punishment or humiliation dynamic” it works. And that’s not what you do but it’s what I do and I LOVE it when the domme is grossly unfair, inconsistent and impossible to please. “Can’t have it both ways”? Yes, She can if that’s what She wants and any other way she damn well wants too, and I’ll thank Her for the privilege of being corrected and I’ll swear to do better next time, and then just fail Her all over again. Yum.
I can see that’s likely to be a bit annoying if you want a more human interaction… before she inserts razor blades down your cock or whatever terrifying and (for me, utterly unerotic) pain session you’ve agreed with her, paltego you madman.
YKI very much NMK.
S
I was going to write a lengthy reply here, but instead I wrote a lengthy follow-up post :). The crux is that yes, it’s definitely a valid thing to do, but that it shouldn’t be a default thing to do. It’s a specific kink, yet its treated as just a standard way to play by some people, which bugs me.
Thanks for the comment – I think it’s going to lead to at least 2 more posts and trigger a whole bunch of follow-up thoughts. That’s the best kind of comment!
-paltego
Generally speaking, I agree with you. Communication is important (and fun!) and ‘the sub is always wrong’ approach tends to discourage it.
That said, I think that there’s potentially room for ‘tripping up’ the sub. ‘Gotcha’ questions are unfair, but there’s nothing wrong with asking questions that you already know the answer to, and that your sub probably doesn’t. For instance, if you were doing a teacher / student roleplay, it would be totally in line with the scene for the domme to be asking, say, genuine geography or math questions that the sub likely has no immediate answer to. Asking your sub a question like “What’s the capital of Equatorial Guinea?” isn’t a foregone conclusion – they might actually know – but it is ‘unfair’ in the sense that you’ve looked it up previously, and they didn’t.
Psychologically, this can be used to further the power dynamic, in the same way that there’s a power imbalance when one is speaking or working with an expert or professional in a given field. Having to be the one who has to fumble for half-answers, or simply admit ‘I don’t know’ can create a power dynamic of its own – especially when the opposite side seems to be calm, composed and in possession of all the answers (or at least, going a good job of pretending to).
Of course, this requires that the dominant player be intelligent, observant, and likely willing to do some extra preparation before a scene. With this, I think that this kind of psychological play can easily degenerate into the ‘gotcha’ moments that you describe.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agree and disagree :). By which I mean I agree entirely with your description of how that style can be useful and create a particular dynamic, but disagree because that isn’t why it’s a pet peeve of mine. As I replied to Servitor, this comment and his actually triggered a follow-up post, and I suspect there’s at least one more to come. So check those out!
And you’re right there’s actually two different styles that I’m conflating here. One is the ‘I know more than you” approach you describe and one is the “You can never get it right” approach that I initially was thinking of. I actually think they’re both valid ways to play, depending on their dynamic people are looking for, but I personally don’t want to do them unless I’ve actually asked for it. Which is the pet peeve I was trying (and failing) to describe.
Thanks again for the excellent comment.
-paltego
Thanks for your kind response to my comment, earlier, Patego.
And just to chime in here, in my play style (which is obviously the ONLY one that is right and I’ll sissy-slap anyone who tries to pretend otherwise), any sub who DID know the capital of Equatorial Guinea would rightly be punished for being an irritating little know-all.
Actually, I’m really only chiming in in order to point out that I have, as ever, addressed this important issue through the artistic medium of captions. I really like these three, for reasons my previous comment no doubt makes clear. Although I did get a little tired of people kindly pointing out in the comments that the capital of Australia is not in fact Sydney, ‘cos that was, y’know, kinda the point…
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jDhoKIkhxiE/TUKZIFTBZgI/AAAAAAAAACs/0xC59d3UiiY/s1600/SC_Cap_School1.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S4NIdhbxk_w/UU4wTZAzhEI/AAAAAAAAC8U/CE2QE1srMBI/s1600/SC_Caption_Two+times+two.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-43pCflF4aOI/VtAEusjVrvI/AAAAAAAAH24/wWP0s1z3eSg/s1600/SC_Caption_schoolboy.jpg
Your image is of a model who has done a lot of work for Cruella, the long time British femdom site. As far as this exact image goes, though, I think it’s from one of the many British femdom corporal sites.
Cruella tried to promote her as the second coming of Mistress Vixen, which was, how shall we say, was a wee bit unfortunate.
And, as a final thought, where would the world of BDSM be had not the British private school system not existed.
Yes, you’re right. Now you mention it I do remember seeing other shots of her in that context. Can’t put a name to the face however. I should probably go and hunt through my still collection of images from the Cruella era.
I was a comprehensive school boy myself, yet weirdly still have a kink for dommes with canes in the classic school set-up. There’s clearly some sort of fundamental archetype at work there.
-paltego
The model is Princess Toni, started out I believe with Princess Megan’s Young Dommes and branched out to Cruella which I think for a while she was running as well. She was also very briefly a TV adult channels presenter with her mum who I think was called Queen Melanie or something.
Thanks for the help! I’ve updated the post appropriately. Sure I’ve got some of her image sets on disk lurking somewhere…
-paltego