This is a follow-up post to this earlier one. I received several lengthy comments, including a response from Mistress Rex which she re-posted to her blog. I started to write a detailed comment as a reply, but decided it’d be easier to simply create a new post. Apologies to those people who weren’t particularly interested in the original discussion to start with. I promise to include an attractive picture at the end by way of compensation.
I want to start with the ‘my way or the highway’ aspect.
Pro Dommes who state from the get-go what is expected in communication – whether it’s as simple as how she is addressed to the more complicated issues of capitalization – it is entirely in her right and reason to do so…
…if it bothers you, find someone else.
Mistress Rex
I think that’s simultaneously true and also irrelevant to the discussion. It’s an argument that taken to its logical extreme would mean never writing about negotiation and interaction with pro-dommes, because the answer can always be “If you don’t like it go elsewhere.” Obviously what I’m writing about here are my personal feelings and expectations. The kind of interaction that I find meaningful and reasonable. I’ve certainly voted with my feet in the past and no doubt will do so again in future. This discussion is about some of the things that might cause me (and other submissives) to do that.
I should also add that I’m not talking about the kind of rules that are necessary for the smooth running of a business. Only calling between certain hours, requiring a reference or deposit, meeting in a neutral space for the first time, etc. These all are sensible operating parameters, and don’t imply anything about the D/s dynamic.
The issue for me is related to the sentiment that coined the expression “I may be a submissive, but I’m not your submissive.” This expression often crops up in the context of social gatherings, where it’s important to emphasize that submission to one dominant does not imply submission to all. For me that same idea can also be applied temporally. Just because I will submit in a session doesn’t automatically imply I should be submissive and deferential outside it.
It is unclear to me if the comments here are in objection to inequality wholesale, or if the men here feel more simply that the demands from these ProDommes were displaced via the lack of personalized attention toward the defining of a unequal power exchange.
Mistress Rex
I’d say my objection is to an assumption of inequality without negotiation or agreement. Refinement and evolution of roles is always going to happen as a relationship (professional or otherwise) develops. But I start from a position of equality. I think it’d be presumptuous of either party to assume otherwise. I might be a submissive, but I’m not her submissive until we agree that. Anyone insisting on lower casing my name and pronouns before they’ve even met me, simply strikes me as insecure. And insisting slaves email multiple times to get a response doesn’t put me into a suitably submissive mindset. It just makes me think that the mistress is crap at running her business.
I’ll also add that there was one comment I saw which, in contrast to Mistress Rex’s thoughtful words, struck me as fairly daft.
When men pay, they feel like they have license to top from the bottom.
Firstly, that’s a ridiculously sweeping generalization. And secondly, it misses the point of this discussion, which is about what goes on outside of negotiated play.
That’s probably enough of my random ramblings. As promised here’s an attractive and entirely unrelated picture to finish the post. It’s not really femdom material, but I saw it on Erotic Haecceities and thought she was adorably cute.
