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ORIGINAL: pixelslave

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ORIGINAL: CarrieO
Much like LadyPact, I would be curious to read any links you have to offer in regards to views within the leather community that would relate to the idea of a sub being self-serving with his reasons for approaching a domme...besides the obvious.

CarrieO,
I'm not certain I follow what you mean by "the idea of a sub being self-serving with his reasons for approaching a domme...besides the obvious.". I didn't make an assertion of that nature. Have I misunderstood what you've written or is there perhaps a typo? Otherwise, my reply to Lady Pact is above which I hope provides you with what you're looking for. Although written for gay men, I think you'll find it worth your time to read some of the articles on Jack Rinella's web site. Ditto for anything by Guy Baldwin.

- pixel

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ORIGINAL: nanshakh

Isn't this the key word? "Victims". They are victims. Victims of their desires, victims of themselves, victims of their nature, blah blah blah; Read: Victim, and that sums it up.

If they can't even assume their own desires, of course they need help. First and foremost they need help to be absolved. "I want to submit, I crave to be dominated, but really, it's not me, no no no, it's not my 'fault', it's not my doing, I'm a victim..."

It's primordial to them to establish the fact that they are not even responsible for the way they are lusting for sex, therefore they only deserve to be absolved. Next, they should be helped. And, how convenient, it invariably turns out they have a very definite agenda on how they should be "dominated", helped, for their own good, but of course.

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The confusion probably comes from the word "submission". Those want to see in it the kind of submission they enjoyed as children. The kind that implies a little show of obedience on their part, in return for the complete slavery of the parents. Dropped into the big wild world, they whine! Oh how ready they are to submit to anyone willing to take the burden again. That kind of submission is very greedy, very selfish and very tyrannical. It demands, and gives nothing in return. Oh, children do give back to their parents in many ways, but these adults playing at being children are set at giving nothing in return. Many children are not cowards. Adult children are the ones who were cowards, and could never grow up.

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Then there is the real life meaning of submission. It is demanding. On the submitted. It is a craving to be submitted. To serve. A lifetime craving. Those who crave it have a hard way to go, learning to cope with it. Learning the full implications. Accepting the consequences. And learning how to be able to serve a Mistress one day, to be useful to her, and not to be a pain in the neck.

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Serving is not easy. It's enough to look at the life of a real servant, at a time when they were legions. Not a slave mind you, simply a servant, a soubrette for instance. One of those lucky to serve the rich and mighty, and thus enjoying a fate so much preferable to that of any other of her class. Still she was housed in squalid quarters, without heating, without any convenience. She went to bed only when dismissed by her mistress, late at night, but was up hours before her, before dawn, to wash in cold water, dress in the cold, and then creep down to her mistress' room to lit a fire two hours before she was due to wake up. And that was just the beginning of the day. She could have a headache, feel sick, be exhausted, have suffered a distressing loss, no one cared a bit. She still had to be ready to serve, looking good, a smile on her face, concerned about her mistress' mood, helpful, patient, resourceful. Any little soubrette had to be powerful, astute, resourceful to be a real help to her mistress. And she was not expecting any help in return.

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And we are not even talking about slaves.

Those who want to serve had better be prepared. And had better be able to solve their own problems without letting it bother their mistress.

But they also have a real incentive to help them find that strength in themselves. And that incentive is only known to those who have no hope, no expectations. It is powerful because it comes from an irrepressible need. It is a selfish act to submit and become enslaved to a woman. But it takes courage to accept it. To accept that far from all the chivalrous crap of shiny knights in sparkling armour, there is no grandiloquent selfless sacrifice in submission, but a vital achievement for the slave, a natural act of symbiosis, where one creature becomes engulfed into another, absorbed, sucked. Even lost. And as all natural acts, it may be quite beautiful in its truthfulness, but it is quite implacable. There is no mercy, and certainly no retribution in nature.

For those who were born for it, this is the selfish appeal of slavery to them. It takes power to accept it, and they crave it because it will empower them even further. They selfishly need to be enslaved as it is the only way for them to attain that final stage of their development: slavery. They know their submission is anything except a gift they could make to their mistress, on the contrary, it is a gift bestowed by her on them. The slaves who understand that, are genuinely grateful to their Mistress. Instead of only thinking of what they feel entitled to get in return for their serving, they are at a loss to find ways to express their gratitude. They are thankful to be exploited by her. They don't expect her to be grateful, but rightfully demanding. They understand that only She could have let them out of their chrysalis and allowed them to mutate at last into that creature: a slave. Whatever She does to them then, it is their sole purpose to submit to it, She is the one who has created them. That is the power that will make them serve when they are feeling sick, love when they are ignored, smile when they are disdained. They know they have been retributed beyond expectation to start with when being enslaved.

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Accepting the reason why he needed to be enslaved gives a slave the power to serve, in the same way as learning to be helpful to others is what gives people the strength to solve their own problems.

And then there are those who ask to be served by their mistress. Beats me. In the name of reciprocity I suppose? Blah... they do need help, indeed.

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ORIGINAL: CarrieO

Yes, perhaps a misunderstanding.  The premise of my original post was the idea of a sub approaching a woman for self-serving reasons, ie..."I need you to fix me and make me who I should be because I'm a victim of..." as opposed to a sub who is wanting to serve from a less selfish place. 

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ORIGINAL: CarrieO
While this may be more extreme than most look for, I find beauty in these words. I'm not sure I could agree with the idea of a sub/slave not being able to bring his cares and concerns...troubles...to his Lady, I do agree that he should be able to handle life's ups and downs.

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ORIGINAL: pixelslave

MORE...

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ORIGINAL: LadyPact

Completely off topic.

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ORIGINAL: pixelslave
In the leather community, this view is very common held.

- pixel

Would you care to link some references to this? I would be completely interested in reading a leather viewpoint that is so vastly different from My own and and those I'm familiar with in the leather community.

Hi Lady Pact,
As you know, much of what's considered "Leather" is traditionally passed on by word of mouth and can sometimes have a regional slant to it. That being said, I took an hour or so to see what I could find on the net, looking mostly at some of Jack Rinella's archived articles, Guy Baldwin interviews and various other things, but none of them seemed to specifically address the subject in a manner that was as direct as what I suspect you're asking for. However, by my interpretation, one of the Baldwin interviews (http://www.sensuoussadie.com/interviews/guybaldwininterview.htm) and several of Jack Rinella's articles (http://www.leatherviews.com/home.htm) were implicit to much of what I wrote in my previous post (3 of Rinella's I'd refer you to are: "The difference Between a Boy and a Slave", "Intimacy", and "Expectations and Regulations Concerning Voluntary Servitude" all of which can be found under the "Kinky Info" tab). How you might choose to interpret them from your side of the kneel could of course be very different than when viewed from my side.

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ORIGINAL: LadyPact

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Further, there were between 2 and 4 sessions at South Plains Leather Fest in earlier this year here in Dallas that I think support the same viewpoint. The title of one that was for Dominants only which immediately comes to mind was "Mastery in Service" (or something similar). Unfortunately, my program got pitched when I moved last month, so I'm not able to provide the names of any of the other sessions or presenters.

The following is what I found on the SWLF site regarding the title you provided.  It was presented by Raven Kaldera and Raven's boy joshua.  Here is the description of the presentation:

There's using D/s and M/s to add a spiritual dimension to a relationship ... and then there's dedicating yourself to this work as a spiritual path in and of itself. This workshop will explore the latter condition. We'll compare spiritual power exchange to monasticism, noblesse oblige, asceticism, liege-fealty, and other similar roads. We'll also dive into difficult questions: Should the master be the slave's spiritual superior? What if they're on different paths? What happens when the slave's spiritual path interferes with the master's desires? How does one keep a balance between humility and hubris? This is a difficult road, and we need to talk about the thorns.


Now, I'm very well aware that the short description of a presentation doesn't always match up to the content of the discussion, but it would be a far stretch for Me to translate this as the as the Dominant in the dynamic as serving the s type.

The presentation I meant to refer to was called "Mindful Mastery" and is not the same presentation you're referring to from SWLF (South West Leather Fest) as opposed to SPLF (South Plains Leather Fest) which I referred to; the latter of which no longer has this past year's list of presentations or their descriptions on their web site.

I don't think I ever implied that service by a Dominant was a selfless act. Ditto for the service provided by a submissive. It would seem logical that there must be some kind of reward either internally or externally for someone to provide service. For some like myself, we find satisfaction and pleasure that's derived on its own from having provided the service; anything that comes from it beyond that such as acknowlgement from our Dominant of a job well done, a smile, etc., is a plus. In my experience, learning to provide transparent service to a Dominant is something that required effort on both our parts that I found very satisfying which also obviously had significant benefit to the Dominant.

Our doing that was of course an agreed upon part of our dynamic. For a Dominant, anything that benefits the relationship or improves the ability of a submissive to provide the kind of service the Dominant desires from him is obviously not selfless, but still of benefit and of service to the submissive as well as the relationship. I see no conflict in that sort of "giving" or "service" by a Dominant simply because its a D/s or M/s based relationship as opposed to being a vanilla one.

As each dynamic is unique, I agree with you that speaking in absolutes is not appropriate and I may have overstated myself. As such, I'd restate the last line of my original post on this subject to something along the lines of "My observation has been that this view is more commonly held in the leather community. I see it oft practiced here in the DFW het leather community."

Unfortunately, I don't have the time for a continued debate on this subject. Beyong this post, we'll have to agree to disagree.

- pixel

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ORIGINAL: CarrieO

So many times I see profiles and postings here in the forums from submissive males asking for a woman (actually, they ask for a Mistress, but that's another topic) who can make them the person they're meant to be.  They will say they are a victim of their own desires or need a woman (read; Mistress) to teach/train them to be what they should be.

My question is... Ladies, would you be interested in a man like this?  One who couldn't handle himself be it sexual, professional, medical/health or daily life? 

For the men... Is this what you seek?  A woman who can train you to be the person you "should" be?

I'm trying to understand this instead of passing judgement.  It just seems to be a recurring theme and I want to understand.  Thanks.

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ORIGINAL: subexploring

shedding the burden of the self we present to the world... .

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

You only need to read the instruction manual....and it works the same every fucking time, regardless of model number.

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ORIGINAL: GoddessImaginos

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

You only need to read the instruction manual....and it works the same every fucking time, regardless of model number.

Holy crap, they finally published one?! and is it available on Amazon?

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ORIGINAL: CarrieO
Yes, perhaps a misunderstanding.  The premise of my original post was the idea of a sub approaching a woman for self-serving reasons, ie..."I need you to fix me and make me who I should be because I'm a victim of..." as opposed to a sub who is wanting to serve from a less selfish place.  There may have been some confusion about this.
I know little to nothing of the Leather Community and my request for links was for that reason. 

Ahhh! I didn't take your comments in the context of your original post. Thank you for clearing up the misunderstanding.

There's become far more available in recent years in terms of books and what one can find published on-line than there was in the past. I don't think many give credit where it's due by recognizing that without the leather community and the groundwork they laid, the sizable heterosexual Kink/BDSM community that exists today wouldn't have the freedoms it does to operate in the open nor would it be as accessible as it is for those casually interested in joining and exploring. The many major lifestyle events available to the general public which occur around the country are typically organized and put on by the leather community. In our area (DFW), IMO, its the leather crowd which acts as the "glue" that brings the various facets of the kink community together to everyone in the community's benefit.

As "jumping off" spots, here are two sites I'd recommend if you want to explore the leather community: http://duskpeterson.com/leatherculture/bibliography/index.htm and http://www.hawkeegn.com/bdsm/kink.html. I'm certain there are many others, but these are two which I've run across that have been useful to me when looking for information and links on particular topics.

- pixel