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Aswad -> RE: politeness is it a sign of weakness? (12/24/2009 10:36:14 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: willboyd
Is it really seen as weakness to the majority of subs/slaves?
I'm generally civil, which passes for politeness as far as I am concerned. It seems to work for most people I encounter, too. The rest, in my experience, are more concerned with protocol than civility. Protocol is the province of the mindless adherents to precedent, custom and norm. All the prescriptives that people are bound to from bowing to pressure. This, unlike civility, could certainly be seen as a weakness. I'm inclined to see it so, myself.
As for shyness, I would imagine that doesn't fly too well. Confidence, without false confidence, is usually taken well, at least in person, and shyness is frequently tied to a lack of confidence in general, or a lack of some particular aspect of it (for instance, lack of confidence in one's social abilities, whether due to lack of training or for some other reason). This, fortunately, is readily remedied with experience and training.
Respect is a tricky one. It depends on how you define it, and what the context is.
Obviously, most people want some degree of respect. Yet, at the same time, the word is defined as esteem, admiration or high regard, alternately as some degree of obedience or deference. The latter two are clearly not going to win any points, and omitting the former three is going to sit poorly with some and well with others. It's kind of like how some enjoy humiliation or verbal abuse, while others absolutely hate it. Some subs think it's hot to be held to be less, or lower than, the dom. Some think it's abusive or at the very least get turned off by it. For most of the subs I like, it seems to depend on the context. It's a fair bit like knowing when to kiss a date good night and go home, vs. when to grab a firm hold of her ass and hoist her up between you and the door and start making out. Or knowing when you're just flirting with someone, and when you're working each other up for something more.
Finally, what people say, think and feel... these are rarely all that correlated.
Part of relating well to people is knowing the difference between what they will respond well to, what they think they will respond well to, and what they say they will respond well to, and vice versa for responding poorly. I've met people who say they want to do a lot of humiliation play, and genuinely think it will work for them, yet they go cold and withdraw at the slightest hint of it. And I have also met people who claim to get offended by humiliation and want nothing to do with it, that nonetheless respond amazingly well to being treated as out-and-out subhuman and then want more. We're human. We don't have a clue what we want and like before we try it, and we aren't always honest with ourselves about our experiences afterwards, because of this nice little thing known as cognitive bias, a well studied set of phenomena by which we bend our own perceptions of the truth to fit with various other priorities and to minimize dissonance between conflicting perceptions.
The people you want to be with, will respond to being treated the way you would treat people you want to be with, whether or not they are aware of that or not. Pursuing that line of thinking will cause some people to respond poorly, because your interactions will be less bland. That's not a bad thing, it just saves you time interacting with people you wouldn't work with anyway. Nobody is going to be excited by bland neutrality. They're either going to be excited by you, or not at all, so be you and let them respond to that however they will. Proceed with those who respond well.
That's being honest with yourself and your prospective partners.
Health,
al-Aswad.
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