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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: alumina

I am curious to know what qualities One searches for in a prospective slave?

What I'm curious about is why only two of the eight responses so far mention obedience.

K.

I am sure you read my criteria so obviously a pulse is more important to me than obedience.

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ORIGINAL: CloakedProtector

There are mainly 3 aspects that rule the complete 'selection' procedure as it is called, which matches your "searching for".

- Looks & bodily features
- Role/Demeanor/Attitude, play range and Limits
- Practical Aspects.

Let's start with practical aspects because the topic can be answered in one single line. The sub/slave must be available for the time frame & windows applicable to the BDSM relationship type (M/s, D/s or T/b) and they must understand each other.
So distance & language mainly. Mostly a place to practice isn't a problem, certainly not in the 24/7 relationships (M/s) in which parties live together or in the 24/7 D/s relationships where partners by definition must be reasonably close (100% excluding virtual).
I think you know the answer for yourself as I guess you wouldn't enter a long term REAL-TIME relationship with a Dominant at the other side of the world unless you are fine with relocation or limit the relationship to visits. Hence many add will specify a geographical limit.

Looks & bodily features are important to some and less to others. But in general it is a lie that people don't find looks important, most do but sometimes pretend otherwise.
A Dominant that is into bondage and likes to make rope-bra's :) may look for subs with larger breasts for instance.
So in T/b where a play window is often focussed on one, or a few, of the hundreds of BDSM disciplines physical aspects may be more important. In M/s and D/s the focus may be less on physical aspects.
While attractiveness is subjective use as a rule that you can assume that dominants will look/prefer a sub that they find attractive if the other parameters are the same.

Role/Demeanor/Attitude, play range and Limits are, and that is also in my personal opinion, the most important aspects in matching.
The role of course must match. A Dominant looks for a submissive. I never felt confable with the concept of switching as I found this could not fit with Natural Dominance or submissiveness, except in a Master/Mistress/Dom(me)/Top training to let him/her experience the other side.
I do this with my apprentices and in general those with real Natural Dominance in there don't handle it as smoothly although they know it is only a temporary situation.
However, BDSM has partially made its entrance in the vanilla world and is practised by professionals and hence switching within that context must be possible/needed. Just to say that there is nothing against switching as such in a free world.

The Demeanor/Attitude are very important. A Dominant must be able to train a sub/slave and a number of personality characteristics are very helpful. I think most Dominants are not waiting for a brat/brad :)
A slave can take some 'psychological' hits. If she moves like a cow I tell her and make her move elegantly for instance. And if you do that on a number of aspects then you want a sub/slave that is sufficiently strong to mentally absorb that and grow rather then not showing up anymore, in which case you lost your time. So age/maturity will play a role here. Young subs can be moulded easier but may not have come to the point where they know a BDSM lifestyle is what they want. Older sub/slaves do know but they may have had a number of poor experiences that makes them over careful (if there is such thing as being over-careful).

The wider the play-field and the lesser the limits the better. For a Dominant this is "possibility of play" versus the" freedom not to have too".
No limits is high on the list and while I once thought that there are no "no limits" sub/slaves I discovered that there are actually many that want to give up 100% non-negotiated control, even fantasize about it not thinking it could happen.
However, not from the start, you need to earn it, build it up trust, show skill, maturity, knowledge, etc.
In this area wannebee (d)ominants have done damage to the BDSM community resulting in submissive that need to be extra careful (I mean careful behind the normal safety/security precautions) and therefore have unrealistic limit lists.
Personally I think that nothing illegal, no permanent (lasting) physical or mental damage and possibly if requested/applicable social shielding (nobody wants to loose his job or being cast out by family or damage a vanilla relationship on the foreground) should do.
For training sessions that is different of course they mostly have one or more themes.

On that same aspect Dominants (except maybe Trainers given the specific ways in which they can be deployed) should not provide "BDSM à la carte" like you get a Menu in a restaurant.
The good lasting relations are build on a needs-expression by the sub, a full or partial acknowledgement of the Dominant to practice those BDSM disciplines, and then a wide open field of possibilities for the Dominant to explore, and the sub/slave to be pushed over her limits.

So you see, the criteria Dominants look for depends on the type of BDSM relationship, the personal skills and interests and where they want to go. However a sub/slave will increase her chances to a match by lowering limits and expectations and draw her pleasure out of her submissive nature and her related behaviour rather then out of (or only out of) the exact BDSM disciplines that will be practices.

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ORIGINAL: Gauge

I first look for someone that I am compatible with. A relationship is a relationship is a relationship. All the rest is just torrid and smutty details that no one is interested in reading.

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ORIGINAL: alumina

Hi there..

I am curious to know what qualities One searches for in a prospective slave?

Thank You for Your time.

slavea