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MistressDiane -> RE: ? about when a Mistress or Master or Dom Or Domme says sorry (3/12/2007 5:03:06 PM)
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This probably would have fit in better with one of the past "can they be Dominant if they're polite, nice and/or curteous" threads but I received it today and it fits the OP's question as well.
This has been posted with the author's permission.
for Issue number 12
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Permission
By Jack Rinella
I recently received an email that read in part “Heart of a slave asks Permission
to Approach.” I usually react kindly but directly to such a request by reminding
the writer that he has no need to ask permission to approach me since he or she
is a free person and equal to me in every way that counts.
I guess I’m just old-fashioned. We weren’t so pre-occupied with such
strangulated methods of meeting one another in the “good old days.”
Of course “Back then when I was your age,” as one might say, we usually met in a
bar so most of our permission to speak protocols were communicated by smiles,
glances, stares, and nods. We knew the tops from the bottoms by the side on
which they wore their hankies and whether they were interested in our fetish by
the color (few that they were) of their hankies.
I always cruised the ones “flagging yellow” since a guy who would take piss
would do almost anything else. For my part, I flagged light gray, since I was
still wary of dudes into heavy scenes. Little did I think that 25 years later I
would be known as one of those dudes.
Therefore a smile returned was all that one needed to walk up to the stranger
and initiate a conversation. Our kinky world had not yet been overly polluted by
arrogant pseudo-masters who wanted to protect themselves with aloofness and
false pride. We knew that we were equal in our desire to get laid and to get
laid that night. What better reason need one have, after all, to be in the bar
in the first place?
My not-so-hidden agitation with ridiculously formalized protocols has to do with
that fact that I believe that equality and mutual respect are among the
fundamental necessities of our lifestyle. Add to those qualities the
understanding that trust must be earned before it is acted upon and you have a
good formula for a safe and friendly adventure. Deprive a player of any of those
human rights and you are on a course toward trouble.
The problem with my reasoning is that manners still matter, even among equals.
It is here that politeness, civility, and propriety lubricate equality, so to
speak, so that we are gentle and understanding with one another, eschewing
rudeness, interruption, and unwanted advances.
I may not need permission to speak, yet I may still be inclined to say “Excuse
me.” I may not be forbidden from approaching you, but I realize that permission
to approach is not the same as the right to touch. I may be your equal but I am
aware of the signs and signals that we use among civilized folk so as not to
make an ass of myself or to thrust myself upon you against your wishes. Simply
put, I am not so full of myself that I push my way in and stay there long past
my welcome.
You say (Well not you, but I hope you get the gist of my writing.) that you want
to learn. I don’t deny that’s the case. I might suggest that each of us start
learning by listening to ourselves. What do the use of the third person when
first person is correct or of lower case “i” when it ought to be capitalized
indicate? I know that I may be a minority here, since so many seem to have
totally demolished the protocols of correct grammar that the good sisters taught
us in Catholic school. To be honest, Protestant, Jewish, and Atheist teachers
did so as well.
I believe it has everything to do with self-respect and mutual respect.
The first concept asks, therefore, what do you think of your own worth? Is
anyone really “better” than you? I trust the answer is a resounding “No.” I am
not negating that others look better, or are smarter, or richer, or more
experienced. I am speaking of one’s acknowledgement of his or her innate worth,
that which is inherent in the fact that each of us is a fully human, and
therefore fully worthy, individual. None of us is any more human or less human
than any other.
That intrinsic fact easily leads to mutual respect. I respect you as I respect
myself, given that I indeed respect myself. Respect protects us from all the
nasty actions that disrespect engenders. I won’t violate the person I respect. I
won’t trash them, despise them, ridicule them, belittle them, or in any way harm
or denigrate them.
Respect demands politeness, not rudeness, care not slovenliness, attention not
mindlessness.
Too often we think of disrespect in more severe terms. What about the minor
instances? How do promptness, care of another’s toys, noise in the dungeon,
cleanliness, exhibitionism in public places, failure to return calls, and all
the other minor inconveniences we impose on one another fit into the scheme of
being respectful?
Our actions are meant, I hope, to empower each and every one of us to attain our
highest potential, our greatest pleasure, our right place. Real empowerment is
based on self-worth and mutual respect.
Where do D/s and fetishes such as verbal abuse, humiliation, and raunch play
enter in? They become acceptable because equal partners have agreed to freely
(consensually) enter into them. In this way one equal gives his or her equality
to the other as a gift, in fact indicating “I will take a lower station in order
to elevate you to a higher station.”
Doing so is what creates the heightened polarity that engenders what we call the
power exchange. Equality, after all, is not sameness. There is no contradiction
in the idea of equal but different. One cannot say, for instance, that the
positive pole of a light bulb is better than the negative one. Without both, the
light bulb just won’t work.
It gives the saying “Do unto others” a new meaning. The unto others recognizes
our equality, that each of us has something to contribute, one to the other.
Somewhere I learned that all systems tend towards equilibrium, “a static or
dynamic state of balance between opposing forces or actions.” This is the basis
of the power exchange, as power naturally moves from one pole to the other in
order to attain equilibrium. When the “poles” are unequal, the power exchange
becomes lop-sided and erratic. It’s for that reason that I have said that
neither partner can effectively have more of one characteristic than his or her
partner has of its complement.
A person cannot, therefore, be consensually more dominant than the submissive is
willing to be dominated, a sadist cannot be more sadistic than the masochist is
willing to be receptive. That is just to say that recognizing and respecting the
equality we all share is central to what it is that we do.
Have a great week. Copyright 2007 by Jack Rinella,
all rights reserved.
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