A Question of Making D/s Work, and How We Began

I was beginning to think that my Q&A page was just taking up space, and maybe I should scrap it. Then someone decided to use it for the first time in ages. So yay--much needed blogging fodder.

Anonymous asks:

"Hey! I really love your blog. Around a year ago or so I fell in love with the idea of a D/s relationship, me being the Dom. Me and my girlfriend tried it and it didn't go so well. Me and her recently broke up. At first she liked the idea of a D/s relationship but within a few weeks she didn't like it anymore but I am still stuck on the idea. Our relationship failing makes me discouraged I'll ever find a submissive to be mine and was just wondering if you had key advice to make it work. Also I was wondering where you and your Dominant met and how you began your D/s relationship. Thanks!"

Thank you for the questions, Anon. I am glad to hear that you are enjoying the blog.

First, I would like to say that I adore ideas. They are the root of so many wonderful things and experiences, how could we not love them? The thing is though, it's easy to fall in love with ideas. Ideas do not pass judgement, they rarely highlight inconvenient truths, they don't have dirty socks, and while often complex, they are only expressions of the human mind and lack the vast complexity of actually being human.
Ideas are much easier to love than people, and quite a bit more difficult to live than they are to experience as theoretical concepts.

As someone who has never searched for a D/s relationship, I'm not sure that I have any key advice for you. Perhaps just basic sub thought processes that might be slightly helpful.

We all know that compatibility is important to relationships, and nowhere does that hold as true as it does in D/s. I think it is rare for "The One" to fall into our laps. It takes time to find that compatibility. Given that your last relationship ended recently, I wouldn't get discouraged too quickly.
I don't know if you've read it already, but I recently wrote a post that addresses some ideas of how to make ttwd work, so you might find it somewhat useful: A Question of Advice for Beginners.

As to finding and beginning a D/s relationship, I'm afraid that I don't have much to offer (though the post I mentioned might help with the beginning). Perhaps readers with more experience in this area would like to chime in and offer some thoughts...?

From a submissive perspective, when it comes to trying to find a sub using websites like Fetlife and Collarme (does that one still exist?) there is an overabundance of "doms" and very few actual Dominants. I don't have the answers, but I do think that there are approaches that one is best served by avoiding.
Submission is earned, there is already an excess of cock shots in the world, and a surprising amount of men take the "Kneel bitch" approach. It doesn't go over well.
Also, not everyone who fancies themselves submissive actually is--as I said before, ideas are easy to love, not so easy to live.
There's something to be said for just being yourself, approaching subs with a sense of normality and getting to know them as people--issuing demands and being pushy right off the bat is probably not going to get you anywhere besides blocked.
While I do believe that it is important not to try and model relationships off of other people's experience, there is definitely something to be said for doing your research--we like submitting to people who have a good grasp of what they are doing and how we work.

Alpha and I actually met a very long time ago through a mutual friend. While we did settle into a slightly unbalanced dynamic wherein he took the lead because I had very little life experience, neither of us had a concept of D/s.
We had been together somewhere around eight years before we began our forays into D/s.
Really, it was not pretty. To put it very mildly, we were not doing well as a couple. Not doing well at all. I was screwing around with D/s online, and he caught me. He said that, if I wanted to be Dominated, it would be by him and no one else.
Thus began our rather rocky explorations of power exchange. In a twist that I still find somewhat ironic, (not sure exactly why) starting this blog several years later, was the first time I was allowed on to the internet and given room for any interactions with other people who had anything to do with D/s.

I wanted to dive in and have it all right then. He took a much slower approach, and since he's in charge, we went at the pace he wanted--I thought it was slower than  snail crap, but in retrospect, he was right. Ideally, you are setting up an arrangement that is going to last for a long time--it's worth taking your time to lay up a solid foundation.

I hope that this adequately answers your questions. If you (or anyone really) has any other questions or ideas to throw my way, please feel free to do so--I'm lacking inspiration these days.