Saturday, May 23, 2015

How to Make Someone Dominant or Submissive

I get a lot of visits from searches based on "how to make (insert person and characteristic here)". I get it. People want their husband or wife to be dominant or submissive, and they are looking for ways to make those desires a reality. I get it. Really, I do--there is need, and needs always want to feed.

The thing is...It always makes me sigh. You can make people do things, and yes, over time you can even mold someone into something they previously may not have been. Dominants are made over time. Experience shapes their approach, refines their methods, defines who they decide to be as dominants. Submissives are shaped and molded one step a a time over the course of a relationship, a little bend here, a nudge there, sometimes so subtle that we aren't even aware of the changes until something calls our attention to the fact that our reaction is different than it was before.

Yes, people change other people. Yet...You cannot force someone to become something that they aren't, in some shape or form, already.

I think that sometimes we are unhappy, and our first choice is often to look outside of ourselves at the people we are with to try and make them into what we believe will make us happy. The interesting thing about changing someone we love, I mean really making them into something they are not, has the terrible potential to create something we no longer love.
One of the things Alpha and I have fought most about in our time together is his sense of loyalty--how far he will let another person go, how much shit he will take, how forgiving he is willing to be of those that do not return his loyalties; of those who, for whatever reason, he deems worthy of his loyalty. He is solid and immovable in this. Once won, his loyalty is non-negotiable, unconditional, and comes with no strings attached. Sometimes this absolutely infuriates me. Because people are assholes. And, why? I mean, after all--assholes.
At the same time...His sense of ridiculously unshakeable loyalty is one of the things that I love most about him. If I had been able to change that, to make him into something he is not, he would not be the man that he is. He would not be the man that I fall in love with just a little bit more each day. Because he would no longer be himself.

I'm not saying that trying to makes someone dominant or submissive is exactly the same, and things work out differently if it turns out we are just helping someone become what they already are; however, what about ourselves? If we want our significant other to be dominant, are we truly willing to be the counterpart to that, so submit, to surrender to their will? Conversely, if we want our other half to be submissive, to surrender their all, can we become the dominant, the last call, the final say, the one who carries the weight of that responsibility? And if we are successful in bringing about these changes, will we still love what they have become?
All too often, I don't think that people ask themselves these questions. If we want to change someone else, we have to start by asking ourselves if we can be what they need should such changes occur. One must be careful when attempting to change that which they love, because the caterpillar turns into a butterfly and we will have to accept what they become with the knowledge that we asked for their metamorphosis.

We can help someone to become what they truly are, but we cannot make them be something they are not. And if we are asking them to become something which, by nature, requires a counterpart, we had better be damn sure of our ability to feed the beast we help to create. Because we are all so much more than the sum of our parts.


15 comments:

  1. This could turn into a long comment..you might want to grab a coffee lol

    This is something that comes up a lot isnt it? also along with "how can i expect to submit/dominate if the other party isnt submitting/dominating?" now my comment may not go down well with some..but hey ho...cant please everyone.

    There was an article i read over here in the UK, a while back now about the soaring rise in sex toys, Ann Summers (a uk based high street adult shop) recording record numbers of sales, and a huge increase in people joining adult sites such as Fetlife....all of this was accredited to the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey.

    Which is fine, however i think along with it, it has caused many women, and i say women more so than men because its a book/film that i would say is more a womans film/book. Anyway so for a lot of woman its perhaps caused them to want to explore D/s, explore kink etc, and have fun in the bedroom..nothing wrong with that.

    Now, it doesnt really matter how one gets into this lifestyle, if it be because of SOG fine, however im inclined to say that for some they are locked into the 'fantasy' its ok being submissive/dominant in the bedroom kinky sex etc, the issues arise when they try to take it out of the bedroom.

    Because i would imagine for a lot of men, in the bedroom, great, there getting sex if it means playing at being dominant i cant see many complaining!

    Its when its attempted to be taken out the bedroom that you get the "how do i make someone dominant/submissive" and the other related 'issues' im certainly not saying this applies in every case, of course it doesnt.

    But there is a difference between playing at being dominant/submissive than living it, which is fine, until one party wants to make the other party more than they are, and i do think SOG has contributed to this.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. tori,
      coffee in hand! Only the first cup, but I survived.

      I agree completely--those issues arise when D/s travels out of the bedroom. Interestingly enough (or annoyingly, depending) the majority of people don't seem to have a problem with bedroom kink, yet at the same time, if it's an actual way of life--well, that's just not right.

      P.S Blogger doesn't have an edit comment button because that would just be way too cool. Lol.

      Delete
  2. *why cant blogger have an edit comment function*

    To add to the end.....i think SOG has contributed to the increase of enquires etc of how to make someone dominant/submissive.

    ReplyDelete
  3. True words - yours and the post it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh.
    I get the loyalty thing because that is absolutely everything to me...in some cases its all or nothing.
    I know this isn't black or white but sometimes, it is this argument that causes me to think of kink as more of a sexual orientation than not--something that's either in you or isn't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bleu,
      Yea...That all or nothing thing...It's so much better than half-way though!!

      Delete
  5. You offer many good points to consider...
    but I still get stuck at "how do I make..."
    You don't "make"...
    You can suggest, guide, help, encourage, force even, (if you're an idjit) but you can never, ever make.

    Oh, yeah. You can also "permanently ruin" something if you try to "make"...
    Just... stop.

    (And I wonder why nobody ever lands on *my* blog looking for advice...)
    ;-p

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jz,
      I agree--you can't "make".

      And maybe people don't land on your blog looking for advice because, unlike here, they don't have to spend half an hour weeding through your jumbled thought processes to try and interpret wtf you're saying because something that took me pages, you wrote in one super clear paragraph and they're a bunch of masochists!

      I bet more people than you think land on your blog looking for advice--it just doesn't require the kind of clarification that my thought processes tend to. Lol.

      Delete
  6. Great post Lil, you make a lot of good points ... I'm pondering lol

    Hugs
    Roz

    ReplyDelete
  7. It is no different than a parent trying to *make* their kid into something. People get so caught up in what they want, that they don't see how it kills those around them. We can't turn an eggplant into a zucchini, but we can find some pretty great recipes to make eggplants taste really freakin good.

    I've found the most effective way to bring out his dominance is to do what he says...what a concept, huh? Sure wish I could have figured that out on day one! Lol.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Misty,
      oh, I always feel so bad for those kids!

      Well...Knowing a concept and putting it into practice can be two entirely different vegetables!

      Delete
    2. "I've found the most effective way to bring out his dominance is to do what he says...what a concept, huh? Sure wish I could have figured that out on day one! Lol."

      It sounds so simple... and it is! But somehow it can be so hard to do. Great words.

      Delete
    3. Lea,
      it really is simple! Simple seems to not be at all synonymous with ease though...What's up with that??

      Delete

Play nice.