So you want to be a Dom.
You've thought about it, you've fantasized about it, and you've decided that it's for you. All well and good. Now to take the theory into practice. There's a distance between wanting to be a dom and being a dom, though, and it pays to be aware that there's more involved than you might think.
How hard can it be?
Trickier than it sounds. There's more to being a dom than telling people what to do. There's a lot more to it than telling people what to do. Anyone can do that; it no more makes you a dom than owning a border collie makes you a shepherd.
Nonsense. Doms tell people what to do; that 's the definition!
Actually, no. It's more complicated than that. Context is important; being a dom is not about being bossy, and nobody gets to tell everyone what to do all the time. In fact, it's not even about telling all the subs what to do all the time.
The very first mistake novice doms are likely to make is in believing that D/s relationship dynamics are simple. You're a dom; you see someone who is a sub; as a dom, your rightful place is telling that sub what to do, and as a sub, that person owes you respect, right?
Wrong. For starters, if you want respect, you have to do more than say "I'm a dom, worship me!" In fact, saying "I'm a dom, worship me!" is a good way to get ridiculed and laughed at by anyone who has any experience in real D/s relationships.
What many novice doms miss is that a D/s relationship is a relationship. Even if it's temporary, even if it happens only at something like a play party, a relationship exists between the dominant and the submissive because both people have made that choice. Believing that you can tell a submissive what to do before you have established some sort of relationship which gives you that authority is a bit like believing that any man can tell any woman to have sex with him, because, after all, men have sex with women, right?
Men have sex with women, and doms tell subs what to do--but not all the time, and not by default. Do not assume for even half a second that simply being a dom grants you any authority or presumption of power over someone who is a submissive; this is as foolish and misguided as assuming that being a man grants you any presumption of sex over someone who is a woman.
Now, hang on a minute, here. Submissives are submissive because they want to submit to a dom!
Perhaps. But that does not mean that any particular submissive wants to submit to you. Assuming that someone wants to submit to you simply because that person is "submissive" is exactly like assuming that a heterosexual woman would want to have sex with you simply because you're a heterosexual man (or vice versa).
But all submissives owe dominants respect.
No, respect--even in the BDSM community--is earned. Believing that you're entitled to it simply by virtue of the fact that you call yourself a "dom" is a sure-fire way to be labelled a wannabe.
And the worst, most patently offensive way to do this is to meet a person for the first time, find out that person is a submissive, and then say "Worship me!"
Submissives, like all people, are human beings. Whenever you deal with human beings, before you've established any kind of context or relationship, you will find that you have the best success if you treat them as people. Funny thing, that; people like being treated as people, especially by strangers--launching straight into a D/s relationship with someone you've only just met is premature, and assuming that anyone who self-identifies as "submissive" owes anything to every person who self-identifies as "dominant" is offensive.
And a big turn-off. The people you see who have all the subs, the ones you run into in the BDSM community and at play parties who are successful at finding and keeping partners, the ones who other people naturally seem to defer to? They have those partners and they have that respect because they understand that you treat everyone--including submissives--with respect until you've established a relationship that lets you assume the dominant role.
I don't get it. If someone didn't want to be dominated, why would that person be a submissive?
Again, it's about context. That person might very well want to be dominated, and might even want to be dominated by you, maybe--but until you find out what that person wants, don't make assumptions. And especially, don't make assumptions about what that person wants or needs, or how that person "should" interact with you.
When someone discovers an interest in BDSM, it can be easy to slip into a fantasy-fulfillment mindset. You have ideas about how you would like to be and what kinds of things you'd like to explore, you have fantasies, you have things you really want to do--so it may be tempting to slot every submissive you encounter into your own fantasies. When you stop relating to people as people and start relating to them as fantasy-fulfillment objects, you can expect to have problems.
How so? When I meet people online and tell them what to do, there's no problem!
Online forums are very different from real-life forums. Online forums are more fantasy-oriented; in many cases, the submissive you're talking to is seeing you as nothing more than a fantasy-fulfillment object, you're seeing that submissive as a fantasy-fulfillment object, and you get along fine.
But even in online forums it can be very presumptuous to assume a power relationship that has not been established. Start a conversation with someone who identifies as "submissive" with "On your knees and worship me!" and you might just come across as an insensitive poseur, or worse.
Power exchange relationships are relationships. Don't assume that someone has granted you power just because you're a dominant and that person is a submissive.
