My First Rant[tm]

[lapsedagnostic]

There's a line that you hear in the community a lot, and read in all the books, and it always annoys me.

The Submissive has the ultimate control.

I don't where this conclusion came from, whether it came from someone that truly believed it, or if it's just a wacked out piece of propaganda to make everyone more comfortable with the thought of someone being tied up, helpless, and having terrible things done to them.

"It's alright, the sub is really in control."

Uh-huh. Let me tell you, there are plenty of times that the only control my sub has over her immediate fate is whatever control I give her. And that's not meant to be ominous, just the truth. If I've got someone tied up (or chained up) and hooded in my basement, then for all practical purposes, I have all the control. I'm not sure how you could argue otherwise.

But, the standard argument goes, you only get to do what the submissive agrees to let you do. Okay, yes, in the real world, I am limited to what my partner is comfortable with. But she's limited to what I'm comfortable with, also. "Okay, I won't do X, but there's no way I'm doing Y. That work for you?" Seems to me to be a fifty fifty power split.

And then there's the final argument: If I don't play nice (by the sub's definition of nice), then she can decide not to play with me ever again, and tell all her friends. The ultimate powers of veto and propaganda. "You'll never play in this town again!". But this walk away and propaganda thing seems to equally apply to doms as well. If you turn out to be psychotically clingy, or just not to my taste, there's no reason to assume that I'm going to play again just because you asked. Again, fifty fifty.

And maybe that's my base issue. The assumption that the sub has all the power because she can always walk away presupposes that the dom doesn't have that power. Either he's obligated to play whenever asked, or that he will leap at any invitation. Neither of which is flattering.

Thoughts, opinions? A lot of people quote this line, and it seems to me to be basically flawed, but maybe I'm just being an idiot. Been there before, no reason to stop now.

Comments

[gsh]

Too many people get hung up over words like "ultimate" or "real".

[mellyflori.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry.. I know this doesn't have anything to do with anything but on my friends page this is one entry away from Mym's entry about weeding the front lawn. The juxtaposition made me giggle.

[fairerhiannon.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

You're right! They are!

[lapsedagnostic.livejournal.com]

juxtaposition?

That's juxtaposition fo' me! Ho ho ho. ('tween my fav-o-rite Rhi's...) (what's the plural of Rhi, anyway?)

[mellyflori.livejournal.com]

(what's the plural of Rhi, anyway?)

Trouble.

[fairerhiannon.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[lapsedagnostic.livejournal.com]

puts down the keyboard, raises arms, and backs slowly away from the Rhi's.

[fairerhiannon.livejournal.com]

>:}

hee hee hee!

Look what we did!!!

[pyrategrrl.livejournal.com]

*G* it seems a 50/50 to me... *G* thats what the whole point of "Negotitation" is!
finding the working space between 2 (or more) people!

*smooch*

[merde.livejournal.com]

i think most of the people who say the sub has the control are het types... either feminists ashamed of their sub tendencies, or weenie-doms who are trying to pander to women because they think it'll help them score. hint: doms shouldn't pander. it's... undomlike.

in other words, i think this whole argument belongs to people who aren't really comfortable with BDSM yet, so they feel the need to rationalize or justify what they're into. i mean, it never once occurred to me that there was anything incompatible about being a feminist and being a sub. i choose to submit. the whole point of feminism is being able to choose who to be and how to live your life, not to turn your back on all things traditionally considered "feminine" because THOSE ARE THE TRAPPINGS OF THE PATRIARCHAL OPPRESSORS, AND WE ARE THE RADIANT WOMYN-GODDESSES, AND oh for fuck's sake, people, everything doesn't have to be drawn in crisp black and white, especially not humanity.

and christ, there's nothing more pathetic than a halfassed dom. better no dom at all.

[fairerhiannon.livejournal.com]

It HAS to be a partnership for the relationship to work.

BOTH the dom and the sub must agree to the terms of play, otherwise you get a bad, if not totally effed up, scene.

"The submissive can stop the scene at any time. They just have to safeword."

Well, only if the dom is honest and true to the negotiated terms. If they aren't, the sub could be in a world of hurt.

As in many situations, there's the black and white version and then there's the real-world version, which often functions in shades of grey. It's the ablity to navigate the grey areas that's important.

Just my opinion.

[grail76.livejournal.com]

I think control is more a question of art. Now to explain:

You meet a sub. You have the "what are your hard limits talk. She says, "Blood, children and animals," the nearly standard line. In your toy bag are the 600 needles you've just gotten from 3ravensringo. You tie her to a frame, blindfold her, and gag her if she didn't add that as a hard limit when you began talking. You set up a scene where she falls deeper and deeper into subspace and when you begin to put the first of a dozen needles through the flesh on her back. She's so deep she doesn't notice until much later when you're doing aftercare.

In that situation, when she loses her temper, who's more likely to make a "you'll never play in this town again," stick?

(aside: Frankly, I don't think that has much staying power. There are always new people coming into a scene and the local community continually seems to pair up with people I've heard are unsafe either as doms or subs. /aside)

Situation two: You do the negotiation. Her list is the same. You tie her to the frame. You use floggers and a paddle and then something she has never experienced before, a cane. Let's assume she's a screamer and you have heard, "Why'd you stop?" from her when she's screamed in the past. She finds the cane is just one helluva lot more than she expected and begins to scream. She can't remember her safe word. You complete the scene. She lites into you when she catches her breath that you should have known what the hell was going on.
Who's in control? Neither one of you, I'd suggest. I am assuming you'd have stopped if she'd managed to get the safe word out.

Situation 3: You show her the contents of your toy bag. She agrees to each of them. Part way through the scene you do something that hits a button of hers that she'd never mentioned.

[the time this happened to me, I'd been playing for some time with a woman who loved bare handed spankings, spankings with a belt, spankings with a paddle and essentially everything I'd managed to haul out. One day I brought out a ruler and on the first wack she turned on me as if I'd just done the Darth Vader line (Luke, I am your father.) It seems while she had all sorts of fantasies about being spanked, her mother HAD actually used a ruler as a discipline device. I'd suddenly gone over a previously undisclosed hard limit.]

Now, she didn't tell you not to use whatever it was. Whatever you're doing is well within the limits you've agreed upon. She hasn't done a good job of clueing you in on her limits. Do you isnist you're in control and go on or do you let her stop the scene? If you stop, do you exercise control or is she?


Situation 4:
I'm at the Crucible. The woman I've brought really insisted she didn't want to expose more than her shoulders and the top of her breasts (which for her was a lot) in public. I say, I won't force you to do anything. After a time there and with my encouragement she ends up hanging from a frame in her corset, a thong, with her breasts fully exposed. She's grinning like a banshee.

Thus the ART of control. If she'd continued to insist she couldn't do it, I'd have been encouraging but I wouldn't have stripped her. That was a hard limit. It got softer as the evening progressed. The art was getting her to not just accept but cooperate with what I had in mind.
I've seen people with floggers start off so softly that the unreasonable fear the sub had of it was gone. Then they increased the force and the sub was accepting and enjoying things that they thoght of as beyond the pale.
continued ...

[grail76.livejournal.com]

Pt. 2

The flip side of "the sub can always walk away," is also present for the dom. On more than one occasion someone has really asked for some type of scene and at the same time I didn't care for how they'd asked or how they'd behaved right before they'd asked or I didn't think they were ready and I've declined to start the scene. One time she was standing at the door to her hotel room and I just told her I was no longer in the mood and went off down the hall. The "Walk away," option is always there for either of them and is very powerful when used correctly.

Now, I really don't bottom. My mentor in the organized scene used to say that you shouldn't ever use something unless you know what it feels like. As a result of this, I've been mummified and had a tens unit used on my genitals and I've had accupuncture needles run through my thigh. If, someone said to me, "Hey, you can try this out on your sub but you should really feel what it's like first." I could be talked into being tied up for it or whatever.

If, after tying me they then decided to express their dominant side by not untying me until they'd done something beyond what I wanted done or used it as a way to take advantage of me, well eventually they have to either murder me or let me out.

When I got out, we are now in something on the lines of blood fued.
So, yes, the person who bound me has control, but it's a very tenuious control. /magnum opus off

[frost57565.livejournal.com]

BDSM relationships are like other relationships. Sometimes one person has more power than the other. It might be the top ("lifestyle D/s") or the bottom ("service tops"), and in varying degrees.

Any statement about any subset of human beings that assumes they all think or react the same way is hopelessly naïve.

[mgs-naughtycat.livejournal.com]

this is a good question, and i'll have to give it a chance when my brain is a little bit more organized to tlak about it.
but to throw out something that i often think of in terms of my relationship, i think of it as a balance of nonbalanced power. sounds rather strange in the beginning, but i have more power over certain aspects, and he has more power over others. and through it all it all works out.
to throw the other common scenario out, someone is bathing someone in a bath. who is the top and who is the bottom and who is in control of the situation? could be anyone. so the whole thing is really about perspective. if you have to think that the sub is in control to be comfortable, then so be it. if you don't, then that works too. for me, its more that i am comfortable in the fact that if i were to object to something, that Master will respect my thoughts and concerns. its not control, its consideration. which is something that any relationship should have.
k, i'm gonna stop rambling now, before i loose all sense of coherency...

the sub is really in control

[kernmantle13.livejournal.com]

It's true. Sorry. Thanks for playing. There is only one exception, which I'll get back to.

A response to a few of the replies you've already scored-
At the end of the day, the person in control of any relationship is the one most ready and willing to leave the relationship.

But back to your scene alone in the basement.. Yes the next thing that will happen is entirely up to you. But the consequences if you violate consent are not up to you, and I don't mean scene blacklisting. I mean assault or rape charges.

The only top who is truely in control is the one who is most ready and willing to hide the body.

Re: the sub is really in control

[ponderingpetal.livejournal.com]

At the end of the day, the person in control of any relationship is the one most ready and willing to leave the relationship.

Very, very, very true. Oh-so-heartwrenchingly true.

The only top who is truely in control is the one who is most ready and willing to hide the body.

Or the one who convinces his sub that he is. ;o)

Re: the sub is really in control

[lapsedagnostic.livejournal.com]

[oops, meant to get back to this...]

if you add this:

At the end of the day, the person in control of any relationship is the one most ready and willing to leave the relationship.

to this:

The only top who is truely in control is the one who is most ready and willing to hide the body.

I come to the conclusion that you believe that the bottom (almost) always has more control because she's more likely to be able to walk away from the relationship. Yes? No?

Re: the sub is really in control

[kernmantle13.livejournal.com]

I come to the conclusion that you believe that the bottom (almost) always has more control because she's more likely to be able to walk away from the relationship. Yes? No?

Nah. The first statement was in reply to responses already in the pile. The second was to your original post directly and they aren't connected.

Who is top/bottom/master/slave/god(dess)/asslicker is irrelevant when it comes to control over the relationship.

Re: the sub is really in control

[lapsedagnostic.livejournal.com]

Ah. We are in agreement, then.

Re: the sub is really in control

[kernmantle13.livejournal.com]

bah. What fun is that?

Re: the sub is really in control

[lapsedagnostic.livejournal.com]

"Ommmmmmmm Ommmmmmmmm"

"Peace and harmony, achieved once, rewarding always are."

Not very profound

[sierra-victor.livejournal.com]

But, you know there is a reason why the phrase "whip hand" means the person in charge without any debate of the greater meaning of it all.

Yes, there are subs who can be bound, gagged, and suspended upside down over a pool of hungry gators and still be in charge.

But, there are also doms who, with a lift of an eyebrow, are in complete and total charge.

It's a dynamic power exchange, and the twist and turns are part of what makes these relations both frustraiting, fascinating and far too complex to be summed up as "The submissive has the ultimate control." Or, with any other simple summation.

S_V