Memoires of a Dominant

Warning; this is not a fun, entertaining graphic encounter story. When I posted the first part of these memoires, I'd meant to enter it under 'non-erotic', as I know it's not what many come here looking for. It showed up under BDSM, and I'm not sure if that's because I pressed some wrong button, somewhere, or if someone along the way thought better of my idea. But, it's probably better, as this is obviously it's primary active audience. Just keep in mind, this is more an offshoot of my how-to material and less an entertaining story.

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I find it's often necessary to distinguish between someone with a dominant nature, and someone who has learned to exercise that nature in a healthy way. Contrary to popular belief, it's my experience that more of the former does not necessarily equate to more of the later. Last time I talked about discovering my nature. And, as I also said last time, my own process of learning this craft in a healthy way began with a community of Goreans.

Also, as I said last time, Gor is a particular protocol of M/s (Master/slave) BDSM with some fairly rigid structures and traditions that were based upon a collection of fantasy novels. I also noted that it's a group that has acquired a bit of a rough reputation.

For the record, I'd like to say that my own mentors were some of the warmest, most understanding, compassionate and responsible people I've ever met in or out of any kink lifestyle. But more to the point, they instilled in me the two keys that remain the cornerstone of my approach to D/s to this day, even though I've long since stopped adhering to that protocol to this day.

The first key was responsibility. I've already written a post on the topic, and it's exactly the point I was started on. Being a dominant meant owning it; everything that happened under your watch, you were accountable for.

The second was the idea I mentioned at the top of this entry. That is the idea of being dominant wasn't just a matter of a nature, but a matter of how productively and responsibly one embraced that nature. Sort of like the old fashioned ideal of 'being a man'; some were better at it than others, and one grew in the process of it.

In fact, as I observed, for them, 'Being a man' and 'Being a dominant' were pretty much synonymous, or were supposed to be. They eagerly embraced gender roles in an archetypal way, like being a man or being a woman was a spiritual path to be cultivated. They did this to such extent that our favorite pastime, as men, was stick fighting. Yes, stick fighting. Have you seen those videos of people dressing up in weird armor and bashing each other with sticks? We did that without the padding. It was a thing, what can I say?

Okay, maybe that part was a bit crazy. But, they embraced their lifestyle to an extent and with a passionate zeal that I've never seen anywhere else. I would probably say to a crazy extent, if there didn't seem so much method to their madness. The proof was in the pudding; these people were a genuinely happy and healthy community.

They were diverse, too. Doctors and lawyers and engineers would be sitting around the fire with bikers and construction workers watching their wives dance. And you wouldn't be able to tell what any of them were from listening to them talk and interact. To them, those other roles were acts they put on when they weren't here, and this was what was real.

They also put their money where their mouth was. Or rather they put their spouses where their lifestyle was. They were, to put it bluntly, the most profoundly polyamorous group of people I've ever come across. And it was not uncommon for men mentoring other men to use each other's wives and girlfriends to 'demonstrate' or offer for practice. And, before you go thinking that they were getting all 'Mormon' with it, these women were as 'into it' as the men, with one often trying to outperform another, and (I kid you not) competitions for play and attention.

This allowed me to begin learning in a 'hands on' sort of way, pun intended.

Now, it's not my job to be an apologist for Goreans at large. I got very lucky finding my first group, and have found a few communities, since then, that seemed equally positive. But, I've also come across maybe an equal amount that lacked any of the deeper insight that made these groups work.

Some criticize that the peculiar traditions and hard-line male-dom structure were not really necessary if one recognizes the underlying principles that make it work. In fact the somewhat arbitrary mass of the form can rather distract from the healthier aspects of the latter. Also the groups traditions make no accommodation, in its natural state, for either homosexuals or for opposite gendered power exchange; male submissive or female dominants.

I really can't rebut any of those criticisms other than to point out that this is hardly a tax-exempt non-profit group. They look after their members common interest and don't necessarily feel much imperative to accommodate those not of like mind.

Others criticize them along feminist lines. To these I counter and say that many of the most independent and successful, self actualized women that I've known loved humiliation and objectification play and a few were in fact in this group. This is a common kink, and if you're a feminist you have to respect a woman's right to enjoy it just as much as you respect a man's right to be demeaned by a dominatrix. I'll do an entry on this sort of play at some point, but that's another can of worms.

In the end, none of these were what caused me to 'stop being Gorean'. In fact over the years I drifted in and out of a few other groups of that protocol, mostly because, on top of being a Dominant, I'm a bit of a sci-fi and fantasy geek and tend to run into them a lot. They're one of the most common protocols to run into, after all, or were, at least, while I was most publically active. Really, if my group hadn't dissolved mostly due to various members relocating, some to the great beyond, I might never had stopped. That was how much affection I had for them, warts and all. But, alas, such was not to be.

However, there was one key philosophical difference that I evolved that I couldn't reconcile with continuing as 'a Gorean master'.

You see, unlike in the books, Gor wasn't on a separate planet, and while I was learning to be Gorean, I was also learning about other things from member who had followed other lifestyle aspects; Old Guard, New Guard, munches, dungeons, etc. And it also brought me a larger sense of context.

And as that grew, I realized that the male-dom thing bugged me. No, not in a feminist sort of way. Rather, the more I got into it, the more I wanted the submissive to respond to me, specifically, as a dominant, not just because of my gender as a male. In fact, the idea that a submissive would respond to me the same way she'd respond to another male totally killed the thrill of it for me.

Now, I know that some Goreans will challenge that idea. And fair enough. This isn't the place to go into such an in depth debate on Gorean culture, but I realize, to an extent, there are contrary attitudes. I simply mean to make the point that I decided after that point that I want the power exchange of my own practices to be under my own power, and not compelled by any sort of tradition.

Of course, in retrospect, my next D/s relationship after that turned out to be my first wife. That will forever reign as the most negative relationship in my history for many reasons. I may go into that a bit, next time. But, probably not.