I've been a Dom for a long, long time, long before I'd ever heard the word. I wandered without guidance, drifting in a knowledge-free vacuum, yet I was still a Dom. I dominated women, made them beg, and in general, got off on being in control.

I've grown a lot since then. Back in '92, on the IRC, I met the man who would change everything. He called himself LonelyDom and he took me under his wing, so to speak. Taught me about D/s, even shared his slave with me (online, of course). I was married back then, but my online experiments weren't lost on my wife, who enjoyed what I was learning all too much. As previously stated, I was a Dom already, and so had naturally married a submissive. Like me, she didn't know anything about D/s, but you don't have to know about it, to live it.

My ex-wife was the first woman I collared in real life, but was far from the last. I'm currently in a new marriage, in a new country (I've recently moved to Australia) and yes, my new wife is a submissive, in fact, she's my slave. Hardly the thing to have to explain to your mom, but I decided it was time to stop keeping it a secret and so my family and all my friends now know what I've known since 1992. I'm a Dominant. My wife calls me Master.

When I first got started, I ran into a lot of things that didn't quite make sense to me. As I continued, I realized why this was. There are an awful lot of men out there claiming to be Masters who don't have a clue. If this offends some of you, that's okay. I can take the heat. E-mail me. Let me here you roar.

You see, a large percentage of Masters are insecure, so they look for a woman to dominate. A woman to worship them. Surely if this woman worships me, I must be great. Bullocks! If you're so great, why do you need someone to tell you so?

If you're going to be a Master, you might as well accept the fact here and now, you're not a deity. You're not even a candidate for sainthood. You're a man, and like all men, you have faults. You're not perfect and you're never going to be perfect, no matter WHAT YOUR GIRL THINKS! Deal with it.

So what does a real Master do when he makes a mistake? I'll tell you what I do. I apologize. Want to know why? Because I have enough self-respect to admit when I'm wrong and I'm a big enough man to acknowledge it publicly. Think about it.

If you're secure within yourself, what do you have to lose? You can be secure and wrong, can't you? The more a person insists he's always right, the more likely he's fooling himself, that's my take on it.

Let me give you an example. When I first arrived in Tasmania to be with my slave dana, she was very new to D/s. Extremely new. We had all the appropriate conversations beforehand. What she thought she'd be into. What I was going to try with her. How I was going to indoctrinate her into the world of Dominance and submission. We talked about it, I explained things to her, and I told her I'd take it step by step and go slow. When I'm with a slave, I have all the time in the world. If you don't take the time to do it right the first time, when will you find the time to redo it?

I started slow with dana, a bit at a time. Role-playing was big with us, but I also introduced her to blindfolds, bondage, the flog and the belt. I decided early on I would turn the belt around and use the buckle side at least once. Left quite a welt on her, something I hadn't wanted to do.

dana is not a masochist and not into pain. You don't have to be to be a submissive, which is another misnomer. A submissive woman wishes to please her Master, which doesn't mean she necessarily wants to be physically hurt. For a submissive to be happy (and subs have as much right to happiness as anyone else, which is another thing Masters often seem to forget), she has to pair with the right Master. dana likes head games, and so do I. dana doesn't like pain and I don't like to cause pain. You see, being a Master is not the same as being a sadist. These two qualities can be, though aren't always, mutually exclusive.

Anyway, I caught dana just wrong and gave her quite the welt. And I said I was sorry. I think dana was stunned by that. How can I say I'm sorry? I'm the Master, right? Well, dana, I made a mistake. This was also hard for her to understand. But as much as she worships me, she has to know I'm not perfect.

Apologizing to dana cost me nothing. It didn't diminish her image of me, nor did it make me feel any less about myself. What I was doing was showing my girl respect. Another commonly held misconception, you don't have to respect a slave. Of course you do.

Slaves offer the ultimate gift. They give you themselves. Do you know how difficult that is? I couldn't do it. So in order to honor that gift, you respect them. Which doesn't mean you can't humiliate them as part of play. But as much as a slave loves to be humiliated, they need to be respected too. It's a fine line, but it's definitely there, at least for every submissive woman I've ever been with. So here's my question to you.

Do you respect your slave? No? If not, why own one?

I love my surround sound stereo system. It's great. I get a lot of pleasure out of it. So I never abuse it and I treat it well, so it will perform to the best of its ability. Want to know a secret? Submissives are the same way. If you treat them right, they work better! It's a truth you seldom hear, but it's basic to D/s. If you don't think this is right, try not fulfilling your sub for a couple of years, and see if she's still around. If she is, dollars to donuts, you won't be getting much pleasure from the relationship by then.

Submissives have a right to be happy, but they've given up the right to make decisions solely for their own benefit. That job is now up to you. Your submissive is not likely going to do anything she feels would inconvenience you, even if that inconvenience is minor. She's YOUR submissive. YOU have to take care of her. You can start by showing her respect. You can start by seeing her needs are met as well as yours. Your girl (or boy if you're a Mistress), might even injure themselves attempting to go beyond the abilities of their physical bodies to please you. dana has a bad back and sometimes it pains her. If I don't make her rest, if I let her do everything she wants to do for me, she might seriously hurt herself. Then where would I be?

Here are a few other commonly held misconceptions:

All slaves and subs attached to a Master must be collared. This is not true. This is the choice of the Master, and, while it is often the case, other Masters may choose to mark their girls by piercings, tattoos, branding, a bracelet, an article of clothing, or not at all. There are no rules on how to how to mark a slave.

A Dom must control his/her sub in all things. Some Doms might like that, but frankly, micromanagement takes a whole lot more energy than it's worth. While all subs and slaves have rules to follow, the strictness of those rules tend to vary greatly from one relationship to the next. I tend to give my girl more leeway, but my boundaries are hard-edged. She knows what is and isn't permissible and knows also, if she isn't certain, she'd damn well better ask before making decisions on her own (particularly irreversible decisions).

Subs should be silent if they are uncomfortable with something. This is absolute hogwash. In fact, a slave has an obligation to be forthcoming with a Master about her feelings, including what makes her uncomfortable. A good Master will encourage such behavior.

Slaves shouldn't become angry. Do you think so? All humans become angry at some point, even the ones that have given up their freedom. Anger is not the problem... controlling anger is. Emotions are not controllable, only reaction is. If I do something dana doesn't want me to, she might become angry or hurt. She couldn't help feeling something, even if I were stupid enough to try to command her not to. I encourage dana to discuss those feeling with me, and we work on them together. If I sound like I'm more of a psychologist than a Master, let me remind you that Dominance, at its heart, is psychological. There are reasons why your sub or slave chooses to give up their freedom and there are reasons why you are willing to take responsibility for another human being. Hopefully they are the right reasons.

Slaves must obey their Master in all things. This is an ideal no one can live up to. No slave is going to be perfect. As a Master you have to learn to differentiate between situations that are beyond the slaves control and situations where the slave has actually failed. If she has failed, that doesn't automatically mean you have to punish her. You need to determine the reason she failed to the best of your ability. Was your initial expectation unreasonable in the first place? Did you account for various situations completely beyond your slave's control or anticipation? Punish your slave for her own mistakes, not a random happenstance that isn't her fault.

Being the Master gives you the right to lie. Untrue. Trust is at the heart of the D/s relationship and if you're not honest, how can your girl trust you? If you truly are a Master, you know how important honest communication is, and if you're truly confident, what is there to lie about?

And last (but not least), if you're wrong, you can apologize.