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Are
you new to the BDSM lifestyle? Just beginning to explore your
dominant side? Maybe you're ready to take the leap from online
to real life? Even experienced dominants are going to find interesting
pieces of informatin with Rick Umbaugh's column Getting
Started. |
When a mother plays with
her baby the baby is delighted. The need for love and attention
is ingrained in us as a survival mechanism.
Love makes us want to be with the loved one, so babies inspire love.
But when the mother’s attention is too much for the baby the
baby will turn away from her and if she doesn’t get the hint
the baby will arch his or her back and try to get away. Enough love
and attention is good, but too much is overwhelming, and the child
needs a rest.
One of the most important things a person needs to learn about Dominance
is how to read a submissive. It really isn’t that difficult,
although it can be if you think about it too much. It is much like
the mother in the above example, you learn that certain behaviors
show that the bottom is having fun and certain behaviors show that
they are not having fun. The trick is that every submissive reacts
differently to the things being done to him or her, and this is why
when one is playing with someone new a safeword should be used.
Safewords are peculiar things and somewhat controversial to those
who have enough experience to read someone. On one hand if a submissive
is paying attention to the safeword then the safeword can get in
the way of the submissive fully experiencing the scene. On the other
hand, if you are playing with someone you don’t know something
drastic could happen well before you understand that something is
going to happen. (It has happened to the best of us.) The safeword
is to make sure that you are reading the person correctly.
The safeword works on the principle that if someone is into the scene
he or she doesn’t need it and therefore can forget it. If,
however, the bottom is not in the scene then they will remember the
safeword and if they get annoyed enough by what you are doing they
will use it. Just as the mother has to understand when her baby has
had enough, so the Dom(me) has to learn what happens when a submissive
has had enough and is out of the scene.
Some submissives enjoy the pain and move into it. They move towards
the implement being used to hurt them. Some do just the opposite,
they move away from the pain, as they want to fight their bonds and
what is happening to them. For the same reason, some submissives
will make no noise when they are enjoying the scene, but others will
make a great deal of noise. I’ve had people who call out “Sir” when
they are having a great deal of fun, but others for whom it is a
caution sign. One particularly charming warning sign was a girl who
went “Owie” went I got a little enthusiastic, and this
was someone who could take a particularly heavy scene, and be cute
while she was taking it.
No one ever warned me that these things would happen. I saw it when
I was watching my Sir play, and I learned how I react when I am being
played with. When they happen in a scene it just makes sense and
I react to them as seems appropriate. That’s the trick in reading
people, to be in the moment so much when you are doing a scene that
you can feel what is appropriate.
Being in the moment in the scene is all about making the connection,
getting the power exchange. It requires that you understand, first
of all, that the scene is not about you. It is not about what you
look like or how you get your kicks. The scene is about the submissive.
If he or she is having fun, you will have fun. This has been a principle
of SM from as long as people have been talking about it. Havelock
Ellis noted:
| In
understanding such cases we have to remember that it is only
within limits that a woman really enjoys the pain, discomfort,
or subjugation to which she submits. A little pain which
the man knows he can himself sooth, a little pain which the
woman gladly accepts as the sign and forerunner of pleasure
? this degree of pain comes within the limits of love....
(Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 1913/1942, New
York, Pioneer Press, pg. 101) |
(These 60+ words have always struck me as a distillation of what
we do and it is amazing to me that they were either written in the
19th Century or in the early 20th.) In order to get to the place
that these sentences imply the second part of being in the scene
must take place. You have to be as concentrated on your submissive
as he or she is concentrated on what is happening. When you are in
the scene there are just two people on earth, you and the person
you are working on. This is work, your reward, as Ellis implies,
will come later. It is this connection that creates the Power Exchange,
and it is this connection that allows you to read your submissive
so well that it will seem that you are reading minds.
And reading minds is part of the job. One of the things that you
can count on is that it is the rare submissive is going to tell you
how to dominate him or her. This is part of the reason that I advocate
that someone should bottom before they top. A lot of reading someone
is understanding what is going on with the submissive in the unconscious
part of them, and the only way I know of to learn that is to experience
it yourself. Reading people is very much a matter of putting yourself
in their place.
It isn’t as difficult as it sounds (or as it is to write about).
Like so much that is worth the work it is simply a matter of practice,
and learning from one’s mistakes. So when someone asks how
to read a person in the scene, after I give them all this I tell
them to just go out and practice. It is just like a muscle, the more
you work it; the stronger it is. Give him or her the pain, then sooth
it and above all do it with love, even if it is a love you must give
up at the end of the night. |
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Rick
Umbaugh tied up his first lover in 1968 but he considers his membership
in the Leather Scene to have started with his joining The Eulenspeigel
Society in 1975 (after walking past the door 5 times without going
in). He has been turned on by S/m much longer, however. His fantasies
of bound women and S/m oriented play goes back to puberty, indeed
he outed himself (long before the term was invented) by turning in
a short story to his 6th grade teacher which would have made some
very credible S/m porn (for an 11 year old). Since these beginnings
he has been in and out of the scene and was one of the first members
of The DomSubFriends Society.
He currently is a writer, actor and teacher living in The Bay Area. Nayat326 @ cs.com
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