PSA: Being Dom is Not a pass to be an asshole

[KatieDoes]

I too have noticed Fake Doms being too aggressive, abusive and self serving; turning around to say they thought that’s what it was about. They have no real interest in generating an actual Dom/sub relationship unless it’s completely about their needs being served.

Meanwhile I’ve seen real Doms who keep the best interests of their sub in mind, always. They draw a stark contrast to the small-dick-energy-Fakes.

A LOT of men here that call themselves doms or say that they like submissive women are actually just looking for women who‘s self worth is so tied to male attention and approval that she will accept their poor treatment to gain it.


They aren’t interested in doing what is required to earn the trust that makes them safe and worth submitting to.


There is also an overwhelming stench of misogyny around here…. So when they wallow in that, I think they get even worse.

 

[InCNCestBangPie]

There is also an overwhelming stench of misogyny around here….

Fucking yes! Racism too, btw.

 

[Primalex]

[...] the reality behind that quote has to create a lot of confusion for the average horny dude.

Hm. I would say it creates indifference.

In the end, cold contacting a prospective partner is like a virtual shape sorting toy, only you don't get to see or touch the hole before trying to put the object inside (pun intended). In my experience there is no conceivable difference in the success rate doing different approaches.

 

[MichiganBiker27]

A Dom should be kind, loving, nurturing and polite. If not, then they are only looking to get off on being a dick.

 

[IrisAlthea]

Hm. I would say it creates indifference

Very understandable and relatable reaction to inconsistent and confusing feedback.

In the end, cold contacting a prospective partner is like a virtual shape sorting toy, only you don't get to see or touch the hole before trying to put the object inside (pun intended). In my experience there is no conceivable difference in the success rate doing different approaches.

Good (and punny analogy).
I’m curious though, would you say that there is a selection bias or is it rather random cold contacting?

 

[Otis_Ravelli]

This is something that has irritated me for a long time so I can only imagine how weary people on the receiving end are.

These wannabe Doms seem to be under the impression that anyone who identifies as a sub are just waiting for someone to order them about. What they don't seem to understand is that in a proper D/s relationship it's the sub that has the initial power. A Dom without a sub is just someone with a list of demands and no one to give them to. It's only when a sub consents to relinquishing control that they can exert that dominance.

That is something which, quite rightly, is earned through discussion of kinks, limits, and building of trust. Subs place themselves in the hands of their Doms and why would someone do with a literal stranger?

In past discussions with subs online I get uncomfortable if I'm addressed as "Sir" at a stage that feels too early. That is a title that I believe needs to be earned and not used lightly. It comes with responsibilities and a duty of care.

People who don't understand or respect that make it harder for new subs to properly explore and I'm sure many give up in the face of the endless onslaught of shallow, abusive men yelling at them to submit based on nothing. That makes me both sad and angry to think of.

 

[Primalex]

I’m curious though, would you say that there is a selection bias or is it rather random cold contacting?

What does "it" refer to now?

Anyway, a selection bias would result in a noticeable difference when changing the approach. Of course, when you are not cold contacting, you have some more information about a viable approach. If you are responding to "I'm looking for dirty sex messages to explore degradation and humiliation and sucking cocks.", there might be not that many reasons to start with: "Hey I'm Bill and 47 years old, I work as carpenter, my favorite color is yellow. How is the weather?"

 

[Primalex]

A Dom without a sub is just someone with a list of demands and no one to give them to.

And what is a sub without a Dom?

 

[IrisAlthea]

What does "it" refer to now?

Anyway, a selection bias would result in a noticeable difference when changing the approach. Of course, when you are not cold contacting, you have some more information about a viable approach. If you are responding to "I'm looking for dirty sex messages to explore degradation and humiliation and sucking cocks.", there might be not that many reasons to start with: "Hey I'm Bill and 47 years old, I work as carpenter, my favorite color is yellow. How is the weather?"

The method of choosing who to contact, where completly random would mean those mass messages to any femaleish sounding handle on the online list or recently posted list

I was wondering if one approach perhaps works better with people who post in these parts vs with people who post on the Playground, GB etc and perhaps even more about how this relates to the large group of people who rarely if ever post in the open but interact in private.

At the bottom of it all - this type of thread repeats itself fairly regularly and the majority seems to be adamant that the direct/asshole approach never works. As I wrote earlier in the thread, I think it must work well enough and your experience seems to confirm that.
So are people just unwilling to talk about sometimes responding positively just like people are unwilling to admit to going home with someone who used the ”wanna fuck” method of picking people up IRL or (less cynically) are the people who sometimes respond positively to a more crude pick up approach just not here discussing it?

 

[Primalex]

I was wondering if one approach perhaps works better with people who post in these parts vs with people who post on the Playground, GB etc and perhaps even more about how this relates to the large group of people who rarely if ever post in the open but interact in private.

At the bottom of it all - this type of thread repeats itself fairly regularly and the majority seems to be adamant that the direct/asshole approach never works. As I wrote earlier in the thread, I think it must work well enough and your experience seems to confirm that.
So are people just unwilling to talk about sometimes responding positively just like people are unwilling to admit to going home with someone who used the ”wanna fuck” method of picking people up IRL or (less cynically) are the people who sometimes respond positively to a more crude pick up approach just not here discussing it?

Well, I only have a little bit of anecdotal evidence and a few studies from social sciences about men and women to work with.

Is it two distinct groups of women? Or is it just one group that occasionally suffers from cognitive dissonance? It reminds me a bit of the Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life groups, where a Pro-Life person might still have an abortion and still not view herself as Pro-Choice.

I'm convinced though that women massively underplay the shit they have done or are willing to do to get off - for various reasons. And men are massively overplaying what they would be willing to do.

I would be game to peer-review all the sexually-charged interactions of women to find an answer to this.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I'm convinced though that women massively underplay the shit they have done or are willing to do to get off - for various reasons. And men are massively overplaying what they would be willing to do.

That has been my experience too.

Sadly, I think the talk about how men should approach women can backfire.

I used to go out dancing with a group of mostly guys and one night someone had brought a collegue with them that made me uncomfortable for some reason.
He asked me to dance though and I politely agreed since he was part of the group, but after a while he asked why I didn’t dance as enthusiastically with him as with the others and had the misfortune to catch me at an even more honest than usual moment.
It was rather interesting though that when I told him that I knew and liked the others but didn’t know him very well and didn’t really like what I’d seen so far, he said that he had had this picture of how girls would respond well to him if he just behaved in a certain way. It seemed he had grown up hearing from his mom, how the girls should be happy to be with him if he was a ”nice and polite guy”.

I’ve thought about that exchange a lot since then and I’ve seen the same attitude from some men, like they just have to get som formula right to get what they want and heard the probably well meant advice from women mostly about how one should behave with women, when it is way more complicated and beyond our own control who we are attracted to and when.

 

[Otis_Ravelli]

I’ve thought about that exchange a lot since then and I’ve seen the same attitude from men, like they just have to get som formula right to get what they want and heard the probably well meant advice from women mostly about how one should behave with women, when it is way more complicated and beyond our own control who we are attracted to and when.

I definitely think there are some men who think life is like one of those dating sim games where you do all the right things and are rewarded at the end.

 

[IrisAlthea]

I definitely think there are some men who think life is like one of those dating sim games where you do all the right things and are rewarded at the end.

Yeah, like that.

And I think advice of ”don’t do this, do that” type is often understood by these people as something that will lead to success for them as in a ”yes”, rather than leading to not getting a non-annoyed/angry ”no”.

 

[Primalex]

Men have the tendency to view everything at first from a problem solving point of view. Finding a girlfriend is a problem to solve and the (imagined) solution to the problem is to be nice to women and be useful. I read somewhere that this is actually detrimental to a certain degree. The person who is helping feels good about it - the person receiving help tends to feel guilty about it though - and that's the woman. As person receiving help you are subconsciously attaching negative feelings towards the person. Of course, it's not that black and white, because you can show off positive traits while helping, which in the end might be better than not having helped at all; but it's a slippery slope.

 

[cdstefi]

Lot of truth in that, but it's the same with any site where people, male or female, try to exert their 'alpha-ness'. Many sites have plenty of both sexes who think that giving themselves a name makes them something different. It's not only misogynistic - but they're also fairly easy to spot for most people I thinik, and therefore avoid.

Easiest way to spot a non-alpha? When they self-describe as an alpha. It's a stupid concept anyway that's been hijacked by folk in the sexually active community when it only applied initially to a way of describing animal behaviour.

 

[BiBunny]

Easiest way to spot a non-alpha? When they self-describe as an alpha. It's a stupid concept anyway that's been hijacked by folk in the sexually active community when it only applied initially to a way of describing animal behaviour.

And it's not even accurate when describing animal behavior, either. That research has been debunked. So it's outdated stuff that never really applied to anyone or anything in the first place, which makes it doubly stupid.

 

[IrisAlthea]

Men have the tendency to view everything at first from a problem solving point of view

That’s probably a big part of it.
In my experience most men don’t get it as wrong as the ones I was thinking about though and while that is anecdotal and probably somewhat related to my own tendency to problem solve, my inner eternal optiminst wants to believe that it’s not just me and my good fortune.

I don’t even think it is the mechanistic thinking that becomes problematic, but rather the underestimation of the amount of cogs in the machinery.

 

[lil_jenni]

The posers don’t get this. There’s this machismo “I AM A DOM AND YOU WILL NOW OBEY ALL OF MY COMMANDS, SLUT!” I mean, just typing that out gets me kinda hot, but when my guy says something like this to me, he’s doing it with consent. It’s not the first thing he ever said to me, and a reply to a PM doesn’t imply power exchange.

1000 times this! One of the reasons I don't post much in the BDSM threads is shit like this.

 

[Bletdown2020]

For me I can get the “it’s okay to this, or that” but when the time comes and I go to perform the act I still always go “are you sure?” Because some days you may feel aroused by it and the next repulsed so I’m always asking if they are still ok with whatever I am doing. Whoever I am with is a human not a toy for me to pleasure myself with.

 

[Ciceri]

I agree. I was with a Dom who I quickly learned to fear. He was in the closet and filled with repressed rage. He gave me black eyes and bruises every week to where I didn't want to leave the house. The worst part was our political differences. That was my breaking point

 

[lil_jenni]

I agree. I was with a Dom who I quickly learned to fear. He was in the closet and filled with repressed rage. He gave me black eyes and bruises every week to where I didn't want to leave the house. The worst part was our political differences. That was my breaking point

I feel so bad for you. I'm glad you are out of that. Most of my first sexual experiences were with a man I quickly grew to fear. I've never let myself be in a situation like that again. Being a sub does not mean having to be a victim, a lesson it seems like a lot of us have learned the hard way.

 

[thomas1965]

A dom should be loved and respected, but not feared.
I wonder why so many subs make bad experiences. Shouldn't it be possible to figure out the dom's attitude by asking the proper questions?
What does he/she thinks about subs in general?
Does he/she gave an idea about the sub's needs and desires?
Does he/she understand that submission and respect must be earned?
Is he/she aware of the responsibility as a dom(power and responsibility belong together)?

 

[IrisAlthea]

I wonder why so many subs make bad experiences. Shouldn't it be possible to figure out the dom's attitude by asking the proper questions?

For the same reasons people have bad experiences in any type if dating/relationships, ranging from abusers to unrealistic expectations.
On top of that people get the idea that BDSM is some kind of magic Disneyland of health and sanity where normal rules don’t apply.
Some think that a dominant should not be questioned, that dominants are superior beings that are always good, competent and caring making normal safety measures unnecessary or that the safeword holds some special power to stop bad things from happening.

 

[lil_jenni]

For the same reasons people have bad experiences in any type if dating/relationships, ranging from abusers to unrealistic expectations.

Yep. And I don't think the poster above you intended to victim shame, but it felt that way when I first read that post this morning. Luckily I did not reply then...

 

[thomas1965]

Yep. And I don't think the poster above you intended to victim shame, but it felt that way when I first read that post this morning. Luckily I did not reply then...

Absolutely not. I was just curious.
Shaming and blaming are the worst you can do, so I do my utmost to avoid it.