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by: Dandi & Doom What do you see as a way in which to give submissives a foundation to base their conceptions of what is a "good/healthy" dominant/submissive relationship?I think the subject of emotionally unstable subs who are attracted to D/s is *very* problematic. This particularly true if, as is often the case, the person is largely unaware of their own motivations. In many cases it is up to the Dominate to try to recognize these problems and I think it is absolutely an issue of integrity on the Doms part to **not** take advantage of another's psychological weakness simply because you can and they have "consented." An example would be that the perfect house slave is someone with an obsessive compulsive disorder. Their Dom's house will be perfectly spotless, but the honorable action would be to guide them towards treatment, not just thank the Leather Gods that you have a slave who dusts the tops of picture frames and irons the pleats into the living room curtains on a daily basis. We are all human beings and we should expect each other to act within a normal range of human imperfection and weakness. Anytime someone is "too good to be true" or, expects a super human performance of perfection it is, IMO, a danger sign. What I tell people is that this lifestyle should be FUN. You are spending precious minutes, hours and days, playing out your role as sub, or Dom, and you should be *enjoying* it! Certainly, in a full time long term relationship, one's energy levels rise and fall and some aspects are more enjoyable than others. There isn't anyone up in heaven giving you "goody points" for being a perfect submissive, though. If your relationship to your Dominate isn't, overall, the most fulfilling, precious aspect of your life, and you wouldn't almost rather lose a hand as to give up your collar, then you might possibly be in the wrong relationship, or with the wrong person. I think before anyone Dom or sub, gets involved in any relationship they should give long and serious thought to exactly what they want. It's important to realize that there is no such thing as a "right" way to do things and there is no distinction of "serious" vs. "not serious" BDSM. There is what works (i.e. is fulfilling, enjoyable, functional, etc.) for you and what is not. Everyone should realize that *all* labels have different connotations for *each* of us, whether we are conscious of them or not. These subjective definitions are neither "wrong" nor "right" but it is in our best interest to be fully aware of how we define various labels so that we can bring that into negotiation. I would go so far as to suggest that in any D/s relationship both partners separately write down their personal descriptions of both roles, what ever they may be, and then compare them and discuss the differences. It is not necessary for both sets of preconceived expectations match perfectly. It *is* necessary for the differences to be negotiated in a conscious explicit way rather than simply be ignored in the heat of passion as not important, or imperiously dismissed as inappropriate or incorrect. If the relationship begins with one foot firmly planted in reality and the other in reasonability, and the fundamental goal of the relationship is to achieve the highest possible level of enjoyment and fulfillment for *both* partners, then it will be headed for the highest possible levels of success. With that firm foundation even a certain amount of emotional weakness or imbalance might be manageable and the relationship could provide an environment in which these problems could be healed rather than exploited. It will certainly provide an environment in which healthy persons could rise to their full human potential and flourish. My thoughts, Dandi Dandi, I have no problem with what you discussed in your post. In fact I agree completly. Was just wondering what your thoughts were of a Dom with the same problems. How do we as a group deal with compulsive behavior from the Dominant. Or can we? Do we have the right? Getting a dominant personality to admit the problem exsist seems to be where you start. But how is the question. Just some things your post brought to mind. Doom Doom, I think you are correct that it's a much more difficult issue with a Dominate because subs are more temperamentally open to advice and direction, although mental health problems can bring up strong denial in anybody. Because the Dominate partner has the power in the relationship the Submissive is likely to be the one abused by the disjunction. If the sub has the problem, their disjunction will either lead them into giving too much and being exploited, or else it will prevent them from submitting which will end the relationship quickly. If the Dom has problems, either they will not be capable of being truly Dominate in which case the sub will probably get discouraged and leave, or the Dom will be abusively dominate, of course, ideally, that too, will cause the sub to leave but probably not often enough. In general I would say that it's probably more effective for other Dominate friends to step in and offer advice, or suggest the need for treatment than for a submissive partner to do it. In the BDSM community roles are not permanent though, so a former partner might feel free to speak honestly and directly, as well. It would depend on how amicably the relationship ended as to how such advice would be received. In a worst case scenario it might be necessary to warn subs in the community away from getting involved with that person. One could hope that a string of failed relationships behind them and an increasing inability to find new partners might open the persons mind to the possibility that something needed fixing. Overall, I would say that unstable submissives are more likely to open them selves up for abuse, or exploitation. Unstable Doms are more likely to simply not be capable of holding a relationship together and go through one submissive after another. That is one of the many reasons a sub should understand their rights and what reasonable expectations in a relationship are, though, so that if they do find themselves serving an unstable Dom they can protect themselves and not play into the disjunction thinking that they must accept anything their Dom does or demands, no matter how irrational it is. I would think it would be very difficult for a sub to stay in a Dom/sub relationship and try to "help" the Dominate heal their dysfunction, although they might stay in a more egalitarian relationship during the process. The Dominate partner has the ability to hold the dysfunctional submissive's behavior in check, at least theoretically and to a large degree. It's difficult at best for the sub to set boundaries and hold the Dom to them while still being submissive. Dandi Dandi, In all of your answer this is the part that concerns me the most. By cutting unstable Doms out of play partners. Are we not running the risk of turning a Dom loose on the newbies, those who are looking to learn? Is there not some way to hold Doms accountable for there actions. Granted we are not talking about play, we are taling about abuse. Does not our inaction against those who misbehave, not set us up for the kind of actions that are being taken against us by Hotels and others to prevent us from having group meetings. Sooner or later someone is going to try again to shut down our play spaces. The less control of ourselves that can be brought up in the Media, the more pressure they can apply against US as a group no matter what your style is. I have no idea if it is possible or if anyone cares but to protect ourselves we need to try and police ourselves. Granted , calling the cops works, but it works against us and for them. Just concerned Doom Doom, I do see your point. I'm not sure what the other alternatives might be. Psychological problems like Codependency, Obsessive/Complusive disorders, Bipolar depression, domestic violence, etc. are long term issues. Some of these can be helped to varying degrees by medication but none of them will be "solved" by sitting the person down and sternly "talking" to them. Even with the persons full dedication to medication and therapy, it might well take years to reach a true state of stability. Surely, we can't expect any submissive to sacrifice themselves to a relationship with this person just to keep them occupied, experienced subs will fare no better in a dysfunctional relationship than a novice would. This is all the more reason to be diligent in trying to teach novice subs how to make their way in the community. This seems like a good place to stress that I'm not advocating shunning people on the basis of an emotional problem, only when they inflict their dysfunction on others in an abusive or hurtful way. Ostracism seems to me to be the only real form of punishment we have other than reporting truly egregious behavior to the proper authorities. That option does have problematic implications but is sometimes necessary and justified. Even if there were some official "community court"/arbitration board it would have no teeth at all. What could it do other than publicly condemn someone which ultimately is it's own form of ostracism? If a person is not open to considering the caring and sincere advice of intimate friends telling them they have a problem and need help then they are not very likely to appreciate the actions of what they will probably perceive as meddling interference on the part of a group of self appointed, self righteous, community police. Also, once again we come back to the fact that psychological dysfunction wont be solved by any kind of punitive measures. There is no way I can think of in today's open world of BDSM to force someone to acknowledge that they basically do not have the necessary emotional fitness to be involved in D/s relationships. Do you have alternative ideas in mind? Dandi Dandi, I'm not sure I have a way to deal with the problem. I know I do not understand the workings of the BDSM community well enough to say if a solution exsists or not. I am sure that cutting people off from "The Family" does not solve the problem and I am of the opinion that it creates another. I agree that an "Illness" needs professional treatment. We may be able to suggest people get treatment. I am sure all agree that in the not to distant past we were classified as having a clinical illness. To get one of our own to seek professional help is a must. But what about those who simply cross the line go to far or lose their way? Where do they turn? When the community is trying to be all encompassing, where is the line? When it is said on a regular basis "Individual behavior is our strength" does the line exsist? In some cases they may want help but have trouble admitting the problem exsists. Probably due to not wanting to lose their one last place where control exsist. The question still is, do we have the right to place controls upon these persons. By control I mean perhaps limiting who and how they can play. Perhaps have certain DM's in place when they are going to play. There are meeting for subs with problems, groups with an idea on how to help them recover from bad experiences. Can we not arrive at a way of helping those who cause these bad experiences? Perhaps by doing so we can limit the damage done to both individuals and the community. I agree that all I have done is raise more questions but I believe it is time for those questions to be answered if possible. With concern Doom 
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