Natural Dominant; Natural Submissive; do they exist? are they exemplars?

[evesdream]

hi pure, i lurk and lurk your threads, but never seem to have the wherewithal to post in them. I'm always impressed with your questionings and with the quality of the responses in this forum. Thanks for your flava on the boards.
Thanks everyone who's been responding. The various perspectives presented here are enriching. These discussions are fascinating.

 

[Pure]

Dark_I said, by way of posing a 'conjectural model'

The sexual dominant is somebody who's sense of self is sufficiently fragile as to make them need to attempt to forcefully impose it upon anybody whom they attempt intimacy. The dominant sees the object of their sexual desire as having power over them by, if nothing else, their ability to deny or otherwise control the desired resource, ie. sex. The dominant, threatened by their percieved sense of powerlessness, overcompensates and or attempts to reassert control by constructing an artificial power structure in which the power to deny is, at least on some level, removed from the sexual object. This construct is reinforced by control techniques which may be instinctively understood, or learned in childhood, but which often include sadism, both physical and mental.

[added subsequently]
The construct I presented does not necessarily imply low self esteem, though that may indeed be the case. Perhaps it implies something more along the lines of self doubt with aggressive overcompensation. Thus, the motivation is to reafirm the self image and compensate for those circumstances that threaten said self image.

I think there are many good feature of this sketch. What I have reservations about are the alleged 'underlying' phenomena.
I'm not sure if you've read DSM III and IV, but the shrinks have come round to avoiding psychoanalitic concepts. E.g., 'out of a porous sense of self, the person does...' 'because of weak ego structure, the person bullies, etc.' The point being that you can't observe these items, though the analysts talk that way. (Yet can't agree among themselves, often).

Some of the phrases I have problems with, I bolded. The way out, imo, is operationalization. 1) What does 'fragile sense of self look like?" Easily insulted, feeling threatened, lashes out in the face of criticism, etc?

2) What does'overcompensation' look like? Well, if it's inferiority that's (over)compensated for, then my efforts to appear superior are incessant, overwrought, at times even panicky.

If you read your para carefully, much of the unobservable stuff is probably unnecessary. In the first case, you mention 'forcefully imposing' (not sure if sense of self can be imposed). Let's say, imposing one's own way of doing things, and even one's perceptions. That is sufficient to (begin to) capture 'fragile sense of self.'

In the second case, attempting to re-assert control, to deprive the object/person of power to deny, those are key. What would make them 'overcompensatory', would be their excessive or compulsive quality, a tendency to want 100% in having one's way, etc. If these observable are mentioned, the 'overcompensates' becomes unnecessary.

There is a fellow named Roy Shafer who has worked extensively on de-mystifying psychoanalytic terms, along the lines I'm doing. (I learned from his books.)

At some point too, you will have to face the conundrum I've mentioned, around 'consensual' domination. Is it merely 'role played' or 'as if.' 1) To take the examples, it's one thing to aggressively enforce one's view points; It's another to act when someone says, "'force your views' on me, I'm at your service. I will put aside or erase my views." or

2) It's one thing to deny a persons power to deny. But it's another to act so, when one is hearing "I want you to take over control of my body, and use it for your desires, and punish me for departing from that rule."

To take a striking example, if a policeman forcibly drags you from your car and cuffs you, you've been overcome, aggressed upon (quite lawfully, perhaps.) It a bit different if you've called me earlier, and said "Let's do a police scene. Get a uniform and put it on; when I come over to your dungeon at 5 pm, you are to 'overcome' me and cuff me."

Thanks for all your contributions to date.

J.

 

[incubus_dark]

Alright, now refute me, without using the word 'kundalini' or other semantically equivalent non-sequiter, and avoiding purely semantic argument (as I will already admit that the above conjecture, being made up on the fly, is semantically messy).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK, if you feel the need to refine it, feel free, but you should re-parse it as a whole when you're done or else things become fragmented. Better if you could refute it.

 

[SilkVelvet]

So in plain Cyberspeak does that mean this thread needs defragging ?

 

[Netzach]

OK, am I the only one suspecting you know how to refute this puppy? If this is an excercise in the Socratic, please enlighten me.

 

[Pure]

Not sure, Incubus, what is meant by 'refuting', but amended, your conjecture would read:[changed parts are bolded, and replace parts which are deleted.]

The sexual dominant is somebody strongly and generally inclined to aggressively impose his/her views and desires on persons with whom they are sexually involved or intimate . The dominant acts preemptively to avoid situations where the object of their sexual desire would have power over them by, among other things, controlling the desired resource, ie. sex . The dominant, in perceiving threats to her/her imposition is inclined to make extraordinary, and perhaps fruitless, attempts to reassert control by constructing an artificial power structure in which the power to deny is, at least on some level, removed from the sexual object. This construct is reinforced by control techniques which may be instinctively understood, or learned in childhood, but which often include sadism, both physical and mental.

Note: a person, who, by consent, 'imposes' --so to say-- sex related desires on another, is role playing the sexual dominant, and may or may not be one.

 

[catalina_francisco]

I actually agree with Pure here for once, but to clarify what I think Pure means.

We need to have a clear definition of the construct. With this I mean what is exactly meant, this to make sure we are not fighting punctuation marks but are actually arguing about the contents and not the form.

Let’s take again a close look at what has been said by I_D.

1) The dominant is a person with very low self-esteem or self doubt with aggressive overcompensation.
2) He controls his partner by controlling sex.
3) Because of his insecurities, he removes the power of objection, creates a ‘construct’ in which he has more control and power then his partner.
4) He uses instinctive and or otherwise learned knowledge to reinforce the model.

His motivation:
The motivation is to reaffirm the self image and compensate for those circumstances that threaten said self image.

We now have the motivation of the ‘dominant’ and we have his control mechanisms.

There is however one flaw in the construct and that is the consent. In BDSM we practice safe, sane and consensual BDSM. The dominant talked about in question will need consent, there is no possibility for the talked about person to remove the power of objection without consent. And there is something called a safe-word which means that every Dominant that is involved in the lifestyle knows that the power he has is limited, his partner has a way to restrain him. The safe-word and the consent are impossibilities for his carefully created world. The illusion of power he would have is destroyed the moment the safe-word is used.

Point 2 and 3 become an impossibility which means the construct fails; you need to readjust the construct again.

By the way, by constantly readjusting the constructing we will get one which will be very hard to 'refute' and should be very close to reality.

Francisco.

 

[Pure]

Hi Francisco,

Yes, you saw one of my two points rather well. Besides defining a 'sexual dominant', one has to deal with consensual situations.

1)My opinion is that they fall into two categories: role played scenes, where 'neither' may be sexually dominant, just as the sheriff in a movies is not actually arresting anyone. (or the alleged sub may be dominant as in many 'paid for' scenes.)

The rare bird, however, [Genuine consensual sexual dominant) would be the person who acts along the lines Incubus says, but gently so, and with consent. A 'velvet glove' approach, as it were.
This is, of course, somewhat paradoxical, since the striving for comprehensive control inclines most people toward arbitrary or harsh measures.

2) My other point was to minimize speculation about 'deep motives' and psychological complexes. If someone is eating, they are probably hungry and attempting to satisfy that hunger. Fine.

BUT whether they are 'overcompensating' for an unconscious hatred against mother who always limited their food intake is speculation.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Hi Francisco,
2) My other point was to minimize speculation about 'deep motives' and psychological complexes. If someone is eating, they are probably hungry and attempting to satisfy that hunger. Fine.

BUT whether they are 'overcompensating' for an unconscious hatred against mother who always limited their food intake is speculation.

Back to the serious business of defining the ‘natural’ dominant.

I agree with you that we should minimise to a degree the deep motivation. But we do need to know what is moving the dominant to leave the relatively safe vanilla environment and let him move towards the more confrontational BDSM lifestyle.

To be able to build a clearer image of the dominant we do need his motivation, to a degree of course.

Francisco.

 

[Netzach]

Natural Dominant:

If you outed 'em people would say "well, DUH."

Not

"Really?"

(edited to add: if outed, I think I'd provoke the reaction:


"Huh. ......rrrealllly?

 

[stylin50s]

nothin to add

 

[catalina_francisco]

*bump*

 

[CutieMouse]

Bump... Given recent comments about being essentially born with either submissive or dominant leanings (paraphrased), I thought the discussion might be worth resurrecting/adding onto.

(Well... That and I can't sleep.)

 

[YourCaptor]

Bump... Given recent comments about being essentially born with either submissive or dominant leanings (paraphrased), I thought the discussion might be worth resurrecting/adding onto.

(Well... That and I can't sleep.)

Well, you got basic temperament you are born with.

Then you develop some stuff along the way to make your personality. (Freud says it involves your butt a lot)

And you can also make conscious effort to act whatever way.

So, people do change, but it's fairly slow, except for major developmental stages like teen stuff. You can also alter the brain, that will do it.

That said I think being born sub and being a natural sub don't have to be the same. I'd say natural is fitting the role unnaturally well.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Bump... Given recent comments about being essentially born with either submissive or dominant leanings (paraphrased), I thought the discussion might be worth resurrecting/adding onto.

(Well... That and I can't sleep.)

I'm going to think that people do have the wiring somewhere in their brains, same as any other form of sexuality is wired in there somewhere, but I'm gonna call bullshit on the 'oh, I knew I was dominant before I knew what sex was' comments.

In retrospect, you might be able to pick out some traits or behaviours that exhibited tendencies, but it's like reading your horoscope at the end of the day. You can choose to make things fit the mould you want, not the other way around.