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I have time, I'll write this up.
Two dom that I respect a lot led a workshop on the M/s dynamic. The key thing about making any relationship work, and definitely one with power exchange, is knowing yourself. To this end, there are 4 questions that need to be answered. Each question has a triangle of answers, from most broad to very specific. When you put these 4 triangles together, you get a pyramid, the strongest geometrical structure. If you can find someone whose pyramid matches with yours, you're in good shape. If things on the bottom level, the most basic, are very different, there will be tension and a lot of work involved in keeping the relationship going. Specifics might differ, but as long as the foundations are complimentary, there's hope.
The four questions: Who am I? What characteristics am I looking for? What do I get out of this type of relationship? What do I want my structure, overall, to look like? The purpose of the workshop was to answer these questions for ourselves and create one statement, like a personals ad, that encompassed it all. This should be done by one as an individual, not one as part of a set, so if anyone in the workshop was currently in a D/s or M/s relationship, we really needed to make sure we weren't talking about what we have, but about what we want in general. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thurinnin and I were the only pair present, but a number of other people were unaccompanied parts of a pair.)
To make things easier, the main presenter shared with us her own statement: She is a master in search of a slave with slaveheart to give up everything to her. Parts of her statements included things such as: she is poly, and that's just as basic to her as being a master, so a slave looking to be a primary will not be taken on. She wanted total control and therefore responsibility for whoever will be her slave: turning over money, living in, everything. If these things aren't met, then it's not the slave she's looking for.
The group divided up into the Master role and the slave role; it was okay if you don't use those words in your relationshipping, but for now that was the division. The 'slaves' and I went to another room to answer these questions. There were 3 of us; we gained one more who walked in, so four statements were created.
The adjectives we all came up with for the first question, who we are: submissive, polyamorous, monogamous, daddy's girl, slave, sexual, sensual. What we're looking for: dominant, daddy, master, control (to be controlled, that is), love, structure, freedom, to help, ..? Probably a few other things. We didn't answer the other two, for some reason; it might've been a time consideration. We went right to constructing our phrases/ads. That took a while, for each person to decide what were the most important items on the list for us to include, for us to list as mandatory. The 4 'slaves' and the dom co-leading the workshop created 5 statements; part of the workshop was seeing if the partners could pick out their other (of course, since there was only one pair and only 5 statements to choose from, it was less challenging than it might've been). Then we all got back together to discuss what we all talked about while apart.
Of the 4 statements by the 'slaves' there, two included "daddy's girl" as identifier, and of the two that started "I am a submissive", my dom picked the other one first. It was close, I admit: all of us created statements where parts rang true for me. Of the doms, I picked mine out pretty easily, because one mentioned keeping a household (not right now), one mentioned master, and the two that might've been close, really weren't. Anyway, some things we noted: All of the 'slaves' needed a relationship that included love - that really wasn't part of the Master's paradigm as much. This was pretty interesting. The presenter mentioned that she doesn't intend to be in love with her slave, but she will probably love the slave.
My statement? Well, I'm not looking for an M/s relationship, and I have a D/s relationship that works for me... I'm feeling uneasy with sharing my own statement, so we'll leave that for later.
Part of the workshop on self-myth was how everyone felt more positive about themselves now than at 10 or 20, and sexually, people were doing better than they were when they were 20. Frankly, what I consider some of my main identifiers sexually now, don't exactly sit easily with me. I like them, they turn me on, but actually using them as identifiers is still hard.
Two dom that I respect a lot led a workshop on the M/s dynamic. The key thing about making any relationship work, and definitely one with power exchange, is knowing yourself. To this end, there are 4 questions that need to be answered. Each question has a triangle of answers, from most broad to very specific. When you put these 4 triangles together, you get a pyramid, the strongest geometrical structure. If you can find someone whose pyramid matches with yours, you're in good shape. If things on the bottom level, the most basic, are very different, there will be tension and a lot of work involved in keeping the relationship going. Specifics might differ, but as long as the foundations are complimentary, there's hope.
The four questions: Who am I? What characteristics am I looking for? What do I get out of this type of relationship? What do I want my structure, overall, to look like? The purpose of the workshop was to answer these questions for ourselves and create one statement, like a personals ad, that encompassed it all. This should be done by one as an individual, not one as part of a set, so if anyone in the workshop was currently in a D/s or M/s relationship, we really needed to make sure we weren't talking about what we have, but about what we want in general. (
thurinnin and I were the only pair present, but a number of other people were unaccompanied parts of a pair.)To make things easier, the main presenter shared with us her own statement: She is a master in search of a slave with slaveheart to give up everything to her. Parts of her statements included things such as: she is poly, and that's just as basic to her as being a master, so a slave looking to be a primary will not be taken on. She wanted total control and therefore responsibility for whoever will be her slave: turning over money, living in, everything. If these things aren't met, then it's not the slave she's looking for.
The group divided up into the Master role and the slave role; it was okay if you don't use those words in your relationshipping, but for now that was the division. The 'slaves' and I went to another room to answer these questions. There were 3 of us; we gained one more who walked in, so four statements were created.
The adjectives we all came up with for the first question, who we are: submissive, polyamorous, monogamous, daddy's girl, slave, sexual, sensual. What we're looking for: dominant, daddy, master, control (to be controlled, that is), love, structure, freedom, to help, ..? Probably a few other things. We didn't answer the other two, for some reason; it might've been a time consideration. We went right to constructing our phrases/ads. That took a while, for each person to decide what were the most important items on the list for us to include, for us to list as mandatory. The 4 'slaves' and the dom co-leading the workshop created 5 statements; part of the workshop was seeing if the partners could pick out their other (of course, since there was only one pair and only 5 statements to choose from, it was less challenging than it might've been). Then we all got back together to discuss what we all talked about while apart.
Of the 4 statements by the 'slaves' there, two included "daddy's girl" as identifier, and of the two that started "I am a submissive", my dom picked the other one first. It was close, I admit: all of us created statements where parts rang true for me. Of the doms, I picked mine out pretty easily, because one mentioned keeping a household (not right now), one mentioned master, and the two that might've been close, really weren't. Anyway, some things we noted: All of the 'slaves' needed a relationship that included love - that really wasn't part of the Master's paradigm as much. This was pretty interesting. The presenter mentioned that she doesn't intend to be in love with her slave, but she will probably love the slave.
My statement? Well, I'm not looking for an M/s relationship, and I have a D/s relationship that works for me... I'm feeling uneasy with sharing my own statement, so we'll leave that for later.
Part of the workshop on self-myth was how everyone felt more positive about themselves now than at 10 or 20, and sexually, people were doing better than they were when they were 20. Frankly, what I consider some of my main identifiers sexually now, don't exactly sit easily with me. I like them, they turn me on, but actually using them as identifiers is still hard.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 11:48 pm (UTC)From:Interesting. I'd be curious to hear more about the sub-parts of each question.
hmmm
Tom
}:-)
Date: 2005-09-28 01:58 pm (UTC)From:I'm always nervous posting very scene-related or sub-related stuff to people I don't scene around or don't connect to on the power-exchange level. I worry that it's too revealing. *sheepish grin*