For The Love of a Submissive

Pride

One of the traits I most appreciate in submissive women is the pride with which they approach their submission and the myriad tasks performed within it.

Society has evolved to a place where being a woman who is overtly submissive to a man is frowned upon as being “old fashioned” at best and a sign of archaic sexist dominance and subjugation of the female spirit at worst. Today, it is almost taboo to be a publicly submissive female to a male figure. Vanilla friends, family and co-workers would admonish any woman who appeared to be overly submissive to her male partner to get out of the “imprisoning” and “abusive” relationship. No wonder so many women crave an opportunity to submit completely to another. Society has made it all but impossible to do so and it has become the great taboo and an unfulfilled wish of many.

In instances where a woman finds a competent and caring Dom who can draw out and enable her submissive side, it is remarkable to see the intensity and seriousness with which she approaches her submissive role and the tasks within it. The pride she takes in being the best she can be for her Master never ceases to amaze and fulfill me. She gives tremendous thought to her actions, presentation, skills, words, and deeds. She continually strives to be better at all she does. She takes enormous pride in her accomplishments and in anticipating the needs, and meeting the challenges, her Master sets forth.

This is why physical correction and punishment is so rarely required to improve performance or correct behavior in my experience. The pride a submissive takes in her efforts is crushed upon the realization that she has displeased her Master or failed to measure up in some manner. Gentle coaching and correction is all that is required when you have a submissive woman under your hand who genuinely takes pride in her submission.

But beware. The pride that leads to such remarkable performance by a sub has a dark side.

Perfectionism.

When a submissive takes so much pride in her efforts that she becomes obsessed with being perfect for her Master at all times, a destructive force begins to creep into the relationship. No one, no matter how well-intended or filled with pride at a job well done, can possibly be perfect all the time. And if a perfectionist submissive is paired with an intolerant and domineering Dom then things can spiral out of control rather quickly and relentlessly, leaving the submissive to feel perpetually inadequate and subsequently unfulfilled.

It is important as a Dom to set high standards and expect a high level of performance in all his submissive attempts and accomplishes or she will be unfulfilled. She will interpret anything less than high standards as weakness on the part of her Dom and naturally tend to lose interest. But it is equally important not to fall into the trap of demanding unattainable perfectionism which will only breed frustration and prevent a sub from settling into her place of comfort, serenity and service. There is a point at which performance must be deemed good enough and should be praised and rewarded. Doing so will build a sense of pride and nurture a subs natural tendency to want to continue to please and perform to ever higher standards.

Use a submissive’s natural pride and sense of perfectionism as a tool to motivate her performance and desire to continually improve. But do not take advantage of, or abuse this natural sense, or you will quickly find yourself with a frustrated and despondent sub and run the risk of destroying what might otherwise have been a healthy and rewarding D/s relationship.

Build her pride. Use it to motivate. Bruise it once in a while to correct. But never tear it down or break it. For once destroyed, pride is very hard or impossible to build back up again.

Caption © For The Love of a Submissive, 2012

Image © Perry Gallagher