Training

One of my big splurges over the years has been children's books. Most of them are packed away in boxes at the moment since they over ran the book shelves and eventually needed to make way for adult reading but as yet, I can't give a single one of them away. Both the children and I have such strong ties to so many of them. Does anyone know 'Patrick and the dinosaur?' One son was obsessed with dinosaurs and I have a large collection of stories about dinosaurs. But, no story was ever better than Patrick's wonderful imagination when his brother takes him to the zoo. Dinosaurs abound in his imagination, follow him home and even peek into his upstairs bedroom window. All the while his older brother is completely oblivious.

I was wandering about the house doing some housework just before when, for no reason at all, Madeline popped into my head. With three boys and only one girl, it finally dawned on me one day when my children were still young that I had many more books where the hero was a boy than I did a girl and I went about actively seeking out books that were about girls. Of course, I bought the Madeline series:

"In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.."

It is a completely adorable set of books about 12 little girls who are orphans in a Paris convent and Madeleine, bless her soul, is the hardest of all to contain. She finds herself in one scrape after the other. Fortunately, things always end well, as they should for such an adorable, robust and courageous little girl.

I have wondered, from time to time, why I so often conjure up the image of being in a strict boarding school. Although I do feel loved by my parents who send me there, it is a distant, formal sort of love. They don't believe in sparing the rod to spoil the child and it is for my own good that I am sent off to the school with a 'hard as flint' Headmaster.

Often, on the very first day, even before the ordeal has formally begun, I am a witness to what is in store for me at the official 'meet and greet' appointment with the Headmaster. The Headmaster seeks my parents (or often just my father's) confirmation that he understands that corporal punishment is the preferred form of discipline at the school. It never seems to bother my father (or both parents) at all, and they assure him that they are in complete agreement that corporal discipline is a very good thing. 'Headmaster', as they call him, should feel completely free to correct my behaviour in any way he deems effective.

To add to my misery (or should I say, entertainment) he often suggests to my parents that in order for me to understand that all parties are in complete understanding of the measures used to teach me my lessons, a few strokes should be meted out immediately. My parents don't blink at the suggestion and I am invariably told to bend across the Headmaster's desk where my parents can observe his skill at delivering stripes to my bottom that will ensure my compliance of all rules laid down.

There truly is no way out for me. It would be fruitless to send a letter home complaining of my treatment, given that my parents and the Headmaster are clearly in cahoots and I determine very early on that I must make the best of things and do my best to stay out of trouble.

Unfortunately, my best is never good enough. Trouble comes sometimes because my marks are not satisfactory. Interestingly, in this fantasy, it is my French that causes the most difficulty and as well as making regular acquaintance with the Headmaster's cane for the offense of not mastering the language, I spend many a long hour sitting in the detention room writing my vocabulary out, 20, 50, 100 times, until the entire list is committed to memory.

The Matron at my fantasy school in no way endeavours to shelter her girls from the perils of the Headmaster's cane. To the contrary, she makes good use of her wooden backed hairbrush and the slightest sign of untidiness, of a noise in the dormitory after dark, of running in the halls or eating a contraband lolly is met with a long and arduous trip over her knee.

Such offenses are recorded, of course, and a list is sent home to my father along with the academic report at the end of each term. It is customary that all strokes of the cane meted out by the Headmaster are also meted out by a girl's father over the holidays. Thus, a girl in week 1 of the term who receives 6 of the cane will know that she can receive the same amount in her father's study upon her return home a few months later. And so it goes...

Of course, I progress and I progress fast. No relatively smart girl is not going to figure out in short order that it is in her best interests to be outstandingly polite, well behaved and diligent if she should ever wish to sit down again without it being the most awful chore. She understands quickly as well that excuses and complaints will get her nowhere. A girl who tries to justify the unjustifiable quickly discovers that things get so much worse. Much, much better to agree that the behaviour is unacceptable, acknowledge that the behaviour most definitely requires correction and most importantly, offer one's heartfelt thanks for receiving it.

One of the mandates of the school, of course, is to prepare a girl for her fate; that of marriage to a strict man, usually a good ten years older, who will appreciate a well trained girl. My mother was such a girl and my father a man who understands the importance of such training for his daughter as well.

As is the case with Madeleine, the story ends well. I come to appreciate the training I have been given and recognize the importance of it. I meet and marry a man who believes in weekly correction for his wife, adherence to dress code and all his whims, as well as exemplary manners and behaviour. I am blissfully happy with my new life and revel in his attentive care and encouragement.

In real life, I wouldn't be without my family for all the world, but I so often wondered growing up and for many years after that what it might be like to not have a family; to live only with a lovingly strict man and for him to be my world. Of course, I can only wonder and perhaps this is from where this fantasy stems; my efforts to explore that other world that I can only wonder about.

It is interesting though, is it not, that for zillions of years before I entered a power exchange in a formal sense that I was thinking these thoughts, over and over. In some way, it had entered my mind that strictness equalled love and care. And, perhaps more interesting still, that for me, nothing has changed.

My image

Although we talk about 'dominants' and 'submissives' in a very general sort of way much of the time, I wonder if we don't have an image in our heads that defines our sense of submission or domination. For me there was one scenario that I carried around in my head from an early age. This scenario goes to the heart of my kink. By the time I had left school it was firmly cemented in my mind, even though I didn't tell anyone about it.

I am not sure when I wrote the first story about submitting to another's will. In the same way that I didn't talk about my fantasies, I didn't tell people about the stories I penned and I certainly didn't show them to anyone. It was a secret just for myself. But, it went like this...

I was a single girl. I was educated. I was capable. I took a job. The details of the job in the fantasy changed from time to time, but usually I worked within the realm of the English department of a university. I was not a senior person but I was responsible to a senior person - the Head of the Faculty.

He was considerably older than me; much more experienced and definitely more learned. He took a shine to me. He recognized that underneath that quiet, controlled and neat exterior lay a girl who was in need of guidance and that if he could guide me, I would be a great aid to him; even a comfort to him.

He decided to put me in charge of special projects and he began by having me research various details for the paper he was writing. I loved that I had a special task and that he had chosen me to help him. I tried very hard to impress him and worked hard on the research.

Sometimes, I let myself down. He was a perfectionist and occasionally I did not go the extra mile to see that all the details were correct. In my youthful thought process I failed to see how he could ever know this.

Inevitably, he would call me into his office to ask a variety of questions and he would point out that some topic needed more work. Had I checked this or that file? Had I read the analysis of this or that poem?

Perhaps once, I fibbed a bit but never again after that. He made it very clear that he didn't care for sloppy work and he had no time for a girl who lied. After that, my approach to the work was incredibly diligent. I just wanted to impress him; to hear that he was pleased. He could be quite harsh; much harsher on me than on any other girl in his faculty and one day I asked him why that was so.

"I don't care about them. I care about you," he said. "I want you to be the best you can be."

Finally, I understood the dynamic between us; what I meant to him and how important he was to me. Our relationship was not at all sexual, at least to this point, but he demanded my best and I gave it to him. I bathed in his praise of me and my work and I occasionally suffered the brunt of his disapproval and vowed to do better.

I revelled in his care and although he never said, I knew that he looked forward to seeing me each day and that I lit up his day, as he did mine. I felt incredibly honoured to be the one he had chosen to work extra hard, to obsess over detail and to make him his tea. I cared about him and for him and he watched over me.

Occasionally, he would invite me for a brandy at the end of the working day, and as we sat side by side in the comfortable chairs where he received visitors, chatting a little and reading the evening's papers, I would consider myself the luckiest girl in the university to be under the tutelage of this sage and sophisticated man who knew so much more of the world than me. There was no place I'd rather be than right here, sitting contained beside him.

This image lives on in my mind and has shaped the woman I have become but as the years go by the image has altered perhaps in line with what now is and is not possible...

I no longer have a strong interest in a career of my own but I continue to want to be a help mate to a strong and successful man. I support him, care for him and assist him in all and any ways I can. I want to be improved - to be the model of perfection in his eyes. However, being proud, self assured and sometimes even bold, I recognize that correction will inevitably come my way. As much as he tries (and he does try hard) , efforts to annihilate that streak of independence in me prove to be difficult. I hold onto that part of me that is just for me.

He recognizes he needs help and a few times a year I am sent away for training. This yields results as my ego chips away to reveal a core desire and need to submit to this man's will and to experience great pleasure and peace. I am coming to understand that 'choice' is not a word appropriate for me but rather that I submit to his demands and commands. I am subjected to various humiliations as part of my training and yet secretly I enjoy them and even revel in them.

I progress. I alter and transform and one day I find that I have let go of that secret place inside of me. I relinquish my ego and give it away in full trust that it is of no further use to me. He leads me where he wants me to go and I do whatever he wants. I experience peace; joy and complete fulfilment.

Perhaps you can see significance in the story and the way that it has altered over time. For me, the notion of being pleasing and wanting to please is central to my state of mind, no matter what my age. So too is the image of a rather strict man in my life with exacting standards and high expectations of me.

At all ages, I have had a notion of love being given to me through discipline. It was never in my mind that love would be given to me by spoiling me or being soft with me or letting me away with things. My best was always demanded as an expression of the love he felt for me and in return I loved him by being disciplined and giving him by best.

Who knows why I conjured this image. I don't really know except to say that I learned ballet from the age of four. My teacher was a very strict Russian man who would scream at us if we made a mistake, yet I never felt put down by him, always trying hard. I doubt I was very good but I never gave up and eventually I think I was quite good. He rewarded me with the occasional prize or piece of praise - for example, a book about the Russian ballet which I coveted for many years. One day, when I was about 14 or 15 he saw me in a department store and beamed. I had grown to be a beautiful girl, he said. It was high praise indeed from a man who had so little praise to give, perfectionist that he was.

I realized at that moment, all those years after I had begun learning from him that he was actually very fond of me and I think that feeling stayed with me - that sense of basking in his glow. Perhaps there is something else locked away in my memory banks to explain it more. I honestly don't know.

All I can really say for sure is that the image in my mind of wanting to please a rather strict man who quietly cares for me is almost as old as me. It never fades. It never goes away. It just alters a little bit and then gets even more intense. It is the essence of who I am and why I write here.

The Golden Rule

The Ten Commandments offer us a code of conduct by which we may live our lives, but it is the ‘Golden Rule’, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ that I have always taken to heart. As a mother one finds oneself saying quite often over the years statements such as, “Well, how would you like it if you didn’t receive a call thanking you for the gift you gave her?” and so on. It just always seemed to me that whatever our faith it was a maxim by which to live life.

In the past few days, I have been doing some reading about the Golden Rule and discovered that in all times and in virtually all religions there has been and still is one form of the Golden Rule or another. Forever, it has been written down that we should treat others in a manner than we would want to be treated.

Yet, there are critics of the Golden Rule because they take it further than an ethical or a moral stand. When put it into practice, the Golden Rule can fail. It is said that economically we cannot always live by this notion, for we are competitors and the rule of survival insists that we do not always treat others as we would wish to be treated. And, of course, in war, the theory falls down, although most nations have, at least in theory, honoured the code that prisoners of war are not tortured.

As it applies on these pages about domination and submission, the Golden Rule can be troubling. It was in fact George Bernard Shaw who once said that "The golden rule is that there are no golden rules". Shaw said, "Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you because their tastes may not be the same." Hence, a masochist and a sadist would not want to be treated in the same way since their tastes are not aligned.

Of course, as practitioners and observers of the power exchange dynamic we know that this is a bit trite. In fact, we do all want to be treated in much the same way; dominant or submissive. We all want the other to be honest, to be caring and/or loving, to trust and to be trustworthy. Yes, one leads and the other follows but that does not mean that the same ethical standards do not apply to both persons.

A lovely woman wrote to me a while ago of her hurt when her mentor suddenly disappeared from her life. He had been kind and good and helped her a great deal and suddenly he was gone. She thought I might understand how she felt. And, I did. I did understand. We all have certain expectations, I think, and one of those expectations is that people say their ‘goodbyes’, if they must. We find our host at the end of the evening to offer our thanks for a lovely party. We say goodbye to a parent or child before we leave the house, even if there has been a quarrel. We say goodnight to our spouse, regardless of what has gone on that day. We do these things because it is the right thing to do and we know that, deep in our souls, if no other place.

I knew he should have said goodbye to her and she knew that I knew that he should have said goodbye to her. Still, the merciful side of me felt obliged to suggest that perhaps he could not say goodbye. Perhaps he felt a sense of guilt or some other negative emotion that did not allow him to do what he knew, no doubt, he should do. Or, perhaps he just didn't think how he would have felt if she had done that to him. I try hard to find the good in people, to recognize their limitations and to work with that, to the extent possible. None of us is perfect and there is most surely a place for forgiveness; to give forgiveness and to ask for it.

Whatever our religion or our upbringing or the country or community in which we were raised, there is a sense of decency that applies to us all. We really do know the right thing to do. We just slip in our standards. We get sloppy.

At this time of the year, many of us will be reflecting on our faith and considering ways in which we may be a better person; cleansing our souls, perhaps. I hold to the long held notion that if we treat others as we would like to be treated; if civility and manners and a code of conduct were uppermost in our minds, we would all be the benefactors of a better world. I am proud to be in a power exchange dynamic that holds both participants to the highest standards.

Dominance

The dominant man is inclined to be someone with well formed opinions. He likes things done in a certain way. It stands to reason. I am casting my mind's eye over the dominants I know, in person and by their words, and none of them are short of an opinion. The submissive woman in his life comes to know these opinions well. Unafraid to air them, the dominant man informs his girl of how he would like their home to look, how he would like her to behave, how he would like her to dress. Many of them have particular tastes in flowers, in food, in cars, and decor.

So, if one follows this line of thought to its logical conclusion, could dominant men be snobs? In order to determine some kind of answer to this question, a definition is required:

"One who tends to patronize, rebuff, or ignore people regarded as social inferiors and imitate, admire, or seek association with people regarded as social superiors.
One who affects an offensive air of self-satisfied superiority in matters of taste or intellect."

I can only speak for myself when I say that the word 'snob' has a negative connotation. It would hurt me to be called a snob, for example. The words "rebuff or ignore people regarded as social inferiors" actually offends me.

In life's social order, there will almost always be someone above us or below us. There will always be someone more intelligent or less intelligent. There will always be someone with more money or less money. This should be of no concern to us, as far as I am concerned. Life has dealt us a certain hand and we must play it as best we can. Fortunately, happiness has little consideration for money, or station in life; for possessions or even for beauty. Happiness can be found in the most unexpected places.

So, what about "seeking association with people regarded as social superiors"?

Realistically, the dominant man is likely to do this, to at least some extent. Wanting to dominate his landscape, he may need to seek out people of power, people of influence. I believe the term for this is 'networking'. It is just part of life and part of the dominant's life. But, does the dominant man seek out "social superiors" as his friends, to the exclusions of others? It is a generalization I am not prepared to make either way. I just don't know.

And having said that, one must ponder, does the dominant man "affect an offensive air of self-superiority in matters of taste and superiority"? Probably, would be my answer. He is likely to have well honed thoughts about the way things should be. He may look down on another man whose dress is not suitable for the board room. He may consider his secretary inappropriately dressed if she is wearing pants rather than a skirt. He may deplore the bright nail polish he sees on a girl in the street, and physically cringe at the ring in her lip. He has standards and he disapproves of those who do not meet those standards. I think that this is a fair statement but again, generalisations are just so tricky. We are all inclined to hold opinions about others, whether we air them or not.

Since generalisations are just so tricky, let's take an example. Let's take my boss of yesteryear. He was definitely a dominant man. Self-made, he used his formidable social skills, hard work ethic, and determination to make his way to the top of his industry. Was he a snob? Based on the above definition, yes he was. He did seek out people at the top of the social pecking order, and he did look down on certain people as being ordinary or average. He did have particular tastes and he did have a "self satisfied superiority" about those tastes. Was he good man? Yes, he was. He had a particularly soft spot for women and I remember once the wife of a man who had been sacked, coming to see him. She laid out her case for more compensation and whilst he didn't have to, he increased that compensation. As he watched her through the window return to her car, he said something like:

"There she goes. She got all dressed up in her best clothes to come and see me. She swallowed her pride, and she came to do what he could not do. How could I say no?"

He felt for her as he felt for so many.

One day, he fell very ill in the street. It was his heart and he was in real trouble. A blind man approached him and asked his help to cross the street. He told me, "As I became his eyes, it was the support of his body that got me across the street." The rich man and the poor man were acting in concert.

He never lost sight of the fact that we are all just people, doing our best. He never lost the vision of his mother, trying to bring up her children with next to no money; her efforts to do so with pride and grace. Sure, he revered those who had 'made it', sought their company and enjoyed their intelligent conversation, but he never lost 'the common touch'. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, a dominant man. He had some snobbish ways, but his heart was good.

Dominant men are the aggressors in life. They are pro-active in their environment; not passive. They assert themselves.

In my efforts to think through this thought, I spoke with my husband. There is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that he is a dominant man, also. He said, that dominant men are quite naturally, more likely to reach leadership positions. Yet, it was those men who were able to span all socio-economic groups without passing judgement that he admired. Maybe a man had been smarter or luckier than him, but that didn't make him better than others. He shook his hand with the same ease that he shook the hand of the humblest worker.

Now, if a girl on the end of the telephone decides to get snooty and unco-operative on the other end of the phone, trust me, he won't be so generous. Arrogance will prevail as he gives her a good dressing down as to what her job is - to serve the customer. And, if I should choose to not dress appropriately to attend an event, I can assure you his "self satisfied superiority in matters of taste" would prevail. Similarly, if I should fall short of his "self satisfied superiority in matters of intellect" he would let me know that I should smarten up my footsteps. Is he a snob? I certainly don't so. In fact, I know he is not.

Perhaps submissive women have come to expect a little arrogance in their dominant man. No woman wants a 'wimp'. Let's call a spade a spade. Yet, a little humility and grace goes a long way, too.

I believe in standards; traditions, structures and expectations. Someone has to lead; someone has to set the tone. At the end of the day, perhaps 'arrogance' is just 'part of the deal' of a dominant man. Humility, the 'common touch', is desired. At journey's end, we all go to the same place.