The Astrology of BDSM - Signs of Dominance and Submission (Part Two)
These six signs are, in their natural positions, above the horizon (don't worry if that doesn't make sense). In laymen's terms, these are the more gregarious, public signs (the first six are more private).
DOMINANT LIBRA
Libra is the sign of partnership and balance, and as such, is perhaps not naturally a dominant or submissive sign. Since Libra tends to be idealistic, however, the libra Master may come from a sense of tradition and a belief in the need for established roles in a relationship. In that way, his slave is not only a balancing force (for every slave, there must be a Master), but a partner. Like gemini, libra's dominance is intellectual, perhaps more than it is physical, and he is likely to engage his slave with both conversation and writing.
SUBMISSIVE LIBRA
The submissive libra will serve his Mistress because without her he feels unbalanced. He is perhaps excessive, on his own, wont to indulge and pleasure himself overmuch. As a slave, he is happier and more in his element, because he is in-control thanks to his Mistress. He will respond well to written instructions, and will particularly enjoy pleasuring his Mistress while he himself is being pleasured.
DOMINANT SCORPIO
The scorpion Mistress is more sadistic than most. She can be tender, and understands her slaves emotions, no doubt, but she looks on failure harshly, and punishes severly. She is easily offended, sometimes, and will remember her slave's failures for a long time. As a result, she will hold her slaves to a high standard, and they will likely be very well behaved. She does, however, take pleasure in assessing those smaller punishments that are not always deserved, and will be unhappy if her slave is too perfect in fulfilling his duty.
SUBMISSIVE SCORPIO
She is sensitive and selective, because her investment in her Master is so intense. She is particularly peeved when her Master punishes her unfairly, or chides her overmuch. She tends to take her own failure too hard, and can perhaps be masochistic. Nevertheless, she is a prototypical slave, engrossed by the psychology as well as the sexuality of submission, and committed totally to both.
DOMINANT SAGITTARIUS
There is, perhaps, no charasmatic sign more refined than sagittarius. The sagittarian Master is a scholar and a wonderful friend. He can be, however, flighty and inconsiderate. He invests himself totally in his slaves, to be sure, but he is difficult to satisfy, and would rather enjoy four well-trained slaves that belong to someone else than one who he has to train himself. As he matures, he is apt to settle down, but he is always an experimenter, and must try not only a number of scenes and games, but also a number of slaves.
SUBMISSIVE SAGITTARIUS
As a submissive, the sagittarian impulse for publicity comes into conflict with its submission. Indeed, the sagittarian is likely to broadcast his submission, but to do so subtly. He is willing to serve many Mistresses, and will likely get in trouble for his wandering eye. Perhaps his greatest difficulty, however, is his intellect: he is usually intellegent and well-educated, and will hold his beliefs very strongly. On the other hand, he prefers to be told what to do, because he is not an instigator, and, if his wayward tendencies can be checked, he will be exceedingly obedient (he will, more than most signs, anticipate his Mistress's needs).
DOMINANT CAPRICORN
A Capricorn Mistress will approach her slave with the same persistence and devotion that she displays in her day-to-day life. She will work hard for her slave, striving to learn to be a better dominant, and ensuring that each scene is both safe and sufficiently rigorous. She tends to take initiative, and will not be satisfied without complete control over her slave. The capricorn is a public, gregarious Mistress, comfortable with who she is, and unafraid to show that she is in control among others.
SUBMISSIVE CAPRICORN
The submissive capricorn, like the virgo, is happy to perform task after task. She is particularly apt to enjoy an efficient, well-thought-out scene, and will be unsatisfied if she is asked to do things for no good reason. To her, submisison is a way of life (even if she is not a lifestyler, she is believes very much in service, public and private), and she would prefer that life be meaningful in some measurable way. She is happy to learn and speak, but happier to do, and will likely want to try things before she passes judgment on them.
DOMINANT AQUARIUS
As long as he is not too full of himself, the aquarian Master is sensitive to his slave's emotions, and careful to ensure that her slavery is a meaningful one (and not just illusory). Aquarius can, however, misunderstand his slave easily, if he gets caught up in his perception and forgets to communicate. Once properly engaged, he will serve his slave as much as she serves him, and will always try to do the unexpected for her. He is likely to have a wide array of toys from the attractive to the bizzarre, and can fashion his own devices out of seemingly innocuous items. All together, he is a fun Master, but can be trying because of his expansive ego.
SUBMISSIVE AQUARIUS
The aquarian slave is a quiet, understanding companion to his Mistress. He provides for her more than she realizes, because his ability to listen to her and comfort her is unmatched. He enjoys variety and innovation, and will, like the dominant aquarius, be an adept maker of toys and devices. He can, however, become easily disappointed when his Mistress does not recognize the same potential in a common household item that he does. He must be more learn to check his ego if he is to serve effectively, but, once he has, he can be a good communicator, and will help his Mistress to dominate him more effectively because of his self-awareness. A word of caution: he must be certain that his Mistress is who she seems to be, because the aquarian slave could easily mistake abuse for dominance.
DOMINANT PISCES
Pisces is the most spiritual sign, and so this Mistress can be a mysterious one. She enjoys surprising her slave, and is likely to blindfold him regularly. She must be careful, however, not to let bondage overtake her life, because she could become overly dependent upon her slave. Pisces is an emotional sign, and like scorpio and cancer, the pisces Mistress can be easily hurt. She is, however, wiser than most, and able to find happiness in almost any situation, and will not allow inconvenient physical circumstances to stop her from attaining sexual pleasure.
SUBMISSIVE PISCES
My kajira is a pisces, so I must, once more, resist the urge to say too much...
A submissive pisces takes each scene, and each orgasm therein, to be a spiritual experience. Subspace has more meaning to her than to most, because she truly feels, through bondage, the primacy of her soul over her body. She loves mystery, and must be careful not to fall for the tall, dark, and handsome stranger (her fantasy is to be taken suddenly, but the reality scares her). She is unlikely to be comfortable displaying her submission for the world - except, perhaps, in the most subtle and subconscious of ways - but she nevertheless sees her slavery as an essential part of her being.
I hope you've enjoyed these little snippets. It really is true that any sign can be dominant and any submissive, because so much more than sun sign goes into the chart (especially the moon sign). In bondage and sexuality, especially, the moon plays perhaps a more important role than the sun. For me, my scorpion moon says more about my dominance than my cancerian sun. Venus and Mars are also very important, as are Pluto and, in the case of kink, Uranus. Perhaps a post on the planets is in order?
In Defense of Astrology...
It is actually quite amazing how many astrologers were skeptics before they became astrologers. I, myself, am the child of a scientist and a mathematician, raised around the chemistry lab. For a long time I thought that astrology was hogwash, because, from a scientific perspective, there is no cause and effect. Stars can't and planets can't possibly cause people to have certain personality traits, I thought, and predicting the future is impossible. But, as a scientist, I also understand the value of empiricism, and I have witnessed far too many astrologers say things that are far too accurate that they couldn't possibly know about clients they have only just met. I don't know why it works, and I don't believe that it should work, but for some reason, I have witnessed it succeed far more often than it fails (indeed, I have never seen it fail, when done correctly).
I myself, while I was still a skeptic, read a few charts, just to see how it would go. Using only the text-book astrology rules, I described my brother's girlfriend (who I had not yet met), and he said my description was perfect. I described my own girlfriend's best friend before I met him, shockingly well. I could go on, but, of course, because that's just my experience, and it's hardly convincing. My point is, though, that my own efforts to determine the validity of astrology surprised me: I convinced myself it works despite an intense bias against it.
It is easy, in this scientific age, to assume that the universe is comprehensible. But the universe, in actuality, is a complicated, convoluted place, and cause and effect is not nearly so well understood as we like to think (the famous empirical philosopher David Hume said as much in his "Treatise on Human Nature," way back in the 18th century, at the height of the Scientific Revolution). I can't think of a rational explanation for astrology, but reason can be overrated.
I would like to say, though, that astrology is driven by mythos more than by astronomy. As many skeptics are quick to point out, the zodiac no longer corresponds to the positions of their original constellations (thanks to the precession of the equinoxes, a phenomenon early astrologers were aware of). But the various signs - though they originally derived their names from constellations - are based more upon time of year than upon any kind of stellar phenomenon. After all, not all of the constellations are the same size to begin with. From the onset, astrologers understood that astrology was terrestrial, as much as celestial.
The mythos surrounding Aries comes from the beginning of spring, while Scorpio is tied to the middle of the fall, and so on. Perhaps mythology does not give a good cause or effect, scientific answer to why astrology works, but it certainly has more to do with its essence than the stars do. Indeed, even the planets are mythical archetypes in astrology, as much as they are literal heavenly bodies. The power of myth, it seems to me, is far less questionable than the power of astrology. Myth rules in religion and literature, and we often value a good story as much as a good meal. Should it be surprising that the stories astrology tells are relevant?
Astrology is a 2,000 year old art (indeed, more than that in some Eastern cultures), and was developed independently by a variety of civilizations, with a high degree of compatibility from one system to another. Astrology is responsible for concepts like "weeks" and "months," and gave us the names of most of the days (Monday and Sunday being the most obvious). Above all, though, astrology has been adaptable and responsive to scientific discovery (whether that meant introducing new planets as they were discovered, and accounting for significant asteroids and other phenomena near or on the ecliptic, or developing new mathematical and emperical systems for casting charts), and despite the hostility directed at it for centuries, it has maintained a steady following. Perhaps it is not all true, and perhaps it does not work for everyone - that I cannot know - but enough people find solace in astrology, or find personal insight, or, at the least, find entertainment, to sustain the study. I think that speaks to accuracy of astrology: why else would so many people continue to visit astrologers, time and time again?
I assure you, at the very least, that there are many well-educated, intelligent, and even scientifically-minded astrologers. We're not all middle aged women wearing turbans and shawls, sitting in foggy tents at the state fair. To a person we would rather cast a chart and give specific insights and advice than talk in vague, mysterious parables. We are not magicians or charlatans; we are professionals. No responsible astrologer will claim to know why or how astrology works in some scientific sense, but we have two millenia of study and data to draw upon, making the assertions of astrology far more than fantasy or whim.
I want to end by speaking to tusayan's post... Belief is a strange, strange thing. In the end, we are all constrained to believe - to take on faith - the vast majority of the information we use to live our lives. For some reason, we tend to get pretty worked up over metaphysical beliefs (God exists vs. God does not exist, or astrology works vs. astrology is baloney), which strikes me as silly. Immanuel Kant famously set out to prove that God existed, and managed only to prove that you cannot prove that God exists. Astrology, for all its tie-ins to the physical world, is a metaphysical (mythological) exercise, and no matter how intensely we may hold our metaphysical beliefs to be true (or our neighbor's to be wrong), we're not going to prove anything either way. Whoever speaks last, wins, as Kant said. Best, to my mind, to try out as many ideas as you can, and to learn from all of them. Especially the ideas that have been around for 2,000 years.
