Quote Originally Posted by Kuskovian View Post

All creatures fall somewhere within this hierarchy and thier positions within it are relative to thier individual preceptions of others in relationship to themselves.

IE: It is quite natural for you to only submit to those individuals you precieve to have dominance over you.
All true. The psychological variable we call 'dominance', which has 'submissive' at one end and 'dominant' at the other is a normal distribution. i.e. it is a bell curved distribution. The majority of the population are in the middle of the curve whereas the extremes are what we can call 'Doms' and 'subs'. Societely we impose a fake cut off point to indicate where those who are 'truly' submissive or 'truly dominant' lie. However, imposing a simple binary feature to these variables (i.e. you are either submissive or dominant) is far too simplistic for the actual situation which is that there is a gentle gradiation between those who are extreme 'dominant' and those who are extreme 'submissive'. Bear in mind that even many switches express a preference for one or the other and therefore betray themselves as being more towards one extreme or the other.

The important point is that we judge our relative level of dominance in comparison with others. You may be the big fish in your pond but in the pond next door there may be a bigger one.

Now this is partially independent to the roles we assign ourselves. You call yourself a sub but may be quite high up the 'dominance' scale. What needs to be remembered is that the self imposed roles and the way BDSM society works is largely consensual. You call yourself a sub and allow a Dom to treat you as such. A Dom is only a Dom so long as the sub lets them be one. Someone quite low on the dominance scale may let a bad dom get away with more before they object and exercise the legal right to tell them to F off. A sub with a high dominance may take less shit before they give up and walk away and therefore need a more dominant (and competent) dom.

This is not, I have to add, to say that doms with really submissive subs is necessarily a bad dom, just that it is easier to be dominant with a really submissive partner than it is with someone who is more independent. Some Doms appreciate the challenge of a 'bratty sub'. others find it too much to take and prefer someone with a little more pliability. This is why it is so important to find the right Dom for you and why just any old person calling themselves a Dom will not do.