[QUOTE=Pearlgem;749947]So, what's the problem with a sub just giving a Dom what he expects? Subs want to do this. Except if you see this as analogous to flirting there's a danger it's a false response which can actually mean that the Dom doesn't really get to know you, and you give yourself superficially in a bit of a void. Personally, I have found a tendency in myself to 'give the Dom what he wants' but it's not always an authentic response from me. I do it to be pleasing but he supposes I gain as much from it as he does. I don't always mind - that's subbing, right? - but I do feel a Dom should know you authentically, base his decisions on real knowledge of you, wisely seeing beyond your desire just to please him.

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Personally I never 'Sir' any Doms on here because I am aware of how easy it is to fall into that trap of sub-like acquiescence that means the Dom actually hasn't a clue who he's really speaking to.QUOTE]

Oh, Pearlgem, so much of what you say speaks to me. Here's an example, and probably it shows what a dumb bunny I am. When I started with Heartbreak Guy, I'd been on this site for a while trying to figure some things out, and I'd been with a few other guys briefly, but I'd never tried to establish an ongoing D/s relationship. And as I mentioned, he was very into authenticity and tended to believe that only he had it and that everyone else was posing. So I stepped into this bubble with him where some of the most common D/s interactions were invested with tremendous weight because they were special just for us. And really, I was a virgin. And every task that he gave me, I agonized over, because I wanted it to be from the heart. So something like using a lower case for myself, and an upper case for him, was a really big deal, because I'd always sort of chuckled at P/people W/who W/write L/like T/this. And I only started doing it when I really felt in my heart that when I used that convention, I was symbolically sitting at his feet.

OK, there was a lot of stuff like that.

But you can never step in the same river twice. I'm not saying that I'm totally cynical and callous and that this stuff is meaningless, but it's just not as weighty as it was. When Scary Cold Guy got in touch with me with his touchingly straightforward proposition, i wrote Him back like this just for fun and because i knew He would like it. Easy, right? What had been a declaration as meaningful to me as wearing a collar became a fun way to shorthand that I'd like to play.

And that's fine. But it goes back to giving the Dom what he wants and who's really in control when you do.

Scary Cold Guy also wanted me to call him Sir. Now, I don't want to offend anyone and I understand why some people like titles. For myself, I like names better. I can call anyone by a title, but I can only call you by your name, and there's something so sexy and submissive to me in turning an ordinary name into a title just by investing it with weight. And I told Scary Cold Guy that, but I also told him that I'd Sir him if he wanted - which I wouldn't have done with Heartbreak Guy. Not just to play. So for that afternoon I called him Sir, and he smiled every time because he knew I was just humoring him.

IMHO it would have been more submissive to keep calling him by his name, which used to fall from my lips in respectful agony.

(Possibly I'm off topic here, but then, it's my thread.)