A few of the threads in this forum in the last few days have made me think about how I got into bdsm and about how lucky I was to find a dom that would not dominate me just because I felt inferior to him.

In the mental state I was then, if I had fallen in the hands of an abuser my life would have been in serious danger. I was fortunate to find a lover who taught me first how to appreciate myself before submiting.

My question to all doms out there is: how do you know if your new sub is mentally ready to submit in a healty manner and if she/he is not, would you go ahead anyways and dominate her/him anyway hoping her self esteem improves somewhere along the way?