Hi.

I hope you don't mind, I thought I would share my experience with this as well since I like to play for real a lot.

Usually I'm submissive and I really enjoy it. I've had some dominants (usually the men) who didn't have any idea what they were doing and used bdsm as an excuse for getting sex. Others had been involved in things for a while and truly believed they were a good dominant, but they really had no understanding of what I was feeling because they had never submitted a day in their lives. They may have had a general idea of what kind of a physical response doing certain things might trigger, but they didn't know the subtle details or the mental part which is really where things can take off.

I found that I always had by far the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences with dominants who had spent some time experiencing the other side. Usually they had a better understanding of how long they could do a thing before it would get to be too much or boring or whatever, and they had lots of creativity and tricks up their sleeves because they didn't just watch another dominant doing something, they experienced it first hand and felt it and knew first hand whether it was a turn on to the submissive or just a turn on to the people watching and not so much for the slave.

As for me, I do get a dominant urge in me every once in a while (you should see the photos of me controlling some of my girlfriends). Although I have dominated a few men, I usually like to top women, both because being a woman I think I have a better understanding of what a woman feels and how a woman thinks but also submissive men just don't do it for me, I see them as being too weak and that isn't a turn on for me. Anyway, the girls (and sometimes boys) I have taken control of have always said that it was one of the best experiences and was so creative and things were happening that they never saw coming or never would have expected. I didn't try to do that on purpose you know, I just did what I thought I would enjoy and changed it a little based on what they said would make them craziest.

I guess if you're only the top and never the bottom, you could never do what you found to be the most pleasing because you never had that experience.

I think experience is a lot different from fantasy anyway so you can't say you have experience just because you read a lot of books or saw a lot of porn websites or have an active fantasy life. There are things I would never do in real play or allow to be done to me for real that turn me on like you wouldn't believe in fantasy, especially in many of the stories I read here and I try to write as well. The key is to know where the line is between fantasy and reality and while there are some areas of the line that are fixed like legal and ethical areas, there are other places that can move a little based on the individual. Having real experience on both sides of the equation, submissive and dominant, gives a person the ability to see things more clearly. Does that make any sense or am I babbling now?

So sorry for saying so much and so long. Hey I am a writer (kinda) after all, I'm supposed to do this. So that's my thought. No a good dominant doesn't necessarily have to have submissive experience and yes there are some good dominants out there who learned without it, but they are few and far between and by far the vast majority of dominants who in my own opinion are good have probably felt the other side at some point and can relate more directly to the experience they are providing and controlling.