softsmiles,

It was nice meeting you today.

Being very new to this whole lifestyle, I should explain that my perspective may be limited. I am finding that depending on the conversation and mood between Dominant and submissive, the roles soften, or harden. Sometimes sitting and talking about life experiences, or laughing and sharing jokes can even reverse the role, in a sense. If my submissive has a useful comment to make on the subject, and I learn from her, isn't it possible for her to be My mentor as well? Given that she's had more experience in the lifestyle as well, I take her words as valuable. Perhaps I am missing a more established context for the word 'mentor'. Master, slave, Dominant, submissive are status symbols as defined by the individuals in question. In my undereducated view, a mentor is alien to the lifestyle and I would put into the regular category of how people share and learn from one another.