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The Selfless Submissive

Author: Kayla

Filed in: limits, submissive, sacrifice, selfless



This concept has sort of crawled under my skin in a few discussions i have had lately so i’m going to jump into the devil’s advocate role here.

Are submissives really selfless? i say no we are not. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines selfless as: Having no concern for ones self.

From all the discussions and reading i have done on BDSM i believe the opposite is true. We tout our submissive nature, how we desire to please a Master, how we’ll sacrifice our needs for theirs. BUT there is a qualifier in all of this. What about limits?

i’ll sacrifice my needs for his, as long as we’re working within the limits i am comfortable with. i’ll even agree to have my limits pushed a little, again, sacrificing my needs, but don’t push me too far too fast please. i will jump through his hoops, i will strive to meet the challenges he puts before me, i will work to do what i can to make him happy. But if a command comes down the pipe that challenges my own sense of self worth or self esteem, would i be so willing to accept the command with an open heart? Likely not.

Even when jumping the hoops, as hard and frustrating as they can be, we are still getting something back from the exercise. We are receiving, if not from him (ie ‘good girl”), the satisfaction inside ourselves that we have “done good” we have reached the goal of pleasing our Master. Are we being truly selfless if we receive our rewards in other ways? If crawling on the floor doesn’t do a thing for me, but i know it floats his boat, am i not pleasing myself by pleasing him?

An online sub i know has an electrical play limit. She hates it, she’s afraid of it, i also recall she has a limit regarding water. Many of us submissives have a limit regarding scat. What if Master A had a strong desire to experiment in that direction? i personally have limits regarding face-slapping and anything to do with my feet. Neither of them are things i would willingly incorporate into my play. Though i might be able to work on the face-slapping limit, there is no way on this earth that my limit regarding my feet will ever change.

If we were ’selfless’, the above limits would not be issues at all. We would just sit back and take what we were given. But, i would guess, that the majority of subs I know would have serious issues with a Master who insisted on traveling into those taboo areas. i also would present to you that the majority of Doms I know would be freaking out if any of their submissive friends stated that they were anticipating a scene that involved these things. Face it folks, we’d be scared to death, or grossed out, or squirming all over the place in our discomfort, at even the thought of having to suffer through the ordeal.

i think, to be truly selfless, we would be considered submissives of the doormat variety and from what i’ve seen in the BDSM community, that is not exactly a desirable trait in a submissive. We give the appearance of being selfless, but we are not selfless.

(Original essay from: http://www.kaylasniche.com/)

Published on this site with permission.


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