Question: What are the top ten traits you feel make someone a good Dominant? What are the top ten traits you feel make someone a good submissive?
Asked by: Wistful wench
Great question, Wistful Wench. I'm sure that each person's list will be a little different, as well as a little the same. I'll try to get at the fundamentals of what in my mind at least are the most important traits for a person to be a happy and successful Dominant or submissive. Having most of these traits does not guarantee success, nor does lacking some of them guarantee failure. As has been said, everyone's kink is a little different, and there will surely be room to debate each of my lists. Glaring omissions? Comment or email me as these lists are subject to revision.
Top Dominant traits
1. Responsible - You've got to be responsible for yourself, your submissive, and on top of things, or forget it. You're the one responsible for developing a plan to move both of you forward in submission, a plan to grow.
2. Energetic - You've got to be action oriented, the opposite of lazy; you need to be tireless, or else when you have a spanking to deal with at the end of an 18 hour day, well, you've failed yourself and your submissive. Follow or through or forget it.
3. Communicative - Of one's own feelings and thoughts to your submissive, Be honest about your feelings, don't give the submissive the sunshine and roses line if you're in a bad mood and are disappointed in her submission. You've got to also be able to draw out the submissive's innermost feelings and fears and hopes. This can be extremely difficult, as the submissive sometimes be completely unaware of their own feelings, as you can be of yours. Dig deep and be honest and you'll grow.
4. Empathetic - If you can't empathize with your submissive, to see things from their perspective, than how can you give them what they want and need? You must talk at length to know them better than they know themselves.
5. Self-aware -A Dominant is hardly perfect, and will make mistakes; don't think otherwise, be aware of your failings, work on them as much as on your submissive's; grace and humility go a long way.
6. Perserverance - You must never, ever let it go; this goes hand in hand with consistancy; you can't fight your submissive for three days to achieve a level of submission then just give up; you've got to push until you get a breakthrough, as long as it takes; you can't give up or give your submissive the sense that you will ever give up in doing what is best for you both.
7. Desire to learn - You as a Dominant don't just wake up and know it all as an instant expert on dominance, submission, impliments of pain and pleasure, positions, knots, and the lifestyle. You've got to learn, learn lots, and never ever bluff that you know it all; nobody does.
8. Intelligence - You've got to have a brain with the emotional intelligence and raw intellect to be smarter than your submissive at least the majority of the time; if the submissive can play you for a fool, how can you be the teacher and guide in life?
9. Strength -You've got to have the strength of will and character and leadership qualities to overcome the difficulties that always, always come your way in being a Dominant. Own them and deal with them with this strength.
10. Interest - You've got to want to be a dominant. Without desire, without hunger to be someone's dominant, you aren't, in my opinion anyway. Unless you are wanting it, you wont put in the time to learn and grow as a Dominant; to follow through on all you need to do; you'll resent it, and you wont do it well.
11. Character - A general quality but important nevertheless, that you've got to have honesty, integrity, and be respectful of others at all times or how can you expect this of your submissive or teach this to them either?
12. A sense of humor - If you can't laugh at yourself when you've just given a dominant look to your submissive, are all serious, and are approaching your submissive with the paddle in hand and you slip and fall on your ass from the KY you spilled on the floor, well, you just don't get it.
13. A sence of justice, fairness, and balance - Being a Dominant isn't barking orders and sitting on your ass eating chips and watching the game. You work hard too, harder than your submissive. If your submissive has had a day from hell, maybe it isn't the day to start a new and harsh training regimen. Knowing when to ease up is a true art; do it too much, or never, and you'll not be doing your job.
14. Consistant - If you'll punish something one time and let it go another, what's a submissive supposed to think, or learn, or do? I'd be lost too if I didn't know what to expect day to day.
Top submissive traits
1. Submissive - As a general trait, a submissive isn't asking to be a submissive, they just are. That's the way there are wired. If it isn't there, if that isn't how you feel at heart, if you just don't feel that way towards Dominant people, it just won't work.
2. Open - A submissive has to open themselves up to the Dominant's world; they'll be asked and taught to move towards growth and learning new things. Growing and learning means change and change can be frightening. There has to be a core willingness to accept the Dominant and what they profess is good for you.
3. A sense of humor - see #12 above in the Dominant list; it's okay to laugh at your Dominant when he slips on they KY; and at yourself when you slip. On the other hand, it isn't okay when he's given an order and you know you've been terrible. It's not likely to draw a great deal of sympathy as the Dominant orders you to bend over.
4. Responsive - A submissive who claims to be so, but is unwilling to listen to the Dominant, who is convinced that they are the perfect submissive, that they've done nothing wrong ever and that they've got nothing to learn, well, they'll never grow or learn.
5. Communicative - A submissive is constantly communicating her needs with or without the Dominant's requests for information on how she's feeling and doing.
6. Intelligence - If the submissive knows nothing of submission, through reading and talking with others, if they can't figure out what they want, if they can't understand or fathom why they are being asked to undergo training, then no amount of explaining from the Dominant will penetrate or be helpful.
7. Emotional awareness - A submissive needs to be aware of how she is feeling, for she is asking and asked to endure a great deal. A good submissive is even aware of how the dominant is feeling. The are aware of the often complimentary and conflicting emotions; loving the pain and being turned on from a good spanking.
8. Strong - As I tell my padme, it takes more strength to be a submissive by far than to be a dominant. The submissive is asked to endure more, to grow more, to learn more, on a consistant basis, than the dominant. If the submissive is unable to gather the strength to tell a Dominant that they aren't doing something right, if they can't challenge something someone says in conversation, then they won't make a good submissive. A good submissive isn't a doormat that just accepts. My submissive is a submissive to Me, not the rest of the world. There will be times they need to be strong, and when that time comes they will be.
9. Desire - A submissive is wanting to give up a lot of her freedom's for the benefits of submission; they ask a lot of themselves in order to even ask for this, let alone live it on a daily basis. They've got to want it or they wont be able to stick with it and they will resist it until something gives. They've got to want it even when the Dominant is lacking; if they are a true submissive, that fire to be submissive may flicker, but it will never die.
P.S. Thank you EVERYONE for all the great questions you've asked so far. I promise to give them all the best answers and thoughts that I can; if you've asked me a question, I'll be getting to it very soon; if you have another question or haven't asked yet, please email me at anakins.blog@gmail.com and ask away! I look forward to answering all your questions and to to getting even more to answer.
May the force be with you!
~ Anakin
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