So, I’m most of the way through Sacred Power, Holy Surrender (Ed. Raven Kaldera), and I thought I’d post some thoughts.
As a kinky witch who does power exchange, magico-religious sex, and – on occasion – gets to do the doing a religious ritual involving body modification[1], this book is very much in line with my interests. Raven’s one of the few folks I know of – the others being Lee Harrington and Thista Minai – who’s putting books out on this subject, so I was happy to have the chance to read it. I was also fairly unsurprised to find pieces from Lee’s “Sacred Kink” book included here.
So. Let’s jump right in:
As much as I love finding books that reflect my own experiences back at me, in a niche market like this, I’m unlikely to find something that matches me to such a degree that I Feel Seen while reading the majority of it. Which is fine, and to be expected. Reading this particular book is, instead, serving as a jumping off point for sorting through my own wants interests, and blank spots when it comes to the intertwining of kinky sex, D/s, religion and spirituality.
One of the things that comes up in this book, and others like it, is the question of “Do you want to make your sex more religious? Or do you want to make your religion more sexual?” Or, in the case of Why Not Both?… which contexts are better suited to which approaches?
Years ago, when I read Dark Moon Rising (likewise Raven Kaldera’s work), I found it was mostly, if not entirely, geared towards the “making your religion more sexual” end of that dial. And I find that now, as then, I seem to fall at the other end of things, wanting to make my sex that much more religious.
I was chatting about this with my wife/Horse/voluntary-property a while back, and her take on it basically boiled down to “Just because you geek out about both religion and bdsm doesn’t mean you have to combine the two”.
And she’s not wrong.
However as both someone who geeks out about both of these subject and someone whose more profound and fulfilling kinky experiences have been ones where I’ve actively cultivated ritual (head)space and/or a mix of emotional-physical and energetic/spiritual connections between myself and the people with-whom I’m engaging? This is kind of my jam, and I’d like to do/have more of it.
To that end, I find myself asking: “In what ways can I, or do I, make my sex (and my power exchange dynamics) more religious?”
Some of it… isn’t religious, per se. It’s energy play. Striving to deepen the effect I have on my scene-partner by actively pouring my energy through the vessel of her body. Sometimes this is through breath, sometimes this is through song, sometimes it’s through the palms of my hands. Seeing a given partner react to that energy – an arched back, a return to earth, a shudder, a high note – is gratifiying, for sure, but it’s also reassuring because it’s confirmation that I’m Actually Doing Something, that I can potentially Actually Do Something, cause an effect through energetic direction, in other contexts (like, say, spellcraft). But it’s also a really lovely way of topping people, and claiming them, that isn’t going to damage their bodies and that, when it’s Actually Doing Something, leaves me feeling more deeply connected to my People.
(This is where I get all Religious Studies 101 on you and enthusiastically point out that “Religion” comes frm “re-ligio” or “to re-link”. Religious ritual is all about fostering and strengthening connections between people and their communities, deities, and environments! Isn’t that so fucking cool???[3])
Tied to this, while technically being a different situation, is something I’m increasingly understanding through a vaguely-Feri-informed lens. The ideas of “Fetch” and “Godself” as aspects of myself that aren’t the part that speaks in sentences and thinks it knows everything about everything. I do things to reach out to those aspects of myself. (Realistially a lot fewer things than I personally think I should, but that’s a whole other essay for most likely a different blog). And one of those ways is through sex and s/m. The aspect of myself that I describe as “Godself” is what [a friend of mine] describes as Your Personal Union of Opposites: All of your “good” (easy to like, valued by society, etc) bits and all of your “bad” (uncomfortable, difficult, overwhelming, hard-to-fit) bits.
My godself is basically a nurturing predator. So maybe it’s not surprising that she comes out most easily and most readily during intimate, violent S/M interactions.
There’s a passage in one of the last essays in the book that says “Let our work be our offering” and, while I’m not sure that my own experiences on this front are what I would think of as an offering, per se, they are very much a means of communing with, embodying, or allowing-out-to-play my personal aspect of the All That Is.
Which is pretty great, and I’m glad I get to do it.
But that isn’t necessarily how my D/s becomes more religious, or even more mindful.
And, when I say I want my power dynamics to be more “religious”… I think that’s what I mean. More thoughtful. More deliberate. More imbued with intetion in both the literal and magical senses of the word.
In terms of the book, itself, I found a lot of the writing contributed by folks speaking the the s-side of the slash to be really thoughtful. Meditations on the spiritual nature of surrender, for the most part. A lot of the writing contributed by people speaking from the D-side was… Look, I’m not sure if it was “less thoughtful” so much as it was just… You know that thing? The thing where [“the top ‘facilitates an experience’ for the bottom” https://xanwest.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/i-talk-a-lot-but-not-about-that/%5D? A lot of the essays in this book kind of lean into that space, albeit through a spiritual lens, and talk a lot about being some variation on the theme of a “spiritual guide” for their s-types.
And, I mean, sure. Nothing wrong with that. And gods know I do it too:
I was overjoyed when my Horse came to me asking for resources to help her deal with the fact that a deity had gotten in touch. That my weirdo-DIY polytheism had something to offer her. Similarly, when my Little Girl and I first started chatting and getting to know each other, a significant thing that we talked about was ordeal work and how it fits into her particular (also polytheist) religious path and her work with/for her patron goddess.
As I mentioned, above, I’ve occasionally had the honour of doing ritual cuttings or brandings for people explicitely within the context of their respective faiths.
This is all very meaningful for, and important to, me.
But.
It’s also very much within the realm of me as a top (or a domme) facilitating, or at least encouraging, the religious and spiritual explorations of various people who are bottoming for, or submitting to, me (two very different things, particularly in this context).
While there were one or two essays where a D-type wrote about their direct spiritual experiences, it seemed like a lot of the D-types were writing from the perspective of someone who acts as a spiritual guide for their s-types. Even in situations where the D-types felt called to be their Best Selves through their D/s relationships or the faith their respective s-types put in them, that was mostly treated as something self-arising, or brought about via the gods or the universe, rather than through the idea that an s-type could be a spiritual guide for their D-type.
Which.
Folks, I am here to tell you explicitely that s-types can provide spiritual guidance and religious education to their D-types. You can think of it as a type of service, if you want to, but you don’t have to. Knowing the small rituals my Horse does to honour and acknowledge her Other Lady, and talking about Good Witching together. Talking shop for an hour or two with my Little Girl over Skype. These are interactions that I learn from. I hope I can bring as much to both of them.
So that was a thing.
Related to said thing is this: There were a number of essays in the book that talked about the s-type Seeing The Divine in their D-type. Like, quite explicitely and deliberately. And I found that to be largely, if not completely, lacking going the other way.
Which, like… fuck right off?
We’re talking about spiritual BDSM here, people. How many literal gods have sacrificed themselves, suffered and died, for the benefit of others? How many have gone into the depths to learn and grow and return?
Like, come on. Don’t tell me you can’t see the divine in someone’s submission, someone’s willing offering of pain and fear, someone’s receptivity, someone’s bending and shaping of themselves to your will.
“Holy Surrender” was part of the title, but I would have liked to see more acknowledgement of that in the writing included in the book.
Anyway.
I gnash my teeth and get on with things, right?
Right.
Okay. Returning to the idea of my “Best Self”.
Maybe there’s a key there. To be more aware of how my Best Self – my Godself – comes out in my D/s dynamics, to ask “How is my controlling-and-caring Best Self best-manifested through this context?”
A question which, in itself, has me concerned about how much the idea of “best-manifested” is tied to “being a guide for someone else”.
So let me chew on that for a bit.
Late in the book, there’s an essay called “The Yin Yang and The Tree” which talks about two different ways a spiritual D/s dynamic can function, two sort of underlying structures that they tend to take. The “yin yang” is one where the energy moves cyclically. This is the kind of structure that deepens your connections with and to each other really directly and that makes me think of a really good S/M scene in terms of one person feeding into the other person who feeds back to the one, in this lovely, spiralling loop of mutual fulfillment, and it’s great.
I like those.
But when I think of a D/s dynamic where “bringing my best self to the game” doesn’t – or doesn’t ONLY – mean being a “gods-mother”, if you will, to my Little Girl, or guiding my Horse towards doing The Work set to her by her Other Lady, but means being supported by my People when I do my own Work… I kind of wonder if the “Tree” structure might, at least occasionally, be beneficial.
Another pair of structures that I’ve seen Raven, specifically, talk about are the “care-giver” and (vs?) the “rock star” styles of dominance.
A dominant who likes to exert a lot of control might skew towards “care-giver” in dominance style (but so might someone who’s inclined towards a yin-yang style of power structure, so… these aren’t either/or and they don’t map directly onto each other), picking out, or approving, their Person’s daily attire, specifiying which eggs to boil, and handing out expectations about how much time one’s s-type is to spend, per day or per week or what-ever, doing meditation, physical exercise, or specific household chores.
Whereas someone who leans towards a “rock star” style of dominance might prefer their s-types to be more proactive – “See a task and do it” – towards how household maintenance is done, specifically with any eye to being able to leave that stuff to The Minions and get one with their own tasks without having to micro-manage their s-type’s self-care or what does and doesn’t get made for dinner. Someone who leans towards a “rock star” style of dominance might find themselves also leaning towards a “tree” structure in their power exchanges.
Maybe.
I mean, realistically, people are going to be a mix of both styles and are going to find both “tree” and “yin yang” structures beneficial in different contexts. But having these different styles and structures laid out as options and starting points can be a big help.
They’ve certainly given me ways of thinking about, and articulating, How I Want Things To Go, and for getting an idea of where tripping-points are cropping up in my various Dynamics.
So what does it mean?
What does bringing my Best Self, my most powerful/empowered Self, to my D/s Dynamics, actually mean?
I had a lovely conversation with my Little Girl the other day about what “deepening our dynamic” might potentially include, and I find myself mulling over her thoughts on the subject and wondering how they relate to this question I’ve posed to myself.
My Most Empowered Self is unapologetically sensual, is playful and joyful, and is at least a little self-centered / self-absorbed.
In the context of D/s dynamics, this means that my Most Empowered Self is unapologetic about directing her s-types to do things specifically for her pleasure. Anything from “make me tea” to “rub my feet” to “wear thus-and-such-a-thing because I like how it looks on you, specifically” to “accept my ministrations because I want to brush your hair or enjoy your skin”.
It can potentially look like asking my s-types to learn things (a recipe, a piece of music) or do things (cook me a romantic meal with flowers and candles and the whole shebang, do the errand-running that would facilitate my ability to make a particular thing for myself), or dedicate time for things (shared dance lessons or regular opera outings or scheduled at-home spa days) that feed and support my sensual self.
My Most Empowered Self is… artistic and generative, I think is how I would put it. “Creative”. I remember, long ago now, when I first received the gift of an s-type’s Service and was trying to trick my brain into not feeling like A Horrible Person just because someone else (reader, I married her) was voluntarily doing my dishes for me, I made a deal with myself that I would use the time her Service was giving me to do creative work.
With the idea of the Tree Structure in mind, could I go back to this?
Because as much as I (and my sensual self, tbh) enjoy watching my People do labour on my behalf while I lounge around, sipping tea and reading novels, I kind of do need to ask “Is this a good use of this time that I’ve been gifted?” Even taking into account the whole thing where my worth is (also) not determined by my Productivity. I mean, I could spend my leisure time knitting or blogging instead of looking at internet memes, amirite? So that’s something to consider, even if my “work” is my hobbies as opposed to a personal betterment project, can I use the time I’ve been gifted to do more of it?
My Most Empowered Self is confident and a little entitled. She expects to get what she wants – because experience has shown that this will be the case – and so has an easy (or easier) time expressing her desires through both words and actions.
When my desires are prioritized and my requests followed-through-on in a timely and consistent manner, I am able to cultivate that entitlement and exert more control (while managing my expectations and being aware of my People’s capacity and availability) in my s-types’ lives because I see that control being accepted and responded-to in positive and encouraging ways.
Bringing my Most Empowered Self to my D/s dynamics means Being Explicite about my expectations and about the consequences of not meeting them.
(Which I haaaaaaate because it means Saying Something when I’m disappointed, or laying out specifics when I’m afraid the response to my Specifics is going to be defensive or rejecting or some other thing that is definitely not a gracious and grateful acceptance of my Will… but here we are).
I still have two more essays to read in Sacred Power, Holy Surrender. So there’s a little left yet, and I may come back to discussing it here, in case something else comes up.
But, for now, this is where I’m at and what I’ve been able to chew on as a result of reading this book.
Cheers,
Ms Syren.
[1] I’m not priestessing in these situations. The role is a lot more like “handmaidening”: Making sure things happen in the right order so that the person talking to, or doing for, a deity can focus on that.
[2] If you know of anyone else? LET ME KNOW! I want Moar Books – theory and practice books, in particular – written at this particular interesection of the kinky, pagan, and queer venn diagram. Subject me to your faves in the comments, svp.
[3] It is definitely so fucking cool.
Tag Archive: holding power
So, as-you-may-be-aware-Bob, I recently (last October) began a new relationship. What I may not have brought up (yet) (here) is that my girlfriend and I share an age-play dynamic. Which is to say that we have a D/s relationship wherein the power exchange shows up in the form of her being a Little and me being a Care-Giver. This gives her the opportunity to Need Things (including care and reassurance) and it gives me the opportunity to be both (a) bossy[1] and kind of a condescending know-it-all (and, okay, sadistic af), and (b) nurturing & affectionate… with a built-in pause button should I need that stuff to come back in my direction[2].
I wanted to try age play – this ongoing dynamic started out as a single scene at a party – because of a lot of things. Stuff that had shown up in an uncomfortable and unplanned, but still very clearly “resonant” way, in an earlier relationship. Stuff about my own ambivalence around the role of explicit care-giving “outsourced executive functioning” on the D side of D/s. Stuff around Glamour Magic, as it happens, and the Union of Opposites.
Stick with me.
So. If you’ve been following along over at Urban Meliad, you’ll know that, in fits and starts, I’ve been doing the “radical magical transformation” project (again), as well as doing some stuff around glamour as a magical practice. Largely because a friend of mine wrote a book on the subject
One of the things my friend talks about in her book is how Glamour requires the reconciliation of your easy-to-like parts with your not-so-easy-to-like parts. She has a whole post about it here, to get you started.
So, quite some time ago now, I did some thinking about what my “easy to like” and “not so easy to like” parts actually are. And, while I shorthand that stuff as being my “Cancer Moon” and my “Scorpio Sun”, what I’m actually getting at is:
The scary parts of me – the parts that, in a nonconsensual setting, could look like anything from the annoying starting point of “I have kind of bad boundaries and give out a lot of unsolicited advice” all the way out to the extreme end of “I am a violent, controlling stalker” – are, in a consensual context, basically what I do in my D/s relationships and in SM scenes with my friends and romantic partners.
And the easy-to-like parts of me – the ones that my culture tells me are supposed to be the only parts of me, and that are culturally coded as both worthless/valueless and a requirement for me to be Gendering Properly – are the care-giver things I do like cooking, and emotional support, and generally mending people’s pockets. … Which is great, right up until you start noticing how imbalanced the care in most of your intimate relationships has been.
So I was taking a poke at age play, at the idea of “Mommy”, and wondering how you can play with that role, without ending up being “Wendy” for your partners at the expense of yourself.
I was prodding at this idea of the Black Swan, this union of my “scary” and “easy” sides, and thinking that maybe – just maybe – having a go at being a “sadistic, devouring, but very nurturing” Mommy might be a way to embody both sides of myself at the same time.
It’s certainly feels like a good fit, and a very enjoyable one, so far.
~*~
Notice Pleasure: Sensual massages. Eye-gazing. Solo dancing to pop music. Turning the heat up. Getting supportive, comforting snuggles. Sharing body heat. Scented candles. My partners’ respective cute smiles. Coffee with cream and sugar and dark chocolate to dip in it.
[1] “Because I’m the Mommy. That’s why.”
[2] My Little Girl – whose little-ness is wonderfully fluid in terms of moving between being my “kiddo” and being my peer – is actually very quick to offer me emotional support when she sees that I need it (a thing I’m not nearly as good at hiding as I might have once thought) without me necessarily having to say “I need to talk to grown-up you now”. Which is also really nice. But, none the less, the “pause button” language is helpful for me, so I’m hanging onto it for now.
So, yesterday was Queering Power 2016.
It was, surprisingly, an easier day that QP usually is. Which isn’t to say it didn’t have its hard bits.
One of the workshops was on trauma-survival and kink and I was expecting that to be pretty hard. It… wasn’t. I mean, I had my knitting out and was basically listening with half an ear. I have to work at it to remember what people said in the small groups we broke into to talk about stuff. The main thing I remember about it was (a) getting colder and colder and colder during the workshop itself, and (b) This:
Apparently there’s a thing called “hyperarrousal”, which is a thing that happens (or can happen) when you’re Triggered. Hyperarrousal isn’t the same as “hypervigilance”, and it includes a whole bunch of things like a distorted sense of the passage of time, anxiety, irritability, & fatigue (among lots of others). It’s been described as a “chronic state of fight/flight/freeze”. (Particularly interesting to me is that decreased body temperature is – apparently – associated with PTSD. I’m cold ALL THE TIME – like, up to and including shivering in a hot room, under blankets – when I’m freaking out about something).
The things you learn.
The first workshop I went to was a Facilitated Discussion (we *love* those faciliated discussions in this crowd) about chronic illness – physical stuff or mental health stuff or both – and dominance. I talked a little bit about how (a) I have physical pain that doesn’t go away + a brain that tells me horrible, bullshit stories (that are so easy to believe), but that (b) my Owned Property is dealing with the same stuff, but several orders of magnitude worse than I’ve got it. In that situation, how much of this relationship, where she’s “supposed” to be taking care of me is really going to be like that? And what does that mean?
And, when the link between anxiety and vulnerability came up (again and again and again),the words I put around it were (paraphrasing here):
I’m not supposed to want. And I’m not supposed to need[1]. But, as someone’s owner, I am supposed to want. Actively and openly[2]. So what do I do here? The story I tell myself is that how this is Supposed To Go is that I pretend to want/demand only those things that my Person already wants to give/provide[3]. So when I have something I actually want, something that doesn’t fit the script I’m (secretly) assuming my Person is (secretly) following… It’s terrifying. Asking means admitting that I can’t just do it on my own. Because if I could thrive without X, or could provide X to myself without anyone’s help, I would already be doing it. Asking feels like danger. Like “this is me, putting my chips down, and asking”. And I feel so fucking powerless.
Which was hard, but good, to say out loud.
By the end of that workshop, I was having my usual reaction to having let myself be “seen”, which is equal parts “I need a hug”, “I need a good cry”, and “I need to remove myself from mixed company before I hit somebody non-consensually”. I don’t know if that’s a vulnerability hangover, or what, but there it is.
But the part of the day that was the hardest for me was the opening plenary.
The current Ms Leather Toronto, who ran the plenery, included an exercise that was done by a couple of volunteers… They could have been me and Ghost, but they weren’t. In spite of Ghost nudging me in the shoulder and trying to convince me to give it a go.
I didn’t want to.
The exercise was that the members of a given D/s dyad would take turns saying:
“I see the beauty of your [dominance/submission] in your [action/characteristic/etc]” + asking if the other person could accept that their beauty was seen and acknowledged. (Each person does this five times, and then they switch).
I did not want to do this. Not with an audience, and not with my wife. Not right then.
I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to come up with five things, off the top of my head, and that my inability to do so would reflect badly on me (because I’m clearly not focusing on the good things that my Person brings to our dynamic) and also on her (because what does it MEAN if your owner can’t praise you for specifics??)
I was afraid that, if I could come up with five things in-which I could see Ghost beauty as a submissive, that I would pick the wrong things. That I would spot her beauuty in the ways that I spot it, but that I would totally miss some aspect of her submission that is super-central to her identity and that she needs to have recognized and valued. I was afraid that I would screw it up and/or let her down like that.
And I was afraid of – and overtly hostile towards – having to hear Good Things about myself. The point was that I would have been supposed to accept those things, those “I see your beauty as a dominant in [XYZ]” and… I wasn’t sure that I could. In fact, right at that moment, I was absolutely certain that I couldn’t. That I’d have reacted (or at least wanted to react) with a snarling “Stay away from me!” if someone had tried to show me that much praise.
It’s… telling.
I’m not sure what my shame was, right then, but letting someone be gentle with you, letting yourself absorb that kindness… it means taking off your armour. And I deeply, deeply didn’t want to be unguarded.
Telling, indeed.
Someone once said to me that she found it hard to hear me tell her that she’s easy to love.
I think I understand a little bit better now what that was about.
Cheers,
Ms Syren.
[1] Which is very likely The Patriarchy talking in my head, but is also something that I have huge, vast, awful amounts of shame around. Wanting means I’m Too Demanding, Too Much, Too Pushy. Needing means I’m a burden. Asking, unless I’m considerably more than 90% sure the answer will be Yes, is basically putting social pressure on someone else to do what I want them to do which, in some cases, equates to assault inside my head.
[2] My much-neglected-of-late Cultivating Entitlement tag is all about my struggles with this.
[3] As if a 24/7 d/s personal relationship was supposed to play out like a paid, time-bound session with a pro-domme wherein all feminization is “forced”, and where one is “punished” with exactly the thing that will get one off. My brain is weird.
Hi folks.
So, from time to time, I post links to stuff written for the business-suit set because I find that they can be helpful for dominant folks in full-time power-exchanges.
With that in mind, here are two such articles. Some of you may find them handy. Some of you may find them kind of old hat. Either way, here we go:
10 Rules for Successful Delegation
AND
Giving Constructive Criticism
There you go. I hope they’re useful to at least some of you.
TTFN,
Ms Syren.
So February 10th marked four years in Dynamic for me and my wife/property.
We win! 😀
Given the title of this post, maybe I should point out that this doesn’t mark four years in collar (that’ll be May 7th, 2015), and we don’t actually have a contract, per se. The gyst of it is: “Ghost takes care of Ms Syren. And Vice Versa.” And we just sort of take it from there.
Regardless, she signed on for another 40 years, which sounds pretty good to me. 😀
So… other than going “Squee!” about the whole situation, why am I bringing this up? (Okay, I admit it, it was mostly about the Squee). My question is: what do you do with a dynamic like this? How do you deepen it? It still feels… weird? Presumptuous? To be thinking “How do I want to focus my property’s development this year?” but I’m still doing it. It’s still my responsibility to do it.
I look at people who’ve been in dynamic for twenty and thirty years, and I have no idea what that looks like from the inside. Do you just keep claiming more and more of your territory? I keep reaching for the metaphor of cultivation – rather than that of, say, teaching someone new tricks. Where do we go from here?
It would be so easy to finish right here, to say “I guess we’ll find out” as if that were some kind of a Really Profound Statement. And it’s not like we won’t find out, over time, as our dynamic continues to develop. But I’d like to have some kind of a concrete plan for what direction to take.
As it stands, I find myself casting around for a focus-point. Like, “This is the direction we’re going to work on this year”. Given how things are going already, I’m guessing that this is going to be a year of “spiritual stuff” (for lack of a more appropriate catch-all). And part of that’s me, because that’s where I want to focus my energies so, hey, why not focus hers there, too? But that’s not all of it. Where do we go from here? I guess we’ll find out. 😉
So… I was originally going to use my “B” prompt to talk about Blood and Branding – two points on the S/M (or, well, “S” in my case) spectrum where I like to play because (a) they tend to involve inflicting a lot of pain on my co-player, and (b) they let me make art using my co-player’s skin as a canvas/medium. They’re faboo.
HOWEVER.
I’ve been… not “playing around with”, exactly, but… increasingly aware of how my body-language or physical actions can ‘cause my Servant to Drop.
I’m fascinated by this, partially because the “big as the cosmos” feeling that I associate with embodying my own power in a Very Aware Way (uh… for lack of better words) is… rare. I think I’ve only experienced it (at least in a heavy enough way to really go “Wow… I know what this is – Woah”) a couple of times and, typically, it’s happened by accident. I have a little bit of that awareness going on now – nothing like the Full Effect, but noticeable – sitting in my ribcage and across my shoulders, and tingling in the curves of my ears. I don’t entirely know if those locations are significant, but I figured I’d point them out.
Seeing someone else drop into their headspace like that, at the touch of a hand, is kind of amazing, in large part because I don’t know how to do that to myself. I have theories. But they are theories and I don’t have a tonne of practice (lately) in making that happen[1].
So, right. Body Language. I figure, if I can’t (or am not sure how to) tweak my own body language to be able to (ful)fill/embody My Place, as it were, I can at least put more attention into how and when I am dropping Ghost into hers.
So far, I grant you, it’s been largely accidental. Trial and error, and sometimes what I think will work doesn’t do anything, and sometimes what I think is just a nice, gentle way to touch someone I care about will wind up Dropping her unexpectedly.
But I’m keeping a mental list of what works and the circumstances under-which it has that effect. It’s interesting… Anyone else seen/experienced stuff like this?
TTFN,
Ms Syren.
[1] It tends to happen – frequently, though not 100% of the time – when I’m doing something that is both fairly emotion-heavy and fairly artistic/creative. It has usually involved some sort of significant prep – however unintentional – on my part, to the tune of an hour of vocal warm-ups, days/weeks of anticipation, or three hours of soul-searching followed by Spontaneous Poetry. That kind of thing. :-\
I think a lot of us are the kind of people who either (a) were always that one member of the group-work team in high school who actually bothered to do the project, and/or (b) are creative/knowledge-hungry types who tend to self-start[1] on things that we’re passionate about or fascinated with.
It wouldn’t shock me a whole lot to find out that some of you folks who are reading this are the kind of people who really do believe that you can get something done faster and “the right way” (that being my way, of course) if you just do it yourself.
I’ve talked before about Service-Oriented Dominants, and I’m going to talk a little bit about a related topic.
Punishment.
I don’t “do” punishment.
To me, it feels like I’m rewarding bad behaviour with undeserved attention, whether that’s using my Very Disappointed Voice – a tone of voice that feels anything but sexy, but that I’ve learned is a bit of a turn-on… and thus backfires completely when I employ it – or doing something corporal that I’d really rather keep as something that’s enjoyable for both of us.
Likewise, having the give someone a punishment like writing lines where I then have to stand over their shoulder to make sure that they actually do it? Why am I wasting my time and energy on this?
Having the wheedle and badger and, let’s just drag that loaded, gendered term right out into the open, nag a servant to get shit done or behave appropriately… it feels incredibly demoralizing and disempowering.
So if I want to avoid using a “punishment model” (or a “carrot and stick” model where you punish for fuck-ups and it requires fucking bribery to get something done right), what can I do instead?
That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?
I’ve started reading “management” literature. Tips for small-scale entrepreneurs who have a couple of employees working for them, stuff about how to manage effectively, keep lines of communication open, work towards solutions for existing problems while avoiding The Swamp Of Shame and similar pitfalls.
Much as I’m embarrassed to admit it to The Entire Internet, I am a really terrible manager.
I put off bringing up Problems because I know what their sources are – meaning that if I know my managee is overwhelmed in X part of their life, or has emotional issues around Y situation, I’m more likely to cut them some slack when Task Q isn’t getting done to the standards, or with the frequency, that I would prefer – and this means that I wind up with these, just, laundry lists of “Things That Need Improvement” and no clue how to adress them effectively, efficiently, and in a successful fashion.
So I’ve started poking at the idea of seasonal performance reviews.
I know. I kind of loathe the whole idea, if only because “performance review” tends to translate in my head into “job security roulette” or “let’s find out who’s getting fired today”. And yet, I think if I made it just part of the routine, then I could use it as a way to wipe the slate clean a few times a year and, in another way, also track my Person’s progress through the year.
Of course, I’m not managing a business in this context – I’m managing a household. This may require some tweaking of traditional techniques. However, that doesn’t mean those techniques aren’t easy to addapt or incorporate into what I want to do.
For example, this handy list of tips for building and managing a team has a few things I’d like to work into my own house.
I particularly like Suggestion #5, which is Set a quarterly theme and vision.
A theme and vision might be as simple as “establish routines, train as necessary; goal: well-oiled machine” early on in a dynamic, so that the accomplishment of that goal then serves as a foundation for further themes like “increase luxury skills and incorporate into routine” or “find therapist, work on anxiety issues”.
Likewise, the “Recognition” section of this article suggests the (well-known) formula of (1) Highlight something good. (2) Point out what needs improving, and (3) Suggest how to improve. So one might opt for something like: “You’re really putting those cooking lessons to good use. Dinner has been amazing these past two weeks. Well done. I do want to turn your attention to the situation with the left-overs in the fridge. We’ll need to eat those up over the course of the next week. After that, if you can work to cut your recipe quantities in half, that will allow us to enjoy your new sills without having a left-overs pile-up in the fridge every week.”
…Or something. I don’t know.
Similarly, the suggestion to phrase/identify problems in ways that are measurable: Not “Jolene is lazy” but “Jolene typically lets her outerwear pile up in the front hallway rather than hanging them back up in the closet”; not “Frank is disorganized” but “Frank routinely misplaces important documents that need to be filled out and sent off by specific deadlines”. Addressing measurable specifics rather than generalities makes it much easier for Jolene or Frank to suggest solutions without (hopefully) feeling overwhelmed or beaten down by the magnitude and, well, vagueness of the stated problem.
Management Tips for Creative Folks offers a variety of management styles (I tend to fluctuate between “tell” and “involve”, and this may be causing confusion or something on the home front), suggests that successes or emplyee effectiveness be measured by achievement (what they are getting done) and not activity (how they spent their time). It also stresses the importance of measurable goals, targets, and stretch-challenges for employees. Their time-division chart is also handy to keep in mind:
My time is often split between I and IV, with not nearly enough focus put on II. How ’bout yours?
I may have to go and borrow myself a copy of The One Minute Manager
, as it might be a handy thing to read.TTFN,
Ms Syren.
Most of you reading this are probably familiar with Y, the anthology of essays on concent culture and a dreamed of, worked-towards, world without rape.
Maybe you think that’s what the “yes” in my subject-heading is about.
…Not exactly.
My “Y is for Yes” is actually a reference to enthusiasm on a somewhat broader scale.
I tend to approach New Experiences (and new challenges) with a heel-dragging, teeth-gnashing, trepidation; always on the look-out for what could go wrong. While this is, perhaps, a wise way to go when hauling out the soap-making supplies, it’s maybe not the best choice of approach when dealing with interpersonal relationships.
So what to do?
The Poly 101 stuff – particularly when it’s being directed at pre-existing formerly-monogamous couples looking at Opening Up – tends to suggest that, rather than coming to any theoretical coffee shop table with a mental list of what you want in a date, come instead with a list of what you can offer, of why dating you would be awesome.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding that, but I think that’s what they say.
I think this is similar to that. To approach something with hope and a willingness to see where things go, rather than with a weird kind of pass/fail mentality that assumes your first slip-up or sign of vulnerability will lead to an avalanch of cruelty, advantage-taking (or mile-taking?) and no way back to safety or solid ground.
So this is me, taking another step, committing (again) to “Yes”, to hope and willing and seeing where things go.
Wish me luck. 🙂
TTFN,
Ms Syren.
Something that came up at my last Poly and Power Salon was the idea of service-oriented dominance. This is something that, I think, gets ignored in a lot of writing on D/s and O/p. It’s… Okay. This is me talking, so you know I’m going to connect this stuff with gender norms and expectations in orver-arching/mainstream society and how they trickle-down to affect/infect kink and leather communities and subcultures as well.
I find that, even when the gender configurations of D/s dynamics and scenes aren’t pre-determined as man=dominant and woman=submissive all the time, the gender-roles and gendered-bahaviours still line up like that. Uhm… What I mean is:
Feminine is coded as “subservient to masculine”, it’s coded as “receptive”, “passive”, “obedient”, and “anticipatory”. It’s expected to manage social calendars, social niceties, and hospitality.
Masculine is coded as “firm”, “in control”, “giving orders”, “takes/states what it wants”, “pro-active”, and “managerial”. It’s expected to manage people, to take charge, but also to be served by (and expect to be served by) The Feminine.
If you take out “feminine” and put in “submissive”, take out “masculine” and put in “dominant”, you’ll find that the social expectations line up remarkably well.
And this has some very… Inconvenient? Unintentioned? Irritating?… repercussions.
See… Look. I may not be a huge fan of Raven Kaldera. But he got something really right when he talked about “rock star” dominants and “parental” dominants as two styles of dominance that line up with being “service oriented” and “control oriented”.
I think that the way we have, however accidentally, coded “dominant” so that it lines up with “masculine” gendered behaviour expectations, and coded “submissive” so that it lines up with “feminine” gendered behaviour expectations, has basically lead to an expectation that dominants are (or are supposed to be) control-oriented, and that submissives are (or are supposed to be) service-oriented.
And some of us fit those expectations to a tee. Fantastic!
But… most of us don’t. Most of us are somewhere between the poles of “control” and “service” in terms of what we want/crave/need/enjoy/desire in a D/s scene or dynamic, and some of us are firmly rooted at the end of the spectrum that we’re “not” supposed to occupy.
Control-oriented submissives who crave rules, rewards, punishments, consequences, orders, rituals, protocols, and even micromanagement. Who can’t do anticipatory service to save their lives, and who get frustrated all to hell with D-types who expect their properties to be “mind-readers” and do everything “auto-magically”.
Service-oriented dominants who crave self-starting subs, anticipatory service, the luxury of Having People To Do That so that they can concentrate on all the other stuff they need to get done. Who embody/experience their own power most of all when they are at the center of a well-run household and can beam with pride at how well and consistently their properties perform their assigned tasks. Who feel disempowered when they “have to” bribe (rewards) or threaten (punishments) in order to get anything done, and who are frustrated all to hell with s-types who need constant management and who ask, literally or figuratively, “which two eggs do you want me to scramble ma’am?”
I suspect that, in most dynamics (although maybe not most scenes, given the difference in time-requirements), you need to balance the desire for service with the desire for control, regardless of which part of the dyad wants what in which ratio.
But I think it’s extremely helpful to know where on that particular spectrum you (and your dynamic-partner) live most comfortably, so that you know best how to articulate what will feed you when you’re depleted, and so that you know where you need to throw extra energy/effort in order to keep your dynamic functioning well.
I am a service-oriented dominant. Some ways that this can manifest are:
Someone who shows up at my house and sweeps my floor uninvited is making a very rude comment on the state of my home. But someone who shows up at my house, unexpectedly, and sweeps my floor because they’re in a service arrangement with me or mine and this is part of it? They are wonderful and a gods-sent and make me extremely happy. Because they’re doing what they’ve been told, without having to be micro-managed, rather than making assumptions about appropriate social boundaries.
My “Inner Dominant” is a seven year old princess. Which basically means that (a) she’s a child and feels safest when she’s being reliably well-taken-care-of, (b) she’s royalty, and knows it’s her birthright to be obeyed, and (c) she’s royalty and, therefore, expects The Staff to just get on with it, rather than having to be looking over their shoulders all the time.
I enjoy bestowing the gift of Something I Know You’ll Like onto people in my care or in my community – whether that’s deciding to make a Nice Dinner for my phamily; opting to do a scene that will get us both hot and sweaty and happy rather than just diving in and biting my Person hard in a tender spot in order to hear her yelp; making a particular resource available to my community; or inviting someone into my home and granting them my hospitality. I like the giving. I like the making someone smile because I got it Exactly Right. But I also like being in charge of what gets given and when and why.
For someone else who orients the way I do, their orientation might manifest as:
Being an event-organizer;
Feeling confident, appreciated, and appreciative when someone offers to make dinner or do the laundry (and follows through) during a busy/stressful time;
If the person in question is an educator, they might be more inclined to facilitate discussion groups or run hands-on/experiential workshops (where the participants do most of the work) rather than offering lecture-style or chalk-and-talk-only workshops (where the educator/lecturer has a lot more control over what happens during the class);
They may interpret the work they do in their communities as organizers, educators, and volunteers as service to their communities even as the service they provide involves being in charge in some way;
Lots of other stuff, fill in your own blanks. 😉
Thoughts? Observations? What do you think?
TTFN,
Ms. Syren.
Hey.
So, y’all are about to get cross-posted to death, so please bear with me on this one.
I just had a lovely chat/consult with life-coach and fellow Woo Person, Sofia Wren, talking about energy blocks, life goals, and Pulling It All Together.
What I said to her was that – to boil down my rambling into something a little more coherent – I have my fingers in a lot of pies, and I want to keep doing all of them… but I also feel a little scattered and a lot like I don’t have a clue what I’m doing… And what I’m looking for is, basically, way to reframe my million scattered elements so that I can see how they all dovetail and fold together and slot into place to form a cohesive whole (AKA: My Career).
Something that was really neat to see her picking up on was that, when I think about “My Career”, even when I do imagine actually make some sort of reliable annual income from it, what I’m thinking of isn’t “money”, it’s “connection”. I don’t want to be a writer like Stephen King or a performer like Madonna. I want to be like Cat Valente and Holly Black. I want to be like s00j and Heather Dale.
My two big take-aways from my wee, free (thank you!) introductory coaching session were:
1) Clean out your heart and your throat (and I get a little bit of pressure in my throat when I write that, so hey) chakras, ‘cause your passions are right in there[1].
AND
2) Integrate sex-as-nature and body-as-nature and food-as-nature. This was a really neat observation/piece-of-advice which, combined with the above observation about connection, led me to the idea of career-as-ecosystem, both in the sense of (a) an ecosystem is thrives when it has a lot of variety in it (no monocultures for me!), and (b) I don’t want to be in competition with other people doing the similar things to me; I don’t want to be taking food out of Lee and Andrea’s mouths if ever I wind up on a lecture circuit about polyamoury and consensual-power-dynamics (just as a for-instance). I want to be part of an ecosystem that is thriving.
That’s what I’ve got to work with, while I’m working on the novel, the locavore cook-book/memoire, the D/s-related essays, the chapbooks, the jewelry, the Making Of Things, the keeping of my house, the search for my Forever Home and its Garden, and all the zillion other little things I have on the go at any (every) given time.
I was lucky and got to have one of her free coaching sessions, which is wonderful. I happen to think she’s awesome, and I found the session helpful and also encouraging, so I’m passing her services along to all of you. Do go and have a look at what she offers both as a coach and on her blog.
TTFN,
Ms Syren.
[1] I am not surprised by this. Dammit, it really is all about the singing, isn’t it? Also, as a PS, when I did the above-linked throat-chakra-clearing meditation, I felt my mouth fill up with steam. What does that mean? Thoughts? Beuler? Anyone? It was an interesting side-effect, for sure.
NOTE: For other throat-clearing / chakra-clearing exercises try here, here, here, and here.
syrens 