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REPLY FROM POLLY AND JON:

The solution to your problem, if there is one that will be happy for you, lies in the examination of the two basic elements of your problem: you and your partner. We'll take you first.

It is not clear from your letter what your own deepest needs are beyond your desire to submit to your partner. Is this need peculiar to your relationship with him, or do you believe that you are a submissive person and have always been? If you have serious submissive needs that are not peculiar to your relationship with your current partner, it is possible that a relationship with him can succeed. If, however, the only need you feel to submit stems from his asserted need for you to submit to him, then the prognosis for the relationship is bleak.

On this site is an essay called Pearls Before Ponygirls that describes the plight of many women ,who become aware of their submissive needs after they are in established relationships with conventional men and who then try to "train" their partners to be dominant. This is an impossible scenario and universally fails. Your situation--if, in fact, you do not have a history of serious submissive need--is the obverse of what is described in Pearls Before Ponygirls: the man whom you love asserts that he requires your submission, and so you attempt to become a submissive person in order to satisfy him. If this describes you, forget it. It can't be done. It is difficult enough for a profoundly submissive woman with a long history of submissive need to learn to live happily under the control of her dominant partner; for a nonsubmissive woman, this feat cannot be accomplished.

If, however, you have a history of submissive need, your hope lies in the other element that we must discuss in this response to you: your assertedly dominant partner.

A major element of the ideology of the D&S subculture is that submissives must be "trained"--often by some fantasy-driven "slave trainer" or "slave training course," sometimes by her supposedly dominant partner, but just as often by herself. Have trouble submitting? Suck it up and do better! Don't know how to get rid of your resistance and confusion? Better figure it out fast and solve it yourself, because Dommie Boy doesn't want to hear anything about it or have to bother with it. These ideas will not help you; they are all part of the fantasy of the subculture--they are nonsense, and any relationship which relies on them to any degree will fail.

So where do you get help? If you are genuinely submissive and your partner genuinely dominant, there should be no serious problem: present the difficulties described in your comment to us and any other that you may have to your dominant partner, and ask him what he's going to do to help you solve them. Ask him, in fact, why he has not taken responsibility for helping you to solve them and for seeing that they're solved. That is what a genuinely dominant man--any genuinely dominant man--would do with a submissive partner who faces the struggles that you describe. There would be variance in the approach each man would take, how much work he would require on your part as opposed to his, and in other tangential elements, but any genuinely dominant man will understand and will explain that helping you to resolve your conflicts is his responsibility.

Have you talked with your partner about these problems? If not, why not? Are you afraid that he would not be able to handle them or might become disenchanted with you for being so troublesome? If so, you have to present your problems to him anyhow--if he cannot handle such basic difficulties endemic to all submissives, he certainly cannot handle you. You owe him and yourself the chance to find out.

Or perhaps you have talked to him about these matters, and he has told you that they are your responsibility, that he doesn't want to hear about any difficulties you have but simply requires you to submit on your own, or even that you must not be submissive if you have such problems. If he has said these things to you, then the only solution to your problem is one you will not like: if you are, in fact, submissive, find a man who is genuinely dominant to be your partner; if you are not, in fact, submissive, find a conventional man to love and who will love you, because your current relationship is doomed to failure.

We might be able to give you some more specific advice were you to tell us whether your needs to submit are generated by his need for you to submit or by your own needs and also whether you have presented your problems to him and what his response has been. We'd be happy to hear these details from you.

Reply from Jon and Polly:

(2004 Note: our response is partially moot because slavecamlive no longer exists. Nevertheless, we retain the slavecam part of our answer because the generalities within it are as true as they ever were.)

It's interesting that in the middle of your diatribe you call us mean. Perhaps we seem that way at times, but the truth is that we are harsh with ideas that deserve harshness because of their self-deceptive quality or lack of lucidity. We do this not because we have any particular reaction to such comments except bemused humor but rather because the entire point of the Submissive Women Speak pages is the achievement of clarity when thinking about sadomasochism and power exchange, and comments such as yours detract from the clarity by grinding personal axes and by confusing the grind with intellectual rigor. If we were mean, we would simply delete comments such as yours--how ironic that after accusing us of meanness you proceed to assert that this imagined meanness stems from something missing in our relationship.

You have several main objections to our approach and to our site, which we attempt to deal with below without quoting you at length. We will, however, take some pains to point out "intellectual errors," since they seem to hold a fascination for you.

Your first objection is to our attempt to define and to differentiate among certain "types" of sadomasochistic relationships. Here your main problem seems to be with your own intellectual misconception: that the description of types of relationships constitutes an attempt to force anyone into anything or to define anyone's behavior as legitimate or not. Frankly, it is difficult for us to believe that you have a serious objection here. If so, you must also object to descriptions of types of relationships as, say, monogamous or polyamorous. Do you have such an objection? Is the accurate definition of a monogamous relationship--one in which neither partner has sexual activity outside of the relationship--seen by you as an attempt to limit anyone's choices or to force anyone into anything? We doubt it. We suspect, rather, that your objection here lies in a discomfort with having to examine your own activities clearly.

Although you pay lip-service to the understanding that this site is largely addressed to people who have been influenced, almost always negatively, by the D&S subculture and particularly by its cyber iteration, you seem challenged by our attempts to clarify the differences between cyber relationships and real ones and between partial power exchanges and complete ones. Why your objection to these clarifications? That is something that only you can answer, and that answer is of interest only to yourself, but your pleas to us that description implies some kind of limitation of your or anyone else's behavior is akin to the complaints of the cyber fakers against us: that we don't understand and accept the idea that a thing is whatever you choose to call it whether it is in fact so or not.

Another of your complaints seems to be that our existence and what we say here somehow prevents the development of a "community" among sadomasochists. This is an astonishing assertion. There is an enormous "community" of sadomasochists: the malignant and dishonest D&S subculture. While we would certainly like to disintegrate that "community," we do not notice that we have had any particular success. Your comment contains an implication, however, that you mean "community" among some other group of people: a "constituency" that we are "missing." We are happy that you have found people involved in power exchange who are untouched by the D&S subculture--we can count the number of such people whom we have met, unfortunately, on the fingers of one hand. We are mystified at your assertion that we somehow prevent community among these people, prevent them from meeting face to face, or whatever the hell you meant to say. Perhaps a little intellectual clarity on your part would be helpful here: how is it exactly that we affect the behavior of people who are unaware of our existence? We guess we're pretty powerful.

An interesting sidelight to your thought process, besides your apparent rejection of sociological thought and rigor, is the contradiction which you apparently don't see in your own thinking. On the one hand, you extoll the virtues of isolation and attack judgemental thought as you participate in it badly; on the other hand, you seem to be looking for some kind of new community among sadomasochists or at least among sadomasochists of a certain stripe. Which is it? A community of no matter what sort always invovles peoples' judgements of one another: it's those common beliefs that are both judged and are what holds the community together. As with much of what you say, what this all boils down to is your apparent need to project onto our writings things that we do not say but that are apprarently very sensitive areas to you. We would be fascinated to know if you and your partner are still together. To put it succiently, a lot of your problem seems to be nothing more than the fact that you are a prude.

Your last objection is to our active support of a cam site. Here you say "that the dominant you choose to endorse as genuine also happens to be a person who puts his partner (and his home) on display for all the world to see. What is it with that?" Here's what it is with that. A major purpose of the Submissive Women Speak pages is to help people befuddled and confused by the ideology of the D&S subculture to understand what actual power exchange relationships are like in the real world and to distinguish the reality of these relationships from the airy-fairy world of beautiful white fluffy clouds and inane poetry that characterizes the description of power-exchange relationships in the rest of the cyber world. The incredibly brave decision of Malakye, the dominant whom we "choose to endorse as genuine," to expose his and Essence's relationship, warts and all, the highs and the lows, to anyone who wishes to see it could not be more consonant with the purposes of our pages. You assert that "to be displayed in this way isn't good for a person, even if she likes it," and you ask, "Are you really confident that [Essence's] emotional safety is insured in that situation?" Along with a lack of intellectual and emotional insight here, you display an amazing gall. Do you know Essence? Have you talked to her? Have you asked her these questions? She is available daily in the chat room associated with the slavecam site to answer such questions. We know Essence extraordinarily well; love her, respectively, as a daughter and a little sister; and know not only that her emotional safety is secure but also that she is proud to display the reality of the relationship that she has with Malakye and that the opportunity to exhibit herself in a positive way fulfills a perfectly healthy ambition that she has had since she was a child. The fact is that Essence thrives and grows in her relationship as displayed to the world and that, even though it sometimes disturbs her that she displays behavior that might make her master seem less that perfect, she understands clearly the good that the display does for the many people who have gotten a clearer idea of reality from it.

Here's another fact: since the beginning of our involvement with slavecam, we have watched literally scores of confused and unhappy and often abused submissive women come into their chat room--a unique place on the Web, well-supplied as it is with couples who live in actual master and slave relationships in the real world--ask questions, be involved in serious and difficult discussions, and begin to turn their lives around, to learn to separate the fantasies that they have been taught by abusers and faux dominants from reality, and to search for and sometimes to find the genuine dominants whom they need.

We wonder if you have spent any significant time on the slavecamlive site at all and, if so, how intellectually rigorous your investigation has been. In addition to the live cams on that site, are Essence's diaries, which are intensely personal and honest statements of the fears, doubts, angers, and triumphs of living as a slave, as well as other documents of a similar nature. Many confused submissive women have been moved and helped by these, as well.

We wonder what your actual objection is to the slavecam site, assuming that you know enough about it to have an informed objection. We suspect that it has to do with your own moralism and almost obsessive secretiveness more than any real concern about Essence's emotional health. When confused and sometimes dazed submissives watch Mal and Ess hug and kiss on cam after a difficult and challenging emotional event, they see a reality that has never been talked about online within the hearing of most of them. They see love, the very emotion that you accuse us, preposterously, of not discussing and accentuating on our site. Most of these women have been told by the authority figures of the Scene that love and even intimacy are irrelevant in power-exchange relationships. On slavecam they see the truth. What is your objection to the truth?

Finally, we quote from your comment a sentence that we believe explains a great deal about the basis of your objections to what we say on this site and to what goes on slavcamlive: "That a man may do anything he wants with his slave is true only from the slave's point of view." Perhaps in your relationship that is true, and we have no objection to your relationship or anything about it, no matter what it really is or isn't, but the Submissive Women Speak site addresses itself primarily to submissives whose needs are so profound that they need rather than want to be slaves. In the relationships needed and searched for by most of these women, the idea "that a man may do anything he wants with his slave" is not limited by anything at all except his own love for her.

REPLY FROM JON AND POLLY:

We don't know what you mean by "typical sub behavior," and we suspect that if you stop viewing her behavior generically but as something specific to her, you'd be a lot more able to understand whatever is going on. Something has her scared to death--whether it's her own feelings or your behavior or something we don't know anything about, we have no way of knowing--but the only thing that you can do is to try to find out what it is and try to change it.

If you and she are still not speaking, we have no idea how you can accomplish any of this except, perhaps, by talking to a mutual close friend whom she may have confided in and who might, without breaking any commitments, be able to give you some hints. That's not real likely to work, however, so you must do everything you can to reopen communication with her. For the purposes of this answer, we'll assume that you can find a way to do that.

The most likely reason in our experience for the runaway behavior that you describe is that your friend experienced a deeper and more intense sense of helplessness and need during your first session than she ever had before. Her fantasies about what submission would actually feel like may not have prepared her for the intensity of the actual experience of helplessness, even a moderate level of helplessness. It's equally possible that the helplessness itself didn't frighten her but rather that it brought back an emotional or literal memory that is so uncomfortable for her to reexperience that she is willing to give up her submissive experimentation in order to avoid doing so again. Also a serious possibility is that you, as her experimental dominant partner, handled the situation in such a way as to terrify her, either because of something that you did or because of something that you did not do when she suddenly found herself faced with a frightening experience or a frightening memory. In fact, it's quite possible that what happened was a combination of some or all of these elements.

If you are able to talk to her and somehow to make her comfortable enough that she can talk to you openly and honestly, you must to question her, with sympathy and compassion, about what happened. Why she was terrified by the experience may be incohate for her, and if so, you have to help her to remember what she felt in detail and try to determine what frightened her. If it was primarily the shock of her first experience of actual helplessness in a sadomasochistic context, you can do very little for her unless she trusts you deeply. If she does, you can reassure her that whatever she felt, no matter how intense and ambiguous, is nothing to fear but rather something to experience again and to begin to enjoy in a safe emotional environment. Pretty much the same is true if the experience raised terrifying emotional or literal memories for her: you must reassure her that you can help her to experience the terror of those memories and to talk about whatever they encompass--if you feel capable of and competent to do that. If that is what occurred and if you do not feel capable of helping her to handle the situation, you should try to help her find somebody who is capable of doing what you cannot.

If the primary source of her fear, on the other hand, is you, about all you can do is to do your best to find out what you did or did not do that terrified her and then ask yourself why you did or did not do that thing. A great many activities and beliefs and approaches which are thoroughly accepted and promoted within the D&S subculture can be highly toxic emotionally to some submissive people, particularly to profoundly submissive people. But if you terrified her in some way, the reason is almost certain to be some version of her sudden discovery that she did not trust you in the situation the two of you were in together. If that were the case, you must ask yourself whether you are, in fact, worthy of trust to hold any level of power over another human being before you try to convince her of anything.

Obviously, those three possibilities and the reasons why they might have occurred often intermingle and are impossible to separate from one another. It is clear from the simple fact that she ran from you and and now will not talk to you that something occurred in that first experience that terrified her and which you were not aware of or didn't respond to in a way that allayed her terror. As the dominant partner, the failure, if failure it was, is your responsibility. If you are able to reopen communications with her, you need above all else to make it clear to her that you understand that and that you will do whatever you can to rebuild her confidence in you--not by feigning something that is unreal but rather by actual change in your level of understanding of her and of yourself and in what you do.

REPLY FROM POLLY AND JON:

By now you are already in touch with Karen, and we know that you are having an active discussion with her. Still, we want to respond to some of your questions and comments.

You ask, "Do you think it possible to teach the kind of dominant man I described the basics of a power-exchange relationship, would it be possible to make a true master of such a man or would I be wasting my time?" Your question raises a couple of important issues and also reflects some confusion on your part. First the confusion: a "master," whether true, blue, or polka-dot, is a person who has a slave, nothing more or less. You can't "make" someone into any sort of a master except by giving him a slave. We assume that what you meant to ask was whether you can "teach" a man to be a dominant if he is not a dominant. That's an easy question. It can't be done. If a man has no genuine dominant needs or interests or if he has some interest in sadomasochistic sexplay but nothing more, there's nothing in the world that you or anyone else can do to change that. Dominant needs--as opposed to the need to bully women, which, as you clearly understand, has nothing to do with domination--is something that a person either has or has not.

There is one sort of man, however, whom you might possibly be able to help to develop into the person who need in your life. There are many dominant men whose exposure to the D&S subculture has confused them as much as such exposure often confuses submissive women. They feel the need to control and love a submissive woman as well as tremendous enthusiasm for all of the sexplay that typically is part of such relationships, but they rely, often without knowing that they do so, on the ideology of the subculture to tell them just how to deal with their needs and enthusiasms, what is acceptable and what is not, what is healthy and what is not, what is possible and what is not. Thus it's not unusual for a man who has the need and potential ability to own another human being to suppress that need and never to develop that ability because the rules of the subculture tell him that he cannot and should not. Such a man then does the best he can within the play parties and partial relationships that are the common currency of the subculture without ever achieving real emotional fulfillment.

If you come across a man like that--or even across a man in whom you sense tremendous dominant need that he may be completely unaware of or confused about--you can't "teach" him to be anything, but you can help him to understand what his needs are, that they reflect your needs, that they are healthy for him and for you, and that there is something that he can do about them. If you meet such a man who is otherwise right for you, right in all the ways that a partner must be to make any sort of intimate relationship successful, a man with whom you already share some love or at least some very serious like, then he could be the man you're looking for. But you must be very careful not to engage in wish-fulfillment, not to talk yourself into the idea that a man does have real dominant needs when you only wish he did. It's not easy, of course, but it is what you must do.

We are particularly concerned about one element of your comment; perhaps it is not important and you just used the word carelessly, but we want to make sure. You say, "I think I rest more soundly now (although my dreams have become vivid and tormenting) that I know there is a chance that the kind of man exists somewhere who might actually be possessed of the awe-inspiring blend of qualities required of one who accepts such a gift as that of a submissive's total trust, honesty, and obedience." Here you seem to express one of the premier myths--and one of the most toxic--of the D&S subculture: that submission is a "gift" that the submissive presents to the dominant, as if she were presenting herself squatted down on a silver platter, her bottom in the air and a crop in her mouth. A nice image, all right, but perfect blather in fact. While it is absolutely true that a submissive must want and need to give over control to her dominant partner, she cannot submit on her own--as she certainly could give someone a gift on her own.

One of the most common sources of anguish that we hear about from submissive women comes about when a woman becomes involved with somebody who believes himself to be dominant and whom she believes to be dominant but who has not the slightest idea of what actually to do with a submissive woman once he has one. After the novelty of having someone he can push around wears off--or when the first difficulties arise in the relationship--both will suddenly realize that something is wrong, something is missing. The submissive woman in such a situation will turn to her partner for help and guidance, and he will tell her--sometimes in exactly these words--"If you were a real submissive, you'd know what to do." Then the fun really begins. The problem here is that the poor fellow has neither the need nor the ability actually to seize and hold control over his partner. He makes it her responsibility to "submit better" or to "submit more." She, of course, can do nothing of the sort. This is a description of hell.

You can offer your willingness and need to submit to a loved dominant partner, but he must take power over you and hold it on his own. If he cannot or will not do this, your "absolute power exchange" is an absolute sham, and it will, quickly or slowly, devolve into disaster.

Lastly, we can assure you that--how can we put this?--we're not making any of this up. The way we describe our lives together on this site is the way we are, and we're not the only ones who live this way.

REPLY FROM JON AND POLLY:

We're happy that "Violence in the Garden" had a profound effect on you. Many people have reacted to it that way and for reasons similar to yours. Many of them also have recently experienced a relationship that moved toward power exchange but with a man, such as the one you describe, who is incompetent to control himself let alone anyone else. We infer that your defiance and willfulness existed before the relationship you describe, and we want to reassure you that neither defiance nor willfulness in a submissive preclude a successful power-exchange relationship: Polly is both, in spades.

The questions you ask are good ones not so much because they are difficult ones to answer but rather because they are ones that are asked so often. They are based on a misconception about power-exchange relationships: that the submissive partners in these relationships lose themselves, are stripped of their personalities, are somehow subsumed into the personality of their dominants. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

You ask, "How can you keep ahold of yourself?" One of the many advantages of a successful power-exchange relationship to its submissive member is that she is encouraged and usually even forced to "keep ahold" of herself. One of the most important values for most dominants is to see that their submissive partners develop their own interests, enthusiasms, and talents as far as they can be developed. This is not to say that the reality of such a relationship--especially the exposure of the submissive partner to the ideas and enthusiasms of the dominant partner--does not often bring about some change in the views and interests of the submissive; that happens in all intimate relationships to one degree or another (and flows in both directions: Polly's strange fascination with televised beauty contests has rubbed off on Jon, while Jon's gory love of boxing is now shared by Polly). Nor is it to say that submissive partners are generally forced to pursue their interests and enthusiasms far beyond where they naturally lead. The fundamental point here is that a genuine dominant who loves his partner wants her to grow and to expand all of her abilities and interests as well as, through the healing process which is almost always a byproduct of a good power-exchange relationship, to expand her emotional resiliency, as well.

You ask, "If who you are is defined by Jon when you have feelings, ideas and want to take actions that are not OK'd by Jon, what do you do?" This may work a little differently from one relationship to another, but in our relationship it works on a simple principle, albeit a principle that is not always simple in its application: if Polly wants to do something that Jon does not want her to do, Jon tries to find out why Polly wants to do it. Since Jon wants Polly to do as much of what she would like to do as possible, if what he learns about Polly's reasons makes sense to him and if he doesn't feel that the action that she wishes to take is self-destructive or in some way very negative, he lets her do it. If, after his best attempts to understand her reasons for wanting to take the action, he still opposes it, Polly doesn't do it (although not always without ongoing discussion or even resistance). While it is true that, when disagreements cannot be resolved, Polly can sometimes feel frustrated by not being able to do what she wants to, it a relatively rare event, and when it does occur, Polly sometimes simply accepts the decision, sometimes is sulky or unhappy, sometimes attempts to argue indefinitely--it can vary with mood, the importance of the issue, and even the time of the month. In the end, if she can't change Jon's mind, she simply has to accept the decision, and that doesn't always make her happy or even satisfied. In the long run, of course, those situations, as uncomfortable as they can be, add to her awareness of being controlled, which is something that she loves.

When you refer to "feelings and ideas" above, we infer you mean feelings and ideas that lead to actions of which Jon doesn't approve, but they raise another important issue which you may not have thought about. Many people who have not been involved in power-exchange relationships--including a huge majority of the men who parade on the nets as dominants and who are not--labor under the preposterous assumption that submissives in power-exchange relationships are not "permitted" to express feelings or ideas that are uncomfortable for their dominant partners, that challenge them in any important way, or that "complicate" their lives. Any self-proclaimed dominant who has such a belief or any submissive involved with such a "dominant" is in for a big surprise pronto. One of the fundamental values of a power-exchange relationship for the submissive partner--a value which must exist for real if the relationship is to work--is that her dominant creates around her an island of emotional safety, a place where she is both encouraged and required to express her deepest feelings, no matter how troubling they may be either to her or to her dominant, without any fear of punishment in any sense, physical or emotional. This is not simply an ideological concept; it is true because unless the submissive feels absolutely free to express herself clearly and completely without fear of retribution of any sort, she will be unable to be completely honest and open with her partner, and he will therefore lack the information that he needs in order to control her and thus guarantee the success of the relationship. This island of emotional safety is fundamental to the existence of a power-exchange relationship; unless the basis of trust on which it rests begins to be established from the very beginning of the relationship, that relationship will certainly fail.

You say, "I am afraid I'd stop feeling, stop even trying to be who I am." Why? Is there something wrong with who you are? Does your personality need to be expunged (if you believe that it does, you need therapy rather than domination)? Do you mean that you would stop trying to be who you are because your dominant would discourage you from being who you are? If so--assuming that you find yourself with a genuine dominant--it's a moot point, since he will encourage you to be ever more of yourself. Perhaps it would help if you could tell us why you believe that you would stop trying to be who you are.

The truth is that a genuinely dominant man wants to be with a woman who is secure in herself, who likes herself and her personality and her enthusiasms and appreciates her worth to herself and to him in the extreme. Most submissive women, when they enter a power-exchange relationship, bring with them a basketload of emotional hurt and self-destructive behavior that has grown out of the difficulty of being a submissive woman in a conventional world. A genuinely dominant man will help her to heal those wounds so that she can grow stronger, be more herself rather than less, even though she spends most of her time in the presence of and subordinate to a more assertive and secure personality. Any man who does not help his partner to become more of whom she is is not a dominant man but merely a control freak.

REPLY FROM POLLY AND JON:

This little junior represents one of the saddest tendencies among the very many sad tendencies that have developed as a result of the high visibility of the S&M subculture over the last decade or so. He represents a whole genre of stupid men who try to conflate the desire of some women to submit to a man and some men to control a woman with some sort of misogynistic, Social Darwinian commentary on the supposed genetic inferiority or submissiveness of women. What malarky!

The question of whether women are genetically "inferior" or submissive to men as a group is one that is almost impossible to discuss with being diverted and defeated by deeply inbred beliefs, among both men and women, about this matter. The fact that many religious belief systems that are popular in our time are fundamentally patriarchal and misogynistic in themselves causes much of the problem. Both sides in the debate use and often misuse the tiny amount of data that actually illuminate the question. These data, gleaned from anthropological studies of primitive peoples in the modern world, a very few studies of non-human hominid behavior in the wild, and dimly inferred information gleaned from archaeological digs at early human and prehuman sites are fought over madly by those on each side of the question, first imbued with unjustified certainty and then twisted wildly to fit into the narrow shapes demanded by each side. What results is not illumination or clarity, and all that can be said at this time is that the question of animal--including human--sexually dimorphic behavior is a very complex and entirely open one.

One thing we can be sure of, however: the fact that some women want to submit to a man demonstrates only that some women want to submit to a man. While it is true that most women have at least some submissive fantasies during their lives, all the available data suggest that this is equally true of men. For what it's worth, there are many more male submissives in the visible sadomasochistic subculture than there are female ones--although the motivations among the males are in many cases questionably honest. Nothing whatever in sadomasochistic experience suggests that women are or want to be, as a general statement, submissive to men--nor especially that they want to do men's shirts.

Any of you who believe smugly that female submissiveness demonstrates some grand genetic reality need to pick up your testicles and go home and do some long and hard thinking about why you imagine that you have any rights at all over women just because you are a man.

I lovew this site. As a dominant male I sometimes don't get to hear whats on my subs mind because she's so obedient.It's exciting to read what goes on in a subs mind.Keep this site going at all costs.
raristy@xxxxx( )
, - Sunday, September 27, 1998 at 09:41:49 (EDT)

I never knew that such a site existed. By luck I got on to this site and then came to know that there are many like me HOw do I narrate my experience?
Kanchan
- Wednesday, August 12, 1998 at 12:10:47 (EDT)

We have a need for advise. We have been married for 2 years, known each other well much longer. We in the last 6 months have read everything that we can get our hands on. The problem is, we don't really know how to begin. We have both agreed that this is the type of relationship that we want and need. After the first 4 months of marriage, it felt like something was missing and we both feel that this is it. Please help! Our e-mail is keithready@xxxxx. We have found this to be the most helpful source of information in stores or on the net. Thank you for setting up this site.
Keith's_Niki
- Friday, September 04, 1998 at 16:53:19 (EDT)

I have been a submissive for almost 16 years now. Recently, I visited a site where they classify themselves as "rogue subbies" who celebrate the "darkside" of D/s and BDSM. Isn't that an oxymoron? I was always under the impression that the "darkside" of our lifestyle was for people who used D/s as an excuse for abuse....not something to be glorified. What is your take on this subject?
mj3
, - Friday, May 01, 1998 at 22:12:48 (EDT)

Hello Polly and Jon. I'm a beginning Dom. I've been told a many of tmes to watch how doms teach their subs so I can get pointers but I just don't feel comfertable asking questions from some Doms because I feel as though I'm not being taken seriously. I wonder if it's because of me having a slight case of cerebral palsey. I've been told I'd wouldn't make a good Dom. What do you think? I would like to ask the other female subs out there what they would think of a disabled dom?
Robertpaullocke@xxxxx ( )
, - Friday, April 24, 1998 at 14:17:48 (EDT)

Hi i am a submissive but not interested in a 24/7 arrangement. My life is very busy and complicated (like everyone else) but i am interested in a compartmentalized power exchange that is giving over to my Dominate partner during and only during sex. Are there others like me, or do the majority of female submissives want DOM/sub reltions that extend into other parts of your relationship
Ellie SF
- Wednesday, August 05, 1998 at 02:09:16 (EDT)

Hello i just read your comments on the Gorean Lifestyle and wonder if you ever spoke or really understood what we stand for. Yes we take our philosophy from the books of John Norman but we are not the game players you speak of.

Online just as online BdSM and D/s channels there are the game players and roleplayer and there are some that yes do take this serously. And i am one of them.

I have been living as a RL Gorean for over a year now, with a Master that i met online. His persona online is only part of what and who he is. He and i are smart enough to know that yes there is rl and yes there is online We do have a solid D/s relationship and yes he loves my submission as a woman.

I have been to BDSM channels and to Gorean ones, and i feel the in a gorean channel the slaves or subs are given alot more discipline than on BDSM, we tend to behave in a more submissive way and do not play the games alot of online subbies do.

I also know many who bring the Gorean philosophy home to there RL, it is alot more than sex and chains, it is a 24/7 life based on being the best you can be, responsible and living with a life of honor. Female slaves are not worthless animals but woman who love there lives as submissives...our minds and hearts are more important to the Master than our bodies. Our submission is not based on dungeon games or restricted to a scene. It is part of us...as for the so called slave positions, what difference is there between being hung naked and whipped in public for a great scene as there in kneeling nadu (basicly kneeling with our thighs apart)

i think that what John Norman was saying in his books..is that in nature there is the dominate and the submissive...for humans the larger stronger of our sexes is the dominate...the male and females the smaller and weaker the submissive...Does not say that females are stupid and have not a brain cell in there head...in fact the Gorean male tends to be attacted to the intelligent woman. Does it make a female any less a woman to kneel at a mans feet, i don't think so. I kneel daily at my Master's feet and he is my full Master, he also loves my mind and encourages me to educate it as much as possible. Does he think i am capable of doing any thing i want...oh yes...and he will support me as well.

I would like you to look a little more closely at a side of D/s you really do not understand, but than again i rarely find anyone on BDSM that does understand it. You complain of our lack of safewords ect and feel it is a crime, yet do you know that we don't play on the edge like the SMers do. There is no use for a word of safety if your safety is not in question. You say we sit in a tavern and drink paga, playing a role...well how many online sit in a D/s channel drinking a beer...We know we don't live on Gor, nor do we claim to. We are of earth always have been and always will, we just tend to go back to the basics of male female relationships.

wishing you the best pet
pet{MBear} ( )
, - Monday, May 11, 1998 at 21:49:21 (EDT)

I have recently had a very bad experience with D/s and i need some advice on how to handle it. My Dom sent me to be with another Dom who he thought he knew quite well. This other Dom took advantage of me in a big way and hurt me physically. Now my Dom feels responsible guilty and now is finding it impossible to Dom me. I do understand but i still want him to and i do not know how to help him get past this so that we can move on and get back to the way we were before.
Angel
- Tuesday, August 11, 1998 at 01:09:06 (EDT)

Hi -

This is a wonderful site. I've just recently (6 months) begun my journey into the d/s scene. Having no real knowledge or background, I just contacted a dominant female over the net. Since then, we've had wonderful times together.

But, as it is, I seem awfully "loyal" to her, and feel like I should do all I can for her. So, when we're together I try to make things as easy for her. We still only exist on a "business" relationship.

I am confused at this point. Should I be expecting more? Or shoudl I just enojy the times that we have?

I am female.

Thanks.
Hannah Lee ( )
, - Wednesday, August 05, 1998 at 00:19:37 (EDT)

First I wish to congratulate you on "Different Loving". It has proved to be extremely valuable to my fiancée and I. However, today I write you in order to address a tendency that annoys me. I fnd that you and many other psople in the the scene to answer peolpes statements and questions in a very judgemental way, saying things such as "that is wrong", "that is bad", "that is not what it's about" (a good case in pont of this is Polly's "advice to Molly". To me d/s sex, or any kind of sex should always be judged by ONLY one criteria: is it consentual between adults. What peolpe decide is right for them from that point on is totally fine. Now they may need advice, or answers or support, but always in a constructive, non-judgemental frame. people who engage in d/s sex, or other types of marginal sex are usually intelligent and open-minded. They don't need to be told about rules, but rather to make up their own rules, in accordance to their needs/desires. I hope you accept this as constructive criticism. Thank you.

Keep up the good work, expanding people's horizons, without limitations.
PdC
patriq
- Thursday, July 23, 1998 at 11:47:56 (EDT)