Lady Julia’s Entranced Realm

In response to my post, When a Vanilla Partner Dominates, What Does She Need?, Susan’s Pet remarked:

I understand what you say, and what you mean here, “If he said, ‘I want you to dominate me” and then went on to tell me how… well, I would hardly be the one in charge, would I? ‘ Indeed, you would not be in charge.

The difficulty with the subject of Female Led Relationship is that generally it is not started with what a female wants. It is a fantasy of a male who wants it fulfilled. That means, the female will have to do what the male wants. Damn! That is just not right. If the female does what the male wants, the whole thing of FLR is nonsense. So we come around to define what the male and the female want, and take it from there.

Perhaps you could give us the pleasure by enlightening us.

When I wrote the above referenced post, there were things I didn’t address.  Your question touched on one of them.

Even though I’ve never been in a position where the female led (male submission and female dominance) relationship was the man’s idea and not mine, I have been in the situation where I wanted to learn about his needs and wants while at the same time maintaining the control over him that we both desired.  For us, being pragmatic worked.  If we wanted a healthy relationship, we each had to be aware of the other’s wants and needs.  So… we set aside times to openly talk about it.

There are checklists out there – mostly BDSM checklists – that opened the door for us to discuss what we liked, didn’t like, wouldn’t do, would do, would do only because it turned the other on, and so on.  These types of lists won’t “fit” perfectly because not everyone in a power exchange relationship is into a lot of the more serious kink.  We weren’t, but we used one of those as a springboard to discuss all sorts of things.  Once we covered the kink, we talked about the other areas like romance, love, “vanilla” sex, etc. (A word on “vanilla” sex.   Sex is amazing no matter if kink is involved or not, no matter if it is obvious one of us is leading or not.  I think to attach the word vanilla to sex is doing a disservice to sex everywhere and I plan to avoid doing that in the future ;)

It is true that I initiated the discussion, but it could just as easily have been him.  As long as the relationship is a loving one, most people will at least be open to talking.  Had he initiated the discussion, I’m pretty sure he would have been focused more on what I wanted and needed, but I think it’s healthy that he would want to explain things from his point of view as well.  Even if he didn’t address his needs, at that point it would have been automatic for me to ask him.  I know that’s not the case for everyone as some people are afraid to ask.  “What if he wants something I can’t or don’t want to do?”  Not talking about it won’t make it go away so discussing it at least forces us to examine the options.

If I hadn’t been the person to initiate this type of conversation, I really wouldn’t consider him trying to take control of the relationship if he had said, “I’d like to tell you what I enjoy and need, but I want you to understand I’m not pressuring you to do any of this or telling you when to do any of it.”  It just seems logical  to me that a relationship is doomed to fail if we can’t or won’t communicate.

After he told me, it was then up to me to decide when, if, how, and how often.  There can be no pouting on his part, no lack of enthusiasm, no attempts at manipulation.  If at any point he decides he doesn’t want me to lead, then he needs to say so plainly and we can decide where we go from there.

Keeping the communication lines open after sex or play is important to me, too.   I like to know how he felt, what he was thinking, what pushed his buttons, what didn’t.   As a rule I do not like talking about this immediately after unless something went wrong, but usually later on in the day or the next day.   It allows passions and emotions to return to a normal level and allows time for reflection.

Bottom line – it’s really easy to get caught up in the “rules” of this type of relationship and forget that the most important thing is a healthy, happy dynamic where each has a mechanism for saying what needs to be said.

In response to my post Such a Good Boy, Will remarked:

At home and at work, I respond better to praise than to criticism.

While constructive criticism can sometimes be useful, most criticism I see day-in and day-out is of the destructive nature. I think such criticism tend to hurt relationships more than help.

On the other hand, I think praise tend to help a relationship (of course, I just remembered an exception – any individual who believe s/he is God’s gift to the world) instead of hurt it.

Will, I very much agree with you and your very good point about constructive criticism.  Unfortunately since none of us are perfect, we all sometimes need to hear when we could be doing a better job or when things are not quite so perfect for our partner. Sometimes we need to hear about it when we really flub up.  (Except me of course, being a perfect Domme and all ;)

I learned a model a long time ago in a management class that’s served me well.  Praise, constructive criticism, praise.

Before I ever approach someone to offer constructive criticism, I try to make sure I know my audience.  This means knowing how sensitive they are, how receptive they will be, what words appear less threatening, and when the timing is right to approach them.  When we’re ready, I can begin (with *honest* words) the “offer praise, offer constructive criticism, complete with praise” approach.*

A couple of examples might be:

“I really appreciate your attempts to do ______.  You did a nice job with this aspect and this aspect and I especially appreciated that you responded as quickly as you did.  I would like to ask that you take a look at this one thing because there is room for improvement there.  Let’s discuss our ideas on how things can improve.  When you make these adjustments I believe you’ll come closer to meeting my expectations and yours as well.  I know you can do this because you’re bright, you are very diligent when it comes to tasks I ask for you to complete, ..”, etc.

“You are a very responsible, intelligent person.  Those are only a couple of the reasons I love being your dominant lady.   With this one task, you’ve fallen short.  Let’s talk about why and what needs to happen to make certain you complete it to my satisfaction.  It’s not at all like you to fail to do as I ask/ to do things like this.  You’re intelligent, able to accomplish so many things, and I know you want to please me.”

This sounds all pollyanna sunshiney, but it does usually work for me when managing others and it can work within a femdom relationship.  I just adjust it a bit :)

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*I’m not a relationship coach.  This shouldn’t be construed as a magic bullet as so many variables play into any interaction.  I’m simply relating what works for me.

~ Lady Julia