What a girl (or boy) wants

Englishman wrote:

"To be most effective with ones submissive, it must be essential to know the desires and wants of the slave/sub concerned, one would imagine. This done, one can deal with each in a bespoke manner. How do you suggest one finds out the predilections of the subject under consideration?"

Let Me say this about that:

1. By fully exploring the known. See the five long posts on that subject (there is a sixth in that series on the way, but I'm having trouble formulating it in a clear manner. Of course that assumes that the first five are "clear," by no means a settled question LOL).

2. By enforcing the idea to the submissive that his or her desires are owned, as are all other parts of the submissive. This takes some doing. As I've written earlier, many subs (females, particularly, it seems) have a tendancy to be want to be "too good," to hold back their desires for fear of seeming selfish or un-sub-like in some way. The only way to break through this is with frequent reminders/probing from the Dominant (but see the disclaimer of sorts that immediately follows).

3. By the Dominant realizing that at a certain point, the submissive wants what the Dominant wants. I have said, with regard to My girls, that "the less I care about what they want the more they like it." While that's somewhat flip, there's an important truth in there. Again, to hammer on a favorite theme, subs want to submit. As they grow (and again, this doesn't apply to everyone) more and more of their fulfillment does actually come from serving/pleasing the Other. It's important for the Dominant to learn all of the sub's desires to the extent that S/He can, but equally important to remember that there is a point of diminishing returns in that kind of research. As sorceress put it, prosaically but very accurately, one of the joys of being submissive is "not having to think stuff up." Don't fall into the trap of needing to know if every single thing is responding to some heretofore unexpressed desire in the submissive.

4. By watching/listening. submissives often reveal much more in their casual interactions than in one-on-one conversations with the Dom/me.