Grabbing On

I've written several times on the importance of a submissive moving from an orientation of holding on to an orientation of letting go. I write about it often because it's crucial, ultimately, not only for the deepening of submission and for the value of the reationship for both parties, but also for the overall emotional health of the submissive in question.

But nothing has value in a vacuum, so it's important to discuss the converse. Namely, that the Dominant has a responsibility to "grab on" when S/He feels the submissive let go.

Properly motivated, a submissive can handle almost anything. But one thing that no submissive can handle and remain submissive for very long is that feeling of being adrift. That horrendous feeling in the pit of the stomach when the realizatoin hits that one has put something very big out there, at great emotional risk, and there is no converse feeling flowing back from the Other.

It's surprisingly easy for the Dom/me to miss it, too. I know. I've missed it at times. And too often missed, it starts a slow cycle of deterioration wherein the submissive, despite his or best intentions, begins to drift away, disengage. The Dominant either wises up and puts the hammer down, and probably thus saves the situation, or doesn't, and then things are doomed.

But there is a very fine line. For a D/s relationship to function long-term, it cannot become "mercantile." I mean by that the Dominance and submission can't be seen as "transactions." Often in life, we adopt this mentality. "I did X for her . . . I am entiteld to Y in return," etc. Whether or voiced or not, those sorts of thoughts are the root cause of much of people's unhappiness in life, because people are forever not following through with what we think we've got a right to expect. And in a D/s relationship that transactional mentality is deadly.

However there are going to be expectations. It's unavoidable. And this letting go/grabbing on area is one where the submissive is entitled to expect that the Dom/me will, well, do the Dom/me thing and take what's being offered up. In fact, if the Dom/me sees/feels what's being let go of and can't/won't grab it, then that's a fairly strong indicator that the two people are mismatched on a basic level in D/s terms.