Pride, Bitchiness, and Balance

desiree wrote:

"Pride - As in, how do you know you have to much of it? When are you being unreasonable and just stubborn? Where’s that line between a healthy dose of self respect and just fucking being a bitch? And how in the hell do you know when you passed it? And having passed into the realm of The Bitch, is that a bad thing?"


There's a lot packed into those few lines.

In practical terms, I don't think it's always possible to know. But in general a good rule of thumb is: One person often is wrong, two people can easily be wrong, three people are wrong close to half the time, but four or more people are right most of the time. Meaning, if everyone thinks you're an unreasonable, stubborn, arrogant bitch, then you probably are one. Of course if you are one you most likely don't consider what others think often enough to even pose the question. So if you have enough perspective to pose the question then you pretty much aren't an unreasonable, stubborn, arrogant bitch.

In terms of D/s, it's complicated.

1. For the submissive, the opinion of "Everyone" matters a lot less than the opinion of One in particular. It's little comfort if everyone thinks you're great but your Owner seems to constantly have difficulty with you. And that may be a sign that 1) you're not with the right Person, or 2) you're not in the right flavor of the lifestyle.

2. Being a good submissive is a tremendous balancing act. The submissive does need a very healthy sense of pride and self-respect in order to fully, freely submit. Without sounding too much like a self-help book cliche, there has to be strong, deep reserve of something inside to draw from. At the same time being unreasonable and stubborn aren't going to work either, for obvious reasons. Finding and maintaining that middle ground is one of the most difficult things for a submissive and too often I think Dom/mes are not conscious enough of how difficult that balancing act is.

3. The balancing act isn't limited to submissives. I've written before about the humility that a Dom/me needs in order to lead well. It's so easy, being adored and worshipped, being the object of love and devotion and submission, to lose perspective and start to "believe One's own press clippings." Down that road lays disaster. At the same time, being "too nice" is just as poisonous.

4. D/s interactions are subject to aggressive norming behaviors. Meaning, there is a process of natural selection that goes on. In this field of endeavor often it's immediately apparent whether one is going to "click" with another -- often a two minute exchange that amounts to "what's your kink(s)?" is sufficient. The good part of this is that people tend to end up with who they should end up with and are comfy with; the bad part is that it leads to a certain judgmental outlook, which is ironic in an arena where everyone loves to talk about "tolerance." But in terms of pride, bithciness, etc., the system is highly efficient at putting together those with the biggest "bitch" factor and those with the highest tolerance/appreciation for that bitchiness (and conversely, those on the other end of that scale tend to find each other as well). Mismatches of this type tend to be short-lived.