instructor144:

gabriellegirl:

I read often about how much work it is to dominate someone, and though I’ve never done it myself, that intuitively seems right to me, and seems right to me based on what I’ve observed from D-types who have given me control at various points in my life.

At the same time, though, it seems like it sometimes goes unrecognized that submission also requires a great deal of work- and here I don’t mean of the trust and vulnerability kind, though it requires that, too- I mean the considerable amount of effort it takes to keep one or more rules or restrictions or preferences at the top of one’s mind. That mental energy is not small, to say nothing of the physical work involved in actually carrying out assignments, instructions, etc.

The effort, for me is always, always worth it when I know it matters to the person I’m doing x thing for that I do it and do it right. I am a submissive after all. 

But I’ve found over the years that if a D-type is even moderately indifferent to whether I actually do something they’ve instructed me to or not, I simply cannot muster up the ability to care enough to actually do it.

Aside from a breach of trust, lack of consistency in D/s has been—for me—the quickest route to killing a dynamic.

My entire motivation to stop masturbating when the timer goes off even if it means I don’t get to climax, to spread those grains of rice across my bathroom floor and let them make burning, stinging indentations in my knees first thing every morning, to remember to kneel and kiss my fingertips and press them to my heart at the end of every day no matter how tired or sick or stressed I am, to not let go of the steel frame no matter how hard the rug beater slams into my thigh muscles and sends pain screaming down into my bones is based on the fact that I want to please you more than I want to sleep or not hurt or climax or anything else I want to do that does not align with what you want me to do.

But. If you don’t care whether I actually do it or not, I can’t.

My brain simply cannot keep that reminder at the forefront unless I know it matters to you. It’s as if my brain’s ability to save an instruction or command in the Important Stuff category that runs at the forefront of my mind each day is tied directly to my perception of whether it really matters to you or not.

I’m not someone who does a lot of testing of boundaries, or has much of a—okay, any—bratty streak. But I do need to know that you care whether I stop masturbating when the timer goes off, that I didn’t forget to kneel last night at the end of a 16-hour day while fighting a raging migraine. I need to know that you’re not ambivalent about my obedience, and that you will correct me if necessary to enforce that you care. That doesn’t mean I need to be in a corner with a bar of soap in my mouth holding a penny to the wall with my nose while you beat me with my least favorite flogger, but it does mean that I need to know that you notice if I get something wrong, and that you’ll call me on it.

Tl; dr: The degree to which you care that I get it right directly drives the degree to which I care whether I get it right.

That last sentence – so very important!