What Dominance Looks Like to Me

“Dominance lies not in the commands that one issues, but rather in the leadership that one provides”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I submit to my Miss, about the ways that I see and feel her control, about what makes her a good Dominant in my opinion. I have a history of being very bratty, giving a lot of push back to the Dominants I have submitted to. In the past, I have probably been called challenging, if not worse things. I fully admit that I am a high maintenance partner, in both the vanilla sense and in the realm of kink.

This behavior is less about my desire to submit and more about the quality of Dominant I have been seeking my entire journey. In the past, I chose a lot of partners that were Dominant in name- adopting a descriptive label, often without the knowledge, experience, or skill to back it up. When I would date someone I would put myself in the box of submission that they were comfortable with, whether it truly fit me or not. In one case, we turned to having a dynamic to attempt to save our relationship. That isn’t something I would recommend.

When Miss and I started getting to know each other, we specifically attempted to avoid a D/s dynamic. I knew at the time that I wasn’t emotionally available for the depth of submission that I was looking for. I was already in a dynamic with my partner at the time, and while it wasn’t meeting my needs, I was putting a great deal of energy into it, trying to be the perfect submissive to a Dominant who wasn’t capable of investing himself or showing the leadership I was looking for. This led to bigger feeling- that what I wanted in a Dominant didn’t exist.

Miss and I started talking as potential partners for rope, with a side helping of dating. She was in the process of moving to my area, and this slowed the advancement of our relationship. It allowed us to spend a great deal of time talking and getting to know each other before things could ever get serious.

Our first date happened a weekend she was in town visiting. That weekend I had two other dates that were both disastrous, and I was incredibly nervous about meeting her. I almost canceled out of sheer exhaustion. I can say I didn’t show up at my best- I was raw from social interactions and exhausted by the other experiences in my life.

When we met inside the restaurant, my stomach was in knots. So much so that when the host went to lead us to our table, I started to take a wrong turn. She…