Domination & submission _ the BDSM relationship handbook ( PDFDrive )

great majority of humanity.
A very tiny percentage of people will find themselves at either extreme of the
scale, feeling not just more comfortable there, but profoundly uncomfortable
with the mere thought of being anywhere else. That isn’t to say that they can’t
function in roles outside of their core D/s orientation; just that doing so brings
them no sense of joy or fulfillment. For some, working or living counter to their
core D/s orientation brings them a great deal of emotional stress and makes them
want to escape to their inner happy place all the more. So, how does one spot
the “true Dominant” in a world where people often change their roles the way
we change our socks? The answer lies in that emotional stress and happy place.
Everyone experiences stress. It’s an integral part of life, and completely
unavoidable. In many ways, we are defined by how we handle that stress and by
how we process it. Imagine the difference between how you might expect an
optimist to handle stress, versus how you might expect a pessimist to handle the
same stressful situation. Imagine further how surprised you might be if a good
friend, who always seemed cheerful and optimistic on the surface, inexplicably
shifts into “doom and gloom” mode whenever the crapola hits the fan. Does
that sound like anyone you know? If so, then you’ve experienced first-hand the
phenomenon we’re talking about.
Your friend operates one way on the surface, when things are going the way they
should, and another way below the surface, when things aren’t going quite so
well. While we may sometimes refer to this as seeing someone “freak out,” in
reality, what you’re seeing is simply a case of someone reverting to type. At a
certain point, under extreme duress, a person no longer cares what anyone thinks
and they abandon their carefully crafted façade and fall back upon their core
coping strategy. Sometimes that core personality characteristic is in sync with
their public persona and sometimes it isn’t. Frankly, being in sync isn’t really all
that important to our purposes. My sole purpose in calling your attention to it is
so you can apply what we’ll call the First Commandment of D/s Relationships:
Know Thyself.
Knowing yourself is the singularly most important thing you must accomplish
before even considering entering into a D/s relationship or adopting a BDSM
lifestyle. Again, let me be clear about this. There is a huge difference between
the BDSM activities that are a casual part of the Saturday night kink that spices
up your sex life, versus entering into a D/s relationship or adopting it as a way of