Domination & submission _ the BDSM relationship handbook ( PDFDrive )

My Two Cents on Switches
I’ve spent much of my life completely mystified by Switches, on a number of
levels. When I was much younger, I was simply baffled by their seemingly
natural ability to do what they do. For someone like me, hard-wired since birth
as a Dominant and tempered by twenty years of military leadership training and
experience, it was a completely foreign concept. It might have been easier to
convince me that a person could just grow different sex organs at will, than to
convince me that they could willy-nilly change their dominance-orientation.
I’ve also gotten frustrated at times because some Switches seemed unable or
unwilling to understand that not everyone can (or should) do what they do.
Whenever I read or hear someone repeat the mantra that it is impossible to be a
good Dominant unless you have first experienced what it is like to be a
submissive, my head threatens to undergo what Douglas Adams likes to call a
serious case of nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation. To me, that
makes about as much sense as asserting that you can’t possibly understand what
it is like to be heterosexual, unless you’ve spent some time as a homosexual, or
vice versa.
Want to know what makes a “good Dominant?” It is someone who finds joy and
fulfillment in guiding, teaching, caring for and protecting the right person. Want
to know what makes a “good submissive?” It is someone who finds joy and
fulfillment in pleasing, service to, caring for and taking direction from the right
person. A Switch finds joy and fulfillment in either, or both, depending on the
circumstances. It really isn’t any more complicated than that. Things may not
be quite so cut and dry when it comes to Tops and bottoms, however. If we’re
talking about the physical and psychological effects of certain kinds of BDSM
play, then I think it makes perfect sense that you should be familiar with both
ends of the equipment. I certainly would never expect a bottom to allow me to
use a TENS unit on her if I have never experienced for myself the sensations that
it is capable of producing. To expect her to consent to such a thing would be
arrogant and irresponsible on my part and that stupidity could only be surpassed
by her acceptance of such a proposition.
To close out this chapter, I’m going to tell you a little story that beautifully
illustrates just how utterly confounded I have sometimes been, when it comes to
Switches.