cherished-property:

“I think this paddle gets you there faster.”

He’s talking about that stingy fucker. Not the thuddy one I like. The one with the big ouchies.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, to the point where you feel like you’ve had a spanking.”

Hmm. I‘m not sure what to say. It feels…not quite right. I mean, I do have that point—the point of being sated by a spanking, when I feel calm and relaxed. But it’s hard to characterize it as one thing. It’s not when I cry. It’s not when I’m close to safeword. It’s not when my interest turns to sex—that often creeps in when I still need more spanking. 

In part, it depends on the type of spanking and the circumstances. But there are a couple of themes. 

Reconnecting
I need maintenance spankings to reconnect. When that connection is the focus, I feel like I’ve “had a spanking” when I stop fighting it and give myself over to what my partner chooses. Sometimes that is easier or harder for me. If we’ve had a disconnect, it will be harder for me to let go. Even if I want to. But to feel sated by it, I have to give myself over. I have to reach a point where I no longer think about how many more swats or if/when it will turn to sex. I just feel open and accept what is chosen for me.

Quieting my Mind
My brain almost never slows down, even when I want it to. I am over his knee, and my brain is still chugging away at how a theory maps onto a problem at work. Or I’m thinking about whether I remembered to enroll my daughter for dance, or how I’m going to keep my dog from destroying more of my house. But at some point in a spanking, my mind goes quiet. I no longer feel the to-do list looping through the back of my brain. I am at peace and truly present in the moment. 

And the thing is, neither of these things comes from the amount of pain. Maybe if the point is to remind me that I am a girl who gets spanked, then submitting to the pain would be a way to get there quickly. Stingy paddles, the accursed riding crop… But that does not sate me. I could have a spanking like that and still feel like I need a spanking. What sates that need is being spanked to the point where my mind goes quiet and/or I give myself over to my partner. If a spanking does that, I will be walking on clouds for days. But there’s no easy formula for getting there. It’s not an implement or a duration or an intensity; it is something we have to discover together.

master-timothy:

“Submissive or Sub-Curious?”

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This is an important question for many to reflect…. Many are in the curious state….They think.. they read…they discuss..they wonder…they fantasize…they think more…and take baby steps….

…

Then there are those that have made the commitment…they have accepted..they have moved forward….and they know there’s no going back..they know the powerful state of submission. they know they are not weak but stronger than many women who may think they are strong but are too weak to explore the edge…..

That’s the power of these two states…

Sub-Curious ……to Submissive..

I am clear as a bell on this one.

instructor144:

mscogsworthy:

Most people don’t know much about my daily life – I think I have two friends on Tumblr who are friends IRL, and the rest just know me as this woman who writes stuff sometimes. 

In my waking life, I work at a school that has character-building as one of its primary mission goals. As such, we spend a lot of time developing our leadership and ethics program, exploring what “leadership” and “ethics” can look like, and the many ways one can practice leadership.

It might come as no surprise that I find myself fitting comfortably into the concept of “servant leadership,” so I thought a quick look at this concept might be useful for other subs (and probably for some Doms as well).

The phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert E. Greenleaf in the 1970s, but I’d argue that the concept has been around for centuries. You can see the ideals in writings about, for example, Jesus and the Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, etc. As it’s described on the Greenleaf Foundation website:

A servant-leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.

In other words, the servant leader’s highest goal is to lift up those around them through service and enabling them to become a better version of themselves.

If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like what @instructor144 always says the primary purpose of a Dom is, well, you’re not wrong. Dominance and submission can been seen as two sides of the same service coin, although I’d posit that Doms in general lean quite a bit more to the traditional leadership-from-above roles as well as servant leadership, while Subs tend to lean further into leadership-from-below/within roles – within their life as a Sub, anyway. I also think it’s no accident that a seemingly large proportion of Subs, myself included, are in some sort of service or caretaking career in their everyday life, or that they seem to generally excel at those careers and become leaders within them.

To be clear, there’s nothing “weak” or “powerless” about servant leadership. Anyone who is a caretaker for another person understands that it requires a certain toughness of mind and steel of spirit that doesn’t necessarily manifest itself as a hardened exterior. It’s the idea of softness of heart combined with determination and a guiding hand that characterizes this leadership style.

Anyway, I’ve linked a couple of resources below the bar if you’d like to explore more. I spend a lot of time at work analyzing leadership styles, personality assessments, and learning functions, so if you ever want to chat about, say, the MBTI, hit me up 🙂

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Robert E. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. https://www.greenleaf.org/ 

Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness by Robert E. Greenleaf is available on Amazon

I love the concept of “servant leadership.” It really resonates with so much of what being a responsible Dominant is all about.

Interesting points in here. As a paralegal my job is often to guide the clients through the legal process. Reassurance, listening skills, empathy, and explaining the process to them in terms they can grasp are a huge part of that.