What Drives Dominance

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cherishedproperty:

When I started learning about power exchange relationships, I saw two core needs: one side that needed to take control and another that needed to give it. But over time, I learned that flavors of D/s dynamics are nearly as numerous as the people in them. People come to this lifestyle for different reasons. They are driven by different core needs, and that leads them to construct the dynamic in very different ways. As I see it, dominance stems from three core needs: control, responsibility, and possession.

Control. 

Most Dominants crave control. But the key is in why they crave it. Some see control as a way to exercise responsibility or to maintain possession. But some just want control. My control Dominant lived for the moments where he took and I gave. Sexual control, cooking his meals, driving him for haircuts. He commanded, I obeyed. It all feels very par for the course. But over time I realized that he really just wanted the control. He accepted responsibility for me as the price for getting control. If he’d been able to control me without responsibility or ownership, I think he gladly would have.

Responsibility. 

Many Dominants will accept responsibility, but very few have it at the core of their dominance. These Dominants are servant leaders. They thrive on putting their submissives’ needs first and helping their submissives grow. My responsibility Dominant put his own needs aside for mine over and over.

Outside the bedroom, he primarily took control when it helped to fulfill my needs. He gave me a bedtime when I wasn’t sleeping well. He gave me tasks when he knew the connection would keep me grounded. His core driving need as a Dominant was the ensuring the happiness and success of his submissive.

Possession. 

I specifically didn’t use the word ownership here, because I think Dominants can crave ownership as a path to control, responsibility, or possession. But this is about the need for all-encompassing, unending possession of another person. My possession Dominant wanted there to be nothing he didn’t know about me. He said he owned every part of me, past and present. And he worked to eliminate every instinct I had to keep any part of myself private.

On finding out I once played an instrument in high school (and still owned said instrument), he had me record myself playing it. And every time I masturbated, he had me write detailed reports of everything I did and everything I looked at or thought about. No hiding. No dignity. Yes, he exercised a great deal of control in doing this, but it wasn’t about the control itself. It was about taking possession of every part of me.

Most Dominants have varying amounts of these, rather than being purely driven by one of them. And even so, no configuration is inherently better than another. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and there are wonderful, attentive, loving Dominants across the spectrum of these needs. But these core needs do matter. 

People may do the same things but for very different reasons. And while people generally look for compatibility in the THINGS (protocol, titles, fetishes), they should be looking for compatibility in the NEEDS.