Is love different in D/s relationships compared to vanilla ones?
thedominantprompts:
No.
The quality of love never changes regardless of whether one is in a D/s or vanilla relationship. Love comes in many forms and is different in its every occurrence, but the quality of love - that which is immutable, that which remains steadfast and constant - is the same.
It was probably well over a decade ago that I heard these words, but they hit me with such force and rang so true that they have been burned into my mind ever since:
“Love can’t wait to give; lust can’t wait to get.”
I have constantly used this phrase as a gauge of my intentions ever since I heard them. They have never led me wrong, and they have prevented me from lying to myself many a time. And at its core, it remains the best explanation of love I have ever heard. Love can’t wait to give, lust can’t wait to get. By this standard of love, there is no difference between D/s and vanilla.
There are many other measures of love, of course. The famous verse from 1st Corinthians: “Love is patient, love is kind.” But do you know the rest of it as well? "It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.“ No difference there either.
I could go on with this forever so I’ll stop there, since you get the idea. The quality of love, that which endures, is no different in a D/s relationship as it is in a vanilla one.
That is not to say that a D/s relationship is no different from a vanilla one. I’ve written many times on my thoughts why this is not the case; the most recent example being my thoughts on an old DwP post:
((I saved these pearls of wisdom before DwP took down his blog for those of us who still desperately need his wisdom))
“The Problems Started After I Moved In”
When talking to submissive women about their lives and relationships, the most frequent cause of sorrow and difficulty that gets mentioned is the transition from a non-live-in D&S relationship to a full-time live-in situation. Relationships that seemed to work beautifully when limited to cyberspace hot-chat rooms, email, and the telephone suddenly become rocky and confused when two kinky individuals start to live together in a more intense and demanding sort of partnership. There are a number of reasons why this happens with such frequency.
Cyberspace teaches you that dominating and submitting are easy and are almost always fun. All you need to do to be a very popular and admired cyber-dominant is to know what pat phrases to say at what times. Even I, a person without any dominant desires, could, by assuming a false on-line persona, easily have a huge stable of cyber-submissives swooning over me and vying for my attention, simply because I know the right words to say.
It’s incredibly easy to dominate someone from a distance.
Actually to dominate someone who lives with you requires much, much more from you than the ability to create a sexy fantasy on a computer screen or to assume a stern tone or to issue commands over the phone or in email to an always compliant and willing part-time submissive who spends the majority of her largely independent life without you. Very few people actually have what it takes to be successful dominants, and real dominants are actually quite rare, as many more people have the desire to dominate someone sadomasochistically than have the ability to do it well.
As an example, to dominate a deep and needy submissive successfully (in other words, in a way that ensures that both of you are happy and fulfilled)—even a highly motivated, sincere, and obedient submissive—requires an ability to cope with numerous emotional freakouts, resistances, and confusions in one’s submissive partner, especially during the first few live-in years of the relationship.
The early “hell” years of a live-in D&S relationship require, in every case that I have seen, extensive patience and emotional self-control from a dominant. Such patience and emotional self-control are signs of maturity, of an adult who’s actually “grown up” and who is truly capable of taking responsibility for someone else’s life.
As will become evident to anyone who attempts a live-in power-exchange relationship for a significant length of time, D&S is, at times, hard, gruelingly hard work and requires a rare individual as a dominant: someone whose ability and actions actually match the claims he makes for him- or herself, and someone who considers the hard work worth it because of the things he gets out of the relationship.
There are some minimum attributes which any dominant needs in order to make a real power-exchange relationship work. These are qualities which every submissive person must look for in the dominant when they meet. Many self-proclaimed dominants say that they have these extraordinary qualities; just the claim alone means nothing.
Below are descriptions of some of the minimum qualifications which a dominant who hopes to be successful in a power-exchange relationship must have. It is not meant to be complete, just to provide you with some of the more important qualities to look for in a potential dominant partner:
Self-Control
If you can’t control yourself—your vices, your emotions, your tendency to act out—you cannot control another person. You are too weak and self-indulgent to control another. As mentioned above, all submissives, even the best, resist control at times. Dealing with that resistance in a way that encourages good behavior in the submissive and helps to train her to be a better submissive and a happier person means realizing from the start that your submissive’s actions, however you may dislike them, are not about you.
Stubborness and Emotional Resilience
People who only imagine that they are dominants and who are suddenly thrust into the position of having to control a real human being face-to-face, often ask a very revealing question: when faced with the initial difficulties of training a submissive and overcoming the onslaught of her confusion or resistance, a situation which requires so much self-control and maturity on their part, they often wonder what it is that the dominant gets out of the relationship besides hard work and grief. An actual dominant never wonders this in any serious sense. He knows what he wants to get out of a power-exchange relationship, and he makes sure, despite the difficulties, that he gets it.
Responsibility
Owning someone for life is a very serious endeavor. When you control another person and can do anything to her that you want to, you have a great responsibility toward her. Some people shallowly liken a dominant’s responsibility to that of owning a pet, but it’s much more of a duty than that. In terms of the seriousness with which the dominant must take his charge, it’s more like having a child.
Maturity
A dominant has to be grown up enough to take the responsibility when things go wrong. A child in an adult’s body, on the other hand, blames every bad thing or misfortune that befalls him on others. Nothing is ever his responsibility. It’s always someone else who has screwed up. A mature person also has patience and a willingness to wait a long time, if necessary, for things to work out.
Trustworthiness
This may be the most important quality that a dominant must have. Someone who is completely dependent upon another person and who exists only to please that person has to know that her dominant is reliable and consistent—and especially that he is capable of keeping his word. A dominant isn’t trustworthy just because he says he is.
Experience and Knowledge
It helps immensely if a dominant knows what he is doing—knows which activities are safe and which put a submissive in danger physically or psychologically, understands how to get to know his submissive—to delve deeply into her personality so that he can better control her, knows how to keep her serving him happily and enthusiastically, and knows how actually to control someone. Most people who want to be dominants don’t have the slightest idea of how to do the any of this.
Desire
It’s a sad fact that many people who call themselves dominants these days have absolutely no idea of what to do with a submissive once they are alone in the same room with one. As long as they can bluster and preen and pretend on line or at a distance or for a short period of time they do fine. But once they actually have a real person to deal with 24 hours a day, they quickly run out of ideas.







