458. Thoughts on Jaded vs. Soured

Every gender and role has its its own set of obstacles to contend with.  Generally when I write about those topics I tend to focus on how things are and the process of getting there.  While everyone has their own set of ideas on what things would be like in a perfect world, the pragmatic view is to accept the reality of the situation and find ways to deal with it, overcome it, improve it, change it, fix it, or simply cope with it depending upon what the appropriate course of action is.

When it comes to the problems in F/m dating, both Dommes and male subs face different types of obstacles that I have documented quite thoroughly over the years.  In some cases I am sympathetic to the plight of the male sub.  In other cases I am sympathetic to the plight of the female dominant.  As a whole, I tend to side with Dommes on their issues because many of them were not created by them.  e.g. It is not a Domme’s fault that there are so few dominant women out there, which leads to every male sub under the sun pursuing them.

For male subs, just about every obstacle can be turned into motivation and fuel evolution.  If a Domme dislikes poor communicators and subs that send uninteresting one line messages, a sub can work on their communication skills and make an effort to write an interesting message.  While a sub may eventually reach the point of hopeless despair, the answers are always staring them in the face: you can always improve who you are and how you present yourself.

The same is not true for Dommes.  The more attractive she gets in any way, be it physical, mental, her proficiency with dominance, and so on, the more subs will write to her.  This ends up actually increasing her work load.  The improvements that help her are things like, learning to spot red flag behaviors more quickly, getting better at reading between the lines of someone’s profile to see if they are genuine, etc.  A lot of the things she can work on do not necessarily improve the chances of finding a suitable sub, they often are methods for sorting and discarding the rejects even faster and protecting herself.

However, there is one area when I do not sympathize with Dommes, and that is when they turn from jaded to soured.  The difference between these two states are important.  Jaded can be skeptical, cynical, frustrated, and uncompromising.  Jaded may require extra hoops to jump through or extra time to obtain the burden of proof that someone is worth investing in.  Jaded believes that most subs are crap and good subs are hard to find, but they do exist and it’s just a matter of finding them.

Soured is the step beyond jaded.  Soured is when they have lost their motivation and belief.  Soured is is no longer skeptical of people because it knows how they are.  When a Domme gets soured, she believes that ALL subs are crap.  Accepting this as truth frequently leads to a shift in philosophies.  Some examples:

• All submission is just about a sub wanting to get off.
• Dominance is just playing into a sub’s fetish.

Beliefs like this can be quite destructive to the idea of D/s.  When the previous ideals gone, they often make new ones.  Examples of possible revisions from a soured point of view:

• True submission is doing what I tell you to do.
• True dominance is me telling you what I want and you doing it.
• If you need motivation to obey beyond “this is what I want,” you are a fantasy wanker and not a real sub.

In the long-run, this has a caustic effect on people.  The philosophies begin to center around rejecting people.  A sub is shamed for having needs and desires.  Other Dommes are criticized for enjoying activities and the reactions of subs.  This can trickle down into the community as well.  This type of philosophy is very accessible for a new Domme that is feeling overwhelmed by all of the kinks, fetishes, and play types out there.  This type of philosophy is also very welcome to Dommes that are teetering on the cusp of jaded and soured.   It doesn’t take long for these sorts of beliefs to spread.

Another factor is that this type of philosophy will drive away a lot of the reasonable subs that know when something isn’t a good fit.  The stream of subs that led to the jaded/soured state will likely continue, but the subs that spend time reading profiles carefully and thinking about whether or not they could thrive in such a situation will disappear if their own philosophy does not agree.  By this time, the soured individual likely has nearly given up, so the lack of interesting suitors is not a new development. In this state, the idea that the Domme should evaluate and possibly revise their own philosophies to better understand subs has long since passed.

If they do find someone who fits their philosophy, they may see it as validation.  If they don’t, the philosophy is also validated, just not in a happy way.

Overall, I can understand how this happens.  I get it.  The process makes sense.  I just don’t like it.  Part of me doesn’t like the idea of people giving up.  Part of me doesn’t like the idea of looking only outward and never inward.  Part of me doesn’t like way that this affects the people they come into contact with.  Part of me doesn’t like that once a philosophy is firmly rooted that discussion, conversation, and the exchange of ideas ceases.  Finding the right person is hard in every type of relationship.

The most unfortunate part of it all is that once someone has become truly soured, it is extremely difficult for them to change out of that state.  It is hard to leave a position that explains your experiences with logic and rational thought and seems to perfectly reflect what you see.

I don’t blame someone for being soured.  I just think it does a lot of harm to focus too much on the existence of bad rather than hope for the potential of good.

 

 

• Femdom