Transferability of, well, "stuff"? (13)

I agree, self-awareness, acceptance of one's self and desires and an inner conviction of the 'rightness' to give, or receive, service are valuable and portable.

Training by one owner or dominant is transferable but as others have already said the relevance and usefulness in a new relationship is a whole different thing.

Good habits like self-discipline and skills like driving can be carried over but some of the 'preferences' stuff, like being called "Mistress", I would not require.

Yes, I agree that dom side stuff, especially 'people', 'life' and 'relationship' skills are mostly transferable and like the sub side stuff it doesn't come solely from D/s experience. Such 'stuff' is valuable to a dom or owner but it's not just useful for doms. The phrase "well trained" is too subjective for me as it doesn't convey what a sub is trained in or to what standard or if it has any relevance or usefulness to me. I'm with the others who have said that previous training isn't essential in a sub.

The special stuff in our relationship is special because it is uniquely our own shared experience. Training is a bit of our life I enjoy and it is what makes him mine.

I'd say for the dominant the root skills are basically the same - I apply the same methodology.. which often means doing things differently with each person exactly as you mention.

I don't think a submissive can come fully trained - as you say they are trained to serve someone else not me, so any such submissive would require retraining to my own specification. So a correct label would be 'I am fully trained - to someone else's standards!'

However, in the matter of whether they have experience of real submission, or not, (as opposed to erotic play submission with very defined limits, or roleplays) does make a difference. In a submissive with experience they at least have practiced the core skill of submitting to the will of another, so have a good foundation with which to start again at the beginning of training.

For those who are not naturally submissive, or who have no previous experience, I have to begin by making those foundations of teaching them to properly submit to someone else, which is a time consuming but fascinating process, so training begins at a lower level and I feel is harder work.

This is only my experience so far, so others may have found it to be different.

De

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Edited 1 Feb 10, 8:49 AM by Degenerate

Maybe I am taking it the wrong way, not fully understanding the OP, but, I think the types of skills that are transferable apply to both.

I think any Dom who genuinely expects each sub to react to a prescription method of Domination identically is likely to fall flat on his/her face at the first hurdle. A Dom refines their skills based on the individual submitting to them, in much the same way that the sub will refine their submission to suit the Dominants needs.

The only exception I find to this is in terms of service, where a Dom wants something done a certain way, and the sub has to learn to provide that. I suppose I see these things as trivial compared to the incredible learning curve that submission brings, and I may be wrong here (Dom/mes feel free to correct me), but I'd imagine Domination brings much the same thing. An incredible learning curve where skills are developed in areas that may never even have been considered before.

XxX

ETA - reading back through the OP has helped clarify my thoughts a little so I wanted to add that, it's been my experience that the hardest thing about submission is the fight with myself. The fight against the lifelong conditioning that means as a woman, I am equal to all men, especially my partner. Accepting that it's okay to want a successful career and still want to come home and do everything I can to make his life easier. Not to need to rebel against the "unfairness" of it all when yet again I am the one cleaning/cooking/whatever. I'm not sure I am explaining this too well, but for me the true skills of a submissive are internalised.

Edited 2 Feb 10, 1:32 AM by jules9